What People Want Me To Be

Well, I'm overwhelmed. I want to write more stories in the settings of Eternal and Cold Steel, but I'm stuck on the former, and the latter has gotten a little too ambitious--plus I have three new stories I want to work on. I figured I'd do a oneshot to psych myself up a little and convince myself that I could accomplish something. I hope you like it! (After this, I'll be out for a while to work on projects for other sites. My next story for this site will probably be Dulling the Pain, an introduction to a sci-fi setting.)

*

"Are you saving this seat for someone?" he asked.

The high-pitched voice that answered him was somewhat stilted, as if English weren't the speaker's native language. "Well, I was. I said we'd have to get to the movie early to get good seats." She cast her blue eyes low, gesturing as if to check a wristwatch. "I must have been waiting ten minutes. And you look kind of cute. Sit down."

In a few minutes' time, they'd said little of import, but they had begun to enjoy each other's company. As in most of his conversations, she did a lot more talking than he did. She seemed to be a bit of a tomboy, but she had a certain charm to her, and with a well-timed comment, he discovered that he liked the sound of her laugh.

"Doesn't look like my date's showing up," she said at last. "I guess it's just you and me--"

"Bastard!" a shrill voice interrupted. In their distraction, both had failed to notice a very beautiful, very angry woman making her way up the aisle--but everyone for five seats in all directions noticed her as she began to yell. "You fruity bastard! I've dated a lot of guys who couldn't be left alone for one second, but you're the first one I've caught flirting with another guy!"

For a moment, he had assumed in bewilderment that this strange woman must have been addressing him. His confusion only increased as the blue-eyed girl's voice deepened. "I was just making conversation. I didn't mean anything . . ."

The angry woman only paused long enough to draw breath. "We're through, you little faggot! You hear me? Through!" She stalked off without another word, shoving aside the multitude of legs in her way, and the people around them returned to talking and texting.

He turned his gaze to meet blue eyes. "I'm a bit confused here, but I'm sorry for whatever I just did."

The blue-eyed girl sighed as she looked him in the eye. "I guess I should explain myself. You know how they say that if you're bi, you'll get twice as many dates? I figure being androgynous gets you four times as many, so I try to be what people want me to be. It backfired this time, though--it turns out that she suspects every man of planning to cheat on her." She turned her gaze to the floor. "I guess I ought to be broken up about this, but I figured this would happen sooner or later. I'm really just disappointed I won't be getting into her pants. I have no idea what I'll do now--she always means what she says."

The words slipped out before he could stop them. "You're going to watch a movie, and for an hour and a half, you're going to forget all about it."

"Are you trying to pick me up on the rebound?"

He always withered under questions like that. "Well, no . . . I just hate to see a girl who's unhappy . . . Not that I'm sure whether you're a girl . . ." He shut up and waited in silence for the movie to begin.

The movie was awful, but he liked the romantic subplot. As the doomed lovers kissed, the blue-eyed girl snuggled up to him, and he decided that he might as well enjoy the feeling.

As he stood to leave, she told him, "There's a nice Italian place on the corner of 11th and Grant. If you want to have dinner next Wednesday at eight, I'll treat."

-- -- -- --

He almost didn't recognize her in a suit--with her short hair and flat chest, she really did look like a man. "It's useful," she said. "Just watch."

She stood a little taller, and her stride grew longer. She coughed into the sleeve of her suit as she approached the register. "Table for two, please."

"The manager has a thing against women," she told him, after they'd been seated. "He still hasn't figured out that girl me is the same as guy me, though. I think he thinks I'm some sort of businessman, bringing girls here for dates and guys here to make contracts, and he always speeds up my orders."

"You're good at this. I definitely would have thought you were a guy."

"I like to think I've perfected this whole 'split identity' thing. At work, I'm all tough and manly. When I go out clubbing--" She coughed again. "I'm so sweet and helpless! Won't a big strong man look after me?" She was silent for a moment. "You're taking this pretty well."

"This is how I act when I have no idea how to respond to something." Which was often. His last girlfriend had called him the dead man walking.

"I'm not really used to this either. Hardly anyone ever figures out that I'm two people. There was this one guy who thought I had magical powers . . ."

He could have asked what she did with her friends and family, but he suspected she lacked the former and wasn't speaking to the latter. He tried a different question. "You have to admit it at some point, don't you? I mean, you said you wanted to get that last girl into bed."

He got the impression that in avoiding one wound, he'd accidentally opened another, but if so, she was good at hiding it. "That was your cue, you idiot! You're supposed to ask whether I have magical powers!"

"Oh. Do you?"

Her smirk was almost as rehearsed as her words. "No, but if you want, I can be your fairy." She broke off as footsteps sounded behind him. "I recommend the spaghetti if you're not feeling adventurous, but there's better stuff if you're willing to try it . . ."

At her urging, he chose something unpronounceable that began with an R, and from there he nearly derailed the topic to a discussion of whether Italian menus were easier or harder to pronounce than French ones. He wasn't sure whether she was amused with him or frustrated. "Aren't you even curious what gender I am?" she asked.

"Yes, but I don't think you're willing to tell me just yet."

"Damn straight I'm not! That's between me, my doctor, and the DMV." This led into a long account of her ultimately futile attempts to get a driver's license that didn't state her sex. From there, he guided the topic to safer subjects, and at the end of the night, he was rewarded with a kiss.

-- -- -- --

It was on their fifth date that she finally invited him to her apartment. She answered the door in a dress. "Oh, look, it's a big strong man, come to sweep me off my feet!"

"Please stop that. You're weirding me out."

"And it's about to get a lot weirder, buddy." She shut the door behind him. "Three guesses what I've invited you here to do."

"Talk."

"Buzz! Guess again."

"Vacuum the carpet."

"I'm hurt, really!" She wasn't. "It's not that messy!" It was.

"Um, gaze into your eyes?"

"Sex, you idiot! Sex!"

"You're not much of a romantic, you know that?"

"You wouldn't be one either if you got dumped as often as I do. It's been half a year since I last saw a naked guy who wasn't on the Internet. Pants. Off. Now."

He barely made it to the bed.

There is little to be said that cannot easily be imagined. She remained fully dressed, but her tongue seemed to be everywhere. At last, she reached his cock, and he didn't care whether this was gay, straight, or neither, so long as she kept up that feeling.

All good things come to an end, and this particular ending involved her spitting in the bathroom sink. "I feel kind of insulted," he said.

She walked back in with an evil glint in her eyes. "I'll start all over once you're hard again. I'll swallow this time. I'll even give you a little extra stimulation."

"I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

She pulled a box from under the bed. "This here's an anal vibrator . . ."

"Oh hell no!"

He gave in.

-- -- -- --

When it was all over, she lay down in bed beside him. "I feel like I need a rest after that."

He reached one hand over and laid it on her chest, playing with a nipple through the fabric of her dress.

"Hands off, buddy." Her voice was not angry. Her voice was not much of anything.

"Embarrassed? I already knew you were too flat for a bra. I just wish this dress weren't in the way . . ."

"I really am stupid, you know that? Falling into the same pattern, over and over . . . It's so wonderful, so powerful, to feel someone writhing under my tongue, and to know that I can control them so utterly. Then they want to do the same thing back, and sooner or later, they start to wonder why I never let them. Sometimes, I try to explain. One time, I even gave in."

He knew that he was supposed to ask what happened. Instead, he simply took his hand away and waited.

"You're so kind. You've never been anything other than kind. But I still don't know what you'd do. The way she looked at me . . . I can't live with that again."

If he had known how to say it, he would have told her that he didn't care what she was. That he cared about very few things in his life, drifting in a haze that he wished he could call nirvana, but that was better described as apathy. That it was thanks to her that he'd stayed at a movie he would have walked out of, thanks to her that he'd repeatedly ordered food he couldn't pronounce, and thanks to her that he'd just had a piece of vibrating plastic shoved up his ass. If he had known how to say it, he would have told her that whatever she was, she had made his life far stranger than it had been just a short while ago, and that he'd always love her for that.

He didn't know how to say it, so he rolled on top of her, and smothered her surprised grunt with a kiss.

She shoved him off. "You don't even know whether I'm a girl or not."

He had an answer to that one. "I may not be your magical boyfriend, but I'm willing to be your fairy."

At that, she smiled. "You can talk the talk, if nothing else."

"I'll wait for you, until you trust me. That's the only thing I can do . . ." A thought caught his mind. "Though we could work our way up to it."

"What do you mean?"

"Just lie facedown, and I'll go wash off the vibrator . . ."

"Oh hell no!"

She gave in.