Morning Thursday May 1st, 2025

Lyrou shouted from bed, "Don’t stay home. At least go in late.”

Garin came up the stairs carrying a tray and glass of orange juice. "I’ll go in 24 hours late.”

Lyrou patted the comforter down over her lap to make way for the tray as Garin carefully set it; bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy steaming in her face. She took the orange juice from him, the glass cool and wet. “Now you can head in.”

He walked around the foot of the bed and to the opposite side. "Head into bed?”

She chewed her biscuit, fork to her lips. “Why can’t you go? I’ll be fine here.”

Garin plopped softly beside her and lay back on his pillow. "You’re a crusty nostril, hoarse voice, messy hair, fever head. Somebody needs to stop you from doing anything strenuous.”

“I think you’re using my crusty nostrils to stop yourself from doing anything strenuous. What would I do?” she sipped her juice.

“The minute I pull out of the driveway you’ll be in the garage getting out the ladder and going up on the roof to clean out the gutters,” Garin said matter-of-factly.

Lyrou played along. “Oh yes. I would. And you think I will… what.. fall off the ladder?”

Garin pointed upward. "The ladder would tip over and you would be stuck up there, sick, shivering in the wind and elements.”

Lyrou lay putting down food and the scenario. "I could call for help, a neighbor would come.”

Garin shook his head. "This is the land of lawsuits, common Samaritan high-trust has been vaporized under headlines of do-gooders sued to hell by the people they rescued.”

“Would you stop yourself doing the right thing because you might get taken to court?” Lyrou believed in Garin’s goodness.

“I’d request a verbal agreement from you before re-erecting the ladder, releasing me from all liability. But I’d anticipate you arguing that you made that under duress, so I’d run away with my face covered before you got down. You’d have to file against the borough for distress and damages caused by an unidentified assailant. You’d get a hefty payout.” Garin borrowed her fork to take a bite of her biscuits.

Lyrou coughed. "You’re going to get sick too, eating off my fork. I don’t want us to make our living filing frivolously, but I don’t want to force you to go to work.”

Garin put an arm over Lyrou’s lap, minding her tray. “Then.. I should go to work!” he announced and began to sit up.

Lyrou was quick to put her hand on his shoulder, talking with food in her mouth. “Non.”

Garin stopped, shrugged in his half-raised position. “Non?”

“Stay,” she asked.

“OK." And he opened wide as she fed a yolky biscuit into his mouth.

Garin recalled when she first said “I love you”, an awkward and rare thing for French to say. It was as if splitting nuclei. They were walking, on a date, from the subway to the art gallery she wanted to see. It started pouring rain aggressively out of what had been when they entered the subway a clear blue sky. Garin took off his jacket to put over Lyrou’s head, keeping her hair and shoulders dry. And when they came to a puddle at a crosswalk, he straddled it legs wide, deftly took her by the waist and like a ballerina lifted her over it. When they got to the art gallery entrance and went nearly slipping through the revolving door together she saw how dripping drenched he was, and yet he was smiling. Giving him back his jacket she didn’t think to say “thank you” or “you’re soaked”... she said, "I love you."

“Am I beautiful like this?” Lyrou brought him back to the now in their bed.

“You want to know if I can call you ugly when you think you know you’re ugly.” Garin teased.

Was Lyrou beautiful in her high-yellow pallor, eyes puffy, nose dry, red and runny, voice hoarse? “Spit it out if I’m ugly.”

Garin thought about it; he looked at her. "You’re the most beautiful virus-infected woman. It’s a cope, but it’s a true cope.”

Lyrou had wondered, so she asked, “How did you cope when I texted you that I was with Tom?”

Garin smiled. “I tried to get back to work but my erection wouldn’t let up. I had too much to get done, so I had no choice but to give it what it wanted. I jacked off.”

“Oh, there in your office?” Lyrou imagined him at his desk, dick out, cranking it.

“Sure. I pulled up Andrea’s live camgirl show,” he said unabashedly.

Lyrou smirked. "Oh? What could Andrea do that would get what I was doing right then off your mind?”

Garin closed his eyes as if rewatching it on the black insides of his eyelids. "She had a long, curved cucumber. So, I sent her a big contribution. Does that upset you?”

Lyrou objected with irony, "Not at all. Our little Andrea is eating her veggies, she should get a generous allowance.”

Garin teased, “Lyrou, honey, you wouldn’t believe how much money her fans were throwing at her. Maybe you could get into camMILFing? If that wouldn’t insult your education, that is.”

