The Calyx Charm

by May Peterson

  I ran a thumb down his naked chest and belly as I tugged the shirt off his shoulders. Tibario giggled faintly. “Mm. Your fingers tickle.”

  I mirrored his playful cheer, filling up with relaxation and hunger. “It’s what you get for being a wicked cat.”

  His grin bloomed. “Yes, my lady.”

  His closed eyes and willing exhibition gave this an air of spying, as if I were beholding him in a vision. His shoulders had such breadth, now that I saw where they began and ended without cover. Autumny hair set off his complexion, with patches of strawberry fuzz delicately dusting his lower belly and chest. Had he always had such a striking figure? Muscles slicked under his cool skin, but not so large or pronounced as to give him the shape of a battle-hardened warrior. He had gentle slopes and planes, much of the slim boyish grace I remembered from when we used to undress by the river. It was marked now with a lean adult beauty, with slightly more bulk than I’d imagined.

  He did not resist my examinations, half naked with his trousers partly open on my sofa, but lifted his arms as if to show off their ripple of muscle. He spoke with eyes still closed, exuding mischief. “I hope I am not disappointing. Becoming a wicked cat has given me a little more physique to boast of, but I rather like a wiry lad.”

  I chewed my lip. Acknowledging my desire at the best of times felt awkward, if not shameful. But if the world was exploding in two weeks, at least there would be no one to record the evil of having desired. “In fact, you are...breath-taking.”

  Familiar, arousing, strong arms and slender waist, and tender sides that flinched when I tickled them. His eyes opened, mischief falling. Silence with him was taking on a magic of its own, a new charm emergent in the interplay between us.

  “So I, uh.” I gulped, my hands shaking again. “I touch you and you say only if you dislike it, yes?”

  “Generally. Maybe don’t run a piece of ice down my spine right away.” He winked. “Perhaps we build up to the daring stuff. And, as much as I don’t want to push you—” He leaned in, our naked arms and shoulders touching. “—I would dearly love for you to strip me bare right here in front of you.”

  For fuck’s sakes, my mouth was dry as a gravel bed. It was just then profoundly hard to care about the evil of desire when that desire was all I could feel.

  Rising slowly, I stood in my underwear over him, my hair tumbling over my back and chest. His nostrils flared, anticipation pulsing off him like light. My voice was soft as snow. “Stand up.”

  His obedience was instant, supple, glorious. Obedience felt the wrong word for it. His eagerness. His desperate leaning into my will, the will he craved from me, bringing us so close that his heartbeat hit my skin.

  He was a feather’s width taller than me, his gallant strapping frame a sight I felt free to devour. Trousers all but falling loose at his waist, tufts of ginger hair peeking out from beneath his navel. The slight cleft of his groin and thighs coming into view, just above the open band of the trousers, inflicted me with such hunger it ached.

  His face, angled toward mine, shone with a nakedness that said I had unlocked him at last.

  I took two breaths. “Turn around.”

  No smile, no wily giggle from it. Only the thrum of yearning, a psychic ripple of his constrained desire. He turned, baring his smooth back. He wanted me to touch him. He wanted to be unlocked. And he wanted me to do it, to let him inside me in return. But he was showing me with every breath that he would never force my hand. Not with violence or with guilt. In his raw, shaking need, all he did was ask.

  I ran my cold seer’s fingers down his back, instinctively feeling the futures written there. He twinged sweetly, but stood still except for a twitch of his tail. Then carefully, like pulling the paper off a gift, I slid his trousers down.

  His underpants were easy to strip down with them, although I did have to adjust to pull them over his tail. The process moved with dreamlike speed, both our breaths pronounced in the quiet. His legs were paler than his torso, the tanline sharply framing his taut backside, especially against the dark tail. Somehow, I hadn’t imagined details like that, and the sudden presence of them was startling. Shocking. I pulled the trousers down to his ankles, and he stepped out of them one foot at a time. Candleglow glimmered off the tawny hair dusting his legs, accentuating lines of muscle, the slick shift of his buttocks as he moved. This was all so unceremonious, merely two friends once comfortable being nude together.

