A group of friends streams their gaming on Wednesday nights. But not all the action is on the dining room table.

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Chapter 23 -- Waking Up

I was dreaming.

I knew I was dreaming because I normally didn’t have afternoon tea with banana-yellow velociraptors in the waking world.

“That is a conundrum, dearie,” Mrs. Raptor said, sipping her tea primly.

“Yeah,” I agreed, sipping my own equally carefully. She’d already chided me once – gently – for letting some tea drip onto my dress, and I wasn’t looking forward to Aunt Cici’s reaction when she saw the dark brown spots on the delicate lace. “I just wish I knew what to do about him.”

“Well, you could start by answering your phone,” Mrs. Raptor told me with a smile that was warm despite the razor-sharp teeth it bared.

“My phone?” I asked her, as the droning noise that had been eating at the back of my mind clarified into the sound of a classic bell ringtone.

“Mrrfm,” I grumbled as I sat up on the bed, my arms still wrapped around the stuffed pup. It took me another minute or so – and another round of ringing – before I woke up enough to realize it was the room’s phone, not my cell phone, and flopped over to reach the handset on the side of the bed.

“Hmmfh?” I mumbled into the phone as I rolled over on my back, lifting the stuffed pup to sit on the baby bump.

“Wake up call for one Miss Serrano?” A woman’s voice said.

“Nnh.” I grumbled, blinking. “I didn’t order a wake-up call.”

“No, ma’am. The request was placed by Mr. Venable.”

Brian.

“Fine,” I whined. Then, remembering I was talking to a person and not a computer, I blushed. “Umm, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” the woman on the other end said, chuckling slightly.

I hung the phone back up on the second attempt and considered going back to sleep but thought better of it. If Brian put in a wake-up call for me, then there must be something I needed to be up for.

“You got any ideas?” I asked the pup, fiddling with one of its ears while I waited for a response.

Getting no help from the stuffie, I moved them up to the pillow and rolled off the bed, groaning a bit more than the effort probably warranted but less than I really wanted to. I started for my bag to grab my phone, but changed my mind on the way and instead went to the bathroom to relieve some of the baby-worsened pressure before returning and checking for messages.

“Three missed calls?” I said, surprised by the notification on the front of my phone until I remembered silencing it before heading back to the room. “And two texts.” Two of the calls were from Maria, shortly after I’d sent the group text I was going to lie down, and the last one was Brian. Both texts were from Brian, too, and later than the call, so I decided to check those before returning any calls.

As soon as I opened the first text, I started laughing. It was another photo of Brian, this time surrounded by big, burly men all glaring down at him. Attached was the message “oops, the husbands showed up.” The second text had been sent shortly after his attempted call and just said, “called you in an alarm. Dinner with the crew @ 5:30, hotel restaurant.”

Checking the clock on my phone; it was just after five. I considered texting him back I didn’t feel like eating, but my belly grumbled at the idea of missing the meal, so instead, I got up and headed back to the bathroom, this time to make sure I was presentable. That done, I made sure my things were in my bag and left the room, ignoring the elevator and instead heading for the stairs, since I had the time.

I cradled the baby bump as I walked. Truth be told, I was almost used to the weight now. I wondered how accurate it was to a real baby, and how different it would feel to really be pregnant. To have a life growing inside of you….

I almost smiled at the idea, which also made me want to frown, but I also didn’t want to frown at the idea of a baby, so instead, I felt my face twitch in protest at the mixed signals it was getting and settle on a sneeze.

I fetched a tissue from my bag and laughed as I made sure my nose was clear. How foolish was I being about all this anyway? I’d spent the last couple of weeks in a massive fuss about the belly, and the costumes, and people seeing me as a woman, and now here I was thinking about real babies?

I was still laughing as I lowered myself onto one of the steps. I still had plenty of time, right? I pulled my phone out again to double-check, and while I had it out turned the ringer back on and sent out another group text, letting everyone know I’d be down for dinner. That done, I once again found myself cradling the baby.

My baby.

Brian’s baby?

No, Lunea and Burg’s baby, right?

It sure felt like it was my baby.

My laughter died as I fought not to cry instead. I’d spent my entire life being mistaken for a girl, being told I acted like one or looked like one or sounded like one. I’d fought it, I’d deluded myself into thinking it wasn’t true; it was all just people giving me a hard time because I didn’t fit their ideas of what a guy was.

Now here I sat, in what I had to admit was a very cute dress and elf ears and makeup… and with a baby bump protruding beneath a set of tits that were more real than I would have admitted even a week ago. I was on my way down to have dinner with my best friends, including the guy who was, for all intents and purposes, my baby’s father, and now I was having an emotional meltdown in the stairway after having napped with the stuffed dog he bought me after getting pissed over a picture of him with other girls hanging off him.

“Rrrrrgh!” I growled, the sound echoing off the walls around me but still not picking up much real menace. I’d never been able to conjure menace well, and the elf princess getup didn’t make me any better at it.

Why hadn’t I just played a guy character like Brian and Aaron? I almost always played girls in games when I had a chance, even when I streamed, and I knew that didn’t help my case. I should just play guys. Then none of this would happen, right?

I thought about that, about the changes I’d have to make if I wanted to prove I was a guy. They weren’t hard, or really time-consuming or anything.

So... why didn’t I actually want to do them?

The answer struck me, and again I found myself letting out a tired laugh.

I didn’t want to do them because they weren’t fun.

I’d played guys in tabletop before. I’d played guys in video games where I could make my own characters, too. I’d played guys in games that had character choice. But I’d always ended up feeling like I was missing out on the real fun I could have, like I was having to play in ways that didn’t feel enjoyable to me.

Playing girls felt… right, in a way that guys didn’t. Playing girls felt more fun.

I looked down at my baby bump again, my arms still wrapped around it protectively.

Even with all the confusion about whether I was a man or a woman, a guy or a girl, I’d kept picking girls or feminine characters because I enjoyed them more. Even sitting in the too-warm stairway in my too-short dress, I couldn’t imagine having not played Lunea, or having not made the decisions I had. Yeah, I was frustrated at a lot of what was going down, but if I could go back and actually change any of my choices, would I?

Would I?

....

“No.”

I said it aloud, the words echoing in the stairwell with more strength than my earlier growl had.

“No,” I said again, smiling around the word.

I liked Lunea. I liked Burg, and Sunny, and my teammates, and the adventures we’d had together.

And I liked Brian, and Sydney, and my friends, and the stories we’d told. I liked streaming tabletop, and streaming video games, and my mod team and my game streaming friends I’d race and do raids in Heimdall with. They were all good.

They were all fun.

So… why wasn’t I letting it be fun right now?

I’d spent so much time recently worrying about money, and about metrics and marketing, and making a career of the games I used to love.

That I still love.

Where in there did I lose sight of just letting myself enjoy them? And where in all of that did I stop thinking about what I wanted and instead start thinking of it as what others wanted?

What DO I want?

“I want to have fun,” I said, once again out loud. Once again, the echoes called back to me, loud and proud.

I looked down at my baby bump again and thought about what it represented. The experiences not only of my character, but of me as a player, and as a person. The hard work that had gone into making all this happen, and the pride of the people who had helped me get here. For so many of them, it wasn’t about doing it for our fans: they helped me because they wanted to do it for me.

I patted the baby bump gently, then stood up.

“Come on, Leigh,” I said to myself, trying to sound as confident as my echo. “Let’s have fun.”

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NOTES:

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