Page 107 of Monarch
Lex looks like xe could cry again, but xe keeps xir eyes on Mari, who surprises us both by baring their teeth and scraping them down Lex’s breastbone right over the body of the Monarch butterfly they tattooed on xir skin last year. Lex trembles and closes xir eyes. I rub a little faster and a lot harder.
Mari continues to scrape her teeth across Lex’s body, up and down xir top surgery scars, down to xir belly. They bite and nip and suck hard on the soft flesh of Lex’s stomach, which is one of only a few parts of xir torso that is free of tattoos, before finally lifting their mouth off and retrieving the pinwheel.
Lex studies it intently, and xe also starts to rock into my hand. Xe is getting close.
“You think you’re such a free spirit, don’t you?” Mari asks rhetorically. They are staring at the pinwheel like it’s the solution to a problem they’ve been trying to solve for years. “You don’t belong to anyone. You think you belong only to yourself. That you’re nobody’s.”
Lex tries to say something, and I wish we could take the gag out of xir mouth. I want to know what xe has to say. But I also know thepower in keeping it there. Mari is showing me just how healing this is for us to say what we want to say without Lex having an opportunity to answer back.
“But that’s not true,” Mari continues. “Isn’t that right, Roos?”
I keep pressing and rubbing against Lex’s cunt, xir arousal coating my hand.
“That’s right,” I play along because it turns me on, too. I’m starting to think I’ve never known power like this, and I like it. I like it a lot.
Mari gets close again, resting their head against Lex’s chest. “You belong to us.” They place the pinwheel against Lex’s skin, right at the tip of xir Monarch butterfly tattoo.
They start to move the pinwheel down Lex’s body, hard enough that xe flinches. “No matter where you go, where you run away to. No matter who you fuck. No matter how long you hide from us. You belong to us.”
Lex moans, and it’s impossible to say if it’s with pleasure or pain. But isn’t that the whole point of this? Isn’t that exactly what life is: a messy mix of pleasure and pain?
“You’re ours,” I add, wanting my voice to drive this message home to xem. “You will always be ours.”
The pinwheel reaches Lex’s stomach, and Mari moves it to Lex’s right side. There, they draw an elegant, cursive R, hard enough that it leaves a red line in its wake, and the letter sticks around long enough for us all to see it. They then lift the pinwheel and move to the other side of Lex’s belly and draw an equally refined M. Lex’s stomach quivers as the red lines fade.
I take my hand off xir cunt. Xe moans with the loss, but when my hand returns with the bullet vibrator in my grip, switched onto its highest setting, it quickly turns into a desperate yelp.
Mari goes over the R and the M once more. And then again and again and again as I keep the vibrator on Lex’s overwhelmed clit and xe crashes into another orgasm.
It’s hard and fast, and I suspect not as pleasant as xir first, but that’s exactly the point.
Two.
I keep the vibrator on xem the whole time, even as xe tries to move away from me. Even as xe starts to whimper around the gag. Even as I see tears brimming in xir eyes.
I want to tell xem that I feel it too – their discomfort, their pain, their desperation – because that’s what I do; I feel others’ hurt, always have and always will. But perhaps this is why I need to push through this just as much as Lex does. I need to learn that other people’s distress is not more important than my own, even if it is somebody I love dearly.
In that revelatory moment, I realise I haven’t thought about the possibility of a seizure all night. And it’s not because I assume it won’t happen, but because I am at peace if it does happen. I am with Mari and Lex. I’m at QISS with Joel right outside the door. I couldn’t be safer. And that tells me that I needed all of this to get to this point. I needed Lex hurting me. I needed Mari leaving me for those three months. I needed my epilepsy throwing me off-kilter completely to know that I am loved, not just by them both, but by myself. I love who I am. I love who I am so much that I will not sacrifice or compromise that person again, even – no, especially – for somebody I love.
I keep the bullet vibrator on xir clit, and when xe starts to shake like xir body is possessed, I grab xir thigh with my other hand and bury my face in it so I can physically feel the sensations xir orgasm is giving xem.
Three.
Lex is making a cacophony of tragic noises when I finally lift the bullet off xem and tears are running down xir face. A small dribble ofsaliva has emerged from the corner of xir mouth, and I have never seen xem look more dishevelled and magnificent. I want to kiss xem. I want to feel all xir bodily fluids on my skin. I want to give xem something soft and tender in the middle of all this pain.
But Mari clearly has other plans.
“One more orgasm,” they bark as they tuck the pinwheel back into their ropes and, much to my surprise, walk off stage.
“Where are you going?” I ask, standing. With my height and Lex’s lack of, with xem on the St Andrews Cross, we’re almost at eye level. Xe looks just as confused as I feel at Mari walking away.
“To get something,” they say.
We watch them move to the wall, between two of Lex’s paintings. They have to come up on the very tips of their toes, and it takes a few goes, but finally they have one of the candles from the nearest candelabra in their hand. They do the same thing until they have another candle in their other hand. With a very satisfied little smile on their face, they turn back to Lex and me.
“Oh, fuck,” I say. I fucking love wax play.
“You thought you’d dictate what toys we’d use on you?” Mari says as they climb the stairs back onto the chairs. “Always trying to control us. Always wanting to be one step ahead.”
