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Penelope Blossom was not gay.
Penelope Blossom was not gay in much the same way she was not blatantly staring at Gladys Cohen’s breasts from her place behind a row of lockers.
She had heard the rumors around school, of course. Although, she supposed they weren’t exactly rumors when news was coming from Gladys herself. Still, there was an overwhelmingly large part of her that couldn’t quite fathom why on earth someone would voluntarily pierce that part… or parts… of their body. She couldn’t even think about it without her cheeks flushing a bright pink.
“They’re still sore. Guy said it could take up to a year to heal. Still hurts like a bitch sometimes when my shirt rubs against them, but I kind of like it,” Gladys is regaling to a small group of friends. Penelope doesn’t know their names, doesn’t make a habit of fraternizing with South Siders, though she’s maybe made an acception before… That’s besides the point.
The point is, Gladys Cohen is just standing there in the middle of the girls’ locker room with her very pierced nipples out on full display, and no one else seems to be experiencing anywhere near the same levels of shock and disgust (She’s not turned on. She’s not!) Penelope is, and she’s starting to wonder when the rest of the world went mad.
“Hey, Blossom! Enjoying the show?”
Penelope is suddenly very aware of the fact that she wasn’t being as subtle as she thought. She can feel her cheeks warming up, hears the giggles of Gladys’ friends, and somehow she, in all her fully clothed glory, is the one left feeling exposed.
She reacts fast, making sure to harden her face and steel her pose: chin up, shoulders back. “You mean the horror show?” She makes it a point to focus on Gladys’ eyes. Don’t look down. Don’t look down. “This is a high school, not some sleazy strip club you were no doubt conceived in. Have some tact.”
Gladys has the audacity to not even look mad and Penelope… doesn’t know what to do with that. She’s used to barbed tongues. She’s used to catfights. What she’s not used to is the leering the brunette is absolutely doing right now; her head cocked to the side and one side of her mouth curled up into a smirk. It’s completely ridiculous, but Penelope doesn’t miss the shiver that runs down her spine as she takes in the sight.
“Ah, come on, Pippi. There’s no need to be mean,” Gladys taunts, saunters her way over to the mousey redhead in nothing but a pair of faded ripped jeans that fall just right on her hips.
Penelope thinks about running away. The bell should be ringing any second. She’s sure Coach won’t mind. Even if she did, Penelope thinks she’d rather take a detention than sit through another second of this.
She’s dreamt of moments like this before, usually involving Sierra Samuels. Maybe one or two or five with Hermione Gomez. Alice Smith may have popped up on occasion… Never Gladys, though.
Truth was, Gladys scared the shit out of Penelope, in more ways than one. Sure, she was brash and loud, confident in herself in ways that Penelope didn’t think she could ever be. There were warning bells sounding off in her head telling not to get too close, afraid that, like a shark with blood in the water, Gladys would be able to sniff out who Penelope really was, and the house of cards would come tumbling down.
Penelope would try to reason with herself that there was nothing to actually be afraid of, because she wasn’t gay. But… it was better to be safe than sorry… Just in case Gladys got the wrong idea and ran with it.
So she definitely wasn’t paying attention to the curves of the other girl’s hips. Or the plumpness of her lips. Definitely didn’t focus on the way she licked them every now and then, and Penelope’s eyes absolutely were not being drawn to swell of Gladys’ breasts. She hardly would have even noticed the small metal bars piercing through each nipple had they not already been the talk of the school.
The fact that her heart currently felt like it was about to beat right out of her chest certainly had nothing to do with any of these things.
“Oooh,” Gladys drawled, pulling Penelope from her thoughts. “I get it now.” She looked down at her chest then back to Penelope, and it was then Penelope realized she’d been caught.
She tried her snap her features into something resembling disgust quickly, but she feared it was too late. She closed her mouth, because of course her mouth had been open, and felt her cheeks heat up for the second time in the last 15 minutes.
