Fucking Daphne (22 page)

Had I let go of Daphne's arm right then, I could have explained that I was just a human with basic human fears and basic human needs.

Though I would not have confessed to my thought of her skin, of how soft it was, so unlike the skin of the messy humans I wasted my life on back home.

I would not have confessed to my thought of wanting to pull her into the restroom with me, where we could stand a presumed mile high above the ground.

I could not have explained that these thoughts were perfectly within reason, considering my fear of flying, and considering that the plane was jolting, and considering how exotic I found her to be, and considering the profound bitterness I was feeling toward my ex and toward my mother and toward any number of other messy humans with whom I spent my life.

It did not need to be about sex. We could have just stood there in the restroom, just inhabiting a very small space.

Either way.

I had called my mother from my hatchback, and she said, half-asleep, “Where are you?” and I said, “In an alley,” and I was crying and she said to fly home. “Now,” she said, and without thinking, without baggage, I drove straight to the airport, parked the car, and begged the woman at the check-in counter to find me a flight to New York.

And now, still gripping Daphne's arm, I couldn't remember where I had parked my car.

Then the jolting stopped and the pilot said, “Looks like smooth sailing,” and I involuntarily let go of her arm.

Daphne pressed the button above our heads. She asked to be moved to another seat. I asked for two more drinks.

And now, settling deep into 12A, stretching my legs onto 12B, a drink in each hand, I thought,
Fuck Daphne.

And I imagined that had we gone down in a fiery flash, and had Daphne and I survived, she may not have helped me on the ground any more than she did when I needed her help a mile high.

We may not have collected the paperbacks and read them aloud to pass the time.

We may not have started a fire, sat together, told stories of our wretched pasts.

And she may have walked off to look for the others and left me alone in the wreckage.

 

 

I
don't always advertise that I chose to become the boy I am. It sometimes gets me into trouble. More often, it gets me laid.

I've got a boyfriend; we're modern. We had one of those arrangements: I played around with other guys. I fucked straight guys, but it was pretty-gay, boy-gay, not girl-gay.

Recently, in the park after a few beers, a friend said to me, “You're not queer.” I was shocked. Speechless. Indignant. On some level, they all knew about my female past; they'd all cheered me on when I changed my driver's license, and joined me in cursing the tangled system that made changing your name both expensive and time-consuming.

“How can I be straight if I'm fucking men?” I'd finally defended myself. I was met by sharp, sarcastic looks from the mohawked, tornjeaned, tank-topped, pierced group of androgynous-bodied people
that surrounded me. Clearly, what they'd meant was that I hadn't had sex with a girl. I wasn't clear on how this made me “straight.” But one way or another, my curiosity was aroused—suddenly, I wanted to find a girl to fuck.

Weirdly enough, it was easier said than done, even in a town filled with sex-positive queer hotties. After the incident in the park, it took me a couple of weeks to find a girl. But in a group workshop about queer identity, my eyes met Daphne's across our workshop moderator's living room. Daphne was sitting underneath a garish pink abstract painting, and I was next to the homemade stained-glass lamp teetering precariously on a thrifted end table. I ceased to notice the cat fur-encrusted rug that was underneath me, getting clinging hair all over my black jacket. Everything felt sort of transcendental and magical. I wasn't used to that happening in sober moments.

Daphne seduced me with her eyes. Seduction was a rarity for a kid like me, most confident in homo bars with the eyes-meeting/ nod/let's-hook-up-in-the-bathroom shorthand that happens in dark, drunken rooms full of sweaty dancing men. You know, rooms where it's so dark, the men can't decide whether you're a boyish girl or a very girlish boy. This lovely girl made me stammer, turn red and stupid, because she was, you know, a girl. Part of the reason I stuck to men was that, well, it was simpler. Women made me feel awkward and unpracticed, so I would turn that spontaneous shade of crimson that only a pretty girl can produce, with a simple glance or casual gesture, in a boy.

I knew I was being invited over for more than just dinner. Daphne cooked me quiche. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was an almost-vegan, that I hated eggs. I choked her quiche down
and pretended to like it, because that's what you do. It was so gross, yet there I was, trying to smile while eating her quiche. I was hoping it would lead to the next stage, where I'd be fucking this girl. I was giving it the best I could under the circumstances.

Later, when my cock slid inside her, I was significantly unprepared. I didn't think of myself as all that inexperienced, until she shattered that illusion and I learned an ego-smashing lesson: that I didn't have any idea what I was doing when it came to women.

I was used to being the one who gets seduced. Twenty-two years in the world—I had no idea at all what that meant to the men I went home with. In my leather and latex, I had just shrugged off teenagehood. Back then, I couldn't imagine what it would look like to turn thirty. Sophisticated enough to seduce a thousand drunk, horny men, I was all clumsy puppy, easy prey, in Daphne's trap.

