See Yourself Be Yourself

[9] Swaps

But it didn't take long for Misty to realize that she hadn't actually gotten tacos but rather the cheese quesadilla. It looked nicer, but her mind and stomach had already prepared for the other item. What she had was clearly an objective better, but looking at the crisp tacos Lillis was enjoying sparked a tiny flare of jealousy. She could have asked to trade, but it was more the ideal of the tacos than their actuality that she wanted. Grass is greener concept. Any other state of being right now would be preferable to where she wound up.

She knew she had blessings she could count, even if they didn't feel obvious. She was alive. As old people always liked to point out, she had her health. At least as far as she knew. Lillis would have informed her if there was anything, and what she knew of the process emphasized that nothing negative would be placed on the recipient of the service. However, if Dina had had her way, she could have ended up as a stumbling beach ball with deep depression and no sexuality. As it was, sexuality was far from her thoughts, and she knew that one of the requests involved difficulty in that area. But it could've been worse. How, was a point she didn't want to dwell on.

She didn't have any strong opinions about what they should watch on Netflix, but she appreciated that Lillis settled on a bright and relaxing travelogue series instead of some science fiction show with bloody murders and existential crises in a hostile, alien universe. Perhaps that was escapism for some. She never really cared about whether there was intelligent life out there in the universe, certainly not the traditional gray aliens that everyone unimaginatively made the antagonists in everything.

"Did you want some of my tacos? I saw you eyeballing them, and you looked a little disappointed that you only have that quesadilla." Lillis asked her that out of the blue, and Misty responded as if a leather whip had been cracked in front of her. It took her a moment to recover from the unexpected question, blinking and twisting her mouth before she could actually fill it with words.

"Oh no, no. It's fine. I just got kind of mixed up, and I thought that I ordered tacos too. I forgot the quesadilla. It looks really good." She tried to put clear enthusiasm into her response, but it felt more like she was sliding down a verbal cliff, her words shrinking and echoing in a vast space that was ravenously devouring her.

Lillis flashed her a worried look and reiterated, "We can share. How about this? I'll take a corner of your quesadilla, and you can have my last taco. Sound good?" Misty had no objection to that. It was an equal exchange of food and easy to do. But she wasn't sure if she wanted to eat the taco now. Despite this uncertainty, she bit into it without thinking. Not impulsively, just assertively and working towards confidence. The taco tasted good, but not as amazing as her mind had positioned it. Eating the rest of the quesadilla felt better. What a silly thing to waste so much brain power on.

The rain splattered hard against the window behind them, and Misty wrapped herself up in the blanket, the pillow perfectly positioned to support her neck. The show was relaxing, almost too relaxing, as she slipped into a languid yawn and long blinks.

In contrast, her stomach still had something turbulent to say about the digestion of this sizable snack. There wasn't enough urgency and restlessness yet to suggest an escape to the bathroom, but the signs were there.

She smirked. Thinking of it in those terms made it sound more like an espionage operation than a need to poop. Brent had been very imaginative when he was young. Just walking down the hallway at school reminded him of old TV shows where the camera swooped and everything the characters said was urgent. It was fun to imagine that something wild was going on compared to the mundane qualities of everyday life.

Not that Brent needed excitement. He didn't seek it out. Dina was the most unexciting presence, even though practically every moment was full of some created drama involving an off-the-cuff joke about who was going to do the dishes in the sink or how dated an episode of some show from the 2000s was for some random reason. Brent could never see the offensive elements that Dina did, but he chose to just defer to her because it made things easier. And the ultimate consequences were the enormous boobs planted on his chest and this body that would be him from now on.

He and she waffled a lot on pronouns. And it was another one of those things that she said she didn't care about for one reason or another. But she cared… He cared. It was easy to forget the name Brent and just look forward to the new reality of Misty. Could Brent be an androgynous or unisex name? She'd have to Google a whole lot of things, but just because practically everyone online said it was one gender or the other for the name, didn't make it so. In proximity of sounding similar, there was Brett, Britt, or Brynn.

His middle name was Lewis, although he often forgot about that. It didn't feel like a name that heavily gendered itself. There were versions like Louise, which sounded really close to Luis. It depended on how it was pronounced. It was just a name, but she had been saddled with Misty Amanda Hollins and had accepted it because she just accepted whatever Dina gave her.

Lillian Ellender Shaw was her new friend's name, but she hadn't totally accepted it, making Elle be her work name and Lillis be her friend name. Misty wondered what kind of name she had before, before the changes she alluded to. It felt rude, or at least uncouth, to bring up, considering she didn't know how open Lillis was about the kind of change that connected them.

Lillis implied that she used to be a guy, though Misty couldn't find any evidence of that quality. But then, how many signature masculine traits did Brent show on a good day with Dina's suppression, and how many were left after her decimation? Spinning her brain like a hamster wheel with all these questions may have jolted her out of the sleepy doldrums, but it didn't seem to be a lasting solution.

Back to the streaming program. She saw beautiful stretches of Chinese splendor that looked more like something out of a science fiction movie than something that could possibly exist in reality. Considering everything she heard about what the nanoparticle could do with the use of the crystal, why wasn't it being used for travel purposes? They fired up a scenario for Brent that was a narrow slice of reality where the rain turned him into Misty. Would it really be that difficult to create a place with floating mountains inspired by Xanadu, Kubla Khan, and all that?

