Make Room for Love

Mira had been staring. She flushed. She wasn’t into women; it wasn’t like that. But this woman was tough and brave, everything Mira wasn’t and wished she were, and it was hard to tear her eyes away.

None of them had set Isabel on fire like this grad student in a cute little sweater talking about labor organizing in Isabel’s living room.

“It’s harder for women to be out there doing these things. But the labor movement wouldn’t be what it is without us. Especially us queer women.”

Isabel would just have to control herself. She had less than zero patience for any man who felt attracted to a woman and blamed her for it, and she wasn’t a hypocrite. She was an adult with self-control and not a fucking creep.

But being in the same room as Mira was stirring up the emotions she was having trouble keeping on a short leash. Or any leash at all.

Isabel’s face burned, her heartbeat pounding between her legs. Mira had pulled those pajamas off herself this morning before putting on the sweater and skirt she was wearing now. Isabel absolutely couldn’t be thinking about that, not after Mira had invited her in for the most innocent reason imaginable. Let alone picturing it in detail.

many things she shouldn’t be thinking about. Like how if Mira wanted some stress relief, the kind that involved Isabel’s face buried between her thighs, Isabel would be on her knees on this wood floor in an instant. There must be some way Mira loved to be taken care of, some way to make her go from buttoned-up to fully unraveled, flushed and panting⁠—

She had always retreated into her intellect to escape her bodily existence, and old habits died hard. Wasn’t there always something more interesting to think about?

“Listen to yourself. You’re obsessed with this question of whether you want someone or want to be her.”

Maybe she could just have what she wanted. It sounded like the easiest and the hardest thing in the world.

Mira laughed. This wasn’t a big revelation in the grand scheme of things. Transitioning in the first place had been the big upheaval in her life, and this was a small one in comparison. But she knew now that she was a woman who loved other women, and it felt good and right—like coming home to her apartment at the end of a long day.

undressed, and pulled the slip on over her head, shivering as the fabric tumbled down over her body. The silk was as cool and soft as she’d imagined, clinging to her in all the right ways, caressing her and teasing her. Very

Mira tensed up. She tried to regather her thoughts. Did Patrick ever interrupt the men on the committee?