Part 13

This time, the feeling was shared between us. Allison used some of my tricks on me but I still made sure she enjoyed the whole thing, abbreviated though it was compared to last night. My skin, even as a….simulation of an anime-like being formerly known as a Kinrae (it was hard to shake the word…), didn’t match Allison’s for sensitivity but it was still fun as we played through the same harmony but, for me, with a different set of instruments.

All too soon, Allison had to get dressed and ready to go and so did I. She turned back to male-form for the time being. My mind wasn’t in classes though. I’d neglected an assignment but I couldn’t bring myself to care. There was so much else going on that the professor’s cautioning of the importance of this or that just felt like a stream of words against my ears. I didn’t have my device on for classes but I had it nearby. Checking my phone, I didn’t see a reply back from Brandt but I doubted any answer would be swift or what I wanted.

The evening couldn’t come quickly enough. I had a rice bowl for lunch and enjoyed Allison’s rice and chicken mix as an early evening meal. We welcomed one another back from our day with a long kiss after Allison shifted back to female, like she’d slipped off tight shoes or a stiff uniform. She made enough of the meal to take with her to Lissa.

I settled into the driver’s seat as Allison secured her still-steaming cargo. We discussed our day on the way. Allison had been so tempted to change into a girl for random customers when her supervisor wasn’t around but she recalled the store security cameras and decided against it. Same went for class, especially trying to hit high notes (but she was trying to slip those in, since her vocal range expanded).

Lissa’s car was in the driveway but not Michael’s. I’d half expected the complication of Michael or Linnea to the evening. I’d have to tell him/her about Tessa too.

Allison darted up the walkway on light feet to the door. I considered turning on my device but left it off for the time being. She waited for me to join her before ringing. Quilla answered first and peered past the door at Allison with a skeptical look. She waved and grinned in return. Quilla called behind her, “Moooommmm…Allison turned himself into a girl again!” She put it like one sibling tattling on another before receding with the door open.

Lissa noticed Allison’s appearance with a quick frown followed by a raised eyebrow in my direction. She asked, “So…I’m guessing this is the side-effect of the device you mentioned...?”

Catching Lissa up on everything would be quite a task. Allison let me begin as we settled in the kitchen. I gave Lissa the pieces of odd dialogue and implication from Tessa as the first round.

She only interrupted for clarification about what I had brought up in class on Wednesday. Allison gave her opinions of Tessa before leading into coming home and finding herself in the form she was now. Quilla crept by the doorway and peered to listen. Lissa admonished her, “Ninja…we’re not veggies.” Quilla shrugged and hung around before opining, “I think you’re better as a girl, Allison.”

Allison thanked her and continued. She displayed a receding and return of her breasts before she got winded and needed something to drink. Lissa leaned forward with her hand on her chin and pried further. We made last evening's fun time into a deleted scene even though Lissa noticed the time jump from figuring out the ability to sitting and watching videos.

Then, I noted a real deleted scene with my morning and not remembering parts of it…followed by the reappearance of Tessa. I offered up answers as well as I could remember them followed by the admission of Tessa’s kind secretly being in the world for longer than the “Kinrae” were known to first visit, followed by the truth of the name. She absorbed both with a sigh and said, “If we had proof we’d be all over TV. Be honest. Do you think there’s some dark purpose with these devices? Because...well…” She grimaced but I understood what she meant. She’d used it and so had Michael.

I didn’t know what to tell her. I was as lost myself. But I did reference what Tessa said at points which suggested they wanted the best, at least for me. So I had to assume, “I don’t think they mean ill for us. I mean they have a special name for humanity with Kinrae.”

Lissa frowned and asked, “And what about if Kinrae doesn’t mean friend or kindred to them but 'servant' or something worse? I’ve seen too many old, creepy sci-fi movies not to at least think about it.”

