Guest Post: Legion and Lover (6/6)

by Seuzz

The prickle of cool air on his face brought Vincent back into full consciousness. But he kept his eyes closed even after the towel had come off. "You get rid of those nurses," he murmured.

"It's just us," said the technician.

"'Cos this is off the books, you know."

"I know. And I'm erasing the data the moment you're out. No one will know it's you under your new face."

"Good. You hear from my man Trevon?"

"He'll pick you up at four."

"We'll be done by then?"

"It's not yet midnight now."

"Mm. I thought I drifted off longer than that. How's everything look below the neck?"

"Good. Are you ready for me to start working on your face?"

Vincent only smiled in reply, and smiled more widely at the dabs of alcohol to his jaw, chin and temple. Even the needles -- usually the part that bothered him -- prickled with promise.

Guest Post: Legion and Lover (5/6)

by Seuzz

"Ryan? Baby?" Vincent stood in the living room and called. "I got back from Toronto early, and I don't gotta go back in for a new sculpt until -- " He padded through the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom. "Honey? My man here -- " He slapped his chest proudly. "Played college football, kept in shape. Hung like a -- "

He broke off. The house was empty. Empty? It felt abandoned. Sterile beneath the faded floral scents.

Floral scents. Vincent tried to do what Tito had once suggested he do: Try to think more than three steps ahead.

The service came on Mondays, and this was Friday. Ryan was constitutionally incapable of not reducing a house to a pig sty in the space of four days. Ergo, he was out of town or at least on vacation from the house. But he had left no message for Vincent on where to find him. Ergo, Ryan was expecting to be back home before Vincent was scheduled to get back on Sunday. Ergo, Ryan was taking a vacation that he expected Vincent would not notice, and probably would not want his boyfriend noticing he had taken.

An ache opened up in Vincent's chest. His legs turned numb from the knees down as he went into the bedroom and began to methodically search the dressers, bureaus, and closets. The terrible thing was that even if he found nothing, that wouldn't prove a negative. But if he did find what he was afraid of finding --

And he found it. A box of condoms, something he and Ryan had never had in the house.

Worse, it was almost empty.

Guest Post: Legion and Lover (4/6)

by Seuzz

Vincent thought his heart was about to crack. But with one last effort, he and Tito lofted the improvised body bag and its contents into the dumpster, where it landed with a resounding boom. "Jesus, that was one heavy mofo. You gonna tell me now how you managed to piss him off?"

"I didn't," Tito said, and bent over to rest his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. "He's my retirement package."

"Say what?"

"Yeah." Tito straightened up. Even in the early morning dark, in an unlit alley, Vincent could see the streaks of sweat on Tito's face. "That's my new face in there. My permanent one. His data file's waiting for me back at -- "

"That fuckin' ni -- ?  Tito." Vincent seized the hair at the top of his friend's head. "You're brown, but you ain't brown enough to pass for one of my peeps."

Tito slapped him away. "You don't listen closely, do you? I told you that sculpting into another race is hard. I didn't say it was impossible. That kind of radical sculpt is for one-time shots only, like final sculpts." Tito panted a couple of times. "So you understand what I'm saying, right?"

"That you got a bad result on your last test. I'm sorry, man."

"Don't be." Tito jerked his chin at the rusted-out dumpster. "I've been jonesing after that mofo's girl for a coupla years now, been hoping for a positive test so I could retire into her bed."

"Jesus. But now my question is, if this is Company business, why didn't you get a disposal team to handle this job? Why'd you call me out when I'm supposed to be on vacation?"

"Are you pissed at me?"

"No. I just want to know -- "

"But Ryan was pissed when you left to meet me, wasn't he? Oh, I bet he was, I bet he went into a sulk the minute you -- "

"Oh, fuck you, that isn't any of your business."

"I know it's not my business, I'm just saying. Christ, Vincent, I know he's adorable, but you spoil him, and you know it. I bet everyone he sleeps with spoils him."

Guest Post: Legion and Lover (3/6)

by Seuzz

Vincent knocked patiently at the bathroom door. "Ryan? Please open the door. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

He heard a blast of water in the sink, and guessed that Ryan was either washing his face or trying to cover the sound of his crying. "If you'll give me a chance," Vincent said, "I'll make everything okay. We'll cuddle and I'll stroke away all the -- "

The water shut off. "If you're sorry, you'll take back what you said!"

"I take it back, Ryan," Vincent said patiently.

"All of it?"

"All of it, sweetheart. Every word. Only -- "

Vincent rested his forehead on the door. How did Ryan manage to do it? How did he manage to get himself in the right and Vincent in the wrong even when it was so obviously the other way around?

He got the answer when the door opened and he lifted his head. Ryan stared at him from eyes brimming with tears. Vincent felt his heart crack.

Ryan had always had doe-like eyes. There was nothing special about their color -- brown with a hint of hazel -- but they were large and glistened every day with the laughing, innocent malice of a child. His chestnut hair drooped in a way that begged to pushed back, and held back lest it droop again. His skin was soft and smooth, unflawed by any blemish. The lips were never still -- always trembling on the edge of a smile or laugh -- and always flushed with excitement.

Vincent knew that it actually took a lot of work to keep Ryan looking like a very wise fifteen-year-old boy. The shampoos and conditioners, the moisturizers, the razors and tweezers, and more bottles and tubes and instruments that baffled Vincent. Sometimes he thought the technicians at the Company's Plastics division didn't have as many tools as Ryan, for he had the rest of his body to take care of too, right down to the cuticles of his toes.

Vincent put his hand to Ryan's cheek, and with his thumb wiped away a trickling tear. "I take it all back. I'm sorry. I was only surprised -- "

Guest Post: Legion and Lover (2/6)

by Seuzz

Vincent studied himself in the mirror as he slowly pushed the dreadlocks out of his face, and admired the way his bicep bulged as he did so. He had never looked -- had never been, and certainly had never felt -- so powerful. The red muscle shirt could barely contain his pectoral muscles, and he was giving himself a clear erection inside his sweatpants as he scoped himself out. He had worked around guys like this, back when he ran on the streets for Cesar's gang, but he'd never imagined he could have the same look and build as them. "Can I keep it," he murmured.

"Sure," said Tito, his immediate superior -- and who had also during the intervening months of physical preparation for this first plastic transformation become his non-romantic best friend. He slapped Vincent on the back. "DeShawn's not spoken for."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. He's not a real face, not a real body. Didn't they explain that to you? Jesus, everyone thinks everything's a secret in the Company." Tito rolled his eyes. "DeShawn's a composite, so you can take him with you when you quit, if you want. You will, probably, if not DeShawn then someone else."

"No, I didn't know that."

"Oh yeah. A new look and life, compliments of the Company, assuming you make it to retirement. And as long as it's a composite, of course. We'll probably have lots of them on file for you to choose from, though, by the time you're ready to go out to pasture."

"Why a composite for this job?" Vincent asked. "Why not someone the target knows and trusts?"

"Because a composite's better in this case.  DeShawn's a composite of all the men your target has dated over the last ten months. So this Friday, if she's at her usual club, you should have no trouble picking her up and getting her to the rendezvous point. Cynthia will take it from there, of course."

Vincent cocked his head. "So she likes her men like she likes her coffee, huh? And do I gotta be 'DeShawn' or can I pick some other name?"

"You can give out any fake name you want. Do you give out your real name when picking someone up?"

Guest Post: Legion and Lover (1/6)

by Seuzz

"Turn," said the technician, and pressed her fingertip against Vincent's chin. He shifted his head fractionally to the right. "Look up. You don't have to open your eyes," she added in an amused tone.

"Thanks," Vincent murmured. "I wasn't planning to."

"Does the mirror bother you?"

"No. The face does."

He thought she'd say It's a nice face, but instead she said, "We can cover it."

"The face?"

"No, the mirror, smartass. It's for your benefit, not mine. I can see you just fine."

Vincent smiled faintly, though it probably wasn't visible through his thick beard. Then the smile turned into a snarl of pain as a sheet of fire engulfed his scalp. "Just so you know," he told her in a tight voice, "the nerves weren't dead. Only mostly dead."

"Sorry." She rubbed her hand -- encased in a latex glove -- over the smooth dome where, only moments before, Vincent had sported a close-cropped afro. "Want some cream on it?"

"Just give it a minute and I'm sure the anesthetic will kick in. It didn't hurt, I just felt it come off," he lied as his scalp screamed.

"The Changeling" – Guest Post by Seuzz

"Sometimes he looks like my father," the boy said. His tone was placid and matter-of-fact, and he didn't raise his eyes from the paper that he was coloring. "Sometimes he looks like my brother." He chose another color. "He fixes my breakfast and lunch, and he cleans the house when no one else is at home."

His teacher twisted her neck to look at the drawing. It was a picture of a house, with a dog and a child playing in front of it. "Does he ever look like anyone else," she gently asked.

The child shook his head, then frowned. "One time he looked like another man. In the park."

"What was he doing in the park?" She glanced up at the school psychiatrist, who was listening intently, but who had not spoken up to this point.

"I don't know. He just was." The boy started drawing a tree. "I was on the swings. Another boy pushed me off. He came over and told the boy to leave me alone. Then he told me who he was, and that I should probably go home because supper would be ready in an hour."

"Was there anyone else there when he told you this?"

The boy shrugged, then said "I don't remember."

"What do your father and brother say about him?"

The boy looked up, puzzled. "They're not there. Except when he's being them."

"Is he both of them at the same time?"

