Stepfordized: Part 5 (Patreon)

“Oh fuck oh god oh fuck. Nooooo-UGHHHHH!” Ahanu griped, rushing around her apartment like a madwoman in search of her glasses.

She’d set them down somewhere intending to try wearing contacts again for the first time in a long time but ended up failing to put them in for the umpteenth time. Growing up, she’d worn her contacts only a few times, but only on special occasions and every time she did, it was her dad that helped her put them in. Whenever she tried to do it herself, she ended up a teary, red-eyed mess that was unfit for any occasion that called for getting prettied up. This was especially poignant considering she could only do her makeup with her contacts in, as the primary apparatus for facilitating her ability to see was also the very thing getting in the way of her applying any form of cosmetics.

“URRRGGGHHHHHH!!!”

Ahanu stormed around the apartment with squinted eyes and arms outstretched, raging at her inability to find the one thing she needed most in her every day life only minutes after putting them somewhere to try and look good on a particularly intimidating evening with a particularly intimidating woman. She’d been casually texting with Eliza on and off for the last week or so and had actually worked up the courage to meet her for dinner. Neither she nor Eliza had actually really done anything that Ahanu would have considered “flirting” per say, but she still wanted to look as good as possible for what she considered might secretly be considered a date. However, her secret mission would have been going a lot better if she could find her glasses before it was time to leave. She’d gone from the bathroom to the kitchen, then from the kitchen to the bedroom, and from the bedroom to the bathroom. The flustered woman was in the process of storming back to the kitchen to see if she’d stupidly set her glasses in the cabinet or something and just couldn’t see them against the dark of the pantry when her foot caught on a rug. Instead of tripping, Ahanu’s quick reflexes allowed her to catch herself before she faceplanted into the cheap hardwood floor, but didn’t prevent her momentum from carrying her toe right into the leg of the coffee table.

“rrrrrRRRRRRAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!! FUCK GOD DAMMIT!!!” She roared in agony, jumping up and down hard enough to cause her glasses to fall off of her head and clatter to the floor.

She stopped and squinted again in disbelief before reaching down and grabbing the thin frame.

“Of fucking course.” She grumbled, sliding down to her hands and knees to look for the missing lens that had popped out onto the floor when she dropped them.

“This could be going better.” She said, her confidence in her ability to be fully ready to go in just 12 more minutes waning rapidly.

Ahanu’s Converse clicked lightly against the pavement as she sped towards “La Papillion,” a French restaurant just on the very tail end of Main Street. She’d decided to forgo wearing makeup or braiding hair; one because she couldn’t see AND apply eyeliner at the same time and the other because she simply ran out of time and could pass off wearing her hair down as doing something special. She’d chosen a red skirt with a denim jacket over a white tee as a means of looking edgy, but casual, but not too casual. She didn’t want to dress up too fancy despite going to a moderately upscale place just in case it wasn’t really a date, thus making an ass of herself and exposing the fact that she was gay in a super conservative town to a really hot girl that she’d thought of every couple hours since they’d met.

(1)

When Ahanu’d rounded the corner, Eliza was already leaning against the wall of the building, typing away on her phone in one hand and smoking a cigarette in the other. She flicked the cigarette butt onto the ground and stomped it out as Ahanu watched, already creeping back behind the building to peek around the corner to watch her crush for a moment and build up the courage to walk up to her. Eliza didn’t seem to have dressed up at all. She’d worn a leather jacket and jeans with a white tanktop to go out, and didn’t seem all too flustered about it either. In fact, Ahanu stared in fascinated concern as the too-cool brit chuckled to herself and began texting on her phone. The shy native was in the middle of her last big sigh when her phone buzzed in her purse.

“You’re staring.” It read.

Terrified, Ahanu walked around the corner to find Eliza grinning smugly at her, rolling her head sideways towards the embarrassed girl. She twisted from side to side before removing a hand from her leather jacket pocket and wiggling her fingers in gentle greeting.

