Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
ev
“Thank fuck I caught you.”
“Caught you?” I hissed. “Is that what you call sweeping me off like I’m a rag doll?”
“I thought you liked being treated like you’re a rag doll,” he teased.
I blinked. Since when did Santos tease like that? And since when did he laugh at me when I was clearly struggling?
“What are you doing?”
I wasn’t dramatic enough to add an and what have you done to my friend, but it was a close thing.
“I had an idea while in the car.”
“Okay?”
“I want you to wear a plug.”
“Uh…”
Seriously, what had gotten over him? Since the day at the beach, it felt like he’d allowed himself to be touchier again, and I was not complaining every time that had me crowded against a wall or with way more hickeys than I’d had in a lifetime. But this felt like a step. A big one.
Just as it was when he sank down to his knees, the white plastic bag discarded to the floor. “You have plugs here, right?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Good.” He slid his hands up my bare legs, up the skirt that reached mid-thigh, hoisting it up until he had access to my caged dick.
We were in my room, the door was closed, and I knew my parents would never walk in.
They were in the patio, anyway. My heart still raced as I looked down at him and the stupidly hot, devilish smile he had on. “Wanna hear about my idea?”
“You want me to wear a plug to talk with my parents?”
Santos tsked. “It’s about the why, Ever.”
“Okay.” I gulped. “Why?”
Santos kissed the top of my cage, his tongue teasing the bit of head that popped out of the restraining device. I gasped. I’d noticed he could be daring in bed, once he had grown familiar with the terms and the rough treatment I begged him for, but this was on another level.
“Because you kept talking about how kink gives you a clearer head,” he said. He was too close to my groin to make it easy to process the words, but I didn’t move him away. “You said that submission, and feminization, and all of that makes you confident because it takes away the noise, right?”
“Yeah.”
I placed a hand on his shoulder before I could embarrass myself.
“So,” he continued as if he wasn’t tracking how any of this was affecting me, “I think if you’re focusing on all the shit you’re hiding under these pretty clothes, that will take away a lot of that noise, don’t you?”
I didn’t know what to say. I knew my heart was beating too fast. I knew I was holding my breath, and I knew I should be saying this was wrong.
Santos got back up on his feet while I was figuring it out—the acceptable response versus the one I wanted to give; what they said about me.
He lifted my chin with one hand while I continued to think. While I strained to think. To put more than two thoughts together.
“You can just try it,” he said, his lips too close to the shell of my ear. “And if it feels bad, at any point, you just excuse yourself to the bathroom and take it off. No need for safe words, or permissions, or any of that complicated shit. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
At the back of my head, a voice said that all this act, part of it at least, this thing that he’d been doing since the day at the beach wasn’t so much about me. It was about distracting himself or overcompensating for whatever it was he was feeling.
I’d get back to that voice when my parents weren’t here. When I wasn’t on the verge of collapse, and I didn’t need to cling to him for dear life.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I bobbed my head up and down. “But you…you’ll help me, right?”
That had to be why he had trapped me inside the room, and why he couldn’t seem to get his hands and mouth off me.
On the hypothetical that it wasn’t, I wasn’t sure I’d manage to get anything done when I had to use all my energy to stand upright.
I couldn’t remember ever feeling this overwhelmed. Not even when I’d first stepped foot in Plumas, or when I’d bought my first set of handcuffs that I then had to throw out because they were the poorest quality.
“Always,” he promised.
His voice washed over me, relief following and cooling down all the building thoughts in my head.
It left me able to just watch through hooded eyes as he moved to the chest I pointed at when he asked where I kept the plugs.
As he returned to the spot between my legs and squirted a more than generous amount of lube on the toy.
It wasn’t the largest one I had, but it wasn’t the smallest either, the flared base decorated with a blue jewel that had reminded me of his eyes in a moment of weakness.
The plug felt cold for a second against my heated skin, and I sucked in a breath as he pushed the start of it in.
“You okay?”
I whimpered through a nod of my head. Santos didn’t require anything else of me, so I could go back to watching the adoration in his face as he twisted it in, letting me get used to the intrusion under the excuse of toying with it.
The way he caressed my skin with his free hand, like I was something delicate. Something to look after.
The way I wanted to, more than anything.
“What did I say, babes?”
I blinked.
Santos was back on his feet. I checked him out—the dark jeans and the button-down shirt and the sneakers, I bet he’d been painstakingly cleaning the night before.
Because Santos was on a mission to pretend he had his life together, but just like me, he had an inner battle going on at all times, and it had taken me this long to realize.
“I can take it out at any time. This just helps.”
It did.
I still had half a mind to throw up the little breakfast I could eat earlier as we headed downstairs, and I could hear my parents’ voices filtering through the backdoor to the patio they favored when they were here.
“It’s going to be fine, right?”
I hadn’t put on anything too scandalous. They had seen me in shorts before. I’d even had a crop top on once. This was just a skirt. Sure, a ruffled skirt, but it went to my mid-thigh, and the shirt I’d picked out was a bit baggy, not like the body I’d matched it with the last time I’d put it on.