"I don't know." The boy began to sound irritated. "It's just him and me there, mostly. Except when he's gone."

"Where does he go?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think he would talk to me?" Todd shrugged. "If I came out to visit your house, would he be there?"

"Sure, I guess."

"Who would he look like?"

"I don't know." Todd sounded very tired and put the crayons down.

"Does he have a name?" the teacher asked. The psychiatrist blinked, and smiled encouragingly at her.

"Daryl," the boy replied matter-of-factly.

* * * * *

"Oh, I know all about Daryl," Theodore Emmett said with a smile. "I don't think Todd has any secrets from me. I don't have any from him, either. Except, of course, the ones that no one tells an eight-year-old boy."

Dr. Lloyd Tollefson smiled in reply. "How long has Todd been ... ah ... acquainted with Daryl?"

Emmett scratched his nose. "About nine months, I guess. Yeah, it was around Christmas time."

"How did you find out about Daryl?"

"Todd asked me one day if I was Daryl. I asked who Daryl was, and he said that Daryl was his friend. I said that I was his friend, so that must mean that I was Daryl."

"A clever reply," the psychiatrist said. He glanced around the living room, which was mostly clean though certainly disordered from ordinary living. The apartment was very small, and the sounds of other tenants leaked in easily through the thin walls. "Your other son is also sometimes Daryl?"

"I suppose so. Yes, he is, now that I think about it. Sometimes Todd tells me that Daryl was Greg that afternoon."

"What does Greg think of this?"

"I guess he tolerates it. I've told him that Daryl is Todd's friend, and that when it is his turn to be Daryl that he has to be nice to Todd."

"Is he ever not nice to Todd?"

"I've never heard them seriously quarrel, so I think it's easy for Greg to be Daryl."

"What does your wife think of this?"

Emmett's smile faded. "My wife is dead," he said. "We separated because I had been drinking too much. Then she was in a car accident. It's a hell of thing if that's what it takes to get you to sober up."

"I'm sorry," Dr. Tollefson said. There was an awkward moment, which the psychiatrist chose to fill by returning to the main topic. "Do you know that other people are sometimes Daryl?"

Emmett's mouth tightened. "I know it has sometimes happened," he says. "Todd has told me that Daryl has spoken to him outside of the house—"

"When he looks like other people."

"Yes. I've asked, and it has turned out it was strangers being helpful to my son. I've told him that it was very nice of Daryl to help him, but that not everyone he meets is Daryl, and that he should wait for Daryl to tell him who he is before he trusts them."

"It's still a dangerous delusion."

"I've been quite emphatic," Emmett replied firmly.

"That's not exactly what I meant," Dr. Tollefson said, rising with a sigh. "It's a most interesting friend your son has, but it doesn't strike me as a very healthy delusion."

"Maybe it's not a delusion," Emmett snapped. "Maybe it's an angel, someone watching over Todd and protecting him by taking possession of people."

"You don't believe that," Dr. Tollefson said. "You certainly don't believe that you are being possessed by an angel." They held each other's eyes for a moment before Emmett relaxed.

"No, I don't," he admitted. "But our lives have been much nicer since Daryl came along."

Dr. Tollefson bit the inside of his cheek, and then ventured onto the dangerous ground. "You almost lost custody of your children, over alcohol abuse, and not that long ago," he said softly.

He expected an outburst, but Emmett just smiled sadly. "I know. Just before my wife died. Greg had run away to live with her, even. I was a mess." He sighed. "But then he came back after she died. Maybe Daryl came with him, because that's when I got my ... got my stuff together." He smiled again. "You see? I don't even cuss anymore."

"I like you, Mr. Emmett," said Dr. Tollefson. "Certainly I want to believe you. But for the sake of your son's long-term health ..." He trailed off. "As I said, I like you, and because I like you I'm going to confess that this matter won't end with this interview."

"Whatever you have to do, doctor ... What did you say your name was again?" Tollefson repeated it. "Whatever you have to do, Dr. Tollefson."

The men shook hands and parted.

On his way home, Dr. Tollefson turned over in his head the most intriguing bit of information, that "Daryl" had appeared about the time that the teenage son had returned home. He genuinely liked Emmett, and didn't want to share his dark suspicion about the other son until he'd had a chance to look into certain juvenile records.

For his part, Emmett stood thoughtfully in the living room for a spell, then retreated to the dining nook to look up some records himself on the internet. Then he repaired to the bedroom, where he spent the rest of the evening preparing a batch of injections. The chemicals were expensive, but he had satchels and satchels of stolen money hidden behind a fake panel he'd installed in the closet.

* * * * *

"There's nothing to the matter," Dr. Tollefson told Mrs. Roberts a few days later. "Forget what I told you last Friday. I've already told social services they can delete the file I asked them to set up."

"But this imaginary friend," she said. She glanced over at Todd, who was reading to himself in the corner of the classroom.

"Just an imaginary friend," the doctor replied. "Didn't you have one when you were small?"

She seemed uneasy, but he was a professional. "Can I talk to you about it later?"

"There's nothing to talk about," he said brusquely. "Besides, I'm going on vacation tomorrow." She looked startled. "Mad, sudden trip, all the way to Argentina," he said. "Just got the bug, all of a sudden." He smiled. "Maybe I won't even come back." She congratulated him and left him alone, as she went out to watch the children on the playground.

Dr. Tollefson went over to Todd and knelt down by the desk. "Do you know who I am," he asked the boy. Todd shrugged. "I always tell you where I am," Dr. Tollefson said. "Right? Just for today, I'm Daryl." Todd's eyes widened, then he smiled.

Dr. Tollefson stroked his hair gently. "I always tell you the truth, Todd," he said soothingly. "Some day, I'll tell you more of it. But always remember, I'm your friend.

"And I will never ... never ... let anyone hurt you in any way."

That promise made, he left for his office. On the way he rubbed his forearm. It showed no marks, but beneath that skin was another, and the badly healed burn marks left by a drunken, rarely ceased to trouble Gregory Daryl Emmett.

The Pet, Part 1

By Seuzz

"Hey Jan," Michael said, bounding up beside the other student and clapping him on the shoulder.

"John," the boy corrected him. He gave Michael a narrow look.

Michael blinked. "I can never tell the two of you apart," he muttered.

"No one can," John said, relaxing a little. "You could look at my clothes, though." He plucked at his basketball jersey. "I'm the one who goes out for sports," he said loftily.

"If you two are identical, how come--"

"Jan just doesn't go for team activities. We play ball all the time at home, though." He and Michael continued walking along the covered portico in front of the high school, then turned past the band/orchestra room. "I bet he could kick your ass."

"I'd like to see him try," Michael laughed. "You should invite me over. Hey Kathleen."

"Losers." The two boys had to stop--less because they wanted to ogle the head cheerleader than because she had stepped right into their path and was imperiously shaking out her hair and adjusting her skirt before moving on. They turned to watch her go.

Michael nudged John. "You should invite her over to your house sometime."

"She'd kick my ass and then wouldn't show up," John sighed.

"Well, I'd show up if you asked me, though I'd punch you if you tried kissing me, you pussy gay-ass faggot!"

John flinched in surprise, but relaxed again at Michael's friendly grin. "Why are you here so late after school?" he asked cautiously.

"Detention. You know how it is." He swung his arm around and rubbed his shoulder. "Zelezny frowns on vigilante violence, but it's the only way to keep the plebes in line."

"I thought maybe you had football practice."

"Not today. Where you off to now?"

They'd come to the bike racks, and John was unlocking his. "Home. Eventually." He hiked his backpack up further onto his shoulders. "Probably just ride around a bit first."

"Well, I'll see you later," Michael said, and rubbed his nose with the heel of his hand.

John smiled weakly, then mounted his bike and pedaled away. He resisted the urge to glance back.

* * * * *

"Hey boy, I'm happy to see you too!" John exclaimed as he dropped the bike in front of the side gate. "Are you excited to see me? Are you?"

The golden retriever leaped at the fence, barking joyfully. John pushed through the gate and let the dog plant its paws on his shoulders, and he rubbed its ears and neck lovingly. "Did they feed you yet?" The dog barked again. "They didn't? What's wrong with them?" The dog bounded along happily beside him as he crossed to the plastic bin that held the dog food. From it he scooped two cups of feed into the dirty bowl, and Landru--named for the benevolent, omnipresent deity in an old science-fiction show--gobbled it down, seeming to forget its benefactor.

John passed into the house. "I'm home! Mom? Jan?" No one answered, but he wasn't surprised. He passed through the living room and into the back part of the house, to dump his backpack onto one of the beds in the room he shared with his twin brother. He opened the laptop and checked his email. There was one from his dad with the subject line "Do you need $$$?" He quickly deleted it unread, as he did with almost all his father's emails.

"Yo! You home yet?" a voice called faintly from the front of the house.

"I'm back here!"

Running footsteps heralded the arrival of Jan, who bounded into the room and leaped onto his own bed. "You didn't clean up after yourself this morning," he said smugly. "Mom is so going to yell at you."

"I'll tell her it was your fault."

"Oh, she knows whose fault it is," Jan gloated. "I told her." He laughed as John flipped him off.

They were both sixteen, and as Michael had intimated, identical in everything but their wardrobes: sun-bleached hair, rosy cheeks, eyes that twinkled and lips that curled with mischief and happiness. Both were lanky, with big wrists and elbows and hands and knees and feet, and both were thin like bows taut with latent energy ready to spring out. Jan drummed his hands on the bed. "So how was practice?"

"'s okay," John shrugged. "I ran into Michael Stroud afterward."

