Some Kind Of Temptation

Just So I Know

Elizabeth stepped out of the shower to the smell of cooking. Wrapping herself in a towel and padding through the apartment, she found Stephanie in the kitchen, singing to herself as she stood at the stove.

Elizabeth wrapped herself around her and swayed to the sound of her voice.

"That's pretty. I don't know it."

"Thank you, I wrote it."

"Oh? You write songs?"

"I do. Not so much now but I used to a lot when I was younger. I wrote that when I would have been, what...26 I think? I was with someone but I knew it wasn't working and I had to decide whether to stick with him or to leave and live my own life. I left and went back to college and here I am now. Making omelets because I was utterly unprepared for making breakfast and have nothing else in my tiny, overpriced apartment."

"With me."

"With you." She turned and kissed her nose. "You smell good."

Elizabeth squeezed her a little tighter before turning and perching on a stool, picking up a book off the top of a pile.

"Sappho: Ode To Aphrodite."

Stephanie laughed.

"Of all the books you could have picked up!"

She opened the well-thumbed book on a page at random.

"Like the sweet apple that reddens
At end of the bough–
Far end of the bough–
Left by the gatherer's swaying,
Forgotten, so thou.
Nay, not forgotten, ungotten,
Ungathered (till now)."

Stephanie smiled to herself at how appropriate the poem felt. Elizabeth was processing the words. This was the reason Stephanie wanted to teach English - watching students discover and interpret beauty in poetry.

"The apple is a person, right?"

"A woman probably, yes."

"Ungotten, ungathered, till now. It's about sex? Her having sex for the first time?"

"Uh huh."

"Wow. Good for you, Sappho, my dude."

Stephanie plated up the omelets, carrying them over to the breakfast bar and placing one in front of Elizabeth.

"Sappho was a woman." Elizabeth's eyes widened in shock. "I know, queer people existed in ancient times. What a concept."

Elizabeth took a bite of her breakfast.

"So...I guess you're Sappho, and I'm your sweet apple?" She grinned.

Stephanie cleared her throat and thought for a moment before reciting from memory.

"For when I look at you even for a short time,
it is no longer possible for me to speak

but it is as if my tongue is broken
and immediately a subtle fire has run over my skin,
I cannot see anything with my eyes,
and my ears are buzzing

a cold sweat comes over me, trembling
seizes me all over, I am paler
than grass, and I seem nearly
to have died."

"Wow. Well, that pretty much sums it up."

~

They were on the sofa. Elizabeth had dug out some of Stephanie's records and was playing them quietly as she lay with her head in her soft lap, still reading Sappho and asking occasional questions about it. Stephanie was marking papers for work.

"Have you ever been in love?"

Stephanie lowered the paper she was reading and pushed her glasses on to the top of her head.

"I've thought so. They say you know if you are. The guy I told you about from when I was younger...I'm not sure looking back now if he was in the same relationship I was. But I always thought that was real love," she looked down at Elizabeth, stroking her cheek. "Then you blew my life apart. What about you, future Mrs Hunt? Are you in love with him?"

"Oh god, no. With you? Madly."

"Have you broken it off with him?"

"Do you want me to?" She sat up. This felt serious.

"No. I mean, do I think you should lead him on if you don't love him? Of course not. But I never, not even for a moment, want to tell you what to do. I want you to do what makes you happy, sweet girl."

"What makes me happy is being here with you."

"Me too...but the outside world may have some thoughts about that. The kind of thoughts that could lose me my career. And as much as I would happily go back to cleaning and bussing tables for you, I do love my job and would like to keep it."

"Would you still lose your job if I wasn't at school?"

She thought for a minute.

"I don't know. So long as nobody knew about us being together whilst you were a student, it could be ok? People would figure things out though. I'd probably move to a different district, I could even get a more senior post really..."

"So if I dropped out tomorrow -"

"Wait, what? Who said anything about dropping out? You're graduating. And you're going to be top of the class, Elizabeth."

There was a sudden sternness in her voice that gave Elizabeth butterflies and her cheeks flushed.

"Yes, Ms Nicks."

"I - what is that? What's happening right now, why are you looking at me like that?"

Elizabeth giggled.

"It's so fucking hot when you're mad."

"...Really?"

"Oh my god, yes. The first moment I realized I wanted you was that detention when you slammed your hands on the desk and called me a brat." It was now Stephanie's turn to blush. "Don't you think it's hot, Ms Nicks?"

She had leaned over, breathing the question into her ear.

Stephanie was about to respond when a phone rang. Elizabeth leapt up and ran to her purse, discarded the night before.

"Fuck. It's my mom."