Natasha practically dives through the sliding doors. Somehow, she's still got eight minutes before her class starts. She usually likes to give herself at least 10, but eight will do.
She races over to Lucia, who is twisting all the cakes inside the cooler cabinet so all the intricate icing faces the same way. She seizes both of Lucia's hands between her own.
"Lucia, Lucia, Lucia, Lucia, Lucia," Natasha pants.
Her knees weaken and she sinks down on to the kick stool Gillian uses to get stuff down from the top shelves.
Lucia turns so Natasha can lean her head on Lucia's stomach. Natasha's eyes are wild and she pulls her mouth into a square rictus. She knows people find this expression humorous but she trusts Lucia enough to see her real distress underneath. Despite the fact that Lucia is just 25, barely old enough to be allowed to drink, Lucia is usually the person Natasha goes to when she's feeling like this.
Natasha spills out the full story to Lucia, who listens and strokes Natasha's hair. She tells Lucia how she met Sawyer at work and she looked so competent and so normal. Natasha confesses that she was stupid enough to bring CDs for the car, and does everyone just use their phones to play music these days?
She tells Lucia that Sawyer collects Barbie dolls and that she let Natasha fuck her harder than she's fucked almost anyone in her life. She tells Lucia how in the morning she woke up with an itch in her skin, and she almost fucked everything up. And maybe she has fucked everything up and she just doesn't know it yet; Sawyer seemed so upset and Natasha didn't fully know why.
"Listen, Natasha, come back and talk to me in a bit, I'll close the cafe. But for now, just go in there like 'I'm feeling the session! I'm so excited to be here with you wrinkly old hippies! You're going to learn so much fucking yoga!' Okay?"
Natasha nods weakly.
"This is your advanced group, so just go to the front and do something complicated and aspirational. Throw in some Russian and some of your funny dancing. You'll get away with it, everybody loves you!"
Natasha sighs.
Adrenaline is still running through her body. Her hands are sweaty, her head light.
The session is decent. Lucia was right, the lunchtime advanced crew just want to be left to it and she can distract from her agitated state with humor. She's usually well prepared, she doesn't like the sensation of just getting away with it.
True to her word, when Natasha gets downstairs there's a sign on Lucia's counter saying, 'Team Meeting' and the coffee machine is still.
"So, what's the problem here? She let you put your fist up her twice - which, by the way, ew. And then she, what, invited you to do shitty tourist things? She seems a bit slutty and a bit clingy, but surely that's just the lesbian dream?"
Natasha buries her face in her hands.
"I don't know. It was just too much. The sex was intense. I didn't like waking up in her place and not knowing if I was allowed to make a coffee or go out for a smoke."
Lucia hmms, "Why didn't you just wake her up?"
Natasha just stares at her, boggling out her eyes and stretching out her palms to Lucia.
"What did you do?" Lucia asks.
"Just stood there really. I couldn't speak, all my energy was just going into not having a full-blown panic attack."
"Why?" Lucia looks at Natasha as if what she is saying is literally incomprehensible.
"I just kept thinking; what if she wants to go across town and I can't get back in time? What if what she wants to do something that costs too much? What if I see someone I used to use with?"
"Didn't you go on a date before? You went to the gallery?"
"Yeah, I hadn't fucked her then, and by the time she woke up I was so anxious I was ready to run."
Lucia keeps stroking Natasha's hand. "Nat, I hate seeing you like this."
Natasha snorts, "You see it often enough." She continues, "I could tell she was hurt and angry, but I just didn't know what to do. I couldn't get out. She wouldn't let me out for a smoke."
"She trapped you?" Lucia's eyebrow arches dangerously. "Fuck, Natasha. I'm so sorry. I wouldn't have encouraged this if I knew she was a douche."
Natasha forgets sometimes that Lucia is so young that for her, the world is still split cleanly into babes and douchebags.
Natasha tries to defuse things, "No, she's not a douche. She didn't stop me from leaving. Physically. But I felt trapped, paralyzed. I wanted to go but it was like being outside my body, looking in. You know me, I'm a master of hiding how I'm feeling. She probably thought that if I stayed I'd just tell her what was up."
Lucia looks skeptical, "What do you want to do now? Cut her off?"
Natasha and Lucia are both champions of cutting people off. Admittedly, with Lucia it's usually just because of her impossibly high standards.
"No, I don't think so. She's invited me back between my classes. To help her unpack or for sex,
