90 Dancing Away
“Hey, Marsh, we’re leaving,” Lee Ann said, poking her head into my bedroom. “If you change your mind, we’re going to start at Blair, and maybe go to Danby after an hour or so.”
“OK, thanks,” I said. “Have fun, and don’t expect me.”
“You know, if you’re not into Geoff, I’m sure I can find somebody else for you to dance with.”
“Thanks, anyway.”
“Look,” she said, coming in and sitting next to me on my bed, “I know you’re broken up about Jeremy, but you can’t hide from him forever. So what if you see him with his girlfriend? You know he has one, so what will seeing her do?”
“I’m… just not ready, Lee Ann. I promise I’ll go out with a guy next month. I just need a bit more time.”
She sighed, and hugged me and looked me in the eye. “I’m holding you to that, Marsh. Take care of yourself, OK?”
She left, and there I was, alone in the room again, while just about everybody else was enjoying themselves at the second night of House Parties. I knew I was being stupid. Lee Ann had been right; I didn’t really know Jeremy very well. All I had to go on was maybe an hour of conversation when I hadn’t even known who I was, much less him. But the pain was real. I wanted to be with him, I wanted… I didn’t even want to be a girl at all, but I wanted to be his girlfriend. Boy, am I sick, I thought, shaking my head.
So now what? I asked myself. I wish I could talk with Nikki. But I had gone back to her dorm after lunch, and had been about to knock, when I heard her and Alvin inside. It wouldn’t have been fair for me to interrupt them now; this was a weekend for lovers, and singles like me had no real place in it. I’d have just brought them down, anyway.
There was no point in studying; I wasn’t relaxed enough to focus on any of my classes. I’d trying practicing the guitar the night before, so I already knew how futile that would be. I’m just going to have to try to face this. I need to figure it out; why did Jeremy affect me so much, anyway?
If Nikki were here, she would probably try to get me to face the idea that I was now attracted to boys, or something. But how could that have happened? I remember deciding that I wasn’t attracted to anybody because my liking for girls didn’t mesh well with Marsha’s preference for boys; could her preferences have just overwhelmed mine? Maybe whatever they did to let me keep my memory was wearing off. Now that was a really scary thought.
No, that wasn’t something I wanted to face; there had to be some less scary answer than me being on the verge of completely losing my identity. What if… what if I had always been attracted to boys, and my apparent preference for girls was just a front? What if that was the reason that I could never keep a relationship going, because deep down I didn’t really want to have a girlfriend? Hurriedly, I pushed that thought away; it was even worse.
OK, I told myself, stop it. You’re panicking. Most girls like boys, so it’s obviously biological, just like having periods, or something. Maybe I had just been refusing to see it? I’d met Jeremy when I’d thought I was dreaming, so being attracted to him hadn’t seemed scary, so I’d developed that attraction, and using it for the play had just built him up in my mind. That meant then when I met him I was already feeling it and it was just the surprise that got me.
That seemed reasonable, but it also meant that I probably did find guys attractive now, and that was still a scary thought. OK, I’m a science major; I know how to deal with hypotheses. I can just think of a bunch of boys I know and see if I like them that way. Except that I wasn’t sure I really wanted to like them in the first place… This would be so much easier if I could just talk it out with somebody…
I sighed. Nikki was the best choice, but she was out with Alvin; Vicky would understand me, but would probably freak out worse than I was about the idea of me liking boys, and besides, she was out with Kevin. Out with Kevin instead of me as Marshall, leaving me to struggle with the foreign messages my new body was sending.
OK, so what if I phrased the question differently? Thinking about the boys I knew, if I were really a girl, would I be attracted to them? That seemed safe enough, so I tried it. I thought about my old roommates, guys I knew really well, and certainly liked. Could I imagine myself, if I thought of myself really as a girl, as attracted to them?
Geoff? No. Rajiv? Definitely not. Mike? Not at all. So maybe I wasn’t really thinking that way at all. I imagined the guys associated with the play. Alvin had been really nice to me, but I couldn’t see it, even if he weren’t Nikki’s boyfriend. I spent extra time trying to imagine myself attracted to Jared, since I did like him as a friend, and Jo had thought of the two of us as a couple, but I didn’t feel anything. And I certainly wasn’t attracted to any of the other guys in the cast.
I was feeling a bit better, now. It was beginning to look as though Jeremy had just been an anomaly; maybe I wasn’t attracted to boys, after all. But just to be complete, I decided to go through the guys I sat with at meals. I started with Jay – it would really be messed up if it turned out that I was attracted to him, but no, I found him no more attractive than I had any of the others. Sam? Nothing? Ditto, Fred.
