Chapter 23Pizza?28 February 2022Something’s in her hair.

  It takes her a second to figure out what exactly it is: the Eevee ears that Gwen had gotten her just a few hours before. Had she really fallen asleep with those on? She could have sworn she took them off before.

  Just like she could have sworn that she hadn’t fallen asleep with a pink shark in her arms, yet there she was. Her shorkie, all soft and snuggly. Her other plushie — Alice, the dollmaker — lies on the floor next to her. She must have fallen out from under the covers at some point.

  “Gwen.” Aoife says softly but insistently.

  “Hmm?” The girl is half-asleep some four metres away from her and pretending to be all innocent, though suspiciously not turning around to face her.

  “I know it was you who did the thing with the ears and the plushies.”

  “Guilty.” Gwen yawns. “But you were so cute snuggled up like that. I just couldn’t resist.”

  Aoife really wants to say that she’s not cute — she objectively isn’t, no matter what Jenny insists about her cheeks or whatever — but it’d just get them stuck in an endless loop of ritual denial, something she’d rather avoid. Gwen had to know that and taken advantage of her tendencies towards avoiding contact if she could.

  “You’re annoying.” She says. It’s the most appropriate response, really.

  Gwen giggles. “I thought you liked annoying?”

  “I’m not sure what gave you that idea.” She sits up in her bed and crosses her legs. Impulsively, she pces her fumo and her shark between them. They’re nice, soft and feel really nice against her now-smooth legs.

  “Well, you and Jenny are like… friends? More, maybe?” Gwen turns around to face her, head still firmly on her pillow. “I’m pretty sure she would think ‘annoying’ is a compliment.”

  Aoife puts her hands in her p and sighs. “I never said that’s a bad thing. It’s what I like about her— she’s never all serious. It’s nice.”

  “What’s wrong with being serious?” Gwen asks, slowly pushing herself up from her bed. It sounds like she’s genuinely interested in the answer as well. Aoife might not feel entirely comfortable opening up to her yet, but Rose told her to try, especially because it’d be good if Gwen, Alice and her all understood each other a bit better. They’d be less likely to accidentally harm the others that way, after all.

  “Well…” She thought about the question, unsure how to come up with a response. It’s not something Rose or Jen had ever asked of her, the three of them having been on the same wave-length almost immediately. Perhaps because Jenny knew plenty about Aoife before bringing her here, and Rose had a big file with tons of information on her, which the sponsors had gathered to make sure she’d be fit for the programme. They understood her in a way that such a vague word loaded with emotion could actually make sense.

  If she wants Gwen to understand she’ll have to expin more about herself, which she never liked to do. It’s awful when people pay attention to her. Because it means she has to be in total and utter control of herself and that she can’t show just how different she is from everyone else. If she doesn’t do so, she just calls attention to herself, and when people pay attention they end up having opinions about her.

  Usually, these opinions require that she change in one way or another. And if there’s one thing that those opinions led to, it’s being serious. She should just give her an example.

  “It’s like when your parents tell you that you really need to get a job. At first they’ll be like, but it’d be good for you. You shrug it off, because you don’t want to deal with that shit right now. They mention that most people of your age have one, and you still don’t care. When they see that they keep raising the stakes, and before you know it you’re ruining the rest of your life if you don’t immediately do exactly what they want. You’re ruining their lives too, because their ‘son’ is such an absolute failure and an embarrassment who is going to be dependent on them forever. And even if you try to appease them it’s never good enough: not enough hours, not the right sector, it doesn’t give you that ‘hard-working spirit’, whatever that means. Which means the whole rant starts all over again.

  “And it’s like that with everything: why don’t you spend more time on school? Why don’t you have friends? Why don’t you leave your room? You really ought to go to therapy, you know, so you can be normal. Your cousin manages to be normal, why don’t you? And it comes alongside that look of deep, intense disapproval. And it’s, Every. Single. Conversation. No matter how much you try to appease them.”

  Aoife closes her eyes and sighs, her head pounding. She can feel the mattress of her bed shift as Gwen climbs onto it and embraces her.

