Dates From Hell (16 page)

Kyle opened his mouth to snap at her, then seemed to change his mind. “Okay, say what you have to say and then go.”

Jill nodded her satisfaction, and turned to Claire. “See, he isn’t as stupid as most men. He knows women are better at communication and lets me talk.”

Claire bit her lip to keep back a laugh and nodded solemnly.

“So, Kyle,” Jill turned her attention to her brother. “Claire’s liked you forever. I’ve listened to her moan over you since we were twelve, and if you think it’s easy hearing someone rhapsodize over your brother, think again. But she was my friend and she liked you, so I put up with it. And Claire.” She turned to Claire now. “Kyle has been secretly lusting after you for just as long. He’s had a snapshot of you in his wallet since he started carrying a wallet, and he has another bigger picture of you hidden in his top drawer at home.”

“How did you know—” Kyle began, but Jill cut him off.

“Today, you”—she glared at her brother—“finally had the nerve to ask her out, and Claire accepted. Unfortunately, she’d already agreed to help me out tonight. The only fair solution was to do both. She didn’t want to,” Jill added. “She just wanted to go out with you, but I blackmailed her into it by threatening to tell you about her new…er…abilities. Okay? Now kiss and make up.”

There was a moment of silence as Kyle surveyed Claire/Brad, then he raised his eyes to his sister and said succinctly, “Out.”

Jill opened her mouth as if to protest, then seemed to think better of it and shrugged. “I’ll be waiting in the hall.”

She disappeared from the top of the booth and they heard the tap of her heels as she exited the stall and left the men’s room.

Kyle sighed with relief and turned to Claire.

She stared up at him wide-eyed, her palms suddenly sweaty at the idea of his finally kissing her, but after a hesitation, Kyle cleared his throat and shook his head. “I know it’s you in there, but do you think you could change back to yourself now? I really don’t want to kiss you as Brad.”

“Oh.” Claire jerked up the pictures she still held in her hand and switched the snapshot of her to the top. She hesitated, suddenly shy, but then bowed her head and concentrated on the picture.

“Wow,” Kyle breathed and Claire relaxed and peered down at herself to see she was back in the black satin dress. She was herself again. Claire glanced up.

“There you are,” he said gently and lifted his hand to caress one cheek, then before she was quite ready, his mouth dropped to cover hers.

Claire stilled, her heart thumping in her chest as Kyle kissed her, then she released a little moan and relaxed against him. For one moment, she’d feared what would happen. What if his kiss wasn’t all she’d imagined it would be? Reality would be hard pressed to compare to more than ten years of fantasy, but there was nothing to fear. Unlike Magda, Kyle knew how to kiss. His mouth was firm on hers, slanting over her own and sending her pulse racing as he slid his tongue out to urge her mouth open.

She opened for him, welcoming him in with an excited gasp that died abruptly as the bathroom door opened outside the stall. They both stood frozen, listening for Jill’s tapping shoes, but there was no tapping.

Releasing her, Kyle moved to the door and peered out at the room beyond through the crack between door and stall. Claire guessed by his frown, and the fact that he didn’t berate Jill, that someone else had entered the bathroom. A man, she presumed since it was a men’s room.

Kyle turned back and raised a finger to his lips to warn her to silence, then a stall door farther down the row squeaked as it was opened. Kyle waited until it had closed, then unlocked their door, and led her quickly out of the stall.

“You changed back!” Jill cried on spotting them.

“Of course, she did,” Kyle said with irritation. “She’s my date too.”

“Yes, but—” Jill said, then hesitated, her expression calculating before she said, “I’ll make a deal with you. She changes back to Brad so that we can leave together, then she’s all yours for the rest of the night.”

Claire’s eyes widened with surprise. “You don’t want me to continue being your date too?”

“No. There’s no need to carry on the charade. Everyone’s seen me with Brad Cruise. That’s all I wanted. Besides, it’s ruining your date.” She glanced from Claire to Kyle. “And it’s not like you can talk anyway. So it’s like a serious instance of show and tell. Well I’ve shown, and told them enough. I can go home happy now.”

