Nervous

by SM Johnson

  “Yes, it does. I push you to the edge of social appropriateness, and the fact that you obey gives me permission to push a little more. You like it. You know it’s part of the game because you feel it in your gut. It’s naughty, but only a little. Like having a secret. And a secret between two people who like and trust each other can make almost any experience more intense. And Jules? I wasn’t lying when I said I miss having you in my office. I feel happier when you’re in my space.”

  Avery felt happier when I was around. It was like my feet and my heart had grown wings, and while it may have looked like I was walking, I actually floated out of the café and down the sidewalk.

  And then.

  An arm came out of nowhere, grabbed Avery’s arm, and spun him around. And then there was a fist, and before I could process what had happened, Avery was doubled over and coughing.

  I was shoved aside, and when I regained my balance, I saw a man hit Avery in the side of the head with a closed fist. Avery fell to the sidewalk while I just stood there in shock, gasping.

  “Oh, come on, Ave, is that how you take it like a man?” The sneer was in his tone, his posture, and he spat at Avery, and then kicked him right between the legs.

  Avery grunted and curled into a fetal position, but only for a second. He seemed to catch his breath quickly, but didn’t try to get to his feet. Instead, he stretched out his legs, brought himself to a sitting position, and shook his head. Then he looked up, but not at me.

  “Seriously, Kevin? You’re going to beat me in the street because I decided to cut my hair and stop wearing make-up?”

  His voice wasn’t even shaky. There was a red mark on the side of his face, but even sitting on the ground he had more grace than his attacker.

  “I heard you turned into some kind of hormone-raging hard-ass,” the guy said, and lifted his foot for another kick. “But naw, you’re the same pussy you always were.” When the kick came, Avery threw up his arms and wrapped them around the guy’s leg, and then rolled, pulling the man to the ground.

  Avery stood up and used his hands to brush off his suit jacket. “Real classy, Kevin. Nothing like a good brawl in the street. You feel more manly now?”

  And then there were two police officers, shouting, and somehow everyone ended up on their feet again.

  A small crowd was around us now, our waitress, the cashier, other customers and passers-by. A third officer tapped me on the shoulder. “Did you see what happened?”

  I pointed to Kevin. “We walked out of the café, and that guy, he just came out of nowhere and hit my friend.”

  It took a few minutes to sort things out. I watched Avery shake his head, and saw Kevin spit on the ground a couple of times, but his tone wasn’t yelling anymore. Avery came over and took my arm. He pulled me into a hug. “You okay?”

  I stared at him. “Me? No one punched me, or knocked me down, or kicked me. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. He was a posturing schmuck when I knew him way back when, and he obviously hasn’t changed much. He didn’t hit me hard, so I was more startled than hurt.”

  “Are they arresting him?”

  Avery shook his head. “No. I’m not going to give him anything more to be mad about. I told them it was old baggage and I’d rather let it go. I don’t give a rat’s ass about that guy or what he thinks of me.”

  “Old boyfriend?”

  “Worse. Livvie’s old boyfriend, and for years my best friend.”

  I tried to imagine it, a best friend. I’d almost had one once, maybe. A girl I thought I could talk to about anything. But she fell in love and moved away, and I got left behind. It hurt more than I thought it should, and she was only a potential best friend.

  “Ouch,” I said.

  Avery shrugged, his shoulder brushing against mine. “Oh well. This kind of thing happens. A few people from my old life have stayed, but most are gone. In the end, I always have my twin. And now I have you. Believe me, I won’t cry any more over losing him.”

  We walked the rest of the way in silence. I don’t know what Avery was thinking about, but I was trying to imagine him crying over a broken heart.

  chapter eighteen

  may you be healthy

  I was distracted all afternoon. That Kevin guy almost made me forget that Avery said he felt happier when I was around. I felt happier when Avery was around, too.

  So maybe his boyfriend comment really did mean something, even if I had no idea how to react to having a boyfriend. But it must mean that Avery like-liked me, and I know I like-liked him in return. Where to go from that realization I had no idea. But Avery did, and I had a strong feeling he wanted to show me.