“It’s okay, Pippi.” Gladys reached out to twirl the end of one of Penelope’s braided pigtails around her fingers. “You can touch them. I won’t bite.”
“I’m not some lesbian like you!” Penelope spits, slapping the other girl’s hand away, and okay, maybe she didn’t mean to be as loud as she was. One could almost accuse her of overcompensating. But she wasn’t gay. Just panicked, so.
Gladys was just about the only out gay kid at Riverdale High, and though Penelope had personally never seen her partake in relations with another girl, it was also common knowledge that Gladys didn’t exactly keep her attraction to the same sex a secret. There was a piece of Penelope somewhere buried deep, deep down that admired that openness, envied it, even. She didn’t like to think too much about it, and she certainly wasn’t about to voice it.
Gladys wasn’t one to back down from a fight. She zeroed in on the disdain in Penelope’s tone and it only lit a fire. She was used to the smalltown judgements passed on her. Fortunately for Penelope Gladys had long since learned to take it in stride, not turn everything into a battle. Didn’t mean she couldn’t have her fun, and right now she was in a particularly playful mood.
She quirked an eyebrow, and in one swift motion she had Penelope’s wrists in her grasp, bringing the uptight girl’s hands to rest on her breasts. She let out a hiss, the friction on her sore nipples sending a jolt of pain through her, but she saved face enough to make a show of yelling “Penelope Blossom, did you just grab my tits?!”
Without hesitation, Penelope shoved Gladys back, yelling “Get your hands off of me, you sapphic deviant!” She was only faintly aware of the snickering coming from the other girls in the locker room. Time seemed to freeze around her. She was humiliated, but more than that, she realized that under different circumstances she might have actually welcomed the interaction, and that scared the hell out of her. Her hands were squeezed into fists by her sides, and she tried to ignore the burning sensation in them that left her wanting to reach out.
She needed to leave, and fast, bell be damned. Penelope grabbed her school bag and bolted for the door, completely ignoring Gladys calling for her from behind.
The bell rang not a second later, students already filling up the halls in a rush to get to their next class.
Gladys was always one for pushing boundaries. She liked testing her limits with people and seeing how far they’d go, but for maybe the first time in all her 17 years, as she stands alone in the locker room watching the door Penelope stormed out of, she’s left with the sinking feeling that she’s finally crossed a line she shouldn’t have.
--
Gladys finds the furthest table outside for lunch and keeps to herself. It’s been three periods since gym and she hasn’t seen Penelope since. They don’t share any classes, so it’s not all that surprising Gladys has been having trouble tracking her down, but she’s also suspects the other girl is avoiding her like the plague, which… is fair. An apology is necessary, she knows this, but it’s a little hard to apologize when the other person can’t stand the sight of your face. Maybe she could slip a note into Penelope’s locker. That wouldn’t be creepy…
“Heard you groped Penelope Blossom today,” FP Jones says, grabbing a couple of fries off Gladys’ tray and shoving them unceremoniously into his mouth, pulling the brunette from her thoughts as he sits down beside her. Fred Andrews, of course never too far behind, takes the seat across from him.
“You don’t have to say it so loud, F,” Fred chastises his best friend, but with a hint of a smile on his face, the same time as Gladys protests “I didn’t grope her!”
“That’s not what Alice said.” FP’s enjoying this too much. Gladys can tell by the look on his face. He loves the drama, loves to shit stir. She swears he’s worse than Alice and Hermione combined.
“What the hell does Alice know? She wasn’t even there.”
FP shrugs his shoulders and goes to grab more fries, but Gladys slaps his hand away. Hard. FP makes an exaggerated OW face and pulls his hand back, waving it around trying to stop the stinging.
“So then what happened?” Fred asks, genuinely curious.
