Chapter 1: My Insidious Plot

Chapter 1: MY INSIDIOUS PLOT

Fucking bitch! I can't believe she kicked my ass again. Fuck!

"And the winner of this Know-It-All contest is Allie Zembrovitch," Jason called out smoothly.

I stalked off to the hotel bar and asked for a shot of Petron. I knew it was a really horrible idea, but I was in a really horrible mood after losing again to her. For the second year. After studying my ass off. Who the hell even knows that Andorra exists, let alone that the capital city is Andorra la Vella??? I mean, what the fuck? I was so sure I would get her on that one, and then she just threw the answer out there like every damn fool knows that. I tossed back my shot and asked for another.

The contest had been over now for six minutes and my nerves were starting to settle, helped by the alcohol. The bartender set the other shot in front of me; struck by a sudden inspiration, I ordered a glass of white wine for her, smirking evilly to myself. I walked over to the corner of the lounge where she was talking quietly with a few people I didn't recognize. I would get her drunk and find out her weaknesses.

"Hey, Ms Know-It-All! Congratulations," I smiled and handed her the glass of wine. "You kicked my ass again."

She looked at me questioningly, not sure if I was being sarcastic, complementary, insulting... or what. It was a valid concern, because all of those were in my voice and in my attitude.

"Well you won the contest," I conciliated. "So you are now officially Ms Know-It-All."

"Oh, thanks." She took the wine and relaxed slightly, but still eyed me with a generous measure of suspicion. "You did really well yourself."

"So, for bonus points, where is that wine you are drinking from?" Now I was just being a bitch and I knew it, but I tried to pass it off as a joke.

"Wine? Ummmm, California?" Allie clearly had no idea. It almost seemed as if she didn't even recognize it as being wine.

"Nope. OK, something easier then, what kind is it?" I was starting to gloat a bit now.

"White? I don't know. I don't drink much..."

"Hey, I don't think we met. I'm Kevin. Your name is Jenny, is that right?" The tall kid standing behind Allie pushed forward and interrupted. "I'm Allie's brother."

"Hi Kevin. Yeah, I'm Jenny." He was clearly much younger, so his sudden protective attitude toward Allie seemed weird. But he was also a good foot taller than either her or me, so that was sufficiently intimidating.

Then the other woman stepped forward, essentially walling off Allie from me. "Hi Jenny. I'm Cindy, Kevin's wife, Allie's sister in law. So nice to meet you." She was friendly, but firm. This girl wouldn't be pushed around. "You did really well, Jenny. Have you been involved in this competition long?"

Allie sifted back, letting Kevin and Cindy screen her. I was frustrated; my whole plan was to find out something about my rival, figure out her weak spots, get her a bit tipsy so she would spill her secrets. And now I'm being foiled by a 20 year old kid and his wife, who are tag teaming me, peppering me with questions and not allowing any chance for me to infiltrate. They were very good at putting me on the defensive, I had the feeling they'd had a lot of practice.

------

After losing to Allie I was out of the running, but I came to watch the Championship and to support some of my friends. Tomorrow was Long Dark Teatime of the Soul (otherwise known as the winter solstice), but tonight we were relaxing and taking it easy. Janelle was not drinking because she wanted to be in peak condition for the contest tomorrow; Mike was drinking because he thought he could win even if he was hung over.

"So Jenny, why didn't Molly come along with you this year?" Mike asked ignorantly.

I glared at him and stalked off to get another Redd's cider. The hotel bar here was lame, but at least they had one thing that was drinkable. While I was waiting at the bar, I looked around at the others in the lounge. Several were clearly business people who had nothing to do with the competition, but I recognized a handful of people I knew from previous years. There was one couple I couldn't place; I didn't remember seeing them here before but they were very much in the demographic I would expect to be participants. I got my cider and rejoined my friends at their high top table.

"That bad, huh?" Janelle observed gently. "I was hoping you two could work that out."

"Yeah, well I don't think she really wants to. I mean, we haven't officially broke up yet but I know it's just a matter of time. It's always been an asymmetric relationship, so I don't know why I ever hoped for anything real."

Janelle said nothing, patiently waiting for me to continue; she knew I had more to say but that I didn't want to be rushed. The thing is, Janelle and I weren't even all that close of friends but I always felt really comfortable talking to her. She is several years older than me, in her mid-30's so that gives her more perspective on life. Also, she's a very patient listener, and when she does say something it's meaningful. She would never just leak trite platitudes.

"I know a big part of the issue is me being ace, but it's not just that. It's like, I try really hard to get over myself and be she what needs........... and I just feel like she doesn't even try to be what I need. I know she doesn't love me; well maybe she does to some extent, but she's definitely not 'in love' with me, not really. And I just can't do a relationship like that."

"Asymmetric." Janelle observed. "So are you 'in love' with Molly?"

"I mean, I used to think I was........."

"So then you're not. If you were 'in love', like Wesley and Buttercup true love, you'd know. There wouldn't be any thinking about it. Your guts would be twisted in knots right now at the mere suggestion that it's soon to be over. But you are, right now, just annoyed with me for pestering you about it."

She wasn't wrong. I analyzed my guts quickly, no twisted knots; then what? What was I feeling then? Disappointment, sadness, a vague feeling of loss, a little anxiety about having to figure out who was going to keep the apartment and who was going to move out...... but no twisted knots.

"So you've been 'in love' before, then?"

"Still."

"So you married your one true love then? You and Paul are Wesley and Buttercup?"

She got a slightly pained expression, then looked at Mike who was standing silently between us. "Mike, go get us all another round."

When he was out of earshot: "Not Paul. That's basically a marriage of convenience; we like each other well enough, and are compatible living together. The sex is nice, sharing expenses is good. If we have kids I'm sure he will be a good father. But I'm not desperately in love with him. What we have is safe and healthy, not desperate."

She was silent for a while. Now it was my turn to wait patiently while she decided how much to tell me.

"Twelve years ago, we were seniors in college. Both of us identified as bi and neither of us were out to our families. She told me, the second time we slept together, that it was just a short fling, nothing serious. She even flat out told me: "don't go falling in love with me because the day after graduation this is over.' Yeah, easy for her to say, and for her it was over.

"Except not entirely. I married Paul really out of self defense. She lived only a couple hundred miles away, and every once in a while she wanted to get together. Any time she happened to be in Cedar Rapids. And she is smart, fun, I liked being with her; but I knew she was seeing other people. She talked about it casually, like it didn't matter. One time I told her how I felt, everything; she laughed at me and told me not to be so serious. For seven years it went along like that.

"So when Paul came along I married him. I'm lucky he turned out to be a great guy because I would have done anything to get away. She called me, the night before our wedding, she called and wanted to get together and have 'one last fling", as she called it. On the night before my fucking wedding. I didn't answer, thank god, and let it go to voice mail. I don't know what I would have done, I really don't know...... but I didn't listen to the message until three days later.

"But that twisted knots in the gut thing that I mentioned?............ still, after all these years, yeah I still get it."

Mike returned with another round of drinks and that conversation was over. Janelle left her iced tea untouched.

"I'm going to bed, I need to get some sleep for the contest tomorrow." Her voice sounded strained and I'm pretty sure I saw tears.

Mike picked up on the subject of the contest and started to speculate on his chances of winning. I offered a few meaningless platitudes just to keep him jabbering, so I could dwell on my own thoughts. My eyes wandered around the lounge and I saw Allie in a corner table, flanked by her brother and sister in-law, like bodyguards. Mike didn't have a chance, Allie would be winning this year. I saw Justin approaching our table.

"Hey Jenny, good to see you. Hey I need a favor, Chuck couldn't make it, last minute something, he just sent me a text. So we need another judge for tomorrow. I didn't see your name on the list of contestants, I actually didn't think you'd be here, but since you are can you judge?"

"Sure, for the first couple rounds anyway. I won't be able to for the final round though."

"Why not?"

"Well for one thing, I'm going to be covering the competition for my magazine, but also because Allie is in my District Group so I'll be disqualified to judge."

"Who's Allie, and what does she have to do with anything?"

"My nemesis. My arch enemy. Her." I pointed to the corner. "And she will be in the final round. If we allowed betting, I'd put a bottle of Petron on her winning this year."

"Oh? So why aren't you competing this year, anyway? I just assumed you wouldn't be here, and that was why, but you are here."

"Yeah, because Allie took me out. Technically she took me out last year too, but for some reason she didn't come to the World Championship so I was runner-up. That's the only reason I won last year and not her."

"But you won for like what, five years in a row?"

"No, only three, but honestly? There wasn't much competition. Hardly anyone takes this seriously."

