Girl on Geek: A Lesbian Romance

by Mia Archer

Kaitlyn strolled out onto the stage with a huge smile on her face. She looked amazing. She looked dazzling. She looked so delicious. She didn’t look like the kind of girl who would deceive a girl for a one night stand at a convention, but then again when I’d known her online she didn’t seem like the kind of girl who would lie about every little detail about her life and who she was, who would conceal such a huge part of herself from the world, either.

  If she was willing to lie about who she was who’s to say she wouldn’t be willing to lie about other things? It’s like the worst-case scenario centers in my brain were going into a tailspin, spiraling out of control, and now that I had the smallest bit of confirmation I couldn’t resist those thoughts. They were threatening to overwhelm me.

  The girl reached out and placed a hand on my own. She looked me straight in the eyes. “Come on Amber. We're buddies! We have class together! I'm only looking out for you. I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t think you needed to hear it.”

  “Needed to hear what? Don't act like we're best friends. You hate me, I hate you, and I said you’re lying!”

  I don’t know why I kept saying that. Perhaps I wanted to protect myself. Only no matter how many times I said she was lying it didn’t chase away my doubts. If anything it just confirmed them. Magnified them.

  The people sitting at the table were starting to notice something was going on. They were turning to look at us. Turning to look at me in particular as though I was crazy. I glanced up to the stage and Kaitlyn looked down. Drawn no doubt drawn by my shout. I blushed, but I didn’t care. Her eyes moved to Carrie sitting next to me and I saw something replace the confusion on her face.

  Fear.

  That fearful glance when she saw who I was sitting next to was enough to cause the entire fantasy world I’d been building up around me leading up to this weekend to come crashing down. That fear in her eyes told me everything I needed. Kaitlyn was afraid of me sitting next to Carrie. No doubt afraid the crazy bitch was going to tell me exactly what she was telling me right now. I turned back to her.

  I didn’t want to hear anything she had to tell me, but I at the same time I had to hear it.

  “Tell me what you’re talking about,” I said.

  Her eyes darted up to the stage and she flashed a triumphant smile. I had no doubt Kaitlyn was still looking down at us, but I didn’t turn to see. Let her look. Let her see the truth finally coming out. I felt sick, but I had to hear what Carrie had to say.

  “Why do you think I hate this crap so much? I used to love it, and she stole that from me. I was sitting exactly where you were a couple of years ago. She wined and dined me, did the whole fan girl meeting her hero routine, and then at the end of the convention when she got what she wanted she tossed me aside."

  Used her and tossed her aside. It made sense. She was always writing those angry stories about how she got jilted a couple of years back. I just had no idea that on the very day I would find myself starting to fall for Kaitlyn Morgan that meeting would happen because I was angry over a story that was inspired by her using and dropping another girl. Talk about your all time huge ironies!

  A new girl at every convention. Somehow that made more sense than a rich famous person falling for me of all people. Her falling in love with me was something I had a hard time imagining. Her taking advantage of me was something that seemed closer to reality, as much as I hated it. Carrie rambled right on over my stunned thoughts.

  "Oh I wanted more, but it "just wasn't the right time for her." She couldn't risk her fans finding out her big secret that everyone at these fucking conventions already knows anyways. Talk about bullshit. That's why I keep coming to these conventions. To warn poor unsuspecting girls like you. I just never thought the poor unsuspecting girl would be someone I actually knew.”

  It was bullshit. It was also so close to the terrified musings that had been running through the back of my mind today that I took what she was saying at face value. Why wouldn't I? My breathing was coming in labored gasps. Everything she was saying sounded so close to the truth I’d been afraid to admit to myself. It was finally happening. That other shoe I’d been afraid of this entire time was finally stomping down on me, on the silly dreams I’d constructed, and it was stomping down with one hell of a vengeance!

