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Author Note: This story should stand on its own, but if you're interested in the bigger picture, it takes place about 2 or 3 years after "Taste & Hold", and about 5 years before "Hesitant Heat". The timeline won't match up perfectly because I've workshopped the world and metanarrative significantly since I started this project in 2019. Someday I may go back to edit my older stories.

This one is probably one of my messier entries. It's also light on pornographic content.

Content: cheating, queerphobia, references to bad family situations.

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My date fit perfectly against me as I shadowed her around the memorial service, arm around her shoulders, shit-eating grin on my face.

"You don't have to say anything," she'd said, when we were strategizing over text.

"But I can be really annoying," I'd replied.

"Your presence will be annoyance enough."

And so it was: in every direction, it seemed, was yet another cluster of family members draped in somber colors, murmuring something reverent or sad amongst themselves--until we came into their sights. Then the performance of grief turned into something more genuine: exasperation, in most cases, but occasionally full-on offense.

All the aunties had something to say.

"Whatever happened to that sweet boy you were seeing?"

"Does your boyfriend know about this?"

"Your grandfather really loved Brook. He should be here, even if you're, you know..."

No one spoke to me directly. I was an abomination attached to the family's wayward daughter. I could feel like an abomination anytime I wanted, of course, just by reading the news or going on certain social media apps, but that felt bad. This? This was hilarious.

"I'm seeing Scarlotte now," my date said primly, to all challengers. And then she would nuzzle me, and the aunties would turn away and flounce off, and she and I would exchange a conspiratorial grin.

My date's parents approached us last--a final boss of sorts in this game we were playing.

The mom looked genuinely spooked to see me on her daughter's arm. The father? Livid.

"We forgave you," he sputtered, with no greeting whatsoever, "when you laid your perversions to rest. We thanked God and we welcomed you back." He said something in another language and I felt my date's body temperature soar.

"I guess that's the difference between us," she bristled. "I never forgave you."

"This is a sick joke," her dad responded, louder than before. People were staring. "And you're not only insulting your hard-working parents, you're insulting the dead with this... this..." He gestured toward me. "You're sick, Fumine."

"You've thought this through?" I had asked, the night before. "A funeral is a pretty big deal."

"They deserve it," she'd replied.

From her family's behavior, I could tell they deserved every bit of it. But I wasn't worried about them. There's only so much genuine queerphobia you can take from your own fucking parents, right? Fumine shut down. She went rigid and cold in my arms. And I--I went off-script.

"Don't talk to my girlfriend like that," I said.

"Girlfriend nothing," the dad said dismissively, waving a hand as if I were a fart. "You're not welcome here," and then he dropped the f-slur.

He said it more quietly than he said his other words, like he wasn't accustomed to profanity, but with all the pent-up vitriol of someone who would say much worse if he were.

For a moment, no one said anything. I think he was surprised he'd said it. For my part, I hadn't heard it uttered aloud in person in years, except by those among my peers who considered it their right to "reclaim" the word. Sure, I'd seen it in comment sections. I'd heard it in rap music. But this was different.

"Really?" I asked, once I'd gotten my bearings. "In the year of our lord 2019, you want to act like that in a house of god?"

That startled him.

"He's my god too," I hissed. "You want to talk about Jesus? You want to talk about love? You want to talk about how we treat each other?"

He gaped.

I squeezed Fumine tightly. "We're not sick. We're gay. And God loves us. I'm going to pray for you, shit-head. Lord knows you'll need it when you die miserable and alone." The dad's fists were trembling. He looked like he would throw hands if there weren't dozens of mourners watching. I turned to Fumine's mom. "I feel sorry for you, but you're this asshole's accomplice as long as you put up with this shit. Get out while you can, and maybe your daughter will still have a relationship with you. And hey, there's still time for you to find a nice woman to share your life with; it's never too late."

I couldn't read the mom's expression, but I didn't need to. We were done here. I spun Fumine around and marched her out of the church.

It wasn't really my job to sit with her in her car while she cried.

We'd left the venue. By all accounts, I'd played my role.

But I couldn't leave her like this. I considered borrowing her phone and calling her boyfriend, but in the end I just held her awkwardly, reaching over the center console. She alternated between clinging to me and apologizing. I tucked her smooth black hair behind her ears and rubbed her shoulder.

After some minutes, she pulled out of my arms and wiped her face. She was a mess, puffy and flushed. Her lips looked really dry. I offered her chapstick from my purse, and she accepted.

"Sorry," she said, after some deep breaths. "I didn't--it doesn't matter. Can I--can I give you a tip? God, I don't know how this works."

"I mean..."

I didn't want to say no to money--I was here to be paid, after all--but holding a crying stranger wasn't exactly the paid service I was providing. While contradicting instincts warred in my head, Fumine shoved a twenty my way.

I did the simplest thing. I took the money.

"Those fuckers," she exhaled, looking out the front windshield at nothing.

The part of me that stirs shit up--the part of me that posted the damn Fiverr ad--retorted silently that she had provoked them. She had a perfectly good boyfriend she could have brought to her grandfather's memorial, but instead she hired a woman off the internet for the express purpose of "annoying" her family.

The other parts of me, the parts that knew that unbearably complex flavor of incomplete grief for a family not gone but still lost, led my hand back to her shoulder.

"Those fuckers," I agreed.

She turned to me. "Grandpa would have loved that, though." She sniffed. "He liked drama. Used to say he'd live in a soap opera if he could. He was the only one who stayed in touch with me, during the bad years."

"Your mom's dad, right?"

"Yeah."

"He should have done more."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. More."

"He had a stroke the year they kicked me out," Fumine said, shrugging. "He was in assisted living after that. He wrote me--for new year's, for my birthdays... but he wasn't..." She sucked in her breath. "He couldn't--"

I squeezed. "You deserved better."

"I know."

She pulled a tissue out of the glove box and dabbed her eyes.

The windows were fogging up, so I cracked my door. I wasn't intending to leave yet, but any thought of an early exit evaporated when I saw the look on her face as the door opened.

"Don't worry," I said, settling back in the passenger seat.

"I should have been more forthright," Fumine sighed, after a moment. "You only offered to annoy my family, not help me get re-disowned."

"It's cool," I said automatically.

"I went back to them, after I got with Brook... Honestly, I did it for financial reasons, and I think it was pretty obvious to Dad, but we all pretended nothing had happened. Like I'd been straight all along..."

