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If there was anything that Akuti and her date shared, it was nervousness; although it was her second date with the agency, the woman she had been scheduled to see could count it as her first, and thusly had really no idea what to expect.

She was punctual. And if Beatrix had expected punctual in her own date, she had no cause to be anything but pleased to find Akuti already there: she came in herself a handful of minutes before the agreed-on time. For her own part, she looked a bit forbidding -- trying desperately to soothe her jangled nerves and ending up with a facial expression that was a bit stern, though having the bandage over her eyes helped. She had gone with the safe option; business casual, nice slacks, a silk scarf around her throat, the only concession to the fact that it was an actual date a pretty blouse in muted blue colours. Wisp had assured her that it was pretty, and that it was blue; neither things she could have worked out for herself. She'd known what the cut was. It could have been vomit yellow, if she'd known her daughter was not prone to deception.

There was a moment of hesitation, her familiar safely guiding her from the depths of her purse, before she made her way over to the table with the only single female who was a suitable age -- nearly held out her hand to shake before she realised that that was a stupid thing to do, and simply stood by the table to be acknowledged before sitting. Mentally her subconscious had gone: REMEMBER TO SMILE, NOT SMILING IS BAD. She attempted one; it was a bit small, but it was there, thank God. Somehow it was easier that it was another woman.

"Hallo," she said, and berated herself mentally for still sounding as though she was at a business conference or something. "I'm Beatrix."

Voices mattered to Beatrix, as they would; and Akuti's was light and sweet, pleasant to listen to, a sort of gentle soprano without reaching up into the register of squeaky. The smile went from pursed to less restrained; the other woman was probably as nervous about the entire thing as she was. "Black tea, I think," she said, sightlessly taking her in, "don't worry about it, I'll wait for someone to come around."

She'd had a whole host of things she'd planned out to say once the inane niceties had been over, and she hadn't even really worked out how to start in on the inane niceties, and she had never had any idea how much being blind would impede dating at all -- Thwomp gave her the presence of the other woman, the basic shape, a beating heart. To not be able to see another person's eyes and social cues -- that was the hard part.

Beatrix held herself stiffly; when she was unsure, she gloomily reflected, she always tended to sit as though she had a stick up her a**. It must have been an odd picture for the other woman. "Am I very late?" she said. "Usually I tend to be the early one."

God, she sounded vacant.

Beatrix pulled her chair up a little more to the table, hands in her lap -- for some reason she had no idea what to do with them. "Not as busy as you'd think," she said. "I do appreciate you being direct, though. I was never very good at beating around the bush. -- I'm the mother of two; I'm a teacher, though I also moonlight as a university researcher. As you. Probably gathered from the form."

Smooth. Incredibly smooth. Ugh.

"You're a -- you work with books, I thought that was interesting." Shoot her now. "And you're a mother as well, so -- you probably know that even if the work piles up, you still find yourself... with empty hours of the day, and personally I find little to no adult conversation."

Another halfassed smile. "Is this the part where I also admit I've never used an agency before and that I am feeling..." Awkward. Nervous. Idiotic. "... Vulnerable?" 'Nervous' would have been better. 'Vulnerable' made her sound like an adolescent child. "What about you?"

"I promise you that you will know the moment that I am being bothered," said Beatrix, quite drily. Probably it was a relief she couldn't see Akuti blushing. She looked composed herself otherwise, even if on the inside she was still mentally berating herself for sounding incredibly vapid. It was not half as bad as she had thought, though; really, with another woman her main concern had been the vague belief that a lesbian would somehow sniff out her inexperience with the whole ordeal, and point it out. "Cafes or otherwise. Spare time. Let's see."

She tapped her fingers on the table. "I'm afraid I've kept mostly to myself lately," she said. "Family commitments. I like indoor activities -- reading, catching up with the news. I tend to tutor my daughters. We've had a friend of my eldest girl move in, so three preteen girls around the house -- I make it a rule they have to learn a language, a musical instrument and take up a sport, and being a teacher I'm a bit of a stickler for homework, so I tend to amuse myself tutoring them. You know," Beatrix added candidly, "I probably annoy them. I don't want to be a boring shut-in. I used to get out of the house a lot more before I became a mother."

She was interrupted by the waiter approaching; she made a brisk inquiry after another pot of tea, and turned back to Akuti again.

"Your profile made you sound the family type," she said, and knew that she had to restrain herself again; she had stopped stammering and knew she would go over into what Jack sometimes referred to as steamroller mode. "Are you?"

"Well, I like the post-modernist classics," said Beatrix, blithely unaware of the fact that saying well I like post-modernist classics was pretty much the most pretentious thing she could have said. "Cather in particular. I do enjoy reading classical Greek drama, though -- I was never fond of Oedipus Rex and Colonus, though, Euripides isn't my style."

Pause. "And Harlequins," she said baldly.

So her tastes were eclectic. It didn't seem as though Akuti would mind. "You can see I chose you from the list specifically so I could lay waste to your bookshop."

The blonde woman took another sip of tea. "What about you?" she said. "I can't imagine a purveyor of books not being a reader herself."

"Please stop second-guessing yourself," Beatrix said, not unkindly. "Believe me, I wouldn't mind if you got carried away speaking of myths and legends; they are my bread and butter, so to speak. Don't you find it interesting how just about every creation story has a deluge myth? The Great Flood -- Genesis, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Matsya, the flood of Deucalion in Greek mythology -- "

Excellent, said her mind. Now you're lecturing her. Chalk that one up for incredible date etiquette.

"Egyptian used to be my career choice," she said, and probably at some memory Beatrix smiled a little. "All in the past now; I'm retired from hands-on archaeology. No more tomb spelunking."

She sugared her tea -- just one lump -- before she raised the cup to her lips said, "But you never told me about what particularly you read, other than Sappho."