Part 5 (cont.)

Allison continued to pester Quilla about school, what “fun” she’d had, and other things to the point I had the odd feeling like they were siblings fighting in the back seat. All that was missing was the pushing and kicking. Not that I had experience with siblings.

The escalation was tempered by a stop at a place I’d only visited before with Lissa: the sliced fruit stand. Along with some smoothies, they offered a variety of fruit in bowls via drive-thru. They were never that busy but Lissa seemed to frequent them at least.

We all ate by the side of the parking lot in relative quiet with the windows down. It was turning into a temperate afternoon, especially for this time of year. No winds kicking up. No clouds in sight. But plenty of gawkers passing by slowly as Lissa and I leaned out our windows.

Halfway through her fruit, Quilla asked, “So what did it feel like? When you got zapped into cartoons.” Her question didn’t have a name directing it to her mom or to me. Lissa shot me a glance and kept eating.

Setting my plastic bowl down, I turned to the back and told her, “I didn’t really feel anything. It was just like being different all of a sudden.” Allison leaned forward a little. Lissa added, “Same for me. Which is good because I had to try on lots of forms before I decided on this.”

Quilla looked to her mom and said, “You look like a Christmas tree.” Lissa gave her a glance and murmured, “I like green.”

“It’s like you fell down and a crayon exploded in your hair.” Allison snickered and Quilla took some pride in that. I pointed to myself and asked, “What about me?” Quilla appraised me while Lissa ate fruit in the most annoyed way possible. Eventually, she said, “Not as bad. It kinda fits you. You have a lot of hair though and it’s like ice. That makes it pretty. Not like mold.”

“Ooookay. One little pirate is going to get exiled to the Isle of Salt soon.” Lissa sent back a focused, wide gaze. Quilla didn’t seem intimidated, noting, “With my ninja skills there isn’t a pile of salt I can’t climb over. I laugh at such dangers.” Quilla gave a feigned laugh which sounded like she was imitating my regular voice. Allison rubbed at his chin a bit and then bent over to whisper to Quilla.

She stopped and listened. I couldn’t hear what Allison said. For a moment, Quilla sat there, stony-faced. Then her lips undulated and she couldn’t hold back a wild giggle. She kept laughing until Lissa pouted and had to pry, “I hope it’s not a joke on me.” Allison assured her it wasn’t but Quilla had her lips sealed about what it was.

There were moments when I could see Michael’s presence lingering in Quilla, the way she was so skeptical with Allison, how grounded she was despite the flights of her imagination. But then there were moments like this, pure, child-like joy. I kept a smile even after the laughter died down.

Quilla rebounded a bit with Allison’s words, admonishing him, “You may talk to me like an adult.” Allison slipped on a devious expression but didn’t tease her further as we pulled into the driveway. I lingered around the car as Allison and Quilla raced each other to the door and Lissa made sure to collect all the fruit cups before the leftover juices found their way into the carpet. I noticed the empty reminder of the small peach tree which had its last year when I met Lissa and then promptly expired, only staying standing till the next stiff breeze keeled it over.

Just such a breeze curled its way out of the calm of the day. Not too cold but still cool. It pressed at my hair, threatening to untangle the weaves and braids. I shut my eyes a moment. I had ignored so many sensations but the tracings of the wind reminded me of so much and how it had all changed, lingering especially on a sensitive area my chest had never known, pressing out slightly and so very warm against the breeze. I felt the beginnings of goose bumps but wasn’t sure how they would show with the textures of my skin. Before I could reflect further, Lissa gave me a poke in the back and urged me, “Come on in. You can have your Zen moment where it’s warm. I’ll make tea.”

It was vanilla jasmine rooibos tea, which obviously had come from where Lissa worked. The steam felt nice on my nose and cheeks. Watching my reflection in the undulating, tinted water was nice too. It was just Lissa and me at the table with our tea. Allison and Quilla had made their way into the living room and it sounded like there were grand plans afloat for an epic pirate war in the backyard. The Dreaded, Salty Sea Pirate Allison already had his voice ready.