  Tibario having a firm, defined backside didn’t surprise me. It wasn’t exactly a mystery under his trousers. It was, however, easier to see under his tail without clothes. Everything about this was mesmeric. I gently rolled up his clothes and set them on the table, which made him appear strangely more naked, distanced from anything that may have covered him. A flush glowed on the back of his neck, the flash of his profile. Yet once more, he remained still.

  I almost couldn’t stop myself. I palmed one of those tight buttocks, squeezing and feeling the spring of muscle. Dragon. In. The Deep. Tibario gasped, and the growl that shuddered from him was so low and animal it nearly didn’t seem to come from him. His tail flinched sweetly, brushing my hand.

  I kept my hand there, fondling the soft place where buttock met upper thigh. “Does that feel good?”

  “Yes.” His voice sounded so raw and desperate. “I am restraining myself from...” A gulp. “Begging you to do more. Do you like it?”

  “Y-yes. Very much. You are. Extremely. Well rounded.” I half wanted to grab his tail, but it seemed a bit much for the moment.

  His silence left a perfume of wreckage on the air. I admired the line from his thighs to his shoulders for a while, thoughts draining from my head. Oh, God. It felt so good to not be lost in thoughts.

  Then, he panted, “Should I...turn around? Kneel?”

  So he would like to kneel. The idea of seeing his face right then seemed even more debauched. I licked my lips. “Will you turn and sit down?”

  He obeyed slowly. His face burned red, his eyes instantly on mine. He sat back leisurely, skin all on display, legs an open V shape as he settled. The furry length of his tail lashed over one of his thighs, accentuating its nude expanse. If he had smirked, the entire business may have been licentious enough for me to laugh. But his composed face lent a wild innocence to his exposure. He was nervous. He was hungry.

  And heavenly fuck. I made no disguise of my focus on his groin. The fuzz beneath his navel gathered into attractive brown curls. His cock gleamed like a centerpiece to the whole spread, the slippery skin already damp. That was a dick I could enjoy looking at for some time. Thick, veiny in a pleasantly natural way, the hood at his tip peeling back by itself enough to reveal a plump head. Like the punctuation at the end of a deliciously vivid sentence. A trail of glossy beads spotted his frenulum, gave the head a messy sheen.

  “I, uh.” He gulped again. “Am at the ready, as they say.”

  My lady parts were also burgeoning stiffly under my pants, and I was abruptly grateful that I hadn’t felt the need to tuck tonight so I didn’t have to worry about discomfort. So. This was what Tibario, my Tibario, looked like completely naked. Completely naked, on my sofa, legs and arms spread vulnerably. Hard and dripping from my touch.

  And he had shown me he would neither touch nor urge me without knowing what I wanted first. Yes. Definitely better than a dream.

  I behaved extremely out of character just then. I acted on pure impulse. I gently lowered myself to the sofa, knees framing his waist, hovering just above his lap. His chest rose and fell fervently. Everything about him said he wanted to touch me, pull me close as our thighs settled together. Maybe hold me, kiss me. But he waited. I rested both hands on his shoulders, finding a comfortable position on his lap. His fingers twitched, his tongue shot over his lips. But he waited.

  Our groins rubbed together, like two puzzle pieces slotting in place. The lace reduced the sensitivity of the conta
ct, but barely. His dampness met mine, made the front of my pants feel spoiled, affected, in the most exciting way.

  “Oh, fuck me.” He was panting so hard the words were like a gasp. “You not just in lace, but in my lap. Fuck me, fuck me.”

  He had done it somehow. He had unlocked me, leaving me relaxed and open. My unguarded response pulsed out like blood. “Is that what you want, wicked cat? You want my decidedly female cock in your wicked backside?”

  His pupils were so big they might be taking over his whole eyes. “Damn. I’ve never tried anything of the kind, but now I want to.” He audibly sucked on his lower lip. “Maybe not immediately, though.”

