Trismegistus Shandy: chapter 8

2017-02-19T08:47:51Z

chapter 8

New page

{{byline|author=Trismegistus Shandy
|user=Trismegistus Shandy}}

[[You Could Go Home Again|Table of contents]]

----

Grandma and Grandpa Hampton came over to our house on Christmas day.
Grandpa was a little less stiff around me than he had been when we visited
a few days ago, but he wasn't exactly relaxed either. He unbent enough to
say "Thank you" when he opened his present from me, but that was about it.

We ate dinner after we opened presents; most of the conversation was Aunt
Ellen and Grandma talking about mutual friends of theirs. Uncle Tyler
and I talked some about some old movies we'd been watching since I'd
been home, but Grandpa didn't say much, and rarely met my eye.

After dinner Aunt Ellen, Uncle Tyler and I bundled up and went for
a walk. When we got back, we watched a couple of Christmas movies, one
pre-Divergence classic, _Meet John Doe_, and one from just a few years
ago, from Sundberg Studio, with a bison and sheepdog cast. It was set in
a small town on the border of the Omaha and Lincoln change-regions, and
the main characters were a family that had been divided into different
species. The parents had been trying to hold their marriage together,
but when they finally gave up on it, nine months after the Divergence,
they agreed to put off separating until after Christmas. Their children,
who were also different species, overheard this conversation and hijinks
ensued.

Grandpa went to bed before we started the second movie.

------

Next day, we drove to Lincoln to visit Grandma and Grandpa Kritzer.
It was the first time they'd seen the new me, but they were more
cheerfully accepting of me than Grandpa or even Grandma Hampton.
They showed us the snow-sculptures they'd been making, some of which
had partly melted but which were still recognizable, and when we got too
cold to stay out any more, we went in, drank hot chocolate, and played
games for a few hours. I told them, especially Grandma, a lot about
what I was going through, but steered clear of the squicky details.

After dinner, we opened our presents to each other, and then Aunt Ellen,
Uncle Tyler and I got back in the car for the ride home.

-----

I had a week before I had to leave for school, and I saw Carl, Ron,
Julia and Leanne several more times. We ate out, met at each other's
houses to play games and watch movies, and when it was a bit less cold
than usual, went for walks.

I weighed and checked my height once a week while I was in Nebraska,
as Dr. Mathers had requested, but I found that though I grew a little
bit in the first week, I stopped growing after that. I didn't think I'd
reached my full growth, and concluded that my puberty had gone on hiatus
while I was thousands of miles from the nearest Raleigh rabbit pheromones.
When I returned to Raleigh, I confirmed that this was correct; my first
clinic visit after my return to school showed a slight height increase
since the previous week in Hebron.

Carl and Julia said they'd give me a ride to the train station in Lincoln,
since it was convenient for them on their way back to university.
They arrived early on January 3, and Uncle Tyler helped me carry my
suitcase out to the Julia's car. I hugged Uncle Tyler and Aunt Ellen,
and said goodbye, and soon we were on our way.

Ron had already left to go back to MU the day before. I wondered if he
was planning to meet up with Lindsey before school started back, but I
didn't have a chance to ask. On the drive to Lincoln, Carl, Julia and
I talked for a while, mostly about a movie we'd seen a few nights ago,
and then listened to music. My tastes didn't overlap a lot with Julia's,
but we both liked Bulletproof Sombrero, and they had just released a
new song, which we all sang along to multiple times.

They let me out at the train station, and Carl helped me get my suitcases
to the luggage area.

As I got on the train, I remembered what I'd been thinking a few weeks
earlier. Was Hebron still home? Or was Raleigh? Or neither?

I still didn't know.

-----

When I changed trains in Atlanta, nobody I knew from school was on it.
I found out later that Amy had already returned to school a day earlier;
I don't know what Tracy and Yolanda did. In Charlotte several people
I had seen around campus but didn't know boarded the train; we shared
the campus shuttle when we got to Raleigh. Amy was out when I returned
to the dorm, but I could see from the partially unpacked suitcases that
she'd been there recently.

After eating supper, I walked around familiarizing myself with the
buildings where my Spring semester classes would be. I was pretty tired
when I got back to the dorm; Amy was there, but we didn't talk about
our Christmas vacations for very long before I fell asleep.

-----

I still shared one class with Amy that Spring semester, namely World
History 111. Yolanda was in that section as well, and we chatted for
a while after class before going to lunch together. Later in the day
I had Biology 102 (George was also in that section), and Calculus,
which Rob and Rico were also in. They sat together, which privately
I thought was a bad idea; if I had a boyfriend I would be afraid of
getting too distracted if I sat next to him in class. Or behind him.
Or of distracting *him*, if I sat in front of him; the only safe thing
to do would be to sit on opposite ends of the same row.