Stirring her tea, Lissa asked me, “How do you feel now?”

I looked at her. She clarified, “You confessed. You got my response. You’ve been a girl for several hours and played dress-up and whatnot. I ask because…well, call it my psychoanalytic urge.” She took a long sip.

I wafted my tea a bit more until it felt hot on my face. “I kinda expected things would be a lot different. For all of it. I expected I would take on some Allison-like surge of cute anime-girl feeling. And…things with my body would be different. And…things would change with us.”

Lissa poked her tea bag. “I kinda did too, but differently. I mean I picked this face and yet it isn’t my face…” She gestured to herself with that fleshy, colorful hand. “But I don’t feel like I’ve become something weird. It’s just kinda when other people see me and respond that I feel conscious of how different it is. That should probably go in my paper.”

So it wasn’t just me. I scooted up and offered, “It could be part of the device or a side effect.” There wasn’t really much to back that up. Sure, there weren’t a great many cases of people using the devices who had alarming or negative psychological issues. Those who did seemed to be looking for them. So far as explaining that, reasons ranged widely depending on what field of study you asked. Lissa shrugged and noted, “At least it’s not a bad side effect.”

Then, without prelude, she clicked off her control device. The green-haired anime girl who had been sitting across from me instantly turned back into Lissa, wearing the clothes she’d had on before she went into the bathroom to change. With a smirk which had all her normal, human subtlety, Lissa noted, “Still, I like my own face. Besides, I heard that Allison wanted to spend some time on it and it’ll be cute to see both of you as girls.”

Before I could say anything else, she slipped the device off her leg and walked out of the room. I scuffed my cup of tea roughly across the tabletop. I knew I’d gotten a kind of answer from her about my feelings and I should’ve been taking some quiet hint. I was Lissa’s friend and she loved me for that. She didn’t want romance, not so soon after Michael. I got all that. At the same time, what I felt still clung to me no matter how hard I might’ve tried to push or hide it under feelings of friendship.

And then there was Allison. And the Kinrae. And so many other complications. I held my slender hand in front of me as the fading traces of steam slipped through the gaps between my fingers.

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I heard a squeal from the other room followed by scampering. Allison hurried to stand in the doorway and show off the device and controller in his hands. Then he uttered, with a smile and a giggle, “Be right back.”

Lissa offered me some kind of cake which appeared to be non-wheat and sticky. It was a little less disconcerting to sit across from her in human form. Her hair seemed a little brighter than usual but the afternoon sun was shimmering through a side window.

While we waited for Allison to make his reappearance, I pondered what to say to Lissa. This should’ve been easy. We should’ve been talking like we usually were. But I felt stumped. Fortunately, she found words, saying, “That, however, looks like a good face for you.” I offered her quick thanks and finished my cake.

It soon became clear from playfully-soft cackles through the bathroom that Allison was going the Lissa route and trying on every single form available in the device. Quilla made her way to the backyard and Lissa kept an eye on her through a side window.

I took a breath and told her, “I want to take you on a date.” Blunt words. My immediate impulse was to hide my face in the steam and add something to soften that sentiment. My thought after that was I really hoped that I hadn’t said that so loud that Allison heard in the bathroom.

Lissa kept looking out the side window as Quilla scaled her platform pirate ship to hunt for salt miners.

Without turning her head, she told me, “On the condition we go as girlfriends.”

“Both Kinrae?”

Offering up a shrug, Lissa answered, “Maybe. But you have to go as one.”

I turned my cup a bit to distract myself. I hadn’t said yes and Lissa didn’t seem to be pushing for an answer. She looked content to watch her daughter play. My eyes felt moist and it wasn’t just the lingering condensation from the steam off the tea.

I could’ve brought up all the nice things Lissa had said about my male body, questioning why she didn’t want to go out with me like that. At the same time, the idea of going like this, and maybe both as Kinrae, sounded fun. And then there was my promised date with Allison. I heard the soft padding of feet as the bathroom door slid open. I turned to the doorway just in time to see a bright flash of color enter the room.

