CHAPTER THIRTY: Spin-OffIt was pure agony.

  Yes, Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald would let Kay MacDonald, their lovely daughter, accompany Ethan MacDonald, their lovely son, to Los Angeles - the big city, to talk with Rafael Espinar about participating in a “reality TV project,” as that was their little Kay’s dream.

  But because Kay was their little girl, (never mind that she could legally vote, if only just), Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald insisted on traveling with her. There were all sorts of ne'er-do-wells and temptations in Los Angeles, after all.

  So, Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald used the veto power of “so long as you live under my roof, Kay”, and decided they would make a family vacation of it. And why spend the gas with two cars when one would do, so Leonard was invited along.

  This is how Eine found herself in the back seat of the family station wagon pretending once again to be Ethan for two hours, squished in between maybe-Kevin, who was pretending to be okay with being Kay, on her left, and Leonard, pretending not to be Eine’s boyfriend, on her right.

  It was important that “Ethan” sit between “Kay” and Leonard, you understand. After all, they wouldn’t want Leonard to get any ideas about getting… “frisky” with their daughter Kay. Boys will be boys, after all.

  (Not if Eine could help it, she wouldn’t!)

  Two hours of pure agony.

  Of course, if that was not bad enough, the reason they were headed up to L.A. wasn’t all about Kay. Garden Alpha wanted to bring in all the active contestants and whatever former contestants could come for a meeting. What it was about, Eine didn’t know, but she had a suspicion of the severity of it when the woman she talked to (Daria, she thought) didn’t even balk at the idea that they’d need a hotel suite for five.

  Something was going wrong with ‘Woman Up!’ But what?

  ***

  “Vic, did you ever go to college?” asked Oscar.

  “I did. Two years of community college. Got my associates. Was pnning to go on and get my bachelors, but decided against it. Who can afford college these days?” said Victor, in the passenger seat of Oscar’s Ford Explorer, heading towards the Garden Alpha meeting.

  “I can,” said Oscar. “I’m thinking about going.”

  Victor raised an eyebrow.

  “You, college?”

  “When this whole ‘Woman Up!’ thing blows over, yeah. I’m kind of starting to be blown away by all the things I don’t know that I don’t know. Like, ‘agender’. What a trip, right? I don’t know. Maybe Lenny was right when he said that I ‘needed to be beat around the head with a humanities education.’”

  “When did he say that?”

  “Oh, a couple months ago, right before we started going to Mexico. God, has it only been two months? Feels like longer.”

  “It’s not the time, it’s the mileage,” nodded Victor.

  “Right. Exactly. So, we’re talking to Sheri, we’re talking to Pranav, like… what is the appropriate hormone therapy for genderfluid or agender or whatever it is?”

  “Maybe there is none. Maybe I take a reduced dose of estrogen. Maybe I don’t. Maybe you just keep rocking the body you got at birth since you don’t really mind being a guy. Or maybe you try more androgyny.”

  “Like, what’s his name, Tilda Swinton.”

  “...yes?”

  “You know, maybe there’s a drama school you could go to, You’ve got the talent, right? You just need to hone it on more than just… community theatre productions of ‘Pippin.’”

  “Well, maybe.”

  Oscar turned the car into the Garden Alpha parking lot.

  ***

  Jacob decided to drive Gooch up to the Garden Alpha offices, to keep an eye on him.

  The one truth that sums up humanity, the universal field theory of existence, is this:

  Everybody, everywhere, throughout all of time, knows a Gooch.

  But few people knew a Gooch better than Jacob knew Gooch.

  Others were baffled with who and what Gooch was. Sometimes, even Gooch.

  “Jacob, I mean, what am I even doing? What point is there? I get up, I try to hustle with a crazy scheme and eventually I’m just going to run out of luck or money, end up homeless, and then what? What’s the point? What’s the purpose? Who am I? What am I meant to be? What is a ‘Gooch’ anyway?” moped Gooch from the passenger seat.

  But Jacob knew his best friend better than anyone else in the world, and though his answer to the question ‘what is a Gooch’ might not be complete, he had one.