“Oui? Moi? I’d be too camera shy, to be seen in live action by so many men. But I felt bad that you couldn’t see me and what I was doing.” Lyrou reached over onto the nightstand and pulled a photo from her purse, “I asked and asked and asked Tom for just one of the photos he took of me. Finally, he agreed. He made me work for it, though.”

Garin held the photo, Lyrou held it also, not relinquishing it totally. It was of Lyrou in the red lingerie he had chosen for her, seated, her panties around her ankle, with her face turned away and her legs spread, her pussy glistening pink and open to the lens. “Thoughts?”

Garin analyzed it. “For an amateur, he has potential. The angle is perfect.”

Lyrou pulled it from him and tucked it back away into her purse. “What do you think of me… like that?”

Garin didn’t miss a beat. “You’d look better with a cucumber in you.”

Lyrou blushed and tripped over her words. “Un… un concombre? Is that what you want to see?”

Garin nodded. “Do we have any in the fridge?”

Lyrou snortled. "Oui. Oui, we do. We have a few cucumbers in the fridge.”

Garin disappeared, Lyrou rolled her eyes and sat silently. She could barely hear the refrigerator door opening, then a minute later, closing. She heard the kitchen sink running; he was rinsing off the grocery item. He returned with his hands behind his back. “Pick a hand, right or left.”

Lyrou planted her face in her hand and smiled in disbelief. “I won’t have a banana penetrate me, I’ve never put any food there, to tell the truth.”

Garin shook his head. “Do you take me for a monkey? No banana, just two differently sized cucumbers. Right or left?”

Lyrou sighed with amusement. She pointed to his right side. "Let’s see it.”

Garin presented a giant, genetically-engineered, deep, rich-green shining cucumber. “You win.”

Lyrou raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s big, Garin. Maybe the smaller one?”

Garin presented his left hand, empty. "What smaller one?”

Lyrou let out a silent laugh as Garin crawled into the bed, pulled her panties down, and placed the vegetable between her thighs against her lower abdomen as if to eye how deep it could go. He parted her thighs and licked her clit. It was pre-engorged, and she was flowing like her pussy was hungry for the full pepo. Garin spoke in his soft, deep, sexy voice, “Yes?”

She nodded, spread her legs wider, and tilted her pelvis, her pussy eager to swallow its meal. She watched as he stirred the tip of the cucumber at her entry, and then pressed it in, pulled it from her a bit, pushed it deeper, out to regard her wetness coating it, and then a third push that slid in easier and faster than either of them anticipated. She moaned to be so full and stretched. “C’est tellement énorme, j’adore ça.”

Garin held the last inch of it by only a thumb and index finger; her body pressed it out so slick that he had to adjust his grip on it differently to really thrust with control. “Hard?”

She mouthed the word, “Oui," and placed her middle finger tip to her clit, not aggressively, but slow and easy.

Garin worked his cucumber in her like a toy, like a cock, like a tool. He watched like a porn-addicted fiend how her pussy took it so greedily, drooling its juices on the diameter. He kept quiet, he kept his hands and mouth off of her. It was all about the cucumber maxing out her vaginal capacity and her finger working her clit. Without a bit of notice, she sprang up, yanked the cucumber from herself, clapped her thighs together, fell back into the mattress, and quivered out a spine-melting orgasm. "Mmmm-mmm-mmm-mmmmmm…” she whimpered.

Garin looked at Lyrou curled into a ball of heaven, and at the cucumber discarded on the blanket, proud of its achievement.

⚜

Evening Thursday May 1st, 2025

Garin found Lyrou practicing yoga in the guest room she’d doubled as a space to be alone. He looked in silently through the partially open door and watched her doing her best to flex and stretch into positions she could not before she took up this hobby. Or to be accurate, took it back up after years of not finding time for it. Now at her age and with their kids less clingy, she could enjoy it again. Garin knocked on the door-frame. "You’re feeling and looking much better. Can I step in?”

A radiant smile lighting up her face as Lyrou recognized his voice. “I am. Come in, of course, ma vie,” she called out, gracefully transitioning from her downward-facing dog into a warrior pose. “I was just about to take a break.” She reached for her water bottle, leaning back taking a long sip before continuing. “You’ve caught me in my favorite hobby,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

“Among several favorites if you have seen yourself.” Garin stepped in and took a seat on the tall wooden stool Lyrou had pressed into the corner out of the way of her yoga mat. He looked at the sweat glistening on her chest and neck, on her arms and shoulders.

