Wednesday, I ate lunch with Linda.

“Have you found time to do that research you were talking about?”

“Yeah, I did a fair amount Monday as myself, and then Tuesday as Jennifer.”

“Oh... You were her yesterday? I wanted to meet her.”

“Sorry. I’ll try to get her to meet up with you next time, but I can’t promise anything... she didn’t exactly do what I’d planned on her doing when I took the jekyllase yesterday.”

“So when is next time going to be?”

“Saturday... Cynthia and Jennifer are planning to spend the day together. I think they’ve got some stuff they need to discuss in private, but I expect they’d be glad to hang out with you for a little while before or after that.” I couldn’t say they had a date without betraying Cynthia and Emily’s secrets. And Jennifer’s, for that matter.

“You expect?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure how Jennifer will react, much less Cynthia... all I can do is have Jennifer tell you whether you’re invited next time she’s out.”

“Hmm. So what did you find out from your research, both of you?”

“Well...” I began reluctantly, “...the psychologists whose articles I read all seem to think it’s a mental illness of some kind. Most of them think it’s a kind of homosexuality, but some disagree. Some of them think it should be treated with hormone injections and surgery, but some think psychotherapy or electroshock or something might cure it. Jennifer disagrees with them; she thinks it’s not a mental illness, and she doesn’t think I’m transsexual, in the sense that those psychologists define it.”

“And what do you think...? I guess on some level you must agree with Jennifer, right, since she’s part of you?”

“I’m not sure what to think. I feel better about myself after re-reading those articles as Jennifer than I did before, but I’m still worried.”

“If you could be Jennifer all the time, would you want to?”

I hesitated. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I like being me, too, but if I had to choose between never being Jennifer again, and always being her... I think I might choose Jennifer. Except that she doesn’t have any legal ID or money and my parents and brother wouldn’t recognize her as me.”

“That would be a problem, yeah.”

“I mean, I could get a driver’s license for her, but I don’t think it would hold up to serious scrutiny. Those IDs are meant to be glanced at by a bartender, not gone over with a fine-tooth comb by potential employers or government officials.”

“You can probably get better ones, but they’d cost more, and I don’t know who to ask.”

“So being Jennifer full-time isn’t really an option. And like I said, I might choose Jennifer if I could, but... I probably wouldn’t. I like being me just fine.”

“What about the other option, the hormone injections and surgery?”

I scowled, taking a drag on my cigarette. “I don’t want to give up being me, remember? Besides, I’m pretty sure that approximation of being female would be pretty unsatisfying after I’ve had the real thing.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you’re transsexual. If you were, you would want to be female full-time one way or the other, with jekyllase or surgery. But you’re not a normal — hmm, let’s say not a typical guy, either. Most guys, if something turned them into a girl, would freak out and avoid doing that thing again. They wouldn’t enjoy it and keep doing it.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know what I am.”

“Does there have to be a word for it? You’re you.” She smiled, and I smiled back, suddenly feeling a lot better.

“So,” I said, “do you want to do something, you and me, Friday night, before you and Jennifer maybe hang out some on Saturday?”

“Sure, why not. Let’s do that little thing.”

---

Friday after my last class, I went over to Lanyon Hall and waited for Linda. She came down to the lobby about fifteen minutes later, and we walked to my car.

We went to see an early showing of Ryan’s Daughter, a historical romance that took place during World War I and just after the Easter Uprising in Ireland; we both enjoyed it, Linda more than me. I think Jennifer would have enjoyed it even more. It had plenty of romantic scenes that gave me an excuse to lean over and kiss Linda.

After the movie, we went to a nearby restaurant and ate supper. We started out talking about the movie, but of course the conversation swung around to jekyllase before long. We didn’t get anywhere; we just rehashed our earlier conversations about the puzzles of why I turned into Jennifer and she turned into Virginia, and didn’t come up with any new insights.

“So,” I said after I paid for our supper, “what do you want to do now?”

“What time were Jennifer and Cynthia planning to meet up tomorrow?”

“Around nine. After breakfast.”

“So we shouldn’t stay out too late, then. Let’s go back to campus, and we can take a meandering walk back to my dorm before we say goodnight.”

