I haven't posted an SIBC (Should It Be Continued?) partial story before, but this one is different. It's more ambitious because I'm attempting to deal with the reality of what I think of as gender errors. Specifically, a female in a male body. At the same time, there's some magic. More information is at the end of this posting.

 

Pretty

by

RJMcD

 

Chapter One

Jason Phillips sat in his den crying. It was late on a quiet weeknight. An open book lay in his lap, but the lights in the room had been turned off. Even the burning logs in the fireplace were slowly dimming as the flames consumed the last of the dry wood.

Except for the occasional blinks, and the resultant tears that rapidly ran down his cheeks in brief, little streams, there was no outward sign of the pain he felt inside. He made no expression. One could find neither tension or anguish in the muscles of his face – or comfort or happiness, for that matter. One only saw emptiness.

Jason brushed away a stubborn tear that had clung to his jaw.

I want to ask, 'Why me?' he thought, but I'll be damned if I'll use that clichι. In fact, 'Why' was not really the pressing question. What he really wanted to know was What, and How, and How do I cope with this for the rest of my life?

He put his hand on his stocking covered knee and let his fingers move gently over the silky material. It seemed to calm him. The tears slowed. He moved his hand to the hem of his short skirt and touched the material. So light and comfortable, he thought. So Me.

Me! He pulled his hand violently away from his knee. Me! I hate ME!

The tears started again, and this time his body shook with the crying.

 

Chapter Two

"Hi, Jason."

"'Morning, Lisa. Anything sparking?" he asked, going through their morning ritual as he passed her desk.

"Not yet," she said.

He smiled. Another nice morning for Jason Phillips, he thought. Does she have any idea that I want to be her? Check that. That I want to be me, looking like her? Not a clue, I'm sure. He walked down the hall toward his office. Well, her, but a few pounds lighter around the hips. She really ought to do something about that.

He was twenty-eight and single. Not quite old enough for talk to start, and anyway, everyone knew he dated regularly. Most recently, Monica Johnson in Sales. That was going well. They'd had a little period at first when they were a touch too aware of each other's cultures. That was interesting, but it was about groups, not about them. Then they really got to know each other and Monica started staying over for part of the weekend. He was surprised to see faint stretch marks on her twenty-six year old ass. Maybe she'd weighed a lot when she was younger, he'd thought. No problem. She looked great naked. She was fun in bed. And she made sensible pillow talk, never, ever even hinting about marriage. No talk about supernatural stuff, no Oprah talk, no unstable stuff. Monica seemed to be both bright and sane, so he worked at their relationship.

Their dating had produced a few looks here and there, and a few hostile glances and sullen stares, mostly from old people, but only one overt incident. They had been leaving a theater complex when a beat up car with two guys had driven by. The passenger had shouted, "Nigger lover!" Jason had shouted back, "Car lover!" and Monica had burst out laughing. He really liked her for that. Confident women were so nice to be with.

At six foot, two and a half inches, and one-hundred and ninety-one pounds he occasionally drew challenges from smaller guys who felt they had something to prove. He had developed a self-effacing, diplomatic set of responses that allowed little guys to save face and cost him nothing. Most, like the guys in the beat up car, were happy to be given an excuse to back off when he turned it into a joke.

He knew that some of his self-confidence came from his physical size, and the fact that he kept in shape, but he also realized that that same form was the source of his anguish.

He wanted to look like Monica. He wanted to have her body and her voice and her grace. He loved to watch her move, especially when she was naked.

Jason was something of a watcher. Others in the office, both male and female, automatically thought he was constantly on the prowl for beautiful girls. The truth was that most of the time he was searching for beautiful girls and then imagining what it would be like to be them. What would it be like to slip a gorgeous, petite foot into a delicate pair of heels – rather than a size 12 into a heavy pair of wing-tips. He wanted to be wearing those heels, gracefully gliding down a hallway, his hips naturally swaying in a slow roll. It was what he should be doing, instead of sitting behind a desk in a suit and tie. He did a tremendous amount of girl watching, imagining he was the girl.

But he wanted to nail them, too. And when he did, he was good. Every girl he'd ever dated told him that he had a special understanding of her body; a sensitivity to the places where she was sensitive. "You just instinctively seem to know what a girl wants, and what gets me off," a girl named Susan had told him.

