Britt and I went on a couple of dates that month, taking Desiree with us and snuggling with her. On one of those dates, we went to the mall in Catesville, venned into little girls, and played on the playground until closing time. We didn’t run into Melinda and Melanie that time, but we played tag with a couple of little girls and then chatted with them after we got tired of chasing each other around the playground, up the stairs and through the tunnels and down the slides.

I had continued hearing back from colleges, loans, and scholarships I’d applied to, and things weren’t looking great. I’d been accepted to NC State and UNC Greensboro, but turned down for UNC Chapel Hill. And I’d gotten rejected for almost every scholarship and grant I’d applied for, except a couple of small ones. So it looked like, unless I decided to go locally to Mynatt Community College — and the Ramseys were okay with me continuing to live with them for a good chunk of my college career — I’d have to rely mostly on loans. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey helped me look over the loan offers I’d gotten and said it looked like they were going to charge me more interest than Meredith or Caleb, probably because I was on my own without my parents’ support. But I didn’t have much choice unless I wanted to put my college plans on hold for years while I worked and built up my savings and my credit rating. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to bite the bullet and start finalizing plans to go to East Carolina next fall.

I’d gotten pretty good tips working as a two-headed creature with sheep and wolf heads, so a few days later I tried having Sophia venn me into a two-headed dragon with long, sinuous necks like a goose or swan (or apatosaurus, Sophia commented). It didn’t take as long this time to get the hang of speaking with different voices from the different mouths, and I got up a patter between the two heads, with one recommending this special and the other recommending that one. The tips were better than usual, though not quite as good as they’d been the previous Furry Friday. I started using two-headed forms two or three times a week for a while — not every day, because keeping up the comedy routine and remembering to always talk with the right accent with the right head was kind of stressful, although fun when I had the energy for it.

Britt and I went on a couple of dates that month, taking Desiree with us and snuggling with her. On one of those dates, we went to the mall in Catesville, venned into little girls, and played on the playground until closing time. We didn’t run into Melinda and Melanie that time, but we played tag with a couple of little girls and then chatted with them after we got tired of chasing each other around the playground, up the stairs and through the tunnels and down the slides.

“So what do you do when you’re not being little and playing tag?” one of the girls asked, the one with long red hair. “Or a plushie?” she added to Desiree.

“I’m working for my dad’s car repair business,” Britt said.

“I’m waiting tables. And studying. I’m saving money for college,” I added.

“I snuggle with my girlfriend at night and watch anime all day,” Desiree said with a giggle. She was exaggerating; she only watched anime when Bianca wasn’t using her laptop for something else.

“Ah, the easy life of a stuffed animal,” the other girl said, the one with short blue hair and cat ears. “I remember watching Speed Racer when it was first on American TV back when I was a kid. I thought it was the niftiest cartoon ever. I didn’t get a chance to watch much other anime until a lot later, after I retired from running a business.”

“And now you’re running another one, silly,” the red-haired girl said. “Instead of enjoying your retirement.”

“it’s not the same,” the cat-eared girl rejoined. “I bought an existing business and I’m making it more successful. It’s nowhere near as much work as starting a new business from scratch. But I couldn’t just sit around and watch TV with the Venn machine giving me a second chance at life.”

“He had to retire early because of heart trouble,” the red-haired girl said. “We sold the restaurants and took it easy for a decade or so until the Venn machines came along.”

“What restaurants?” I asked.

“Masquerade,” the cat-eared girl said. “Three fine dining places in the suburbs of Raleigh.”

“Ms. Paget!?” I exclaimed.

I’d never gotten to know Ms. Paget personally, but I’d heard a few things about her from my co-workers, and one thing I knew was that she used to run a chain of restaurants in the Raleigh area. I’d only heard the name of those restaurants once and forgotten it, but hearing it again, I recognized it.

“I see my fame precedes me,” Ms. Paget said. “Where do I know you from?”

“I’m Lauren Wallace.”

“Oh, Lauren! It’s great to meet you here.” To the other little girl — her wife, I was pretty sure — she added: “She’s one of my waitresses — dragon, really hard worker.” I blushed.

