"No, actually, you didn't."
So I told her the story about the boy I'd teased.
She started to believe me. She wanted to believe me. Then her expression got hard. "You're still lying about something. I don't know what, but you are."
"I have not lied to you about a single thing!" A tear started down my cheek. "I may not have told you everything, but I haven't ever lied to you. Never. Not once. And it's not like you've told me every detail of your life before we met."
"I've told you about every time I stepped in front of a train to commit suicide," she said quietly. "Because I was too afraid to tell my parents I was gay."
"It wasn't like that," I said quietly.
"Someone died, Shane. Doesn't that bother you?"
"I died, Veronica. Me! I died. I didn't step in front of a train to commit suicide. Shane did. And I tried to save her. And I died. Shane was hurt and in a comma, but her soul was in tatters and couldn't come back. So I did." I wound down, looked away. "I'm not Shane. I'm just in her body. I don't even know what my own name is."
I didn't say anything for a while. I just cried quietly. Veronica tried to wipe a tear away, but I jerked away. "Don't. You don't get to comfort the crazy girl. Just let her cry. After all, she tried to commit suicide and got someone killed, and then doesn't even show any remorse. What kind of bitch must she be?"
I finally turned to her. She had drawn away. "I know it sounds crazy."
"Just tell me all of it, Shane. Honey. Please. I need to know. Just tell me."
So I did, all of it, as best I could. I finished the story.
"And now, there are three possible explanations," I told her. "The most obvious is that I'm bat shit crazy. The next best choice is that I'm making it all up. And running a very distant third is that it's all true."
"I don't know what to believe," she told me.
"Consider more of the evidence. I know I have. First, you can find news articles about the accident. You can find my name. And you can find that someone else died. But what's interesting? The articles don't tell you one single thing about the person who tried to save me. Shouldn't that person be lauded a hero? Shouldn't a name be shared? Maybe a photo? Something? Go look. I have. I can't find any reference to who tried to pull me out from in front of the train. Just that someone had, and that person died. You can't even find out if it was a man or a woman. Nothing. It's like that person didn't exist."
She didn't say anything, so I continued. "Next, you've said it yourself, and I know Victoria said something about it too. A lot of the times I appear to be just what I seem. 19 and naive. But other times I do things or say things that only someone a lot older than 19 would say or do. Like calling guys ten years older than me boys, and completely wrapping them around my finger like it was nothing."
I looked her in the eye. "It happens all the time, where I surprise you by how mature I seem to be. And then other times I'm clearly barely a woman."
I looked away. "I wonder where I learned to swing dance. I don't remember ever taking a lesson. I have almost all of Shane's memories, and not a single one of them involve formal dance lessons. And even if that's not enough, where the hell does a 19-year-old girl learn to tango without everyone in town knowing about it?"
I stared at her. "I tango like someone who has had at least five years, perhaps ten years of lessons. Furthermore, I can lead, too. Do you want to explain that? Because I tell you, Veronica, I can't. I can't tell you how I could be bat shit crazy and suddenly learn to tango. I can't tell you how I could have lied about everything I just told you and still managed to learn to tango without anyone knowing. What? I learned from watching movies?"
I looked away. "You have to decide. You have to decide if it matters. You have to decide if now that you think I'm bat shit crazy you still want me." The tears were flowing down my cheeks again. "You have to decide if you're going to call the guys in the little white coats to come get me because I clearly am suffering from multiple personality disorder."
I looked back at her. "But I have never ever lied to you."
She still hadn't said anything. "Go get your handcuffs," I told her.
"What?"
"Go get your god damned handcuffs!"
She was shocked, but she disappeared into the bedroom for a moment, then came back out with them.
"What am I doing with these?"
I got off the couch, walked to one of the pillars in the room, wrapped my arms around it, then told her. "Cuff me."
"Why?"
"Do it. Cuff me. Cuff the crazy girl."
"No."
"Do it!"
She walked over to me and gently cuffed my wrists together while I hugged the pillar. "Tighter," I ordered. "I could slip out right now and you know it."
She tightened the restraints properly, but I could tell she wasn't happy.
"Why are you making me do this?"
"Because I couldn't stand wondering if you were sneaking behind my back to get me committed to a mental hospital," I replied. "If you're going to do it, don't sneak around. Have the guts to do it in front of me. Call them now and have them come get me. I can't get away, you can call them right in front of me. You'll break my heart, but I can't escape. If you think I'm going to step in front of another train, get someone else killed, or just that I'm bat shit crazy, then call them. Right now. Waiting would be cruel."
"This is all crazy, Shane."
"Why the hell do you think I didn't want to tell you? Do you think I haven't figured out it's crazy? If you can come up with an explanation that fits all the facts, I'd love to hear it. But you don't get to pick and choose. Where did I learn to tango?"
She walked away from me and I began to sob.
But she came back, pulling a chair with her, then got her laptop.
"When was the accident?"
"July third last summer."
