I considered it, humming thoughtfully. I figured it would be fine. “Don’t bite me: I don’t like pain,” I warned, tilting my head to one side and running a finger over my exposed neck. “But you can put something here, I guess.”

He gulped down hard.

“A cat needs a collar, right?” I chirped. Why I kept playing along with this cat thing when I didn’t even know the rules is totally beyond me, but it sort of felt like an inside joke between us.

“I’ll buy you one tomorrow. But let’s use this as a placeholder,” he said, grabbing my shoulders and swooping down on my neck, his lips latching onto it and sucking. I was startled for a moment because I thought my collar comment was going to stop him, but I didn’t actually care about getting a hickey so it was fine.

Credit to him, he put quite a lot of work into it, since it’s still here a week later.

We went back into his bed after that and he started spooning me. Our massive height difference meant he could encase all of me pretty easily.

“Are you happy here? With me?” he asked sleepily.

“I haven’t been happy in twenty-five years.”

“Oh.”

“Now go to sleep.”

“Okay,” he uttered in a quiet and faintly sad voice.

I felt exhausted, more so mentally than physically, and managed to sleep soundly until morning.

This time Duke had woken up first, and was propped up on his elbow staring at me when I blinked awake.

I rubbed my eyes.

"Your phone was ringing a little while ago," he informed me. I was surprised my phone even had any battery since I hadn't charged it in two days.

"Oh?" I mumbled, sluggishly sitting up. "Did you see who it was?"

"It just said 'Little Bitch'."

I snickered at that.

"So who is it?" he pressed.

"My ex," I answered, picking up my phone after seeing that it was on the bed. Duke's frown line twitched.

"Are you going to call back?" he asked, his voice prickly.

"Yeah."

He snatched the phone from my hands. "Why?" he snapped.

"She probably wants to meet up."

"She?" Duke asked, making no attempt to hide his shock.

"Yeah."

"Are you… not… gay?" It was almost funny how totally baffled he was at the concept.

"Bisexual people exist, you know," I scoffed. "But, yeah, I’m gay," I explained. "She's the only girl I ever dated. And she didn't even identify as a girl when we started going out." The words just came out of my mouth thoughtlessly, but once they did my heart started racing. I couldn't help wondering how Duke would react to the mention of a trans person.

"Ah. Is that why you broke up?" I felt a pang of disappointment hearing that.

"Why would it be?" I asked, failing to soften the edge in my voice.

"Well, if you're gay, then why not break up if she turned out to be a woman?" he explained, instantly vanishing my disappointment. My shoulders relaxed.

"I guess," I sighed. "But I actually liked her quite a bit, so we stayed together for a year after she came out."

"Then why did you break up?"

"Oh, um," I smiled to myself. "She actually dumped me because I fucked her dad. It was an open relationship, but she was really mad about it."

Duke let out a pained sigh. "There goes that theory," he said to himself. I gave him a questioning look. "I sort of half-thought," he started, rubbing the back of his neck and averting his eyes, "that you weren't letting me do certain things because you were a virgin."

"What?" I choked. "No, I'm definitely not a virgin."

"Well, I didn't fully think you were,” he pouted. "So why do you keep stopping me from touching you?"

Now, given the circumstances, it might have actually been the perfect time to just tell him the truth. Considering he reacted fairly okay to the mention of another trans person, he might have taken it pretty well. But I somewhat missed the chance because my phone started ringing again.

"Can I answer that?" I asked, holding out my hand for him to give me it. He frowned but obliged, and as soon as I accepted the call April's voice blared down the other end.

"Oi, you gremlin fuck!" she said, by way of greeting. "Where the hell are you? I swung by your place and you're not here."

"Yeah, I'm at someone's house," I explained.

"Oh, you getting your dick wet?"

I glanced at Duke, who had obviously heard her. He raised his eyebrows but stayed quiet. "Uh… something like that," I said cautiously.

"Well shoot and scoot, cause I got a million apples that're about to go bad so I'm making apple pie."

"What does that even have to do with me?"

"You're really gonna ask me that? When's the last time you ate a fucking fruit?" She had a good point. "I'm making sure you don't get scurvy. I'm practically a saint. You can thank me by letting me at least use your oven since mine broke last week."

"I don't know…" I looked at Duke again, wondering if he would say I could or couldn't go, but he was still silent.

"It's a bit late for that: I broke in and started using it anyway since you wouldn't answer your damn phone. Why does it actually look clean in here? There aren't any dirty dishes or clothes on the floor. Anyway, I've been here for fifteen minutes and haven't even been offered a single cup of tea. Your hospitality sucks. Get over here."

I felt such a ridiculous sense of panic, just because I hadn't offered her a drink yet, even though I wasn't there and she'd broken in. And she knew perfectly well how much things like that stressed me out, so she said it purely to make sure I had no choice but to go back to my apartment.

"Okay, I'll call you back," I said before hanging up. "Can I go?" I asked Duke, my eyes urgent and pleading.

"No."

“Why not?” I demanded. Well, I wanted to sound demanding, but I actually sounded like a whining child whose parents said he couldn’t go to a sleepover.

“Because we aren’t finished talking,” he explained. I huffed and flopped back down on the bed, laying on my front and burying my face in the pillows.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” I grumbled.

“Why? Is it me?”

“No,” I mumbled, though I guess it was actually mostly because of him. Being trans hadn’t ever stopped me from sleeping with someone when I wanted to before, so that itself wasn’t really the issue. “Talking about it makes me feel bad. I don’t want to.” That was true. I was even willing to perpetually blue-ball myself just to avoid having an honest conversation about my feelings and boundaries.

“What can I do to make you feel comfortable enough to talk to me about this?” he asked delicately. That just annoyed me. It felt too mushy and considerate of a line to be genuine. I don't know what sort of imagined entitlement I had that made me angry about how nice he was being, considering how many terrible things he could have done to me given the situation, but that's just how I was.

Maybe I was too accustomed to bad people and bad situations, and being indifferent to them, so when something good is happening I try to reject it?

Maybe I'm just a brat.

"You're getting really invested in this," I griped, turning my head to glare at him defiantly. "You've known me for barely a day, so maybe slow down on trying to get my life story."

I thought that would put him in his place. Or maybe even make him angry and snap at me. I absolutely wasn't expecting it to make him so stupidly happy.

"You want me to take my time getting to know you! That's so cute! So romantic!" he gushed, clutching his chest. "You want us to build an emotional relationship before we have a physical one. I see, I see."

"If that's what you're seeing, then I think you need glasses."

"Aw, don't be shy," he cooed. "I understand it's embarrassing, but I accept! Let's get to know each other better. How about a date? Should we go on a date?"

I stared at him hopelessly for a moment, but then I had a (very rare for me) good idea.

"Yeah. Why don't we go have apple pie at my place for our date?" I persuaded, since my desperate need to go and provide good hospitality to the annoying intruder was still strong. "I bet you could learn a lot about me by talking to my ex."

He took the bait. "Oh!" he exclaimed, slapping his palm against his forehead. "Did you want me to go with you all along?"

I nodded.

He started laughing in spite of himself and pulled me into his lap so I was facing his chest and wrapped in a hug. He rubbed his head against mine and I halfheartedly patted his back.

"So can we go?" I asked. "And afterwards," I added, planning to really seal the deal, "you can buy me a collar like you said you would."

That settled it. My first attempt at being a little manipulative had worked like a charm. He made a delighted squeal and agreed, so then all that was left to do was call April back.

I hoped the rest of the day would go that smoothly but, uh, suffice to say it did not.