13Look at that! I still exist! And this story still exists! Wee!
I return to you, fair readers, with a chapter of absurd length. About thirteen thousand words. Believe it or not, not the longest chapter I've ever written for a story. Not even close. I do seem to be having trouble keeping chapters to a reasonable length recently, though. Think I might be in the middle of a style shift without even really noticing it.
Anyway, enjoy.
Torrie was already scrambling to switch off her alarm before she was even fully awake. Once she had it off, she paused a moment, laying there, trying to remember what the hell she had to be up for. She was pretty sure it was Saturday. Sure, she hadn't set her alarm to wake her up very early—it was only eleven. But there still had to be something.
"It's depressing how awful you are at even the most basic thought processes when you're even a little tired."
"Give her a break, she just woke up."
oh hey you guys are back
"Did you think we were gone forever?"
well no not really yesterday was just weird and weirdly quiet
Thinking about how weird yesterday was made her remember what had happened late yesterday. A tingling surge of energy shot through her, and she was suddenly much more awake. She remembered why she had to be awake now. She had a date, in two hours. A date with Sammy Day.
Holy shit. Kinda crazy when she took a second to think about it.
"Be careful. I really don't think it would take very much for you to turn into the worst sort of groupie."
yeah i know fun though
"Ugh."
For some reason, one of her voices just making a noise at her like that amused her.
Anyway, she had to get up. Two hours was plenty of time—she wasn't completely crazy—but if something went wrong it'd be nice to have a cushion. She pulled herself out of her bed, and went straight to her closet, which was still hanging wide open from the last time she'd looked in it. There had to be something in there that wouldn't be completely shit, and actually still fit. She was really bad at keeping up, so she still had shit in here from when she was like twelve. She flipped through, humming to herself, listening to the chorus of insults in her heard.
oh hey forgot this was in here
"Hell yes."
"Oh, no. Keep going."
"I dunno, I think I'm with her on this one too."
"I want to leave this insanity but I can't."
oh come on its not that bad
It was a pretty simple dress, really, in soft black cloth. She remembered it pretty well, though. Partially because it didn't exactly conceal a whole lot—Mother had actually asked her more than once to get rid of it. And partially because she'd gotten laid a ridiculous number of times wearing it—which was a big part of why she'd ignored Mother every time she'd asked. She hadn't worn it in a while, though. That last year or so of her previous depravity, she'd been drinking way too much for anything like this to really be a good idea. She'd gained a little bit of weight since she'd started eating regularly again, but she was pretty sure it'd still fit.
"You know what would be awesome with that? Those boots Diana bought you."
oh holy shit you are so completely right where are they
"Fuck if I know."
Torrie tore through her closet, making a bit of a mess of things, but came up empty. They weren't under her bed either. Dammit. The closet by the front door, maybe? Torrie considered putting on pants before leaving her room—she was only wearing underwear and a longish tee shirt—before deciding that wasn't really unnecessary. She was taking a shower immediately after this anyway.
She walked down the hall, hearing the TV and what sounded like the microwave timer in the distance. Someone was home, then. Most likely not Mom—she would be at work now. She vaguely remembered Mother had something going on today too. So her guess was either Xuĕ or Jaydon. Whatever, didn't matter a whole lot. She thumped on down the stairs, headed across the entryway, and—
eep
—jumped halfway into the air when someone slapped her on the ass. Rather hard, too, enough it hurt. That could only have been one person—well, two, but Mom wasn't home. Jaydon did that all the time as a reminder to put pants on. And there he was, walking nonchalantly into the living room with a plate steaming with some sort of freezer food, dropping casually to a seat on the couch, next to his waiting laptop. He didn't even look up at her. "Excuse me?" she asked, putting a little bit of annoyance on her voice.
He looked up at her, his face a model of innocence. "What?"
Forcing her face into something nearly cartoonishly angry, she spoke in one of those exaggeratedly dramatic voices. "I will destroy you, Mister Young. One day, you shall bleed."
"Oh my god, your family is so ridiculous. Why? Why is this happening?"
"Nah," he said, looking back down at his computer.
"From where do you draw such confidence before my power?"
"Pretty sure you love me."
After the appropriate short pause, she muttered, "You win this time, Mister Young."
"I always do."
She dropped the dramatic voice. "Yeah, well, shut up." And she turned for the closet.
Now, a little louder than before, he spoke in an overly dramatic rumble. "Wherever there are girls scantily clad, there I shall be. Wherever there is an ass wandering unslapped, a boob hanging ungroped—"
Crouching down in front of the shoe-filled lower portion of the closet, she said, "You do realize you're going on a rant about sexually assaulting your sister."
"Yes, exactly. Maybe you should stop letting him get away with that."
nah i know hes joking and he doesnt do it to anyone else so its harmless
"What is wrong with all of you?"
In his normal voice again, "Yeah, well, you can't win all of them. What are you doing in there, anyway?"
"You know those boots Aunt Diana got me a couple years ago?" Diana was Mother's younger sister. She also had an older brother, but forget him. Though the grandparents—Victor and Quinn—had cut Mother off completely, the aunt and uncle had always been around. Well, not so much him , but still. And yes, Torrie had been named after a grandfather she'd never met—Jaydon's middle name was from the grandmother, too. Torrie's middle name and Jaydon's first name come from the other grandparents—Adrian and Jayde, for whom Mom was an only child. Grandpa Adrian was sweet, but while Grandma Jayde was perfectly nice to the three kids, she hardly ever said anything short of critical to Mom, and hardly spoke to Mother.
When they'd been younger, Grandma Jayde had sometimes pulled Torrie aside to ask her some rather odd questions. She hadn't understood at the time, but now she knew Grandma Jayde had been digging for evidence either of her parents had been doing anything, to put it lightly, untoward. So, well, one out of the four grandparents was decent. That was something.
But anyway, Jaydon was talking. "Oh, uh, I'm pretty sure Mom packed those up and put them on top."
Torrie looked up at the top shelf. Dammit. She was tall enough to reach, but the angle would make it awkward, and she wouldn't be able to see what she was pawing at. She'd have to drag the boxes down and look individually. Practically before she started, Jaydon appeared next to her. He wasn't that much taller than her, but he was tall enough he'd be able to see what he was doing much, much easier. After a couple seconds, sifting through the boxes, he took one down and handed it to her. As he started walking back to the couch, Torrie flipped the lid up to make sure this was the right box. It was, all good. "Hey, got it right first try."
"He probably had to put them up there in the first place."
oh yeah good point
From the living room, he said, "Growing up in a home shared by four members of the fairer sex has left me with more knowledge of footwear than I'm entirely comfortable with having. Among other things."
"Oh, hey, that was actually kind of funny."
"Yeah, well." Torrie smiled at him from the bottom of the stairs, box under her arm. "Shouldn't really complain. We did good work on you—you're the best-dressed straight guy I know."
He didn't look up from the screen, but Torrie saw a grimace pass his face anyway. "I'll take that in the spirit it was intended. So many things I would rather not know. I know much more about, for example, a certain thing women experience regularly than any man ever should and this knowledge could never be removed with anything short of surgery."
Her grin slipped a few shades toward evil. "Oh, right. Xuĕ and I used to tease you with that all the time, didn't we."
"Xuĕ still does," he muttered, sounding distinctly annoyed. "Every goddamn month, like fucking clockwork."
"Oh. Good." With that, she turned forward, started climbing up the stairs.
Jaydon's voice, set in overly dramatic mode again, drifted up behind her. "I will destroy you, Miss Young. One day, you shall bleed."
"Eh, not yet. In about a week, though—" Not really, she was only teasing.
