104 Too Much Advice
“Wait, wait,” he said. “I’m not saying that I buy this whole experiment thing, you know.”
“My parents do,” I told him. “I played the guitar for them, and that’s something Marsha definitely couldn’t do.”
He looked surprised. “Seriously? You can actually play?”
I nodded, a bit smug. “I told you I could. You can even come over tomorrow and I’ll show you.” I didn’t think it necessary to explain that I wasn’t really all that good, now.
“Huh. So you actually do…” he shook his head, and narrowed his eyes at me. “Then explain to me… hmm… so you’re not really a girl, but you’re getting used to this being-a-girl thing, right? No more play-acting? You figure you’re stuck so you might as well start dating boys?”
I squirmed a bit. “I told you, it was a real surprise to me, but, yeah… dating boys seems perfectly reasonable for now.”
“’For now’?” he echoed.
“Well, I might not actually be stuck, after all. I think we found the lab.”
“You found the…?!” He gaped at me. “And you went out with this guy, knowing that?”
“No. I didn’t know before our first date,” I said, defensively. Then I had to look away. “But… I knew before the second… and tonight…”
“And you’re just leading this guy on now, huh?”
“No! I’m not! I… Chad I don’t know that I can change back. All we seem to know is where the lab is. But it seems to be locked up and abandoned. It might just be a dead end. I still might spend the rest of my life this way.”
“Is that a fear? Or a hope?” Chad’s voice was sharp. “What are you going to do when this guy finds out that his supposed ‘girlfriend’ is a fraud?”
“How am I a fraud?! I’m a girl, Chad!” I saw him compress his lips and flare his nostrils, so I stopped again. “I’m physically female in every way, Chad. I have the body, the periods, the hormones… I find boys attractive and not girls. The only thing left of the male me is my memories. I can’t … It’s not easy, Chad.” I stopped yet again because I could hear myself whining. “Besides, we’re just dating. It’s no big deal. And if I do manage to change back, he’ll never have met the female me, anyway.”
“Maybe, but you will. What’s that going to be like? And what if you can’t change back and he starts getting serious about you and you aren’t ready for it? Did you think this through at all?”
“I… I don’t think that’s likely. I mean… I don’t know how to flirt the way girls do, or primp or anything. Jeremy is really nice, but I don’t see him getting serious about me. Not really. This is just sort of having fun together for us.” I could feel my face getting hot, remembering how much I was crushing on him, and for how long. But that was me, not him. “Um, look, your lips are turning blue, Chad. We should really go inside.”
“Good idea,” he nodded. “But this isn’t over, Marsh. You expect us to be close buddies, right? Then I expect regular reports on what’s going on. Like every week, whether you think it’s significant or not.”
“I promise,” I said. “But can you arrange for me not to have to go through your Mom, every time? Actually, why don’t you call me? Say… Sunday nights around 11:00? That way I won’t forget, either.”
“Deal,” he said, extending his hand, which I shook. “OK, let’s go in.”
There were only a few people left in the living room when we came back in. “Where is everybody?” I asked Kathy as Chad went finally to put away his coat.
“Well, everybody got tired of the party games,” she said, “so they’re mostly in the kitchen and the TV room. What were you guys talking about out there for so long?”
“Oh, some things that are going on at school,” I shrugged, trying to be extra casual. I pretty much only knew Kathy as Chad’s girlfriend, and I wasn’t willing to let her in on my secret. “Chad was helping me, and I sort of forgot to keep him up-to-date on things.”
“I wondered about that. I hadn’t seen him that annoyed with you since the beach thing.”
“Yeah,” I grinned, wondering what ‘the beach thing’ might have been. “Anyway, do you know where my date is?”
She shrugged. “Not my day to watch him.”
I peeked into the TV room, but it was pretty dark, the only light coming from the wide-screen TV on the wall. It was tuned to one of those ‘getting ready for the ball to drop’ shows, but it didn’t look as though anybody was actually paying attention. The girls were sitting on their boyfriends’ laps and taking advantage of the partial privacy afforded by the darkness to get in some quiet cuddling. I’d done that before, of course, but never as the girl, and I was suddenly curious. Now, if I could just find Jeremy…
He was in the kitchen, talking with Cherise, who was looking a bit too interested in what he had to say. “There you are,” I said, planting a very possessive kiss on his lips in front of her. “Come on.” And I led him back out into the hallway and into the TV room.