  I was not terribly productive. As I wrote soft and kind rejection letters, I hoped the manuscripts I browsed were truly dull and uninspired, and not just victims of my inability to concentrate. It was bizarre that my concentration was better in Avery’s office, where there were so many more distractions. Distractions like Avery looking at me, Avery punishing me, Avery keeping me off-balance nearly every minute.

  Near the end of the day Tasha rolled her chair over to me, and said, “So. Are you and Avery a thing?”

  I stared at her, shocked. I had no idea what to say. I suppose my face turned red, and I managed to stutter a few words. Like “um” and “what” and “I don’t even know yet!”

  She laughed, and said, “You’re weird, but kind of adorable in your weird way.”

  Tasha calling me weird was almost more disconcerting than Avery mentioning boyfriends and then getting punched on the sidewalk. People usually thought I was weird, but didn’t say it out loud.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Oh, don’t be sorry. I’m the queen of weird. I like it.”

  That made me squirm a little, but it was funny enough that I let out a small laugh. “Did you find anything good today?” I asked.

  “Maybe one. But it wasn’t really my kind of book, so I sent it on to Linda without reading the whole thing.”

  I rarely sent a manuscript to an agent without reading the whole thing. I almost said it, but stopped myself. Was that weird of me? What would a more normal-than-not person say?

  “How about you?” Tasha asked.

  Oh. Now there was a new question, so maybe I didn’t have to comment on the last thing? “Nothing. I couldn’t find anything in the feed that held my attention.”

  “I suppose not. I mean, what could be more interesting than going out to lunch with the dragon?”

  I remembered Kevin’s comment. Hormone-raging hard-ass. Did everyone think such bad things about Avery? I leapt to his defense. “He’s not that bad.”

  Tasha choked on a laugh. “Yeah, right. Have you even visited the employee forums? I mean, yeah, the forums are kind of a running joke now, but it didn’t start out that way. Avery’s hot and all, but anyone who’s been here more than a year has felt the burning lash of his tongue. He tends to say things that aren’t all that nice. The first time I met him, he looked me up and down and said, ‘Maybe if you tried harder, you could find room to put more holes in your head.’”

  I tried to imagine Avery saying that, and the funny part was that I could. I could hear inside my head exactly how he’d say it. “Yeah, okay, but I think that’s his way of acknowledging you more than him just being an ass. I mean, obviously you want people to notice you. Nothing about you is quiet.”

  That made her smile. “This is true. But he chased away three personal assistants in less than three months. Might have been more than that, because I think one of them didn’t last a whole week.”

  Pretty sure that wasn’t a lie. I’d seen Avery snap at Stephanie, but I’d also seen her stand up to him. “Maybe they weren’t the right assistants.”

  Tasha clicked her tongue. “Maybe. He seems to like you well enough.”

  I tried to fight the blush, but failed. Tasha laughed. “Yeah, I think he likes you a lot.”

  If she started with the rhyme about sitting in a tree, I – well, I d
idn’t know what I would do. Cringe, probably. Or turn even more red.

  “Hey,” she said. “I’m just teasing you a little, trying to be friendly. Word in the office is that the dragon is a lot less fiery lately.”

  And there my brain went, running off again. Like for how long, I wondered? Just since I arrived? Was Avery calmer because of me?

  Tasha poked me in the arm. “Hello? Aren’t you going to tell me again he’s not that bad?”

  I shook my head, remembering how Avery told me that no matter what I heard about the past, the Avery I know is the real Avery. “I’ve only been here a short time. I don’t know him all that well.”

  But I did. I knew him almost better than I knew anyone else. Or at least I thought I did. But I wondered what he’d been going through to make him behave in a way that caused people to nickname him ‘the dragon.’ Whatever it was, it must have been awful, and I felt sad for him.

  After work I ruminated about Kevin, and the things Tasha said, while I chopped peppers and Avery sautéed chicken in a frying pan.