“Did this just get awkward?” the other Ms. Paget asked. “How about some more — tag! You’re it.” She tagged her husband and scurried up the ladder of the fort, giggling. Britt and I jumped up, Britt with Desiree under her arm, and ran in different directions. My boss chased after her wife, and we played tag for another twenty minutes before we sat down to talk again. By that time any awkwardness was pretty much gone; we were just a couple and a polycule on a double date, one of them forty years older than the other.

* * *

The next time I talked on the phone with Jada, we talked about when she’d be coming home, and decided the best time would be the weekend after my Lydia self merged with me. Four or five days after merging those memories, I hoped I’d be ready to split again and go back to college with her as Lydia.

The Friday after Steph asked me (Lydia) if she could pet me, Britt picked me (dragon-girl Lauren) up after work and took me to the dirt track on Lehigh Road. Poppy and Lisette were already there, Britt having venned Lisette and taken her and Poppy out there a while earlier. When Britt and I arrived, there were several tweens and young teens driving around the track in go-karts. A couple of the go-karts looked weird, sleek and off-kilter in the way of venned machines. Poppy was standing off to the side, next to a purplish-grey motorcycle with the same off-kilter look, looking on.

“Hey, girls,” Britt said as we approached. “You gotten any more time in since I left?”

“No, we’re coming up next,” Poppy said. Lisette whistled and beeped like R2-D2.

“Cool. Nice venn, Lisette.”

Poppy, Lisette and Britt had been coming to the track whenever they could align all their schedules for the past few months, but this was the first time I’d managed to come join them. On the drive over, Britt had told me in her laconic way that they’d taken turns being the motorcycle and were starting to get pretty decent at driving each other. She’d refined their venned forms, too, so Lisette could see and hear through cameras and microphones. And she could talk, but her voice sounded mechanical and she preferred to save it for conveying detailed information, whistling like a droid when a phatic expression of interest was all that was needed.

“So Britt was telling me about the troubles y’all have been having getting permission to drive each other on regular roads?”

“Yeah, apparently it’s illegal to drive a person venned into a vehicle on public roads. Not because there’s specific laws against vehicle venns, at least in most states, but because somebody like Lisette doesn’t have a fucking speedometer. You can venn someone with a speedometer, but it won’t be labeled with any readable units or numbers. Lisette can talk and tell me how fast she thinks we’re going, but it’s just a guess, she doesn’t know much better than I do. But by the time we found that out, we’d started having so much fun cycling that we didn’t want to quit.” Lisette chirped in agreement. “So we’re still figuring out how and when we’re gonna do our trip. We’re leaning toward just walking. Giving our road trip bodies really great stamina and something like a camel’s hump so we can go a long way without eating or drinking. And tolerance for a wide range of temperatures, and so forth.”

“So basically a cameltaur?”

“Hopefully less silly-looking, but maybe. We’ve been tinkering with the forms we’re gonna use.”

“What about animate dolls, like the form Meredith’s sister wears? You don’t need to eat or drink, and you don’t sweat or suffer from the cold or heat.”

Poppy looked at Lisette, who chirped doubtfully. “Can’t fuck, either, but I guess we could venn each other into meat bodies when we feel like it. That’s a good idea, thanks.”

The go-kart race came to an end and someone announced the results. Then Poppy straddled Lisette and rode her to the starting line, along with several other people on motorcycles and dirt bikes of various kinds, some of them apparently venned. Britt and I watched the next race, and another one later on that Poppy and Lisette participated in, and then just after sunset we loaded Lisette onto the bed of Britt’s dad’s truck and headed off.

“You want to get a ride home with Lisette or with me?” Britt asked Poppy as she and I squeezed into the front seat.

“I better go straight home,” Poppy said, checking her texts. “My mom’s getting... you know how she gets.”

I didn’t, but Britt apparently did. We went down Lehigh Road to Reidsville Road, past the Taco Bell where Poppy worked and the Dollar Tree where Sophia used to work, and then turned off onto a side road that led to a trailer park. Poppy lived near the back of the park in a single-wide trailer. In the rearview mirror, I saw Poppy lean over and pat Lisette’s flank before walking up to the door and letting herself in.

We went by the library next. While we were waiting in line for Britt to venn Lisette into her everyday body, her phone rang: caller ID said it was Jada.

“Hey, Jada,” she said. “No mushy stuff just yet, I’ve got you on speakerphone so Lauren can hear, and Lisette’s here too, plus some strangers.”