  Ironic. As I knew it, usually that was the most common request. Half of Vermagna seemed to want to be penetrated by a mollyqueen, whether it was what she wanted or not. “It’s best not rushed into. I want not to rush.” My lips were acquainting themselves with the curve of his neck, extracting shivers and whimpers from him. “Will you tell me what you do want? Even if we don’t do it tonight?”

  Tibario was flustered, gaze slightly confused. “What do you mean?”

  God, my mouth was so dry. Pausing, I found the space between our groins with one hand. He flinched pleasantly at my fingers grazing his bare dick. “Can you touch me? Just... I want to feel your hands. Your arms around me.”

  The speed of his compliance was feverish. Palms stroking my ass, fingers naturally poking under the strap of my pants but not pulling them down. Running up my spine, caressing my sensitive sides and hips. Soon tremors were throbbing in me too, and he did exactly what I’d hoped he do, without my asking. His tongue flashed over my nipple again, squeezing a frantic, “Yes, yes,” from me.

  His arms took over. My weight rested on him, both my hands freed to snake around our throbbing parts. The lust-dampened layer of fabric between his groin and mine felt like a temple veil, slick with ceremonial power and promising revelation. I rubbed the shaft of my girl-dick up and down, enjoying the messiness of our conjoined wetness. With the other hand, I fisted his dick, began pumping.

  “This may be against the rules,” I breathed, panting into his neck. “But I want you to tell me what you fantasize about happening. What you’ll imagine us doing the next time you think of me with yourself in your hands.”

  Tibario went on stroking my back, my buttocks and sides, shuddering as he digested my request. Maybe he was struggling to clear his head enough to reply. Then, in time with the rhythm of my pumping, his response pooled out over me like honey.

  “I want you to fuck me on my belly.” Each word was a blow against my endurance, arousing and startling. “I want you to take me from behind and open me up. Take my virginity. I want to surrender to this beautiful girl I took for granted for so fucking long.”

  From another man, these confessions may have felt abrasive, unnerving. Masculinizing me, reminding me of genitals that I’d spent a lifetime being ashamed of. From Tibario, instead, the fantasy glowed with intimacy. He wanted to know my body the way it was. He wanted the Violetta who already existed.

  More fluid pulsed over my fingers, making my grip on him slippery. His cock head felt huge and absurd and delicious against my palm. He continued through gasps. “But I want to fuck you, Vi. I want to lay you down and peel you naked like a piece of candy. I want to work those tender nipples of yours until you’re wet and ready and begging. Then I want to pierce you right in your pert, pretty ass. I want to be inside you. Fucking merciful god, Vi, I want to come inside you. I want you to feel me forever, feel me hot and slick and filling you up—”

  The words ground into a grunt like a weight dragging on the ground. Moisture spurted over my fingers, up my belly, a trail of heat across my senses. My own breath escalated, rose to a squeal-like pitch, and orgasm ruptured from me. Oh, fuck, I so rarely came with a partner the first time. I had so rarely come with another person at all. It was exhilarating, frightening, to come with him now, to let this syrupy pleasure mix with his, my thoughts dying in the surreal wonder of our skin and heat and sound.

  His grunting continued, mixed with animal snarls in a way that was deliriously arousing. He sounded so naked, so hungry. In moments, the rush of orgasm was thinning, and he had pulled me to him, arms wrapped around my back. He’d yanked down my pants from behind and was resting one palm against my bare backside, just stroking it, growling satisfaction into the cup of my collarbone. The burning evidence of our mutual orgasm stuck between us, like the cream filling of a particularly naughty pastry.

  I succumbed to a wave of vulnerability and hid my face against him. All he did was hold me. Enclose me with his body, his own kind of calyx charm between me and the rest of the world.

  There was no time for the usual rush of after-sex uncertainty. It normally arose within seconds—I would want to study him, scan for signs of regret. None of it had time to land. Tibario grabbed a blanket from the cushion beside us and covered my back with it, pulled us close.

  “Mmm.” A pleasant half chuckle, half purr rumbled up in his throat. “I love you, Vi. I’m glad I finally got my head out of my own ass long enough to actually tell you that. I love you.”