"Yeah? Your nose isn't caved in."

"He was actually nice to me."

"Pfft. Freak is bipolar. So what are we gonna do? Xbox?"

"I thought I'd take Landru for a run."

"Didn't you get enough running at practice? I wanna shoot guys."

"Where were you?" John asked, and a peevishness leaped into his voice "No one fed him."

"Who, Landru? That's your job. You're the one who wanted a dog."

"And when we got him, you did too. Don't you like Landru?"

"I love Landru. But I wasn't the one stupid enough to say 'Please mom, if we get a dog I'll feed him every day'!" Jan grinned.

"Well, you stay and fire up the Xbox. Get the first few levels cleared," John replied. "I'm taking Landru over to the field. After I take a long shit," he added.

* * * * *

Landru bounded and ran and sniffed and barked and chased after the croquet ball John had brought with him. He started at one point to run into the pond, but a sharp word from the teenager brought him back. After a good thirty minutes John said "Home, boy," and the dog ran off while his master followed at a much slower pace.

His mom was back by the time he arrived. "Set the table," she said from the kitchen as he walked past.

"Hi mom," he replied, stepping back to stand in the door frame.

"Hi honey. Set the table?"

He looked around. "Are we all eating together tonight?"

She looked up from the pot she'd set on the stove. "Don't you want to eat with your mother?" she said with the gravity of a woman who knows she is making her son feel guilty, and hating herself for it, but is unable to stop herself. When John winced, she relented with a sigh. "You boys can eat in your room again. Like always."

"Mom, if you want us to--"

"No, it's alright. I have some work I have to do anyway."

"Where's Jan?"

"I sent him to the store. How's Landru?"

"Exhausted. My brother will forget stuff, you know."

She gave him a look. "You wanna chase after him, hold his hand?"

"It'll piss him off," John grinned.

"Don't use bad words, sweetheart. He's got the list. But here--" She jotted on a slip of paper as the water heated. "You have money?"

"Enough for these things," John replied as he glanced at the list, and dashed out the door.

* * * * *

John was in the middle of his homework when he felt eyeballs on the back of his head. He looked around to find Jan in the doorway, frowning at him. "Are you pissed at me?" his twin asked.

"Don't use bad words," John replied.

"Fuck you," Jan retorted, then glanced worriedly over his shoulder. "Are you pissed at me?"

"Why would I be pissed at you?"

"Because you went to the wrong store and couldn't find me?"

"No, it's not that." John turned back to his homework, pencil poised thoughtfully over the paper. But when he turned back, it was with a seeming change of subject. "We should invite Michael Stroud over for some ball."

Jan's eyes widened. "Are you--" Again, he glanced over his shoulder. "Are you fucking nuts?"

"We can take him, the two of us. He doesn't do hoops. You can even be on his team. I'll still win." He smiled faintly. "Won't that be sweet?"

"He won't take us up on it."

"It was his idea."

"He won't remember. I told you, he's a freak, all mental." Jan waved his hands around his head. "And if you ask him, he'll try punching you but wind up hitting me."

"So we challenge him in front of his friends. He won't back down then."

Jan groans. "I don't want to have to deliver your eulogy, but if that's what you want to do," he conceded glumly. "Anyway, are we okay now?" John nodded happily. "Awesome. Oh, Mom's taking me to church with her. The choir director needs help moving stuff."

"Do I need to come?" John asked. His brother shook his head.

* * * * *

As John returned to his studies, Jan went out to the car. But instead of getting in the passenger side, he climbed behind the wheel. He then smoothly pulled off his baggy t-shirt and expertly slipped on a bra and blouse. As he shook at his hair he simultaneously plucked at his chest, and each time he did so, the fabric as it settled bulged out a little more, until it was draping over soft, maternal breasts. His hair fell lower and lower, covering his eyes and the back of his neck, and changing from a bleached blonde to a ruddy chestnut. His features bled and ran like mascara in the rain. But it was running in reverse, and when it cleared he was neatly and expertly made up. He slipped a few pins into his hair, then slid off his tennis shoes and pulled on the pumps that were in the floorboard. He was already in "mom jeans."

Then, as the spitting image of his and John's mother, he started the car and backed into the street.

* * * * *

Read part 2 and part 3 at writing.com

“The Statement of X--- Y--- Z---" Part 7

by Seuzz

From this point on, you can't expect a detailed recital of my history. I told you, I've been doing this regularly for thirty years or so. I can give you case studies, particularly interesting things I've done, but not a historical progression. I've only been able to tell you about certain cases so far because they were first times. You always remember a first time. I could tell you about the first time I crawled a girl, for instance--

Yeah, I've crawled girls. It's never been a major point. Only as a means to an end.

Well, I'm just not interested in them. Except, of course, sexually.

You totally misunderstand the point, and what's so hard about it? I like being a guy, but that doesn't mean I want to have sex with guys. Same thing: I like having sex with girls. That doesn't mean I want to be one.

Yeah, I've had sex with guys, while being a guy. I've played the faggot, been a faggot. I could tell you about the first time I did that, too. Which do you want, my first time as a woman or my first time as a faggot?

You and Yogi Berra. Alright. I'll tell you about the girl first.

It was while I was still at the university, the first time I did my thing at a college setting. I've been back to them. They're easy hunting grounds. But this was during my first time, after I first arrived and was finding my feet.

I had been skipping around from body to body, host to host. Like I told you last time, I'd decided I didn't want to stay in one place long. The first-- I dunno, first dozen or so times-- It was all a variation on what I did when I changed out of Peter. I found guys I could share a bedroom with. This meant I limited myself to fraternity guys, guys who shared houses. It had to be places where I could crash in someone's room without raising any kind of suspicion or alarm. So I also kept to guys who partied, who got drunk and passed out a lot. Or I took them on benders. A lot of the guys I crawled wound up having academic problems while I was in them. They stopped studying or going to class, did a lot of partying. So, I'd crawl a guy who had a roommate, and then in the middle of the night I'd switch places. Or I'd go out and get drunk, stumble home, and "accidentally" go into the wrong bedroom and pass out on the floor. Do a switch after that.

It worked. It always worked. But I decided I needed to develop some new techniques. You know, just in case. I decided girls might be a useful conduit. If I was a girl I could find a guy--almost any guy--and go home with him or take him home, and after he was snoring in my ear I could switch places with him.

I wasn't sure I could crawl a girl, actually. Maybe there'd be biological or chemical differences, so I had to be careful. I chose my male disguise carefully, went for a real jerk. Big guy, body builder. Mmph, no, I don't remember his name. Anyway. Proto-Schwarzenegger. Real skeezy. That's because I wanted it plausible when I proposed a three-way with a girl.

I spent a few days as him, having fun. Picking up heavy things and putting them down again. It was educational, too. There were lots of chemicals being traded around and taken in back rooms, back corridors. I took notes, because I saw that could be useful avenue too. Get a guy alone, stick him with a needle full of something that wasn't what he was expecting, and while he was out or in a daze crawl out of my old shell and into a new one. But I tried the girl thing first.

One Friday night, not long after, I went to a bar. Kept mostly to beer, kept mostly sober. Chatted up girls. Got close and breathed on them, let them feel my biceps. Let them get excited. Then I'd lean in and suggest we go off someplace. They'd be willing, and then I'd drop the next suggestion. Told them I had a friend who'd like to go along too, have fun, just the three of us. First couple of girls didn't like the idea, and I backed off when I couldn't talk them around.

Because I didn't want them excited when another guy showed up. See, my plan was that after I got them alone and had some fun, I'd retreat to the bathroom, crawl out of my host, and then go into the bedroom as his "friend" and crawl the girl. So, finally I found a girl who was willing. Her name was Marcy. Skinny thing with long hair, wearing practically nothing. She was all into the idea, especially when I told her my friend was a big guy like me. Oh, that turned her on. I draped a meaty arm around her--she fit in the crook of my arm like a broomstick--and led her back to my place.

I had lots of fun with her first. I didn't want the opportunity to go to waste, and I was getting kind of nervous about whether I'd be able to pull off the switch. Eventually she asked where my friend was. I snickered and said I'd go get him, and left for the bathroom.

That was the terrifying moment, in the bathroom. My host was a big guy, a really big guy, you understand. I looked at myself in the mirror. Chest looked like I had Volkswagen bugs implanted in them. I got scared. What if he didn't pass out when I crawled out of him? What if he came to too quickly, caught me with Marcy? What would he say or do when he came back into the bedroom? I almost chickened out. But I went through with it. Lay down in the bathtub and let go of him. It was hard coming out. He was thick, there was a lot of him, and it was like swimming to the top of quicksand. I saw it was a mistake to have gotten into the tub when I finally got out of him. Instead of quietly rolling off him I had to step on him to get over the edge of the tub. Lucky thing he was out cold, didn't even grunt or anything as I clambered out. But I turned out the light quick and then scampered into the bedroom.

The lights were out there, too, and I opened and shut the door quickly so she wouldn't catch sight of me. She was restless. I heard her sit up. "Are you Andrew's--" Yeah, that was his name, Andrew. "Are you Andrew's friend?" Breathless and giggly like. "Yeah. You're Marcy?" I said. She giggled again. I jumped onto the bed, onto her. I felt her hands on me, and she made a little pouting noise. I could tell she was disappointed in me. Whatever. I put my hands on her face and pushed down.