  I put my head in my hands. I couldn’t believe I’d been so naïve. It was obvious Kaitlyn had lied to me about a hell of a lot more than who she was leading up to our meeting earlier today. It was obvious she'd pulled this routine before and I was just the latest unlucky author groupie being thrown into the meat grinder to be used for her pleasure and tossed aside when the convention weekend was over and she was ready to go back to her safe closet.

  I was a silly girl. If she'd already bent the truth or outright lied about so much then why in the world would I assume she was telling the truth when she acted like she actually had feelings for me? I was nothing more than another convention conquest, and I felt used.

  I needed to get the hell out of here. I didn’t even want to go back up to the suite, it was tainted with her money that she'd used to dazzle me this weekend after all, but it was the only option. Even if it did have the taint of what we’d done there twice today. Maybe Megan would let me stay in her room on the other end of the suite while I figured out a way to get home. She could at least enjoy the suite. We had it for the rest of the weekend after all.

  I didn’t want to be anywhere near it though. I didn’t want to be anywhere near any location where Kaitlyn would be able to find me easily. Where I’d be at her beck and call. The last thing I wanted was to be in a hotel suite purchased for me so I could be nothing more than a glorified booty call for the duration of the convention weekend!

  “I know it’s a lot for you to deal with,” Carrie said, reaching out like she was going to try and take my hand. Her voice dripped with false sympathy. I needed to lash out at something, and she was convenient. I pulled my hand away from her before she could make contact.

  “You can shut the fuck up!” I screamed.

  It was happening again. Just like the meltdown in class. Carrie seemed to inspire that sort of anger in me at the most inappropriate of times. I was surprised at how loud I was. Loud enough that the publishing people and convention staff sitting at the table weren’t the only ones who turned and stared this time. No, more people were starting to realize there was a cat fight brewing. Kaitlyn even stopped her speech for a moment and looked down. It was a nervous and fearful glance that just served to further cement in my mind that this girl talking to me was telling me the truth and that truth telling was the last thing Kaitlyn wanted to happen.

  “What’s your problem?”

  “You’ve been glaring at me all day long! You hated me before this convention and you hate me now! Don’t act like you’re not happy that you’re chasing me off! Maybe she did use you and drop you a couple of years ago, but you’re not telling me this out of any sympathy or the goodness of your heart. You’re telling me this because you can’t stand the idea of another girl with her! You can't stand the idea that maybe someone will succeed where you failed!”

  “Well sorry I tried to help you, you crazy bitch!”

  I had a feeling that if she’d gotten a little too close to home telling me the truth about Kaitlyn then I’d also hit a little close to home speaking the truth to her about her motivations for telling me all this. No, Carrie wasn’t the kind of girl who would tell me something like that out of some altruistic desire to help. She was looking to get at the new girl, and if getting at the new girl also meant she could get in a dig at me that was probably icing on the cake considering how little we cared for each other on a good day. Only I wasn’t going to be the new girl for much longer. This girl could have the bitch if that's the way Kaitlyn was going to treat me.

  The devastatingly gorgeous and charming bitch. Even through my anger it was difficult for me to stay angry when I had all the warm fuzzies saved up from the past couple of weeks to counterbalance it.

>   I needed to get out of here. I needed to hold onto that anger. I needed to keep it balled up deep inside me as a reminder of how I'd been played for a sucker, there had to be enough truth to what Carrie was telling me even if she was embellishing here and there that I was being played for a sucker, so that I wouldn't find myself trying to do something stupid like forgive Kaitlyn just because I didn't want the truth to be the truth.

  I stood, nearly sending my chair flying as I did, and flew towards the back of the room. I needed to get the hell out of here, and I needed to get the hell out of here now. I felt tears welling up. Damn it. The last thing I wanted was to start sobbing in the middle of a massive banquet hall like this. The last thing I needed was to make even more of a spectacle of myself than I already had. I’m sure this was already going to become a piece of convention lore. The day two of Kaitlyn Morgan’s women who were totally just her friends and nothing more despite the rumors people might've heard got into a catfight and one of them ran out of the room sobbing.

