Christina No. 2 suggested that all of us hang out at her place right after school.
The only problem was that she lived farther away than anyone else. On the bright side, that meant a longer bus ride... I couldn't miss the chance to offer Christina No. 1 a double seat. We were practically stalking the empty spots, but in the end, only a standard single seat opened up near her, and she snatched it. I walked over, thinking we'd still find a chance to sit together later, but she immediately stood up and offered the seat to me.
I wasn't an invalid. Still, as she was sitting back down, it suddenly hit me what had just happened. She hadn't been trying to be nice! She'd been trying to exercise her constitutional right to sit on her husband's lap! But fixing this mistake now felt too embarrassing. To the rest of the passengers, I would just look like a total slowpoke.
Damn it. How was I supposed to hint to Christina what I actually wanted?
I decided to be bold, or rather, completely brazen: I sat right down on her lap. I did my best not to crush her with my full weight, propping most of myself up by gripping the handrail with one arm.
"Look at the youth nowadays! Unbelievable!" very old lady with a rolling shopping cart tutted indignantly.
Finally! I'd received my very first official scolding from the older generation. I used to be so jealous of couples getting yelled at, because a public scolding was basically solid proof that the world recognized your relationship as official.
"He's not that heavy," Christina defended me, wrapping her arms around my waist.
"Documents, please," a ticket inspector grumbled, stepping up to us literally two stops later.
We both pulled out our phones and showed him matching barcode scans.
"You two aren't married yet," the inspector noted, eyeing us up.
"Oh, come on, please?" Christina whined softly. "We barely ever get to see each other."
We weren't pushing our luck. We'd paid full price for two separate tickets without applying any couple discounts, Christina had natural makeup on, and I looked presentable enough rather than like some flashy hotshot.
"Fine, fine," the inspector relented. "Just don't get caught by the morality police."
"Mmm-hmm," Christina agreed, burying her face in my chest.
Her hair was so close... It smelled like... well, hair. There was definitely a faint trace of shampoo left, but I couldn't quite pinpoint the scent. Oh, turns out her natural hair color was dark blonde, dyed light blonde. The roots were barely growing in, only visible if you stared point-blank. You could tell she took really good care of herself.
"Let's swap," I suggested, my muscles aching from holding my weight up.
Naturally, she sat down on my lap properly this time, with all her weight. Thank God her butt wasn't bony. It was nice and soft. She wasn't exactly a light girl, but I guess that was the price you paid for curves and a rack like hers. How heavy were they, anyway?
I wrapped my arms around her waist so she wouldn't slide off my legs every time the bus slammed on the brakes. She examined the top of my head and even scratched at something with her fingernail.
"You should switch your shampoo. You're getting dandruff."
"It's not dandruff, it's seasonal shedding," I tried to dodge the bullet.
Truth was, I didn't use shampoo at all. I washed myself with a "100-in-1" shower gel made for ultra-lazy guys, though the bottle proudly claimed it was "For Real Men." As the ad promised, you could even use that stuff to wash dishes, your car, the floor, carpets, and a commercial airliner.
"Thank you," Christina mumbled softly.
"For what?" I blinked, totally lost.
But Christina didn't elaborate. She just enjoyed the rest of the ride in my arms, sitting on my lap.
By the time we reached our stop, my legs were so numb they were buzzing with pins and needles.
"Hey guys," Christina No. 2 greeted us at her place, heading straight to the kitchen to grab two extra chairs and drag them into her room while we were taking off our coats.
"So, you're his new one?" Christina No. 2 kicked off the conversation once she'd arranged the three of us in a triangle.
"My wife," I corrected her firmly.
But I didn't get the reaction I'd been hoping for after yesterday. Christina No. 1 looked tense, sitting on the edge of her seat.
"Relax, don't worry," Christina No. 2 offered a reassuring smile. "Nothing ever happened between us besides fried eggs. Have you guys kissed yet?"
"Not yet," Christina No. 1 answered softly.
