Know Thyself Ch. 04

Saturday was lost due to my massive hangover. I hobbled into my apartment to find my dad sitting at the table reading a newspaper. He gave me one look and shook his head, trying to suppress a smirk. I'm sure he could tell the moment he looked at me. I went to my room and slept, hoping I'd wake up a little more refreshed. I woke up much later in the day and felt slightly better, but not anything that would get me out of the house. I spent the rest of the day not doing much of anything.

Sunday was wasted in much of the same way, though I felt significantly better. Matt had texted me to ask how I was feeling and I told him I was okay. We had a conversation about what movie to see and ended up deciding on some action flick. He was hoping we would go out that night but I told him I still wasn't feeling well, so we made plans for Tuesday.

Now it's Monday and I figure I should reenter the world. When I wake up I notice there's a text I received in the morning from my dad. It reminds me that tonight his client is coming over for dinner, so I should be home. I text him back asking for a time and he tells me six-thirty this evening. Once again I have the entire day to myself. I feel a pang of hunger in my stomach and realize I need to eat something. I could cook but the thought of a bacon, egg, and cheese from the deli sounds way too enticing. I throw some clothes on and head out.

The deli is only a couple blocks away. I now know Ashley's financial situation. She has a joint checking account with her dad and he deposits money into it every week. It's a small amount and I'm assuming it's considered an allowance. At what point are you too old for that? I'm not going to complain, it's my only source of income. Ben's parents never gave him money. The minute I turned eighteen they basically all but said "you're on your own kid!" Glad to see Ashley's parents aren't the same.

I get to the deli and walk up to the food counter. The middle-eastern man behind the counter looks down at me from his raised position. Delis and pharmacies, they both have raised platforms. Why is that? It's weird, as if they need to look down on everyone. And of all people, a deli worker? I smirk to myself and the man behind the counter looks annoyed.

"Can I get a bacon, egg, and cheese," I ask the man.

"What kind of bread?"

"Roll."

He starts making the sandwich and I stand and wait. There's no one else in here other than this man and the other middle-eastern man behind the cash register. It's ten o'clock right now, so I guess the morning breakfast rush has passed. I look at my phone and check my text messages. I know there aren't any new ones since it hasn't beeped, but I'm hoping there's something from Wendy I might've missed. Every time I think of her now I feel guilty. I really messed things up. It's hard to tell if she really was saying goodbye at Brian's party or if she meant what she said about contacting me once we're at school.

Ugh, Brian. I almost forgot about him. To be honest, I wasn't really into him to begin with. Everyone kept telling me Ashley (the original one) was into him so I went with it. He turned out to be a complete asshole. Acting like I owed him something because he graced me with the presence of his cock.

Asshole!

This whole idea of sexual attraction has been so weird and confusing ever since I became Ashely and it hasn't been helped by the fact that most of the men I've interacted with have treated me like shit. This can't be what girls deal with all the time, can it? Is it possible that Ashley just surrounded herself with assholes? I guess that can't be the case. The only person from the original Ashley's life that's turned out bad was Brian. Everyone else have been people I've met. Unbelievable.

Matt wasn't all that bad.

Even in his drunken stupor he turned out to be a nice guy. When I woke up in his bed I almost lost it. I had no memory of how the previous night went. If he ended up having sex with me while I was blacked out I would've been so mad. The whole idea of having sex as a woman feels so weird to begin with. Knowing that it happened and not having a memory of it would make things worse. I mean, I should have a say in what happens to my body, right? If I'm not coherent enough to say I want it, you shouldn't do anything.

Did Ben always do that?

I don't know. I didn't have sex all that much as Ben. I think when it's all said and done, I've only had sex with four people my whole life. Thirty years old and I only had sex with four people. Is that too little? That's the problem with being a guy. People make it seem like in order to be a man, you need to have sex with as many people as possible.

"People" don't tell you that, your penis does.

