Lessons In Lesbianism - 11 (Patreon)

Discovery

Going for ice cream first thing in the morning was, obviously, not the best plan. So they both agreed to postpone it until after the classes were over for the day.

Which did leave Olivia full of confused and stressed energy as she strolled into her stage Voice and Projection class. She was tired, and so felt worried she was dipping into a lower register than normal. It would not do to be notably deeper than the stage-boys. At least as much as she could avoid it.

Sure, it was true that there was usually an overlap between voice registers in stage-boys and stage-maidens and she wasn’t the only one with a deeper voice than most of the stabe-boys, but… still. She couldn’t help being self conscious. She was certain her deepest was much too deep. Surely out of the range of a cis girl.

“Sorry I keep messing up,” she muttered to her partner for the morning.

“You do seem a little out of it,” Meghan (her partner for the exercise) whispered, after a few minutes of running through their practice lines.

And of Olivia messing up more than she usually did.

“Sorry. Sorry. My family dragged me home for Thanksgiving,” she mumbled as a reply.

“Ah. Long drive?”

“Long flight,” Olivia replied. “I’m from Ontario, remember?”

“Oh. Oh yeah. That—ew,” Meghan said, making a face. “Well, come on, I’ll run you through the steps again, from the top.”

“Thank you.”

-

History class went quickly, but was also close enough after Voice and Projection that Olivia didn’t have time for lunch. Which led to a further delay on the idea of having ice cream with Kala to celebrate finally smartening up.

As the class went on, and Olivia slowly became more awake than she had been, she swore her classmates were whispering about something. Rumours and gossip, which she was fairly used to at this point. Only… the looks the other girls were giving her seemed compassionate rather than judgemental for a change. Or, if not compassionate, then maybe pitying?

No one was coming up to talk to her about whatever it was, though. So she didn’t really know what to do but to try to ignore them. Well, that and be a little confused.

At least the history teacher’s lecture gave her a good distraction.

-

With Improv class finished she was finally free. Laying on her bed in the dorm room was such a nice break for a few minutes. She ignored her laptop, even though it was time for one of her usual chats with Carl. Instead, she decided to wait for Kala in the ground floor common room.

A couple of older stage-boys were also there, the short haired women watching a CFL game. A London (Ontario) vs Halifax game that Olivia found herself paying a little bit of attention to. Berlin still didn’t have a CFL team, after all, so London was the clear ‘home team’ choice for Stratfordians when it came to football.

Though it wasn’t just the game getting her focus. One of the third years watching the game was about an inch taller than Olivia was, with a build not too dissimilar to Eliza’s (less chesty, but similarly softly muscular). Olivia had seen her around a few times before, but she’d not really spent time with her, and hadn’t realised quite how… distracting she was to be around.

Not as overwhelmingly as Eliza’s presence, but all the same.

Olivia was very glad when Kala walked into the pod, allowing her to scramble away from the tv area before the third year woman noticed how much Olivia’s eyes were drifting. Or, at least, before Olivia noticed the other woman noticing her eyes were drifting.

To make matters even better, Eliza was walking in with Kala, as well as a few other freshmen stage-boys. Eliza seemed oddly muted and downtrodden, though, which was strange for her. She was normally wearing some sort of cheerful smile. Even if they sometimes seemed a bit vapid. (Which was cute in Olivia’s opinion.)

“Hey!” Olivia said, hurrying over to the others. “How is everyone?”

“Alright, I think?” Laura said, having been beside Kala. “Annoyed the long weekend is over, I guess.”

“Mhm,” Eliza mumbled, not really making eye contact and making Olivia feel mildly concerned.

Olivia followed the rest of them upstairs, mostly listening to light conversations between the others. Kala popped into the room to drop off her bags, while the others headed off to their own rooms. Eliza, however, lingered in the hallway. A half formed word floated on her mouth, though she couldn’t seem to work out where to go with it.

“Are you ok?” Olivia asked. “You got a bit… absent over the weekend.”

Eliza blushed and gave a small nod. “I’m, uh… I’m ok. How about you? Was the family good?”

“Ehh,” Olivia muttered, making a bit of a face. “Mostly worse than I remembered. It smartened me up, though… I, um… I split up with my boyfrien—ex-boyfriend.”

That made Eliza’s eyes light up, the smile actually reaching them. “Oh! That’s—that’s good news! I—”

The taller woman seemed to stumble, looking like she’d just remembered something. What, precisely, Olivia couldn’t begin to guess.

“Ah, telling each other what you got up to this weekend?” Kala asked in a surprisingly cold tone, stepping out of our room.

“Well, halfway. She told me what she did,” Eliza replied.

“Um… are you free now?” Olivia asked her. “Kala and I were heading out to celebrate my new single status with some ice cream.”

“I—that… no. Sorry,” Eliza mumbled, shoulders slumping.

Kala gave her a look that Olivia couldn’t read, but Eliza apparently could. And it seemed to hurt her to receive it.

“Very sorry,” Eliza muttered, before heading back off to her room.

Blinking, Olivia turned to Kala as they both walked down the stairs. “What was that about?”

“Its—let’s just celebrate your good news tonight and worry about Eliza’s mistakes tomorrow, shall we?”

“Mistakes? What mistakes?” Olivia asked.

“Do you not want to celebrate your finally smartening up? Does foolishness deserve to triumph so absolutely over wisdom and intellect?” Kala replied, going a bit poetic on her.

“Alright… I guess I’ll celebrate wisdom with a side of ignorance,” Olivia muttered, making a face.

Kala, however, did not rise to the prodding, and simply led the way to the cafeteria, full of joyous praise for the invention of ice cream. Once there, Olivia made sure to get some real food on her tray before visiting the sundae bar. She then loaded up on everything that had caught her eye before, but that she’d avoided. Whether she was genuinely celebrating or, in fact, trying to recover from emotional pain, she didn’t know for sure. But she wanted sugar and comfort food.

