Lady in the Mirror chapter 2

“Humour.” Ella tilts her head. She found and brought a chair the second time we meet, and I’m using the swivel chair from Typical Dad Base 7. “Explain.”

“It’s a concept.” I lean back and grin. “It’s like… Gods, I can’t explain it. It’s taking something and making it funny. Play on words. Those are called puns.”

“Define ‘funny’.”

“Humorous.” I lean forward, pushing my elbows on my knees.

She gives me an innocent look that looks like 'And?’

“Humourous means ‘with humour.’.”

“So its all going full circle?”

“You could say that, yeah.” I shrug.

She clapped her hands together. “Tell me a joke.”

“Ok.” I lean back again. “Past, present and future walk into a bar. It was tense.”

She blinks a few times like she did during my first joke.

Then her eyes sparkle. She smiles.

And laughs.

I smile. I’ve always been a joker, but that was one of my lesser jokes. Ella really is special.

Then it hits me. Carah. I’m still in a relationship with Carah. My face goes slack.
I wish. I don’t even know if she’s straight or not. My back slouches, and I rest my forearms on my thighs to balance
myself.
They cross at the wrist, but I don’t interlace my fingers.

“Jackie?”

I flick my eyes up. I’ve always had a habit of doing that when I’m facing down, and all the girlfriends
I’ve had have said it makes me look irresistible, with my hair in my eyes and my eyes sparkling like emeralds. I just shrugged and said it was something my father did too.

Ella doesn’t seem to understand that reinhabited eye contact means she can talk, so she still looks at me
expectantly.

“Yes?” I say.

“What’s love?”

I don’t know if she’s a mind reader or not, but she seems serious. I shrug. “Are you asking about my
love life or love in general?”

“Well, your love life,” Ella said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s obviously an
example of love in general.”

I go red. “Well, here’s the thing…”

Then I stop myself. I don’t want her to be upset. So I clear my throat.

“I like girls,” I say, shrugging. “I’ve had a good few handfuls of girlfriends. Being a hero and
attending events, I’m pretty open about how I feel about them.” I chuckle nervously. “I’ve grown a
reputation as a rough kisser.”

“What’s a kiss?”

I choke on my words. “It’s like pressing your lips together in an act of sexual or romantical attraction.”

“Oh,” she looks down, then back up. “How do you kiss?”

Now I’ve had enough. I shove my face in my hands, groaning. I’m pretty sure my face has become nothing but blush. She’s too innocent, too cute, too… pretty.

“Can you… show me?” She asks.

Oh, just kill me now! Gah! I just can’t!

I stay quiet, and suddenly I hear her gasp.

“What’s sexual or romantical attraction?”

“Romantic attraction is when you feel romance towards a person. You want to be in their presence, hug,
kiss, and hold hands with them.” I dodge the question. Not yet.

But she’s persistent.

“What about sexual attraction?”

I dodge it again. “For example, I felt romantical attraction to my girlfriends.”

“We’re you sexually attracted to any of them?”

“One,” I say.

“What is sexual attraction?”

“It’s when you want to or have sex with the person you are attracted to. They are often called partners.”

“What’s sex?”

I start to laugh maniacally. This is it! Hats off to Ella Thescrosa. She has officially annoyed and pestered
me to insanity.

“Later,” I say. “Getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?”

She blinks. So innocent. So… irresistible.