Everyone knows that cafes are great for writers. Hell, if a character on TV was a writer, they’d be in one, taking large gulps of the drink to keep the creative juices flowing. Unfortunately, Quest couldn’t stand coffee. Mocha, latte, cappuccino… It didn’t matter how sweet it supposedly was, they were all bitter. Her friends would inhale copious amounts of the hot stuff over sketchbooks and manuscripts, and there she would be sipping hot chocolate. She always wondered if people were judging her. Is she bougie? Does she think she’s above us?

They probably weren’t but emotions weren’t rational. Shortly after she left university and her friend group splintered all over the country, she stopped going to cafes. It wasn’t purposeful but since there wasn’t anyone to go with, leaving her house specifically for that seemed silly. She got plenty of inspiration at home anyway.

Not today.

It was an absolutely scorching Tuesday afternoon, the kind of day that was roasting even for those with melanin. On days like this, she would turn her fan up to the maximum and imbibe large amounts of cold liquid (not alcohol, she’d left her boozing behind three years ago at twenty three). Unfortunately, she’d fled her compact apartment in search of inspiration. If she’d spent one more second looking at the default cream walls, she would have gone crazy.

Now she was roasting her black ass when she could have been enjoying some home breeze. Anything for creativity, right? Still, it was nice to come out and see what people wore in their daily lives. Her mind was already abuzz, cataloguing attires, imagining fabric. Only fifteen minutes later, she rushed into the first shop in the town centre, a cafe.

If she could have redone their first meeting, she would have preferred not to meet the love of her life in the way she had. Gasping and panting for breath while dripping of hot sweat.

After ordering a cold drink, she splayed herself on an available seat luxuriating in the AC and drink. Ugh, brain freeze. She inclined her head and made a face. Why did this always happen?

A chuckle.

Quest looked in its direction and saw a gorgeous woman.

Her deep black eyes glimmered with mirth, kohl lined full lips quirked up in a smile— a dimple barely visible, and her skin glistened so mesmerisingly. Not a drop of sweat or exertion could be seen on her face. Unfair.

Her short black ‘fro was tinged brown and it looked invitingly soft. She wondered what it would feel like to run her fingers through her curls. On her neck was a tattoo of a crotchet and when her neck moved, the symbol undulated. Dangling from the ears were a pair of gold earrings.

She was dressed in a blue ankara flared top over a yellow ankara ankle length trouser. Both were full of pockets prominently displayed. On her double table was a coral blue laptop decorated with pictures of famous women. Beside it were a notebook and a pink headphone covered with stickers. To top it all off, at the bottom of her long, long legs were a pair of sturdy shiny boots with the tips painted gold.

How stylish.

On anyone else, the entire ensemble would have come off chaotic but this woman wore it with elegance. She was beautiful but it wasn’t only her beauty that left Quest spellbound. She existed in a state where everybody was hot. She would be outdoors and think, oh what a gorgeous dude or damn, that girl is fi~ine or look at those amazing arms. No, the woman’s aura screamed confidence. She had a take-charge kind of energy.

Exactly her type.

The woman clasped her hands together and made an apologetic expression which Quest in her dumbstruck state responded to with an exuberant nod. She nodded back and smiled before she went back to writing in her notebook.

Fuck, she wanted to clothe her. To make the perfect outfit for her. A dress, a skirt, anything. Quest could already see it in her mind. Images of cloth on paper. She would sew it oh so perfectly. Help her put it on for her. The woman would twirl and the dress would fly around her. Cotton, silk, cashmere. Surely anything she made would fit her perfectly. Her clothes were meant to be worn by this woman.

And then when it was all done, she would take her clothes off and kiss all over that luminous skin. Her eyes would dance again in pleasure and her lips would offer soft moans of joy. It would be glorious…

Well, that was enough fantasising.

She unpacked her laptop and sketchbook, picked up her pencil and tried to sketch some new designs but her mind kept on returning to the woman. She couldn’t help continuously glancing at her. At her long fingers and clipped nails, luscious eyelashes, the crotchet that rippled when she swallowed.

Quest tried to refocus on her drawing when she smelled lavender and heard a clink. She looked down and saw an ornate pen on the floor. Picking it up, she looked for the owner and saw the woman heading to her seat. God, she was tall. 5 foot 7?

Alright Quest, this must be a sign from the heavens. Just say ‘hey I found your pen’ and use it to segue in. It’sgoingtogogreat!

Psyching herself up, she hurried to her table and slammed the pen down. Shit, wrong approach. Oh well, too late to turn back now.

“Well um. Here you go,” she said, rubbing her hands on her black jean shorts. “Your pen, I saw it on the floor over there. And I thought to bring it back, seeing as how it’s very pretty. Too pretty to go missing. Not that I don’t think you can’t replace it, I just thought maybe you wanted it back. But if you don’t I can just take it back and put it on the floor.”

Argh. What the fuck was that? Was she nervous? Her?! Quest Ozogabia Lionel? Silver-tongued, flirtatious, sociable. It was a good thing none of her friends was there else they would have mocked her forever.

The woman chuckled. “Well I’m glad you brought it back,” she said in a sultry contralto, “else my plan to speak to someone as cute as you would have been foiled.”

“Cute? You think I’m cute?”

The woman smiled and looked her up and down.

Quest could feel her gaze brush over her body. An intense gaze, it pinned her in place as if to examine her thoroughly. Usually, such focus would make her uncomfortable but the thought that all her attention was on her made her gleeful.

But wait. Was she dressed okay? Was that a stain on her shirt, a hole on her shorts? She had just thrown on some casual clothing. Would she think that painting every finger the pink, purple and blue of the bi pride flag was too shouty? What if she hated her build and thought she was obe—

“Definitely cute. The name’s Temi,” she said then held her hand out to Quest.

Quest replied with her name and shook Temi’s hand.

“Quest?” Temi said questioningly.

“Yeah. It’s short for Request. Or specifically, my request has been answered. My parents waited ten years for a kid so when I was born, my mum insisted on naming me Request. Apparently, my father talked her down from ‘Answered Request’.” Quest shook her head in fond exasperation at the thought of her parents. “Anyway they had three more kids after me so my second name came to pass. Is it that weird?”

“No, it’s not. It’s nice. Plus, it has a cool story behind it. I like your name.”

“Thanks,” Quest said with gleeful eyes.

“Nothing but the truth. What’s that about your second name?”

“Ozogabia. It means—”

“More will come?”

“Yeah. You speak Igbo?”

“A little bit. Until I was 13, I lived in Port Harcourt. I’m more fluent in Yoruba, though.”

“That’s good. I can barely speak it.” Quest paused then smiled cheekily. “That will be a plus when I introduce you to my parents.”

“When?” Temi said and raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t someone confident? What happened to the shy, nervous woman who said and I quote, ‘I just wanted to bring back your pen because it’s so pretty’.”

“Oh she died when you called me cute. Nah I’m joking. Still super nervous.”

“Same. I’m not as composed either. I mean dropping a pen in the hopes that you would bring it to me was rather cringy. For all I know, you would have stolen my pretty pen.”

“Well, I’ll have you know that I am a respectable pen thief. I have the dastardly plan of stealing all the gorgeous pens in the world, and spending the rest of my days with my covetous hoard,” Quest said and spread out her hands.

“Whoa there Lupen,” Temi said with a grin, “you sure do know how to talk sexy to a woman. But you must be tired of standing so you want to bring your stuff over and continue talking?”

Quest quickly packed up her belongings and rushed back to Temi who was now writing in her book. Feeling cheeky, she took a peek and was astounded. Look at those neat figures, the swoops and lines laid exquisitely.

“Wow, you totally deserve your pen,” she said. “Your writing’s gorgeous. I’m so jealous. Mine is so atrocious.”

Temi smiled again and waved off the compliment then gestured to the seat opposite her. They spent the next hour or so chatting, flitting from topic to topic in quest to learn more about the other.

Quest was 26, Temi was 28. Temi was the middle child of five kids and had immigrated when she was 13, Quest was the oldest of four and was a second-generation Briton. Temi had suspected she was different in Nigeria but had repressed herself until she’d turned 17 and came out as a lesbian. Quest was a designer, Temi was a musician, neither was particularly thriving but they were full of hope. Both were in a creative rut and had come out for fresh air.

They had been speaking like that for a long time, engrossed in each other and ignoring their work when Temi’s phone alarm went off.

“Shit,” she said and jumped to her feet. Lightning fast, she packed all her belongings into a guitar backpack case. “I’m so sorry. I completely forgot. I have a recording in 50 minutes and I just got so wrapped up in this”—she gestured between both of them—“that I forgot all about it. I really want to talk more but this might be my big break. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all good,” she said and gave her a piece of paper. “While you were packing, I wrote down my number.”

“Oh great. I’ll definitely call you.”

“You better.”

Temi hurriedly hugged Quest and rushed out of the cafe. Quest watched until her back completely disappeared out of view then left. She spent the next few days waiting for the call.

It never came.

 

Temi didn’t have time to think about Quest until the end of the day. After running for the bus, barely getting the bus, being sent on diversion because of roadworks and barely getting to the studio on time to meet the disgruntled expression of her bandmates, she focused solely on the music. When it was over and she shuffled home in an exhausted amble, she remembered the cute girl she’d seen earlier.

She’d come into the cafe all heaving gasps and deep breaths. She’d been so expressive, her face twisted into a grimace, her nose wrinkled up. When she collapsed into her seat then squeezed her face because of the cold drink, she couldn’t help laughing.

Quest. What a lovely name.

Temi pictured her in her mind. Her blue eyeshadow, her purple lipstick, her chubby cheeks asking her to pinch them. Her shoulder-length crochet braids that made her want to flick each braid, her silver stud earrings, thick silver necklace, jangling bangles. Her fingers were covered with silicone, silver and bronze rings. All that jewellery made her appear to glimmer. She even liked her bi flag painted fingernails; it seemed so Quest. She’d been wearing a size 18 green shirt tucked into her shorts and Temi had wanted to untuck it. Just a tug and all that flesh would be hers to explore. Even the flash of ankle barely covered by ankle socks in green sneakers had been a turn-on.

If only her alarm hadn’t rung. The recording hadn’t gone great. She’d been distracted and even disappointed by the music. Now that she had met Quest, she felt like she could write even better lyrics than the mediocre ones she had forced out.

She rummaged through her guitar case and pulled out the piece of paper on which she had written her number. She looked at it for a few seconds then laughed out loud.

When Quest had said that her handwriting was awful, she had thought it was a joke but this… She squinted her eyes in an attempt to make out the number but it didn’t help. Was that an eight or a zero, a nine or a six?

After an hour of trying to dial possible numbers that could match her number, she had no choice but to give up. Apparently, there were over 39 million number combinations from eleven digits. She’d even tried to find her on social media but she’d been unable to do so. Were they doomed?.

Temi scratched her crotchet as she was wont to do when she was stressed and wondered what else to do. As she was thinking, a song came to her mind and she started humming the melody. She moved to her piano to play it while transcribing its notations in her music manuscript.

On a Quest for a quiver of quilted quavers, crocheted crotchets…

 

It was three months before Quest saw Temi again. A friend of hers who’d been struggling with sobriety had started a queer arts and crafts club as a way to have queer gatherings not focused on alcohol. She’d asked Temi to join her in running it and although she had been sceptical had accepted. She’d been pleasantly surprised when each event averaged around a hundred attendees. Each one focused on a different craft: painting, woodworking, pottery, and today’s had been on clothesmaking.

She’d been helping by showing a few beginner knitting and crocheting stitches when she looked up and who did she see across the hall but Temi looking at her phone.

She was still gorgeous. Her hair was slightly longer and was now braided, each braid decorated with metal rings and shells. She was dressed in a white shirt tucked into a purple pantsuit. The shirt wasn’t too long because whenever she raised her hand, it moved and showed a flash of skin. She was wearing a pair of sandals, and Quest saw that unlike her unpainted fingernails, these were painted toenails.

She ached with the need to touch her, to pull out her shirt and run her fingers down that expanse of back. To place kisses all over her body and taste her.

She shook her head. Snap out of it. After waiting for a week, she’d realised that Temi was not going to call her and she’d been so disconsolate. In her misery, she’d spent days in a creative funk, putting her sadness on paper and thread and cloth. When she’d finished, she’d made the ultimate ‘fuck you’ dress but then realised that it matched Temi’s body dimensions. How pathetic.

“Excuse me,” she said to the people around her, then marched over to Temi. She’d noticed Quest’s approach and was giving her a smile that quickly faded when she saw her expression. Then she started rummaging in her handbag for something. “I must be hallucinating or something ‘cos I’m seeing a ghost. One who never called,” Quest said when she reached her.

“I know and I’m sorry,” Temi immediately said. “I swear I tried to call but I couldn’t.” At this Quest raised an eyebrow. “No, seriously. Just…look,” she continued and gave her a piece of paper.

Quest took the paper which looked familiar and gazed at it to see several indecipherable squiggles.

“O-kay. And this explains what?”

“That’s your number. I tried to call you and I couldn’t understand what it was.”

Quest looked at it again and now she could see. That was her number hidden behind her awful handwriting. Shit, did that mean that everything was her fault? She dragged herself out of her thoughts as Temi was still speaking.

“I tried to call possible numbers or get you on social media, no luck. Then last week a friend mentioned this event and showed me pics. I was shocked when you were in them and she told me that you were one of the organisers so I came in the hopes of meeting you and—”

Quest took back the finger she placed on Temi’s lips. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to kiss you now,” she said.

Temi smirked and pulled her close then placed her lips on hers.

Quest’s mind exploded and she snuggled even closer. Her mouth was warm, her lips soft. When they separated and exhaled, she felt more drunk than she had ever been before. Gazing into the other woman’s glowing eyes, she felt like she had finally found home.

“Want to come back to my place later. Slip out of that into a dress I made for you.”

“Oh~ Will there be undressing first?” she said then smirked. “Sure, I’ll come. Next time, we’ll go to mine. Just to hear a song you inspired. Certainly not for anything else.” Then she winked. Quest laughed and kissed her again.

Afterwards they fulfilled their desires and lived happily.