"Hardly anyone even knows it exists!' Justin laughed easily.

--------

Next morning I met at 7 for breakfast with the other judges and the organizing committee to arrange the matches. They had a preliminary plan, but only 27 of the contestants actually showed up so we needed to rearrange a few things. Twenty seven is a bad number for this, it's all multiples of three. Which means that every other round either somebody sits out or somebody has to do the round twice. We decided that we'd let someone sit out.

"It will be easiest if we just have Allie do all the sitting out. And that will give the other contestants more opportunity to participate."

"How do you figure?" asked Meridith. She is the chair of the organizing committee; she basically is the organizing committee, since Justin doesn't really do much.

"Because anybody who doesn't have to go up against her will have a non-zero chance of winning."

"I thought you hated her," Justin observed.

"I do, but she is still going to win, whether I like it or not. So we should try to make it fun for everyone else. It's not like we have so many people breaking down the doors that we can afford to piss them all off."

Twenty minutes later we had the match schedule figured out and taped to the door of the conference room we had rented. I would need to be a judge during the first 3 rounds when we have 4 matches going concurrently. That was going to make it hard for me to get contestant interviews for my magazine story, but there was nothing I could do about that. I knew most of the people anyway, I suppose I could call them later and get a phone interview.

------

The first matches were over pretty quickly. Since we have such a small number of participants, many of them make it to the World Championship without ever competing in their home District Group. So they are pretty bad and get defeated pretty quickly by the few who are actually good. It's completely unfair, but unavoidable. There was a new kid I hadn't ever seen before, a 9th grader from California who was doing really well. I'd definitely want to get an interview with him for my article. And it looked like both his parents were there with him - I was impressed. That's a pretty serious commitment for the three of them to travel to Kentucky, from California, for the geekiest competition in the world.

The two unknown women I had noticed in the hotel bar last night were also there, so I'd been right in my guess. But they weren't competing, they were just watching. I couldn't figure out who they were there to watch though, and we never get spectators who come to these just for the fun of it. So I decided I'd interview them and get their story.

"Hi, I'm Jenny Peebles and I'm doing a story on this World Championship Know-It-All competition. Could I ask you, what brings you here? Are you supporting one of the contestants?"

"No, we're just here watching. It seemed like a fun thing to see so we came down for the weekend. We just live in Pittsburgh, and Lexington is such a pleasant city anyway; it seemed like a good excuse for a romantic getaway." The taller woman explained.

"Romantic getaway? Hmm, well that's the first time I've ever heard this contest called that! So, could you tell me your names, and what you do when you're not taking a romantic weekend getaway to the geekiest contest in the world?"

"I'm Tammy, my fiance is Alex. We're both engineers. So geeky is kind of what we normally do," the shorter woman answered, laughing lightly.

"So that explains it then!" I laughed too. "Is this your first time coming here then? And how did you find out about it?"

"This guy at work, who spends way too much time on the internet, forwarded a thread he saw on reddit," Alex explained. "Tammy has sort of a reputation as being sort of a..." she looked embarrassedly at her fiance for a moment "sorry sweetheart.... sort of a know it all, so he thought it was funny."

"Joke's on him though," put in Tammy, "because this is quite intriguing. We are rather enjoying this incomparable demonstration. I do say, we must needs make this an habitual pastime." She pronounced it 'abitual, as if affecting a British manner, but she didn't have anything remotely like a British accent - weird.

"But you're not competing? Why not? Have you considered it?"

"Not previously. Alex wanted me to, but we entirely lack any informative source of data about the mechanics of the competition. And with such a factual deficiency, I am unwilling to engage in this enterprise. But, would I be correct to presume that you might be an authoritative source? Since you are a judge?"

"Yes, um, that would be a correct presumption," I found myself trying to mimic Tammy's overly formal speech. "Also, I'm on the rules committee." I switched off my recorder. "Text me your email address, and I'll send you everything." I told her my phone number.

Then I briefly explained that the basic instructions of the game could be found here: RULES

But those instructions do not explain the rules for the World Championship. In the US, we have 109 District Groups which are made by taking the 435 congressional districts and dividing it mostly by 4, but then lumping Puerto Rico in with some of Florida, and D. C in with some of Maryland, and Guam in with some of Hawaii. It might seem complicated, but seriously: it you can't figure that out you really have no business being in this game. So ideally we would have 1 contestant from each District Group for 109 people, but in reality we are lucky to get a couple dozen. I gave them my best sales pitch to get involved for next year. We didn't have anyone at all from their DG so Tammy could automatically qualify just by showing up.

"And it's not exactly a requirement, but it helps us if the DG has an organizer. Preferably not the same person as the contestant. So like Alex, maybe you could be the organizer if Tammy is going to compete."

"Isn't that a conflict of interest? Tammy is my fiance, there would be an appearance of impropriety."

"Theoretically, yeah. But you're the only two people who are there. If someone else joins, and they want to complain, then they can be the organizer, right?"

I was feeling pretty good about recruiting some new people to the game. After leaving them, I hunted up the parents of the 9th grader to get an interview with them.

------

As I had predicted, Allie won handily. I caught up with her right after she got done hugging her brother and sister-in-law bodyguard team.

"Hey Allie, congratulations!"

"Oh, thanks," she sounded a bit nonchalant, like she wasn't even happy that she won.

"Hi Jenny!" the sister-in-law was more effusive. "I'm Cindy, I don't know if you remember me, we met a few months ago. This is such an exciting day for us."

"Yes, I'm sure." I turned back to Allie, "But Allie, we have to go the the meeting for the Rules Committee right now. It won't take long, probably not more than half an hour."

"Why? I didn't cheat!"

"Huh? What? No, we always have our meeting right after the Championship, while everyone is still here. It's just a routine meeting, basically for you to meet the others."

"But why?"

"Because you won. So you're on the Rules Committee for the next year, and I'm off now. The winner of the Championship is on for the following year.... it's in the bylaws..... right?" It was pretty evident from the look on her face she had never seen the bylaws.

"Um Allie, it's not a big deal. We're not discussing anything important now. You just take my place, meet Meridith and Jack, you say 'hi', I say 'bye' and we're done."

"No, I don't think I want to do that." Jeez, it was such a non-event, why is she being so difficult about this?

I had no idea what to do about that, our bylaws had no provision for the winner refusing to comply with the bylaws. Obviously they would need to be amended, but that didn't help me now. "Allie, can you at least come to the meeting and we can talk about what to do? I guess if you really don't want to be on the committee, I can stay on instead, but we still need to talk to Meri and Jack about it. Please?"

Ultimately, and reluctantly, she agreed. Jack was chair of the Rules Committee, and the other members were me (because I won last year) and Meri (because Meri has a hand in everything). Meri and Jack were just as happy for me to continue, since we'd been working together for years anyway. But I didn't like it; I had been largely responsible for originating most of the rules, and I really wanted to get somebody new involved to take a fresh look. I was worried that I was having an outsized influence on it. And really, I just wanted to play the game, I didn't want to be dictator of it. Apparently Allie felt the same way, and she was even more stubborn than me.

------

On my drive back down to Gatlinburg, I pondered the Allie problem. I needed to get rid of her.

We had established that she was technically the member of the Rules Committee, but then agreed that I would attend the meetings in her stead and later meet with her privately to work on whatever changes were proposed. It was a stupid, clumsy, ridiculous, unnecessary arrangement and it pissed me off. The only good part about it was that the Rules Committee did essentially nothing anyway, so it was irrelevant.

Still, I needed to get rid of her. As long as she was around, I had no chance of ever making it to the Championship again. Not that I was planning to murder her, or anything like that. No, but if I could get her out of my DG, or if I could move somewhere else, then I'd only have to deal with her if she bothered to show up.

Option B: I could move to some other location where she wasn't. Writing for the magazine was an insignificant detail, it didn't pay much and I could do that from anywhere; my main source of income was substitute teaching; I could do that anywhere in Tennessee, but getting certified in another state would take time; my part-time bar tending: I could almost certainly do that anywhere else. My love life: near-death. It would be only a matter of time before Molly and I break up.

But my house: after my grandmother moved into assisted living I started planning to buy her house. I was going to need a place to live when Molly finally dumps me, I think the only reason she was waiting is for the sale to be finalized. True, it was bigger than I needed, and I could find a different house in a different town, but I just didn't want to. There were too many memories of chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven, sitting on my grandpa's lap trying to drink his coffee without choking to death, weeding the flower gardens with my mom and sister, sleeping on the floor with all of my cousins at Christmas. Too many fond memories. I wanted to hold onto that.