"Yeah."

"The weight of it, though."

"Yeah."

"Grandpa was the only one I cared about."

"Yeah."

With another deep breath, she put both hands on the steering wheel. Her knuckles whitened briefly. Still with that far-away look on her face, she said, "Thank you, Scarlotte."

There was the tone suggesting she was actually ready to drive home. I released her shoulder and sat up straight, hands on my knees. "You're welcome."

"Um..."

I turned to her. She was looking at me as if seeing me for the first time. Couldn't blame her, with everything she'd been dealing with, but--

A little "oh" escaped her lips.

And then she quickly pulled out her phone and became extremely interested in the Fiverr app. "Um, I better rate your services. Where's the stupid button? Ugh. Five stars, of course." Her delivery was rapid, flustered.

"Thanks," I said, hoping to spare us both any acknowledgment of what was happening. "Good luck out there, Fumine."

#

I took down the ad immediately upon getting home.

"I'll pretend to be your annoying trans gf" was a lark cooked up by my buddy Petilda. She'd done it for extra cash down while putting herself through school, and she'd only had funny stories from her experiences. I figured, if she could pull it off, why not me? I was more annoying, anyway.

But my very first sortie had gone sideways, and I was still reeling from it. I considered adding qualifications to the ad. "I'll annoy your family for you but not at funerals," maybe. Or maybe: "don't engage my services if your family will drop the f-slur." But whenever I tried adding enough safeguards, the ad text became too cumbersome. In the end, it was simplest to give up on the idea.

I wanted to blame Petilda for the debacle, but if I complained to her she'd just say I didn't do my due diligence screening my clients, and like, that was true. So I just screamed into a pillow for a few minutes while remembering Fumine's tear-stained face and then took a shower.

#

It was two weeks later when I got a notification from Fiverr. I didn't have any listings there anymore, so even before I checked it I knew it was either going to be a Terms of Service update, or...

"Sorry to bother you, but are you still offering your pretend gf services? I can't find a way to re-order. Thanks for your time, Fumine."

I started typing automatically, as if cutting this off quickly would keep the mental image of her staring at me from haunting my nights. If I were offering them you'd see the option on my profile. Thankfully I had the good graces to delete that before sending it. I rephrased with a simple, neutral, "no."

"Darn. Okay. I have a bit of a situation on my hands, but it's my fault, so. Thanks anyway!"

Her situation wasn't my problem. Her situation wasn't my problem. Her--

"What's wrong?"

She started typing, and then stopped. Started, then stopped. This continued for over a minute, and I decided the best thing for my mental health was to turn off my phone and take a walk.

After last year's fires, we'd had a relatively calm summer in the Estuary. The Gullet of Hell was active in the south, but our skies were clear. From the hill trail over semi-suburban Rust, I could see the region's glimmering cities spread out before me. Across the sparkling water was the golden gate: the skyscrapers of Sacred Freedom, the mountains of the Sea County. Everything was beautiful and calm, in perfect contrast to my own mind.

Easy enough to ignore a rando from the internet, of course.

Slightly harder when you've held her through a traumatic break with her birth family.

Much, much harder when she's a total knockout.

I just kept thinking about her. Her warm brown eyes, with their amber flecks. Her hair, framing her face perfectly while catching its own reddish hue in the sunlight outside the church. Her shoulders, deceptively slim--but my fingers knew how strong they were.

And then I was thinking about how her body felt, of course, and front and center was her neck, how much tension it held, how that tension had ebbed, ever so slightly, in my arms...

I found a bench on the bluff overlooking the recycling center and I sat down. I pushed Fumine rather forcefully from my mind, doing that age-old grounding exercise of counting the things I saw, felt, heard, smelled, and tasted. The landscape was picturesque, like something out of one of those paintings old people always seem to learn how to do in assisted living. The sky was this immaculate gradient of pale gray-blue to deep azure, peppered here and there with clouds so white and fluffy I almost counted them as a thing I could taste. Everywhere I heard the chatter of birds, the buzzing of insects, the distant low thrum of the highways.

One thought led to another--I wish Petilda could see this, oh, I could take a photo--and suddenly my phone was booting up in my hands.

The notification hit as soon as the thing finished turning on.

Shit.

#

We met at the steam tray place in the mall. I'd only ever picked up to-go there; I didn't really remember that there was seating, didn't expect to see them there, didn't expect to see them smiling. I almost didn't go in. But then her mom saw me, and she lit up and waved me over.

"Scarlotte, right? Hi, hi, sit down, here's the menu, and--we should split some dumplings, right? Or do you prefer egg rolls?"

"I'm good with whatever," I said, even as Fumine sprang out of her chair to embrace me.

The jig should have been up. I should have gone stiff. I should have shied away, I should have made some obvious tell that we were not, in fact, girlfriends. But damn if I'm not a professional.

I clutched Fumine to me like we'd put our bodies against each other a hundred times. I made her reconsider our proximity, felt her stiffen--not on purpose. I wasn't playing chicken with this gorgeous woman. I was just doing what she was paying me to do. Which, it turned out, was not pretending to be her annoying trans gf to piss off her family. It was pretending to be her kinda wholesome trans girlfriend on a completely innocuous lunch date with her mom.

"So Fumine," her mom was saying before my ass was even in my seat, "really, no more Brook?"

"I told you, Mom. Brook was just a friend. He let me pretend to be with him so Dad would take me back. It's a whole thing. He was my beard."

"Well, then, he was very good at pretending." Fumine's mom leaned in toward me, expression--salacious? "Why do you think I found used condoms in the trash, Scarlotte?"

"MOM!" Fumine was beet red.

"Ahaha." I did not have to pretend to laugh awkwardly. "Brook was, ah, dedicated to our sham. But don't worry, ma'am, your daughter was not cheating on me. It was all smoke and mirrors."

"Shows you what I know," her mom said, shrugging, tone very much suggesting that my client was cheating on me with her boyfriend.

I shouldn't have been concerned. I shouldn't have been bothered. But if her mom was sure they were fucking, I was sure they were fucking. There's smoke and mirrors, and there's your beard leaving used condoms in your childhood bedroom's waste basket. And I wasn't upset on my behalf, because, of course, Fumine was my client and Brook was her boyfriend, but it was in that moment that my brain chose to fixate on the fact that Fumine had made it abundantly clear to me that she identified not as a bisexual but as a lesbian.

