Chapter 95
“I’m worried this’ll…change things.”
“Well, yeah, I’ll not have to watch where my fingers go.”
Eli snorted. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“I don’t, fucktard,” Rob responded. “What’s got you worried? I have figured out you’re a tranny. Newsflash for you and all.”
Eli rolled his eyes. “But you’ve never…you’ve never seen me have surgery, you’ve never seen me changing, this is all you know. I’m worried…I’m worried you’re going to look at me differently. Or be with me differently. I mean, I may not ever be able to have a proper physical orgasm again, and I’m going to look and feel different down there, and—”
“And, again, yeah, I know? I came to your fucking consultation with your psychiatrist, Eli, I know,”Rob said firmly.
Eli squirmed. His psychiatrist had asked to meet his partner, and have a discussion with him, too. Eli liked his psychiatrist, he was friendly and funny and very up-front about what was concerning him about Eli’s transition, and this new relationship had had the psychiatrist watchful for a while. And when the appointment had happened, Rob had been on his best behaviour, and—to Eli’s enormous surprise—they’d gotten along like a house on fire. They’d spent half the session ragging on each other’s football teams.
Then the psychiatrist had gotten down to business and given Rob a pretty brutal talk about what it meant, being the partner of a transman having full bottom surgery. Rob had actually sat and listened, even asked fucking questions, and—
Eli had taken Rob home after and pretty much played sex slave for the whole evening, intent on rewarding him for it.
But Rob hadn’t really mentioned it since, or gone again. He’d reverted quickly enough to his vaguely uninterested approach to the whole thing…until now.
“But—”
“Shut your face. I know what’s happening here, yeah? I ain’t thick. Things’ll change, permanently, that’s the whole fucking idea, and if I had a problem with it, you’d know by now, fuckwit.” Despite his language, his voice still rolled and rumbled in its usual rasping rhythm. It was…not quite soft or gentle, but it was at ease, and Eli slowly relaxed. “The fact I can’t get my end away for at least a month is seriously going to make me pissy, and then I’m probably gonna throw a fit one night and you’ll beat the shit out of me with that belt, and I will admit I’m going to miss going down on you because you really do taste fucking awesome, girly bits aside. And I’m hoping that’s not going to change too much. But at the end of the day, it’s not about me. S’about you. And if this is gonna make you happy, gonna let me drag you to Robin Hood’s Bay in August for me and Danny’s piss-up trip because you’re not so wary of wearing board shorts in case someone realises you ain’t got nothing in ‘em, then fine.”
Eli swallowed.
“Eli. It’s. Fine,” Rob repeated in a softer voice. “You’re gonna feel like what you want. You’re gonna have a dick and the right number of holes. Stop worrying, okay?”
“What if I can’t…get off anymore?” Eli whispered.
And that was the crux of his fear. His relationship with Rob had started from sex. There’d been sex long before there’d been love. And without that sex life—that varied, incredible, passionate, sometimes painful life—there was a tiny part of him that wondered if Rob wouldn’t…get bored?
Rob snorted.
“What?”
“Get real,” he said. “You don’t get off physically in most of the scenes you control, babe. You’ve never come any of the times you’ve beaten me. It’s not about that for you. So what if you can’t anymore? You still enjoy it, right?”
Eli chewed on his lip. “Would you still…you’d still sleep with me, right, even if you couldn’t get me off anymore?”
“Yeah, if you want me to.”
“Of course I fucking want you to!”
“Then I will, Jesus,” Rob said, and laughed. “You are worrying way too fucking much about it, babe. You don’t get off on anal, you know what I’m saying? But you still like it. You still want me to do it, and the surgery won’t change that.”
Eli swallowed. “Pull over?”
“Eh?”
“Pull over. Next layby or parking area. I want a hug.”
“Oh hell,” Rob grumbled. “Are you gonna cry on me? I ain’t stopping this fucking car if you’re gonna fucking bawl.”
“No, I want a hug, open your ears.”
Rob chuckled. Eli carefully blinked to ensure he didn’t cry, and waited semi-patiently until a parking area came up on the left. Rob pulled haphazardly over, not bothering to indicate or really slow down. The moment the handbrake was on, though, Eli’s seatbelt was off and he wrapped both arms around Rob’s shoulders tightly.
“Tell me—really, honestly, no repercussions—”
“Reaper-what?”
“Um, bad consequences.”
“Okay.”
“—if this is going to change anything. Because if this is going to change anything between us—”
“It’s gonna change some things,” Rob said. A heavy hand settled on the back of Eli’s head and began to stroke his hair. “We’re going to get to re-learn what makes you feel good in the sack. And I get to snap your trunks when we go to the beach in August, ‘cause you’ll be able to come. And that’s pretty much it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Look—and fuck you for making me go fucking mushy here—but this thing between us, there’s a fuck-ton of sex and that’s fucking awesome, but…it’s not everything. Not for me. If it was just sex, I’d have walked a long time ago after all that crap with your old man, yeah? But I didn’t. The sex, that’s just a part of it, and it’ll adapt and carry on anyway. That whole…I’m here, I’m supporting what you want, that bit? That’s not changing. After this surgery, you’re gonna bewhat you look like. You’ll be what you seem. And that’s what you want, and because of what this is between us, that bit where I support you, that’s what I want, too.”
Eli swallowed and kissed Rob’s neck. “The bit where you love me.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah,” Rob said. “The bit where I love you.”