  She really doesn’t want to be hugged.

  “God, you’re crying.” Gwen whispers and takes her hand. “I’m so sorry your parents were like that. You really didn’t deserve that.”

  Aoife knows that her roommate just means well. She knows that Faith and her hug regurly, almost daily, just rexing in the comfort of each other’s presence. It’s something she’s run into time and time again, the two intertwined on a couch in the common area or having a drink downstairs or watching something on TV. Gwen loves hugs.

  Aoife doesn’t.

  “Um, could you please stop touching me?” She asks gently.

  “Fuck. I—” Gwen quickly untangles herself from Aoife, scrambling away to create as much distance between them as possible. She ends up on the floor, eyeing Aoife from the side of her own bed with both immense guilt and some kind of primal fear. “I’m so, so sorry. I really shouldn’t have done that, I—”

  “It’s okay.” Aoife quickly crifies, recognising that she’s dealing with some kind of traumatic response that she really doesn’t know how to alleviate, throwing a vague response at the wall and hoping it works. “I’m not mad at you.”

  At least that seems to have calmed her down a bit. “Did I hurt you?” She asks so softly that Aoife can barely hear it.

  She isn’t sure how to answer that. Objectively, yes. Probably. If discomfort counts as hurt, if remembering her of the way that her mum would hug her against her consent when she was still little counts as hurt. Making her think about the fact that her mum constantly compined about the fact that her child was so unwilling to let her touch it counts, the memory of being told off for being too weird or having the wrong interests until she cried and was comforted by the woman doing it to her counts.

  But Gwen could never have known all that. She’s so scared, teary-eyed and trembling in front of Aoife. The trauma she triggered must have been so much more intense than anything the girl had done to her.

  “It’s fine.” Aoife says. “I’m fine. Just, trauma, okay? Sometimes it’ll just…”

  Gwen nods. “Trauma. I— I should have known, though.”

  “You couldn’t have.” Aoife responds.

  “But I should have asked.” Gwen says. “I’m— I’m not good at asking, still. Sorry. I just do things sometimes. But I should think about things instead, because… because I can afford to.”

  “You probably should have.” Aoife hates that she has to agree with her, risking hurting an already-hurt girl even more. What exactly does she need to hear? “But I forgive you. Because you meant well.”

  “I’ll try to believe you.” Gwen says.

  The two sit in silence for a moment.

  “This is really hard. I need a distraction, I think.” Gwen mumbles. “How about we do something else. We could watch TV. Do you like TV?”

  “You mean their special, limited edition version of Netflix consisting of all the girliest movies you’ve ever seen?” Aoife asks.

  “We could watch the BBC.” She suggests half-heartedly.

  “The BBC? I’m Irish.”

  “That’s as good a reason not to watch as any, I suppose.” Gwen nods. “Faith told me that she hates that the sponsors added the option of following the news for us. Because she got to enjoy life without the news for at least a year and didn’t miss it all. No politics going on, you know? Jenny and Amy were less likely to fight over that kind of nonsense without anything to discuss.”

  Aoife has to ugh a little. “That sounds nice, really.”

  “She still refuses to follow any news other than Nintendo Direct and, like, her favourite rom hackers on Twitter.” Gwen adds. “I wish I could have that. You know, just… not having to worry about anything ever, like she seems to. Spending your life rexing with your friends and engaging in your hobbies.”

  “We could do that too, you know.” Aoife proposes. “What if we just turn on some really dumb shoujo anime? Like, cute girls doing cute things.”

  Gwen looks at her for a moment. “Yeah. I suppose. Let’s do that.”

  ***

  “Oh. That’s a bloody shame.” Jenny says mere milliseconds after opening the door and spotting the girls watching anime. “You two really left us with high expectations when you left us like that, seven hours ago.”

  Had it really been seven hours? Gwen supposes it must have been, given the sun has started to set. They only watched around two or three episodes of the silly little anime they’d picked out after a little discussion. Perhaps they’d slept longer than she thought: she went to bed rather te yesterday and Aoife seemed quite exhausted after just a few hours of birthday-based attention. Surprisingly, she’d fallen asleep barely ten minutes into the first episode.