(2)

“Hiiiiiii~” She sang softly in a low, accented tone.
“Uh…Hey…Sorry about that. I was… Like I just needed to-“ Ahanu began, trying to think of an excuse for acting weird only to be cut off mid-sentence.

“-You look nice, love. Ah’ miss the braids though. Hard to call you Braidy Bunch with ya hair down, innit?.......You uh, you look nice though. That all f’me?” Eliza said, charmingly casually and with a confidence and control that Ahanu envied greatly.

“Uhh, thanks!...Um. You look really pretty.” Ahanu smiled for a second before realizing how that could have been taken and jumped to correct it. “I mean like you look good!”

Eliza’s glossy-lipped smile grew wider. “D’joo like a shovel?” She coo’d, her accent switching her inflection up, and then down again in a way that made Ahanu’s heart melt further.

“Oh! Uhm! That won’t….be necessary.” She giggled nervously, smiling into her hand.

Eliza pushed herself off the wall and walked towards the sputtering, nervous woman. “An’ ‘ere I was all worried this was just you tryna be pals wit’ me. Spent all day on me ‘air just in case it really *was* a date. Good thing too, from the looks of it. Shall we go in?”

Ahanu followed Eliza into the restaurant and the two took their seats. She’d never been inside La Papillion nor did she really have any interest in going until she had someone to try and impress. The décor was hardly French, but it was plenty comfortable and the dark wood furnishings created a sort of cozy, homey ambience. As far as food went, there was an impressive menu full of delicious sounding entrees that both women excitedly noted they’d never had any of before. In the end Ahanu ordered coconut shrimp with an orange marmalade dipping sauce and Eliza a lamb shank navarin. The tawny girl was pleased at the sudden uptick in conversational energy and the ease by which she was talking to her now-confirmed date. If Eliza was at all as nervous as she claimed to have been she certainly wasn’t showing it, but Ahanu was just counting herself lucky that she her flustered stammerings and anxious slip ups were something the punky englishwoman found cute.

(3)

Their food arrived and the girls began digging in with ecstatic moans of appreciation. Ahanu ate notedly faster than Eliza did who simply picked at her meal slowly while she gushed about the proletariat this or the new-wave Feminist that. She was brilliant, and despite her cockneyed manner of speaking, Eliza had successfully infodumped an entire scheme for social reform onto the fascinated Dakota girl. Ahanu had been so wrapped up in what Eliza was saying that she barely registered eating the last of her shrimp.

“Oh. Someone’s ‘ungry, eh? Well, you want the rest of mine” Eliza asked.

“Wait, is it ok? Want me to ask them to take it back and get you something else?” Ahanu gushed, eagerly trying to be helpful.

“Nah. I’ve always been like this. Didn’t ‘ave a lot growin up so my body just sort of got used to not eatin much at a time. Might not be much, but I’m all full up.” Eliza said, leaning back in her booth.

Ahanu accepted the lamb stew and ate it with rapt interest in her date’s thoughts on the Ansley Park social structure and her plans for injecting critical thinking into the status quo. Before too long, the meal was over and the bill was paid, with Eliza still chatting all the way out of the door. Groaning in silent pain, Ahanu slowly breathed through an overfull stomach as the dopamine rush from both being stuffed and captivated by a gorgeous and intelligent woman pushed her into a mild euphoria.

“Excuse me.” A voice said behind them.

It was strong and elegant, but definitely female. They turned, both with slightly irritated expressions on their faces to look at a plump, but lavish looking woman in a blazing red blouse. She had pretty, but obviously altered features that seemed only slightly marred by her weight and a full head of luxurious brown hair that cascaded down her shoulders in waves. The woman pulled out a cigarette and lit it with an incredibly fancy silver lighter, then offered one to each of the other women. Eliza accepted and instantly lit up, and in a spur of the moment attempt to not look bad or be the only one not doing it, Ahanu took a cigarette of her own from the silver case that the women held out to her.