It was full dark by then; it had already been dusk when we went into the restaurant, but there was a full moon, and we could see perfectly well for our walk. We wandered from the parking lot near Carew Hall around a couple of the men’s dorms and classroom buildings, around the quad, and then around the women’s dorms toward Lanyon Hall. It was cold enough that we didn’t want to sit still, and most of the benches on campus were metal and felt really cold this time of year.

We stopped in front of Lanyon Hall and she said, “Well, good night. See you tomorrow — or I guess I’ll see Jennifer.”

“Maybe me too,” I said. “Look for me at breakfast? And the stuff should wear off by evening, so you might see me at supper. Good night.” I kissed her, and she went inside.

---

Saturday morning I left the dorm early while Randall was still asleep. I ate breakfast alone at first, not seeing anyone I knew well — most people were probably sleeping later than this, on a Saturday — but Linda came in a few minutes later and joined me, and then Emily.

“So, Scott told me Cynthia and Jennifer were going out later,” Linda said to Emily when she sat down with us. “Do you think they’d mind if I joined them?”

“Uh... they had plans for later,” Emily said, “but you’re welcome to hang out with them for an hour or two early on, maybe.”

“Great.” If Linda noticed Emily’s blush, she didn’t comment on it.

After breakfast, I headed back to Carew Hall and up to my room. Randall was barely awake, but not out of bed yet. “G’morning,” he mumbled as I walked in.

“Hi. I’m about to change into Jennifer, okay, so if you could keep your eyes closed, that would be great.”

“Sure,” and he pulled one of the pillows over his head.

Fifteen minutes later, I was knocking on Alice and Emily’s door. Cynthia opened the door. “Jennifer,” she said with a big smile. “It’s good to see you.”

“Hi, Jennifer,” Linda said. She was sitting at Emily’s desk. Alice wasn’t in the room.

“Hi, Linda. Sorry things didn’t go so well last time.”

“Yeah, well, there was no way to tell how jekyllase would affect me until I tried it. I want to apologize for Virginia’s behavior again — I’ve already apologized to Scott and Emily, but I haven’t seen you two since then.”

“It’s not your fault. Jekyllase isn’t for everyone, I guess.”

“So what do you want to do?”

Cynthia looked back and forth at us. “We hadn’t really talked about that. Last time, after Virginia left, we went shopping and walked around the park for a while, and then came back and listened to records until the jekyllase wore off.”

“I want to buy a nightgown,” I said; “I’m tired of sleeping in Scott’s bathrobe. And maybe some makeup and jewelry, too, and another outfit or two. I think Scott’s made a habit of me and he won’t fuss about me buying girl stuff.”

“That sounds like fun,” Linda said. “Do you know how to use makeup?”

“No, I’ll need you girls to teach me.”

Linda drove Scott’s car, since she matched her driver’s license photo better than Cynthia matched Emily’s. We went to the mall and stopped by several stores. I found a nightgown that shouldn’t embarrass Scott too much when he woke up in it, something white rather than pastel, with only a little bit of lace at the hem. Linda and Cynthia helped me pick out some basic inexpensive makeup to practice with, and I got a simple silver necklace that Cynthia said looked good on me. I would have liked to get my ears pierced, but I wasn’t sure if that would carry over to Scott’s body, or if the holes would reappear the next time he took jekyllase, or what. I should ask Scott if he thought it was okay to experiment with that. I also bought a couple of Christmas presents for Mom; I thought I had better judgment about what she’d like than he had, and I was pretty sure he’d thank me for that. Linda and Cynthia also bought a few things, and as we shopped we chatted about this, that and the other thing.

I tried to just relax and enjoy the day, but I couldn’t help thinking about what Cynthia and I might do later, and about the complications that might arise from Scott and me dating two different people. Well, we were two different people, sort of. But we were also parts of the same person. That thought didn’t drag me down for long, though.

After a while, Linda drove us back to campus, and got out near her dorm with her purchases. Then Cynthia and I drove to Guest Park.

“It’s not as cold as it was last night,” I said, “but it’s not warm enough to sit on a bench and hold hands, either.”

“No,” she said. “But it’s cold enough the park will be pretty much deserted, I think. Let’s look and see.”

And indeed, after ten or fifteen minutes of walking, making small talk and not seeing anyone, we were emboldened enough to start holding hands. We would walk a while, and stop to kiss, and start moving again when standing still got too cold. But we were bundled up enough that it wasn’t as much fun to touch each other in other places besides our hands and faces. And after another fifteen or twenty minutes, we were tired of the cold and wanted to be indoors. So Cynthia drove us to the movie theater and we looked at what was showing.

