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Often, she found herself studying past midnight; but not so often could she be found drinking herself away at a local bar… What she happened to be doing right now.
Having turned 24 this year, she hadn't even had her first kiss, let alone held hands with someone romantically. So like any rational omega, she drank her problems away.
The bartender, with whom she was acquainted with, looked down at the sorrowful woman.
“That's enough.” He took her drink away and sighed. “Who do I call?”
She looked up at him, her mind in a daze as she tried to think of someone to drive her home.
There was Arlecchino, her colleague. She was always a reliable friend but unfortunately, was out of town to visit her girlfriend. She was not an option.
But then Ajax came to mind, her childhood friend. He never questioned her, but his actions always showed concern; he would, without a doubt, lecture her for this. He was an option, but she wasn't in the mood for a lecture… She had enough of those at college.
And Rosalyne, another colleague. She, like Arlecchino, was reliable… But to have her see her like this felt more humiliating than failure. She was an option, though wanted to avoid confrontation with her.
As she juggled in her mind between the two, she realized there weren't many people she could call a friend. But maybe it was better to have a few close friends than a large group of acquaintances.
“Taxi…” She decided.
The bartender stared at her, probably hoping she wouldn't end up like this at his bar again. In the back of her mind, he felt like a friend, but she knew he was only doing his job.
When the cab arrived, she stumbled into the back and sat down in a slump. He asked for an address and quietly drove through the night. It was pitiful, the heiress to the Guillotin name in a state like this.
She might have stayed there, lost in it, if not for the music playing on the radio… It reminded her of when she was a child, listening to broadcasts through a small transistor radio her father had gifted her.
Leaning back, she closed her eyes and listened.
By the time the car slowed to a stop, the single had long since ended. The driver said something to her, though unintelligible, and she nodded as if understood.
Inside, she was introduced to the unbearably bright lobby and receptionist that greeted everyone. She steadied herself and crossed the marble floor, reflection trailing beneath her feet.
The elevator chimed as she pressed the button and stepped in. Three, not noticing she had pressed it.
Just before the doors could close, a voice cut through.
“Hold on please!”
Her hand moved on instinct, catching the door.
A woman slipped inside with a quiet thanks, following her was an overwhelming array of pale floral scents. Glancing at the panel, she fixed the disheveled bangs on her forehead.
“Third floor?” she asked, casually. “I just moved in there.”
She didn't catch what the stranger had said at first but then she looked up and paused. Three.
“…No.” Her voice came out softly as she reached forward, pressing another button. “Fourth.”
The doors closed again, and the elevator continued its climb.
“Are you alright?” She asked.
It wasn't hard to tell. The faint scent of alcohol lingered, clinging to her clothes like a stain.
“I can help you to your door?” She asked again.
For a moment she hesitated, considering the woman's request. It would definitely broaden her social life, maybe even an entryway to dating… But she was Sandrone Guillotin, a drunkard as of now, and she wasn't looking to date; at least, not with the final quarter of her masters program starting soon.
“…I’m fine,” she said at last.
The woman didn’t press, though something in her expression suggested she didn’t quite believe it.
“Are you sure?” She asked once more, knowing she wanted the help.
“Yes,” she murmured, hoping the woman would let it rest.
The elevator hummed on, indifferent, as the space between them became heavy.
Thinking she had sounded cold, she stole a glance at the woman again. The start of an apology formed inside her head, but she hadn't the clarity or nerve to speak up.
It wasn't long until the elevator ultimately chimed, signaling their arrival to the third floor. The woman shifted, stepping back as the doors slid open. For a moment she lingered there, one hand lightly clutching her shoulder bag.
“…Sorry.”
The woman turned, surprised at first, then smiled.
“Oh? No worries.”
And then she was gone.
The doors slid shut again as the elevator resumed its climb, cutting off the floral scent with her.
She stood alone once more, staring at her reflection in the metal doors. Her hair was disheveled, eyes tired, and a stranger was looking back at her.
That was the reason, wasn’t it? Loneliness?
The elevator slowed once more before stopping at the fourth floor. When the doors opened, she stepped into the quiet hallway, the marble accentuating her footsteps as she made her way toward her room. One hand brushed the wall now and then to steady herself.