"Oh, perfect! Let me set the mood for you." Christina No. 2 glanced over at me. "Grab a flute."
I turned around, opened her closet, and saw three flute cases sitting on the shelf. "Which one?"
"Whichever."
I picked up the case that looked the most expensive and handed it to her. She pulled out the flute.
"There's no need to rush into anything..." Christina No. 1 murmured, retreating back into her shell.
"Come on, lovers! Kiss already! Otherwise, before you know it, you'll end up like my parents, only kissing on major holidays," Christina No. 2 said, raising the flute to her lips.
That statement instantly gave Christina No. 1 a pass. According to her, parents never kissed like lovers anyway, just family-style pecks on the cheek, which meant this kind of passion had a strictly limited shelf life until the first kid arrived.
Christina No. 1 leaned in toward me and closed her eyes. I took her by the shoulders and leaned in too. She immediately blocked our mouths with her palm to hide the moment from Christina No. 2's greedy eyes.
Right on cue, Christina No. 2 started playing a horribly off-key, screechy rendition of the sinking-ship song from the Pirates meme.
I couldn't hold it in. I lost it completely, not just a giggle, but a full-blown, hysterical snort. I tried my best not to offend my future wife, but with music like that, any attempt at romance turned into an absolute epic fail. Christina No. 1 burst out laughing too. The terrible piping hit her inner drama so perfectly that it completely vaporized all her anxiety on the spot. Even our flute-playing prankster got infected by her own joke and started wheezing with laughter.
"Phew..." Christina No. 1 was the first to catch her breath.
"All right, all right. Now do it properly so I can see all the details. Kiss the bride!" Christina No. 2 brought the flute back to her lips and began playing a genuinely pleasant, soft melody.
Christina No. 1 and I leaned toward each other with our eyes open, our lips touching. The spark was instantaneous. The lightness left my chest, replaced by a deep, crushing surge of raw emotion. Just touching lips wasn't enough. I parted my mouth and immediately felt Christina's tongue meet mine as her hands reached up to frame my cheeks.
I want her.
I grabbed her tight, pulling her closer into my arms. This wasn't a pretty, picture-perfect textbook kiss. This wasn't just lips on lips, it was lips against each other's faces. We couldn't even maintain a steady rhythm. Our desperate need to devour each other was that ravenous.
Christina No. 2 cut the melody short and rested the flute on her knees, as if waiting for her cue. Right before her eyes, two completely different instruments were now huffing, gasping, and moaning in a duet, not alongside her, but for her, their sole audience.
"I wish I could play like that someday," she scribbled into her music notebook. "Wildly, off-script, out of tune, but enough to touch someone's heart... and light a fire in my own. Like catching a cold, a feverish shiver straight to the bone. When you can't focus on a single thing, when your chest feels heavy, and your heart races to a Risset rhythm."
"All right, all right, that's enough!" Christina No. 2 tried to cut us off. "Before I start playing something seriously trashy!"
Seeing that neither of us was reacting in the slightest, she pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, curled her upper lip, and let out a deafening, glass-shattering whistle.
The sonic blast to our eardrums instantly brought us back to reality.
"My turn, before my folks get home!" Christina No. 2 couldn't keep a straight face for more than a second, breaking into a wide grin at our absolute disorientation and total inability to think straight. "Just kidding. I had to pull you two back down to Earth somehow."
Before she could even finish her sentence, the front door lock clicked.
"Wait!" she yelled, sprinting out into the hallway. "I think I locked it from the inside!"
"Christina..." her dad's voice echoed as he closed the door behind him.
Christina No. 1 and I tensed up, bracing ourselves for a lecture and hoping she'd warn him about the guests under the guise of basic manners.
"That whistle could be heard all the way down to the first floor. Impressive lung power," her dad noted smoothly, without a single hint of a scolding.
"It was the elevator shaft! The shaft is basically like a huge flute, and the doors are the valves. My timbre just hit a resonant frequency with the draft. So technically, it wasn't my fault."
"You have company?"