"Oh god."
Torrie forced her giggle louder than normal, making sure he'd hear it.
"It annoys you when your mom teases you, but you just go right around and do it to Jaydon."
she does it for good reason its fun do kinda hafta feel bad for him sometimes though he has to deal with three of us
"He handles daily life remarkably well, considering."
"I'm sure he's developed some immunity by now."
jeez guys were not that bad
"I pity anyone who will marry into your family in the future."
ha ha ive actually thought of that before its going to be so fucking awesome
"I don't believe this. You have plans, don't you?"
Under her breath, "Mwah ha ha ha!"
"As I said—pity."
Torrie went on through the whole cleaning up process—though she shaved before the shower instead of during. She wanted to be a bit more thorough than usual, and didn't want to waste the water. Back in her room, she went straight to the bottom-right drawer of her dresser, the one with the smiley face sticker on it. A long time ago, her parents had given the three of them one of those stickers each, to put on one of their drawers, with the agreement that the two of them wouldn't touch the marked drawer outside of very specific circumstances. Considering the age Torrie'd been at the time, she was pretty sure they'd decided to do that to preemptively give her a place to hide shit like vibrators—they couldn't possibly have expected her to have already gotten one by then, since they're pretty much impossible to buy that young. She was pretty sure Xuĕ'd gotten a sticker for the same reason, and Jaydon just because it was fair.
Oh, wait a second. Now that she thought about it, the way the timing worked out, they'd probably decided to do it after the fact, because they'd possibly stumbled on her shitty previous hiding place. That was a little embarrassing.
Anyway, she also kept her sexy underwear in here too, because she didn't exactly want them stumbling on that either. She luckily had some nice, lacey stuff in black—though, really, if she didn't have anything in black that'd be kinda weird. This was her, here. Anyway, socks—tiny ankle things, just to put a layer between skin and boot—panties, bra. Then the dress. Wow, that went on way easier than she'd expected. Must not have gained as much weight as she'd thought. Maybe it was just the wrong—nope, glance in the mirror confirmed it was definitely the right one. Straps weren't, like, really narrow, but the neck did drop pretty far both in front and in back. Actually—she angled her shoulder out of the way a little—yeah, actually went a little under where her bra sat. Eh, whatever.
"This isn't going to work like that. You're missing another reason it's awkward."
what really where
"Step closer to the mirror, get a better look."
Torrie did as the voice suggested, and noticed it almost immediately. The pattern of the lace was pretty obvious on her chest. Okay, awkward. She could fix that though, she knew just the thing. Aunt Diana had bought her this halter sundress a while ago—she liked buying Torrie and Xuĕ clothes, it's a thing—but the material was thin enough it was a bit awkward wearing it in public. So Torrie'd picked up a sort of haltery slip. A couple seconds to find it, a couple seconds more of shuffling her clothes around, a couple more seconds to wrap the straps of the slip around so they were held out of the way by the straps of her bra. Another check in the mirror. Bam. The strap of the slip was still visible at the base of the back of her neck, since her hair was so short, and she could still see a sliver of her bra in back. But, she decided, who cares? And, well, the skirt—a little pleated, because yis—wasn't extremely short or anything, long enough for her to not be too uncomfortable, but—
ha ha wow i have legs look at that
"You are so completely ridiculous."
id fuck me would you fuck me yeah i agree completely id totally fuck me
"I give you eight of ten."
yeah eight sounds about right i mean damn
"Oh my god, please stop."
nah im gonna go turn on some barry white and do a whole long monologue while posing at myself
"Jesus fuck, I wish I had eyes I could claw out and eardrums I could pierce."
wow relax im joking jeez
It's entirely possible she'd actually done that before—not with Barry White, gross, but still. It's also entirely possible that the first person she had ever been legitimately sexually attracted to was herself. But, well, she would readily admit that she's a very weird person, especially when it came to sex stuff, so she didn't really care.
Boots time. She really liked these things, all black leather, coming up to just below her knees, and possibly fifty percent straps and buckles by weight. And not heels, because heels are evil. Putting them on, Torrie decided it was a good thing she'd brought them up here with her. Because, with how short her dress was, yeah, Jaydon probably didn't want to see this. Tee hee.
"You amuse yourself way too much."
i think i amuse myself just enough
She decided to bring the same purse she'd used yesterday, because why not. Though she packed her phone charger in there too, just in case she ended up spending the night. Weird thought—had she ever actually done that before? Huh. For a moment she deliberated bringing a thing or two from her smiley drawer before deciding against it. She had absolutely no idea what kind of stuff Sammy liked anyway.
And she was pretty sure that was it. No makeup—Mom had a completely irrational hatred of the stuff, so it'd never been big in this house. Was she forgetting anything? Didn't think so.
She pulled out her phone, looking at the time. Shit. She had a whole half hour to kill. Dammit. Oh well. She tramped her way downstairs, around into the living room. Jaydon had some sci-fi-looking show playing—he wasn't really watching it, just having it play while doing whatever he was doing on his computer. She could distract herself with this, she guessed. Would at least stop her from pacing around like an idiot. She walked across the room, plopped herself down in the ratty old armchair. They'd had this thing forever, even back in the old apartment. Torrie could remember watching cartoons, sharing the thing with Jaydon, back when he was like three. It was kinda wide for an armchair, enough so two kids could use it at once, but not so much adults.
Which certainly didn't mean her parents hadn't tried. With some regularity—she couldn't count how many times she'd walked in the room to find the two of them barely not fitting in it. Usually making out, just her luck. Okay, yeesh, she really shouldn't be thinking about that while sitting in the thing. Of course, knowing those two, they'd probably had at least some form of sex on pretty much every piece of furniture in the—
oh god no stop it fuck i hate my brain
"You really need to think about your parents having sex less than you do. It's weird."
yeah well its really hard to forget with how much i keep catching them doing it god damn your bedroom door has a lock on it for a reason
"Now that I think about it, it's really not surprising you're such a slut. I'm pretty sure it's genetic."
well youd think so but look at jaydon
"Yeah, look at Jaydon."
what do you
"Uh…" That was a real voice, Jaydon's. She turned to see him staring at her, an eyebrow raised.
She pointed at herself. "Date."
"Ah." He paused a second. "Guy or girl?"
"Do you care?"
"Just want to know how jealous I should prepare to be."
Torrie couldn't help smiling at him. "Very jealous. She's pretty hot."
"Goddammit," he snarled, turning back to his computer. "Of five people, I'm the only guy in the house, but there are still three people in the family who get more hot girls than I do."
"Did, uh, you just call Sìgemā hot?" That would be a household word Torrie and Xuĕ had invented years ago. One of the words for mom in Chinese was māma, so they'd come up with Sìgemā—literally, "four mā"—as a weird way to refer to Mom and Mother collectively. It'd started as a silly joke, but they ended up actually using it sometimes.
"Yeah, I just noticed that, and no comment."
"I give Stacey a seven and Emma a six. They're getting old, but take off ten or even five years and it'd be higher."
i give no fucks they're both nines
"Holy shit, you did not just say that."
i thought it this is my own head i can think whatever i want
"That's really the sort of thing you shouldn't even be thinking."
jaydon eight xuĕ ten cant help it if my familys cute thats really not my fault
"No, no, no. Stop this. Right now."
"Seriously, this is getting weird."
eh heh heh heh i win all the awkward games
But anyway, she was talking to Jaydon. "I'm pretty sure Mom has only ever been with the two people anyway." The second one was—actually, that was an incredibly awkward story and Torrie really didn't want to think about it right now. She was dead now, so, whatever.
"That's still one more than me."
