Five Months Earlier

“Omigod it was incredible, Jess, you would NOT believe it!” Nicole was bouncing up and down, very slightly, the movement making her appear to almost float off the café’s well-worn armchair and drawing amused half-smiles from patrons at nearby tables.

Jess, despite herself, was among them. “Is this about that new friend of yours?” She inquired, affecting a disinterested air that Nicole felt never quite touched her older sister’s eyes, which perpetually looked like they were laughing wickedly at a naughty joke you’d just told. Welcoming eyes.

“Uh-huh!” Nicole’s smile widened. “Stella! She’s so cool. She took me to see the new exhibition at the museum together, the one for local artists, after-hours when it was all closed up to the public.” She beamed, radiating pure excited-puppy energy, as if there could be nothing more impressive than being granted semi-exclusive access to see a ragtag collection of amateur painters’ renditions of local landmarks. Nicole continued, “she knows one of the artists! Her friend did the whale sculptures in Martin wing.” Her voice dropped lower, as if she were afraid the Art Police would take her away for shadowy, acrylic-based interrogations, “She got us a couple of after-hours passes! Omigod it was AMAZING.”

Jess sipped her coffee, quietly, pulling her body back into her chair. Jess had kept her purse on her lap while they sat together, and it seemed that she was now moving her body to bring the little satchel closer into her torso. Her sister was, ironically, one of the people Nicole found hardest to read. It was as if growing up together had inoculated Jess against her. If she had to guess, Nicole would have posited Jess was gearing up to ask something… but the moment never came, trickling into a slightly uncomfortable pause.

“Well, at least she knows how to get you interested”, Jess said, grinning as the few seconds of slightly chilly silence thawed. “All anyone has to do to get you in front of a gallery and all the arty shit does the rest.” She smirked at her younger sister, then turned slightly to gesture to the counter.

Nicole pouted, though she knew she couldn’t really argue, and took either a very large sip or undersized gulp of hot chocolate to cover her smile. “Hey, at least MY friends know me well enough to do that!” Her smile widened a little more, and she felt a warm blush run across her cheeks.
“I know it’s only been a few weeks, but I already feel like she knows me better than anyone.”

She paused for a moment as the leaden weight of her words settled into her stomach with Jess’ raised eyebrow, before quietly appending “except you, of course.”

Nicole’s sister had raised her for the last 6 years of her life, running from classes to shift-work to grocery shopping, caring for a teenage sister who suddenly needed her to be mother, friend, and big sister all at once. For a while, the two had become almost inseparable, and Nicole felt a sudden stab of guilt at implying, even unintentionally, that her sister’s sacrifices could be surpassed in scarcely a month.

Jess replaced her empty coffee cup on its saucer and gave Nicole a faint smile, as if she were seeing her sister through frosted glass. Jess seemed about to speak, before a woman came up behind her and shattered the distance between them like a fastball.

“Hey there, ya freeloading fuck, what can I getcha this time? Oh, what up Nicole, how’s the history degree?” An astonishingly tall woman, clad in a paint-splattered tee and some equally splattered and sun-bleached jeans, smiled down at them. She deftly pulled a notepad from the front of her crisp black cotton apron and an aggressively chewed twig of pencil from behind her ear, radiating an aura of “cool and collected aloofness” that Nicole had always privately assumed must’ve taken weeks of practicing in the mirror to achieve. Her hair was cropped short into a style that plainly said “I spent a lot of money to make this look like I didn’t spend a penny” and, Nicole noted, once again a different colour to the last time Nicole had seen her, currently easing out of vibrant turquoise into a slightly faded teal that clashed gloriously with blood-red makeup and bat-shaped silver earrings.

“Nunya!” Nicole exclaimed, beaming. “I didn’t realise you were on today!” She blinked, “wait didn’t the shift start like 20 minutes ago?”

Nunya grinned, “snuck in just now, kinda missed clock-on by a bit but it’s cool, I’ll stay back later.” She turned to Jess, “same as always?”

Jess shot her friend a grateful look and nodded. Nunya scribbled shorthand across her pad, gently knocking it against her nametag - “Good Day! My Name Is: None-of-ya Business” - before she turned back to Nicole, “and for the lady?”

Giggling over Jess’ amused grumbling, Nicole shook her head. “Not today, thanks though. Already had one cup of hot calories and I don’t need another!” She resisted the temptation to gaze longingly at the banana bread and focused on reminding herself she didn’t need it to feel good.

