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Right. I’d gotten distracted.

Ugh.

I had to shake it off, somehow. Why was I back to being nervous? I was all over the place, and I didn’t like it. At all. I didn’t know how other people did it, but I couldn’t deal.

“We were talking about how…” I licked my lips. That was not a good way to start. Well, I supposed it could be, but I was struggling here, dammit. “So, I’ve never had the best relationship with my body. I mean, getting top surgery helped, and being on T helps as well. It makes me more comfortable to present as fem and to experiment with clothes and makeup and everything else.”

“Right.”

“And, right now, I’m mostly neutral?” I pursed my lips. Neutral wasn’t quite the right word, but I was at an okay place with it. Yeah, neutral might be accurate. “I’m still not comfortable with touching myself in certain ways, but I mostly see it as a vessel, like… It’s there to keep me together.”

“Yeah.”

“But I guess I realized that… Well, it’s two things, really.” I really hated looking this vulnerable. I’d have to come up with something to do to her later to get us back on track. “One, I think a part of me needed to see that you… respected it? Which, fuck, it sounds awful, but?—”

“Relax.” Arlene smiled as she offered her hand. Goosebumps rose up my arms, but I pushed through the sensation, intertwining my fingers with hers. I’d started to keep track of all the tiny scars around her fingers from cutting herself while in the kitchen. If she ever got tired of dealing with the finance world, she could try working at a bakery or a restaurant or something. Her hands were proof enough of all her experience. “I get it. I’d never touch you without you telling me so, and you don’t have to be comfortable with absolutely every aspect of yourself to be okay or happy.”

I nodded. It wasn’t the first time I noticed, but at times, I felt like Arlene knew more about gender than I did, like I could learn from her.

It didn’t bother me.

If anything, it was another reason I liked her.

“Yeah.” It was true, anyway. “The second reason was, even if I don’t want to be naked during sex a lot, or… during anything else, really… I don’t want to feel like I’m keeping something from you, even if it’s silly, because it was building up in my head to this huge thing, and… Basically, I think that if I let it fester, it would kind of take me back to that place where I wasn’t as neutral or okay with my body, so… Yeah.”

I sat a bit straighter then, my face determined. This was about reclaiming strength, too, about my right to be in my body. Arlene’s face softened, her eyes brimming with adoration.

“Gosh, is it too soon to say I love you?” she blurted out, a hint of pink rising to her cheeks. “Because I kind of do.”

Somehow, I managed to smirk and keep my posture. At the same time, my knees wobbled, all air out of my lungs. “I mean, we’ve been seeing each other for three months now. I’m shocked we’ve lasted this long, if anything.”

Everything else had moved so fast, but the words… It hadn’t felt as important, as urgent, as everything else.

Arlene chuckled, then stopped. “We?”

I grinned. The poor woman stared at me with doe eyes. “I love you, gorgeous.”

I thought she’d go on overdrive, but she just breathed out, that relaxed smile etched on her face. “Can you kiss me, then?”

“On it.” One day, Arlene would realize kissing her was not a hardship at all.

Until then, I was happy to tease her about it.

Epilogue

ARLENE

“You know, you say you love me, but this is the meanest thing you could possibly do.”

Claude laughed. They laughed. I was struggling, dammit. It was not funny.

“You said you were in when I told you what the plan was.”

“Well, yeah.” I pouted. “But I hadn’t thought…”

Claude nipped my jaw. It got me to stop talking, which was what they wanted, I supposed. “We can leave it for another day. Just say the word.”

“No, I…” I licked my lips. I was overstimulated and had too much energy coursing through my body I didn’t know what to do with. I knew I didn’t want to leave anything for another day. I just needed some kind of outlet. “I want it.”