“I mean, I like taur forms as much as the next girl, but they can make it hard to get around in crowds, and four arms are useful, but they feel kind of played out after last year...”

Tuesday morning, I rode to school with Sophia. Meredith took her own car since she would need to go to work right afterward. I chatted some with Jada in homeroom, getting to know her a little better, and worked up the courage to ask her about her long arms and extra elbow.

“Oh, yeah, it’s pretty neat,” she enthused. “I mean, I like taur forms as much as the next girl, but they can make it hard to get around in crowds, and four arms are useful, but they feel kind of played out after last year...” Apparently there’d been a local fad for having four arms, which I’d missed out on due to being at Everett for the first few months of it and at UNC Greensboro, or hiding in Meredith’s room, for the last few months. “But these longer, more flexible arms are pretty useful too — they let me reach things I couldn’t otherwise, like those parts of your back you can’t scratch in a normal human form, and they catch the eye without creeping people out like tentacles. Have you ever venned much?”

“Yeah,” I said. I still didn’t want to tell her I was trans with various other people around and possibly listening, but I could tell her a lot. “I’ve done a decent amount of venning. Mostly short-term, with Meredith and Sophia and some other friends, but I’m in a long-term venn now, just a body that I’m more comfortable with.” Depending on how much she’d talked with Meredith about trans stuff, she might get that hint. “Eventually I’d like to go back to one of my less human forms — a dragon-girl with purple scales. But I’m looking for jobs now and I don’t know if I’ll be able to find an employer that’s okay with nonhuman venns.”

“That dragon-girl body sounds cool. You’ll have to show me sometime. What else have you venned into?”

“Well,” I said, “several other dragon and dragon-girl bodies, a little girl about four or five years old, a couple of furry bodies and several taurs — sometimes furry but mostly scaly — and a couple of cyborgs and cyborg taurs. Some inanimate forms, like a necklace or one of Sophia’s semi-animate dolls. And a couple of times I’ve had multiple bodies.”

“Oh, wow, you’re another hard-core venner like me! I can never get Lily or Cristina to try anything weird. Meredith does once in a while, but she usually goes for simple taur forms with various animals for the back half. What’s the most bodies you’ve had at once?”

“Just two.”

“Yeah, me too. I might try working up to three or four at some point.”

“Do you find it easier if the two bodies are mostly the same or very different?”

“That’s hard to say. It’s easier to get started on using them in a coordinated way, like if you’re playing a game in multiplayer or doing yard work with both bodies, if they’re the same or mostly the same. But if you’re trying to do yard work with one while you play a game with the other, it’s easier if one’s a taur and the other’s a basic human shape, or something to make it easier to separate them in your mind. I’ve heard you can split your consciousness in two, but I haven’t tried it yet — have you done that?”

“No, how do you do that?”

“Once you split into two bodies, you go in the machine again with your bigger body. As soon as the door closes on you, your mind will split in two across the body inside the machine and the body that stayed outside; at least that’s what I hear. There’s two versions of you running around acting independently, and when the venn on the smaller body wears off, it disappears and you get both sets of memories.”

“Oh, wow. I have to try that.”

“Let’s do it sometime. Both of us venn into two bodies and then we’ll split them up. How’s that?”

“That might be fun, yeah.”

“You want to invite some other friends?”

“Sure. I’ll talk to Meredith and Sophia about it.”

“I’ll talk to some other friends who are into venning and see if they’re busy. I’m working weekends, but... hmm. If we can get that technique to work like I’ve heard it does, we could go by the machine Saturday morning and split each other up, and then one of me could go to work while the other hangs out with you.”

“I’ll guess I could look for jobs with a human body while I hang out with you with a dragon-girl body?”

“Cool. What’s your phone number?”

“Uh... I don’t have one,” I said, blushing a little. I briefly explained more of my situation, but didn’t have a chance to say much before the bell rang and we had to go to our first period classes.

* * *

During my free period, as the weather was nice, I went to a little courtyard just off the cafeteria and read ahead in the anthology we were using for American Literature, the next several pieces that the teacher had said we’d be covering and which I hadn’t already read. I’d read the remainder of the Faulkner story and a couple of poems by Langston Hughes when a guy I’d seen sitting on one of the other benches and reading came over to talk to me.

“Um, hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I said warily. “Can I help you?”

“I just wanted to say hello,” he said. “I’m Dawson. I don’t remember seeing you here before.”

“I’m new,” I said. “I used to go to the Everett Academy, but I’m finishing up here. Oh, and my name is Lauren.”

