The Graduate, Vamped and Revamped: 4 / 6

An Altered Fates Story
A second look at the 1967 film, The Graduate
and the 1963 novella of the same name by Charles Webb.
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux
 

While Leslie was in the act of transforming herself into Ben, Chad was standing outside. He wasn’t in front of the house, or even looking at the house (yet). He was up the street a little bit, standing next to a car, staring at the man who was sleeping inside.

Chad was debating in himself whether to wrap on the car window and wake the man. He had every right to do so — after all, he’d hired the guy! The sleeping man was a private investigator, hired by Chad to spy on his wife. So far, the investigator hadn’t found anything of interest, and now it was clear why he hadn’t: he was sleeping on the job!

He had chosen a good position to watch from: near a thick hedge, so he wasn’t visibly parked in front of a neighbor’s house. It was near enough that — were he awake — he’d have an unobstructed view of the Crusoe’s front door. And yet, he was far enough away that Leslie would never suspect him.

Chad didn’t wake the man. Instead, he decided to spy on his spy. He walked slowly around the car, looking in every window, from every angle, to see what he could see. He used the light in his phone to examine the dark corners of the car. The floor in the back was littered with fast-food bags, sandwich wrappers, and cups from MacDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, and Tasty Burger. This man didn’t play favorites. On the front passenger seat was an old, sun-bleached paperback copy of Atlas Shrugged. The first quarter of the pages were well-thumbed, but clearly the detective had gone no farther. Also on the seat lay a small set of binoculars and a camera fitted with a foot-long telephoto lens. Chad caught a glimpse of a quart-sized plastic bottle stuck under the seat. It appeared to be half-full of urine. Chad exclaimed silently to himself. Gad! This car must smell like a zoo! Unconsciously, he pinched his nose, although whatever noxious vapors filled the car, they were safely sealed inside.

Chad looked up at his house and stepped away from the surveillance car. He took a deep breath, and started walking toward his front door.

How did Chad come to know (or at least, suspect) that Leslie was cheating? He was rarely home. His interactions with Leslie were always brief, and never intimate.

It was the Bagman who unknowingly put the bug in Chad’s ear.

After Leslie’s first experiment with the Medallion of Zulo, when she set her physiological age back twenty years, she ignored Viv Errisson’s explicit instructions and went out and about, up and down the town.

Viv had given Leslie the Medallion of Zulo, but only as a short-time loan. She wanted Leslie to have confidence that the medallion worked as advertised, and to free Leslie’s imagination as to who she could possibly be when she left her old life behind.

It was Leslie who’d put two and two together, and decided to rejuvenate herself.

Viv had no qualms about what form Leslie’s experiments might take. She and Leslie were old friends, and Viv knew quite well that Leslie tended to stay at home, leaving her house only to visit the gym or to shop for food. Even so, she warned Leslie to stay at home, to not leave the house and interact with others. There was no telling what the consequences of a chance encounter might be.

However, once Leslie was done marveling over her re-acquired youth, she wanted to go out. She wanted to see and be seen.

And seen she was! Not only was she seen by Mrs Haddock (Ben’s mother) and her husband’s lover (Justine), she was seen by any number of female friends, all of whom immediately noticed and cataloged everything that was different in her appearance.

She was also seen by a good number of men, but their assessments were nowhere near as detailed and granular as the women’s. Men saw that Leslie was attractive, sexy — and even youthful — but they didn’t ask how it happened. They weren’t curious at all as to the cause or mechanism of the abrupt change. They simply looked and said a silent wow.

One teenage boy’s attention was caught by Leslie, and in his excitement he briskly walked into a door frame and give himself a black eye.

One of the men who saw her was the Bagman. His reaction was more suble and contained. He stealthily followed her, scrutinizing her long, lustrous hair, her svelte shape, her graceful movements. The Bagman had lusted after Leslie for two decades, and while he watched her discretely jiggle and bounce through her shopping, his carnal hunger and sexual greed were rekindled.

Of course, he was quick to share his observations with his employee, Chad. He spent a full forty minutes describing first, the changes he’d seen in Leslie, and second, the many acts that fell under the category of things I’d like to do to her.