"Well, you—" Torrie broke off, staring at the back of Jaydon's head. "Only one? When did that happen?"
"December," he said, shrugging a little.
Oh. Yeah, that would explain it. "Anyone I know?"
He hesitated for a couple seconds. When he did answer, his voice sounded really reluctant. "Yeah, probably. Aminah."
It took Torrie two seconds to place the name. She did her absolute best to hide a smile—which was pointless, since he wasn't looking at her anyway. "Xuĕ's friend. Short, tiny scar on her cheek, always laughing at everything."
"That'd be her."
"She is pretty cute." He didn't say anything, just hummed at her in a way that meant he agreed. She waited a couple seconds. "But, you know…"
"Yeah, I knew you were going to do this."
"With such a perfect opportunity to be this much of a bitch? Of course."
It took Jaydon two seconds to interpret the meaning of the teasing tone on her voice. Slowly, he turned his head, looking at her with a really uncomfortable expression on his face. "No. Don't say it."
"Don't say what?" she asked, making her voice as sweet and innocent as possible.
"Don't say what I'm positive you're going to say. No. Just no."
"Just yes. I got there first. I totally did."
He turned away, letting out a strangled groan. "Goddammit! Why did you tell me that?"
"Knowledge is power, Jaydon."
"Jesus Christ. Could you make up a list of girls I should just stay away from to stop this from happening again, please?"
"Well, it might take me a little bit to remember all of them."
Jaydon let out another groan—it kinda sounded like a long fuck, but she could be imagining that. "Ugh, I don't believe this. I mean, I really don't believe this. Aminah is straight, for one thing."
Torrie frowned at the back of Jaydon's head. "Did she tell you that, or did you assume?"
"She told me."
"Then she lied." For a somewhat obvious reason, she suspected—to more easily avoid mentioning that one time with Torrie. Aminah always had been rather politic. "Probably bi."
"Yeah, well, how do you know?"
"Believe me, I can tell." Jaydon looked over his shoulder at her, his face a clear expression of disbelief. "The proof, as they say, is in the pudding."
He stared at her for a couple seconds. "There is a zero percent chance I want to know what you mean by that."
"Don't explain it to him. You're already breaking him. You've done enough."
"Like hell she has. Let no joke remain unsaid."
"Yeah, probably." She waited a little, long enough for him to turn back to his computer. "See, when you're going down on a girl—"
"Stop," he snarled, head falling into his hands. "Just stop."
"No reason to be awkward, Jaydon. I mean, think—this is something I'm practically an expert on! Think of all the awesome advice I could give you!"
He gave her another weird look. "The same girl though…"
"That's something we can bond over, obviously. Isn't this stuff straight guys talk about all the time?"
"You are so completely weird," he said. But he was smiling now. Trying not to, but failing.
"I mean, Aminah, you know. Awesome."
"I did notice."
"And when she comes she does this thing where her breath catches, and she can't breathe at all for a…" She trailed off as Jaydon's expression shifted to one of confusion. Oh. Whoops. Shifting her voice to gentle reassurance, she said, "Well, it was your first time."
For a long moment, he just stared at her. She tried her best to keep her face severe, tried her best not to grin at him like a bitch. Then he said, "When is your date getting here?"
She pulled out her phone again to check. "Fifteen minutes or so."
Turning back to his computer, he let out a long sigh.
i dont know if ive had that much fun in a single conversation in months
"You are perhaps the bitchiest bitch on the planet."
come on that was funny
"I really don't think it was."
"Well, it was funny, but that doesn't mean it was nice to do to your brother."
well uh you might actually have a point there
"You know I'm just teasing you, right?"
He looked over his shoulder again. "So, you and Aminah never..."
"I was teasing, not lying. That happened a couple years ago. Her sixteenth birthday, actually."
He rolled his eyes. "What, you jump her the second she was legal?"
"Well, sort of, except she jumped me. Actually kinda funny, she just showed up at my dorm and—"
"I really don't want to know this."
"Right, sorry."
For a few minutes, Jaydon messed around on his computer, doing whatever it was. Torrie just watched the stupid show, glancing over every once in a while to make sure he wasn't too annoyed. It didn't look like he was, anyway. After a while, he spoke, with obvious reluctance. "Can you, like, edit out the, uh, graphic details?"
Torrie smiled.
"You're starting to turn the rest of your family into freaks as bad as you."
what the fuck do you mean starting
In the story, Torrie and Aminah were running out of clothes when suddenly the doorbell rang. Not in the story, in real life. Torrie decided after a second that was probably Sammy—which was weird. She'd definitely expected Sammy to just text her to come out. But whatever. Not like it mattered a whole lot. Getting to her feet, she said, "Sorry to interrupt story time, but that's probably her."
"That's fine," Jaydon said, turning to his computer again. "It was starting to get pretty awkward anyway." Torrie was about halfway to the front door when he said, "You coming home tonight?"
Torrie gave him a look—since he was still staring at his laptop, he probably didn't even see it. "I certainly hope not."
He snorted. "Right. Okay then."
For a second she paused with her hand on the doorknob, closed her eyes, took one last breath alone. Then she pulled the door open. Yep, Sammy. Standing there, leaning against the wall, dressed way simpler than Torrie—just black jeans and a red, silky-looking button-down shirt. But, well, Sammy was one of those people who could somehow look unfairly amazing no matter what they're wearing, overcoming the frumpiest of shit with just a smile. Of course, it didn't hurt that, with how the shirt twisted from her leaning posture, Torrie could see just a sliver of skin between two buttons over her stomach, implying she wasn't wearing anything under that. Interesting thought. Face split with one of her omnipresent smiles, Sammy said, "Hey, girl."
jesus fuck she is so fucking sexy shit
"Try to contain yourself at least for a little bit."
"And a hey girl to you too." She stepped out, closing the door behind her. "Let's get going before my brother starts yelling goddammit again."
"Parked on the curb," Sammy said, pointing straight away from the door. But she didn't move. Okay, Sammy, that was completely transparent. She wanted Torrie to go first so she could check her out without being called on it. Completely transparent and completely unnecessary. Whatever. Torrie started walking out, toward a rather ordinary black four door in front of her house, trying not to think too much about what Sammy was thinking right now. After only a couple seconds there was a snort from behind her. "Wow."
Torrie tried not to blush. It was one of those sarcastic, the fuck is this person thinking wows. She turned back to face Sammy, walking backward, trying not to look as annoyed as she felt. "What?"
Smiling to herself, Sammy twirled a finger in the air, telling her to turn around. Well, fine. She turned back, and had only gotten a couple steps closer to the car before she felt what could only be Sammy giving the visible band of her bra a little tug with a single finger.
A thud echoing in her chest, Torrie jolted away, spinning back to face Sammy. She just smiled back, clearly amused with herself. Keeping her voice light and teasing—because she wasn't actually angry, obviously—Torrie said, "Sèláng."
"I can't believe you just did that."
huh what are you talking about
"You pretty much just copied exactly what your mom does when tease-flirting with your mother."
holy shit youre right i did didnt i what the fuck
"Yeah, pretty much."
The voice pointing that out made Torrie realize she'd probably said pervert in Chinese instead of that other language most people around here can actually understand. She was about to awkwardly translate when Sammy, still smiling, just said, "Woof woof." It took her a second to get that—the word she'd used literally meant color-wolf, one of those fun metaphorical words. Right, Sammy spoke Chinese. Forgot. She was too embarrassed by her Mom-copying slip—not that Sammy had any clue she'd done that, but still—to really respond with anything more than an awkward smile.
