Mia walked across the room, and down a hallway, apparently heading for her bedroom.

For a moment Ellie was surprised, and wanted to ask if they could sit on a couch. Then she realized. This was a share house, so of course they were going to Mia’s bedroom, just like Ellie would at home.

Ellie was suddenly nervous again. A bedroom seemed somehow more consequential than a lounge.

She stood where she was, hesitating briefly. Then told herself to stop being silly and walk. She told herself she was here for sex, so she needed to be in Mia’s bedroom, and she also told herself that she had to stop making every single little thing such a problem, all of the time.

She followed Mia down the hallway.

Mia went to the end, and pushed a door open with her foot, and went inside.

Ellie went to the doorway, and stopped to look, almost curious.

She saw a normal room. A good-sized room, on the side of the building that got the afternoon sun. She saw the obvious things a room ought to have, a bed and a dresser and a desk. She saw some nice touches as well. A desk chair that looked expensive, made of wood rather than cloth and plastic. Framed antique prints of old advertising posters on the walls. A bedspread that Ellie was almost certain she’d seen in a magazine. The room was tidy, and the room was elegant, and the only thing that seemed out of place was a TV hanging on the wall, and a pile of video game machines on a shelf underneath it.

Otherwise, it was a nice room. Ellie had expected superheros and pictures of guns, but it wasn’t that. It was a nice, tasteful room, filled with nice tasteful things.

Ellie was suddenly intimidated. Seeing Mia here, she seemed more intensely her than she did hanging out with Mark. Ellie wasn’t sure she wasn’t a little scared by that.

She kept looking around the room.

Mia had a lot of clothes, nice clothes, mostly hung up carefully in the wardrobe. She had dresses that Ellie had never seen her in, and almost couldn’t imagine her wearing. She a shoe rack hanging on the inside of the wardrobe door, so the door wouldn’t completely close. She had a lot of shoes. She had a nice shoes, with fairly tall heels.

Ellie was used to Mia in jeans and shorts and work suits. She wasn’t used to her in dresses.

She was almost confused.

Mia went and sat on the bed. She put her glass on a beside table, and slid backwards so she could lean on the bed-end, and then looked at Ellie, still in the doorway.

“What’s wrong?” Mia said, and seemed suddenly worried.

“Nothing,” Ellie said, and went into the room. She looked around, then carefully sat on the chair. The chair, rather than the bed.

The chair had rollers underneath, and slid a little when Ellie sat down. She rolled it closer to the bed, so it would be easier to talk.

Talk or whatever.

Mia leaned back on the pillows. The extra pillows she had to lean on, because she was someone who had pillows. Pillows that she’d put on her tidy bed which she’d obviously made this morning.

Ellie’s was a tangle of bedding and that she straightened right before she got in. She only had two pillows, and one was on the floor right now, because she’d thrown it there three nights ago when it had been in the way of her laptop, while she watched a movie, and she’d never picked it up again.

Mia was tidy about her bed. Ellie wasn’t sure if that meant something.

Mia had a tidy room, filled with nice things, and was sitting on her tidy bed, looking at Ellie, almost puzzled.

“We don’t have to be in here if you’d rather not,” Mia said.

“It’s fine.”

“Are you sure, because you kind of look like you’re…”

Ellie shook her head. After a moment she said, “You’re different here, that’s all.”

“Am I? How?”

“Actually you’re not, but you seem like you are.”

“Oh,” Mia said, looking like she didn’t understand.

Ellie felt terribly nervous again.

She realized she was still holding the glass. She decided it might help, and sipped a little. The vodka was cold, and stung Ellie’s mouth, and made her feel better.

Mia was watching Ellie, like she thought Ellie was going to explain.

“You just are,” Ellie said. “You’re not who you are when you’re at my place.”

Mia thought about that. “Probably. Is that a problem or something?”

Ellie shook her head, and looked around.

She looked at the shoes again. She looked at the dresser. From what Ellie could see, Mia’s makeup was better quality then hers. In a lot of ways, Ellie decided, Mia was actually girlier than Ellie, and Ellie had never quite realized that before. Not until she saw Mia here, in her own space. Ellie wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It was as if Mia being feminine was somehow usurping Ellie role, which was stupid, because no-one had ever said there were roles, or that Ellie was supposed to have one of them, but Ellie still felt that way.

