Chapter 4
FOUR
JOSH
Holy shit. If I got any more worked up about this date, I was going to literally fall apart.
It wasn’t hard to imagine what David saw in me.
I was young and attractive—I knew this. And he seemed to like my company.
We’d spent the week chatting over text, keeping conversation light and fun and never dipping into anything too personal the way we’d done when we were in person.
So I hadn’t told him about the reason my parents hated me, but I’d still told him they did.
It was more than I told most people. The hard part would be when it came time to tell him that I was trans.
David didn’t give off bad vibes. There were some people I met who immediately made me feel unsafe with the way they scrutinized my body and my mannerisms. Both were things I worked on to help me pass.
I spent a bit of time almost every day working out.
Mannerisms were harder in some ways and easier in others.
I’d trained myself to walk, talk, and act like the man I’d always been on the inside.
But sometimes I still felt like people looked at me and all they saw was the girl I used to be even if they never knew me before.
I realized that I couldn’t control other people’s reactions, no matter how hard I tried to pass, but it sucked to work up the courage to tell someone and then have them immediately look at me differently.
Too many men had narrowed their gazes, as if squinting would give them a magic mirror into my past.
David didn’t give off any of those vibes, though.
He seemed settled in who he was. In fact, I’d rarely met a man so comfortable in his own skin.
He’d rocked up to the dog park wearing faded, well-worn jeans that fit him like an old friend would.
Yeah, he’d been a bit awkward here and there, but he didn’t let it stop him from asking me out to dinner.
He owned his nerves in a way that made him even more charming.
I didn’t think he’d have a problem with me being trans, and the older I’d gotten, the less I cared about what people thought. But I cared about what David thought.
I hadn’t been exaggerating about Nitro’s separation anxiety, though. I had to take him wherever I went, and today that happened to be Hannah’s for dinner, some wine, and some dating advice.
Hannah was a good friend. We’d met early in both of our transitions and had hit it off.
There was something special about having a friend who just fucking understood without having to have everything explained to them.
Sure, our journeys were vastly different, but the destination was the same.
Happiness. That’s all we wanted, in the end.
Hannah answered the door in a backward ball cap, an oversized hoodie, and booty shorts that were so short she looked like she wasn’t wearing bottoms at all.
“Get in here, you bitch. Tell me all about this hottie you met.”
Hannah basically yanked me through the door and then promptly scooped Nitro out of my arms. She flipped him on his back and cradled him like a baby, and the little slut let her. “If my landlord wouldn’t shit ponies, I’d steal this dog from you.”
“Nitro would probably let you,” I mused, watching the way Nitro relaxed in her arms. Honestly, dog… same. Hannah had always had that effect on me. Where Violet could put me on edge with barely more than a word, one look from Hannah could put me at ease.
“I have a date this weekend, and I’m so fucking nervous.
” I flopped down on the large beanbag that Hannah refused to part with and closed my eyes.
Her apartment always subtly smelled of lemon cleaner with hints of her perfume layered over top.
The bright colors she’d decorated her space with made me feel like I was in some kind of citrus garden.
“What’s got you nervous?” Hannah carefully lowered herself into her egg-shaped chair and tucked her legs up underneath her.
“It’s the first time I’ve gone out with someone in a long-ass time, and it’s the first time in basically forever that he doesn’t already know I’m trans.”
Hannah frowned, not because she didn’t like the idea of me going out, but because she understood the risk of dating a cis person.
Telling someone too soon felt like an overshare but waiting too long could make them feel like you were trying to trick them.
When the reality was that either one of those scenarios came with a huge risk.
“Do you want me to tag along? I can watch you from a safe distance. If he tries anything, I can kick his ass for you. Didn’t you say he was older than you? I’ll break his hip.”
“You’re so unnecessarily violent, Hannah.”
“I believe the proper response is yes, Hannah. I would like a safety net, Hannah. I would appreciate you using all the hours you put into self-defense classes in case things go bad, Hannah.”
Instead of saying literally any of that, I let out a groan. “It would be so much easier if we were attracted to each other.”
“I’ll still marry you up. You know that.”
“And deprive you of a satisfactory marital bed, no thank you.” A bone-deep sigh rippled out of me. “What if he hates me? What if it goes horribly wrong?”
“Does he give off bad vibes?”
“Ugh. No. It’s sort of the opposite. I told him my parents hate me.
He didn’t ask why, and I didn’t tell him, obviously.
It was weird, in a nice way, that he didn’t press me about it.
Usually people ask. Or try to put their version of life over my own experience.
No, Josh, your parents can’t possibly hate you.
That’s against the rules. Parents love their kids. ” I rolled my eyes.
“So if you’re not worried that he’ll take it badly… what are you worried about? That he won’t?”
I cut her a look, and that’s all I had to do for her to understand.
It felt like an even bigger risk for David to actually like me.
If he liked me, and accepted me, and things went really well, it would suck even more when it ended.
Because it would. There was no way a guy his age would want to stick with someone younger, messier, and far less settled than him.
And then there was the whole sex worker thing.
