Lessons in Lesbianism 14 (Patreon)

(I just want to start by saying that this was not my plan… but Eliza surprised me. More of a disaster herbo than I expected.)

Anything Can Happen

The next morning, Olivia found herself being dragged onto a ferry by Kala and some of the other girls in their pod. Halloween was coming up, and the older students made it clear that Halloween was the holiday on Ophelia Island. Everyone was there (without a long weekend), everyone went to parties, and everyone had costumes.

She wasn’t sure she felt invested, but she did have to admit that a distraction sounded nice. So she’d agreed to come along.

The expedition, after landing on the mainland, then set out for southern Burnaby. Which meant the long bus back ride up to Richmond, before hopping on the Canada Line, then transferring to the Frasier Line to zip east across the urban landscape.

With the elevated running of the Skytrain, Olivia found herself distracted by watching the city slide past. She simply was not used to such large urban areas, with condo towers popping up in clusters in every direction. The tallest of the glassy towers reached into the clouds. Though she did have to admit that the foggy grey of the lower mainland did mean that those clouds were fairly low.

It didn’t make those mountains of glass any less impressive. Though the actual mountains were another story, sadly. They were hidden away behind the grey of drizzle and fog, so that she only occasionally caught glimpses of them.

The girls got out at a station that had under construction condo towers on one side and low slung industrial warehouses on the other. They headed towards the section that seemed to be warehouses, though she slowly realised also had low slung office buildings sprinkled in.

What it did not have were sidewalks, so they had to stick to slightly damp grass or walk on the road. Which they chose tended to change based on encountering muddier patches or the rare times a car or a bus drove by.

“Trust me,” one of the girls said (she was a second year Olivia didn’t know well), “this place is worth the walk.”

Olivia was having her doubts, but she was too committed to back out now. As well as unsure about whether or not she’d get lost if she tried. So she followed along until they reached a small collection of warehouses with a sign display at the parking lot entrance. One of the signs said ‘Burnaby Costume Warehouse’, a name that only surprised her in how utterly unsurprising it was. The walk over to the specific unit entrance was fairly short, though Olivia could still scarcely believe it was actually a store until they walked in.

The interior reminded her a bit of a Value Town store, slightly too many racks of clothing crammed together into a large room. Yellowing fluorescent lights gave everything inside a slightly off-putting yet also almost cozy feeling. It was accentuated by the carpeting that had clearly seen better days (likely decades ago), but still tried to be more comforting than tile. It was as if someone had described a comfortable experience to an alien, and then the alien had attempted to replicate it while only half understanding the concept.

A feeling that was only reinforced when she saw the bored woman behind the counter was wearing springy fake antennae and an outfit that seemed like something out of Space Trek.

Not sure what to do, Olivia waved and said hello to the woman, who looked up from her magazine to mumble a greeting back. Then she went right back to reading.

Having made her attempt to be polite, Olivia then followed the others into the racks of chaotically hung costuming. Some outfits were loose, bits and pieces that one could assemble into an outfit. Others were matched sets, a few packaged conveniently in plastic with proper labels. Apparently the store did actually have commercially produced costuming, and wasn’t merely a repository for strange outfits born out the chaos of the universe itself.

That, or the primal forces of entropy had decided to give some of the outfits they’d assembled convenient packages. She couldn’t quite rule that out with the ephemeral and liminal quality of the place. To be honest, she half expected to see a Bigfoot stroll past at some point. Even if she’d never really believed in things like that.

“Ooh, a Mars Man astronaut outfit,” Kala said, holding up her find. “It looks to be pretty decent quality… and I did like that movie.”

“I haven’t seen it yet,” Olivia admitted.

“It’s good. I could probably find a stream of it online, if you want to watch it this weekend?”

“Maybe,” Olivia said, still browsing the seemingly asystematic distribution of clothing. “There really aren’t ‘sections’ to this store, are there?”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Kala offered. “Do you have any costume ideas? I could try to help you look?”