  “You’re my friend, Gooch. And I’m not going to let you go homeless. And maybe you run out of money, sure. And it sucks being broke. But it can’t possibly suck more than being trapped in the wrong body for your life just because you were temporarily strapped for cash.”

  “I guess,” said Gooch. It wasn’t penetrating the fog of depression.

  “You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen you this depressed.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “Nah. You have mood swings. I’ve known that about you for a while. But I’ve been thinking about what effect the hormones are having on you, and I have a theory.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think you just are going to have depression. A lot of creative people do. But I think before, you were able to snap out of it soon enough. I think what might be happening is that because you’re mentally fighting the hormones, you don’t have the mental… I don’t know. Brain slime–”

  “Brain slime?”

  “Work with me, Gooch. I’m not a doctor. Point is, you have a fixed amount of brain slime per day, and usually the brain slime fights depression, but now it’s fighting depression and the hormones. You’re fighting a two front war, man.”

  “That makes… some form of sense,” said Gooch.

  “Look, we’ll work something out. You’ll get, what a 15k payday? Maybe we’ll get an apartment together. I could live a bit further out from the city, we get a 2/2, split the rent and bills. There’s always a way. Point is, you’re severely depressed and that is not the time to be making major life decisions, like, for example, getting your cock chopped off.”

  “It’s not really a chopping - more like an inversion…”

  “Gooch.”

  “Do you really want an inversion?”

  “Nah, not really.”

  “Then don’t get one.”

  ***

  “Who is this ‘Kay’ you are meeting, Renata?” asked Rafael’s father.

  “It’s Rafael,” he said, continuing to separate his possessions into a big pstic bin beled ‘keep’ and a cardboard box beled ‘donate’. “And ‘Kay’ is Eine’s little sister - Eine’s a contestant on ‘Woman Up!’ I don’t know why they want to meet.”

  “Sounds suspicious. You want me to go with you?”

  “No, dad, I don’t think I do. I am literally a grown man, I can handle myself.”

  “Grown man nothing. You’ll always be my little girl, and I want to protect you.”

  “And that,” said Rafael, “is exactly why I don’t need or want you to get involved.”

  Rafael started to bring the boxes outside to Bradley’s waiting truck. In the meantime, Mrs. Espinar came over to pce her hand on her husband’s shoulder.

  “You’re going to do something stupid, like follow them, aren’t you?” said Rafael’s mother.

  “I just want to see where they go, make sure she’s safe. I’m not going to do anything too stupid.”

  “Men,” Mrs. Espinar said with exasperation. “Right. I’m going with you. To make sure you don’t do anything too stupid.”

  Rafael hopped into the passenger seat of Bradley’s waiting truck, leaned over, gave Bradley in the driver’s seat a big hug, then buckled up.

  “So, it’s a mandatory meeting for all the current contestants, but all the former contestants are invited too?”

  “Yeah. You don’t have to come, but…”

  “No, are you kidding. I’d love to see the girls… guys… guy-girls? Girl-guys?” Bradley paused. “I’d love to see my teammates again.”

  “And before then we’re having lunch with Eine, Leonard and Eine’s sister Kay. Eine was pretty adamant that I take some time to talk to her. Don’t know why.”

  Rafael giggled a little, as they pulled out. Neither of them noticed the SUV keeping a respectable distance following them.

  ***

  Jamie turned off the NPR morning news. All they were talking about was how the incumbent President decided that he was too old to run and had given a full endorsement to his Vice President, and the Veep had leapt into the role swinging.

  Instead, she decided to just focus on making eggs Benedict, which she had never done before.

  Turns out, poaching an egg if you’ve never done it before was hard, and the breakfast turned out to be less eggs Benedict and more egg McMuffin.

  She was pleasantly surprised by a gentle hug from behind from Sam.

  “Breakfast?” she asked.

  “Uh huh. Tried something new. Didn’t turn out how I expected it, but it should still be nummy,” said Jamie.

  “Now if that isn’t a metaphor for our retionship, I don’t know what is,” said Sam. “Ready for the pivot meeting?”

  “Yeah. I hope it works out,” said Jamie. Then she paused.

  “No,” she corrected. “It will work out. It has to work out.”

  “You’re worried about Eine, aren’t you?” Sam correctly intuited.