By the time she reached her apartment, she was already digging through her bag for the keys, taking longer than she should have to open the door. It was dark and unbearably empty, she realized.
After shutting the door behind her, she lingered there for a moment, forehead resting lightly against the wood. Eventually she pulled herself away and wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water.
The rest passed in a blur of routine. By the time she finally reached her bedroom, her hair was freshly washed and the warmth from the shower had already begun to fade.
She eased herself into the mattress and stared at the ceiling above her while the silence settled once more around the apartment. Without distraction to keep it away, the loneliness returned easily, aching in her chest.
Then, faintly, she heard singing.
At first she thought it was imagined, some remnant of the radio from earlier, but the voice gradually became clearer as it drifted through the window beside her.
A woman’s voice carrying a melody too muffled to make out, yet gentle enough to quell her thoughts.
Her gaze shifted toward the window unconsciously. Strange, how comforting it felt to hear someone she did not know existing just beyond it, singing softly into the same night she had thought herself alone in.
In the privacy of darkness, imagination was kinder than her own courage had ever been. Yes, maybe. Thank you. Stay a little longer. If she had been a little more welcoming…
She imagined the woman walking her to this very room, their hands brushing against one another… then woven and intertwined. Then the woman's fingers brushing the damp strands of hair from her face, voice beside her on the bed.
The faint warmth of another body was almost near enough to satiate her carnal desires; she wanted an alpha.
Slowly, her hand drifted beneath the sheets, fingers running gently against her clit through her wet panties. In her mind it was the woman's presence surrounding her; the floral scent that seemed to follow, her gentle insistence, and the inviting nature of her tone.
Between whimpers and heavy breaths, she could almost hear that same voice whispering to her, coaxing her toward a surrender she could not resist.
She didn't know the woman’s name and they had exchanged no more than a handful of words with each other. Tomorrow, if they crossed paths again, the stranger might pass with nothing more than polite recognition, unaware of the shape she had taken in her thoughts.
But still, she could not bring herself to stop imagining…
When in the climax of the moment and when the ecstasy finally ebbed, she lay beneath the dark with her mind fixated on one thing: the woman on the third floor.
>>>
Traffic below the building, sunlight creeping through curtains, and the faint ache behind her eyes, softened now to little more than a dull reminder of the night before.
She sighed quietly and turned onto her back, one arm draped across her stomach as memory returned in fragments. There was the bar… then the taxi… then the elevator… and then, finally, her.
Spring break had been less a reprieve than an extension of obligation, seven uninterrupted days she had already portioned out to revisions, simulations, and whatever remained of her dissertation.
Hence, there was no practical reason to waste even a moment revisiting some half-drunken encounter with a woman whose name she did not know and whose face she had only properly studied in retrospect.
And yet, it persisted. The sweetness of her scent and the warmth of her voice… It was irritating, how little it had taken.
The thought stayed with her for the first waking hour before academic motivation kicked in, sending her to get dressed and hitting up her favorite coffee shop.
Morning seemed to have settled across the city, pinning everything into its usual place. Cars moved slowly and without plot, leashed dogs barked at passerbys, and across the intersection, a cyclist paused long enough to light a cigarette.
She caught herself staring, watching him disappear into traffic and scoffed at his stupidity. A cyclist and a cigarette.
The bell above the café door announced her arrival with its usual dull ring. The place had never been remarkable enough to invite sentimentality, which was precisely why she liked it.
By the time her coffee was ready, she had already seated herself by the window and stared at the endless tabs on her laptop. There was an overwhelming amount of data sheets, diagrams, and corrections; but she found comfort in their severity. Criticism, unlike most things, can be corrected.
To her, nothing behaved irrationally unless one had simply failed to understand it well enough. People, unfortunately, rarely extended the same courtesy.
She thought of that woman again, with it a hazy recollection of her scent filling the elevator.
‘Annoying,’ she thought to herself.
Returning to the paragraph before her, she forced herself through it line by line. It might have remained like this indefinitely had the bell above the café door not sounded… and along with it a familiar smell.