She didn’t understand why.

“You have a lot of shoes,” Ellie said, in the end.

“Yeah,” Mia said. She was still sitting on her bed, still looking at Ellie. Looking as if she was waiting.

“Nice shoes,” Ellie said, and kept looking around. She didn’t care that much about shoes, but enough of her friends did that Ellie ended up taking an interest.

Mia shrugged.

Ellie thought about shoes, and makeup and what this was all supposed to mean.

She’d never kissed someone with more lipsticks than her before, she thought, although she didn’t know why she cared. She’d never kissed someone with any lipsticks before, so she probably shouldn’t worry how many Mia had.

She started to relax. She had another sip of vodka.

“Where’s your art?” Ellie said, remembering something Mark had once said.

“My what?”

“Aren’t you meant to be an artist?”

Mia seemed confused.

“Mark said you want to be an artist,” Ellie said. “He must have got it wrong. Or I did.”

Mia seemed to understand. “Right. I did fine art at uni, that’s all.”

“So you don’t want to be one any more?”

Mia shrugged. “One day.”

“Do you have any of it around still?” Ellie said.

Mia nodded.

“Can I see?”

“Not now. One day.”

Ellie kept sitting there, unsure what to do. She wasn’t sure what they should talk about, since Mia didn’t do pointless conversation. She wasn’t sure they shouldn’t just start on the sex.

She wanted to start, she just didn’t know how to say she did.

Mia was watching Ellie, and still seemed to be waiting for Ellie to calm down. After a few moment Mia reached up under her skirt. She was sideways to Ellie, and her skirt was loose enough she could tug at her tights and get them off reasonably elegantly.

As elegantly as anybody could have, Ellie thought, and far more elegantly than Ellie was going to have to at some point.

Ellie envied her elegance. Envied it, and was intimidated by it, all over again.

Mia might play video games, and she might sit on Ellie’s lounge floor, but she also seemed better at being a woman than Ellie, and Ellie really wasn’t sure she liked that thought.

“They’re itchy,” Mia said, and bundled the tights up, and threw them towards the wardrobe.

They didn’t make it that far. They landed on the floor. Other than the cables around the video game machines, the tights were the only blemish of untidiness in the room.

Ellie looked at them for a moment, and wondered why this all seemed to complicated. It really ought not to be.

Mia leaned back on the end of the bed again. “Are you really okay?” she said. “About this.”

“I don’t know.”

“We don’t have to.”

Ellie looked up. “Of course I’m going to.”

Mia seemed relieved. “But something’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Tell me.”

“You’re different, that’s all. I feel like it’s different.”

“I’m different here?” Mia said.

“No, it’s different that I want you.”

“Okay,” Mia said, still sounding unsure.

“I don’t know I ought to want you,” Ellie said.

Mia sat there for a moment, thinking. “But you do?” she said,

“Oh yeah,” Ellie said. “I completely do.”

Mia started to grin. “So what’s wrong?” Mia said.

“That’s it,” Ellie said. “I just don’t know.”

Mia nodded, and watched her for a moment. “You’re in a weird mood,” she said.

“Maybe,” Ellie said. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

Mia thought for a moment. “Maybe that too.”

“I’m sorry,” Ellie said. “I don’t mean to be like this.”

“Don’t be.”

“I still am.”

“But you want to?” Mia said.

Ellie nodded. “Of course.”

Mia looked at Ellie for a moment longer, and seemed to be thinking.

She lifted up her glass and drank all the vodka inside it in one go. She put the glass on the floor, and leaned forward, and took Ellie’s glass out of her hand.

“Then we will,” she said, and kissed Ellie.

And Ellie kissed her back.

They kissed for a long moment, and suddenly everything Ellie was worrying about was gone.

Mia seemed to know. She seemed to know exactly when Ellie stopped caring about anything except her mouth.

“Better?” Mia said, when that happened.

Ellie nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she said, and it was.

Suddenly she was just horny again. Suddenly all her worries were gone.

“You want to?” Mia said. “You’re really sure you do?”

“Lots,” Ellie said, and this time it was her who kissed Mia first.