Big Flipping Deal Ch. 03

[The story so far: Nick and Lindsey are remodeling a house together after Nick's neighbor (Lindsey's aunt) left it to them in her will. Lindsey is a talented interior designer and incredibly hot ... but, it turns out, transgender. Since he became enormously attracted to her before the revelation, Nick is now conflicted, trying to decide whether it's okay to fantasize about her and having erotic dreams about actions he had never considered taking before ...]

"Okay," said Lindsey when she picked me up the next day, once again in t-shirt and jeans, "there's good news and there's bad news."

As we pulled out of the office parking lot, I thought, What kind of news is it that I dreamed I sucked your dick last night?

But what I said was, "Um ... good news first?"

She pouted a second like she'd wanted to tell it the other way, and that little compression of her lips made me think, The good news is, those lips were wrapped around my cock a couple of days ago. The bad news is, that's the last time they ever will be.

"The good news is," she said as we waited at the light, "Bret only found one thing, besides a bunch of cosmetic shit we can take care of pretty easy."

Wait, am I really wishing she'd blow me again, now that I know? Of course, asshole. You're supposed to be wishing it because you're supposed to be treating her like you don't know, remember?

I realized Lindsey was looking at me through her sunglasses, waiting.

"Oh, so what's the bad news?"

The light changed, and she turned her head forward again.

"The bad news is, it's the A/C unit. The condenser's apparently nothing but rust held together by twenty years of dust. Bret said he's surprised it's still running. So we probably just lost five grand out of our budget."

"Five grand?" At last, my brain had something to grab its attention other than my cock or hers. "For a condenser?"

"The unit's old enough it's got some crap condenser that's not even legal to put in new machines anymore. Freon. Bret says we could save a couple thousand having a replacement condenser put in, but the rest of the unit's not in great shape either. We'll be a lot more marketable buying a whole new system, for not that much more money."

I started to give a low whistle, but putting my lips in whistling position suddenly made me uncomfortable. "We're not going to put that in ourselves, are we?"

"Oh, Jesus Christ, no," she said. The glance she gave me had a certain whoa-have-I-stuck-myself-with-a-complete-moron look to it. "Not unless you've got HVAC experience you're not telling me about and some pals to help you."

"Just double-checking," I said. "So what's on the agenda for tonight?"

Hooking her thumb over a shoulder, she said, "I've got some tools in the trunk for us to get the appliances out of the kitchen. If it goes quick, we might pull the sink and countertops tonight too, but I don't want to get too ambitious. Probably that'll wait until tomorrow."

"Okay."

On the highway now, we had the wind in our hair for a bit before we hit a slowdown - southbound 35, Friday afternoon, people headed out of town for the weekend on top of people leaving early from work. I realized the radio wasn't on today. Lindsey sat watching traffic creep, one hand on the gearshift and the other tapping on the wheel.

"So ..." I spoke up so I'd have a reason to be looking over at her. Other than trying to see in her profile the features of an effeminate guy wearing makeup instead of a gorgeous woman. A couple of times at dinner the night before, I thought I'd caught a hint of weak male bone structure instead of strong female features. I hadn't been trying then, though, and at the moment any androgyny was swamped by the flow of her hair and the red of those lips. "So, what do you do, when you're not designing interiors?"

The expression she flashed me said, Really? Eyebrows up high enough to top the rim of her sunglasses. She answered drily. "Read a lot of interior design magazines."

"Oh, come on," I said. "It's Friday night, I'm in a snazzy car with a beautiful woman, and you're going to hold it against me that I want to make small talk?"

She lifted her sunglasses up above the golden curve of her hairline and spared another glance from the slow-moving traffic to me. The intelligent blue of those eyes might have wilted me where I sat, except that the purple bruise around the left one gave her a stark vulnerability.

"Look, Nick, you don't have to prove anything to me. You don't have to pretend anything, you don't have to call me a 'beautiful woman.' You know, and I know that you know. Just relax about it and let's have a very practical, collaborative few weeks together and walk away with our money."

"Ouch," I said. My mouth opened to say something else, who knows what, but Lindsey's right leg stabbed and her hand blared the horn and the car jerked almost to a dead stop.