Noticing his gaze lingering on her slick skin, Lyrou straightened from her pose, standing tall and proud. “It’s been amazing, chéri,” she said filled with gusto. “My flexibility has improved so much. Would you like to see what I’ve learned?”

“Do the hardest thing you can yet. I’m difficult to impress. I’ve come to expect a lot from you,” Garin said kindly, but meant it.

A funny glint in her eye as she turned into position. "Very well,” she said. She stepped closer to him, the scent of her sweat with the faint jasmine of her yoga mat. “Would you like a demonstration that stings?” Without waiting for an answer, she began to stretch, her limbs moving with a grace that belied the strength required for the pose. Her legs bent, one folded over the other, as she sank into a deep, low lunge. Her hands touched the floor, and she leaned back, arching her spine. The fabric of her yoga pants strained against her thighs, revealing the toned hamstring muscles beneath.

Garin’s mouth agape, he clapped. “Wow. Really. I didn’t know you could do... that.”

“This is the scorpion pose,” she said, her breath even and steady. “It’s one of the most… one of the worst, but I’ve been working on it.” She held the pose for a moment longer, her tailbone high in the air, before releasing and gently dropping with a sigh of satisfaction. “What do you think?”

“You make it look easy, but I’m sure I couldn’t do it, or most people.” Garin smiled. “I have a very unserious question and then a more serious question, if I may, sunny honey bunny.”

“Of course, chéri. What’s on your mind?” She toweled off her face, the soft fabric drying her skin as she waited for his response. “The serious question can wait, I’m feeling flexible.”

“Did you cancel Penny’s hot lunch orders at school?” Garin asked.

A slight nod. “Mon soleil, Pinny has decided she wants to try veganism.”

“Veganism? Why?” Garin looked perplexed.

Her smile was warm and understanding. “She did talk to you about this.”

Confused. "No, she didn’t.”

“You weren’t paying attention to her,” Lyrou explained.

“Sorry. Do I do that often?” Garin worried about Penny.

“No, you looked so tired and you’d just gotten in through the front door.” Lyrou sympathized with him.

“Why veganism?” Garin was just as perplexed as he was a minute ago.

“Pinny’s been talking to her friends, and they’ve become interested in animal rights,” she said, calm and measured. “It’s a phase, I suppose, or not, but it’s important to support her in her decisions, temporary or not so temporary.” Lyrou began doing leg stretches with a long orange elastic band.

“I’m not sure I like it.” Garin shook his head. “Animal rights is one matter, but she’s growing and..."

Her expression was one of empathy. “It’s OK, chéri,” she assured him, her voice soothing. “We can talk to her, maybe try some vegan recipes together.”

“She’ll have to supplement her diet and do it correctly. You and I have research to do. She’s not an adult, a change in diet like that can do damage if not done right. A secretary in my office went color-blind doing a strict vegan diet.” Garin showed a hint of becoming flustered and worried in his voice and face.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make sure she’s getting all the nutrients she needs. It’s an experiment, after all.” She approached him and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’ve already started looking into it. There are any number of delicious and healthy vegan options nowadays. We can cook some of her lunches together and include her. Part of growing up is deciding what and how one wants to eat. We must pass her test, show her that we’re not overbearing. We should be thankful she’s poking at our limits with choice of cuisine and not choice of curfew or clique.” Her smile was reassuring, collaborative. “How does that sound?”

“Alright, but watch her convert us all into vegans before long.” Garin smiled.

“How cumbersome it will be to go to the market. We’ll take it one step at a time,” her hand sliding down his leg. “But for now, let’s not think about vegan recipes. Tell me your more serious question, mon roi.” She leaned into him, her body pressing against his leg in a comforting embrace.

Garin lowered his voice, not to be heard beyond the guestroom, “Is there someone… ?”

“Someone new, you mean?” she asked, her voice soft. Running her fingers through her hair, “Maybe,” she said, her smile enigmatic.

“Tell me. This isn’t a top-secret mission.” Garin’s posture neared her, leaning down and in, hungry for details. “I want to know if you think you can find the one who makes you regret having settled for me.”

Affection and amusement in her tone, she explained, "Mon chouchou, if you must know, I’ve connected with someone named Marc. Thus far it’s been online, but he’s appealing, really. And we’re going to a comedy show a week from tomorrow.”

“Connected? How?” Garin pushed.

A wicked shrug and a devil in her eye. “Oh, chéri,” she began, her voice syrupy, “Marc is just… different. He makes me feel I could run away with him.” She lay her cheek against the back of his hand, her bare skin brushing against his, 10,000 microscopic Vellus hairs crossing, sending a shiver down his spine. “Our conversations are like poetry.”