The Bagman’s goal in talking with Chad was to light a fire under Chad’s efforts to “share” Leslie. He fully felt and understood Leslie’s distaste for him. While that rankled — and even sometimes hurt his feelings — he believed that her capitulation was inevitable, and that when she finally dropped her resistance, that her revulsion would add a particular flavor to their interactions — a spice that he would find perversely satisfying.

While Chad understood the Bagman’s point — and as much as he wanted to present Leslie as a sexual toy to his friend — he was suspicious as to the source of his wife’s sudden glow.

So he spent a day at home, to see exactly how the land lay. He could see that Leslie was different. She seemed, in fact, to have gone back in time to when they were still in love with each other. At first he was enchanted, but soon he realized that when she unconsciously danced in the kitchen, or hummed to herself as she bustled around the house, that her spontaneous joy had nothing to do with him whatsoever. Chad had never felt so excluded. It wasn’t that Leslie had rejected him; she seemed to have utterly forgetten him.

It was a feeling worse than rejection.

They stood in the kitchen, in the moment before he left to join Justine. Chad struggled to put his finger on what was different about her. “Did you do something different to your hair?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “I made it longer.”

“Smartass,” he shot back. Burning with a sense of failure, he left. Now he felt sure: Leslie was having an affair. Why else would she be so happy? Where else would she get that glow? She was getting some, and Chad knew she wasn’t getting it from him. But who was she getting it from? He wracked his brain for an answer, but the man spent so little time with his wife, that he had nowhere to begin.

So he hired a private investigator, who followed Leslie everywhere, who camped out in front of her house, and took hundreds of useless photos. The investigator was privately curating a selection of photos of Leslie, that — in spite of her being fully clothed — were incredibly sexy. He congratulated himself: Best surveillance gig ever!

However, three days of spying brought no result whatsoever, and Chad’s patience was at an end. There were two very good reasons for the investigation to come up dry. The first was that Ben was away, visiting his grandparents. The second was that — even if Ben were home, the boy came and went by way of the kitchen door, which wasn’t visible from the street.

Given the investigator’s lack of success, Chad decided to resort to his own expedient. He told Leslie (and Justine, for the sake of being thorough) that he’d be away on business for a week. Now, standing in his own backyard, he could see that the light in his bedroom was on, though the curtains were drawn. His heart sped up in anticipation. He felt certain he’d catch Leslie and her lover in flagrante delicto. Chad licked his lips in anticipation. On one hand, he was looking forward to bullying and beating Leslie’s naked partner. He envisioned himself frog-marching the fool down the stairs. From there, he’d toss him, naked, out the front door. He’d slap the bastard around the front lawn, and, as a finale, literally kick him into the street without a stitch on him: no clothes, no shoes, no wallet, no car keys, no nothing. On the other hand, he perversely looked forward to seeing Leslie having sex with another man. It was Chad’s kink; a kink that Leslie did not share and had no intention of satisfying.

Chad silently opened his kitchen door, and just as silently slipped inside. Overhead, he heard voices, conversational voices: one of them was Leslie’s; the other was a man’s. That was odd. What was the point of drawing the curtain if you were only going to talk? What Chad hoped to hear, what he expected to witness, was the rhythmic creak of lovemaking; pathetic groans and orgasmic cries. Why were they talking at all? What on earth was there to talk about?

Then came footsteps. Shuffling noises, and footsteps again. The man had put his shoes on. Was he leaving already? Chad felt a little confused and very put out. He came, itching for confrontation, but he thought he’d have more time to prepare. Well, he’d play the cards he’d been dealt. He moved through the dining room into the living room, and placed himself out of sight near the front door, where he’d surprise the man when he came down the stairs.

Chad heard the bedroom door open. The man’s voice said, “The code?” Leslie’s voice replied, “Why do you need it?” The male voice replied, “Why do you think? What if your mother wants me to call her?” After a pause, Leslie sotto voce recited a string of numbers.

What on earth? Chad asked himself. What sort of life was Leslie leading without him? Then, from upstairs, the male voice said, “Have fun!” The bedroom door closed, and Chad heard the man bouncing down the stairs. He clenched his fists and straightened his shoulders, bracing himself for the confrontation.