  Tears bit the corners of my eyes, eroded my conviction as to how to respond. But Tibario didn’t seem to need a response. He kissed my temple.

  “I’ll stay with you tonight, if you want. I don’t care how much time we have left. I’ll stay with you as long as you’ll take me.”

  * * *

  Tibario stayed.

  We would never make up for lost time. But he stayed.

  I wasn’t sure how to rank the best orgasms I had ever had. Probably the list should mostly contain those I’d had by myself, for the sake of fairness, because when you want a job done right, so on. But I felt confident putting the one I’d just had with Tibario close to the top of the list.

  I liked that the seep of shame didn’t rush to fill the silence inside me after the adrenaline wore off. I liked that when I rose and tidied up, Tibario fetched me some water, raised his eyebrow quaintly at my bed—as if to say “more cuddles await you, my lady”—and nestled in next to me. I thought I might sleep. Sleep sounded nice.

  Instead, it was surprisingly easy to linger awake in a quiet liminal universe of relaxation. Tibario stroked my hair and curled around me. He remained naked, but his nakedness glowed now with an innocent, childhood safety feeling—he and I together, our bare selves at last.

  I always wanted to clothe quickly after sex. The few times I’d been comfortable lounging in the nude with a partner had been with other mollyqueens.

  Here with Tibario, the scar tissue of the years softened. A background noise of worry—Was he thinking about how close we were in size and disliking it? Did my flat chest and shoulders bother him now that arousal had dissipated?—chattered on, but I could notice it like an anxious friend in my ear, without identifying with it. The deep of the night became a refuge where only the soft, animal parts of us seemed to matter. The parts that were fed by the comfort of touch.

  Eventually sleep rolled over me. Gentle sleep that tasted like Tibario, like the summer air of years past when I would lie in the shade with him. I had hoped that time would put back some of what it had taken. That enough years would pass to rebuild me. It would never happen now. I had to carry on my function as a doom-dispensing machine, the sepals ripped from my stem. But this was something like what I had lost.

  Tibario woke me in a timeless hour with the moon still up, kissing me softly and whispering that he was going to return home for the heat of the day. “I’ll be back to see you by nightfall.” His wicked-cat grin was comforting as he tucked the blanket back around me. “But send a message to my house if you need me. Leo will know how to get it to me.”

  I lay with that promise for a time after he left. I believed him. In spite of all the times I had hoped he would be there and he had not, I believed he would come back. Perhaps it was because now it no lon
ger seemed too much to hope for. Nothing did, with the end approaching.

  Was this really what it took for me to trust a happy ending? An apocalypse on the horizon?

  Sleep gave a pleasant encore for a few hours, then I whiled a dreamy morning away in my flat, breathing easily for what felt like the first time in a lifetime. I had so much to mourn and to feel guilty for. But for now, the protective charm of Tibario’s affection lingered around me, and the morning sunlight fondling my curtains was uplifting. I dressed slowly, brushed out my hair, dawdled over breakfast, had a quiet cup of tea.

  Then a sensation pierced this peace like the stab of a scorpion’s sting, right to the back of my head. I shot up on my sofa, premonition whirling in my guts. It was the future scratching at my attention.

  It seemed I would have another guest today.

  The urge to ask the future everything, truly to lucid dream the entire board, was overwhelming. I wanted certainty more than I could describe. But reaching for it also filled me with dread. It was like opening a chest and each time finding horror within. I didn’t need to open it this time. My intuition told me enough.

  Father had found me. The thought of facing him again caused my hands to tremble as I set down my brush.

  But Tibario had instilled a spark of courage in me. It gave me clarity enough to realize that if I didn’t want Father to harm my neighbors, I’d need to meet him head on.

  My anxiety rattled how did he find me, how did he find me, he could have found me anytime he’d chosen to seriously start looking. My only real defense against his pursuit would have been to escape the country, maybe the continent, and simple poverty had sealed that road. Thank the heavens I’d thought to pick a flat far enough from the Fragrant Rose not to obviously link me to Rosalina and the others.