Then I got to Phil; I seemed to have put off thinking about him. Suddenly, his face filled my imagination and I realized that he was… I struggled against the word, but the only description I could think of was cute! Phil? Cute?! Really? Not as much as Jeremy, certainly not, but definitely somebody I could really enjoy spending time with; stare at, admire… I don’t believe this, I thought. I’ve been talking with him for months; how did I never notice? Maybe it was a good thing he was now seeing Susie, right? I really wasn’t sure. Did I want to start dating boys? Did I really? The idea just seemed so icky, and yet…
Logic insisted that if I was going to stay female, I should learn to like boys and be comfortable dating boys, and being affectionate with boys… but how exactly would you learn something like that? I’d never had to learn to want to be intimate with girls, it had just happened naturally.
Everything was happening too fast. It was as if I had been holding everything back and then running into Jeremy had released it all. Jeremy… Aaagh! I had to stop thinking about him, had to get over this…
What if I did go to the dance tonight? Lee Ann could find me somebody safe to dance with. That would be OK, wouldn’t it? Of course, it was mostly swing dancing tonight, and that was pretty much all contact, but…
Just to see, I lifted my arms to see how it would feel. Of course, I had never swing-danced as a girl, so it was going to be different. My arms moved naturally to the guy’s position: left hand holding my partner’s, right hand on her waist. So I had to reverse it. I put my right hand up to hold my partner’s, and the left hand went… I had to think about it for a bit, but then I remembered that the girl’s left hand was supposed to go on her partner’s shoulder. And then I had to reverse the steps as well. Backwards with the right foot instead of forward with the left as a start, plus learn to follow instead of lead.
It was too much. There was no way I could do this; I would just make a fool of myself. I dropped back onto my bed. Why was I even thinking this way? Did I really want to let a boy put his hand on my waist and steer me around the floor? I’d probably wind up tripping over his feet or something and then Janine would see me and laugh at me…
Stop it! I told myself. Janine has no idea who you are. She doesn’t know that you’re crushing on her boyfriend, wanting to take her place, and hating that you want it at all.
I threw myself down on my bed. Control, Marsh, Control, I reminded myself. You’re an actor – you can deal with emotion. Emotion is just a tool that you use. You are its master, not it, yours. But it was so hard! I was feeling things more than I was used to. I’d think I was in control, and then something would happen, and all of sudden I’d be crying. What does it take to get used to this?
Staying here when everybody else was at House Parties was a defeat. If I was not to be defeated, I just had to go, that’s all. I had to ignore the fact that I was alone; ignore the fact that everybody I could possibly be or have been attracted to had a partner while I didn’t. Ignore the fact that it would be yet another reminded of who and what I had become. Just going and not falling apart would be a victory of sorts.
Fine. So I checked the closet. There had to be an appropriate dress of some kind, there, even if it wasn’t the kind of gowns my roommates had. Certainly it would be more modest, but it should be a bit dressier, maybe with some kind of shawl to cover the shoulders? And there it was, all the way at one end; a deep blue gown, with a shallow rhinestone-trimmed neckline. It bared the arms almost all the way to the shoulder; modest compared to what the other girls were wearing, but much more daring than anything else in my closet. Had Marsha purchased it in hopes of going with Phil this year? Or some random boy I didn’t know, last year? I suddenly realized that I knew way too little of the hopes and dreams of this girl whose life I had taken over.
I made a mental note to call Tina, but right now I had a mission. I had to ignore the fact that I didn’t really know the proper makeup for an event like this; if it was a problem, Lee Ann would just take me into the ladies room and make whatever corrections were needed; so I just did the best I could. Then suddenly feeling like Cinderella after her fairy godmother showed up, I struggled into the gown and found a pair of suitable shoes. Where’s my golden coach? I snickered to myself, grabbed a jacket for protection against the cold and headed out the door.
Yawn.
Delete this chapter and go back to the end of the previous one and finish it.
You have a very funny way of foreshadowing things and then letting them drop. The Houseparties are over? That was it?? He really needs to realize just how badly he has been lying to himself all this time.
No! Don’t delete it! But, I do agree with Von your style of when to go indepth or nor not can be quite distracting.
What do you think I left out? Marsh was never going to go to House Parties, so there was no reason actually to depict them. They existed in the story primarily to provide the tension that sent Marsh shopping and led to the encounter with Jeremy, along with the tension of wishing to go to House Parties with him.
russ, did you get the other comment? don’y you think she is going to be needing a haircut pretty soon, it would add some really interesting things, what if marsh got a short short do to make him feel a bit manly again? or something, idk but it would make a good part.
Yes, I got it. I confess that I had not thought of the haircut issue. I’m not sure how it would fit in; Marsh is dealing with somewhat weightier matters just now.
