Under My Skin

by A. E. Dooland

  All I knew was that both Sarah and Bree 'she'd and 'he'd me in various situations, and as long as they were the right situations, it didn't bother me and it felt comfortable. But that was kind of weird, wasn't it? Did it mean something? Ugh, what if it meant that I wasn't a guy, after all of this? After everything that had happened...?

  Just for a couple of seconds I had that panicky I-need-to-run-away feeling that was far too familiar, my pulse began to race and fuck what if it was all a mistake and I began to feel light-headed and no, no. No. I didn't need to do this. I just needed to relax and not worry.

  It was okay. It was okay. None of that mattered. It didn't matter who I was or wasn't like or what other trans people did or didn't do. It wasn't about them, it was about me. And, besides, there was no deadline on making that decision, it wasn't like I had an anvil hanging over my head and an executioner shouting, 'Make up your mind, Min Lee!'. The way things were right now was fine, and if they weren't fine later, I could just change them then.

  “People keep asking me about pronouns...” I sighed as we kept walking again. “I honestly don't mind what you call me. Or what Sarah does, or any of the people who know me do. Just don't out me to strangers, okay? The last thing I want to do is be hosting an info session about my gender every time I meet someone. I don't want people to even think about it.”

  Bree linked arms with me, processing all that. “It's kind of weird that I don't know whether to call you my boyfriend or my girlfriend,” she said eventually. “I mean, I was assuming boyfriend, but...”

  “Go with boyfriend,” I said, and then with a pained expression I clarified, “I'm still someone's girlfriend at the moment.”

  Bree made the same face I was making. “Oh, yeah,” she said, her eyes dipping to the bloodstained collar of his suit. “Henry.” She looked really guilty.

  When we got home, the first thing I needed to do was take his suit off, hide it somewhere where I couldn't see it and have a shower. Bree had followed me into the bedroom, probably with designs on 'helping me' out of the suit, but she stopped in place when she saw what I'd done last night.

  “Whoa,” she said, her eyes travelling over all the strewn dresses, lacy scarves and frilly blouses that were mixed in with shards from the broken mirror. “You flipped out properly.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah,” I said. “Actually, I need to get room service to hire someone to clean all that up and throw everything out.”

  Bree walked carefully around the debris, making me nervous because she was only wearing socks. She turned back to me. “You're really going to just chuck all of this?” I nodded, and she looked scandalised. “But some of those are designer!”

  I shrugged. “Well, I did promise Sarah I'd give some to her, but I'm not sure she'd want them now.”

  Bree gave me a look. “The glass is mostly on that side,” she said, pointing. “The rest of them are probably okay.”

  I left Bree to be horrified by my wastefulness and went for that shower. I did actually have some weak paracetamol painkillers left, so I took the recommended dose. I was pretty sure they were going to be useless after how much codeine I'd been popping recently, though. Oh well, I thought, struggling to get my binder back on over damp skin.

  When I'd changed into my jeans and that big floppy t-shirt, I opened the bathroom door. I'd only taken one step into the bedroom before I realised Bree had been working on it. There were three piles of neatly-folded clothes along one wall. I gaped at them while she beamed.

  She presented the stacks of clothes to me. “This one's the pile of clothes that are full of glass, or that are like your personal underwear or something,” she said, and then moved along. “And this one's the pile of things that might fit Sarah. And this pile,” she said, presenting the biggest one, “is the stuff that we can make a shit tonne of money selling on eBay.”

  I had to laugh. “You're wonderful,” I told her. I never would have been able to deal with any of them, and I think she knew that. “Thank you.”

  I beckoned her over and she trotted up to me, looking delighted as I wrapped my arms all around her and gave her a big hug, burying my nose in her curls. They smelt like vanilla; I was starting to associate that smell with her. I stood there with my arms around her for a minute or two, inhaling that scent and enjoying how we fit together.

  After a little while she pulled away a bit, looking up at me. She looked serious; while I’d been relaxing, she’d obviously been deep in thought.