Gladys sighs and pushes her tray away. She hadn’t really had the stomach for lunch to begin with. She runs a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face, but keeps her eyes down. “I may have… ya know…” Her hand gestures vaguely in front of her. Fred and FP exchange a look before simultaneously leaning in closer. It’s one of those moments where Gladys genuinely believes they share one brain. “I made her grope me, okay?” She finally blurts, and the boys just look confused.
“Wait,” FP shakes his head like he’s trying to process those words. “How do you make someone grope you?”
Gladys rolls her eyes. “Like this, doofus.” She then takes hold of FP’s hands in a much similar fashion as she did Penelope’s and places them on her breasts. Fred spits out the milk he’d been drinking while Gladys curses at having her sore breasts fondled yet again. She doesn’t know why she keeps doing this. She’s usually smarter than this.
FP’s zeroed in on her chest, clearly getting lost in his own world. Fred sounds just as dazed when he says “So that’s what girls do in the locker room…”
Gladys snaps her fingers in both of their faces to get them to focus. “Hey! No! We’re not doing that.” Fred seems to snap out of it, but FP is still gawking, so she shoves him off.
“We’re not doing what?” FP laughs. “You’re the one making the prudest girl in Riverdale grab your tits in the middle of school. Sounds like the set up to a bad porn.”
“Oh, because you watch sooo much lesbian porn.” She sends FP a pointed look, and that shuts him up, his face growing red as Fred tries not to laugh.
“So, wait,” Fred speaks up. “Why’d you do it in the first place?”
Gladys shrugs, deflating a little. “I don’t know. I caught her staring at me, and you know how I get.” The boys exchange a look that says yeah, we do. “Just seemed fun to mess with her at the time. And you know Penelope. She isn’t exactly known for being a shrinking violet, so… I wanted to test her. But that look on her face, man.” Gladys lets out a breath and combs her fingers through her hair. “I think I really fucked up this time.”
“You said Penelope was staring at you,” FP starts. “Staring as in she hates you and was sending daggers, or staring as in…” FP waggles his eyebrows.
“I don’t know, FP.” Gladys sounds annoyed. She is. She’s not about to let him turn this into some gross male sexual fantasy. “Maybe both? What does it matter?”
“You don’t think she’s…?” Fred lets his sentence trail off. Everyone gets the picture.
“Think she’s what? Gay?” Gladys looks between her two friends. They both nod in unison. “I don’t know? What does that have to do with anything?”
Truth be told, Gladys had her own suspicions about Penelope for a while, but she wasn’t about to bring that up with Fred and FP. She could speculate all she wanted, but at the end of the day it was Penelope’s business. If she didn’t want anyone knowing then that was her prerogative, though Gladys suspects Penelope isn’t even fully aware of her own feelings, if she’s having them at all.
“Well think about it, G,” FP starts. “If she is,” he stops to look around and make sure no one else is close enough by or paying attention to their little group, and drops his voice to just above a whisper, “gay, what’s the likelihood of her having ever actually touched a pair of tits in this town?” Gladys punches his arm for the vulgarity. Just seemed appropriate. “Ow-uh!” FP exaggerates, rubbing his arm. “I’m just saying! You probably scared the poor girl off!
It’s annoying that FP’s right. Of course Gladys had considered that possibility, but hearing someone else say it out loud made it real. She looked from FP to Fred before resigning to the truth, rolling her neck and groaning as she pushed her tray aside so she could plop her head down on the table. A muffled “fuck me” could be heard.
Fred reached over to give her a few sympathetic pats on the head while FP looked on in amusement.
The bell rings, signifying the end of lunch, and both boys make to get up from the table while Gladys remained with her face firmly planted on top of the wood.
“So… you coming to class?” FP questioned. The three of them have shop this period. “Or should we tell Kroskut you were having lady problems and went home?”
Gladys pops her head up and fixes FP with a glare. “We both know you’re too afraid of me and what I’m capable of to do that.” The corner of her mouth turns up, like she’s challenging him.