"Fucking asshole!"

Luckily the angle of her gaze made it clear she meant some guy who'd just cut us off, not me. I sat watching her, watching the flare of anger fade from her features.

"I don't get it," I said. "Which one do you think was me pretending? Do you think you're not beautiful? Or do you not really think of yourself as a woman?"

This time, it wasn't just the bruise but the eyes themselves that looked vulnerable. She frowned and lowered her shades and turned her attention back to the traffic. I kept watching her, waiting to see if she meant to just ignore me. As the cars around us started moving again, she found something to say.

"On my good days, I do," she said. "I put on a pretty dress and the guys stare at me and the women look at me like they're jealous and I feel ... real. But most days, I know I'm a fake, all right? I know if I had the balls to be a woman, I'd go the whole way, have the operation, and give up on enjoying this thing I was born with between my legs."

"My aunt did," I said.

"What?"

"My aunt Elise. She went the whole nine yards. But this was like twenty years ago and everybody acted like she was a freak and basically ran her out of town. And she, uh ..." Fuck, why am I telling her this? Is it supposed to cheer her up?

"She, 'uh,' what?"

"Never mind. I don't even know why I brought it up. I was a kid. At the time, I had no idea she used to be a man. I never got to talk to her about it." I found it harder and harder to keep my focus, but I struggled on anyway. "My point is ... ugh. My point is, you have all these amazing things about you - your looks, brains, talent, your sense of humor - sure, it's kind of mean, but you've got one. And then you've got this one weird thing that makes you unusual, and it just - I mean, you can't -"

I had to look away, out my side of the car. I couldn't really have told you why. And then I felt Lindsey's hand come to rest very lightly on mine.

"I'm sorry about your aunt, Nick."

The hand left before I could turn. She had them both on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead as though off somewhere far away, thinking. But then she looked over at me and went on, "You don't have to worry over me, okay? I bitch about myself a lot, but I do have those good days, right? I know I've got it a hell of a lot better than a lot of people in my position. Maybe that's part of what pisses me off about myself. I've got so much, and I still can't figure out how to be happy."

The traffic picked up speed a bit, and Lindsey accelerated the car with it, carrying her hair back from her face with a breeze.

"You seemed happy when you were showing me your sketches last night," I said.

Her mouth wrinkled to one side.

"I do some painting too," she said. "When I'm not designing interiors. And I bowl."

"Seriously?" I laughed. "I didn't think chicks as hot as you got into bowling."

"They don't," she said. "But geeky teenage guys sometimes do."

Our exit came up, and we crawled mercifully out of the traffic and down the exit ramp.

"Well, we should go bowling sometime," I said. "I'm terrible, but I was in a couple of leagues in high school, and I still like throwing a line or two."

She stayed quiet all the way through the light and into the neighborhood.

But once we pulled into Mrs. P's driveway and she turned off the car, she looked at me and said, "I'll think about it."

* * *

I assumed Lindsey had lined up a really unambitious job for us that night. Refrigerator, stove, dishwasher - just three things, being moved out of a room, down a hall, out across the driveway, and into the garage. Yeah, they were big, heavy things, but how hard was this going to be? Especially since we didn't give a crap if the floor got scratched to hell?

Well, it's a good thing I didn't speak up and tell her I expected it to be quick and easy.

"The doorways in the kitchen are too small for the fridge to fit through," Lindsey explained when I asked why we needed the little stepladder she'd brought along with her bin of tools. "It's a monster - I don't know what the hell Neena needed that much refrigerator for. So we've got to take the doors off the fridge before we move it, and put them back on once it's in the garage."

"What's the point of putting them back on?" I asked as she handed me the stepladder and a couple of towels. "Aren't we getting rid of it?"

"Yeah, in three weeks," she replied, hefting the tool bin and slamming the trunk. "I'd just as soon have something cold to drink while we're working between now and then, wouldn't you?"

"Sure, of course. For some reason, I was picturing an ice chest."

"When we've got a perfectly good refrigerator?"

