“Why does that—ah!” When they touch the skin beneath my hoodie, I wriggle to get out of his hold. “You asshole.”
His laughter fills the cabin, and I can’t help but join in as we cuddle up closer. When we’re face-to-face, I cup his cheek and kiss him tenderly.
Something heals me when he wraps his arms around me and holds me close. And I think about the way sex felt, in the moment, with him.
There have been days when I have looked at my body in the mirror and felt…nothing. Not shame. Not hate. Not love. Not pride.
Just…static.
I’ve tried using a strap-on, not because I wanted to feel more masculine, but because I was in a situationship with someone who liked it. It hadn’t felt wrong, exactly. Just foreign. Like wearing someone else’s clothes and trying to make them fit. But I wonder what it would feel like to try it again with River.
Whether he’d be open to it. Whether I would be able to make it enjoyable for us both.
Being with him has been eye-opening. It’s made me realize that I’ve been in a few relationships with people who just fetishized me for being non-binary instead of treating me like a human deserving of love and comfort and…this.
With River, I don’t feel the need to perform.
When he touches me, when he brings me to orgasm, it’s not about the parts I have.
It’s about how my body meets his in the moment, and how his responds to mine.
He didn’t shrink back from me. He looked. He touched. He asked.
And nobody has ever made me feel like my skin and the content it holds was enough.
Not even me.
Maybe there’s a lesson there.
I wrap the sleeping bag tightly around the two of us, his cold feet mingling with my warm ones. “This would be a nice life, wouldn’t it?”
River looks up at the ceiling. “Maybe upgrade the location a little. Put a proper mattress on the bed and some clean bedding. Then, I might say yes.”
“I meant we’re here. Together. Warm.” I tip my head toward the fire. “We’re safe.”
River tries to wriggle us so I have my head resting on his chest, but I resist.
“Why do I always have to be the one snuggled into you?” I ask.
“That matters to you?” River asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know. I said it without really thinking, but it feels a little bit overprotective.”
River grins, then flips us so his head rests heavily on my chest, and I can already feel the blood supply to my fingers diminishing, such that I’ll likely have that pins and needles sensation in my hand. “Sooner you get it into your head that I’m easy as long as you’re within reach and we’re wrapped around each other, the better.”
I thread my fingers through his hair and kiss the top of his head. While I have a feeling his strong tendency is to dominate, I love that he’s flexible enough to ensure we both get what we need.
His hand cups my chest, his thumb rubbing over my nipple. I take a breath and remind myself that the way he reveres my body is healthy. That the way he makes me feel in my own skin is positive.
That he’s inmyarms and it’s possible to feel so much for another person that it’s okay to let go of old thoughts and embrace different ways of self-acceptance.
“We can’t hide here forever,” he says, his breath warm on my chest.
“I know. But maybe for another day. I feel like a new person after just the few hours we’ve been here.”
River pushes himself up to rest on his elbow and lazily runs his fingers across my collarbone. “You wanna run, we can run. I’ll take you wherever you want to go. We’ll take our chances. We’ll weapon up. We can go off grid somewhere. For you, I’d do it. But trust me when I say, we’re safer with my brothers.”
I sit up, and the sleeping bag drops away. “Then, how come we are here?”
