“They do call me lesbian Jesus, you know. So that resurrection shouldn’t be a problem at all.”
“Ladies? Are we paying attention?” Rita calls out to them, making both women scowl and turn away from each other like moody teenagers.
During Rita’s instruction, Charlotte appreciates the multifunctionality of the lump of clay in front of her, as she can pretend it’s Riley’s neck while she squeezes and molds it.
When Gabi registers the way Charlotte is going to town on the clay, she looks to the side and dryly asks: “You good?”
Before Charlotte can answer, Riley pipes up: “Oh, let her. It’s probably good shegets it out of her system.”
It sounds friendly, but Charlotte senses something’s off. She can’t quite place why it sounds so familiar.
Around her, the first phallic shapes start to form, and there are multiple rounds of laughter as the women point out each other’s shapes and sizes.
“Now, just let your fantasies roam freely. There’s no need to stick to your own preference! If you even have one, that is,” Rita cheekily motivates them.
“I guess you do, if yourromantic preference excludes women,” Riley mumbles under her breath, suddenly closely invested in refining the tip of her sculpture. This time, Charlotte recognizes her own words, and she whips her head up like Riley has just slapped her in the face. She wants the other woman to look at her so she can read the warning in her eyes, but Riley turns to Lou and points.
“Yours has balls?!” she shrieks. Multiple people look up and snicker at Lou’s expression.
“Hey! Don’t make fun of him, he gets really shy,” Lou says defensively, shielding the balls from eyesight. Then she notices Riley’s sculpture, and starts laughing again.
“Why is yours so tiny?!”
Riley takes her clay covered hands off of it, pushes her palms to the edge of the table and leans back, studying it from a distance.
“Is it?”
Charlotte can’t stop herself after sucking in air through her teeth. “I’m surprised you actually know what a penis looks like,” she quips, satisfied with the way that situation presented itself.
But Riley is fast. “That’s funny. I don’t actually need something to go inside my body to know what it looks like.”
Charlotte scrunches her nose while giving her sculpture an extra firm squeeze. She can sense Lou and Gabi exchanging a glance, no doubt having a silent conversation about the two of them. She ignores it, because Riley is winding her up again and she will not allow her to have the last word.
“At least there are no uncertainties aboutyoursize preference,” Riley adds when she looks around and notices Charlotte is actually working on the largest specimen of them all.
“At least I’m getting some,” Charlotte fires back. Quickly doing the math in her head, over the last few years she’d gotten exactly—none, but no one needs to know that.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“Can you two stop bickering for like, one second?” Gabi interrupts before Charlotte can jump in. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not necessary to make it everybody’s problem.”
The two women look at each other, once again unhappy about being told off. They silently agree to suck it up and turn towards their own sculptures.
That lasts for about an entire minute, until Charlotte loses the battle with her own self-control and tightens her jaw. “Just so you know: my sleeping arrangements are none of your fucking business.” She invigorates her words by jabbing a pee hole in the tip of her clay penis with the back end of a scraper.
Ignoring Gabi’s frustrated groan, Riley reaches out over the table to put her hand compassionately on Charlotte’s forearm.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. There is nothing wrong with what you are. I don’t think any less of you.”
Scraper still in hand, Charlotte starts trembling. She has half a mind to scoop the other woman’s eyes out with it. “You—”
“No really, I haveno judgment whatsoever.”
Charlotte loses it and is about to jump up when Gabi, who knows her and sees it coming, grabs her by the back of her sweater and forces her back down, just before everyone in the room realizes something’s going on.
“Sit,” she commands.
“Woof,” Charlotte retorts.