  “I told you, Jen. It’s too early.” Vivienne joins them in the room and finds a chair to sit down next to Gwen and take her hand.

  “But I was hoping my little Feefee had gotten a girlfriend.” She sighed theatrically.

  “Huh? Girlfriend? Who’s got a girlfriend?” Aoife, not quite yet finished waking up, hazily looks in Jenny’s general direction and yawns. “Did you and Amy finally—”

  “No!” Jenny interrupts. “She’s not my type. I was talking about you two. You gave us such high expectations! It was so cute. You two hugged and then Gwen took your hand and was like, we need to go for a nap. I was hoping that maybe you got all snuggly in bed—”

  “People can just be tired, Jen.” Viv points out.

  “You should let a girl dream.” Jenny pouts.

  Gwen struggles to hide her blush and looks over towards Aoife, who still seems to be as confused as she was before Jenny had made an attempt to expin her theory. She’s not exactly going to expin what happened between them earlier — she was stupid enough to have overstepped Aoife’s boundaries after all — but she hopes it’s obvious that at least one of them isn’t ready for intimacy yet, as much as Gwen wants Aoife to be comfortable around her in that way. Not that such a thing is possible if Gwen keeps being so dangerous to be around. It’s something she should probably tell Viv about, but she’s not going to do so with Aoife and Jenny around.

  She’d rather slightly derail the conversation to save both of them from being shipped too much. “Aoife got all cuddly with her shark instead.”

  “Oh? She liked it that much?” Viv teases her a little.

  Aoife gres at Gwen, struggling to hide her blush. “She snuck it into my arms.”

  “And she kept it there for six hours.” Gwen rests her head on Viv’s shoulders and allows her sponsor to pull her close. “She’s not as innocent as she looks.”

  “Sleeping with her shorkie is pretty innocent.” Jenny softly pokes Aoife, who pouts and looks away, Eevee ears still firmly stuck on her head.

  “What brings you here anyways.” Aoife mumbles, annoyed by the sudden attention and relentless teasing.

  “It’s your birthday, Feefee. That means you get to choose what we have for dinner.” Jenny says.

  “Let Gwen choose.” Aoife shrugs. “I doubt I’ll eat much anyways.”

  “But it’s your birthday.” Jenny insists. “And you’re not going to escape having three meals a day, young dy.”

  “Gwen, what would you like for dinner?”

  Gwen looks to Viv, who smiles and nods to give her permission to take her up on the offer. Maybe she should do something filling, so Aoife gets her calories even when she tries to avoid eating too much? “Uh, like, pizza or something. I guess.”

  “Ugh. But that’s a pain in the ass.” Jenny mumbles.

  “Ordering pizza?” Gwen asks, unsure whether it’s very stupid. Wait, no, of course it’s very stupid. They’re in the middle of a national park. No pizza pce will be delivering to them. “I mean, like, ordering it and someone picking it up.”

  “It’s a thirty minute drive, Gwen.” Jenny shakes her head. “And none of us can drive, anyways. If we want pizza, we’re going to have to make it ourselves. Do you know how many pizzas the AGA can fit? Two. And it’s, like, fifteen minutes each, excluding prep time—”

  “Wait, there’s ten people here and no one can drive?” Aoife asks.

  “Well, I can drive, but I’m not allowed to by our tyrannical overlord.” Jenny shakes her head. “Something to do with drugs and unlit mountain roads.”

  One point for Eira on the common sense counter. “Good on her.” Gwen mumbles. “And surely she can drive?”

  “Oh, she can drive, but she won’t. She doesn’t like leaving the manor during a minor crisis. Alice’s been too much trouble.” She mumbles. “Rose would be able to drive, but she’s never gotten her license back after she got, uh, caught.”

  “She got caught doing what?” Aoife asks, surprised.

  Toxic masculinity, Gwen assumes. It makes sense that she’d have to get her license again after graduating from Dorley Hall.

