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Minty
“You made pancakesfor him?” Barry smiled, leaning against his rake. The pile of brown leaves he’d scraped together from his and Robert’s small back yard rustled with wind. The autumn sun was a glare against his dark, bald head.
“I know,” I said, shaking my head. “I woke up on his sofa, and he was still asleep upstairs. I didn’t know what to do.” I fluttered my hands around—so like my mother when she was nervous. “Like what’s the etiquette? Escape without a word? Leave a note? Send flowers?” I paused, remembering. “It was so quiet at his house, except for some dogs barking down the street…”
I rubbed my hands over my face. I was still exhausted. After two rounds of violent sex with Kyle, followed by the emotionally intense pain play with clothespins at Luke’s, I’d slept like the dead, passed out cold on his sofa.
But once I’d woken up, all the usual fears had risen relentlessly. I had HIV. It would turn to AIDS soon enough. I was going to die an ugly, painful death. Everything I’d fought to get over, all the awful shit I’d overcome, was fornothing. I’d suffer and die without ever being truly happy. Sure, I faked it well enough—or I had—but I’d never felt it deep inside. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to get sick.
The fear was an exhausting, endless mental battle that I’dendured ever since the doctor first told me the results. And it dragged up every last crappy thing from my past too, making all of them roar in my memory like vicious, uncaged animals just waiting to devour my sanity.
“I’m surprised you didn’t just leave,” Barry said, sweat dripping down the side of his face.
“I almost did.” I gave him a cheeky grin, the kind that used to come so easily only six months ago. “But then my mama whispered through my brain saying, ‘Baby, a man always loves pancakes.’” I lightened my voice, trying to sound like my old self, the one everybody knew and loved. Could Barry hear the effort it took?
“Not that I hadn’talreadyimpressed him with my performance last night.” I batted my eyelashes. “No doubt he’s in love with me now.”
“No doubt.” Barry’s voice was calm and steady. He raked a yellow leaf into the small pile of brown ones. “You don’t have to pretend with me, you know.”
I swallowed hard, looking at the grass. “I’m not pretending.”
“You’ve been pretending for a long time, but I see you.”
I pressed my lips together, trying to decide if I was going to argue with him. He wasn’t wrong. Over the last few years, I’d used drugs to escape the past, spun out absurd fantasies of love, and more. I lived on the surface of things so no one would suspect how much horrible shit there was underneath my shiny veneer. All just to keep from ever thinking about what had happened to me. It wasn’t that I’d been insincere in recent years—it was that I’d beensincerelydetermined to run away from my history and never look back. The HIV diagnosis had made all that effort feel pointless. That was one reason I’d been avoiding my mom and my friends.
I met Barry’s sturdy gaze. He’d stopped raking again and stood just gazing at me, no judgment or fear on his face.
Relief swept through me at being with someone who didn’tneed me to shine a distracting light away from the gross shit at my core. Tears pricked my eyes. I cleared my throat, determined not to cry. “So, yeah, I made pancakes for him. I wanted to say thanks for…for getting me out of my head. I was in a bad place when I went over.”
“I’m sure he appreciated it.” Barry went back to raking, gathering brown and orange leaves together. The wind shifted and the scent of wood smoke drifted over from a neighbor’s house. “I’m also sure he enjoyed what you did together.”
I remembered the heat in Luke’s eyes as he watched me squirm in the chair, his cruelly-placed clothespins making me hurt and ache all the way to my core. The pain had been peculiar, growing and growing as time passed, but the discomfort of the clamps paled in comparison to when he removed them.
“Maybe.” I didn’t bother trying to turn on my shine again. I just didn’t have it in me to power it up anymore. “But it’s not like we’d made an appointment. I just showed up, and he took me in and—” I cleared my throat again. Would Barry believe I was allergic to the leaves if I claimedthatwas why I was getting choked up?
“He made you understand why I thought he could help you,” Barry deduced.
“Yeah. I think I get it now.”
“Glad to hear it.”
I went on, not wanting to linger on that. “Anyway, he had Aunt Jemima brand pancake mix, and enough eggs and butter. He didn’t have any maple syrup, but he had some honey—the kind with the piece of honeycomb still in it? I love that kind. When I was a kid, I’d chew the wax.” I twitched anxiously. “So…yeah. I made him pancakes.”
I leaned against the tall oak Barry was working beneath, the bark biting into my skin. It was warm enough to wear short sleeves, and even though I was in what I called boy-drag—cowboy boots,jeans, and a Pixies concert tee I’d found at Repeat After Me—I still felt feminine inside. I didn’t always—that’s why I wasn’t transexual—but today I did.
There’d been something about the way Luke took control of me, hurt me, calmed me, and then put me in my place on his sofa, that left me feeling soft. Like I was a rose, and the pain he gave me had stroked my petals open, exposing my tender center. The breakfast we’d shared, the smiles and laughs, and the sweetness of the honey mademefeel sweet.
Suddenly, a flare of anger twisted in my gut. Fuck him. He should have punched me in the face instead.
“Hey now,” Barry said, dropping the rake, sensing the change in me. “So, you made the guy pancakes? No big deal. A Dom likes it when his subs show gratitude. I’m sure he appreciated them.”
I shrugged. “Fuck him, really.”
Barry’s pierced brow lifted. “Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. He…” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “He wasniceto me. Told me the pancakes were delicious. Laughed at how I blew Ruben at the grocery. Smiled at me. It made me feel…” I gagged a little. “All fucking gooey inside.”