Then, to his surprise, the man — rather than turn right and enter the living room, where Chad waited — instead, he walked straight into the kitchen and out the back door. What the hell? Chad exclaimed silently, and he ran to the dining room window. He saw a young man carrying a briefcase, walking away from the house, toward the creek. Chad was about to run after him, throw him to the ground, and kick the living crap out of him, when the young man stopped and turned to look up at Leslie’s bedroom window. A ray of light illuminated his face as Leslie above drew back the curtains. Ben! Ben Haddock? She was sleeping with Ben, the kid next door? He watched, stunned, as Ben smiled and blew a kiss. Then chuckling to himself, Ben turned and walked across the little bridge, heading for home.

Chad stood stock still, thunderstruck. Ben? He shook his head. Of all the men — or even all the women — in town, he would never in thousand years have guessed. Why didn’t Ben stick to girls his own age? What was wrong with him? And what was wrong with Leslie? Running around with — well, a kid, really! — a boy, half her age? Literally, half her age!

Chad drew a deep breath. What in the world was he supposed to do, go beat the crap out of a kid? A kid he’d seen grow up? I guess I have to, he reasoned. He sighed. I don’t want to, but I don’t see that I have any choice.

With that question more or less settled in his mind, he asked himself, And what do I do about Leslie? He looked up, as if he could see through the floor to where she was standing. It was crazy. Fifteen years ago or more, he’d come to the conclusion that Leslie just didn’t like sex. She always refused his games, his challenges, the things he wanted to do to “spice things up.” He couldn’t understand why she found the idea of sharing herself with Chad’s friends so repugnant. It stood to reason (in Chad’s mind) that a woman would enjoy having multiple partners. More men, more attention. Isn’t attention exactly what women want?

As Chad worked his way through the foundations and ramifications of his misogynist beliefs, Ben (now in the form of Leslie) was standing, almost directly over his head. She was looking at herself in a full-length mirror, trying to get every angle: over the shoulder, in various profiles, bending, posing, bouncing on her heels so she could watch herself jiggle. It was crazy! How could it even be possible! All the while she kept the white dildo in her hand. In fact, the posing, the jiggling, the excited looking-at-herself, were all in the service of working up the nerve to try the dildo.

It was a pretty scary thing, the idea of sticking anything, let alone a piece of hard plastic, up inside her. Her mind couldn’t process it. In spite of her current physical form, it seemed physically impossible. It felt impossible. Although she’d touched her labia, rubbed her pundenda, felt the absence between her legs, she hadn’t yet ventured top slip even her smallest finger inside.

There was a dial on the bottom of the dildo. She flipped it, and the white tube let out a low hum as it began to vibrate. She turned it all the way up to a scary whine and a frightening level of shaking. Intimidated by the power of the little wand, she turned it halfway down, then down to a quarter, and from there moved the scale up and down until she reached the Goldilocks Point — the place where it felt just right.

At least, it sounded just right. And it wasn’t vibrating so hard that it threatened to leap out of her hand and scurry through the house. Gingerly, she touched it against her thigh. Not bad. Slowly she slid it closer and closer to the place where her legs joined, and — heart beating hard and fast — Leslie touched the white vibrating probe against her clitoris, but only for a moment. The sensation was so unexpectedly intense that she gasped and yanked it away. At that same moment, Chad pushed open the bedroom door and looked at Leslie’s gaping mouth and shocked face in the mirror. He’d heard the device as he crept up he stairs, when she first clicked it on. Again, he expected to see Leslie lying on her back, lost in her private ecstasies. Instead, he found her standing naked — and looking incredible, by the way — holding the buzzing white dildo as if it were a knife or a poisonous snake, and gasping as though she’d been unexpectedly stung by an electric bumblebee in the midst of her cute pink mysteries.

Chad was hit by a mad jumble of thoughts, emotions, and feelings:

Though he would have denied it, he was angry, hurt, and upset by Leslie’s betrayal of him. He was her husband! How could she sleep with someone behind his back? In his own house? In his own bed? How could she be so dishonest? So disloyal?

Of course, his own disloyalty, his own betrayals didn’t count — at least, not in his mind. He felt justified in looking elsewhere for the things Leslie refused to give him.

