4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
Jordie
A month into the semester, and I’m pretty sure I’m Ray’s best friend on campus. Which is fine; I enjoy spending time with him and he’s as devoted to his studies as I am. His presence makes it easier to focus on my studies despite the severe senioritis rampant in my friend group this fall. Most of us are set to graduate in the spring. Even if I wasn’t concerned with being a role model for my little siblings, I can’t afford to let my grades slip with law school admissions riding in the balance. Ray encouraging me to stay focused on the prize is a good thing.
Ray and I both have a gap in our schedules after psych 101. It seems natural for us to study together twice a week during that interlude while most of my buddies have labs and classes of their own. Ray is struggling a bit with adjusting to university even though he says the format of his CEGEP classes was similar. He says it’s just different for all his classes to be in English. He’s used to most of them being in French and the larger lecture halls are another big adjustment.
On the bright side, I’m feeling much more confident in my abilities since I’ve been practicing my French with someone fluent who can correct my fumbling mistakes.
“Qu’est que c’est?” Ray asks as he joins me at our usual table in the student center where we’ve been meeting. He’s pointing at the little take out box I got at Randy’s with the gang earlier. I still need to introduce the boy to the wonder that is Randy’s. We just haven’t really expanded our hangouts beyond an hour of studying between classes, so it hasn’t fit with our time constraints.
I should change that up soon. Ray is fun to spend time with and I think my friends would like him. Celeste and Pixel have already started teasing me over how often I bring him up. Jacob has mentioned a few times, with his campiest faux-flirtatious posturing, that I should make a move or bring Ray around so that he can. It’s a joke, and knowing Jacob, he’s been teasing me about Ray to goad me into acting on what he sees as a crush; helping in his own uniquely Jacob way. It still revs up all my protective instincts toward Ray—yeah, that’s it—I’m feeling protective of Ray’s heart, not at all interested in wooing him.
“Huh? Oh! C’est un beignet. Um, voulez-vous try one?” I open the box and show him the two bacon maple donuts. They’re dripping with glaze. Jacob couldn’t help joking about frosting their delicious holes that had most of our table laughing and rolling our eyes at him. He’s a bratty pain in the ass, but he’s ours. And I thought Ray might like a treat while we study, so I grabbed a few extras to go.
“Nous sommes amis, non? Tu peux me tutoyer.” Ray laughs and switches to English for me. “What flavor is that? Do I smell bacon?”
“Yeah, Kit, one of the chefs at Randy’s, is famous for their interesting desserts. They do an apple cider one that’s to die for too, but bacon maple is my favorite. Want one?” I wave the box toward him enticingly.
“You and your sweet tooth.” Ray smiles even as he shakes his head at me.
“I can’t help being a very sweet person. If you like more regular flavors, there’s a donut shop near Randy’s that has them all the time—Holes. Kara, my little sister love their strawberry glazed, but Kit’s are beter. Go on, try it.” I nudge the box closer, eager for his reaction.
Ray hesitates a moment longer before plucking up the treat. So far he’s liked most of the treats I’ve brought to share with him. Much as he claims not to share my love of sweets, I enjoy watching his face in the unguarded moments where he lets himself indulge.
Ray takes a small bite and his lashes flutter as his eyes roll back and he moans, the sound going right to my dick. I lick my lips, trying not to think of other ways I could make my new friend moan or wonder what he’d sound like moaning my name. Nope. Not going there.
Ray is fresh out of, well, not high school, but new to the country and university. He isn’t even out about who he is. I think I’m still the only person he’s told his name for all the fucks’ sakes. It would be taking advantage to do more than appreciate the view. No matter how many times Jacob has teased me about ‘tapping that fresh meat who I’ve been spending all my free time with.’ He thinks calling freshman that is a funny pun, no matter how many groans it gets him.
“Oh, that’s magnificent,” Ray mumbles, going in for another bite of the donut.
“Right? Kit’s my favorite chef at Randy’s for the desserts. But everything is delicious there, really. Even Neve’s weird fad diet foods usually taste good. Even if she put crickets in her energy bites last week.” I make a face and Ray laughs at me.
“They’re supposed to taste nutty. Did you try one?”
“No. Ew, David. Why would I try cricket protein bars when there was also peanut butter pie on the menu? And nuts are full of protein, so same thing, really.” I wink at him, figuring he’ll get the Schitt’s Creek reference since it’s a Canadian show.
Ray laughs at that, his eyes flicking over me with a marked interest. “Well, I do like putting nuts in my mouth.”
His brash joke startles me into laughter, probably more than the quip deserves. He’s just so sweet most of the time I forget that he’s not at all tentative about being openly bi. It’s just his gender that he’s still exploring. Regardless, he’s going to fit right in with my friends.
“Sorry, too much?” Ray asks, ducking his head, shoulders hunched like he did something wrong. I wipe amused tears from the corners of my eyes. I cover his free hand with mine and squeeze.
“No, you are just the right amount. So. I was thinking you should come out for drinks at Frisky’s with me. To meet my other friends. Or maybe we could go to a club? Some of my buddies have a drag show coming up, so that could be a good way to keep introductions low-key and split the focus away from you.”
“Really?”
“Sure. We can ease you into meeting more queer friends.”
“Oh.” He picks at his donut, not quite looking at me. “I just…” He sighs loudly. “I don’t know how to do any of this. It’s like I want to make friends, but it feels so weird to introduce myself as a boy when I don’t look like one. What if I never look like one? But I also feel weird about making more friends as someone I’m not.”
