When I saw her that Sunday morning, I felt strange as if I swallowed something slimy, a toad maybe. She wasn't beautiful. She was a typical Goth with straight, black hair that came down to her broad cheeks. Her eyes were cloudy. Her figure were hidden beneath a large, black sweatshirt. But yet, there was something about her. I didn't feel conscious of how crappy I looked since I slept in yesterday's clothes, woke up extra early with a plan to write poetry, went out without changing or brushing my hair, just sprayed myself a couple of times with my detangler hairspray that I often used as perfume. But something about her told me she didn't give a shit. "Thank you," I said accepting the change.
"You're welcome," she said.
Two streets past, I heard pounding footsteps beneath me. Turning around, I saw her holding my wallet.
"You left this," she said, slowing down to a walk.
"Oh. I'm so sorry. I'm so stupid." I accepted the wallet and blushed. "Thanks so much."
"You're welcome," she said the same as previous. "I'm Chandra."
"I'm Jessica," I told her and didn't feel awkward at all.
We shook hands with our smiles.
"So do you want to have dinner with me sometime?" she said.
"Uh..." Now I felt awkward. I wasn't a lesbian.Was she implying a date or a friendship dinner.
"A movie?" She made a facial expression that was so cute, it almost broke my heart.
"Saturday?"
"Yeah," she agreed. " Here's my number." She gave me a corner of a brown paper bag.
I wondered if she knew this was going to happen or she often carried pieces with her numbers on them. "Thanks."
"Call me." She smiled again and turned around, shuffling back to the school's deli.
I placed the number in a very safe compartment of my wallet and continued on my walk across campus to my friend's.
That night, I called her and didn't feel awkward like I did whenever guys gave me numbers and told me to call them. With them, it always felt like a booty call. This time, I just wanted to hear her voice and suspected the same from her. "Hello?"
"Hi. It's Jessica."
"Hey. Want to go see Happy Feet? I heard it's a great movie."
"Sure." I trusted her judgement even though I had never been fond of penguins.
We talked about the time, perhaps sneaking dinner into the theatre.
"Are you straight?"
"Uh...yea."
"How come?"
"Uh...I don't know, I guess because I always thought that...while girls are beautiful, more than guys, right, it's just that...underneath the beauty, I think they're all just whiny and bitchy and I'm whiny and bitchy enough so it's probably not a good idea to...you know?"
"I guess."
Then we switched to the topic about animals and how we were killing them by masses for our own selfish interests. Then we talked about having black hair and how it was so much better than being blondes. On Saturday, we met in the center of the campus. She was wearing all black. She told me I looked nice and I told her I liked her eyes. We talked like we were friends forever, about childhood, when we lost our innocence, our view on men and the ozone layer. Our arms touched as we sat through the movie with sandwiches in our laps.
Afterwards as we walked back, she stopped and I did too. She leaned into me and our lips touched and everything within me fluttered. "My dorm room?" she said, lips brushing against mine some more.
"Sure." I was lost in her eyes. She smelled like soap, so much better than Axe or any other insufferable, nose twitching cologne.
In her single room that smelled overwhelmingly like ramens, she took off her clothes. I felt more alive than with any guy from the past. Underneath her on the bed, I shivered as if cold, my hands on the cotton sheets as her hot lips made love to my skin an inch at a time. Her eyes glowed at me like from a separate universe. A universe where it was cold and hot at the same time, comfortable but yet exciting, calm yet passionate, red yet blue. I murmured excuses, my chest rising with urgency. She told me the more I created excuses in my head, the more she knew I wanted it. I came within minutes and I felt like I was released from bonds I never knew was there. I floated around her room, warmth dripping down my thighs. Her warm breath on my cheeks, her body next to me. For the first time since I was sixteen, I didn't feel like I was being fucked, it felt like we made love. She lifted her head over mine and gave me a butterfly kiss and it was more erotic than what we did previously.
"Hey! Hey you! Hey girl!"
I turned around before crossing the street and saw the girl waving something at me. She was out of breath when she stopped in front of me. She tossed me my wallet. "What are you fucking deaf?"
"Ah. Sorry." I tried to look into her eyes but she was focused on something else behind my shoulder.
She turned around and left, quickly becoming a blur. I stood frozen on the sidewalk, blinking my eyelashes alone without a hand.
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