Jess raised an eyebrow slightly, tucking nut-brown hair behind her ear and watching her sister. “Well now there’s a thing” she remarked, “my Nibble not nibbling today?”

Nicole shrugged her shoulders diffidently, though seemed to sit up a little straighter in her chair. “I just felt it was time to get serious about shifting some of my summer break belly before winter hits. I’ve been thinking about taking up yoga, too!” She smiled, more warmly than she’d shrugged. “Stella teaches a class down at the T&Y and suggested that, if I was going to be trying to exercise more, yoga might be a good place to start!”

She finished off the last of her hot chocolate, and sat the mug down, turning it slightly until the handle ran parallel to the table’s edge. She’d always done it, ever since childhood; in a strange way she couldn’t quite explain even to herself, it felt like if she didn’t do it then she’d surely break it.

Jess let out a low whistle and almost collapsed back into her chair, setting the thing rocking on rickety, uneven legs. “Well, I’ll be damned. Maybe this new friend is a force for change after all. She’s even got my Nibble talking about”, she wiggled her fingers in air-quotes, “diet and exercise. What a world!” She grinned a little, then wider still as Nicole pulled a face. “But that sounds good, Nib,” she said, maternal pride returning.

Nunya snorted. “Ya girl doesn’t need to lose anything, Jay.” She squinted down at the youngest of the three, absentmindedly tap-tap-tapping away with her pencil stub at the blotched notepad. “This new friend, ya met her in class then?”

Nicole opened her mouth, “oh, no! We met at-”

She felt a soft hand stroking up and down her back and, as the coughing subsided, she looked up into eyes she hadn’t seen before. “Hey”, said the new girl, “this your first time?”

Nicole blinked.

“Sorry, what was I saying?”

Nunya was looking at her oddly, head tilted, eyebrows furrowed slightly. Jess seemed not to have noticed, staring out the window at a pair of pigeons scrapping with a magpie over someone’s discarded lunch.

“Ya were tellin’ me about y’new friend and ya came over all weird,” murmured the tall waitress, “are you okay?”

Nicole nodded, brushing dark brown hair from her eyes and dislodging the cobwebs from her head. “I’m fine, bad night’s sleep”. She wasn’t certain if that counted as a lie or not. Where did daydreams like THAT come from? She shook her head a little more, pushing it down.

“Anyway, um, we met at a party Sue was holding, she’s from my class. Stella knows her from work! We hung out and got to know each other a bit, mostly just talking about--”

Her hand sliding across the bare slice of Nicole’s quivering thigh, solicitously coaxing them to open for Stella’s cool touch. It made Nicole gasp, the sensation cutting so sharply through her haze in her mind that she forgot the party, her friends, her exposure. She moaned, hard, throwing her head back and let hair spill like molten chocolate across her shoulders, flower-scented silk. Stella was diving through the sweet-smelling torrents to find Nicole’s ear, gently caressing it with lurid whispers and teasing licks.

“--so I told her all about my degree and stuff, and she told me about her work. She and Sue teach classes opposite each other at the T&Y! She mostly does yoga, Pilates, lots of stretching and aerobics and cardio and stuff. It sounds kinda painful but--”

Nicole bit down as the pain and pleasure shot through her, tendons screaming and pussy creaming while Stella’s whispered commands set her mind to steaming. The wad of panties – her panties – between her teeth were damp with saliva and need and she found that every breath, ragged and craving, pulled that need deeper into her molten core. The voice in her ear was the word of God and Nicole had already been taught the rewards of piety.

At a gentle touch, Nicole whimpered and slackened like soothing a skittish mare, her arched back collapsing against soft flesh. Acrid smoke still filled her head, singing like a tuning fork and setting every thought in her fragile mind humming to its insane rhythm. Humming. So much humming.

Nicole sobbed joyfully at Stella’s lips on her neck, sucking harder at the makeshift gag as she heard the sounds of the electric wand charging up again just behind her thighs.

“Pleasure through pain, sweet girl, pleasure through pain” came the words whispered into the crook of her neck and the hollow of her jaw. “All that pleases costs, and all that pains will reward you.”