He had liked hearing that. He always liked hearing sincere praise in bed. What surprised him was that none of them had ever guessed that he loved exploring their naked bodies, touching them, experimenting and learning about them, turning them on, and bringing them to their most exhilarating emotion peaks even more than he liked getting off himself.

"Bill Kelso on three," his intercom said.

Jason Phillips picked up his 'phone and went to work.

 

Chapter Three

Thursday. Then Friday. Then Friday evening. Monica time. He had purchased a new jacket for her over the internet, a light weight Spring thing of kid leather, dyed purple, her favorite color. It didn't fit him, of course, but he liked having it around. Monica was starting to leave the occasional "change of clothes" at his place and that was cool. He loved feeling the material, envious of a body that could wear such wispy things. He also got her sizes off them, which made it easier for him to buy her clothes.

Friday evening. Finally.

"Oh, baby, it's gorgeous," Monica said when he gave her the jacket. "I love it! You have better taste than I do!" She laughed, and he laughed.

That line stuck with him all weekend, even after Monica was gone. She never stayed over on Saturdays, because her mother always came by her apartment on Sunday morning and made her accompany her to church. Monica didn't like going, but she was the youngest, the only one not yet married, and her mother was all alone. She did it out of respect, and Jason thought that was both admirable and convenient. Convenient because he could unlock his suitcases and bring out his makeup, wig, dresses, and lingerie.

Monica wore the jacket to dinner and the ball game Friday night. Guys that saw her were envious of him. He was envious of her. That night they made slow, languid love, spending a lot of time just wrapped in each other's naked bodies.

He knew it wouldn't last. He was an object lesson in the stereotypical female complaint: a male who wouldn't commit. With the best girls a relationship could last three or four months, and with less interesting girls it could be over after one or two dates. Among the guys, that had earned him a reputation as a stud. Among the girls, he was regarded as a nice guy, one with whom you could have a fun relationship, and know it wasn't going to end in expressions of possessiveness or recriminations – or develop into anything serious. It would simply turn into a friendship.

He'd been dating Monica for three months. The newness of each other had been explored and compatibility found; the passion had been experienced and the comfort established; they were intimate on every level, except for Jason's secrets. No one got through to those. Sometimes, not even Jason.

 

Chapter Four

"Hi!"

"Hey, Candy! How are you?" Jason said. He came around from behind his desk and gave her a hug.

"Great," she said. "I haven't heard from you in few weeks, so I thought I'd come up and say hello."

"I've been swamped," he said, making a sweeping motion toward his desk, which was piled high with reports.

"Down in Accounting, too," she said. "I swear, Sales has gone wild this year. They've sent us so many new accounts I think we're going to have to add two people."

"Same here. It creates a little pressure, but that's half the fun," he said.

"Fun? Yeah, right," she laughed. "Listen, there's something I want to talk to you about. Can you come over some evening? If you're too busy . . ."

"No!" he said. "Of course not. When's good for you?"

"This weekend? No, wait. You're still dating Monica Johnson, aren't you? You're probably busy on the weekends."

"Three months now," Jason said with a smile.

"So that's about over," she said. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have said that. But I know you, Jason."

He was a little embarrassed. "Monica's a good friend."

"'Friend'," she repeated. "Where have I heard that word before? Jason, I don't understand what . . . Or maybe I do. I should."

He didn't know what to say.

"Well, even though it didn't work out for us romantically, I still consider you one of my best friends," she said.

"And you're one of mine," he said. "Look, I'm sorry I haven't called recently. . . ."

"No, no. I was just teasing you," she said. "I tease too much. You know how much you mean to me. That's really why I want you to come over. I've been thinking a lot about you lately, and my brother . . . Well, let's save it. How about tomorrow night? You still like Mexican?"

"Love it, even when I eat too much and have to exercise it off," he laughed.

"Seven-thirty, eight?""

"That's great. I'll bring some tequila."

"Okay, then," she said. "Say hello to Monica for me."

"Will do."

The rest of the day went well, as it usually did. It wasn't the kind of job where he often ran into a crisis, but Candy had been right about the Sales Department's recent successes, and the paperwork came faster than he was able to dispose of it. At the end of the day the new stacks on his desk were higher than the original ones he'd cleared. The company was putting on some pressure to move things along, but even the people at the top were aware that the sudden increase in business was adding heavy demands on the existing workforce. They were also delighted with the amount of new business, so the pressure wasn't negative or accusatory; there was simply a lot of work that had to be done.

