Chapter 4 #3
Lou slams her hand on the table, her expression somewhere between surprise and hilarity, exclaiming: “But Rita, we’re lesbians!
” like it’s Rita’s fault they’re there. “Well, except...” She nods at Charlotte and has the decency to look apologetic.
This causes another burst of laughter from the group.
Charlotte’s face flares up like a lighthouse, she doesn’t know where to look. Her eyes land on the woman in front of her, who is pressing her lips together in a herculean effort not to make eye contact. Oh. So everyone is fucking in on it.
“Well, in that case the lovely lady in the corner could teach you all a thing or two,” Rita says kindly. “Let’s all help ourselves to some clay. I’ve prepared them for you over here.”
As everybody gets up, Charlotte realizes she is back to square one with Riley, and her mood drops to match the outside temperature.
When she sits back down and Riley reclaims the seat across from her, Charlotte places her elbows on the table, puts her palms together, interlaces her fingers, and calmly states: “I am going to kill you, and then I’m going to resurrect you, and then I’m going to kill you again.”
She can see Riley having an inner debate about whether or not to reply, but she can’t seem to help herself and finally looks up at Charlotte for the first time.
“Relax. I just didn’t want you to have an unfair advantage.”
Charlotte narrows her eyes at her, but Riley mistakes her anger for confusion. “You know, because of the peni—”
“Yeah, because of the penises. Har-dee-fucking-har.”
“They do call me lesbian Jesus, you know. So that resurrection shouldn’t be a problem at all.”
“Ladies? Are we paying attention?” Rita calls out to them, making both women scowl and turn away from each other like moody teenagers.
During Rita’s instruction, Charlotte appreciates the multifunctionality of the lump of clay in front of her, as she can pretend it’s Riley’s neck while she squeezes and molds it.
When Gabi registers the way Charlotte is going to town on the clay, she looks to the side and dryly asks: “You good?”
Before Charlotte can answer, Riley pipes up: “Oh, let her. It’s probably good she gets it out of her system.”
It sounds friendly, but Charlotte senses something’s off. She can’t quite place why it sounds so familiar.
Around her, the first phallic shapes start to form, and there are multiple rounds of laughter as the women point out each other’s shapes and sizes.
“Now, just let your fantasies roam freely. There’s no need to stick to your own preference! If you even have one, that is,” Rita cheekily motivates them.
“I guess you do, if your romantic preference excludes women,” Riley mumbles under her breath, suddenly closely invested in refining the tip of her sculpture.
This time, Charlotte recognizes her own words, and she whips her head up like Riley has just slapped her in the face.
She wants the other woman to look at her so she can read the warning in her eyes, but Riley turns to Lou and points.
“Yours has balls?!” she shrieks. Multiple people look up and snicker at Lou’s expression.
“Hey! Don’t make fun of him, he gets really shy,” Lou says defensively, shielding the balls from eyesight. Then she notices Riley’s sculpture, and starts laughing again.
“Why is yours so tiny?!”
Riley takes her clay covered hands off of it, pushes her palms to the edge of the table and leans back, studying it from a distance.
“Is it?”
Charlotte can’t stop herself after sucking in air through her teeth. “I’m surprised you actually know what a penis looks like,” she quips, satisfied with the way that situation presented itself.
But Riley is fast. “That’s funny. I don’t actually need something to go inside my body to know what it looks like.”
Charlotte scrunches her nose while giving her sculpture an extra firm squeeze. She can sense Lou and Gabi exchanging a glance, no doubt having a silent conversation about the two of them. She ignores it, because Riley is winding her up again and she will not allow her to have the last word.
“At least there are no uncertainties about your size preference,” Riley adds when she looks around and notices Charlotte is actually working on the largest specimen of them all.
“At least I’m getting some,” Charlotte fires back. Quickly doing the math in her head, over the last few years she’d gotten exactly—none, but no one needs to know that.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“Can you two stop bickering for like, one second?” Gabi interrupts before Charlotte can jump in. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not necessary to make it everybody’s problem.”
