NOVEL NEXT 06 of 62: An Afternoon at the Mall
A few days after that outing with Meredith, I thought of something I should have asked her to do before we parted. Too late now; it would have to wait for next time.
The next time I checked my private email, I had messages not only from Meredith but Sophia as well. She commiserated with me about my unenviable situation and said she was looking forward to seeing me again sometime, and then recommended a few books she’d read since I saw her last — mostly about genetics and dinosaurs; she didn’t read as much fiction as Meredith or me.
It was several more weeks before I was able to get together with Meredith again, and Sophia as well — near the end of the summer. Nathan was making his final arrangements to go off to Mars Hill University in the western North Carolina mountains, and I’d registered for my junior year at the Everett Academy, confirming what I’d thought about my schedule for the fall semester and ensuring that my plan was feasible.
By this point, a Venn machine had appeared in the Catesville Mall, about ten miles from the Ramseys’ house and twelve miles from mine. Since we were a lot less likely to run into people who knew me there than in the parking lot of the Brocksboro public library, I suggested we meet there, and Meredith and Sophia enthusiastically agreed.
I got there a few minutes before them and sat down on a bench near the Venn machine. There were eight people in line, and in the time it took for Meredith and Sophia to arrive, four of them used the machine and left and seven more people got in line — an odd number. I figured the last three, two white women and a black man in their late twenties or early thirties, were going to have one of them change the other two one at a time, like the guy who’d rejuvenated his elderly parents the first day Nathan and I had used the machine. Or maybe one of them was just going to hold the other ones’ stuff while they transformed.
Of the people who used the machine while I was waiting, two were a middle-aged couple rejuvenating each other and the other two, a couple of women in their twenties, came out as centaurs of a sort, with four legs separated by a long lower torso. But the legs were all human; they wore knee-length skirts over their entire lower bodies and sandals on all four feet. They headed deeper into the mall rather than out toward the parking lot when they came out, shuffling and unsteady, holding on to each other or the walls. But by the time they turned the corner and were out of my sight, at least one of them was starting to get the hang of having four legs.
I thought about that, and I decided I’d like to try that sort of thing someday — a human-ish body with extra legs. Or maybe arms, or both. Probably not until I had more frequent chances to use the Venn machine, though. As long as my chances to use the machine were rare, I wanted to use every chance to figure out my identity. Did I really need to be a dragon-girl to be happy, or would being a human girl be just as good? What did I want my dragon-girl body to look like? Or my human girl body, for that matter?
When Meredith and Sophia walked in, I jumped up and walked over to greet them.
“Hi,” Sophia said. “It’s been way too long.”
“Yeah,” I said with a smile. “I missed you.”
“What do you want us to call you today?” Meredith asked. “Natalie again, or...?”
“Amber.”
“That’s a pretty name,” Sophia said. I blushed hard, and looked around to see if anyone was listening to us. Nobody seemed to be.
“Let’s get in line, okay?” Meredith said, and we did.
A couple in their forties went in the machine just as we got in line, and they came out again a few minutes later; the woman was younger and prettier, wearing a much more expensive-looking outfit, a dark blue dress that Meredith said looked like silk. The man was a wolf or wolfhound; the woman put a collar and leash on him and led him out toward the parking lot, probably to avoid trouble with the mall cops, police and animal control until they got home. At least I hoped that was the only reason.
The next couple that went in just rejuvenated each other, but then the two white women and the black man used the machine. The man and one of the women went in one booth and the other woman, who might have been her sister, went in the other; several minutes later, the couple came out in a single androgynous mixed-race body with two heads. They were jerking and staggering, like the women who’d venned each other into centauroids but worse. The other woman was now a little girl, who tried to steady them but wasn’t strong enough. Meredith and I helped them over to a bench while Sophia saved our place in line.
“Thanks,” said one of the identical heads, and “Thank you,” said the other, overlapping a bit. “What about if we just sit here and do a few exercises until we work this out?” the left one said, turning toward the right one.
“Sure, that works for me.”
“I guess we’ll go use the machine,” Meredith said, “if you don’t need any more help?”
“That’s fine, thank you,” said the left head.
Sophia’s eyes were gleaming as we returned. “That was so awesome! I’d read about that kind of venn but I’ve never seen one. I wonder how long it’ll take them to get the hang of sharing control of the body?”
“We might find out if they hang out around the mall and we run into them again,” Meredith said, putting a penny in the slot and turning to me. “How long do you want to change for, Amber?”
It felt nice to hear her call me Amber, but I still wasn’t sure that was the right name for me. “Eight hours, I guess? We need to turn me back well before then anyway.”
“Okay,” she said. I handed my wallet, phone and keys to Sophia for safekeeping, and Meredith and I were in the booths a few moments later.
Once the soundproof doors closed on us, I said, “I thought of something else I’d like to ask you for, and I didn’t want Sophia to overhear... it’s going to be embarrassing enough just talking with you about it.”
“What is it?”
I blushed in anticipation. “When you change me back later... could you not change me back all the way?”
She furrowed her brow for a moment and said, “Oh! Do you mean let you keep your girl bits but look like your old self otherwise?” Now she was blushing too.
“Y-yeah, that would be great. I’m not sure, but I think it would help me get through the next few weeks more easily.”
“I understand. I would want to do the same thing in your position. I just want to make sure you’ve thought it through... you’re sure there’s no way your mom or dad, or people at school, could find out?”
