Hot Potato

I lean against my headboard and crack open a third bottle of beer. I'm already tipsy on two, and one more should get me properly drunk. They don't call me the Amazing Toothpick Girl for nothing.

My friend Lauren wheels the desk chair up to my computer. "Okay, let's do this. I am a... woman... looking for...a woman, a man, or either?" Her mouse cursor hovers over the drop-down menu, waiting for my response.

Alone, I never make it past that first question. This is why it's Lauren making my dating profile, not me. She's already helped by clicking, "I am a woman." I couldn't bring myself to make that claim, although I know it's the right answer in this situation. Gay men and straight women aren't attracted to me.

I consider the second part of the question. "Neither."

"What if I take the 'n' off that?" Lauren suggests. Her patience already sounds strained.

"Men try to fix me and women taste weird." This is a gross oversimplification of the problem, but she doesn't need to hear the long version again.

"You said you want to start dating again. If you rule out everyone from the get-go this isn't going to work."

"I do want to date. It's just that no matter which..."

"No. Stop." She swivels the chair around and faces me with a stern look. "There's bound to be a man somewhere in the world who can have a relationship with you without trying to change you, and you've had what, two girlfriends?"

"I wouldn't call Casey a girlfriend." I realize even as I'm saying it that that's not the point, and I resolve that the next thing that comes out of my mouth will be more reasonable. I shouldn't be difficult when someone is trying to do me a favour.

Lauren dismisses my irrelevant argument with a wave of her hand. "Whatever. That's a pretty small sample size. Women don't all taste the same. Some women taste like liquid candy. Some women don't even like oral. Damned if I know why. But there's all kinds of people out there. You've just got to kiss a few toads to find your prince."

"Right. I'll kiss some toads and see what happens. Sorry. I appreciate this." What I'm really afraid of, though, isn't kissing more toads. These days, I worry that I'm just one of the toads that people kiss on the way to finding a prince.

Lauren's face relaxes into a smile, and she leans over to claim the last beer from the six-pack. "Appreciation received. So will you be kissing boy toads or girl toads?"

"Either one, I guess."

"Excellent." She spins back around and clicks before I have a chance to change my mind. "Now let's get you laid before you get even more cantankerous."

I drink up and cooperate.

###

I admire Jesse's jade green eyes as he tells me a story about getting lost in Quebec. He glances down as he reaches for his coffee, and his feathery eyelashes catch the golden light of the late afternoon sun. This isn't a date but I wish it was.

I really did mean to date when I joined that site, but instead I've been chatting with a beautiful, cock-obsessed crossdresser who wants to hook up with a man. When he asked for advice about his profile pictures last week, I jumped in with suggestions — I love photography and all things gender-bendy. Suggestions led to chatting, and chatting led to us discovering that we live less than a mile apart.

So now here we are at a coffee shop, supposedly to discuss the pictures I'm going to take for his profile. Instead, we have been talking about everything else under the sun for the last hour, from Cold War politics to chip trucks. His scattered stories and quirky factoids entertain me.

Jesse takes a sip and grimaces. He pours another liberal helping of sugar into his coffee, which is already half cream and sugar. He must be like me — skinny no matter what he eats.

"What's your waist size?" I ask. It's hard to tell exactly what shape he is under the oversized t-shirt, but it hangs loose on him.

He shrugs. "I don't know. Why?"

"Just wondering if some things I have might fit you." I get suddenly shy and stop short of saying which things. They're a little slutty. My ex-boyfriend bought them for me, hoping I'd wear them, but I hardly ever did. I feel more ridiculous than sexy in microscopic skirts and fishnet. I've been meaning to donate them to Goodwill, but now I'm glad I didn't. As I imagine Jesse trying them on, I don't think he'd look ridiculous; he'd look amazing.

"I think we're close to the same size," I add.

Jesse bites his lip and smiles as he stirs his coffee. "Oh, probably." A lock of long blonde hair that won't stay in his ponytail falls across his face.

I get a mental image of a man brushing the hair out of Jesse's face and holding it out of the way. Whether it's to kiss him or something else, I'm not sure, but I suddenly have a wet spot in my boxers.

I shift the way I'm sitting so it won't soak through my jeans, and I try to sound normal. "I'll see if I can find them before you come over."