Actors often have to make their way onto or off of a darkened stage without stumbling, and Mr. Condrin had taught us a little trick. If you close your eyes for a few seconds, they get used to the dark fairly quickly. As a result, I was able to lead Jeremy to an empty spot I had seen on one of couches while he was still trying to see what everybody else was doing. As soon as he was seated, I plopped myself onto his lap – and almost as quickly found myself on the floor, with Jeremy striding out of the room.
It took me a few seconds to recover, as the nearby couples stared at me, but I picked myself up and ran after him. I found him alone in the front hallway, the tension in his arms and back echoed by the look of shock on his face.
“What happened?” I cried.
“I… um… I…” he choked. “I guess… I might have… Look, Marsh, maybe… maybe this is wrong. I mean… I’m just… not comfortable with public displays of affection. I mean… I just really didn’t expect… O boy. I really… look, maybe I sort of… I think I expected you to be more… you know… um, conservative in your…”
He stopped and tried again. “I’m saying this all wrong. Maybe we’re just not right for each other. I think maybe…”
“Not right?” I wailed. “Because I sat on your lap?”
“Um… no, it wasn’t that, it’s just that… well, I could see that everybody else was… maybe your crowd is just…”
“You’re wrong,” I insisted. “I’ve never done anything like that before. I just… I just wanted to see what it was like. I didn’t imagine that you…”
He stared at me. “You’ve never sat on a guy’s lap?”
I shook my head. Marsha had probably sat on Dirk’s lap lots of times, but that was her, not me. “I didn’t think it would be such a big deal for you, or I never– ”
“Um…” he stammered, his face turning red. “Do you… do you have a handkerchief or something?”
“A handkerchief?”
“Yeah, I think I need to wipe this egg off my face. Oh boy. I’m sorry… I don’t know what I was doing. Look, can we start again and just pretend I didn’t open my mouth and say all that stuff?”
“But you’re not comfortable with me sitting on your lap.”
“In public,” he corrected me. “I mean, if you really need to, I guess…”
“But you’d rather not.”
He nodded, ruefully. “I guess I’m kind of a prude.” He cringed a little, as he asked hopefully, “Is that OK?”
“It’s OK,” I agreed. “I just didn’t know. It was, actually kind of daring for me to do that in the first place, but if makes you uncomfortable, I won’t.” Well, I laughed to myself, this is going to be a very interesting, and possibly very chaste relationship – and that’s probably OK. At least I didn’t have to worry about him trying to make me do things I wasn’t ready for.
Well, maybe not all that chaste, I discovered later. Jeremy kissed me very satisfactorily at midnight – he was clearly getting much more comfortable with that. And when he left the party, he found a nice quiet street and I did sit on his lap in the back seat and cuddled with him. Oh, there’s no question but that it felt a lot different from when I was the boy. I don’t know that I’d say better, or worse, just different. I definitely had no complaints, there. My mind might not quite have caught up to my body in its desires, at least beyond curiosity, but I was emotionally exhausted by the time he pulled up in front of my house.
Then he surprised me. “Marsh, I hope this is OK… I felt bad that I didn’t get a chance to give you a present, so I made this for you.” He handed me a tissue paper wrapped something, and what I had unwrapped it, I found a beautiful little M-shaped pin, decorated with gorgeous stones. “See, these are all local. I told you about those, remember? I got out my rock tumbler and found a bunch of the smaller ones, ‘cause I knew they’d fit really nicely. I mean, I don’t want you to think I spent a lot of money on your or anything.”
“No, just a lot of time,” I breathed. “What about the base? It looks like silver.”
“Oh,” he shrugged. Just some old metal from something broken. I sort of worked it into that shape, and soldered pieces together and filed things down. You know. It’s not as if it’s anything really special, or anything.”
But it clearly was. I couldn’t imagine where he’d found the time. He must have worked on it over his family vacation.
“Jeremy,” I told him, “this is really beautiful. You’re an artist. I… I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, I just really wanted to give you something, and…”
“Thank you,” I said, kissing him passionately. “Nobody’s ever… I mean… thank you.” But at the same time, I couldn’t help hearing Chad’s voice in my head. What if he starts getting serious about you and you aren’t ready for it? What if, indeed?
