“Hmm?” Nick asked. He trailed his hands over her knee, touching the edge of the dress. “What do you mean?”
“If Say Anything isn’t the best romantic comedy, what do I win? What are we betting on if not money?”
“Oh. Good question.” Nick caressed along the seam of her dress, then kissed her neck and collarbones. “I suppose I could take you out to dinner again. Treat you nice, like this.”
Katie shuddered under his touch. “I do have a birthday coming up.”
“You do?”
“Uh-huh. Next week. The thirty-first.”
“Well, then it’s settled. I think that’s the obvious plan, then. If you’re right, and Say Anything isn’t the best, then I have to take you out for your birthday.”
“And if you win?” she asked. “Not that you will, but what would you want then?”
Nick’s mind filled with a bunch of filthy options. His dick was already hard, and he knew that Katie was right, they were going slow. So slow. For their own benefit, but it was still driving him wild. He could barely think straight.
“I want you,” he said simply. “For your birthday.”
“In my birthday suit?” she teased.
“Maybe.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice hitching. “Let’s talk about this later. Because right now, I really, really want you to kiss me.”
Nick didn’t need more convincing. As their lips met, Nick hooked his fingers around the straps of Katie’s dress to anchor him in place. He needed grounding in that moment, to remind him again and again that he was kissing Katie, a woman—a beautiful woman that he desperately wanted more and more with each panting breath.
“Lie down,” Katie whispered as she broke the kiss. “Lie down on me. This time it’s going to be a lot less awkward.”
Nick shifted up the bed more so Katie could lie down without pulling her hair or coming off the edge of the bed. He cradled her jaw as he moved a knee between her legs and continued to kiss her. Nick allowed Katie to dictate the speed and rhythm she wanted. Soon, his lips dropped down to kiss her neck as his hands wandered to her breasts.
“Fuck,” she said. He cupped her breast again. When he found her nipple through the fabric, she made another low, throaty sound. “Fuck.”
Nick kissed from neck to earlobe, and then pressed her body close to his. “Can I undo . . .?”
“Yes.” She rocked her hips into his. She angled her body to give him access to the zipper, and he tugged it down to the bottom. He continued to kiss her as her straps fell down even farther, exposing her bra underneath the pink fabric. The bra was strapless, something that Nick had never seen up close. He pulled back in order to marvel at her body for a moment, mostly because he had never done this before. Ever. Hands down.
“I have no idea how to get bras off,” he confessed, laughing a little.
Katie laughed too. She propped herself up and wiggled around a little, before she smiled. “There you go. Got it for you.”
Nick touched his fingers to her chest, and then, with Katie’s eyes staring at him, began to push her top down. He didn’t know why it was such a tension-filled moment, but Nick still held his breath as her pale nipples were revealed. The dress remained halfway down her body, hitched just above her navel. Nick ran a hand along her waist, then over her breasts. She was so, so soft under his palms. He almost didn’t know what to do.
“Fuck,” Nick said.
“Fuck good, or bad?” Katie cheeks turned pink. “Come on, don’t leave me hanging.”
Nick kissed her on her mouth again, hard and passionate. He kept one hand on her breast, toying with a nipple as Katie writhed under him. Her nipples pebbled and her breasts bounced with each hurried breath.
“Fuck,” he said again. “This is good. Don’t worry. You feel fucking amazing.”
“Good.” She cupped her hand along Nick’s still-clothed chest and ended up over his hard dick. She ran her thumb in small circles around the head, teasing and toying with him. Now that her breasts were out, Nick wanted nothing more than to touch them and taste them. He sucked down on her neck, then slowly licked along her collarbones. He kissed her chest and sucked on her nipples, all the while hearing her breath quiver and her heart pound.
“Fuck.” She let out a low moan. “Come back here. I’m not done with you.”
Katie found his belt in between their bodies and wrenched it open.
“Sit up,” she said, and Nick followed her orders. His heart pounded as he wondered just how far they were going to go—and what exactly Katie would want. He sat back against the pillows, his belt undone but pants still on. Katie slid down onto the bedroom floor and moved between his legs. Even before she got his dick out, Nick’s stomach dropped with arousal.
