I got the phone call just after lunch, and I was late to my next class, sitting in a restroom stall until I got my tears under control. I couldn’t concentrate to pay attention to my afternoon classes anyway; I might as well have skipped them.

You Could Go Home Again

part 13 of 16

by Trismegistus Shandy

This story is in my "Valentine Divergence" setting, like my earlier stories "Butterflies are the Gentlest", A House Divided, and "Nora and the Nomads". I've tried to write it as a stand-alone, but if you find it confusing, reading those earlier stories first, or at least "Butterflies are the Gentlest", might help.

Thanks to Unicornzvi, epain, and Scott Jamison for their comments on the first draft.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. So are my last several stories posted here, although I forgot to put the CC license notice in some of them.

I was exchanging occasional social media messages and phone calls with Amy, Radhika, Rob, Yolanda and George that summer, as well as Bill. At the end of Spring semester Amy and I had talked about being roommates again next Fall, because we got along pretty well. But then a couple of weeks after I started overhearing customers at the supermarket gossiping about Ron being a xenophile, Amy dropped a bombshell on me.

“I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch, but I’m transferring to UNC so I can see more of David. I’ll still come visit friends at NC State sometimes on weekends. I guess you’ll have to look for another roommate.”

So I immediately emailed Radhika and Yolanda to see if they wanted to share a room with me; I knew Rob would be rooming with Sarah again. Then, after further thought, I replied to Amy:

“I’m sorry I won’t see you as often, but I’m glad things are going so well between you and David. Go girl!”

I thought long and hard about asking Bill if she’d be my roommate, and decided against it. I felt like, even though they’d forgiven me for running out on them, things were still precarious between us; and it would be awkward to be roommates with Bill if we broke up. Besides, she’d be a junior and I’d be a sophomore; the university might not let us room together anyway.

Radhika emailed me back the next day saying that she had already agreed to room again with Lucius, her roommate from last year. “We’re not close friends, but we get along well enough as roommates; neither of us minds the other one’s mess. I’ve seen how neat you and Amy keep your room, and I’m afraid we’d drive each other up the wall.” Yolanda replied two or three days later saying she’d be my roommate, though, and we informed the housing authority.

One Sunday afternoon in early August, Ron and I went out to lunch after church; Carl was on a date with Julia. “Things have been kind of bad at home since I told my parents about Lindsey,” he said. “They want me to stop seeing her, and transfer to the University of Nebraska.”

“Can they make you?” I asked. “I mean, are you dependent enough on them that you can’t go to Missouri on your own?”

“I’ve got a decent scholarship, and loans... but I was getting some extra help from Mom and Dad. Things’ll be tight without that, but I can manage. If I defy them and go back to Mizzou, though, I’m not sure I’ll be welcome if I want to come back here next summer.”

“So is it worth it?”

“To stay with Lindsey? Yeah. I hope Mom and Dad won’t make me choose between them and her, but if they do, it’s going to be her.”

“Yeah. It would be their own fault if they didn’t see you any more, not yours.”

“How about you? How much have you told them about your boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“Enough. Uncle Tyler wasn’t too happy with it, but he didn’t make trouble like your parents are doing.” I hadn’t told him or anybody about that incident at the end of our last date. “I hope you can smooth things over with your parents without breaking up with Lindsey, but... if you can’t, I want you to keep in touch if you’re not living in Hebron anymore.”

“Will do.”

I got my housing assignment — I was rooming with Yolanda in Carroll Hall, not too far from where Amy and I had been last year — and confirmed my class schedule for the Fall semester. Soon we were packing a crate with my things to ship to my new dorm, and not long after that, I was on the train.

I had been exchanging emails and texts with Yolanda, and we arranged for her to get in the same car of the same train that I was taking to Raleigh. Her boyfriend and sister were with her.

“Hi, Yolanda. Hi, Tracy. Who’s this?”

“My little sister and co-girlfriend, Oliver. Oliver, this is Joel.”