  “I wanted to do something for you, because... well... No one's ever done something like that for me,” she said. “What you did with Andrej.”

  I grinned. “You mean, take a punch for you?”

  She smiled a bit. “Well, I guess... but I mean, like, you didn't just go, 'Yeah, he's a fuckhead, let's go and enjoy our day', you were like, 'no, screw him, he's not going to do this to you, Bree'.” Her eyes shone. “And then I watched you walk right up to him, and even though he's, like, fucked, you stayed there and you yelled at him, and you didn't take any of his shit,” she said. “And it was for me.”

  I smiled. “Yeah.”

  There were tears in her eyes. “And that's really nice.”

  “Well,” I said, looking directly at the three piles of clothes against the wall, “after all the things you do for me, you deserve it.”

  I think she liked that answer, because she took a handful of my t-shirt, pulling gently. “I preferred it when you were wearing the tie,” she said sheepishly. “I want to kiss you, but this,” she tugged on my t-shirt, “isn't really cutting it.”

  I led her out into the living room, and because my couch was still covered in big jumble of blankets and pillows, I had to shove them all aside before I could sit down on it and pat my lap. Her cheeks went a bit pink as she came and sat sideways across it and put her arms around my neck.

  “That's better—” she'd begun to say, but then she made a surprised sound and slid back down my thighs, reaching for the bottom of my t-shirt. I let her, because I figured out what she was doing. “Whoa,” she said, giggling. “You're still wearing the packer.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I’m still not sold on it, but I figured I should give it the opportunity to prove itself over a few days before I tuck it away in a drawer somewhere forever.”

  She looked up at me. “You don't like it?”

  I made a face. “I don't dislike it. I like it a whole lot more than I like my chest but... I feel like people shouldn't be able to see it, either. But they can.”

  She snorted. “They really can. Especially in these jeans, oh my god. Look,” she held the t-shirt back to show me. “It looks like you have a boner in there. You're going to give people the wrong idea.”

  “I have a beautiful girl sitting in my lap, Bree. What makes you think it's the wrong idea?” I looked her in the eye, grinning, and she went bright red.

  “Whoa,” she said after a few moments, breathless. Fuck, I loved to hear her like that. She was still looking at my crotch. “Whoa. You know, there's something really hot about the idea of you being hard for me?” As soon as she'd said the word 'hard', I would have been. That very second.

  I'd never seen myself as the kind of person to flirt like this, but, then again, I never thought I'd be the kind of person to do the other things I'd done today, either. And having Bree on my lap blushing furiously made my heart race. I loved imagining what she was thinking. But, fuck, it was terrifying, because I knew where this was going.

  Still high off the other bold things I’d done today, I brushed her hair aside and leant over next to her ear. “You'd make me hard,” I whispered. “If it was real.”

  She inhaled sharply. “Oh my god,” she breathed, and then wouldn’t let me lean back again. “I like that…” she said about my lips beside her ear. “Keep doing it.”

  “Bossy,” I murmured, and then kissed down her neck, her head lolling to the side and tilting to give me better access as I did. The skin on her neck was soft and delicate, and there was something so inc
redibly intimate about her just trusting me to have my lips there. Under them, I could feel her pulse, and it was fast.

  I know where this is going, I thought. I know where this is going and for fucking once I want it. I want it so much. Fuck, though, we shouldn’t, I'm still in a relationship. But I didn’t want to stop, I wanted to search her body and find other soft places where I could feel her pulse under my lips.

  While I was reflecting on how much I really shouldn't have been doing it, I pushed aside the shoulder of her sundress and a pink bra strap to kiss along her collarbone, and seeing the skin there reminded me of that photo she’d taken of herself when I was in Broome. Naked, with the doona covering everything but her shoulders. I wanted her like that, I just wanted to be under the doona with her this time. Fucking hell, I wanted it, I wanted all of it, and my fingers hovered over a button on her dress, but I managed to get myself to drop them.

  “Stop, stop… Fuck,” I said, sitting back from her. “We’ve got to stop, I’m still with Henry.”