“As sure as I need to be. I don’t have to take P.E. as a junior, and Mom and Dad haven’t barged in on me in my bedroom without knocking in a long while. Not that I plan on changing clothes anywhere but the bathroom.”
“Okay, Amber,” she said. “I’ll try. It’s just... it’s a change that would be hidden by clothes, so how would I now if I’ve selected the right bubble?”
I won’t go into detail about how we figured it out; it was kind of an embarrassing, trial and error process. But after making those plans, she asked me if I’d decided what I wanted to be today.
I’d enjoyed being a dragon-girl, and wanted to try out different dragon-girl bodies until I found one that was just right. Different-colored scales, different-sized wings, hands more or less claw-y, etc. But being a dragon-girl had its drawbacks, too — people stared, and my wings got in the way sometimes, and a lot of stores and restaurants wouldn’t let drastically-venned customers in. There would probably be a civil rights case about that eventually, but I didn’t want to make waves that way until I was an adult, if then; my situation was too precarious. For today, I’d asked Meredith to make me a human girl, good-looking but not so pretty that I’d have everyone staring at me again, basically similar in appearance to my boy-body in height, skin and hair color. And wearing a cute outfit — I told her to use her judgment and surprise me.
It didn’t take her long. Between one moment and the next, I changed, and looked down to take in my new body. And outfit. I was wearing a lavender cold-shoulder top with bits of lace at the hems, matching capri pants and dark grey leather flats. I hugged myself and squeed.
“Thanks, Meredith. This is so great... different from being a dragon-girl, but I think I’ll like this too.”
She beamed at me across the screen and said, “You’re welcome.” A few seconds later, the doors opened.
“Ooh, nice!” Sophia said, and started to offer me my phone, keys and wallet. “Do those pants have pockets?”
Oops. “I should have thought of that after last time,” I said.
“So you’ll get the whole girl experience,” Meredith teased. “What about if we get you a purse?”
I hesitated. It would be kind of neat. More girly than venning an outfit with pockets, maybe? But... “I couldn’t take that home with me. It would be a lot harder to hide than a little flash drive.”
“I can keep it at my house and bring it for you to use whenever we get together. How’s that?”
“Okay.”
So Sophia kept my wallet, phone and keys in her purse for the moment, and we went purse shopping. We hadn’t been browsing long when Meredith pointed out a purse that was about the same color as my scales had been last time.
“It looks like it might be too big for me?” I said. “I mean, I think I’m only going to be carrying the things I usually keep in my pockets — keys, wallet, and phone. I won’t need to carry as much stuff as a — full-time girl, like you.” I was silently speculating about what all Meredith had in her purse, which was roughly the same size as the one she’d pointed out. Makeup, tampons, the book she was reading...?
“Yeah, I guess so. Let’s look at smaller ones, then.”
“And also I’m planning to try out several different scale colors before I settle on one. So I don’t know if that will suit me long-term...”
“Besides,” Sophia put in, “you don’t really want a purse the same color as your skin. You want something that will go reasonably well with a variety of outfits, unless you can afford to have a lot of purses for different outfits and occasions. And your outfits and purse should both complement your skin color — or scales — but that probably shouldn’t be the same color, and not necessarily the opposite color on the color wheel.”
So we kept shopping while Sophia gave us a lesson on color theory. I found a few that I liked, about the right size for my needs and in colors that Sophia said would go well with the range of scale colors that I was planning to try out. But even the cheapest of them seemed hard to justify given how rarely I would use it until I turned eighteen. “There are other things I need to be saving for,” I said. “Like being able to move out of my parents’ house permanently after I turn eighteen.”
“Yeah, that’s more important,” Meredith said. “What about if you note down the model numbers and descriptions of the purses you liked and look them up online?”
“Later, through Tor Browser, you mean?”
“No, I mean we can sit down at the food court and you can borrow my phone to look things up. You can probably find lower prices for the same or similar things online.”
“I don’t have a credit card to order things online. And I couldn’t have it shipped to my house.”
“Or we could go to some other stores in the mall that won’t be as expensive, or leave the mall and go to a Walmart or thrift store,” Sophia said. “I like browsing here, but I almost never buy anything at these prices.”
We ate at the food court while I did some comparison shopping on Meredith’s phone, and after briefly looking at a couple of less expensive stores in the mall, we left the mall, and I finally wound up getting a dark brown purse with yellow trim at the thrift store run by the Mynatt County Food Pantry. By then, I needed to get home soon, so we headed back to the mall for Meredith to venn me again. I was both dreading it and looking forward to it. Dreading not seeing my only close real-life friends for however many weeks; dreading losing this wonderful body, lacking only in scales and wings; dreading the dysphoria that had only gotten worse in the past few weeks since I’d first experienced a dragon-girl body. On the other hand, I was looking forward to secretly having my body be a lot closer to right than anyone around me knew. I hoped it would make the dysphoria a lot less frequent or intense, although Meredith had warned me that it might not make it go away entirely.
We returned to the mall and Meredith parked near the Venn machine. There were more people in line at this time of day, I think ten or twelve. But most of them were getting simple changes, or maybe more complex changes they’d already had in their histories, and the line moved quickly. Soon Meredith and I were in the machine again.
“Okay, Amber,” she said. “Let’s see if I can get this right.”
Again, I’m not going to go into technicalities. We had to do some trial and error and wait in line to use the machine more than once, and still couldn’t get it right before we ran out of time. But we resolved to try again next time we got together.