Not that I wasn't getting distracted anyway, by random good-looking guys
who happened to be sitting in front of me in whatever class. Sometimes
including the professor; Dr. Santucci, who taught World History, was
a Raleigh rabbit, and more than once I got so caught up in the smooth
sound of his voice that I forgot what he was actually saying.

One afternoon toward the end of the first week of classes, after I'd
missed half of Dr. Malik's Calculus lecture and dampened my panties
daydreaming about the guy who sat in front of me, I talked to Rob
after class.

"I kind of need to talk to you," I said in a low voice.

"Sure," she said a bit louder, and gesturing toward Rico, "Want to join
us for supper?"

"Maybe," I said, "but I'd like to talk without him around."

"Oh," she said, her voice dropping. "Advice about boys?"

"Sort of," I said, ducking my head a little.

"Later on, then, at mine and Sarah's room. I can get rid of her for a
while too if I need to --"

"Maybe... it's probably okay if she's there too." I'd be more comfortable
talking about it with just one person, but maybe Sarah would have good
advice that Rob wouldn't think of, and I didn't want to be responsible
for Rob kicking Sarah out of their room for a while.

I wound up eating supper with Rob, Sarah and Rico, but after supper,
Rob told them she had some studying to do that evening. "No more sugar
until tomorrow, honey," she said, and kissed Rico one more time, her
ears rubbing against his.

Rico glanced at Sarah, who looked indecisive for a few moments before
she said: "Sorry, Rico, but I'd probably better study a while too.
Tomorrow night we can do something special."

"See you tomorrow, then," Rico said, and went off toward his dorm.
I followed Rob and Sarah back to our dorm, and as soon as we were on the
walkway, out of earshot of anybody else, Rob told Sarah that I'd wanted
advice about boys.

"Kind of sort of," I said. "I'm still not quite ready to start dating,
but... let's talk about it in private."

I paused at the bottom of the stairs, dreading the ascent and the ache
in my hip getting worse. I thought about inviting Rob to my dorm room
instead, but then I realized Amy might be made pretty uncomfortable
by our conversation -- not that it was going to be comfortable for me,
or probably for Rob either.

"Are you coming?" Sarah asked, and Rob said: "Oh, do you need us to
slow down?"

"No, go on ahead, I'll be there in a minute," I said, and started up
the stairs.

When I got to their room, Rob was holding the door open for me; Sarah
was at her desk, taking her tablet out of her purse. I took off my coat
and sat at the foot of Rob's bed; she sat in the chair at her desk but
turned it around to face me.

"So what do you want help with?"

"Uh... like I said, I'm not ready to start dating yet. I think it's
probably still too soon. But I'm definitely getting to the point where
hot guys are a distraction. The last few days especially, I'm having
trouble paying attention in class because I find myself focusing on one
of the guys that sits in front of me -- or Dr. Santucci."

"Nothing wrong with your taste in men," Sarah said. "He is kind of hot
for an old dude."

"Not helpful," I said with gritted teeth. "What I wanted to ask --
one of the things -- was, how do you keep from getting so distracted?
Especially by older guys like Dr. Santucci, who I would never date even
if I thought I were ready to start dating?"

"It's a hard problem," Rob said. "Maybe worse for you because you're
going through this so fast, so it's hitting you all at once instead of
gradually like for most girls. Or boys, I guess. You'll gradually
get used to it and learn to work around it and control it somewhat,
but it's always going to be there. If you can't look at Dr. Santucci
without getting distracted, try just looking down at your tablet and
listening to what he's saying."

"His voice is a big part of the problem," I mumbled. She nodded and
went on:

"That's the main thing -- if you find yourself looking too hard at a
guy you don't want to date, and thinking too much about him, just try
to look at and think about something else."

"That might not be enough," Sarah put in, looking up from her tablet.
"You say you're not ready to date, but these feelings mean your body
disagrees. It's ready to date, ready to have sex, ready to have babies."

"Oh God," I said, and she continued without a pause:

"You can try to just ignore that, but it makes more sense to fool it
into thinking you're giving it what it wants, one way or another."

"How do you mean?" I asked, but I was pretty sure I knew already.

"You could have sex, but use birth control. Your body thinks you're
getting ready to have babies and it's happy. And if you're with a decent
guy, you're happy too."

Rob intervened, seeing my ears twitching even more than before. "Or,
you know, if you're not ready for that, you could jill off. Have you
tried that yet?"

"Yes," I said in a small voice. "It was... um, it was pleasant, but
not spectacular? I mean, I had the impression that it could be, well.
The best thing ever, more or less."

"It's never going to be as good by yourself as with someone else,"
Rob replied, "but if you know what you're doing it can be pretty amazing."

"Do you want us to show you how?" Sarah asked.

"No!" I exclaimed. "I mean, thanks, but no thanks. If you could just
tell me..."

"It would be easier to show you," Sarah said with a smile, and at Rob's
reproving glance she added: "But sure, we can just tell you if you'd
rather."

