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“True.” Amy remembered being really impressed after finishing her first Jillian Ashley novel. The characters had seemed three-dimensional, with the concerns and struggles of real women everywhere. She started thinking now that some lesfic authors (who she knew were actually female) did a much worse job portraying women in their books, making them seem like sex-crazed, money-hungry prowlers who let their clitorises do all the thinking for them.

“But those sex scenes Jillian—I mean, your friend—wrote…” Amy murmured.

Next to her, Sally nodded.

“I know.”

“Chapter twenty-five.”

“Chapter twenty-five,” Sally agreed.

“Anyway,” Amy began, “never meet your heroes.” She slid herself back down so she was once more prone on the bed, Sally doing the same. They lay there, facing each other.

Sally asked her what she meant by that.

“Just something I read somewhere,” Amy said with a rueful smile. “Basically, never meet your heroes because if you do, they’ll inevitably disappoint you. I don’t know who said it but it applies to our situation. I wanted to meet my hero Jillian Ashley and practically begged her to be on my podcast. If I had left well enough alone, I would still think she was that mysterious, dark-haired woman who is only seen from behind in her author’s photo.”

Sally bit her lip.

“But then we wouldn’t be here together right now.”

Amy considered that.

“True,” she said with a smile, knowing that she wouldn’t have traded tonight for anything in the world. “So maybe the expression ought to be: ‘Never meet your heroes unless they’re supermodels with green eyes and incredibly long fingers that really, really, really, can reach in deep.’”

Sally laughed but then bit her lip again.

“Are you…are you going to tell anyone the real story?” she asked. “I just need to know exactly how much trouble I’m in with Max.”

“Fuck no!” Amy insisted. “First of all, I have an archnemesis named Rhonda and she’ll use this to destroy me! Secondly, it turns out there’s at least one lesbian in Liechtenstein and she subscribes to my podcast and I don’t want to disappoint her. The poor woman has enough problems being the only lesbian in an entire country. Thirdly, what’s the point?”

She went on, explaining to Sally that telling the world that Jillian Ashley was in fact…

“What’s Max’s last name?” she asked Sally.

“Tremont,” Sally provided.

…Max Tremont would be doing a disservice to the lesfic community. Why ruin it for everybody? Right now, Jillian Ashley books were important to a lot of people, for a lot of different reasons.

“I don’t want to be the one who takes that away,” Amy concluded. She paused then. “What I’m more concerned about…”

“Yes?”

Amy swallowed and pierced Sally’s eyes with her own.

“I guess what I’m more concerned about is if this is the biggest surprise you have for me. Like, do you swear everything else about you is true?”

Sally’s eyes went wide and she nodded vigorously.

“Yes! Oh my god, yes!”

“Because what happened tonight,” Amy said, feeling shy all of a sudden, “is unusual for me. I don’t usually have sex on first dates.”

“Neither do I,” Sally assured her.

“This wasn’t a one-night thing, was it?” Amy asked.

“Only if you tell me you voted for Trump.”