"Sure. I have some cute things too, you know. It'll be fine," he says, then he suddenly has to tell me where you can get the best pickled eggs.

Two hours and three beverage refills later, the sun has gone down, the streetlights have come on, and the barista keeps staring at us, probably wondering if we've decided to take up residence. We still haven't talked about what kind of profile pictures he wants. He's agreed to come to my place the tomorrow after lunch so I can take them, though, and that's good enough for me.

We step out into the spring evening. He shivers and crosses his bare arms over his chest. "How did it get so cold so fast?"

"It's not that cold. Here." I unzip my big grey hoodie and drape it around his shoulders.

"No, now you'll freeze. Take it back. I'm the nargwar who didn't bring a jacket." He tries to give the hoodie back.

I put an arm around his shoulders, holding it where it is. "I have long sleeves. I'm fine. I'll walk you home and you can give it back when we get there."

Jesse is almost exactly my size, and with him in my hoodie and with my arm comfortably draped around his shoulders, I've never felt less like a little toothpick girl. I imagine that I'm his boyfriend walking him home. I can't stop smiling, though I'm freezing and I know it's a silly fantasy.

Halfway to his house, I remember that I still have a thermos of hot chai tea and a pair of travel mugs in my backpack. I packed them before I left home, just in case the coffee shop closed early on Sundays.

We sit down on a bus stop bench so I can pour the tea.

Jesse wraps his hands around one of the mugs. "As if you just pulled a thermos of tea and two cups out of your bag. That's a first." He sounds impressed.

I snap the lids on. "Well, of all the places I could pull it out of, I think this is by far the most reasonable." I shrug it off like it's nothing, but I'm all warm fuzzies inside. Jesse likes me! Not exactly in the way I'd like, perhaps, but it still delights me.

###

Either Jesse and I have a really different idea of what "after lunch" means, or he's late. Maybe he's not coming. It's nearly three. I'm too keyed up to focus on researching legal procedure for my mystery novel. I've played countless rounds of spider solitaire while checking every three minutes to see if Jesse is online. He isn't. A couple other guys and a girl from the dating site try to chat with me, but I can't work up the interest. I wish I'd gotten Jesse's phone number. I wonder if I accidentally offended him yesterday.

Just when I decide he isn't coming and I should find a better use for my day than playing five hundred rounds of solitaire, the doorbell rings. My heart skips. I tell it to settle down. This is not even a date. Jesse has made it quite clear that he wants something I don't have, and I ought to respect that. I will respect that.

I walk down the stairs like a calm person, even though I don't feel like one, and I open the door to find a couple of perky young women with clipboards who want me to switch to a different natural gas provider.

"This isn't my house." I tell them. It's true. As a struggling writer slash dishwasher, I have the choice between living with my parents or living in a cockroach infested studio apartment and subsisting on noodles. I choose option A. It may not be what the cool kids are doing but it works for us. This week, my parents are in Peru, so the clipboard women are out of luck.

Just as they turn to go, Jesse rounds the corner from the opposite direction I expected him to come from, cuts across the neighbour's lawn, and hurries up the driveway.

"Hi. Oh my god I'm so sorry I tried to take a shortcut and got so lost and came out like, three kilometers up Tenth Line Road and had to walk back and I thought it would be faster if I cut through the huge park by the high school, and actually I think it was faster, but I stepped in water at the bottom of a ditch and now my socks are wet," he babbles. His shoes squish as he comes up the porch steps, lending credence to the story.

"But you made it, and I have lots of dry socks." I hold the door open for him as he squishes inside, and all is suddenly right with the world. He's let his hair down. It looks wavy and soft. I start to lift a hand to touch it, but then I remember my manners.

Jesse kicks off his running shoes and peels off his wet socks. His toenails are painted perfect glossy black. So are his fingernails. Pretty. It makes me wonder what might be under those loose fitting cargo pants. If his legs are as smooth and well taken care of as his hands and feet, he's going to rock those microscopic skirts. If he tries them on. If they fit.

He catches sight of himself in the hall mirror and pats his hair in dismay. "Ack! I look like a puffball. And I just straightened this mess before I left."

"I think I have a hair straightener somewhere if you want one. I used to have enough hair to bother."