Claire felt Kyle relax beside her and knew he was feeling the same relief now coursing through her.

“Then, too,” Jill added with an evil grin, “they’ll all just think I went home to have hot monkey sex with Brad Cruise anyway. And if they don’t, I’ll be sure to spread the rumor myself.”

“Hot monkey sex?” Claire echoed with disbelief. “I’ve got news for you, Jill, I’ve seen two monkeys have sex and it’s
not
pretty.”

“She’s right,” Kyle informed his sister. “Not pretty at all.”

“Oh God!” Jill shook her head with despair. “Honestly, the pair of you deserve each other. You’re both pathetic. Sex between
any
species is not pretty. It’s not
supposed
to be. It’s—” She stopped abruptly, then said, “Eww! You mean like you two have stood there and
watched
monkeys have sex? That’s sick!”

Claire and Kyle exchanged glances, but Kyle spoke first. “I saw them at University when I was working as a T.A. in the lab. I didn’t stand there and watch, but I saw enough.”

“Well, I
did
watch,” Claire admitted with a bit of embarrassment. “But it was part of my job at the time, we were studying…” She paused and shook her head. “Never mind. Let’s get me changed and get you and Brad out of here, so Kyle and I can have our date.”

“Good idea.” Jill led her into the empty women’s washroom, and into a stall.

“Hey!” she protested when Kyle squeezed in with them.

“I want to see,” Kyle said.

“Well, get up on the toilet seat then,” Jill ordered after a hesitation. “That way if anyone enters and peers under the stall door it won’t look so weird. They’ll just see that two women are in here.”

“And that’s not weird?” Kyle asked with disbelief.

“Not as weird as two women and a man,” she pointed out dryly. “We could just be gossiping, or comforting one another over something. Just get on the toilet,” she finished when he stared in doubt.

Shrugging, Kyle carefully maneuvered himself to stand on the toilet seat and Jill relaxed and turned to Claire. “Okay, go for it.”

Claire lifted the pictures and switched her own to the bottom so that Brad Cruise smiled back at her. She cast an almost apologetic glance Kyle’s way, then turned her attention to the picture. Claire had barely begun to concentrate on the magazine photo when the outer bathroom door opened. Jill half jerked around toward the stall door at the sound, bumping Claire’s hand. She gasped with alarm as the pictures slipped from her fingers. They shot down like paper airplanes, curving to the side on a draft and sliding under the divider between the stalls.

Instinct made Claire bend to grab for them, but then she froze as the door to the neighboring stall suddenly opened. Hissing with alarm, Jill caught at her arm to bring her upright even as Claire saw that she was now wearing the black blazer of Brad Cruise. It seemed she’d managed to change into Brad that quickly. Amazing, she thought, retracting her suit-covered arm before it could be seen. Claire straightened once more and the three of them exchanged slightly embarrassed grimaces as they waited for the woman to finish her business and leave.

All three breathed a sigh of relief when the toilet next door finally flushed and the door opened. Claire immediately bent and peered at the floor in the next stall, frowning when she saw that there was only one picture there now. It was the snapshot, she saw, and it had come to rest near the opposite side of the next stall, too far away for her to reach it at the moment.

“Where’s the other one? Where’s Brad?” Jill asked in a bare whisper against her ear and Claire shrugged her confusion.

“What is it?” Kyle hissed from his perch on the toilet. They straightened and whispered the explanation to him. All three stared at each other blankly, each trying to sort out where the picture might have gone as they listened to the sound of water running in the sinks in the main part of the bathroom, then Jill’s eyes widened. Lifting her eyebrows in question, she jerked a thumb toward the door.

Claire stared at her, taking a minute to realize she was suggesting the woman who had entered must have picked it up. Frowning over the possibility, Claire moved to press her face to the crack on one side of the door. Jill promptly crowded up next to her to peer out the crack on the other side.

Claire had a pretty good view of the girl through the crack as she turned off the taps and walked over to the hand drier, good enough to see that she wasn’t carrying any pictures in her hand. There didn’t appear to be any pockets in the form-fitting black dress the woman was wearing either, she noted.