Ordinarily she would not have looked up. And yet, her eyes lifted anyway, as if instinct had already recognized what her mind could not.
Standing at the doorway was the woman from the third floor, pausing there with uncertainty like a lost child. In daylight she seemed somehow less composed than she had the night before. Her hair, obscured by intoxication last night, had pink highlights while a few strands of her bangs were sideswept by the wind prior to entering. It wasn't messy in the sense of being uncouth, but rather absent-mindedness in her presentation, unrefined even.
And the longer she stared, the harder it became to look away from her. It wasn't until the woman surveyed the café, their eyes locking just briefly enough for her to wish they hadn't noticed each other.
Stubbornly, she kept her gaze fixed forward, though her focus had long been forgotten and was only further humored by the woman weaving through the crowd.
Of all the empty tables scattered throughout the room, she of course had to have chosen the one beside hers…
For several moments, she heard rustling of paper and a careful thud of something light. Whatever she was typing sat interrupted and unfinished beneath the blinking cursor.
Curiosity, the traitorous thing it was, eventually won.
Beside her table sat several sheets of music and a weathered journal, its pages crowded with notes and messy pencil marks.
There was something oddly intimate about it. Not the music itself, she understood little enough of composition to make sense of the notes, but the evidence of revision.
Then, ever so softly that it could have been drowned out in the chatter of the background, she began to hum.
It was unmistakable; it was the same melody that drifted through her window last night. Except here, it was clearer, unfolding in the daylight and presented to her on a silver platter.
She listened for a while, pretending to focus on her own work as the woman hummed along. It might have gone on longer had the humming not abruptly stopped.
When she glanced over, the woman was looking straight at her.
“I thought that was you.” She said, referring to last night.
In her eyes were amusement, then came that same smile from the elevator, as if no awkwardness had ever existed between them at all.
“Do you always look this miserable when you work, or is today special?” She asked, staring at her laptop screen.
The question had caught her off guard, almost enough for her to answer honestly.
Instead, she became abruptly aware of her expression, of the faint crease that settled between her eyebrows and the severity with which she must have been glaring at her screen for the better part of an hour. Reflexively, her features softened, but too late to preserve any dignity.
“I'm Columbina, by the way.” She said abruptly, her smile deepening with delight knowing that she was right.
Columbina tucked a strand of hair behind her ears, “I figured if we're going to keep running into each other, I should give you something more useful to remember me by.”
“What makes you think I was trying to remember you at all?”
Though her words landed sharply, there lay no confidence in her question. She reached for her coffee, something to distract her, though it was disappointingly cold now.
Columbina smiled, “did you come up with that just now?” Her pencil twirled idly between her fingers, occasionally making a small notation in the edge of her journal.
“That's presumptuous,” she retaliated.
“Hm? But you were staring earlier.”
The accusation should have been embarrassing enough on its own, though under the circumstances… and cornered beside the very woman she had spent the better part of last night imagining, it felt almost cruel.
“No I wasn't,” she lied.
This time, Columbina turned to face her, scooting closer on the banquette. The amusement in her smile had quickly turned into something more devious.
“You were,” she calmly said. “But I didn't mind.”
For a moment she said nothing, for every thought that came to mind felt too defensive and obvious. Columbina would then hear that weakness and smile that infuriating smile of hers.
“Fine,” she decided. “Since you're so keen on distracting me, the least you can do is get me another coffee.”
They both saw through her flimsy excuse; she could see it in the way Columbina's expression had changed.
“Of course.” She rose without protest.
Seeing her back, she was captivated by how detailed her hair was. It was mostly black but dyed underneath was a bright shade of pink, which stood out more in the sun. Damn near would've taken a few hours at the salon to achieve that level of perfection.
Everything about this woman, who didn't seem all that well put together, was actually quite contradictory.
Then she disappeared toward the counter, leaving Sandrone alone with the realization that she didn't dislike having Columbina around.
In most cases, the only people she really tolerated were her friends and occasionally business partners, and their children, of her father.
But she could never admit that, not with the debauchery in her mind. How could she consciously be friends with someone who had been thought of in such a way…
“Here.” Columbina arrived, placing a freshly brewed cup of coffee on the table.