If he accepted that I was trans, it would still be a tall order to expect him to accept that I was a trans man who filmed adult content.
My date was starting to feel less like a date and more like a unicorn hunt.
But a relationship couldn’t be built on anything but honesty.
And look at me, putting the cart before the horse.
I didn’t even know if David would want to finish dinner, let alone the date, let alone build anything with me after I told him everything.
Hannah released Nitro, and he shook out his fur, then wandered around the room, sniffing everything.
Nitro always seemed more lively when he was with his little dog friend, Wally.
It was strange to relate to a dog because I knew that feeling.
Saturday in the dog park, I’d laughed more with David than I had in weeks.
“What are you going to wear?”
“He said casual but nice. Nothing too fancy, though.”
“You have that shirt, that one button-up with the silver thread that makes it stand out. And those slacks with the shiny pinstripes.”
I shook my head. “Too dressy.”
Hannah knew my wardrobe almost as well as I did. Maybe better, because I had forgotten about those pants. I made a mental note to wear them for David one day, hopefully, because they made my ass look fantastic.
“Okay, the red button-up and the white jeans. Roll up the sleeves, though.”
“You women and your weird obsession with forearms.”
She rolled her eyes in a dramatic fashion, flipping her chestnut waves over her shoulder.
“It’s not weird. There’s something super hunky about a man with his sleeves rolled up.
It screams I might look nice, but I’m not afraid to get dirty.
Besides, have you ever paid attention to a man’s forearms?
My preference is for thick ones with a good amount of hair. ”
“So basically the opposite of mine?” I held up one of my arms for scrutiny. My hours in the gym had added muscle to my body in different places, but I was still on the leaner, more slender side, sort of like a swimmer.
“You have nice arms. Toned. Strong looking. You might not be able to pick me up and manhandle me, but I bet you’ve got a good amount of power there.”
“You flatter me. Even though we both know your type is Beast, before Belle turned him into a human.”
“Honestly a crime.” Hannah let out a sigh. “I mean… yay, true love and all that, but I hope for her sake he at least gets to beast out every full moon like some sort of werewolf.”
“Do I really want to risk white jeans on a date?”
Hannah gave me a slow, knowing sort of smile. “Maybe they’ll get ruined, or wet, and he’ll have to help you out of them.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
“If we go that far. He might bail.”
“If he does, he’s not worth it.”
“I know.” But if he did, it made me feel like maybe I wasn’t worth it either.
Sex I could get anywhere. Sex wasn’t a problem.
The only issue I ever really had with my chosen profession was that Violet hated it.
She’d learned to keep her opinions about it to herself because I wasn’t above freezing her out of my life like I’d done to our parents.
But it had been a hard lesson for us both.
It was the one thing that had ever caused a real problem between us.
It wasn’t like Violet was against the adult industry in general; she just didn’t understand how much safer it felt for me to have my needs met when I knew for a fact the people I was going to be with knew about me and wanted me. It was far less fucking terrifying than meeting David for dinner.
“I want to be reincarnated as a dog,” I said, spying Nitro curled up against Hannah’s bare legs, sleeping soundly as she stroked her fingers through his fur.
“I’m not sure you do,” Hannah said. “Remember where he came from. He had a bad start, locked in a cage without his basic needs being met.” She eyed me knowingly. Sometimes she was far too fucking smart for my own good. “Sort of like how we started out.”
“But we got to where we needed to be eventually, so maybe it wasn’t all bad.”
“Now you just have to hold on to that optimism and bring it with you on your date. And the offer to chaperone is still on the table. I’ll bring my taser if you want.”
“I think I’ll be okay. You can keep your taser to yourself.”
“But you’ll call me if you need me?”
“Promise.”
“Snap a picture of him and his license plate and shit, just in case.”
“Yes, boss. I’m dropping Nitro off at his house to visit his dog while we’re out. We’re hoping it eases his separation anxiety.”
“Does he still bark whenever he’s alone?”
“Constantly. I can’t leave him at my place by himself because he drives the neighbors insane. And I feel bad for him. He’s had a rough time. I don’t want him to be sad or scared anymore.”
“You’re a good doggy daddy.”
“Oh, he has a kid.” My cheeks turned to fire when I admitted the next part. “And he’s apparently my age.”
Hannah just shrugged, unbothered by David’s age. “Figures you’d pull a silver fox. I am zero percent surprised.”
“So I have a type. Doesn’t everyone?” Though I’d scene with a bunch of different types of men for work, it was the older men who’d always gotten and held my attention. There was something about an older man that I couldn’t resist.
And David was exactly my type. Older, kind of funny.
Sweet as hell. He had a brilliant smile, and he looked like he was soft in all my favorite places.
His middle had a bit of cushion, and I found myself fantasizing about his thighs.
And that ass. David wasn’t ripped, but he did look like he could toss me around like a ragdoll. My thighs clenched at the idea.
David might have looked like he’d walked straight out of my fantasies as the perfect example of my type, but that didn’t mean I was his. I guess I’d find out Friday, once and for all.