Claire was about to pull away from the crack and kneel to give the floor of the next booth a more thorough look over, when Kyle gave a “psst.” Both she and Jill glanced over their shoulders to find he’d stood up on the toilet to look out at the room. Obviously he’d seen something they’d missed, for he was gesturing down toward his feet. Claire glanced down, didn’t see anything and glanced back up to find Kyle pointing toward the door.

Claire turned back to her crack and peered out, this time focusing on the woman’s legs, then feet. At first she didn’t see anything, then as the girl finished at the hand drier and turned to walk out of the room, her eyes widened incredulously at the sight of the folded magazine photo stuck to the bottom of one high-heeled shoe.

5

“T
hat is so me,” Claire muttered as the door
closed behind the girl with the picture-bearing shoe.

“What do you mean?” Kyle asked, stepping off the toilet. It left him standing behind her, his chest against her back in the small space.

“
I’m
usually the girl with the toilet paper trailing behind her on her way out of the bathroom,” Claire explained with a wry twist of her lips.

“Yeah well, she’s walking out with my date under her heel,” Jill said with disgust. “Kind of like Magda with Ted under her thumb.”

“Maybe,” Kyle commented. “But I can’t think of a guy more deserving of Magda than Ted. God, what an arrogant ass he turned out to be.”

“Yeah,” Claire agreed. “And I thought
I
had bad taste.”

“Thank you very much,” Kyle said with amusement and Claire flushed.

“I meant other than you, of course,” she amended. “Most of the guys I’ve dated—aside from you—have been total turds like Ted.”

“Thank you very much for pointing out what bad taste
I
have,” Jill said shortly.

“Oh, that’s not what I meant,” Claire said quickly.

“Yeah. He had me fooled, too, Jill,” Kyle assured her.

Slightly mollified, Jill sighed and gestured Claire out of the way. “Back up. I’ll go get the other picture. God! Why couldn’t it have been
your
picture she walked out with?”

“Well I’m glad it was Brad,” Claire countered, backing into the small bit of space between the toilet and the side wall to leave room for Kyle and Jill to juggle around and get the stall door open. “I’m already Brad Cruise.”

“Hardly,” Jill snorted, managing to struggle her way out of the booth.

Claire frowned as the stall door swung closed on her back, then turned to Kyle to ask, “What does she mean, ‘hardly’?”

Kyle hesitated, his expression pained.

Jill’s voice came from the stall next door. “You’re only half changed.”

Claire’s head jerked sideways at the announcement and then she tugged the stall door open and hurried to the mirror over the sink to peer at her reflection.

“Oh my God,” Claire breathed with horror. Some of the features staring back at her were her own. She was looking at her green eyes and her little turned-up nose, but they rested above Brad Cruise’s mouth and chin with the five o’clock shadow. Her hair was a strange mix of short light brown hair and long red waves, and her body…well…it was a mishmash of Brad and Claire. She had the jacket and pants from his suit, but the pants ended above her knees and she also had boobs. They didn’t go well with the bulge between her legs that was his “package.”

“This is a nightmare,” she breathed, no longer caring which picture it was so long as it was a whole somebody. She could not leave the bathroom looking like this, and while she could turn back to herself without a picture, she would be naked.

“It’s all right,” Kyle murmured, slipping out of the stall to pat her back as he met her gaze in the mirror. “We’ll fix it with the other picture.”

“Oh dear.”

Claire turned sharply toward the stalls as Jill came out with the remaining picture in hand. “Oh dear, what?”

“Nothing. It’ll be fine,” Jill said quickly, suddenly picking at the picture, then she paused and said, “Oh no.”

“Oh no? Don’t say ‘oh no.’” Claire started forward to take the picture, but Jill suddenly frowned at her as if just realizing she was out of the stall.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “Get back in the stall! Someone could see you.” Holding the picture out of Claire’s reach, she grabbed her with her free hand and wrestled her into the stall, then slammed the door behind them and sighed.

“Jill?” Kyle asked from the other side of the door and she grimaced, then opened the door again and waved him in. She waited until they were all situated in their original places again before locking the stall door once more.

