"If girls aren't stupid enough—" He didn't even get to finish his sentence.
The lesson was then carried on as normal. A teacher named Beth, who was strangely unaffected by the bloodshed earlier, simply continued to demonstrate the use of contraception.
The teacher was in her mid-fifties, short and stocky, and from behind, she had a weird sort of gait, like a crustacean. She wore tiny metal-framed glasses, but in contrast to her gentle-looking exterior, her voice was strikingly clear and youthful. It was the kind of voice that would pierce the farthest reaches of any noisy classroom. And she was the first teacher who taught us about homosexuality without batting an eye, unlike other people.
"If sexuality were doors, children, Heterosexual would be a door that swings one way," she explained, "while Homosexual, a door that swings the opposite way. Bisexual, a door that swings both ways. Pansexual is a revolving door. Demisexual, the door is locked, but one person has key; and finally the oddball, Asexual is the door that is actually a wall."
I had had some doubt in the past while I was still dating boys. I didn't know who I was and what was wrong with me. Now I was trying to figure out which door was actually me.
"But whoever you are, it's always important to protect yourself, ladies," the teacher continued, "You don't expect your partner to be careful, therefore you must always carry a condom with you."
She pulled out a foil package of the condom and tore it open. We were staring at her, unblinking, like she was going to set off a bomb.
Instead of using a toy to show us, she brought a big bottle of Pepsi and rolled the condom onto it all the way to the bottom to prove the rubber's elasticity.
"And girls, if a guy tells you he's too big for a condom, you run— you run really fast!" she said.
At the end of the class, she passed a basket of those foil packages around. Awkwardly each student in the room took one, by the time it reached me; I blushed as I stared hesitantly into the basket.
"Nina, it's okay if you don't take them," Jordan said. She was probably thinking I had no need of those, considering the nature of my relationship with Allecra Knight. But she was wrong. There was something she didn't know. And I didn't plan on telling her why I had to look around before grabbing a handful of the condoms and quickly shoving them into my bag.
Jordan's eyes widened as she stared at my redden face, but she didn't say anything.
After class, Jordan walked me to my locker. I was sort of afraid Allecra was already there, but she wasn't.
While I waited for her, Jordan seemed to linger there.
"You don't have any more class?"
"No," I said.
"You're waiting for her?"
I nodded sheepishly.
"Does she treat you well?" she went on, and I looked at her. Jordan murmured, "Sorry."
"That's okay," I said. "She is really nice to me."
"I'm glad to hear that." Jordan smiled, but it seemed a bit forced. "It's just I know you delight in the exotic, and I'm a bit concerned."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I meant you get excited and mystified when something or someone different comes along and walks into your life," she said. "Ordinary people are not your match, but that also means you tend to wade deeper into the dangerous water more than normal people, and I don't want anything bad to happen to you, Nina."
"Thank you for your concern, Jordan," I said. "But you don't have to worry about me. I know what I'm doing."
Jordan looked at me for a minute and then she slowly nodded in acceptance. I knew she had meant well. She was the first person since Klara, who had an excellent intuition, and whom I was able to feel anything like an attraction with until I met Allecra. Unfortunately, there had been limits to our friendship.
Then I saw Allecra coming from the other side.
"I gotta go, I'll see you later," I said, but when I was about to turn and walk away, Jordan stopped me.
"Nina," she said and paused for a while. I looked at her and waited. "Just take care, okay."
I gave her a half-hearted smile and waved her goodbye. Maybe I didn't like being told what to do, but it was also because I wanted to keep my outlook on Allecra unsullied.
School day ended at three. It so happened that today, I had to do groceries shopping after school. When Allecra heard that, she wanted to come along with me.
"I want to watch you shop," she said.
"Why?"
"I don't know. I just want to watch you do things, daily human things," she answered.
"So you have never shopped in a supermarket like that before?" I asked and she shook her head 'no'.
"You should learn to cook, Allecra. You can't just eat out all the time."
"I can if you agree," she said and quirked her eyebrow at me. I scowled.
"You know what I meant!"
"Why? I have never had any food poisoning so far," she said with a casual shrug.
"You need to live like a human if you want to be with one," I said. She grinned back and pulled me into her arms.
"Right, now that I have my human motivation right here, yes?"
I nudged her back shyly with my shoulder.
We reached our destination. Allecra looked around once we entered the biggest supermarket in town. We went through aisles after aisles. Allecra pushed the cart and followed me. She observed me and listened to my comments on each item we bought.
When we finished, Allecra paid for everything, even though I violently protested it, but it was no use. She simply pulled out a shiny credit card from the inside of her jacket. The cashier, who was a young college-aged girl, stared at her with an awestruck face and accepted her card in a daze. I was pouting all the way to the parking lot until we reached the car.
"I wonder how you could keep a low profile until now," I said, still annoyed as we loaded everything and got into the car. "I mean you all are merely three kids living with no guardians, and nobody wonders where you got the money? No one checks into your account or anything?"
"Oh, the Arzurian wealth is immeasurable," Allecra said as she backed the car out of the lot. "And if you happened to be the last heir, then you inherited everything. You couldn't help but indulge yourself a little. In fact, we came here with just a small portion of our gold and diamonds..."
