“Yes, but not just my gender. My body is intersex. It’s not normal. I don’t look… right.”
“Don’t say that.” He lifted his head with a scowl. “You were born how you were born, and you can’t help how your body is. So stop saying it isn’t right. If you were born this way, then it’s right.”
That should have made them feel better, but Cya couldn’t help but laugh at his naivety. “Parts of me formed wrong.”
“Nothing about you is wrong,” he insisted, and they bared their fangs in frustration.
“You can’t even fuck me!” they cried, and he reared back in confusion.
“We’re not even talking about that.”
“Yes, we are! That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” They pressed a hand below their belly button. “Niki was right. When she called me… what she called me. When she said I have a cunt you can’t fuck, she was right. Things didn’t form correctly during gestation in my egg, and I know it’s not my fault. I know I shouldn’t care. I know I should be proud of who I am, but it’s hard when everyone around me is telling me I’m wrong and broken and need to be fixed.”
As they spoke, Dex climbed onto the bed, little by little, until he knelt before them, knees splayed on either side of their tail, chin resting on the raised joint. His ears were flat against his head, his eyes sad.
“It doesn’t look very nice,” they said. “I have scars, and it’s ugly.”
He whined and growled simultaneously as he shook his head, expression fierce. “Nothing about you is ugly. Nothing.”
“You haven’t seen it.”
“I don’t need to!” Leaning against their tail, he reached out and framed their face. “I like you exactly as you are, in this body, because it’s yours. And nothing of yours could ever be ugly.”
For the second time, Cya burst into tears in front of him, and for the second time, Dex bundled them into his arms and held them. They wrapped their arms around his neck and hid their face against his throat as they sobbed. He resituated them, lifting them easily until they were in his lap as he rested his back against the wall. And he held them.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t do much at all beyond smooth his hand through their hair while he made comforting, little purr-like noises in the back of his throat. They were glad he didn’t make empty promises or claims they wouldn’t believe. All they needed was him to stay and not let them go. Again, he knew that without them having to say it.
When they calmed, they remained in his lap, tail slithering around his body and through his legs until he was entangled. He didn’t seem to mind; he propped his chin on their head and sighed.
“You told Kent, didn’t you?” he asked softly, but they still flinched, then they nodded. “And he told Niki?”
“Then they told everyone,” they said, and Dex stiffened. “He’d been pushing for… and I finally thought, why not? Maybe he wouldn’t care. Maybe we could find a way to still be together like that.
“But the way he looked at me—and when I told him that he couldn’t, because I’m not built for it and it would be painful and quite impossible, he still asked me to try. I said no, because I was scared it would hurt, and maybe I was scared he wouldn’t stop.”
Dex had turned to stone beneath them, even as his touch remained gentle. “Did he hurt you?”
Cya shook their head. “No. We got in a row, and he stormed out. Because what was the point if he couldn’t even fuck me?”
“I’m gonna kill him,” he said, so casually, so simply. Like he was stating the weather forecast for the next day. “I’m gonna find that noodley little fucker, and maul his face.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. He’s not worth it. None of them are.” They traced the neckline of his t-shirt. “I don’t think any of them ever liked me, so when he told them, they all finally had a reason to cast me out. The hermaphrodite freak with a useless cunt.”
Forcing their face out of the refuge of his neck, he frowned sternly down at them. “You’re not a freak. You’re you, and there’s nothing wrong with you.”
Cya wanted to believe him; they’d spent their whole life trying to believe that they were exactly who they were supposed to be. But the other voices were so loud; they drowned out the small, quiet whisper of their innermost self until they couldn’t hear it anymore.
“But they said—”
“Stop it,” he said firmly, but not unkindly. “There will always be atheywho think they know everything. They try to dictate what’s normal or acceptable, and everyone who doesn’t fit is a freak. But guess what?”
Cya thought it was rhetorical, but when he waited, they sniffled and said, “What?”
“No one is normal. It’s a made-up word, because all words are made up. Maybe you’re different, but different isn’t bad. You’re unique and special. Don’t let anybody tell you what you’re worth.”
Cupping the side of his face, where his fur was fine and soft, they said, “You’re worth the world, Dex Triever.”
He beamed at them like they were the sunrise. “Well, maybe let some people tell you what you’re worth, as long as they say shit like that.”