Allison offered her own changes as a possibility of benign purpose, noting, “She apparently said I made a choice. What if it’s like another set of sci-fi movies where the outsiders want to liberate people from their world to change them and free them for the sake of happiness?” Lissa mulled that but couldn’t really decide. She pressed her hands and said, “Maybe. Is there anything else?”

We’d been skipping over it but I could feel Allison wanted to say it. At the same time, I could remember so very well how Lissa had poured out feelings and desires the last time we’d been alone. I shifted the subject to Quilla, who was sneakily-preparing a sandwich of peanut butter, lightly-salted pickles, and mayo. It was part of her apparent training regimen against her sodium-based adversaries, adapting to them in small doses. The other part was learning to swim so she could tolerate the ocean, where she would go riding on an inflatable slug creature Linnea had given her.

I couldn’t help but smile as I listened. The salt thing had stuck around for a good while but I sensed it was coming to a close for the two of them and then something new and silly would come up. If only such things in childhood could carry over with the same carefree feeling into adulthood, but all childhoods end and some don’t even begin, as I reflected on my own. I could only hope Quilla’s would persist in the best possible way.

Eventually, she slipped off with her food and an ocean of little ideas to her room while we gave Lissa the last part. I put my hand on Allison’s hand and told her simply, “I made my decision.”

She didn’t catch on until Allison leaned towards me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Smirking, she asked, “So…is there an opening to join the harem still?”

We both smiled. Then, Allison dropped the bomb, “I’m actually thinking of being exclusive to Sean. Despite how I usually am…”

Lissa raised a hand and said, “Wait wait wait…uh. Let’s see if I’ve got this right. Allison Longbloom….the most polyamorous being in the world which isn’t a bonobo…and I mean that in the nicest way possible….is settling down as a girl with a boyfriend?”

Allison clarified that the genders of the relationship would be in constant flux but we nodded together that was correct.

Making a motion around her head like an explosion had gone off, Lissa chuckled and said, “I guess this is perfect then because we each have someone…in that way.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Her turn to surprise me. I immediately asked if it was Michael but she reassured me, “We’re on amicable terms but, as I said to you before, it’s over and that’s the way I prefer it. What I’m referring to is soon after we last talked. Actually, because we last talked and how you said that I need to move on and not be afraid.”

Lissa settled back in her chair. “And I thought that meant you and me and I kinda undulated between how you saw me last time and just gritting my teeth. But then it struck me…you are drat sexy. You’re funny. You’re special to me. You’re sincere. Allison, wanna take it from here?”

Allison added a few choice, smiling happy words to my description to leave me blushing. Lissa chuckled and noted, “I still feel all those things. But I knew in my gut and in my heart that the moments we share like... Me teasing you. Just sitting around. Ripping into movies. Quiet moments. Loud ones. Confused ones. Beautiful ones. They’re all about my best friend. I know things will change and they should. I mean, for heck’s sake, Quilla’s clothes from Christmas are getting snug! But I’m happy, right here and right now….and I’ve been thinking of how to put it…”

Her shoulders drooped as she reflected. Allison's eyes widened. It took tapping her lips before Lissa came to it, “I live for one soul and she’s in the other room drawing up salt-destroying battle plans. Anything else is in orbit of that soul. She’s everything now and as long as I live. I should never have let the fall of my marriage isolate her from her dad and I’m fixing that. And, after you talked to me, I had a conversation with a co-worker who I’ve known casually for a while. A real conversation without work hanging over it.”

She gave his name as Daniel and noted how, from discussing a silly cat-thing on Daniel’s phone, they moved into making arrangements and plans. She learned he had a little boy a year younger than Quilla, as well as a thousand other little things which brought them closer.

She immediately cautioned, “It could be another mistake. I’m quite good at those. But in those moments and talking to him, it’s just like all the times where we worked well together in the store became something more.”