I shot her a look, but she was focused on her mother. "Mom, can we stop talking about Brook? I'm embarrassed about the whole thing."

"Of course, of course."

"So, Mrs.--"

"Call me Atsuko," she insisted. "And no missus!" Fumine's mom beamed. "Not anymore!" I'd never seen someone so pleased to be getting a divorce. Go off, I guess. Her expression darkened a bit as she asked, "did Fumine explain everything?"

Yeah. The funeral had been the last straw for more than just Fumine. Atsuko had finally made the decision she'd always been too afraid to make. Less than twenty-four hours after her father was in the ground, she'd served her husband divorce papers. She waited until everything was official to reach out to her daughter, unsure if Fumine would ever talk to her again. There had been no contingency. Just faith that she was doing the right thing.

I didn't need to interrogate my feelings to know I was jealous of my client.

And--maybe that's what it was, the feeling that drove me to hold her hand more than I needed to at lunch that day. The thing that put an edge to my faked affections. I felt like I deserved more from her. And I couldn't tell you what we ate that day, or what Atsuko and I talked about, but I can tell you how soft Fumine's thigh was under the table, how cautiously quiet she was as I overstepped, how warm her cheeks were when I kissed her good-bye outside the restaurant.

"It was so good to meet you for real, Scarlotte." Atsuko wouldn't stop shaking my hand. "And--I need to thank you."

"Thank me?" I chuckled, unremembering.

"Well, yes. It was your passionate words that helped me see my cowardice."

Fumine said nothing, just pretended to be extremely interested in the cracked mall sidewalk.

#

"My mother wants to see you again."

When she sent that text, it hadn't been more than three days since the steam tray place. My nobler parts were certain that Fumine and I needed to talk about where this was going--or, better yet, not talk about anything again ever--but the annoying trans gf in me just texted back "damn, am I dating you or your mom."

"She wants to make up for lost time"

I didn't know what to say to that. Fumine was supposed to have a retort for my bad joke. She was supposed to say "I'm dating Brook, idiot." But she didn't do either of those things. And I didn't do what I was supposed to do: block her, delete her number.

"What's the plan?" I asked. That was plausibly deniable, right? I just meant what's the game plan, how do we want to play this?

"At Panisse's," Fumine wrote back. "In Oceanview. Noon on Friday."

Block her. Delete her number. "I'll see you there."

"Looking forward to it"

#

At Panisse's that Friday was... uncomfortable, for a lot of reasons. For one it's this world-famous Oceanview joint with sky-high prices and fancy plating that makes working class dolls like me feel even less belonging than usual. For another, Fumine's mom was on one.

Atsuko wanted to join my gym. Atsuko wanted to do brunch on Sundays--not this Sunday, Sundays. Atsuko wanted to talk about Thanksgiving. Atsuko, suddenly separated from her husband, her relatives, her church, wanted family.

"We need to talk," I hissed when Atsuko was in the restroom.

Fumine looked away. "I can keep paying you."

"It's not the money, it's--" How could she not see the problem? "You hired me for a one-off prank, Fumine. Your mom wants me to have your babies. This can't keep going. Someday she's going to know this was all a lie."

Fumine tugged at the hem of the tablecloth. She still couldn't make eye contact. "She doesn't need to. We'll 'date' for a month or so, and then we'll break up, and none of this will matter." Something thick and rancid washed through me. "I just don't want her to know the funeral was a gimmick. Once a little more time has passed--"

Her voice was trembling.

I reached for her face, made her look at me. There were tears in her eyes, and something else. I'd ignored the something else when she was paying me after the funeral, confident that that would be the end of that. I couldn't ignore the something else any longer.

"Fuck you," I said.

She recoiled. "I--what? I don't--What?"

But Atsuko chose that moment to return from the restroom, so we busied ourselves with our salads while Atsuko educated me on her preferred Christmas activities.

#

"Sorry about today," Fumine texted that night. "Sorry about everything, I guess. I haven't been very considerate."

"Well that makes both of us," I replied. I hadn't needed to French her while Atsuko waited in the passenger seat of her Prius. But I was pissed off, and anxious. And Fumine's lips were so soft, and she wanted me to pretend I was her plus one to Thanksgiving. That meant pretending Brook was just her beard, right?

"It's okay," she replied, way too fast.

"Not really"

"Okay, I guess not."

Neither of us said anything else. I knew I should be initiating the breakup plan. Show Atsuko that we were really together, then give her a believable split. But I didn't want to. That was the terrible thing. I wanted to share a gym membership with her mom. I wanted to do Sunday brunch. I wanted a place to go for Thanksgiving. I imagined Fumine asking me back if I was dating her or her mom; I imagined kissing her again in answer.

I just wanted to keep kissing her.

And unless I was way off base, Fumine's reluctance to address any of this properly suggested that she wanted to keep kissing me. And that was worse, right? She was the one with the boyfriend.

I waited a long time for Fumine to say something. I waited a long time to feel like there was anything I wanted to say. But in the end that's where our conversation ended, and two days later we were drinking bottomless mimosas, bare knees touching under the table.

#

Brunch turned into a walk around the Oceanview Rose Garden, and a walk around the Oceanview Rose Garden turned into tea at Atsuko's, and then Atsuko needed a nap, and Fumine walked me out of the apartment complex.

"Thanks for today," she said as we reached the sidewalk.

"Yeah," I said stupidly.

But we weren't parting ways yet. She started walking toward my bus stop, and I followed. She slowed down; I caught up; we linked arms. Just two girls walking arm-in-arm through the rapidly gentrifying industrial district of West Oceanview. Neither of us said anything; fuck if we weren't good at that.

"When's the next bus?" Fumine asked as we reached the stop. I checked Nextbus on my phone, then showed her the screen--it was going to be almost half an hour. "I'll wait with you."

"You don't have to," I said, as if she were joining me on the bus stop bench for my sake.

Our eyes met, and this time I'm the one who looked away. The pavement was interesting: splotchy and uneven from years of iterative sewer main work. I found myself wondering to what degree this was necessary. Did streets just need to be torn up this often, or had the crews done shoddy work that called for constant repair?

"Scarlotte," Fumine said, from somewhere up and to the left.

"Yeah?" I asked the pavement.

"Will you come to brunch again next week?"

"Yeah," I said, without pause.

"Thanks."

