Not long after I’d made contact with Mom, Dad, and Nathan, I’d created a new Facebook account under the name “Lauren Wallace” and sent friend requests to my grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles along with a note about my coming out. Some of my cousins had responded, and we’d occasionally talked online since then. My aunts and uncles didn’t respond, nor did Grandma and Grandpa Wallace. But not long after Mom and Dad moved to Durham, Grandma McNeill had belatedly accepted my friend request. I wasn’t sure if that was because she was rarely on Facebook and had only just seen the request, or because she wasn’t sure what to think of me until after she’d had some conversations with Mom, but we’d talked a few times since then. She had been talking with Mom, and she was puzzled by my transition, but tentatively supportive.

Then in early December, Grandma McNeill sent me a message inviting me to come spend Christmas at their house in Pensacola, Florida. “I’d love to,” I wrote back, “but I’ll need a ride. I don’t have a car.”

Later that day, when I talked to Nathan on the phone, he told me that he was spending Christmas with Grandma McNeill, too, and I could ride with him if I wanted to.

“But I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to,” he said. “Mom and Dad will be there too.”

“Huh.” I thought about it quietly for a few moments, and then said: “I’m not sure. I’d like to spend Christmas with you and Mom, and Grandma McNeill has been surprisingly good to me, but Dad... I’m afraid he’ll mess it up for everyone if I’m there. And now that I think of it, I’m not 100% sure about Grandpa McNeill, either — I haven’t talked to him since I came out, only Grandma. I mean, he’s more liberal than Dad or Grandpa Wallace, but plenty of liberals of his generation only give lip service to tolerating trans people.”

“Let me know what you decide.”

The next day, Grandma McNeill replied to my message, offering to pay for a plane ticket. Instead of replying on Facebook, I phoned her after I got off work.

“Hey, Grandma,” I said.

“How are you doing, Lauren? Have you decided to come see us for Christmas?”

“I’d like to. I’m not sure yet if I’ll be riding with Nathan or flying — thanks for offering to pay for a plane ticket, by the way. But I’m kind of worried about Dad.”

“If he makes a scene,” she said firmly, “he’ll be the one I chew out. Not you. And if he won’t listen, he’ll be the one who’s not welcome to stay any longer. Not you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That means a lot.”

“So what do you think?”

“I think I’ll come. Whether I fly or ride with Nathan... I’d like to spend more time with him, and he’d probably like to have someone to share the driving with, but that’s still going to be a long car trip. I’ll let you know as soon as I talk with him.”

“He’s not going to meet up with your parents and carpool with them?”

“Uh, not that I know of...? I had the impression he was driving straight there. I mean, going from Mars Hill to Durham before they drive to Pensacola would be a pretty long detour.”

“Okay. You kids sort it out and let me know.”

“There’s one other thing I wanted to ask,” I said. “Would it be okay if my girlfriend Jada comes to visit with me?”

“Well, maybe. We’d have to figure out where she’s going to sleep, though. We’d planned on your parents sleeping in one guest bedroom, and you in the other, and Nathan on the sofa bed. That doesn’t really leave anywhere for her to sleep, except maybe on a pallet on the floor somewhere...”

“Let me explain —” And I told her how Jada and I had been splitting in two and staying with each other in plushie form when we couldn’t be together for a while. “And she’s going to be with her grandma and sister and other relatives for Christmas, and my plushie self is going to stay with her, but I wanted to check if her plushie self could come with me to y’all’s house. And if so, well, she could sleep in one of the easy chairs in the living room if you don’t want her to sleep with me even though she’s a plushie.”

“Oh! That sounds fascinating. I didn’t know the Venn machines could do that. Well, I’ll talk with your grandpa about it, but I think it will suit. How big a plushie is she usually?”

“A little smaller than a grown cat, but I think we might make her smaller this time, so she’ll fit in my carry-on luggage more easily.”

“Okay, I’ll call you back after I talk to your grandpa.”

I called Nathan right away, but he didn’t answer, so I left him a message and checked my Discords for a few minutes before supper. Later, Sophia and I were hanging out and watching wildlife videos when Nathan called back.

“Hey, Lauren, you decided yet?”

“Not quite. I wanted to ask you something. Grandma offered to pay for a plane ticket for me.”

“Oh, cool. You should probably take her up on that, though I’d like to do a road trip with you sometime, spend more time getting to know each other again.”

“Well, what if I said you could come with me on the plane and not have to pay for a ticket?”

He was quiet for a moment, and said, “What’s the catch?”

“Well, a few times while I was in hiding, I venned into a necklace for one of my friends to wear so I could audit their classes. I could see and hear just fine. We could do that. Or I could venn you into something that can still move and talk, but is very small and can fit in my carry-on luggage, like a palm-sized plushie or living statue. Or I could venn you into something very simple, like a marble — in that form you’d basically sleep through the whole thing, and wake up when I cancel the Venn at the Pensacola airport. Whichever you prefer.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Why don’t you venn into something small, and we ask Grandma to put the ticket in my name?”

