For the Love of April French

by Penny Aimes

  “Hey,” he said, trying to hold his chill. Hoping he was projecting only calm and affection instead of the cocktail of longing and fear he’d been mixing all through his flight. “I brought you something.” The pashmina was never going to make the all-time greats of things he had bought her, although since he had grabbed it at the airport the cost per square inch was probably competitive with some lingerie. Its primary virtue lay in the fact that April was able to wrap it around her neck and shoulders and cover the lower part of her face.

  “Of course you did,” she said, with something like humor in her voice. Her eyebrows, at least, suggested she was amused.

  “Fatima said you were having a bad time and could use a...friend,” he said.

  “She shouldn’t have done that,” April said quietly.

  “You’re going to have to stay overnight?”

  “Yeah. I...we got started late,” she said, in a fragile tone of voice. “And we weren’t able to finish. So I have to come back in the morning. Only I’m supposed to be working from home tomorrow and I didn’t bring my laptop because it was just supposed to be in and out and I don’t have a hotel reservation or my meds or a-anything.” Her voice cracked a bit, then evened out.

  She took a slow breath, and then another. “I’m really fine. I just got a little overwhelmed.”

  He nodded. The longer they went without her telling him to get out, the steadier he felt, and the more the eager problem-solving parts of his brain clicked into place. “We’ll find a hotel, and the world isn’t going to end if you call in sick. I did it four hours ago, and I promise, the sky didn’t fall.

  “And we’ll get you some clothes to wear for tomorrow, if you’re worrying about that. You know I’m good at that.” He smiled wryly and was heartened when her eyes brightened above the scarf. “I may have to see your face at some point, though,” he said.

  “No thank you,” she whispered, but her eyes were bright with relief. The two-inch strip of her visible to him looked shattered with weariness and gratitude.

  This was the right call, he thought, his heart climbing down out of his throat. No matter what happens, it was worth it for that. All the anxieties piled up in his chest evaporated, and he felt one hundred pounds lighter as he went to handle logistics.

  As it turned out, this kind of thing did happen a lot, and the clinic had standing relationships with certain hotels in the area. The receptionist even offered to have a shuttle sent around, but Dennis told her he had a rental car. April was effusive in thanking the receptionist and the technician; he didn’t understand why she was quite so over the top until they got in the car.

  “I came on the wrong day,” she muttered into the pashmina, nudging it up to wipe her eyes. “Just...a pure fuck-up. I always do it on Thursdays and work from home Friday, so I have more time to recover before work. But I guess I scheduled it for Friday this time. They had to call someone to come in on her day off to help. That’s why we started late.”

  “Anybody could make a mistake like that,” he said, trying to watch her and drive in the unfamiliar city at the same time. The pashmina had obviously comforted her, but it was making it damn hard for him to monitor her mood.

  “I can’t believe you came,” she said, not for the first time.

  She looked battered; not just her face, which he hadn’t seen yet, but how she held herself. She seemed...wounded.

  His first thought had been that he’d never seen her dressed so carelessly, with so little work put into her appearance, but with more time to think about it he realized that her appearance was as deliberate as ever. It was an outfit designed to hide in, to project androgyny and say please don’t look at me.

  It wasn’t working on him. All he could see was the fragile, long-suffering woman hiding inside the clothes, and all he wanted to do was hold her and shield her from the heartless world.

  “Let’s talk about it in a little bit,” he said. “Just rest.” She nodded and looked down at her phone.

  The hotel was not far away, fortunately. Dennis handled the check-in and let her hang back, but the concierge seemed to realize they were together. “How many in the room, sir?” she said pointedly.

  “Two,” he said, providing his driver’s license.

  She nodded and gestured towards April. “I’ll need to see his ID, too.”

  Dennis was having a bit of a long day by this point, and for a moment his vision flashed red as rage reached for the steering wheel. “I’m paying for the room, not her,” he ground out pointedly.

  “Yes, sir, but it’s our policy—”

  “It’s okay,” April whispered, and handed over the ID. The concierge’s eyes flickered from it to her.

  “I’m sorry but I’ll need to see—”

  “I understand.” Her voice was tiny. She unwound the pashmina, keeping eye contact with Dennis. He had a split second to decide if she would rather he look away, but he kept his eyes on hers.

  She looked like she’d been through the wars. Her upper lip especially was red and swollen already, and most of her face was puffy and angry-looking. There were deep blue lines of bruise along her cheekbones. The skin on her lower neck was apparently untouched, and lightly scattered with whiskers.

  Without thinking, he moved closer to her and slipped an arm around her waist. The urge to say something acid to the concierge rose up, but he felt like it would only embarrass her more.

  The concierge coughed. “Everything seems to be in order here. Have a nice day.” April wrapped the scarf back around her neck but didn’t bother covering her face as they proceeded to the hotel room.

  He tried to be solicitous but unobtrusive once they got there; hung up her jacket and his, before taking a seat on the bed. “I know it’s been a long day,” he said. “Do you want to take a nap and I’ll run out and get the things on the list?” The clinic had provided a sheet of what he couldn’t help thinking of as aftercare supplies; icing her face off and on would keep down the swelling, and ibuprofen would help with the pain.

