[Good Omens] Dumb and dumber
M1, prompt "Love"
“Master of the house, keeper of the zoo, ready to relieve 'em of a sou or two...”, professor Zahara Fell sang under her breath, circling the wrong answers on the tests. Year 8 wasn't doing so bad, after a rocky start at the beginning of the year, and she was quite proud of them, all of those bright young girls. She sighed, feeling a bit nostalgic for when she was walking in those corridors, taking the same lessons, sitting on (unfortunately) the same chairs. She put the paper on top of the others on her right. “Watering the wine, making up the weight, pickin' up their knick-knacks when they can't see straight...”, she reprised, hoovering the red pen on the next test, glad to find it almost immaculate, just the tiniest error she felt almost guilty to pinpoint. But, well, how else would she learn? So she circled it, but then added a smiley face near it, to encourage her pupil. After all, in September miss Device could barely remember the declension of rosae.
“Oh, you still here, teacher?”
Startled, Zahara turned her head towards the door to see the biology teacher, miss Crowley, standing on the doorway, slightly slouched but still tall, thin, pretty. Get a grip!, she admonished herself, trying to regain her composure.
“Well, yes, as you are,” she smiled, coating herself in the politeness her mother tailored on her. She still remembered how she used to tell her that her smile is a lady's most elegant dress and most powerful weapon; she had told her many times how her smile won her father back then, and how it kept winning him every morning of their wedding. Zahara hoped it would be enough to win the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.
“Bless,” miss Crowley smiled back. She had the prettiest eyes Zahara had ever seen, a brown so light it looked almost gold, her glasses frame so black it really brought out their colour.“I need a pen, all of mine dried up like five minutes ago as if we live in a e desert, and if I don't give the tests back tomorrow the girls will have my head. And you seem to have quite the collection.”
Zahara took a glance to her old mug full of pens and pencils. “Yes, of course. Here, take this.”
Miss Crowley walked up to her, and for a second Zahara was transfixed by her legs and her hips, wrapped up in jeans she found a little too revealing to be worn at school, but since the principal hadn't ever say anything, who was she to differ? And why should she complain, given they showed up so well the shape of her thighs and - oh my - of her arse? Zahara had found herself looking at that arse more often that she would care to admit; it was tiny, barely here, but she liked it just fine. Zahara had small hands, after all, and those cheeks were the perfect dimension and shape for them.
She gulped, trying to swallow her thoughts. Miss Crowley took the pen and smiled again. “I'll give it back before going home, I swear.”
“Of course, miss Crowley,” Zahara replied, knowing perfectly well that she would never see that pen again, and that's why she gave her least favourite one to her, so parting from it wouldn't be too sad. Miss Crowley waved her hand, and Zahara lost herself again in the swaying of her hips. She sighed again in the empty room, her lungs filled with longing. “On my own, pretending she's beside me...” she changed the song, feeling very alone all of a sudden, for she now felt something missing on her side.
///
The teaching stuff decided, almost unanimously (Zahara wanted sushi as, admittedly, she almost always did), that the biweekly dinner out was to take place at the brand new Italian restaurant opened in Blackstock Road. Zahara, despite having decided in advance to be annoyed by it - she had made her mind to fuss about the food, the service, even the tables - ended up liking it, for the restaurant was spacious and light, with milk coloured walls, not too bright, and the most patient waiter who didn't even raised an eyebrow when she inquired about all the menu and all of their stock - when they bought meat, dairy, wine, was the mozzarella really from Italy? And where from, precisely? Did the waiter know that the best mozzarella di bufala was from Caserta? She could accept Battipaglia, though, even Naples. Was the waiter sure their mozzarella wasn't that awful rubbish they sold at Waitrose? She had made the mistake to buy it once and it still haunted her in her sleep - awfully soft in the mouth, almost a flavourless mush with just a hint of the real thing. The worst 2.49 pounds she had ever throw away.
