How About No
By: Provocative Envy
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(i)
They aren't friends.
The first time they speak—as pre-assigned lab partners, as strangers, as presumed equals—the conversation ends in an overturned Erlenmeyer flask and a creatively weaponized Bunsen burner; his butter-soft, Italian-leather satchel is covered in scorch marks, and the collar of her lavender cashmere cardigan has been eaten through by a particularly virulent form of benzilic acid.
It is an inauspicious beginning to their working relationship.
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(ii)
Her parents want her to go to dental school after she graduates.
"I'm going to be a real doctor, though," she tells them, nonplussed.
They exchange glances and glares.
"Maybe it's time you looked into student loans, Hermione," her mother suggests firmly.
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(iii)
He saves her number in his iPhone and uses a picture of the Grumpy Cat as her contact icon.
In retaliation, she punctures holes in the ink cartridges of his fountain pens.
"They're pretentious," she says, pursing her lips at the glistening black stains streaking his slim-fitting khaki trousers. "I basically did you a favor."
"I'm going to put poison in one of those ridiculous cinnamon lattes you're always drinking," he replies, gritting his teeth; she thinks she hears his molars squeak.
"As if I'm not prepared for that," she scoffs.
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(iv)
Lavender Brown gets her the job at the Snake Pit.
"Is the name a euphemism for—" Hermione starts to ask, hesitant.
"Yes," Lavender interrupts quickly.
Hermione grimaces and holds up the scarlet sequined bikini bottom; it's folded loosely around a copper wire hanger, the metal bent at an awkward, unfortunate angle.
"And no one I know will find me? I'm anonymous?"
Lavender giggles, somewhat hysterically.
"We get a few boys from school sometimes," she hedges, "but usually it's just, like, bachelor parties and sad old men and the occasional foreign drug dealer. No one you'll know."
Hermione frowns.
"What boys from school?"
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(v)
She's onstage, hanging upside down from a pole, legs spread wide, breasts spilling from the truly inadequate cups of her corset top—
Tom Riddle walks in.
The synthesized opening of the next song begins to play, the digitized, disembodied voice straining through the overhead speakers.
His posse is following him, all wealthy, entitled, legacy brats—most are still wearing their lacrosse uniforms, jersey sleeves rolled up to expose shiny platinum Rolexes.
The false, glittery lashes Lavender had glued to Hermione's eyelids suddenly feel heavy, like the bass line before it drops.
She can pinpoint the moment he finally notices her.
He freezes, expression so patently astonished that she feels a thrill of smug satisfaction before she recalls why, exactly, this scene is her worst fear coming to fruition, ready and ripe for the ensuing embarrassment.
But she has a job to do.
She slides down the pole.
She arches her back.
He doesn't look away.
###
(vi)
"I think my favorite part of all of this is that your stage name is the Lioness," he says the following Wednesday, lab goggles draped around his neck.
Her grip tightens on her pencil—yellow, Ticonderoga, number two.
"That wasn't my idea," she replies, tapping the wedged heel of her navy blue espadrilles against the legs of her chair. "The manager, Kingsley—he said that my energy was imposing, whatever that means—"
"Your resting bitch face," he interjects, nodding sagely. "Yes, I can see that. Not very approachable, are you?"
Her sundress swirls around her knees as she crosses her ankles.
"I'm quite popular, actually," she snaps. "I have regulars."
His mouth clicks shut.
"Do you?" he drawls, feigning disinterest; he traces his fingertip around the chipped rim of a stoppered vacuum filter. "How peculiar. I'll have to see for myself."
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(vii)
"Why haven't you told anyone?" she bursts out, cornering him in the German Film section of the library. The stacks are dusty, but they're usually empty this close to midnight. "It's been weeks, and I keep expecting to see—posters, or, or one of those skywriting planes, maybe—but you've done nothing, and—"
He snorts.
"You're complaining about the fact that I've kept your sordid little secret? Really?"