She started doing searches. She found a couple of articles about me but not about the person who had died saving me. No name, no photo, nothing, just a brief mention someone died saving Shane.
"Where did you go to high school?" I told her and she did more searches. That got her nowhere. "Your class yearbook is online," she told me. "There's a photo of you but no references to you engaged in any school activities.
"You were fifty?"
"Or so, it's not clear."
"Where were you when you heard Reagon got shot?"
"I'd just come home from school. The television was on in the kitchen. Mom was watching it. She told us. We watched the news together."
"First moon landing?"
"Mom got my brother and I out of bed and took us outside. She pointed to the moon and said, there were people walking on the moon right now. I remember looking at it then telling her, I don't see them, Mommy."
A tear started down her cheek. I hadn't seen her cry before. I started sobbing again.
"I'm not crazy, but if you call them, I'll understand," I said through the sobbing.
She got up and stepped up behind me. She loosened the laces of the corset. I hadn't even realized I was still wearing it. I was getting used to it. I was going to miss it in the loony bin.
Then she kissed the back of my neck.
That's when I really started sobbing. She walked around me and undid the handcuffs. I collapsed into her arms, and she had to half carry me to bed.
She helped me out of the clothes while I continued to cry. She helped me into bed. She took her own clothes off and climbed in next to me. Then she held me while I cried myself out.
Once I settled down, she spoke quietly. "It's crazy, but I don't have any other explanations."
I started crying again and she let me. Once those tears abated, she started speaking again.
"I want a promise from you, and you damned well better give it."
"Roni, I'm not remotely suicidal. I am not going to do anything to hurt myself."
"I couldn't stand losing you," she said, shaking me a little. "Do you understand me? You are not allowed
to leave me. If you begin thinking about anything like that, you come talk to me and we'll fix it."
"Roni, I promise, if I ever even have a fleeting thought of doing anything to hurt myself, I'll talk to you. But it's not an issue. Shane was afraid to tell her parents, and she believed all that bullshit some people spew. But that's not me, okay?"
"One more thing."
"Yes Roni?"
"Just because you're older than I am, do not forget that I am the dominant one in this relationship. You belong to me!"
"Yes, Roni. I belong to you. And I'm still going to be a cheeky girl."
We talked quietly through the night, not falling asleep until dawn was just peeking through on the horizon. She asked me what I knew about my former life. "Almost nothing. I couldn't have told you if I were male or female. I had a job I was good at, but I didn't feel particularly inspired by it. It was just a job. I don't remember my name."
I thought about it. "I had a brother. And I had a dog." I couldn't remember what kind of dog.
"I know what gender you were," she told me. "You were a woman."
"How do you know?"
"Because you follow too well to have been a man. Some men learn to follow, but never that well."
"Dance teachers do."
"You're good, but not that good."
"Argentinian men might?"
She started speaking to me in Spanish. I didn't understand what she said.
"Besides, any Argentino who could follow as well as you do is probably a better dancer than you are, as good as you are."
I thought about it for a while. "I could still have been a man," I told her. "God might have fiddled to confuse the issue."
"Occam's razor," she said. "The simplest explanation is the most likely."
We lay there for a while.
"You probably knew me."
"No one I know died last year."
"The dance community is small. You knew me."
"You could have been from out of town. And it appears that someone covered his tracks, so I bet we can't find you."
"Her."
"Her who."
"God's a her."
"Oh. How fitting."
We dozed briefly. "Roni?"
"Yes, Love?"
"Do you remember when I told you there was a story about someone who once told me to be myself, and she had been the only person who ever did?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"That was she. She also told me to trust my instincts."
"What do your instincts tell you?"
"That meeting you was the best thing that could ever have happened to me."
She cuddled in tighter, kissing my head for a while. My hair tickled her face and she complained but told me she'd punish me if I ever cut it.
"Love?"
"Yes?"
"What do you want me to call you?"
"Love is good."
She laughed. "You know what I mean."
"I'm Shane. Just a different Shane than my parents realize. But I'm the same Shane you met. I'm not pod Shane anymore."
"Pod Shane?"
"Yeah, from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A really campy film from when I was a teenager."
"Stay here."
She got up, got her computer, and looked it up. "1978. The year I was born."
She climbed back into bed.
"Roni?"
"Yes, Shane?"
"Are you going to give me to the guys in the white jackets?"
"No."
"Promise?"
"I promise. I don't think you're crazy."
I kissed her, then pulled away and looked at her. "Roni?"
"Aren't you tired?"
"Can I make love to you now?"
Chapter 10: Family Sucks
Spring term started. It was nice seeing Molly again. We compared notes. She loved the story about the pictures I'd taken, and the sixty bucks I'd won off Bob and Brian for them. She'd met her family in Colorado and had spent the week skiing the last of the snow off the mountains. She'd met a guy during the trip whose company she'd enjoyed, but she wasn't interested in pursuing a long distance relationship.