“You surely know your cheeses, miss Fell,” said miss Crowley, rather cheekily, who abruptly had stopped talking to mister Diaz, the Spanish teacher. Zahara felt lucky God had given them the chance to seat next to each other. Miss Crowley was so lovely tonight, with cat-like eyeliner and glittering mascara and the suggestive curve of the neckline that showed a hint of her lovely bosom, which was - again - of the perfect size for Zahara's hands. For a quick but perfect instant she thought about groping her from behind, one hand on her cheek and one on her breast. She thanked not to be a man, for her thoughts were more discreet and easy to hide.
“Yes, well,” Zahara smiled to her, smoothing out an non-existent crease on her skirt, “I'm rather particular about food. I blame my family - we were all very careful about what we put in our mouth.” She had some precious memories about Sunday roast, and Japanese evening, and South African Wednesday once a month, when her mother was able to find the right cut of mutton. “I was thirty one the first time I went to a McDonald's, and I have to say I didn't really enjoy it. Too greasy, too salty, and all those little kids running around, spilling everything on their path... it really wasn't for me.”
“That's the beauty of it,” miss Crowley protested, playing with a fork, the other hand under her chin. She had an angular face, high cheekbones she expertly highlighted with make-up, something Zahara wasn't really keen on - just a touch of lipstick, some powder to cover the wrinkles that were starting to blooming all over her face - and she looked rather luminous. Or maybe it was just how Zahara saw her. “All those carbs and calories fatting you up, and the kids you could play with, or beat up if they annoyed you. We lived on those - the fats, I mean, not the beating up. We weren't savage - well, not all of us, at least.”
“You and your family, you mean?”
“Yeah.” She leaned back against the chair, crossing her legs. Her jeans flashed a bit on ankle, and Zahara felt like a Victorian gentleman. “For a while mum wasn't around and dad didn't really want to learn how to cook, so it was boxed mac and cheese, McDonald's, and what we could steal from Sainsbury's and you could just pop in in the microwave.”
Zahara was captivated by her words: she felt the only daughter of a rich earl, clutching her white gloves as she heard about the tragic life of a poor pick pocketer who could live on potato peels and bone broth.
“Oh, how dreadful,” she said and then regretted it, for it was a rather harsh comment on someone's life. But miss Crowley just smiled, all teeth.
“Nah, I had fun.”
“Well, that's nice to hear.”
Their plates arrived - a fiorentina for Miss Crowley, a lasagna for Zahara; she took the first bite with suspicion, but she changed her mind as soon as she tasted the ragout - and they stopped talking for a bit, until Zahara - always thirsty for knowledge, and miss Crowley was no exception - asked: “You arrived last year, right, miss Crowley?”
Miss Crowley quickly swallowed her bite, licked her lips - the tiniest speck of blood on them. “Judith, please. Call me Judith. Hardly the girls call me Miss Crowley. And yes, I worked at a grammar school for boys until three years ago, took a sabbatical year, and then decided to move from complete chaos to utter, complete chaos.”
She was so charming, so full of sparkles. Zahara wanted to be completely submerged by her, by her voice - a deep cognac she'd like to get drunk on. She was this close to put her chin on both hands.
“Young girls are terrible. I'd like to say we were better at their age, but I can't count how many black eyes I caused when I was in school. I even punched a teacher, broke one of his front teeth. To be fair, he was being racist to one of my classmates, so he had it coming. I hated her, you know, my classmates,” (Zahara would later learn that Judith only talked in absolutes) “she was snotty and pretentious like she was the only one attending the top school in Manchester. But the old cunt was belittling her because of slip of the tongue and he said she couldn't talk in proper English because she was Indian. And she even wasn't! She was born in Hale, bless it! So, as I was sick of his shit after two words, I stood up and punched him and I actually broke one of my fingers too. And then my dad broke my wrist 'cause they, obviously, expelled me.”
“Oh”, Zahara gasped at the total nonchalance Miss Crow-Judith talked about it, “oh, that's awful, I'm so sorry.”
“Yeah, no biggie, I'm all healed and all out of parents since I was eighteen. So, s' all good. What about you, professor Fell? I heard high praises from, like, two of my pupils. What do you do to them?”