“Hey, look at me?” I fold my hands over the notes I was getting out and lean in until he meets my gaze.
“Yeah?” Ray swallows hard. There’s so much in his eyes, worry and fear warring with fragile hope, like he wants me to make his worst fears go away.
It’s a heavy thing to have that much trust from someone I’ve only known for a few weeks. He reminds me so much of myself going to my mom scared of what it would mean to come out at school, and even more scared of what it would mean not to.
The right words aren’t going to appear in my head. There might not even be any perfect words to make this easy.
I gesture toward my face. The sharp angles and blunt features feel too masculine on my most femme days and aren’t ever going away short of surgery. The planes of a chest that tempts me daily to soften by going on hormones. On my most femme days, not even my favorite falsies stuffed into my cutest bras fully erase the dysphoria of my body not matching up with my self-image. I’m happy with my presentation ninety percent of the time, but I remember what it was like to worry that I’d never see my true self in the mirror.
It’s still rare for strangers to get my pronouns right, but my baseline appearance is androgynous enough to keep strangers guessing. I get a decent mix of miss and sir when I put in the effort with heavy makeup and clothing and working on my voice training. That vaguely confused ‘I’m not sure’ look in strangers’ eyes that sometimes burns with a sense of alienation and sometimes feels just right, a validation of who I am.
“Passing isn’t the only thing that matters. It’s okay if you take baby steps into transitioning. It’s okay if you never look like society says a boy should. You know why?”
“Um, no?” Ray’s shoulders hunch up around his ears, so I try not to take his ignorance personally and soften my tone.
“Because if that’s who you are in your heart, then however you look on the outside, you’re a boy. And if the people in your life don’t accept that, then you aren’t wrong; you’re just around the wrong people.”
Ray scrunches up his face. “I guess, but I just… don’t want them to see a girl pretending.”
I suppress the urge to roll my eyes and remind myself that he’s just scared. My friends will be cool with him regardless, or they wouldn’t be my friends. Even Jacob is a decent guy under the horndog facade. I get where Ray is coming from. That only makes me more determined to show him it’s possible to keep on living his life while he figures out the nuances of living as the real him. No need to let dysphoria keep him socially isolated. And maybe if he feels more comfortable with his presentation, he’ll feel more comfortable meeting the gang.
“Okay, well, I can’t wave my magic wand and transform you,” I say, giving him an appraising once-over. His look screams dysphoria just as loudly now as it did the day we met. “But what did I tell you?”
“The right clothes and a haircut make a massive difference?”
“That’s right. And even hidden under that beanie, you’re a total cutie. My friends will eat you right up.” I pack up my notes and books. “You have math in an hour?”
Ray flushes at the flirty compliment. The adorable boy is so damn bashful, and it’s too easy to fluster him. He’s closer to my age than my little siblings, but it’s so obvious that he’s used to being the baby of the group. Like he just naturally looks up to me and I want to live up to the trust shining in his eyes. He’s so damn sweet and earnest and I’d enjoy listening to him reciting a nutrition label in that accent of his. I have no business crushing on him when I’m off to law school in less than a year and he’ll still be here. But the boy is a sweetheart and I want to help him. As a friend.
“Yeah?” Ray shifts nervously in the molded plastic seat.
“Can you skip?” I’m already shoving things back into my bag though, because I’ve already got our itinerary for the rest of the afternoon planned in my head. Hair first, then clothes, adult toy shop for a packer last, if he’s up for it.
“Um, I guess? It’s been all recap so far and I sit next to a girl from my orientation group, so I could probably get her notes later.”
“Good. Finish that.” I gesture to his last few bites of donut as I stand and pull mine from the box to eat on the way to my apartment.
Ray obediently gobbles the rest of his snack, licking the sticky glaze from his fingers. I sling my bag onto my back, trying to ignore the suggestive sight and the effect it has on me. Much as I like Ray, I don’t want to make any exceptions to my rules about dating baby queers. Taking him under my wing is one thing. Thinking of licking him clean after glazing him in any entirely different sticky substance breaks all the rules Nell taught me the hard way.
No more horny thoughts. We are going shopping. As friends. Or queer mentor to mentee. It will be a pain to shop with our school stuff, so we should drop the bags off at my place on the way. “Ready?”
“Ready for what?” Ray scrambles to pick up his books from the table. He scurries after me when I gesture for him to follow me out of the bustling student center where we usually study.
“Like I said, you need a confidence boost. We’re going shopping.” I gesture expansively toward the city as we step onto the sidewalk.
Ray gives me a skeptical look, so I break through his indecision about following me off campus with a butchering of his language that I know he won’t let pass. “Vasectomy!” I point toward my apartment.
"I hope you meant vas-y, because I think I lack a few requisite parts for that other thing," Ray corrects, scurrying after me. “And since we’re both going, it would be allons-y anyway.”
He’s an adorable nerd and I'm going to help him see just how cute he can be. I pull out my phone to ask my buddies’ group chat where I can get a binder for him without special ordering or breaking the bank. I’ve got the hair and clothing covered.
Eddie, who does my hair, is a gem and I feel more comfortable with him in a barbershop than anyone at any of the salons I’ve tried. I trust him to make Ray comfortable so he can focus on getting a style he doesn’t compulsively hide under a hat. I’m excited to see him happy and confident.
Today is all about putting a smile on Ray’s face and keeping it there. More importantly, it’s about giving him the confidence to put himself out there, even if it means I don’t get to hoard his sunshine smiles all to myself anymore.