“We could,” I said. “I’d want to be a tiny animate plushie in that case, so I can venn directly back into my usual girl form. When I venn into something that can’t move, the Venn machine will automatically turn me back into my old boy body as soon as you put me in the booth, and I really don’t want that. But, you know, either way you’d need to drive here first — I don’t have a car to drive to Mars Hill and I don’t know if you have someone we can trust who knows how to venn people into semi-animate plushies.”

“What the heck. I’ve been thinking about venning again sometime, and I was kind of planning on doing a small change first, not much more than when you made my hair longer... but I guess I’ll jump in the deep end. Tell Grandma you’re flying and let me know when you need to be at the airport. I’ll be at the Ramseys’ house a few hours before that.”

Grandma called back a little while later, saying it was okay for Desiree to come for Christmas. So everything seemed to be pretty well set — if Dad would refrain from messing everything up.

 

* * *

 

One day in mid-December, a few days after Meredith came home from UNC Chapel Hill for Christmas, I was taking a break at work and hanging out with Genevieve and Terri for a few minutes. Genevieve was a kind of beetle-bee hybrid, with a bee’s striped fuzzy underbelly and a beetle’s elytra over her wings, and a slightly human-ish face. Terri was a big mushroom with a face and arms and four small feet, apparently based on a fantasy creature from a story she liked, “though the ones in the book are a lot smaller,” she said. I was in one of my more outre dragon-like bodies, slender with silver scales and four smaller wings more like a butterfly or moth than a bat. None of us had worn the same body the day before, and we were brainstorming about what bodies to use the next day at work, something different enough from what we’d been wearing lately that Mr. Buckholtz wouldn’t say anything, when Genevieve suddenly said, “Why don’t we drop by the Reidsville location after we get off?”

My eyes widened. “Yeah. We should talk to Mx. Paget about this. But shouldn’t we call and see if they’re there today?” There had been a notice on the employee bulletin board a week earlier about Mx. Paget’s new title and pronouns (they/them). It wasn’t much of a surprise; with how often they switched sexes, I’d long suspected they were some sort of non-binary.

“Yeah, I guess... I was thinking we’d get better results by dropping in. Even if it means wasting the trip a couple of times. Calling and talking to whoever answers the phone before we talk to him gives more chances for word to get back to Mr. Buckholtz about who it was that went over his head to Mx. Paget.”

“Assuming Mx. Paget doesn’t tell him,” Terri said. “I don’t think they would, but... And if we walk into the Reidsville restaurant without calling ahead, we’d still have to talk to a couple of people before we get to talk to Mx. Paget, unless we get really lucky and they happen to be near the cash register when we walk in.”

“Okay,” Genevieve said. “Let’s wait and call after we get off before we go over there. You both with me?”

“I’ll come,” I said, and Terri agreed too.

So we got back to work, and a few hours later, after calling to ask if Mx. Paget was around, we clocked out and got in Genevieve’s car. It was a little over twenty minutes’ drive, and we planned out what we were going to say about Mr. Buckholtz’s policies and what specifically we’d like Mx. Paget to do.

The parking situation in Reidsville wasn’t as good as at the original location; there was a parking lot shared by Metamorphoses II and the independent pharmacy on the other side of the lot, but the spaces reserved for Metamorphoses staff and customers were full up, as were all but the handicap spaces for the pharmacy, so we parked further down the street and walked a block to the restaurant. We were still wearing our work aprons and nametags.

“Hey, Gabriela, we’d like to talk with Mx. Paget when they’ve got a moment,” Genevieve said to the greeter, who was mostly human, but had a third eye in her forehead and long, loose black hair that stirred lazily without a breeze. I vaguely remembered meeting someone of that name a few times when she used to work at the Brocksboro location, though her body today wasn’t much like what I’d seen back then.

“Yeah, they came in late today after running some errands,” Gabriela said, and swatted down a stray lock of hair that was reaching toward Genevieve’s antennae. “I think they’re in their office doing the books. Check in with Brendan.”

So we went back to the prep area and asked around for Brendan, the shift manager. He was a stocky guy with rabbit-like ears and short, bristly fur, not much taller than I usually was. I was starting to get anxious about the impending confrontation and the unfamiliar surroundings, but I told myself Mx. Paget was an easygoing, approachable boss who wasn’t going to fire us for expressing concerns about Mr. Buckholtz.

“Good afternoon, ladies, what’s up?”

“We work at the Brocksboro store,” Genevieve said. “We’d like to talk with Mx. Paget about some concerns we have.”

“All right,” Brendan said. “Let me check and see if they’re busy.”

Brendan disappeared down the hall came back a minute later and said, “They’ll see you now.” I swallowed hard and we followed him to the office.

Mx. Paget was tall and slender today, with fennec fox ears and slightly biggish eyes in proportion to their head, but mostly human otherwise. They looked up from their computer and smiled at us.

“Good evening. Brendan, could you bring an extra chair, please?”

“Sure,” Brendan said, but Terri said, “I’m more comfortable standing in this body, if you don’t mind.”

