Page 126 of Ascension
The truth hit me hard after that night in my brother’s house, the night that cracked my idea of who I was supposed to be. I wasn’t supposed to see Lena and Zaria like that, but what I saw didn’t feel wrong. It felt honest. It felt alive.
Zaria was all soft curves and golden brown skin that caught the light, her body language a kind of poetry. Lena moved with purpose, every motion deliberate, her focus total. I shouldn’t have stayed. I should’ve turned around, given them privacy, pretended I’d seen nothing. But I didn’t move. I stood there, caught somewhere between desire and disbelief, watching something so sensual unfold. I used to think desire was predictable, a pattern you could trace. She reminded me that it wasn’t science, it was something closer to surrender.
And that’s what scared me most.
My father raised me to see intimacy as hierarchy, one person in control, one person submitting. Still, not willingly: submission by force. He preached that love was duty, not discovery, and with that, Sr. spent my entire life drilling into us what a “real man” should be, what love was supposed to look like—straight lines, clear categories, nothing outside the church walls. I spent years believing him, thinking the world was neat and defined. But standing in that doorway shattered all of it, because what I saw between Lena and Zaria wasn’t about power. It was trust, their right to choose, and the freedom to love who and how they wanted.
Somewhere inside me, something switched; maybe my entire life had been an exercise in earning a man’s approval who never learned how to love without conditions. Perhaps everything I built, everything I thought I wanted, was born from fear, not desire.
Now, I’m standing in the ruins of those old ideals, trying to make peace with what’s left. I don’t know if this new version of me will look anything like the man my father wanted me to be, but for the first time, I’m confident it doesn’t matter, because I’m finally starting to want what I want, even if I’m still learning how to admit it.
Walking into that room and seeing Lena in a squat, her dress hiked over her phat, round ass, eating up her thong, her mouth wrapped around a big dick attached to an extremely beautiful woman, hit me with a jolt of desire I couldn’t name. It wasn’t a shock exactly. It was heat, confusion, curiosity, something that made my pulse climb and my breath come shallow. I’ve been around beauty before, but that was different. It was unfiltered and raw, the truth, and I wasn’t ready for how it made me feel.
And that’s the part that haunts me.
Zaria’s presence pulled something honest out of me. I’d never imagined being attracted to a trans woman, but she wasn’t a category. Who she was and her existence didn't have to fit in a neat little box to make others comfortable. With the help of therapy, I’d been unlearning my father’s ideologies one quiet thought at a time, and I was starting to believe gender is a social construct. Maybe love and desire aren’t supposed to be boxed in. Perhaps attraction is just the body recognizing truth before the mind can catch up.
I keep trying to tell myself that what happened was an accident, a moment that should’ve stayed behind closed doors, yet the memory keeps coming back, vivid as ever. The way Lena’s eyes met mine, daring me to look away. The way Zaria’s expression melted into pleasure and trust.
I told myself I’d never be the type to share, to blur lines, to step into anything that didn’t fit the picture of control I’ve built around my life. But if I want Lena like I say I do, and I do, more than I can explain, I have to accept that she’s not the kind of woman you can contain, and I don’t want to. I couldn’t wait to sit and talk to Dr. Morgan and work through these feelings.
Dr. Morgan doesn’t take notes when I talk anymore; she listens. It’s unnerving sometimes, how much silence she can hold without rushing to fill it.
I sit on her couch, staring at the floor, twisting my hands together. “You ever realize you’ve been living someone else’s life and didn’t even notice until it fell apart?”
She tilts her head slightly. “Tell me what you mean by that.”
“My father,” I start, then pause. “Everything I thought I wanted was modeled after him. The wife, the house, the order, the picture of stability.” I laugh under my breath, but it doesn’t sound like amusement. “I wanted his approval so badly that I didn’t realize I was chasing the same dream that became a nightmare for my siblings and me.”
“What did that dream meanto him?”
“Control,” I say without hesitation. “He called it faith, discipline, leadership. But really, it was about control. He wanted to shape the world until it reflected his image. And I tried to do the same. I built a life so tight, so safe, that there wasn’t any room left to breathe.”
She lets the quiet stretch. “And now?”
“Now I don’t know what I believe in,” I admit. “I thought I understood intimacy. But I was raised to see it as something you earn by following rules, not something you explore by trusting someone. Watching Lena and Zaria together,” I trail off, choosing my words carefully. “It didn’t feel like sin, it felt like honesty, and that scared me more than anything.”
“Because it doesn’t fit the story you were told?”
“Exactly. My father made love sound like a transaction: do this, say that, live right, and God might bless you with something resembling happiness. But what I saw between them wasn’t transactional, it was connection. There was power in it, but not the kind that hurts. It was shared, mutual.”
Dr. Morgan nods slowly. “And how does that challenge your view of yourself?”
I lean back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. “I always thought I was the calm one, the logical one, the professor who stayed in control. I thought I could study everything from a safe distance, but now I realize I’ve been studying people my whole life without ever really seeing them.”
“And what do you see now?” she asks quietly.
“I see that love doesn’t fit inside definitions. That may be what I’ve been calling confusion, which is actually clarity trying to get my attention. I see that I’m drawn to Lena’s fire, and to Zaria’s calm, and maybe that doesn’t make me broken. Maybe it just makes me a man with great taste.”
“Do you think your father would approve?”
I smile faintly. “No. But I’m starting to think that’s the point.”
She studies me for a long moment before saying, “It sounds like you’re beginning to define love for yourself instead of through your father’s lens. That’s uncomfortable work, Calil, but it’s also the beginning of freedom.”
Freedom.
That word keeps following me, from Lena’s carefree nature, to Zaria’s voice, to the corners of my mind that used to be ruled by fear, and now? I’m beginning to wonder if breaking the rules I inherited might be the only way to live finally.