He was also struck, deep down in his core, to see Leslie, looking just as she had when they first got together. Seeing her now was as heart-stopping as seeing her naked for the very first time, all those years ago. It was a shock, an unexpected jolt from the past. He was hit, like a ton of bricks. His emotions leapt from zero to full-on nostalgia, an abrupt plunge into a flood of buried and near-forgotten memories and passions, all of it framed, tinged, and colored with regret and a sense of loss as sharp as the cut of a knife.

Mixed in with that sense of betrayal, and that heady draught of nostalgia, there was a heavy load of confusion. Why was Leslie naked? What exactly were she and Ben doing? She must have been naked while Ben was there. But clearly they hadn’t had sex — the bed was still made; none of the furniture was disturbed. Had Ben left her so dissatisifed that she had immediate recourse to a sex toy? The buzzing dildo was, in a way, a smoking gun — but what did it tell him? And what was that business with the code? Why would Ben talk about Leslie’s mother calling? Leslie’s mother died eight, nine years ago. If that was supposed to be a joke, it was in poor taste.

Worming its way through that mix of feelings and confusions, was Chad’s kink: his desire to see Leslie having sex with other men. It wasn’t just a passing desire on his part: it was an animating fetish with deep roots in his soul. Ordinary, vanilla sex was simply foreplay in Chad’s mind: it was the anticamera to the real thing, which was lending Leslie out to friends and strangers, and watching her being taken by them. Why wouldn’t she do it? He took her rejection and refusal to indulge his fetish as a deeply personal rejection of both him and of sex itself.

Now, here she was, having sex with a man not her husband, and not just any man, but the boy next door, a kid half her age. Why? Why not someone her own age? Why Ben of all people?

In the end, when Chad opened his mouth to speak, it all boiled down to one spoken word: ”Ben?” His tone supplied all the missing words, but the Leslie who stood before him only heard the one, and it stunned her.

“How can you tell?” she asked, by which she meant, How did you know it was me?

Chad gestured to the back window. “I saw him walking through the yard, going home.” He watched Leslie’s face as his meanings fit into his words, and the puzzlement on her face dissolved, as if a lock had opened.

“Oh, Ben!” She exclaimed, understanding. Yes, that Ben! The other Ben! The Ben who was really Leslie! “Right!” he agreed.

Chad was stung to the heart. She took it all so lightly.

Leslie, seeing Chad’s face cloud over, realized her unfortunate position, and felt afraid. Leslie may have been kidding when she spoke of spanking his new, more ample derriere, but Chad might actually carry out that threat. Instinctively, Leslie covered her butt with her hands. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and became even more frightened as a dark cloud covered Chad’s face.

“Sorry?” the man repeated. “Sorry? Let’s see how sorry you are!” He strode over to her, and scarcely knowing where to begin, snatched the still-buzzing dildo from her hand and tossed it into her underwear drawer. He grabbed her roughly, pinning her arms behind her, and kissed her, hard, pressing his lips into hers as if he wanted to bruise them. Then his tongue slid forward and into her mouth. Trembling, Leslie realized that her best course of action was to let him do what he wanted. From what the real Leslie had said, Chad didn’t have much interest in her, and this probably wouldn’t last very long. Chad loomed over her, bending her backward in an arc, suspended and held up by the toes of one foot and the strength of his arms. She was utterly helpless.

He broke off from the kiss and asked her, “What do you think of that?”

“Oh, my God,” she replied, overwhelmed. She was without words. Her nipples were hard; her crotch was damp. She couldn’t move. She could do nothing but await his next move. She was passive, surprisingly relaxed, but awake, aware, and intensely turned on.

“Tonight,” he told her. “Tonight, we are going to have a night I have waited twenty years to have with you. Tonight, if you want me to know that you’re sorry, really sorry, that you love me and you mean it, tonight you will do whatever I say. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she breathed, caught in his spell. “What else can I do?”

Chad laughed at that last line, and lifted her up to a standing position. He went and rummaged in her underwear collection, and selected two items from the very bottom of the drawer: a bra and panty set in dark red lace. He lay them on the bed, then went to her closet, and after some search, retrieved a red silk dress that had worked its way to the back of her wardrobe. Finally, he managed to find the one pair of shoes that matched both dress and underwear. Somehow, Leslie guessed that Chad had bought all three items.

“Put them on,” he commanded. “I need to make a phone call.”