I should have said no. I should have at least asked about payment. But I wanted to go to brunch again next week. I enjoyed Atsuko's company. I enjoyed scones and bottomless mimosas. I enjoyed wearing a cute dress, brushing my legs against Fumine's, locking eyes across the table and daring her to complain about my totally pretend PDA.

Fumine put a hand over mine, in my lap. I leaned against her; she leaned against me. I turned my face toward hers. She looked up at me like she was noticing me for the first time in her car after the funeral. I bent toward her, saw her instinctively move her lips closer to mine.

And then her other hand was over my mouth, blocking me.

I pulled back. "No?"

"My mom's not here," she said.

I should have accepted the scruple. I should have taken the L. Instead: "This may come as a surprise, but you actually don't need a parent present to kiss a hot girl."

Her hand moved back to my face so fast I flinched, sure she was going to slap me.

But she just covered my mouth again, and brought her face closer, and closer, and then I could feel her lips, against her hand, pressing through her flesh, pushing me back on the bench, and she was kissing, and kissing, with a hunger she'd never expressed in the handful of kisses I'd stolen in front of her mom, and I didn't know what I was supposed to do, because if I kissed back, wouldn't that tickle her palm? And why was her hand between us, anyway--as if this nominal barrier could reduce the elicit nature of her behavior, the forceful want with which she very technically didn't make out with me. Saliva dribbled down the back of her hand onto my chin.

"Get a room," someone snorted, and the spell was broken. A teen goth had joined us at the bus stop. They were looking down at us with that disgust only a teen can express.

Fumine hurriedly wiped her hand--front and back--on the inside of her sleeve and jumped to her feet. "I'll--"

"Yeah."

"Kay."

She walked quickly back toward her mom's place.

The teen leaned against the bus stop, reading something on their phone. When the bus came and I rose to board, they said, deadpan: "You know lesbians can kiss in public now?"

#

"She's so different with you," Atsuko said as we jogged on adjacent treadmills the following Wednesday.

Because she's faking it, my better faculties yelled at my worse. Not because--

"Brook never made her smile like you do."

Well, that's something you like hearing about someone you want to date. Which Fumine definitely wasn't.

"Hmm. Scarlotte, you seem different today." Atsuko paused her machine and looked me up and down. Of course I seemed different, I was drenched in sweat. Thank god transition toned down my BO. "Almost--shy? You've never seemed nervous before. Even at the funeral."

Of course. That was before the bus stop. Before Fumine had had her way with me in a messy, roundabout manner, on a public sidewalk at 3 p. m. on a Sunday. Before I realized just how fucked I was. I should have pushed back sooner. Way sooner. I had had so many opportunities. Endless chances to block Fumine's number and disappear from her life. But I'd won the game of chicken. Or lost it, maybe.

And I finally had to contend, truly contend, with the fact that I wasn't just playing a game gone too far. I had Fumine's attention. She had mine. We had her mom's approval. Happily ever after, right?

Just one super tiny problem.

"Never?" I asked.

"Never what?"

"Brook. What you said--he never made her smile?"

"Oh, well enough to fool me, I suppose. But not like you do."

And there it was, that mental scoreboard. Boy: 0. Me, a transbian: 1.

I shouldn't have wanted these points. But I did. The part of me that wanted to win, to replace Brook, to have a hot girlfriend and a caring mom... Well, it was better at winning than the part of me that wanted to lose. My internal struggle was symbolic at best.

"He's a nice boy, though," Atsuko said, pouting a little. "I hope he finds a nice straight girl someday."

I nodded. I really hoped he might. I mean, he was a great guy, by all reports. And for all the scoring happening in my head, I didn't actually like the position he was in. It was probably that guilt, ultimately, that led to me texting Fumine that night--the first we'd talked since the bus stop.

"when will you tell brook?"

"What do you mean?" she replied, so quickly I imagined her sitting there waiting for me to message.

"you know what I mean"

"I really don't."

Don't get involved with lesbians who play dumb. Don't get involved with lesbians who play dumb! This is basic shit, Scarlotte.

"you and me"

"he knows"

"knows what exactly?"

The little typing notification appeared and disappeared like twenty times. Then she called.

"Hey," I breathed.

"Scarlotte."

"Yeah."

She was quiet.

"I thought you were calling to answer my question." I meant to say it teasingly, but I think my own anxieties got the better of me. It sounded sharper than I intended.

"Yeah," she said. "Sorry. Yeah. Brook knows what's up." I could picture her biting her lip. I let her sweat. I wasn't going to ask again. "Alright. Listen. He's here." Boy: 1. I felt sick. "Brook, babe, Scarlotte's worried I haven't been keeping you in the loop. Can you..."

I heard rustling on the other end of the line, and then the deep voice of an unfamiliar man. "Scarlotte?"

I wanted to say something normal like "Yeah" or "Brook?" but I choked. What if he did know everything? What if he was in on it all? What if Fumine's apparent attraction to me was a calculation intended to keep me acting my part? What if they laughed about it, on Sunday: how desperate I'd been for Fumine's lips, how clueless I'd been as she wrapped me around her finger?

"You there?" Brook asked.

"Um. Yeah."

"I really appreciate what you're doing for Fumine," he said. He might have said more; I put my phone down and left the room.

#

Atsuko texted me details for our next Sunday brunch. I almost replied with the truth. I typed out several version of it: the Fiverr ad, the sham, the liberties taken on subsequent encounters. But in the end I didn't want to break Atsuko's heart by text. Or maybe that was a self-serving excuse for my cowardice. Instead, I assured myself, I would come clean in person. I would be firm and professional with Fumine. I would behave myself. And I would apologize to both of them, even if I thought some of the responsibility really lay with Fumine.

I didn't talk to Fumine at all in the interim. She didn't text me after I'd left Brook to hang up on me and I didn't text her. I didn't want to give her an excuse to convince me to not to end things. (I didn't want to give her an opportunity to end things.)

But when I got to brunch, Fumine was wearing the cutest little sundress, and Atsuko looked so happy, and I'd stewed in so many shit feelings since hearing Brook's voice that I needed the sham. I accepted Fumine's kiss, held her hand as we read the menu, smiled at the waiter like I wasn't holding myself hostage here.

"You kids behave," Atsuko joked as she excused herself for the restroom after we'd ordered.