He takes me up on the offer and lays out makeup on the bathroom counter, while I dig through the jumble of seldom-used toiletries and expired pharmaceuticals in the cupboards under the sink. I rise triumphant with the dusty straightening iron and Jesse goes to work on his hair.

I perch on the edge of the whirlpool tub and watch his flawless execution of the beauty routine that I could never get the hang of. He straightens his hair with expert efficiency. His eyeliner goes on in a smooth, even line and he applies mascara without his eyelashes all sticking together. The eye makeup accents the slant of his eyes, giving him an exotic look. The last timeItried that, I came out looking more like Alice Cooper.

Jesse glances back at me in the mirror. "Does it look okay?"

"You belong on the cover of a magazine."

He stands up a little straighter and checks out his reflection from a different angle. "Really? Which one?"

The titles that spring to mind are the fashion magazines that I studied when I was a teenager, still trying to fit in. I don't like to admit that I ever read them.

Instead I say, "One that always has gorgeous people on the cover."

I give him a tour of the house and we agree that the solarium will be the best place for pictures. Plenty of sunlight filters down through the spring green leaves of the maples and the huge bushes that I need to trim soon. Plus the room isn't cluttered, which means less stuff to move out of the way.

With the place decided, Jesse sits down on the fluffy white rug to poke through my bag of girl clothes. He holds up a little skirt made of nothing but artfully layered gauzy black material. "You have some nice stuff."

I join him on the rug. "If you find anything that works for you, you can keep it." I can't explain why I'm so determined to get him into my clothes instead of his own cute stuff, whatever that may be. I hope he doesn't think I'm too weird.

He peeks at me over the waistband of the skirt he's holding and arches his eyebrows. "What? No, a sexy girl like you needs her pretty things."

I like that he called me sexy, but telling me I need pretty things because I'm a sexy girl hits a raw nerve. "Nope, I don't need them," I say sharply. Just great - yet another man thinks that since I have two X chromosomes, I should spend my life trying to look pretty to please them instead of doing what pleases me.

Jesse puts the skirt down in his lap and looks up at me, puzzled. "But I bet you look so good in them. If I had a body like yours, I'd want to show it off all the time."

Ah, so this is more about what he wishes he could do, and not so much about what he thinks I should do differently. I've never even told him that I don't wear these clothes. My irritation evaporates. "Youdohave a body a lot like mine. I think." And I hope he gets around to showing it off soon, since that's what he came here to do.

Jesse scoffs and pulls off his tent sized t-shirt, revealing a tightly laced white corset with black satin ribbons. His shoulders are a little broader than mine and he has a little more muscle than I do, but we are awfully close to the same size. His skin looks smooth and soft.

"I wish," he says, and sighs. "I keep drinking soy milk, but no boobs yet." He pushes at the sides of his chest with his chest like he's trying to make cleavage appear, but he isn't built to squish that way.

"I have a pair I'm not using for anything. Too bad we can't just trade parts like potato head people." Feminine curves would suit him, though he already looks lovely. I want to nuzzle my face against his throat, and feel his skin against my lips.

He looks down at his lap and picks up the skirt again. "Yeah, we could trade. You want a giant cock? I've got one of those that's always getting in the way."

Why did he throw the size part in there? Could he be hitting on me? Irrational hope springs up like a jack-in-the-box.

I grin. "Sure, that'd be a nice change. As soon as they have the technology, let's trade. Then I'll be more your type."

"Oh, you're my type alright."

"I am? I thought..." I can't string words together. I thought he wanted a man. A very anatomically correct man. I'm confused.

"I know." He shrugs. "Not even sure if I'd like it with some big hairy dude, really. Just thought since I'm single now, why not? I mean, I've always been curious. But I think I'd rather suck your cock."

It's the first time in my life I've felt vertigo while sitting on the floor. "Too bad we're not potato head people," I say, and immediately think that sounded stupid.

"You can be a potato head person if you want. Should I run over to Kitten's Lair and get you a strap-on? I can be back in, like, an hour." He waves the skirt in what might be the general direction of our neighbourhood's sex toy and porn shop.

"I'm not sure I want to let you out of my sight right now." What if he didn't come back?

He springs to his feet and offers me a hand up. "Ok, then come with me. That way you can pick it out. Get the size and colour you want."