  “Oh, you know her…” Jenny tried to bullshit her way out of this one. “Things.”

  “So, drugs.” Aoife mumbles. It’s a reasonable conclusion, Gwen knows for a fact that Rose enjoys her psychedelics and has experimented with making her own in one of the sheds in the garden. “How about you, Viv? Surely you can drive.”

  “No.” Viv sighs. “Never bothered learning. No reason to.”

  “What she means is that she grew up in Zone 1.” Jenny crifies.

  “Hampstead is in Zone 2—” Viv tries to correct her.

  “Same thing.” Jenny shrugs. “It’s served by the Metropolitan, Jubilee and both branches of the Northern Line, as well as the North London, West London and Watford DC lines of the Overground, not to mention Thameslink and the GOBLIN if you’re feeling adventurous and are willing to walk, like, a mile. And I know for a fact that your parents worked in the city and that you studied at UCL. That’s a ten minute commute.”

  “And you people said I have autism.” Aoife comments.

  “Like I said, I had no reason to.” Viv smiles. “And active travel is good for you, Jen. That’s why I keep bothering you to join us when we go hiking.”

  “I thought that’s so you can push me down a cliff.” Jenny suggests.

  “Not worth it.” Viv teases. “Rose would break up with me over that.”

  “And no one else can drive?” Gwen asks.

  “Lulu refuses because she tends to get all anxious about it; Faith’s been too poor to have ever learned; Amy’s been too rich to have done so; Alice can but she’s not allowed to leave the manor. I know Aoife’s never had any driving lessons. Besides, they’re all gay. What did you expect? Gays don’t drive. So, Gwen, unless you’re going to be our saving grace I doubt we’ll be able to drive down to the pizza pce and get this done the easy way.” She looks at her expectantly.

  “Uh. No, I can’t.” Gwen shakes her head and blushes.

  “Thought so. You’re poor and gay. It just wasn’t gonna happen.” Jenny sighs. “So that means we need to make our own pizzas. From scratch. You know how much work it is to make that shit from scratch? And all because Gwen here has oh-so-wisely decided that we’re going to have some tasty Italian bread with tomato sauce and cheese and toppings and such.”

  “We can make something else if you want.” Gwen offers.

  “No— We’re going to be making pizza.” Jenny decides, as if she has any authority at all within the manor.

  “I like it. A fun, girly bonding activity.” Vivienne says. “As long as you join us in the kitchen, Jen.”

  “Of course I’ll help out. Viv, when have I ever shirked my responsibilities?”

  ***

  “When you said from scratch,” Gwen says, surprise obvious in her tone. “I didn’t think we had to make the dough as well.”

  Aoife can’t help but stare at everything id out in front of them. None of the ingredients are surprising on their own — flour, yeast, water, sugar, salt and olive oil, as well as some garlic and onion powder — but like Gwen, she’s at a complete loss as to what to do with it all. She’s been learning how to cook for a little over a month, but the rotation system they’ve been using means that this is the seventh time she’s in the kitchen. She’s never baked anything, and now she has to learn how to make dough?

  Viv sees the anxiety of the two newbies and smiles. “Don’t worry. It’s really quite easy. I’ve never been one for baking, so if I can do it, so can you.”

  “I think you might be overestimating us.” Gwen says glumly. “I barely know how a microwave works. They don’t even allow me to go near the AGA yet.”

  “If you know how to reliably heat a ready meal, you have more experience in the kitchen than Amy and Jenny had before they ended up with us.”

  “It’s not my fault that the microwave used magic units rather than watts.” Jenny mumbled, more interested in looking at something on her phone rather than paying attention to Vivienne’s expnation.

  “If we can teach this one how to make an edible, I’m sure we can teach you girls how to make dough. All you two have to do for now is watch me and copy the steps. Easy enough, right?”

  “I suppose.” Aoife responds.

  Vivienne grabs two big bowls and pces them on the kitchen aisle, one in front of herself and one in front of Gwen and Aoife. She carefully fills a measuring cup with water and pours it into the bowl, then adds a bit of sugar and yeast. Aoife takes the cup and fills the bowl with water whilst Gwen adds the sugar and yeast.

