I Only Cum When a Dog Watches

... he says.

It's been a strange week. October is always a bit weird -- neither summer or winter, it's that liminal month between the joys of sunshine and the dense, dark rituals of year's end. This one is relatively mild, but at the office on Thursday it rained so hard water squirted through a closed sash window.

I picked up the phone, pretended to dial and then said, "God? It's Kelly. Yeah, that one." I winked at everyone. They grinned back. "So, about this rain. It's a bit much -- please could you turn it down?"

The rain stopped. There were fifteen other people in that sales office, and they all laughed. There was a touch of disbelief though, and a little thrill of awe. 'What if Kelly really did talk to... No! She can't have done. OR DID SHE? We know trans women are meant to be touched with magic, but...'

And now this. I'm in the living room of a house in an 80s red brick cul-de-sac that's the dead spit of Brookside. The room looks smaller than it is because of the clutter, which includes ancient board games, computer magazines from a time when 64K was a lot of memory, a bike frame without wheels, and rusted scuba gear I wouldn't trust in a paddling pool. There are two lampshades but only one lamp, which he's tried to style by taping an old blue scarf in front of it. The gloom cries out for a nice candle.

I met the guy in a Tunbridge Wells coffee shop near where I work. The beans they use are from Africa rather than South America, and the coffee tastes bracingly, smokily different. He'd been going there for a while and kept making eyes at me. He was smaller than I am, curvy and with ginger hair that no product would ever calm.

I wasn't sure -- I once heard him on the phone about a job with an oil company. Given the environmental collapse those planet-hating psychos are responsible for, I was trying to decide if tripping this one under a bus was a form of self-defence.

He must have known I'd heard. When he found the courage to come over, he'd got a speech prepared.

"I'm in polymer research," he said with a bashful grin, as if that was the best-ever chat-up line. In a way it was -- his joy at what he did made him lovely. "I've got realistic plans to recycle plastic." That's how he said it, as if the words were underlined. "Properly recycle that is, not chuck in a landfill in Asia. When I crack it, the stuff can be reused to make new products." He took a deep breath. "I'm not a planet-hating monster."

That's what did it -- shared use of the phrase 'planet-hating'.

Around 9pm a week later he is balls deep in me as I buck in his grip until my hair whips my face. Everything goes in and out of focus, as if there's a vision dial operated by a demented but very pretty goblin. That said, I'm not missing much -- all I can see on my hands and knees is an ancient game of Boggle.

I'm naked, which is new despite how much sex I have. Before, I'd want to prove my femininity and keep my bra, boots, or a hiked-up skirt on despite how thoroughly I was tumbled. Perhaps it's lingering self-doubt. Surgery still scares me after all these years, and I don't take hormones (ditto). Maybe one day, but what's the point when I feel this free?

Ginger -- which is his real name or at least the one he likes using -- makes little heartfelt moans as he pounds me. It's as if he regrets having to treat me so robustly because despite being sleek and glossy, I am also a reprehensible slut. He also strokes me a lot -- my thighs, my back. He then gets his small, adorably pudgy hands lost in my long, thick dark hair, which he pulls as if it's reins. I love that because I am and always will be a total fuck-pony.

Boggle comes back into focus. I'm sweating now and drops that fly off Ginger splash on my heaving back. His breath is deep and booming. I wonder if he's about to cum.

I don't want to stop. Sex is always amazing to me, as if each thrust, each joyous cry, each rapturous orgasm is a scream of defiance at a world that pretends these things are wrong.

My adrenaline spikes then drops like a tide, as each thrust pushes me further -- can I take more? Can I really? Yes! Yes, I can!

My skin tingles with astonishment, with slight oxygen deprivation, with heat changes inside and out. My knees are scuffed on this knackered carpet with its dusty old smell and fleur-de-lis design that is psychedelic enough to be seen in the hot gloom.

My breath gets short. I'm very fit, but we have been going at it hard and fast for... How long? My heartbeat races -- it's almost thrumming as I tense and accommodate, moving against every thrust.

Pain creeps up my thighs. I've been on my hands and knees for a while and all the amazement in the world isn't going to stop physical indignation nibbling at my euphoric abandon. Ginger wipes the edge of his palm across my wet back like a windscreen wiper, and then flicks my sweat across the stack of board games. I watch my fluid soak into the cardboard, which is so old its edges are furred against the dim light.