On that Monday Jason thought about staying late. He wanted to catch up and get back to normal for a while, but he also didn't want to lose his private time. That was when he was real. The Jason at work seemed to him, at times, like a clone; something that lived and breathed and worked and functioned as a substitute for him. He caught himself just going through the motions. Not that he wasn't sincere during the day. It was more like there were two of him – and the one at work was slowly fading into the least important. From nine to five he was Jason, the Assistant Estimates and Scheduling Director. What he had grown into was a tall, muscular guy in the suit and tie who joked with the guys, dated the girls, and did his job well.

But in the last few years that person seemed somehow "other". It wasn't him, but it was him. Most of the day, and many evenings he was Jason. But the importance of being Jason turned on the practical, not the emotional. The head, not the heart. If his attic had a portrait of Dorian Grey the change wouldn't have been age; it would have been gender.

That evening, Jason Phillips sat in his den, determined that he wasn't going to cry. It was late. He had eaten dinner alone, and talked with Monica briefly on the 'phone earlier. He had tried to keep himself busy. He had watched a movie on HBO, though it started better than it ended, and his interest had flagged half-way through. He had tried straightening up his apartment, then going for a jog in the crisp Fall air, but nothing really worked. He was only putting it off. Doing it would make him unhappy in the end, as it usually did, and he didn't want to be unhappy, but he hadn't been able to resist. He had gone to the locked suitcases in his closet.

An open book lay in his lap, but the lights in the room had been turned off. Even the burning logs in the fireplace were slowly dimming as they consumed themselves. It was a familiar scene to him. After showering he had put on his favorite lingerie, a matching bra and panty set he had ordered through the mail. Both the skirt and blouse had been purchased over the internet, after he discovered a glamour boutique site specializing in large sizes. Even someone with his build could find something that would fit. Makeup could be purchased anonymously. Even shoes and nylons, to his surprise, were available in his sizes. The physical stuff was easy; the skills of makeup and dressing had been harder to come by, but he'd eventually found helpful web pages. The internet was an amazing thing, and it had changed his life without anyone knowing it.

He had to look in the mirror to put on his makeup, to position his blonde wig, and to check his clothing after he'd dressed. He always tried to tune out while doing that. He tried to be remote and mechanical and not emotionally involved. He had learned that over time. At first, seeing himself had been such a monstrous disappointment that it had almost destroyed him. His fantasy had been foolishly unattainable. He couldn't shrink himself, or lose his muscles, just by donning a skirt and blouse. He couldn't eliminate his square jaw with ineptly applied makeup. The person looking back at him was not Cameron Diaz. It was Jason Phillips with makeup smeared on his face.

Now it was just a head. He had developed the ability to see himself in the mirror as if he was somebody else. He applied makeup to that face, and set a wig on its head, and did better each time at creating a person that might have been a girl. An unattractive girl, but a girl nonetheless, and that was the important part.

With the clothing he'd taken a different approach. He was learning how fabrics hung, what designs were best for him, and which were most effective in hiding his physique. He wasn't bothered too much by his height anymore, because he learned to trick himself. It was all in relationships. If he sat in a very large chair he didn't feel as big. If he removed other things from the area reflected in the mirror, his height wasn't compared to anything, and he could pretend he was the height of a girl, and not a six-foot, two-inch man in heels that added another three inches. A fade, less full of himself RuPaul.

But not beautiful. Not even pretty. Not even close to believable.

He had learned to cope and to adjust, but he hadn't learned to accept that it was unfair. Why did nature have to make a mistake with me, he thought. Why do I have to live the rest of my life like this, sitting home alone, afraid to go outside as me, afraid to have intimate friends? Why do I have to dress up as a male in order to live my life?

As determined as he had been, this recurring line of thought always overpowered him. All dressed up, with no place to go because wherever he went he would just be a guy in a dress, and not the petite and beautiful woman he knew himself to be. He was alone. And he would be alone for the rest of his life. It would never get better. That wasn't Right. It wasn't fair. It wasn't how he wanted it to be.

A tear started, as he knew it would. It reached a size where his eye could no longer contain it, and it slipped over his lashes and down his cheek. A thousand tears followed.

 

Chapter Five

"Late, as always," Candy said. She smiled, to let him know she was just teasing. "C'mon in."

They did a friends' kiss on the lips. He handed her the bottle of tequila. "We're experimenting tonight," he said. "I've never heard of this brand, but the guy at the store said it was excellent, which means he probably got a double order by mistake and is trying to unload it."

