Hello dearest reader. Today I give you a little slipstream love story from the Daiyuverse my ongoing Patreon fiction project. This is a little standalone about our heroine Daiyu and her first girlfriend. Enjoy!
Beloved of Colel Cab and of Baby Daiyu
By
Shannon Barber
Eolande lived next door to a trailer park, her deck overlooked the back half of the “renovated” Island Retreat motor park. When she called me Friday night, I sat on the floor of my room staring up at the star stickers on my ceiling wondering if she was feeling the same nauseating fluttering in her guts that I was. She was so gorgeous, we met through Papa of course. He knew I was queer before I knew I was queer.
She was 17 and short like me, thickly muscled and brown and gorgeous. I closed my eyes while we talked and imagined her strong hands and the fat bumble bees that followed her around in warm weather.
“You know it was just like, so annoying. I mean what that White boy gonna do for me? Nothin’. You want to come over tomorrow?”
I had to work to stay cool.
“Sure, you want me to bring some peach cobbler? I made two today and my Mama said she was gonna eat both if I don’t do something with one of them.”
By the time we got off of the phone I’d already decided I had to make a whole new cobbler. While I was panicking and rummaging in the kitchen Mama came home and watched me freaking out and making a mess for a while. Finally, her laughing got me to slow down for a second.
“Babygirl, what in the hell are you trying to do?”
I jumped and almost dumped flour all over myself.
“Dang Mama don’t do that. I’m uh, I’m gonna make a new cobbler this one is ugly. I’m gonna take it over to Eolande.”
I was blushing, I was darker then, but my Mama could tell, and she smiled and walked into the kitchen to help.
“A whole new one? Mmm, sounds like a date. Are you going on a date Daiyu?”
I blushed more and started getting my peaches ready, scowling at my work.
“No. Well, I mean…Ma.”
She kissed my cheek and bumped me out of the way with her hip.
“Stop doing that you’re gonna cut yourself. You get the dough together and I’ll do the peaches. So, tell me, do you like Eolande? She’s very pretty.”
I stared at her back as she moved; her tone was smooth and calm. As if we were talking about shoes or something. I knew what she was saying but couldn’t process it.
“Mom, she’s a girl.
She shrugged.
“Yes, she’s a sweet pretty girl. And if I remember right, she’s some type of fae? Something to do with bees or something?”
“Uh, yeah but she is a girl, Mom.”
She looked over her shoulder at me, one eyebrow arched.
“Daiyu, baby it’s fine. I know you like girls too. You have nothing to be ashamed of and if how I’ve seen her look at you is any indication, it is a date. Now, should we do the peaches more savory or sweet?”
That is how I came out to my Mama. Or if I’m gonna be real about it how my Mama shoved me out of the closet like I pushed me out of her uterus.
“Sweet. She likes sweet stuff. Especially honey and stone fruits and stuff.”
Mama stayed up with me all night, I made four different damn cobblers and used up all the peaches, all the honey and every bit of sugar we had until I felt like I’d made a perfectly sweet and beautiful cobbler. It was 2 AM and I was still a jittery shit bucket of nerves. Mama sat me down between her knees, laid my head on her thigh and started palm rolling my locs.
“How did you know about, um how I feel and everything?”
Mama chuckled.
“Of course, I knew. I’m no strong empath but the puppy eyes and hour it takes you to decide on an outfit when you see each other was a clue. But really, I’ve always known. It’s fine.”
“But what if I’m not like all the way gay?”
She nudged me into a slightly different position.
“All the way gay? I don’t understand what are you saying?”
I was quiet for a while; I was so young I didn’t really have the actual words. I was afraid Mama was going to suddenly launch me out of her lap, throw salt at me and drive me from the house. I spent a lot of time at the Seattle library a neighborhood over reading about gay people and I’d read so many terrible stories. Between the AIDS epidemic, regular culture stuff and runaways and everything I was so scared.
What if I couldn’t even be properly gay? What did that even mean? What if I was faking? What if it was just a phase? I mean, I’d sort of told a friend and she said it was just some weird phase. The whole thing was just so damn complicated and scary.
“I mean, I kind of still like boys too. So, I can’t be a real lesbian. And maybe like, maybe it’s not like that and I’m just confused. I have to choose right?”
I twisted my head around to peer up at my Mama half expecting her to laugh or some other mortifying response I wouldn’t be able to handle. She pursed her lips and hummed a little.
“I don’t really see why that has to be. Maybe you like girls, maybe you like boys. Maybe both. Who cares? You know babygirl, I did grow up in and around San Francisco. You are not the first Queer person I have ever met.”
That was my Mama, her blasé tone and matter of factness about the sort of “tiny” details she always thought were nothing.