“I’ll believe it if you still feel that way after really meeting him.” Garin furrowed his brow.

“Chéri, Marc is… captivating. He understands me in ways I didn’t think anyone could. I can’t promise you that this will just be a fling, or that I won’t fall hard for him.” Her hand trailed down his stomach, resting on his waistband. “The thought of him, his touch, his love… it’s all so tempting.”

“I hope so, Lyrou. I hope he’s the kind you can’t let go of after a night of paradigm shifting soul transmogrifying fucking, I hope he’s someone who makes you want to live under the same roof with, cook for him, clean for him, meet his family, and have his inheritor for him. I wonder if this Marc can be that man to you. We’ll have to see.” Garin said courageously, with a pinch of anger.

Her smile faded to a frown. "What’re you saying, Garin?” she asked, her voice tight. “You really want me to fall in love with someone else? As in really, really?”

Not taking a step back. “Don’t claim to have been jesting, not this early. This round, its purpose and parameters, its sharp edges and points were forged in your fiery smithy. I want to see if it’s possible. I want to take it that far. I want to walk in the fire with you and find if we burn or miraculously pass through unsinged. I think you do too.”

Lyrou’s stomach knotted up, but she tried to match Garin’s throw-it-to-the-wind air. "And what of you, jogging dad?” she asked, a soft whisper. “Have you found someone who makes you think about leaving our marriage and jogging off to a completely new life?”

Garin, thumb to his lip. "I’m shallow, superficial. A woman as pretty as you, Lyrou, could make me want to throw away my half and rush out to buy a diamond for her, triple the price of yours. That is if she’s more fun than you. It’s a tall order. I’ve run the calculations with my old hub-buzzing incel STEM buddies from the tech working at the Department of Naval Intelligence, the National Security Agency, in Silicon Valley and in Silicon Hills. Data input; symmetrical telor-typical anti-ptotic nonsaggy breasts greater than or equal to cup size C…”

“Stop.” Lyrou objected.

Garin continued, speaking over her, “Waist-to-hip ratio less than or equal to 0.65. Gluteal trochanteric index less than or equal to 0.58. Buttocks circumference greater than or equal to 40 inches. Leg length greater than or equal to 50% of height.”

Lyrou shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Seigneur, aïe… this scrutiny?”

Garin pressed his imaginary glasses up his nose. “We plugged in the values, and we’ve established that less than 0.25% of the women out there can meet those few simple but high standards. That’s less than 5 million women on the planet. That’s less than 15,000 women in the New York City-Jersey City Metropolitan Area. Sedentary, love-handles dad would not have a shot at this. No, no, absolutely impossible.” Garin complimented and terrified her all at once.

Lyrou’s brave front melted enough to drip, and her neutral face was a mask for dread. “I believe you would do that, in your flippancy. And?”

“And you would be surprised… I found one that might. In beauty, certainly.. all the many features that I covet after in a woman. But more fun than you? I can’t say. I can’t say but my instinct says.. possibly.” Garin was cruel, as if she asked for it in talking up Marc.

Unblinking. “Who is she?”

“Amina. Amina Kairouz.” Garin loved her first name coupled to her surname and said it so.

Her posture straightened and her joints stiffened. Anger and jealousy clawed at Lyrou’s chest, she wondered at herself how she’d set these rules, had encouraged this openness.

“Amina?” she repeated, her voice strained. “How did you meet her?”

Garin spoke with his hands as a professor would,

“When I find myself looking at a woman and she turns and notices I’m looking at her, I don’t reflexively look away. Nor do I continue staring just the same. Nor do I make some overdone expression, smiling big or winking. I keep looking as I was, except to make a slight change of expression that acknowledges I know she’s now looking back at me and I’m glad for that. I telepathically say to her; ‘Ah yes, hello, I’m admiring you.’ If she looks away and doesn’t look back to me, I leave her be. I take that to mean she doesn’t want to be bothered, nothing personal.. I think of it no more. If she looks away but then looks back to me, I approach and say something… anything… never trying too hard… as if I have known her since we were both children. It. Is. Fun.”

“You make your own fun. But what makes her so… fun?” She took a long breath, trying to keep her voice steady. “I gave you the freedom to explore, chéri, it’s good you.. you found one so rare,” she said, her hand mechanically going to her hair, smoothing a non-existent strand. “But if she truly does make you happier, then I suppose I can’t stand in your way.” Inside she was screaming, imagining Garin with another woman that deeply and meaningfully, her heart feeling as though it might shatter into a million pieces. But she’d agreed to this, had even marveled watching him with others when they were just for a single night. Could he replace her, not just in a night but in all the days and nights to come?