  “Can you bme me? She could win this thing and still lose it. If Oscar, Victor, and Gooch drop out… we weren’t pnning on continuing with the medical and surgical transition. Because we designed the game for cisgender men. I can’t believe that we fell into that blindspot.”

  “We’ll see what options are on the table… when we get to the table. In the meantime, I’ve heard that it’s a bad idea to skip breakfast. Since you cooked, I’ll make the coffee.”

  “Can I try one of your Yorkshire Gold teas instead? Always wanted to try them,” said Jamie.

  “You can, but I warn you, it will ruin you for any other tea you ever consume in your lifetime,” said Sam, fetching two mugs.

  ***

  “Table for five,” said Rafael, to the hostess, as he and Bradley waited at Isnds for their spot.

  Yep. Table for five. Just Bradley, Rafael, Leonard, Eine and Kay.

  So when Leonard, Eine, and Kay showed up with two other people in tow, it was a little weird.

  “Hey, Rafael.”

  “Hey Leonard, how are you and Eine?”

  “Eine? Leonard, do you have a girlfriend you haven’t told us about” asked Mrs. MacDonald, innocently.

  “Yes,” said Leonard to Mrs. MacDonald, but kept his gaze directly on Rafael. “I have a girlfriend that I haven’t told you about. The girlfriend I haven’t told you about is named Eine. Rafael here knows about Eine.”

  “What’s she like?” said Mrs. MacDonald.

  “Yeah, what’s she like, Lenny?” said Kay, giving off massive annoying-little-brother energy.

  Eine gave Kay a death stare.

  “She is honestly not what I expected I’d find to be my type, but she is. She’s kind, extremely clever and smart. Very geeky.”

  “Ethan,” said Mr. MacDonald. “You could learn from Lenny here. Maybe Eine has a sister.”

  Kay frowned.

  “No,” said Leonard. “Eine does not have a sister. She’s got an annoying younger brother, who doesn’t always appreciate the lengths to which Eine goes to help him out.”

  That shut Kay up for a good long while.

  Bradley came over to the group.

  “Hey! Nice to see you both again.”

  Rafael sighed.

  “Okay, hold up. I need to talk to you,” he said, pointing at Eine. “Privately.”

  Rafael took Eine outside to speak privately.

  It wasn’t private, as Rafael’s own parents were busily snooping from their car.

  But at the time, it seemed private.

  “Eine, I get it. You’re closeted. But I’m not going to do this dance today. It’s bad enough when I get it from my own parents.”

  For a brief moment, Eine felt like tucking her head into her chest and emitting a high pitched whine, but instead, took a calming breath, not letting the situation overwhelm her.

  “Okay. That’s… that’s probably for the best,” she said, looking disappointed. “I’ll come out to my parents, so you don’t have to do this dance. I would have had to anyway. I’m already packed, all my stuff is at Mrs. Harrison’s pce, I’m just worried about Kay.”

  Some key things to note about this scene from the Espinars’ perspective. First, they couldn’t actually make out what Eine and Rafael were saying. Secondly, Eine was in boy-mode, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. Third, the Espinars had absolutely no idea what Bradley, Rafael’s boyfriend, looked like.

  “So, Kay’s trans?” said Rafael.

  “Kinda sorta. She’s like, still an egg, but an egg held together by the flimsiest of shells. Even has a name picked out. ‘Kevin.’ But she doesn’t think that transitioning is something she could do.”

  “What, and they don’t have any trans men in San Diego she could talk to?”

  Eine paused.

  “Oh my god. I honestly didn’t even think of that.”

  Rafael rolled his eyes and looked frustrated, grunting.

  “And why are your parents here?”

  “They wouldn’t let Kay go to L.A. unaccompanied.”

  “Is she a minor?”

  “No, she’s eighteen but, well, the whole ‘you still live under our roof, still our rules’ thing applies.”

  Rafael grunted.

  “This is a nightmare.”

  Back in the car, the Espinars saw Rafael’s frustration, and Eine’s guilt, and came to entirely the wrong conclusion: Renata was breaking up with the boyfriend she had just left their loving home to move in with.

  It was a good thing that they followed her.

  When Rafael and Eine headed back into the restaurant, they found that everyone else was already seated. Rafael took a seat next to Bradley, while Eine instead leaned on the back of her chair.