Why the hell didn't I think about having drinks in the fridge? Oh yeah, because she wouldn't have to bend over and show me that ass and those legs getting a drink out of the refrigerator.

I shrugged, then unlocked the door so we could go inside.

Getting the doors off the refrigerator wasn't too hard. You pull it out from the wall, unplug it, turn off the water to the icemaker, take off the front kickplate to get at the water dispenser tube that attaches to the freezer door, remove some protective caps, then unscrew the doors themselves. I pretty much just stood and watched and then held the door and lifted once she got the top screws and the electrical connection out ... then I held the door some more while she unthreaded that water tube. I also got to mop up some ice-cold water with the towels.

None of this was anything to complain about, though, because when I say I mostly stood and watched, I mean I got to stand and watch Lindsey. Working, focusing, filling out her t-shirt, a rosy pink number with geometric designs in lavender down the front. She almost caught me a couple of times, but I think I moved my eyes just before I got nailed.

"You really seem to know what you're doing," I said on the second near-miss, as if that explained where I'd been looking. "You take a lot of doors off refrigerators?"

She gave me a dry look. "I have the Internet."

In ten or fifteen minutes, we had the thing disassembled. A couple minutes after that, we got it scooted down the hall to the side door and then out across the driveway into the garage - pinching my finger between the fridge and the doorway in the process. Then a minute or two of me sucking my finger and trying to shake the pain out of it, and then another ten to get the doors back on.

The stove took less time, no more than twenty minutes including the time spent clicking the unlabeled breakers in the fuse box until we found out which ones cut the right power.

But the dishwasher was kind of a bitch. Water connections under the sink. Water connections under the unit. Electricity hard-wired in instead of delivered by a plug. For the most part, there was nothing for a second person to do. Lindsey talked me through the messier part - the water connections - then sprawled on the floor to mess with the electrical herself. This gave me a terrific view of her ass, which I tried to politely avoid looking at even though I had nothing better to occupy me.

When I say I 'tried' to avoid looking, I'm not saying I succeeded all that well.

At one point she had her legs parted far enough to give me a good angle not just on her ass but on her crotch. One part of my brain tried to move my eyes that direction to see if I could get a glimpse of camel-toe. Another part quickly reminded me that if I got any kind of glimpse, it wouldn't be a camel-toe.

And then another part started itching to look and find out what the glimpse would be. The jeans weren't tight, but they weren't baggy either. How much of a bulge would there be? How exactly was everything packed in there? Were things taped down? In some kind of support underwear?

My will slipped, and I looked - just a second too late. She'd shifted on the floor and gotten her legs closed again.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Before I could start listing the multitude of answers to that question, Lindsey rolled and turned to look my way.

"I've almost got this, and then we should be able to lug it out to the garage. You want to order us a pizza or something?"

Shit yes, I want to order us a pizza or something. "Sure. Delivered here? Or to my house where there's someplace to sit?"

"Duh, here," she said. "This is a worksite meal. We've put in our first real work on the place. You don't go somewhere else to eat that."

"Oh, right. Of course not."

I got on my phone, and she went back to the wiring. Ten minutes later, we had the thing out in the garage next to the stove.

"So. What now?" I asked, dusting my hands once we set it down. "Are we going to get started on that countertop? I mean, it's Friday night. The pizza'll take an hour."

"Did you order anything to drink with it?"

"Doh. No, and I promise that's not a trick to get you to go to my place for a soda."

She laughed. "Should I tell you I completely believe you'd forget something like Cokes with a pizza?"

"Sure. I haven't got much ego about my competence, but I like people to think I'm honest."

For some reason, that made her smile. "Okay, well, I'm going to wash up, and then why don't we just walk to that quick-mart we pass on the way into the neighborhood. We should be able to get there and back before the pizza comes."

"Sounds good."

* * *

We went back in the house, through the kitchen, down the front hall. She broke off into the bathroom and closed the door, doing more than just washing her hands, apparently. As I waited in the foyer, my brain had the insensitivity to wonder if she peed standing up.