“Ah. Doesn’t bend at the waist easily?” Terri had looked awkward, wedged into Genevieve’s back seat with hardly a bend where someone’s knees or waist would be, but she said it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it looked.

“No, uh... I’m not sure what to call you, like we used to say ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir’ depending on your body that day?”

“‘Comrade’ seems to be what a lot of younger non-binary people are going for,” Mx. Paget said with a wry smile. “Or ‘boss’ if that feels too familiar. Anyway... You can go, Brendan. What can I do for you, ladies?”

Genevieve spoke as soon as Brendan closed the door behind him. “We have some concerns about the way Mr. Buckholtz is running the Brocksboro store. As you may know, he started off as manager by requesting everyone to venn into different forms more often, and to come to work in a wider variety of forms than previously.”

Mx. Paget nodded. “He told me about his idea that having the wait staff change their forms more often and use a wider variety of forms would lead to more repeat business. I thought it was worth a try, and reminded him to pay attention to the exclusion clauses we signed with each employee and try to be sensitive to forms people might not have formally excluded but were uncomfortable with. Has he not been doing that?”

“He hasn’t asked anyone to venn into something they excluded, as far as I know. It’s more the fact that over the last couple of months he’s gotten more stringent about how often people have to change their form and how similar their new form is allowed to be to the previous one, to the point where Anna, for instance, before she left for another job, was reprimanded for coming to work in otter form one day and walrus form the next. Some people enjoy the challenge of coming up with very different forms day after day, but it’s gotten to be a hassle for most of us.”

“Hmm. Has he set any clear rules about how often you have to change or how similar two forms can be?”

“Not really,” I said. “He just talks to you when he thinks you’re too similar to one of your recent forms, or haven’t changed in too long.”

“We’ve gotten in the habit of changing to something different before every shift,” Terri said. “Sometimes he won’t say anything if you wear the same body two days in a row, but sometimes he will. And we know of at least three people who’ve left or are planning to leave because of this change.”

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” Mx. Paget said. “Whether I decide to continue the policy of more frequent re-venns or not, you need to have clearer guidance about what’s expected. And it sounds like changing every day or two is too much, so whatever new guideline we come up with will need to be less restrictive. Hmm... what would you say to re-venning twice a week? It could be on consecutive days, or up to six days apart... I think as long as everyone isn’t re-venning on the same days, we should get the increased variation in the look of the waitstaff that Mr. Buckholtz was going for.”

“That would be fair,” Genevieve said. “Almost anything would be better than this, where we’re kept guessing about exactly how often we’re expected to change and how much.”

“I think most of us were already changing at least once a week before this,” I said. “And probably half were already changing twice a week. Yeah, twice a week is fine, although it would be nice if we could have some clearer guidance about how different two consecutive forms have to be.”

“That’s a thorny problem,” Mx. Paget said. “There are so many possible forms, even just the ones that are suitable for our work, and so many ways to describe how they’re similar or different. I’ll have to think about it and get some suggestions from various people. Starting with you. Any ideas?”

None of us said anything for a few moments. After thinking a bit, I said, “Well, you could sort the things people can venn into into a few broad categories, and say that each form has to be in a different category than your last one? Like, off the top of my head, there’s humans with extra features, furries, scalies, cyborgs, robots...”

“Plant-people and fungus-people,” Terri put in, and Genevieve added “Insects and spiders —”

“Let’s say invertebrates in general,” Mx. Paget said, nodding along and taking notes. “Then there’s animate dolls —”

We brainstormed a rough and ready classification system, and Mx. Paget said they wanted to back off a little on the “every new form different from the last” requirement. We also talked about how often that “different category” rule would apply. “I think we’ll probably have enough variety if we say everyone should use forms from three different categories every month,” they said. “So Lauren, for instance,” nodding at me, “could use different dragon-girl bodies, ah... six times a month, and let’s say an ocelot morph once and an animate doll once.”

“That’s very generous, comrade,” Genevieve said, and Terri and I agreed.

“Well, this isn’t final; I’ll be talking about it with a few other people before I make a decision. But I think we’ve come up with a good rough draft. Good work, ladies.”

We walked out of there and were about to go back down the street to Genevieve’s car. “Anybody want to visit the Venn machine before we go?” Genevieve asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’d like to go back to my everyday body.”

“I’d like to get out of this capling, too,” Terri said. “It’s cute, but kind of slow with these short legs. Remind me to ask for longer legs if I ever wear a mushroom body to work again.”

So we went around the corner to the Venn machine. Nobody else was using it, so Terri and I went right in and venned each other into the everyday forms from our history. As Genevieve drove me and Terri home, we talked about how well the meeting with Mx. Paget had gone, and speculated how long it would be before we could relax around Mr. Buckholtz and stop venning into something different every day.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they talk to Mr. Buckholtz and tell him to ease off within an hour,” Genevieve said, “but it might be several weeks before they make the new policy official.”

“Yeah, let’s keep venning every shift until we hear something,” Terri agreed.