“We know they like being us, or they wouldn’t keep taking jekyllase. We just have to point out that they’ll get more benefit from being us if they change at a convenient time for us to meet up.”
Saturday, I spent most of the morning studying, reading ahead in the textbooks and other course materials, as well as reviewing the various articles on jekyllase. I saw Emily and Darrell at supper, and confirmed with Emily that we — or rather our hydes — were on for Sunday morning.
Sunday after breakfast I went back to the dorm, changed into Jennifer, got dressed, and went out. There’d been fresh snow during the night, but most of it had been cleared from the paths by then. Cynthia was waiting for me in the lobby of Utterson Hall, ready to go.
“Hey, Cynthia,” I said, and we hugged. Only briefly, though we wanted it to last longer. “Linda said she wanted to hang out with us some today... I’d rather just be with you, but I wanted to talk to you first before I call her and make up a reason why not. I don’t want to hurt her feelings either.”
“You don’t want to hurt Scott’s chances with her,” she observed.
“No. What do you suggest?”
“Call her up and tell her we’ve got plans for now, but she’s welcome to hang out with us next time... I haven’t seen you in weeks, and I want you to myself today.”
I smiled. “Okay.” I went to the phone and dialed Lanyon Hall. Linda picked up a few moments later; she must have been waiting in the lobby.
“Hi?”
“Hey, Linda, this is Jennifer. Listen, Cynthia and I had some plans that Scott didn’t tell you about; I guess he forgot. You’re welcome to hang out with us next weekend, though. Or, hey, here’s an idea: talk Scott into taking jekyllase in the middle of the week, say Tuesday or Wednesday after his last class. I don’t think you’ll have to argue too hard.”
“Oh. Are you sure that’s safe?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. That article said forty-eight hours between doses, and Tuesday evening would be... um, around fifty-six hours from Sunday morning. Wednesday would be even safer.”
“Okay. See you then, I guess. Have fun.”
“Bye,” and I hung up.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Let me take one of those,” and I picked up one of Emily’s bags of laundry and added it to the smaller bag of Scott’s and my laundry I’d brought with me. Cynthia picked up the other bag and we walked over to the campus laundromat.
We weren’t the only ones there, but the only other people there were sitting with their faces toward the door and the washing machines they were using, studying. There was a whole row of chairs and washing machines and dryers they had their backs to. We put a couple of simultaneous loads on to wash, checked again that the coast was clear, and sat down together, holding hands.
“I hope this works out all right,” Cynthia whispered. “But Alice is going to be in our room most of the day studying, she said. And I couldn’t exactly explain why I wanted the room to myself for a while.”
“We can’t do everything we did last time, I guess,” I said, feeling hot already. “But we can do this,” and I leaned over and kissed her. I kept one eye on the door at first, making sure no one walked in on us and the guy and girl who were studying over in the next row of chairs didn’t turn around. But soon I gave Cynthia all my attention.
We broke off the kiss a while later and Cynthia gasped. “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered.
“Were you around during Christmas break?”
“No, Emily hasn’t taken jekyllase since the Saturday before finals.”
I nodded. “Scott didn’t either. I’d like to meet our parents, but I guess Scott thought it was too dangerous.”
Cynthia smiled wryly. “I wonder what Emily’s parents would think of me?”
“Scott and Emily probably don’t want us to meet them. To explain who we are we’d have to say that they’ve been breaking the law.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I squeezed her hand, glanced at the door, and leaned in to kiss her again.
We made out until someone else came in and loaded their clothes into one of the washers on our row. After that we studied European History for a while. When we finished washing and drying clothes, we hauled the clean stuff back over to Utterson Hall and up to Emily and Alice’s room.
“Hi,” Alice said briefly as we came in. She was at her desk, studying.
Cynthia and I hung up some of the clothes on hangers and put away the rest of Emily’s stuff in her drawers. We left the bag of Scott’s non-hang-up clothes lying at the foot of Emily’s bed. Then we got out the makeup kit I’d bought a few weeks earlier, and Cynthia gave me lessons on how to use it. She made up my face, explaining everything she was doing, then cleaned it off and let me try. Alice pitched in with advice now and then. On the third try, I got myself looking pretty good.
“Thanks,” I said, and hugged her. “I’m getting kind of hungry.”
“So am I,” Cynthia said. We put away the makeup kit and got our purses.