God, I feel like I'm having an argument with myself. I used to think girls have it so good. People are constantly offering them sex and they get to pick and choose who they want. As a guy, I always had to wait and see who chose me. I used to think I'd love to be in a girl's shoes. I'd love it if people were constantly trying to have sex with me. Now I realize it's not all it's cracked up to be. I'd love it if people just left me alone. The thing I never realized is that when a guy you don't know is trying to have sex with you, it's like they stop seeing you as a person. If a guy is trying to get to know you that's different. Take Charles for instance, that creepy older man. That guy didn't give a shit about who I was. It's a weird feeling, for someone to look at me like I don't exist, just my body does. That's something I never felt as Ben.

"Lady!" I look up and notice the man behind the deli counter holding my sandwich out to me.

"Sorry." I shake my head trying to apologize, take my sandwich, and make my way to the cash register. The other middle-eastern man rings me up and I walk outside.

"Ashley?"

I turn around and see Stacey standing there. She walks up and gives me a hug.

"What are you doing," she asks.

I hold up the brown paper bag. "Breakfast."

"Nice," she says as she nods. "How was the rest of the party?"

"Fine, I guess. I kind of blacked out."

She laughs. "Yeah, you were drinking whisky all night. I can't believe you did that."

"In retrospect that was probably a bad idea. Where did you and Jen go?" I know the answer but I want to hear how she tells it.

"Oh it got awkward, so we left."

"How'd it get awkward?"

She takes a breath and then looks me in the eye. "Okay, listen, you can't tell anyone this. Seriously, it's like top secret."

"Sure."

"Wendy said she wanted to talk to us, so we went outside and walked down the block to get away from the party."

"Okay." I nod, pretending I don't know anything.

"And...well...she like...came out to us?" She ends it with an up inflection but I know it's not a question.

I don't say anything.

"She told us she's a lesbian and has been for like, years." She pauses to gauge my reaction.

"Yeah, I know."

A look of shock hits her. "You knew?!"

"Yeah. She told me too."

"Like, that night or before that?"

"Before."

"Why didn't you ever tell us?!"

I can see she's starting to get upset but I don't understand why. "It wasn't for me to tell. Why would I? Does it matter?"

"Yeah it matters."

"How come?"

She thinks for a moment. I can see she doesn't have a reason, or at least she doesn't have one she wants to say.

"I don't know," she begins. "It's just, weird you know?"

I shake my head. "No, I don't know."

She just stares at me. I can see I'm losing another one of Ashley's friends but I don't really care.

"Look," she says. "It's not like I hate lesbians or anything-"

"Just Wendy," I say, cutting her off.

She pauses again, giving me an acidic look. "Why are you being such a bitch?"

The memory of the man on the subway who told me to smile flashes in my head. I never realized how much that word really pisses me off. Bitch.

"I was wondering the same thing about you." I'm so over trying to stay neutral with people. Maybe it's the fact that I don't really like this girl and have no history with her. I don't care how this ends. "You really hurt Wendy that night. She thought you and Jen were her friends and when she tells you something very personal, you ditch her and I'm the bitch?"

"Oh I get it. So are you and her like a thing?" She pops her head to the side.

I wish!

She continues before I can say anything. "I heard what happened with you and Brian."

"What did you hear?"

"Heard you strung him along and when it came time to do something you chickened out." She has an annoying smirk on her face. "Prude. Either that or you're also a fucking dyke."

I want to punch her in the face. My instincts say I can't punch a girl, but then again I am a girl. A girl is allowed to punch a girl. So you know what? Fuck it.

I swing my right arm around and land a closed fisted punch right on her cheek. Even as Ben I had never thrown a punch in my life. I have horrible form and I involuntarily let up at the last moment. The punch lands and lands hard, but it's nothing to write home about. Stacey falls back a couple of steps and looks up at me with a combination of shock and vitriol. For a moment I think she's going to hit me back but then I see the cowardice kick in.

"You are a fucking dyke." She gives me a nasty smirk like she finds my existence funny and then turns and walks away.

I'm tempted to follow her but think better of it. I think punching her in the face is as far as I should go today. I can't believe I did that. I've never hit anyone before. I have twelve years of maturity on her, so I should know better. But come on, she deserved it! How can you be friends with someone for three years and then drop them just like that because they come out to you? You deserve to get punched in the face.

