Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
DION
NOW
“So,” I say as I stand facing Benji.
“So,” he repeats, eyes on me.
The light is on but I dimmed it so it’s not too bright. It makes Benji’s features seem darker and more … serious. More handsome. More devastating.
“What do you—” I begin at the same time he blurts, “How do you want—”
We share a smile.
“I’m a bottom,” I tell him. “But not submissive.”
He visibly takes a moment to process this but then responds easily, “Okay. I’m vers. I like … both. But, you know, it has been a while since I’ve been with a guy.”
I narrow my eyes at him and don’t even try to hold back my smile. “Did you forget I’m trans.”
His face falls. “No, I just … I wasn’t talking about … Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve been with anyone.”
“Same,” I admit. And then I take off my shirt, pulling it over my head and dropping it to the floor. “I’ve had top surgery, but not bottom.”
Benji’s eyes roam my body with hunger, with curiosity, with something I’d call awe if I was feeling generous to myself.
When his gaze returns to mine, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he pulls his jumper, and then T-shirt over his head. “This is me,” he says as he throws his T-shirt on top of mine. “I’ve had colostomy surgery. And had my tonsils taken out when I was seven, but that’s probably not relevant.”
I give him another smile before I take in his body the same way he did mine.
I look at all of him: the flat planes of muscle, the pink of his nipples, the bumps of his ribs pressing up against his skin, the cream-coloured bag that sits just above his right hip.
He has a small patch of hair between his pectorals, and another line of it disappearing into his jogging bottoms. I lick my lips.
“Can you … can you do stuff with the bag in place like that?”
“The doctor said yes, and that it’s better obviously with a clean bag, which mine is.” He glances down as if to check. “She also advised me to wear a kind of belt or wrap around it to keep it in place, but I haven’t even looked into buying one. I didn’t think this would be happening.”
“You and me both.”
Benji takes a step closer. There’s now less than a metre between us. “What do you … How do you like to be touched? And what should I say or not say? What words are good for you?”
For a second, I’m bowled over by the realisation that this is the first time someone has asked me this outright, whereas the handful of times I’ve had sex or intimacy since my transition, I’ve had to tell them my preferences, or worse, I’ve had a visceral reaction to hearing the wrong thing and intimacy has ended right then and there.
As I speak, I unbutton my jeans and push them down my legs. “I have a cock and I like to have it sucked. I have a pussy and an arsehole. You can call my pussy a pussy. I like that. I like boys that have pussies. But no other words.”
Benji dutifully holds my eye contact and nods, but when my jeans are finally kicked away, I watch him swallow and finally allow his gaze to wander.
“God, you’re hot,” he says in a raspy voice.
“Your turn,” I say and then add, “tell me what you like, what you don’t like.”
He brings his hands to the waistband of his joggers.
“Like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve been with someone.
But I like … talking. I like to know when something I do feels good, or when you like a certain part of my body.
” He pulls his joggers down and kicks them away just like I did. “I like compliments, I guess.”
“A praise kink. You have a praise kink.” It’s confirmation, not a question.
“Yeah, I guess so.” He blushes which is more affirmative than his tone.
“I can work with that,” I say and pin my gaze to his groin. As if to acknowledge the eye contact, his dick twitches in his underwear.
“Fuck, I can’t believe this is happening,” he says in a rough whisper.
I don’t know what to say to that, and I can’t decipher if it’s too honest, too raw, too much for me when this is only going to be one night of fucking before we spend the rest of our lives ignoring each other in the cereal aisle in Tesco.
Lost for words, I step forward. “Can I touch you?”
He’s nodding before he’s speaking, his top lip between his teeth and a slightly pained expression on his face. “Yes, fuck, yes, please.”
The knot of desire in my core tightens with his begging and pleading. God, this is better than I even imagined it all those years ago.
Because of course I imagined it. Of course I spent far too many nights learning the topography of my body and the chemistry of my desire as a teenager while thinking about Benji Smith.
I told myself back then that he was a means to an end.
A silly little fantasy. Something I would never share with the world.
The problem is, I don’t feel right saying he’s that now.
I don’t know what he is now, but as he stands in front of me, his stomach and chest trembling with short, sharp breaths, and his blue eyes darkening as they watch one of my hands reach out for him, I know it’s more than what it used to be. He is more than what he used to be.
And so am I.
I grab his dick. Part of me wanted to go slow, to stroke and probe and tickle and tease, but when he’s so ready for me already, so big and hard, I just can’t resist. I squeeze the base of his long erection and watch the head swell through the white cotton of his tight boxers.
“Oh, God, Dion, I …” He doesn’t finish that sentence because I bring my other hand up and gently circle his head, my touch featherlight. I can’t stop the smile on my face that grows and grows just because I heard him say my name in such a way. “Fuck. Fuck.”