“We’re going out for lunch,” I said. “We’ll come back before the jekyllase wears off, so Scott can change clothes and stuff. I’ll leave his clean clothes here for now.”
“Sure,” Alice said.
We walked to my car and Cynthia drove us to a Chinese restaurant on the other side of town. Whenever we hit a stop light, she reached over and clasped my hand for a few moments before putting her hand back on the gearshift. When we pulled into the parking lot, we held hands for a minute or so before she turned off the engine and we got out.
“I wish we could do more,” she said. “I want your hands all over me... but Alice is going to be around our dorm most of the day, and I can’t exactly ask her to leave us alone for a few hours without making her suspicious.”
“She might not mind,” I said.
“Do you want to take that risk? Even if you and I were willing to, I wouldn’t want to in case it might hurt Emily. Alice is already angry at me because I said I agreed with Tabitha that Gary is bad for her. If she finds out I’m a Lesbian, and starts suspecting that Emily is too...”
“It could be bad, I guess.”
“We can’t let her find out.”
“So asking her to leave us alone is out. We’ll just have to wait for some time when she’s going to be out on a date or something.”
“There’s a party at Rho Lambda Sigma next Friday. I’m pretty sure Alice is going — Gary is a member. The problem is that Emily might be going somewhere with Darrell that night.”
“And Scott might be planning to take Linda out that night too. We’ll just have to persuade our jekylls to go out Saturday instead, and let us have Friday.”
“How?”
“We know they like being us, or they wouldn’t keep taking jekyllase. We just have to point out that they’ll get more benefit from being us if they change at a convenient time for us to meet up.”
“Perhaps you’re right. Let’s hope so.”
“Emily told Scott that things weren’t going so well between her and Darrell. Do you know what that’s about?”
Cynthia hesitated. “I’m not sure I should tell anyone — even you. But I think it has to do with the issues we’ve been researching.”
“You mean...” I thought for a moment. “Emily said she thought she was — what was the word? — bisexual, because she likes both boys and girls. She didn’t realize she liked girls until she turned into you, but —”
“I shouldn’t say any more,” she said. “It’s up to Emily whether she wants to tell you or Scott.”
“All right. Say, that reminds me,” and I dug around in my purse and pulled out the interlibrary loan articles Scott had gotten earlier in the week. “Scott wanted me to read these myself and let him know what I thought about them.”
“More articles about jekyllase? Or transsexuality?”
“Both, this time. We found an article about a guy who changed into a girl when he took jekyllase. Well, not just about them, they were one of half a dozen case studies in the article, but still, it’s progress. Here...” I found the passage Scott had highlighted and read it aloud. Cynthia listened attentively.
“So the psychiatrist who gave the man jekyllase decided he was transsexual?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why did he prescribe hormones instead of more frequent doses of jekyllase? That would change him into his hyde permanently, right?”
“Yeah, that didn’t make sense. Scott wrote him a letter, but I don’t remember if that was one of the questions he asked. I doubt he’ll tell us much more than was in the article, because of doctor-patient confidentiality, but I’m a little fuzzy on how that works. Maybe he can tell us as much as he likes as long as he doesn’t give us the patient’s name or enough information to figure out who she is.”
“Did that article change your mind about Scott? Do you think he might be transsexual?”
“No, the same reasons I thought he wasn’t still apply. He likes changing into me once or twice a week but he doesn’t want to be me full time, unfortunately. I have no idea if that psychiatrist’s diagnosis was correct for that other person, but I have no reason to think it was wrong, either, except that Scott has me inside him, a lot stronger feminine side than most guys have, and he still doesn’t fit the psychologists' definition of a transsexual. And if their categories don’t cover everybody, maybe they’re trying too hard to fit everybody into one of their categories instead of creating new ones when necessary.”
“That’s possible. Well, let’s hope the author writes back soon, and helpfully.”
After lunch, we returned to campus and hung out in the student union. It was too cold to walk around outdoors, and we could talk more freely there than in our dorm rooms, with Randall or Alice listening. When we figured the jekyllase was going to wear off soon, we returned to Utterson Hall and hung out in Emily and Alice’s room until I changed back.
Cynthia and Alice turned their backs while I changed into my guy clothes, and I returned to Carew Hall with my clean laundry and a lot to think about.
I needed to talk to Linda, so as soon as I put away my clean clothes, I went over to Lanyon Hall and up to her room and knocked.
“Just a second,” she called, and opened the door a few moments later. Her roommate wasn’t around. “Scott! Hi!” she said, and we kissed.
