by Penny Aimes
“Nothing too exciting. I had a call with my mom. Usual happy birthday stuff...plus she wants me to come home for Thanksgiving.”
“You going to go?”
“...I don’t know. My grandma doesn’t know about my transition yet. So I’d have to—”
He got it, and winced. “That’s really tough, doll.”
“Yeah.” She shook her head. “Anyway—other than that, uh, the girls are getting together tomorrow for D&D. That should be fun.”
“You’ve mentioned D&D before,” he said. “Who do you play with?”
“Oh!” Had she not explained this before? “It’s a bunch of trans girls I met in a support group. I don’t really go anymore, but this is how we stay in touch. We aren’t really great at it—Melissa doesn’t really keep track of her spell slots, and Beth usually makes up something cool and waits for Elena to tell them what to roll. But it’s fun.”
For a moment, she wondered if they would like him—if he would like them—all the routine fears of introducing a partner to friends. But that wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t a partner. She’d let herself be seduced away from her decision, but he wasn’t her boyfriend.
Before the call had started, she had been ready to end it, and then he reminded her of all the reasons she couldn’t walk away. Not just by being impossibly hot—oh, but he was—but by caring about her as a person. Caring about her birthday, her friends, her family.
But she knew there was a limit. There always was. Always had been, before. And she didn’t want to find it. That limbo zone between hookup and girlfriend suddenly seemed more appealing. Sweeter than nothing. Safer than asking for what she really wanted.
Dennis gave her an appraising look that broke through her incipient megrims. “I bet you’ve memorized the handbook.”
She colored. “I don’t mind if they don’t take it seriously. It’s just a good time. We meet maybe once a month or so. It’s just nice to be in touch with other trans people. Does that sound weird?”
He shook his head. “No. You get sick of being the only person like you in the room, I get that. I definitely get that. Did I tell you I was in a Black Greek letter organization, in college?”
“No!” she said, always interested to learn more about his past. He wasn’t a closed book, exactly, but it didn’t come up much, and she was reticent to initiate those kinds of conversations, for fear of pushing into any no-go zones. Lord knew she had them. “Like a frat?”
“Well, like a frat, but it’s not a frat. They’re very firm about that.” He flashed a grin. “It was cool. I grew up in a really white little town, so it was nice to finally have that community.”
“Do you miss it?” she asked. “Austin is...pretty white, and what’s not white usually isn’t...”
He nodded. “Isn’t Black. But we’re around. I finally found a good barbershop. And no place could be as white as Seattle.”
She laughed, and then he asked:
“You gonna go to Frankie’s after your game?”
“Yeah,” she said. She had no intention of playing, after her misbegotten night with Mistress Sandra; there was just another event Sunday she had to set up for. She left it vague, though, and she saw nothing in his eyes but understanding and happiness for her.
Do you want to see jealousy? she asked herself. No. Very much not. Jealousy terrified her. But... She had told him about Mistress Sandra, too, and he’d taken it the same way. Was he really not territorial like that? Or was she just...not his territory?
“Have a great time. With both,” he said, pointing a finger. “That’s an order. Night-night.” He disconnected.
“Yes, Sir!” Her smiled faded with his image. Before the call had started, her mind had been made up. Now she had traded her certainty for a squirmy ache in her gut and at least a little longer as his. His...something. And being his something was better than nothing, even if it wasn’t what she really wanted.
Dungeons & Dragons was in her apartment this month. She pulled out the collapsible table she kept in storage and lugged it up to her apartment. It was worth it, though; the tiny studio always felt full of love and estrogen after one of their get-togethers. The game took place in Elena’s homebrew fantasy-Regency setting, and they called their crew Pride & Progesterone.
Elena had led the support group where they’d all met. She’d come out in the ’80s, survived the AIDS epidemic and twenty years of front-line activism as a trans woman of color, and somehow held on to her job and her marriage through it all. She was comfortable with herself in a way that April envied. Maybe when she’d been out for longer than she’d been closeted, she’d be that way, too.
When the dice were back in the bags and they were settled into the second half of the meetup, everyone was gently ragging Beth for missing the last session. They’d gone out of town with a girlfriend, another trans woman the group all knew and who Melissa had also dated.
“We had a great time and that’s all I’m going to say about it,” said Beth, their skin darkening even further under their blush. They were Black, the youngest in the group, and the one who had transitioned youngest. They were transfeminine nonbinary and beautiful.
“That means she brought the strap,” said Melissa in a stage whisper. “Better you than me, boo, I can’t be on the bottom like that. Lesson learned.”
Joanne predictably turned as red as Melissa’s hair and studied her drink. She was a white professional of about April’s age inching her way out of the closet and easily flustered.
“Can we please change the subject?” Beth said coolly. As the two under-thirties, Beth and Melissa had a bewildering relationship that ricocheted between best friends, rivalry, teasing and occasionally making out.
“Aw, they’re shy.” Melissa looked around the circle for another topic. “Here’s a good question—April, what the fuck, babe.”
April’s eyes widened. “What?”