"Or maybe that it is excellent," Candy said.

"We'll soon find out."

He followed her through the small foyer of her apartment.

"This is Brenda," Cathy said.

Jason was a bit taken aback. A beautiful redhead was rising from the couch.

"Hi," the girl said.

"Hello," Jason said.

"I know, I should have told you Brenda would be here," Candy said, "but I didn't want you to think I was trying to set you up with a date or anything. Brenda's a very close friend of mine. Very close."

A set up had been Jason's immediate thought. "Great," he said. "Do you like tequila?" he asked the redhead.

"Actually, I don't drink," the girl said. "But thank you."

"You two want to give me a hand, and we'll get this stuff on the table," Brenda said.

Jason followed the redhead into the kitchen, noticing her firm, high butt, encased in tight, olive-colored slacks, and the delightful way her blouse hung loosely from her shoulders.

He wondered why Candy had put so much emphasis on the phrase "very close". Is she trying to tell me she's gay? he thought. An ex-girlfriend becoming a lesbian was new. Is that supposed to reflect, somehow, on my outward masculinity? If Candy only knew. . .

During the first part of the evening and through dinner, Jason was somewhat distracted by his inclination to figure out why the pretty redhead had been included in what he'd thought was a private evening, but the naturalness of the girl's behavior eventually wiped that away. Brenda turned out to be interesting and intelligent. Whether or not Candy had arranged the evening to get them together or not, Jason found himself attracted to the new girl. He especially admired the way she moved, and wasn't at all surprised when she said she was a fitness instructor with aspirations of being a dancer.

"I'd love to go over to New York and study Broadway dance," Brenda said. "Maybe get some television work."

"Not Vegas?" he asked. "Aren't there more dance jobs there?"

"Oh, but New York has Broadway, nightclubs, television and all kinds of things," Brenda said.. "Sure, Las Vegas, too. And L.A. I'll go where the job is. But that's the problem with being a professional dancer: there are more dancers than jobs. Unless I was an exotic dancer, a stripper. I guess they work everywhere, but that's not anything I'd be interested in. In a magical world – a more magical world – I'd go for ballet. You need to start that when you're about ten years old, though."

"'A more magical world'?" Jason asked.

Brenda shot a quick glance at Candy. She looked back at Jason. "Well, the world is full of magic, isn't it? How else do you explain flowers, or the fact that we stay warm after the sun sets, or life itself? It's all kind of magical in a way."

"Yeah, in that sense I suppose it is," Jason agreed.

"I always suspected there was more magic in the world than people realized," Candy said. "It just needs to be discovered."

"What do you mean? You're into spells and witches and like that?" Jason asked.

"Why not?" Brenda said. "There are so many ancient tales about that kind of magic. We may have just let it disappear over the centuries. I imagine there's a lot of specialized knowledge that has been lost, about all kinds of things. Secrets kept by only a few, who died before passing them on. Those tales didn't all come out of thin air."

"Maybe they did," Jason said. "Atlantis started with one fantasy tale; then a lot of people picked it up and wrote about it as if it really had existed. Doesn't mean it's true."

"Probably not," Brenda said, "but there's just so much of it. All of what we call religion and mythology – and ancient writing of all kinds. It all has magic in it. Magic seems to have been a common part of daily life. Like during the Middle Ages."

"Sure," Jason said. "But what was common was the belief in magic, not actual magic. People back then were ignorant about the cause of things. We don't understand everything now, but we understand more. Therefore, no more magic."

"Or maybe less need for magic," Candy said.

"Oh, there's still a need," Jason said more forcefully than he had intended.

Brenda smiled. "It would sure help out sometimes, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah," Jason said. His automatic defense mechanism had popped up and stopped him from saying more.

"I'm sure there are things that were known at one time, if only by a few people, and those things were lost. They were considered secret knowledge, maybe by clandestine organizations," Brenda said.

"Craft guilds, Jesuits, artisans, maybe even medical remedies," Jason agreed. "But not magic."

Brenda laughed, "I think magic, too."

Jason was sufficiently attuned to female behavior to know that Brenda had sensed a disagreement building, and was diffusing it with a charming laugh and smile. He was happy to go along, and smiled back.

"Maybe," he said. "I'll bet we've lost a long list of really bad jokes from medieval court jesters, too."

"Can you imagine?!" Brenda laughed. "'Take my serf – please.'"