  “Everything okay?” Avery asked. “You’re awfully quiet.”

  I nodded.

  “Are you sure? Don’t worry about that guy, okay? I doubt he’ll bother us again.”

  I shook my head.

  “Words, Julian. Or do you need to go to your room and write me an email?”

  “It’s just… well, I haven’t forgotten what you said, that no matter what you used to be like, I know the real you. But that guy said something about a raging hard-ass, and then Tasha said – well, it doesn’t much matter what Tasha said. I just don’t get it. It doesn’t even seem like they can be talking about the same person I know.”

  Avery was quiet. He transferred the peppers from the cutting board to the pan with the chicken, added broth, and stirred everything together. He shook something from the spice rack over the food. When he spoke next, he looked at the frying pan, not at me. “I wasn’t healthy when I first took over Phoenix & Phoenix. Don’t get me wrong, I was working on it, but I was on a medication that caused some, er, aggression the first few months. It took me some time to tamp it down. In the meantime, I suppose I was, ah, less than nice to most people. But I always thought Tasha was pretty cool, so I’m not sure why she has beef with me.”

  “She doesn’t,” I said. “Not really. She called you ‘the dragon’ and talked about how many personal assistants you drove away before Stephanie. And you teased her about the holes in her face. I don’t think she dislikes you, though.”

  I knew about medication, like I knew what it was like to be a patient on a psychiatric unit. My mother had taken me to several doctors, who’d put me on several medications. All of them were supposed to make me ‘better’ – but none of them did. Some of them made me crazier than ever. Some of them stripped me of all energy and motivation, leaving me to sleep for twenty hours a day, and some of them made me so agitated I couldn’t sleep at all. I didn’t keep taking any of them for very long, because that didn’t seem like the answer. I learned coping skills. I made my life predictable so I could function. But I was starting to think Avery was a better cure than anything I’d found on my own. My coping skills got me through and made it possible for me to live a boring, lonely life. But I didn’t think I wanted that life anymore. I wanted this one, the one with Avery at the center of everything. And yet, I had to ask. I had to know. “What kind of medication turned you into a raging asshole?”

  Avery’s lips twitched. “Funny choice of words. Ah… I feel like… well. If I answer that question, we’re going to be awake all night.”

  I plain out did not manage to comprehend that. Avery was always so direct. Why was he hedging? “That makes no sense to me.”

  Now he looked pained. “I know. I’m having a difficult time, here. I didn’t expect to be having this conversation tonight. I’m not prepared for it. I have no idea how you’re going to react.”

  “Yeah, wow, that’s clearing things up.” I thought about the cliché, ‘clear as mud’. Perhaps I won’t feel instant criticism the next time I stumbled upon that description.

  Avery looked nervous, but I didn’t feel nervous at all. Seeing Avery unsure actually made me calmer. “Maybe you should tell me how people usually react.”

  “There isn’t a way people usually react. There’s more of a range of reactions. The best ones are ‘wow, that’s interesting,’ and the worst are like Kevin. I don’t know you well enough to even guess where you’ll be on that spectrum.”

  Well, okay, I admit that made me a little anxious. “I don’t know how we got from me asking you about medication to you giving me dire warnings, but I’m pretty sure I won’t hit you. I think you’d better spit it out before my imagination runs wild.”

  “I’ve been injecting myself with testosterone, Jules. For about eighteen months.”

  That cleared up absolutely nothing. “Okay,” I said. “And?”

  “The first few months I felt both better and worse. Happier because I was discovering my true self. Crazier because it was like adolescence and menopause all at the same time, and I didn’t have any control over my emotions. I was also crazy fucking horny, which made me impatient with everyone all the time.”

  My body was telling me something here, but it wasn’t something bad. Crazy fucking horny made me think of Avery’s eyes in the bedroom, that feral look of wanting to devour me. I loved that look.

  “You understand what transgender is, right?” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Jules?”