“You going into the wholesale business?” Oh. Right. Over time, Dennis had taken over her closet. And her dresser. She was running out of space. She’d just recently bought a couple of cheap clothes racks online and tried to find space for them in the corners of the room.
“I got a bunch of new stuff lately,” she said, coloring slightly. “Promotion and everything.”
Melissa jumped up and started going through a rack. She was like that, all id, all reaction. April only wished she could be as shameless. She looked around the circle and saw Melissa wasn’t the only one who wanted to, though; Joanne looked especially wistful. “Go wild,” April said, and waved her hand, which was all they needed.
“Wow,” said Beth. “Is this Alexander McQueen?”
Elena raked her eyes over the collection and back to April. “I’ve never seen you wear heels, either.”
She cleared her throat. “Those were a gift from a friend. Obviously I don’t wear them to play D&D. They’re mostly work clothes.”
“Are you sugaring?” asked Melissa. “You didn’t tell me.” Melissa had done sex work before, when busking didn’t bring in enough money, and didn’t make any bones about it.
April felt uneasy; for a moment she wanted to tell them to get out, to mind their own business. But why? They were her friends. Everyone joked about how many kinky trans girls there were, and everyone knew it wasn’t that much of a joke.
Maybe I don’t want to be a joke. “It was... A guy friend. Yeah.”
Beth dropped onto the bed with their mouth open. “You never said.”
“I’m a-a private person,” she stuttered, which sounded, frankly, ridiculous; these were the people she’d called about having her testicles cut off. If anyone would understand the terrible hope and dreadful fragility of the situation she’d created, it would be them. And if she didn’t tell someone soon, she was going to explode.
“That means she needs a drink,” said Melissa, and raided the tiny pantry for the v
odka.
She texted Dennis, late that evening.
April: i told them
Dennis: Excuse me?
April: i told my friends what a dirty little pervert i am
Her phone was ringing immediately. “Hello?”
“April.” His voice sounded urgent. “Did you not know that was a fantasy? When I asked what you’d do, I never meant—”
“No,” she said, and laughed softly. “No, I wanted to. I don’t talk about my kinks much but... I can tell them anything. I know that. I guess I knew it all along.”
“How do you feel?”
“Good,” she admitted. It had been good to talk about it. She hadn’t realized how much she had been aching to talk about it, how much more solid it would feel in the light of day. “I gave away some of my old stuff.” Beth was too petite, and Melissa wore jeans pretty much always, but Joanne had almost cried. “And Elena has a contact at the clothing exchange, too.”
“Oh.” There was something weird in his voice, but before she could push, he went on. “Well. I guess you earned your orgasm, all right.”
“I don’t want to,” she heard herself say.
“You don’t—”
“I want to do it when you want me to,” she said, and realized it was true. “And I don’t want to do it alone.”
“You’re a very very very good girl,” he said, in a low voice that flooded her with need she had just promised to do nothing about. “You’re my best girl.”
That carried her into the rest of September on a shimmering cloud that rivalled any orgasm. She would need it.
Maybe the event on Sunday should’ve been an omen for the clusterfuck of the next several weeks. It should not have been a difficult event; she had helped Vic find the performers, and they had excellent reviews and hadn’t tripped any red flags when she’d spoken to them beforehand. They were a het couple who did a sort of burlesque-inspired magic act, and they had seemed like a good answer to the requests Frankie’s had gotten for some more low-key entertainment mixed in with the practical workshops and more overtly kinky performances. She’d even invited her friends.
She was intensely thankful that only Melissa had taken her up on it; Melissa had a thick skin to rival a rhino. Still, she’d thought this would be a soft introduction to her favorite place, not a barrage of microaggressions. The magician’s patter probably hadn’t been considered offensive twenty years ago, but it clearly hadn’t been updated since then. At best it was painfully unfunny; at worst it was veiled homophobia and not-especially-veiled transphobia.
Vic, the bar manager, was great on matters of security—no one who had ever been thrown out by Vic had bothered to try again—and fine with the vendors, but he lacked any kind of fine tuning. Vic was all about macroaggression. So somehow it had become April’s job to talk to the magician during intermission. She had finessed him, targeting first his wife/assistant as a necessary ally and then mounting a full-scale charm offensive. The second half was largely quiet, and they would surely never be invited back, but some of the tricks were actually pretty good. He crowned it by referring to her as a drag queen on his way out.
She felt good about it afterwards, though. A couple of people, who had noticed her set expression and her charge backstage during the break, approached her later with thanks. One of them was Jason, who had somehow comped her and Melissa’s drinks for the night.
Mama April strikes again, she thought ruefully.
As she and Melissa walked—her to her apartment, Melissa to a late performance at a Music District queer bar—she apologized again. “Sorry, I feel like you saw more of Aerith than me.”
“Nah, it was rad,” Melissa said, waving it off.
“Was it what you thought?” April asked, morbidly curious.
“Kinda? You weren’t,” the redhead said.
“What do you mean?” She felt a hot ache in her stomach; she couldn’t see how this could be good.