"But we all have to live in the real world," Candy said abruptly, closing the topic. "That means dealing with the mundane things like dessert. Everybody up for strawberry cheesecake?"

He left Candy's apartment later that evening, unsure about what had just taken place. She had invited him over on the pretext of wanting to talk about something, but had a guest, which made a private conversation impossible. He still thought it might have a been a subtle set-up, a sort of try-out date, but Brenda hadn't made serious eye-contact with him, or done anything else that could have been construed as flirting. Neither, for that matter, had Candy, so it wasn't a deception to get back together with him. He thought once again about the possibility that Candy had become gay, but nothing fit that, either.

Jason knew how attuned he was to what he regarded as female thinking. And how unattuned most other guys were. On a first or second date the guy would take the girl to an expensive, romantic restaurant, and he would be excited about the impression he was making, how she would be thinking how nice he was, how romantic, how good. She would be thinking, depending on how lonely or popular she was, that he must really care for her, or he must really want to get in her pants. Or maybe how naive, corny or romantic he was.

Jason waited for a special occasion to book at an expensive restaurant. If there was no special occasion, he created one – their one month anniversary, for example. He remembered dates, like the girl's mother's birthday, and things such as what movie they had seen on their first date, and what they'd had with their coffee afterward. He didn't need to try; it came naturally to him. Girls were surprised and charmed.

Taking the common masculine role came less easily, but he knew girls liked it and so he did that, too. He held doors open, and he brought up ideas on what to do and where to go. He paid for everything automatically. He used his size as a protective barrier against the world, sheltering his physically smaller dates. He wanted them to feel safe, and they did.

In school, girls away from home for the first extended time in their lives, had sometimes gloried in their freedom. They stressed their personal independence, and didn't want to be protected. Most guys were uncomfortable with that, but he had loved those relationships. It only took one for him to understand that the heralded independence was usually more show than fact, more public than private. It was a tender spot, not to be confronted or criticized. He understood.

But as much as he understood women, as much as he, in fact, thought like a woman, or at least easily empathized with women, there were times when human behavior presented a muddy picture. Tonight's dinner was one of those times.

On the surface it was a simple, pleasant, social evening, but Jason couldn't shake the idea that there had been a point to it. What bothered him was that he was involved in the evening's objective, but didn't have any idea what that objective was. The only satisfying answer he could come up with, was that Brenda had popped over to Candy's as a surprise, and Candy had been too polite to not invite her to stay.

 

Chapter Six

Jason looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. It can't be needed for anything, he thought, studying his Adam's apple. A bulge on the throat. Women don't have them. At least not that protrude like this. It's so ugly. Can't a doctor just slice off the front part and make my neck smooth and graceful? What does it do? What purpose does it serve except to shout that I've got a male body?

Bits of dried foam were caught in his stylishly short sideburns, near his Adam's apple, and at the edge of his ears. What's the purpose of facial hair? Why is my chest hairy? Why does my goddamn belly have wisps of hair? What could they possibly be for? There's no purpose for any of it. Men shave their faces everyday – why not their entire bodies? It 's some leftover Neanderthal thing when the only way to tell a male from a female was body hair. Or maybe Neanderthal women were hairy, too, and the female body evolved faster than the male.

What if I stopped dating for a while and shaved my entire body, just once. I'll wait 'til the winter when I can wear long-sleeved shirts. He stepped back in order to see more of his body. Why was I stuck with this loser? Why was I the one to get this damn mismatch.

He carefully examined the reflection of his tall, atheltic frame. With other birth defects there are surgeries. Hell, there are even charity drives for kids that can't afford surgery. But not for this. They don't even talk about this one. How many other girls are walking around in guys' bodies? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands around the world? And probably just as many men who were born with girls' bodies. And what are we supposed to do? Live with it? Why? How?

He used a wet washcloth to remove the dried shaving cream from around his ears and neck. Suddenly he threw the washcloth at the mirror and shouted, "Fuck you!" He angrily left the bathroom.

The clothes he'd picked were spread neatly across the foot of his bed where he'd placed them before taking his shower and shave. He had chosen light-weight Oxblood wing tip shoes and thin black socks that came up over his calves. He bought his socks at a formalwear store because good over the calf socks were hard to find elsewhere.

Jason sat in one of the chairs placed against the wall opposite the foot of his bed. It was at times such as these, times when his anger was high, that he wished he smoked. People talked about how it calmed their nerves and relaxed them. Even a little double-toke would have been tempting. Something to help him calm down.

