Not in me to deny a girl that.
Dress hiked to her hips. Knees up, around my waist. I unzipped, and she was kind enough not to look as I pulled myself out, adjusted the angle, made sure the harness was tight. The silicone cock was warm from my body and she gasped when I slid inside. Slow, controlled. Inch by inch. I withdrew slightly and went a bit deeper, over and over, until the whole length of me was slick and I brought my hips all the way to hers and fucked her against the pillar, rock steady. All I felt was the pressure of plastic on my real dick, but through it I could sense her softening, spreading to take me deeper as she clawed the nape of my neck. Our voices played against distant club music: the grit in mine, throaty and low, and hers high, breathy, all smoke. My hands cupped her ass. She was air, weightless. So light. It set off a strange alchemy inside me, converting every muscle to metal, my blood to hot oil. Making me into some monstrous machine. It took all my self-control not to hurt her—not because I wanted to but because I wanted to fuck as hard as I could, make her feel how possessed I was by need. Testosterone is liquid libido. The chemical link between sex and violence. The same hormone that fuels lust also ignites aggression. That chemistry plays out inside the dirty laboratories of our cells and sometimes the difference between sex and violence seems as small as a molecule, a safe word.
An image flashed into my head: a butterfly of blood spreading on Crito’s wall.
It should have been him. The monster whose ear Crito whispered into. My Poseidon. My hand on the gun, his forehead taking that bullet.
Giving it to him as hard as he gave it to me.
“Baby, don’t stop,” Norah moaned.
I kept going, dutifully, mechanically. And she came, because I knew how to hit both her clit and G-spot on each stroke. But I was numb. With one hand she feathered my damp hair, the other tracing the ridges of my chest. She inhaled. Sweat and the musk of sex mixed into a virile cologne.
This was supposed to be the ultimate fantasy. Fucking a beautiful girl, making her come. The thrill of her basking in my masculinity. Of being 100 fucking percent man.
Yet all I could think of was the sound of that bullet. The one that found flesh.
When we left the room a shadow leaned at the end of the hall, watching us.
Cressida.
As I washed up in the bathroom I watched a familiar stranger in the mirror: his face all lean angles, contoured with dark scruff. His lips full and salmon red, his eyelashes a touch too thick, too long. In clothes he was pure male but beneath the fabric was a chimera. Thin pink crescents limned his pecs, still visible through the tats. His pubis was a smooth sexless arch, like a Ken doll’s.
The rigid packer in his boxer briefs dug into my thigh.
God, my life was fucking weird.
I couldn’t get off—tried jerking it in a stall but only got sore—so I wandered the club, through faceless silhouettes in throes of ecstasy and fervor, bodies distorted, mangled by bliss. Armin deejayed in the Cathedral and I watched him like I used to, trying to understand what made him different from me. He moved slowly, fluidly, almost as if drugged, but the drug was confidence. For every dozen movements I made, he made one. The right one.
Something was wrong with me. I hadn’t been this moody and insecure since I was pre-T.
What was wrong with me was Cress.
I tried to catch her as she followed me around. Whenever I got close she was talking to someone, or dancing, or disappearing. Those leather pants looked painted on. Why the stare? Another girl who saw me as a circus freak, the Bearded Lady? I didn’t have room in my life for that shit. If Laney thought she could replace me with some transphobe— But she wouldn’t. Laney was vehemently antiphobic.
My head whirled.
“Excuse me,” a girl said. Fire-engine-red lips. Fuck. “You’re Ren, right?”
I looked intently into her eyes till she lowered them. “Yes.”
“Oh my god. Hi.”
“Hi.”
“I’ve seen all your videos. I’ve been watching since you started. You’re my favorite YouTuber ever. I guess other people tell you that a lot, but I mean it. You’re so, so brave. You’re one of my heroes.”
A hero. For existing. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”
“Could I—I’m sorry, but could I get a pic with you?”
Good girls always apologized for their desire. Only boys and sluts were permitted to show it openly.
This world is impossible for women.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s my pleasure.”