Before I could say anything--before I could pointedly say nothing--Fumine leaned over and cupped my cheek. "Two more weeks," she said, and what should have been a reminder of our relationship's falsehood registered instead as a time limit: two weeks left to make the most of this fucked up circumstance. Two weeks left to take liberties, two weeks left to indulge in emotional self harm.

I laid my hand over hers. "Two weeks," I replied.

After the check had come and gone, Atsuko asked if I was up for joining her and Fumine on their after-brunch walk.

"Actually," Fumine said, "Scar and I've got someplace to be."

"Oh! Well, I've been spoiled, I suppose. Alright. You two enjoy yourselves." She pulled me into a tight hug. "See you at the gym, sweetie."

I hugged her back.

"'Someplace?'" I asked, once Atsuko had departed.

"Where do you want to go?" Fumine asked.

"Depends on what we're planning to do there."

"Talk."

"We can talk here."

Fumine went beet red. "Talk Plus."

"Ah." If I felt I had any power left in the dynamic, I might have teased her. Does Brook know about the 'plus?' But as it was, I had spent days mired in the certainty that he did know. Maybe he was even getting off on it. Which, like, you do you, I guess, but it would have been nice to know the parameters of the game. Feeling helplessly outplayed, I just fixated on the mantra of "two weeks." "Well, there's some quiet nooks along the Rust hill trail. Secluded AND sunny. No goth teens to criticize our technique."

She nodded and I got into her car. Her right hand spent most of the ride on my thigh--insistently enough as to be an unmistakably intimate gesture, though on a technicality she did not touch me anywhere inappropriate.

That didn't change when we'd parked and taken to the trail and it didn't change when we found a bench nestled into a bend in the path. The city across the Estuary glistened in the summer afternoon light, and the sparkling waters were almost blinding. I thought of Candide. Where's the book about the maddening sun driving a man to sodomy? Maybe I was about to write it.

I pulled Fumine to me, her sundress feeling almost ethereal beneath my touch. She felt so good. I put my face to hers. I did not kiss her immediately. I did everything else: bumping noses, brushing cheeks, nuzzling ears, breathing her scent and feeling her heat. She purred, reciprocating every motion.

"How's that for 'plus?'" I asked. Not like we'd talked, not really. Just observations: "There's a red-tailed hawk!" "Hey, you can see the train down there." "Is that a laurel?"

"Good," Fumine breathed.

"Good," I said. I did want it to be good. No matter how bad it was, it could at least be a little good.

I pulled back slightly, then moved in to lock lips.

Once again, she stopped me.

"Two weeks?" I asked.

"I can't cheat on him," she said, expression and tone almost apologetic.

"But he knows."

"He knows I'm not cheating."

"Oh." It was hard to process that when Fumine's eyes were so close. "So this isn't like, his kink?"

"What?" Fumine laughed. "No, I--oh, man, that would make things so simple--" And then she went silent, eyes wide.

"Because you want to do more."

The jig was up.

"Because I want to do more."

"And you can't."

"No."

"But you still want this much."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I thought--I--no. It's no excuse. I'm sorry, Scarlotte. I haven't been very... forthcoming, from your perspective, have I."

"Not really." But it wasn't like I was pulling back. It wasn't like my lips were a centimeter farther from hers than she'd allow them.

"For whatever it's worth, it wasn't premeditated. It wasn't... intentional."

"That's worth a lot," I admitted.

"It's been years since I flirted with a girl," she said. "I think it... woke some stuff up."

"Is it different for you, with girls?" Dumb question to ask a lesbian, I guess, but I'd had to assume she was bi.

"It's different with people who know," she said. "Brook--Brook doesn't know."

"What, where the clit is?"

Fumine chuckled, then drew back and looked out over the water. "I love him. He's my best friend, and he's a supportive partner, but."

"But you wish he was into you banging girls off Fiverr?"

"Hah. No. Well. Maybe. I mean. Yeah. You." No more dissembling, huh? She kicked at a little pebble, sending it skittering across the path. "He's looking for something. I think he's been looking for it for a very, very long time. I think once he finds it, things will be good. Until then... it's like he's incomplete. You ever feel that way, Scarlotte? Like you're not you yet?"

I burst out laughing. "I think the answer to that is pretty obvious."

"Yeah, I suppose it is."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know," Fumine replied. "Wait, probably."

"Seems like that's not working well for you, if the first girl to be mildly nice to you has you 'not cheating' like this."

She let out a long sigh. "Seems that way, huh."

"Counterproposal: you and me--"

"Stop." Fumine shook her head. "I'm in it. I'm--I promised myself. I'm not leaving him."

"But--"

She leaned back in toward me. "It's not cheating if I kiss you to keep you from convincing me to break up with my boyfriend, right?"

"That depends on your agreements with Brook," I said. "But I think most monogamous people would call that question cheating in itself."

"Damn. No more questions, then." She pushed me against the back of the bench and straddled my lap. Her bare thighs settled heavily over my jeans, scorching hot and maybe a little damp. "No questions, no kissing, no cheating."

She took my hands and guided me to wrap my arms around her. She bent forward and took the collar of my shirt in her teeth. "Just using a bit of fabric as a fidget," she murmured, before biting down hard and pulling. My top tugged at my skin, a prelude to stripping. Her fingers tangled in my hair, her nose pressed against mine, a prelude to making out. Her weight shifted in my lap, a prelude to grinding.

All these preludes, leading to nothing but more preludes. Pulling at ears, caressing shoulders, the joining of foreheads, the breathing of breath. In every movement I could sense the line Fumine wouldn't cross, and with it, both the pain of my own thwarted desire and the delight of knowing she still wanted more.

And in this fashion, we had sex on that bench.

We did not kiss. There was no disrobing, no fondling of bits, no penetration. Neither of us came. But in a lot of ways, it was more intimate than any sex I'd ever had: a catalogue of unfulfilled urges, sung loud and clear beneath the summer sky. There was buildup, a heightening of expression, a crescendo of wrinkled fabric and untouched skin, a climax when we were sated: every unspoken question asked, every unspoken answer delivered.

Fumine lay draped over me. I held her tight. Two weeks.

#

The next day she skipped work and we went on a date.

I don't know what else to call it. We toured used bookstores in Oakland, got chicken sandwiches at one of those trendy curbside popups, ended up at a cute bar near the lake. Hours passed in a blur, and then it was dusk, and we were stumbling along the lakeshore path, and some kind of giant bird swooped across our path, and we almost fell into the water in our shock. We laughed, tipsy with alcohol, adrenaline, and attraction.