“Hi, Jada,” I said, and Lisette whistled and beeped.

“Hey, everybody. I’ve got Lydia here, she wants to ask you a question — both of you, Britt and Lauren. Probably better turn off speakerphone, though.”

“Okay,” Britt said, tapping an icon and handing the phone to me.

“Hey, Lydia,” I said, feeling self-conscious. I hadn’t interacted with my other self while split for some time now, not since the date when Jada and I had split into tiny and big selves. And I’d never had a phone conversation with my other self.

“Hey, Lauren. I’m pretty sure I already know the answer to this, because I diverged from you just a few weeks ago, but would you be okay with Jada’s roommate Steph petting me? Maybe snuggling me in her lap or something? Assuming Britt is okay with it, I mean. I already asked Jada and she said it was cool with her.”

I was floored. I’d been a life-size doll not too long ago, but I hadn’t been a statuette for several months, and I’d never been a plushie, still less a plushie divided from my organic self’s mind. I wasn’t prepared for how differently plushie-me would think. “Uh, I guess? I don’t — I mean, you and Jada decided it was okay to trust her and tell her you’re venned, so she must be all right, but I don’t know her and you do.”

“Okay. Could you hand the phone to Britt?”

I did. She listened and laconically said, “Sure, she sounds like a nice girl.” Silence for a few moments. Then “Yeah, that’d be nice. We’ll see if it suits... Okay, bye, honey.”

Lisette chirped inquisitively. (I don’t know how she made the chirp sound inquisitive. You try listening to her and see if you can analyze it.)

“I think our polycule just got bigger,” Britt said.

Lisette chirped in approval. I just stood there, being gobsmacked. Britt noticed my gobsmackedness and gave me a hug.

The ladies who’d been taking so long inside the Venn machine finished up and emerged. Much cry and little wool, as my grandma Wallace would say; they’d been in there at least ten minutes and all they’d done was make each other prettier? Britt rolled Lisette into the booth, tilting her up so she was leaning against the wall nearly vertically. (Lisette was much lighter than a normal motorcycle, but she was still heavy enough that I couldn’t have done that. Britt’s everyday body was really strong.) Just before she stepped into the booth, I stuck one foot in the door while keeping the rest of me outside, and stayed like that until Britt had Lisette situated. That way the door wouldn’t close on both of them and require them to cancel both venns and get re-venned individually. Once Britt got her situated, she stepped out of the booth and went into the other booth to venn Lisette into her everyday form.

Once they came out, Lisette said goodnight and congratulated us on our new girlfriend. I was sufficiently recovered to say, “I’m not sure if she’s our girlfriend, exactly. I’ll let you know when Lydia merges with me and I get her memories.”

“Just you wait,” Lisette said with a knowing nod. “In another year, you’ll be dating half the sapphists in North Carolina. You can’t have Poppy, though.”

Britt laughed and I chuckled nervously.

Lisette drove her car home from there and Britt dropped me off at the Ramseys’ house. We hugged before I got out of the car, and I said a distracted hi to Sophia, Bianca, and Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey as I joined them for supper.

The third book in the Launuru and Kazmina series, Like Bees in Springtime, is available for free in epub format from Smashwords and for $0.99 in Kindle format from Amazon. Amazon didn’t allow me to set the price to zero, but a commenter says there's a way to do so, so I'll keep trying. I’ve also reduced the price of the first two books in the series, Wine Can’t be Pressed Into Grapes and When Wasps Make Honey, and the spin-off in the same setting with different characters, A Notional Treason, to zero on Smashwords and $0.99 on Kindle.

I’ve been charging money for this series for a decade, and made some decent pocket change off of it, but as my understanding of gender and sexuality has matured in recent years, I’ve felt vaguely guilty about making money (however small the amounts) off of a book or books that I no longer feel quite right about. There is a lot to like about the first two books in the series, but the first one in particular has enough compulsory heterosexuality and gender essentialism baked into the plot and worldbuilding that I don’t really want to charge money for it anymore. I considered taking down the first two books and leaving the third unpublished, but finally decided that enough people liked the first two that I’d keep them available, while editing the last one to match my current understanding of gender better, and finally releasing it.

You can find my ebook novels and short fiction collections here: