Take a Lemon

My abortive cuddling with Jeremy was such a letdown that I couldn’t sleep. I called Nikki in hopes of talking things out, but she didn’t answer; I figure that either she was sleeping, or occupied in something similar to what I had just failed at. I couldn’t think of anybody else I could talk to about this and who would be willing to accept a phone call at eleven-thirty, so I was on my own.

The problem, I decided, was that I was still thinking of myself as male too easily. I stood and looked at myself in the mirror. That is definitely not a boy, Marsh, I scolded myself. You’re a girl. Maybe one day you’ll be a boy again, but right now you’re not.

Once before I had had this argument with myself, and at Tina’s advice had undressed completely. So I did that now. Any more questions? I asked my reflection. Any doubts at all? It was so easy to remember, at least as long as I was looking at my naked body. The idea that I could visualize myself as male while naked just seemed ludicrous. Maybe what I needed to do was to be naked whenever I was with Jeremy. Yeah, right.

And it’s not as though this was the only problem that had come to the fore this evening. It still bothered me that I couldn’t remember having learned the… what was it called again – exclusive disjunction. With Jeremy’s explanation, I could see that it had to be a basic idea, so I should have learned it. Why didn’t I remember? It was one thing to tell myself that I could teach myself to get the logic course material, but that didn’t explain the gap in my memory. How could I have gone through half a semester and not have at least this cemented in my brain?

I pulled out my lecture notes – there was no text for the course – and tried to see if anything else sounded unfamiliar. Nothing did, which should have reassured me, except that I couldn’t tell if they were familiar from last semester or from the lecture; I couldn’t even remember whether they had seemed new when the professor was speaking. I guess some of the concepts, like ‘and’ and ‘or’ were so intuitive. It was just this particular one that wasn’t – at least to me.

I did finally manage to fall asleep after deciding that I was going to just try harder; I had obviously been overconfident in the lecture and probably hadn’t paid attention. I would worry about why I didn’t remember later. For now, I needed to learn – or relearn the material. As for Jeremy, I decided to try some visualizations; just think of myself as a girl cuddling with him, rubbing noses, and everything I could imagine I might have done with a girl that I might do with him. If that wasn’t enough, maybe I could at least be ready for the wrong self-image and not react to it the next time.

When I left my room the next morning, my roommates were already up. “Did… Jeremy spend the night?” Terry asked, peering past me.

I stopped short. “Um, no,” I answered, “he left about ten minutes after you guys went to bed.”

“Ten minutes? Why?”

“Um…” I said, “he just had to leave, that’s all.”

“Did you guys have a fight or something?” Lee Ann asked, sounding concerned.

“No, he just… had to leave.”

“Too bad,” Terry commented, looking disappointed. “I was hoping to congratulate you on your entry into womanhood. Better luck next time.”

I blinked in surprise, and Lee Ann explained, “she means, losing your virginity.”

I did understand that, actually, but now I felt myself reddening, for some reason. I’d certainly been no stranger to sex as a guy; why was I embarrassed now? “I… no, we…” I stammered. “I mean… no, we didn’t…” I fled to the bathroom. I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead, yet. But I didn’t see why I should object to the idea, in principle, anyway. The reality might take a bit more time to get used to.

I thought about it some more as I washed up and got ready for the day. It made sense, didn’t? I mean, Jeremy and I were really attracted to each other, and I had always liked sex in my old life. I seemed to have some hang ups about it, but I could work those out. If I were going to stay like this, I’d certainly not want to be celibate my whole life, and if could change back… well, it would be a real shame to miss the opportunity to experience sex from the other side. So there was no reason to be uncomfortable with the subject. I just had to keep telling myself that.

I entered my first lecture a bit nervous. I had tried to pressure Geoff and he had sort of snapped at me; would he still be angry? But he greeted me when I sat down next to him with his usual, “Good morning, Marsha!” Then he leaned over and said in a low tone, “Any luck fixing up your pathetic girlfriend?”

“She’s not pathetic!” I hissed back. “If I were a guy I’d go out with her in a second!”

“If you could pry her away from her current guy.”

“She’d leave him in a second if she could go out with me – if I were male, I mean,” I said.

