"Lucky"

by Brandy Dewinter

(c 2000, All rights reserved)

Chapter 5

     I guess you could say I was ready for the phone to finally ring on 
the Friday a week and a day after Lonna had first worked her magic on 
me.  I certainly snatched it off the hook as soon as it rang.  

     "Hello?"

     "Hi, Tim, this is Lonna.  What are you doing this afternoon?"

     "Uh, well, I don't know.  Nothing special, I guess."  

     "Then you are now.  Or," at this she gave a little giggle too full
of humor to even contemplate disagreement, "at least Tammy has something
special to do.  My appointments for this afternoon cancelled.  I'll see 
you at three."  

     She hung up with barely a "bye" in passing and the dial tone laughed
in my ear with its insolent claim that I was too weak to control my own
life.  It seemed unlikely the dial tone would listen to arguments, but for
some reason I thought I had to make some sort of statement.  If only I 
could figure out what kind of statement.  

     What I did was confusing, to say the least.  I had been wearing, as
I had regularly been wearing since the week before, all of the body 
shaping things Lonna had left with me, plus stockings, heels, and a skirt.
All of that came off.  That left me with the glued-on breast forms 
snuggled within my bra, and with my panties, uh, actually some of 
Trish's panties.  Those came off, too.  I had planned on switching the 
uplifting bra for the sports bra, and then putting on sloppy sweats and my 
own athletic shoes.

     Instead, I found myself getting into the shower and shaving for the
second time that day.  After I got out of the shower, I shaved my face,
too.  Lonna had left some lotion that soothed my face as well as my legs
and underarms, and I sort of drifted for a while as I languidly rubbed
the cream into any place that might even have the potential to be dry or
rough.  That's the reason I wasn't dressed when Lonna arrived.  

     When the doorbell rang, I panicked.  At first, I thought about just
not answering the door, but that wasn't what I really wanted.  For sure,
I didn't know just what I *did* want, but turning Lonna away was not part
of it.  Instead, I slipped on a thick terrycloth robe, one of mine 
actually, and went to the door.  

     "Good, it looks like you're rarin' to go," Lonna observed as she 
flowed into the house.  She had some of that slippery motion, too, like
Trish had, where her body seemed to slide past obstacles as though it 
were a precisely-choreographed dance instead of a challenge.  Only the
bundles in her arms seemed to be awkward for her, and that was true 
whether she was moving or not.

     "What did you bring this time?" I asked casually.  Well, I tried to
be casual.  It surprised me even more than Lonna to hear a note of 
eagerness in my voice.  

     "No peeking," she laughed.  Then she turned to me and said, "Okay,
let's work on that game of yours tonight.  From now on, you're Tammy.  You
act like Trish did, but you can always tell the difference.  Is that 
okay?"

     "Um, I, uh, guess so," I said, not having a real objection but also
not understanding the point of it.

     "Look," she explained, "you're trying to deal with the loss of Trish.
I think the way you're doing it might be very effective, but it might end
up with lots of problems, too.  I mean, if you end up denying that Trish
is gone, losing yourself in her or something, that would be bad, right?"

     I nodded and she continued, "So what we need to do, I mean, what you
need to do, is to develop a new personality that can be *like* Trish, but
not *be* Trish.  Do you understand?"

     "Not really," I admitted.

     She nodded like she wasn't surprised, and went on, "The idea is, if 
you can sort of, um, clarify the memories without actually needing Trish
to be present in person, as it were, then you can reduce the risk of never
being able to let go of her."  

     I frowned and looked more sharply at her, "This sounds all sort of,
um, involved for just a spur-of-the-moment idea.  What's going on?  Are
you some sort of amateur psychologist?"

     Lonna blushed and looked away for a second.  Then she took a deep 
breath and visibly forced herself to look directly at me.  "Not me, but
one of my clients.  Um, actually, she's not an amateur.  She's a 
practicing psychologist who happens to be a client."

     "You talked about me with someone else?!" I said, too shocked to 
decide whether to feel angry or betrayed or just plain scared.  

     "Not really," Lonna claimed.  "Or, well, yes, but I changed your name
and told her that you were a neighbor.  I don't think she believed that,
but I also think she won't be able to figure out who you really are."