The inside of Sammy's car was shockingly clean. Like, really. It was weird. Not only was there no garbage anywhere, but it even smelled clean. And not in the fake, covering up the smell with some cleaning supplies way either, but just simply clean-smelling. She really hadn't expected that. Though, she guessed, since Sammy probably hadn't used the thing in a little while anyway, what with it being a winter car and all, maybe she shouldn't really be so surprised.
While driving out toward downtown, she and Sammy talked about, and this should surprise no one, music. And Torrie quickly learned Sammy was way more of a music nerd than she'd thought. There weren't really all that many people Torrie knew who could talk off the top of their head, with complete competence, about anything from pop, to classical, to metal, to jazz. It was kinda weird. She even said her favorite piece of music to play ever, which she did sometimes just sitting at home alone for fun, was Beethoven's thirty-first piano sonata. Torrie couldn't remember which one that was off the top of her head—she never had been all that great at keeping piano music distinct in her head, all sounded the same to her. At a stoplight, starting to get close to the market, Sammy started playing what she claimed was the second movement on an invisible piano—because she's a weirdo, obviously—but even though she was going dun dun dun with the imagined music, Torrie didn't recognize it.
"She is such a nerd."
i know its awesome
Soon they were parked in the lot, in front of the huge, ancient-looking brick building. The thing was, what, eighty-five years old? Something like that. The thing was, like, sixteen floors or something, most of it offices and apartments and shit. Torrie'd never even seen any of that, only ever having come here for the global market on the bottom floor. The place was absolutely ridiculous. The center of the thing was basically a grocery store, though not stuff sold most places around here—a lot of the labels weren't even in English. In a big ring around were all kinds of other shit. Places selling everything from clothes to jewelry to food, originating mostly from Africa, India, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. The place was usually rather packed, the air filled with conversations in various languages. Even the bathroom signs were in five languages—English, Spanish, Arabic, Somali, and Hmong, which together covered most of the immigrant population around here.
Pretty much the instant they passed through the doors, Torrie felt a smooth, warm hand slip into hers. She couldn't help smiling at that. It only took her a couple seconds to decide what was going through Sammy's head. People have hit on Torrie here so many times it was ridiculous, and that was even without dressing, well, the way she was dressed right now. It was pretty hard for her to imagine anyone not being able to pick up on Sammy's incredibly obvious gayness, but Torrie was much more ambiguous—and she wasn't technically gay anyway, so there was that. But, well, being all hand-holdy would definitely send a very certain signal.
Of course, it was also possible Sammy just felt like holding her hand. Which was a good enough reason to be smiling itself.
Talking louder than normal, to force her way over the multi-language babble, Sammy said, "I don't think I've asked, are you allergic to anything?"
Um. Okay. That was a weird question. "Uh, no? Well, penicillin, but I don't think that's really important right now."
Sammy gave her a look. "Are you really allergic to penicillin?" Torrie must have been giving her a look right back, because Sammy added, "It's just, like ninety percent of people who think they're allergic to penicillin actually aren't."
"But, if you are one of those ninety percent, wouldn't you still say you were? Being wrong is kind of the point."
yeah that question wasnt thought out all that well how does she even know that anyway random
"Pretty sure. A long time ago, when I was like eight or nine, I broke my wrist doing something stupid. They gave me antibiotics for some reason, don't remember. Lucky I was in a hospital at the time, cause I went into shock. So, yeah, I am actually allergic to penicillin. Why are you asking, anyway?"
Sammy shrugged a little, the movement of her shoulders tugging a little on Torrie's hand. "Once I was making out with a girl and she suddenly couldn't breathe. She had a peanut allergy I hadn't known about. So, just checking."
tee hee kissed her so hard she almost died
"That's really not something you should be joking about."
cant help it i find it oddly funny
"You are simply a terrible person."
yeah sometimes i guess
"Was she okay?" Torrie could at least pretend to give a shit. Not that she didn't already know the answer—Sammy's voice was light enough she was pretty sure the girl hadn't died or anything.
"Oh, yeah. I was all panicking like an idiot, you know, and she just shoved me away and dove for her purse, stabbed herself with one of those autoinjector things. Then told me to go brush my teeth."
Torrie had to laugh at that. "Went right back to it, I guess."
"Actually, no." Sammy was still smiling, as she usually did, though the expression had turned a little crooked, looking more sardonic. "The epinephrine gave her a really bad headache, and it wasn't getting better. She told me to just go home. Pretty sure she knocked herself out with some Xanax as I was leaving."
Oh. Well. Torrie guessed that could happen when you almost kill someone with your tongue.
"It's probably a good thing you didn't say that out loud."
They wandered around the place at random, swimming in the spices of a dozen countries. It was mostly a blur to Torrie—she hardly realized where in the building they were, which of the stalls they happened to be by. Sammy had tilted their hands a little forward and up, so she could reach down with her free hand. Her fingertips, lightly brushing back and forth across the back of Torrie's hand, were very, very distracting.
Eventually, Sammy stopped them at the most boring place in the building, just some ordinary pasta thing. Well, okay, it wasn't the most boring. There was some really shitty place in the corner that always looked to her to be just really terrible American bullshit, but still. Torrie was pretty sure Sammy'd picked this one because she planned to be kissing her later, and the food here was less potentially offensive than a lot of the other stuff around. Some of the other stalls, the food was so spicy her eyes watered just walking past. Not that she cared—she was pretty sure she'd be willing to eat almost everything that was sold here, but there was no way Sammy could possibly know that. And, well, it was possible Sammy was pickier than her.
She ended up getting the most potentially offensive thing on the menu anyway. She couldn't help it. The second she saw the words habanero and alfredo right next to each other, she lost every ounce of her free will. There was absolutely no way she wasn't getting it. So, well, whoops.
But then they had to wait. Unlike most of the places here, this stall didn't precook stuff, making everything to order. And they weren't even the only people waiting, so it would likely be a few minutes. Torrie tried not to be impatient. Not really because of having to wait, that in itself didn't bother her. But she was starting to feel kinda weird. She wasn't at all used to dressing like this. People kept looking at her. And while she knew they'd probably been doing it the whole time, it was gradually bothering her more. They were kinda out of the way, in a little corner to the side of the stall, but that just gave her fewer things to look at, making the people looking at her more obvious. She really wished these people would cook faster.
After about a minute standing there talking about nothing in particular—Torrie honestly wasn't holding her end up very well, so she wasn't even completely sure what they were talking about—Sammy did something that quite effectively made her stop noticing the people looking at her. A quick slide brought her around in front of Torrie and she, quite suddenly, leaned in to kiss her.
woah okay then
"Are you complaining?"
"Yeah, you're not getting an answer anytime soon."
Considering how completely out of nowhere this was—Sammy'd practically been in the middle of a sentence—she wasn't being nearly as forceful as Torrie would have expected. The kiss was light and slow, just a soft touch on the surface, a stripe of cold hardness marking the ring through her lip. Just with that there were sudden tingles pretty much everywhere. After little more than a second or two, Sammy pulled away, but just barely, only a couple millimeters, close enough Torrie could practically still feel her. And in that second of separation, there was an incredible lurch in her chest. She wanted to be kissing Sammy right now, so badly her fingers were shaking and her chest hurt a little. So she didn't see any reason why she shouldn't be.
"You do realize you're in public right now, don't you?"
"Don't bother. She's not listening."
She stayed light and feathery, just playing on the surface—because in some distant corner of her mind, she did remember there were other people around, and they were probably staring at her even more now. But even just with this, she was already struggling to keep her breath even, could swear the temperature had gone up ten degrees in the last thirty seconds. A minute passed, or at least something much like one. Sammy slowly slid closer up against her, close enough Torrie could feel the heat, the form of her body.