“--Oh yeah! And then we found Sue curled up with some cute girl from class watching movies and we kinda tagged along. I was a bit, um…”, she looked over at Jess and blushed shyly, “well, I guess I tried some weed and was kinda out of it, so we just like, plopped down and watched some old Western movie with Sue and, uh… what’s-her-name, the botany major.”

Jess snorted and tried, poorly, to look sternly upon her sister’s use of the Evil Gateway Devil’s Lettuce. Nicole appeared suitably, even suspiciously, mollified, biting her lip to avoid grinning as Jess turned away slightly and failed to do the same.

Nunya, though, was uncharacteristically silent, seeming to look straight through Nicole and squinting into the back of her chair like it owed her rent. She quietly groaned in the effort of recall, before theatrically throwing up her hands and turning.

“Can’t put me finger on it. Huh! It’ll come back.” She shrugged and tapped the pad again. “Be back with your refill, Jay!”

Jess watched their friend leave, collecting a few more orders from nearby tables before moving behind the counter and rapidly assembling the alchemical equipment of brewing and mixing. Jess’ stare became slightly unfocused, lapsing automatically the thousand-yard look Nicole was used to when her sister slipped into unspoken concentration. Nicole took the quiet moment to sit back in her soft, nearly cocoon-like chair and fold her legs, their soft plumpness squishing against the fabric of the chair’s arms. She looked up, around at the other patrons, saw their own forms, their- their shapes. Her eye was drawn, almost magnetically, to their own thighs. Absentmindedly, she slid her left hand up her right arm, just below the shoulder… and squeezed. Looked at the other women in the room, at their arms. Thighs. Bellies.

She saw them moving, laughing. No jiggling puppy-fat there. Bellies tight and toned, even after eating.

She moved in her chair and felt the slight… tightness. It didn’t look like they filled out so much of it. Not like her.

Something hummed, quietly, in the back of her mind, like someone was pressing the base of a tuning fork against the crown of her head and allowing the sound to fill her up from the inside out.

So much humming.

Nicole turned to Jess, sharply, and smiled widely. The rest of her day was clear in front of her, and what was once a foggy, nebulous idea to go to the library before grabbing dinner and heading home now coalesced around a brightly-lit path before her.

“I think I’ll check out the T&Y this evening, if you don’t have anything planned that you need me for? Stella said she’d probably be there this evening and I might catch up with her, maybe arrange to take some cardio classes or something.” Her fists clenched and she pop-popped at an imaginary punching-bag. “Get my heart rate up or… whatever you’re meant to do. Shed some of this!”

She grabbed at her belly, exaggeratedly pressing in. Even through her smile, she felt quietly embarrassed at how far it sank. Yes, toning up was the right thing to do. It was important to tone up.

Inside, a little voice that sounded a lot like Nunya defiantly reminded her that she didn’t need to feel bad about herself, that there wasn’t even all that much to lose in the first place.

Deeper inside, the humming grew louder.

Jess turned, her eyebrows raising but nodding slightly. She flapped a hand and her lips moved up in a vague smile.

“No, nothing planned. I uh, wish you luck I guess?” Her eyes focused in on Nicole’s, and her smile caught up with them. “Have a good time, Nib. Say hi to your friend for me, I hope I can meet her soon, she sounds nice.”

Nicole hoisted herself to her feet, grabbing her bag and moving to head out the door. She called out a farewell to Nunya and stepped out the door into the warm afternoon of late summer. The air was hot outside the air-conditioned sanctuary of the café, and Nicole navigated between a couple of judicious bollards to slip under the shadows that lined the pedestrian strip, heading northwards towards the train station and the T&Y.

It felt right to listen to the humming.

“OI, NICOLE!”

Nunya was towering over the other walkers as she squinted through the glare, spotting the shorter girl and striding to her. Nicole had never asked her exact height, but if she was less than a full 2 metres then it was an extremely close thing.

Nicole blinked, “uh, hey Nunya, did I drop something or…?”

Nunya was already reaching for her order pad, tearing a strip of paper from it and pressing it into her hand.

“Me number. In case I never gave it to you. I dunno babe, just… got a weird feeling earlier, and me old man said to trust those feelings when ya feel them, yeah? Ya lemme know if summin comes up, okay? Gotta look after ya. A’right, have a good one.”

Nicole blinked again, and looked at the scratchy, spidery writing that spelt out the 10-digit number and “NUNYA”, block capitals and underlined. Nicole smiled, slightly, and stuffed the little slip into her bag. She was a bit weird, okay, but you always knew where you were with Nunya. Usually, it was with a friend.