  “Look, Mom. Dad. There’s something very important I have to tell you.”

  “Ethan!” said Kay. “You promised!”

  “It’s not about that,” said Eine. “It’s about my thing.”

  “Hoo boy,” said Leonard. “Here we go.”

  Kay slumped in her seat, and under the table, Rafael held hands with Bradley. This was not going to go well.

  By this time the Espinars were waiting by the host area, trying to crane their necks in a way that would allow them to see what was going on without revealing themselves.

  “So, uh, I didn’t want to tell you this until I had firmly established myself as moving out of the house, but… you remember when I was a kid and… you thought there… and… god this is hard for me to do,” said Eine.

  “Take your time, Eine,” said Bradley.

  “Where’s Eine?” asked Mrs. MacDonald. “Leonard, is your girlfriend going to join us?”

  Bradley facepalmed.

  “Sorry.”

  “Really, Bradley?” said Leonard.

  “It just slipped out!”

  Eine took a deep breath.

  “Mom, Dad. I’m Eine. I’m a trans woman. Yes, I know you thought that was a phase and that the camp you sent me to straightened me out. All it did was shove me into the closet. I had to lie to you for years. But I can’t do it anymore. I’m Eine.”

  A long, uncomfortable silence.

  “Hi.” Eine waved.

  Eine’s father took a deep breath and exhaled audibly through his nose.

  “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” he finally said.

  Eine was shocked.

  “Because, I didn’t think you would understand, Dad.”

  Mr. MacDonald’s face was getting red.

  “You didn’t think we would understand? Of course we understand.”

  “Oh?”

  “That camp… wasn’t worth the money we paid for it. We should have sent you to a different one. You should have just been honest with us, Ethan. We could have kept trying programs and camps and therapists until we found one that actually worked.”

  “NO!”

  Kay who stood up in indignation.

  “Don’t you see what you did to her?”

  “Kay!” said Mrs. MacDonald. She wasn’t wearing pearls at the time, but if they did, they would have been mightily clutched. “Sit down!”

  Mr. Espinar wanted to head over there at the moment, but Mrs. Espinar pced her arm in his way and said, “Wait.”

  “Eine was never the same after you sent her to True Directions. She used to be such a happy person and you basically told her that the things that made her happy were bad and wrong and she’d be punished for it! And you did punish her for it! And now that she has gotten the first taste of freedom in years, and is starting to be the happy and confident person I remember from our childhood, your big regret was that you didn’t torture her enough?”

  Mrs. MacDonald reached out and took Kay’s hand.

  “Kay, you wouldn’t understand…”

  Kay pulled her hand away and gred at her mother.

  “Oh, you think I wouldn’t understand? I was terrified that you’d send me to a camp just like it. I had nightmares. And I only lived through it secondhand.”

  “You had nightmares?” said Mr. MacDonald, angrily. “You don’t remember what Ethan put us through! Being told by a psychologist that your only son wants to be a girl? And when we ask her how to fix our son, Dr. Cooper acts like there’s nothing wrong with that? I mean, we were skeptical, but what else were we supposed to do? Dr. Cooper was no help.”

  “Wait,” said Eine. “Dr. Cooper said that you should support my transition?”

  “Yeah, she was a real quack! Said we should put you on medicine which would stunt your growth, and let you wear dresses to school.”

  “Wow. This just recontextualized a lot of iatrophobia I’ve had over the years. I owe Sheri an apology,” said Eine.

  “God, Eine,” said Rafael. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t realise how bad it would be.”

  “And just who is this strange man?” yelled Mr. MacDonald, starting to create a scene.

  “Hey!” yelled Mr. Espinar, completely unable to contain himself, rushing over to the table. “That strange man is my daughter! You apologize to her right now!”

  Rafael then turned and gred at his father.

  “Dad, what the hell are you doing here? And is that Mom?”

  Rafael’s Mom sheepishly waved, as his father tried to expin.

  “We were worried about you, Renata! Moving in with a strange man we’ve never met! And we came in because we saw you arguing outside!”

  Mr. Espinar then turned and pointed a finger straight at Eine.

