Alexandra pulled the fleece blanket over herself and leaned forward, hunching over her laptop. Even though it had been an unseasonably warm 54 degrees, the setting of the sun brought back the reality of late autumn in Chicago. The air outside had its familiar bite back, the wind had returned, and the temperature in Alexandra's apartment had dropped along with it.
Not that it had been a bad afternoon. Far from it, in fact. Alexandra had gone for a long run in the sunshine along Lake Michigan and had returned as the sun began to set. The time and exertion had been good for her, taking her mind off the classwork she needed to do and the events of the past few days, which Alexandra knew she needed to sort out.
Since returning to her apartment and showering, she had tried to focus on her classwork. She was trying to draft an economics paper, which required turning a disorganized set of notes and formulas on Pareto optimality and the ride-sharing economy into something resembling English.
She found she spent more time pulling on the strings of her hoodie than typing coherent sentences. In other words, it wasn't going well.
The cold and the material itself weren't the sole causes, of course. Alexandra's mind kept drifting to the last few nights, which she'd started turning over in her mind as "life-altering." Tonight was Saturday night.
On Thursday she'd considered herself a bookish, fairly straitlaced college senior facing the end of her college soccer career and, less than a year off, the looming specter of Real Life. Now, barely forty-eight hours later, she figured she had to cross "straitlaced" off the list: someone who had sex with a virtual stranger (a woman, to boot), enjoyed being handcuffed to a bed, then had sex in a bookstore in broad daylight was surely not uptight.
Alexandra checked the time on her phone. Sure, Kira had locked the room before they'd gone at it, but the reality was that twelve hours earlier, Alexandra had been naked on the floor of a store that was open for business, kneeling between another woman's legs and eating her pussy.
Alexandra leaned back, letting the couch envelop her.
Not just sex,
she thought.
Lesbian sex.
Meeting Kira, talking to Kira, sleeping with Kira, heck, everything about Kira, made Alexandra Henderson re-evaluate things. The sex had been amazing every time, but even on top of that Alexandra couldn't help but feel that the two women fit together, that they were somehow meant to
be
together.
"Am I really a lesbian?" she wondered out loud. "Could I really have missed something like that for so long?" She tucked her hands under the blanket, staring at the ceiling. "Yes," she answered herself, still out loud. "It's possible."
Sex with Kira is totally different than sex has ever been before, and it's not like Kira's the only woman I'm finding attractive
, Alexandra thought. She removed her hand and ran it through her hair, finger-combing out some persistent tangles. She thought back to her brief encounter earlier in the day with Katy McLean. They'd sat next to each other in class two years ago, hit it off, and then drifted apart. Katy had been then as Alexandra was now, a studious, outwardly conventional college athlete in her final year.
And then there was now. Alexandra remembered the feeling she'd had when she'd briefly passed Katy on the street earlier in the day: pulse racing, spine tingly, slightly wobbly in the knees. Katy was
hot.
She looked absolutely fierce in a tight leather jacket and jeans, with a silver septum ring and messily cropped blue hair.
Katy's look was a stark contrast to Kira's conventional blonde beauty, but Alexandra knew that made no difference to the conclusion she was slowly admitting. Katy was just a symptom. Since she'd had her eyes opened to the real possibility two nights ago, Alexandra realized that she was indeed attracted to women.
"Maybe it's just a phase," she mumbled to herself, embarrassed to be thinking out loud again.
Her phone buzzed, and she lazily pulled it out. It was a text from her friend Lydia.
Lydia: Hey there, you up to anything tonight?
Alexandra thought for a moment. She and Lydia were already scheduled for brunch the next day, so she could easily decline any invitation and go to bed early, as she had planned. But before she had a chance to reply, another message arrived.
Lydia: I have a Skype interview tomorrow at noon now, so could we do tonight instead?
Alexandra checked the clock on her phone. 9:30.
Alexandra: Sure, long as I can wear a hoodie and jeans.
Lydia: Jimmy's, 9:45?
Jimmy's was a dive bar and (allegedly) a restaurant midway between their respective apartments, no more than a 5-minute walk from either.
Alexandra: Lol, you that thirsty?
Lydia: More like borrrrrrred.
Alexandra: K, see you there.
Alexandra closed her laptop and grabbed a down jacket, zipping it up and shoving her wallet into a pocket along with her phone. As she shuffled out the door and into a chilly breeze, she gave herself a mental pat on the back for choosing the heavy outwear.
The four blocks to the bar passed quickly. For once, her mind was mostly blank.
When Alexandara walked through the narrow doorway, she saw Lydia already sitting at a table in front of the grimy street-facing window, a pitcher of beer and two glasses in front of her.
"Beer?"
Alexandra nodded, sliding her coat onto the extra chair next to her. Something had registered as different about her redheaded friend from an initial glance.
Lydia turned her head slightly, and Alexandra saw it, a gold ring through the left side of her friend's nose.
Lydia slid the beer across the table, and noticed the look on Alexandra's face.
"Like it?"
"I'm...it's definitely different."
"That's a no, isn't it?" The disappointment was clear in her voice.
Alexandra took a deep breath.
Actually, it's kind of cute. The gold looks pretty cool with the red hair.
"No, actually, I kinda do like it. Why'd you do it?"
"I've wanted it for a while, and now seemed like the time."
"Did it hurt?"
"Actually, not too much. It's still a little tender when I twist it, and I need to clean it a lot for a while, but not too bad."
Alexandra lifted her glass. "Well, toast?"
"Yes, to new beginnings?"
"Cheers." They each took a deep drink.
"So," Alexandra said. "Interview on a Sunday?"
"Yeah. I mean, it's a Skype thing and the company sorta requires people to work shifts around the week, so it's no big deal to me."
"Doing what?"
It was Lydia's turn to sigh. "I'm not sure how comfortable I am talking about this yet. It's...well, ok, I'm a botany major, and I've done some classwork on hybridization in tropical plants."
"So?"
"Alex, it's in Denver. Two plus two is four. It's a company that's trying to create a new hybrid strain of marijuana that grows fast, has high THC content, tastes good and all that good stuff, but creates fairly neutral-smelling smoke."
"Is that even possible?"
Lydia shrugged. "Decaf coffee exists."
"Isn't decaf coffee just a chemical process, not a different plant?"
"Alex! Shut up, I'm the botany major."
Alexandra smiled. "So you're sure you want to do this? Drop out, take half a year off, whatever it is?"
Lydia's expression hardened. "Yes."
Ouch, sore spot
, thought Alexandra. They each took a drink. "It's unusual, but it sounds like you have an actual plan."
"Thanks. I do. I'm tired of everyone telling me I'm nineteen, too young, yadda yadda..."
"Speaking of that, whose ID did you use to get the beer tonight?"
She gestured to one of the bartenders. "Mine. The girl with the brown hair is also a botany major, and like most starving college students, likes tips."