Which probably explained why she’d gotten mac’n’cheese as part of her dinner.

“You got a salad? Really?” Kala asked, catching up to her.

“What? I need some sort of vegetables with this meal.”

Kala shook her head slightly but smiled as she served herself a small sundae from the smorgasboard of options.

They then found a table where they sat, enjoyed their meal, and talked happily about pointless nonsense. Or, at least, mostly pointless nonsense. Eventually the conversation drifted to bottom surgery and what to expect. Both from the process and how it helped with dysphoria.

“It really does make things seem better,” Kala half whispered, as they’d both felt self conscious about discussing such things too loudly in a public area. “Though… it has left me feeling more self conscious about my chest. Since that’s the main thing left to be annoyed about now.”

Olivia gave a small nod, before glancing down at her own chest. “Thankfully I seem to have decent genes there… I mean, I wouldn’t mind another cup or two, but I think I’m comfortable with what’s there?”

“Lucky you,” Kala said with a laugh. “Some of us are firmly in the itty bitty titty committee.”

“At least the costuming department here should like you? At least compared to Eliza. I’ve heard rumours they’re dreading having to figure out how to disguise her… uh, assets,” Olivia replied, before finding herself blushing at the conversation topic.

“Mhm, you’ve definitely studied the problem, haven’t you?” Kala teased.

“What? I… well… obviously there’s got to be some envy there, right?”

“Ahh. Envy.”

Before Olivia could ask about the sarcastic tone, Kala decided to move the topic away from Eliza. They continued gabbing happily when they returned to their room, Olivia feeling more over Carl than she’d realised possible.

It was all very nice until dinner ended and Olivia had to work on her homework.

-

The next morning, Olivia was thrilled to see Eliza waiting for her in the pod hallway, also dressed in her dance class leotard. Continuing her habit of not making Olivia walk across the campus in hers alone.

“I was beginning to think I’d done something to upset you,” Olivia said, smiling.

“You didn’t do anything,” Eliza said, offering an awkward sort of grin.

Olivia smiled and started heading down the stairs with Eliza. By this point she had gotten used to seeing the taller woman in her dance leotard, even if it was still a very different look from her normal fashion sense. And, as they walked towards the dance studio together, Olivia found herself wondering if maybe she did like the view. Even with it being a reminder that Eliza wasn’t actually an impossibly handsome guy.

Or because it reminded her Eliza wasn’t a guy.

But that still left her feeling bubbles of confusion, thinking back to what her psychiatrist had said. If being attracted to guys, as she’d ‘proven’ by latching onto Carl as soon as she’d gotten the chance, had been evidence she really was a girl (and so could be given estrogen sooner) then what did the discovery that might (maybe, possibly, theoretically) have been a lie mean for her?

“So, um, the breaking up with your boyfriend,” Eliza started to say after their tired silence had lingered in the air too long, “was that just a him thing, or…?”

“It was mutual, I guess? Well, I’m the one who said we should break up, but that was because he was too stubborn to realise I wasn’t going to just roll over and be a housewife,” Olivia replied, making a face at the memory.

“Ah…”

Eliza was clearly fishing around for something else to say as she held the door to the studio building open for Olivia. There was a flash in her eyes that seemed to indicate she’d come up with a course of action—that was interrupted by the fact another woman was waiting for them.

“Eli-kins!” Jessica Greene called out, hurrying over and latching onto Eliza with a hug. “I missed you!”

Olivia blinked in confusion, shocked by the physical intimacy. “I—uh… did something happen?”

“We, uh,” Eliza started to mumble, “there was a party and, we, uh…”

“We got together,” Jessica explained, grinning from ear to ear, with a smug look in her eyes.

Olivia felt her face twitch slightly while her heart twisted painfully in her chest. The look on Jessica’s face was familiar, reminding her of times in high school when some of the other girls bragged to her about signs of their natural puberties that had still been years off for her. Or about social aspects she’d either missed out on or had worried she’d never have. This, however, managed to hurt far more sharply than those times had.

It also hurt far worse than breaking up with Carl had.

Yet, what was there to do but be a good friend? Politeness in mind, Olivia forced a smile onto her face.

“Ah! Congratulations,” she said, so very glad for the acting skills she’d been trained in since about as long as she could talk.

“You’re happy for us?” Jessica asked, something more to her voice than confusion, but Olivia was too busy controlling her own emotional expressions to examine the hidden depths of others at the moment.

“Yes,” she lied. “I was worried, with how much time Eliza and I were spending together, that people might get the wrong impression. Which really wasn’t fair to her. What with my being straight and all that. So I’m happy that things have worked out for her.”

Jessica blinked again, staring at Olivia. Eliza… well, Olivia couldn’t bring herself to risk eye contact at the moment, so she didn’t look up to see what expression was on her face.

“Um, well… thank you,” Jessica said, at long last. Followed by a barely audible mutter of: “She’s straight?”

-

By the end of dance class Olivia’s face hurt from forcing the smile. From ignoring the way Jessica and Eliza’s proximity as they practiced hurt. From trying not to notice the odd look in Jessica’s eyes when it was Olivia’s turns to practice with Eliza.

Then there were the feelings that had come with actually dancing with Eliza. With pressing against her as the taller woman felt more distant than ever. Trying—struggling not to look into eyes she couldn’t dare to meet. Lest her faked exterior had come crashing down.

At least she had half an hour in her room before the next class to get changed. And to get the pain in her gut out with an efficient trip to throw up in the toilet.

Brushing her teeth, she didn’t feel good, but she at least felt better.