I take my sandwich out of the bag, unwrap it, and take an aggressive bite out of it. This is now a victory bacon, egg, and cheese! I start walking home as I chow down. Right before I'm about to turn down my block I stop in my tracks. At the end of the next block I see someone but in the back of my mind I know it can't possibly be. The man is standing there in his all too familiar black jacket, blue jeans, and brown hair. He's looking away from me but I can tell who it is even from behind. Then the man turns around and the identity is confirmed.

It's Ben.

I mean me. I mean, the former me. It can't be. I cross the street and start walking towards him. He seems to be looking in my direction but I can't tell. He's at the end of the block so he's not that far away. He turns and starts walking down Broadway away from me. How is this possible? I'm Ben. I mean I'm Ashley as well but there can't be a Ben Telaney walking around. First off, he doesn't have a Facebook page. I know that's not the be all and end all of existence, but my parents are also listed as single.

Maybe in this world they had Ben and then got divorced.

Maybe Ben Telaney turned out to be one of those "off-the-grid" guys. A different sequence of events in life turned him into someone completely different from me. It sounds crazy in my head but then again so is switching bodies with an eighteen year old girl.

He continues to walk down the street, his back to me. I try to catch up without letting him know I'm following. He crosses the street just as the signal changes to "Do Not Cross". A few cars start turning down the cross street, trapping me on the other side of the intersection. He walks to the end of the next block and puts his hand in the air to call a taxi.

Shit, I'm going to lose him!

The last car passes and I start walking again, or I should say half walking half running. Wunning. I get halfway down the block and a taxi pulls alongside him. As he opens the door he looks in my direction. I can't tell for sure, but I swear he smiles at me and nods his head.

"Wait!" I yell out hoping he'll stop but he doesn't. He closes the door to the cab and it takes off just as I get there. I stand bewildered as the car takes off. Looking around, I can see there are no other taxis. Isn't that how it always works in the movies? Jump in the taxi and say "follow that cab!" I've never heard of anyone actually doing that but this would've been the perfect time to try.

So Ben Telaney exists!

Well, someone else is in Ben's body. It's got to be the real Ashley. Who else could it be? But if that's the case, why wouldn't he have stopped? If the real Ashley is in Ben's body, I'm sure she's just as confused as I am. Maybe he was coming to see his old home like I did, but why wouldn't he have stopped? It also begs the question of why now? The first day I woke up as Ashley I searched for my old self. Maybe Ben changed his profile to private but I know for sure Ashley's is public. If the real Ashley is trapped in Ben's body, why wouldn't she have tried to contact me? I mean he. I mean...I don't even know anymore.

I could try to find him but I have no idea where he could be. He's not living in my old apartment and from the sound of it he never did. He's unemployed. Stanley Portfolios laid him off right before we switched bodies.

Maybe they didn't.

If everything is different now, maybe that's different too. Like in this world Ben Telaney didn't waste away in Customer Service but rose through the ranks.

I get home and go to my room. I take out my phone and dial the number for Stanley Portfolios. I used to have a direct extension that I could use for personal contacts. We were discouraged from taking personal calls at work, but just in case there was an emergency someone could reach me on my direct line. I get the main switchboard and dial my extension. The phone rings a couple times and a male voice picks up, not Ben.

"Stanley Portfolios," he answers.

"Yes, hi. I'm looking for Ben Telaney. I thought this was his direct extension."

"Oh sorry, you have the wrong one."

"Can you tell me what his extension is then?"

"One moment."

I hear him clicking away on his computer, probably pulling up the company directory. I can still see all the screens in my head as he does.

"I'm sorry," he begins. "There's no Ben Telaney here."

"Are you sure? The last name is spelled T-E-L-A-N-E-Y."

I hear some more clicking. "Sorry, nothing's coming up."

I pause for a moment. Maybe he did get laid off. I doubt the company directory has been updated that quickly though.

"Can I help you with anything else," he asks.

"No. Thank you."

"Have a nice day."