“Oh, well, I think I bore them to death. As you know, I teach Latin, and I dedicated my life to the subject, I even lived in Italy for a year to study it better that I could possibly do here, and now I can't stomach any movie set in ancient Rome, they're so full of stupid mistakes, not that I normally bear movies at all, and then I came back to London and there weren't many job opportunities for me, so I thought maybe I'd give a chance to teaching for one or two years, and here I am twenty years after, wearing your ears out like a teenager.” She sighed again, feeling primroses blooming on her cheeks, “I'm sorry. I guess this is why I don't have so many fans amongst the pupils. I tend to... blabber, so to speak, and teenagers don't really appreciate blabbering adults.”
“Nonsense,” Judith replied, taking another bite of meat, “kids are dumb. You're interesting. They just don't understand because their brains are small and underdeveloped yet.”
“Oh,” Zahara just said, feeling those flowers, now in her chest and in her hands, open up like sunflowers to the sun.
“Yeah. I bet you give the most interesting Latin lessons, even if I know shit all about Latin. After they kicked me out of grammar school I just erased about everything, and in my next school they didn't teach Latin, so I forgot. But I bet you could make it entertaining as fuck.”
“Well,” Zahara blushed, a bit flustered, “I'm not sure about that, but I think Latin is entertaining per se. The literature is a treasure for mankind. And the poetry! Even if the Greeks, too, left us some marvellous poetry, epic and other. Do you know anything about Sappho?”
“I haven't the faintest idea, except she was the first lesbian ever.”
“Yes, but we found so many fragments of her poems, and they are so - full of love, and longing, and devotion.”
“Oh,” she smirked, and Zahara blushed once again, “do you care for telling me one? Just your favourite one.”
“Oh, just one? But I can't possibly choose.”
“All right, all right. Your first three.”
Zahara, butterflies in her stomach, licked her lips, making pie charts and diagrams about which ones would make the better impression, would be more - as to speak - suggestive. That was a tough decision, one of the hardest of her life, but she made it, and recited the poems, as Judith was all ears, open like a field, taking her voice, her words in. How darling she was. Made Zahara forgot about her lasagna - that was a first, but Zahara didn't really care.
It went on like that. Judith kept on popping in her office for random questions - was she amenable to translate something for her? She wanted a new tattoo but every translation on the internet seemed wrong; she had ordered too much sushi for lunch, had she already eaten? Oh, yes, that pen, she had dried that pen, but she could buy her a new one, even a better one. Oh, Waitrose had new custard filled doughnuts, they were incredible, and she casually had bought too many, did she like pastry?
Zahara's heart grew two sizes every time she saw her red head. How lovely her hair was, so fiery and shiny, waves sweet and - she bet - soft as a lamb. She desperately wanted to touch them, braid them. She almost reached out for her one day, but retreated her hand.
“That skirt - nice, suits you.”
“You know, I have just the perfect earrings for your eyes - I mean, they're the same colour. They would look so good on you. My earrings, not your eyes. Your eyes look good on you already.”
“Did you change your shampoo? You smell differently today.”
“Well, I remember hearing you singing something from Les Mis, and my brother had two tickets laying around because he was supposed to go with his girlfriend but they broke up, so... are you free Saturday evening? At 7 p.m.”
It went on like this. Until, one day, Zahara was tired of dancing, and decided to take matters in her own hand. She took a deep breath and, as Judith was about to sit on her desk, she asked: “When do you mean to stop flirting with me and just, you know, take action?”
“Stop fl-- what are you talking about? I'm not doing anything!”
Zahara blinked twice in rapid succession.
“... so, you weren't aware you were... flirting with me?”
“... no, I wasn't. I don't know how to flirt.”
“You found any excuse to be alone with me.”
“Yeah, because other people suck and you don't.”
“You complimented me so much.”
“That was because you deserved it.”
“You said that you loved my hair ten times.”
“Well, it was - why are you counting them?”
“We're going on dates.”
“We're going out together! As colleagues! Maybe as friends? We - friends, right, Zahara?”
“Oh, darling, we ceased to be friends months ago.”
