KATELYN LANDRY ALT | INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA

The iced matcha latte had left a wet ring on the glass table. Katelyn wiped a drop of condensation from the plastic cup and hit a key on her laptop in irritation. The coffee shop patio was packed with students soaking up the first genuinely warm rays of sunshine, but Landry couldn't care less. She was fighting a looming deadline for a PR strategy.

She wore her favorite oversized denim jacket over a tiny crop top that exposed a smooth strip of tanned stomach. It was the perfect effortless look. Her ash-blonde hair was pulled back with a claw clip, and silver rings gleamed on her fingers, she spun them constantly with her thumb as she skimmed the text on the screen.

But the biggest perk of this stupid assignment was that her roommate was sitting right across from her. No random people. Just their table, the ambient noise of the street, and the occasional exchange of meaningless phrases. That suited Katelyn just fine.

The idyll was shattered by the stench of cheap men's cologne mixed with stale gym sweat.

A shadow fell across the MacBook screen. Landry looked up in annoyance, her gray eyes flashing, and instinctively straightened her posture, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. A force of habit. A basic reflex to an attractive guy, hardwired into her brain.

It was Chase, from the university's varsity team. A mountain of muscle, a square jaw, and an absolute void of intellect in his eyes.

Except Chase wasn't looking at Katelyn.

He pulled back a metal chair with a loud, grating scrape against the tiles and flopped down at their table, unacceptably close to her roommate. His broad thigh practically pressed against her leg.

"Hey," Chase flashed a dazzling smile, planting his massive hand on the edge of the table, effectively cutting her roommate off from Katelyn. "Listen, do me a solid. I have zero clue what this sociology professor wants from us. Could you throw together an essay draft for me? I'll... make it worth your while. Properly."

He lowered his voice suggestively, leaning in even closer, invading her personal space with the unearned confidence of a guy who had never been told no.

Katelyn’s stomach dropped, and then a rage boiled up inside her so fiercely that her vision actually blurred at the edges.

Jealousy hit her like a punch to the gut. Sticky, hot, and ugly. Why the hell had he sat down here? Why the hell was he so close? Her flawless French manicure dug into the plastic matcha cup so hard that it let out a pathetic crunch.

Those shameful images from the bathroom flashed through her mind. Her fantasies. Her monopoly on this girl. And this slab of meat had the nerve to sit there with his greasy smirk, offering some vile "gratitude."

Landry swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. Outwardly, she remained perfectly composed; only her eyes narrowed. Her defense mechanism kicked in flawlessly: sheer arrogance.

"Seriously, Chase?" Her drawl was laced with that specific brand of lazy, haughty disdain that set people’s teeth on edge. Katelyn snapped her laptop shut with a sharp click. "Do you think she looks like a charity for intellectually stunted athletes?"

The football player blinked in surprise, shifting his gaze to the blonde. "Come on, Landry. I was just asking for a little help. What's the big deal?" He tried to laugh it off, but he didn't move his hand from the table.

"The big deal is that she has her own life," Katelyn cut him off, a cold metallic edge to her voice. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and intertwining her fingers. "If you can't string two words together without someone holding your hand, maybe you should transfer somewhere that doesn't require reading. And back up, anyway. You reek of the locker room, and it's giving me an allergic reaction."

She gave him a look so withering and disgusted it was as if she were inspecting a cockroach smeared across the pavement. This was classic Katelyn: humiliate, destroy, make sure nobody even thought about approaching what was hers.

"Jesus, chill out," Chase muttered, clearly stung. His armor of confidence had cracked. He reluctantly dragged his chair back a couple of inches, though he was still far too close. "I'm talking to her, not you."

"And I'm answering for her," Landry countered without batting an eye. "She’s too polite to tell you to screw off to your face. So go on, pack up your unresolved academic issues and go find some freshman who’ll swoon over your varsity jacket. We have studying to do."

Katelyn flipped her laptop open again, every inch of her posture signaling that the conversation was over. But under the table, her foot was tapping out a frantic rhythm. She waited. Waited for him to leave. And prayed her roommate wouldn't take pity and stand up for the idiot, because if she did, Landry would absolutely lose it. Through half-lowered lashes, she covertly monitored the girl across from her, mentally begging: "Just tell him to get lost. Choose me. Come on."

