Page 10 of Monarch
“I’m so hungry,” Mari says, digging their hands into the pockets of their jacket.
“Same,” I agree. “But we’re nearly there.”
We don’t say anything else until we’re at my favourite Greek deli and takeaway. Dimitri recognises me instantly and waves through the glass door before it’s even opened.
“Koukla!” he calls out. “Long time no see!”
“Hi, Dimi,” I gesture to Mari, “this is my friend, Mari. They’ve come to try your world-famous gyros.”
“World-famous! Ha! You’re all talk!”
“It’s very famous inmyworld,” I reply.
We order – one normal for me and one vegan version for Mari – and then take a seat at one of the few tables in the back. I’m surprised the place is nearly empty, but I’m relieved that it gives us plenty of space and quiet to keep talking.
“What doeskouklamean?” Mari asks as they start to unwrap their scarf again.
“Doll, or beautiful girl,” I say. “I looked it up just to check it wasn’t a slur.”
Mari waits for me to smile before laughing nervously.
“You know,” I unbutton my jacket a little, “when I first lived on my own in Amsterdam, I rented a room on a side street near here. Tiny space. Barely big enough for a single bed. Anyway. On pay days, I would come here and treat myself to a gyros. And Dimitri and his brothers, they were among the first people to really validate my gender in this city. He’s called me koukla from day one, before I was taking hormones. Before I knew how to wear wigs properly. Before I could afford decent ones, no less. He saw me as a beautiful, young woman before I was one.”
Mari frowns at me for a second. “You were beautiful then,” they tell me with conviction. “All this,” they wave their hand at me, “is just what you do with your meat suit. What makes you a beautiful woman is what was and is inside you.”
I smile at them. “Thank you. I know it shouldn’t, but gender validation from somebody like you, someone who’s non-binary, doesn’t mean as much for some reason as it does from somebody like Dimitri. I know that’s a terrible thing to say. I know that’s letting gender norms win.”
Mari shrugs. “Maybe, but I also believe in taking your gender euphoria wherever you can find it. It’s a rare gem, and most of the time, in this fucked-up world, you have to dig deep to find it, so when it comes to the surface in a Greek deli, grab hold of it.”
I smile at them, and it warms my cheeks and my heart. I have a good queer community around me – at work, yes, but also in my social life. And yet it never gets old meeting somebody who…just gets it.
After our food is placed in front of us, we eat in near silence but for a few expressive moans at how good the gyros, tzatziki, and freshly baked pitas are. We wash it down with bottles of water and then put our jackets back on and head outside after we both receive two-handed handshakes from Dimitri.
It’s only once we’re standing on the pavement outside that I realise we hadn’t talked about what’s next. I suddenly don’t want the night to be over. I don’t want to say goodbye to Mari. Not yet. I open my mouth to say something like this, if a little less emphatically, but Mari’s already talking.
“I’d like to see you again,” they say, “before I go home. Would that be okay?”
They’re being so sweet, so polite, and maybe it’s that or maybe it’s the way they look up at me with their big blue eyes, but I start to get all manner of ideas of how the rest of this evening can play out.
“What time do you have to be back at your convention tomorrow?” I ask.
Mari blinks again like they did earlier in the night when I asked a direct question, but they quickly recover. “Not early. I mean, I could show up at midday and I’d probably still have time to meet all the people I’m supposed to meet.”
“I’m not working tomorrow,” I tell them. “How about we spend the night together?”
“As in…” Mari drifts off, and I curse their lack of directness. Lex was the same. No, Lex was much, much worse.
I extend my hand and tuck their hair behind one ear. “As in, come back to mine and let me fuck you.”
“You want that?” they ask in a breathy voice I haven’t heard before, but I definitely want to hear again.
“I want you,” I tell them.
This time, my directness seems to melt something in Mari, and their whole body relaxes as they rock back and forward on their heels. “I would like that,” they say. “But I have a whole massive hotel room with a canal view and a bed the size of France. It’s just like a fifteen-minute walk away.”
“My place is five minutes by bike,” I say.
“But I don’t have a bike.”