  “Yes please,” she said, still in that tiny voice from the lobby.

  “Hey,” he said, wavering, half into his jacket. “Ah... I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay,” she said. She was paused in the act of pulling back the blanket, watching him, as if he was about to say something.

  Maybe because he was, he realized. He let the jacket slip off his shoulder and puddle in his hands. “I didn’t come just because I’m your friend,” he said. “I want to be more than that. I want to be the one who comes for you every time. I want to be the first one you call. You’re not just somebody I play with, April. You’re...”

  “Your best girl?” she said, tears in her eyes but a lilt of humor in her voice. Trying to joke her way away from the tension in the room.

  He dropped his eyes, then looked up and found hers again. “What if you were my only girl?”

  Almost immediately, he regretted dropping it on her in this situation. It was just unbearable not to say it. But now they were stuck together, and she might feel pressured—

  “Yes please,” she said softly, her hands tight on the coverlet.

  God, he did love it when she said yes.

  April

  She’d never seen Dennis at a loss for words before. So much of their relationship was wrapped up in games of control, where he at least pretended to be unflappable and in control all the time. But now the dynamic was reversed, as a slow giddy smile spread over his face and she vibrated with internal emotion.

  “Okay. Okay then!” He laughed. “I’ll...” He looked at his jacket, still in his hands. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. Please.” Joy was flaming on his face, and when he turned to leave, she could still read it in the set of his shoulders and the cock of his head. For her! He was so happy to have her, when he could have had anyone.

  April sunk down to the bed, her head swimmin
g. She was exhausted, her face was hot and aching and swollen, and the manifold humiliations of the day hung on her. Yet bliss was welling up inside her, from the very center of her. It seemed impossible.

  She waited for the hateful voice in her head to tell her it was impossible. But for once it was silent. She felt hideous and miserable. If Dennis could look at her like this and say he didn’t want anyone else, she had to believe him.

  He hadn’t said anything about the six-month omission of their common employer. On the other hand, he hadn’t said anything about firing Bob Flowers for her, either. Maybe...maybe those were just things to not be discussed?

  She took off her shoes and got under the covers, thinking she had to at least text Fatima, and promptly passed out. When she woke up Dennis was back. He had...more bags than he ought to. Of course he did.

  “Hey,” she said in a scratchy voice that made her wince. But what the fuck. He was looking at her facial hair right now. All dignity was behind her.

  “Hey lovely,” he said. He seemed like the cat that ate the canary and made a significant dent in the indigenous wildlife besides. “I got us dinner. I thought cold sandwiches were the best bet.”

  How long had she been asleep? It was darkening outside now, and she was starving. “Yes please,” she said, and his grin widened.

  “I think I’ll always love hearing you say that now,” he said.

  She found a spark of mischief in the embers and said, “What about ‘Yes Sir’?”

  “We can alternate,” he said, handing her a wrapped sandwich. Then his expression turned serious, as it could on a dime. “You know it’s not just that, though, right? I mean, we didn’t exactly spell things out.”

  She examined the sandwich and carefully removed the tomatoes. She could feel his silent regard and it made her feel warm and seen; she was willing to bet he’d never bring her a sandwich with tomatoes on it again. “I guess not,” she said. “Are you my boyfriend?” She tried to make it sound light, but it stuck badly in her throat.

  This was the part where he told her she’d gotten confused, right?

  “Yes,” he said, definitively.

  “And my...oh, I don’t really care for Master,” she said, thinking. His expression indicated he was on the same page about that one.

  “We can just say I’m your dom. And you’re my precious, beautiful doll.”

  She flushed. She didn’t feel the least bit precious or beautiful. Except when he said it, it was as if she slipped sideways for a moment into an alternate life where she was both those things.

  “As well as my girlfriend. Sounds good?”

  “Yes please. Sir. Yes-please-Sir,” she said, giggling a bit. “Jesus, this day!”

  “I’m sorry it was such a cluster,” he said, and she had to laugh, because he really had no idea.

  Did she really want him to know about this? On the other hand, if he was going to be her boyfriend, that meant she had to tell him things like this. No—it meant she got to tell him things like this, it meant she had someone to tell when things like this happened.

  “I got groped by the TSA,” she said, and his face darkened.

  “What?”

  “Oh, they have to push a button on the scanner. Like a male or female button? And I looked,” she gestured, “like this, so they hit M, but of course my bra showed up, so they did a pat-down. But I really feel like he could’ve figured that out without going up front. And then he said, you can go Sir, and I was feeling hoppy, so I said, ma’am, and he gave me the get-the-fuck-out-of-here thumb jerk.” She demonstrated.

  She was trying to keep her voice light, just another fun adventure in transing your gender, but from his expression she must not be doing very well.

  “Please don’t try to get him fired,” she said quietly.

  “What? No,” he said. “Just thinking. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that happened.”

  “It’s okay. Can’t blame him.” His face said he differed. She pushed on. “And then I thought I saw my ex-wife.”

  “Jesus.” He shook his head. “Was it her?”

