The 20 minute wait for the bus would have normally seemed like an eternity for Jack, but with Stacey doing his hair (she clipped it up), and himself putting his make-up on for the first time, it seemed to fly by. In fact, when the next bus pulled around, Jack was stilling staring in his compac mirror a little dissatisfied at the progress. It would have to do for now.
Stacey and Jack, now Jana, got on the bus when it pulled up and deposited the appropriate fare. Was it just his imagination or was the old man behind the wheel of the bus leering at Stacey and himself? Jack had a pretty good idea of what the old man was thinking as only a few short hours ago he had been a man, but now the circumstances had changed, and he found himself disgusted by the thought that this old man was staring at him and Stacey, and undressing him with his eyes.
Jack whispered to Stacey as they took a seat near the back of the bus: "Did you see that old man just staring at us?"
Stacey responded with, "I know, it's disgusting. What is he, like 80? We should get his badge number and report him or something."
In all reality the bus driver was more like 50, but it still seemed creepy. For a moment, Jack wondered if the girls he looked at when he was a guy thought the same way, and suddenly he almost felt guilty.
Stacey in the mean time was looking herself over and tugging at the hem of her- borrowed- ultra short skirt. She seemed somewhat dissatified at not being able to pull it down far enough, but eventually she moved on to inspecting her make-up, and picking loose strands of hair off of her tight blue top.
While Stacey was pre-occupied with herself, Jack took it upon himself to insepct his purse more carefully. Sure, he had pulled a few items out earlier while he was in a hurry, but he actually hadn't stopped to look and analyze the contents of the items in his purse. He unzipped the bag. He was shocked at how much stuff was actually in the purse, and at the state of disarray it was in. He began to search for a wallet. That would answer some questions. He moved items around and began looking for anything that might have looked like a wallet. There had to have been at least three different tubes of lipstick inside his purse. He had a compact, concealer, eyeliner, lip liner pencils, and a small bottle of foundation. There were little triangluar shaped pieces of sponge or foam littered throughout his bag. For a moment he wondered what the heck those things were and suddenly it came to him: they were used to help apply his make-up. He found a hair brush, some hairspray, a tube of lip gloss, and at least 3 packs of gum- all of them started, none of them finished. The girl's body in which Jack found himself now in was a portable make-up counter, he realized. What he found next startled him a bit- a pack of cigarettes. He pulled them out of his purse and looked at them more closely for a moment.
"I thought you were trying to quit," Stacey interjected.
"So did I," came Jack's reply.
He opened the pack for a moment and saw that the package was almost full. Only two cigarettes were missing. Jack's body seemed pleased at the sight, and he grinned a little. However, as he was about to close up the pack and put them back into his purse he noticed that a name and phone number had been written across the inside lip of the pack's flap:
"Brad - 555 6211"
"Are you going to call him?" Stacey interrupted again.
Jack wasn't sure how to respond.
"Because if you aren't, can I have his number? He's hot," Stacey added.
At that moment, Jack had a few more memories come back to him. He remembered being at a bar with a guy- Brad no doubt. He seemed to look older though, and in his mind's eye, Jack recalled Brad wearing a sweater with some greek letters on them... it occurred to Jack at that moment that Brad must have been from a frat. He recalled getting really drunk at that bar and quite literally throwing himself on Brad. More memories came back to him and he remembered that somehow he ended up at Brad's frat house. He remembered being on all fours and getting screwed doggie style by Brad while his frat buddies hooted and hollered at his conquest. Jack winced at the thought, and suddenly wondered if he had allowed himself to be violated by any of the other frat house boys- it wasn't coming back to him.
"Uhh, I think it's probably best if you forget about Brad," Jack said to Stacey.
"Why?" probed Stacey.
"Uhh, lets just say that Brad isn't looking for anything serious and that it's best if you stayed away from guys like him," Jack said.
"Oh what? You're mother Teresa all of the sudden?" snapped back Stacey.
Jack didn't like the implication behind Stacey's statement and decided not to continue with the conversation for the moment. He turned his attention back to his purse.
Jack dug through it some more, the wallet had to be somewhere in there. He reached to the very bottom and managed to find some more shocking items: condoms. He pulled them out momentarily before he realized what that might look like. He put them back in his purse, and kept digging. In the back of his mind, Jack began to think to himself that the evidence was mounting on one subject.
Digging some more, Jack found that his purse had about five dollars in change rolling around loose on the bottom of his purse. He found two crumpled up five dollar bills and continued to dig. Next, he found what felt like two sticks. He fished them out and saw that the items were wrapped in paper. "What the?" Jack thought to himself. They almost looked like they might be straws, but they were too short and wide to be straws. Suddenly, it struck Jack that they were tampons. His face must have turned red because for a moment he felt embarrassed. He continued to dig and finally he got ahold of something that felt awfully like a wallet. He pulled it out and realized that it was actually a mini-day planner. He opened it up and found a that the inside cover had some spaces in it for cards. He looked through them and found a couple of items of interest. There were two driver's licenses. On one, his name was listed as "Janice Michelle Stevens," female, of course, and the birthday suggested he was 16 years of age. He lived at 13219-62 Ave wherever that was, and he had his licence issued only a few months ago. He studied the picture for a moment. The girl in the photo had blonde hair. His hair must have been dyed at the time. He sighed a bit in disgust at how terrible he thought the picture was. The other driver's license had a picture of himself only this one had him with red-hair. He assumed that red was his natural color. However,the alternate license listed his name as "Natalie Jane Watters," and the birthdate said he was 23. "Fake ID," he muttered to himself. He turned his attention away from the two license's and found that he had little else in the card slots. There was a video rental place membership card, "Mega Video," but somehow there seemed to be more to that card. He picked it up and looked at it for a moment. Suddenly he realized that not only was he a member at Mega Video, but that he also worked there. In fact, he suddenly remembered he had a shift there tonight. The thought, for some reason, had disappointed Jack. He took one last look at the remaining cards: a customer loyalty card for some eatery, behind it was a receipt for some cosmetics he must have purchased recently, and then there was a card for a medical center or something like that. Jack put back all the cards he had taken out and closed up the planner. He threw it back into the abyss that was now his purse, and promptly zipped it back up.
Still, there was something that was bugging Jack from befiore, something that he needed an answer to...