Nope, it was going to have to be Allie that is gotten rid of. I knew nothing about her though, so the first task would be that. Figure out who the hell she is, what she does, and most importantly, why she should be somewhere else.

As soon as I got home I sent her an invite for a Zoom meeting for the next evening, ostensibly to discuss the work we needed to accomplish this year. She blithely accepted.

------

At the end of that meeting I had learned a few things. She lives in Asheville NC; she plays banjo; she might have a degree in something about libraries, and might have a job at a library; she doesn't have a drivers license. I couldn't see any way in which these few disparate factoids would be the slightest bit helpful. I took two shots of Petron and went to bed.

Next morning I thought it all over again. The only useful thing I could identify as having come out of last night's conversation, is that I'd convinced her we needed to have weekly meetings to 'discuss all the important issues.' She was so easy to lie to, so gullible, I almost felt guilty; I didn't though. I would slowly infiltrate her defenses, without Kevin and Cindy to block me, gain her trust and then convince her to move to Guam or somewhere. We would 'discuss all the important issues.'

That came back to bite me in the ass though, because she started to analyze, in the most minute detail, all of the rules and to debate their implications. Shit! Nobody had ever taken it that seriously before, and now I had unleashed onto myself this nightmare of a polemicist. Not only did she seem to have instantaneous recall of every fact in the universe, she could seemingly connect Planck scale dots through a wormhole across the event horizon. I so badly needed to get rid of her.

Out of the blue one day in April, I got an email from an editor at a major scientific magazine asking if they could reprint my article about the Know-It-All World Championship. Obviously I agreed. And then I got to thinking and conniving. I mentioned that I happened to personally know the World Champion, that she is incredibly brilliant, and would be a perfect addition to their editorial staff in New York City. And that they should hire her for fact checking their stories. I did also tell Allie about it, and encouraged her to send them her CV.

Much to my satisfaction, she was offered the job and she took it. Much to my chagrin, they agreed for her to work remotely so that she didn't, in fact, move to NYC. And then, to my infinite dismay, her sister-in-law, Cindy, insisted that they all come visit me and celebrate Allie's new job. WTF?? Every single scheme I come up with backfires on me! Even though I can be really underhanded sneaky mean, I can't be overtly mean. In the clear light of day I just need everyone to like me. So I told Cindy that I have plenty of extra room in my house and they should all come for a weekend, sometime. Fuck me.

Turns out, that weekend, sometime, was three days later. Fuck me twice as hard!

-----

"Jenny! So great to see you again! Wow, this is such a beautiful house. Thank you so much for inviting us over." Cindy was in effusive, bubbly mode.

Cindy had pretty much invited themselves over, but I wasn't going to say that. Pretend-nice me said, "You're welcome, I'm so glad you all could make it. How was the drive over? Did you have supper yet? If you're hungry we could order some pizza."

"Oh, that would be awesome. Maybe a vegetarian, and whatever you like? If you order, Kevin will pay for it. Kevin, bring your credit card over here so we can order the pizza." Cindy clearly had him well trained.

We were sitting around, waiting for the pizza to show up. Kevin and Allie had taken all their suitcases up to their rooms, and Cindy was sitting on the other end of the couch from me.

"Jenny, I'm so glad that you and Allie have become such close friends. Obviously, you know that she doesn't have many close friends, outside of our immediate family, of course."

"What? Really?" I was only slightly surprised that she didn't have close friends, but what in the world would lead anyone to believe that I was her close friend? "Um, I guess we didn't talk much about that, but I assumed she had friends?"

"Not really. She's pretty blunt, her manner can be off-putting, it's typical for people on the spectrum. A lot of people get offended by that, so it's really nice that you are so patient and understanding."

WTF again?? Who is she talking about? Not me. I'm not patient, I'm sneaky mean. Sure, I'll act nice to your face, but...... Thinking about that made me feel ashamed of my dishonesty. Cindy is real-nice; I'm pretend-nice. Allie is real-honest; I'm pretend-honest. So much of my life was pretend - pretending to be in love with Molly, pretending to enjoy sex with her so she would love me; pretending to be friends with Allie while I was plotting against her.

Cindy sensed my discomfort and changed the subject. "This is such a nice big house. And you live here by yourself?"

If that was intended to make me feel better, it was a bad choice of a new subject. "Yep. All alone. Single in a big house. At the age of 28 with no prospects for anything better. Probably I need a cat. Maybe 10 cats."

"Ouch, Jenny! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. Really, I'm so sorry, I wasn't trying to pry into your personal life."

"Oh, no worries. I don't have a personal life." I didn't want it to sound bitter, but it did.

Luckily, the pizza showed up just then.

-----

The weekend wasn't horrible. We went hiking in the state park, had dinner at a place with some live music on Saturday night, and fired up the backyard grill (which I had never used yet) on Sunday afternoon. Kevin fiddled around with it for an hour or so before he had it running to his satisfaction. He seemed to prefer the company of the grill to the company of three women.

Cindy definitely did all the work of maintaining conversation. But now that I was beginning to understand Allie's personality better, I was hating her less. I found that she didn't engage in idle chit-chat; if she said something there was a very specific reason for saying it. She had a flat, emotionless manner of speech that was driving me mad; I couldn't figure out when she was serious, or joking, or if she was ever joking.

I, on the other hand, being the pretend-nice person, often said things I didn't honestly mean. Like on Sunday afternoon when they were leaving for home. "It's been a really fun weekend. You all should come over and visit again, sometime."

"OK. Yes, we can come next weekend." Allie answered, taking my not-a-real-offer literally. She almost sounded happy, but it was hard to tell with her.

"Um, OK, perfect." I was less than thrilled, very much less than thrilled. Shit, I was going to have to learn to not say anything around her that I didn't really mean.

----

I identify as asexual, but not aromantic. This makes it hard to find anyone; it seems most lesbians my age are either already in a relationship, or are very much the sort who want to have sex first and find out later if a relationship can develop. It had been 4 months since I broke up with Molly, and I was feeling it. I missed having someone to talk to at breakfast, missed being cwtched up together on the couch eating popcorn and crying over rom-coms, even missed going to watch at her archery competitions. I'd attempted going to one or another of the lesbian bars around town, hoping maybe there would be someone who didn't already know my problems; but no such luck. I was beginning to consider just letting one of them pick me up and take me home, on the off-chance she would be willing to talk to me in the morning.

I was sitting in the corner drinking Sprite and brooding. Irene came over and set a glass of white zin in front of me.

"You looked like you need this Jenny. Sorry to hear about you and Molly."

"Thanks Irene." I took a sip. "It was going to happen eventually, I guess. But yeah, it still sucks."

"But you're out here tonight, so that's good. Putting yourself out there again? Trying to move on?"

"I'd like to, but........ I just don't know how to do this. It's not like I'm going to go up and ask someone 'hey, would you like to go back to my place, not have sex, and then go to the garden store this weekend and look at landscaping ideas?' I already know the answer to that."

"Yeah, no point asking that question. I get it."

My phone buzzed. I looked at it and saw a text from Allie: you missed our Zoom call, is everything OK? I scowled, I'd been trying to tell her that we didn't actually need to have a call every single week but she wouldn't let it go. And she had just been at my house over the weekend, barely four days ago.

"Something wrong?" Irene asked.

"It's Allie, she want's to know why I skipped our Zoom call. I told her we don't need to talk every single week. God, that woman, she just will not leave me alone."

"Who is Allie?"

I looked at Irene in confusion for a moment, before I remembered that I hadn't talked to any of my pre-Molly-breakup friends in the last six months. So I started with how she had beat me out in the qualification round last fall, and everything in my life that had happened since then.

"So let me get this straight. She came to visit you last weekend, you've been talking to her for a couple hours every week since January, she is coming over again this weekend, and her sister thinks the two of you are best friends?"

"Sister-in-law. Cindy is married to her brother Kevin."

"OK, and you've met half her family. So is she cute?"

"What?!?! How is that relevant? She is my arch-enemy; I'm trying to ship her off to Guam and get rid of her."

"Doesn't sound like your arch-enemy to me," Irene grinned knowingly.

"She is," I spluttered. "She drives me crazy, always questioning and arguing with me. I hate her."

"So Jenny, it's well established that you always want to be the one with all the answers. Sounds to me like you've met your match here. I think you like her. Again, is she cute?"

"I guess..... if you like skinny girls with no boobs." I was starting to worry about what Irene said. When had I become so obsessed with Allie?

"Which you do. So what are you two doing this weekend?"

"Well Kevin and Cindy are coming too, so I don't know. Canoeing down the river maybe. Kevin will want to grill out again on Sunday. Allie is bringing her banjo, she's been pestering me to learn to play mandolin so we will probably have to go around to some music stores."