He sighed. “Marsh, I’m sorry. I know you hate the guy she’s with; but in my experience, a lot of girls go out with unsuitable guys and won’t accept advice that they shouldn’t. Now, I’ve met Stephen and I think Chandra was wrong about him; for all I know, you’re wrong about Vicky’s boyfriend, too.”

“I’m not,” I muttered.

“For that matter, I don’t know anything about this new guy you’re seeing other than that you like him. What if your friends have an issue with him?”

“An issue with Jeremy? Why?”

He chuckled. “You probably wouldn’t notice if there was something wrong with him, but if there ever is – if he ever hurts you – let me know and I’ll take care of him.”

“It’s not going to happen,” I said, smiling and shaking my head, “but thanks.” Seeing this side of Geoff made me all the more certain that he would be good for Vicky; the question was how to make it happen.

For now, though, my top priority was to focus on the Logic lecture, which I had right after Spanish. The professor was explaining about one thing implying another, which seemed pretty straightforward. I had no trouble following the terminology he was using of antecedent and consequent, but then he gave some examples of true statements and my eyes crossed. Some of them sounded completely illogical, and the idea of illogical statements in a logic class could have made me giggle if I weren’t so close to panicking. What if I couldn’t get this class?

The thing that kept me somewhat calm was the trust that I could always go to Jeremy to get it explained, which would give us a chance to spend time together, which might lead to him walking me home… I shook my head to clear it, and checked the board to see what I might have missed. The professor had written a couple more equations down, which I dutifully copied without understanding them. I didn’t feel any less intelligent now that I had before my change, so I should be capable of figuring this out, at least with help. I’d just have to work harder, that was all. That needed to be enough.

I suppose I looked pretty down at lunch, because Phil noticed. “Is something wrong, Marsh?”

“No…” I said, shaking my head. “I’m just a bit down about this Logic class. It’s harder than I expected.”

“Logic?” he echoed. “You shouldn’t be having trouble with Logic. It’s pretty easy.”

I shot him a bitter look. “Thanks for making me feel good, Phil,” I muttered.

“Phil,” Jay commented, “she’s been having trouble with logic for months. Remember the ‘time travel’ story she fell for?”

“Give it a rest, Jay,” Phil shot back, coming to my defense. “She hasn’t mentioned that for like, months.”

“Yeah, but I’ll bet she still believes it,” Jay countered. “Don’t you, Marsh?”

“I thought it was an interesting idea,” I said quietly. And soon, I promised myself, I’ll have proof – and boy am I going to rub it in his face.

“Look, Marsh,” Phil said, “forget about that. You should be able to get this Logic stuff. If you can’t, it’s probably just not being explained properly.”

I leapt on that explanation. Maybe he was right. I didn’t remember this professor from my old life; maybe he just wasn’t a very good teacher.

“So all you need is somebody to explain it better,” Phil continued. “I’m free most evenings, if you want some help.”

“Oh… thanks so much, Phil,” I said, sincerely, “but my boyfriend is already helping me.”

Phil looked shocked. “Boyfriend?” he echoed.

I could have kicked myself. I’d told the girls about Jeremy. Could I really have forgotten to mention it when Phil was here?

“That’s right, Phil,” Susie said, looking him in the eye. “She has a boyfriend.”

Phil smiled, but I thought it looked forced. “Oh! Well… that’s… that’s great.” I sure didn’t feel great. I guess I’d thought that he had lost interest in me. I’d thought that he and Susie were a couple, now. Maybe they only were in Susie’s mind.

“I’m sorry,” I mouthed silently when Susie looked away, and I meant it. Phil had always been good to me, and if things had worked out differently, he and Marsha should have been a couple. Or, for that matter, if I had been able to recognize and accept my attraction for boys from the start, he and I would probably be together now. Not that I had any regrets for myself, but I was starting to believe that he deserved better than Susie. Which gave me an idea…

I put that thought on hold. I’d messed up with Geoff; I was going to have to think of the right way to work this out with Phil. There had to be a way to make it work.

I hadn’t come up with an idea by the time lunch was over, but I had made a decision. I needed to talk with Chad and my father about what I’d learned so far, so I decided to email them to set up a call for the three of us. First, though, I called Jeremy.

