Her Melting Point

Not So Long in the Tooth

"Hiya! Are you Jocelyn Burns?" a jolly voice behind her asked, and Jackie whipped her head and met a pair of beautiful dark brown eyes.

"Hello," Jackie answered, returning the stranger's beaming smile. "Yes, I am."

"I'm Bernila Amorsolo. Bernie?" The woman was clearly trying to refresh Jackie's memory. She stretched her hand to Jackie. "We met at the school staff dinner a couple of weeks ago. I'm Ella's Aunt, I was her plus one."

"Oh hello, yes, of course." Jackie shook the woman's hand. "You're the dentist, right?"

"Don't you just love how everyone has a definite article in front of their profession in Fleckney?" Ms. Amorsolo laughed. "Mr. Buck is the butcher, and Mr. Tate is the grocer." She gave said grocer, currently shelving preserve jars in the next aisle, a jolly wave. "But yes, I'm the dentist." She grinned even wider. "So, what have you got there?" She peeked into Jackie's basket. The long fringe of her raven black undercut swooshed, revealing a magenta streak in it. "I'd say add one packet of tamarind soup mix and calamansi juice, and you'll get yourself a perfect pot of sinigang na baboy."

"Oh, it's the sour soup, right?" Jackie exclaimed. "That's not what I was planning; but I've had it in a restaurant before, and it's delicious!"

"It's never as good in a restaurant as my Mum made it, but sure." The dentist gave Jackie a cheeky glance and then asked, "Would you like to cook it together? Or is it too much too soon? We can start by having a cup of tea together, at Miss Rosa's, for example. I was going to enter with an invitation for dinner, but lost my bottle."

Jackie stared at her, and Ms. Amorsolo snorted.

"Blimey, I'm out of practice, innit?" The dentist shook her head. "Sorry, that was the most botched up way of asking you out. Let me try again. Would you like to go out with me?"

"Um..." Jackie opened her mouth, but nothing but another uncertain noise came out. "I'm not– Um..."

The dentist barked a deep smoky laugh. "If I didn't know you're a progressive bird who casually bollocksed how cisnormativity was a myth in a dinner conversation, I'd say you're shocked. Did I misread it and you're straight?"

"I don't know," Jackie blurted out. "I've never been in a relationship with anyone but a straight man. Actually, that's presumptuous of me, isn't it?"

"Yeah, kinda," Ms. Amorsolo chuckled. "They might have been bi or pan."

Jackie was rather certain Gabe was too much of a 'corn-fed hoss' to admit to any sort of fluidity, even to himself; and then she had a sudden thought that she wouldn't be able to tell about Alexander. At the end of the day, she truly knew very little about him, besides the few dry facts of his biography that he'd shared; none of which pertained to his romantic and sexual history. Meanwhile, last time she'd seen him, he spent two hours excitedly talking about ice cream flavour after ice cream flavour, while spoon-feeding her and kissing her shoulder between fetching new samples.

"I'm not scandalised by your flattering offer," Jackie said. "I am, however, shocked by it. I'm not often asked out."

"I can see how heterosexual men might be intimidated by you."

"It's more like they don't know I exist," Jackie scoffed.

The dentist shrugged and stuffed her hands into oversized pockets of her maroon jumpsuit. "I reckon, that's their loss."

Now, Ella repeatedly mentioning her 'brilliant single Aunt' made so much sense! Jackie fidgeted with an old receipt, on which she'd jotted down her grocery list.

"So, would you like to give it a go?" Ms. Amorsolo asked and flirtingly bit her bottom lip.

Technically, Jackie thought, why not? Notwithstanding her feelings towards a man whom she had no right to have feelings for, she wasn't in a relationship. Technically.