He didn't think about his body, just about his anger. He tried to control it, fight it, eject it. Whatever worked. The episodes of outwardly expressed anger were coming more frequently and that scared him. What will I be like at thirty? At thirty-five? At fifty? If things continued as they were, the answers weren't someone he wanted to be around to experience.

Gradually he overcame the emotions. It was something that he was used to doing, and he had worked out a routine that was usually successful. Lately it was taking longer, but he was still able to focus on the emotion and eventually force it back in its cage. He seriously feared that one day it would break loose and roam free forever. What then?

Two years ago he had taken the contents of his locked suitcases and emptied them into trash bags. The bags had gone into a dumpster at the mall. The wig, make-up, shoes, costume jewelry and clothing were out of his life, and for the rest of the evening he felt exhilarated.

The next evening he was restless, watching channel ten's early news instead of waiting for eleven o'clock. He shifted often in his chair, and at one point suddenly jumped up and went to his computer. Within two hours he had ordered replacements for every item he'd purged from his closet.

He finished dressing. As "wrong" as it felt to be in men's clothing, he still put a lot of emphasis on his appearance. It felt good to look good, even if it wasn't the look he would have chosen. There was still a reality to deal with, and he believed it would start a downward spiral if he stopped doing everything that a genetic male was expected to do.

There had been a few times recently where he'd felt himself losing touch. The reference points of life seemed to drift away from him. He felt like an untethered astronaut doing an extra vehicular stroll, watching the spaceship getting farther away and not finding anything solid to grasp. There was nothing violent or wrenching about the separation. It was silent and smooth. But he had no control, and nothing to anchor to. The male Jason and the female Jason and the world's they lived in were both drifting away from him because neither was a suitable home. Where could he belong? Who could he love? Who could love him?

He checked his appearance in the bedroom mirror. He straightened his tie. He looked at his reflection for a moment.

"Stud muffin," he said to the image, and winked. He laughed. "Worker bee," he said to the image, and walked out of the room.

 

Chapter Seven

"I have a confession to make," Candy said, leaning over the small table.

She had called his office and asked if he would like to go to lunch with her. He usually went with a couple guys in the office, occasionally met Monica for lunch, and sometimes, though rarely, lunched alone. Solo meals during the day had started to include introspection, and thoughts better held until the evening, so he wasn't doing that very often anymore. He wasn't sure if the appearance of what he thought of as night thoughts, popping up in the day when he was Jason The Guy, was a blending of his two worlds, or a disintegration of his control of the issue. Neither was appealing, so lately he was avoiding lunch alone.

"A confession?" Jason asked. Since she seemed more impish than serious, he smiled a little.

"Yeah," she said, smiling back. "I hope you won't be mad at me."

He made a face to indicate that was impossible. Inside he was tightening. He could feel it. There was a pressure in his chest and head. Tension. Fear. Surprises and confessions did that to him, because he never knew if they would be about his secret.

Months after his purge, a guy at work had said to him, in a confidential tone, "Guess what my son found in the dumpster behind the mall." Jason's bodily functions had frozen. Had he left personal identification in a dress pocket? A note in a purse? God, what could it be?

"Six boxes of brand-new Nikes, all the same size."

"Nikes?" Jason had managed to get out.

"Yeah. I figure some kid working in the Foot Locker picked out his size and tossed them in the trash, and they got taken to the dumpster. Probably figured to pick them up after he got off work." The man laughed in a low voice.

"What'd they say when your son turned them in?" Jason had asked.

The man's smile disappeared, and he drew back. "C'mon, guy. They were in the dumpster, for god's sake."

Jason had nodded and smiled.

Later, he'd realized how foolish it had been to get tense. The results of the purge were long gone. He had checked all the pockets, and both purses, before tossing them in the trash bags. He was safe.

"Well," Candy said. "You probably guessed, but I did invite you over to meet Brenda."

He didn't respond. He had learned that when someone knew something that you didn't, the best tactic was silence. Listen and learn, and then respond. So, Candy was saying that it was a set-up after all. Why? She knew he was with Monica. Black Monica. Was that it? She wanted to "bring him back" to white girls? No, no, that's unworthy. Candy was no bigot. He was disgusted that he'd thought the thought.

