Page 63 of For Real

At last Grace said, “Tell me he’s legal.”

“Of course he’s fucking legal.” It was briefly comforting to be outraged. It meant I didn’t have to be embarrassed. “He’s nineteen.”

There was another long silence, probably slightly less awful than the last one. Now it was merely uncomprehending.

“But I thought,” said Sam slowly, “you didn’t switch.”

For Toby’s sake, and perhaps my own, I couldn’t keep hiding. I peeled my fingers away from my face and took a deep, calming breath. As though that was actually going to help. “I don’t.”

“So, you’re topping from the bottom?”

“Less than you might think.” It was the easy answer. But then I remembered how it actually felt to be at Toby’s feet, in his body, or at his mercy. “Actually no. I’m not.”2

Sam shook his head. “I just…can’t… You and…him…and… It makes my brain wibble.”

“How do you think my brain feels?” I snapped. “I didn’t choose this.”

“Well, yeah, mate, you kind of did. You didn’t just trip and fall and land dick-first into a nineteen-year-old.”

“Yes, but—” But what? What the fuck was I trying to say? “I didn’t think it was going to be like this.”

“Like what?”

I swallowed. “I didn’t think I was going to like him.”

“Laurie.” Sam sighed. “That’s a thing that happens sometimes when you let someone do intimate things with you. You start to like to them.”

This wasn’t helping. “Can we dispense with the human social and sexual relations lecture?”

“Is it… Is he—” Sam paused, confused again, and tugged at his braids. “God, I sound like a perv even saying this…but, it works? I mean, it’s good? You can submit to a kid?”

“He’s not a kid,” I answered without thinking. “He’s…who he is.”

“And it’s not weird?”

“Not when I’m with him.” I stared at my hands which were shaking, so I knotted them carefully together. “I want to give him everything, and the things I can’t give, I want him to take.”

He’s my prince. Fierce and fragile and tender and cruel. But, of course, I couldn’t say that aloud.

So I cleared my throat into yet another silence. “Come on then. Take the piss. What are you waiting for?”

Sam held up his hands. “I got nuthin’. That was beautiful.”

“Oh shut up.”

“I’m serious. If it works for you, then it works.”

Grace had been uncharacteristically quiet, her brow wrinkling thoughtfully as the conversation bounced back and forth between Sam and me.

“Well,” she said slowly, “why shouldn’t it work?” It wasn’t what I’d expected. And I must have looked startled because she shrugged and went on, “I mean, it’s not like this stuff has anything to do with age anyway. It’s about…I don’t know, all these really complicated intersections: nature, preference, choice, attraction, chemistry. I think he’s pretty lucky actually.”

“I am?” I asked.

For some reason, that made her laugh. “Bless. You do have it bad. I meant that he’s lucky. The Foetus. Finding you. I wish I’d had it so good back then.”

“But you’ve always seemed so confident.”

“Well, now I am. My first kiss was a complete disaster.”

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