With that, she shrugged, offering, “It’s a shift in my life which doesn’t make me afraid I’m losing something but rather like the pieces are coming together. And Sean, you are always and forever a piece of my life. You too, Allison. I love you both. But I mean…you two are together, you get what I mean, right? One of those moments in life where it feels like mysteries are all locking into place and you feel serene.”

I could tell she was struggling with the words. I knew I would in her place as well. I put a hand on her hand and Allison joined me. I had a sense of what she meant. It was the clarity of “I love you” with Allison and knowing that this was where I wanted to be. Lissa had found a place she felt she wanted to be and I told her, sincerely, I was happy for her. Allison chimed in with, “It’s not a harem but it’s still cute! Tell us more!”

She relayed how Daniel laughed, how he organized, how he told stories, how he made sure everyone in a room was happy before he allowed himself to smile. She also relayed his quirkiness and his problems growing up and his loneliness away from his son and his fears, which he and Lissa shared like a specially-coded language. I knew that I wouldn’t understand what it was like to be a parent at this point in my life. Being responsible for someone like Quilla just felt shockingly daunting for me. But Lissa handled it with such imagination, love, and ease even though she laid bare all her anxieties to me regularly.

And then it kinda clicked for me. Lissa needed me as a friend to blow off that anxiety with. Allison too. Just to sit here and talk in a certain way. And she needed someone in another way with Daniel. It was the same for me as needing Uncle Nolan in my life to show me the way family should’ve been and needing Allison to show me…other things. Or maybe I was completely off-base. All the same, I felt sincerely happy for Lissa with no regrets.

Allison offered up, “Would he mind joining the harem?” Lissa snickered and noted, “With some of the stuff he’s said, I think you and him would get along nicely.” Allison liked the sound of that but Lissa was coy on the details.

Eventually, we settled in to watch the movie. Allison gave me some distance so I could chat with Lissa and she sometimes went into Quilla’s room before Quilla pushed her out and admonished her by saying, “Secret meetings!”

The movie was easily the best offering of any we’d challenged before, so that kept the riffing to a minimum. Later on, Allison crept back towards me once I’d shared my banter with Lissa and she’d started to rest her eyes begrudgingly with little flutters to keep them awake. I felt so happy right there despite the unknowns of the device on my leg. Just sitting there as a symbol of what I saw as the beauty of the Kinrae, no matter their name, with Allison happy beside me and Lissa at ease on the other side.

I knew I could never have it all but, in that moment, it was good. Lissa agreed to come with us to Kinraetown at an indeterminate point after the book date and any class fallout from what we knew. I didn’t ask either of them to come with me to the places where the living remains of my parents were locked away.

The night passed with little naps and ease. After all the turbulence in the days of late, it was nice to know ease and comfort with a nice movie.

After Allison’s gift of food found its little space in the fridge, we parted from Lissa with embraces and chuckles before I drove Allison back to the house.

The days followed in similar calm. The herbs grew. Clayton only caused one small fire. Malcolm stared at my device a few times. And I received no reply from my professor through the weekend. And it was at the end of that weekend the book date finally came.

It was after a happy morning in Allison’s room when he noted a special music night at the bookstore in the next city over. I pressed up against him with my bare, colorful body enveloping his warmth as I brushed back my blue hair.

We hadn’t gone far with me as an anime girl and Allison as a boy but he had been gentle and the moments were special. It was late evening by the time we got dressed and headed out.

We switched for the bookstore. Allison had picked out a dark green dress that covered enough of her legs to deal with the mild weather and the after sunset breeze along with a light jacket in case it got colder. I liked it a lot even though I still had anxiety about any color which came close to the one Tessa was associated with.

The trip was only about thirty minutes on the freeway with the restaurant next to a mall. It wasn’t anything fancy but I had on a collared shirt and some decent pants to pair with Allison. Comfortable enough for casual book browsing later.

Of course, the entire parking lot was already filled up but we found a spot a ways over. The wait itself wasn’t too bad, especially with the company.