Kiss Her Once for Me

by Alison Cochrun

“Listen,” Jack says in the stern voice she uses sometimes, the one that does absolutely nothing to my blood pressure. “I’ve been thinking about this since last night. We are two queer women, and we’re going to use this drive back to the cabin to do what queer women do.” Blood pressure: rising. “And, uh… what’s that?” “We’re going to talk about our feelings.” Well. That’s worse than I predicted.

The front door of the Airstream is wide open, and Jack is standing outside, throwing snowballs against the side of the trailer to the chaotic beat of “Toxic.” Paul Hollywood is doing his zoomies around her feet, almost perfectly syncopated to the song.

She brandishes the axe in my direction. “And why am I the one who has to chop the wood?” “Because you are the butch lesbian.” She glares. “That’s all I am to you, isn’t it? A butch lesbian stereotype.” “No, you’re very complex and multifaceted, but your arm muscles are objectively bigger than mine, so you’re just going to have to do the stereotypical thing here.” “Okay. Okay,” she mutters, psyching herself up. She sets down the axe for a minute and peels off her bulky ski jacket so she has better range of motion. This reveals the stereotypical flannel she has on underneath. “Oh, fuck you,” she says before I can comment.

“I have an old shoulder injury from kneading dough that flares up sometimes.” I cannot abide that sentence. “From kneading dough?” “Fuck. You.”

“Girl, wipe that horny look off your face,” Ari hisses. “We’re in public.”