No resistance. It was like falling through a trapdoor. Came out the other side real fast, too. Jumped up with a little start. I remember I hiccupped, which was odd. Put my hand to my mouth, felt my hair falling across my face. Then reached down to touch my breasts. Small things, almost nonexistent. What's the old joke about the guy whose chest is bigger than the girl's? Andrew's nipples were almost bigger than her whole breasts. Felt down a little further to the hot, furry bit.

I thought I'd be more excited. I told you, I like girls. Here I was inside one, could touch her--touch me--all I wanted, feel it from the inside. But it was ... nothing, really. It was like getting a toy you always wanted and discovering it's just a hunk of plastic or metal. It's all in the imagination, you know, a toy. It's what you make of it, not what it is. And being a girl, finally, having the breasts and the pussy... Well, there was no imagination to go with it. So it was just skin.

That's a good question, but again I think it comes back to imagination. I'm a guy, I have a guy's brain and instincts. I can imagine being a guy, I have the feeling of being a guy, and I can have the imaginative feel of being that guy, or that guy, or that guy over there. I get inside them, and it's like a toy I can play with and have fun with, because it's got an imaginative hold on me. Not with a girl, though. No.

Yeah, I had her brain and so I had her imagination. I could impersonate her perfectly. But she couldn't imagine being herself, because she was herself. And there was no surprise or thrill in touching herself, because she was the one doing it. It was just stimulation. Oh, don't get me wrong, the stimulations worked just fine. I was in her for a few days, and I, uh, stimulated her a few times. But there was no thrill over and above what she herself would have felt.

Well, what happened next was that I thought about leaving, before Andrew got back, because I didn't know what he'd do. But then I thought that might also look weird. So I waited. Almost twenty minutes. But he came back in, eventually. I asked where he'd gone. He just grunted. I asked him about his "friend," and he didn't say anything. I tried kissing him and caressing him, to make it look convincing, but he just turned his back on me. I'm doubt he suspected anything. He would have been more violent if he had. I think he was just confused. Probably scared, too. It was the typical reaction I'd noticed. Guys get quiet after I leave them. They look furtive, for a day or two, at least.

If you want me to get to the end of these stories, you should stop trying to send me off on tangents. Later on I can tell you about the times I've crawled back into old victims. There are stories to tell there. But about Marcy.

Yeah, so I waited until he'd gone to sleep, and then I crept out of bed and got dressed and went home. She was in a sorority. I got some sleep. Next day I played the part of her perfectly. The other girls were kind of mean. They knew I'd--she'd--gone off for a three-way, and were snotty about it. I told them it had just been me and Andrew, but that didn't make a difference. What she wanted, not what she got, was what counted.

She had a journal. I copied out some passages that might be useful, filled a few pages with notes of my own and ripped them out, to keep. Things like the names and details about some of the other girls. Research. Who I might profitably hit on when I got back into a guy. Who might be useful later on as conduits for getting into other guys. Who the sluts were, who could be counted on to go home with a guy, that kind of thing.

The following Friday I was back at a bar. I looked around out of curiosity, but Andrew wasn't there. I let a guy buy me a drink. Went home with him. End of the story comes when I crawled out of Marcy and took him. She was in a daze afterward, and let me spend the rest of the night ravishing her in all kinds of ways.

No, I think that's all for now. I'll tell you about my first trip to Queensland next time.

“The Statement of X--- Y--- Z---" Part 6

by Seuzz

Heh. I don't want to start off being argumentative, but no, I wouldn't call my move into Peter the "start of my new life." You're moving to fast and making too many assumptions about what I wanted and why I was doing these things. Yes, when I crawled into Peter I had no intention of going back to my old life, and yes, by crawling into him I was crawling into a new life. It was the start of a "new life" in that sense, I'll grant you. But I wasn't planning on crawling out of him any time soon, and I wasn't planning on crawling lots of other people, if any. So, if by "new life" you mean it was the start of my life as a serial crawler, no, it wasn't. That came later.

Well, I had lots of reasons for not wanting to leave Peter. First of all, it hadn't really occurred to me that I could live as a serial crawler. I'd had problems enough getting into and out of people, thank you very much, so I just assumed that I'd have to stay in Peter for a very long time. Also, mostly I was looking for a better life, and in Peter I'd found one. Not just better, it was itself a good life. He had a solid family. His father owned a small but successful business. He had a good mother and some younger siblings. He had a good body, a good-looking body, and he was, um, socially adept. He had friends, and he made friends easily. He had fun, playing sports and socializing with his circle. He had prospects. I was inside him by the time it came to seriously start applying to colleges, and we, or I, managed to get into the state university. He was going to go off to that school with his girlfriend, and we were already talking about getting married and starting a family. It was everything I didn't have, everything that you were supposed to want. Why would I want to change?

So I stayed in him, a little bit out of fear of not being able to get into anyone else if I left him, I'll admit, but mostly because I thought I had arrived.

Yes, I was looking for fun, and he had fun, in his way. The kind of fun I'd witnessed from afar in school, and the kind I'd been jealous to have. Sports, popularity, friends. We did have some new experiences together. Not long after graduation I took off with some of his friends. We were supposed to drive out to Omaha, to find some digs, but after we got out of town we took a long detour and wound up down at the beaches in Texas. Spent a week down there, living on the beach, playing on the beach in only our t-shirts and swimming trunks. We ditched the former during the day while we played football, flashing our young and healthy torsos for the benefit of the girls. I hooked up with a couple of them, even--a new experience for me and Peter both. We drove back up to Nebraska with some great memories and a nice tan.

In the middle of the summer I drove back to Omaha with my dad and got a spot in the dorms. Bought some necessities, and a few weeks later moved in. I drove around town, finding the bars and the hang outs. Christie followed soon after, so I didn't have a chance to play around any more. I tried out for the football team and got a spot, but it was clear I wasn't going to be a star. That's okay. We loved to play the game, Peter and me. We worked out and practiced on the field and made new friends. Classes started, and I buckled down to study. I joined a fraternity, and was invited to move into the frat house at the start of the spring semester. New friends, popular friends there. Christie and I stayed serious, but there was a bit of a drift. I found myself looking at the other girls and wondering if I should settle down so soon with one girl, with her. The trip down to Texas had whetted my appetite, and I cheated on her more than a few times. We had fights and then we had makeup sex. Christie was cute, but not so cute as to think that she could just hang onto me without any effort. The other guys made sure to remind me that I could do better than her.

Yeah, but I didn't think this kind of thing was out of the ordinary. A lot of my friends were going through the same thing, so I figured it was part of being a healthy, normal, college-age guy. And I saw enough other guys who were in worse shape. Small guys, thin guys, fat guys, guys who didn't have the advantages I had with Peter. So I had no desire to change. Oh, every once in a while I'd catch myself eyeing one of the other guys speculatively. Someone would have a hot girlfriend for awhile. Someone else would be hooking up with lots of girls. Someone would have more spending money or would be getting better grades. There were, of course, guys on the football team or on the basketball team who were better than me and got a lot more attention. But no one had a life that was clearly or solidly better than Peter's, and it seemed that if I made an exchange I'd simply be trading one set of advantages and disadvantages for a different set.

What happened was that the ceiling fell in on his life. His mom died.

It happened during my second semester, during the spring. I'd been Peter for a year, had grown totally comfortable as him. And his mother was a good woman, so it was a real shock to me. To both of us, though I wasn't always clear in my own head how much of our life was mine because I was Peter and how much of it was me just pretending being Peter. But it was a bad shock, and worse followed.

I was at school when one of his uncles called. That by itself was a bad sign. She'd had a heart attack, sudden and fatal. She wasn't an old woman, so it was surprise. I went home, of course, and found an ugly scene.

Peter's dad had gone to pieces. I got home and found that my-- his-- brother and sister, who were a few years younger than Peter, had left to stay with relatives. His dad was by himself, and when I found him he was drunk. He had never been a serious drinker, that I knew of, and I found him in the den, just sitting, unmoving. He wouldn't talk, wouldn't stir, just stared at the TV set, which was off, holding a whiskey bottle. There was a bad odor in the house. Not literally, but the air was still, and felt and smelled defeated, as though some spark had left it. I had to leave him as he was, in his recliner, seeing nothing and feeling nothing but death around him, and went to find that uncle. He was grim. He knew what was going on in that house, but had nothing to say about it. I had to go home, to more silence.

A day or two passed, and Peter's dad showed no sign of coming to life. The funeral home called to make arrangements, and he mulishly refused to acknowledge me when I went to find him. I had to talk to them, and wound up having to take over all the planning. I had no idea what to do, and that uncle had to leave town himself on other business. It all fell onto me--the coffin, the service, the minister. I agreed to everything they put in front of me. Peter's dad came to life briefly when he found me at the dining room table, looking numbly over the paperwork. He got pissed because he saw it was going to be expensive. We had a horrible fight.

He skipped the funeral, if you can believe it. I started dreading it when I had to leave the house, not knowing what I'd find when I came home--another dead parent, maybe. I hid the shotguns, but there are a lot of ways of doing oneself in.

And then there was the stuff afterwards. The insurance, the finances. She'd had her own money, a good bit of it she'd squirreled away out of her household allowance and from her own side businesses in baking and hair-dressing. She'd invested it, and done well with it over the years, so there was a broker and some lawyers to deal with. I found out all that myself, often in unpleasant ways.

I-- or Peter-- both us, I guess, lost all respect for his dad. I had to take over his business, long enough to furlough his employees, and had to tell them I didn't know if the business would resume. There were some half-completed projects--he did plumbing and electrical work--and not all of the customers were happy. I had to run interference, because there was no way I could expose them to Peter's dad, or him to them.