  “And you! Bradley! Are you going to let this man yell at my daughter like that?”

  To emphasize his point, Mr. Espinar poked Eine directly in the chest.

  Which was the wrong pce to poke Eine.

  “Owwwww!” Eine seethed. “I’m not Bradley.”

  Bradley raised his hand.

  “Uh, Mr. Espinar. I’m Bradley. I’m the one dating Rafael.”

  Mr. Espinar looked between the nerdy, slightly feminine Eine, and Bradley, the built hunk with an amazing beard.

  “Okay, yes, I can see how that makes much more sense. Sorry about that, Not-Bradley.”

  But Real-Bradley wasn’t done. He stood up from the table and spoke in a forced calm, but firm, tone.

  “You know, Mr. Espinar, you got mad at a complete stranger for showing disrespect to Rafael. But I’d be a shitty boyfriend if I didn’t hold you to the same standard. Mr. Espinar, you are hurting your son, Rafael, every time you deadname him. Every time you pretend that he is someone he’s not. Every time you refuse to treat him with the same respect that you just demanded from Mr. MacDonald and from me. Or the person you thought was me, anyway. You won’t even give your son the decency of calling him by his name. You have no cim to the moral high ground here. You’re being an ass.”

  Bradley then turned to Mr. MacDonald.

  “As are you, sir. You have literally put your daughter through torture, because you would rather have an unhappy son than a happy daughter. Because you can’t imagine that your offspring would dare to have a life of their own, and to seek their own form of happiness instead of one you would wish for yourself. You’ve fallen victim to one con-man and it was your daughter who paid the price for that. But rather than admitting you were wrong when it is painfully obvious you are wrong, your immediate response was that you should have had your daughter tortured more by other con-men.”

  Bradley himself was now at a controlled simmer, his voice denoting his disgust and anger without crossing the line into rage.

  “Both of you – both of you are acting like children. I suggest that you leave. May I remind you that your presence here was neither requested, required, or for that matter, expected. Good day sirs!”

  “Now, you see here–” said Mr. MacDonald.

  “Just wait a minute–” said Mr. Espinar.

  “I said ‘Good Day Sirs!’”

  Mr. MacDonald got up from his chair.

  “Right. Ethan, Kay, Lenny, we’re leaving.”

  “Yes,” said Kay. “You are.”

  “Kay,” said Mrs. MacDonald. “We’re your ride home.”

  “We can get you a Garden Auto staff car, I think,” said Rafael. “Though I’ve been told they’re a little quirky.”

  Kay nodded to Rafael, and turned back to her parents.

  “Go home, Mom and Dad.”

  Mrs. MacDonald turned towards the door first, and Mr. MacDonald followed, wordlessly. They walked out the door to a rather tense two hour drive back down to San Diego.

  Rafael then turned to his father. Mr. Espinar held up a single finger, then more calmly, spoke.

  “Bradley, are you going to keep fighting like that for Rafael?”

  “I am. The question is, are you?”

  Mrs. Espinar finally headed over to Mr. Espinar, and started gently dragging him away.

  “You’re a good man, Bradley. And so is my son. Take care of him,” he said, walking away.

  All that Mrs. Espinar said was a single, exasperated:

  “Men.”

  Leonard, who had been sitting there in awkward silence for quite some time, started ughing, quietly at first, then louder.

  “Leonard?” asked Eine.

  “No, it’s just that - you remember how Brad was kind of a pushover when we first met because Jett had made him feel worthless? I just find it ironic that as a result of a feminization contest, Bradley finally grew some balls.”

  “It’s not that ironic. More sardonic, really,” said Eine.

  “How so?” asked Leonard.

  “Well, it started when he cut a dick off.”

  —

  A few moments and a few appetizers, and they got to the meat of the issue.

  “So, Kevin, yeah, I’m not going to say it’s easy,” said Rafael. “Your parents seem… more hostile than mine. But you’re eighteen years old. You don’t need your parents’ permission to start talking to people about maybe transitioning. I started by going to Pnned Parenthood. It’s all confidential.”

  Kevin nodded.

  “That seems like a good idea. I don’t think it’s possible to live for years hiding who I am.”

  “I don’t recommend it, no,” said Eine.