     "I don't know about this," I said dazedly.  Making my way to the 
couch I sat down, heedless of the way my robe gapped to show my smooth
leg when I crossed it over the other in a gesture I had copied from Trish.

     Lonna followed silently, sitting in one of the other chairs while she
watched the turmoil behind my eyes.  She probably had a better view than I
did, for what I saw was too disjointed to describe.  Flashes of Trish, and
of the two of us together - sometimes with me as, well, me and sometimes
as Tammy - interlaced with nightmare images of me in an in-between state 
being held up to ridicule in front of screaming townspeople with 
pitchforks and torches. 

     "I think this is all a mistake," I finally said, standing back up.  
"This is just sick.  I have to find some other way to deal with things.  
Maybe I ought to talk to your shrink for real, but I can't go through with 
this."

     "Ah, well," Lonna said, blushing again.  "I sort of already asked 
about that.  I mean, I asked her if she thought it would be good to 
see you.  Uh, that is, not *you* but the person I was talking about.  She
said, 'yes,' but she also said that she might very well recommend exactly
what you're doing."

     "She did?" I repeated in surprise.

     "Yes," Lonna confirmed.  "She doesn't think it's 'sick' like you 
keep saying.  She did say she thought it might be a way to deal with more
things than just the loss of Trish, but that would take a while to find 
out.  In the meantime, she suggested that you just do whatever seems to
work."  

     "She did?" I asked again, back to my normally brilliant 
conversational skills.

     To her credit, instead of losing patience with my doubts of her plain
statements, Lonna's face showed lots of sympathy as she made a new offer, 
"Maybe you *should* talk to her.  Would you like her name and number?"

     I was off again in some internal fugue and I didn't answer.  Lonna 
took silence as consent and removed a card out of her purse and laid it
on the end table.  Then she stood up, too, and asked, "So, what's it 
gonna be for tonight?  Do you want to keep going, or just wait until you
talk with her?  You really should."  

     "She really said that this was okay, maybe even a good idea?" I 
asked again.  

     Lonna nodded silently.  

     All of the sudden it came to me how much of *her* time and of her
heart that Lonna had invested in *my* problem.  I started to thank her,
opening my mouth as though to speak, but no words would come.  Instead
I just stepped to her and wrapped my arms around her in a desperate hug.
She returned the hug, still silent, and in another heartbeat I found 
myself just sobbing on her shoulder.  

     After a while I became aware that she was doing the standard sorts
of calming things, patting my back lightly, saying, "there, there" or 
something else equally meaningless.  I snuffled and stepped back, now
more embarrassed than ever.  

     "I'm sorry," I said, but before I could continue Lonna interrupted 
me.
   
     "I'm not," she said, and I heard a tightness in her voice that called
my attention to the brightness in her own eyes.  "It's been a long time 
since anyone has, well, needed me like that.  I, um, well, thank you."

     "Thank *me*?  I'm the one who should be thanking you."  

     "Okay," she said, quickly wiping at a damp spot on her cheek while 
she tried to lighten the mood with a grin.  "We'll each be grateful.  Now,
what do you want to do tonight?"

     There was an eagerness in her voice that made it clear what *she* 
wanted to do.  Maybe accepting that kept me from having to make a 
decision of my own.  Maybe it was simple gratitude toward her.  But it
was easier to do what she wanted than to tell her no.  

     My eyes must have shown something.  I realized I had glanced at the
pile of things she had brought and that was probably a clue, too.  Anyway, 
without a word being said she started to open her packages, and while I 
was interested in what she had brought, it came to me that I wasn't 
wearing anything under my robe.  

     "I'll, um, be right back," I said as I slipped toward the bedroom.

     "Don't bother with anything more than panties," Lonna said.  "You 
won't need anything else from in there until we get to outer clothes, and 
that will be a while."

     "I won't?" I asked, stuck in a stupid repeating mode again.  I mean,
she had pretty much made it so that I needed a bra, at least.

     "Nope," she said.  

     "But I'm not wearing . . . " I tried to explain.

     She interrupted me with the first real grin she'd had for quite a 
while, a bit of comic-villain leer in her smile when she said, "I know."  