Well, that was odd. I wonder what Jeremy’s problem is? Even if he’s another experiment victim (which I would prefer not be the case – an epidemic seem so impersonal) he’s coming off like a nutcase. Or at least wildly inconsistent.
Or the author is being clumsy, or you don’t have the whole picture. Can you point out places where he is being inconsistent? That’s not my intention.
I’m hoping I don’t have the whole picture. Well Russ, for starters he’s portrayed as quite a nice, well-mannered young man. Yet, he unceremoniously dumps a young woman flat on her a** on the floor. This should not have happened to anyone, male, female, young or old, short of the sitter having their pants infested with fire ants. Outrageously poor manners.
Fine, he’s a stuck-up prude. He admits it. He’s so offended by this casual physical contact he’s ready to end his relationship with the woman he’s been obsessing over, then and there. But wait – she admits she’d never done it before, so it’s suddenly completely fine, and his actions require an apology. Okay… he wants to marry a virgin; he’s keeping himself and his partner pure. A relatively minor, usually harmless perversion.
Then, that same evening he’s getting his tonsil-hockey practice in, and seems quite inured to lap sitting. The only rational explanation would be he’s far more concerned with the public appearance than with the substance of his actions. Except that he was so publicly rude…
In my experience, you only see inconsistent behaviour that extreme with certain born-again Christian groups. In which case he’d better get those symptoms treated, before they get infected.
>>In my experience, you only see inconsistent behaviour that extreme with certain born-again Christian groups. In which case he’d better get those symptoms treated, before they get infected.
Excuse me??
Having grown up in one of those groups I can assure you that this behavior is not at all consistent with that, either; or anything I would teach my children. If he is born again he has blown it big time in lot’s of ways already, having nothing whatever to do with having a girl sit on his lap while watching a movie.
The picture I get is someone so shocked that they don’t properly control their behavior. My working hypothesis is still that Jeremy was a girl pre-experiment; and so is kind of doing Marsh in reverse.
>> Excuse me??
No offense intended, Von. I was trying to keep it light, and couched it with “certain groups” and “in my opinion”. Presumably, not your group. However, humans evaluate by comparing things to previous experiences; and in MY experience, that’s where I’VE seen the publicly chaste/privately hedonistic syndrome. Of course, the same could be said of Victorian England, and a lot of other times and groups, so it’s nothing new.
Regarding the shocked reaction, I can – maybe – see the initial dump-her-off-the-lap reflex, but that’s not all – Jeremy goes on to have a detailed conversation rejecting her, before his sudden about-face. That’s not a reflex.
I don’t think it’s consistent with female (or formerly so) behaviour, either. Either he has no idea what his own motivations are, or has demons on his back. Or both.
Maybe it’s just me being clumsy as a writer, and you can suggest ways to fix it. What I’m going for here, is somebody who is very inhibited and incredibly inexperienced, had pegged Marsh as the same, and was shocked to his core that she would sit on his lap in public. He didn’t know how to express himself when she caught up to him and could only think that she must be some kind of promiscuous flirt – which he couldn’t handle. Hearing that it had been a daring move for her forced him to re-evaluate and realize that she was not too far from his previous expectation and that he had way overreacted.
Russ, I read the scene as you described in your summary. I thought Jeremy’s reaction oafter he horridly embarrassed himself and the girl he likes was spot on.
As for Von…interesting theory, but I’ve seen next to nothing in Jeremy to support it. Jeremy seems masculine, nerdy, and altogether far too clueless to a girls feelings to have been one. Marsh has had extensive inner dialog in the story which lends to having a rudimentary understanding of women’s behavior (from a guys viewpoint) and a pretty decent understanding of men’s behavior (except when he forgets he was ever a boy and is 100% Marsha…which is like 90% of this story, but still!).
Still…kind of interesting to think about…makes me want to go back and reread these Jeremy chapters again…
Well I guess my problem, Russ, is that that set of traits doesn’t go well together without, as Scott so ineptly puts it (:p) some kind of philosophical motivation. And even then the combination goes wierd for me here… speaking as an incredibly conservative puritanical Christian of the kind Scott is so ignorant about (:p).
So: inhibited, inexperience, and wants a GF that is the same.
My first issue is that that hasn’t been what I have seen him as. Inexperienced: yes. Inhibited *because* inexperience, perhaps. But not inhibited in the normal (or the puritanical) way.