I was trying. They’d seen me show more skin than this. It should be fine.
The silence that fell as soon as we got to the patio spoke volumes, though.
Of course, unlike Santos, who had gone for more of a casual look, the two of them were dressed to the nines, my father in a suit—tie included, even if he’d loosened it some—and my mother in one of those flared pants and blouse combos she wore for most social engagements.
When we walked in on them lounging on two of the deck chairs they had placed there about a decade ago, they just stared.
A lot.
It was taking everything in me not to fidget, not to vibrate, or start moving.
No. I knew I didn’t have anything to apologize for. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The itch to break the silence somehow was there.
“Hello, Mrs. Haro.” Santos reached out his hand to her. As if she hadn’t helped clean up his scuffed knees when he was learning to ride a bicycle. “Mr. Benavides.”
“Oh, drop the formalities, son.” My dad waved his hand away before my mother could react.
I held my breath when he focused back on me.
He had looked as shocked as my mother, but I supposed it made sense that he recovered first. My whole life, he’d talked about keeping the peace and being the glue in the family.
“Well, it’s a good thing we didn’t go Christmas shopping yet. ”
Given that it wasn’t even August, it would’ve been fucking weird if they’d already had.
I managed to chuckle, though, giving the semblance of normalcy he was trying for. “If you want any ideas, there’s a brand that makes tailor-made dresses for men. I wanted to order one, but the measurement thing was scary.”
I had barely survived it the first time my dad took me for a suit fitting. I could see it in his eyes that he was thinking back to the same memory.
“W-what does this mean?” my mother asked, probably unaware of the silent smile we were sharing.
My family had always been the quiet type that wasn’t good with words or very blatant displays of affection.
Unlike me, they were better at socializing with people outside of the house, but… Yeah. “You never told us…”
“There’s nothing to say.” I squirmed then, the plug something I was quickly more aware of.
Santos moved closer to me. He didn’t pull an arm around me or anything big like that, but if I closed my eyes, I could almost feel his skin against me.
“Nothing’s changed, I’m still…Ev. This feels right. Righter.”
“What about…” She swallowed. Everyone had told me my whole life that I took over my mother.
I’d never fully seen it until now, as she struggled for words.
As she battled between wanting to nod and pretend everything was okay, and she was supportive even though she wasn’t visibly so, and doing things differently.
Breaking the molds she had grown up in. The ones she had tried to raise me in, even though they’d clearly failed somewhere along the way.
“Pronouns? Isn’t it a bit late to transition?
Surgeries and hormones have a higher success rate the younger you start, don’t they? ”
“I think it’s more nuanced than that,” I mumbled.
I didn’t think I was the person to ask, though.
Besides, all the trans people around me had actually started their transition journey in their teens.
I didn’t know if there were any stats that backed up what she was saying, or if it was more propaganda disguised as care.
“But, uh, it’s just he/him. I don’t want to medically transition.
I just wanna wear skirts. And makeup. And… stuff.”
This was better than I’d thought when I’d been tossing and turning in bed while I came up with worst-case scenarios.
It was still not good.
“Okay.” She tucked her shoulder-length hair to the side as she nodded. “Are you hungry? Miguel has set up everything for the raclette in the dining room.”
I shared a look with Santos. He winked at me.
“Starving,” he said, taking over with that dazzling smile that had always earned him more points than it did me when I tried to recreate it. “I’ve been dealing with bureaucracy all morning.”
It was the perfect segue for my parents to commiserate with him.
The perfect excuse to have us moving, and to have Santos carry me toward the dining room with a hand on my lower back that no one saw.
It burned against my skin, and it left me bereft, not knowing if the plug or his hand was the culprit for the rising temperature, but my parents were none the wiser to it, simply talking to Santos.
They’d always felt more comfortable around him.
Of course, my wardrobe update wouldn’t have helped those odds.
What helped was Santos’s hand on my leg when we sat around the table with the raclette grills there.
Eating raclette—having to load up the little dishes to place them in the grill—one-handed had to be awkward to say the least, but he wasn’t moving.
I took charge and started taking care of plating up for him. It was just easier.
He shared another secret smile with me when I poured the melted cheese with veggies underneath over his boiled baby potatoes. I did not go weak at the knees. The squirming was simply…the plug.
Yeah. I was blaming the plug for all and any reactions.
I also had to agree that he’d been right.
Wearing a plug to survive a family meal was unconventional at best. I bet everyone in the group chat would have lots of thoughts about it, and I wouldn’t dare to say most of them were positive.
It helped dull out the edges, though. With the sharp awareness of the toy there, of the way it tugged every time I leaned in one direction or another without thinking, I didn’t have the bandwidth to study every micro expression.
Every time my parents would lock their gazes on me and stare.
Every time they put on their public function smile while they included me in the conversation.
Those things were all in the background. They weren’t good. They hurt. But they were manageable.