FP gulps, then scoffs and rolls his eyes in a failed attempt of covering his nerves. “Yeah, sure, okay.”
A grin breaks out on Gladys’ face. She can’t help it. There’s something endearing about a boy acting like he’s not terrified of her. She grabs her belongings and gets up, slinging her arm around FP’s waist when she approaches him. “You’re something else, Jones.” She extends her other arm out for Fred.
“So I’ve been told.” FP looks over Gladys’ head at Fred and sends him a wink. Fred blushes.
They’re standing there making goopy eyes at each other until Gladys pinches their sides and brings them back to Earth, but she can’t hide the smile on her face from watching the two lovebirds. They’re cute even if they are annoying. “How about you two save the lovefest for later and walk me to class, yeah?”
So they do.
--
She’s done a pretty good job at avoiding Gladys all day. It wasn’t all that hard. They had no classes together, and if Penelope spotted her in the hallway she’d just find some way to keep herself hidden. Just blend in with the masses. Or bolt into the nearest classroom. Either one did the trick.
All she had to do now was make it to her car and she’d be home free… until gym tomorrow. Fuck. So maybe she didn’t think this all the way through. But still, she had all night to figure out how she’d deal with Gladys in the morning. She’d figure out something.
Unless she didn’t have to… because as Penelope stepped into the student parking lot of Riverdale High she could see an all too unwanted figure leaning against her car door like they were friends about to carpool home to share cookies over homework. The audacity!
Penelope stopped in her tracks, not so much out of fear now as it was shere anger. If Gladys was planning some type of repeat performance from earlier she had another thing coming. Penelope wasn’t about to be taken off guard this time. She stands up straighter, shoulders back, suddenly ready for war as she marches over to her car. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“This a ‘63 Comet?” Gladys asks, clearly going for casual as she ran her hand over the hood of the car.
“I’m not talking cars with you.”
Gladys pushes herself off the cherry colored hot rod, hands up in a show of surrender. “Sorry. Just didn’t peg you as muscle car girl.”
“I don’t want you pegging me at all.” Penelope immediately realizes her mistake as the words leave her mouth, but she doesn’t let it show on her face. The amused quirk of Gladys’ eyebrow, however, clearly indicates she didn’t miss the accidental innuendo. But for all her faults, Penelope’s glad she let it slide anyway.
“Look, I just-” Gladys pauses, looks down at her feet as she twists the toe of her boot onto the pavement. She’s not so good with apologies. “I wanted to say sorry. About earlier.” She looks up, makes eye contact. “I went too far.”
Penelope scoffs. Admittedly, she was not expecting an apology, so the thought of this happening was rather nice. She wasn’t exactly a girl people apologized to. But what comes after this? A friendship? Bonding? Hanging out? She couldn’t have those things. Gladys wouldn’t be welcomed company in the eyes of the Blossoms. Best to just keep herself guarded and everyone else at arms’ length. “You’ve got to be kidding me. No.”
“Excuse me?” Gladys’ whole demeanor suddenly shifts. She’s in defense mode.
“No, I’m not accepting your apology. You embarrass me in front of our whole class and what? We’re supposed to be buddy-buddy now?”
Gladys lets out a confused laugh and shifts her eyes to the side. “Uh, no?
Penelope gulps. She can’t help but feel a little rejected.
“No one said we had to be friends, Red. Just wanted to do the right thing and apologize, but I see you’ve still got that stick wedged firmly up your ass so, my mistake.”
Apparently that’s supposed to be the end of it, because Gladys is walking away now. But her words triggered something deep in Penelope. She’s tired of this reputation she has as the ice queen. She’s tired of being cold and unforgiving. She’s tired of not having friends. She squeezes her eyes shut, like she’s afraid of what comes next, but she calls out “Wait!” And when she slowly peaks one eye open, she sees the other girl has stopped.
Gladys slowly turns and fixes Penelope with an expectant stare.