"Gold and diamonds?"
"Arzuria is rich in gold and diamonds. They are like rocks to us there," she said. "But what I have now is enough to last us many more generations on Earth, well, that if I ever have children."
Silence followed after she said the last part. It automatically became a taboo to talk about breeding between us. Allecra sensed my discomfort and turned on the music. Yann Tiersen's La Valse d'Amélie was playing. And I listened to it distractedly for a while without knowing what to say. Then I changed the subject.
"Your brother, Triton, he doesn't seem to talk much, does he?"
"Oh, he does talk, but not in a way you're used to," Allecra said with a meaningful smile.
"What does that mean?"
"You'll see when you get to know him," she just said with a grin that lightened up the mood. I learned later on that Triton had been working on a precise and complicated system to keep their secret safe, with a labyrinth of accounts hidden under layers of camouflage. Once he put his hands on the keyboards, he was the king of the cyber world. That was how no one knew they were still illegal immigrants from outer space.
As it was still too early to go home, we went to her house at the outskirt of the city. Allecra led me straight to her beautiful kitchen. I hesitantly glanced around.
"Don't worry, they're not here," Allecra said. "It's just us now."
"Are you hungry?" I asked.
"A little." She shrugged.
I sensed that we tried not to bring up the incidence that had happened that day, so I decided to make food right away. The house itself was just as bright and elegant as I first saw it. Designed furniture, shelves and sofa were successfully utilized in the living spaces that speak
comfort. The contemporary painting and decors of the interiors always enticed me. I could see the glass-framed terrace from Allecra's luxurious bedroom. Just to imagine myself being in that same room with her made my inside warm and gooey.
In the kitchen, I paused to take in the spacious area for a moment. The wooden texture of the cabinets was in contrast with the flawless white color of the concrete wall. There was a sliding glassed door that led to the garden outside in the backyard. Beyond the estate was a small unpaved lane, probably leading down to the beach.
I started working around the electric stove. The cabinets and a bright shiny sink and faucet looked untouched.
"How long have you been living here?" I asked.
"Just a few months before you showed up," Allecra said. "My sister likes the area and I like the design of the house. Triton doesn't care where he is as long as there's enough space to drive around."
"You have way too many cars for a teenager," I pointed out.
"It's the closest thing to the hovercraft we had back on my home planet," she said.
"The hovercraft?"
"It's like a car, but it hovers," she explained, "The roads there are paved with magnets, so you could drive on it. It's like a bullet train in Japan."
"Oh wow, you literally lived in the future, Allecra," I said in amazement. She just chuckled back. I had to turn my focus on finding an aluminum pot and bowl with some ceramic plates. They also looked brand new.
"Where's the juicer?" I asked. Allecra pointed to the left over my head. But then she had to come and help me open the top cupboard when she saw how I was quite vertically challenged. Her tall elegant body pressed against my back and I sort of froze in place. Allecra took the juicer out and put it down on the counter, but she didn't move away. I could hear her breathing softly on my neck. My hands gripped the edge of the counter tightly as my heart started pounding. Her lower half was brushing against my backside, and for a moment, I could almost detect that special heat.
"Allecra..." my voice trembled a little and I felt my body shivered. Then she pulled away abruptly.
"I'm sorry," she said in a rather hoarse tone.
"That's—that's okay," I tried to speak and cleared my throat. "Have a seat while I finish this."
She nodded and retreated back to the stool, watching me from a distance. There were still red tinges on her cheeks, and I was secretly pleased by the fact that she wasn't as in control as I thought.
I went on cooking with my back to her. My heart had returned to normal rate again, and I started preparing to make beef Stroganov, which were pieces of sautéed beef in Smetana sour cream. The next dish was Coulibiac, a kind of salmon fish loaf with rice and hard-boiled eggs with mushrooms and dill. The two dishes would take a long while to make, but we had plenty of time. Cooking was like writing. It was a fascinating process of seeing one flavor complimented another, just like a 'noun' and an 'adjective.' And seeing the things you put together becomes a reality before your very eyes satisfied me. It was truly an effective means of my retreat.
I worked in quick pace, handling more than one cooking procedure at once. After I tasted the boiled dish, I was at the cutting board then took something out of the fridge and piled it on a plate. It was after half an hour later that Allecra came to stand next to me. An engrossed look plastered her face. I smiled at her and continued to work. Soon she was helping me with handing out kitchen utensils. I enjoyed working in her kitchen. It made me even more excited to cook when the person I loved was going to eat what I put on the plates.
I guessed I could do this forever.
"Wow," Allecra said, sounding genuinely impressed. "Watching you cook is like watching a magician pops rabbits out of the hat turns scarf to doves, and juggle flames at the same time — each with perfect time and balance. I'm in awe of you, Nina. Who taught you how to make all these?"
"It's a long story," I said sheepishly.
"You can talk all day. I don't mind," she said. Her eyes never left me. "I want to know every bit of details about you."
Before I left Moscow, Klara had said to me, "Don't date anyone who doesn't ask you about your childhood and why you are the way you are." I remembered it like a mantra. Now, it made me happy that I actually found the one who did ask. Allecra kept watching me as I washed the rice, mixed it with a quarter of brown rice, put it in the cooker, and then I turned on the stove. Turning back to her, I drew my eyelashes down a little.
"I taught myself," I answered. "My dad was always busy. When I was little, we mostly ate take-outs or at the deli below our apartment. My dad hated cooking, so he was always like, 'let's order pizza' or 'let's just buy some croquettes at the butcher shop,'. I remembered having a big pot of something in the fridge and eating the same thing three days in a row. So when I was in my first year of high school, I decided that we had to have a real meal. I bought an old cookbook from my neighbor's grandma. She wrote it herself. I mastered it from cover to cover: how to choose the right ingredients, how to bone a fish— everything. That's how I learned a lot of Russian traditional dishes that usually surprised grown-ups. Then my dad bought me a complete set of utensils. He couldn't tell the difference between a cauliflower and a broccoli, but he went out and got the best kitchen gadget there was."
"You dad sounds like a nice guy. You're lucky to have him as a father," Allecra said.
"Maybe; maybe not," I replied with a dry smile. She wanted to say something but seemed to change her mind when I looked away.
"Perhaps, you should teach me how to cook some yummy human food?" she said to change the subject.
"Oh, now you're interested," I teased.
I decided to teach her to make a side dish. With very few instructions, Allecra turned out to be a natural at handling knives, almost with expertise. She chopped a lot of ginger to a fine consistency. Then she sliced some celery and mushroom into nice-sized pieces. The Chinese parsley, too, she cut it up finely. Then I watched her peeled the shrimp and washed them at the sink. She spread a paper towel out to absorb the water, and then she laid the shrimp in neat rows, like a troop in formation. Next, she warmed a large frying pan and dribbled in some sesame oil in a spiral pattern before slowly fried the prepared ingredients over a low flame.
"You learned fast!" I couldn't help but admire her talent.
"I just did what you told me," she said with a shrug and a smile. But still, the way she did things was amazingly precise and economical with no mess or wasted time at all. Oftentimes, I simply forgot that she wasn't an ordinary girl.
Allecra's cooking was far better than I had imagined a first-timer could achieve. She even took the time to decorate the plate like a professional chef.
"Well, that was fun," she said after we placed everything on the table in the garden outside. We sat down and began to eat. The early spring sun cast light upon Allecra's blonde hair and the shadow of her lashes danced on her cheeks.
Even a simple activity like holding the knife and fork, Allecra made it fascinating to my eyes. She really got me and I was helplessly drawn to her like Icarus to the sun.
"How is it?" I asked expectantly as I watched Allecra took a mouthful of Coulibiac.
"This is delicious!" she said. "If only I knew you were such a great cook, I would have brought you over to cook for me every day!"
"That's all you want me for?"
"Don't be ridiculous Nina," she said. "Why would I do that?"
"It always seems like I want to be with you more," I said.
Allecra sighed.
"Nina, didn't all the things I said to you make any dent on your memory at all?" she said, "Hell, you're damn perfect. You don't even have to know how to cook or do anything special to stay with me."
"No," I said quietly under my breath, "I'm just afraid that when we stay together longer, you discover that I'm not as interesting as you thought I was."
"Nonsense!" Allecra cut me off and then came to sit on the chair next to me. She took my hands in hers. "I don't care how many people are be
tter than you in this world. You're all I see, Nina. I won't look at anyone else or want anyone else but you. I want you - end of story!"
"Really?"
"Yes," she said fervently.
When we were silent, I could hear the faint sound of the sea waves drifted into my ears. Allecra looked into my eyes, and I into hers. I put my arms around her neck and kissed her. The slightest sensation went through me as we closed our eyes and gave in to the motion of our locked lips.
~*~
When I got back home, it was six. Fortunately, the cats and the mice hadn't returned home yet. Allecra smiled and her eyes flickered to mine, and then she leaned in to swiftly kiss me just at the corner of my lips. Even so, my heart lurched frantically. I had spent a few precious hours with her until it was time to go back to my other world, more plain and less complicated, and yet less exciting and magical.
Then I saw the back of a black car, the BMW, rolling passed by and then coming to park in front of the house. Stepping out of the car, Aunt Vikki stood with her husband. I guessed I had probably crossed some unknown line.
"I have to go," I said and waved goodbye to Allecra. She seemed to sense my discomfort and nodded. Robert's face was impassive as a stone as I walked out of the Lambo.
"Who's that?" Aunt Vikki said when I reached them.
"She's the friend I told you about," I said. "We work on the science project together."
Robert looked at me then.
"So it's a girl," he said. He hardly spoke, but when he did, I bridled a little at his word 'girl'.
"I would quite like to see that friend of yours some days," my aunt said to my surprise.
After finishing my bath, I reappeared and tried to act normal, which meant doing things like hearing Piper talk about her friends and helping Aunt Vikki arrange lilies and dandelion in the vase. Robert was still in his office. I pretended to be oblivious to my aunt's scrutiny.
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