  The thing that hurt the most wasn’t hearing the truth from that crazy bitch. It wasn’t that everything had finally come crashing down around me after spending the day pretending I was in the middle of some fairytale. Pretending something like that could happen to a girl like me.

  No, the thing that hurt the most was that Kaitlyn didn’t stop her speech. She kept nattering on about how she created the Elassa series and making excuses for why the latest book was taking so long. What she wasn’t doing was running across the convention hall to try and stop me in some grand romantic gesture like in the movies. She wasn’t doing anything to try and hold onto me even though she could obviously see me leaving.

  I was being a silly girl though. I don’t know why I was expecting that. It was so ridiculous. Rushing down to tell me everything I just heard was wrong? That it was all a misunderstanding? That she wanted to be with me? That was the kind of thing that only happened in cheesy romance books, and I was strictly a fantasy and science-fiction kind of girl.

  I paused at the hall doors and turned around to look at Kaitlyn one final time. Most of the convention center had no idea what was going on. Most of that crowd had no idea that my world was being destroyed. Megan wasn’t even around to keep me company. No, I was all alone, tears welling up in my eyes, as she continued talking about how wonderful she was and how wonderful her stupid Elassa series was and why the next book would totally be worth the wait.

  And I realized something that made me hate her even more. I was never going to be able to read those books again. The bitch!

  I turned and walked out of the convention hall. There was no happy ending waiting for me. For a moment I’d almost hoped like a romance girl, but it was time to face reality.

  Kaitlyn Morgan was nothing more than an elaborate player with a lot of money, and I wasn’t Cinderella at the ball. I was a naïve girl who’d been played. Apparently by one of the best.

  19: Escape

  I was on my computer trying to find the next flight out of this place when I heard the elevator door ding and open. I turned and looked with hope, and I immediately chided myself for being hopeful at all. Even if that was somehow her I should be angry at her for getting a key to my room and not glad that she’d come to see me.

  Only it turned out it was just Megan. I let out a sigh of relief and then went back to searching for a flight.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Megan asked.

  “Nothing,” I said with perhaps more heat in my voice than I’d intended.

  Only there was no getting around it. I was a mess. I’d been sitting up here crying for the past half hour while I looked for cheap flights out of here, only there was no such thing as a cheap flight out of here this weekend. Not with the convention in town. No, there was no way I was getting out of here without spending more money than I had, which admittedly wasn't much to begin with.

  I felt two hands on my shoulders and Megan started massaging. “Come on Amber,” she said quietly. “Tell me what happened.”

  I couldn’t help it. I broke down again. All of the commotion, all of the conflict I’d been feeling since I we first met up with Kaitlyn earlier in the day came crashing out. I told her everything. All of my doubts, all of my insecurities about her with other women. How men were throwing themselves at her throughout the day and it was just going to keep up because it didn't seem like she was going to tell the world about me.

  Megan started to make comforting noises but I held up a hand to stop her. I went on to tell her about the girl who’d been staring daggers at me. I told her about how she apparently chose a new girl for every convention to wine and dine, made her feel like a real princess, and then dropped her when the con was over. When I was done I looked up at her, tears in my eyes, and she definitely didn’t have the look of sympathy I was expecting.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Amber,” she said slowly. “That girl was staring at you like she hated you all day. She knew you were with Kaitlyn. Did it ever occur to you that she might be trying to sabotage things between the two of you?”

  I blinked. Actually that thought hadn’t occurred to me. I’d been so busy wallowing in self-pity and thinking about how the worst-case-scenario part of my brain had been exactly right all along that I’d never stopped to think of alternatives. Only that alternative seemed pretty far-fetched. A lot more far-fetched than the idea that a fabulously wealthy and world-famous author would fly me of all people out here because she was falling for me. No, the one night stand theory made a hell of a lot more sense.

  “Do you really believe that Megan?” I asked.