  “You know what. I’m legally an adult. The worst that they can do, legally, is kick me out of the house,” said Kevin. “And being kicked out of the house is probably a better fate than living in fear of being kicked out of the house.”

  “Sometimes, there are nothing but shitty options,” said Rafael. “You make the best choice you can at the time. That’s all you can do.”

  ***

  Jamie looked around the conference room at the Garden Alpha offices.

  “Hello everyone. Gd to see you all again, and I’m very gd everyone - except Jett - made it. Sam and I wanted to have this meeting away from the cameras with you because, well, we’re in a bit of a pickle and we’re hoping you can help.”

  “Also,” said Sam. “Did we… forget about a contestant?”

  Sam looked at Kevin, seated next to Eine.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Jamie, Sam, everyone, this is Kevin, my brother.”

  A chorus of “nice to meet yous” went around the room.

  “Right, but Eine, what is your brother doing here?” said Sam, returning to the point.

  “She’s… damn!” said Eine.

  Instinctively Eine looked around to see if the GenderBuzzer caught that, and was relieved to find there’s no GenderBuzzer here in L.A.

  “Sorry. I mean to say, he is interested in reality television, and in transgender issues, and so I felt it would be okay to invite him along.”

  Sam looked at Jamie. Jamie shrugged, and Sam nodded.

  “Okay. Kevin, welcome to Culver-Horowitz productions as a…”

  “Friend of the family?” Jamie suggested.

  “Friend of the family,” Sam agreed. “Right. I’m not going to mince words. We want to change the format of the program. We want to move from a reality competition show to a documentary program format.”

  Oscar raised his hand. “Question.”

  “Yes, Oscar?”

  “I thought we were doing okay. Why the switch?”

  “Quite frankly, because we goofed,” said Sam. “Jamie and I did. When we designed the game, we didn’t consider that a closeted trans woman would enter the contest. The whole point of the… of the game is to see who can go against instinct and nature to endure transition. But if one of the contestants - and sorry to single you out, Eine, but it is you - is enjoying it and getting exactly what they need, then… all the tension, suspense, drama, is gone.”

  “Yeah,” said Victor. “No offense, Eine, but you are truly a 'curve-wrecker’ when it comes to a test of who can be the best trans woman.”

  “So, what happens now?” asked Jacob.

  “By w, we have to continue with the game show as originally designed. We can’t promise you one thing and then change the rules in the middle of the game,” said Sam.

  “Well, we can but only in specific ways that we determine beforehand,” said Jamie. “Not a complete change of the rules and prize structure. Yet… if we don’t, the result’s going to be well, boring.”

  “The only way we can change over to a different format is if we can get all of the remaining pyers to unanimously agree that the new format we propose is fair. Again, we’re not recording this session, by the way, so you can speak freely.”

  “The Unanimity Bargaining Game,” said Eine, nodding. “Cssic game theory. Of course, in this case, I’m in a weird position because I’m almost certainly but not entirely going to have to accept a lesser reward than the status quo. Nash Equilibrium would suggest that I defect from almost any offer.”

  Eine shrugged.

  “But screw the Nash Equilibrium.”

  Leonard looked concerned.

  “‘Screw the Nash Equilibrium?’ Eine… are you feeling well? I never thought I’d hear you say those words.”

  “I’m fine, Leonard. This makes sense,” said Eine. “Let’s say that I would have continued to the end. What was the prize budget?”

  Sam nodded. “We budgeted for one million, give or take a couple thousand. Of that we’ve already awarded about 52k, and the pot’s currently up to 135k. 813k left in the budget.”

  “I’m going to be honest,” said Oscar. “I entered the contest to prove that anyone could pretend to be a trans woman. And I was so wrong. I’ve learned so much - about myself, about life, about… but yeah, my original reason for joining doesn’t really apply.”

  “I still want to be famous,” said Victor. “But… I’m not sure I want to be famous at any cost.”

  “And I have clinical depression, so… probably should drop out anyway,” said Gooch.

  “What are you saying?” asked Eine.

  “I think we’re saying,” said Oscar, “Congratutions, Eine.”

  “So, that’s, what, around 17k for each of us,” said Victor, “and around 85k for Eine?”