Wasn't fucking men so different from fucking women that it was like learning a whole new language? I wasn't bilingual, wasn't cunnilingual at all. I hadn't yet grown out of a shockingly limiting ability to think about sex as though it were a college degree. You took your foundation classes, and without the basics you'd never understand the advanced stuff. But linear thinking gets you nowhere in bed.

I was worried that I wouldn't be able to satisfy her, that I couldn't get her off, or that I would fail as a lover. I was worried that I'd get tired and fall asleep before she came, that my unpracticed tongue would disappoint. I knew how to get myself off, how to get other guys off, but women? They just seemed so different.

The morning of the quiche dinner, I got out of bed early and took a long shower. I sat distracted through a full day of college classes, nervously anticipating my date with Daphne. She wasn't just any girl, and yet she was every girl in that way in which all women smell uniquely good and all have these curves bouncing underneath your fingers. Alien to me. She could have been anyone, but this girl was more than just anyone. Daphne—a name that slides nicely off the tongue, the way her clit rolled as she writhed. Though that happened later, when I got my sea legs.

I was born a girl, but I am not a girl. And never was I more utterly aware of this fact than when experiencing this rare event: Daphne naked in my bed. Or rather, I in her bed. Utterly reduced to angles and skin and elbows. It happened quickly, from the kitchen to the couch, from the meal and one glass of wine after the other. Between the end of one bottle and the uncorking of another, she leaned in far enough that I finally had the courage to kiss her. She laughed sweetly at the blush creeping across my cheeks, teasing me about how long it took me to kiss her. The kiss was sweet and soft, her lips parting gently and the taste of her flooding into my mouth. I felt like one of my straight boys, touched for the very first time.

I closed my eyes and gave a prayer of thanks for Daphne's patience as my clumsy fingers explored her. I don't know why, but I was afraid I'd hurt her; she felt so much softer than anyone I'd ever been with. It must have been all those delicious curves. I drank in her body to wash the taste of dinner out of my mouth, and found dessert was much more to my liking.

“Nervous?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

It was bullshit. I tried to sound tough, but my voice wavered. I prayed she'd mistake it for passion. The cloying sweetness of her rose candles filled the air around us and covered up the sweat, creating a soft, concealing glow that hid the uncertainty in my eyes.

I'd figured that my first time with a woman wouldn't be worshipful or transcendental or pink flowers slowly unfolding under rainbows. And it wasn't. Sex with Daphne was intense, sweaty, tangy, and insanely physical, accompanied by an overwhelming sensation of suddenly being utterly trapped in my own skin with no idea what to do with hers.

She took the role I was more accustomed to—being on the receiving end, giving the glances, getting fucked. She etched her scent across me, rolled on top of me, and let her grind take over for my inexperience. She snared me with her lovely eyes and opened those voluptuous thighs to take in my cock.

Taking her cue, I made my move and began to fuck her as gently as I could. Her plump cheeks flushed and she closed her eyes as we went. It wasn't smooth. Her awful quiche was a lump in my stomach; my fears were a lump in my throat. I couldn't breathe and thought I might pass out just from watching her move underneath me. Her cheeks flushed red and she ground violently against my cock before collapsing over me, a tent of her hair surrounding our sweating and smiling faces.

After that, she poured another glass of wine, tonic for all fear and elixir of confidence. And we started fucking again.

Judging by all the noise she made, our practice had paid off. Perhaps I was still not as mind-blowingly skillful as the women she'd
slept with before me, or other boys who were better at fucking her senseless. We never got into that realm of dripping-with-sweat-and-cum exhaustion found in naughty books and DVDs, replete with slapping sounds, throbbing labia, and teary ball gags. Most of my energy went into maintaining a steady rhythm.

I wondered the whole time,
Does she want it harder? Slower?
Everything felt okay, but was it too much like the first time? I looked down at her face, scanning for a sign of boredom or an inclination of what I ought to do. She just closed her eyes and sighed.

I tried a few experimental slaps on her behind. The sound of my hand on her ample, juicy ass rebounded off the walls of her Tenderloin studio apartment. The spank was not too high, not too low, and, as it turned out, not enough, because the next word out of her mouth was “harder.” Finally, something concrete to work with.

I obliged. Fucking her harder, slapping her harder, and bringing us satisfactorily closer to that controlled and frantic grind into each other. Her cries were louder, wilder, and we matched each other perfectly. Or nearly perfectly. And the small fumbles ceased to matter. Reaching for more lube, she pushed back against me. I slammed back into her. Instinct took over, instincts previously unexpressed. Feeling my cock deep inside of her, my clit huge underneath it, feeling each thrust as though that silicone implement were a part of my body, I let her relax away from me after the telling last shrieks, and we lay back on her purple sheets. Our breathing slowly softened. We were covered in lube and our mutual wetness.