If Torrie were more in command of her thoughts she'd be making fun of herself now. For some ridiculous reason, she felt oddly unsteady, and she wasn't entirely sure she could keep herself standing. She remembered there were some stools nearby, and the closest one should be right behind her. A few slow, tiny steps back, not separating from Sammy a millimeter, and she felt it against the back of her legs. It was at the proper level for her to kind of just prop herself against, a little extra support. It did bring her down a little bit, but Sammy was slightly shorter than her anyway, so now their heights were almost exactly even.
She was supernaturally aware of Sammy's lips against hers, the sharp contrast of metal, the warmth and taste of her breath, her fingers on her neck and cheek, in her hair. Like her nerves were on steroids, working harder than usual. Did steroids do that to nerves? Eh. Her own hands weren't still either, on Sammy's hips, her waist. Jesus fuck, she was so fucking hot it was almost physically painful. It didn't take very long, running her hands up Sammy's back, for her to notice the smooth cloth, giving tantalizing hints of what was hidden beneath, was completely unbroken, bottom to top. Which meant—
Torrie broke a centimeter away, for the first time in what must have been a couple minutes, to hiss breathlessly at Sammy. She'd thought she'd been hot and shaky a minute ago, that odd tightness at the top of her chest nearly painful, unsteady almost to the point of dizziness, but now all that was at least twice as bad. After a second to breathe, she said, "You cheater."
Sammy blinked at her for a second, the motion looking odd and blurry at this close a range. "Huh?"
"You're not wearing a bra." Saying that, even though she'd already known it, sent an odd thrill of tingles across her skin.
Too close to see too well, but she was pretty sure Sammy was smiling at her again. "I usually don't."
Torrie let out a groan, shaking her head slightly. "Cheater."
"Yeah, well, you're not wearing pants."
Despite the tightness in her chest, she managed to laugh a little. "I don't think—"
"Hey, lezzies!" Torrie jumped at the shouted voice, coming from behind Sammy. "Stop making out for two seconds and pick up your food!"
While that wasn't even close to the worst thing the woman could have called them, Torrie was still a little annoyed—as annoyed as she could be through the lust still blurring the outside world, anyway. Sammy, though, didn't seem bothered by it at all. One of her wider grins on her face, she half turned to look back at the stall over her shoulder. Her voice light and casual, she said, "One. Two." Then started turning back to Torrie.
The woman at the stall snorted, the response enough to tell Torrie that first shouted comment had been more out of amusement than anything she should really object to. "Yeah, yeah. Get out of here already."
After checking quick the containers were properly sealed—sometimes when people were busy they didn't get things like this closed proper, sloshing sauces all over—Sammy grabbed the bag, then again started leading Torrie off by the hand. They didn't go to one of the tables scattered around, and neither did they leave. Sammy brought them to a part of the grocery store -like section, a long open fridge littered with dozens of drinks in little bottles. It only took Sammy a couple seconds to pick one, but Torrie hesitated a while, checking out the bottles. It didn't help that some of the labels weren't in English.
Oh, hey. Her slow pacing had brought her up to a section where everything was randomly in Chinese. She was really pretty terrible with reading, hardly even a third grade level, but she was pretty sure that character on one of them was winter. Which meant the contents were probably at least partially dōngguā—she honestly had no idea what it was called in English. She picked up the bottle to look more closely, but she couldn't read half of it. So she tilted the bottle toward Sammy. "Dōngguā?"
Sammy gave her something of an odd look. But after a second, and a short glance at the bottle, she said, "Dōngguā, yǐjí căoméi hē hóngzăo." It took a second for Torrie to translate that in her head—at home, they usually used English for food words, unless it was something like dōngguā, which didn't really exist in English-speaking countries. And it didn't help that Sammy had done some weird tone sandhi thing. But just with that, she knew hóngzăo, since that's really the only thing she knew to call that one. It was a sort of cherry-like thing, and her guess was they'd used that syrup stuff they make out of them sometimes as a sweetener, because that's a thing people do. Mom put it in her coffee sometimes, which Torrie thought was an awful combination. But anyway, after a second of thought she decided căoméi was the word for strawberry. And even then she only remembered because a phrase that literally meant planting strawberries was a kinda funny way to say leaving hickies. Sammy switched to English to say, "And it's soda, you know, carbonated."
"Alright, then." It sounded just complicated enough to be good. Her general philosophy, when it came to juice, was the more different fruits and shit that went into making it, the better. Who wants to drink juice with only one kind of thing in it anyway? So boring.
"Sometimes it still astounds me how weird you are."
come on thats not weird who wants to drink plain juice anyway i mean orange can sometimes be okay if its good juice but most of the time other plain juices are just so fucking shitty i mean apple juice might be the most boring thing in existence obviously
"I'm going to have to take your word on that."
oh right disembodied voice ha ha
After paying for the juices, Sammy surprised her again by, instead of finding a table to sit at, leading her outside. They must be going somewhere else to eat. Which, really, she didn't mind so much—the market was always really crowded. As Torrie settled in the car seat, Sammy reached around to put the food in the back, then pulled out what was obviously a small bag-like cooler of some kind. She wrapped the little plastic bag tighter around the bottles, shoved the whole thing inside. Torrie heard the crunching of ice. Then Sammy zipped it shut, threw it in the back seat, then started the car.
As they started pulling out of the parking lot, Torrie said, "Won't the food get cold?" If they were going far enough to need a cooler for the drinks, that seemed like a reasonable thought.
"Oh, no," Sammy said with a shrug, "we're not going that far. You know Minnehaha Park?"
Torrie had to think about that for a second. "That big WPA park around that waterfall on a creek just off the river?" A lot of people had forgotten this by now, but the Works Progress Association was one of those New Deal things, hiring random people to do all kinds of random projects all across the country. What with all the parks and shit all over the state, Minnesota had quite a lot of them. She was pretty sure she knew this particular park, but she'd been young when she used to go there, and she didn't know the name.
"Is that a WPA project? The one around Minnehaha Falls?"
Oh, hey, sounded like Sammy actually knew what the WPA was. "Pretty sure."
"Ah." Sammy shrugged again. "Then I guess so."
"Isn't that, like, a really big and open place, always crowded with people?" That was a thing a lot of Americans tended to do with their parks, make them all flat and open. Which was boring. She'd rather be under a canopy, personally.
"There is a big part of it that's like that, but I know a spot further down that's all nice and thick. If we're lucky, the leaves should be all kinds of fun colors too."
Oh, that's right, it was fall, wasn't it? She'd hardly even noticed. Some years summer heat manages to hang on through most of September—actually, the end of August and beginning of September is usually the hottest time of the year. She hadn't really felt hot the last couple weeks, and she knew it had to be October by now, so she guessed fall was happening. Leaves should have been changing colors already—not a lot, but some. Really hadn't been paying attention.
"That's almost embarrassingly spacy."
only almost
"Well, you get an almost because it's not like it really matters that much."
"Yeah, really the only thing the seasons matter for, in this century and with your lifestyle, is how warm you have to dress. Why should you keep track of it all that much?"
thats actually a good point i feel less stupid now
"Well, actually, if there's a breeze wherever it is you're going on the creek…"
son of a bitch
The parking lot for the place—actually, there was more than one lot for the single park, but still—was way more full than Torrie would have expected, this late in the year. Maybe people were getting in one last picnic before the cold set in, or maybe just checking out all the colorful leafiness, who knows. Now that Torrie actually thought to look there was quite a lot of orange and red around. Once the car was settled and off, Sammy gathered the food and drink bags, went around to the back of her car. In the trunk was one of those big blankets, judging by the grass and dirt stains one that'd been used a number of times already. After a little bit of awkward shuffling around—when Torrie had offered to carry something, Sammy had just stuck her tongue out at her—Sammy had everything settled, and started leading the way off.