“Hi.” Oliver looked askance at me; I wasn’t sure why she took such an instant dislike to me, but I could tell she did. She sat down on the opposite side of Tracy from Yolanda and me, and talked pretty much only with Tracy for the rest of the trip — I had the impression she might have been mad at Yolanda about something, too.

Amy and David got on our train a few minutes later, not long before we left the Atlanta station. Amy and I hugged, and she asked me if I’d found another roommate.

“You’re looking at her,” I said, glancing at Yolanda.

“Good. I’m sorry I took so long to tell you like that —”

“No problem, we still had a couple of weeks before the housing registration deadline. How are things going with you and David?”

“Really well.” They were holding hands, I noticed. “I got a job in Athens so I could eat supper with David almost every evening after we got off work. And last weekend we went to Six Flags...”

Amy and David got off at the Durham station to take a bus to UNC in Chapel Hill. A little while later, the rest of us were in Raleigh, and on the NC State shuttle. Tracy and Oliver were in different dorms; Tracy got off first, and then Yolanda and I got out at Carroll Hall. Yolanda gave Oliver a quick hug before we got off.

“Text me after you get settled in,” she said. “We could eat supper together if you want.”

“Maybe,” Oliver said. “See you later.”

We registered at the front desk, then found our room. Carroll Hall was organized into suites, five bedrooms with two beds each sharing a common bathroom. All the people in our suite were girls, which meant people were more casual about going to and from the showers with no clothes on than they were with the unisex bathrooms in Alexander Hall. They had my crate in a storage room, and I had to get the R.A. and a couple of Cary hyena girls to help move it to our dorm room (and to get it open, while they were there).

“I’m glad you asked me to be your roommate,” Yolanda said while we were unpacking. “Oliver was nagging at me trying to get me to agree to be her roommate, and I didn’t want to room with her; I thought if she hangs out too much with me she won’t meet enough people her age. She’ll be with me and Tracy enough as it is without rooming with me.”

“Wouldn’t it be convenient, though, rooming with your co-girlfriend?” I asked, thinking of Rob and Sarah. “It’d be easier to find a place to make out with Tracy, anyway.”

“Don’t worry about that. Tracy’s got the same roommate as last year, and he was pretty understanding about going to the library or somewhere when me and Tracy wanted some alone time.”

That explained why Oliver had taken such a dislike to me, and why she was mad at Yolanda.

I texted Radhika, George, Bill and Larry once we got settled in and were about to go over to the dining hall. Radhika texted back to say she and Paul were having supper at a restaurant off-campus, and I didn’t hear back from George for several hours, but Bill said they’d be there soon as well.

Yolanda and I got our trays and, having looked around and not seen anybody we knew, found a table with some free space. Tracy and Oliver came in a few minutes apart, and sat down on the other side of Yolanda from me. Then Bill and Larry came in; I waved to them, suddenly apprehensive. They waved back, and went and got their trays before they came over to our table. I stood up to greet them as they approached.

“It’s so good to see you again,” Bill gushed as she hugged me. Then she stood aside and I met Larry’s eyes. My ears twitched.

“I’m glad to see you too. I’m... sorry about last time — I didn’t —”

“Shh, it’s okay. Nobody blames you,” said Larry. “Let’s eat.”

Larry sat between me and Bill, but he didn’t touch any part of me but my hand, and that only briefly now and then, during supper. I introduced them to Yolanda, Tracy and Oliver, and we had a pleasant chat, but didn’t get into anything important. I could still sense some tension between Yolanda and Oliver, and the tension between me and Larry and Bill was too thick to cut with a knife — even if it was mostly on my side.

After supper, Larry asked if I wanted to go for a walk, and I told Yolanda I’d see her back at the dorm later on. Larry offered to take my arm, and I moved around to the other side of him so I could still hold my cane in my dominant hand. Bill took his other arm and we walked around the central part of campus for a while, not saying much at first. Then when we were some distance away from possible prying ears, Larry said:

“If you want to take things slower than we did last time, that’s fine. I’m not going to assume you want to do something just because we’ve done it before. You’ll need to tell me again... not necessarily verbally, if you’re feeling tongue-tied. You could tell me by doing the same — or equivalent — thing to me.”