That's when he says it.

"I only cum when a dog watches."

Every woman knows what I feel next.

It starts with a need to frown, coupled with reluctance to do it even though I'm facing away from him. Then there's the slight chill and repressed shiver, followed by an urge to get away. Finally, the idiotic denial -- there's nothing wrong, stop overreacting.

The feeling every woman knows is sudden unease.

That's when you remember you don't know the guy you're with. It's when you're forced to accept that the glorious freedom you inhabit comes with a degree of risk. The ways you manage that risk kick in fast -- the sense of being on edge, the need to leave without always knowing why.

Although in this case it's obvious.

A dog?

Watching?

Even the cleanest dog-owning house can't keep up with the constant drift of dog hair. I have been nose-to-carpet in here and there is no dog hair, and thus no dog either.

Is Ginger a furry? I thought he was called Ginger because of his hair colour, but it would also make a good dog name. Does Ginger want me to be a furry? I'm sure he would have said, and I haven't seen a leather dog mask lying around. I rack my sex-addled brain to think of that other sect of animal-identifying humans. Thumpers? Two Paws?

Therians. Is that what Ginger is into? Solid fuck that he is, he doesn't have the physique to leap about like a gazelle.

His cock is still in me, but it does not stretch me as hard. Will he blame me for that? Have I missed some vital clue?

Is this somehow my fault?

My stomach quivers. Can he see the back of my head prickle as the hair begins to lift? I want to shudder, even though it's not cold. I know better than to ask the ultimate sex-killing question -- 'What's wrong?'

I can't see behind me. Until now I wasn't bothered. Now I notice that his hands are still on my hips, which means he's not reaching for a knife or a bottle of acid. I turn my head and keep my big brown eyes wide in their pretty halo of pink and blue shadow that took me ten bloody minutes per socket this morning.

"Oh?" I keep my voice curious, friendly, and absolutely not judgemental.

Ginger is looking off to the left. His eyes are distant, his expression slack, and as I watch his chin trembles. Absent-mindedly, his thumbs stroke my hips as if he is comforting himself with my body. With a wince that looks like regret, he pulls out.

I gasp at the wet slipping feel of it, the loss I feel keenly despite my unease. I try to straighten but I'm dazed and clumsy and my knees aren't having it.

Keen to reduce my vulnerability, I roll over and keep my gaze on Ginger. He doesn't notice, which is a relief. One prefers to be a graceful princess, not an oaf whose lower joints are more honest than the rest of her about the approach of middle age.

I wonder if I should go, because what was a rough and glorious set-to amid a care-free realm of innocent clutter now seems sad, almost deluded. I clear my throat to cover my worry and he looks at me.

His eyes are sad, guilty even.

I arrange my long legs to cover my sex and drape an arm across my chest. With my other hand I can massage my thighs and linger on their supple, androgynous grace.

"You gave me a good seeing to there," I smile, flirtatious and grateful. I have found that flattery can stave off a kicking, especially one motivated by the attacker's sense of failure.

"You're so hot," he whispers.

I lift my chin.

"Yes."

Bold narcissism also helps because guys love transgender women. They love chatting us up, fucking us, and discovering our mysterious ways as they do every other kind of woman.

But the ridiculous brat patriarchy that lives rent free in everyone's head gets them worried that loving us makes them less manly. It can be tough for their feelings, but potentially lethal for women like me, who then get the brunt of misogyny and transphobia.

It's got worse over the last five years. I never used to feel this worried.

Ginger goes to speak, swallows, then looks away again. I remember my clothes are out of reach, and my bag is lost in the hallway.

Best deal with this head-on, then.

"Dog?"

He sighs.

"I thought it would be different with you."

He strokes my hair, which is sweaty and tangled. Ginger busies himself trying to sort it out, as if it is the 3D model of a polymer sequence that he has been commissioned to make sense of. There is no menace in him, just that weird sadness and strange, haunting regret.

Should I go? This feels so nice, so relaxing, and the sex was very good. Will I regret going? Will I regret staying?

I try to decide what I would be running from. It's a toss-up between a man who had sex with me the way I like and is now stroking my hair, and paranoia brought about by fascists and religious loons.