“Scott’s already seen Ryan’s Daughter with Linda,” I said. “And I’d like to see The Horror of Frankenstein, but the last time I saw a horror movie, Scott had nightmares for a week, and almost swore off using jekyllase. I don’t want to risk that.”

“Neither do I,” Cynthia said, and quickly squeezed my hand. If a bystander had blinked, they would have missed it. “What about The Phantom Tollbooth?”

“Yeah, let’s do that thing! Scott enjoyed the book, and I loved it!”

“Yeah, Emily liked it too.”

There were a lot of moms with kids there, and a few older kids by themselves, but I think we were the only adults without kids in tow. Cynthia and I sat in a back corner so we could hold hands and lean against each other, but we didn’t kiss. I was amused by the cute questions one little girl sitting in front of us kept asking her mommy about the movie; the mother kept shushing her and telling her not to talk so loud, and she would whisper her next question or two, but then forget.

When the lights came up at the end of the movie, we let go of each other’s hands reluctantly. The moms and kids were already hurrying out. “That was nifty!” I said. “Not quite as good as the book, but lots of fun!”

“Do you want to sit here for couple of minutes and let the crowd clear up?” Cynthia asked.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m getting pretty hungry, but if I have to wait twenty minutes to get to the nearest restaurant and get served, I can wait twenty-five just as easily.”

“Yes, I could eat something too.”

So after sitting, leaning against each other, through most of the credits, we left and walked a couple of blocks, looking at the nearby restaurants. I kept talking about the movie, and Cynthia didn’t say much at first, but finally I realized she hadn’t liked it, and was too polite to say bluntly that I had terrible taste. So I changed the subject. “It’s getting close to Christmas. We should do something nice for our jekylls, to thank them for letting us out so often.”

“We can’t buy anything for them without using their own money,” she pointed out.

“That’s why I said do something. What about if we write silly poems for them?”

“Why silly poems?”

“Because I don’t think I’m good enough with words to write a serious poem. But I can be silly.”

“Yes, that might work. Let’s see if we can think of anything else.”

After we walked into an Italian place and got seated, Cynthia continued: “Maybe we can promise them that next time they turn into us, we’ll do something tedious they don’t enjoy doing. Washing laundry, perhaps.”

“Yeah, that could work. Or studying for a test... but I like the idea of doing laundry better. You and I could do that together.”

She smiled.

“And yet,” she said, “I wonder if perhaps we don’t want them to associate the idea of being us with the idea of tedious chores.”

“No, I think it’ll be fine. Remember how Randall gets Walter to do some of his studying for him?”

“And he changes into Walter only when necessary, just before midterms and finals.”

“I don’t think we need to worry. I mean, this is the third time I’ve been me in a little over a week, and even Emily’s changed into you twice.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

After we finished eating and paid for our food, I said: “I guess we’d better head back to your dorm. The jekyllase will be wearing off in another hour or so.”

We walked back to Scott’s car, and Cynthia drove us to the parking lot near Carew Hall. We walked to Utterson Hall and went up to Alice and Emily’s room. Alice was just about to go out.

“Shall I tell Emily when you’re going to be back?” Cynthia asked casually.

“I’ve got a date with Gary,” she said, “despite the worst efforts of that bitch Tabitha.” She glared at Cynthia. “So tell her not to expect me until late.” She paused a moment with her hand on the knob, then turned to me and said: “Thanks for trying to talk Tabitha out of it.”

“Um, you’re welcome.”

She left, and we were alone. Cynthia smiled. “Finally.”

“Yeah,” I said, excited and nervous. We sat down on her bed and she took both my hands in hers. We looked at each other for a long moment before we kissed.

After we broke the kiss, she said: “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I think so,” and I kissed her again. “Did you, um, did Emily get any — procedural advice — from her reading?” I could feel my face getting hot.

“Not much; all those books had were theories about why lesbians like girls, very little about what they actually do. There are probably better books out there, but the pool hall doesn’t have them. We’ll just have to wing it.” She started unbuttoning my blouse. “Have you ever masturbated since you became Jennifer?”

“No... I’ve never been alone. Not for very long.”

“I’m glad... it will make this more of a surprise.”