Half an hour later I came into our dorm room and found Amy lying in
bed reading. She looked up as I came in and said: "What's wrong?"

"What do you mean? Nothing's wrong."

"I'm not an expert on Raleigh rabbit body language, but I've been here
long enough to figure out that when your ears are twitching like that,
something's wrong. You're nervous about something."

"Or embarrassed," I said. "Yeah. But nothing's actually wrong. I was
just, um, talking with Rob and Sarah about girl stuff, and it was really
embarrassing, but I think it was helpful."

"Oh." She was silent a moment, then said: "I hope you're doing okay.
I wish I could help more."

"You've been a big help already. But, yeah, sometimes I need to talk
with girls of my own species."

"I guess so. Athens magnolia biology is pretty different from yours.
But try me sometime; I might have more to offer than you think."

"All right..." And I told her some of the problems I'd been having
concentrating in class, because my mind kept wandering to the hot guys
sitting in front of me instead of the lecture.

"Yeah, I don't know what that's like exactly -- being distracted from
studying by sex. Because our blooming is always in the summer, when
school's out anyway. But it's hella distracting anyway; nobody gets
anything done for those three or four days. Businesses shut down,
the non-magnolias in the police and fire departments work overtime,
everybody lounges around getting pollinated unless they're underage
and their parents shut them up indoors. And being in bloom and *not*
getting pollinated? Not fun at all."

I nodded sympathetically. She went on: "Some of us tried to relieve
the pressure," (my ears twitched when she used the same euphemism Terry
had used) "but I found out, on my first blooming, that fingers are too
big and rough... our flowers want really delicate handling. After that
one of my friends told me to use Q-tips next time, and that was better,
but still not really satisfying. Not as good as getting pollinated by
real insects is supposed to be."

"Yeah... that's kind of what Rob and Sarah said. Not about pollination,
but about sex and, um, masturbation."

"Don't take what I said about Q-tips too literally. I mean, fingers
might work fine for most species..."

"Yeah... Rob had some other suggestions too. Listen, I need to study
for a while now. Thanks for your help."

She got the hint.

-----

I didn't try out Rob and Sarah's practical advice for several days.
First, I tried Rob's other advice about ignoring attractive guys by
focusing on something else, and that helped a bit, but not as much as
I'd like. Then one evening when Amy was at the library, I slipped under
the covers with no clothes on, and tried out some of the things Rob and
Sarah had suggested. It was... pretty satisfying. A lot better than
the last time I'd tried it, before the Christmas break. I fell asleep
like that before Amy returned to the room.

The next morning, I had a problem; I didn't want to get out of bed to get
my clothes on while Amy was around. She looked at me curiously and said:
"Aren't you coming to breakfast?"

"I didn't sleep well," I lied. "I might take a nap and just eat a
nutrition bar before class."

"Okay."

Once she was gone, I got up, put my bathrobe on, and went to the shower.
I was less distracted in my various classes that day, so I chalked last
night's experiment up as a success, though I still felt guilty about it.
I got into the habit of getting myself off two or three times a week,
when I knew Amy was going to be out of the room for a while, and it
seemed to help.

A couple of guys in my classes asked me out on dates, and I told them,
as I'd told Larry, that I wasn't ready to date yet. "I haven't been a
girl for very long," I told Haley, who was in my Biology 102 class.

"That's okay," he said, laughing nervously. "I know what you mean.
I've only been a guy for a few months myself... I had to change rooms
back in October."

"Maybe ask me again in a few months?" I suggested. He seemed like a
nice guy, to the extent I knew anything about him at all.

"I might. Thanks."

On January 25, my friends threw a birthday party for me in the common
room of Alexander Hall. Most of them gave me books or movies, knowing
that clothes probably wouldn't fit me for very long.

Rob and Sarah had been there since the start, but Rico came in an hour
after the party started, after I'd opened my presents and we'd eaten
most of the cake.

"Happy birthday," he told me. "This is your nineteenth, right?"
He glanced at Sarah, who nodded.

"Right," I said; "thanks for coming," though I wasn't all that happy to
see him. I put up with him for Rob and Sarah's sake, and I was grateful
to him for giving us rides to the mall a couple of times last semester,
but he still grated on me. At least he hadn't called me "kid" this time.

Rico left with Sarah just before we sat down to watch one of the movies
I'd been given, but Rob stayed to watch the movie and help clean up
afterward. While we were cleaning up (they wanted me to sit down and
relax, but I insisted on helping some), she said to me: "So, this is a
big milestone. Are you thinking about starting to date now?"

"Probably soon," I said. "I was thinking about waiting until my body
finished changing."

"That might be a while."

"At the rate I'm going, Dr. Mathers says it should be just a few more
weeks."

-----

[[You Could Go Home Again/Part09|Part 9]]

You Could Go Home Again/Part08 - Revision history

Trismegistus Shandy: chapter 8