“Tell me,” Claire ordered grimly.

Jill sighed, then held out the snapshot. Claire snatched it from her hand, peered down and nearly bit off her own tongue. The picture had landed facedown on a wad of gum. The girl who had used the stall must have stepped on it because it had really been worked into the picture. When Jill had tried to pick it away, the image itself had ripped off the photo backing.

“Hell,” Kyle muttered.

“It will be all right,” Jill assured them both as she turned to the door. “Wait here.”

“Wait here?” Claire grabbed at her arm with alarm. “Where are you going?”

“The corner store is only a couple minutes away. I’ll get a fan magazine with a picture of Brad in it and be right back,” she assured her.

“Brad? What about
her
? Do you have another picture of her?” Kyle asked with concern.

“No. Unfortunately, we only took the one snapshot,” Jill admitted and Kyle turned back to Claire.

“Can you do it without the picture?”

“No,” she said on a sigh.

“Have you tried?” Kyle asked and Claire smiled faintly, thinking he sounded just like his sister earlier that day when she’d been coaxing her to be Brad Cruise.

“She can turn back into herself, but she’ll end up naked without a picture to look at,” Jill announced.

“Naked?” Kyle’s gaze flickered over her in such a way she thought he might be picturing her that way. And might not necessarily think it was a bad thing.

“What time is it?” Claire asked suddenly.

“I don’t know. Why?” Jill asked with confusion.

“I was just wondering how much of this double date from hell I’ve spent in the bathroom,” she admitted, and Kyle, who had glanced at his wristwatch, now let it drop to his side without telling the time. That long, she thought with a sigh.

“Look, you two wait here and I’ll go get a magazine at the store,” Jill repeated.

“No. Enough of this nonsense,” Kyle said. “She’s not turning back into Brad. She’s supposed to be Claire now.”

“Well she isn’t Claire now, and surely a full Brad is better than a Brad with boobs for getting her out of here?” Jill pointed out. “We can leave, then I’ll take her home and she can change into herself and put on the dress and come back to finish the date with you.”

While the twins continued to argue, Claire peered down at herself with a frown, recalling the incident on the dance floor when she’d accidentally made her boobs grow and then shrink. Could she do it again? Squeezing her eyes closed, she concentrated on making them go away and leaving her flat-chested.

“Oh man that is so awesome!”

Claire blinked her eyes open at Jill’s words and peered down to find her chest flat.

“Can you make them grow?” Jill asked curiously.

“I believe she did on the dance floor tonight,” Kyle said dryly, and Claire felt herself flush.

“It was an accident,” she admitted.

“Do you know how cool this is?” Jill asked with disbelief. “A boob job without silicone or surgery. Oh Kyle, can I get zapped, too?”

“Jill!” Claire cried, staring at her with disbelief.

“No,” Kyle said firmly at the same time.

Jill chose to respond to Kyle’s answer, asking a plaintive “Why not?”

“We don’t know what side effects there are,” he said as if explaining things to a child. “There could be all sorts of repercussions to this kind of molecular alteration. Her cells are now unstable, they might—”

When he paused abruptly, Claire finished what he was reluctant to say. “They might yet break apart altogether and leave me a puddle of goo.”

They were all silent for a minute, then Jill asked, “You’re kidding, right?”

Kyle reached out to caress Claire’s cheek, then cleared his throat and changed the subject. “You did that without a picture. Do you think you could change yourself back to yourself in a dress without a picture?”

Claire hesitated, not at all certain she could manage the trick. Her boobs were…well…her boobs. But he was talking about the whole body.

“Never mind,” Kyle said suddenly. “I don’t want you to do too much shifting until we’re sure that it doesn’t cause the cells to destabilize further.”

“You mean her switching back and forth tonight might have been dangerous?” Jill asked with dismay.

Claire frowned at the possibility. It was something she hadn’t considered.

“I don’t know,” Kyle admitted. “This is all new ground and I’m not sure what could happen. Nothing has happened to the animals so far, but they’ve only been changing color, not shifting their shapes.”