I got things into some kind of stable pattern long enough that I could return to the school. It was supposed to be a break from the shit back home, but it was worse, because I didn't have anything to distract me. I was in no shape to have a social life, and my friends were no help, because they kept partying and having fun with their normal lives. I couldn't sleep. I'd lay in bed, waiting for my roommate to come back, often with a date, so I'd have to move out into the common room. Things had gone south with Christie before Peter's mom died, and though we didn't break up, we were strained, and we didn't have fun with each other. She tried being good with me, but I was in no mood for it.

The breaking point came one night as I stared at the dark ceiling. Suddenly, I just wanted to crawl out of my skin. Peter did too. The difference was that crawling out of his skin was something I could do. Problem was, I'd been in him long enough that I had a hard time separating my feelings from his, and to give up on him in this crisis seemed like a terrible dereliction. An abandonment. But then it occurred to me that I couldn't do anything for him anyway. I had no strength or knowledge that he didn't. I didn't add anything to our partnership. He'd be no worse if I left him. And once I realized that, I couldn't get out of him fast enough.

Still, I knew that a change would have to be arranged. I couldn't just lunge from him.

I had to wait a day or two, a very tense time. Then one night I invited my roommate out to a bar. Supposedly just to hang out, but it was to get him drunk. I bought him round after round while keeping myself relatively sober. He got smashed, which wasn't unusual for him. I had to deflect him from the girls in the bar. It was touch and go for a bit--we almost came to blows a few times--but I steered him out of the bar, half carrying him, and got him home and into our bedroom, where I threw him onto the bed. Pulled his shoes and socks and pants off, turned him onto his back. He mumbled and grumbled and scratched at himself. He was a disgusting sight--filmy with perspiration and cigarette smoke and banked testosterone, and I don't think he'd showered that morning. Not an appetizing destination, but the only one I could set up. I turned off the lights and sat on the edge of Peter's bed, waiting. Eventually his breathing turned heavy and then he began to snore, sawing heavily. I waited a bit, in case he woke up. After a very long time I decided it was safe. I lay back on Peter's bed, and for the first time it occurred to me that maybe I'd been in him too long, that I wouldn't be able to crawl out of him.

A baseless worry, as it happened. It was like turning loose, unhooking a grasp I didn't know I'd been exercising. I didn't so much crawl out of him as I let him expel me. It was like bobbing to the surface of a thick pool. I rolled over and fell off him, and onto the floor. I held my breath, worried I'd been too loud, but I heard nothing except his roommate snoring. I slid over to the other bed and gingerly raised myself onto it. I took one last glance back at Peter, but he was just a dark mass in the black room. I straddled my new body and put my hands onto his face and chest. It was going to be bad when I woke up, I was sure. I'd have a terrific hangover. Then I took a deep breath and pressed down onto him. I sank swiftly into him.

It was awful when I came to. I was sick and shaking, and I didn't dare move. My head was a tangle of thick wool and cotton, with someone softly beating it with a mallet. I huddled under the sheets and wondered what would happen if I hurled--would I come out of this new guy along with his last meal?

Finally I woke up enough that I could move around feebly. I looked over at the other bed. Peter was gone. Shakily, I pulled myself together and sat up. When I felt strong enough I staggered to my feet and wove my way out of the room and to the bathroom. I bumped into someone on the way; he said something and I mumbled something back. In the bathroom I crouched on the toilet, head down, getting myself together. It was cold, and that did me some good, so that I could stand up again. I went to the sink, ran some cold water, splashed myself in the face with it. Then looked in the mirror.

You'll notice I don't remember the name of the guy I'd crawled into. I wasn't in him long. But I remember the face. Dark hair, thick, standing up every which way. A few days growth of beard. He wasn't a sports player, just a fraternity punk, so I didn't have much mass under the t-shirt. Gingerly, I ran through what I now knew about him. Nothing, really. Just a nineteen-year-old jerk, off to school to party and get laid. I grinned. After the drama Peter had to deal with, that was all I wanted.

This, really, was the start of my new life, if you want to pin a date to it. I decided I wasn't going to deal with any shit. I wasn't even going to let shit get close to me. Peter had had a good life, and then shit came out of nowhere and hit him in the face. I decided I wasn't going to stay inside anyone long enough for shit to have a chance of getting itself together for a strike. Certainly I wasn't going to stay in this new guy long. I didn't even want to look at Peter anymore. Maybe I felt shame for running away from him. But that day, that morning, I decided, I was going to find myself someplace new. And someplace new after that. And someplace new after that.

“The Statement of X--- Y--- Z---" Part 5

by Seuzz

I was telling you last time about the start of my high school years. I think we can cover them quickly.

I started high school in a new place, a little town in Nebraska. I don't know why my dad chose to move, or why he chose to move there. He didn't have a job there. He never had a job.

I've no idea, but we were never seriously short of money. He would disappear for months on end. My mom would go on relief. We would scrape by. Then my dad would show up again. I think he would have money with him, because things would get a better for us. Food would be better. He would get a new car. It would be used, but it would be new for us.

I didn't have much to do with my parents. My mom was a hopeless alcoholic by the time I was out of elementary school, and when my dad wasn't around she and I didn't have much to do with each other. I'd make my own meals, keep to myself in my room. After we moved to Nebraska, my dad, when he came back to town, would pretend to have an interest in me. He'd check up on my schoolwork, ride me hard to make sure I was going to school. But it never lasted long. Eventually he'd forget about me. I could always tell when he was about to take off again, because he'd move into a motel room a few weeks before going off again.

Mm, yes, the thought occurred to me. But I never talked to him about crawling. I think I was afraid of the answer, whether "Yes" or "No." See, if he didn't know about crawling, and I told him what I could do, then what would he do? He might regard me as a monster, and try to do something to me. Or he might decide to use me, to force me to crawl certain people so he could get money or something. I didn't want to do that, not when I was a teenager. I mean, I would have liked to have money, to have the things that other people had, but not as a job, and not to bring stuff back to him. And if the answer was "Yes" ...

Well, it would explain a lot, wouldn't it? It would explain where I got the ability, it would explain why he was always going off and returning with money--he was himself crawling people, but doing it out of sight, in strange cities, where no one would know him. If I told him what I could do, and he was doing it too, he might be able to help me with it, to train me. It's likely he would have made me a partner. But I didn't want to have anything to do with him.

Oh, God, yes, wouldn't that have been lovely? I'm being sarcastic, in case you can't tell from my tone. To crawl my own father. Ychh!

Alright, the thought occurred to me, but only as a method for finding out what he was up to. But I didn't, because, again, what if it was something he could do? Could a crawler crawl another crawler? If he could do it too, if that's what he was doing, then I'd be exposing myself and my ability to him, and I didn't want to do that. And if he wasn't a crawler-- I didn't like him, and I certainly didn't want to be inside him, even for a little while. Snooping was the only reason to crawl him, and it would be very risky with little possible payoff. Let him have his own life and his own secrets. I'd keep my own.

If he was a crawler, he was better than me, wasn't he? He never got caught. Or, I don't know, maybe he did? Is that why you were on the lookout for me? You knew there was another out there?

Yes, I'm very bad at winnowing information out of others. I have my own way of learning what I want to know, and it's left me very unskilled at other methods.

But if you asked me to speculate, I'd say he wasn't a crawler. If he was, he'd have tried harder to get me to reveal myself. I think he was probably just a grifter. Maybe he had another family, a richer family, somewhere else. It's a big country, and back then it was much easier to maintain a double life.

As for where we wound up, it was a shitty little town in Nebraska, a rural community, a place where everyone knew everyone else, where it was the same few hundred families and had been for decades. Newcomers didn't fit in, especially in school, where the kids had their longstanding cliques and habits. I was a novelty for a few days. If I'd been good at sports or just had decent social skills, I guess I could have found a place and fit in. As it was ...

Naturally, I thought about trying to fit in by finding someone to crawl, like I had with Tommy. But there were no opportunities. It had been pure luck that I'd found Tommy, and after a few weeks I really regretted not staying in Tommy when I'd had the chance. And when I did take a chance it backfired horribly.

His name was Robin. He was a sophomore and I was a freshman. He was a bully, but I hadn't been on his radar. He hadn't been on mine. But like with Tommy, I caught him alone in the gym. I leaped at him. He caught sight of me as I lunged at him, but I managed to knock him back, and once I had my hands on his face he couldn't do anything. A few minutes later I was able to stand up in my new body.

It wasn't much to brag on. He was a big kid, one of those corn-fed farm boys. Husky. He had a squashed up face that fell naturally into a squint or a leer or sneer. His arms and neck and face were tanned red, but everything else was a pasty white. He had zits, bad.

My dad was out of town again by that point, so I had the run of my new home for as long as I wanted, but I didn't stay in him long. It wasn't pleasant. He had a big family, and though I had his instincts, I didn't like the horseplay, the pushing, the sibling-on-sibling tortures. School wasn't any better. Him and his friends were crude and boring. They all chewed tobacco, took shop classes, worked on machinery, talked about the hogs they had to take care of. I had something like fun for one afternoon, pushing others around, but even he didn't have a lot of fun doing it. He only did because he was bored.

I should have used him to get into a better place, but I hadn't figured out how to use my talent properly, not yet. So I just ditched him.

But like I said, he'd caught sight of me before I took him, so after I was out of him--

I don't know what he thought had happened to him. I'm sure he didn't tell anyone that I'd managed to possess him, even if he recognized that's what happened. But he had a grudge against me from that day on, and he got a lot of others to help out. I kept to myself anyway, so I easily got a reputation as a weirdo, and him and his friends nailed it in place.