     That didn't help my embarrassment a bit, but it did seem to remove
and valid argument I had.  When I came back out, having slipped on the 
dancer's belt as well as a pair of Trish's satin panties, Lonna pulled out 
a roll of black satin that she shook to reveal some sort of corset.  

     "I thought I wouldn't need to wear one of those things," I 
complained, hating the whining sound in my voice even as I spoke.

     "Oh, not very often," she said.  "But this is sort of a special 
situation."

     "No joke," I said sharply.

     "No, I mean tonight is," she went on.  "I want to work on how you
move tonight, and this merry widow will help you with your posture."

     The next couple of hours were too boring to remember, despite the
constant assault of strangeness.  Or maybe that assault means my mind
just refused to record it.  I know it had long periods of just sitting
while Lonna worked on me, starting with her using solvent to take my 
breast forms off, adding then wiping off lotion on the skin underneath,
then using some more fluids to get them stuck back on.  From there it
was the usual contradictions.  Pluck here, glue on there, squeeze here 
(she told me that this merry widow thing was unusual in that it had 
laces - oh how special!) and pad there.  After a very, very long time,
she stood back and said, "Wait here."

     Right, like I was gonna run right out in the street, mostly naked
and dressed like a woman.  

     Well, she took care of the first part of that by bringing out one 
of Trish's nicer dresses.  It was a simple little black thing that had
looked really good on Trish, with a sort of "V" neck and short sleeves.
My black heels (the short ones thank God!) worked with the dress and I
thought I was done.

     Not so, as Lonna informed me in no uncertain terms.  It was only 
after the addition of a strand of pearls, matched by a bracelet and
earrings, plus a couple of rings that Lonna allowed me to look once
again into the mirror.  

     Maybe I was more ready this time.  I know it didn't make me faint.
There was a lot of Trish still there, but even through Lonna's artistry
I could see differences.  My nose was a little longer, my chin a bit 
wider.  The hair sort of dominated the first impression, and that was
deliberately as much like Trish as Lonna could make it.  And of course
I was wearing her clothes.  With hair and clothes already constrained,
I realized the makeup style had to be pretty close as well.  But after
a while you couldn't really see that much of Trish.  

     What I also couldn't see, though, was a man.  Once again it seemed 
like I should feel guilty about that.  I mean, what sort of man can look 
so much like a woman, especially an attractive one?  Turning to the side, 
I found myself appreciating the smooth curves courtesy of the merry widow 
thing - despite my internal worries.  

     "So, Tammy," Lonna interrupted my musings.  "Are you going to offer
me some tea?"  

     "Huh? Oh, sure," I said, blushing as she pulled me back from my 
narcissistic fascination.  

     "That's hardly the way Trish would have answered," Lonna accused.

     She was right, of course.  Pulling my shoulders back into the posture
I had studied, I tried again.  "Oh, surely.  I'm so sorry I didn't think of 
it sooner.  Please forgive me."  

     Lonna's face lit up with a grin that had more than simple amusement 
in it, but instead of saying anything, she just waved me out of my own 
bedroom.  While I was arranging the tea, she grabbed a bag she hadn't 
opened yet and took it back into the bedroom.  By the time the kettle
was singing, the door opened and a Lonna I had never seen before stepped
out.  

     She was beautiful.  That word alone seems so inadequate, but 
adding additional qualifiers seemed more like a distraction from the 
perfection of her appearance than an enhancement.  I had never seen 
her work her magic on herself before.  I thought I had seen it, when I 
had visited her salon.  I certainly had always thought she was really 
pretty, much like Trish.  But despite the squeeze it put on my heart, I 
realized she was in a different class than my forever beloved.  The 
similarities between the way Trish had looked and my own current 
appearance seemed suddenly to be due as much to a lack of femininity on 
Trish's part as an excess on mine.  Trish's nose now seemed to have been a 
bit too long, and her own chin just a bit firm for the vision of delicacy 
that walked, no, floated across the living room toward me.  

     Her own outfit was much like my own, a bit more daring perhaps, with
a much shorter skirt.  Lonna's little black dress (even Trish had laughed 
and explained that cliché to me one time) had a round neckline and long 
sleeves that make all the leg she was showing seem even more spectacular.
A double strand of pearls wrapped themselves around her neck, both similar
and distinct from the look she had selected for me.  We looked like two 
best friends who had come together for an evening of, well, sisterhood or
something.  
            