“No. I haven’t dressed up since middle school. I got too old for trick-or-treating and then never really got invited to parties. So… I didn’t really think about it before last night when you guys offered to take me,” she replied.

“Ah, well, I’ll help you hunt, then. I think I have some idea of what you like,” Kala said.

They then continued digging, occasionally pulling things out to discuss. There were a few things that Olivia had to give honest thought to, but ended up turning down. Some seemed tight in places that she worried wouldn’t flatter her. Kala insisted she had a perfectly decent figure, but Olivia wasn’t convinced.

Finally, though, Olivia found something she thought might look good on her. A flowing blue dress of the Queen of Dragons. She asked for permission to try it on, and was thrilled to find the dress complimented her rather minimal figure well.

She was a little embarrassed to be the last one to find her costume. The stage-boys didn’t seem to mind though, happy to jokingly tease her about her ‘stereotypically feminine love of shopping’.

Afterwards, they grabbed the train back to Richmond, where Olivia found herself dragged out to a Chinese restaurant. One that was so thoroughly Chinese that the menu wasn’t in English. Some of the other girls had to serve as translators for everyone else, with a bit of help from the waitstaff.

The casual atmosphere and excellent food did a very good job of getting Olivia’s mind off of her interpersonal drama. The chance to breathe really helped her to step back and not feel like it was quite so life and death… though it still definitely mattered to her.

-

The next week started reasonably uneventfully. Olivia had to awkwardly work on her scenes with Eliza, who seemed better at emptying her mind of all complicating factors when acting. When they weren’t rehearsing, though, Eliza was… odd. Distant and looking lost in thought. Also, tired. She had bags under her eyes, and did manage to fumble a few lines.

Still, it was only a few days, and Olivia held some hope things might work out. As soon as Eliza figured out whatever it was she was struggling with.

On Wednesday, though, as Olivia tried to sneak out of her room before Eliza got up, she found the other woman waiting for her, a can of energy drink in her hand.

“Does your costume have a mask?” she asked, staring with a caffeine boosted intensity.

“Um… no?”

The tall woman seemed to deflate at the answer. “Darn… that was a good plan.”

Staring at her, Olivia found she was utterly lost. “What was a good plan?”

“I was going to pretend I got mixed up at the Halloween party and accidentally dance wit—wait. Pretend I didn’t say that,” Eliza replied, eyes growing wide with fear and waving her hands in a panicked shushing manner. “I’m more tired than I realised.”

“What are you—” Olivia started to ask, her brain not quite awake yet. “You were going to dance with me? Why? And instead of who… it can’t be Jessica, right? She’s a redhead and I’m blonde. Even with a mask that excuse wouldn’t work.”

Eliza blinked, before nodding slowly. “You’re right. That was an oversight.”

“… you were seriously going to—why?”

“Uh, so that Jessica would dump me and I would sweep you off your feet at the same time?” Eliza offered with a slightly too large forced grin, a mix of sleep deprivation and caffeine visibly battling in her brain.

Though, Olivia was certain there had to be more to it than that.

Olivia stared at her. “Are… are you drunk?”

It was the only explanation she could think of. Nothing else was holding water as being internally logically consistent. If Eliza were serious, then why couldn’t she just dump Jessica? Why had she even started dating Jessica?

Not to mention the absurdity of Eliza actually wanting to date her over Jessica. Olivia had done the math and realised she fell short on almost every front.

Really, even alcohol didn’t seem like it would explain what Eliza was saying.

“I wish,” Eliza replied. “Stupid BC and its stupid age of majority… what sort of province makes 19 the drinking age?”

“Um… most of them? I think?” Olivia said.

Eliza began to count on her fingers, then muttered something about the Maritimes. Olivia had to silently admit she wasn’t certain about them either.

“Why would you want to be drunk, though?” Olivia asked, getting them back on the subject.