I can't think of a single reason why not, so I take his hand and let him haul me to my feet. "Okay, but I can't go on a shopping trip like this with someone I've never even kissed."

This problem is, of course, easily solved. We almost solve it so well that we don't make it out the door. Usually when I kiss someone for the first time, it feels a little bit strange. They feel different than my last lover — different textured skin, different shape, maybe even different sex— and I'm never quite sure where I'm supposed to put my hands. Jesse feels nothing like my ex, but he feels instantly right to me. He belongs in my arms, he belongs in my bed, and my hands are supposed to go under his clothes.

He moans encouragement into my mouth when I slip my hands down the back of his loose cargo pants and over the silky material of his thong. His little butt cheeks are just the right size for my small hands to hold. I spread them apart a little. He kisses me harder. Jesse has "Fuck me" written all over him in invisible ink. It's wonderful.

###

There are only two strap-on harnesses to choose from in Kitten's Lair, and one of them looks like the one Casey had that would never stay on properly. It's an easy choice.

Dildos are another matter. I wouldn't be half surprised if there are a hundred kinds, half of which I could use. How anatomically incorrect do I want to be? I can't decide, so I plunk my three favorites down on the counter. One is a realistic size and colour, there's a bright orange one that is slightly larger, and there's an enormous translucent blue one with sparkles.

Times like this are why I keep a change jar.

Jesse stares. Whether it's because I'm buying myself three penises or because I'm buying them with rolls of quarters and dimes, I'm not sure.

I feel like I'm supposed to say something. "Potato head people normally come with multiple attachments."

"Oh my," he says.

"You started it."

"Yeah." He drapes an arm around my shoulders and whispers, "So... is that the biggest one they have?" He has to mean the blue sparkly one. It's a little over the top, but I like it. Considering the way he was talking back when we were chatting online, I thought he might like it too.

"Outside of the bachelorette party novelty area, I think so." I slip my arm around his tiny waist and feel the ridges of corset boning through his t-shirt.

Jesse gives me a squeeze, and a pleasant shiver dances down my spine. I didn't know that could happen without any illicit drugs being involved.

###

No wonder Jesse got lost on the way to my house. We're halfway back to my house, winding our way through a patch of suburbia with streets arranged like tangled spaghetti. I grew up here,

The wind picks up and he stops to put his hair in a ponytail. A strong gust shakes white petals from an apple tree, and they swirl around us.

Here I am in the company of a beautiful girl on a warm spring day in a shower of apple blossoms, with a backpack full of sex toys and plans to use them. Life is good. Too good.

I look up to admire the tree and I catch sight of a phalanx of dark rain clouds rushing toward us. "We'd better hurry."

Jesse follows my gaze. "Oh shit."

We pick up the pace, but not enough. The first raindrops hit my face as we turn onto a bicycle path that threads its way through a narrow park, flanked on both sides by people's back yards. A minute after that, a curtain of rain catches up with us, driven hard by the wind. Icy cold raindrops slash down against my face and my neck. They sting.

Not just icy. Ice. Tiny hailstones bounce all over the bicycle path.

We break into a run.

The only trees in the park are spruces and saplings, which are useless for shelter, but there's a garden shed with its sliding door left open an inch. This looks promising. It's in a stranger's yard, but since I wouldn't begrudge anyone the shelter of my garden shed in a storm, I tow Jesse off the path. We scramble into the shed, knocking over a rake in our haste to get inside.

I shiver and cling to Jesse as my eyes adjust to the dim interior. Hailstones rattle against the shed's translucent plastic roof. The dark shapes around us resolve into plastic plant pots, bags of bark chips, assorted garden implements, and a wire reindeer wrapped in Christmas lights.

I'm guessing from the number of clouds that we're going to be in here a while, so I drop my backpack at the reindeer's feet . Even disentangling myself from Jesse for the few seconds it takes to put the backpack down makes me cold enough that my teeth start chattering.

He gets his hands up under all three of my wet shirts and he rubs my back. His hands are warm. I press my face against his shoulder. Warm. How can he be warm? Didn't we both just run through the same hailstorm and get soaked to the skin?

A trickle of cold water runs down his neck to my cheek. "I want you," he whispers. His hands stray from my back to my backside, and we pick up where we left off when we almost didn't make it out of the house. Pretty soon, I'm not cold anymore either.