Well, since I don’t know what is coming next I can’t really answer your question. Give me a few chapters and I will be able to tell you. But foreshadowing them so dramatically and dropping them like this… sigh.
(OK, no, I could come up with quite a number of things. But I don’t have time right this second.)
>> What do you think I left out? Marsh was never going to go to House Parties, so there was no reason actually to depict them.
Russ, you harped on the House Parties so loud and so long I was sick of even hearing the words. Yes, we were told Marsh didn’t intend to go, but does Milquetoast Marsh follow her intentions all that often? To pass by the apparent event of the millennium without even a sentence describing Marsh sitting home… well, that’s your first example I can cite of genuinely poor storytelling. Easy to fix, though.
Yes, I sent him an email along those lines… a little longer. I think in the re-write he would be well advised to nix the houseparties and some other stuff and focus all of this on the play-time. I even thought up a way to get the ‘short skirt’ in there (while still finding that whole thing rather nauseating).
Haircutting would have fit well during the break. One of his relatives could have done it and kept him a prisoner during the event… “so, tell me about…”
I like the chapter, but I agree that with everything that has been said about house parties, that something should come of it. Either mentions of it while all Marsh’s roomies are out at one (or several), and/or as a major part of the motivation behind Marsh’s dumpster mood post-play.
The only thing I could think of is if there are to be more house parties the next semester, and Marsh actually goes to them with a guy. If that were to be the case, it still doesn’t make sense to gloss over it now.
The other problem is that there simply are a whole raft of issues that need resolving the very next day. If, onthe first day of HP he sat and moped, how did the second one go? What diff did Jeremy make? When is he going to fess up to all of the lies he has been telling himself all this time?
>> I even thought up a way to get the ’short skirt’ in there (while still finding that whole thing rather nauseating).
Heh. I’m far from a prude (at least I think so) but that makes me a bit uncomfortable as well. Getting off on viewing oneself in provocative clothing – by implication, imagining using that clothing to attract a lover, whether you admit it to yourself or not – seems a rather advanced fetish for a newly-minted female. If the message is that this kind of rutting display is a core female behavior, built right into the cells, that’s creepier still.
Ah well, we’ll chalk it up on the “Marsh was always female” side of the tally. Well experienced at this, even if she doesn’t remember.
As someone who lived with 3 women in college, one of whom was VERY open about everything, I can assure you: some people can get very turned on just by feeling that they look sexy, without much regard to who they expect to see them. Said roomie had no boyfriend nor love interest, but would still dress up (or just walk around in underwear) for the thrill of it.
My disgust was not so much a doubt as to the possibility of this behavior, but of the relative importance of this (and related issues) to the overall story. An given individual may truly struggle with picking their nose, but I doubt it would make a good central tension for a book. Even so here the dress and vibrators trivialize what could be some hugely important issues in a book ‘of this sort’. Of course, we may disagree as to what sort of book this could be, and thus you may feel these issues very important to the sort of book you would like to see.
>> My disgust was not so much a doubt as to the possibility of this behavior, but of the relative importance of this (and related issues) to the overall story.
Oh, I don’t know. People are pretty superficial, on the whole; young people perhaps more so. Further, I believe Marsh is deliberately written as a bit shallow – presumably to allow for greater visible character development. While there may be larger sociological and philosophical issues to be considered, for a young, sexually active person a sudden involuntary sex change will raise issues about, well, sex.
So far, we’ve seen Marsh indulge in a solitary activity I’d expect virtually anyone in his situation would try, if only out of curiosity. We’ve also seen him struggle with translating his previous social and sexual life into his new circumstances. I find both his urgency, and the method of re-awakening his libido a bit surprising – but that’s probably my own personal perspective.
If you find what he’s doing trivializing; what would you rather see him addressing – and how? Aside from the whole “What happened to me, and how?” thing, which Marsh thinks he’s working on.
>>If you find what he’s doing trivializing; what would you rather see him addressing – and how?
Relationships. I would love to see him exploring his ‘new’ relationships: with his sister, Chad, his mom and dad, his roomates, etc. I would like to see a lot more of the ‘girls’ perspective in the relationships… which we have only touched.
Girl talk is a big, big plot hole as far as I am concerned. Girl life as suddenly seen from the inside. Indeed, ‘boys as seen by girls’ is a huge thing I would like to see explored that has only been touched.
>>Aside from the whole “What happened to me, and how?” thing, which Marsh thinks he’s working on.
Quite. Read my review.
>> Relationships. I would love to see him exploring his ‘new’ relationships: with his sister, Chad, his mom and dad, his roomates, etc. I would like to see a lot more of the ‘girls’ perspective in the relationships… which we have only touched.
