Okay, I'm bad

Thanks for the "please update" comments at the last post. I left the blog unfinished at New Year's, it's been nearly two months. A lot has happened, and yet not as much as you might think.

I had to wrangle around some Google-Blogger stuff, and in the process, lost my account. How lame is that? I've been surfing the web and having various accounts since I was a teenager, and I forgot a single username/password combination (which is not even that different from my standard.)

So here's what you're dying to know: the first order of business was to get James back to manhood. He made for a belligerent woman (read: bitchy) but was quite a looker. I think the medallion had some magic that gave near model-quality looks to its users, but I don't remember getting all that many double takes as a femme (also, my boobs weren't bigger than my head.)

But New Year's morning, James was far from vibrant. Sombrely she approached me and pled, "Please, can you change me back now?"

I had a mouthful of oatmeal, but I muffled "Sure."

"Finally," she nearly whimpered. "Tia and I had a fight last night." I stayed silent.

"And then I let a guy do some very weird and wrong things to me."

I nearly choked.

He proceeds to tell me the story, even though the drunkeness makes his recall shoddy, so the story is kind of twisted in chronology.

"Everything was going fine, and then," she sighed, "I wondered if I could stay this way and just be, I don't know, this being of pure... sex? And I thought, was I a girl so long, that guys were, like, starting to look good? Maybe, like, I was getting tired of the girl on girl thing with Tia?"

I tried to lighten the mood by saying "How could that ever get old?" But she wasn't in the mood.

"So I went behind her back a bit. And I felt terrible. I felt incredible, but it was getting so good that I felt terrible because of what I knew I was doing to Tia. And I never, never, ever, wanted to hurt her, you know?"

It bothered me to know that James had actually considered staying that way, because I was getting rid of that Medallion as soon as everyone I knew was back to normal.

"I never, like, felt emotions like that before. Ever. I can't remember crying ever, it was such a weird sensation." The girl was a mess -- and I'm kinda paraphrasing here because it was so long ago -- "His hands were all over me and I felt so alive, I don't think you have any idea how good it felt. Not real. I mean, it felt too good to be real, but it didn't feel real at all, in, like, the other way. Like, fake." James was hardly a poet, but he was sincere. "So I was crying and he asks me what's wrong and I just pulled up my panties and ran. I ran home."

She ran home (or, to the subway) in what was basically a blizzard at 3 AM on New Year's, partly undressed, hysterical and horny.

"I came home and started beating off -- or whatever girls do, and I passed out, and now I'm up and you're home and I just want my penis back. I want my life back." She's almost in tears again at this point. It was touching. Wordlessly, I went to my jacket and pulled it out of the inside pocket (sealed inside its original Ziploc.)

So I gave him some privacy to transform back. Once he was done, he tore up his girl clothes and passed out in his bed.

Diana, who'd stuck by me this entire time, said she had no idea it could have that kind of effect. I confessed I didn't either. As if on cue, Trish came through the door and, quoting one of my favourite shows, tells me, "I've made a huge mistake."

So she begins her story, telling me that eventually, she told Declan that she wasn't "What she looked like," that a magical medallion had given her that face. Naturally, he was confused and weirded out by her "playful sense of humour." She tried to find me, desperately, to prove her story.

"Wait," I tell her, "You didn't tell him it was me, did you??"

"No, no," she assures me, "But that might have helped, because he started getting weird and distant... I don't think he's going to call me again."

"You mean me?"

"Um, yeah. Can we just..."

So, then she transforms back.

A week later, we're back at school. I'm talking with Trish, Steph and Mary (whom, you might recall, was our editor, who pitched this insane idea in the first place) about our adventures. She seemed most impressed by how badly it screwed up James, who still hadn't heard from Tia by then.

"I guess we should have seen that sort of thing coming," she muses, "Thank you (Alex) for going through this insane situation. It will make a very fine piece of 'fiction,' because absolutely nobody outside this room is going to believe it really happened." (Although I point out that the folks who commented here were rather supportive.)

She nods, then eyes Trish and Steph and, thanking them for their part in helping me, mentions, "You know, in all this, we haven't seen a girl go... you know."

Steph and Trish blush bright red, and say "Thanks but no thanks." Mary hands me the medallion and says that I should probably get rid of it. I couldn't agree more.

So I took a walk down to a pawnbroker. He takes it in his chubby mitt, eyes it, sneers, and humours me by giving me a buck fifty for it. I tell him it's worth every penny.

Flash forward a few months and tonnes of identity drama between Declan and Trish and Tia and James still haven't talked. It's the eve of Valentine's day, and Diana and I decide to do something nice.

I called Declan, who had added me as a friend on Facebook after New Year's in a transparent attempt to keep tabs on my "cousin." I told him Alex wanted to see him. Except "Alex doesn't exist."

"So what's her name?"

"It's more complicated than that," I tell him, "What did you like best about her?"

He opens up, "She was just so great to talk to. I don't know, I guess she was nervous the first night, she didn't even seem to know how pretty she was." My stomach heaves, "But when I saw her again, she was so open, so alive, she really came out of her shell. Then she makes up this story, and ditches me. I don't think I can be with a girl like that."

"Would it bother you if she was a little shorter, had a different hair colour, and a very different face? Better, I'd say?"

Silence.

"And her name's Trish, and she's not my cousin?"

Silence.

"And yet she's the exact same girl you spoke to on New Year's."

Silence, followed by, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Call it an identity crisis. Do you want to have dinner with her or not?"

He groans, the obvious groan of a man who is still infatuated, and finally relents "Tell her to meet me at my restaurant, whoever she is."

The dude's a chef? I had no idea.

After seeing me play matchmaker, James decided to be a bit romantic by calling Tia up. They had a long talk. Long. Like, I left the house when he called her, spent a few hours with Diana doing errands, and came back to hear the last 20 minutes of their conversation long.

But it ended with "I love you."

He hangs up and tells me he's got a date tomorrow.

So, happy ending, right? For now, anyway. I have no idea how long Trish and Declan are going to last, but Tia and James are on the mend and Diana and I are happy.

But there's something else... something that has nothing to do with any of this, but looks like it's going to be my next blog, at some new URL... something that's somehow even harder to believe than magic medallion romance... if it's true.

And if it's true, you'll be hearing about it from me.

That's it. I'm done.

-The Artist Formerly Known as Alex Manson.