It suddenly hit him. He'd been with Monica three months, and Candy knew that three months was about the maximum time any of Jason's relationships would last. She assumed that . . . No. She wouldn't do that, either. Why was he dissing Candy? He was tense, and it was making him think negative thoughts that didn't match reality.

"You are mad," Candy said, suddenly believing she had hurt him. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

"No, no," Jason said, smiling at her. "No. It's just not like you. I'm surprise, is all."

"I'm sorry," she said, not buying his reply. "But it wasn't a set-up. I know you're dating Monica, and I'd never do anything like that."

"I know you wouldn't," he said.

"Brenda's. . . Well, I don't want to go into it, but Brenda's very special to me. And so are you, Jason," she said. "Right now she needs someone to talk to. A guy. But a guy who can talk to her like a friend. I thought, since you were dating Monica, that you might be able to be her friend, without hitting on her. Every guy hits on her. She's really tired of that, and that's part of the problem."

Jason was taking it all in, trying to figure it out. On the surface it was okay, but since it started with deception, he had his ears up. He nodded, and smiled slightly, but only muttered an, "Uh-huh."

"I don't know any guy that understands girls like you do," Candy said. "She and I have talked – for hours." She rolled her eyes and tried a smile. Jason gave her an encouraging return smile. "But she wants a guy's point of view. A guy's honest point of view. I told her about you, and how close we were, both when we were dating, and afterwards. She said you sounded perfect, and I agreed."

He nodded, but Candy didn't add anything, so he had to say something.

"So I'm just supposed to talk to her?" he asked.

"Only if you want to," Candy said quickly. "She just needs a friend – a guy friend. I can share the girl side with her, but, I mean I'm only giving her another girl's point of view."

"And I'm supposed to explain the entire male species? I'll be glad to help, but. . ." He didn't want to get involved in anything even remotely connected to talking about gender. There were too many potential pitfalls.

"She's a really, really nice person," Candy said.

Jason weakened. "She seemed super, but . . . Well, okay," he said. He could handle himself and avoid problematic topics. He'd been doing it all his life. "I don't really know what I can tell her. Everybody's different. It's not like all guys think this way, and all girls think that way. I'm a little lost as to what kind of help I can be."

"Just be a friend," Candy said.

Friendships aren't ordered up, and he knew that she knew that, but he understood what she meant: a sympathetic ear, and the view from the male side. He wouldn't give advice; he had more sense than that. He would listen, and smile, and nod. With girls, that was often enough. Most girls, unlike most guys, didn't always have to create a result so much as they just wanted to talk it out. The talking seemed to frequently be the result.

Listening to girls had never been a hardship for Jason. He'd discovered that they were usually simply looking for someone supportive, not actually seeking alternate views or analysis of the subject at hand. Being a good listener sometimes seemed to magically turn him into someone "understanding" in their eyes.

He liked doing it. He liked to talk to girls, chattering away about nothing and resolving nothing. When they wanted to talk, he would listen, and he would learn about how girls thought. And he would realize that he liked it, that he instinctively did the same thing himself.

At first, he'd regarded that as an unlearning-learning process. He was unlearning the male way of thinking and learning the more attractive female way of thinking. But he realized that was wrong. He was discarding the artificial trappings he'd been burdened with. He was casting off a heavy cloak, and setting himself free.

That, of course, was dangerous, and he had developed a self-warning system. On dates he would realize when he was coming too close to appearing to be "one of the girls", and he would slide into the role of ladies' man, trust-worthy Lothario, and lover. None of which was fake. He did love girls. He loved loving them, making love to them, and he would have loved to have been them, if that was possible.

Girls, surprisingly, never considered the idea that he had male and female sides. Maybe the visual was too overwhelming. When he and they were lovers, they enjoyed his very male body and his very understanding nature. When the romance ended and they became friends, they enjoyed having a male friend that genuinely liked them and enjoyed their company. He was someone they could really talk to, both as a lover and as a friend.

So, Candy's request shouldn't have surprised Jason, but it did. He thought that was because he didn't know Brenda, and had no relationship with her. Candy wasn't asking him to be friends with a mutual acquaintance, and it surprised him that Candy would ask him to involve himself with a stranger.

Had he ever even heard Brenda's name before? He didn't think so. How could Candy have had a friend that was that close, but never mention her to Jason while they'd been dating? It didn't seem likely.