Von, if I read your point correctly, Marsh should be learning more about what it’s like to be a girl in relationships with other people; an intellectual exploration? There are several problems with that:
– That’s not Marsh. It would require him to be smarter and more sensitive than he is at this point. I see little evidence that he’d see the difference, unless his nose was rubbed in it; or care. Moreover, to take an active interest in this exploration would require him to admit he was stuck in this gender, AND accept that his personality was changed or changing. A tough acceptance for anyone.
– Marsh is the wrong person to DO this “exploration.” As far as he knows, he’s a boy in a girl suit. He can OBSERVE other people’s reactions to him as a girl, but he can’t respond to them correctly; the interactions will be off. All he can learn about is the interactions between normal people and whatever the heck Marsh is at this point. Signs seem to be pointing to a brainwashed girl whose conditioning is wearing off, but who knows? I’m tempted to call Marsh “it” until we learn more.
– My final point, that Marsh is too busy to think about this with House Parties coming up in less than a year, is gratefully withdrawn.
>>Von, if I read your point correctly, Marsh should be learning more about what it’s like to be a girl in relationships with other people; an intellectual exploration?
For once, Scott, you have fallen into a trap (in the golf sense) that Russ is continually landing in. I was not talking about Marsh, I was talking about Russ. I was talking about the book. As with all fiction, Russ does not cover Marsh 24/7 (hey, even the show ’24’ doesn’t deal with Jack in the bathroom, unless th ere is some terrorist there). Thus he covers some things, and leaves out whole bunches of others. And, even in the things he covers, he leaves out whole realms.
So I am saying I would like ‘the book’ to deal more with how Marsh thinks/feels/acts during/as a result of his relationships. I would like to hear more about those times when being a girl in a girls world embarassed or enlightened him.
One example. Mother insisted that Marsh call, what, three times a week. Being a mother, these would be *chats*… long, involved, how-are-you-doing and what-did-she-say-about-it’s. Marsh being Marshall and not Marsha, these chats are huge minefields, and learning experiences, etc. And yet, we hear about them not. Instead we hear about vibrators and skimpy dresses.
So, no, sorry, you didn’t read my point correctly 🙂
Great redux on this Russ, I hope you haven’t thrown out the old version and can work it in later once this newly added event is done.
Oh, I really like the rewrite.
>>Great redux on this Russ, I hope you haven’t thrown out the old version and can work it in later once this newly added event is done.
And I hope that anything of value in the old version will be subsumed into the new. The chat with Nikki, for example, is now redundant as it stood.. but could be taken to a much higher level (hopefully not with Nikki).
>> So, no, sorry, you didn’t read my point correctly.
Ah, a bit of semantic disconnect there, but an understandable one I think. Once corrected, it ties in with your “what kind of book is this” comment.
Personally, I’ve had sufficient “awkward conversation” vignettes. I think it’s well established these can be minefields, but unless the revelations therein advance the plot in some way, relating more of them just seems abusive – to the character and the audience. Marsh doesn’t seem to be learning anything from them, except (slowly, painfully) to keep his mouth shut. The character development we’ve seen appears to be more the uncovering of old knowledge than the acquisition of new. Why? See my prior comments, above.
What kind of book is this? I have no idea. With all due apologies to Russ, I keep feeling the plot proper hasn’t started yet. All we’ve seen is window dressing, procedural stuff to set the stage. I’ve said that before, but I was describing this story to someone else over the weekend, and their comment was “That’s it? After 90 chapters?”.
90 chapters of Jack Bauer in the bathroom.
Lest I sound TOO negative, I really like the new chapter 90, and I applaud Russ’s courage in re-doing it. We’ll see what happens.
Wow!
I’ve been super busy this last week so I didn’t get to take part in the discussion, but wow! This re-write is a master stroke, thank you!
Nice dilemma, but while I can swallow the biology causes sexual preference to a degree (I’m partially against it), I do not believe that the attraction to Phil specifically has any reason to remain. I mean its not like it affects the story, and (this is defiantly true if Art History can be a guide) admiration for others’ looks are almost completely based off environment. Marshall, even raised in a near identical environment, would naturally not look at the same types of people as Marsha, other than the obvious gender thing, he still would have conditioned himself to like more feminine beings.
Small rant, but might as well say (since its the first time I’ve actually posted) great story, though I’m a sucker for most gender benders. Two days to get from ch.1 to here if that’s any indication.
kidney about marsh’s sudden liking to phil and stuff, I think its because of the memory thing, you know about him remembering the girl scouts? my theory is that marsha’s liking of Phil / etc is inching its way through marsh’s mind.