…or, Size Matters
The stupid thing was, I could really only do a little pre-pre prep work on my paper anyway. It had a research component. I couldn’t just write it out of my head. I could have put on my pants and gone to the library or a ball room, but it was late and getting later. I didn’t even know what the library hours were.
I took what I knew and bullshitted some information I thought I could find. I decided to do my paper about holdroot, since I knew how to find it hidden in tall grass. Its main use was pretty obvious. The name said it all. It got used in adhesives and binding agents and anything that kept things in place or kept them as they were.
I copied some stuff from my field guide and reworked it around a bit, but there were still a lot of blank spaces and placeholders. I didn’t know anything about the history or cultural significance. I’d have to hit the field for samples and then the library to finish it up. Even then, it would probably still be a pretty bad paper. If I’d wanted to do it right, I needed to have done more, sooner. If not over the weekend then during the canceled class.
Tuesday morning, Marlot was not impressed with my complaints about Iason.
“Was there some reason you were expecting better from him?” she asked.
“A little, maybe,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Not really, no,” I said.
“Well, if you’re not clinging to the delusion that you can change him if you’re just patient enough—”
“I think he’s the one with that delusion,” I said.
“Well, then it really comes down to a simple question,” Marlot said. “You know what he’s like. You know what he wants. You know what he does for you. Is he worth it?”
“I can know I’m not going to change him but still wish a few things were different,” I said.
“Sure can,” Marlot said. “But they aren’t. The only deal you’re getting is ‘as is’, no warranties or preconditions. Is he worth it?”
“I guess,” I said. “I mean, I keep ending up in bed with him.”
“Ideally you should be ending up in bed with people you determine are worth it,” she said. “Not inferring that they’re worth it because you got into bed with them. That’s the kind of thinking that keeps people eating cafeteria food: you eat it once and then you tell yourself, it’s not so bad, I mean, I did eat it yesterday.”
“We’re eating cafeteria food,” I said.
“Case in point,” she said.
“But breakfast is the one meal they do right here,” I said.
“Of course it is,” Marlot said. “We ate it yesterday, didn’t we?”
“You might have started out with a point, but now you’re just being a smartass,” I said.
“I like to think I’m more than capable of doing both at the same time,” she said. “But don’t let my hilarious hijinks distract from the question: is the ongoing aggravation worth putting up with for what you get out of the relationship?”
“Maybe not, but I’ve already sat down and there aren’t many empty tables,” I said.
“You’re hilarious, but looks aren’t everything,” she said.
“Whoa, you’re breaking out the vintage stuff a little early today,” I said.
“I’m saving the ‘A’ material for lunch,” she said.
“Save it for dinner. I’ve got to run out west over my lunch break to do some herbalism homework.”
“Oh, that’s fine, I wasn’t saving it for you. But seriously: is Iason worth it? It’s a question to think about even if you don’t have an answer.”
“I guess I’d have to say, just barely,” I said. “It’s really only the fact that I’m not interested in anything long term from him that makes him bearable. He’s hot and he’s a great fuck. He does nice things for me sometimes, but then he turns around and messes them up. I try to connect with him on a deeper level, but he doesn’t even like to hear me talk. So, to answer your question: he’s worth fucking, but just barely.”
“Interesting,” Marlot said.
“Hey, I haven’t led him on,” I said. “The earrings, the fancy dinner, Vera, they were all his idea. I wasn’t looking for a lifetime bond with someone, and I think I made that pretty clear at the beginning.”
“I actually meant the more obscure ‘this is something that I find to be of interest’ meaning of ‘interesting’, not the ‘you are a cheap floozy who takes men for all that they’re worth’ one,” Marlot said. “But noted, just the same.”
“What’s interesting about it?”
“I think, if you’re feeling experimental, that you might try telling him that the next time he’s especially irritating.”
“That I’m not interested in conjugal bliss? I’ve told him. He doesn’t like to listen, but I have told him.”
“I meant the whole thing where you said he’s barely worth fucking,” Marlot said.
“Man, you don’t even know,” I said. “He’d take that as a confirmation of what his ego tells him: he’s just that good. He’s even said something like he’s a jerk on purpose because he likes a challenge.”
“There’s a difference between a huge ego and a strong ego,” Marlot said.
“Yeah, but the people with huge egos don’t know what it is and won’t admit it,” I said.