I nodded, then worked up the courage to speak. “Thank you. That sounds good.” Then, when we sat down on a bench to rest a few minutes later, I non-verbally told him that I wanted him to kiss me.

It turned out that Bill and Larry’s dorms were closer to one of the other dining halls than to the one near Carroll Hall and Alexander Hall. I didn’t find out they were trekking halfway across campus to eat with me for several days. They tended to mostly eat lunch with me, since Bill had early afternoon classes near the dining hall I usually ate lunch at, and sometimes supper; they didn’t always get up early enough to meet me at my dining hall for breakfast. We took it slow, as we’d planned; we didn’t go beyond kissing and holding hands for several weeks.

Ron emailed me the following weekend:

“Things are going great with Lindsey, pretty well with school, and terrible with my parents. I had a big argument with them when I told them I was going back to Mizzou, and another big argument just before I got in the car and drove off to school. I called last night to see if they’d cooled down, and after Dad asked if I was still seeing Lindsey and I said yes, he said ‘Call back after you drop her,’ and hung up on me.

“I’m going to get a job in St. Louis and try to get an apartment here after sophomore year. Maybe with Lindsey, if we’re still together by then.

“How are things going with you?”

The next Thursday, I went to the science fiction and fantasy society’s first meeting of the year, and saw Katie for the first time since spring.

“Oh,” I said in surprise, “you’ve changed.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I guess there were a few too many guys at the store I worked at this summer. Maybe I’ll change back now that I’m in school again, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Are you back with Madison?”

“I called him up after I was finished changing,” she said, “but he’s got two girlfriends now, and thinks three would be too many.”

“He moves pretty fast, then. Seems like you ought to have first dibs, you were together before he got with them.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“I know.”

I wondered if it might suit for her to join me and Larry and Bill. But I felt like my own position with them was precarious enough, and I’d make it more so if I asked Larry if we could invite another person on one of our dates. After vacillating about it a while, I said nothing.

Katie told me she’d found a couple of radio plays featuring a cast mostly of Corvallis jerboa, a neospecies that had a cameo role in an Oregonian film we’d seen last semester. “Their social dynamics are a lot like ours; they’ve got about three women for every man. They don’t change sex, though. One of the plays I found is a romantic comedy; the other one’s urban fantasy, and we’re going to be playing it at next month’s meeting.” George perked up at that; he’d been trying to get the entertainment committee to use more radio plays and fewer films.

Amy was as busy with classes and homework as I was, and didn’t come over to NC State to see her old friends until the third weekend after school started. We hung out in the student center for a while, then went to dinner in Radhika’s car.

By then I was starting to have a suspicion. When I showered that morning before Yolanda and I went to meet Amy and Radhika, I was pretty sure my clitoris was a little bigger than usual. A few days later I noticed that my bras were a little loose, especially the upper one. I went to the clinic and had blood tests done, and Monday of the following week they called me with the results: I was turning into a male.

A year ago that would have been great news. Now, when I was patching things up with Larry and Bill and things were going so well? It was devastating. I wondered if Katie had felt the same way when he realized he was turning into a girl, last summer. Had he ever been a girl before — since before the Divergence when she was prepubescent, I mean? I didn’t know; we’d always talked about movies and books, rarely about our pasts, and more about my past than his.

I got the phone call just after lunch, and I was late to my next class, sitting in a restroom stall until I got my tears under control. I couldn’t concentrate to pay attention to my afternoon classes anyway; I might as well have skipped them. At supper, I sat with Larry and Bill, and they could tell something was wrong right away.

“I’ll tell you guys later,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it here,” glancing around at the other people at our table, most of whom I didn’t know well.

We went for a walk after supper. Larry held my hand, and that was nice, but it also hurt because it reminded me of what I was about to lose.

“What’s wrong?” he said. When I still didn’t say anything right away, he added: “You can tell us, we won’t judge you.”