“Oh fuck,” he murmured.
Katie only grinned. Her dress was still halfway down her body, her breasts even bigger now that she wasn’t lying down. Nick could see the pink patches he had left from kissing her with so much stubble, and his dick twitched in response. He had done that. He’d marked her. As Katie moved between his legs to take out his cock, another surge of arousal flowed through him. She held his cock in her hands, pumping up and down a few times as she stared at him.
“Get my purse?” she asked, still holding his cock. “I have some condoms in there.”
Nick nodded and did as he was told. He found some red wrappers and pulled them out, noting the flavoured marking as he handed them over. Katie unwrapped one of them and placed it on the head of his dick. She readied her mouth around the rim of the condom and pushed it down as her mouth caressed him.
“Ohhh.” Nick grabbed Katie’s shoulders, not to direct her, but to hold himself in place. Nick spread his legs wider for her to get access, and swallowed hard as she used that room to then stroke his balls as she worked. Nick leaned back, completely overwhelmed. When she looked up at him from between her bangs, a soft smile visible in her eyes, Nick shuddered.
“Fuck, ohhh fuck,” he continued to moan. Katie moved faster, paying close attention to his body, feeling out his hips’ thrusts, and relaxing her throat to compensate. She was so fucking good and so fucking pretty, he almost lost it. Then he laughed, because he was getting a blowjob from a woman, something he’d thought would never happen, and it was the best thing he’d ever experienced.
“Nick,” Katie said. Her lips were soft and swollen, her tongue a little redder than usual. “Do you want to come on me?”
Nick had to close his eyes and bite his own lip, while desperately trying to control his orgasm. Just hearing her say the words was half as arousing as the actual action, so he nodded.
Katie squeezed his thigh to let him know she understood. She sunk back on his cock again, taking him as far as she could go. When he thought he couldn’t take any more, Katie pulled off with the condom. She angled her chest to him as she stroked him through his finish. He came on her in small rivulets, marking her breasts and soft pink nipples with white.
“Fuck,” Nick groaned. His hand replaced Katie’s after a moment, and though he was pretty much done and too sensitive, he felt like he could keep going. Katie smiled at up him, saying nothing until he was complete.
“Kiss me?” Nick asked.
“Now that is something I can do. Definitely.” Katie climbed on the bed again, and very, very carefully leaned over to meet Nick’s mouth.
After Katie had cleaned up in Nick’s bathroom, she came back to the bedroom with her dress properly done up. Nick had to admit that he was slightly disappointed, but his flushed cheeks and euphoria high were not going away anytime soon.
“Here.” He passed Katie her cardigan. “If you’re cold.”
“Thank you.” She folded the cardigan across her lap and leaned close to Nick on the bed. She gestured towards the laptop. “Should we start the movie again?”
“Um, sure. But do you . . .?”
“Want to get off?” Katie laughed. “I, uhh, I already did?”
“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry.” Disappoin
tment washed over Nick. He’d wanted to give Katie that orgasm, not out of a sense of duty or obligation, but because he wanted to make her feel as amazing as she’d just made him feel. Katie seemed to sense his disappointment, because she brushed their noses together in a kiss.
“Don’t worry right now, okay? But I do have something for you, for when we do that again. Because I’d like to.”
“Me too.”
Katie found her purse from Nick’s floor and pulled it into her lap. She pushed past her wallet, and a couple more flavoured condoms, before she withdrew a thin zine and held it precariously in her hands.
“This is something that I’ve found really, really helpful for, well, sex. Hormones do so many weird—but amazing things—to bodies, and during my transition, I pretty much had to figure out how to have sex again. Which was fun, because hey, sex.”
The title of the zine was Fucking Trans Women. The zine had a typical photocopied look to it, but it was laid out like a textbook. The table of contents listed sections for fisting, scissoring, and everything under the sun in addition to fucking. There was a section on sex toys, on lubricants, protection, and even terminology.