“I just got back from being Jennifer,” I said as I came in. “She and Cynthia have plans for Friday, and she wanted me to check with you while Emily checks with Darrell... you don’t have plans for Saturday or Sunday, do you? We could go out then, instead of Friday like we’d talked about.”
“Sure, that’s fine. Also, Jennifer asked me to tell you she wants you to change into her sometime in the middle of the week and hang out with me.”
“Oh, right. I remember now. We can do that Wednesday, I guess?”
So Wednesday after classes, I returned to the dorm before supper and took a dose of jekyllase. I got dressed and put on some makeup, trying out what I’d learned. Scott and Randall didn’t have a mirror in their room, like Emily and Alice, and I couldn’t go down the hall to the shared bathroom to use that one. So I was limited to the tiny mirror in the makeup case; I resolved to buy a larger handheld mirror.
I went over to the dining hall and looked around for Linda. She was sitting by herself, and after I filled my tray I sat down with her.
“Hi, Linda!”
“Oh, hey, Jennifer. How have you been?”
“Well, you know, I haven’t been for the last couple of days. And last time I was out, Cynthia and I spent the morning doing laundry and studying.”
“Yeah, it’s got to be done sometime. What class were you studying for?”
“European History.”
“I haven’t taken that yet. What professor do you have for it?”
We talked a little about Dr. Crawford’s teaching style and then about some other professors Linda or Scott had had. Then she asked:
“Do you mind if I ask you something more about what you said during the Truth or Dare game?”
“Okay,” I said.
“You said you’d kissed and made out with a boy. Who was it?”
“It was the first time Scott tried jekyllase, at a party,” I said carefully. “One of the other people who tried out jekyllase for the first time there turned into a guy I thought was pretty nice. Not buff or super manly, but sweet and considerate and... I don’t know... unthreatening. We kissed and made out for a minute or two until we got interrupted. Then later on our jekylls both happened to use jekyllase the same evening, not planning it that way, and we ran into each other at a restaurant near campus, and we kissed again... but then his jekyll felt guilty about cheating on his girlfriend, or so he considered it, and he told Scott he wasn’t going to take jekyllase again, at least not at the same time as Scott.” I sighed. “It was probably doomed anyway.”
She noticed that I’d carefully not used their names, and didn’t pry further. “It’s going to be hard for you to date,” she observed. “I guess not many guys would be willing to date a girl who’s... um... a guy most of the time? And the guy is dating someone else. Or if they didn’t know you were Scott’s hyde, they’d be frustrated about not being able to find you or get in touch with you most of the time. For the record, if you date someone I wouldn’t consider it as Scott cheating on me. You seem pretty different from him.”
“Yeah, it would have to be someone who knows I’m part of Scott and is okay with that.” There wasn’t much more I could say about that without potentially giving Linda a hint about me and Cynthia; I changed the subject. “What about you? How are you and Scott doing?”
“I think we’re coming along okay,” she said. “I... um, I’m not sure how much I should say. I mean, anything I tell you, Scott is going to know, right?”
“He remembers most of what I hear, yeah,” I said. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. What about... tell me something about yourself. Something you haven’t told Scott yet, but don’t mind him knowing?”
“Well,” she said, after a pause for thought, “when I was a girl, we used to go to my great-grandmother’s house to stay for a few days in the summer. She lived with my great-aunt and uncle, her daughter and son-in-law, or rather they lived with her because it was her house; it was a big house with a lot of room for guests, especially if they doubled up on the beds and sofas. There was a pond on their property, way back from the road, and me and my girl cousins used to go skinny-dipping there... it’s almost all girls in my generation, my parents and my dad’s brothers and cousins all had girls except for a couple of boys that came along later. And one time my great-grandma came out and joined us. She was too old to do a lot of vigorous swimming anymore, but she splashed us good, and after we got over the weirdness of seeing Great-Grandma naked, we had a lot of fun. Great-Aunt Sarah came out and scolded her for it, but she was unrepentant.”
I smiled. “That’s a cool story. I wish I’d known my great-grandparents, or Scott’s I guess, but they all died before he was born, except Grandpa Langford’s mother who died when he was barely old enough to remember her. We’ve seen a photo of her holding baby Scott on her knee, though.”
We talked about our families for a while, and about how I wished I could meet mine while I was myself, but understood why Scott might not want me to. We finished our supper and still sat there talking until they wanted to close up the dining hall.
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