Garin saw that Lyrou was going to cry, her eyes turning pink, taking her hand. “Lyrou.. we have gotten farther along into our games than you might be ready. Are you going to break? Is it getting to be too much for you now?”

A maelstrom of emotions in Lyrou’s features, a flash of a fake little smile, then a quivering lip. "I.. I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice shaking. “I thought I was ready for this, but… hearing you say that about someone else, it’s just…” She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to compose herself. “It’s hard, ma vie.” Her hand squeezing in his, a silent plea for reassurance. “But we said we’d try it, so I will do it. I’ll keep going.” She swiped at a tear that had escaped. “Just tell me you’ll always come back to me.”

Garin’s face became stone as a Greek statue. "No. We’ll go through and see if we come back to one another. Maybe I’ll have to watch you leave me for this Marc, or maybe you’ll have to watch me leave you for this Amina. Maybe we’ll both be happy to see the other go, that we can also go unfettered by guilt or concern.. knowing our spouse is also happy with someone new, a mutually amicable goodbye. Exes. Forever. Or maybe… we’ll come flailing back to one another, embracing in a savage ardor having proven that there’s nobody out there better for you than me or better for me than you.”

Lyrou didn’t know how to respond to his words, which seemed to slice through her. The thought of losing him to someone else was unbearable, yet the rules demanded she play along. She took a step back, her hand slipping from his. “That’s too depressing, if I can’t have you. I’m afraid, chéri. But I’ll try. Let’s… let’s not talk about this anymore, I might sob the whole evening,” she said, estrogen and cortisol making her nauseous, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “We have a busy weekend to prepare for.”

⚜

Noon Friday May 2nd, 2025

It was Alan’s birthday and Lyrou had a big day planned for him, but for now both he and Penny were at school and Garin was at work. Lyrou didn’t snoop in her children’s lives aggressively, and she wanted to leave them with some illusion of their private worlds being private, but it was unthinkable to her that she shouldn’t monitor them.

She entered Alan’s unoccupied bedroom. He’d assembled and painted model spacecraft displayed on his shelves as bookends, and toy foam-bullet guns squarely put away in bins. Alan was mostly ever on his computer, and so that’s where she looked first. She checked his browsing history, on all of his several browsers. There wasn’t much there but a site that hosted edgy videos; Alan had viewed a compilation of urbex and sky-walking rooftoppers, but the same page boasted thumbnail links to real footage of police shootings and violent crimes on CCTV. He hadn’t clicked on it, though.

She looked in his download files, dozens upon dozens of computer game mods. She needn’t dig into it. She looked in the recycle bin; where she restored, reviewed, and redeleted a trio of benign documents; a science course syllabus, a school calendar, and a draft for a short story he must’ve disliked and tossed.

She opened his social media accounts and looked through them, and his private messages. She found nothing too alarming, other than the foul language his friends used and which he’d sprinkle in. His follower and following lists were extensive, but scanning them with her eyes she didn’t see any unknown adults or questionable celebrities; except for a few phonk artists he raved about. In his documents she found several homework assignments, some old and some recent, and she got a look at the content he was covering in school. Lyrou read start to finish an impressive report he put together on microplastics harming public health. Satisfied she didn’t find anything terrible, she began looking through his room; under his bed, into his drawers, in his closet, and was quite happy to come up with nothing more than lint, erasers, paperclips and bent staples.

Alan was a good boy. She chuckled to herself to think what she’d do if she found a cigarette or bag of marijuana. Maybe Alan would place something like that for her to find some years from now, maybe, but for now he was her good boy.

Now Lyrou crossed the hallway and it was Penny’s turn. Penny, though younger, had a spark of trouble in her that Alan didn’t. Lyrou could sense it so clearly. For Penny it wasn’t if she’d do the big bad thing, but when. Probably not this soon, but eventually it would come. This kind of snooping routine might limit the scale of Penny’s travesty. This espionage then was preventative and good practice for Lyrou, she’d not be surprised or at a loss when the thing came, whatever it was.