There was a lot of technical stuff wrapped in crafting and accessing these different realities, but someone once told him it was more like creating a phone number, but one that had more digits than there were atoms in the universe, so the only way to store it properly was through a fractal encoded in a crystal. Writing it out was impossible. The crystal was that unique thumbprint. That was how she understood it on a layman's level.

There were other questions as well. She hadn't really heard much about the fact that places like the boutique could just conjure up a wide variety of clothes for her to take. They just appeared out of nowhere, materializing from other universes. No one mentioned the consequences of that.

It made her think of Star Trek. Her mother was a huge fan of the original series. She had a huge crush on William Shatner. When other actors came along to play the role of Kirk, she reacted with resentment. They weren't as good as the original. Just copies, boys pretending. She already complained about the newest versions on streaming being worse than the movies. Brent hadn't seen any of them, but he deferred to his mother and her experience.

The point was that Star Trek was post-scarcity. No money. Just a credit system for the most part. Though historical or unique items were given a certain value, which tended to be sentimental. Technology allowed you to make anything through replicators and other methods. The possibilities of harvesting resources through the nanoparticle made her wonder why no one else had attempted it. It sounded like Lillis' friend group might be thinking along the same lines.

Yes, meeting another group of people would be a big, social undertaking, putting herself out there with this body of creeping unease, but she was curious.

She was left with a small container of salsa and cream cheese, which she vaguely stirred together to sip. The rain outside sounded pretty intense, and the moisture seeping through made her hair feel even heavier.

Valerie curled up against the arm of the couch and looked like she was going to sleep. She was cute. Brent would've given her extra curious looks. She had an interesting sense of androgyny mixed with understated femininity. Decisively, clearly girlish, but also tomboyish. She shifted a few times, as if something was bothering her and she couldn't get completely comfortable. Misty wanted to ask what was wrong, but she felt a great deal of doubt in herself. It sucked because she could list so many instances as Brent, where his natural intuition served him well.

And then she had moments of guilt. She cheated... He cheated during a baby shower contest to get a little random gift and further the shower host's delight. Hypocrite. Damn hypocrite. He made such a big deal about being honest and sincere, but he lied. He lied about the most random and insignificant things. He lied habitually. He had probably already lied to these new friends, souring the foundation of their bond. It was inevitable.

And that was why the pain of what Dina did and the betrayal didn't hit him as hard as it should have. He deserved it; on some level, it was earned. It was his karmic consequence. Enduring Dina was his recompense. He was a liar to the core, and this was the field he had sown and had to reap. How disgusted would these girls be if this rancid pit of the real him was shown and known? She pressed her hand into a rough part of the couch until it hurt.

"Are you okay?" Not Lillis this time, or even Valerie. She had spoken, asking the meager girl in the understated hoodie.

Valerie straightened slightly with an audible pop in her neck. She grimaced and groaned before stretching properly. "Owwie... me? I'm just lost in my usual places of thought. I get so stuck, lost, and swallowed up by my usual things. It's like being underwater for a long time, and I keep forgetting to come up to breathe. Metaphorically, I guess. I really love pizza, but sometimes I wonder if I should. How long can you really love a thing as an idea, a reality, an ideal, and a possibility?" She pressed her fingers to her mouth with the lingering feeling that this was more of a rhetorical question than an actual one.

She continued, "Creatively, I've been through so many possibilities. Pizza feels like such a life-affirming constant, but I'm not above doubt. Like religious uncertainty. Although I'm only mildly spiritual and not that religious. And the pizza part is not like a flying, crusty pizza monster. Although that would be really cool and a worthwhile design. But by the time I get to the canvas, my favorite parts that I feel right now will probably dry up, and not feel as inspired as I want them to. I've tried painting with different kinds of marinara, but it's a very hard medium. And smelly after a while. But not as smelly as some paints."

Misty wanted to hug her. She thought about it, and she could visualize herself going through with it. But Lillis did it. She scooted over to the other side and squeezed in to wrap her friend in a hug. In some version of reality, that might have been her. Little moments like that lingered in her mind like passing snowflakes. She could've really told Dina off or set the kind of boundaries that established a more equal relationship.

But she reacted to situations or didn't react and just observed the fallout. She needed to be different from here on out. She needed to be better and stronger and more of the best of what she saw in others and what she wanted for herself.

[Welcome to the Seventh Book in the Cerberus Saga. Yup. We’re doing this. I never thought I would delve into such a big part of the backstory and this may be a good idea but I like writing about all sorts of characters. I have the ending of the story in mind already. But is it the ending you might expect from what you know now? We’ll see…Provisionally, I am focusing on one chapter a week and we’ll see how things go from there. They might be longer or shorter and more numerous. Always feel free to offer suggestions. Reader response is going to be very important going forward. I’m open to anything. Although the squirrel thing is probably the closest I’ll ever get to furry. I’m gonna have some fun and funny characters this time too. Dunno how long this will go. It might be much shorter due to the different pacing. I hope you enjoy it. I plan to get the earlier books together and released in an official form. Look forward to that hopefully. As always, vast details, especially types of characters, character names, and more are wide open for this narrative. Feel free to add any idea which doesn't show up in the eventual options. Also, if you see any random typos or uncapitalized starts of sentences, please pass them along. I am currently using Quillbot and DeepL to assist with speedy editing, but that’s not 100%. Thank you for reading!]

Poll after this. Since I've change the schedule, polls are more important than ever. Feel free to offer as much feedback as you can to help the story.