Penelope takes a deep breath. “What if I accepted?”
“What?”
“Your apology. What if I accepted your apology? What does that mean for…” Penelope chooses not to say us. Sounds too… intimate, somehow. She instead waves her hand vaguely between the two of them.
That amused smirk returns to Gladys’ face. “Gee, Red, I don’t know. You made it pretty clear you wanted nothing to do with me. Wouldn’t want to risk getting all my gay germs on you.” Gladys makes a show of leaning forward and mockingly wags her fingers at Penelope.
On impulse Penelope steps back, and she immediately chastises herself for it. “I’m sorry,” she admits. “It was wrong of me to pass judgement. I shouldn’t-” She pauses. There’s a lot she wants to stay, but she can’t. It’s tricky terrain trying to navigate your feelings, worse when you have to deal with them in secret because you’re hellbent on not letting anyone get too close. “It’s none of my business what you do.” Her voice comes out a little shyer than she intended. “Or who you do it with.”
Gladys wasn’t one to particularly give a shit about what others thought of her. She had no desire to seek approval, but still it was nice to hear Penelope change her tune. Probably helped that Gladys had her clothes on this time. “Thanks, Penelope. That actually, uh, means a lot.”
“We’re on first name basis now?” Penelope teases.
Gladys’ eyes look up in a mock thoughtfulness. “Hmm, I don’t know. I kinda like the nicknames. Red, Pippi...”
A giggle escapes Penelope’s lips, much to her own surprise. “Well, it seems only fair that I get one for you, too.”
“I think after this morning you’re allowed to call me whatever you’d like.”
There’s maybe a foot between them now, and it makes it harder for Penelope to miss the way Gladys’ voice has dropped, taking on almost a sultry tone. She questions for a moment if this is some attempt at flirting, but if she thinks about it this is kind of the way Gladys always sounds. Maybe their closeness is amplifying the register to Penelope’s ears. She can play ambiguous, too. Just in case. “Okay. I’ll sleep on it.”
Gladys licks the corner of her mouth and Penelope follows the movement. She feels a sudden warmth spreading somewhere below her stomach that she tries not to think too much about. She sticks her hand out abruptly instead. “So, um… truce?”
“Yeah…” Gladys drawls, looking from Penelope’s hand back to her face as she reaches her own hand out and shakes. “Truce.”
With Gladys this close Penelope can really get a read on her features, and once she gets past the initial haze of Wow, pretty she realizes Gladys has been looking at her like she’s in on some secret. It unsettles Penelope as much as it thrills her. Surely she couldn’t- Because she’s not-
“Well, sorry to say, but I gotta go, Red.” Gladys’ words pull Penelope out of her thoughts. Their hands are still joined. “After school job and all. Can’t be late.”
“Right, right.” Penelope nods, rather dumbly, she thinks. “I guess I’ll see you around?”
Gladys chuckles, but it’s not mean. “We do have gym together, so it’s bound to happen.”
Penelope’s cheeks go red with embarrassment. “Gym. Of course.”
Gladys let’s go then, slowly, her fingers skimming Penelope’s palm, and suddenly Penelope’s missing the weight of another hand in hers.
“We can talk extracurriculars tomorrow,” Gladys says as she’s walking backwards towards where she’s parked her bike. “Figure out how this friendship’s gonna work.”
“Looking forward to it!” Penelope smiles, and Gladys sends her one last smirk along with a nod before she turns and leaves.
Penelope takes a few seconds to watch her retreating figure before getting into her car. She adjusts the rearview mirror and catches a glimpse of herself, instantly picks up on how visibly her mood has shifted from just a few hours ago. There’s this giddiness inside her and she has to bite down on her bottom lip to keep a grin from spreading across her face.
It’s strange. She’s not entirely sure what’s happening, but she doesn’t hate it. All she knows as she starts her car is that she’s really looking forward to tomorrow.