Lyrou opened Penny’s touch pad and was miffed to find the password changed. Seriously?! Well then, she’d figure it out and not tell Penny she’d figured it out, and Penny would not know mom had access. Lyrou sat on Penny’s bed and lay the pad on her lap as she thought over what the password could be. She’d have a limited number of tries before it locked up. She’d try their street address; incorrect. OK then.. her classroom number; incorrect. It occurred to Lyrou then a notion she herself would have loved at Penny’s exact age. Is it Carla’s birthday? Tap tap tap tap tap tap. Correct. Lyrou laughed to herself, how cute. And Carla’s pad password must be Penny’s birthday.

Going through Penny’s social media, files, and history was far more arduous than in Alan’s case. There was so much, Penny’s little fingers had left such a vast digital footprint. There were dozens upon dozens of apps, windows upon windows. There were unknown adults in her follower and following lists. There were questionable celebrities. There were private messages with everybody from classmates to teachers to random kids across the country to foreign scammers. There was a mess of deleted documents and images in her recycle bin. Lyrou would not have time to go through it all, but she could return and take it in chunks over the week. What was important for now was seeing that Penny wasn’t crossing any black-and-yellow striped caution lines and giving her personal information to strangers, and from what Lyrou could see.. she didn’t.

Lyrou placed the touch pad back precisely as she found it. She then began a physical search of the room. Penny’s room was messier than Alan’s and she wasn’t here to clean it. The opposite, she’d leave each toy, stuffed critter, empty bottle and candy wrapper, worn and wrinkled clothes, down to the last broken color pencil and solo roller-skate right where it lay. And she’d check every corner and crevice just the same. She ran her fingers under the bed, between the mattress and the frame. She ran her hands under and behind Penny’s closet shelves. She lifted Penny’s desk to spy under it, pulling out a crumpled up paper with doodles on it. It was upon running her hand behind the plastic miscellaneous drawer that she felt a little notebook. She pulled it out and with a magical feeling beheld Penny’s diary for the first time.

Lyrou sat back on Penny’s bed and didn’t hesitate to open it. Disappointing, only the first three pages had been filled, but if the dates were right she’d only kept this diary for a week and a half. The contents; a little poem written to the diary itself about its purpose. Penny meant for this diary to allow her to look back on her feelings once they’d long passed, and with hindsight understand herself better. Lyrou was impressed by the maturity, the self-improvement motive. Good, Penny. Then there was on the second page a list of things Penny wanted people to know about her if she were “killed in a plane crash or survived the plane crash because the pilot emergency-landed in the ocean but I was eaten by a shark”.

Lyrou was taken aback by that, and guffawed at the morbid specificity. Rather, she was relieved to see the list wasn’t so serious and gave the ‘if I die’ comment a kind of overly dramatic flourish. Penny wanted the world to know she was a vegan because ‘nobody should eat anything that has a face’. She wanted the world to know that she was glad to be a girl and if she reincarnates, she wanted to be a girl again. Making Lyrou sad, Penny had jotted down a wish that her French and math skills were better, and a promise to herself that she’d become ‘pretty good at both, not perfect-perfect but still pretty good’.

Lyrou decided then to be less harsh on Penny over the language and numbers. She wished to communicate to Penny that all she wanted was for her to put in effort and not give up, her level on both would naturally increase. But Lyrou couldn’t bring it up too soon without giving it away she read Penny’s diary. On the 3rd page Penny had a list of school friends ranked and annotated according to her relationship with them. Obviously Carla was named at the top. Then there were over a hundred girls, several of them with notes by their names stating what they’d said or done to earn their rank. It amused Lyrou the reasons for demoting and promoting these multitudinous girls; one girl had copied Penny repeatedly and pretended to have been the first in each instance. Another girl had given Penny her spare sandals and never asked for them back. Lyrou’s urge was to check with Penny that she’d indeed returned the sandals, and to ask why she’d need to borrow them in the first place.. but again that would reveal she’d read the diary.

Satisfied that both of her children were on the straight and narrow, Lyrou carefully returned the diary behind the sock drawer as it had been when she discovered it. She exited Penny’s room, turning to look at it once more, with a contented sigh.

⚜

Noon Saturday May 3rd, 2025

Reine had two small white Samoyed bitches which she’d take out on their leashes on cool days, exploring the city and finding what she may, making talk with whoever might come along. Sometimes, like this time, that someone was Lyrou. Reine spoke over the crackling of cicadas on how expensive the dogs were, and how easily they got overheated given their thick coat. “Today we’ll walk them to the groomer, drop them off there, and they’ll get a nice shave.”

Lyrou nodded. "They must look even smaller afterward.”

Reine smiled, delighted. She said, "They do, they’re actually little babies disguised as clouds. My anthropomorphizing of them is unrequited, though; they just see me as a warm pillow.”