I really need to stop fixating on this, I thought. But I didn't listen to myself. Instead, first I imagined Lindsey working her jeans down past her hips, her ass, her thighs, pulling a pair of soft panties with them - rose colored panties to match her t-shirt - and then gently sitting down on the toilet seat with her cock tucked between her legs so she could piss in a properly feminine position. Then I imagined her standing with her feet apart, dropping her fly, fishing out her dingus, and jetting a stream into the bowl just like I would. Which one was it ... sitting shyly? Or letting go in a man stance?

Think. About. Something. Else. I paced back and forth by the front door. Good God, the last thing you want is her to come out and find you with a chubby in your pants.

The thought stopped me in my tracks, because I realized it was true. I didn't have a full-fledged boner, but my cock had definitely swelled mildly erect - that warm, fuzzy kind of erection that's not so hard as to be uncomfortable, but firm enough to make you conscious of how much you love sex.

Why is Lindsey's dick giving me a hard-on??? I flashed back to my dream, to the moment at the end when I sucked her in, warm and rigid and then instantly jerking and spurting, filling my mouth with heat and viscosity that, because it was a dream, didn't really have any definable flavor. I wasn't worried about it making me gay - I'm pretty confident I like girls. But the way that dream image stiffened me all the way up just baffled me. I like the look of a cock in certain circumstances - slipping into a porn starlet's vagina or pleasure-lavishing lips, or swelling in my hand as I masturbate. I'd just never been aroused by the thought of somebody else's cock, all by itself. Well, Christ, Nick. You've never known anybody who looked like Lindsey who also had a cock, have you?

The toilet flushed, and I thought about stomping my own toe to see if the pain would make my boner go away. But I didn't have much confidence that it would, so instead, I just took hold of the doorknob like I was waiting on her and angled my body so she'd only see it in profile as she came out of the bathroom.

When the door down the hall opened, I said, "Okay, you ready?" Then I turned the knob on the front door without awaiting an answer.

"Sure," she said, heading my way as I pulled the door inward. I stepped back to hold it for her, keeping partially behind it so my crotch wouldn't be in view if she happened to look.

And why would she be looking? I asked myself. Shaking my head, I followed her out and pulled the door shut after us. Then we were side by side on the driveway, followed by the sidewalk, as we headed back toward the neighborhood entrance and the convenience store on the other side of the road from it. An early evening breeze and the sound of crickets helped me settle into step with her. And twilight made me relax with the knowledge that my slowly fading erection wasn't likely to get noticed.

"So that one's yours, right?" she asked as we passed my house.

"Yeah," I said. "Well, not mine, but I rent it. How'd you know?"

"You mentioned being two houses down, and that's the direction you headed the other night when you scurried off after finding out I was a t-girl."

I felt some of the blood leave my crotch to work its way hotly up into my cheeks. "Look, I'm sorry about that, I really -"

She rolled her eyes and waved it away. "You already apologized plenty. Don't worry about it. And I've got this feeling if I hadn't been a teasing bitch and given you that B.J., you'd probably have been pretty cool about it once you found out. I mean, considering your aunt and all."

I shrugged and said, "I don't know. I suppose I might have been. Assuming I found out."

We walked a couple of houses farther down the road in silence before she spoke again.

"I think I would have told you at some point," she said.

"Really?"

"Probably."

Another house went by.

"You're a nice guy," she explained. "And you'd totally have kept checking me out the whole time we worked on the house, and ... I wouldn't want you wondering why I was ignoring you."

I snorted. "Trust me, I wouldn't have been wondering."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Glancing over, I found her eyes looking almost hurt under lowered brows.

"Well, I mean ..."

"What? Because I look nice, I'm supposed to only be interested in great-looking guys? It's not like you're the hunchback of Notre Dame, Nick."

"Yeah, that guy could really sing," I said. Then, when she stared, I explained, "In the Disney cartoon one."

She shook her head, but gave a little laugh-breath through her nose. "See? You're funny. And not bad looking. You shouldn't run yourself down."

Unable to think of another self-mocking comeback, I didn't immediately respond.

"So what's your story, huh? Mine is, I have a knack for picking guys who know how to hide their shitty side just long enough that I get used to having a boyfriend and a steady fuck."