"Frankly, I watch you and Veronica, and I see how hard that is. I can't imagine The Suck being in different states would be."
I told her we'd had some fights, so she grinned and said, "How was the make up sex?"
"Pretty damned good," I admitted. "But last night, Veronica's the one who was screaming my name."
Molly immediately stuffed her fingers in her ears and started saying, "La, la, la, la, la, I can't hear you!"
"Well, if it's any consolation," I told her. "She doesn't scream. She whispers." I grinned at her. "I, however, scream."
He fingers flew back into her ears. I just laughed and decided I'd teased enough.
* * *
Veronica and I had one small difficult patch two weekends later. She'd started treating me differently, and I didn't like the change. Oh, she was being perfectly proper, almost solicitous. But she'd stopped being dominant, and I didn't like that, not at all.
So I started acting up. I arrived Friday on the bus earlier than she was expecting. I dropped my things off at the apartment then turned around and headed over to the office. Before I stepped in, I unbuttoned my blouse to a dangerously unprofessional fashion.
She was in a meeting with one of the designers, so I knocked on the door to her office and said, "Hey, Roni. I just wanted to let you know I took the bus up." I stood in the doorway making sure everyone saw me. "Okay, you're busy, Roni, so I'll be next door. Bye."
Remember, her name in public was supposed to be Veronica. I didn't understand why she let Victoria and Wendy call her Roni, but she'd been pretty clear with me. And I'd called her that twice in front of staff, and she didn't even flinch. I didn't get a warning look or anything. What the hell?
Veronica hated clutter. So I took my stuff and I spread it all over. I changed clothes and left my old ones spread across the bed. Then I found a newspaper, opened it to the comics page, then left it sitting on the sofa like that. Finally I took all my homework and spread it all over the dining room table, even creating a couple of piles on the floor. I surveyed all my work then decided, "In for a penny, in for a pound." I changed into a sweatshirt I'd brought with me.
She showed up about an hour later. I was laying on the floor with my feet on her coffee table, listening to my MPEGs for class. She saw me and saw the mess, but instead of telling me to clean it up, she did it herself. I pretended not to notice.
"I'm bored and hungry," I told her. "Take me to dinner."
She didn't even flinch at my demanding tone. "Okay, let's get dressed."
"I'll go like this."
She didn't say a word, just went to the bedroom and began to change. I waited until she was done and getting her shoes on, then said, "You know, maybe I'll change after all."
I took my time.
Not a word from her about it.
At the restaurant, I called her Roni twice in front of the waiter. Not a word of complaint. We got back and I decided to give up for now. I asked her what she'd like to do. She said she was tired and wondered if we could just cuddle with a movie. I was tired of being a brat, and cuddling with her sounded really nice, so I behaved the rest of the evening.
We didn't make love that night.
Saturday I woke up and was determined to knock some domme back into her if it killed me. I started by making coffee. She liked her coffee with just a little cream and no sugar. So I skipped the cream entirely and added two scoops of sugar. She drank it.
So I started studying for a while, reading on the sofa. Veronica was reading the paper. That lasted for just a few minutes before I set the books aside and said, "I'm tired of taking care of my hair. It's too much work. Can you recommend a good hairdresser?"
That got some attention. "I like your hair long."
"I'm thinking of a little pixie cut. Won't that be cute?"
She didn't say a word. Shit.
"I thought I'd cut it myself." This next part almost killed me to do, but I thought about where it would be least obvious. I cut a lock from the back of my neck, leaving at most about two inches of hair remaining. I dropped two feet of red hair on the floor. "Don't worry, I'll clean it all up when I'm done."
I hoped that I had so much hair that I'd be able to hide the damage I was doing. And I was really, really hoping she stopped me soon. I cut out another lock and dropped it.
"What did I tell you I would do to you if you ever cut your hair?"
I shrugged. "Punish me? I can't remember." And then, trying not to let her see me wince as I did it, I cut another lock.
"Stop it!" she screamed. She flew over to me and wrestled the scissors from me. She shoved my head down so she could see the damage I'd done. "God damn it, Shane, this looks like shit. What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you?"
"There's nothing wrong with me," she said. "You're the one cutting her own hair like a crazy woman."
That was low. Then she realized what she said. "Shane, I didn't mean it like that."
I reached for the scissors but was really happy when she didn't let me have them. "Knock it off! Are you trying to make me punish you?"
She saw the look of victory in my face. I'd finally woken her up.
"What the hell is wrong with you? You've been pushing my buttons since you got here yesterday."
At least she'd noticed. I just thrust my chin out at her.
"It's almost as if you've been doing it intentionally. And then you started trashing your beautiful hair."
"No almost about it, Veronica," I said quietly. "How was your coffee this morning?"
I got up to go look in the bathroom mirror to see how bad I'd butchered my hair. "You get your ass back here!" she yelled. "We aren't done."
I stopped for a moment. She was almost there, but not quite. "Bite me," I told her then proceeded into the bathroom.
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