Nicole turned and started on the short walk back to the station.

***

The design of the Teens & Youth Community Centre could be accurately, if not charitably, described mostly by the phrase “publicly funded”. Everything about it screamed “civic architecture”: from the spackled exterior painted with UV-resistant grey paint to the low, sloped roof covered in sensible, budget-constrained tiling, the T&Y was the most municipal building Nicole reckoned she had ever seen. The small pinboard outside the olive-drab double doors was plastered from top to bottom with sun-bleached memoranda announcing 7-month-old charity Easter egg hunts (“4 to 9 years welcome!”) and local band performances in equal measure. Stuck to the inside of the left door’s long, narrow glass windowpane, though, was the official schedule for T&Y classes, and Nicole skimmed down the list until she came across the last entry.

‘4:30pm, Ballet Room – Yoga and Mindfulness Instruction, Ms. Stella Black’

Slipping into the foyer of the room, Nicole glanced at the large digital wall clock that hung above a perpetually-unstaffed receptionist’s desk and a slowly wilting yucca plant. 4:29, shit. She darted into the nearby changing room, threw her little bag onto a bench and pulled her old high school gym clothes out and onto her body at top speed. The school crest, once neatly positioned on a loose and eminently sensible unisex polo top, now stretched and distorted as she crammed her adult form into it, top button straining under the force of her fully-grown (and wow had she not realised quite how fully-grown) torso. The shorts, mercifully, were less of a squeeze, though she still blushed slightly at how little looseness there still remained in shorts that used to be “something she’d grow into” when Jess had first taken her to buy them.

Thunder thighs, she thought a little dejectedly. Sure, the outfit was at least five years old at this point and preceded her unexpected second growth spurt that gained several centimetres in both height and, depressingly, circumference, but… surely it shouldn’t be quite so… this? It was hard to think over the humming.

The humming drew her eyes to the changing room’s wide, full-length mirror. To the softness of her love handles. Since when had she had love handles? And when did her bum grow into a car’s half-deflated airbag? Nicole felt like she was looking at a funhouse mirror, recognising her face atop an alien body, distorted and warped. Too big here, too small here. No tone, no strength, too soft, too squishy. She wanted to pull her eyes away, see anything else, see anything but the mirror but… but it trapped her. Staring into it. Staring back at her. Seeing everything that needed to go away, far away. Everything she needed to change, to make her better. Make her right. The humming was so loud, sounding less like a tuning fork and more like a chant, something she’d heard once before when the air was too hot and her body felt not her own. Something wordless. A tone. A mantra.

Helping her be mindful. Of her body. Of how to fix it. She was going to fix it. She was here to fix it.

Here?

Shit, the class!

Glancing down at her phone, Nicole blinked. 4:45? Where had fifteen minutes gone?

Nicole hastily shoved the rest of her clothes into an unoccupied locker and darted out the door, slowing to a self-conscious tiptoe as she tried to silently slip open the door to the T&Y’s ballet studio. Normally, the hall was occupied by twenty or thirty 8-year-old girls falteringly learning to pirouette and plié as they giggled at each other’s mistakes. Nicole had even taken a few months of classes here as a child, before her mother had decided she couldn’t be bothered to drive the 9 minutes it took every Thursday after school and she’d had to stop coming.

Now, the floor of the vaguely-familiar space had been covered with perhaps a dozen thin foam mats, unrolled from what looked to be a small hoard of them piled against the mirrored back wall. Almost every mat was occupied, with a motley assortment of people assembled on the floor each stretched on the tops of their thighs and grabbing (or, more accurately for most, trying to grab) their ankles, looking like beached seals or maybe unripe cashew nuts. Each of them was mimicking the toned, almost supernaturally poised woman at the front of the little class, her flax-blonde hair tied back in an artful low bun and left hand apparently effortlessly holding both of her ankles, while she used her right to gesture to each of her students and correct their forms. On seeing Nicole’s entrance, Stella smiled warmly and silently gestured to a spare mat, apparently already unrolled and awaiting her, just a little to the left of Stella’s own.