It seemed sweeter than usual, but she was unsure if that was done intentionally or not. Either way, it didn't matter fussing over such an insignificant detail.
The morning passed much as the next few months had.
A page of notes would become a conversation. A conversation would become an argument. The argument would somehow end with Sandrone explaining neural adaptation models to someone who understood little about biomedical engineering and Columbina attempting, unsuccessfully, to explain why changing a single note could alter an entire song.
And though neither ever seemed particularly interested in the other's field. They were, however, interested in each other.
Outside, the tree beyond the café window stirred lazily in the summer air, its branches now so thick with leaves that it was difficult to remember how barren they had looked when spring began. Somewhere down the street, someone had opened a storefront door and music drifted faintly through the open air.
Columbina had been humming along to it absentmindedly when Sandrone finally closed her laptop. The sound drew her attention.
"Finished?"
"Submitted.”
The correction felt important even though her dissertation had been finished weeks ago.
Columbina's expression brightened immediately.
"Then are congratulations in order?”
Sandrone scoffed. "I haven't graduated yet.”
"Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow.”
For whatever reason, that simple acknowledgment made her feel accomplished, more than the confirmation email had at least.
She had spent years moving toward this moment, sacrificing sleep, relationships, hobbies, and occasionally her sanity. Now that it had arrived, all she felt was tired.
Columbina returned to her journal and Sandrone returned to pretending she wasn't watching.
“A few friends are coming over tomorrow night.”
“Hm?” Columbina looked up, “After the graduation ceremony?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “A few drinks and bad decisions.”
Something about the exchange made it suddenly difficult to retreat. The invitation had already taken shape between them, visible enough now that pretending otherwise would only make it awkward. So she sighed and pushed through it.
“You should come.”
Across the table, Columbina's pencil stopped moving.
The pause that followed was brief enough to escape notice from anyone else, though she had spent months learning the subtle differences between Columbina's silence; and this one was unusual.
When she looked up, her smile remained unchanged.
"Really?" She asked, as if the question caught her off guard.
“Why wouldn't I be?"
"I don't know." Columbina lowered her eyes briefly. "It sounded more like something you'd invite friends to."
Sandrone frowned. "You are my friend.”
Almost immediately, she regretted the wording. Not because it was untrue but that friend felt strangely insufficient.
Friends did not linger in her thoughts long after conversations ended. Friends did not make her glance toward the café door whenever it opened. Friends certainly did not inspire the sort of fantasies she had spent considerable effort trying to forget. And yet she could hardly say any of that out loud.
Across the table, Columbina's expression softened. The smile that followed was smaller, though somehow more genuine.
"I'd like that," she said quietly.
>>>
Graduation itself passed like a blur since she had already done it all for her undergraduate ceremony and then again for her doctoral. It had its novelty at first but by the time the ceremony ended, she was exhausted.
In the evening, her apartment had become crowded with a few close friends and colleagues sharing opinions nobody had asked for. Music played through the rooms beneath conversations, interrupted every so often by fits of laughter that would definitely entail a complaint from management later.
She leaned against the counter, drink in hand, as a few of them argued up a bunch of nonsense.
Across the apartment, a familiar voice rose above the noise.
“Sandrone,” Arlecchino approached. “I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Furina.”
A girl stepped forward from behind her, clearly trying to look composed and failing only slightly. Standing there before her was the daughter of one of her father's business partners, a distant childhood friend so to say.
“Really, my father's business partner's daughter?”
“Hey!” Furina protested immediately.
Arlecchino, looking entirely too pleased with herself, guided her away before the situation could escalate further. But she managed to hide a smile behind her glass as the two left.
For all her complaints, there was something comforting about it. These people had occupied the last several years of her life, suffering alongside her through every indignity academia could invent.
But through every interaction, she found herself staring at the front door, hoping for someone to arrive.
‘Annoying.’ She thought to herself, taking another sip.
“…You’re doing it again.” The voice came from her side.
Ajax had appeared at some point between conversations, champagne bottle in hand. He followed her glance toward the door, then back to her face.
“What?”