And despite everything, I must know the answer to the dog riddle. It is almost a point of principle.

His hands are gentle as his head tilts to one side, and he works at my hair with intense focus. Unexpectedly, he kisses my mouth, then blinks as if surprised at himself. Then he goes back to my hair, which -- incredibly -- he has smoothed out. He runs his palms down it, mixing its oils with the oils of his hands, smoothing and smoothing until I can feel it slick and slightly stiff against the contours of my head.

My sex twitches. He notices, and a slight pressure under my ears inclines me to stand. My legs appreciate the chance to stretch, which I do, raising my arms up until I am a pale and naked streak in front of the kneeling man.

Who takes my sex in his mouth.

By now I am past worry and into confusion. It's not bad exactly -- it's just, well, confusion.

My body heat rises again, and my chest tightens. My mind still races for answers, but the process has a slow, delirious undertone of deep pleasure, the kind that's only experienced when someone who really wants to eat your sex tucks in.

If he was going to do something bad, wouldn't he have done it by now? And --

He grips my arse hard, bruising it with lust. I shift and gasp, but he doesn't let go. Pleasure and pain echo each other, reverberating from my back to my front. Confusion is a wildness now, amplifying everything.

What the hell is wrong with me? Is it sex I'm addicted to, or risk?

Do I like fear?

I don't want to cum, but -- oh hell, he's even better with his tongue than he is with his cock.

His grip reaches the end of its strength and sensation rushes through my centre as if a tourniquet has been loosened. I move my hips from side to side but keep my bare feet planted on the worn carpet.

Ginger strokes the tingling wet area he penetrated before. I expect him to slip his fingers in, but instead he strokes the slick, intimate surface either side.

I hear him rub his fingertips together. He grunts with pleasure, then pauses his mouth action to smell his fingers. His eyes roll up and flicker -- it's as if he has inhaled the most beautiful scent in the world. He takes his mouth away and I can't stop myself huffing with indignation.

"Hydroxyethylcellulose," he croons.

First dogs, now chemistry? I am right out of my wheelhouse with this guy.

And yet...

He strokes my wet backside again, using the edge of his finger the way he used the edge of his arm earlier, like a windscreen wiper. Soon he has got a glistening line along his forefinger. He inhales the scent of it again.

"Polyethylene oxide, polyglyceryl methacrylate..." He looks up at me. "Those are the nonionic polymers of sex-based lubricants." He shivers with desire. "And the sex of a beautiful woman."

I shake with lust and my lips part. I want to spread my legs. Instead I press them together to enhance each pulse of delight. I feel my skin flush hot, and the beat of my heart feels close and loud. I let my held breath out with a whuff. I sound like a dog -- the noise they make that's not quite a bark.

We both freeze.

I'm too light-headed to work out what any of it means. Instead, there's a shift near my heart, a pang like the call for resolution. Confusion melts in a tingle of nerve endings -- I almost hear the cacophony of tiny bells ease into a sweet melody.

Before I can say anything, Ginger paints the length of my sex with his beloved polymers. The touch is ecstatic, absurd. Hair raises on my arms and on my nape. My mouth feels wet, as if I'm about to drool.

The memory of unease heightens my senses and drives them further. I feel like the willing sacrifice to a liquid, plastic-based goddess, born of the same hydrocarbons we foolishly burn...

"Mmmmm," Ginger snarls. "Mmmmmm."

My fingers ache and tingle with the need to touch. They find his hair and curl into it, the faintly slippery texture a perfect complement to my shaking wet hands. I gently pull his hair to set his scalp tingling.

The move distracts me from my approaching climax, which I don't want yet. I want the delirious stroking to continue, as if Ginger is painting me with the blood of the world --

He takes the whole package into his mouth again and sets to, working me until I thrash like a whip cracked over and over. The gathering increases as the polymers reconnect in the scalding vortex of his mouth --

I am gone, gone, howling as the goddess pulls my soul up out of my hot wet lashing body --

***

I shift against something soft and warm. Slow with the deep rest of post-orgasmic collapse, I realise it's Ginger. He holds me and I feel his face buried in my hair. I open my eyes.