(4)

“Forgive me, but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation and I have to say, I’m rather fascinated by many of the ideas you have for this town.” The woman said, taking a drag and then exhaling a devilishly elegant plume afterward.

“Oh. Neat. Thanks for the fag, but I’m a li’le busy with this pretty thing here, so if you don’t mind…” Eliza said, carefully measuring her approach before laying into this woman when she inevitably failed to get the hint and kept harassing the two of them for looking the way they did or just for being together.

Ahanu had lit the cigarette and attempted to puff awkwardly on it, but had neither any idea what she was doing or why anyone would want to do it. The thing tasted vile and burned her eyes, but both Eliza and the woman in red sucked on them like they were candy. She didn’t know why she wanted to not be outdone by this woman but Ahanu was still very much wanting to impress her date. Against her better judgement, she kept pulling little bits of it into her mouth, refusing to breathe in lest she become instantaneously nauseous and make a fool of herself.

“Actually, I do mind.” The woman said assertively.

“And I realize more than anyone that there is something very wrong with this town as well. There’s no flavor. Nothing new or exciting. No edge. It’s just blonde housewives and fat babies as far as the eye can see and every woman around is fine with it. But not me.”

Eliza narrowed her eyes. “Right…Good fa’ you then..”
“And you too, if you like. I may not have the resources to bring about a devastating, groundbreaking social change on my own, but after listening to you talk for a while, I think that you may be exactly what this place needs.” The woman pressed confidently.

“Mm. Watch it steppy, you’re starting to piss me off a bit. I’m tryin to have a laugh with me girlyfriend here and you’re yackin me ear off about shite I aint neva even said to you. Keep it up an I may have to…Physically convince you to stop, savvy?” The black girl warned, taking a step towards the woman in red.

“Oh please. Touch me and you’ll be on the ground in handcuffs in no time flat. Shame, isn’t it? How this country favors one complexion over another so harshly that it stifles the voices we so desperately need to hear. But since you’re getting a little…testy…I’ll get to the point.

My name is Donna Celeste. I own the local broadcasting station, and I’d like to give you your own segment on the local radio. It would be a paid position of course.” The woman said.

“Take my card. Think about it. Call me in the morning when you’ve made your decsion. Anyways, you two seem otherwise engaged, so I’ll leave you to it. But before I go…Could I get your name, doll?” Donna said, sauntering towards a fancy car with impressively shapely legs for someone so heavy.

“Eliza.” The black girl called out. “Name’s Eliza Baker.”
Donna turned and looked over her shoulder, grinning confidently before getting into the backseat of a car where a driver in the front seat drove off.

Ahanu was still struggling with the cigarette, but well aware that Eliza had finished hers.

“You ever smoked before?” Eliza said, quirking her eyebrow into an amused grin at the struggling girl trying desperately to look like she knew what she was doing.

“…I…..haven’t.” Ahanu admitted guilitly. “I was just trying not to be outdone by miss Donna over there. You guys were doing it and I was just…”

“Feeling jealous?” Eliza smiled sarcastically.
“….Kinda.” Ahanu said. “But they taste terrible and I feel like I am gonna puke when I try to breathe it in like you see other people do.”

“Takes practice.” The ebony woman smirked. “And the taste is bad at first, but it grows on ya.
Plus…
I hear it tastes a lot better when it comes from somewhere else.”

Ahanu was perplexed. “Wait, like when you get them from someone else? Or what do you mean?”

Eliza’s. smile turned snakelike in it’s intention and pressed the smaller girl into the wall.

“How ‘bout you let me show ya, hey?”

Then, with one smooth motion, Eliza pressed her face against Ahanu’s for a warm, passionate kiss.

“She was right.” Ahanu thought when the two finally unlocked their lips and untangled their tongues from their moderately long makeout session.

“That does taste better like that.”