I really had some explaining to do last night. Lauren is still staying here at my house with me. She's really been a great source of moral support for me, not to mention giving me someone to turn to when I have female questions.
She's also been fielding the odd phone call for me since I don't want to answer it with my new voice in case it's someone I know. But last night, she took a call that threw her a bit. She answered the phone when it rang and paused while the person on the other end spoke. "Just a minute," she said with a curious look on her face, then placed a hand over the receiver and looked to me. "It's a guy named Evan... looking for LEA?"
I felt myself blush furiously from surprise and embarrassment at being found out with this. This was really the only thing I hadn't disclosed to Lauren, since I wasn't really ready to admit to it yet. But now I had no choice. I still wasn't prepared to talk to Evan though so I waved Lauren off and told her to tell him I wasn't home, which she did.
After a few seconds of listening to the other end of the line, Lauren replied, "Oh, OK. She has your number?" She raised an eyebrow at me. "I'll let her know that you called."
Calmly she hung up the phone, then quickly spun around to me, "OK, what the hell was THAT?"
"Ummm."
"With everything else you've already told me, you're seriously keeping something back? Seriously?!" she exclaimed half-jokingly.
"OK... so here's what that's about," I stammered. "Remember how I told you that I had that environmental assessment company come out? So this guy Evan was one of the techs who came out. We got to talking while they were here at the house and he had a lot of the same interests and seemed like a good guy. I didn't really think much of it after that, but about a week later, he gives me a call and wondered if I was free. And this was just after I had the blow-up with Josh and I was feeling dejected and lonely, so I agreed to meet with him."
"You went out on a DATE?!"
"It wasn't like that... or not really like that. I was miserable and isolated and I just needed to get out of the house and talk to someone, like a normal person. I mean, I knew that he was looking for a date, but I thought I could keep it on a friendly basis and not get into all that. So we met at a bar one night and had a few drinks and just a good time. He's a really funny guy."
"OK," she said, more like a question. "And?"
"So nothing happened while we were there. We just talked and had some laughs. But on the way out when I was getting ready to leave, he... um... he... kissed me goodnight."
Lauren's mouth dropped open a bit but said nothing.
"And... uh... it was a real kiss too, not just a peck or anything." I waited a second for a response from Lauren, then continued sheepishly. "And since I'm being honest here now," I let out a nervous laugh, "it turned out not to be one-sided.... I... uh... I actually liked it."
With still no response from her, I babbled on, "I did tell you that I've been having thoughts of attraction to men now. I don't know if it's female hormones or the way my brain is wired now or what, but I'm telling you, this transformation seems to have fully changed me. My thoughts and feelings and everything are different now -- and this is just a drastic example of it. I find myself thinking about Evan since that night and thinking about him in ways that I would have thought about women before when I was still a man."
Finally Lauren spoke up. "Wow. I just don't know what to say. So now, you like a guy and you went out on a date," she said with a curious smile on her face.
"Don't give me a hard time about this," I replied good-naturedly, knowing that she was going to start teasing me. "It's weird enough for me."
"Are you at least using protection?" She did a poor job of stifling a laugh.
"Thanks for being so considerate," I replied sarcastically.
Then Lauren composed herself. "No, seriously, Lee... or I mean, Lea. That seems more appropriate for this conversation, I guess. What were you thinking? I don't even know where to start. OK, maybe I can understand your new feelings and the attraction to men and this guy in particular. If you really have changed completely, I guess that's just going to be natural. But that doesn't mean you have to act on it. Eventually, we hope that you'll get switched back and you don't want to do anything you'll regret afterward, do you?"
"Yeah, I suppose."
"Plus let's look at this from a different perspective, one that goes with your new reality. You're a woman now. The fact of the matter is that you have to be more careful now, as much as I hate to admit it. You can't just go out with some strange guy and not tell anyone. It's unlikely that anything would happen, but what if something DID happen to you, especially in your special circumstances with no one knowing at the time who or where you were. Being smaller now, you're unfortunately not as well equipped to defend yourself as before and you have to accept that reality. And here's another helpful tip for you from a woman's perspective: Going out with a guy because you're upset or lonely is a TERRIBLE idea. If you're in a bad state emotionally, you're not going to make great decisions... especially if you were drinking."
"OK, duly noted," I said, feeling slightly foolish. "I hadn't really thought about that side of it. But he really is a good guy and that evening with him was the best time that I'd had ever since my change. It was the first time I'd been happy in over a month and could just forget about all of this transformation stuff."
"That may be, but you still need to be very careful here, not just because you're a woman but also because of your condition. Please promise me that you won't do anything silly again. Talk to me when you are doing things or if you're not sure about something."
I agreed that I'd keep her in the loop about everything. However at the same time in the back of my mind, not that I was trying to deceive Lauren at all, but I was already wondering if I should call Evan back.
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