I'm at the centre of a debris field made of scattered board games and junk. It's late, but the room is brighter. Blearily, I focus on the lamp. At some point during my shattering climax, I yanked the blue sheet off. I think about apologising for the mess, but it's time someone had a tidy up. Besides, I have questions.

"Dog?" My voice is croaky, as if I have slept for a year.

Ginger sighs and holds me closer. His cock pulses against my thigh. One hand strokes my chest as he licks my hair, the touch hot and wet, then cool as he stops and hooks his chin over my shoulder.

"Um..." he begins.

I don't rush him. I am in a rare state of peace. My breaths are slow and easy, my muscles slack, my limbs loose after the intensity of prolonged sex.

The lack of tension is almost a sense of nothingness. I certainly don't feel the need to fill the silence. Instead, I'm satisfied sexually and with the world at large. Even time doesn't matter. The darkness outside heralds the onset of winter proper. Soon everything will be dark, the urge to hibernate paused by primal joy at coloured Halloween lights shining deep in the English night.

My curiosity throbs quietly, like Ginger's cock, pleasant but not urgent. I sense him arranging his thoughts. Perhaps he hasn't explained this to anyone before. Perhaps he is having to quietly create a whole new language for it.

He clears his throat.

"I was married before."

He sags a little. Here is the real cause of his sadness.

"We met at university... Oh, quite a few years ago now. Both did chemistry, both good at it -- her better than me to be honest. She was my heroine, actually. I couldn't believe she was interested in me. Character-wise she reminds me of you -- inventive, original, passionate. She wasn't trans though, and not dark either. She was small and blonde, although not a real blonde. She used to make her own hair-colouring for fun."

He chuckles at that, one of those happy memories that has its roots in a specific and precious personal madness.

"We managed to stay together through our twenties. No mean feat given the changes that happen to people during that time in their lives." He sighs. "Our thirties were easier but less fun. We seemed to go in different directions, even though that's the last thing we wanted.

"She got a job in America, and of course she had to go -- it was at NASA for God's sake. My job was here -- I had a research grant at Imperial College in London. You don't get many of those. It was vital for my other work and so we agreed to part.

"In any other situation that would have been the end, given the distance. But we were both workaholics and that's what saved us. We were just into our work. So, when she came back we had this amazing... Well, it was like with you. And I thought, 'I've still got her'.

"But when you're apart you find other interests to take care of your sexual needs. I don't mean with other people." He thinks for a moment, as if working out the right way to explain. "I'd always had a thing for women like you, but transness wasn't something people talked about much when I was young. Then society began to change, and there were more opportunities to maybe chat or see things, or... I'll be honest, the porn got a lot better."

"It certainly did."

"And my wife, she... After those first few weeks of amazing sex we realised we'd changed too much this time, that we were almost strangers again and not in an exciting way. I found it was more gratifying on my own. Eventually, we ended up in separate bedrooms, and then..."

He shudders a little. I grip his hand.

"Even when divorce is necessary," I say, my voice a soft whisper, "It still feels as if half of you has been surgically removed."

I will tell you of my own sadness and how even now it slows the world down, with my heart seeming to take the strain of it. I will explore again the devastating cause of an unwelcome chill that hints at death. I will explain that it's because other people go on without you whether you're alive or not.

I will tell you of that, but not now.

But hinting at an understanding brings Ginger closer to me, relaxes him in a way I can feel in his body.

"Yes!" He kisses the back of my head.

I can smell us both, the sweet mix of it, sweat and juice and hormones adrift over the debris, like soft mist above the site of an ancient battle. Ginger turns my head and kisses my mouth, careful and tender. He seems reluctant to look in my eyes, as if he has already said too much. Is he worried he will start crying?

My neck begins to crick. Gently I disentangle and we both lie on our backs with my head on his chest. I can feel it rise, and the steady thump of his heart.

He takes a juddering breath.

"The sale of our house was a nightmare, and so was the purchase of this one. It all took more than a year, so I stayed with my brother. He's only got a small place, so I slept on a fold down bed in the living room with Jack, his springer spaniel." Ginger tenses. "This isn't a bestiality story."

"I didn't think it was."

Ginger breathes out.

"Something about that loyal, friendly presence, that lack of judgement, helped me. My brother was kind to put me up, but we've never been close. My friends are in different cities and countries now, and for a long time the only person I wanted to be with was my wife. But she was gone.