Chapter 4

After what she had seen, Amanda wanted to be on her own for a while. It had affected her more strongly than she had expected, and although she would not have admitted it aloud, Astrid's words were true: in some way hard both to describe and believe, she was jealous of her, and of what her position and relationship with Lenka entailed. Only she didn't want to do those things for Lenka, but for her own roommate, Laura. She would have to find a way to get rid of those impulses, or at least hide them. Laura wasn't likely to approve of what Astrid had just done. Even if she did, Amanda was rational enough to know she'd outright die of embarrassment if she were ever treated like that by anyone.

When they had paid for the meal, Lenka asked Amanda if she felt like visitting her place. Amanda couldn't tell if the invitation was meant honestly, or just a way to make her blush, but she wasn't going to put herself in Lenka's hands that easily. Not the way she was feeling. Good thing she had just bought a vibrator, because she really wanted to make use of it. As quickly as possible, though without causing awkwardness, Amanda managed to free herself from the couple, and made her way home. On her way, she began imagining herself doing things for Laura. Simple things: giving her a foot massage, washing her feet, dressing and undressing her, or curling herself on Laura's bed to make it warm before she went to sleep. It was all making her hot.

On top of the excitement and arousal, Amanda felt surprised. Why hadn't she felt like this before? It hardly seemed possible that she had gone through quite a few years, and relationships, without noticing this in herself. Though she was still a young postgraduate student, she thought her sexual urges would no longer be a source of confusion at her age. So much for expectations.

At last she arrived at her room, and she saw Laura working at her desk. She felt a mixture of disappointment and elation: she couldn't do what she had in mind with her new toy, but on the other hand her roommate was around. Since Laura was clearly focused on her work, Amanda decided to do some work herself. She put away her purchase, sat at her own desk, only a few steps away from Laura, and begun to draft the proposal for the fabbing of her prototype.

When she had done as much of it as she could bear in one sitting, she checked the time. She'd been working for a couple of hours, and she needed to stretch her legs and take a break. Anyway, if she wanted to have dinner at a reasonable hour she'd better get on with it. She looked at Laura, who still seemed to be working hard. Standing behind her, she looked at Laura's workspace: there were some complex matrix formulae she didn't recognise, several pages from papers which seemed to deal with autoclassification and unsupervised learning, a bunch of source files where Laura seemed to be doing her coding, and a blinking blue number enclosed in the shape of a green analogue clock. Something subtle, perhaps a little movement, or her own breath, alerted Laura. Startled, she jerked her head, looking back, and, seeing Amanda, she sighed.

"It's not polite to gaze at other people's work like that", Laura said.

Amanda, who had meant only to check if her roommate wanted to have dinner, but had found herself fascinated by the workspace, didn't know what to say.

"How long have you been standing there?"

Amanda checked her watch. Could she have been there, looking at Laura and her work, for five whole minutes?

"Five minutes, it seems", said Amanda. "I'm sorry, I didn't intend to pry."

"I suppose you didn't", Laura said, getting up. "I guess you gave me a shock. I was very focused on this. Not that it's helping."

"Would you like to take a break? I was thinking we could have dinner now."

"Dinner sounds good. I need to clear my head from this stuff a bit. There's no point in trying over and over again."

"Still the same problem?" Amanda asked as they left the room.

"Still the same. I've been trying all sorts of classifiers, temporal hierarchies, probabilistic methods ... nothing works. Not without more information than I can get from the deconvolution itself."

"Well, perhaps we should talk about something else. It may clear your head, as you said, and maybe you'll get new ideas if it stays in the background for a bit."

They got to the kitchen, where there were a couple of groups eating already. It was a little early, so there still were plenty of free tables. Laura pointed at one at a corner, far away from other people, and Amanda followed her.

"What are you planning to make?" asked Laura.

"I have some lentil soup that's easy to cook. It's mostly a matter of warming it up. I know I really should depend less on meals like that, but to be quite honest I rarely have the energy to cook properly from scratch. What about you?"

"I wouldn't mind sharing your soup. I'm not good at cooking at all, so I was wondering if perhaps we could make an arrangement. My previous roommates didn't mind, except for one who couldn't cook either. I had lots of meals at the hall that term."

"What sort of an arrangement?" Amanda asked.

"Well, we could share the food expenses, you could cook, and I could take care of other things. Perhaps wash up, or store things in the fridge, or whatever you come up with that's reasonable."

"You understand that I don't often cook in the traditional sense, right? I mostly warm things and mix them together."

"Whatever, that's more than I can reliably do", Laura said laughing.

"Right, so I'll make some lentil soup for you too, and you can keep the table for us. I'll be back in a little while, I just need to get things started and then we can have a chat while it cooks. Maybe you could sort out our dishes and things in the meantime."

Amanda was surprised at Laura's inability to cook, but she thought it was a good idea to share meals together. They'd get the chance to know each other better, it would turn out a little cheaper, and it gave her some bargaining power with Laura, something she could do for her. She had to cook for herself anyway, and doing so for one or two people didn't make that much of a difference, at least if both were eating the same dish.

As she got back to their table, Laura had set two bowls, glasses and spoons, and Amanda made sure they were properly clean, which they were. One never knew at the communal kitchen: some people were scrupulous about washing common things correctly after every meal, and then some ... weren't.

"So how did your day go?" Laura asked.

"I didn't get a lot done, except at the end, but I had a nice day. I went to the city to get some stuff at the shopping centre, and took the chance to have lunch with a couple of friends."

"Oh, nice. What are they called?"

"They're called Lenka and Astrid. Lenka's my friend from a few years, but I just met Astrid today."

"How is she?"

"She's a very nice girl. I hope we'll keep in touch."

"When you say very nice, do you mean ... do you mean you like her that way?"

"No ... well ... I hadn't even thought about it, to be honest. I wasn't thinking of Astrid that way."

"These girls, are they", Laura said whispering, "lesbians too?"

"Not sure. Lenka's always been with girls since I've known her, but for all I know she could like guys too. Astrid ... no idea. They're both involved, you know. So I suppose she could be."

"Involved?" Laura gasped. "So they're a couple."

"Really," said Amanda, "I don't get how you can be so prudish sometimes. They're two girls, they like each other, and they're a couple." Amanda chose not to reveal what Lenka had made Astrid do. That had shocked even her, and she didn't know how Laura would take it.

"I know that it isn't wrong, or naughty even. It's just the way I was taught. I was ... being hard-straight was important in my family."

"I'm sorry", said Amanda. It was the only thing she could think of, and she realised right after she said it that it could be perceived as an insult, or a form of condescension.

"So am I."

That seemed to have exhausted the conversation, and Amanda was feeling awkward and a little self-conscious about her own lack of tact.

She went to get the food, which was ready, and they both ate in silence.

Amanda yawned, and closed her workspace, after backing everything up at her uni account. She had learned to be careful about that sort of thing when an ex-girlfriend had smashed her comm for no particular reason. Laura looked at her, then at the time, and decided to do the same. It had grown late.

Both girls were lying in bed. Amanda was a little frustrated by her missed opportunity to try out her new toy, and Laura by the way the day had gone in general, and her supervisor's behaviour in particular. After a few minutes of silence, neither of the girls had managed to fall asleep.

"Amanda?" Laura whispered.

"Yes", said Amanda in a normal tone of voice.

"So you can't sleep either?"

"Not yet, somehow. I've had a weird day."

"I bet mine was weirder."

"I assure you it wasn't. Unfortunately I don't think I'm ready to talk about it." If Laura would only know, thought Amanda.