“Nice to meet you, Lauren.” He could apparently read upside down, because he remarked, “Langston Hughes... those were some weird poems, but kind of cool.”

“Not the weirdest thing I’ve had to read for a literature class,” I said.

“Yeah, no kidding. But the way he was coming up with new ways to write poetry and all... and he was born right down the road from here, too.”

“That’s cool, yeah. I like this one, even though it doesn’t sing like a poem with rhyme and meter, but there are a couple of bits I don’t understand, and there were more in the last one I just read.”

He sat down next to me, and I flinched slightly when he leaned over to look closer at the page. “Oh yeah, that had some lines that didn’t make sense until Ms. Crawford explained some stuff.”

We talked about the poem, and the teacher he’d taken American Literature from and I was taking it from now, for a few minutes. Then, when the bell rang for the end of second period, he said:

“So I guess I’ll see you here tomorrow?”

“If the weather’s nice, I guess.”

“Cool.”

* * *

When I brought my lunch tray to the table where I’d eaten with Jada, Lily and the rest on Monday, I saw Lily, her boyfriend, and the rest of the group, but not Jada. When she didn’t show up within the next few minutes, I remarked on it. I was feeling a little bit uncomfortable because Jada had been the friendliest of that group. The others weren’t exactly unwelcoming, but they didn’t make as much attempt to include me in conversation as Jada had.

“Some days she eats with some of her other friends,” Lily said. “I think they eat in the courtyard when the weather’s decent, or over there,” she gestured toward the far corner of the cafeteria, “on bad weather days.”

I looked toward the windows opening on the courtyard, but I couldn’t make out Jada at that distance, if she were sitting near the window at all. I didn’t want to snub Lily and the others by getting up and going to look for Jada, who might not want to introduce me to her other friends anyway, so I stayed put and listened, occasionally rousing myself to speak up. Toward the end of lunch, Lily asked me what classes I was taking, and invited me to join them for their next study session, which would be after school at her house on Thursday. The study session wasn’t that whole group of friends that ate lunch together, just Lily, usually Jada and Meredith, sometimes a girl named Emilia, (who I’d heard about from Meredith; she used to date Meredith’s friend Andrew), and sometimes one or two other people. I said I’d come if Meredith was coming that night, but I wouldn’t have a ride otherwise.

After Sophia and I got home from school, I borrowed Mrs. Ramsey’s phone and called the Subway where I used to work, asking if my old manager was around. She was.

“Hi, Ms. Puckett, I’m Lauren Wallace. I used to work for you at Subway...” I reminded her of the name I used to go by. “I’m transgender, and I’ve done a long-term venn into a girl body.”

“Oh, congratulations,” she said. “But what’s this about? Does it have to do with why you didn’t show up for work and then your parents and the police came asking questions about you?”

“Well, yeah. I left in a hurry because I was afraid to go home. I’d rather not go into detail about family stuff, but I’m back in town and living with friends, and if you can forgive me for quitting suddenly without notice, I’d like to use you as a reference as I’m applying for jobs.”

She was quiet for a few moments. “All right. I can read between the lines. If you had to go, you had to go. Are you safe now?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a good place to stay and I’m back in school. So can I use you as a reference?”

“Yes, you can. I’d recommend you to Hank, but we’re not hiring right now.”

“Yeah, I figured, most places aren’t. Thanks.”

Then I used Meredith’s computer and worked on job applications for a while, finishing up all the entry-level positions I’d found in town and venturing into openings over toward Catesville or Reidsville, which might be difficult to get to at times. My mind wasn’t fully on it, though; I was on pins and needles, wondering when my mom would get there and what we would say to each other. After I finished up with the job applications, I checked my email and saw a message from Nathan. “I’ve got you fixed up with a phone plan — a thousand texts and a thousand minutes of phone time, and 3GB of data a month. Should last you pretty well if you’re mostly using the Ramseys’ wifi or the school wifi, I reckon. Call this number from another phone and give them your phone’s SIM card number and so forth, and they’ll activate your phone. Then call me sometime...” He gave me the company’s customer service number and his schedule, and I made a note to call the customer service people the next day after school, or maybe during lunch if I could borrow someone’s phone to make the call.

It wasn’t quite six yet when the doorbell rang. I got up and went into the living room; Mrs. Ramsey was already opening the door. It was Mom.

“Mom!” I cried, and ran toward her. Mrs. Ramsey stepped back to let Mom in, and we hugged. Mrs. Ramsey patiently stood there holding the door until we got out of the way so she could close it.

“Supper’s about ready,” Mrs. Ramsey said, “if you want to eat with us, or you could talk privately with Lauren in our bedroom.”