“This is really detailed,” Nick remarked. “Interesting, but there’s so much here.”
“I know. But hear me out with it, okay? Each trans person is different with how they like to be fucked, but I find this zine helps to contextualize a lot of what I want to do. Sometimes I have a really hard time expressing things, especially in relation to sex. Not just because of hormones, but other things. I’m never going to get the surgery, so I’m left with this really weird feeling. When I’m fucking around by myself, it doesn’t matter—but when I fuck around with other people . . .”
“Expectations can get in the way?”
“Yeah. That’s a good way to put it,” she said, then drew in a quick breath. “I have a dick. That much is obvious since I’m pretty sure you felt it against yours. Most of the time, I don’t like calling it a dick, though. And while I like to do things with it that would be considered unladylike . . . I also don’t care. Sometimes what I want to do also doesn’t work, but hey, that’s what toys are for. I like to get fucked and fuck people. But sometimes, I want one more than the other, and different feelings swirl around inside of me, so it’s almost better to just come in my pants like I’m a teenager than to really deal with how I want to be touched.”
“I understand that, but I still want you to have fun.” Nick took Katie’s hand.
“Oh, I did. Your faces are amazing.”
Nick blushed slightly, returning his gaze to the zine.
“You don’t have to read it all tonight,” Katie said. “But would you mind looking at it? I want to do that again with you, but I want you to do the same to me. But without . . . all the weirdness that may come with it.”
“Tonight wasn’t weird, was it?”
“No. I liked it. Don’t doubt that.”
“Okay, good. It wasn’t weird for me, either, and I don’t think it will be if we do it again—or do more. But . . . thanks for this. I’ll look through it.”
Nick placed the zine on his desk and refreshed the Netflix page. He gestured to the screen and back at Katie. “Should we?”
“Definitely. I still need to see if I’ll win.”
As Nick slid next to Katie again, and the soundtrack for the film hummed to life, he knew the winning or losing didn’t matter. But hearing that Lloyd Dobler, John Cusack’s character in the film, wasn’t the best out of all the 1980s protagonists, would be a crushing blow—especially since Nick was realizing how much of his personality he’d based around Lloyd.
When it got to the famous scene in the movie, when Lloyd blasts Peter Gabriel outside Diane Court’s bedroom window, Nick wondered if he would have ever bothered to try that with Barry. He didn’t think so; Barry never liked movies like this. He only wanted to play music and go out to clubs, and for a while, that had worked. But when Nick realized he and Barry were going nowhere, he hadn’t blasted anything outside a window and begged for reconciliation. Instead, Nick had buried his nose inside the Romantic poets’ love affairs and tried to forget about having a big dream wedding. Which was fine, really. Weddings and stuff like that were too commercial anyway.
But now, with Katie under his arm, Nick almost didn’t recognize himself. She was the one he’d blast Peter Gabriel for. Or the Psychedelic Furs “Pretty in Pink,” since that was what she liked more.
Oh no, Nick thought. I am so far gone.
Katie nestled into his side more, laughing a little as the ending scene culminated with Diane and Lloyd on the plane. When the ending credits music played, Nick turned to Katie. “So, what did you think?”
“I think . . . it’s a really good movie, but without having seen all the movies in the world, I can’t definitively say that it’s the best.”
“That is such a cop-out,” Nick teased, smiling wide.
“Not in the least. We may have to call it a draw. I think it’s a classic romantic comedy. I can easily attest to that.”
“Oh yeah?” Nick pulled Katie close for a kiss, then rested his forehead against hers. “I think that’s probably fair. We both win.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“You have to move your car.”
“Fuck.” Nick held his hand over the bottom half of his cell phone in an attempt to muffle his curses and complaining. He’d woken up to the sound of his ringtone and grabbed the phone right away, thinking it was Katie wishing him a good morning. When Greg’s gruff but kind tone greeted him instead, the weight of Nick’s precarious situation came back to him. My car. My poor goddamn car that I still have no money for.
