F O U R

Take Me Out And Take Me Home

 

2023 September 3
Sunday

Persephone snapped back to reality at the sound of someone saying, “Chase!” Her feet had taken her to the coffee shop for their date on autopilot, and Summer was approaching.

Right, dissociating; gotta be careful about that.

Persephone smiled at Summer. She had dressed casually this week: purple crop top, hip-hugging jeans, brown leather boots with a slight heel, matching purse and watch. Basically the girl version of Persephone’s outfit, which meant it looked about a million times better than hers.

Also, it turned out that Summer had a belly button ring. Persephone ripped her eyes away from its little pink jewel with effort, looking up to find Summer smirking at her. She blushed. “H-hi, Summer,” she said. Smooth.

“Hello, Persephone,” Summer murmured as she stepped close. She was so tall! Men of this height sometimes intimidated Persephone, but looking up to meet Summer’s eyes made her feel like the world was at the right scale for once. “How are you feeling?”

Somehow, she didn’t think ‘small’ was the right response. “Excited, actually,” she said instead. “Imagine, me actually looking forward to a jab!”

Summer giggled. “Speaking of that jab, are you thinking about having kids someday?”

Persephone looked away. “I...I’m not sure, really,” she said with a frown. She thought she might make a good mum, but biological children were all wrapped up in the question of producing an heir and all that rubbish. So many expectations.

“I know reproductive dysphoria can be a thing,” Summer said sympathetically, apparently misunderstanding her hesitation. “But if the answer is ‘maybe’, then you should probably preserve a sample to use later, in case you need it. Stephanie found a clinic here; she said she can book an appointment for you.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Persephone said softly. “Your Stephanie is very resourceful.”

Now it was Summer’s turn to look away. “We all get to be that way,” she said quietly.

Oof, that was a mood-killer. “Come on,” Persephone said, grasping Summer’s elbow and pulling her towards the counter. “Let me buy you a drink.”

“You mean let me buy you a drink,” Summer said, “so you can stash your money in my sock drawer.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” Persephone answered with a giggle.

When they reached the counter, Persephone’s first instinct was to get a black coffee with sugar, but then she remembered—not for the first time—Molly’s question from a month ago: That what you’re supposed to want, or what you actually want?

“I’ll have a, um...” she improvised, “blended iced mocha...with...caramel sauce. And, um, whipped cream. Please?”

“And you, miss?” the barista asked.

“Large latte with oat milk,” Summer replied.

“Thank you. Your name?”

“Persephone,” Summer answered, sneaking the actual Persephone a little smile.

A moment later, after they’d found a couple of stools to wait on, Summer leaned towards Persephone and smiled knowingly at her. “So, first time ordering white-girl coffee?”

Persephone blushed.

“Honestly, I’m proud of you, girl,” Summer said. “Most girls I’ve known need a lot more prodding and encouragement. You’re just, like, taking the first good opportunity all on your own.”

She smiled shyly back at Summer, then her heart skipped a beat as she heard a barista call, “Persephone?”

“Go on, Persephone,” Summer said with a fond glance, and Persephone went to collect their drinks.

A few moments later, Persephone returned and handed a paper cup to Summer, who was standing and collecting her purse. “So, what are we doing tonight?”

“Well,” Summer said as she steered them towards the exit, “I thought we’d have a quiet night in. But first, I need to pick up a few things for later. So how about my not-at-all-a-boy-friend takes me shopping?”

“D-definitely,” Persephone said, sipping her drink to hide her blush.

It’s a fake date, Persephone reminded herself harshly as they hit the pavement. Fake! Don’t get invested!

But how could she not? Summer pushed buttons Persephone didn’t even know she had. She’d casually dated a few bi women at university—Persephone had never been completely comfortable dating straight women—but they hadn’t had Summer’s kind confidence. Nor her looks, to be honest; it was hard to avoid getting flustered around a woman as gorgeous as Summer.

But none of that changed the fact that Summer was not actually dating her. They were just pretending.

Summer gave her a sidelong glance and a little smile, then smoothly took Persephone’s hand as they walked. “You alright, hun?”

Persephone’s heart leapt. “Y-yeah, just thinking.”

Summer nodded and squeezed her hand, but didn’t let go. Her fingers were simultaneously so strong and so gentle; Persephone’s heart fluttered in her chest.

They were just pretending, right?

“S-so, um, where to?”

“Oh,” Summer said, “I know a girl who can help...”

 

* * *

 

For some reason, Persephone was expecting a mall, but instead Summer took her to a boutique on a side street. When they arrived, a willowy, bespectacled girl on the far end of the store squeaked and waved to Summer. Summer smiled and pointed to Persephone, then raised her eyebrows. The girl hopped excitedly, beckoned them, pointed toward a door marked ‘Employees Only’, started walking towards it, stumbled into a rack of dresses, righted herself, and bustled into the back.

“She’s adorable,” Persephone giggled. “Another client?”

“Yup.” Summer tugged Persephone towards the counter. “And an occasional—“

The girl returned carrying a shopping bag. She threw her arms around Summer and leaned up to kiss her thoroughly; Summer made the least dignified noise Persephone had ever heard from her.

“—lover,” Summer finished weakly once they had separated. “Hi, Lisa.”

“Hi, Summer—long time no see!” Lisa said brightly. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Persephone,” Summer said. “She’s, well, my date for tonight.”

Lisa’s mouth made a perfect ‘O’ shape. Persephone couldn’t help it: She broke down in giggles.

“I’m sorry!” Lisa squeaked to her.

Persephone waved her off. “It’s okay. Not the first time someone’s kissed my date in front of me.”

Summer gave Persephone a curious glance, then turned her attention to the bag, combing through it. “Mmhmm...yup...perfect.” She looked up at Persephone briefly. “That color will look fantastic on her.”

“Won’t it?” Lisa chirped. “I was imagining her hair a couple shades lighter, but this’ll only make it more vivid.”

“So, do I get to find out what it is you got me?” Persephone asked.

“Not yet,” Summer said with a teasing smile. “Now, how much do I owe you, Lisa?”

A few minutes later, Summer told Lisa to “Give Morgan my love,” and they were on their way.

“Where next?” Persephone asked.

“Cosmetics store,” Summer said. “I’ve already picked up some of the basics, but a couple things need to be matched to your skin tone.”

“Oh.” So makeup was on the menu tonight, too? This was starting to sound elaborate. And a bit intimidating.

Summer must have picked up on that, because she reached for Persephone’s hand again, gave it a little squeeze. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll teach you how to use this stuff eventually, but tonight, I’ll take care of everything.”

Persephone blushed—Summer’s hand was so warm and so soft!—and decided to change the subject. “Who’s Morgan?”

“Oh,” Summer said. “Um, Lisa’s wife as of last May Day. Butch. Protective. I introduced them, actually.”

“Another ‘occasional lover’?” Persephone asked as they stepped into a much more corporate-looking beauty supply shop.

Summer steered her toward the foundations and started searching through the samples. “Not so much lately.” She raised Persephone’s hand, sliding her grip down to just the fingers, then smeared some makeup on the back of it to check the color. “The lockdowns started two weeks after they moved in as roommates; by the time they ended, they were inseparable.”

“And you were a third wheel?” Persephone asked.

Summer winced. “More or less, yeah. And things like that happened to a lot of the people I was seeing: they moved away, they figured out they were straight, they figured out they were men, they found Jesus, they found a monogamous partner, whatever. Relationships like the ones I have are often tenuous; people don’t value them as much. Okay, this one looks best,” she interrupted herself, handing Persephone a pale peach bottle and wiping the makeup off her hand with a tissue. “Let’s look at lipsticks next.”

“Sure,” Persephone said, letting Summer lead her to another aisle. “What do you mean, ’relationships like the ones I have’?”

“I’m an allosexual demiromantic,” Summer explained, drawing a dark red line on the back of Persephone’s hand and squinting at it, then glancing up at her hair. “For me, sexual attraction can happen at first sight. But romantic attraction doesn’t come until I’ve already gotten close to someone as a friend and possibly a lover, and often not even then. So most of my relationships are friends-with-benefits things, and even poly people rarely value those very highly. If something comes up that conflicts with it, they drop me and move on.”

There was a sinking feeling in Persephone’s gut. Sure, she hadn’t really thought that Summer was interested in her that way, but it still hurt a bit to hear that it was never even on the table. Best to put that aside, though. “I’m sorry,” she said instead. “That sounds frustrating.”

Summer shrugged, then tested a more vivid lipstick. “At the end of the day, I don’t really wish I was allo. I just wish things had worked out better than they have. But anyway, what about you?”

“Me?” Persephone said, suddenly afraid that Summer might have sensed her feelings.

“You said you’d seen your dates kiss other people before,” Summer said. “That sounds like a story.”

“Oh!” Persephone said with a relieved little giggle. “Well, back in uni, I was—allegedly—the token straight guy in a group of queer friends. It wasn’t so much a polycule as a poly-plasma: heated, amorphous, unstable, ill-defined. So sometimes I’d be out with a girl and we’d run into someone else in the group, and they’d just, you know, make out for a bit before we continued.”

“Huh,” Summer said. “Well, if everyone involved was fine with it, I guess. Are you still friends with them?”

“Not...not really,” Persephone said, looking away. “The group didn’t really like straight people; they accepted me at first because I was questioning my sexuality—even dated one of the guys for a bit, but decided it wasn’t for me—and then because my parents were a gay couple and that meant I ‘got it’. But one of the girls, when she found out my mum was a trans guy, told everyone that I’d been lying, that my parents were actually a straight couple. And the group was kind of drama-prone even at its best, so that…didn’t go over very well. By the time it was over, the group had broken up into three or four fragments and none of them wanted anything to do with me.”

“That’s…” Summer had stopped with a lipstick tube hovering in the air; she looked up at Persephone with concern, squeezing her hand. “That’s some serious bullshit, Persephone. I’m sorry that it ever happened to you.”

Persephone shrugged. “Come to think of it, it’s probably a good thing that my egg didn’t crack back then. It would have gone even worse, since half of them turned out to be TERFs.”

Summer was silent for a moment as she kept trying out lipsticks on Persephone’s hand. “This one,” she said at last. “It’ll look good with your hair.”

She handed Persephone a little rectangular box, then tugged her towards another section; Persephone followed mutely.

“Oh, and Persephone?” Next thing she knew, she was wrapped in warmth and floral perfume; Summer had pulled her into a hug. “Your old friends missed out on the best girl in the bunch.”

Persephone hugged her tightly.

 

* * *

 

When the pair of them finally arrived at the door to Summer’s flat, she fully expected they would need to take a break. But Persephone was barely winded by the long climb up the stairs, so she sent her to the bathroom to get a nice, close shave, instructing her to wash her face with warm water before and cold water after.

Then she got Folklore streaming on the speakers, turned on the kettle, and started sorting through the supplies for Persephone’s injections and makeup. And that’s how she found herself alone with her thoughts once more.

She had not failed to notice Persephone’s trepidation. Was she ready for this? Was Summer pushing the girl too hard, too soon? Would she scare her off?

Or was she being too invasive? Summer had been dressed by a few different women in her time, and while some of them had been quite lovely—she still flushed sometimes at the memory of Tabby’s hands smoothing out wrinkles in a new dress—others had been...less welcome. A silent testament to that still hung in a garment bag in her closet: a cocktail dress that was too exquisite to get rid of, but too steeped in soured memories to wear.

She couldn’t help but think that this would have been easier at the Hall. She could bring it up in a sponsor meeting, discuss strategy with people who’d done this half a dozen times each. Not that it had helped her with George—

You did the best that anyone could, she reminded herself forcefully, and made herself drop the subject.

Of course, the difference between…the boys and Persephone was that Persephone didn’t need to be coerced. She already wanted this. She was just scared.

Okay, she’s scared. What’s she scared of?

Summer had said they’d spend the night in, and there was no danger of someone walking in on them here, so she wasn’t afraid of being caught. So what did that leave?

Afraid she’d apply things inexpertly? No, Summer had said she’d take care of that.

Afraid she’d look bad regardless? Okay, yeah, that might do it. Afraid of discovering that she wouldn’t be able to pass to herself without a lot of effort, if ever. Or afraid that the woman dressing her—the woman she had a crush on, Summer knew—would find her unattractive.

Of course, Summer might not have a brain trust of sponsors to fall back on, but she did have a resource she wouldn’t have had at the Hall: Persephone herself. Summer didn’t need to force her; she could just ask her.

Huh. That certainly made things easier, didn’t it?

 

* * *

 

The cold water was bracing after the near-stupor Persephone had put herself in to shave. She picked up a hand towel, patted her face dry, looked closely in the mirror. Even with a fresh and unusually close shave, she had no idea how Summer was going to salvage this face, but the older woman certainly seemed confident in her makeup skills. Maybe she could pull it off.

“Come on, Persephone”, she murmured to herself. “What are you afraid of?”

Ignoring the answers that immediately leapt to mind, she left the bathroom to find Summer filling two mugs of tea. “Two sugars,” Summer said with a soft smile, handing one of the mugs over.

“Thanks,” Persephone said, slightly warmed by the fact that Summer had remembered it a month later. She took a sip.

“So, after we did your hormones,” Summer said softly, “I was planning to do your makeup and dress you…but you seem a little nervous about all that. Would you rather just have some drinks, maybe watch a movie or something? Save that for when you feel more ready?”

“Oh,” Persephone said. “Um…right, I guess we ought to…put it off.”

As soon as she’d said it, she felt a little bad about it—Summer had gone to a lot of effort, and now she was disappointing her.

But if Summer was disappointed, she didn’t show it. “Sure,” she said, turning to the coffee table and pulling on gloves. “Why don’t you lie on the couch and pull up your top, and once we’re done we’ll find something to watch?”

“Okay,” Persephone said. She set her mug on the coffee table, doing her best to ignore the medical paraphernalia, and laid down. Looked up at the ceiling. Listened to the music.

It was soft. Melodic. Intimate.

Summer leaned into view, touched her cheek with gloved knuckles. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m gonna take good care of you.”

She told you literally an hour ago that she can’t mean it that way, Persephone reminded herself sharply.

Nevertheless, as Summer began touching her belly gently, Persephone’s heart began to beat faster for reasons that had nothing to do with a fear of needles.