There was no reason for him to think that Candy had shared every detail of her life with him, during that time. But they had spent hours talking – in bed after sex, on the sofa while drinking wine and nibbling cheeses, on the 'phone, in the car on long weekend drives, and on walks. Candy had talked about her mother and father and brother, about childhood friends, and college friends. They had talked about people at the office, and strangers encountered in stores. But he'd never heard of Brenda before.

 

Chapter Eight

It was odd. He wondered about the timing. On the Saturday night after his conversation with Candy, Jason and Monica had snuggled, naked under a blanket, and watched a movie. Afterward, they'd made out, and luxuriated in each other's bodies, but they hadn't actually had sex. That was the first time that had happened. Jason knew what it meant, though he wasn't sure Monica did. Very soon, they would stop being friends and lovers, and just be friends.

Or maybe Monica did know. Her good-bye kiss was warm and wet, but not passionate. Before he closed her car door and stepped back to watch her drive off she'd grinned at him with pure, unadulterated love and affection,. But there was no passion in her good-bye smile.

Jason walked back to his front door, shaking his head. How predictable and uncontrollable it was. It was like a biological clock that would run for just so long, before morphing his desires into something else. He didn't want his relationship to Monica to change. But his loins told him the irreversible process had begun.

Monica and he would have sex again, maybe three or four more times, but it would become a friendlier, fun sex. It would be to pleasure someone he liked, and she would pleasure him for the same reason. They would enjoy each other, but realize that the relationship had changed.

In similar situations some girls had felt the need to explain their new feelings, not sure what Jason was feeling. He would have to reassure them that he understood and felt the same way. A surprising number of girls understood that he understood, without ever having to say it. The only awkward part was establishing that the routine they had grown into – seeing each other on a weeknight, staying over on weekends – wasn't going to continue. Jason had developed some conversation that eased them both through that – and simply didn't mention anything about the coming weekend. That was a broad enough clue that he felt what they were feeling. He gave them a friend-kiss at parting, and that cleared up any lingering doubts that either of them might have had.

But Monica? They'd gotten closer than he'd experienced in other relationships. She was so confident of herself and so completely comfortable with him, that they'd slipped into silent intimacy, where neither felt obligated to talk, earlier in the relationship than he had with any other girl.

Yet, there it was.

He often wondered if his life was just a speeded up version of marriage. So many of the middle-aged married guys joked about not having sex anymore. After a couple of kids, many marriages seemed to settle into some type of semi-Platonic relationships. Most of the couples apparently remained friends, and most had the extra binding thread of children. But men started straying. They had affairs. Sometimes the wives did the same thing. It was almost as if they were single again. A cycle that was a circle.

Jason's clock seemed to run, roughly, on a three-month cycle. From the small-talk at work, marriages seemed to run on a clock, too, though the cycle was measured in years, not months.

He shut the front door behind him and headed to his den.

Was it Brenda? He certainly thought she was attractive. But Candy had stressed that Brenda was looking for a friend, a Platonic relationship, and was fed up with always being hit on. And he was fine with that. He hadn't been looking for anyone new. Didn't want anyone new.

Was it his subconscious telling him it was time to move along, and then his conscious being presented with an attractive new girl? He knew himself better than that. He didn't want the relationship with Monica to end; it just did. He didn't desire Brenda. He didn't want to go back to Candy. At the moment he had no desire for anyone.

He started a fire, and sat in his favorite chair.

At least now I'll be able to dress on weekends, he thought. He thought about the locked suitcases in his closet. It is Saturday night. Monica always went home late Saturday night so she could take her mother to church on Sunday morning. That was when he unlocked the suitcases.

A couple more weekends with Monica, and that will be it. We'll be friends. Then maybe I'll dress on Saturday morning, and stay dressed until Sunday night. A free weekend. A weekend for me.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

The End of the Beginning.

I'm attempting to deal with some serious issues in this story, and because I'm not treating it as a simple entertainment it's going to be a long tale, and require a lot more time and thought than have others. I've had a number of people comment about my stories being too long, and this is certainly going to end up being well over 100k. I think, too, that fewer people read very long stories.

Because it attempts to deal with serious issues it has gone from my mind to my fingers to the screen very, very slowly.

I do have a rough plot leading to a happy ending, but it's not peppered with the twists and surprises I usually employ. It's pretty straight forward, introspective, and lacking in what might be called "action". There's some romance and though I hope to make it sort of inspiring in a way, it still won't be a fun, light read.

Therefore, Should it be continued?

   

  

  

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