  “Eine, if you’re happy with that, I think there’s a solution there for the existing prize pot money,” said Jamie. “Just that’s more than enough to support all the surgeries you could ever want, assuming you use Mexican medical tourism, like we were going to. We did the math, it comes to around 65k on the high end.”

  “So we figure that maybe the best and fairest thing to do,” said Sam, “is to give all the contestants 100k for agreeing to ending the competition early and switching to a documentary format where we basically follow your lives around for the next year or so. For Rafael, we’ll structure it as a bonus, rather than a prize, but Rafael was a contestant in the beginning, he should get an equal share, especially if he’s going to continue helping us to document Jamie and Eine’s transitions. And of course, I think you’d all agree this experience has changed your lives, and that doesn’t stop just because we’re no longer paying you to take hormones.”

  Bradley raised his hand.

  “Yes, Bradley?” said Sam.

  “Would Jett get the 100k too?”

  Sam shook her head. “No. He was ejected from the show. His involvement with this project is officially terminated and will not be a part of the documentary going forward.”

  “Then I’m in,” said Bradley. “That was my only real worry.”

  “Bradley,” said Leonard. “It’s really only Eine, Gooch, Oscar, and Victor who get a say.”

  “Oh, I know, Lenny. But I still like the pn.”

  Eine thought about it. It wasn’t an easy decision. She could very easily force the production company to honor the commitments, go ‘all the way’ and walk out with a half million dolrs or more - not just the roughly 190k she was going to get with this deal.

  On the other hand - 190k was still life changing money. Enough to finish up her degree and not to be a burden on Leonard and Mrs. Harrison. And she looked around. This game… simply wasn’t a game anymore. She started approaching this as homo economicus, making rational decisions to maximize reward, deciding on cooperation and defection based on what produced the best mathematical result.

  But somehow, all these people here became more than just pyers. They became a found family, of sorts. Why wouldn’t she want to share her good fortune with her family?

  And there was one other thing that was tipping her decision.

  When she decided to do the show, she was using the money as an excuse. As a way to say to her parents and anyone else who thought they had a right to question her: ‘Hey, I only did it because they were paying me.’

  But she looked over to her brother, seated next to her. And she thought: That is not the lesson that I want to pass down to my little brother.

  “If I take this deal, and I decide not to get any surgeries or even stop transitioning, would I still get the 100k?”

  “Yes. You’d have to do regur interviews with us, but other than that, there’s no obligation to commit to any more medical treatments of any kind.”

  Eine nodded.

  “Then I’m good with taking the deal. Because it’s important to me that I’m transitioning for me, and not because of the pressures of money, or fame, or expectation. No hiding. No excuses. When I transition, it’s because I want to be who I am.”

  “Any objections?” Sam asked the room.

  No one raised their hand.

  “Good. I’ll have our wyer draw up the new contracts. Thanks everyone, for being part of our insane project, and what hopefully will be a much less insane one in the future,” said Sam.

  “Have you got a name for the spin-off documentary?” said Leonard.

  “Not yet. Got something in mind?”

  “What do you think of: ‘Woman Up!: Miss-Takes Were Made’?”

  Everyone groaned.

  ***

  Jett Timbrell moped.

  There wasn’t much for Jett to do except mope these days. His hand would take months to heal back up. And even then the doctors weren’t sure that it’d be the same. His juggling act was over.

  Oh, sure, he could use bowling pins - but it’s just not the same, and wouldn’t be as much of a draw.

  So, slumped on his couch, watching TV, feeling sorry for himself, he nearly didn’t pick up the phone when it rang, as he didn’t recognize the number.

  But he sighed and answered it anyway.

  “Jett Timbrell. I’m not interested in my car’s extended warranty.”

  “Hello, Mr. Timbrell? My name is Aryanna Meyers. I work for the ‘GutPunch!’ program on The News Channel? We understand that you were a contestant on 'Woman Up!' but was kicked off the program?”

  “Uh, yes?” said Jett.

  “Do you have any comments or statements you’d like to make about the show?”

  Did he? Did he ever!

  AnnouncementThanks again to everyone who helped to edit this chapter, including:

  zyllycatCassiealisonR.R. Rosecolour.