Without waiting for a reply, he walked down the hall and closed himself in the guest bedroom. He stood at the window, from which he had a commanding view of the Haddock’s house. He hit a name, and the phone dialed a number.

“Go for the Bagman,” a voice responded. “What’s up, Chad?”

“Tonight’s the night,” Chad replied. “I’m bringing Leslie. We’re finally going to have that date.”

“Ah, that’s great!” the Bagman said. “Great! It’s incredible timing, too! I’ve got something special in mind tonight! I was trying to come with just the right girl, and Leslie would be perfect.” The two men spoke a little further, then Chad returned to the master bedroom to pick up his wife. She was radiant, sexy — everything he wanted her to be. The dress looked better than he imagined it could, nearly fluttering over her trim, firm body. There was something missing, but at that moment he couldn’t put his finger on it. No matter. He reached out, took her wrist and said, “Let’s go.”

She stumbled after him, hurrying down the stairs, afraid of falling in her heels. “Where are we going?”

“Out,” he said. “You’ll see.”

He pulled her out the front door and into the street, leading her past a parked car. “There’s a man sleeping in there!” she exclaimed.

“Not for long,” Chad muttered, and rapped on the window with his ring. It took three sets of raps before the man finally woke. “Hey!” Chad called. “Hey! Are you awake? Are you awake now?” When the man nodded, embarrassed, surprised, and full of sleep, Chad told him, “Good! You know what else you are? Fired! You’re fired!”

He opened his own car door for Leslie and ushered her inside. Then he climbed in behind the wheel, and that’s when it hit him: he knew what was missing. “Why aren’t you wearing any makeup?” he demanded.

“Uh — uh — I don’t know!” Leslie awkwardly confessed (swallowing the “how” at the end of the phrase), and Chad groaned in frustration. “Forget it!” he growled. “It doesn’t matter.” He gunned the motor, pulled a tire-screeching U-turn, and took off down the street.

 

---

 

Leslie, in the guise of Ben, had no idea of the drama unfolding in the house behind her. She imagined that Ben would find his night alone as a woman exciting, confusing, and fun. In the morning he’d be anxious to change back.

On her part, Ben was finding the simple act of walking as weird an experience as he'd ever had. Every step and movement made him awkwardly aware of the gear hanging between his legs. A penis and balls seemed awfully inconvenient.

After crossing the little bridge, he looked up at the Haddock’s house, and saw Ben’s mother in the kitchen. Leslie had watched Ben make his way through the shrubbery to avoid being seen from the house, but it seemed silly to her. Now, as Ben, he simply walked up the middle of the lower garden. In any case, the sun had set, and there wasn’t enough light to be seen from inside the house. He thought about hiding the case in the garden, but decided against it. The medallion was irreplaceable. If it were lost or stolen, Viv would be beyond angry, and there’d be no way to fix it. She and Ben would be stuck in their swapped state. It would be better to hang on to it, or — even better — to stash it in Ben’s car, so it would be ready for tomorrow morning, when the two of them would swap bodies again.

He climbed the stone steps, walked past the pool, and then stopped before opening the french door. What exactly was he going to do tonight? When she switched places with Ben, her thoughts hadn’t gone farther than teaching Ben a lesson. What exactly the lesson was — well, she hadn’t thought about that, either. It was a smartass move, a foolish whim. She’d been laughing at the idea of Ben, who’d suddenly become a young, attractive girl, masturbating alone through the night. Fine: but here she was in the same boat: she’d suddenly become a young, attractive boy. Was she going to spend the night masturbating as well? She sighed. I’ll think of something, she told herself. After all, nothing I do tonight will really count. I’m not Ben. I’m only visiting in this body. It’s like I’m playing the casino, using Monopoly money.

Encouraged by that thought, she opened the door and went inside.

“Is that you, Ben?” Mrs Haddock called. “You’re just in time — we’re about to sit down to dinner.”

“Great, I’m starving,” Ben replied, and entered the kitchen. Mr Haddock was already seated at table. He greeted Ben, but his eyes were on the case.

“What’s with the bag?” Mr Haddock asked.

“Oh, this? Mrs Crusoe asked me to bring it to Mrs Errisson tomorrow.”