Torrie, having been here plenty of times before—when she'd been in elementary school, they'd lived not far from here—immediately recognized the path Sammy was taking her down. The gravel pointed downstream from the main body of the park, downstream of the falls, running right down the side of the creek. She thought the path might go all the way down to one of those paved paths along the river, but she wasn't entirely sure. Occasionally, the gravel switched to spans of suspended wood, crossing over the creek, or ground simply too unstable to put a solid path on. Unlike the main body of the park, where all the picnic tables and things were, this area was rather thickly wooded, green, yellow, orange, and red blocking out the sky, save a twisting strip of blue visible just over the creek. She'd actually gotten yelled at around here, once—when she'd been eight or nine or something, she'd slipped through a fence and climbed up a really steep hill of crumbling limestone, fenced off specifically so stupid kids wouldn't hurt themselves playing on something so obviously dangerous.
Yeah, she'd probably been a really scary kid to raise sometimes.
"I have two problems with that statement—the word sometimes, and the use of past tense."
ha ha yeah good point
It turned out Sammy's spot was a span of dirt opened between the roots and the rock, just barely off the creek, a short distance off the path. Actually, there were some bushes in the way, making it almost impossible to see from the path. Torrie had a little bit of trouble getting through the bushes, what with her dress and all, but she made it without tearing anything. After Sammy had gotten the blanket laid out, Torrie had hesitated a while on how exactly she should go about sitting down. She would just do what Sammy was doing, sitting down with her legs crossed the way her teachers in elementary school had always insisted on calling Indian style—which had annoyed her even back then. That would be really awkward, what with her dress and all. Eventually she got herself settled with her legs folded kinda awkwardly to one side, which her awesome boots didn't make easier. She probably wouldn't have dressed like this if she'd known there wouldn't be chairs. Oh well.
As Sammy handed her her food and a fork, Torrie asked, "So, how'd you find this spot?"
"I didn't," she said with a little shrug, mixing her food around. "Natasha showed it to me. Sophomore year of high school, I think. How do you know Natasha, anyway? She didn't say."
Oh, awesome, Sammy. Going right to an awkward conversation topic. Great job. Torrie hesitated for a moment, stirring her own food around to get the sauce evenly distributed across the noodles. "Ah, we had dorm rooms on the same floor, first year of college. We kind of used to, uh…"
"Oh, okay." Sammy's face, when Torrie glanced back up at her, was twisted into a crooked smirk. "That's why she was so uncomfortable. Extra-relationship fuckery I'm assuming."
Torrie couldn't help snorting out a little laugh. Using the word fuckery like that was just strangely amusing. "Yeah, how'd you know?"
"She doesn't want to be in an actual relationship with someone who drinks or does drugs or whatever, but she's fine just having sex with them. That's actually why we broke up in the first place."
"Ah."
yeah thats a really awkward thing to tell me
"Don't pretend like you weren't curious."
alright maybe i was both natasha and sammy are completely awesome there is no denying that i figured it was just some personal thing that wasnt really my business and id probably never find out but this explains a lot of natashas relationship stuff actually
"Well, it does explain a lot, but I'm more surprised you never figured that out on your own. She's pretty much said exactly that herself before. That she doesn't date people who do drugs."
oh well maybe but i must not've thought it significant at the time
"It's only why she was never interested in anything too substantial with you."
i was never really that interested either
"Not my point."
whatever
But anyway, back to a conversation she was having. "I didn't actually know you two knew each other until really recently. She's never mentioned you." It was only after Torrie had already said it that she realized that might not have been the most tactful thing to say.
But Sammy just shrugged again. "I asked her not to, after Broken Line started being a thing. From practically the beginning, we had a couple followers who could be a bit, um, odd, and I didn't want them to bother her."
That was certainly true. Torrie had found a few people on the internet saying rather creepy things directed at them—mostly Sammy and Erick, but the boys as well. Which wasn't really all that uncommon. The internet is home to the most disturbing impulses of mankind, unfiltered in a way people don't usually allow themselves to be in person. And, well, people could sometimes be a bit weird with musicians and such. It probably didn't help that Sammy was, as Torrie must have thought to herself a thousand times so far today, really fucking hot.
Torrie honestly wouldn't be able to say even the next day what they'd talked about, sitting there in the park, surrounded by the babble of running water and rustle of fluttering leaves. Just random bullshit, she guessed. Most of it she wouldn't even remember at all. She probably only really remembered three topics.
"So what is the deal with Erica, anyway?" asked Torrie, unfolding and straightening her legs out in front of her with a wince. Sammy had mentioned her in passing, so she'd thought to ask. "Natasha wasn't super clear when I asked."
Sammy had to take a moment to think of how to respond, sipping from her bottle of whatever that was. "The best way to think of them is that they is a single identity with two personalities, if that makes sense. Sometimes you'll be talking to Erica, who's just so ridiculously sweet and cheerful and girly that it's honestly annoying sometimes. And sometimes you'll be talking to Erick, who's more sarcastic and crude, and pretty noisy most of the time. But it's not like they's two different people—they isn't, like, completely separate. Which is the part I think that confuses a lot of people."
The part that was mostly confusing Torrie was how Sammy was using singular verb conjugations with the pronoun they, but whatever. "I can see how that might confuse people who don't know a whole lot about queer stuff."
Her smile a little crooked again, Sammy said, "It confuses a lot of queer people too. Bigendered people aren't exactly all that common, and not all bigendered people are like them. It especially confuses people when they gets in one of their flirty moods." Torrie didn't have to ask the question, Sammy picking up on the meaning of her expression almost instantly. "Erick is one of the biggest flirts I've ever met. Erica is a bit of a tease too, but not nearly as bad as Erick. And they's gynephilic no matter which personality they's in at the time. So, yeah, they's confused a whole lot of people many, many times."
It took Torrie a couple seconds to decide what Sammy meant by gynephilic—Erick/Erica was just interested in women. While biologically female, which gender pronoun was appropriate switched back and forth, so Torrie could see how the usual terms, which referenced the gender of the person in question, wouldn't be exactly appropriate. Erica would be gay, but Erick would be straight. Terminology was weird sometimes. And, well. It wouldn't bother Torrie if she were seeing someone whose gender vacillated like that, but she was bi, which was basically cheating. She could how it could be problematic for people only interested in the one sex. "I guess if you actually care what gender someone is that could be a little awkward to get used to."
"Never really bothered me," Sammy said with a shrug. "But then, they never would have figured all this out if I hadn't been around to talk to about queer stuff. At least not as young as they did."
tee hee queerducation
"I think queersploration would be more appropriate."
"Soqueertic method?"
Torrie actually thought that one was hilarious, so she repeated it out loud for Sammy's benefit. Which got her to laugh, so yay for that.
The second topic was some time after that one, after Torrie asked Sammy how early she'd had to get up to drive up here. "Didn't have to get up early for that. I do actually rent a house down in Northfield with Erick and a few other people in the music and theatre programs. But I have an apartment in Edina I've had since before I started at Carlton, which is where I woke up this morning. But I did have to be up early for a therapy appointment, so."
Torrie forced herself not to ask any therapy-related questions—really wasn't her business. But the comment about Sammy having two places she lived was really too weird for her to ignore. With enough people to split a house with, renting a place like that could get pretty cheap per person. But, well, if she'd had an apartment since before she'd even started school, considering she couldn't be more than a year or two older than Torrie, that was a bit odd. She had to consider how to phrase her question for a few seconds before asking. "How do you afford paying rent for two different places at once like that?"