Irene's girlfriend joined us then, bringing another round of wine for everyone. "What are you two talking about?"

"Jenny was just catching me up on her new crush. Cute girl, killer smart, they talk on Zoom all the time, she's coming over again this weekend to visit, Jenny's going to learn the mandolin so they can play music together."

"Oh that's adorable! Congratulations Jenny. When do we all get to meet her?"

"She's not my crush!" I fumed. I clammed up and refused to say anything until they changed the subject.

-------

Irene parsing my interaction with Allie that way really did make it sound like a relationship. My insidious plot to get rid of her was totally off the rails. I'd learned more about her in the last couple of months than I would have imagined, but I wasn't using it to get her deported to Guam. I was pretending to be nice to her, and now everyone is starting to think we're friends - or more. It was time to take desperate measures.

-----

"Hi Jenny!" Allie hopped out of the car and skipped over to me, throwing her arms around me.

"Hi Allie." What's gotten into her, that she is acting all happy to see me? "Hi Cindy, Kevin. How was the drive?"

I helped them carry in their luggage and take it upstairs to the spare rooms. While they were getting settled in I walked back down to the kitchen and pulled a Redd's out of the fridge.

"Hey Jenny?" Allie was standing in the archway between the kitchen and living room.

"Oh, hey Allie. Want something to drink?"

"Sure, what are you having?"

"Redd's cider."

"OK, I'll have one of those too. Jenny? I have a question for you. Do you dislike me?"

"What?! Of course not, why would you ask that?" I can admit to myself that I'm sneaky mean, but I don't like being called out on it.

"Kevin says you hate me, but Cindy says you're just intimidated by me. So I was wondering who is right."

"Oh, shit." How do I get myself out of this one? "I don't hate you, really. I'm just a little rude sometimes, terrible character flaw of mine, it has nothing to do with you, really."

I couldn't tell if she believed me, but she didn't press it. I'm a good liar, and she is really gullible, so I was pretty sure I got away with it. It really pissed me off though that Cindy thought I was intimidated by Allie. It didn't matter though, after I executed my plan for this weekend all of them would be done and gone.

We had pizza again Friday night, and Allie got out her banjo. I don't know anything about banjo music, but she sounded pretty good to me. One thing I found out, banjos are really loud. That was OK with me, it meant I didn't have to carry on a conversation with any of them. Mostly I watched and contemplated the weirdness of it all: these people I barely knew, invited themselves to my house, and are sitting around my living room playing banjo music. So strange. I at least had enough alcohol to last tonight anyway; and for tomorrow I had other plans.

I had told them all that we needed to leave by 0630 in the morning to get to the river for canoeing. So at 9pm I excused myself and went to bed leaving them to their own devices. I didn't expect that they would actually be ready to leave by 0630, it was all part of my plot to make the weekend as inconvenient and awkward as possible. But a few minutes later I heard them all retiring to their rooms.

I came down to the kitchen in the morning a little after 6 wearing just a camisole and panty, not expecting anyone to be up yet. So imagine my surprise when I saw Allie at the kitchen table, with the coffee ready, waiting.

"Good morning Jenny. I hope it's OK that I made the coffee."

"Oh yeah, that's perfect. Thanks Allie." I was genuinely grateful to have coffee waiting for me, even if a bit discomfited at being near naked with my arch enemy. "Um, I should put some clothes on, I didn't think you'd be down here yet."

"If you like, but don't worry about me. It's your house after all."

Fuck it, I thought to myself, she's right. It is my house and I'll do as I please. So I filled a cup and sat down across from her. "I guess I have time for a coffee first, don't I."

"Do you not like bluegrass music Jenny? You didn't seem to enjoy it last night. Sorry, I should have asked before bringing my banjo, but you told me you would like to hear me play."

"I did?" I vaguely remembered talking about it once, and I might have made some off hand comment like that. "Um no, it was great, I've just never listened to it before. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect that."

"Really? How is it even possible that you live in Tennessee and have never listened to bluegrass? What do you normally listen to?"

"Taylor Swift? Whatever comes up on Spotify?"

"How long does it take you to get dressed?"

"What?" Where did that question come from?

"We have to leave in 15 minutes. I'm going to go check on Kevin and Cindy, they are probably having sex again and not watching the time. I already have everything we will need packed in Kevin's car." She got up and walked upstairs.

I finished my coffee and then went upstairs and got dressed, still trying to wrap my head around the morning.

----

Naturally Kevin and Cindy wanted to be together in one canoe; which left Allie and I together in the other one. Since I have been canoeing a few times before, I thought I should be in the back to steer. Steering a canoe is pretty tricky, it's all about paddling on the correct side which means you have to switch sides a lot to keep it going in the right direction. Even though it had been a couple years, I was doing pretty good - I thought.

"Jenny, this is fun. We should do this more. You're already learning how to do it pretty quickly."

"I'm learning?" I muttered under my breath. "God, you really are a Miss Fucking Know It All." But I held my tongue, because after tonight there would be no more of us doing anything. I would hold my tongue and bide my time.

We stopped for an early lunch at a nice little grassy place along the shore. Allie had made sandwiches, and apparently had raided my stash of Pringles and Girl Scout cookies to bring along, some apples I didn't know I had, and what little remained of my Redd's. I was conflicted between being happy that she had taken the initiative to put lunch together for us, and being annoyed with her for so presumptuously raiding my pantry. So pretend-nice me thanked her for doing all the work while we had all been asleep.

After lunch I decided to teach Miss Fucking Know It All a lesson, and suggested she take the back of the canoe. Then I waited expectantly for her to crash us into something bad. Tragically, and to my eternal shame, she handled the craft gracefully. Barely ever switching sides, never clunking the paddle against the side, and tracking perfectly. Fucking Bitch! Does she have to be better than me at everything? If I hadn't been so damn mad that the day was going so blissfully, I could have enjoyed it more.

The day on the river had been flawless, and I was seething because of that. We'd had a chance to do some swimming, and seeing Allie in a non-descript, sky blue, one-piece was nearly my undoing. I needed to find something to hate about her; why couldn't she be wearing some slutty, skimpy thing? But she was so comfortably unassuming and modest, neither shy nor brash, just her. Neither hiding nor making a statement, evidently unconcerned about anyone's opinion. Objectively, she would be the epitome of what I would define as 'my type'. If I had a check list she would mark all the boxes, but there is no fucking way I'm falling for Miss Fucking Know It All.

We got back to my house in the early afternoon. It was hot and the sun was burning, so I was glad to be off the water.

"Hey everyone. I'm thinking if we eat around 4 most of the good places will be pretty empty. There's an awesome barbeque place that's usually packed on Saturday nights, but if we get there early we should be fine." I proposed.

"Do they have vegetarian options?" Cindy asked.

"Salads? I don't know, I've never checked." I secretly hoped they didn't have. I was still pissed at Cindy for suggesting that I'm intimidated by Allie.

"Sounds great," agreed Allie. "It's just after 2 now, how far away is it?"

"We can get there in like 10 or 15 minutes. It's not far."

"So then we would have time to go look at some mandolins for you first?"

Goddammit! Why did she have to remember that. True, it's entirely unrealistic to think she will forget something, but a girl can hope, right?

So pretend-nice me said "yes, we'd have time. There's a pretty cool shop on the way, actually." I tried not to think about why I had been researching music stores in the area, that was not something I wanted to think about. "But after dinner we are doing some serious partying, so get on your sexiest party clothes!"

My own sexiest party clothes were an outfit Molly had bought me, that I had worn only one time at her 25th birthday party. It was a sparkly silver, lace body suit and a grey wool mini-skirt. Under it I wore a black demi-bra, and a matching garter-belt with stockings; with 3" steel grey strappy heels. I guess that isn't so enticing as what a lot of other women have; but remember I'm ace - the last thing I want to be is a sex object. I put a pink suit jacket over all that to wear to dinner, I didn't want to be showing anything off until we got to the club.

Cindy was wearing a cute and comfortable sun dress, Allie had on a jean skirt with a sweater (a sweater? in this heat???) Kevin was in boring jeans and a t-shirt.

I don't know the slightest thing about music and music stores, so I gave Kevin the address for the one that Google claims is closest to us. Five minutes later we were listening to an angsty goth teenager extol the virtues of some super wunnerful version of a mandolin. I wasn't really listening, I understood none of the words she spoke anyway.

"Do you want to try it, then?" she was offering it to me.

"I can't... I don't know how to play that.... "

Kevin stepped forward, "I'll give it a try, please, if that's OK?" He took it, and started noodling around. Like I said, I know nothing about music, but that sounded really good.