"Straight girls go out like this," she said, when we'd caught our breath.

"Do they?" I asked.

"Yeah. Errands, meals, catching up over drinks."

"Holding hands at the lake because they're not ready for the night to end?"

"I don't know." She giggled. "I've never been a straight girl."

I chuckled. "Meither."

"I think I just... it's over in two weeks, right? There's no way we can just be friends after this."

"I don't think that you want us to be just friends."

She pursed her lips. "I'd take it over losing you."

"I believe that you believe that," I said. Why did I have to be the one sobering up first? "But if you somehow manage not to push your luck, I'm liable to. And then it'll be awkward."

"I've had awkward friendships," Fumine laughed.

"This awkward?"

"Well... not exactly like this, but. I was... involved with a group of girls, back in college. Most of us--well. We were horny college queers, you get the picture I'm sure."

"Yeah."

"Most of us played around with each other a bit, now and again. And we all stayed friends. Well--until Dee started sucking presidential dick, I guess, but--"

"You knew Deedoss?" I knew the President's mistress had gone to Oceanview Provincial, same as Fumine, but the world wasn't that small.

"Biblically," Fumine said solemnly.

"Damn."

"So, yeah! What's a little, uh... history... between friends?"

"Let's see. If I had to guess--this was before Brook?"

"... Yeah?"

"And it wasn't a shameful secret?"

"Well, no, but--"

I squeezed her hand. She nodded. "Maybe I'll talk to Brook." I raised an eyebrow. "Like, for real. What! He might understand." Her hand grew tighter. "He's in love with someone else, anyway."

"Ah."

"You don't feel sorry for me?"

"Are you kidding?"

"Ugh. Why do you even like me, Scar? I've been so horrible--to you, to my boyfriend. Do you like messy bitches?"

"I like hot girls who like me," I said. It really was simple as that. "Do I think you're wife material? Not without some therapy."

"Damn," Fumine laughed, interlacing her fingers with mine. "Classic lesbian. Talking about marriage on our first date."

"I thought this was just a straight girl hang?"

"Schroedinger's Date."

We paused by a little bit of bank where the water was still. Faint moonlight bathed us.

"I have a real question," I said, still not relinquishing her hand.

"I hope I have a real answer."

"Do you really think that kissing me will make any of this worse?"

In the long silence that followed that question, we heard an owl. Fumine's hand grew clammy in mine as I waited for her to speak. I almost thought she wouldn't, when--

"No." She fidgeted with the hem of her cardigan. "I'm afraid it will make it better."

"And you don't want to give me a chance?"

"I want to give you a million chances," she replied sadly. "But I can't give myself a chance."

"This sucks," I said. Maybe I was still tipsy. I don't think I'd ever said something so plainly true throughout this entire debacle.

"It does," she agreed.

#

The real world called, and Fumine answered. She returned to her teaching assistant job the next day. I asked her if she wanted to get together after work, but she had evening plans. "Your boyfriend?" I asked. No, just friends--but she did have plans with Brook for Wednesday. I must have lost my acting chops, because Atsuko immediately sensed my gloom at the gym that day.

"Are you alright, sweetie?"

Not even a little. I wasn't just playing with fire; I was immolating myself. But I just smiled wearily. "A little under the weather I guess."

I ended my workout early and let Atsuko fuss over me. She bought me a Gatorade and took my temperature, insisted on driving me home.

"When are you and Fumine going to move in together?" she asked, leaning over me from the driver's seat to scrutinize my dilapted apartment building. "Her place on Cedar is so nice."

The apartment she shared with Brook?

"We both value independence," I offered, half-heartedly. Atsuko frowned. We both knew that wasn't true of Fumine. That was fine. I was laying the groundwork for the conclusion of the plan, right? Atsuko had to believe our upcoming breakup. Now she would remember my lie, interpret it as incompatibility.

"Feel better soon," she said, and then she waited until I'd gotten into the building to pull away from the curb.

Another mom to disappoint.

I texted her daughter. "She's not gonna keep going to my gym if we break up, right?"

"I don't know," Fumine replied. Figures.

#

Two weeks became one. If Atsuko noticed any change in my dynamic with Fumine over our third brunch, she didn't comment on it. After food, she retired to her place; Fumine and I retired to mine.

She sat on the edge of my bed, a vision in a floral romper.

I sat on a chair facing her. We'd agreed to "Talk Plus," but there was no plus and even less talk. Something thick and unapproachable rested between us. She wasn't meeting my gaze. Her mood was low, even for her, and I was afraid to invite her to share. Fumine's reluctant admissions had not done us many favors to date.

We let the minutes walk away from us. I didn't mind. An absence of words was an abundance of possibility. Some part of me remained convinced I had a chance until the final farewell.

But silence became sighs. Stillness became fidgeting. And finally she looked up at me.

"I slept with Brook," she said.

"Congratulations," I said, sarcasm my only defense against the edge of sickening self-pity welling up in me.

"Please, Scar. I--I hated it."

"I told you, you need to help him find the clit."

"Shut up, will you?"

"Sorry."

She took a deep breath. "It felt more like cheating than anything we've done."

"Oh."

"What do I do, Scar?"

She was shaking slightly. This was my big opportunity. My chance to suggest what she'd prevented me from suggesting a week earlier. Break up with Brook. Kiss me. Never stop kissing me.

I couldn't do it. I just joined her on the bed, sat behind her and hugged her.

"You do whatever it is straight people do to stay together."

"And what's that?"

"I don't know, actually. Couple's counseling? Spending all their time with friends they don't share in common? He could get really into fantasy football. You could, I don't know. Take an art class or join a book club."

She snorted at that. "Next thing you know I'm deep in some sapphic fandom, pining for my beta readers."

"You sound really unhappy, Fumine."

"I miss my grandpa."

"You got your mom back."

"With lies."

"It's not all lies."

"No. The biggest lie is yet to come."

"What do you mean?"

"Living without you."

"So dramatic," I chided. "I'm just a hot girl you want to fuck. It's not like we even know each other. You'll be fine."

"Anyone ever tell you you're incredibly compassionate?"

"Yeah. Same asshole who told you you're a good communicator."

Fumine started giggling. "Hey, look at us! We're fighting. Maybe we won't have to fake it for Mom after all."

The absurdity of it all got me, and I laughed too. "It's not gonna be easy for me, either," I said.