Three years of absolute hell followed. I was a faggot, a homo. I guess that's what Robin had told everyone, that I'd made a pass at him in the gym. The details of what they did to me aren't important. Him and his friends weren't ingenious, but they were persistent.

The only friend I had was a kid named Lee. Another shy, loner type. I don't think we really liked each other. We didn't have anything in common. He was a good student and I wasn't. He studied music and I didn't. I read science-fiction and fantasy books, and he didn't. I hate to say it, but I think the only reason he hung around me was--

Well, we were hanging out one night, late, and he told me he thought he was gay.

Mmm, I suppose if you tell another guy you're gay, it's in the same way you tell a girl that she's pretty. You're hoping it leads somewhere. Maybe you're not even hoping, you're just hoping it opens up a path, and at the end of that path is ... the conclusion of a dream. But you can pass it off casually if the other person doesn't reciprocate. On this night, we were sharing confidences. Exchanging secrets. Sharing the really deep, important stuff. He told me about his dreams and ambitions. I told him about my home life. He told me some other boring shit about himself, I told him more about myself. Eventually it reaches a pitch where you feel like you can drop some pretty big bombs and it won't freak the other person out. I'm sure it was enough for him that he got to unburden himself. And since I was a guy regularly tagged as a fag, that made it easier for him to unloose himself. So he told me.

And then I made the mistake of telling him my big secret. Yeah, I told him I could crawl people. Described how it worked and what I'd done.

Skeptical? You know, I could have handled it if he were just skeptical. If he'd just said "Prove it," I could have asked him to let me demonstrate it on him. But no, he had to get creeped out. Jesus Christ, you'd think a gay teenager living in rural Nebraska--and this was back in the days when everyone pretended Paul Lynde was just a funny guy with a fussy manner! You'd think he'd have a little sympathy, especially after I'd shown him sympathy. But no, he shut down the conversation real quick. And we didn't talk or hang out much after that. After that, he thought I was a weirdo too.

Oh, please. No, I don't feel like I'm a victim of bigotry. Being bigoted against me is like being bigoted against pickpockets or serial killers. I do what I do, and I do it with my eyes open. If people fear and despise me--if you fear and despise me--I'd say you have every reason to.

Yeah, I got back at him. Eventually. Indirectly.

It was a two-fer, or a dividend. It came after I found a way to get out of high school.

See, I hadn't given any thought to what I'd do after graduation. I wasn't cut out for college. By the time I was a senior, I knew that whatever I did after high school, I would do it as someone else. That someone else turned out to be Peter Isaacson.

He was one of the jocks. Football player, wrestler, basketball player, etcetera. Not because he was an all-around athlete, but because in a small school all the jocks did all the sports. He was a decent guy, never made my life hard. Had a girlfriend, had prospects. He'd be going to college, a state school, but he wasn't going to be going directly into the family business, not yet.

Anyway, my senior year I was working in the library as a school aide. One day I'm working after school--something I never did--because I'd gotten behind in my library chores. Isaacson comes in to do some studying. There's hardly anyone else around. I see him disappear into the one blind corner in the place. And just like it had been with Tommy, I got a strong feeling, that this was a chance that I should take. So I quietly followed him, took some books with me, like I needed to reshelve them. He glanced back at me, turned back to the book in his hand. I looked over my shoulder real quick, to make sure the coast was clear. And then I took him from behind. He sank back in my arms as I liquefied. It was silent, swift, powerful. I got back on my feet quickly, looked around again. No one had seen. I put his book back on the shelf and hustled off to the bathroom to take stock.

I had to check out my new home, because I knew it wasn't going to be like the other times. The other times I was just experimenting, or taking vacations, or playing around. This time there was no going back. I remember gripping the sides of the sink--he had powerful arms and hands--and stared into the mirror. He had sandy hair, close cropped. A strong face, with a square chin. Pale blue eyes. I just kept staring at my new face, even as I slowly pulled his letterman jacket on over his t-shirt and hitched his backpack onto my shoulder. I didn't do anything to fight the hard-on I was getting. He was--I was--going to see his girlfriend after leaving school, so why force it down? Another guy came in, said something to me, I said something back, totally in character. Trudged slowly back out into the hallway. I didn't do anything to clean up the remnants of my old life. Left my locker and all my stuff without looking back. There was none of it I wanted.

That was just before Christmas. His family drove up to Omaha to see his grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins. We played football in the snow, watched the games. Exchanged presents. I took my littler cousins for car trips, played with the babies. Of course, no one spotted any change in Peter. When we got back home I hooked up again with my girlfriend, to our mutual satisfaction. Worked on college essays.

It helped that he had ambitions. He was going to try out for the university football team, but he was going to be a business major, was already thinking about a family. I had lots to occupy myself, including the team sports I was now doing. Robin, he hadn't any ambitions, maybe because he was just a farm boy, and he'd only been a sophomore at the time.

Robin had been a year ahead, so he'd graduated already, though I still saw him around town. But it would have been out of character for Peter to do anything to my regular tormentors. Still, since I was one of the top guys, I found subtle ways of putting them down. Hurt them a little harder out on the practice field, things like that. As for Lee--

Looking back, I'm not proud of what I did to him, though I've done worse to people since. Usually they deserved it, though. But with Lee-- I waited until we were close to graduation, and then I started cozying up to him. Went out of my way to be friendly to him. Arranged a couple of times to have a burger alone with him. Nothing weird. I just pretended to be interested in him and in his interests. He was flattered. Probably aroused. At any rate, he didn't demur when I invited him out late one evening for a drive.

It was in my early graduation present. A used pick up truck. I'd have to make the monthly payments on the loan, but my dad--my new dad, who was an honest, hard-working sort--had made the down payment for me. We drove out far into the country, then took off across a field and buried ourselves in the middle of it. I had a six pack, but Lee didn't drink. I had a few, not because I needed them, but to make it look ... plausible. It was dark when we stopped and climbed into the back, to lay back and look at the stars and talk.

After some chitchat, I told him I knew he was gay. He jumped a little, but I told him I was okay with that. I told him I wanted him to be happy. He shrugged. I told him I wasn't gay, but I wondered what it was like. He got kind of tongue-tied. I asked him to show me what guys who were gay did with each other.

That did freak him out. He had to tell me he didn't know, he'd never done it. I asked him what he wanted to do. He didn't say anything. I asked him if it was like being with a girl. By that point, I could tell, he was trembling. So I just said, "Let me show you what I do with Christie."

I drew him close to me. He was very stiff and rigid, but not in his pants. I rubbed his shoulders and arms to make him relax. I told him the girl usually did the same thing, asked him if he wanted to. He fumbled at me. I'm sure he thought this was the lead in to some horrible prank. Which it was, though the punch line wasn't one he could see coming.

Gradually, I wore him down, got him to unwind. We ran our hands over each other, though I had to start him off by guiding him, placing my hands over his. We kissed and nuzzled. It was a warm night, so neither of us got cold as the clothes came off. We kept it a hands-only affair. I put him on his back and slowly brought him to climax, the way Christie had with Peter--and with me--so many times. Still, he couldn't bring himself to reciprocate, so I had to jack myself off while he sat on my lap and watched, lightly holding my hands and forearms and elbows while I did it. When it was over, we held each other for a little while, and then drove back to town.

When we got back to his place I got out of the truck, but I didn't follow him up the walk. I just pulled him close before letting go of him. I peered down at him--I was half a head taller--and let my voice get stony. I asked him if he remembered me--the former me, the kid who'd disappeared. He said of course he did. I said, "You told him you were gay. That's how I knew." He said, "He told you?" I said, "He told you, and then he told you about himself. He told you he could crawl into people and take over their bodies, right?" He made kind of a face and muttered, "Something like that." Then I leaned in and said, "You know how he disappeared? What happened to him?" He got kind of a scared look. Probably thought I was gonna say that I'd killed the kid and buried him. Instead, I said, "Well, you didn't believe him, but guess what. He crawled inside me. Or I crawled inside Peter. Doesn't matter which way you put it. I just wanted you to know that it's real." And I remember jabbing him hard in the chest. "And what we did tonight," I said, "Peter never would have done that. And we'll never do it with you again. Too bad you didn't believe me, back then. Too bad you didn't help me get into Peter back then, or into someone else. We could've done a lot more of it, with whoever you wanted."

He took a step back, and stared. Then I got back in the truck and drove off.

I saw him for a few more weeks, at school, but totally blew him off.

VOTE IT UP! Thanks to the Authors

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Well, here we are at the other end of February, and what a journey!

I hope you've all enjoyed the stories that have been posted over the past month! I think everyone must have found at least a couple they enjoyed.

I'd like to personally thank all the authors for their hard work;

• Nemo
• Seuzz
• Curious
• Lord Wilmore
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• Gary Travis
• Erick S.
• Sean Mitchell (Me!)

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“The Statement of X--- Y--- Z---" Part 4

by Seuzz

I wish you'd stop trying to discover "deep" reasons for why I was doing what I was doing. If you've got a theory--

Okay, that's an interesting idea. But you can make up any reason, if you've a mind to. Look, the fact is that I was twelve, thirteen years old when I got tangled up with Tommy DiMarco. I didn't have any "plans" or ideas, not at that age. When you're twelve you're starting to figure out who you are. In my case, maybe you can say "figuring out who I was" had a double meaning. Was I going to be myself or was I going to be Tommy DiMarco?

