Judae

Constance is wearing red tonight.

Constance is wearing red tonight?

The sentence is wrong. Kafka concludes that immediately because red is not the colour that Constance wears. She wears mostly white. Black. Very often both of those combined. She does not, however, wear red. Except, as it apparently turns out, she is wearing it tonight.

Kafka is drinking wine and she is currently having a third glass.

That sentence is also wrong. Kafka has concluded that much earlier, approximately when she looked at the second glass and realised it is empty. At work parties, Kafka never drinks more than two glasses. Right now, she is on her third. And she looks at Constance and the dress is– Kafka looks at it and then looks away immediately because looking at it is producing a response that the third glass of wine is making incredibly difficult to manage. The dress is structured in ways that suggest that Constance selected it specifically to make looking away difficult. Which she did because she always does.

Black Swan is wearing dark blue. The kind that is subtle enough to exist beside Constance's red without competing because Black Swan is an incredibly considerate wife and she has realised that Constance cannot compete without becoming psychotically obsessed about winning.

They cross the room together with Constance in front, obviously. "Three," she announces as soon as they are close enough for Kafka to hear it. If Kafka's ears were capable of doing so, they would definitely perk up at once at that.

"Excuse me?" She asks without turning towards them.

"That is most definitely your third glass."

Constance points to Kafka's hand with her chin. Kafka knows that both Constance and Black Swan noticed it immediately because these two women have clearly been present in her life for too long now. Her grip on the glass is slightly less precise and her wrist is less rigid.

"You are on your third glass of wine, Kafka. I've never seen you past two," Constance adds because Constance is a meticulous woman. If there is any context to anything she says, she will add it.

Kafka chuckles darkly. "It's a long evening, ladies."

Constance gasps dramatically and extends her arm towards Black Swan's chest as she inhales through flared nostrils. A performance Kafka has always found absolutely unnecessary.

"Swan, darling. Did you hear it too?"

Black Swan adjusts herself and arranges her entire body around her wife. Kafka has seen that particular process too many times. Black Swan compliments her wife's presence the same way rain compliments the appearing rainbow. Like they were designed to coexist.

"I did indeed, my love."

"Ladies," Constance repeats after Kafka. "You called us ladies." She flutters her obscenely long lashes with mocking shock on her face. "Kafka, sweetheart, do we need to call an ambulance?"

Kafka chuckles once more. "That won't be necessary."

"Swan." Constance is not looking at her wife. "Something is wrong."

Black Swan looks at Kafka and her assessment takes approximately 1.4 seconds. Kafka can feel it. She can always feel it. She can feel every single little data point being collected and the conclusion arriving.

"Mm," Black Swan hums as she wraps her arm around Constance's waist. "Your jaw is not fully clenched. Forty percent, perhaps. I have never seen it below fifty in professional settings."

"My jaw is fine."

"Your jaw is always fine. That is not the same as being at its usual position," Black Swan explains courteously.

She takes a glass from a passing tray with her free hand and hands it to Constance without saying anything. The tray disappears before she can take one for herself. Which is absolutely not unusual because Kafka has observed during many different occasions that Black Swan thinks about her wife before she thinks about herself. Which is why she is currently patiently waiting for another tray to appear within grabbing distance as Constance begins sipping the liquid.

"You look tired, Kafka," Constance points out after swallowing.

"I am tired."

"You are always tired. You are never visibly tired."

Constance and Black Swan exchange a look. Kafka can see it and they are not even trying to hide anything. The look communicates: something has happened. She won't tell us. She never does. Shall we? No. Not yet. Later. When the wine has done its work.

Kafka is not paranoid enough to believe that they are actively coordinating. She is, however, experienced enough with these two to know that Constance and Black Swan in proximity to one another and to someone who they both care about is a combination that can produce catastrophic results. For Kafka, specifically.

It will. In approximately one hour.

The evening continues. Kafka finishes her glass slowly, very slowly, over approximately forty minutes, during which Constance circulates and returns and circulates again and each return produces a detailed report. She reports on the clusters of people like a field agent reporting on surveillance targets. Judge Harrington is wearing a tie that suggests a recent divorce. The head of Crown Prosecution is drinking much faster than usual, which suggests that the budget review went poorly. There is also, apparently, a junior barrister who keeps looking at Kafka from across the room and licking his lips, which Constance finds both disturbing and disgusting, and who should not look at anything at all because his face is the aesthetic equivalence of a piece of rotten cheese. And not the edible one.

