It took her a while to realize what should have been obvious — he was checking her out in the boring, unsubtle, chauvinistic way that men do to women, to size them up and, possibly, stimulate later fantasy. His eyes kept darting to her, then back to his drink, then a head turn to Jenna, then to some area of empty space, then back to Lara’s unspeaking body that was both new and the same. Lara started to meet his gaze head-on. He lost his tentativeness when it became apparent that Lara didn’t mean him any harm, her curiosity hid underneath the steadiness of her gaze.

He smiled slightly. Lara didn’t return the smile. He looked away again.

Male attention wasn’t new to her — the mostly mocking catcalls and leers had begun immediately after she transitioned. This was a scrambled up form of it, though, hard to parse even on the subtextual frequencies that came easier to her now. What did he want? Was this normal? Men valued eye contact in each other, didn’t they? Eye contact and a firm handshake, Lara’s father always reminded her, back when she was still speaking to him.

Jenna eventually got around to asking Lara a few questions, after refilling their wine. They were predictable. How have classes been? Do people ever say anything? You know about the trans studies course here, right? Right, special topics in women’s studies, Professor Cayden Harrington. Kenny nodded along to her brief answers. When people started showing up, it was a relief.

Jenna had been known since freshman year for her low-key, talky parties attended mostly by other brainy women. She had a social talent that had at some point swept Lara into her orbit, along with a number of other prodigy undergraduates and the odd doctoral candidate.

Lara went to the kitchen and poured the rest of the retsina into her glass. She watched Jenna talking to her collection of early arrivals in the entryway. Kenny was on his phone on the couch. He was such an anomaly in Jenna’s life, which was otherwise entirely structured around the relentless pursuit of knowledge. He was practical, majored in electrical engineering, and while he wasn’t a philistine he clearly didn’t understand the ardor with which born academics could follow an associative trail of references and factoids. At parties like this, he tended to interrupt at just the wrong time.

Tess arrived by the time Jenna had gone out to the fire escape to smoke a cigarette. Kenny was relegated to answering the door and making drinks.

“Hi Lara lady,” Tess said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. Tess was already a little drunk. “’Scuse me, I have to go say hello to le salonnière.”

“You should definitely call her that,” Lara said.