He She It

four: tell me how you woo the ladies

(Quick note: the external link is to an online petition for Leelah's Law to be passed and ban conversion therapy. It only takes a minute to sign it, and it's for such an important cause, so please please please go and do that).

As a general rule, Lilly did not ask for advice.

She also didn't generally offer to set her friend up with girls of the sexually amibiguous variety, though, and so there she was: Skyping her cousin, a self-proclaimed womaniser and owner of the world's largest ego (and, at least according to him, largest dick), which was another thing she didn't make a habit of - she and Hayden were both far too much in love with themselves to get along, and so they usually avoided each other.

The last week had been anything but usual, though, and Amara's drooling had started to become both disgusting and painfully obvious. Lilly figured a conversation with Hayden was a small price to pay to not have to hold her best friend's jaw shut whenever Natalie was within a twenty metre radius.

(She did, of course, realise that she might have to play third-wheel while they felt each other up if she succeeded in getting them together, but that was a bridge she'd cross later, presumably armed with silly string and a whistle).

"'sup, Lils?" Hayden asked as he came into focus, naked from the waist-up save for his signature snapback, which Lilly was beginning to think was permanently moulded to his skull. "Still ugly, I see."

Lilly rolled her eyes. "And your insult game is still weak. What else is new?"

"Well, you just voluntarily made contact with me," Hayden said, leaning forward to rest his chin on the palm of his hand. "I'm pretty sure that's never happened before."

"Trust me, you were my last resort," Lilly told him, which was perhaps an understatement; she'd done everything in her power not to have to ask Hayden, partly because it would boost his already gigantic ego but mostly because it would destroy hers. She'd even asked an Internet Agony Aunt, which was presumably a new low not only for Lilly but also for the Agony Aunt herself, who was either a raging homophobe or more qualified to answer questions about cheating husbands and the nightmarish mother-in-laws of said husbands than hormonal teenage lesbians (she'd replied simply: "Oh! What a unique question, but I'm afraid I can't help you with that," which Lilly had thought was a slightly pathetic response from a woman who gave advice for a living). "But seducing girls is your area of expertise, right?"

"Wait," Hayden said, eyes almost as wide as Amara's were when Natalie got changed for P.E. "Are you gay?"

"No!" Lilly called, hopefully loud enough for her Auntie to hear. A journalist for a gossip magazine, the woman was fueled by rumours, and she didn't usually take the time to clarify those rumours before she called everyone in her phonebook. It wouldn't be a surprise if, in ten minutes time, Lilly's sweet but incredibly Evangelical grandma was on the phone, making her swear to celibacy for the rest of her life. "Definitely not. But Amara is, and I might have sort of promised to get her a date with a girl who may or may not like vagina."

Hayden snorted. "Wow. And I thought the cross-dressing model was far-fetched. How did that go, by the way?"

"Horrifically," Lilly groaned, burying her head in her hands. "He's never worn a dress in his life."

"And you say that my Mum needs to check her facts," Hayden said, grinning. "At least she's never mistaken anybody for a cross-dresser."

Had she not been so desperate for his help, Lilly might have reminded him of that time he'd mistaken an eleven year old girl for somebody he could legally flirt with and been detained by the police for two hours. Instead, she just flipped him the middle finger and pouted.

"Just tell me how you woo the ladies, dickhead."

***

"You better buy yourself some decent underwear, Ra, because Hayden's just told me how to get you a one-way ticket to Natalie street."

Amara's olive skin tinged pink, and she stuck her head back inside her locker to rummage through her textbooks. She emerged a minute later, still flushed, and raised an eyebrow.

"You asked Hayden?"

"He might be a twat, but unlike us, his only flirting tactic isn't to stand and point," Lilly said, "so here's the plan: next weekend, I invite Grace and Natalie to go shopping with us - Natalie hates shopping with a burning passion, apparently - and when she gets bored you can also conveniently get bored and go snog in an alleyway, or whatever it is you lesbians do. Capiche?"

"One problem," Amara said, holding up her pointer finger (the same finger, incidentally, that she'd been using to very subtly flirt with girls for the past year). "Natalie might be 100% straight."

"Nope. I went through her Facebook page last night, and there's a photo of her from six months ago with an old girlfriend," Lilly told her friend, who had gone from slightly worried to borderline euphoric in a matter of seconds. "You really need to get an account, Ra. It's a valuable stalking device."

"Have you met my mother?" Amara asked, still grinning as she pocketed her locker key and threw her bag over her shoulder. "She still holds my hand across the road, for Christ's sake. The woman's a nervous wreck."

"Just make sure she doesn't walk you into town this Saturday," Lilly said as they elbowed their way down the corridor. "I'm not sure, but I think turning up holding your Mummy's hand is a bit of a turn-off."

Amara was about to reply when Grace Hammond came rushing towards them, waving her phone in one hand and pushing people out of her way with the other. She stopped about a foot away from them and shoved the phone into Lilly's face, blue eyes stretched wide.

"Bloody hell," she muttered, because on the screen was a photo of Adam Hiller.

And he was in a dress.