Eventually, Constance becomes affected by the wine.

"Terrace," she announces. That is the start.

Kafka leans on the balustrade. She puts her forearms on the cold stone and she looks at the dark gardens and she breathes. Black Swan stands beside her, also leaning, though she looks significantly more composed than Kafka. Constance stands behind both of them.

"I must admit," she starts, "that watching a woman I have been intimate with on multiple occasions stand right beside a woman I am married to while both of them look absolutely devastating is possibly one of the most aesthetically pleasing things I have experienced this year.

–––––STATUS: CRITICAL SYSTEM ERROR

"Constance," Black Swan says it with two separate intonations compressed into one. A warning alongside amusement.

"What? I am being honest. You married me because I'm honest, love. Amongst other things," Constance winks at her wife as she approaches Kafka from behind and simply wraps her arms around her neck.

From behind. Both arms looped loosely over the shoulders and crossed at the wrists somewhere near Kafka's collarbone. Constance's chin arrives on Kafka's right shoulder. Her cheek presses against the side of the jaw which should have engaged immediately but does not because Kafka has had three glasses of quite strong wine.

Kafka straightens slightly but she does not pull away because Constance's arms are pleasantly warm and they are not something unknown. "What are we doing?"

"We are standing on a terrace," Constance says directly into her ear. "And I am holding you because you looked like you need someone to hold you. You looked like a kicked puppy when you were leaning against that dreadful wall. Seriously, who hired these architects?"

Kafka turns around. Or rather, the wine decides that for her. Three glasses are apparently enough to conduct a hostile takeover of whatever part of her brain usually prevents her from doing things that the sober version of her would classify as professionally unacceptable.

She turns herself around inside the loop of Constance's arms and her back hits the cold balustrade. And then her arm moves on its own. Literally. Kafka swears on every single aeon that exists in the entire cosmos and beyond: her arm is moving on its own. Her left arm, to be exact. It wraps itself around Constance's waist and pulls with the absolute graceless urgency of someone who has been holding surfaces for the last few months instead of one particular person she wants to hold. Constance is not that person. Neither is Black Swan. But this, Kafka concludes, has to be enough for now.

"Oh," Constance gasps with delight as Kafka tightens her grip. "Well. Hello there, darling."

"Hello," Kafka hears herself say it and she– she sounds nothing like a respectable barrister. She sounds like exactly who she is at this very moment: a woman at a party she does not want to be at, who has had too much wine and whose arm is around a waist and who is not thinking about anything except the warmth under her fingertips.

"Swan." Constance sounds genuinely surprised. "Swan, she is holding me. She pulled me. Voluntarily."

"I can see that, my love."

Constance adjusts her arms around Kafka. Around her neck. They tighten and settle into something Kafka's body remembers before her brain does. That very specific weight of Constance's arms around her neck. Her body remembers it, except from a completely different terrace– or it might actually be this one but a slightly different location, she is not quite sure anymore–

Constance turns her head away towards her wife.

Presumably to say something. That is not a nuance because that is simply what people do when the person they want to talk to is not right in front of them. They turn their heads. However, that also means that a significant amount of bare skin on Constance's neck gets exposed right in front of Kafka's face. She smells of dahlias. Of course. Of course she does. Kafka remembers the smell too. She inhales deeply without even trying to hide it. And then she simply leans forward.

Without really meaning to. Kafka barely knows what her body is doing anymore because the wine is definitely working and nothing is making this situation easier. She leans forward because her lips need to touch that skin. And they do. Aeons, they do. Constance stills for a moment when they do and Kafka presses them to the pulse point not gently at all and she parts her lips slightly and breathes hot against the skin.

"Oh. Mon dieu, Kafka. Someone is hungry."

"Mmm." Kafka murmurs against Constance's neck as she opens her mouth further and licks an uneven stripe across the tendon.

"Darling, are you–" Constance tries to ask her wife.