Chapter 30 Didn’t Peg You for an Ass Man
Didn’t Peg You for an Ass Man
You ever wake up and just know that everything is going to whomp?
Like, before your eyes even open, you have just, like, this sixth sense activate, alerting every sleeper lizard brain cell to incoming danger?
I’d read in academic papers that human intuition could be strong, a leftover, involuntary sensory processing maneuver our brains did from back in the days when cavemen had to sense the presence of lurking saber-toothed tigers.
I guess my ancestors only survived the saber-tooths by sheer dumb luck, though, because I didn’t have that. When I encountered a bad day, it was like a blizzard of paper clips or getting broadsided by a clown car full of drunk fish—unexpected and inexplicable.
Of all the disasters that I considered befalling me when I started hooking up with Hudson, the one I hadn’t considered was the one that was most likely to happen.
Getting my period.
So, the morning after our experiment with cock rings (Hudson wasn’t a fan; he didn’t feel much difference), I woke up feeling disgusting. Cramps. Tight hips. Headache. The urge to puke my guts out. The occasional intense, shooting pain in my cervix, often so painful it made me double over.
Y’know. Girl stuff.
Despite my IUD, I still got hormonal flare-ups consistent with a menses. I cursed my luck but popped some Advil and brushed it off. Not much I could do about it.
Unfortunately, hormonal fluctuations were the least of my issues.
While Clara, Leelah, and Addie were sympathetic to my plight (Clara plying me with organic 99% dark chocolate—gross; Leelah bringing me a heating pad from her desk—better; and Addie keeping everyone away from my office like an attack dog), the same could not be said for my mother, who chose the perfect time to make another surprise appearance.
At least this time it was by phone.
“One of us could have been dead,” she said by way of greeting when I finally picked up after her tenth attempt. “And you don’t answer your phone?”
“Mom, I’m so sorry,” I replied, not sorry but knowing it was what she wanted to hear. “I was in a meeting.”
“Yes, yes, so important. The fate of humanity rests on your ability to churn out a new personal massager. Excuse me for the interruption.”
“We’re on a deadline—”
Her eye roll was almost audible over the phone connection. “Or maybe you’re just spending time with that boy. Is that it, hm? You can’t answer your mother’s phone calls because of him?”
“No.”
I just didn’t want to answer my mother’s phone calls because of him. Our every interaction now chafed against Hudson’s indelible declaration.
You deserved better.
“Oh please. Who do you think you’re fooling? You’re going to throw everything away on some boy yet again, despite our best efforts to keep you from repeating history.”
The air around me turned brittle and unbreathable. Of course she would lash out like this when she was angry. I should have expected it.
But I didn’t. And it hurt more than I could have imagined, hearing her voice the one fear I’d been running from this entire time.
Why did this always happen? Did she have a sixth sense for my happiness? Every time I felt like I was getting my feet under me, she came in to smash my confidence.
“It’s not like that.” Heat built up behind my eyes. Tears formed. I tried to blink them away, but that only banished them to my cheeks. “I swear.”
“Just don’t come crawling back to us when you let him ruin you, like Lloyd did. You know how much we love to say I told you so.”
A million protests bubbled to my lips. I swallowed them down.
What would be the point? My track record for standing up for myself was abysmal.
Mom ended the call, but not before making me promise to still see them for dinner when I went to New York for Manhattan’s OFest. Part of me wanted to snap.
To ask why she’d even want to see such a terrible disappointment of a daughter.
I didn’t. I agreed.
By the time I arrived back at my apartment, I was hormonal, the Advil was wearing off, my mom’s call had gotten under my skin, and I wanted nothing more than to slide into bed and pretend that the world didn’t exist.
But there Hudson was. Bathed in light from the streetlamps, carrying several BuzzCorp-branded shopping totes.
“Oh no,” I groaned before I could stop myself.
He started. “Shit, what did I do?”
Rubbing at my face, I collected myself. My problems weren’t Hudson’s fault. It wasn’t fair to take it out on him. “Sorry, I’ve just had a shit day, and I’m not in the mood for sex. You can go home now.”
“Do you want some company?”
Annoyance gripped a knot between my shoulder blades. I punched the building code into the security box. “I just said I don’t want to have sex. I don’t want to be fucked. I don’t want you to go down on me. I don’t want to be touched—”
The door clicked open. Hudson grabbed the handle, holding it slightly ajar so it wouldn’t relock…but also, so I couldn’t pass. His eyes searched mine. “We don’t have to have sex, Scout. You know that, right?”
That took the hot air out of my sails.
Right. We didn’t have to. We could just hang out together. Fuck what my mom thought. Fuck the fact that he and I should only be no-strings-attached sex buddies.
I was tired and annoyed and all I wanted in that moment was to rest in someone else. In him.
So I invited him in.
Once up in my apartment, he offered me a THC brownie.
When we wanted to relax, our ritual was usually a cocktail or glass of wine to start the night.