  “And now we let it sit for a bit.” Viv says. “There’s going to be a lot of waiting. Just a warning. But luckily we can pass the time by preparing the next steps whilst we do so. Jen, would you grab the scale for us?”

  Jen doesn’t respond, too distracted by what seems to be twitter.

  “Jen.” Viv says a little louder, more insistently. “I don’t know what’s so important that you can’t help out with the meal you insisted we make.”

  “The war, Viv.” She mumbles, as if what she’s referencing is so obvious not to require any further expnation.

  “I’m sure the war can wait thirty minutes whilst we finish making the dough.”

  “Oh, yeah, because that’s how it works. I’ll just tell the generals it’s time for a half-hour pizza truce.” Jenny counters.

  “We need the scale, Jen.” Viv says more insistently.

  Jenny reluctantly puts her phone away and walks to the other side of the kitchen.

  “The war?” Gwen asks, seemingly as confused as Aoife is.

  “Russia invaded Ukraine. Haven’t you been following the news?” Jenny asks as she picks up a kitchen scale and a few small pstic bowls.

  “...No?” Gwen admits. “Didn’t really care enough to.”

  “Well, I do care. My dad’s from Ukraine and moved here after the colpse of the Soviet Union. Some of my family still lives there. My trans cousin — who’s really hot, by the way — is from Lviv.” Jenny expins. “She volunteered for the army when the war started. And because these tyrants won’t let me talk to her, because I’m supposed to be dead or whatever, I’ve had to do the second best thing to sort of keep up with what’s happening: OSInt Twitter.”

  “OSInt?” Aoife asks, feeling even more confused than before.

  “Open Source Intelligence! It’s, like, autists in Telegram chats finding clips of tanks getting blown up.”

  “Right.” Aoife nods. She’s not the least bit surprised Jenny is into this kind of thing. None of Jenny’s interests have particurly surprised her since the time she spent some forty minutes trying to expin English local government to her, including the legal difference between a borough council in London and a borough council elsewhere. Totally different, she insisted.

  “So,” Viv takes control of the situation again, filling one of the pstic bowls with flour and adding the garlic and onion powders, weighing it to make sure she’s getting the proportions right. “We like to do a little extra than is absolutely necessary. We could just throw some flour into the water in a few minutes, but by doing it like this we enhance the fvour just a bit.”

  The two copy Viv’s moves yet again. She takes a quick look at the water and confirms they’re ready to add everything, does so, then follows it up with salt and olive oil. Rather than allowing the girls to fiddle around with the mixer, Vivienne did it for them, ensuring that they had actual dough to use in the next step rather than some flour-like substance scattered everywhere except where it’s supposed to be.

  “Right, Jenny, could you show the girls how to knead whilst I make the rounds to get everyone’s preferences for toppings?” Vivienne asks.

  Aoife isn’t at all surprised to see her sister leaning against the wall in the corner of the kitchen, phone in her hands.

  “One sec.” Jenny says. “I’m watching a video.”

  “Oh?” Viv acts like she’s surprised. “Feel free to show me.”

  Jenny walks over and shows Vivienne the video. She watches intently for a second, then takes the girl’s phone out of her hands, turns it off, and drops it into one of her own pockets.

  “I’ll be back in ten minutes or so.” Viv says. “I expect you’ll be done by the time I return. Now, chop chop. I don’t want to see you dawdling when I’m back.”

  It takes a minute for Jenny to go from a mildly surprised face, to an embarrassed one and finally to a pouty one before doing what she was asked to do.

  ***

  Amy passes through the kitchen with punk music bsting through her earphones. She’s very intent on getting through a crowd of girls that she hopes is too busy making pizza to bother her. Gwen’s all too happy to let her get on with her day. Sadly for her, Jenny’s looking for an excuse to do anything other than preparing the food so it can go into the oven of the AGA.