Nicole felt a warm wave of happiness wash through her at the sight of her friend. Her thoughtfulness to prepare a mat ahead of time, her positioning the mat close so that the newest member of the class could see more closely and receive feedback if she wasn’t positioned quite right... Nicole smiled back at Stella, feeling the tremulously-sprouting roots of anxiety die away as she moved to the floor, pausing while Stella finished the current position and moved onto the next – this time, a strange splayed-leg manoeuvre that put Nicole in mind of an 80s disco video she’d seen for kids once, stashed away in some ancient box of miscellaneous junk her mother had never thrown away.

Wincing slightly as she moved through the unfamiliar positions, Nicole dutifully followed along behind Stella’s lead, as the yoga instructor led the class through position after position, each time giving feedback to the students who seemed to need it most (Nicole was slightly gratified that she was apparently not the least competent among them), and weaving it together with breathing and thought exercises.

“You are not merely a passenger in your body”, Stella announced to the audience. “You are the driver, the engine, and the cargo all in one. When the engine calls for water, the driver fills it; when the driver needs a rest, the cargo settles.”

She flowed out of her final position, a forward bend with her hands placed behind her legs and, at least from Nicole’s point of view, there was no humanly possible way that she herself would be able to achieve a similar pose without radical spinal surgery. Stella, meanwhile, made it look as natural as twisting water, transitioning from one form to the next with a skill and finesse that felt more like living sculptural art than athleticism or stretching. Nicole recalled something Stella had said to her, one night over instant messenger; that yoga was not merely about bending the body, but about bending the mind. That to have a healthy life, you needed an equally healthy and open mind.

Stella continued to speak as she twisted her body like a Chinese dragon painting, settling into a lotus position and gestured for the remainder of the class to do the same.

“I’m impressed with each and every one of you today,” she said with satisfaction. “So, since it’s nearly time, we’ll finish with a brief meditation and I’ll let you leave straight away. Yes, I know, Stella not making us all pack up like schoolkids, practically a holiday!”

She laughed, a warm sound that filled the room with soft echoes and managed to encourage most of the room to join in, or at least smile along. Nicole loved that sound.

After a few moments, Stella settled them all back into position, with a few soft instructions to Nicole on how to move into the unfamiliar form, before Stella reached behind herself and flicked the switch on a small portable speaker. The device silently blinked a few lights, before a soft, almost staticky sound began to play, filling the room with a pleasant, familiar buzzing. No, not quite a buzzing. More of a… a humming.

Nicole blinked, slowly.

Like a, um...

...tuning fork. Kind of a...

...um. A warm... hum.

The humming filled the room. Filled it up, up, up to the top.

The humming filled Nicole. Filled her up, up, up to the top.

It was such a warm, soft hum, as if someone had taken a tuning fork and pressed it into the crown of her head, and the hum-hum-humming had poured down her head and her neck and her body, coating it in silvery humming that was vibrating the thoughts out of her brain and down, down into her hands. Holding all those thoughts in her hands.

She felt a warm, humming touch wrapping around her fingers. Around her thoughts. All those thoughts in her hands.

Warm, sweet-scented breath touched the side of her face. She couldn’t see, couldn’t think, the humming was so bright in her eyes and so loud in her head, but she heard the quiet, pleasant whisper in her ears of skin brushing her cheek, felt the softsweet kiss of words into the empty humming in her mind from a whisper so low she could only just barely hear it.

“Staying sweetly asleep for me, Nicole. You like sleeping for me. Just squeeze my hands yes, sweet girl.”

Nicole loved sleeping for the humming inside her head. Nicole loved everything right now. Nicole squeezed, softly, and let out the quietest, faintest moan of joy as she squeeeezed the thoughts she was holding, that the hands were holding, squeezed them and felt sparks of bliss melt their way down her arms and into her spine.

The whispered words inside the humming chuckled, faintly. Nicole felt her face warm as the subconscious blush hit, a little voice deep in the back of her mind whispering what if someone hears you?

But Stella was in Nicole’s head now. Could read the shame and need painted across her face in pink and flush.

“Quiet, sweet girl. Don’t worry, sweet girl, they aren’t listening to you. Good sweet girl, quiet sweet girl.”

Nicole felt the whimper of relieved pleasure die away in her docile throat.

Stella brushed her lips against Nicole’s cheek, faintly. “I know how much you love it when I-”

The hands holding her hands squeezed her thoughts.

“-Squish that soft little mind of yours.”

Inside her thoughts, nicole moaned with rapturous bliss.