The new girl who stood before us had a pair of green eyes like stirred liquid jade with rising bands around a dark center. Her face had more artistic detail than mine with a flush curve of a nose and broad cheeks. Her eyes were sharply ringed. And her hair.

Her hair was bright pink, the tone of shaped, streaked cotton candy. Parts of it rose up in curls and twirled around her ears and neck, fluttering just past it. Her shoulders were narrow and her hands even more feminine than Allison’s usually were. Her color tone made her look almost tanned compared to the understated colors I wore.

She wore a clingy, blue top which seemed like an anime version of polyester with a row of dark blue along the sides and a brighter blue along the front. A collar of white showed at the top of her neckline. And then, there was the most obvious detail of all, her bust.

Whereas Lissa had only lightly challenged me in that department, Allison tackled it and found a girl who obviously outmatched me. Despite my own current state, my eyes automatically flicked to the curve of her chest for a lingering moment. The top cradled her and showed the shading of a bra underneath. Lower, she wore a navy skirt which ended around her thighs with matching heeled boots.

Clacking on the kitchen floor, Allison turned around and laid a hand on her wide hip before asking in a voice higher than any of ours, “What do you think? I really should’ve tried for longer, straighter hair because this will be a pain to braid.”

Lissa diverted her attention to smile at Allison and offer, “You look very nice. How do you feel?”

“Jiggly. Quite jiggly at both ends.” She demonstrated with a little bounce of her legs. She giggled at that and added, “But it’s fun. I wonder what QBC will think. First, however…”

She walked towards me slowly and purposefully. Standing right next to my chair, Allison didn’t have to crouch down far to meet me. She reached her arms around my head and turned it. I sensed what was coming and parted my lips slightly as hers met mine. The kiss felt long, longer than the second one. When she was done, she gave a little giggle and an extra hug, pressing her bust into my shoulder as she pronounced, “Gotcha baaaaack!”

With that, she bounded off and out the sliding door to go find Quilla. I touched my fingers to my lips. They seemed to tingle in a way which I’d never felt before. I felt a little flush and my heart was 'thudded'. And there were other sensations percolating in ways which made me cross my legs and clear my throat.

Lissa wore an inscrutable smile as she looked back out the window before mentioning that the backyard tree was only a few weeks off from “vomiting pollen”. Topics dove into similar gripes as Lissa brushed at her nose. I mentioned something which had been coughed up by the Internet some weeks ago about showers of spiders and their webs covering entire trees in some foreign country. Lissa gave me a wry look and a puff of a laugh.

Soon, we were into hokey spider monster movies with rubbery special effects. Squealing sounds and cackling proclamations of “saltine sea” battles accented the background and the tingling finally faded from my lips.

Then, the phone on the wall gave a long ring. Lissa stood up and answered it with a trace of a smile on her lips. That smile soon faded as I watched. She dipped her head down and answered, “Yeah. Hello….Things are fine. She’s fine…..Tonight?...That’s short notice. It has been a while but I thought we’d agreed…Of course. I have a few guests over though….Yeah….No. Just friends….They will. They’re staying late…..You’ll have to deal with that….I’ll have something ready by then. Bye.”

Her features were rigid and she gave a long, tense sigh as she hung the phone back up. I had an inkling of who was on the other end but I folded my hands and waited for her to tell me. Lissa cleared her throat, opened the sliding door, and called Quilla inside. She had some dust on her clothes and her hair was a little messed up. Lissa fussed with both and told her to go get cleaned up.

Quilla hustled down the hall and Allison came in with her bright pink hair even more unkempt than before. She glanced around and asked, “What’s up?”

Lissa looked more towards me and said, “Asshole is coming to dinner.” Allison cocked her head and Lissa added, “My husband, Michael, is making a surprise visit to see Quilla because he has business up north.” She pressed at her face and cracked her neck.

I scuffed my feet and Allison pondered a bit before asking, “Would you like me to assassinate him with my boobs? Sexy but deadly.” She cupped her hands under them for emphasis and gave a little smile.

With a small laugh, Lissa remarked, “Not yet….we’ll see how dinner goes. Gotta get things ready.”