Fucking Mr. Harrison with his endless crisis PR quizzes and condescending chuckles. Katelyn kicked the front door shut with her heel and dropped her soaked sneakers right in the middle of the hallway. Whatever. She'd put them away tomorrow. Or pretend she forgot, just to see if her roommate would pick them up.

The coffee shop shift, which she had stupidly picked up for that idiot Chloe, had destroyed what was left of her nervous system. Chloe had whined for half an hour about her "time of the month" and her toxic boyfriend. Landry, naturally, rolled her eyes, delivered something along the lines of, "Jesus, why do you girls always make mountains out of molehills? Just take a pill and stop bitching," and took her hours. She had to keep up appearances. Show that she was the cool girl, low-maintenance, could work on par with the guys, and didn't whine over little things.

What a load of bullshit. Now her feet were throbbing, and the smell of vanilla syrup seeping into her skin was making her genuinely nauseous.

The apartment greeted her with ringing silence and perfect order. Excellent. At least no one here would be nagging her. Her mother had called twice today, Katelyn just declined the calls, knowing they would be followed by another interrogation about whether she had found a "worthy young man" or if she was going to keep wasting her life.

Pulling her sticky t-shirt over her head and tossing it into the laundry basket with disgust, she stepped into the bathroom. She clicked the lock. Force of habit. Even when the apartment was a hundred percent empty and wouldn't be occupied until late evening.

Turning the water on full blast, she waited for the room to fill with thick, warm steam. The mirror above the sink quickly fogged up, hiding her reflection, and thank God for that. Katelyn hated looking at herself when she felt vulnerable or exhausted.

She shucked off her jeans, standing in her underwear, then got rid of that, too. Her ash-blonde hair was hastily pinned up at the back of her head with a cheap plastic claw clip. A few strands had escaped and were now tickling her collarbones. Stepping under the spray, she leaned her forehead against the cold, wet tile. The scalding water beat down on her shoulders, washing away the sticky grime of a hard day, the tension in her muscles, and that fake smile she’d had to maintain for hours.

She needed to relax. Just blow off some tension. A basic physiological need. It wasn't a big deal. Everyone did it, even if they played the blushing virgin.

Her silver rings clinked against each other as her hand slid down her wet stomach. Landry let out a shaky exhale, biting her lower lip until it hurt. Too hard. The familiar metallic taste of blood bloomed on her tongue, but she didn’t stop. Her movements were quick, a little jerky, irritated. As if she wanted to get it over with as fast as possible, checking a box on an invisible to-do list: release achieved. But her body traitorously refused to respond to mere mechanical friction. It demanded imagery. It demanded emotion.

She tried to picture that guy from her course, Matt or whatever his name was. The captain of the varsity team. Tall, square jaw, regular features, the perfect candidate to bring home to her parents. Dimitris would definitely approve. "A good match, Kate."

But Matt's image crumbled in her mind; it felt cardboard, fake, evoking nothing in her lower stomach but a dull, hollow emptiness. The thought of rough male hands on her waist right now inexplicably made her want to pull away, not lean in.

And then, slipping right through her carefully constructed mental block, came she.

Katelyn let out a soft whine through clenched teeth. A fine shiver ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the water temperature. No. Not this. Not again.

But behind her squeezed-shut eyelids, the maddeningly familiar image was already there. Her roommate. The girl whose sheer calmness constantly drove Landry up the wall. The girl whose attention Kate would pick a fight out of nowhere to get, snapping, making snide remarks, wandering around the apartment in nothing but tiny shorts with no underwear under the guise of "we're both girls, relax," and then getting pissed if she wasn't stared at.

The fantasy was terrifyingly, sickeningly realistic. In her mind's eye, Kate felt those fingers on her neck. Not rough, not demanding, but confident and soft. Touches that sent goosebumps racing across her wet skin and pulled a tight knot in her chest.

"Fuck..." a pathetic, strangled curse escaped her lips, drowning in the noise of the falling water.

Her fingers picked up the pace. Her breathing hitched, her chest heaving. Landry hated herself with every fiber of her being in that moment. Hated this filth in her head, this twisted, wrong craving that made her knees weak. It was disgusting. It was tearing down her entire perfect worldview.

What would Dad say? A panicked thought flashed through her, striking a raw nerve.