Outside, nicole was silent, and obeyed.

The voice returned, almost inaudibly quiet, drifting across her ear like the ghost of a kiss. nicole’s unseeing eyes flickered, for a moment, as warm lips pressed faintly against her cheek, and she felt the humming grow louder, louder. A few more thoughts trickled down her arms and into her hands.

“Good girl, nicole. Now... let’s take these.”

nicole felt her fingers being gently opened, spread like lotus petals, leaving her thoughts bare and unprotected as they rested on her palms. Their weight pulling her down with every moment she held them up, heavy, too heavy, filled with so much humming that nicole’s blunted mind was awed she’d not yet dropped them. Prickles of sweat were beaded across her forehead and neck; they were so heavy. Too, too heavy.

Then those wondrous fingers were back, cool and embracing, sliding beneath her faltering hands and supporting them, almost cradling them, wrapping around and sliding those heavy, soft, melting thoughts out of her hands and into their own. Freeing her from their weight, from their responsibility. Taking her thoughts. Holding her thoughts. Owning her thoughts.

“-owning your thoughts. Good, sweet girl.”

All that was in her head was the humming now. It felt so fucking right.

The whisper in her ears was all she heard, now. All she thought, now. Sometimes, she thought she heard the voice pull away from her ears, saying other things. Things about breathing and rhythm, about flows of energy and releasing anxieties. Muffled replies echoed around in the cavernous emptiness of nicole’s head, sounding less like voice and more like an underwater speaker gurgling and bubbling away.

nicole knew she wasn’t really hearing that, though, because the whisper in her ears was all she heard, now. All except for the humming.

“And now, sweet nicole, we’re going to play pretend for me.”

nicole loved to play pretend.

“We’re going to play, Let’s Pretend To Be Awake. It’s a simple game for my simple girl. All you need to do is pretend, and do as you’re told. You love that, don’t you, sweet girl?”

nicole felt her head nod-nod-nodding away in agreement that she barely noticed the fingers gripping her chin anymore. nicole was so good at playing pretend. she was so good at doing what she was told.

“And then, when you’ve pretended to be awake, you can go right back to sleep again.”

nicole loved sleeping and forgetting for the whispered words that anaesthetised her mind with sweet kisses and humming nothingness.

“Getting ready to play pretend in 5... 4... 3... 2...”

***

Nicole giggled, using the chopsticks like a lance to spear into a piece of egg on Stella’s plate and yank it back so fast that Stella could only gawp in a mix of mortification and admiration.

Her blonde companion made a noise of mock-disapproval and daintily plucked one of Nicole’s own egg pieces from her bowl and transferred it to Stella’s own, smiling faintly. “If my Japanese teacher saw what you’d just done with that stick, I think she might have had a heart attack.”

Nicole blushed, suddenly embarrassed, and just knew that her cheeks and chest were turning the same warm pink as the sunset that hung low in the sky above the little ramen restaurant outside the rumbling, trundling train station.

“Oh! I’m, sorry, I didn’t realise. Is it like... you know, offensive or anything?” Nicole looked down at her bowl, absently stirring the noodles in broth before worrying that, too, might be seen as a poorly-mannered thing to do and set them down on the little rest-block. Stella had already been kind enough to show her how to do that – it made her feel kind of... she didn’t want to use the phrase “grown-up”, she was nineteen not nine, but, it did. She was learning about other cultures, gaining experience, broadening her mind. She didn’t want to ruin all that by being some brash, unthinking outsider appropriating someone else’s culture and not even doing it right!

Stella reached out with her right hand and gently laid it on Nicole’s left as it lay on the little, slightly rickety outdoor dining table the restaurant used as its outdoor seating. Her fingers were cool but smooth, silky skin and slender, pretty fingers that reminded Nicole of a beautician’s perfectly sculpted hands tipped with clipped short, clear-varnished nails.

“Nicole.” Stella began, sliding the hand up Nicole’s arm, trailing one faint finger across her neck, before letting that finger extend and leaving the fingertip pressed under Nicole’s chin.

When Nicole stayed looking down at her broth, Stella slowly but firmly pressed up, lifting her eyes to meet those piercing blues that she felt would stare into her heart and read her soul. Stella’s face was a faint but welcoming smile, though, and Nicole’s blush deepened as she felt the aura her friend always seemed to radiate wash over here like a warm wave, tinting her thoughts with that smile. I can trust Stella. Trust her with anything.