  Megan shrugged. “Women can be bitches sometimes. Especially if they think you’re going after their man, woman, whatever the hell it is. You know what I mean. They can be nasty if they think you’re going after someone they think should be theirs. It's way more catty and way less straightforward than dealing with dudes who tend to be pretty single minded when it comes to conflict resolution.”

  “So you think this girl looking to tank my relationship with Kaitlyn before it starts makes more sense than the rich author playing some naive girl she just met playing a videogame and flying her out for a fake whirlwind romance and some very real and very great sex?”

  A grin split Megan’s face. “So you got laid?”

  I let out a disgusted noise that communicated this clearly wasn’t the time to talk about that.

  Megan shrugged. “I didn’t say which I thought was more likely. I was just saying it was a possibility.”

  I smiled and reached out to pat her hand. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better Megan. But I think the only thing that’s going to get me out of this funk is getting the hell out of this city and getting as far away from the great Kaitlyn Morgan as is humanly possible.”

  “Suit yourself. You need help with the plane ticket?”

  I must’ve had a look on my face because she squeezed harder on my shoulders. “Don’t be too proud. I’ve got some extra money sitting around and I can use my emergency credit card. Dad won’t even care about the charge. If you really need to get the hell out of here then consider it my treat.”

  “Let me look for a little longer, but I’ll consider it,” I said. Not that I had much choice. There was no way I could afford to get out of here on my own, but stubborn pride was going to have me sitting here at my laptop hitting refresh for awhile longer as though I could will the airlines to charge less than a couple hundred dollars for a ticket out of this place by sheer force of will.

  “Or you could stay and enjoy the rest of the weekend,” Megan said. “I mean you are at the biggest Elassa convention in the country and you’ve got this awesome suite.”

  I scowled. “No. No way. I’m not going to stay at this convention. I’m not going to stay in a hotel suite she paid for because she was expecting a booty call.”

  “I’m not going to stop you,” Megan said. “Just making a suggestion.”

  I clicked around a little while longer while M
egan sat off to the side on her considerably beefier laptop that could actually run Tales of Elassa in full unlike my dinky laptop I'd had since undergrad which could barely load some of the starter zones, but that was enough for me to get some role-playing in. Finally I found a flight for several hundred dollars. It was a little pricey, but at this point I’d be willing to pay whatever to get the hell out of here. Well, I’d be willing to have Megan pay whatever and then I’d pay her back over time no matter what she said about her dad not caring about the charge.

  “You sure about helping me get out of here?” I asked.

  Megan was still engrossed in her computer, but for a change she actually seemed to be typing. That was weird. Usually when she was in the middle of the game she used voice chat for raids and stuff. She was always going on about how typing took too long.

  "Megan?"

  She looked up and shook her head as though she'd been distracted by something in the game. Normally I would've asked her what was going on, but right now I was too busy wallowing in my own self-pity to care. "What? Oh, yeah. Absolutely sure.”

  “Then could you go ahead and order this?”

  So Megan took a seat and put in her credit card information. A moment later she looked up from my laptop and grinned.

  "You're on a flight out of here tomorrow at noon!"

  I frowned. "Do you have a pass or something? A confirmation email? I'm not hearing buzzing on my phone.

  Megan waved a dismissive hand. "You pick up the boarding passes at the airport. Duh. All you need is your ID and you're good to go."

  I suppose that seemed reasonable enough, though the lack of a confirmation email buzzing on my phone was odd. Still, I was getting out of here. I was escaping. Sure I’d have to get up a little early to make sure I got a cab, but I shouldn’t have too much trouble getting out to the airport in time. The heavy traffic days for cabs were today and Sunday when everybody was coming and going. I had a feeling it was going to be business as usual with little to no convention traffic tomorrow even if it was a Saturday. All I had to do was grab a cab tomorrow and I’d be out of here. I’d be away from Kaitlyn Morgan and her bullshit for good.