     "Wow," I said, knowing my jaw was hanging down but not really caring.

     "Why, thank you, Tammy, you look lovely, too," she said elegantly, 
then spoiled the effect with a giggle.

     At least the got my mind moving again.  I turned away to gather up 
the tea tray and moved with it to the garden room since there were still
packages and other, um, stuff all over the living room.  

     "You've been practicing," Lonna observed as she followed me.  That
really helped, NOT.  Calling my attention to the way I had learned to walk 
in heels made me nearly drop the tray, but I managed to get it to a small 
side table near some wicker chairs.  I mean, she was right and all, but, 
well, the idea that she was watching my legs (a lot of them exposed) and 
my butt just, um, it wasn't what I expected her to be doing.  I don't 
know why.  I mean, I knew she was going to be there to do that, but I
didn't think she'd be doing it right, um, *then*.  

     By the time we got ourselves seated, I thought maybe the fire in 
my cheeks was back down from stellar core levels, and I tried to lose 
myself in the motions of pouring tea.  At least this time I could do it.
For some reason my hand weren't shaking.  Well, not as much anyway.  The 
cups rattled against the saucers, but nothing spilled.  I smiled at Lonna 
as much from pride in what seemed like a major accomplishment as from any 
role-playing design, and tried to relax the strain in my shoulders.

     Lonna, when I finally let myself really look at her, was still 
distractingly beautiful, and still disconcertingly intense in her 
appraisal of me.  We talked of inconsequentials, yet even in that she
was testing me by remarking on the attractiveness of movie actors, or
asking my opinion on fall fashions.  Actually, this was good, though,
because it was very much like what Trish and I had done.  I let myself 
fall into the answers I had remembered her make, or that she had coached 
me into making.  

     From time to time, Lonna asked me for some little item related to
the tea, looking to see if I could move with the poised grace that Trish
had always shown.  I couldn't, of course.  I felt clumsy and as stiff as
a board, but I still wasn't dropping anything so I determined to force
my way through this trial.  

     "Lighten up, girl," Lonna said brightly.  "Oh, I know just the 
thing."

     *Uh, oh,* I thought.  *I'm in for it now.*

     I was right, but I didn't have a clue on how very deeply I was indeed
going into it.  

     A few minutes later I was seated back in the chair I had occupied for
so long already, wondering what she could possible plan in addition to all
she had already done to me.  

     I found out, when she started pulling out false fingernail materials.

     "Hey, that's not necessary," I protested.  "Trish never wore her 
nails very long."  

     "No, but Trish moved her hands with the same gracefulness she brought
to all her other motions, don't you agree?"

     What could I say?  Of course Trish was graceful in everything that 
she did, but she still didn't have long nails!

     I was about to renew my protest when Lonna pulled the rug right out
from under me, and of all things, with a compliment.

     "Tammy, I've been really struggling not to shout out loud with how 
wonderfully well you're doing.  You walk with fluid grace, your posture
is poised and proud, you even talk so much like Trish that if I close my
eyes I can see her more easily than the old you."

     Then she dropped the bomb that her compliments had disguised.  "But 
you still really have the same problem you had before.  Everything you do
consciously, you do amazingly well.  You should have been an actor, or you 
could do impersonations well enough to get on TV.  But on all the things
you don't think about, you still move like a man."

     I was almost too overwhelmed trying to absorb her compliments to 
catch that last little, um, issue.  I nodded, more to show that I was
still there, still listening, and she used that as an excuse to go on.

     "So what you need to do is get out of your little study box and start
to develop your own reactions.  Nails will force you to move more 
carefully, to think about how to move your hands rather than just do it.
And as soon as you get your mind in the loop, I'm sure you'll be able to
put together some sort of combination of what you think Trish would have
done, and what you think fits with your new image."

     She reached for the first of an array of little plastic forms and
concluded, "But it won't be a pure copy.  It will have to include at 
least some of you, too.  Okay?"  

     "I, uh, guess so," I said, still caught up in her compliments.  I
had worked hard that week, harder than I really had any need to, for 
some reason.  It wasn't all just, um, copying Trish.  I mean, I had been
working to copy Trish, but it hadn't all been just to make her memory
clearer.  I found myself getting caught up in it a lot of the time, 
actually forgetting that it was supposed to help me deal with her loss
and not something I wanted just for itself.