She imagined her father's face contorting in disgust. The way he would look at her, the exact same way she looked at those same-sex couples making out on campus. But the fear only fueled the arousal, mixing it with a sharp spike of guilt. In the fantasy, her roommate pinned her against the wall of this very shower, authoritatively gripping her wrists. Dominance. Power. That moment when someone else takes absolute control, and she no longer has to pretend to be strong. Doesn't have to play "one of the guys." She could just surrender.

A sweet, hot pulsing started low in her belly. It felt too good. Maddeningly right. Her toes curled. Katelyn threw her head back under the spray of water, panting heavily through parted lips, literally ten seconds away from tipping over the edge and shattering into pieces right there on the tiled floor.

And at that exact moment, cutting right through the steady drumming of the shower, came the clank of metal.

The turn of a key in the front door lock. A loud thud. The muted jingle of keys tossed onto the ottoman. Footsteps in the hallway.

Landry's eyes flew open. Her heart plummeted into her stomach, then started hammering against her ribs so fast it physically hurt.

She was back. She was back early.

The arousal was snuffed out like a wave of ice water, leaving behind nothing but a sticky, paralyzing, animalistic terror. Katelyn recoiled from the water spray, hitting her elbow hard against the glass shower door and nearly slipping on the wet shower floor. Her hands were trembling violently. She frantically slapped the faucet lever, cutting off the water.

In the sudden silence of the bathroom, her own ragged, harsh breathing sounded deafening.

Did she hear? Oh my God, did she figure out what I was doing in here?

A flush of burning shame flooded her face, neck, and chest. Landry practically launched herself out of the stall, nearly tripping over the edge, and snatched a large fluffy towel from the hook. She feverishly wrapped it around her body, pulling it up almost to her chin, as if a piece of terrycloth could protect her from her own shameful thoughts and the gaze of another.

Light from the hallway spilled through the crack under the door. The footsteps faded out somewhere near the kitchen.

Kate shot a hunted look at the fogged-up mirror. She quickly swiped her palm across the glass, wiping away the condensation. Looking back at her was a disheveled wreck. Bitten, swollen lips with a drop of clotted blood, pupils blown wide with panic against gray irises, a rapidly heaving chest. A pathetic sight. The perfect, proper daughter, who had just been moaning in the shower, imagining getting taken by the girl she shared an apartment with. Pathetic.

The footsteps sounded again. Closer.

Katelyn gripped the edge of the sink in a death grip, her knuckles turning white. Her rings clinked pitifully against the porcelain. She needed to pull herself together. Breathe. Just breathe. Pretend everything is completely normal. Slap back on the familiar mask of the haughty, self-assured bitch who doesn't give a damn about anyone around her.

She cleared her suddenly dry throat and, forcing her face into the most displeased expression possible, yelled loudly through the closed door: "I'm in the bathroom!" Her voice sounded a little hoarser than usual, but the familiar, irritated-arrogant undertones were unmistakably there. "Why the hell are you home so early? You said you'd be stuck in classes until tonight!"

Katelyn stood before the full-length mirror in her bedroom, surveying her reflection with a clinical, critical eye. A perfectly flat stomach, the result of three days on nothing but water, green tea, and obsessive calorie counting. Her legs were lean, her skin flawless. She ran a palm down her thigh once more, stopping at the old, barely visible scar on her left knee. A childhood stupidity, a fall from a tree. The only imperfect detail in a carefully curated image.

She wore nothing but a pair of tiny, faded gray jersey shorts and a white ribbed tank top. And nothing else.

No lace bra, no restrictive elastic from panties. Absolute freedom, a sensation that sent a chill down her spine, mingled with a sticky, throbbing sense of wrongness. Landry told herself she was just tired. That in her own apartment, bought with her father's money, she had every right to relax and not cage herself in synthetic fabrics. “We’re girls, relax,”, the phrase was already on the tip of her tongue, ready to be used as a universal shield against any potential questions.

But she knew the truth. She knew exactly why she had stripped off her underwear, balled it up, and shoved it into the furthest corner of the closet.

She needed attention. The attention of one specific girl behind the wall who had spent the entire evening criminally ignoring her.

Katelyn applied a generous layer of lip plumper, the kind she told everyone was "just a good balm, my lips are naturally this way." She pinned her ash-blonde hair back with a large plastic claw clip, leaving a few strategic strands to frame her face. She took a breath, squared her shoulders, and pushed open the bedroom door.

The TV or a laptop was on in the living room, Landry didn’t even bother to look at the screen. Her gray eyes locked onto her roommate instantly. Sitting there. Busy with her own life. Zero reaction to her entrance.