“I can’t stay that long,” Mom said. “I need to be home in a little over half an hour.”

Sophia came in from the kitchen, drying her ceramic hands. “Hi, Mrs. Wallace.” Mom stared at her in astonishment.

“Sophia’s done a long-term venn like me,” I said. “She’s an animate doll.”

“It lets me do a lot more without getting tired, and I need a lot less sleep,” Sophia said. “I’ve been like this most of the time since the school year began.”

“She doesn’t eat, but she still does her share of the cooking and cleaning,” Mrs. Ramsey said proudly.

“Oh,” Mom said, still gaping for a moment after that, then turned back to me and Mom. “I don’t want to be impolite — I would like to talk with you more sometime, Erin — but I’d like to speak with my — daughter — alone for now. Thank you for the offer. Uh, remind me where your bedroom is?”

“This way,” I said, and led the way to Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey’s bedroom, which she’d apparently cleaned up for the occasion. It wasn’t always that tidy. (I’d never gone inside, but I’d passed by when the door was open, and there were usually some clothes draped over chairs and doorknobs, half-open drawers overstuffed with clothes, and so forth.) Mom closed the door behind us, and I sat down on the edge of the bed. She sat beside me and hugged me again.

“Oh, sweetie, I missed you so much. I don’t want to waste our little half hour with recriminations, but I just don’t understand why. Why you went away. Why you need to be a girl.”

“Did you look up the things I suggested?” I asked. “After you got my letter, or after we met Thursday?”

“I did,” she said. “Friday during a break at work, I found what you were talking about, an old news story about people torturing gay boys with electric shocks... but that was over a decade ago in another state. What I mostly found was just counselors trying to help people overcome temptations. And some people saying it doesn’t work, but...”

“Mom, being a girl is just part of who I am. It’s not a temptation like gossip or stealing.”

“I’m trying to understand. I just — you seem happier like this. More alive. But it just doesn’t click in my brain, how you can be the boy I raised and also a girl.”

“Do you remember when I was little and put on one of Courtney’s dresses?”

She stared at me for a moment. “...Yes. You mean you’ve wanted to be a girl that long? I thought — I thought you were just too young to understand you shouldn’t — that boys and girls were different.”

“I don’t know how old I was, you would remember that better than me, but I remember it well enough that I was probably old enough to notice that boys and girls were treated different and wore different clothes. I probably didn’t know about the, uh, plumbing until later, I guess. But — I don’t know. I don’t remember everything about that day, not all the details of what I was thinking, but I remember being happy when I looked at myself in the mirror wearing the dress, and sad when you took it away. I think I probably suppressed that for a long time afterward, because I don’t remember anything more like that until after Meredith came out and it started me thinking about this.”

I told her some more about how I’d figured out I was trans, and then how I’d started occasionally meeting up with Meredith and Sophia to venn into girl bodies for a little while. I didn’t go into detail about the more unusual bodies I’d venned into, though I did tell her about being a dragon-girl sometimes.

I had just started telling her about how Tim had confronted me coming out of the Venn machine that day when an alarm on her phone went off.

“Oh,” she said, dismayed. “I need to run. I love you, sweetie. And there’s so much we haven’t talked about... but I’ve got to go.” She was already standing up and moving toward the door.

“I love you, Mom. I’d like to get together again soon. Or talk on the phone — Nathan’s getting me a phone plan.”

“Oh, good.”

We walked out of the bedroom and toward the living/dining room. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey were sitting on the sofa, eating off of trays and watching the local news on a Greensboro station.

“I’m sorry I have to run like this,” Mom said. “Don’t get up,” she added as Mrs. Ramsey started to set her tray aside. “I need to get home soon. Let’s talk — we could eat lunch later in the week, like you suggested.”

“Talk to you later,” Mrs. Ramsey said, getting up and coming to the door with us despite Mom’s protests. Mom and I hugged again, she walked out, and I stood there staring at the closed door for a few moments, mulling over our too-brief visit.

“How did it go?”

“Better than I expected. She still doesn’t get being trans, but she’s trying to understand, unlike Dad.”

“Good. We had a brief conversation about it earlier today; she asked me some questions about being the mother of a trans girl, about how I dealt with it when Meredith came out... I won’t go into details, but she loves you, Lauren. Be patient with her.”

“I will.”

My fantasy romance/courtroom drama, The Bailiff and the Mermaid, is available from Smashwords in epub format and Amazon in Kindle format. (Smashwords pays its authors better and more promptly than Amazon.)

You can find my other ebook novels and short fiction collection here: