By Mary Rawson
She takes the last drag and stubs the butt out on the concrete path, squatting on her haunches to do so.
“I should bin this,” she says, picking up the squashed butt and unsquatting herself. She looks around. There isn’t a bin, but she doesn’t want to be a litterbug, so she slides the butt into her coat pocket.
“You’re a good girl,” Simone laughs. “I would have just left it there.”
Cate feels a worm of irritation squirm in her belly, the belly that ten seconds before was a mass of quivering desire butterflies. She definitely wants to kiss her, but the comment holds her back.
“You shouldn’t litter,” she mutters, not looking at Simone; looking away from those green eyes, which minutes before, she couldn’t get enough of. Her face feels hot. Why did she have to be such a stickler?
Simone laughs, stepping in and brushing Cate’s hair back behind her ear. She cups Cate’s jumper clad breast and squeezes gently. This is the moment Cate dreamed of, minutes before, her belly full of desire butterflies, but Cate is such a total, absolute stickler.
“You shouldn’t litter. I can’t touch a girl who litters,” she whispers, the knot in her stomach twisting like a coiled, venomous snake. She brushes Simone’s hand away and steps back, a childish sob rising inside.
“What the HELL?” Simone says, not getting it, really not getting it.
Cate avoids her bewildered stare; her face feels hot, her nipple aches from the squeeze: lingering desire and anger compete, clash: a war for supremacy.
She turns and starts up the hill, hot tears pricking her eyes.
“Mad, fucking bisexual bitch!” Simone yells after her.
Cate is running now, cresting the summit. She can see her house from here. Her mother has left the front porch light on.
She hears a tui chortle in the Manuka* tree ahead of her. The Kaikoura* light is fading fast; the ocean sparkles in the distance, stretching to the snowcapped, pink sunset-tinged Southern Alps*. She stops and drinks it all in. She has never tired of this stunning beauty.
She starts the downhill jog towards home. “I’m not a mad, fucking bisexual bitch,” she whispers. “I just don’t kiss girls or boys who litter.”
She jogs on, tears running down her cheeks…from Simone’s comment or from the sheer magnitude of the beauty before her…or maybe both.
*Manuka: also called Tea Tree.
*Kaikoura: a town on the South Island of New Zealand.
*Southern Alps: a mountain range on the South Island of New Zealand.
Mary Rawson loves bringing bi characters to life through stories. She has one novel published in Australia called All of Us, which features bi characters.