For a moment they walked silently and then Lyrou understood she’d have to be the one to bring it up. "Was Alexander appealing?”

Reine’s dogs yapped at seeing another dog walked across the street; Reine may have pretended not to hear Lyrou. "Quiet, quiet! Who?”

“Alexander?” Lyrou asked when they were clear of Reine’s immediate neighborhood.

“I met him,” Reine answered as if she were on trial.

“You did? Then what did meeting him entail?” Lyrou gently elbowed Reine before the dog pulled the slack out of the leash and yanked her arm forward.

“I haven’t seen a new release in a cinema in forever, so I suggested it,” Reine said, unconsciously touching her lips.

“How was that?” Lyrou asked.

“I don’t know where to begin.” Reine let out a short guffaw.

Lyrou guffawed back. She said, "Then start at the end.”

“The end?” Reine cocked her head in confusion.

“Yes, the end. How did it end?” Lyrou twirled her finger as if winding a yarn.

Reine looked silently at Lyrou, not sure what to say. Lyrou decided to batter through. “Did you drive off any heights with him?”

“No.” Reine looked around her nervously as if some pedestrian unknown to them might possibly overhear. “No, I didn’t. He kissed me in his car, and I said thank you and goodbye. That was it.”

“Will you meet him again?” Lyrou shrugged.

Reine quickly shook her head in the negative, her red hair moving over her face. “No.”

“That’s not a fling,” Lyrou said with a big smile.

“I know that.” Reine became defensive.

“That’s a traditional, conservative date. Is that what you wanted?” Lyrou smiled, sincerely amused.

“No. It’s not what I wanted. But I changed my mind.” Reine’s gaze downward.

Lyrou smiled again, but suppressed it. “How are you feeling?”

“I can’t.” Reine sighed.

“You can’t cross the line, then?” Lyrou cocked her eyebrow. “Are you afraid Philip will know?”

“He saw how I was dressed when I went out and asked if I was ovulating. Yes, that’s a big part of it.” Reine fretted.

“That’s the kind of probing comment you lean into and dress even racier, teach him he won’t dress code you,” Lyrou advised.

“I can’t. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s for many different reasons.” Reine looked intently at Lyrou as they walked. “But I know I don’t want to try again.”

“It was that bad?" Lyrou observed.

“Yes. I couldn’t turn on with a man I have no memories with, no attachment, no relationship.” Reine hoisted her finger up to state the crux of the matter.

“Aha. You’re demisexual," Lyrou diagnosed.

Thinking it over a couple seconds, she asked, "Maybe. Is that wrong?”

“Non, Reine. Rien de mal là-dedans,” Lyrou assured her.

“I guess it’s not my bag, my cup of tea, my idea of a fun time.” Reine smiled.

Lyrou smiled warmly, but the tone in her voice faintly hinted at dismissal. “That’s OK, Reine. You found your limit.”

Reine tried not to, but she couldn’t help but take it as a back-handed compliment. “My limit? I have reasons. I liked Alexander and in another life if things were different, if I was different, then maybe. I have a lot of reasons.”

Lyrou raised her hands palms up as if holding the conclusion in them. "A lot of reasons summed up in one reason; you’re not the type.”

“The type?” Reine adjusted her hair out of her face again, the breeze not going easy on her.

“It isn’t you. Not your proclivity. Men possess a different umwelt for you than for me.” Lyrou gently tugged the leash to keep the Samoyed from sniff-venturing off the curb.

Continuing down the sidewalk and waiting at a red light to cross a two-lane street, Reine said, "Lyrou, about each step of it, making the profile, talking to him, meeting him, and worst of all being kissed by him. It's so horrible. What was I doing? How do you do that?”

“Horrible? Yes, in a way it is horrible," Lyrou said flatly, a touch insensitive.

“How do you do it?” Reine’s voice was like a child’s, Lyrou thought.

Lyrou took a moment to think, then spoke, “Same to you. À toi la parole, how do you become overcome with internal disquiet that you turn down such adventure, pleasure, freedom, and so much else?” Lyrou’s dark eyes had become filled with a smoldering fire. Reine sensed that she had stumbled and struck her digging spade into a concentrated part of core-Lyrou that invisibly spanned the cosmos. The truth about right and wrong, sentience, and other mysteries Lyrou seemed to have solved for womankind in primeval times, an archaic animistic deity invoked, a topless heathen blood goddess. Lyrou countered, “How do you turn it down, when it’s pure and powerful surging life?”