“Look, you’re bitching to me about him and wishing he were different,” Marlot said. “If you want to shake things up a little, try being completely honest. Tell him that he’s so annoying you can only just barely stand him. See what happens.”
“Ooh, that’s a wild and crazy experiment,” I said. “I wonder, what ever will he do? Wait, I know: either laugh it off like I said, or dump my ass. Is that your point? That if I can’t quite bring myself to break it off myself, then I should push him into doing it?”
“Yes, I always advocate the path of the passive-aggressive little girl,” Marlot said. “No. Maybe he’ll do one of those things, or maybe the honest appraisal will be the slap in the face he needs to wake up and change.”
“I thought I couldn’t change him.”
“You? Can’t. Him? Don’t know. Remains to be seen.”
“What’s the difference between me hanging around thinking I can change him, and trying to get him to change himself?”
“The hanging around,” Marlot said. “If you hold up a mirror, he’ll either change or he won’t. If he won’t, then you know to give up and move on. Or, you know, keep doing what you’re doing, but with less bitching to me about it.”
“I’m not bitching,” I said. “I’m being conversational. Khersis freaking Dei, Mar. You never used to mind hearing about my problems.”
“That was before the writer’s strike happened and we got stuck in reruns,” Marlot said. “That’s why I asked you if he’s worth it. If he bothers you this much, do something about it. If he doesn’t, then suck it up.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize I was getting that repetitive. Anyway, how’d you get to be such an expert on this?”
“Girls get instruction manuals,” she said. “If you hadn’t been such a closet case back in high school, they’d probably have given you a copy, too.”
“On the subject of girls,” I said, “what do you think of Pala?”
“On the subject of obvious subject changes, I think that if she was allowed to gamble with real money, I’d be able to buy your earrings off you,” Marlot said.
“No, seriously.”
“Are you lining up Iason’s replacement?” she asked. “Because I suppose a giant clit might make a nice transition for weaning yourself off of the peen.”
“Violet thinks we should hang out with her more often.”
“More often than we hang out with Violet? I’m down,” Marlot said. “But seriously, if you want a taste of giant she-peen, I could probably put the idea in her head that she could cure you of your ‘perversion’ by offering you her body.”
“Could I pay you to not say the word ‘peen’ again?”
“Sorry, just something I got from Bobby,” she said. “Though now that I think about it, putting an idea in her head would be kind of like tossing a tiny little rock into a huge canyon, an analogy that could be surprisingly versatile in this case.”
“Yeah, I get the picture,” I said.
“For instance, if you asked her to keep your keys in her pocket,” Marlot said. “Or if she held your hand in hers.”
“Okay,” I said. “Enough.”
“Your body—though regular-sized for a human—is small in comparison to hers, is what I’m driving at here.”
“Yes, I had actually noticed that, thank you.”
“Especially with regards to your peen.”
“I hate you so much.”
I was able to get a lot more work done for my paper during the day, and I wasn’t the only one from my class who was scrounging around in the clearing, either. Mattie Douglas, the second tallest girl I knew, was there.
“Hey,” she said. “Guess I’m not the last person to actually get out here and do this, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t really think you’re even the second to the last one, actually.”
“You know, I saw you at the match,” she said. “On the field.”
“Yeah,” I said. Everyone had.
“I wanted to talk to you about it, but yesterday you were with, well. Are you an elfblood?”
Protip, guys: if a girl sees your face or your hair color or your ears and asks if you’ve got elven blood, it just might be a compliment. If seeing you naked prompts her to ask if you’ve got elven blood, it’s probably not.
“Actually, yeah,” I said. “But not a lot. Not enough to affect anything, really. You’d have to go back, like, thousands of years to find an elf in my family.”
“Oh,” she said. “Kira said she thought you were. Well, she said she was sure, but I wasn’t. I mean, you don’t look that elven next to Iason.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Actually, what I meant is, you didn’t look that elven, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Round ears, right?”
She grinned and stuck out her tongue. Just the tip. She might not have even known she was doing it. It was cute. She’d been finishing up when I got there, though, and she didn’t hang around.
I went to the library after dinner to do the research part and scribe up a good copy of what I’d written.
The end result was pretty not terrible. I’d bridged all the bullshit bits pretty well. I thought it was a pretty solid B paper.
Maybe not solid. It was a paper a nice teacher would give a B on.
I was pretty sure Bryony would give me a B.