  “Oh Lord, I don’t know, I ran across the food court and hid,” she said, laughing, and again he didn’t laugh. “I’m making too big a deal of it,” she said quickly. “It was just a lot piling up.”

  He moved across the bed, and she shifted the remains of her sandwich to make space for him. He embraced her from the side, one arm between her and the wall and the other wrapping around her waist to squeeze, then falling into her lap. “You’re not making too big a deal of it. Thank you for telling me.” He released her, but stayed close, and she leaned back into him. “I know you don’t like to talk about her, especially.”

  “I can,” she said. She put one of her hands over his, and wished it was smaller. Wished and wished. “I’ll try to, more.” She closed her eyes and let herself melt into the heat of his body against hers. The anxiety of giving up the truth gave way to the relief of not being alone with it anymore. She spent so much time second-guessing herself and minimizing her injuries. His fury and desire to protect her was everything she had ever wanted.

  (And if that had cost Bob Flowers his job? Too bad, so sad.)

  They sat like that a long moment, and then she asked tentatively, “How long did you want...this?”

  “Did I want you?” he asked, his voice close to her ear and sending a shiver up her spine. She’d rarely felt less sexual, but sensual? Sure. She wanted to sink into him like a bath. “Pretty much right away. But you didn’t want to be exclusive.”

  “I didn’t say that,” she protested, playing with his fingers. “I said being exclusive never worked for me.”

  A laugh, again huffed right into her ear and making her tingle. “I see I’ll have to pay closer attention,” he said, and the thought of him paying closer attention to her made her feel like she was melting. Evaporating. “Is that because of her?” he asked.

  “I guess. The same way you didn’t push because of your her, huh?”

  He made a quiet sound of acknowledgment. “Yes. My relationship with Sonia, it wasn’t...safe. I thought she was okay with everything, and when I found out she wasn’t, it...wrecked me. I didn’t want to take any chances. I didn’t want to push.”

  She drew in a deep breath and shifted to settle further into his arms, letting his body backstop her. “I can tell you why I needed a push,” she said. “If you want. You showed me yours.”

  She prayed he wouldn’t ask her to, and then when he said, “Only if you want to. You’ve had a hell of a day already,” she knew that she needed to say it. Her damn brain!

  “I married Marie my senior year of college. We were both kinky and she was my domme from the beginning,” she said, speaking quietly but trying not to go too fast, knowing she would want to sprint through it and trying to rein herself in. It was just agonizing, to remember how happy she had been, how sure she had been that things were going to work out.

  She’d had so many pictures of the future in her head back then, and even if she wouldn’t trade her present for that imagined future, it hurt to look back and remember being so blindly hopeful. “And when I transitioned a few years later, she supported me. She was...great, at first. Mostly.

  “But after a while she thought we should open up the relationship,” she said, willing her voice not to waver. “She said I should have...a full range of experiences, as a woman, and she admitted she missed...a real man.” She licked her lips.

  “But it was a bad idea. She was...she was jealous. I’ve known other people with open marriages and plenty of people who are polyamorous, too, but I don’t think she was really wired that way. It was something else.”

  It seemed like every time April got even a little attention, went on a date or got off a call giddy with the possibility of romance, Marie had gotten mad. And when Marie got mad, she got even.

  “She would bring in oth
er men, make me see it, and she never dominated them. But it was still all about control. Afterwards she would taunt me about it, ask me how it felt to see a real man fuck my wife.”

  “She was using them to hurt you,” said Dennis, squeezing her tight. His emotions were opaque to her again, and for the moment she was glad. Hers felt big enough to take up the whole room. They had been compressed for a long time and now that they were out and full-sized again it seemed impossible she could ever put them back.

  “I told her I never signed up for that...cuckold shit. And she...she told me she thought it was what I wanted. With my...my sissy games.” Her voice shook there. Damn it. “So all along she had just seen it as...role-play. Kink. Not real. I was still her little subby husband, just in a dress.”

  She’d been so humiliated. So betrayed and furious. So ashamed of her anger, which tasted like the poison of testosterone. She’d spent too many years trying not to be the kind of man who yelled at his wife; being the kind of woman who yelled at hers didn’t feel right. But Marie had had no such qualms. She’d gone scorched earth, and things she had said still haunted April. She’d never loved conflict, but those nights had made her terrified of it.

  It had taken her years to assign blame to Marie, and even now, it didn’t come easily. She didn’t want to be one of those people who bitched about their ex-wife.

  “I guess, in the end,” she said, distantly, “it was my fault. For letting the...lines blur, like that.”

  “No,” he said fiercely, and hugged her again. “It’s not your fault. It was her job to keep the lines straight, it was her job to know if it was safe to play that game and to ask if she wasn’t sure.”

  “Maybe it was just a mistake,” she said softly. “People make mistakes.” She wondered if it was cutting too close to his own issues.

  “Maybe. But she’s still responsible.” Yeah, there was definite projection in that, in the vibrato and terseness of his voice.

  “Dennis.” She felt exhausted, but she couldn’t let this pass. “You really have to forgive yourself.”