Straight Girls

Ava fucks women who aren't into it at all. Her roommates-Dani, Matty, Jules, and now Sage on the weekends-get the habit by default, close enough to see the pattern: early, messy, girls nobody needs to know about. Bedrooms. Any stall with a working lock. The rare time she doesn't bother looking for a bathroom at all. Names come in fast, slip out faster. Lacey first. Then Renee. Then two strangers who happened to use the same airport mirror. Shannon's different because Shannon plays straight on purpose. The part she's handed is Bea, the lover who stays. Ava reads Estelle and already tastes failure on the line. Every rehearsal smells like greasepaint, old duct tape, too-sweet cologne; the words drag them both back to 1952, desperate kisses hidden behind blackout curtains, one woman packing the suitcase she refuses to admit is already zipped. By the second week, Ava notices her mouth going dry on Bea lines. She imagines the script disappearing one evening mid-scene-Speechless, skin against silk shirt, the door barely shut-until Shannon pulls back the way a straight girl does when the director says cut. Night falls fast around the theater. Shannon stays late for notes, paper cup leaking brown tea onto the tech table. Their mouths find each other by accident, once, then twice. Ava never left a straight woman alone before. She isn't sure how to leave this one either.