The elevator clanks loudly, buttons glowing as the doors slide open; she fumbles for a book off the nearest shelf, Nazi Propaganda: 1934-1939 staring back at her in tarnished gold script.
"I—I just—" She huffs, frustrated. "If you're going to blackmail me, I'd prefer you get it over with."
He studies her, dark eyes cloudy with exasperation.
"Remind me which one of us has been solely responsible for the lab reports for the past month?" he asks.
"I have," she replies suspiciously. "But that's because you've had—that thing, with the alumni association. You said you didn't have time."
"And prior to my discovery of your extracurricular activities, would you have allowed me to get away with that particular excuse?"
She blinks.
"You've been blackmailing me all along," she realizes.
"Blackmail is such a pedestrian concept," he muses, leaning into the wall. "We're both far too intelligent to need the terms of such an agreement explicitly stated—or so I thought."
Her gaze sharpens.
"Right," she decides, lifting her chin. "I'm writing your phone number on the dressing room wall tomorrow night."
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(viii)
"I feel like you used to draw a bigger crowd," Lavender remarks, cocking her head to the side; her spangled feathered headdress droops unhappily.
Hermione chews her bottom lip and surveys the audience—three elderly men are sitting on stools at the foot of the stage, a rowdy group of middle-aged women are screeching at the bar menu from a booth, and a lone, shadowy figure in the very back of the club is sprawled in his seat—a violet velvet armchair, gaudy and indiscreet.
She narrows her eyes.
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(ix)
"Private dance?" she simpers, straddling Tom's lap.
He startles, tinted Ray Ban sunglasses slipping off his nose.
"No?" she presses, rocking their hips together—a sinuous, rolling grind, the cheap emerald satin of her underwear growing damp against the stiff, telltale bulge in his trousers.
He coughs, hands settling, big and graceful and strong, around her waist.
"How private is private?" he asks, clearing his throat.
She bends down, nipping at his neck, a surge of branding, burning heat encasing the base of her spine.
"Depends," she whispers, tongue tracing the whorl of his ear. "How did you convince all of my usual customers to leave?"
He swallows, finger dipping into the back of her underwear.
"Paid them," he grunts, the square line of his jaw faintly brushing the plump curve of her pushed-up breasts.
She grabs on to the end of his tie—plain black silk, skinny and perfectly knotted—and wraps it around her wrist, yanking him up, up, lips grazing and mouths open, waiting—
"Wait, is that a—were threatening my regulars in the parking lot with an aluminum bat?" she shrieks.
He winces.
###
(x)
"I brought you coffee," he announces, joining her at her small café table, the surface crowded with notebooks. "It's cinnamon. It's disgusting. You have terrible taste."
She raises a single, manicured brown brow.
"Did you poison it?" she asks, plucking the disposable cup from his grasp. "It's finals week, you know—if my average suffers, I'll replace the oil in your car with paint thinner."
He sniffs.
"Someone has to put your universal antidote through an adequate testing procedure," he says. "I'm being responsible."
The cup is warm against her palms, cardboard sleeve crisp as it crinkles.
"So, what you're saying...is that you're doing me a favor," she replies, biting back a smile.
He smirks.
Her heart flutters.
"Indeed," he murmurs, leaning forward, nuzzling her cheek. Their breath mingles, hot and sweet. "And I expect immediate recompense."
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(epilogue)
The sticky red lipstick she wears at work always ends up smeared across his chin when they kiss; it irritates him, and he knows that she could wipe it off before coming home, but she never does.
So—one night, while she's gone, he dips her cosmetic brushes in a solution of bleach and formaldehyde and leaves a travel pack of pomegranate-scented make-up removing wipes on the bathroom counter.
The next morning, his tube of organic exfoliating face wash has been replaced with candy pink rock salt and glue.
I love you, he scrawls on a neon green Post-it.
He slaps it across the cover of her anatomy textbook; he's carefully clipped out the entirety of the chapter they they'd been instructed to read over the weekend and has hidden the pages in their freezer, under the Lean Cuisines.
They still aren't friends.
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