“It’s not something I’ve done wrong,” I said, “but it’s going to mess everything up anyway... I’m turning into a guy. I just got the blood test results.”

“Oh.” We walked on in silence for a few moments. “I’m sorry. Do you want to keep dating until your changes are farther along?”

“Is it okay if we do that? I mean, I’d understand if you didn’t want to...”

“We aren’t going to dump you when you need a friend,” Bill said, and Larry continued:

“It’s not going to work romantically long-term, of course, but we’ll still be here for you. And we’ll break it off gradually if you want.”

Suddenly I had a wild impulse. “Make love to me,” I said. “Before it’s too late. Tonight, if we can get one of our roommates to leave us alone for a few hours, or in the next few days anyway...?”

Larry asked, “Are you sure you’re ready?,” and Bill said:

“Not tonight. I feel like you’re not in the right frame of mind to make this decision. If you still feel that way tomorrow, let us know.”

“I will.”

“Then we can do it then. It will let us talk to our roommates and give them more warning.”

They both hugged me hard, and Larry and I kissed several times before I went into my dorm and told Yolanda the bad news, that I’d be moving and she’d probably get a new roommate she didn’t know.

That night, and the next morning, I had second thoughts about what I was planning. Maybe it was a bad idea to have sex with Larry just before we broke up; it might make it harder to lose him. But the rest of me didn’t listen to the part that had reservations. I was regretting not taking more advantage of being a girl while I was one, wishing I’d done this months ago. Better late than never, I figured. I told Larry and Bill at supper that I still felt the same way, and Larry nodded.

“Let’s go over to my dorm,” he said. “My roommate will be out until late.”

My heart was beating hard as I walked hand in hand with Larry, Bill on his other side, toward Larry’s dorm. But I was determined not to back out at the last minute this time.

His dorm room was empty, as he’d said. It was on the third floor of a building with no elevator, though, and after two flights of steps I started to wish I’d asked Yolanda to leave us alone in our dorm room for a few hours. They stopped and waited for me while I rested before going on up the last flight of stairs. When we got to the room, and Larry unlocked it and let us in, he said: “You look kind of wiped out. Do you want to rest a while before we do anything?”

“A little while,” I said, my hip aching, and sat down on the side of the bed he’d indicated. “I guess we could start taking off our clothes or whatever? I’ll wait on my pants until my hip gets a little better, but I can take the other stuff off now...”

“No hurry,” he said, sitting down beside me and putting his arms around me. “We’ve got several hours before Marta gets back.” He kissed me, and while we were fencing with our tongues, Bill sat down on the other side of me and kneaded my shoulders, which were tense. “Now how do you want to do this?” Larry asked.

“Um, I don’t know... you’re the expert... just, no handcuffs and stuff, okay?”

“Of course.” He kissed me again, and then started unbuttoning my blouse.

I’m not going to go into details. He took it slow, from undressing to pulling out. Bill kept rubbing my back and neck for a while, but she must have gotten out of the way at some point — the bed wasn’t that big. Later on I felt someone rubbing my feet, and I think it was probably her. Larry and Bill made love after he’d satisfied me, and we lay there all squeezed into the narrow bed for a while, not saying much.

After a long while Larry’s phone pinged, and he asked me to reach over to the desk and hand it to him. I did, and after reading a text, he said: “I hate to break up the party, but Marta is on his way back. We’d better get dressed, although you can stay for a little while after he gets back if you want.”

I looked at the time on his phone and gasped. It would be hard to get enough sleep before morning. “No,” I said, “I guess I’d better go as soon as I get dressed. I wish I could stay longer.” There was more in it than what I said overtly: I wished we could be together longer. But we knew this was the last time as well as the first. My vagina was already starting to close up, and a few more days' development might make this impossible. And there was no sense prolonging the inevitable.

I showered when I got back to Carroll Hall, before I went to bed. Yolanda was already asleep. I lay in bed awake for a while, thinking of how wonderful it had been and how we would never do it again. I finally started crying over how unfair it was, and found dried tears clumping up my facial fur in the morning.

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