“Sure, Marsh, you can just come over whenever you’re ready,” he answered, when I asked if I could get some help again tonight.

“Great,” I said, “I’ll see you then. And Jeremy… I’m really sorry about last night.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he told me, “I messed up.”

“No, you didn’t,” I insisted. “And if you’ll give me another chance, I’ll prove it to you.”

He laughed, which made me feel really good, “If you insist…”

“See you tonight,” I said, and blew him a kiss through the phone before hanging up.

Dad called me at seven o’clock, as agreed.

“I have Chad here, Marsh,” he said, “what’s going on?”

“Well, we didn’t get into the lab,” I told them, and explained about the lock and the video camera.

“So you’ve set up a spy camera,” Chad laughed. “Any luck so far?”

“Not yet, but it’s been less than two days,” I pointed out.

“OK, so… anything else?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, something really big,” I said. Now that I was bringing it up, I was a bit hesitant. Actually saying it made it real. “I seem to be… losing my memories, and I don’t think it’s simply forgetfulness. I’ve remembered something that I’m pretty sure happened in Marsha’s life, and I don’t remember a class I took as Marshall at all.”

I explained about the Logic course, and about Celeste. They were both silent for a moment when I finished. “So what do you think?” I prompted them. “Any ideas on why I don’t remember this stuff?”

Chad was the one who spoke, but he seemed hesitant. “Marsh, do you know for certain that you knew it when you first… changed?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that it might be that you’re forgetting things, but maybe… maybe you never knew them – in this reality, I mean.”

My stomach seemed to have discovered a new acrobatic routine. It seemed to be seeing the implications of Chad’s suggestion, even as I tried hard not to. Taking a breath, though, I asked, “what are you saying?”

“Well, I’m not saying this for sure, but… maybe you’re forgetting things, but… maybe any memory losses happened when they did the experiment. You said that they somehow preserved your memories across the change, right?”

“Right…”

“Well, what if whatever they did wasn’t perfect? What if they made mistakes while copying your memories? Or just only copied some of them? Can you think of anything specific that you knew afterwards that you don’t know now?”

I had to admit that I couldn’t.

“OK,” he continued, “let’s try something. Do you remember losing your virginity?”

“Chad!” I yelped, even as Dad cleared his throat. “My Dad’s on the line!”

“Um…” Dad said, “If you were trying to hammer home the idea that you’re not the daughter I remember – and I do mean hammer – I suppose this is a way of doing it.”

“Sorry about this Dad,” I said, “but of course I do, Chad. It’s not the kind of thing you forget.”

“Who was it with?” Chad pressed.

“Um… Cindy Cauthon.”

Chad gasped. “The ice lady?!”

“Hey, that was never a fair name for her, and… well, I can personally attest that it’s simply not true.”

“I think I’m really not comfortable with this conversation,” Dad put in.

“We’re done with the subject, Dad,” I promised him. “So what did we just prove, Chad?”

“I don’t know, maybe nothing,” he admitted. “I was trying to see if I could find something you’ve definitely forgotten. I think it makes a difference.”

“Yeah, I do, too. I just don’t know how to tell, unless I start trying to write down everything I remember. And Nikki says that would be a waste of time, probably. I’m not even sure where I was going with this whole thing, anyway.”

“Maybe you don’t need to worry about it, Marsh,” Dad said. “People do forget things, and you’ve been through an incredible trauma. And if you have forgotten, what can you do about it, anyway? What we need to focus on is getting more information – even it’s just a bit, I might be able to use it to apply pressure in the right places. Then we could find out more and possibly see what can be done for you.”

“I’m trying, Dad, I really am. But I think first we need to see inside that lab. Until then, all we have is rumors. But I wanted to let you guys know what I’ve found out so far and see if you had any ideas.” Ideas that I could live with, anyway. Chad’s suggestion didn’t bear thinking about.

Suddenly I wished I hadn’t told Jeremy that I was coming over, or else that I hadn’t spoken with Chad beforehand, because now I was focusing to an uncomfortable degree on being male, and I really didn’t want to see myself that way when I was with Jeremy. It looked as though I had another impromptu performance coming up.