“Why couldn’t Leslie bring it herself?”

Ben shrugged. “I dunno.”

“I hope you don’t mind a casserole,” Mrs Haddock said, as she spooned out the food. I had some leftovers I wanted to get rid of.”

Mr and Mrs Haddock chatted and gossiped. They gave the occasional question to Ben, who replied as monosyllabically as possible. Then, Mrs Haddock asked her big question: “Ben… did you ask Leslie about… that thing… that we talked about?”

“Um, what thing?” Leslie said.

Mrs Haddock huffed with impatience. “If she’s doing anything… new. Why she’s suddenly so… so young and lovely.”

“Oh, that,” Ben acknowledged. “Yeah, I asked her, but she just made jokes about it.”

“What kind of jokes?”

Ben shook his head. “She didn’t say anything, Mom. She wouldn’t tell me.”

“Hmmph,” Mrs Haddock said, clearly disappointed. “Well, next time you see her, make sure you get a better answer!”

“Okay,” Ben replied.

Mr Haddock grew a little uncomfortable with Leslie’s name being thrown around. He, like his wife, knew that Ben was having an affair, and thought they never mentioned it to Ben, they did not approve at all. In order to change the subject, and hopefully to give Ben a nudge in the right direction, Mr Haddock asked, “Ben, have you given any thought as to what you’re going to do?”

“Do about what?”

“About your life! Are you going to get a job? Will you go back to school? I hope you don’t think you can loaf around all day doing nothing.”

“Well,” Ben said. “I have been thinking about something… something in particular. What would you think if I went to law school?” Now, law school was something that Leslie Crusoe had very much on her mind. Ben had no interest in law school, but still it seemed like a good card to play. Otherwise, Mr and Mrs Haddock would probably transition to giving Ben a long and thorough “talking to,” and Ben had no interest in having his evening as a boy consumed in something so trite and unnecessary.

Unexpectedly, Ben’s parents lit up. “Law school! Ben, do you mean it? Do you really mean it? That would be wonderful! I’m sure you’d be a great lawyer! Where were you thinking of going?”

“Well,” Ben replied, playing wth his food, “I’d like to see first of all who’ll take me, and what kind of scholarships I might be able to get. Of course, I’ll have to study for the LSAT and sign up for that.” Ben once again reminded herself that she was “using play money.” None of this meant anything, really. Tomorrow, the real Ben could easily say that he’d changed his mind, and it would all be wiped away.

“Ben, if you really mean that,” Mr Haddock said, “If you’re willing to apply yourself, I’ll help you with tuition and expenses and whatnot. You know I can’t cover it all, but I can certainly give you a hand.”

“I appreciate that,” Ben replied, surprised at finding himself moved by Mr Haddock’s earnestness.

Mr and Mrs Haddock talked — mainly to each other — asking Ben questions, then answering those questions themselves — about details of when he’d start, where he’d apply, what sort of law he’d practice, and so on. The couple were so obviously pleased, and Mr Haddock in particular seemed so satisfied with the idea of Ben in law school, that Ben began to regret having deceived them.

He was about to excuse herself, when Ben’s phone rang. It was Jenny calling. He left the kitchen and walked to a far corner of the living room to take the call.

“Ben, hi, it’s Jenny. Hey, do you think you could come over to see me? I really need your help with something. It’s important.”

“When?”

“Now?”

“Uh, okay. Is, um, Bagger going to be there?”

Jenny was silent for a moment. “No, he’s not here. He won’t… be here. He’s off… celebrating. I can tell you about it when you come.”

“Okay,” Ben replied.

“Will you come now?”

“Yes.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, I’m leaving now. See you in five, okay?”

“Okay.”

Ben terminated the call, and stood still for a moment. When a text came in, he realized that he’d been holding his breath.

The text was from Bagger, all caps: “UP 4 BATCH PARTY? NOW NOW NOW! WHAT I SAID IT IS REMEMBER.”

“What I said it is remember,” Ben read aloud, mentally inserting tentative commas. He touched his pocket and felt his car keys.

“Hey, Mom, Dad? I’m going out.”

“Okay, son, have fun, be careful.” His father came from the kitchen to shake his hand. His eyes glistened. “I’m glad you’ve got some direction. I couldn’t be more proud.”