“Mom, I’m serious.”
She moved my face so she could get back to work on my locs.
“So am I. Look, go hang out or whatever you want to call it. Maybe you’ll get a kiss. Maybe you’ll figure out you don’t have those kinds of feelings for her. It will be fine. You are fifteen Daiyu, you don’t have to do shit but be Black and die. You can take your time. And I’m sure if she likes you, you might even get to second base. That cobbler is delicious.”
I didn’t turn around again; I wasn’t trying to get smacked on the ear, so I stared at the wall. Mama kept talking, telling me about her lesbian friends and gay bars and Stonewall, my mom knew about Stonewall. She even told me that the women who started it were actually a witch and a fairy, but I think she made that up.
But the real point was that my Mama was fine if I wasn’t properly gay.
I went to bed with the promise from my mother that regardless of what happened with Eolande I had to promise to have safer sex, not be an asshole and tell her when I was ready to see a gynecologist. That was settled? I guess? I sat in bed listening to Mariah Carey and thinking. I cried a little bit; I did like her so much.
Magically, I got some sleep. I woke up early and started getting ready. I tried to shave my legs but, I wound up cutting up my knees and it was just a mess. I hoped she wouldn’t mind. I stood in front of my closet in boots and panties trying to figure out what to wear. I didn’t want to try too hard, but I really wanted to look cute.
I settled on my favorite dress, a loose ugly floral print. I dabbed a bit of jasmine perfume oil on myself and put my favorite cherry lipgloss on. I went downstairs and stood in front of my mom with my arms out.
“Do I look okay?”
She stood up and fixed my hair.
“You look beautiful. You’re gonna knock her out. And the perfume is a nice touch. Come on go get your cobbler and let’s go.”
In the car Mama yammered about a yard sale and maybe looking for some tables or some other crap, I sat clutching my cobbler sweating and feeling like I might throw up.
“Mama, I changed my mind let’s go home. You can call her and tell her I’m sick but don’t say I’m like crapping or barfing or anything gross. Like, I have tonsillitis or pneumonia or um OH tell her I have consumption.”
She glanced at me.
“Consumption? Daiyu, you know people in modern America don’t really fade away of consumption. We’re almost there. Calm down. You’ll be fine.”
I think maybe I tried to argue, I can’t remember. All I do remember is Mama beeping the horn once as she drove away and then Eolande was standing on her front porch. She was tall and brown and wearing cutoffs and a tank top. I could see the outline of her little belly and then her eyes, her big brown eyes that were sparkling, they were sparkling at me, and she ran out to meet me.
“Daiyu did you bring this for me?”
Up close I felt the buzz of her against my skin, when she awkwardly leaned around the cobbler to put her arms around me, I smelled honey and salt on her skin.
Inside we sat on the couch facing each other and eating huge pieces of cobbler. When the cobbler was gone, she sat there with her shorts unbuttoned rubbing her belly. Her eyes were closed, and I wanted to kiss her so bad my lips hurt.
While I was busy trying to figure out a way to get close and maybe ask her if I could kiss her, she was right there almost in my lap. I felt that warm sweet buzz again, I opened my eyes and she was staring at me. I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.
When she leaned forward, I tilted my head the wrong way and we bumped foreheads and she started to giggle. I blushed so ferociously and so fast I was pretty well convinced I would just drop dead.
“Oh, oh um do you not uh- I mean it’s fine I just thought you might be into it.”
She was still smiling at me, her eyes all full of some gentleness. I shook my head and grabbed her ankle. That wasn’t what I intended to do and made me blush more.
“No! I mean, I am I just, you’re all-”
“I’m?”
“You’re so pretty.”
She took my face in her hands and kissed me. My thought of trying to explain that I’d never been really kissed and how nervous I was melted away. Her mouth tasted of honey and pollen, hers was the first fairy magic I ever touched. My own formless magic tingled against our tongues.
“Eolande?”
I was whispering, afraid if I talked too loudly, I’d break the spell.
“Yeah?”
“What kind of fairy are you?”
She laughed.
“My whole family are the Beloved of Colel Cab. We take care of her bees.”
“Oh, no wonder. You have honey on your skin. Can I kiss you again?”
Her yes was the press of her lips against mine. She pulled me into her lap, and we kissed and whispered to each other for hours. Later we stood on her back deck, watching the sunset over the trailer park. We held hands and as the last red rays of the sun turned us burnished brown, she said she was my girlfriend.
Eolande was my first girlfriend. My first love and my first everything. Sometimes when I taste the right wild honey or feel the buzz of a fat drunk bumblebee, I remember her lips and her sweetness.
I’ll always love her.