You Are the Reason (9 page)

I jerked back in surprise, not expecting the move, but he was strong. Stronger than I expected for a sweet, gentle flower. But then I remembered he was no longer a fragile girl, but a guy who had been lying to me. I tried to pull back, but he clung, his fingers digging into my neck and my hip bone.

Our lips were pushed together, not kissing, merely pressing together and not moving—soft flesh on soft flesh. My body remembered that sensation, and I stopped struggling, trying to comprehend what was happening. One of my hands was on Lee’s shoulder, ready to push him away, but instead I cupped the delicate bone I could feel under his clothes. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it, but my body was losing its anger and responding to his closeness. Maybe it was those pheromones Patrick had been talking about.

Lee tilted his head to the side, only a fraction, and opened his mouth to me. I moved involuntarily, pressing down into him, instead of away.

Yes. This was familiar. This was Lee. This I liked. This I remembered.

My hand moved from his shoulder and touched his hair. It was soft and silky, floating over my fingers like the filmy scarves my mother used to wear. I remembered touching those brightly colored scarves when I was a child, and wrapping them around my body, pretending to be Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty.

I moved my mouth, changing the position of our lips, so that instead of remaining motionless together, we were moving, almost sipping at each other’s lips. Lee’s taste was erotic and sensual. I closed my eyes and fell into the emotions that kissing him evoked.

There was warmth and good memories attached to that sensation, so when Lee removed his fingers from my hip and gently took my hand in his, it didn’t alarm me. He pulled my hand closer to his body. Closer, closer, then pulled down and placed my palm firmly over the crotch of his sweatpants.

My eyes flew open in surprise, and I found I was staring directly into his dark brown ones. His grip on the back of my head ensured that I continued the kiss, even when my body was a motionless statue—thoughts and sensations crashing through me.

Dick.

Cock.

Fuck.

I pulled away firmly this time, deliberately breaking Lee’s hold on me and staggering a couple of steps backward. My lungs were heaving in distress. Although he’d told me he had a cock, I hadn’t really comprehended the enormity of it.

Lee was a guy.

Lee had a cock.

“You have a cock.”

I stared at his pants as I rubbed my fingers together. They were still remembering what they had felt. Yes. There was a definite cock under those pants. It wasn’t aroused, but it was there. And balls too.

“Yes. I know. I’m sorry,” he told me.

Lee was talking to me, but I was still staring at the gray material of his pants. If he was a guy, that meant I was still attracted to men. A part of me rejoiced in this—I
was
gay. I wasn’t straight like I’d feared. All was right in my world.

But hang on. Lee
dressed
in girls’ clothes? How did he do that?

“Dave?”

“Huh?” I got the feeling that it wasn’t the first time he’d called my name.

“Can you stop staring at my dick please? It’s making me a little uncomfortable.”

“What? Oh. Sorry.” I looked up at his face.
His
face. Yes. I could finally believe it was all true. The person in front of me was a man. “What do you do with it?”

Lee frowned, looking confused. “Do with what?”

“Your dick. What do you do with it when you put a dress on?”

Lee burst out laughing, and a slight redness came to his face. He really did have a complexion that couldn’t hide any blushes. “I’m not sure about your dick, Dave, but my dick’s not really detachable. When I put a dress on, it just has to stay there.”

I chuckled. “No, you idiot. I mean how do you make sure it doesn’t show?”

The blush climbed higher. “Oh. Well. Remember the black and white dress from the first night? That one has an underskirt, so I don’t have to do anything special. The cut of the dress hides all the bulges. But the dress I wore last night…?” He trailed off as he looked at the ground in embarrassment. “The bulge would’ve shown in the front on that dress, so I tuck.”

I tried out this new word. “Tuck? As in push it all back between your legs? How does it stay?”

I think Lee was trying not to laugh at me. He was pressing one hand against his mouth and giggling. “Oh, God. It’s not usually the thing I need to explain to people. Most have already googled it a thousand times on the Internet.” He choked again and then managed to say, “You, uhh, push your, uhh, testicles back up inside your body, then tape your empty scrotum and penis back.”

I think my eyes bugged out of my head. I was like one of those cartoon characters with their hair flying off and eyeballs about a meter from their face. “You what?”

Yes, Lee was definitely laughing at me. He wasn’t allowed to. Wasn’t I the one who was angry at him?

“If you ask me nicely, I’ll show you one day,” he promised with a cheeky smile.

“Inside your body? How?”

“Give us four walls and a roof, and I’ll demonstrate.”

I let that go in order to query the next bit. “Tape?” I stared in horror. “Doesn’t that pull the skin off? And what about the hairs?”

“I use medical tape, so it doesn’t rip your skin off. But there’s no trouble about the hairs. I’m completely shaven.”

I blinked. He was…?

I nearly swallowed my tongue and ended up coughing like an idiot.

“Dave?” Lee took a couple of steps toward me, and I held out my hand to ward him off.

“No,” I said, still choking.

I saw his face fall as he stepped back again. It felt like I was kicking that puppy. There was a pained feeling, deep inside me, as if my intestines had decided to try the triple-twist somersault with a reverse tuck.
Tuck?
Oh, shit. There was that word again.

I swallowed hard and repeated, “No.” Then I glared straight into the cute pixie face that lied to me. “Davo.”