Irritation flared instantly in the pit of her stomach.

Katelyn made a point of walking across the room with agonizing slowness. The thin fabric of the tank top clung treacherously to her body, outlining every curve. The faint draft from a cracked window caused her nipples to harden instantly, poking painfully and sharply through the white cotton. Landry felt completely naked. The friction of the shorts against the sensitive skin between her legs with every step made her grit her teeth to keep her breathing steady. This was the heavy artillery. A dirty, low-blow tactic that made her inner controller, the voice of Dimitris Landry, scream bloody murder about her loss of dignity.

But she kept walking.

"God, did you see Jessica’s latest story?" Katelyn snorted loudly, flopping onto the edge of the sofa, unacceptably close to the other girl's legs. The silver rings on her fingers clinked as she irritably toyed with her smartphone. "It’s pathetic. Who even wears cheap rhinestones like that anymore? And that layer of foundation... I swear, if you ran a fingernail across her face, you’d leave a trench. How can someone have so little self-respect that they post crap like that?"

She crossed one leg over the other. The shorts, already microscopic, rode up even higher, exposing a vast stretch of smooth thigh. The absence of underwear beneath them wasn't just a hint anymore, it was written in every fold of the thin fabric, in the way it stretched across her hips, unrestrained.

But the reaction was wrong. Or it wasn't enough.

Katelyn bit her lower lip until it hurt, feeling her sharp teeth sink into the tender skin. It was a habit she couldn't break. A prickly, suffocating lump of resentment churned in her chest. What the hell? Why did guys at the university break their necks staring at her in cheap cardigans, while this girl... just sat there?

"You know, some prick tried to hit on me at the coffee shop again today," Landry switched tactics, her voice sliding into its signature sarcastic, melodic drawl. She leaned back against the sofa, stretching her legs out and arching her back like a well-fed cat. Her tank top hitched up, revealing a strip of her flat stomach. "Asking for my number. Total 'Daddy’s Porsche' type, shirt unbuttoned halfway down. Your typical basic asshole. I told him, 'Look, dude, my standards are higher than your IQ, get lost.'"

She waited for jealousy. She waited for at least an annoyed look, a roll of the eyes, a "so what did he do?" Anything to show that she cared. Katelyn was losing her mind in the silence. It felt like she was being ignored on purpose, like she was being mocked, her vulnerability dialed up to the max.

With a nervous, jerky motion, she stood up. Her rings clattered against her phone again.

"I’m thirsty. Do we have any matcha left?" she threw the question into the empty air of the room, heading toward the kitchen island.

The light in the kitchen was brighter. Here, the white fabric of the tank top became practically translucent. Katelyn walked to the fridge, positioning herself perfectly within the line of sight. She pulled the heavy door open. The cold air hit her heated skin, sending a fresh wave of goosebumps over her.

Instead of just grabbing a bottle from the eye-level shelf, Landry bent her knees slightly and leaned down to the very bottom drawer. The thin shorts stretched dangerously tight, defining things no pair of shorts in the world was ever meant to define. Her heart was hammering in her throat. This was on the edge. Beyond the edge. Inside her, a panicked terror of her own "looseness" battled a desperate, almost animalistic need to be seen by her. To be wanted.

“Look at me. Come on, look,” Katelyn screamed internally, slowly straightening up with a bottle of water in her hand.

She hopped onto the cool marble countertop of the kitchen island with practiced grace disguised as carelessness. She spread her knees a bit wider than decency allowed, swinging her legs in the air. She unscrewed the cap and took a long swallow, demonstratively tilting her head back to show off the long, elegant line of her throat. A drop of water escaped the corner of her mouth, rolling down her chin and collarbones before soaking into the collar of her white tank.

Landry lowered the bottle. Her gray eyes, usually cold and haughty, were dark now, heavy with carefully concealed hurt and burning anticipation. Her fingers, tipped with a perfect French manicure, squeezed the plastic of the bottle nervously.

"Are you actually going to unglue yourself from your work today?" Her voice came out sharper than she’d planned. It carried that specific spoiled, bratty inflection Katelyn always used to hide her vulnerability. "I’ve been rambling to you for half an hour and you’re acting like you’re deaf. It’s pissing me off. Can you pay attention to me for one second, or do I need to start breaking the furniture before you'll deign to look up?"

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