"So if you want a listen to how that can really sound, here you go." Angsty Goth Teenager pushed a few buttons on her phone and suddenly an explosion of notes burst from speakers somewhere.

Allie started grinning instantly. "That's Nickel Creek. Chris Thile is very likely the best mandolin player of the last couple decades. Perhaps the best since Bill Monroe; perhaps even better than Bill Monroe."

"So, um, Jenny, right?" Angsty Goth Teenager inserted herself back into the conversation. "What are you looking for then in an instrument? Do you want to try something else?"

"I don't even know the first thing about it. Allie thinks I should have a mandolin so I was just going to get whatever you recommend." Oh, my, fucking, god, did I just say that out loud? Did I just say I'm going to spend upwards of $1000 on a mandolin just because Allie want's me to?

"So like, what sort of music do you want to play, then? Nickel Creek is more like straight ahead bluegrass. If you're looking for something with a more contemporary feel, how about Allison Kraus?" She pushed a few more buttons on her phone and a haunting, melancholy voice pierced my heart.

"Oh god! She's good. That's like Taylor Swift on Folklore."

"Except much better." Allie put in.

I listened quietly for a while, there was an instrument I didn't recognize or remember ever hearing before; but then again I know nothing about music. It was there in every song, just around the edges, complementing the vocals but never overpowering, insanely emotional.

"Allie, what's that weird, smooth, slidy instrument, that's all around the edges?"

"You probably mean the dobro. That's Jerry Douglas, best dobro player since Josh Graves. Kelly," Allie looked at Angsty Goth Teenager, " do you have Choctaw Hayride? It's on New Favorite."

A bunch of button pushes and seconds later, I was listening to the craziest medley of notes I couldn't even imagine.

"I need one of those," I gasped, three minutes and 11 seconds after the first notes had hit my ears.

Angsty Goth Teenager Kelly wasted no time putting a customized National in my hands and charging $2837.59 to my credit card. I'm not sure what all that meant about resonator covers, pickups, and bridges, but I'm pretty sure I got a fabulous thing. Allie seemed really pleased with my purchase.

Two miles down the road, panic set in. I had just spent nearly a month's income on this thing that I barely knew one end from the other. That wasn't the worst part, not by far. The worst part was that Allie would now want me to play with her. I'd listened to her last night, there was no fucking way in hell I could ever hope to keep up with that speed, even if I did eventually figure out where my fingers were supposed to go. What the fuck did I just do?

The barbeque place was mostly empty, like I'd hoped for. One thing I learned from waitressing, there's a deathly lull for a few hours between about 2 and 4. On the one hand, we get to rest our feet, on the other hand we're not making money. Anyone who shows up then will get immediate and diligent service. Now I always try to arrange my schedule to take advantage of that. We were quickly given a table in a quiet area.

I was looking at the menu, trying to understand the words. My brain was all over the place, nothing made sense. Everything about today was happening according to the schedule I'd planned, but I was feeling completely derailed. The physical reality was what I'd intended; my emotional state was a complete wreck. The closer we got to my Insidious Plot coming to fruition, the more I hated myself. And I couldn't make sense of my feelings toward Allie. Why did I care that she approved of my dobro? Why had I just spent that much money on one anyway? Why was I worried that I wouldn't be good enough to play with her? Why was I so offended by that stupid ugly sweater she was wearing?

I'm good at faking it though, so I chatted with everyone just as if the universe was perfect. Pretend-nice me ordered some grilled brussel sprouts and some cheese curds as an appetizer. This place has a peach cider from California on tap, which is exceptionally nice. When it came time to order, I got the half-rack of ribs, Kevin got a full rack, Cindy got a Cuban sandwich and Allie got a soup and salad. What's up with that? I thought Cindy was the vegetarian.........

----

Kevin payed for dinner, which I was secretly grateful for. I'd planned on buying, but then I hadn't planned on dropping $3k on a dobro - something I didn't even know existed two hours ago. Then I told Kevin the address of the next place I had planned for us. Now is the culmination of my insidious plot!

We found an unoccupied, table. It was still early by lesbian club standards. This place was an obnoxious meat market. The music was so loud there was no possibility of having a conversation. The women who came here come only for the purpose of finding someone to dance with, then take home and fuck. They wouldn't care if Kevin was there, they'd be all over Cindy and Allie anyway. By midnight I would be reviled and Allie would stay as far away from me as possible. I was feeling pretty optimistic. Except for the part of me that hated myself.

"Good thing we got here early enough to snag a table," I leaned across and yelled to Allie and Cindy above the unnecessarily over-loud, and not very good, music.

"What is this place?" Cindy was typing something into her phone. "Is this a lesbian bar?"

"Yep! My home away from home!" It wasn't really. I pretty much despised this place. But the whole plan was for it to be offensive, and it was. "It's kind of slow right now, but it will pick up soon. Then you can dance with all the hottest babes in the city."

Allie stood up and walked out the door. I followed her. I don't know why I followed her. My whole plan was for her to be offended and leave, but now that I'd accomplished that I hated myself. I caught up with her in the parking lot.

'Allie!"

"Oh, Jenny. Sorry, it's too loud in there. I'll just wait in the car until you're ready to leave."

I was so nervous, and I don't know why. I hated her, right? I wanted her to hate me, right? So then why was I so worried about her not liking me? The culmination of my plan had been a success, I'd scared her off just like I'd planned. All I needed to do now was put the final nail in the coffin.

"You hate it, don't you? Allie, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought us here." What was I saying? I'm supposed to be saying 'go move to Guam and leave me the fuck alone.' Drive the final nail in the coffin.

"Jenny, are you a lesbian?"

"Not exactly? Like, I would say I'm ace, but I prefer to have girlfriends who are lesbians.... if that makes any sense."

"I lack sufficient context to say whether that makes sense or not. Ace means what?"

"Asexual."

"You don't like sex?"

"It's not that I dislike sex.... just, everything else is more important... for me, anyway."

"I'll take your word for it. So then, if we allow that you wanted to come here to find a girlfriend tonight, is it not counter-productive to bring along 3 other people, who are likely to inhibit that outcome? I believe you are more intelligent than to do that. Do you suspect that I'm a lesbian, and would enjoy this venue?"

That thought had not even crossed my mind. Of course the plan had been to come here, abuse all of their sensibilities for hours, until they finally left and resolved never to talk to me again. But I couldn't admit to that. Now, when I was on the brink of that plan being successful, I had caved in; and here I am apologizing for it. I couldn't admit the truth, but I glimpsed a way out....

"I mean, that's a possibility, right? Certainly you know the data, that nearly 30% of people in our age bracket identify as non-hetero, soooo........"

"It would have been easier just to ask me. To answer the question that you didn't ask, I am 'not defined.' In other words, I've not had sex with a man nor with a woman and so I cannot say which I prefer. Anyway, why do you care?"

Why? Good question... no it wasn't, it's a pointless question! I don't care. This is just a smoke screen I'm throwing up to camouflage my secret plan to deport her to Guam..... I've heard that Guam has beautiful sandy beaches with the second best snorkeling, it could be so romantic.... fuck girl, wake up!

"Allie, I'm sorry. This was stupid. Look, we can leave and just go home - to my house I mean - and you can go back in the morning and we will just say this never happened and you don't ever need to talk to me again."

"Is that what you want to do, Jenny?"

And then I started crying. The way she just asked that question with such genuine care, so utterly guileless, tore me to pieces. After all my lies and tricks and plots and schemes she just now told me she would simply do what I asked. At that moment I was absolutely certain that had I asked her to move to Guam, she would have bought the plane ticket that instant. And the idea that she might go away and never talk to me again suddenly ripped at my heart. I didn't know why; I was her arch enemy, the one trying to get rid of her. She was supposed to hate me.

I'd stopped crying at least, when Cindy and Kevin found us in the parking lot. They said things, I really wasn't focused on them. I was frantically trying to understand what I should want next. Allie clearly did not hate me, and I couldn't figure out what to do with that. I wished she would hate me, then it would be easier to hate her back.

"Jenny and I think this place is a bit much," Allie was telling them and looking at her phone. "I've looked for a few other places, there is another bar which advertises to be friendly toward lesbians not far from here. Let's try that one."

I decided to keep my mouth shut and just go along with it.

"Another lesbian bar?" Kevin asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes." Allie simply shuts down that question.

---

It wasn't a huge coincidence, but this one happens to be the place I prefer - on the rare occasions that I leave my house at all. It's a quieter, less frenetic atmosphere. They have some food options, bar food, maybe we will order something after a while. What they don't have is a dance floor, but after my meltdown a half hour ago I'm not up for dancing tonight.