“That thing,” he said, gesturing vaguely with the bottle. “You’ve done it like six times in the past ten minutes.”
She scoffed and pushed her glass into his hands.
He smiled, unconvinced, but didn’t go further. That was usually how he worked: he collected information, then waited for it to become useful.
“Who are you expecting, anyway?”
“No one,” she lied.
“Right.” His tone made it clear he didn’t believe her.
She checked the door again as it opened, but again, not the right person. It was starting to irritate her.
Ajax noticed, of course, but still said nothing. He just watched her over the rim of Sandrone’s glass with the faint patience of someone waiting for a predictable outcome.
This time, when the door opened again, she didn't look, afraid that the fated individual might never show up.
“Oh,” he said. “There she is.”
Columbina stood at the entrance, taking a brief moment to register the room before her attention settled, inevitably, on them.
“Alright,” he muttered under his breath, not quite to either of them. “I see what’s going on.”
He stepped forward anyway, “Hey. You made it.”
Columbina offered a polite nod. “Hello.”
Ajax tilted the champagne bottle toward her in greeting. “Drink?”
“No, but thank you.”
“Your loss,” he said lightly, though there was no insistence in it.
He lingered just long enough to confirm whatever conclusion he had reached, then exhaled and glanced at Sandrone.
“I’m going to assume I’m no longer needed here.”
“You were never needed,” Sandrone replied.
“True,” he said, unbothered. “Still leaving.”
With that, Ajax disappeared back into the apartment, abandoning her to the consequences of her own invitation.
Columbina watched him go before turning back to Sandrone.
"He's always like that?"
"Worse.”
The evening carried on around them much as it had before, though she found herself participating in it less and observing it more. Still, she was glad they had come.
Academia was a strange thing. People could occupy years of your life without ever becoming close, yet their absence would be felt all the same.
More than once she was pulled away by someone offering congratulations or discussing plans after graduation. More than once she found herself searching for Columbina afterward without consciously intending to.
She would discover her in some new corner of the apartment each time. Speaking with Furina near the bookshelf or listening to one of Arlecchino's stories with polite interest.
And every time their eyes met across the room, Sandrone felt a small, unreasonable sense of relief.
At some point she arrived beside her carrying two glasses. One was promptly offered, but she noticed Columbina stare at it with hesitation.
"I don't drink much,” she confessed.
Said the same woman who had spent the better part of the evening navigating a room full of unfamiliar people with an ease that she herself could never have managed, yet a single glass of wine appeared to warrant more consideration than an apartment full of snobby academics.
“It’s only one glass.”
She smiled faintly, “That's usually how people justify the second.”
For a moment, she seemed to consider it anyway. Her gaze lingered briefly on the glass before returning it to Sandrone.
“No, thank you.”
Accepting the glass back without further explanation, she moved on with the night… Though the hesitation had remained in her mind longer than the answer she was given.
As the evening wore on, people slowly left in waves, gathering coats and exchanging their final congratulations at the door.
Through it all, Columbina remained. She seemed to exist within the evening as she had in the café they frequented, unbothered and attentive.
By midnight, the apartment had noticeably thinned. The celebration that had filled it only hours earlier survived now in traces: abandoned glasses, chairs out of place, and the lingering warmth of people who had left.
And somehow, despite the number of guests she had invited, she found herself most aware of the fact that Columbina was still there.
On the balcony she rested there, leaning outward to feel the wind through her hair. Summer had settled comfortably over the city. The heat of the day still lingered in the concrete below.
Behind her, the apartment had fallen so quiet that even a mouse could be heard. The faint clink of glass, a chair being nudged back into place, and the soft hum of a familiar voice.
Then the balcony door slid open and she already knew who it was.
“You know," Columbina began, now leaning beside her, "I was convinced you disliked me.”
"Not this again,” she sighed.
Columbina inched closer, "It's true. You spoke to me for less than two minutes.”
"And in those two minutes you rejected me twice.”
“You were drunk,” she said. “Why is it that we must meet like this?”
A laugh threatened to escape her. "Like what?"
Columbina tilted her head thoughtfully, as though the answer should have been obvious.
"The first time, you're drunk in an elevator and convinced you don't need help."