“I’m better at saying dumb things, even if they’ll make a girl cry, when I’m drunk,” Eliza said. “Instead I’m stuck utterly sober, the best shot I have at being dumb being from sleep depr—lack of sleep. But being tired seems to just make me worry about everyone’s feelings even more. So I get to stare at you, and see you looking all betrayed and it hurts. But then I start even slightly nudging towards maybe breaking up with Jessica and she pulls out puppy dog eyes and I can’t.”

The information was rather too much for Olivia to process before 7:30 am. She really had no idea what to say to that. How to handle a mixture of her dreams coming true and finding out Eliza was a bit spineless. Though in a cute way.

“Also,” Eliza continued. “My period started and the cramps are not helping my efforts to try to plan.”

“Oh,” Olivia said in a soft voice, her utter confusion and disorientation clinging on to the one coherent panic point of her knowing almost nothing about periods. Her mother had simply told her she was lucky not to have one and had left it at that. “Do you need anything? Should I get you chocolate? Or, um… a hot water bottle? Or… tampons? Do you need tampons? Is there anywhere on the island that sells tampons?”

“Uh… m-most of the washrooms have vending machines,” Eliza replied in a slightly more level voice.

“Oh! That’s what those are,” Olivia said, nodding slightly. “Wait. No. I—urgh… I need answers, but I don’t want to harass you while you’re dealing with cramps.”

“You don—oh! Do you think Jessica might go easy on me if I try to break up with her after saying I having my visit from Aunt Flo?” Eliza said.

“I’m not sure the effect will be quite as strong on a girl who actually gets a period,” Olivia replied.

“Well, lucky you, not getting them,” a tired Kala said, opening the door behind Olivia. “But can you two have your relationship drama either somewhere other than the hallway outside everyone’s bedrooms or not at 7:15 am?”

“S—sorry! Sorry!” Eliza and Olivia replied in very Canadian unison.

Olivia then grabbed Eliza by the arm and pulled her into the stairwell. She paused a moment, about to talk again, before thinking better of it and leading them both down into the first floor common area.

The short walk in awkward silence gave her time to put her thoughts together.

“Alright,” she said, stopping in the tv lounge/lobby area. “So, if I have it all straight: you… you, for some reason, want to date me, but slept with Jessica because you were drunk and lonely, and now you’re trying to break up with her, but you’re terrible at it, and you seem to want me to help you break up with her?”

“Uh… well, I don’t think you can have it ‘straight’,” Eliza said, cracking a small grin. Only for it to vanish when she realised Olivia was too tired and annoyed to appreciate the joke. “… Yes.”

“I… this is not the sort of romantic gesture I thought you’d make,” Olivia muttered. “When I dared to dream that I was somehow in your league… which I still don’t understand why you think I’m in.”

“Uh, because you look like a supermodel?” Eliza replied. “Which, apparently a surprising number of supermodels are strealthing trans women? Or, maybe not surprising. Tall, sharply beautiful features, elegant wide shoulders…”

A smile spread across her face.

Olivia stared at her. “I do not look like a supermodel.”

“Yes you do,” Eliza replied in such a simple and matter of fact tone to almost make Olivia believe it.

Despite the layers of dysphoria she struggled through. The feelings of inadequacy, driven by how her high school peers had treated her. The way looking in the mirror as puberty had first begun to change her face had left her unsure she could ever like her reflection again.

Despite all that. Because Eliza seemed too sleep deprived to lie.

“Alright. Fine. If you’re serious… then I have a plan,” Olivia said, still struggling with disbelief on some level. A sliver of her brain insisted that she was the butt of some joke, that Jessica had put Eliza up to this charade to try to crush her spirits totally.

She could only trust so much after… high school.

But, preparation to be laughed at provided a shield against it. Along with years of practice, having learned to handle being laughed at.

“Let’s go,” she said, grabbing Eliza’s wrist once more.

“Go where?”

“Class,” Olivia said.

“Uh… shouldn’t I know the plan?”

“No. That’s the price for having caused this whole mess.”

“Oh,” Eliza mumbled, though she weakly accepted being dragged along.