“You like to make noises don’t you?” I ask him in a deliberately deep voice.
“Yeah, well, no, I don’t really know I’m doing it,” he mumbles as I continue to squeeze and tease.
“Tell me.” I inch even closer so my breath warms his neck as I continue to talk to him. “Do you make noises when you touch yourself? When you make yourself come? Do you swear and moan and groan?”
“Yeah,” he says on a shuddering breath as I start to move my hand up and down his length. “Sometimes, yeah.”
I hum my satisfaction at that and know now I want to make him a whimpering mess.
I want him to make all the noise for me.
And I know I’m going to have to remember every noise he makes, every sigh and hiss and grunt so I can replay it when I touch myself in the future, thinking about this peculiar night I shared with a boy I thought I hated but actually …
Actually, what?
I refuse to answer that question and instead close my eyes as Benji’s cheek comes to rest on the top of my head, nestled by my curls.
“Oh, fuck,” he moans. “That feels so good. Please don’t stop, please, Dion, please …”
Another half-finished sentence swallowed by moans, and it sends an electric shock straight to my pussy, making my muscles clench tight.
“I don’t want to stop,” I say simply as I slide my hand into his underwear and much to my surprise, I also moan when I touch the smooth taut skin of his cock.
“Oh, God. Oh, God.” He throws his head back and I find my eyes staring at the curve of his neck. It’s impossible to resist so I press up on my toes and kiss the warm skin there, surprised by how delicate it feels, and how rapidly his pulse thumps against my tongue.
“Don’t move,” I grit out against his skin as I push his boxers down with my other hand.
I take my mouth off his throat only to look down and spit on the bright red head of his dick.
When that helps me move my grip up and down his length, I return to nibbling, licking, kissing his neck and he returns to mumbled curse words and moans.
Suddenly, out of nowhere he grips my forearm tightly and pulls it away from his body.
“Stop!” he grits out. “I don’t… I don’t want to come yet. Fuck, I was so close.”
“I know, and I’ll take you there again. I’ll take you there and beyond,” I say between kisses. “We’ve got all night before this is over.”
His entire body stills and it’s almost like his temperature drops. “What?”
I pull back. “Tonight,” I say. “The night is yet young.”
“No, not that, about this being … over?”
“Well, yeah,” I say, searching his blue eyes to look for more than the horror staring back at me. “This is just sex.”
He pushes my hand further away from him. “No, it’s not,” he says quietly but firmly. “It’s not just sex for me. I liked you fifteen years ago. I like you now.”
“And I like you.” I try to touch his body again but he keeps me at a distance. With his other hand he yanks his underwear up his body and tucks his penis away.
“No, I like like you. Like, I used to go to sleep thinking about you. Like I know I’ll do the same tonight, or rather, tomorrow, and many nights after that.”
“Oh,” I say, uselessly.
“Don’t you feel the same?”
I scoff lightly. “Whether I feel the same or not, is irrelevant. We’d never work. I hardly know the person you are now and you have no idea who I am. I’m not even the same gender!”
“I do know you.” He squares his shoulders.
“I know that you are creative and contemplative. That you don’t let just anybody get close to you, but when you do you’re loyal and protective of those you care about.
I know that you put your family first, before everything.
I know that you’re incredibly talented at what you do, and that you have a knack for saying the right thing. At least to me.”
Lucky guesses, I tell myself to stop my legs from buckling at such a speech. “Well, I don’t know you,” I say, although I can taste my own hesitation in the words.
Benji’s hand slides down to hold mine. “Then get to know me. Let’s go for coffee, dinner, to the cinema, whatever. Date me.”
“Wouldn’t you rather fuck me?”
“No, actually, I wouldn’t. And trust me, I want to do that more than I can iterate, but what I want more than one night with you — much, much more — is a future with you.”
And just like that, I’m silenced. My head is empty of responses and my thoughts evaporate into thin air.
“Do you want that too?” Benji prompts.
It’s like he’s offering me a bunch of flowers, a bouquet of roses but just as I reach for them, a thorn snags one of my fingers bringing pain and panic and blood.
“I can’t have that with you,” I tell him slowly. “Not after what you said.”
Benji looks utterly forlorn. “But I don’t remember. Please, Dion. Please tell me what I said. I need to know. I want to say sorry, but I need to know what I’m saying sorry for.”
The knot between my legs tightens itself again, gathering more heat and more twists and turns.
It seems even him begging to apologise does it for me.
But that’s not the only physical sensation I have.
My heart also swells, with hope, with desire, with want for something more than I’ve let myself have before.
And so, I tell him.