Fumine leaned back into my embrace. "Even though I'm just a hot girl you want to fuck?"

I thought of her hand in mine at the lake, the soft calls of owls, the moonlight barely illuminating how well we fit together. "You know you're so much more than that."

"I don't know," Fumine sighed. "I usually feel like a lot less."

"Because Brook likes someone else?"

"I don't know," she repeated. "I'm not, like, I don't think people can only like one person, you know. Or want one person. You know what I mean."

"Of course."

"But I think for Brook, it's not just... divided attention, or... liking this other girl more than me. I think it's all wrapped up in that thing I mentioned."

"The incompleteness?"

"Yeah."

"Does she like him back?"

"I don't know. They haven't talked since around when Brook and I started dating."

"Yuck."

"I know, right?"

"And what's Brook's take on all this?"

"He was pretty frank about it when we got together, but--um, Scar?"

"Yea?"

"Those are my tits."

I hadn't really noticed my hands wandering over Fumine's torso. Their ministrations were less sexual, more fidgeting with my pretend girlfriend's body as we discussed her relationship problems. "So they are."

"You wanna stop?" she asked.

"Not really."

"Oh." Not an okay, but far from a rejection. I found her nipples and brushed them lightly through the fabric of her romper. "Mmm."

I didn't do much more than that. I'm not sure I actually wanted to. I wasn't particularly horny, for as much as I wanted Fumine. Talking about Brook was off-putting; Fumine's distress sobering. Still, my hands roamed freely, and Fumine relaxed into my touch.

"This all okay?" I mumbled into her scalp.

"Straight girl massage," she said. "I should get at least one of these a month."

"Fumine, I will fuck you if you ask me for a massage ever again."

I felt her shudder at the words, then she just said, "noted," and changed the subject to the band posters on my wall. We had similar tastes, it turned out. We stayed like that for an hour, talking about Fallout Boy and Linkin Park and Evanescence and not about the way her body responded to my extremely platonic touch.

"Will I see you before Sunday?" she asked as she was leaving.

"If you want to."

She leaned up as if for a parting kiss. I bit the air in front of her lips.

#

We made the most of our last week together. I met her for lunch near her work most days. We went to the movies--Toy Story 4, lots of crying--and the zoo, where she snorted at the antics of monkeys. Crammed in an entire short relationship's worth of dates. Or "straight girl hangs," as Fumine kept calling them, even as we held hands, made eyes at each other, and sat in each other's laps. We were making fools of ourselves, but it never occurred to me to dial things down. All those scruples had disappeared somewhere along the way.

Under the premise that Atsuko would pick us both up for brunch that Sunday, Fumine spent Saturday night at my place. I spooned her on my bed through several long playlists of early aughts emo music--only one of which I'd made after discovering our shared taste--lips only occasionally brushing the back of her neck, her ass only kinda pushing back against me now and then.

Tomorrow was our last brunch with Atsuko. Within a week, we'd be "broken up," and Fumine could work on "getting back together" with Brook. She could go back to being a lesbian dating a dude for inscrutable reasons. The prank she'd paid me for would be put to bed at long last.

There was no question about how either of us felt about it. Where we'd left long silences and pauses in our communication during the first few weeks, we were texting constantly these days. When we were together, as we were now, we were touching.

Neither of us could bare to be apart, for time or space to come between us. And yet the plan hadn't changed.

Neither had Fumine's lines. We didn't cross any of them that night. Eventually our conversation about emo aesthetics waned and we dozed off in each other's arms. Plato would have been proud: instead of banging, we'd discussed philosophy. True love, right?

Brunch the next morning was a matter of going through the motions. We'd agreed to be less affectionate, to show signs of a rift. What "signs," I'd wanted to say. Did we even have to act? We were building up to the least fake breakup of my life. I was in an awful mood.

"Are you still feeling under the weather?" Atsuko asked.

"I don't want to talk about it," I snapped. Fumine winced.

As the fabric of our illusory harmony frayed, Atsuko's perennially upbeat attitude faltered. She matched our gloomy energy. None of us ate much. We barely touched our mimosas.

"So where am I taking you kids after this?" Atsuko asked as she put down her card.

"I think Scarlotte and I need to talk," Fumine said. "We're just gonna walk around here. Thanks Mom."

Atsuko took off, and Fumine took my hand.

"I guess I should start with 'thanks,'" she said. We headed down from the Oceanview Diner toward the marina, walking slowly. "I asked a lot of you."

"You really did."

"I don't even know how much of your time I ended up claiming," she sighed. "And I haven't paid you since our first brunch." What. "Can you just send me a bill?"

"Are you fucking for real right now?"

"I'm--I'm sorry I wasn't timely, I--"

"I don't want your money, Fumine."

"But--"

"Don't cheapen any of this further, please. We both know I stopped playing a role long ago."

She swallowed and tightened her grip on my hand. "Yeah."

"Ducks," I said, helpfully. There were ducks. They were cute.

"I'm gonna miss you pointing out birds," she said.

"Yeah you are."

We walked a bit further, past the little boat rental place and the shuttered dockside tavern.

"What's next for you?" Fumine asked.

It was a good question. I'd spent the last month consumed with this thing. "Cry a bit. Find a new gym, probably."

"Sorry."

"You should be."

"I really am."

There was a unoccupied bench facing out across the Estuary, and I made for it. Fumine released my hand, stayed a few feet back. I searched her face. "Is it time?"

"I don't want it to be," she said, eyes shut, face all scrunched up. "Scar, I can't DO this. I can't just--say good-bye."

What was I supposed to say to that? "Then don't?" She was always going to. She'd said so herself: she'd never give herself the chance. Lacking words, I just returned to her side and took her elbow. She was trembling. She was crying.

"Can't we stay friends?" Fumine asked.

"You don't want me for a friend."

"I want your friendship more than I want to lose you. Don't you feel the same?"

I wasn't sure I did. "We'll keep wanting each other."

"So what?" Fumine wiped her eyes and stared me down. "It's not like we'd have to act on it. And life's full of... unfulfilled wants." That was true, but-- "And I think you'll really like Brook, actually, you're both..."

"Both what?"

Fumine bit her lip.

"It's not gonna work, Fumine. And Brook will never like the real me. Just a professional prankster off Fiverr who you thought was cool enough to invite to boardgame night. And that's not who I am."