Yeah, I thought about staying in Tommy permanently, and there was a moment when I put the question to myself. And maybe if I had decided to stay as Tommy, everything would have turned out differently for me. Maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation. But I didn't, and that was my decision.

Well, to explain that, I have to explain everything that led up to it.

I told you last time that I had used him to get close to two girls, one I was interested in and one he was interested in. I don't know how long I waited before I returned to him, but I know I got impatient. We only had a few classes together, and I couldn't really watch him from outside. I had to get back inside him to get any news. My chance, when it came, happened the same way as the other times. He was late for gym, and I caught him at his locker. I think I remember wondering about that, but maybe I'm coloring my recollections. Anyway, there he was, half dressed, standing patiently at his locker with his back to me. And so I crawled him again.

I found out that he'd stayed close to Kathy Eason, that he was riding his bike home with her most days. But he hadn't given any more indications that he was interested in her. Once I was in him, I kept it up, of course, but kept playing things cool. Sara Durbin was another matter. Tommy had dropped her, because he was still scared of her. He'd tried a couple of times to continue that bickering I'd started between them, but he'd run off almost as soon as she returned fire. So I threw myself into with a vengeance. This time I was inside him for a few days, and had lots of time to chase her down and tease her. I pushed him hard at her, and at Kathy, and then I exited him, again at the gas station. Partly this was to see what he'd do, and also because I needed to get back home again.

To deal with my mom, I just told her that I had friends I was hanging out with and sometimes spending the night. I promised I would call her if it happened again, but she didn't seem to much care. For the school I forged a letter as insurance. It was a note saying I had chicken pox and that Tommy would be collecting my homework assignments for me. I was already planning on making an extended stay inside him.

But I was still nervous enough about taking such a step that I stayed away from him for days at a time, and when I did crawl him I'd stay inside him for only a day and a night. We fell into a pattern. I noticed that his tardiness to gym was becoming a regular thing, and that he'd be very slow about leaving the changing room. When I found him, he'd be standing at his locker with his back turned, looking for all the world like he was waiting for me.

I found out he wasn't doing much of anything when I wasn't inside him. He'd go into a holding pattern around Kathy and Sara. I had to push him. I was happy to. He wouldn't do anything without me, and the two girls, like the others, ignored me when I was being myself. But together, Tommy and I had a lot of fun with them.

And Tommy, I finally realized, felt the same way. A month or two after I'd started crawling him, I hurried into the locker room after him, and tripped. Made a big racket as I went down. I looked up in a panic. But he didn't turn around, except that his head jerked a little. Of course he'd heard me, and he's started to turn, but he'd caught himself. He just stood there, looking very tense, with his head slightly cocked. I looked up at him from the floor, breathing heavily. And then he turned back and bent his head to peer inside his locker, and didn't move. My heart was hammering, and I swallowed, and I crept up to him. I hesitated as I reached around him. I put one hand over his mouth without touching it, and the other around his torso. I paused, half expecting him to yell or turn around and punch me, but he didn't. And when I closed my arms around him, I felt him trembling. Then I was back inside him.

You'd think I could tell exactly what he knew and exactly what he was thinking, wouldn't you? But it doesn't work that way. If I'm inside you, thinking with your brain, am I thinking my thoughts or yours? And how would I tell the difference?

But it's the same with memory. As soon as I'm inside someone, their memories become mine. They feel just like mine. It's very hard for me to tell the difference between my memories and theirs. Oh, there are some ways of telling. If Tommy and I saw the same thing while I was outside him, I'll remember both perspectives, and know which one was which. If it's a memory of something I know I didn't experience, I'll know it's my memory and not his. But when you try to remember what you're thinking-- That's not something that connects to something external, so it's very hard to be sure if it's a memory of something he was thinking or a memory of something I was thinking. It's like with intentions. If I'm inside you and I decide to go to the movies, whose decision is it: yours or mine? Well, it's mine, because I'm in control, but is it a decision that comes from inside me, or is it just me acting like you would act? Memories and intentions, from the inside, are like mirror images of each other. An intention is an anticipatory memory of what you want to happen; a memory is the pretence that what happened is what you wanted to happen. So a lot of times I can't tell which thoughts genuinely belong to the person I'm crawling, and which ones are just the ones I need or want to maintain the pretence.

Anyhow, to answer your question: I knew what was happening to him, and so he knew in a general sense what was happening to him. As for how he felt about it-- Was he pleased? He felt happy when I was inside him, but that could just have been me being happy to be inside him. I only had the evidence of his behavior--the way he waited for me--to tell me that he was ... not unhappy.

Okay, to return to the story. That afternoon was the start of my longest sojourn inside him. The next morning I dropped that letter off at the front office, and then I spent three weeks inside him. And there was drama.

The first thing was that his friends had started noticing the way he acted around Kathy, and they started teasing him. I shrugged it off, got in sham fights, bragged that the girls liked me more than they liked them. I bullied a friend who claimed to have some porn into sharing it. It wasn't even real porn. We all started in earnest to swap theories about sex and the proper way to go about getting it. I was shameless and could afford to be brave, and quickly figured out I was getting a reputation as a guy who knew what was what.

I also improved my standing--our standing--by getting mixed up with Kim-- Oh, what was her name? Kim Thompson. She was one of Kathy's friends. I was over at Kathy's house and Kim was there. Kathy left to get something, and Kim started goading me, asking if I was serious about her friend. I shrugged. She asked if I had kissed Kathy. I said I hadn't. She asked if I was scared to. So I kissed Kim. She got very smug with Kathy after that, and I found out the next day that she'd told Kathy what I'd done. Kathy got upset with me and was cold for a few days. Kim tried getting between us. I went off with her alone and got her to show me her breasts. I touched them, played with them. I bragged about it afterward with the guys, and then it was Kim's turn to be upset with me. Sara even got dragged in. She seemed in a bad mood while I was joshing with her, and she called me a creep, said she'd heard what I'd done with Kim. I said I liked her because she was too smart to act like Kim. She got pissed, but I could tell I'd impressed her with that reply. She started looking at me differently after that. And Kim and Kathy stopped being friends.

Like I said, drama. I had a grand time, pushing, teasing, hinting, coaxing, leading them on and dropping them, picking them up again, keeping them off balance. It was a high wire act, but I didn't care if I fell because, after all, it wasn't me who'd hit the pavement.

That happened over the course of three weeks, and then I went home when I couldn't drag it out any longer. I expected to catch hell, but things had really gone to shit while I was away. My mom barely acknowledged my return, and if the school had been in contact with her, she didn't say anything about it.

After that, though, I mostly restricted my crawling to weekends. I'd take Tommy on Friday afternoons and relinquish him on Monday mornings. Tommy was getting the hang of things, or he was skating on my successes, because I was picking up more girls to juggle. One Friday I found out I was expected to sneak into a slumber party, which I did. I kept them all off balance by keeping my hands off them. Their hands were all over me, though. They gave me a makeover, put me in makeup and a dress and a nightgown. They pulled me this way and that. They gave me different hair styles. The following Monday most of the girls who'd been there weren't talking to each other. The guys started getting jealous, too. They heard about my little experiment in transvestism, and I got teased mercilessly. I put them in their place by giving lots of details about who was touching me and where that night. I got in a fistfight with one guy, but Tommy was athletic and had started working out, and I won real quick.

So I was having fun, up until two months before the end of the school year. That's when my dad showed up again. Maybe the school had gotten in touch with him, but I came home one Monday to find him waiting for me. My mom wasn't around--probably they'd had a hard fight and he'd driven her off temporarily. Anyway, he yelled at me, demanded to know what I'd been up to on all those weekends when I was away, why I was missing so much school, who I was hanging around with. I had more self-confidence by this point, and just hurled his own absences back at him. He hit me, sent me to my room. I went out the window, went looking for Tommy, but couldn't find him, went back home before I was missed.

The next day my dad said he was pulling me from school, that we were all moving to another town. I'd be out of school until the start of the next year. I took some final exams at the school and did well enough that they gave me whatever credit would let me pick up at the new school, wherever that was going to be.

The last time I saw Tommy, in the gym locker, I came real close to crawling into him and staying there. That was the first time I was waiting for him. He came in, and he stopped cold when he saw me. I couldn't look him in the eye, just glanced over at him, and went back to slowly changing. I think he also flinched, and also crossed slowly to his locker. He got undressed real fast, but then just stood at his locker, as usual. He was waiting for me, I could tell.

And I chickened out. I had a good life when I was inside him. I liked his family. His dad had a temper, but at least he was around. Tommy had good friends, he was popular, and had gotten really popular since we'd started ... hanging out together, so to speak. I tried thinking what the future would be like if I stayed with him. There'd be the rest of the year, after that high school. I didn't know what that would be like. It was just a big blank, stretching in front of me. It seemed very scary.

See, I could deal with the rest of my life being a blank. But to take responsibility for someone else's life, to fill in that canvas for them ... I guess it was probably at that moment that I knew that crawling people would be something I could only do temporarily. I wouldn't have the guts to take over a life permanently.

But I couldn't just leave Tommy hanging. So I went up behind him, like so many times before. I put my arms around him, one hand over his mouth. I let him relax into my arms and started to go into him. But as soon as he was passed out, I let him go. I laid him on the floor, in the same position that I always woke up in when I went inside him. Then I snuck out. I left the school grounds. I never saw him again, and I'm pretty sure he never saw me. I didn't want him to. I wanted him to think I was inside him. I figured that way he might-- Well, he might fool himself into acting the way he wanted to act, that he couldn't really act except when I was inside him.