  "Hey, you won't get away from me this quickly, Missy." She vaguely blocks Amy before she can run off with a can of monster energy.

  "I can, actually." Amy says, walking past Jenny rather easily, if one doesn't notice her breasts brushing against the woman's shoulder.

  Jen grabs her arm. "Girl. You can't walk in here like that and not have me do a welfare check on you. Besides, that’s my monster energy. I won’t let you have it unless you tell me.”

  "I can, actually." She repeats. “And it’s my monster now. I took it. That’s how it works. You’re all on board with the ideology of finders keepers, so you shouldn’t think you have a right to compin, because you don’t.”

  “I thought Eira said you’re not allowed energy drinks anymore.” Jenny says. “You get all aggressive and impulsive on them. Especially when you’re already emotional and such.”

  “I’m not emotional.” She insists. “I just need that sugar rush, okay?”

  Jenny, for her part, just gives her the most doubting stare possible.

  Gwen finishes preparing Faith’s pizza. Her sister had requested something spicy and vegan, leaving her to improvise and sprinkle a semi-random collection of veggies with a slight coating of spicy oil and japenos on a basis of tomato sauce and vegan cheese.

  "Okay." Amy sighs before turning her music down. "I'm fine. Just need to rex.”

  "Are you fine or are you 'fine'?" Jen asks. She forgot to pretend she hates Amy.

  "I'll be fine once I sleep." She shrugs. "Just need to clear my mind. Deal with this headache. Spend some time in the loving arms of a lesbian. Maybe DM Amber and take her up on her offer of a girly road trip so I’m not dealing with, like, manor bullshit. I would go smoke some weed to clear my mind but someone's emptied my stash again."

  "Guilty." Jenny ughs. “It was really good.”

  "Of course it was." Amy shakes her head. "How do you even get in there?"

  "It’s Ay trade secret, I'm afraid."

  “Right. You tricked Alice into letting you in.” Amy sighs. “I’m going to hang out with Faith until we get pizza and presumably pass out. Yes, we’ll be cuddling. No, you’re not invited, thief. And don’t you dare try to wake me up. I need the rest.”

  "You're gonna have a monster energy and then sleep?" Jenny asks her skeptically.

  "Watch me. It’s monster energy, Jen. It turns you into a monster. I’ll become a sleepy monster. I'll be snoozing for, like, a month, because I’m a vampire or something." Amy opens the can of monster energy.

  "Vampire? Me stealing your weed was so bad you died?" Jenny grins.

  “Yes. I was just that heartbroken.” Amy shakes her head. “You can just ask Rose for more, you know. You don’t have to steal mine all the time.”

  "I tried, but she told me that I smoke too much already." Jen pouts.

  "Then you should probably listen to her, silly. She’s not exactly illiberal on the subject. She got you psychedelics and such. And I know for a fact she gets you more than she gets Fey or me.” Amy boops her on the nose.

  Jenny doesn't even try to come up with an answer to that suggestion, shifting the topic after an awkward pause.

  Gwen uses the fact that Jenny is distracted with her definitely-not-girlfriend to finish Amy’s pizza. Viv had said that Jen has a tendency to have a little fun with Amy’s meals, adding an excess of spices or sneaking in odd, inappropriate ingredients, like pineapple.

  "So you'll really be fine? You promise? I don’t have to, like, make breakfast for you tomorrow? I’ll bring it to you in bed if I need to.” Jenny offers.

  "Yes. I'll take some meds and sleep it off. I gotta be all excited tomorrow. It's March tomorrow. Spring. I can't ruin the vibe.”

  "I'm not sure sleeping like a vampire will fix this, Amy. So you better make sure you sleep in your underwear unless you want me to see your tits, because you’re going to get a lovely brekkie delivered whether you like it or not.”

  Amy takes another rge chug from her energy drink. "I can be a different kind of sleepy monster. Like a zombie. Or a, uh, princess. That’s a monster, I think. I'll get all dressed up and everything.”

  “I thought you’d already been your mum’s little princess?” Jenny grins.