  I was still slightly stuck on thinking about crazy fucking horny, but I understood that question. Or at least I thought I did. “Yes, of course. Transgender people don’t connect with the gender they were assigned at birth, but – ”

  Wait. Was he saying…?

  He was watching me, waiting for something.

  And my brain was suddenly on tilt and going backwards, back to something his mother had said about raising twins… identical twins?

  “Identical twins are always the same gender.” I could hear my words, but it was like my mouth was faster than my brain. I knew I was making complete sense but I was having a delay in processing.”

  “Yes,” Avery said, still waiting.

  “You have an identical twin sister, and you take testosterone, a male hormone, and that means that you – ” My comprehension seemed to stutter to a halt.

  “I was born and raised female.”

  I didn’t think he was lying, but I almost didn’t believe it.

  I’d looked at him standing arm-in-arm with his sister. They looked alike. Remarkably alike. I looked at him now, as I filtered this new information. His eyes were beautiful. So blue. And his lashes – I loved how his lashes were so long they fanned his cheek. And his lips had such a pleasing shape…

  “The Avery that I’m looking at is the real Avery,” I said.

  He nodded.

  I’d woken up in the night with my hand pressed against his chest. I vaguely remembered a texture I thought might be a scar. I’d forgotten it by morning, but now clearly remembered.

  “Will you take off your shirt?” I asked. “Can I touch you now?”

  Avery’s eyes looked serious. He’d changed out of his suit into a t-shirt and jeans, like he always did after work. He started to lift his shirt over his head. “You’re not freaking out? You’re not mad?” he asked, voice muffled by fabric.

  I kind of wanted to laugh, because I was always freaking out, except for right now. I wasn’t mad. I didn’t feel like he’d lied to me. He’d already told me that the Avery I knew was the real Avery, and I believed him. I still felt somewhat confused, but I knew that would pass as I got him to explain more. And I felt something like uneasy that he hadn’t wanted me to know he was transgender. Like, he’d made some judgment about me. Maybe it was hurt or disappointment he didn’t want to trust me with this. “You wouldn’t let me touch you because you didn’t want me to find out?”

  He dropped his shirt to the floor. “No, not that. Well, n
ot exactly. I just didn’t want to answer questions. I wanted to ravish you.”

  Well. That made me blush.

  His tattoo was beautiful, and the art of it even more amazing when I stepped close to Avery and touched it, following the swoop of the wings, and then the tail-feathers. My fingers explored what I couldn’t see, how skillfully the artist had used ink to hide scars.

  Avery stood still, seemed to be holding his breath.

  I touched his nipple, then leaned close and licked it. My hand could feel the flutter of his heart. “This tattoo is pretty sneaky,” I said.

  His chest rose as he took a breath. “I needed it,” he said. “I needed all of it to feel even remotely okay.”

  I didn’t know much about this topic, but I believed him. “I think I need you, to feel even remotely okay. Is it too soon to say that out loud?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t care. Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

  “With this?” I patted his chest. “Of course. It’s beautiful.”

  “No, I mean, well… there’s other stuff. I have no plans to get bottom surgery. I like my body exactly the way it is now.”

  “Avery, I don’t even know what that means.”

  “It means I’m never letting a surgeon cut up my remaining girls parts to try to make boy parts. Sex will never be exactly normal for me.”

  Oh.

  Well.

  “I’ve only ever had sex with you, and as you so bluntly told me, we’ve been having sex for days. And I kind of like it.”

  “Only kind of?”

  “Maybe a little more than that. Sir.”

  His pupils flared.

  He turned off the stove. “Jules. If you want dinner, you’d better eat right now.”

  “I’m not hungry anymore. Are you?”

  “Not for food. But I have a definite appetite for tying you to my bed.”

  A very short time later my wrists were tied to the bedposts at the head of the bed, and my legs floated above my face, thighs spread wide. Avery had wound the red fabric around each leg, just above the knee, and tied the free ends to the headboard. Pretty sure ‘obscene’ was the correct word for a position like this. All my private bits were right there, unguarded and unprotected.