He'd been good to me, and I like to think I'd been good for him, and that was the only gift I could think to leave him with.

I knew it was going to be hard after I left. But I didn't know how hard it was going to be. Otherwise I'd definitely have stayed inside him.

“The Statement of X--- Y--- Z---" Part 3

by Seuzz

Where we last time? Well, I was over there and you were--

Ah. You won't permit me my little jokes. Well, then, if I recall correctly, when we broke last time I was inside Tommy DiMarco. After PE I went on being him, going to his classes and changing out books at his locker. Goofing off in the hallways. I was having so much fun I didn't think ahead to what would happen when the final bell rang, so I had no idea what to do when I found myself walking around in front of the school.

Should I let him go? Should I just stay inside him? I kept edging up to the bike rack where he had his bike, and kept glancing over at the school bus I was supposed to take back to my own home. I fiddled with his shoes. I checked out the insides of his backpack. Finally the buses all pulled away, leaving me behind, feeling a little sick and a little exhilarated. I'd somehow managed to lose his friends, who he usually hung out with, so it was just me and a few stragglers after the buses were gone.

And then Kathy Eason came out. Kathy had long black hair and violet eyes and she wore what the boys called "happy jeans" because they made you happy when you looked at her wearing them. My breath always got short and shallow when she was around, and a lot of times I hid so she wouldn't see me. But now I was Tommy DiMarco, and I didn't feel nearly as nervous when she came up to the bike rack.

She was smiling and said something about how she never ran into me at the bike rack, even though we both rode our bikes home. I said something about how I was late because I got stuck in my last class, and said I'd ride back with her. We got on our bikes and rode along next to each other, slow and easy. I wanted to panic--I was riding bikes with Kathy Eason!--but my heart was beating very slowly and my brain was very cool. I made some jokes and she told me some things about herself, and I listened and said some other things. And when we got to her street I almost forgot to ride down it with her. But I remembered in time and went with her until we got to her driveway. We stopped there and talked some more. I kept looking at her. I wanted to stare at her, to drink her in, but I was so relaxed I'm sure it just came out as polite interest. She wouldn't look at me, though. She seemed a little flushed after the ride, and her breath was short, and she kept looking around while talking. Eventually we ran out of stuff to say, and I just cocked my head and said "See you tomorrow," and she nodded. I started to back out into the street, but stopped when she turned with a hop and practically skipped into her garage.

That's when I knew she had a serious crush on Tommy.

Well, of course she did. I hadn't noticed before, because when looking at her I'd look at her, not at what she was looking at, but I saw other girls do the same thing around Tommy. And I was thinking with Tommy's brain, so I knew he'd seen it to. But even though he'd noticed, he hadn't put two and two together. He was totally oblivious to the effect he had on the girls.

Now, here's where it gets complicated. This moment--I remember it so clearly because it was the first moment I really began to understand what I had with this crawling business. It was the first moment I realized that while I was inside him we were really the same person. I was thinking with his brain, so whatever I realized, he would realize too. And now that I'd realized that Kathy liked him-- Well, then he realized it too. And so his instincts kicked in, and all these chemicals started washing through him, and so they started washing through me. I felt exactly what he would feel--that's why he was so cool around Kathy when I was so nervous. That's what made it so easy to pretend to be him.

But at the same time I had my own thoughts--which I was sharing with him--and my own feelings. So I also had my own perspective. It was like when you're watching yourself on a TV monitor. You see the world from where you are, but you also see it from outside yourself. Well, I was looking at the world as if I was Tommy DiMarco, but I was also looking at it from outside.

My skin began to prickle all over, and that queer smile probably showed up on my face again. I could be him, but I could also be better than him, because I had a perspective on him that he couldn't. When I was inside Tommy, I knew more about him than he could know, and also more about him than I could know.

Well, not at first, no. I was a kid, I couldn't think through all this, but I could feel it. At the time, I just noticed that I was having two different reactions to Kathy, and to the realization that she had a crush on him. Tommy was wary, more than anything else. See, he was a nice kid, a really nice kid. He didn't like hurting people's feelings. He worried: How would Kathy feel if she knew that he didn't like her, not the way she liked him? He got uncomfortable, too, at thinking there were so many other girls who he didn't like the way they liked him.

Me, I was shocked, shocked to discover that he didn't like the girls the way I liked them or the way that they liked him. He actually didn't think about girls all that much. They were furniture, background. He had his pals to play with.

Oh for Pete's sake, don't go jumping to conclusions. I told you, we were twelve. Some boys get started early and some get started late. Tommy was just one of the late-starters. Anyway, there was one girl he had noticed.

His brain--our brain--was spinning really fast as I pedaled back to his house. The girls and what to do about them. Suddenly my heart jumped when I thought of Sara Durbin. I hadn't noticed her because we didn't have classes together, but Tommy had classes with her, and she basically did to him what Kathy did to me. Personally, I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't been inside him. She had blonde hair and kind of an impudent face. Strong nose and chin, almost Semitic, but toned down. Something about her face, though, got to him. And she was whip-smart and funny, and he liked it when she cracked wise. Sometimes he'd tease her a little, so she'd crack back at him, but he'd scamper away instead of standing and fighting back. He was afraid of her.

I had a lot to think about when I got back to his house, but I covered it up by doing his homework and his chores and staying on his dad's good side. In fact, I had so much to think about that I didn't actually think about it afterward, and just wasted time on TV and then bed. The next morning I was tired and a little freaked out, so I decided to leave him. I managed to be late to PE again, and when I had the locker room to myself I exited him. I hid in the showers until I heard him leave, then dressed out myself and went into the gym. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, during gym and in the one class we had together after gym. He hadn't seen me, before or after I crawled him, and I wondered what he'd do or how he'd act.

He didn't do anything. He seemed subdued, though. I thought I caught him looking at me suspiciously, once. But I caught the same expression on his face when he was looking at some other people. He lit out early after school, and I watched him go while sitting on the school bus.

No, I didn't get in trouble at home. She only said that if I was gonna spend the night with friends I should call. I don't think she cared much. There was some stuff going on at home, but that gets more important later, and we can talk about it when it'll make more sense.

There weren't any more repercussions, at school or anyplace else. I eyeballed a few other people, wondering if I could crawl them. But there wasn't much doubt about who I'd crawl if I had the chance, and a few days later it came. Tommy was late for gym again. I saw him dart across the gym floor, and I sidled after him. Caught him again, half-dressed, at his gym locker, and took him from behind without him seeing me. It felt like I'd never been away from him. Because, of course, I had his brain again, and his brain hadn't been outside his body, so yeah, it would feel like I hadn't been away from him.

He'd been avoiding Kathy after school, but that day I lingered, and when she showed up I said I'd been waiting for her, and we rode back to her house together. She was even redder and more out of breath when we got there, and she seemed really distracted while I talked to her. I finally shut up and just looked at her. She stopped looking all around and looked at me, and that's when I hit her with it. "You're the prettiest girl in school," I said. She stared and then she swallowed. I just smiled and waved and took off down the street. Stood up on the bike and pumped the pedals, and like a showoff shot around the corner with my arms held out like wings. I knew she'd be watching me, and I wanted to look good, and I knew Tommy looked really good doing that on that bike, because I'd seen him do it before.

No, he wasn't keen on Kathy, but I was keen on her, and damn if I wasn't going to take advantage of where I was and who I was. But I made it up to him. That night I called up Sara, to ask about homework, and wound up talking to her for an hour. His heart was hammering all the time, but I wasn't scared of her, and I kept him cool and smart. I talked trash at her like she was one of his friends, and she talked trash back. We got each other all wound up, but we had fun. Oh, we had fun. I gave it to her good, and I could tell she liked it. And I-- I mean, Tommy loved it. After I hung up I went in the bathroom and locked the door and took out his cock, which was stiff and twinging, and massaged it. Stroked it and squeezed it and sucked on my lower lip while thinking of Kathy and Sara. Neither Tommy nor I had figured out how to climax yet, so I was exhausted but still jumpy when I fell into bed about twenty minutes later. Kicked at the covers for an hour before falling asleep.

I took extra care getting dressed the next morning. I wore a button-down shirt over a white t-shirt and some khakis. Got his mom to play with my hair a little. I caught her smiling, so she must've figured a girl was behind it. I took the bike ride slow so I wouldn't raise a sweat. When I got to school I went and found Sara at her locker. Started the argument all over again. See, I'd figured out how to treat her in a way that'd make Tommy happy, so that's what I did. I treated her like one of the guys, with that unconscious confidence that he had with the other girls. But I made time for Kathy too. I ignored her, and then I was rude to her. She seemed crushed, until after school when she found me sitting on the bike rack waiting for her. "I'm not going home, I'm going to McDonalds," I said. She said, "What do I care?" I said, "I dunno, what do you care, unless you wanna go with me." She got all stiff and twitchy and looked at the ground and then she shrugged and we rode off to McDonalds. We talked some more, but she was kinda quiet. Afterwards, though, I said "I'm glad you came with me. It means you like me, right?" And she flinched and got kind of nasty. "Maybe," is what she said. I said, "Then I'm glad I didn't try kissing you." That made her jump. "Because," I said, "that's what I'd've had to do if you didn't come to McDonalds with me. Because, you know, you really are pretty."

She looked kind of aghast, and I left her looking like that and rode away. I pedaled out to an abandoned gas station and went into the bathroom, and that's where I exited him. I hid in the old service bays until he'd left.

See, I'd set him up with two different girls, and I wanted to see what he'd do without my influence.