     But to have Lonna really compliment me on it filled me with some sort
of pride.  I didn't know why, really, since looking like a woman, even 
moving like one was hardly a thing to brag about, but I did feel proud.  

     By the time I surfaced into the world outside my mind again, Lonna
had the forms on half of my fingers.  When she started putting the stuff
on them, I had to complain again.

     "That's way too long."

     "Oh, don't worry," she said.  "I'll be trimming them back later. This
is just so I'll have plenty to work with."

     So that's how I came to have a double fistful of long, carmine nails.  
When everything was finally dry, Lonna sent me to clean up the tea 
service.  She was certainly right that the nails made me more conscious of
my hands.  And despite the frustration (not to mention the almost-missing
eye when I got an itch on my nose), I had to admit that I was moving much 
more delicately.  Hardly graceful, but more carefully and more in keeping
with the poised control that was at once so in contrast and so much a part 
of the airy cheerfulness Trish had always shown.

     "I'm hungry," Lonna declared when I returned from the kitchen.

     "Okay, I'll order something.  Do you like pizza?"

     Lonna laughed and stood up, "Too well, in fact, but we're not 
ordering in."  

     When she grabbed her purse, I realized what she had in mind.  But,
damnit, there are some lines I was NOT going to cross!

     "No way in hell," I snapped.  

     "Oh, poo," she sniffed back.  "You don't think I got this dressed up
just to sit in the house, do you?"  

     "Fine.  Have fun," I said.  

     I saw her get ready to argue with me, but instead she just set her 
purse back down and then started to gather up the array of things she had
needed to use on me.  

     "Look, Lonna, I appreciate your confidence in me, but I'm just not 
ready for this."

     She still didn't say anything.  She just gave me the sort of long,
slow, top to bottom look of appraisal that guys were supposed to use on
girls.  Then she snorted like I was too silly for words and went back to
her cleaning up.  And cleaning up.  I started to help but a single glance
from her made it clear that I was not a particularly welcome aid.  

     "Please, Lonna, I, um, well, I'm scared."

     With that she stopped what she was doing and stepped over to me.  In 
a way that was both sweetly intimate and totally asexual, she wrapped her
arms around me and said, "I know, dear, I really do.  But you will never 
look enough better than you do right now to make any difference.  And if
you think you look anything like a man at all, then you're going to have 
to tell me how, because *I* think you look fabulous."  

     I should have argued with her, but how do you argue when deep in your
heart you know she's telling the truth?  I did look pretty good.  And at 
some level I knew she was right that my motions were graceful and feminine
as well.  The nails were new and awkward, but in a flash of insight I 
realized that was exactly what people would think, "new and awkward", and 
in that very assessment any risk of discovery - Lonna had called it, 
'being read' - would vanish.  

     I was about to try and negotiate some sort of compromise, maybe a 
drive through or something, when I realized . . . what?  That I wanted to 
do this, too?  That I was tired of being cooped up in a house, maybe 
eating out and if so alone?  That I wanted to have for real the little 
fantasy memory that had made me seem so close to Trish?  Was all that a 
way to keep Trish clear in my memory, or was there another reason I wanted 
to play that role?  

     I felt I was on the verge of understanding something, something 
important.  And I didn't want to face that right then.  Something in the
tenseness of my body must have changed.  It certainly didn't decrease, but
it must have changed somehow.  Because Lonna stepped back and picked up 
her purse once again.  She didn't say anything, just raising one elegant
eyebrow in question.

     "I, um, guess I better have one of those, too," I said.  

     Now smiling openly, Lonna helped me pick out one of Trish's purses
that would be appropriate.  We packed it with Trish's things, even 
including her driver's license when we realized I looked a lot more 
like the picture on it than the one on my own.  I felt myself being
swept up in Lonna's energy.  Surely it wasn't that I was myself excited
about going out.  Whatever the motivation, I found myself swinging my
legs into Trish's Avalon with grace I had seen so many times in Trish.

     "Promise me one thing," I said as Lonna started to accelerate.

     "What?"

     "At least let's go where the place is fairly dark," I said.

     Lonna nodded brightly.  Stupid, stupid me.