Smoothly enough

Your father welcomed your mother’s body in and after signing some papers the parole officer shook his hand and left. You hardly noticed the pudgy man going, instead, your attention was fixed on the stranger with Sonya Doe’s face.

It was so strange watching her, she looked exactly like she did when she left that morning but everything else about her had changed. There was none of your mother’s feminine grace in her movements. She stomped like a trucker, rolling her shoulders and tugging at her clothes like they don’t fit right. When she spoke it’s your mother’s voice but she had an unfamiliar accent peppered with strange words and expressions she would never use. She even let slip a few curse words, something the real Sonya would never do in front of her family.

Once the initial pleasantries were done and the new Sonya was settled in your lounge Ellis laid out the cover story he has concocted for you and your family.

He admitted to having been in a gang but reframed it as having fallen in with a bad crowd. He leaves out the exact nature of his work for the organization, implying that he was simply a nightclub bouncer rather than a professional leg breaker. He insisted he’d never hurt anyone except in self-defense. He painted himself as a victim. Framed for a crime he didn’t commit by a jealous love rival and still hoping to clear his name.

Like all good lies, there was a strong element of truth in his tale. He had officially been employed as a bouncer. He had been fucking a lot of women and some of them had boyfriends who might have ratted him out to the feds.

He was partially proud of the whole clearing his name angle. It made him sound almost heroic. With a bit of luck, he might even get these saps to help him out, get some payback on the rat bastard that sent him to the big house.

“Wait!” Lisa interrupted to ask the question you were all thinking “You’re a man?”

Ellis sighed, it might have been simpler if he’d lied about his gender but he didn’t believe he could have passed as a woman, not for a whole year.

“Yes, it’s true.” he admitted not have to fake his acute embarrassment at the situation “I’m not sure why they thought this would be a good body for me but I’m willing to give it an honest try and make this work if you’ll accept me into your family.”