The two women look at each other, once again unhappy about being told off. They silently agree to suck it up and turn towards their own sculptures.
That lasts for about an entire minute, until Charlotte loses the battle with her own self-control and tightens her jaw.
“Just so you know: my sleeping arrangements are none of your fucking business.” She invigorates her words by jabbing a pee hole in the tip of her clay penis with the back end of a scraper.
Ignoring Gabi’s frustrated groan, Riley reaches out over the table to put her hand compassionately on Charlotte’s forearm.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. There is nothing wrong with what you are. I don’t think any less of you.”
Scraper still in hand, Charlotte starts trembling. She has half a mind to scoop the other woman’s eyes out with it. “You—”
“No really, I have no judgment whatsoever.”
Charlotte loses it and is about to jump up when Gabi, who knows her and sees it coming, grabs her by the back of her sweater and forces her back down, just before everyone in the room realizes something’s going on.
“Sit,” she commands.
“Woof,” Charlotte retorts.
“What the hell is going on? I thought you two talked things out?” Gabi wants to know.
Riley’s eyebrows shoot up all the way to her hairline. “We talked things out?” She crosses her arms and looks at Charlotte challengingly. “What exactly did we have to talk about? And to what final conclusion did we come? Just remind me please, because I don’t think I was there for it.”
Charlotte mimics Riley’s posture, their sculptures now forgotten.
“The… incident that happened last month,” she hisses through her teeth. “Has been taken care of, per my last text message.” She hopes it’s clear enough for Riley to understand, and vague enough to leave Lou and Gabi in the dark.
“Right…” Riley draws out the word, as if she’s slowly starting to understand. “Right.” She nods, then shakes her head and looks away.
Wait; is that hurt? No, she’s not dealing with that right now, she has to move on quickly.
“It doesn’t matter, really,” Charlotte tries to dismiss the situation with a wave of her hand. “It’s all water under the bridge.”
Riley scoffs. “The water under your bridge is denial, which happens to be a river in Egypt.”
Charlotte’s world stops spinning as Lou lets out a low, impressed whistle, accompanied by Gabi’s drawn out “dang”.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?!” Charlotte accuses Gabi, but before she can respond they’re all shaken up by Riley getting out of her seat and leaving the room.
As Lou excuses herself to go after her, Gabi says: “I’m sorry, but she won that one.”
“I don’t wanna hear it,” Charlotte says, holding up a defensive hand.
“But I do. What the hell is ‘the incident’ you keep talking about?”
Realizing she’s not getting away with it this time, Charlotte decides to throw all her cards on the table, just to get it over with.
“Fine. Yes, you were right. We kissed. I texted her to let her know it was a one time thing, obviously, and now she’s like this. She can’t stand being rejected.”
Gabi laughs derisively. “I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it. For you to have pissed off Riley this bad? There’s more to this.”
“There really isn’t, she’s playing the damn victim! It’s not my fault she can’t deal with the honesty in my text—”
“Charlie.” Gabi’s dont fuck with me-stare is back, and she holds up her hand. Well, shit. “Charlotte. The text message please.”
She rolls her eyes and takes her phone out of her back pocket, placing it in Gabi’s empty hand. “Go nuts.”
“Code?”
“1234.”
“You’re a walking catastrophe.”
“Fuck you.”
A long moment of silence follows while Gabi pulls up the text and reads it.
Her eyes skim over the words as a cloud of disappointment casts over her face.
She doesn’t even say anything when she puts the phone down on the table and presses her palms into her eyes, needing a moment to find the right words to cuss out her friend.
“Final verdict?” Charlotte asks impatiently, expecting Gabi to confirm that Riley had been overreacting.
Gabi takes Charlotte’s sculpted penis off the table and points it at her.
“You are an ignorant dick and you totally had this coming.”