  Amy frowns and Jenny seems to realise she’s pushed it a little too far. “Guess it’ll be vampire or zombie, then. Maybe I’ll do zombie. Don’t need all this brain nonsense anyways. I mean, you manage.”

  Gwen watches Aoife put the two pizzas into the oven. She’s still not quite sure why Aoife is allowed to use the AGA and she isn’t, though she assumes it has to do with her tendency to be rather more clumsy than is safe with such hot surfaces.

  "I'd prefer zombie, I think." Jenny ughs. "Higher chance of a nip slip."

  Amy rolls her eyes. "You just want to go to my bedroom and bring me and Fey something nice to eat in the morning so you can see tits, brat.”

  "And see you drink your totally-not-blood strawberry milk like you do every morning, ms. Vampire. Or zombie, I guess. I feel like Fey’d enjoy the former more, though. She rather enjoyed watching Buffy, after all.”

  "No. That’s not a vampire thing— that’s a princess thing.” She notes. "The strawberry milk helps when my tummy gets all upset, okay? When I have too much fat, spicy food, caffeine, or sugar.”

  "So you’re having pizza and monster?” Jenny pokes Amy in the stomach.

  "It’s fine as long as I have my little strawberry milky, okay?” Amy finishes her drink and drops the can into the nearest rubbish bin. “Some people just have a sensitive tum tum.”

  “That’s fucking pathetic, Ayms.” Jenny boops her on the nose. “Adorable, too.”

  “Stop touching me. Your hands are all flour-ey.” Amy says teasingly, poking Jenny’s chest.

  Jenny pulls on Amy’s cheek. “No, I don’t think I will. It’s too much fun.”

  “Ugh. Fine.” Amy pins Jenny against the wall. She fully leverages the two inches she has over her friend, pressing her legs against Jenny’s to make sure she’s unable to resist. “You want to do it like this?”

  “Girls? Do you really need to do this in front of the first years?” Viv asks, slightly amused. “Besides, that one should be making pizza.”

  Killjoy. Gwen’s kind of enjoying the show, actually.

  “Yeah, Amy.” Jenny squirms a little to try to get free. “I’ve got work to do. Unlike Eira’s favourite little—”

  Amy kisses Jenny on the lips, presumably to shut her up. The brat sags a bit at first, giving in to her defeat, but then leans into it. But rather than giving Jenny the make-out session she wants, Amy uses her position to linger just out of her friend’s range and stare at her. “Beggars don’t get to be choosers, Jen.”

  “You’re the st one who should be talking about beggars, posh girl.”

  Amy ughs. “You should just ask me if you want me to fuck you this badly, you little shit.”

  “But that’s no fun.” Jenny pouts.

  “Oh, I know you prefer doing it like this.” Amy kisses Jenny on the lips again, staring into her eyes like there’s nothing else in the world for her to pay attention to. “But I would like you to ask me. And then when I tell you that I’m not interested — we’re just friends, after all, or so you say — I want you to beg for it.”

  “I wouldn’t.” Jenny says as confidently as she can, which happens to be not very.

  “Oh, but you would.” Amy leans forward, falling deeper and deeper into a role she’s clearly all too happy to fulfill. “Because you being so annoying around me is just begging for attention, isn’t it? Or do you think I was such a stupid dyke that I wouldn’t notice?”

  Jenny rolls her eyes. “You’re the one who likes to get on her hands and knees and grovel at someone’s feet. Not me. I have standards.”

  “And I’ll have fun making you throw away each and every single one.” Amy kisses Jenny on the lips. “I’m going to make you regret demanding my attention in such a desperate, self-denying, pathetic way like this. And it’s just what you want, isn’t it? Being reduced to nothing but a whimpering retarded little tranny k—”

  “Amy!” Vivienne shouts from the other side of the room. “You will stop that immediately. You know you shouldn’t be using those terms.”

  Amy freezes for a second, needing a bit of time to ground herself after being suddenly and rather publicly told off. She looks around, deeply embarrassed, whispers an apology so softly that almost no one could hear and runs away before anyone else could say something about what just transpired.