Sammy, propped up on both elbows next to Torrie lying on her back, hesitated for a moment, her ever-present smile gradually weakening. "Ah, well. I was pretty sure this would come up soon. You're too smart for me to slip it past you for long."
"I seriously doubt that."
shut it
Okay, that was an odd thing to say. "Slip what past me?"
Wow, look at that. Sammy looked legitimately uncomfortable now, avoiding Torrie's eyes, shifting with uncharacteristic awkwardness. "You probably know enough to guess if I just tell you this: my father's name is Samuel Dydd."
Torrie noticed three things in rapid succession. First, that Sammy was apparently named after her father and mother, first and middle name. Second, that that was kind of a weird-sounding name, the vowel in particular a bit unfamiliar. Then she realized she actually knew that name.
And she suddenly had absolutely no idea what to think. "You mean…" Her voice trailed off. She wasn't entirely sure if she wanted an answer or not. By the anxious expression on Sammy's face, Sammy wasn't entirely sure she wanted to tell her. "You mean, the Samuel Dydd who owns Sunrise Records." That was a few decades ago now, some guy coming in and buying up a lot of the smaller record labels and slapping them all together in one name. Torrie mostly only knew about it because Marić had been with Sunrise for like forever.
"Well, uh…" Sammy sighed, still staring down at the blanket. "Technically, since he was legally declared to be permanently mentally incompetent some years ago now, uh, I own Sunrise Records. Technically. And, uh, everything else."
holy shit what is happening
"You're on a date with a rich girl is what's happening."
"Which is kinda funny, since Xuĕ made a joke about exactly this not that long ago."
you guys are totally not helping right now
Torrie had absolutely no idea what to think. Sunrise wasn't, like, an enormous label or anything, nowhere near the level of companies like Universal and Sony or whatever. But it was still a weird thought. Oh, hey, now that she thought about it, Pink, that album Broken Line had put out independently, hadn't been touched by Sunrise, which was an interesting thought. But she had absolutely no idea what to do with this bit of information.
Well, actually, she didn't have all the information yet. "How much?"
Sammy glanced back up at her. "Huh?"
"How much are you worth? Where on the spectrum of rich are we talking about here?"
With a sigh, Sammy let her head fall to rest on her arms, so all Torrie could see was purple, the skin of her neck above only a barely visible strip. "A lot."
"How much is a lot? Donald Trump a lot?"
Sammy snorted. "No, not Donald Trump a lot. I'm not a fucking billionaire."
"Okay."
For a few long seconds, Sammy didn't say anything. Finally, "Right around three hundred million. I don't know exactly."
three hundred—
three—
holy fucking shit what the fuck
"I'll admit I didn't see this coming."
i cant even imagine that much money jesus fuck what do you even do with all that
"Well, if you'd been paying attention, you would have noticed she doesn't do anything with it. Her clothes aren't really expensive, neither would be any of that jewelry all over her face. Her car, while not a piece of shit, isn't really fancy, and is old enough that she definitely got it used. Probably didn't spend more than four thousand on it. I'd guess her motorcycle was probably a little more, but not by a lot. And she's renting a house with a fair number of other people in Northfield, where the property values are way less than up here—I'd guess no more than three hundred a month for that, probably significantly less. She said her apartment is in Edina—apartment, not house—which is one of the more wealthy suburbs, but taking the rest into account, I don't think she'd really pick one that would cost too much more than, say, twelve hundred a month. She's probably just writing checks for her tuition—Carlton without any financial aid is, what, fifty thousand a year?—but other than that, she's not really spending any significant amount of money on anything."
"As far as we can tell with what we know, that is."
"Well, yes, I'll admit that. It's possible there's stuff we just don't know about. But still."
jesus fuck this is just so ridiculous what
Torrie was tempted to ask all kinds of questions. What did Sammy mean she didn't know exactly? If she was so fucking rich, why didn't she live like it? A lot of that was learned behavior, yes, but she had inherited it, so. What the fuck do you even do with three hundred million dollars? But she froze, her lips already pulled to start the question word. It was incredibly obvious—by how Sammy's head was still against her arms like that, by how she hadn't brought it up until now, by how uncomfortable she'd been when she finally had—that Sammy really didn't want to talk about this. So Torrie could just...forget about it. Right? Just. Change the subject, and ignore it for now. She could do that.
"Alright, then."
Sammy looked up at her again, an expression on her face Torrie couldn't quite read. "What?"
"Alright, then," Torrie repeated, shrugging a little. Which was kind of awkward, considering she was lying flat on her back at the moment.
For a couple seconds, Sammy stared at her, looking a bit confused. It almost looked like she was about to ask a question, but then, a smile flickering onto her face, she apparently got the point, and just changed the subject.
"As if you needed another reason to want to not fuck this up."
and you think talking at me is going to make me less likely to fuck up
"Alright, jeez."
The next topic they came to ended up being the last thing they talked about before leaving the park. They had to have been here a while by now, Torrie thought, considering how cold her legs and arms were starting to get. For some reason Torrie really couldn't remember, they'd ended up talking about queer stereotypes. Torrie mentioned the whole lesbian cat-owning thing—though, whether the stereotypical pet was a cat or a dog really varied depending on where you were. But even so, "It's always surprised people that neither of my parents really like animals at all, and we've never had any pets."
Sammy, now lying on her back next to Torrie, shoulders touching, turned a look at her. "Any particular reason why? Like, allergies or anything?"
"Um…" Torrie had to think about that for a second. "Don't think so? I know Jaydon has trouble with dogs, but other than that, I don't think so."
"Ah, okay." Sammy didn't say anything more for a few seconds, but eventually Torrie's raised eyebrow wore her down. "It's nothing, just homework from my therapist, is all."
That was a confusing thing to say. "What kind of homework?"
Sammy shrugged a little. "I'm supposed to be looking into getting a pet. Kinda starting from nothing, so if you were allergic to something, that would give me a good excuse to disqualify some options."
aw wants to make sure her apartment is Torrie-friendly thats kind of adorable
"That's not really what she said."
well yeah if she actually said that it might have been creepy
"You're weird, you know that?"
obviously
"Well, I'm not allergic to anything but penicillin, so far as I know." And some other antibiotics really similar to penicillin—it was technically amoxicillin, not penicillin, that had nearly killed her—but that wasn't really the point. "Why'd she tell you to get a pet?"
And there her smile goes looking a bit self-conscious again. Hmm. "So I don't do anything stupid." Torrie had no idea if she should even ask for further clarification. It wasn't really her business, and it might be an extremely sensitive, private sort of thing Sammy wouldn't want to talk about. But before she could say anything, Sammy said, "This is sort of a secret, haven't told very many people. Just some friends and the Kasuns. So don't tell anyone."
Sammy had mentioned earlier that the Kasuns had been her foster family, after whatever had happened with her father. She did apparently usually go to their place for holidays and stuff, though she didn't use any kinship words for them, just their names. And now Torrie was the one feeling uncomfortable. "No, that's— You don't have to tell me if you don't, you know."
Her grin turning a little crooked, Sammy said, "Nah, I don't mind telling you. Should probably know anyway. The short version is, that overdose last month wasn't on accident."
It took Torrie maybe two seconds to figure out what Sammy was saying. And she had no idea what to think about it.
Sammy had tried to kill herself.