My second issue is that his reaction is bizarre. Given the situation (which I wouldn’t, but anyway) I would have him stiffen up incredibly. And then perhaps relax a bit. And then, when Marsh tried something else, I would have him, say, ‘excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom’.
then he doesn’t return, and Marsh finds him sitting in some bedroom, looking confused. “What’s wrong?” Marsh asked.
“I don’t… I’ve never…” Jeremy says.
“Never?” Jeremy shakes his head.
“Wow. OK. Did you… not like it?”
“I… it was just a bit fast… ok, really fast… and, with everybody watching…”
etc.
Russ.. more on Gmail or Skype if you want. To complex for here.
>>As for Von…interesting theory, but I’ve seen next to nothing in Jeremy to support it. Jeremy seems masculine, nerdy, and altogether far too clueless to a girls feelings to have been one. Marsh has had extensive inner dialog in the story which lends to having a rudimentary understanding of women’s behavior (from a guys viewpoint) and a pretty decent understanding of men’s behavior (except when he forgets he was ever a boy and is 100% Marsha…which is like 90% of this story, but still!).
Well, I guess we disagree on about all of these counts. I see Marsh as being pretty totally ignorant about being a boy, except for some memories. And yet he doesn’t do ‘girl’ well, especially during on-stage talking scenes.
I see Jeremy as being reasonably consistent with ‘I used to be a shy girl who never had many dates and now I am a cute boy who has no idea how to handle that. And my body has taken over from me and I am way to attracted to girls to handle it… way to physically turned on… and I don’t know how to handle it.’
So, ie, I see them both at failures at both… kind of like you might expect of a confused mixture.
But I am open to a variety of explanations.
If it were me – and hold in mind I’m probably NOT a perfect example of the social norm – I’d start by dropping the “thrown to the floor” bit. That’s just over the top; I should think a quiet “Excuse me, could you get up – NOW?!” followed by leaving the room should be more than sufficient.
Most of the following dialogue is fine, though I’d tone it down a bit. The “egg on face” turn around quip is out of the character you’re trying to paint; if he’s that flustered and upset he shouldn’t have recovered fast enough to joke.
Finally, I’d also tone down the “all that chaste” paragraph. Something along the lines of, “Despite his earlier reactions, I still got my goodnight kiss; better still, he was improving in spite of himself.” And, much as I like the image (and Marsh’s reaction to it), she should stay off his lap in the car. “I didn’t quite get onto his lap, but I found you can make almost as much contact cuddling side-by-side.”
Frankly, inhibited and inexperienced though he is, I’d have expected Jeremy to nervously surrender to the inevitable instead of having ANY of those reactions. If you need the character to do otherwise, you need reign him in a bit, or actually write in schizophrenia or religious objections.
>>If it were me – and hold in mind I’m probably NOT a perfect example of the social norm
Well, and if I am right, then Jeremy isn’t an example of the ‘social norm’ either.
>>Frankly, inhibited and inexperienced though he is, I’d have expected Jeremy to nervously surrender to the inevitable instead of having ANY of those reactions.
Kind of contradicts the meaning of ‘inhibited’.
>> Kind of contradicts the meaning of ‘inhibited’
Not really. His body certainly isn’t going to object to the contact; as I recall, at that age hormones influence behaviour quite a bit (GRIN). Social conditioning is going to tell him not to be rude and create a scene. His inhibitions (taking the word literally) would keep him from taking an active role (“Plop that down here, babe!”) but unless they spring from something more than inexperience shouldn’t overcome the first two factors.
Heck, I’ve been there! I spent 12 years in Catholic school, but the first time a girl (a stranger, to boot) dropped into my lap at a party, I didn’t freak – I nervously waited to see what would develop. Worked out pretty well, actually.
>>Not really.
Your idea of ‘inhibiting’ is a bit wimpy. Of course, neither of us have any idea what the inhibition is, but an ‘inhibition’ can stop anyone at any time
If the inhibition is merely what I am suggesting, then you are quite right… the combination of teenage hormones could well do the trick. But, who knows what Russ has up his sleeve?
“Thank you,” I said, kissing him passionately. “Nobody’s ever… I mean… thank you.” But at the same time, I couldn’t help hearing Chad’s voice in my head What if he starts getting serious about you and you aren’t ready for it? What if, indeed? <– missing punctuation between head and What