I have no idea why Allie suggested coming here. Maybe she did want to try out the lesbian life? With the four of us sitting together at a table, we are clearly unapproachable though. I don't understand what we are trying to accomplish here and after a while I realize that neither does Allie. Kevin and Cindy are not trying to accomplish anything, they are totally absorbed in each other.

Allie leans in to me, "Jenny, what are we supposed to be doing?"

"C'mon, let's move to the bar." When we get there, I explain. "This isn't the place where people come to hook-up for crazy sex, it's more like the established couples come here for a quiet night out together. Kinda like Kevin and Cindy are doing over there." I gestured toward where they were inconspicuously snogging at the table we recently vacated. "So there's not much chance you'll get hit on, unless you are sitting very noticeably, alone at the bar. Then there is a slight chance. Of course you don't have to sit passively waiting, you can look around and see if there's someone...... " and as I was looking around I saw Molly enter, holding hands with a very gorgeous blonde.

"Fuck," I turned to the bar and buried my face in my hands. OK, now what? Our breakup had been somewhere between amicable and vitriolic, which leaves about 10,000 miles of uncertainty in between. The vitriol had mostly been on my side; Molly had been pretty sanguine about it, and then that had infuriated me even more. I hadn't talked to her since, and had no idea she'd found a new girlfriend. But it shouldn't be a surprise, because that was the whole point: I couldn't satisfy her so she needed someone who could. It wasn't a surprise, but it was still painful.

I knew Molly had seen me. I knew Allie had seen Molly see me. I knew Molly's blond girlfriend had seen me see Molly.

Allie asked me, "who are they?"

"Molly, my ex. I'm guessing the blonde is her new girlfriend."

"So what do you want to do now: go over and introduce ourselves? or go home?"

The going home idea sounded appealing, but I had to ask, "Why would we go introduce ourselves?"

"If you're still friends you might want to talk to them; and if not, you might want to show her that you have a new girlfriend too."

I blinked and stared at her. It's impossible to tell with her when she is joking, but she had to be joking.

"So we tell them you're my girlfriend, to make her jealous?"

"I doubt she'll be jealous, did you see that blonde? And look at me. I'm nothing to be jealous over, but it might be fun to mess with them."

I grinned at her, "Let's do it!"

She took my hand and confidently walked over to their table. "Hi, I'm Allison Zembrovitch, Jenny's girlfriend. You must be Molly, and...?"

I know Allie can be really direct, but even I was surprised.

"Um hi. Jenny, Allison, this is Heather."

"Hi Heather. Mind if we join you for a minute?" Allie didn't wait for an answer before sitting down. So I sat down next to her.

"Yeah, so I'm really glad you two broke up so that I can have Jenny. She's amazing. And she's so smart. You know that game we play, Know It All? She almost beat me at it. One of the questions she asked me once was to give the percentages of the 5 major components in the standard atmosphere, to three significant figures. Can you believe that? Who even knows that?"

"Well you did, Allie. You knew it. But I did really think I'd get you on that one." I mentioned.

Allie turned to me, pulled me close and kissed me full on the lips. Without thinking I pulled her tighter and kissed her back. After what seemed like eternity, and way too soon, she let me go and sighed.

"Yeah. Jenny is awesome. And I don't even need sex from her to keep me happy." Allie looked straight into Molly's eyes. "She's a lot more than just a great fuck; she is my best friend."

Heather recovered first, "So how long have you been dating? How did you meet?"

"Oh we met ages ago, but we've only been dating now for about four minutes. When we saw you two come in, that's when I decided to be her girlfriend.

"Hey, it's been great talking with you, but I think we're going home now. I need to give Jenny a shoulder massage so she doesn't get too sore from that workout we had this morning."

Allie took my hand again and stood up. "Let's go beautiful, I have plans for you."

As we approached the table where Kevin and Cindy were, Cindy smirked at us. "Not surprised."

It wasn't even seven yet, but none of us wanted to be there any longer. I was still in a daze as we walked, hand in hand, out to the car. In the course of two hours, my insidious plot had blown up in my face, and my arch enemy had become my incredible girlfriend. But no, she wasn't actually my girlfriend, that had all been a joke, to mess with Molly and Heather. I felt a twisting knot in my guts.

"Wow, Allie. That was crazy, I had no idea you were such a good bullshitter. I think they totally believed you."

"It wasn't bullshit. It's true. Every word. I don't think I could have said all that if we hadn't been putting on a show, but I meant every word."

"So then we really are girlfriend and girlfriend?"

"Unless you tell me we're not. But I'd hate to get dumped ten minutes in to my first relationship."

I was elated.

---

When we got home, Allie made me practice for an hour with my new dobro. She showed me how to use the electronic tuner on the G string, then how to tune the other strings to that one. She helped fit my finger picks on and showed me how to use the slide.

She picked up her banjo. "OK, now I'm going to play a simple roll, just to give you the beat. And you just noodle around on the dobro. Try to stay in time, I'll go slow. Then listen closely to which notes sound good together."

While I struggled to get my fingers to cooperate and Allie kept a patient and steady rhythm going, Cindy scrounged around in the kitchen. Before long she came out with several plates of fajita's.

"Hungry anyone?" She set them down between me and Allie.

"Absolutely! Where'd you find the tortillas though? I don't remember having any."

"You had flour and corn meal in the pantry, so I just made them up. They're easy." She left to go call Kevin in, he was working on something out in the yard.

By the end of the hour, I could almost stay in time with her. And I was beginning to get the idea of keys, and major chords. It was humbling, I'd been the World Champion Know It All for 3 years straight and was only now learning the most basic thing about music.

----

As promised, Allie was giving me a shoulder massage. I hadn't expected canoeing to be so strenuous; I must be getting old. I was naked and laying on my front, Allie was naked sitting on my butt. It felt nice having her bare skin against mine while she worked my muscles.

"Allie? What you did tonight, the way you bragged me up in front of Molly and Heather, that was better than any sex I've ever had."

"That good, huh? I'll have to do it more often then." She was silent for a while. "So if sex doesn't do it for you, what does?"

I'd tried to explain this to Molly plenty of times to no avail. Molly had understood it to mean she didn't have to do anything for me; I had a feeling Allie really wanted to know. "Just simple little things, like how you had coffee ready when I woke up this morning, and you got lunch together for all of us, and then at the bar tonight with Molly and Heather. Oh my god that was hot! I'll eat your pussy all night long if you want me to, after that."

She giggled. "I would like to try that sometime, if you don't mind."

"I'll do it right now then!" I squirmed around onto my back and pulled her into me for a kiss. I felt her lips part slightly, and I tentatively touched my tongue to her teeth.

I felt her tongue playing against my lips, moments later our tongues were twisting and dancing together. Our mouths were mashed together. Minutes later she pulled back, panting and gasping for breath. My head was spinning and my eyes were blurry.

I rolled us both over so she was on her back and I was on top. "Just relax and enjoy this sweetheart. I want to make you feel as good as you've made me feel today."

I kissed her deeply, then shifted to nibble her ear. She sighed contentedly and ran her fingers through my hair. I slowly licked and kissed my way down her neck to her breasts, swirling my tongue around her nipple. I sucked it into my mouth, taking it gently between my teeth and played my tongue across the tip. With my hand I caressed her other breast, rolling the nipple between my fingers, pinching it softly.

"Oh god Jenny....... don't stop...... fuck.... feels so good....."

I switched to her other breast, taking it in my mouth. My hand slid slowly down her flat tight stomach. I remembered how that stomach looked in the bathing suit this morning and idly wondered if she worked out. She must, it was firm and hard, the muscles right beneath her skin. I slid lower to kiss her stomach, and repositioned myself so I was laying between her legs. Now I had both hands free to move up and play with her breasts again. I loved her flat stomach, kissed it, licked it. Her legs were now spread wide and she raised her knees, trying to push her crotch into my chest. My breast was rubbing on her pussy, I could feel how wet she was and smelled her arousal. She was trying to grind herself on my boob, but it was too soft, yielding.

"Jenny...... I need...... please... "

I moved lower and put my open mouth over as much of her pussy as I could suck in.

"That!..... yes, yes..... that.... Jenny."

I darted my tongue deep into her slit. Her cries became unintelligible babbling and moaning. I basked in the pleasure I felt coursing through her. I don't enjoy the taste of pussy, but I do utterly adore feeling my lover experience the rapture my lips and tongue give her. I felt her muscles twitching and writhing under my hands, pushing herself into my face, her pelvic bone smashing into my nose. I wanted to keep her here forever.