“Well to be honest, from what you told us I thought you’d be a simpering bimbo in there,” said Melissa, always one to pull the Band-Aid off. “But you were...like...in charge. Hey, you think you could get me a gig there? Everybody likes live music, right?”
“I don’t... I don’t work there,” she said, coloring. “I’m just...helpful.”
“Well, you rocked it. I still want to see you in full whips-and-chains-excite-me mode with your hottie, though.” Melissa grinned salaciously; she’d had some comments about April’s photos of Dennis, and even about April in her new lace dress.
She blushed. “It’s not really like that. I’m normal when I’m with him. Mostly.”
Melissa looked sidelong at her. “Okay, so... I know you said it’s not serious with this guy, but who are you kidding here, bud? I mean, I wasn’t going to say anything, but... C’mon.”
“It’s not serious,” she said firmly. “He’s free to play with anybody he wants. And so am I.”
“That’s not the point, though,” said Melissa. She paused under a streetlight. “The point is, do you want to play with anybody else? I mean, if it’s just fuckin’, cool. Good for you. But do you feel something for this cissie? Because when you talk about him, you look like you’re talking about the guy who invented the orgasm-flavored cheesecake.”
April scrubbed her hands over her face. “I feel everything,” she moaned. “How could I not?
“He’s smart—like really smart, smarter than me. He’s funny and dry and quiet, and he can turn on a dime to be in charge and sexy and he doesn’t do it by getting loud, he just does it by being there, like there’s more of him packed into the same space. I don’t know if you get how hard it is to be dominant without being a tool, but Dennis is...is graceful. And he’s watching all the time, careful all the time, and he never makes the same mistake twice.
“He loves people and he takes care of the people he loves and he’s just...good at it. At love. When he was in high school his best friend came out as gay and Dennis went with him to PFLAG meetings for six months because his parents wouldn’t. His family basically adopted the guy, they’re still friends today. Nobody ever—” She broke off.
She didn’t have anyone to talk to about Dennis, so she didn’t. She didn’t know these feelings were in her. She’d known she had it bad, but this was...this was something else. Something terrifying and impossible. She bit her lip.
“I never knew anybody so good at loving people. He’s just so good at it, it makes me think silly things sometimes.”
Sometimes. Not often. Not thoughts so much as images; when she was falling asleep, mostly, Dennis loving her right out loud, not just in the club but everywhere. Meeting the family he spoke of with such affection. Living in that ridiculous cursed house of his. Fantasies. Just fantasies.
“What if they aren’t?” said Melissa gently. “Silly.”
“They are! He would have said something by now. He would’ve told me.” She shook her head. “He’s just...kind. And good. And solid. And I’m lucky he’s my friend. If he really knew me...”
“It sounds like he knows you better than anybody, April,” said Melissa, her voice still gentle, like she was talking April off a ledge.
April thought about Dennis, working six floors away, and shook her head again. “He’s just my friend. And I’m lucky to have that. I’m not... I’m not blowing it up for a daydream.” The lie had gone on too long. There was no coming back.
“But if he wanted to?” Melissa asked, still pushing. Damn her.
“In a second,” April said. “In a heartbeat.”
The conversation made her blush, but it also changed her perspective. She had the best and hottest dominant in the club blowing up her phone nightly; she had no business feeling like the only Lost Boy who didn’t get to play anymore. With the pang of feeling left on the sidelines set aside, it was easy to remember how much she enjoyed her support role at Frankie’
s. Putting the event back on course had been an unpleasant but necessary job, well within her capabilities, and she knew when it was done, she had done something positive and that it was appreciated.
Unfortunately, she did not feel the same way about the increasing amount of development work being shoveled on her plate at work. It had started with a trickle, which she had done as conscientiously as she could, despite her distaste, and only increased. She’d talked to her supervisor about it, but John had blamed the new CTO, new requirements being enforced for development that required a product owner for every project.
Which meant this was actually Dennis’s fault.
Over the next few weeks, the trickle became a flood, and she felt like she was being swept away. The current eventually deposited her on Fatima’s doorstep, with a halal casserole and a bellyful of grievances. Fatima was still on maternity leave for a few more days, but visitors who brought food were always welcome in the tidy two-story house south of Slaughter.
“Let it out, hon,” Fatima advised, digging into the food. She wasn’t wearing a headscarf over her dark hair, with just her and April and the baby in the house, and that touched April’s heart.
“I just fucking hate this development shit,” she vented. “It was just a little bit at first but it’s eating up more and more of my time every week and I fucking hate it. I’ve been reading about... Agile, and Scrum, and Waterfall, trying to catch up, but it’s like they just use whichever method makes their lives easier on a given day.”
“That does sound like them,” said Fatima. The database and development teams didn’t necessarily get along.
“I run around gathering requirements, just so they can kick me back to get new ones. We set priorities for sprints and then the lead developer—do you know this guy Bob? Bob Flowers?—talks down to me about why they couldn’t do it. So why ask me to do it in the first place?”
“Oh, I know Bob,” sighed Fatima. “Good ol’ Born-Again Bob. He tried to file a complaint when I changed my schedule for Ramadan. You should just thank God he works remote these days.”