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“Don’t go,” said Tom.
Hiljd eyed Lucy. “If you want to go—”
“Let’s have, like, one glass of meade, and then reassess,” said Lucy.
Hiljd nodded. “A marvelous plan.”
They made their way into the clothed room, where there were two male orcs, one with a red beard and one with a very prominent gold bond earring, sitting on a couch and having an animated conversation about motorized scooters. The men didn’t notice when they came in, and so Hiljd and Lucy each took a mug of already-poured meade and settled on two chairs to giggle at each other about the party.
“Oh, briars and tangles,” Lucy whispered to Hiljd, “I think he asked me here to see me naked.”
“Men of his generation have no idea sometimes,” agreed Hiljd.
“He’s way too old for me,” said Lucy, rolling her eyes. “I let him buy me a shot twice and was polite to him, and he thinks I was flirting with him. Like, older guys, guys like him, they think politeness is flirting, and guys our age, you can sit in hislap, and he’ll be like, ‘I didn’t want a make a move in case you weren’t into it.’”
“Is it like that?” said Hiljd. “I guess I haven’t done a lot of dating lately.”
“Girl, you need to get back out there,” said Lucy.
Hiljd tensed. This would be when Lucy said something about Valdemar and his nymph toothpick and she was going to have to be gracious when all she wanted to do was let out some version of a primal scream.
She honestly wasn’t sure why it bothered her so much.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been dealing with this her entire life. There were female species that graced the front of bikini magazines or got cast in movies or got recording contracts. And then there were females ofotherspecies. It wasn’t that men didn’t find orc women sexy. In her experience, they definitely did, all of them, even the pretty, skinny elf men. It was that whatever that sexiness was, it always had a tinge of deviance to it somehow.
Yes, sure, orc women get me hot, but I can’t admit that to my friends without sounding like some kind of freak.
For whatever reason, rightly or wrongly, orcs were coded as masculine, and finding a female orc attractive meant men were taking some sort of hit to their own masculinity, as if she weren’t feminine enough to be attractive. Too tall, too tusky, too green, too thick, too strong, too… well, anyway.
It wasn’t that it didn’t always bother her, because how could it not?
But usually, she was able to let it go, because it was out of her control. She could not change the entire world and she couldn’t make most men decide to not be attracted to small, fragile, elfin women. It was a waste of her valuable time and resources to stay angry about it.
But the difference was that this was Valdi. Evolved, feminist Valdi, who spent half of his time ranting about the patriarchy and how it was bad for menandwomen and who could barely conform to any typical male stereotypes. Then, when he decided to act like a stupid, unevolved dick, it was inthisway.
She hadn’t realized she was so insecure about it, she supposed.
It was all stupid. She knew there weren’t any women out there who didn’t feel it. It was all around everyone, floating in the air—unattainable, impossible ideals of how women were supposed to look and act. Every woman she’d ever met was insecure about her appearance.
Well, for that matter, every man, too, she supposed. It was different for men, but they got the messages also about how they should look and what stupid ideals they were supposed to conform to.
And no one could.
So everyone fell short and everyone felt inadequate.
Surely, that should make it better.I’m in good company. Even pretty fae girls who are five foot three and shaped like hourglasses look at themselves in the mirror sometimes and worry what they see isn’t good enough.
“I mean, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Lucy was saying.
Hiljd shrugged, waiting for her to say something, anything about Valdi. “Maybe.”
But Lucy only cringed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it as a criticism or something.” She sighed. “Honestly, if we could all just stop wanting them, we’d be happier.”
“Them?”
“Men.” Lucy nodded sagely. “If I could change one thing about myself, I’d make myself attracted to women.”
Hiljd laughed. “Seriously?”