“What?” A look of confusion crossed his face.

“Davo,” I said. “You don’t have permission to call me ‘Dave.’ That’s only for the ladies. And I believe you’ve just finished telling me that no longer applies to you?”

I finished the sentence with a question, leaving it open for him to change his mind. Anything was possible at this point in my life.

The side of his mouth quirked up. “It never applied to me,” he admitted with a chuckle. “I did it to support Bobby. I wanted to show him that gender is not set. He’s one of the people I counsel at the youth center. He’s mixed up and hurting, like most of the people we get through the door. I do what I can to ease them into knowing I understand a bit of what they’re going through. The cross-dressing? It’s not really something I do too often in public.”

“No?”

“No. A couple of parties where my friends know me, sometimes a quick shopping trip out in my finery. It’s not a big thing in my life.”

“But you’re so pretty,” I blurted out, then flushed a deep red as I realized what I had said.

Lee’s answering smile lit up his face. “Yeah?”

I rolled my eyes. “As if you didn’t know.”

“A guy likes to be told these things every now and then.”

We fell into silence, standing with a good eight feet between us, not knowing what to say to each other. Belatedly I remembered that I still held my coffee, and took a gulp. It was stone cold, but drinking it was better than working out what to say to Lee.

“So…?” he asked me.

“What?” I quickly answered.

He looked crestfallen and that just-kicked-a-puppy feeling washed over me again.

“Can I call you?” he whispered.

The wind whipping around us caught the words and whisked them away. But I heard them. I frowned fiercely. “I really don’t know, Lee. I really need a bit of time. To get my head around this.”

I saw his pink tongue come out and moisten his lips again. I’d noticed that habit he had—licking his lips. They were plump and red, and I wondered if he knew how often he drew attention to those kissable pillows of flesh. He nodded. “I’ll give you some time. But not too long, okay? Text me.”

He turned away and bent to pick up the cup he’d thrown away. As he bent over, his shirt and jumper rode up, revealing his arse to my interested stare. He wasn’t dressed to impress today—no tight clothing or sexy jeans. But my interest spiked. Yum.

All too soon for my liking, he stood upright and turned back to me. I’m not sure what my face was revealing, but his face flattened in surprise. Then that little mouth quirk happened again, and that damned arousing little tongue came out to moisten his lips.

“Call me, okay?”

He took off back the way we came and left me wondering what the hell I would do from there.

L
IKE
ALWAYS
,
I turned to Mr. Magic 8 Ball. On Sunday night, after stewing for hours, I asked, “Should I message Lee tonight?”

Ask again later.

I sighed and scrubbed at my hands with soap and a nailbrush. In a desperate effort to distract myself, I’d decided that I needed a garden makeover. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t design gardens even if you pointed a gun at my head, and it didn’t matter that I didn’t know a plant from a weed. I had found a shovel and began digging out everything I
thought
was a weed. I had a garden that was dug over, hands full of blisters, but I was nowhere closer to knowing what to do about Lee.

It bugged me that I was thinking about him so much. I should be angry at him. I should be so blisteringly furious with him that I never wanted to see him again. But I wasn’t. Sunday I had been angry, but by Monday I found myself more intrigued.

Those goddamn pheromones.

I found myself forgetting about the “you lied to me” bit and concentrating on the “can we have sex now?” bit. But I was also scared. Scared that the sex bit wouldn’t work between us. Scared that I would find Lee a different person, now that he was a guy.

Monday morning I consulted Mr. Magic 8 Ball again.

“Should I message Lee this morning?”

Very doubtful.

I sighed in relief and went to work. The company I worked for, Everett Manufacturing, produced various metal items, including fabricated sheet metal, and I was responsible for drumming up new customers and keeping the existing ones happy. It was extremely competitive, sometimes stressful, and never boring. My job was to visit around the client sites, check to see our products were making it to where they needed to go, and sign up more sales while I was there. I would spend a couple of hours a day on the computer on e-mails and customer inquiries, but the rest of the time I would be in my company van, either making smaller deliveries or driving to meet prospective clients.

Mondays were usually hell, as many clients worked the weekend. There was a buildup of e-mails, but I powered through. Then I went visiting. Maybe I was being a little aggressive toward the clients, but it turned out to be a good thing. I hammered home three new contracts, found two new clients, and diverted a disaster.

And I didn’t think of Lee all day.

Only twice.

Or maybe three times.

An hour.

At home that evening, I celebrated the financial windfall that would filter through to me from the new contracts I’d signed. I cracked a beer with my stirfry dinner and stared at Mr. Magic 8 Ball where he sat on my coffee table, waiting with his advice. What would he say?

I flicked on the TV, watched some news, and deliberately ignored Mr. Magic 8 Ball. Once my dinner was finished, I even picked him up and, being very careful not to tip him up, hid him from my view.

In the laundry cupboard.

Behind the bleach and the toilet cleaner.

Where no man would ever think to look. Right?

I flicked through my DVD collection until I found a classic Clint Eastwood film. Clint would keep me occupied. I deliberated between
Pale Rider
and
Unforgiven
, before deciding that
Pale Rider
would do for the night.

I was deep in the story when my mobile beeped from the kitchen bench. I ignored it, deciding that the message could wait until the end of the scene. Then it occurred to me it could be Lee.