"No," she agreed. "You're the sparkliest, kindest, funniest bird-loving emo girl I never got to give myself to."

"Maybe someday you'll figure things out," I said. "Maybe you'll dump Brook and find a sparklier, kinder, funnier bird-loving emo girl out there."

"This sucks."

"Yeah."

I considered waiting, making her walk away. Throughout the entire process I'd resented the ease with which she'd gotten what she wanted from me, when extracting intent from her had felt like pulling teeth. But by the end of it all I understood how cursed her position was. Me? My heart would break. I'd cry a bit and find a new gym. But my life would remain full of possibility. I would find someone else to want. But Fumine... it would be her, and Brook, and her devotion, and her guilt. (Maybe that's how straight people stay together: guilt.)

So I took pity on her.

I patted her once on the shoulder and then I walked away.

#

I cried. I found a new gym.

#

Two months passed before Atsuko called me, one afternoon in August. My pulse went wild when I saw the incoming call.

"Scarlotte, sweetie, can we talk?" She didn't sound mad. She just sounded like... Atsuko. A little too quick, a little too kind, a little too direct. "Fumine just told me you two broke up."

"Um--what?"

"I know! I'm in shock. Can you meet me at the Oceanview Diner?"

My mind raced. Fumine just told her? It had taken her two months? What had Fumine been telling Atsuko before now? And--why?

"Sweetie, can you hear me? Hello?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm here."

"Oceanview Diner?"

I didn't do what I was supposed to do: block her, delete her number. "Uh... yeah."

"Great!" Atsuko said. "I'll be there in five. Come when you can."

I hung up and headed over.

"I know I shouldn't be meddling in my daughter's love life," Atsuko admitted, when I'd joined her at her booth. "But I believe she has meddled in mine." She gave me a curious look. "You came out of nowhere. The day before my father's funeral, Fumine and Brook were over for dinner, behaving the same as ever. The next day, she's been dating you this entire time?"

I gulped.

"I had to consider: if she was planning to debut her honest-to-God girlfriend the next day, why would she have been putting in the effort to sell her relationship with Brook?"

Because she'd never planned to sell anything. Because she'd had no reason to believe anyone from that funeral would follow up with her. Because your love and acceptance for your daughter were outside her calculations.

I had so many things I wanted to say, but I didn't want to make anything worse, so I let Atsuko keep talking.

"What I don't understand," Atsuko huffed, "is why you two didn't seal the deal."

"Come again?"

"Please. You two had chemistry. Brook is a nice boy, but..."

What was the word Fumine had used? "But he's incomplete."

"Yes! And you--" Atsuko gestured to me. "You've done such a good job of making yourself." I wasn't sure how I should feel about being judged in this way by a cis person, but it was, in a weird way, the nicest thing a boomer had ever said to me about my gender, so I lapped it up. "Don't tell me you also have a... boyfriend."

I couldn't stop myself from giggling at the dismissive tone. "No, no. I'm into girls."

"I think you've got it so right, honestly." Atsuko launched into one hell of a speech about how lesbians have it so good, and I was forced to respond with the observation that she didn't seem particularly enamored with boys, and she made a puking gesture. "Can't live without'em, right?"

"Well..."

And no matter how weird things get with the girl who hired you on Fiverr to pretend to be her girlfriend, you don't just ghost her 60-year-old mother after you help her realize she's gay. Atsuko managed to extract a promise that I would "talk to" Fumine, insisted that I come to brunch ("just you and me, sweetie, until Fumine gets it together"), and offered to cover the cost of renewing my membership at my old gym.

#

I wasn't sure my call would go through. I hoped it might not.

"... Scar?"

"Oh, hey."

"Hey."

I'd had a plan when I picked up the phone. Start with an emphatic "what the fuck," tell her Atsuko wants us to get together for real now, ask her to stop fucking around, hang up angrily, block her number. The plans so often ended in blocking her number--and so far I'd followed none of them. "God." I think I was crying. "Fumine... It's so fucking good to hear your voice."

"Yeah."

Fuck, she sounded so soft. I needed to get it together. "So, your mom's gay."

"What?"

"Yeah. I, uh. Just talked to her. She's gay."

"No way."

"Yeah."

"So she talked to you."

"Seems you finally talked to her."

"Yeah."

"She's figured out that none of it was real."

"Oh! Is she mad?"

"She wishes it was real."

A long pause. "Me too."

"You can't say stuff like that if you want to be friends," I said.

"But you get to say it's so fucking good to hear my voice? And--wait, who said anything about being friends?"

"I don't know."

"You wanna be friends?" She sounded so hopeful.

"I don't want any of this," I said. "But, yeah. I think I'm your mom's queer elder now. It'll be less awkward if we can be normal around each other."

"I'll be so fucking normal," Fumine promised.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"No shame, no guilt, no pinning me down and purposefully not making out with me?"

She made a choked sound. Normal was clearly going great for her. "No. I'll--I'll be so good. Whatever you need."

"Whatever I need?" I thought about Brook and how sickening it felt to consider lying to him. Even if Fumine and I managed to be totally normal friends now, even if we never approached a line again, I was always going to know that Fumine felt like she was cheating on me when she slept with him--and he would never know that I knew that. "Tell Brook everything."

The line was silent for several seconds. "Okay," she said. "Okay." A long exhale, and a third time: "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'll make things right. He deserves to know, and you don't deserve to have to lie for my sake. I'll... I'll let you know when I've told him."

#

Eventually I learned to stop holding my breath.

For some time, I waited. A few days, a week or two. What seemed like a plausible delay evolved into something more definite.

I only saw Fumine one more time: Thanksgiving. Atsuko--who was at that point my workout buddy, my hiking buddy, my lesbian book club buddy--had invited me, and I'd demurred. Fumine showed up at my doorstep that night, crying about how I should have been at that table, and she was so sorry, and she'd been so stupid, and yada yada.

I told her to get lost. She retorted, "straight girl massage."

I'm a woman of my word. We crossed the line.

To me, actually fucking Fumine--putting all my parts against hers, being in her, swapping fluids--wasn't really that different from the times we'd intentionally not fucked. It was more pleasurable, sure, but it wasn't more intimate. After going down on Fumine in my room full of Linkin Park posters, I didn't feel like we'd cheated more than before.

But for her, I think it signified something.

It was the last transgression she had to make in order to convince herself that she could never have me. The only way to ensure that she would never, ever give herself a real chance.