"And now?" Sandrone asked.
Columbina hummed and turned toward her. "Now you're drunk on your balcony…” Instead of continuing, she cut herself off as if afraid of what the other might say.
"Now I'm drunk on my balcony..." she repeated. "What?"
Columbina's gaze drifted away almost immediately, settling somewhere beyond the railing.
Below them, a pair of headlights slipped through the intersection and vanished behind another building. The city felt distant from up here, reduced to scattered lights and muted sounds.
"I was going to say," Columbina began slowly, "that you seem easier to talk to when you're drunk.”
Sandrone scoffed, “Rude, don't you think?”
“Yes.”
Beside her, an apologetic smile had formed on Columbina's face, making it nearly impossible to refute her.
“You know, I almost didn't come tonight,” she continued. “I spent most of the afternoon debating whether I should.”
“What changed?” She asked.
“You really don't know?”
She knew, and of course she knew. The realization had been following her for weeks, surfacing whenever they were together.
The feeling itself was not new, but rather her willingness to accept it.
Columbina let out a shaky breath before continuing, “I think I've liked you for a while now.” Her hands gripped tightly on the railing, “I just didn't want to trouble you about it.”
Maybe it was the alcohol, but despite her inexperience, her instincts told her to push forward. It was Sandrone who moved first, though only slightly, and Columbina who met her halfway.
As the space between them thinned, she caught the faint smell of flowers. Then Columbina's hand found its way onto her waist, closing the distance.
When their lips met, it was with a gentleness that made all the weeks preceding it appear somewhat ridiculous. The uncertainty, the hesitation, and the careful circling of a truth both had plainly known; all at once it seemed a tremendous effort spent avoiding the obvious.
Columbina lowered her gaze with a small laugh, as though embarrassed by her own happiness.
Eventually, the growing chill of the night persuaded them indoors. The apartment, now absent of guests, felt larger than it had only an hour earlier.
She shut the balcony door behind them while Columbina wandered a few steps ahead, her fingertips trailing absentmindedly along the back of the sofa.
“Are you sure you want this?” Columbina asked.
“Yes.”
Columbina's eyes searched hers, as though attempting to determine whether she truly believed that.
"And tomorrow?" she asked quietly.
Sandrone considered the question. Tomorrow there would only be the morning, the café across the street, and the same woman she had spent months admiring.
"I’d imagine," she said at last, "that tomorrow I'll still be annoyed by you.”
Impatiently, she dragged two into her bedroom, forcing Columbina down on the mattress.
“Are you sure you want this?” Sandrone asked.
The woman below her smiled devilishly. “Yes,” she said before promptly switching their positions.
Now that the other woman was straddled above her, she felt the subtle twitch of Columbina's crotch pressed down on her. By estimation, she could have guessed a few inches. But in reality, as she unveiled her cock, it had to have been 6 at least.
She took in a deep breath and having been pinned down so easily, felt helpless in the face of a monster. By the time Columbina lined up the tip with her entrance, her pussy was more than ready to accommodate.
Slowly, the woman pushed herself in deeper until eventually, it was fully enveloped by warmth. On the outside, she could see the visible outline of the woman's cock inside her uterus.
Just as Columbina was about to move, she nudged her to go slowly as she was getting used to the sensations.
By the slightest movement, Columbina's breath grew heavier as her hands tightened around her partner's wrists. She could feel the pleasure of Columbina's cock slowly moving in and out of her pussy.
It was unlike any self-inflicted stimulation she could produce; unfamiliar, yet divine. The feeling of something large and warm putting pressure to her insides.
“Faster,” she said desperately.
But by then she was addicted, wanting more from what Columbina offered, especially her scent filling the room.
And faster did she go. Columbina plunged in like a starved tiger and lowered her head into Sandrone’s neck. Baring her fangs as she resisted temptations.
She could hear the desperate woman in her ear, her ragged breathing and quiet moans every time she dove. It was magnificently irresistible, the sound of a whimpering alpha.
“Sandrone,” she finally managed. “I'm about to…”
Before she could finish that line, a jerk in movement had them both pushed over the edge.
“Stay,” she called out. “Please.”