Judith's heart shattered with the noise of a Swarovski vase thrown at a wall. “What? Why? Why aren't we friends? What did I do? Did I offend you? Did I make fun of you in a mean way? Did I -”
Zahara, fed up with her anxious blabbering, resolved to simply take her by her lapels and kiss her stupid, until she was sure Jeanette forgot her own name, let alone how to speak. Her lips were dry, but Zahara didn't notice it until a full minute after. She made a mental note to buy her her favourite chapstick.
“Does this make things clearer for you?”
Judith looked at her, lips slightly parted and eyes twinkling. “... a bit, yeah.”
It went on like this. Date after date after date. Something growing between them like a forest, like neverending roots. Zahara kissed her on the mouth and Judith loudly squealed, hid her face in her hands. Zahara kissed those hands.
Zahara kissed her chest, her legs, in between her thighs. She licked her, bit her, marked her. She said she loved her so much she wore out the words. Judith never said it back.
“Don't you love me?”, Zahara asked one night, their bodies warm against each other. Judith stood up as if she had been zapped.
“It's not that, it's -”
“You can say it, if you don't.”
“I fucking do! Don't you think I do? I - don't I show you enough?”
“Well, yes, but -”
“And that's it! Why do you need those stupid words? We're always out together, we go to plays and musicals and ballet, and you know I hate ballet!”
“Yes, but it's just nice to hear it -”
“Then I don't do nice!”, she almost shouted, angry and bitter and black around the mouth, tears threatening to fall down. Zahara, feeling so guilty it almost hurt, reached out for her, stroked her cheek.
“Oh, darling, I'm so sorry. You know how silly I can be sometimes.”
“Unreasonable, more like.”
“Yes, my sweet, I was being unreasonable. I'm so sorry. Don't be sad, don't cry.”
“And a tyrant,” she sniffed, pouting, but leaned in her touch, “not every one has... words. Not every one talks.”
“I know, I'm sorry, my darling. I won't ask you any more,” said Zahara, voice as sweet as honey, “I know your heart. I can see it on your sleeve.”
“Mph,” she grumbled, but didn't reply. She accepted Zahara's kisses until she conquered her smile again.
“I have an idea. You need a cellphone,” Judith suddenly said one afternoon, as she was making tea. Zahara looked at her dumbfounded.
“What I need a cellphone for?”
“It's -“ Judith growled, frustrated, “can you just get one? I think I found a way to - to say things. Y'know, dovey things.”
“... did you mean lovey-dovey?”
“Yeah, that. Well, a cellphone. Today, please. You already have my number, so I'm waiting for a WhatsApp later in the afternoon.”
“... but I don't know how to use WhatsApp.”
“There are a lot of tutorials on the internet, I'm sure you will manage.”
“On the internet, you say. Well...”, Zahara gulped, pursuing her lips, “I don't own a computer either.”
“You don't - how can you live in the 22th century?”
“Well, I don't. We're still in the 21th, dear.”
Judith frowned. “Oh, right. Well, my question still stands. Well, we're going out for your phone. Not Amazon, because Amazon sucks balls.”
“You said well so many times, Judith.”
“Well, piss off. Better?”
“Better.”
Out they went, and a cellphone was bought, and that night Zahara was sent a million messages.
The first message Judith sent to her was a video, an impromptu A heart full of love sung in a park she didn't recognize, something Judith had casually found when she was walking back to her apartment. “u” the message read, just that, and Zahara started giggling like a silly girl.
Then she sent an article about two gay swan, and that message too read “u”, but after a few seconds she added “also me”.
Then a picture of ducklings, and a screenshot from an app post about something called fucklings. “What's Tumblr?”, she asked, confused, when Judith told her to download it. “What are you trying to make me do?”
“You have Google now. Find it. And good luck.”, Judith just replied, and Zahara was sure she could hear her laugh. She downloaded Tumblr anyway.
Then a song from The Clash, then one from David Bowie, then one from Flogging Molly.
And then a 'nite. thinking of you. X'; and that was it, that was how Judith talked. Zahara grinned until she fell asleep, and kept on grinning in her dreams.
“Master of the house, keeper of the zoo, ready to relieve 'em of a sou or two...”, professor Zahara Fell sang under her breath, circling the wrong answers on the tests. Year 8 wasn't doing so bad, after a rocky start at the beginning of the year, and she was quite proud of them, all of those bright young girls. She sighed, feeling a bit nostalgic for when she was walking in those corridors, taking the same lessons, sitting on (unfortunately) the same chairs. She put the paper on top of the others on her right. “Watering the wine, making up the weight, pickin' up their knick-knacks when they can't see straight...”, she reprised, hoovering the red pen on the next test, glad to find it almost immaculate, just the tiniest error she felt almost guilty to pinpoint. But, well, how else would she learn? So she circled it, but then added a smiley face near it, to encourage her pupil. After all, in September miss Device could barely remember the declension of rosae.
“Oh, you still here, teacher?”
Startled, Zahara turned her head towards the door to see the biology teacher, miss Crowley, standing on the doorway, slightly slouched but still tall, thin, pretty. Get a grip!, she admonished herself, trying to regain her composure.
“Well, yes, as you are,” she smiled, coating herself in the politeness her mother tailored on her. She still remembered how she used to tell her that her smile is a lady's most elegant dress and most powerful weapon; she had told her many times how her smile won her father back then, and how it kept winning him every morning of their wedding. Zahara hoped it would be enough to win the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.
“Bless,” miss Crowley smiled back. She had the prettiest eyes Zahara had ever seen, a brown so light it looked almost gold, her glasses frame so black it really brought out their colour.“I need a pen, all of mine dried up like five minutes ago as if we live in a e desert, and if I don't give the tests back tomorrow the girls will have my head. And you seem to have quite the collection.”
Zahara took a glance to her old mug full of pens and pencils. “Yes, of course. Here, take this.”
Miss Crowley walked up to her, and for a second Zahara was transfixed by her legs and her hips, wrapped up in jeans she found a little too revealing to be worn at school, but since the principal hadn't ever say anything, who was she to differ? And why should she complain, given they showed up so well the shape of her thighs and - oh my - of her arse? Zahara had found herself looking at that arse more often that she would care to admit; it was tiny, barely here, but she liked it just fine. Zahara had small hands, after all, and those cheeks were the perfect dimension and shape for them.
She gulped, trying to swallow her thoughts. Miss Crowley took the pen and smiled again. “I'll give it back before going home, I swear.”
“Of course, miss Crowley,” Zahara replied, knowing perfectly well that she would never see that pen again, and that's why she gave her least favourite one to her, so parting from it wouldn't be too sad. Miss Crowley waved her hand, and Zahara lost herself again in the swaying of her hips. She sighed again in the empty room, her lungs filled with longing. “On my own, pretending she's beside me...” she changed the song, feeling very alone all of a sudden, for she now felt something missing on her side.
///
The teaching stuff decided, almost unanimously (Zahara wanted sushi as, admittedly, she almost always did), that the biweekly dinner out was to take place at the brand new Italian restaurant opened in Blackstock Road. Zahara, despite having decided in advance to be annoyed by it - she had made her mind to fuss about the food, the service, even the tables - ended up liking it, for the restaurant was spacious and light, with milk coloured walls, not too bright, and the most patient waiter who didn't even raised an eyebrow when she inquired about all the menu and all of their stock - when they bought meat, dairy, wine, was the mozzarella really from Italy? And where from, precisely? Did the waiter know that the best mozzarella di bufala was from Caserta? She could accept Battipaglia, though, even Naples. Was the waiter sure their mozzarella wasn't that awful rubbish they sold at Waitrose? She had made the mistake to buy it once and it still haunted her in her sleep - awfully soft in the mouth, almost a flavourless mush with just a hint of the real thing. The worst 2.49 pounds she had ever throw away.
“You surely know your cheeses, miss Fell,” said miss Crowley, rather cheekily, who abruptly had stopped talking to mister Diaz, the Spanish teacher. Zahara felt lucky God had given them the chance to seat next to each other. Miss Crowley was so lovely tonight, with cat-like eyeliner and glittering mascara and the suggestive curve of the neckline that showed a hint of her lovely bosom, which was - again - of the perfect size for Zahara's hands. For a quick but perfect instant she thought about groping her from behind, one hand on her cheek and one on her breast. She thanked not to be a man, for her thoughts were more discreet and easy to hide.
“Yes, well,” Zahara smiled to her, smoothing out an non-existent crease on her skirt, “I'm rather particular about food. I blame my family - we were all very careful about what we put in our mouth.” She had some precious memories about Sunday roast, and Japanese evening, and South African Wednesday once a month, when her mother was able to find the right cut of mutton. “I was thirty one the first time I went to a McDonald's, and I have to say I didn't really enjoy it. Too greasy, too salty, and all those little kids running around, spilling everything on their path... it really wasn't for me.”
“That's the beauty of it,” miss Crowley protested, playing with a fork, the other hand under her chin. She had an angular face, high cheekbones she expertly highlighted with make-up, something Zahara wasn't really keen on - just a touch of lipstick, some powder to cover the wrinkles that were starting to blooming all over her face - and she looked rather luminous. Or maybe it was just how Zahara saw her. “All those carbs and calories fatting you up, and the kids you could play with, or beat up if they annoyed you. We lived on those - the fats, I mean, not the beating up. We weren't savage - well, not all of us, at least.”
“You and your family, you mean?”
“Yeah.” She leaned back against the chair, crossing her legs. Her jeans flashed a bit on ankle, and Zahara felt like a Victorian gentleman. “For a while mum wasn't around and dad didn't really want to learn how to cook, so it was boxed mac and cheese, McDonald's, and what we could steal from Sainsbury's and you could just pop in in the microwave.”
Zahara was captivated by her words: she felt the only daughter of a rich earl, clutching her white gloves as she heard about the tragic life of a poor pick pocketer who could live on potato peels and bone broth.
“Oh, how dreadful,” she said and then regretted it, for it was a rather harsh comment on someone's life. But miss Crowley just smiled, all teeth.
“Nah, I had fun.”
“Well, that's nice to hear.”
Their plates arrived - a fiorentina for Miss Crowley, a lasagna for Zahara; she took the first bite with suspicion, but she changed her mind as soon as she tasted the ragout - and they stopped talking for a bit, until Zahara - always thirsty for knowledge, and miss Crowley was no exception - asked: “You arrived last year, right, miss Crowley?”
Miss Crowley quickly swallowed her bite, licked her lips - the tiniest speck of blood on them. “Judith, please. Call me Judith. Hardly the girls call me Miss Crowley. And yes, I worked at a grammar school for boys until three years ago, took a sabbatical year, and then decided to move from complete chaos to utter, complete chaos.”
She was so charming, so full of sparkles. Zahara wanted to be completely submerged by her, by her voice - a deep cognac she'd like to get drunk on. She was this close to put her chin on both hands.
“Young girls are terrible. I'd like to say we were better at their age, but I can't count how many black eyes I caused when I was in school. I even punched a teacher, broke one of his front teeth. To be fair, he was being racist to one of my classmates, so he had it coming. I hated her, you know, my classmates,” (Zahara would later learn that Judith only talked in absolutes) “she was snotty and pretentious like she was the only one attending the top school in Manchester. But the old cunt was belittling her because of slip of the tongue and he said she couldn't talk in proper English because she was Indian. And she even wasn't! She was born in Hale, bless it! So, as I was sick of his shit after two words, I stood up and punched him and I actually broke one of my fingers too. And then my dad broke my wrist 'cause they, obviously, expelled me.”
“Oh”, Zahara gasped at the total nonchalance Miss Crow-Judith talked about it, “oh, that's awful, I'm so sorry.”
“Yeah, no biggie, I'm all healed and all out of parents since I was eighteen. So, s' all good. What about you, professor Fell? I heard high praises from, like, two of my pupils. What do you do to them?”
“Oh, well, I think I bore them to death. As you know, I teach Latin, and I dedicated my life to the subject, I even lived in Italy for a year to study it better that I could possibly do here, and now I can't stomach any movie set in ancient Rome, they're so full of stupid mistakes, not that I normally bear movies at all, and then I came back to London and there weren't many job opportunities for me, so I thought maybe I'd give a chance to teaching for one or two years, and here I am twenty years after, wearing your ears out like a teenager.” She sighed again, feeling primroses blooming on her cheeks, “I'm sorry. I guess this is why I don't have so many fans amongst the pupils. I tend to... blabber, so to speak, and teenagers don't really appreciate blabbering adults.”
“Nonsense,” Judith replied, taking another bite of meat, “kids are dumb. You're interesting. They just don't understand because their brains are small and underdeveloped yet.”
“Oh,” Zahara just said, feeling those flowers, now in her chest and in her hands, open up like sunflowers to the sun.
“Yeah. I bet you give the most interesting Latin lessons, even if I know shit all about Latin. After they kicked me out of grammar school I just erased about everything, and in my next school they didn't teach Latin, so I forgot. But I bet you could make it entertaining as fuck.”
“Well,” Zahara blushed, a bit flustered, “I'm not sure about that, but I think Latin is entertaining per se. The literature is a treasure for mankind. And the poetry! Even if the Greeks, too, left us some marvellous poetry, epic and other. Do you know anything about Sappho?”
“I haven't the faintest idea, except she was the first lesbian ever.”
“Yes, but we found so many fragments of her poems, and they are so - full of love, and longing, and devotion.”
“Oh,” she smirked, and Zahara blushed once again, “do you care for telling me one? Just your favourite one.”
“Oh, just one? But I can't possibly choose.”
“All right, all right. Your first three.”
Zahara, butterflies in her stomach, licked her lips, making pie charts and diagrams about which ones would make the better impression, would be more - as to speak - suggestive. That was a tough decision, one of the hardest of her life, but she made it, and recited the poems, as Judith was all ears, open like a field, taking her voice, her words in. How darling she was. Made Zahara forgot about her lasagna - that was a first, but Zahara didn't really care.
It went on like that. Judith kept on popping in her office for random questions - was she amenable to translate something for her? She wanted a new tattoo but every translation on the internet seemed wrong; she had ordered too much sushi for lunch, had she already eaten? Oh, yes, that pen, she had dried that pen, but she could buy her a new one, even a better one. Oh, Waitrose had new custard filled doughnuts, they were incredible, and she casually had bought too many, did she like pastry?
Zahara's heart grew two sizes every time she saw her red head. How lovely her hair was, so fiery and shiny, waves sweet and - she bet - soft as a lamb. She desperately wanted to touch them, braid them. She almost reached out for her one day, but retreated her hand.
“That skirt - nice, suits you.”
“You know, I have just the perfect earrings for your eyes - I mean, they're the same colour. They would look so good on you. My earrings, not your eyes. Your eyes look good on you already.”
“Did you change your shampoo? You smell differently today.”
“Well, I remember hearing you singing something from Les Mis, and my brother had two tickets laying around because he was supposed to go with his girlfriend but they broke up, so... are you free Saturday evening? At 7 p.m.”
It went on like this. Until, one day, Zahara was tired of dancing, and decided to take matters in her own hand. She took a deep breath and, as Judith was about to sit on her desk, she asked: “When do you mean to stop flirting with me and just, you know, take action?”
“Stop fl-- what are you talking about? I'm not doing anything!”
Zahara blinked twice in rapid succession.
“... so, you weren't aware you were... flirting with me?”
“... no, I wasn't. I don't know how to flirt.”
“You found any excuse to be alone with me.”
“Yeah, because other people suck and you don't.”
“You complimented me so much.”
“That was because you deserved it.”
“You said that you loved my hair ten times.”
“Well, it was - why are you counting them?”
“We're going on dates.”
“We're going out together! As colleagues! Maybe as friends? We - friends, right, Zahara?”
“Oh, darling, we ceased to be friends months ago.”
Judith's heart shattered with the noise of a Swarovski vase thrown at a wall. “What? Why? Why aren't we friends? What did I do? Did I offend you? Did I make fun of you in a mean way? Did I -”
Zahara, fed up with her anxious blabbering, resolved to simply take her by her lapels and kiss her stupid, until she was sure Jeanette forgot her own name, let alone how to speak. Her lips were dry, but Zahara didn't notice it until a full minute after. She made a mental note to buy her her favourite chapstick.
“Does this make things clearer for you?”
Judith looked at her, lips slightly parted and eyes twinkling. “... a bit, yeah.”
It went on like this. Date after date after date. Something growing between them like a forest, like neverending roots. Zahara kissed her on the mouth and Judith loudly squealed, hid her face in her hands. Zahara kissed those hands.
Zahara kissed her chest, her legs, in between her thighs. She licked her, bit her, marked her. She said she loved her so much she wore out the words. Judith never said it back.
“Don't you love me?”, Zahara asked one night, their bodies warm against each other. Judith stood up as if she had been zapped.
“It's not that, it's -”
“You can say it, if you don't.”
“I fucking do! Don't you think I do? I - don't I show you enough?”
“Well, yes, but -”
“And that's it! Why do you need those stupid words? We're always out together, we go to plays and musicals and ballet, and you know I hate ballet!”
“Yes, but it's just nice to hear it -”
“Then I don't do nice!”, she almost shouted, angry and bitter and black around the mouth, tears threatening to fall down. Zahara, feeling so guilty it almost hurt, reached out for her, stroked her cheek.
“Oh, darling, I'm so sorry. You know how silly I can be sometimes.”
“Unreasonable, more like.”
“Yes, my sweet, I was being unreasonable. I'm so sorry. Don't be sad, don't cry.”
“And a tyrant,” she sniffed, pouting, but leaned in her touch, “not every one has... words. Not every one talks.”
“I know, I'm sorry, my darling. I won't ask you any more,” said Zahara, voice as sweet as honey, “I know your heart. I can see it on your sleeve.”
“Mph,” she grumbled, but didn't reply. She accepted Zahara's kisses until she conquered her smile again.
“I have an idea. You need a cellphone,” Judith suddenly said one afternoon, as she was making tea. Zahara looked at her dumbfounded.
“What I need a cellphone for?”
“It's -“ Judith growled, frustrated, “can you just get one? I think I found a way to - to say things. Y'know, dovey things.”
“... did you mean lovey-dovey?”
“Yeah, that. Well, a cellphone. Today, please. You already have my number, so I'm waiting for a WhatsApp later in the afternoon.”
“... but I don't know how to use WhatsApp.”
“There are a lot of tutorials on the internet, I'm sure you will manage.”
“On the internet, you say. Well...”, Zahara gulped, pursuing her lips, “I don't own a computer either.”
“You don't - how can you live in the 22th century?”
“Well, I don't. We're still in the 21th, dear.”
Judith frowned. “Oh, right. Well, my question still stands. Well, we're going out for your phone. Not Amazon, because Amazon sucks balls.”
“You said well so many times, Judith.”
“Well, piss off. Better?”
“Better.”
Out they went, and a cellphone was bought, and that night Zahara was sent a million messages.
The first message Judith sent to her was a video, an impromptu A heart full of love sung in a park she didn't recognize, something Judith had casually found when she was walking back to her apartment. “u” the message read, just that, and Zahara started giggling like a silly girl.
Then she sent an article about two gay swan, and that message too read “u”, but after a few seconds she added “also me”.
Then a picture of ducklings, and a screenshot from an app post about something called fucklings. “What's Tumblr?”, she asked, confused, when Judith told her to download it. “What are you trying to make me do?”
“You have Google now. Find it. And good luck.”, Judith just replied, and Zahara was sure she could hear her laugh. She downloaded Tumblr anyway.
Then a song from The Clash, then one from David Bowie, then one from Flogging Molly.
And then a 'nite. thinking of you. X'; and that was it, that was how Judith talked. Zahara grinned until she fell asleep, and kept on grinning in her dreams.