I retreated slightly and turned my head, licking the inside of her thigh, first one side, then the other, and back. I nibbled the skin, licked the crease between her leg and outer lips; then the other side. I was teasing her, getting her closer. Her clit was swollen and begging for attention, I blew lightly on it causing her to shudder and then sucked it between my lips.

"Fuck!" Allie shoved my head away and jerked back from me. "Oh fuck that's sensitive," she gasped.

"Hmmm," I grinned at her. "We will save that for later then."

I went back to sucking on her labia. Before long she was writhing under me again. I took a long slow lick up the length of her, starting at the crack of her ass and pulling my tongue along, almost to her clit. I did that two more times, each time getting closer to that little pink nub. Then I dug my tongue back into her depths, swirling it around, reaching as far as I could. Her breath was broken into short gasps between long clinches, her writhing muscles tensed, she was on the edge. I pressed my tongue flat and hard against her clit. Her body went stiff and breathing stopped as she grabbed my head and smashed it tight into her, legs clamping around my skull as she thrust her pussy hard against my face. I held on tight keeping the pressure against her cunt while she spasmed against me.

She collapsed and pushed me away, her whole body limp. I gazed at her flushed body, eyes closed, gasping for air. Happiness thrilled through me, my heart was pounding. I slid up beside her and cuddled close to her, wrapping my arms around her.

Finally her breathing slowed and she opened her eyes. "Damn Jenny, that was awesome. Shit. Fuck."

"After you catch your breath we can do it a few more times."

"More?"

"Well that one was for coffee this morning, then there's for making the picnic lunch for everyone, and then dobro lessons, and for what you told Molly that's at least two more. Would you like to sit on my face next?"

"Probably, I'm very sure I would like that Jenny. But I can't move."

----

I woke up as the sky was just getting light. Still half asleep, I tried to remember how much of last night was a dream and what part was real. Had Allie actually spent the night in my bed? I rubbed my eyes, my hands smelled like pussy. Then it had been real? I put on my bathrobe, not bothering with panties.

Allie was waiting in the kitchen, the coffee just finishing to brew. "Good morning, perfect girlfriend. How do you like your coffee? I was going to bring it to you in bed, but now you're awake." She kissed me.

"You made coffee again? God Allie, I'm going to marry you."

"Already? Don't we have to do the whole meet the parents thing first?"

I forgot, she takes everything literally, I'll scare her off if I keep saying shit like that. "I didn't mean that seriously, it's just a figure of speech."

"Oh, so you don't want to marry me then?"

"Yes, I do, like maybe in a couple years or something.... I mean..." now I feel like I'm just digging the hole deeper.

"I'm messing with you Jenny," Allie grinned at me. "I shouldn't take advantage of you before you've had a dose of caffeine. You didn't tell me how you want it - your coffee?"

"Half and half." I got the carton from the fridge. "I like the real stuff better than creamer."

I can't say for sure that having coffee together in the morning is the absolute best part of a relationship, but it's at least near the top of the list. Neither of us felt like anything needed to be said. I was basking in the exhilaration of sitting with the woman who moments before had called me her perfect girlfriend.

She finally broke the silence, "what surprises me about this, is how easy it is. All I have to do is make you coffee and tell everyone how awesome you are, and you eat me out. So why do people say it's so hard?"

"This is definitely the easy part. Just wait until we're living together and then fighting over doing the laundry, washing dishes, cooking, paying bills. That's where it get's hard."

She crinkled her nose. "Why would we fight over that? That seems silly. I think, what we might fight over is if you want to play rap, or death metal, or some trash when we're on a road trip. We might fight over that."

"Nope, that would be silly. I'll let you pick the music."

"OK, then how about clothes? Are you going to argue with me about what I wear?"

"Not as long as you let me buy all your clothes."

"Seriously? I'm going to be your dress-up doll?" She laughed. "Well OK, I don't like shopping anyway."

"How about movies? Are you going to argue with me about what movies we watch?"

"No, I won't argue with you about it, but if they are stupid I'll make snide comments during the whole thing."

Cindy walked into the kitchen just then, "Do I smell fresh coffee?"

"Yeah. And there's half and half in the fridge. I don't have non-dairy creamer. And if you want sugar I'll get it out." I turned back to Allie, "Well then I'll make you pick out the movie and I'll make snide comments."

Cindy sat down with her coffee. "What in the world are you two talking about?"

"We're trying to think of something to argue about," Allie explained.

"Wait, what? Are you two an item now? I'm guessing you are although I don't know quite when that happened. And already you want to start arguing?"

Allie and I both giggled.

Cindy shook her head, "OK, how about breakfast?"

"Why would I argue about breakfast? I never eat breakfast and I wouldn't care what Jenny eats."

"You cared a lot about what I ate last night," I quipped, totally forgetting about Cindy.

Allie blushed furiously a second after she figured out the reference.

"My god you two!" Cindy practically shouted. "Stop! I'm asking what you want to have for breakfast. I'll cook."

After rummaging through the cupboards I decided I didn't have anything for a respectable breakfast and would have to run to the grocery store quick.

"OK, so this will be more like brunch by the time we get back. Allie, what do you want? Are you strictly vegetarian, or vegan, or what?"

"Get whatever you like. I'll just have some yogurt or something."

"Allie, you need to eat more than just yogurt! You're skinny as a rail, we need to put some meat on those bones." When it struck me what I'd just said, I became horrified. "Oh fuck! I'm turning into my grandmother now. Shit, I'm living in her house, and now I'm turning into her."

Allie laughed at me, "What's your grandma's name?"

"Harriet."

"C'mon Harriet, let's go get groceries."

---

"Allie, I don't mean to stick my nose in your business, but why is it you don't have a drivers license?" We were driving to the store in Kevin's car because it had been blocking mine.

"You sure had your nose in my business last night, didn't you. Along with your tongue and a couple fingers."

I smiled at that memory. "Duly corrected."

"To answer your question though, I lost my license when I was 17. I was with a bunch of friends at one of their 18th birthday party and they'd all been drinking. I was the designated driver so I wasn't drinking, except I did have 1 beer. Then when I was driving them home I got in a small crash, it wasn't serious though. The other guy went through the light right after it turned red. I thought he was going to stop so I went, but then he didn't stop. Neither one of us were going very fast, so nobody was hurt, but the cops came to do their report for the insurance. And my friends were clearly pretty tipsy, so they made us all do the breathalyzer. I was way below the limit for a DUI, but I was a minor and under the drinking age, so I lost my license for a year. After that I was in college and I didn't need a car for anything. So I never bothered getting it back."

"Makes sense," I commented.

"And it's actually been better for me. You know I'm not good at reading people, I used to get taken advantage of a lot, I can't tell when they are lying to me. So Kevin had to drive me around everywhere, and he figured that out, that I would innocently agree to stupid things, let my friends talk me into anything. Then he took it upon himself to veto bad ideas. Where ever we went, he would hang out and make sure I was OK. He's been really sweet. And now that he and Cindy are married they both do that."

That gave me a lot to think about. Two days ago I had been one of those people, lying to her and plotting against her. She had never suspected, and now she still had no idea. She believed we were friends the whole time. I felt like such a despicable worm.

----

Since we didn't have major plans for Sunday, Allie wanted me to get a lot of practice in while she was still there. We were sitting on the living room floor, across from each other. It was easier for me to see what she was doing if I was sitting across from her, and we couldn't do that anywhere else.

"If you look at my left hand you can see what chord I'm playing. Then you just play notes in the same key."

I was trying to memorize the fingering of all her chords. That, at the same time as trying to keep my own fingers doing what they were supposed to.

I didn't notice when my mom came into the room. "Hi Jenny, you never told me you were having company over today. I thought I'd just stop in quick and see how you're doing."

"Hi mom," I said, without looking up. It wasn't unusual for mom to just stop in whenever she felt like it.

"So are you going to introduce us..... what in the world are you playing? When did you get a guitar?"

"It's a dobro actually, like Jerry Douglas. And this is Allie. I think Cindy and Kevin are grilling the burgers on the patio. Do you want one? Did dad come with you?"

"Hi Allie, nice to meet you. So are you Jenny's music teacher?"

"Mostly I'm her girlfriend," Allie declared proudly. "But also music teacher I guess."

"Hmph. Jenny didn't bother telling me she has a new girlfriend. When did you start dating?"

"About 6:30 last night."

"OK, I'll forgive her then for not telling me yet," mom chuckled. "I guess I'll go and leave you alone now."