For an absurd second, Torrie didn't really get it. Because, well, Sammy was fucking perfect. Unfairly beautiful, obviously talented—and in more things than Torrie had originally thought, since she apparently did theatre and used to dance—and, surprise of the day, was ridiculously rich, rich enough she wouldn't have to work a day in her life if she didn't want to. For that absurd second, she didn't really get why Sammy would be depressed.
But, well, that was a really stupid thought. People don't necessarily need a reason to be depressed. And even if they did, Sammy probably had reason enough—she had lost both parents and her twin sister after all. But depression doesn't necessarily work that way. There were biological causes of major depressive disorder, which Torrie knew full well. The monoamine hypothesis, for example, the idea that insufficient activity of neurotransmitters—especially serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine—causes all sorts of psychological issues. There are even differences in the physical brain structure of patients with depression. It's just the way their brains work. Neurons don't care if the person they're inside of is pretty, or really good at anything, or financially secure—she'd seen studies saying that once basic needs are met, roughly equivalent to an income of seventy thousand a year, happiness ceases to increase with income. Neurons just don't care.
But she had no idea how to respond to this. She could come out with psychobabble she'd learned from Mother, but that would just be awkward. She could say that she understood, but that would be a lie—even when she'd been at her worst, she'd never intentionally caused herself serious harm. A little, yes, but nothing big. She just had no idea what to say.
So she just said, "Oh."
"I don't—" Sammy let out a long sigh, staring up at the ceiling of leaves. "It's not like I'm actively suicidal or anything. I just—" Sammy broke off again, still staring straight upward. She was silent so long Torrie was pretty sure that was the end of this topic. But she did eventually speak, her voice a bit quieter than a second ago, cautious, as though she were half-sure she shouldn't be saying this. "You know I had a sister?"
This was going to be so much fun. Just an awesome thing to be talking about right now. "Um, yeah. You're identical twins, right?"
Sammy nodded. "She died a long time ago, and for years I could barely stand it. You know, living without her. I'm okay now, though," she said, turning her head to the side to meet Torrie's eyes. "You know, most of the time." She broke eye contact again, looking up. "But, well. It was our birthday. I was home alone—I prefer to be alone on our birthday. And I suddenly realized. Ceinwen has been, been dead for longer than she lived." Sammy was silent for a few seconds, staring up at the leaves, biting her lip. "I don't know. I just couldn't stand the thought. It was too much."
Okay, then. Sammy had tried to kill herself on her birthday.
"It was stupid." She turned back to Torrie, her lips twisted into a self-mocking smile. "I mean, I woke up in the hospital and I was like, Jesus, what the fuck did I do? Sammy, you fucking idiot. But, well. That's the point of the pet. They say people who have something or someone they have to take care of are less likely to let an idiotic impulse like that run away with them. So, yeah."
actually yeah i think i have heard that at some point
"It's pretty common sense when you think about it."
yeah guess so
"Get a cat."
Sammy frowned at her, blinking a few times before she found her voice. "Huh?"
"Get a cat. A girl cat, not a boy cat."
"Why?"
"Well, you know, cats are fuzzy and adorable. And unlike, say, dogs, if you're going to be away from home for a week, like going on a vacation or whatever, they can take care of themselves alone for a while. And a girl cat because, well, boy cats tend to be more active and playful. The girl cat is more likely to, if you're watching TV or reading or writing music or whatever, just walk up into your lap and fall asleep there. That kind of thing." That kind of thing did depend somewhat on breed, and just individual differences animal to animal, but it was at least more likely for a girl cat to be cuddly. As far as Torrie knew, anyway.
"You are so very weird sometimes."
"I do believe she's aware of that by now."
Sammy's usual smile was back, just as warm and confident as always. "Girl cat."
"Girl cat."
"Alright." Sammy tipped over onto her side, sliding right up against Torrie. A second later, Sammy had moved half on top of her, and her lips were on hers. Only lasted for like two seconds before Sammy pulled a short distance away, but even that sent enough of a thrill through Torrie she wasn't actually cold anymore. "Thanks," Sammy whispered down at her.
"What for? You could have just looked all that up on the internet pretty easy."
"Mm, don't mean the cat thing." Before Torrie could even try to say anything, Sammy was kissing her again. Not that she cared.
After that, for some number of minutes Torrie couldn't even make a guess at, they didn't really talk at all. Torrie was having some considerable trouble noticing, remembering anything else. Because Sammy was kissing her, and that's all that really mattered at the moment. The feel of her lips—complete with that contrasting band of metal that she was really starting to like—the taste of her breath, the warmth of her body against her, above her. Her hands in Torrie's hair, on her neck. It barely took seconds, or at least what felt like seconds, before Torrie was reduced to a hot, tingly mess. She was half crumbling, melting under the force of Sammy's heat, how impossibly good she felt. That was a feeling she wasn't exactly familiar with, and it was weird, but she didn't take the effort to think about it.
Because that was only half of it. The other half was way more familiar. The other half was a feeling that seemed to be drawn out from somewhere very low in her stomach, a fury of shuddering power that she never really knew how to describe to herself. It rose into her chest, through all her body, smothering the shaking weakness the other half had created. Her will took a razor focus, a fiery intent that, ever since the voices had started, had made itself known with a repetitive screaming in her head:
"—fuck her fuck her fuck her fuck her fuck HER FUCK HER FUCK HER—"
"You are aware you're in public right now?"
"Don't bother. Not listening."
Eventually, she had absolutely no idea how long, she was yanked out of the haze of heat and sensation. For a moment, she was oddly disoriented, just sat blinking. She noticed she had, at some point, ended up on top of Sammy, though she hardly really remembered that. Sammy, hands on her shoulders, was holding her up off of her, giving her a look that seemed partially surprised, partially amused, and partially breathless. Ha ha, whoops. Torrie planted her own hands against the blanket, relieving Sammy of her weight. "Sorry. Forgot myself there."
Her smile twitching in a crooked smirk, Sammy said, "Believe me, I do not mind. Should probably slow down, though, before we do anything too stupid. People don't come this way very often, but that doesn't mean no one will."
Torrie hesitated for barely a fraction of a second before just saying it. "Or we could just go to your place."
"Shameless. Just shameless."
i still think its weird that theres any part of me as prudish as you
"I really don't think my level of restraint could possibly be considered prudishness by anyone with sense."
well i clearly don't have any sense
"Clearly. Glad we've established this."
And Sammy flinched, her eyes drifting off to the side. Uh-oh. "Dammit. I was afraid I might have to do this."
Feeling herself frown, Torrie said, "Do what?"
"Say no."
Okay. Once again, Sammy went and said something very confusing. She was afraid she would have to say no? Did that mean she didn't want to say no, but had to for some outside reason? Or was Torrie completely missing something? "Uh. I don't mean to be pushy or whatever—" She ignored the voice snorting with laughter in her head. "—but why not?"
With a repeat of the crooked version of her smile, Sammy looked back up at her. "The universe just has the worst sense of timing imaginable."
"Um?"
"I'm on my period, Torrie."
"Oh." Torrie blinked a couple times. "So?"
For a second, Sammy just stared up at her, an eyebrow raised. Then she started snickering, shaking her head to herself. "You really don't give a shit, do you?"
She shrugged a little, saying, "Not really, no."
"You are so completely disgusting sometimes."
vagina blood chunky and delicious
"Oh. My. God."
"I mean," Torrie said, "if it's that big of a deal to you, that's fine. But it really wouldn't bother me."
Her smile making these odd twitches, Sammy shook her head some more. "Well. I can't really get up with you on top of me."
yay victory is mine
"Are you pleased with your slutty self?"
ha ha yis
And, there, a chapter that happened. Their first day/night/whatever together to be concluded in Day 160.
Whenever I actually get to that.
~Wings