That night in the honeymoon suite was a bizarre trial by fire. James had finally remembered who she was, but had to maintain the facade of a small-town girl whisked away to Vegas in order to marry her high-school sweetheart. It was difficult being calm and not just break cover to run away at the first possible opportunity. For the last three months James had been operating on something akin to autopilot. A victim of amnesia after a blow to the head, James had thought she was actually Jill and been more than glad to return "home" to Alabama with Jill's mother. She had been more than glad to look and talk and act like Jill, and more than glad to pick up where Jill had left off with her redneck boyfriend, Otis. Worst of all, after three months of living Jill's life, of believing she was really Jill and having plenty of sex with Jill's ex, James's memories had finally returned. She remembered all of it. Jill leaving town, asking James to feed her cat, and him experimenting with the medallion in her apartment. The fall, her amnesia, the arrival of a woman who claimed to be her mother, their return to Alabama, and the rekindling of her love affair with Otis.
Now his male mind was trapped not only in the body but the day-to-day life of a strawberry blonde trailer park princess. She had just married Otis for God's sake!
Exhausted, James laid back in the heart-shaped bed of their Vegas suite, listening to Otis snore and staring at the mirrored ceiling. Otis had wanted to celebrate their marriage in his usual manner, telling his new mother-in-law goodnight and hustling "Jill" up to their room as fast as humanly possible. For her own part, James had reluctantly, but with increasing enthusiasm, obliged her new husband. She blamed the bottles of champagne, which made her clumsy and giggly, but knew with an uncomfortable certainty that part of her welcomed Otis's touch. In the end, her hyperactive libido and hunger for orgasm after orgasm were more to blame than anything else. Otis, the sight of him, the smell of him, the nearness of him, did something to Jill's body, made it ache for him, an ache Otis was very, very glad to satisfy.
He took her up against the wall in the shower and then on the bed, missionary first, then from the side, then doggy style. He took her in the big jacuzzi and, once they had toweled each other off, he took her bent over the couch. Once on the kitchen counter then twice on the living room floor and the mighty Otis was finally too depleted to stay awake, which had all been according to a plan that James had been starting to worry might not work. The man was practically unstopable. Otis had been giving poor James the fucking of both her very different lives and, God help her, she loved it!
Now she was tired, sore, sticky with sweat, and had only a few hours to put her plan into motion. The sun would be up soon and Otis had always been an early riser. He certainly wouldn't stay asleep forever and when he woke he would probably want a repeat performance. If James was going to escape the prison of domestic bliss she had to do it now.
Slipping out of bed, James quietly padded over to the suite's gagantic master bath and took a quick, thorough shower. Toweling herself dry she then combed her wet hair back from her forehead and slipped into the least slutty outfit her hick "mother" had packed for her. There were clothes scattered all over the place, so it took her a moment to find Otis's wallet. James took everything he had in cash, close to six hundred dollars, as well as his credit cards. Tossing a few of the other, less objectionable clothes in a tiny little tote bag, James slung her purse over one shoulder, picked up her shoes and tip toed her way out of the suite and down the hall.
In the elevator, James was a little unnerved boy how effortlessly she balance on one leg as she slipped one foot, then the other, into the black, high heeled shoes. Over the last three months she had had no idea who she really was and so had seen nothing wrong with relearning certain skills other women took for granted. Looking like Jill, being called Jill and referred to as Jill, she had learned how to be not just a woman, but what people expected of a particular type of woman. Now she remembered her old life, her true face and name, but she had to live with the fact that by a kind of osmosis James had absorbed much of what made her, well, Jill!
An hour later on the bus to San Diego James's identity crisis continued in full swing. If she were James then why had she chosen the shiny black pumps instead of the comfortable sneakers currently at the bottom of her tote? Why was she in the hip-hugging denim skirt instead of her perfectly broken-in jeans? And why had she worn the hot pink thong panties under that skirt instead of something less trampy? Why did she feel a pang of loss, even the shame of betrayal, for leaving Otis? She couldn't stay like this. James didn't want to be the wife of some mechanic from Alabama. She was a man wasn't she?
No, another part of her mind answered, she was no man. She might be one again, and soon if she was lucky, but for now she was a woman and had to come to terms with that. Men didn't have pet names like Babydoll and Sugarlips. Men didn't spread their legs in the backseat of a car or wear see through nighties to bed. Men didn't become someone's lawfully wedded wife at a twenty-four hour chapel in Las Vegas. James did all of tose things. Three months of amnsesia had made her comfortable with all those things. She tried to tell herself those weren't her memroeis but Jills, which made a certain sense, except that she was Jill now. Her only hope was that the medallion was still in storage with Jill's other things in San Diego. If not, well, James shuddered at the thought of what that meant for her future.
It was thoughts such as these that tormented poor James as she drifted off to sleep with her head nodding in time to the thrum of the bus tires.