"Mom, you might as well stay and eat with us, the food will be ready pretty soon. And you can get to know Allie, she said this morning we can't get married until after the whole meet the parents thing, so we may as well get that part done."

"Good grief, Jenny. Between learning to play a dobro and talking about marriage not even one day after meeting this girl? You're right. I'd better stay a while. Call your dad and invite him over too, he's expecting me to make him dinner. Tell him to pick up some wine on the way."

Allie and I put our instruments away and I called my dad.

An hour later we were in the back yard finishing our late lunch. Allie and I were drinking cider, I'd made sure to tell my dad to bring us more of that too.

My mom refilled her wine and looked at me skeptically, "So tell me again how you two met last night?"

"Oh no, we actually first met about 3 years ago at a Know-It-All contest. I was judging it, I wasn't competing that time, and Allie had just come to watch. After wards, she asked me a bunch of questions about it. And then, like a year later she started to compete. So then, well, one thing led to another.... as the saying goes...." I really didn't want to get into details about my insidious plotting. "It was just last night that we decided to start dating. Officially decided." I wanted to make it sound more thought out than really it had been.

"Oh!" my mom sounded surprised. "You are that Allie, then."

Allie looked at me blankly - shit, my mom remembered all that trash talking I'd done about Allie over the last year. I was in trouble.

"I guess?" Allie offered, non-noncommittally.

"I must say, I'm surprised. I never expected this to come about."

"You shouldn't be surprised though, Mrs Peebles. Jenny is an awesome person, I've admired her for a long time. And we've been best friends for a long time, too. So you know, it's kind of the typical friends-to-lovers trope. She's such a patient and caring person, she has helped me a lot with figuring out all the stuff I'm supposed to be doing on the Rules Committee. It was so generous of her to offer."

Even though I myself didn't believe most of what Allie was saying, it felt really nice to hear her bragging me up again. My mom was giving me the side eye, I think she was pretty skeptical about Allie's understanding of my personality.

Allie didn't stop though, "And we have so many other things in common, we both love hiking and canoeing. She's really smart, she's already learned a lot about playing music in just the last day. That's what I love about her most. She isn't afraid of taking on a challenge or trying something new. It's amazing how good she is at everything she does. I mean really, it's not surprising at all that I want to be with her."

My dad laughed, "Is this the same Jenny I know?" But clearly he was pleased to hear Allie talking so highly of his daughter. "What is this about playing music though? When did this start?"

"Um, I bought a dobro yesterday. Allie is teaching me to play it."

So then my dad insisted I bring it out to show him. And of course it came out during the ensuing discussion that I'd paid nearly $3k, at which my parents nearly had a heart attack. I don't make a lot of money from my collection of part time jobs, so that was a pretty major dent in my budget. We did avoid having to give a demonstration though, mostly because Allie flat out refused to let me play in public until she decided I was ready. My parents didn't argue with her.

As they were getting ready to go home, and my mom made sure nobody else was in earshot, she pulled me aside. "This is a very sudden change of heart Jennifer, I seem to recall that you didn't like Allie. What's really going on?"

"I just didn't know her very well at first, mom. But over time I got to know her better and realized she's really nice."

"Over time, Jenny? It was just last week you were looking at plane tickets to Guam; you can't lie to me, young lady." Mom gave me her icy glare. "At any rate, I think she will be good for you. You need someone like her. You'd better treat her nicely."

When they were gone, I thought about that. My mom always saw right through my BS stories, she knew full well that I had a sneaky mean streak. But she seemed to approve of Allie.

Allie and her family left shortly after my parents. We said our goodbyes and I kissed her full on the lips, like girlfriends are supposed to do. They were not even a mile down the road when it hit me: I was really going to miss her. I'd had such a wonderful day with her, from coffee in the morning, practicing music, even grocery shopping - and then how she bragged about me to my parents. My heart was overflowing, and she wasn't here for me to show her how much I loved her.

How much I loved her.... my brain pulled up short at that thought. Did I love her? My mom had been right, a week ago I was plotting to deport her to Guam. Yesterday at this time we were on our way to a lesbian bar with the intention of offending her out of my life. What the hell has gotten into me?

I played around on my dobro for the rest of the evening, and had a hard time falling asleep that night.

----

Monday morning I was up a little after six, as usual and went down to the kitchen for coffee. Allie was not there and I had to make my own coffee. That was exactly as I knew and expected, yet I felt a little twang. In my whole entire life there had only ever been one day when my girlfriend had coffee ready and was waiting for me in the morning: yesterday. And now I missed that already; how is that even possible?

When I was with Molly, she had never made coffee for me. She didn't drink coffee so that was not surprising. But she didn't sit and chat with me in the morning before leaving for work either. And she rarely helped prepare our meals together with me, or do any of the other little chores that Allie and I had done together over the weekend. Even though Allie hadn't yet been my girlfriend on Saturday morning, she still had taken more interest in my routine than Molly ever had.

I couldn't have fallen for my arch enemy after just one night of sex, I know that's not possible. Sex isn't very important to me in the first place. And in the second place, I had given her a respectable number of orgasms, but I hadn't cum at all Saturday night. I decided to call my sister.

"Jenny! are you OK? Are you in some sort of trouble?"

"Morning Jos, no I'm fine, why would I be in any trouble?"

"Then what the fuck are you calling me at this godawful time for?"

"What? It's only 6:30, don't tell me you're still in bed." Jocelyn hated mornings and wouldn't get up until noon if it were up to her. But since she was my older sister and had tormented me my whole life, I didn't mind aggravating her once in a while.

"I haven't talked to you in forever, and just wanted to see how my favorite big sister is doing."

"Bullshit Jen, you want something. I know it's not money 'cause I don't have any, so what is it?"

"OK, you'd hear it from mom soon anyway, but I have a new girlfriend."

"Congratulations! I'm happy for you. How'd you meet her?"

"So that's just it, I've actually known her for a while. I first met her about 3 years ago, but didn't really get to know her until this weekend, we sort of hit it off. Her name is Allison Zembrovitch, she does Know-It-All too."

"Allison? I don't remember you ever saying anything about an Allison..... is there more to this story Jen? What are you leaving out?"

"Yeah, ah, well you have met her. She is the current World Champion..... "

"Isn't Allie the World.... " then she put it together. "Allison..... Allie, the one you hate, is now your girlfriend? The one who, two weeks ago you were plotting to murder, is now your girlfriend? Oh. My. God. Jen! Spill it, how did that happen?"

So I told her about how she and I ran into Molly and her new girlfriend at the bar, how Allie pretended to be my girlfriend to mess with Molly, and then somehow it wasn't pretend anymore.

"So I'm not exactly sure what happened, that's kind of why I called you. To get an independent opinion on the situation."

"Wait now, why were you even in a lesbian bar with her in the first place? Did you know she is a lesbian?"

"No, I didn't, I don't think she knew yet that she was either. But that's why: I figured if I were to totally offend her and Kevin and Cindy, then they would leave me alone and stop coming to visit every weekend."

"Who are Kevin and Cindy? And 'visit every weekend'? You left that part of the story out too."

So I backed up to the part about me helping get Allie a job in New York City that she didn't actually have to move away for and everything that had happened because of that.

"Wow Jen, this is good! So much to unpack here. It's good you called so early, I don't have to start getting ready for work for another two hours. First of all, it's awesome that she put that bitch Molly in her place, she never treated you very nicely, and you wouldn't believe me. Second, obviously you've been in love with her for a while and didn't recognize it. That's the classic rivals to lovers trope. The two of you are both competing for the same thing, jealous of the success of the other, think the other one hates you so you think you hate her back, but really you secretly respect each other.... classic."

I talked to Jocelyn for another 45 minutes; but unlike her, I did need to be to work by 8. I'd picked up some part-time work over the summer when there was no substitute teaching available. And now that I had just added $3k to my credit card, I was going to need all the work I could find.

That week Allie and I talked every night over Zoom. We tried playing music together, but there was a slight time lag in the sound, and it was impossible. Now I was looking forward to talking with her, and we almost never talked about official business anymore. But like I said earlier, none of that mattered much anyway. Allie had already compiled a list of proposed changes more extensive than the previous six years put together.

As Friday approached, I found myself wishing that Allie were coming over for the weekend again. So I asked her.

"No Jenny. I already asked Kevin, and they have other plans this weekend. So I don't have anyone to drive me. You could come here though. Then you can meet my parents. You need to do that before we get married anyway."

Again, I had no idea if she was joking, and just messing with me again. As much trouble as she had reading other people, I had that much trouble reading her. Maybe there was some connection, I'd have to look into that sometime, maybe. But right now I had more important things to worry about, I needed to pack for my weekend at Allie's!