Stella was still speaking.

“It really isn’t that bad, pet. I mean yes, in Japan maybe it would be rude, but I was only joking. I don’t mind, okay?” Her tone was placating, reminding Nicole of calming a spooked horse, but she nodded gently and meant it.

“Okay,” she replied, perhaps a little softer than she had intended.

Stella smiled wider. “And anyway,” she continued, “it’s not as if table manners are completely identical everywhere.” Her friend sat back a little, pulling her hand from Nicole’s chin and using it to gesture vaguely at the assembled tableware.

“All this... this is very Southern in style, you know? I was more in the eastern side, a bit more rustic you know?” Her tone was confident, assured, and Nicole couldn’t help but nod her head as she felt herself taking mental notes. Her friend was so smart, and understood so many cool ancient wisdoms – she had always felt, in that foggy way she thought was probably pretty common, that Western culture was... what word had Stella used? Oh right, chauvinistic. Such a great word. Stella knew so much.

Nicole realised Stella had been continuing, and was pausing for a possible reply.

“Uh, yeah! That sounds so cool... I want to visit one day, I think.” Nicole blushed, and was grateful to her subconscious for holding down the fort during her brief wool-gathering excursion.

Stella smiled, “we should go together some time. We can visit my mentor’s shrine in the hills. I think you’d like that, and you’re not like,” she gestured at the people standing at the train station nearby, silhouettes visible against the rapidly-darkening sky now the sun had nearly set, “all these people. Most of them don’t care. But you’re different. You have so much potential in you.”

Nicole silently cheered inside. Yes! She knew she could be more, be better. Stella could see! Even Jess wasn’t so, so vocal about it. Well, maybe sometimes, she conceded. But, Stella was so wise, and could teach her the things her own mentor had shown her. Help her expand her mind, broaden her horizons.

Nicole grinned, “I’d love that! And, thanks. Do um, do you have any books you think would be good?” That was what you were meant to say, right?

Stella leaned back in her chair, tilting her head up to look at the first stars just coming into view as gloaming gave way to nightfall, apparently thinking.

“I don’t think I have any off the top of my head, but... well, I have some books and poems at my flat. You could come back with me and get some,” she looked down, eyes sparkling in the reflected glow from the street lamps as they flickered on. “You know... if you want.”

Nicole felt her breath catch, slightly. Which was silly, she told herself. Her friend was inviting her over to grab some books and then leave, they weren’t dating or anything. She was just a friend, Nicole wasn’t even like, completely sure how she felt about... that sort of thing, and oh gosh but Stella looked... Intense. Intoxicating.

The humming that trailed across the edges of her thoughts agreed.

“I, uh, um, yeah... o-okay, if that’s like, not, you know, not inconvenient or anything.” Nicole cursed her vapidity under her breath and darted her eyes away from Stella’s piercingly intense gaze.

The finger was back, under her chin. It felt like it was humming as it drew her eyes back towards her companion’s own.

Stella looked down into Nicole’s soul.

“You’re never inconvenient, sweet girl.”

Nicole whimpered, quietly.

“Come home with me, sweet girl. We’ll get you those books. You can go after that, if you like.”

The unspoken and if you don’t... hung in the air, thick as perfume.

Stella rose, slowly, keeping her finger pressed under Nicole’s chin. Nicole felt herself drawn up by it, attracted away from her own thoughts like a compass needle spinning away from true north as it helplessly followed the lure of a beautiful magnet. The magnet that was the only north she would need. Stella wanted to teach her, wanted to guide her. Wanted to show her how to improve herself, better herself, become the best person she could be. Nicole knew, now, how intelligent and strong her new friend truly was, knew she could teach Nicole to be wise, to understand the world, to connect with the wisdom of the ancient peoples who developed techniques for expanding their minds and contemplating reality. Stella had told her all about them before, and they sounded so cool and grown-up and mysterious.

Stella would teach, and Nicole would learn. Stella would guide, and Nicole would follow. Stella would speak, and Nicole would listen. The humming agreed how correct that sounded.

“Sweet girl...” Stella muttered, barely loud enough for Nicole to hear. “Sweet girl... you can stop pretending now.”

And nicole sighed in ecstatic bliss as she stopped playing pretend, and sank back into the darkness of humming sleep again.

End Chapter 2