  Bree nodded, breathless. “I know, I know...” She said, and then we both sat watching each other for a moment. Bree didn't look convinced. “Like, how is this different to what we were doing in the restaurant, though? Didn't we already do this stuff?”

  She had a point, but we were in my house this time. It was private. It was dangerous. “It just can't go any further than that, okay?”

  She looked pretty pleased with that answer, and she leant forward towards me with a cheeky grin on her face. “But lots more of the same stuff is okay, right?” she asked, kissing my bottom lip for a second before grinning mischievously at me.

  “You know, I used to think there was something a bit angelic about how you looked,” I told her flatly. “But, hey—” I parted the hair on the top of her head and pretended to be looking for something, “—oh, look. Horns.”

  She giggled and kissed me once. “It's nice to finally be allowed to kiss you, that's all, so I think it's normal to want to do a lot of it,” she said sweetly, dismissing my concern about potentially being employed by Satan. “I wanted to for ages, but I thought you were in this happy relationship...”

  I winced as she said that. The movement hurt my soon-to-be black eye. “So did I.”

  “So... I don't even want to ask because I'm afraid of what you'll say,” she told me, pulling back to look at me. “But you are going to break up with him, right? And then you're going to officially go out with me? Like, definitely...?” She was trying to sound casual, as if she was just seeking clarification on a point she already knew the answer to. She was watching my answer far too closely, though. Was she really afraid I'd say no?

  I kissed her. “Bree,” I told her, stroking across her cheek. “Of course I am. Of course.”

  She blushed, delighted. “I'll be really good to you,” she promised me. “I will. You'll see!”

  I nuzzled each of her pink cheeks with my good one. “You already are. Better than I deserve, sometimes.”

  I kissed her, taking my time to let her relax into my arms and against me. The way she arched back to let me, completely open, completely unguarded, just letting me set a slow, passionate rhythm... moving with me, sighing into each kiss... it was beautiful. She was beautiful, and she was right here on my lap, kissing me, touching me, pressing that soft body up against mine. It was a gentle, pleasant feeling. God, it was a pleasant feeling. I loved that just kissing her could turn me on.

  The problem was, I wanted more. I wanted to undress her and kiss more than just her lips and her neck. I wanted to find out what other noises she made, and really, what I really wanted to do was show her what it was like to have someone make her feel the way she deserved to feel. She'd spent so long having people discard her and ignore her... I wanted to make her feel the opposite. I wanted to show her that there was someone who was here with her, just for her, and that she was cared for, cherished and wanted.

  We were both breathing heavily when she sat back from me and swung a knee over me so she was straddling my lap. She didn't explain that, she just sat there for a couple of seconds with a big, nervous smile on her face. Eventually, she worked up the courage to look up at me and say, “I want to show you...” Her fingers toyed with the buttons at the front of her dress.

  My breath caught in my throat. Oh, god, yes. “Come on, Bree, I shouldn't...”

  She shrugged lightly. “I know. I just...” She blushed. “I just want to show you. You know, if you want to see...”

  If I want to see? If I want to see? “We can't do anything else,” I said, desperately hoping she'd find a loophole in that.

  She did. “There's nothing wrong with window-shopping, right?”

  Fuck. “Okay,” I breathed.

  She slowly, slowly undid all of her buttons one by one, revealing the skin underneath inch by inch. As she got down to her bellybutton, her dress fell open to display her cleavage spilling out of her bra. I helped her unthread her arms from the dress and then just sat there for a moment, looking down at all that skin.

  I’d seen this much of her before several times, but there was a big difference between a girl whipping off her top to put on another one, and taking off her top because she wanted to show you what was underneath.

  And it was worth showing. It really was. The curve of her hips, the fall of her waist, even the little swell of chub she had underneath her bellybutton. It was all gorgeous. I wanted to fully appreciate all of it, but it was difficult to not just stare at her breasts. And it wasn't only because they looked so good; her bra was at the very end of its apparently long and painful life. It was small and her breasts were big, and it looked like it was in a world of suffering trying to hold onto them. I wanted to put it out of its misery.