I hang up the phone and sit there for a moment. So he never worked at Stanley Portfolios. That makes sense. If everything is different, if the sequence of events in his life has changed, maybe he never applied. But wait, this doesn't make sense. His life should be the same up until the moment we switched bodies. It's not like I have any of Ashley's old memories. Her life is exactly the same up until the moment I took over. So it only makes sense it worked the other way as well. The real Ashley must've woke up in my body the same way I did in hers. She must've had to piece together what Ben's life already was just like I had to do with hers. So she must've woke up as Ben Telaney, recently laid off from Stanley Portfolios, living in an over-priced studio apartment in Astoria, Queens. The only thing is, she didn't. Ben doesn't live in that apartment, there's no record of him at Stanley Portfolios, so how is there a physical Ben Telaney walking around?

Am I sure that was Ben?

I know what I look like. There's no way I confused him with someone else. It also doesn't make sense he would act like he's never seen me before if that was the real Ashley. She would immediately recognize her old self.

Maybe he's living with his dad?

On Facebook I saw my mom (my old mom) is living in her hometown of Baltimore. Her last name is the same since she always kept her maiden name. (Is it a maiden name if she never changed it? I never figured that out) But my dad is still living in the city. Although (and I don't know why I didn't notice this that first day), he's listed as living in "New York, NY". Usually only people who live in Manhattan put that. I grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. People in Brooklyn will always list their location as "Brooklyn, NY". Did my dad ever do that? I can't remember what he listed his location as before I switched bodies. It's something I never thought to pay attention to.

I can go there and see if he still lives there. The idea of traveling from Inwood to Bay Ridge is not something I'm excited about. That's one long subway ride. I need to do it though. If Ben never lived in his Astoria apartment, maybe it's because he never left his parents' house. Well, his dad's house. From what it sounds like on Facebook his mom never lived there. But then how does he even exist?

My head hurts.

I'm going to Bay Ridge. I have time, I don't need to be home until six-thirty. I clean myself up and throw on a pair of shorts and a tank top. It's ridiculously hot and humid outside and I now have the luxury of wearing as little clothing as possible. I've noticed though I don't sweat as much as I used to when I was Ben. It feels nice to get somewhere and not have to worry about having sweat stains all over my shirt.

I get to the subway just as the train is coming in and hop on the A. In no time at all we're pulling into 59th Street and I get off so I can switch to the D train. Standing on the platform I can see what must be a sea of tourists. Every year the city fills with tourists in August. There's a group of guys who look to be in their twenties standing a few feet away from me. I can see them checking me out and making comments to themselves. From the sound of it they're all German, so I can't tell what they're saying. I look down at myself to make sure I don't have a stain on my clothes or my zipper down or something. It's always so hard to tell why people are looking at me. When I was Ben, no one checked me out. If someone was looking and then smiling at their friends it was usually because I had a big sweat stain or I spilled food on myself or something like that. Now I can't tell if they're checking me out or making fun of me. I turn away and try to ignore them.

The D train rolls in and I quickly look for a seat. I find one next to two large men. Another advantage of being Ashley. Ben could never fit in this small of a space. When two large people sit down on the train, it usually takes up a third seat. Now I can squeeze my way in without making anyone uncomfortable.

Sure enough the German boys stand and hold the pole that's right in front of me. I try to ignore them but I can feel their glances. Suddenly I see a hand in front of me and I look up. They're staring down at me, all smiles.

"Hey. You are cute," one of them says through a thick German accent.

I force a smile. "Thanks," I say as I look down again.

"You want...uh...come with us."

I look up again and see his two friends chuckling behind him.

What is wrong with people? I mean seriously, if you really want me to hang out with you, why are you laughing? It feels so uncomfortable. Are they laughing at me? Did I do something stupid?

"No thanks," I say as I shake my head and look away again.

"Why not?" The boy won't give up.

I don't answer him and pretend to be looking down the train car at something else.

"Hey...hey."

I look at him.

"You have fun with us."

I look at the people around me. The two big men sitting on either side glance at me and then look away. The other people around all try to avoid my stare as I look at them. Why won't anyone say anything? Haven't I made it clear that I don't want to talk to these men?