Reine paused, then she declared, “I don’t need those things. I don’t need to be ‘RedLikeRoses’ or the attention or the… or…”

“Need? Until you have them you can’t miss them.” And with those words, Lyrou placed Reine squarely where she saw her, among the ignorant many, the hylics, the unenlightened masses of women, uninitiated to the rites of the ascended sisters, like herself, the few.

“Speaking for myself, then it is best to never have them.” Reine countered, not a little insulted, and thinking it not a little absurd that it was Lyrou who was the one who should be insulted. Though she didn’t say it, Lyrou saw it in her face.

Lyrou pressed her lips together and then turned up her chin. "Dear, you are not yet but in the future at least don’t become smug and self-righteous that you’re an inviolate house cat, declawed and spayed, and I’m a dirty alley cat moaning in the night waking everyone up.”

“I didn’t mean that.” Reine tilted her head, the slightest beginnings of rhetorical submission. She didn’t want to compare herself with Lyrou, finding it clear that Lyrou wouldn’t relent in retaining her dark nobility. "Lyrou, that's not what I mean at all."

They continued on along the sidewalk passing shops and condos, Lyrou walking one Samoyed and Reine the other, stopping to let them piss here and there. Reine re-engaged, she adjusted her tone, and she said, "I’m sorry, Lyrou. I thought it was something I wanted to do at least once, when I listened to you, it seemed so illicit and tempting. To be taken by a dream man or a new man, and never worry that my Philip would find out, that I could go back to him, safe and satisfied, with my special secret, like nothing had happened though something very much did. It’s sexy. It is. It’s a fantasy, but for me a passing fantasy. I suppose you’re right, that it isn’t me, because I can barely let Philip look at me now. And I didn’t go through with it, but when Alexander kissed me it was so different from Philip that I wanted to jump out of his car running and screaming. Philip is my only man, I know that now. If the price of following my id is my death-do-you-part, then it’s too steep.”

“Then Reine, Philip should be happy how good and loyal you are. He’s affluent in savings and in monogamy.” Lyrou said softly.

“How? I’m only barely so.” Reine said with shame in her posture.

“Just the opposite, timid teacher. There are senile old spouses who can boast of being entirely loyal every single day of their long marriages unto death-do-them-part. But who among them were ever tried and tested? The undesired and unexposed, the mediocre, those bodies who were never widely coveted or made available to interested parties can never pride themselves that they didn’t partake in a banquet they were never invited to. You had the rare privilege to be seated at the dinner table and urged to feast, and yet you pushed the plates, silverware, glasses, napkins and all away, off shattering onto the floor, running for the exit crying ‘My Philip, my Philip.’ Tearing off your bib still white and unstained.” Lyrou looked about the street scenes and people, finding contentment in it that Reine ran.

“I should feel good about it?” Reine gestured for Lyrou to turn and follow her into the park, they would take a shortcut to the dog groomers. This was a park with a dozen or so other dogs on their own poop-pee walks, and Reine's Samoyeds panted and sniffed with excitement. "I mean should I feel good about dropping the guy like that? I think I had to, but I should have been more graceful. Do you mean I should feel good about it?"

“I wouldn’t. I’d feel that I stood on the precipice and didn’t fly, that I missed out on Alexander, whoever he is. He might’ve played burglar/intruder with you. He might've amused you in ways you didn't know you could be, in ways Philip never can. But you, you should feel good about yourself. Or, if having you all to himself is his joy then Philip should. Not that he would, if he learned of your brief wet-footed foray who knows what he’d think, say, and do. But he should be happy with you.” For a second Lyrou remembered Garin, if he was happy with her, but that marine beast resubmerged as it always did, her leviathan.

“It’s my opinion, but you can twist anything in your eyes to see it anyway you want to. You manipulate objective reality into your own quixotic reality.” Reine walked, mouth agape, glancing over at Lyrou confident in her stride and her words.

Tilting her head and looking at something behind Reine, Lyrou laughed, then explained, "I don’t make my own reality, I make reality my own. Just my opinion, your cloud puff-dog has occupied herself on her time out better than you did.”

Reine turned around to see her Samoyed, the one she’d been walking, was being mounted by a terrier mutt off his leash.

“Oh? Stop it!” Reine screamed and fumbled after them, in vain as these animals knotted together. The owner, a young man rushed through the park trees and bushes to retrieve his horny hound. He begged forgiveness, shouting, "Cliff, bad boy bad boy! I don't know what to say!"

⚜