However, he explained that Addie was passing them around the office (seemed like bad business practices, but whatever, I’m not in charge of HR) and wanted to share, so I popped it without a second thought, letting the slightly earthy, totally gooey chocolate settle my frazzled nerves.
As I relaxed into the couch and let the chemicals work their way through my system, Hudson briefed me on his day. I wasn’t in the mood to talk; listening to him was enough.
How strange it was to spend time with him removed from the expectations of sex. To think that he wanted to spend time with me—no detours into my pants. And even stranger to think that I relished his anecdotes about debugging Python code and his various, much worse, workplaces before BuzzCorp.
Half an hour later, the pain from my period was basically nonexistent, a bag of Sun Chips from my kitchen had magically transformed from a family size to a personal one, and, as we faced each other on the love seat, I couldn’t stop rubbing my legs against his.
It was my turn to talk, and of course, I couldn’t very well keep the truth about Addie from him.
As painful and embarrassing as it was, he deserved to know that this secret between the two of us had ballooned from three (Leelah) to five (my parents) to six (Addie) now.
“We could just go public, you know.”
I tipped the Sun Chips bag and tilted the protruding corner into my mouth to get the last of the crumbs. So attractive. “With what?”
“Whatever this is that we’re doing. If we don’t have anything to hide…we shouldn’t be hiding.”
I’d become friendly with him (broken rule), I’d masturbated over him (broken rule), had sex with him in the first place (broken rule), had sex with him several times after that (broken rule), and started sort-of dating him (broken rule).
There had to be a limit. And going public with this information was it, even if it made me feel a little guilty.
Lloyd kept me a secret. Was I doing the same to Hudson?
“But you’re leaving soon. What would be the point? Let’s just have fun. We don’t need to complicate things.”
“Sure. Sure, of course you’re right,” he said. When he winced instead of smiling, though, I chalked it up to my high imagination doing some wishful thinking.
Nothing good would come of this conversation. Searching for some way to distract us both, I scanned the room.
Ah, perfect.
“What’s all of that over there?” I asked, detangling our limbs so I could inspect the pile of shopping bags he’d brought.
He practically flew to intercept my path. “Nothing. We can talk about it another time.”
“You’re blushing,” I said with no small amount of glee. He was beautiful when he blushed. “Why are you blushing?”
“You said you don’t want to have sex. This is…sex stuff.”
“What sex stuff?”
Shy. He was being shy. I’d seen him evasive and sheepish before. In the office, he could be understated and quiet, friendly and affable. Shy, on the other hand, was new.
“Today, when she was offering me the weed brownies, Addie and I started talking about her work with the marketing team. Which brought me back to our conversation yesterday. About people who can just…say what they want. No shame. No fear of what other people will think.”
“Yeah?”
“I couldn’t ever go in front of a crowd and declare my proclivities or anything. Don’t sign me up for the video testimonial crews. But…”
My stomach tightened. It had nothing to do with the cramps.
Whatever was in those bags, it had to be good.
And when he handed them over, my suspicions were confirmed.
Not to brag, but the fuck reports from our testers reliably informed us that BuzzCorp had the finest line of pegging products on the market today.
Hudson had clearly availed himself of our samples closet, picking out a strap-on harness, butt plugs, extra-strength lubricants, and several dildos of various levels of size, turgidity, and realism.
“When we talked about what kinks you had,” he said, the words coming out from between barely moving lips, “what stuff you’d be interested in, we talked about pegging, and it seemed like you were enthusiastic about trying it.”
“Oh.”
“You encouraged me to ask for what I want. That the people who matter won’t judge me. And this is what I want. I’m hoping you won’t run away. I hope you care about me the way I am. Kinks and wants and all.”
He must have taken the tsunami of lust that overcame me for revulsion, because he imploded with the intensity of a collapsing star.
“Are you into it? It’s not a big deal if you aren’t, and even if you are into it, we definitely don’t have to do it tonight, especially when you’re not feeling well, but—”
“Yes.”
He blinked at my abrupt cutoff.
“Yes?”
My face now ached from smiling so hard. “Yes. Very much yes.”
The crazy thing was: It wasn’t just the pegging that turned me on.
It was that he told me about it. The last time he’d shared his fantasies with someone, his ex-girlfriend, she’d laughed in his face and insulted him.
It was enough to make him run from his own sexual desires, to defer to his partner no matter what.
Now he was offering himself to me. Kinks and wants and all.
“So…we don’t have to do it tonight,” he said. “I don’t want to pressure you, especially when you’re not feeling well. But…at some point in the future…would you want to?”
I would be a novice, to be sure. I’d only ever seen pegging in porn, read about it in books, and heard plenty of horny details from the fuck reports our product testers provided. Still, my excitement threw over any nerves I might have felt.
I wanted him. Every way I could have him.
“You get my virginity and I get yours. It seems like a fair compromise.” Chuckling, I brushed my nose against his. A shudder rippled through his body. Pulling away from him, I collected the bags. “All right, let’s go.”
His eyes widened. “Tonight? Like, right now?”
“I’m ready if you are.”
Ready he must have been, because he practically ran into the bedroom.