"Are you ok?"
Erin looked up in the bathroom mirror, one hand still wiping water from the back of her neck. Kailin met her eyes in the glass, her full lips quirking to the left.
Must have followed me in
, Erin thought, and ducked her head, embarrassed.
"Hey, it's ok," Kailin said, and came over to hitch herself up onto the counter. Another girl shouldered in through the door and made for a stall, already unzipping her jeans. Kailin smirked at Erin, who found a ghost of a smile to return. "It's pretty intense out there tonight."
"You fourth years know how to party," Erin said, examining her face again. She was pretty flushed – drinking always did that to her. Her eyes were wide and glassy and red at the rims. She hadn't even taken a hit on the joint, but apparently second hand smoke worked just as well. She leaned in closer, mildly intrigued by the way the fluorescent lights made all her pores seem really obvious.
"You sure you're ok?" Kailin asked, half laughing.
Erin supposed this was nothing new to her. Kailin was 23, she was graduating from the Theatre program this spring, and she was the TA in Prof Dunkirk's
Acting Theory and Practice
and he was known for throwing crazy parties.
"I'm ok," she said. "I'm just. I'm a little high."
Kailin leaned over and looked directly into Erin's face. Her breath smelled like peppermint schnapps. "Yeah, you're ok," she agreed.
"I'm just going to stay in here for a while," Erin said.
The other girl came out of her stall and half fell against the counter. She washed her hands, giggling all the while, moving her hips to the pervasive beat of the music out on the dance floor. She dried her hands on the ass of her jeans and then grinned foolishly at Erin and Kailin before wavering out the door again.
"Now
she's
fucked up," said Kailin and laughed. "But she probably wants to be."
"Yeah," said Erin. "But I'm just going to – "
"Stay in here a while, yeah. It's ok." Kailin swung her legs a bit and smiled at her. "I'll stay too, I think. It's a bit loud out there."
Erin nodded and wished desperately that she had something interesting to say. Kailin was so cool. So gorgeous, all long and lanky and androgenous. And she could really act, she was talented. And good at teaching, too. And she seemed to know everyone in the department, was on first name basis with all the professors. Erin had been nursing a platonic little crush on her for months now, and this amount of personal attention was both gratifying and slightly scary.
"You did really good on that last scene," Kailin said, breaking the silence.
"Really?" Erin smiled and then shook her head. "No, I still wasn't really, you know, in the moment…"
"Well, not for all of it. But the part where Henry says to Madelaine that he's going to take the dog, and you have that line about if he touches the dog, she's going to bite him? It's such a hard line, desperate and funny and furious. You got it perfectly. Everyone laughed."
"Well, one line," Erin said.
"But that's where it starts," said Kailin, leaning forward. "That's how it has to start, with one line. One word, sometimes, that you can actually feel and forget about yourself, forget all the fucking junk getting in your way. You get one line, that's all you need, baby. Just wait. You'll see. Next week it's going to be that whole exchange, and then the whole scene." Kailin slid off the counter and poked Erin in the shoulder. "You do know that you're talented, right?"
"I'm not," Erin said reflexively. "Megan – "
"Megan is big," Kailin said. "She's got big moves. But it's not real, you know? It's funny, and it's sort of slick, but it's not real. She can make you smile but she's never going to change anyone's life."
Erin laughed a little bit, nervously. "I'm going to change someone's life," she said.
"Sure." Kailin was really close to her now. "You've got something. You're like, really in your body." She trailed fingers down Erin's right arm to her hand, and then took it in her own and turned it palm up. "You've got this way of moving, like your body knows something that your mind hasn't figured out yet. It's really honest."
Erin felt paralyzed. A wave of heat passed up her spine and left her dizzy. Kailin's fingers on her hand seemed very warm. She was pressing her thumb against Erin's palm, kneading it gently. She was standing very close.
The door opened again and three girls came through together, laughing and stumbling on their high heels. Erin flushed and tried to pull away. Kailin held on, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. The girls went into stalls. Kailin leaned forward and kissed her.
She kissed really well. A soft brush of lips first, and then a firmer pressure, nipping gently on Erin's lower lip, one hand coming up to her jaw, sliding slowly into her hair, pulling her closer as the moist peppermint lips of this sexy glorious girl parted and coaxed hers apart and then Kailin's tongue licked quickly, lightly against her upper lip and was gone.
Kailin stepped back, smiling. "You see?" she said, low and intimate. "Your body knows." She paused for a second, a considering look on her face, and then she grabbed Erin's hand and pulled – well, dragged – her to the farthest stall and in.
Erin gasped a little as Kailin shot the bolt on the door, and fell back against the graffiti on the wall.
"I'm going to kiss you," said Kailin, "until you tell me to stop." The look on her face was indescribable, half hilarity, half savage. She looked a little bit deranged, and unbelievably hot.
"I don't know if I like girls," Erin whispered. She'd fooled around, kissed friends at bars for free drinks, putting on a show, but never in private, never for
real
.
"You'll know pretty soon," said Kailin, and came at her.
It was an assault, and for the first few seconds Erin was fairly sure she
didn't