Jill looked briefly stricken that this favor Claire had done her might have been dangerous and harmful, then she shook her head. “That’s it then, switch back to yourself.”

“I’ll be naked,” Claire pointed out with alarm.

“You can wear Kyle’s suit jacket,” Jill suggested.

“I am not walking out of here wearing nothing but Kyle’s suit jacket,” Claire said emphatically.

Kyle cleared his throat and said, “I’m afraid there are only two choices here…No, three,” he corrected himself.

“Which are?” Claire asked warily, sure she wouldn’t like any of them.

“One: you and I can stay here and wait while Jill drives home and fetches you some clothes.”

Claire grimaced at the suggestion. Too many embarrassing situations could come out of that. They were two men in a women’s washroom, after all. Well, one and a half men, she supposed.

“Two: you can leave here as you are,” Kyle continued, but his expression suggested this wasn’t really an option at all. Having seen herself, Claire had to agree, so she didn’t even bother to comment. Instead, she prompted, “Or?”

“Or, three: you can change back to yourself and leave here naked with my jacket on,” he finished with a shrug.

“No offense,” Claire said unhappily. “But those options all suck.”

Turning away, she leaned her head against the cool metal of the stall wall and tried to think of something herself.

“What?” Jill asked when Claire suddenly stiffened. “You have an idea?”

“Maybe. What if you went and got one of the phoebuses and I shifted into one of the teachers. I could leave here, then we could go get another present-day photo of me and—” She paused at the thunderous expressions on the faces of both Lockharts. They looked furious that she would even suggest the extra shift. “Never mind. Okay, Kyle give me your jacket.”

All three of them were forced to shift and bend and juggle about to allow him to remove the suit coat, and then to do so again as she donned it. They were all hot and sweaty and relieved when it was done.

“Okay, shift,” Jill instructed once Claire had the jacket on over her Brad/Claire body.

Claire closed her eyes and concentrated on being herself.

“Honest to God, Claire. You’re the only woman I know who could make a man’s jacket look sexy.”

Claire blinked her eyes open at Jill’s words.

“Am I me?” she asked, glancing down at herself, eyebrows rising at just how short the jacket was on her. Dear God, she wasn’t going to be bending over any time soon.

“Oh yeah, you’re you,” Kyle said huskily, and Claire flushed under his admiring glance.

“Oh please,” Jill said. “Let’s get out of here. I can smell the hormones starting to ooze out of the two of you. And while I love you both, I’d rather not think of either of you naked doing the wild thing, especially not together.” She ended her comment with a delicate little shudder of distaste that made both Claire and Kyle grimace.

“Go check and be sure the hall is empty first, Jill,” Kyle suggested.

“Oh right. Be right back.” She had barely slid from the stall when Kyle turned Claire into his arms and covered her mouth with his.

Claire gasped in surprise at the abrupt action and Kyle took advantage of her open mouth and thrust his tongue inside.

“Oh God!” Jill’s exclamation drew them apart. “Can’t you at least wait until you get her to the car?”

Claire flushed as they turned to face Kyle’s sister, and Jill shook her head.

“The coast is clear if you want to leave. Or the two of you could just do it right here in the girls’ bathroom and get it over with. Honestly!” Turning, she stomped back to the door muttering, “He waits forever to finally ask her out, then he’s all over her. Mr. Octopus. Hands everywhere. It really is the quiet ones you have to watch.”

Biting her lip, Claire hurried after Jill, aware that Kyle was at her back. She could feel his gaze traveling over the back of her bare legs and was grateful the jacket covered at least her behind.

“Damn,” Kyle muttered several moments later as they stared at the third exit door they’d approached since leaving the washroom. This, like the two before it, was chained shut.

“The door by the gymnasium must be the only one they left open tonight,” Jill suggested.

“They should have a second door unlocked in case of fire,” Kyle said with a frown.

“Maybe they do, on the other side of the gym,” Claire suggested.

Both Kyle and Jill peered at her, their gazes sliding over her skimpy wear. They had managed to avoid being seen so far. The first door they had tried had been the only one with any real risk of being seen. The last two were down halls no one had any real business being down, including themselves under normal circumstances.