It had been over two weeks since it hadn’t started. Greg had been a saint for keeping it so long without a peep. But like anything Greg did, he ignored the issue until it became a pressing matter. He was probably getting the third degree from his bosses, which now led him to call Nick at the ungodly hour of 7:45 a.m.
“You still there, Nick?”
“I’m here,” Nick said. He chewed on his bottom lip as he tried to remember his credit limit. He needed to pay off way more on his card before he could even think about using it. “Give me a couple more days, okay? I will have some money by then.”
“The grace period is wearing thin. I can’t extend many more olive branches. You’ve gotta get something done.”
“I’m aware of that, and thank you again for keeping the car so long. But it’s almost the end of the month, right? I get paid for school on Friday. As soon as I see that in my account, I’ll put it on my card and give you the number so you can order the battery and brakes. I’ve thought this through, you see.”
“The repairs are already done. Battery and brakes all present and accounted for. I need you to pay the bill for that now.”
“So you’re basically just keeping my car hostage? Until I pay?”
Greg let out a low sigh. “It’s not hostage, Nick. It’s my job. I did my job, and now we need you to pay for it. And you asked if you could keep the car here. So really, you’re the one putting it in a hostage situation.”
“Ugh. Fuck. I know.” Nick didn’t bother to muffle his curses this time around. He rose from his bed and sat down at his desk, minimizing the grading he’d been doing the night before and opening the calculator. Maybe I calculated something incorrectly. Maybe there’s still a way to do this. He got Greg to list him off the repair total while he used his phone to find his credit limit. Earlier in the week, he’d gone around and tried to find spare change he’d normally spend on coffee and added it to his account. He’d been shocked at how much that ended up being, and silently promised himself he’d never go to Starbucks again in his life, because those drinks added up quickly. That allowed him a bit more leeway than he’d had before, and after he factored in his total from the school, he was in better standing. Rent, insurance, and the internet bill still made him anxious, but that was what Tucker was for. Nick hated being that kind of roommate, bu
t if Tucker would allow him to pay him a couple of hundred later, he could give something to Greg right now for his car.
“So what’s the verdict?” Greg asked after Nick had been silent for quite some time. “Am I going to have to go Fast & Furious on your car in order to pay for it myself? Become a drag race star and bet on myself?”
Nick held his tongue that if Greg were betting, it would mean Greg would also be losing. And a Mazda 3 as a street racer didn’t have the same effect as Vin Diesel in a Dodge Charger. Nick minimized the window on his computer where his calculations were. “I’ll be turning myself into the worst roommate ever, but yes. I can give you some of this in cash and then put the rest on credit. I still need until Friday, though. That’s only three days away. Two and a half, really, because they usually pay us at midnight.”
A moment of silence passed. “Yeah, that’s fine. Your car will be here.”
“Thank you. I know you’re going out on a limb for me.”
“You’re welcome, Nick. Sorry to be a dick about it.”
“I understand. Business is business.” Even though Nick’s stomach was now in knots, he wasn’t mad at Greg. He couldn’t be; they all had their money issues and jobs to worry about. Nick found himself thinking back to a conversation he’d had with Katie earlier in the week about surgery costs and what all of that really meant in the long run for trans identity and capitalism. He wished he could relay the joke to Greg right now to ease the tension, but he moved on. “You’re a great guy. Thanks again.”
“Aw shucks. Hopefully you find a good guy yourself, Nick.”
Nick smile faltered, but it didn’t matter. Greg was already saying good-bye and hanging up. Nick placed his phone back down on his desk and let out a low breath. “Fuck.” That was slowly becoming his new favourite word, as if it was the only tagline someone could think of for his life.
Nick threw on a T-shirt and some jeans, running a hand through his hair. Even though he usually slept for another three hours (at least), he was far too wired to even attempt rest. He pulled up his grading from the night before so he could at least feel productive. After only a couple of minutes (and one really, really bad essay on the government), Tucker appeared at Nick’s door.
Hopeless Romantic Page 13