  It was Bree who did; she reached around behind her in a very familiar movement, and the material went slack as she unclipped it. Watching me with that same coy little smile as before, she shrugged the straps off her shoulders and let the fabric fall away from her.

  I’d seen breasts before, lots of them. I had my own. But Bree was showing me hers because she wanted to turn me on, and fuck, with them right there in front of me, was she ever achieving her aim.

  They were nice. They were soft and heavy and full; too big to sit up on her ribcage, now that her bra was off they fell a little. Her nipples were so light they were almost the same colour as the rest of her skin, and they were taut with the circles around them. With her curls dropping over her shoulders and those pink cheeks and pink lips… fuck. She was so beautiful. And she was sitting across my lap. Oh, god. I wanted her. I wanted her.

  “Window-shopping is a real challenge right at this second,” I said through grit teeth, eyes glued to what I wasn't allowed to touch.

  She blushed again. “Well... They’re all yours when you want them…” she said, looking up at me from underneath her lashes.

  She was killing me. When I wanted them? I wanted them now! I wanted to reach out and grab them. I wanted to lift her off the chair with me and lay her down on my couch and touch and kiss and explore every inch of her. I wanted her back arching and her hips pressing against me, I wanted her legs around my waist and, fuck, I wanted more, didn’t I? I wanted to be inside her. I wanted to be inside her, moving against her, showing her how that felt...

  I didn’t want to focus on the fact I couldn’t do that, because imagining it felt so good. I’d almost managed to dismiss the impossibility of it when I felt her hands at the bottom of my t-shirt. She was going to lift it up, and that halted everything.

  My automatic response was a very powerful no, but it wasn’t because of Henry.

  I stiffened. “Don’t…” I said shortly, and put my hands on hers to stop her.

  Then, I felt guilty. She was topless, she had every right to want me to be topless, too, didn’t she? But when I thought about what that meant and the fact my binder would come off and I’d be able to look down my body and see my own breasts, it made me remember sex with Henry. And I didn’t like it, and I didn�
�t want it, and I had this horrible, sudden feeling of wrongness. I shouldn’t have breasts, and I didn’t want to see them.

  And I didn’t know how to say it, because it wasn’t fair to her, was it? “Sorry, I— I can’t have my…” I took a breath. “I mean, I don’t think I can…”

  She silenced me. “It’s okay, I get it,” she said gently. She didn’t sound disappointed or upset at all, it was such a relief. “Can we just take the t-shirt off, though…?”

  That was okay because my binder was set in a singlet anyway, so she helped me lift the t-shirt over my head and drop it somewhere behind the couch. She traced my shoulders and my bare arms with her fingertips, but stopped at the hem of my binder. I had been worried she might try and put her hands inside it anyway, but she didn’t. She was very careful not to touch me anywhere that might remind me what I had underneath it, and I was so grateful. She was trying so hard to make me feel comfortable, and it was working.

  When she was done exploring all my newly exposed skin, she dropped her hands again and we just sat there for a minute, looking at each other.

  She was gorgeous, and she was half-naked in my lap and her cheeks were flushed with a mixture of shyness and excitement.

  “Oh my god,” she said, giggling nervously. “I can't believe we’re doing this. I used to imagine what it would be like...”

  “You imagined it...?” I prompted her, interested. I hoped she'd tell me all the details. In full detail, while I looked hungrily at that body of hers and visualised all of it.

  She looked embarrassed. “Yeah, so I've been talking to you online for a while, right?” she said. “And, so, your name is Min Lee, so I figured out you were Korean, and then...” she scrunched up her nose, giggling. “Oh my god, I can't even say it, you're going to laugh.”

  “Believe me, I am not going to laugh,” I said, worried about what I’d do instead. Her body was so close to mine...

  She was the one who ended up laughing. “So, like... I don't know, it never occurred to me that you weren't a guy? So, yeah, I kind of Google Videoed Korean guys with the SafeSearch function off...”