Page 90 of Monarch
“Rookie mistake,” I hear Lex mumble, and I wish I had enough air in my lungs to tell xem to shut the fuck up, but that hit was really fucking hard.
“And you.” Roos hits Lex with the same force. “Quiet!”
Lex curses and screws up xir face in pain. I watch as xir muscles gradually relax. We make eye contact, and xe gives me a helpless little smile. Xe really does enjoy this – submitting.
I add it to the mental list of things I am learning about Lex. The way xe enjoys cooking and is good at it. The fact that xe wakes early and always has tea or coffee brewed for us when we wake. How xe does a lot more cleaning than Roos and I do, but xe hates laundry andwill go weeks without doing a load, unless Roos or I take pity on xem and do it first. The way xir artwork is always tucked out of the way and how we never discussed that painting xe did of me, which has been a source of both relief and frustration.
When Lex showed up on Roos’ doorstep last autumn, I really did think I knew everything there was to know. I really did think, ten years ago, that Lex was such a big personality, so solid a character, that xe was fully formed, unchangeable, unmalleable. But I now know that was wrong.
And I know there’s more to it. There’s more to Lex. There’s something xe is holding back. Maybe Lex doesn’t even know what it is. Maybe this is part of it. Maybe submitting is what xe needs to find that part of xemself.
I know that submitting does that for me. It helps me find the deepest parts of myself and brings them to the surface. It cracks me open and makes me realise the most complicated parts of my soul are actually the most beautiful and the most fragile. They’re the parts of me I’m right to protect, but that shouldn’t mean they’re neglected.
It also helps me find a home in my body when my relationship to my physical form is an ever-changing thing.
So few people understand the fluidity of my gender. How it’s about more than clothes and how I do my hair. It’s about my sense of myself and the world. Like sometimes I’m looking at my surroundings with one pair of glasses, and other times it’s a very different pair. And on occasion, I’m wearing both pairs or none at all.
People don’t understand that these changes aren’t always a day-by-day or week-by-week thing. That sometimes I can wake feeling completely one thing, but by the time my first cup of tea is brewed, I’ve shifted into something else.
Most people’s eyes glaze over when I talk about masculine and feminine energy and how some of the most masculine people I’ve met –and yes, fucked – were women, and how some of the most feminine people I’ve known – and yes, again, fucked – were men.
I haven’t talked much to Roos about my own personal experience of genderfluidity but what I have shared, she has listened to attentively and passionately validated my experience. I know if I told her more she would do the same again. And Lex, whether I like it or not, I know xe gets it. I know xe completely understands, always has, and that is more grounding than I’ll ever likely admit.
When Roos asked if she could be the Dominant tonight, I had wanted to offer that to her; my whole self, complicati0ns and contradictions and all. I wanted Roos to know all of me. It was symbolic after everything we’ve been through the last few months. I never imagined that Lex would be next to me, sweating and crying and sighing and gasping. And I never imagined I would love every single second of it.
“I need you to count,” Roos says. “Loudly and clearly, my little sluts.”
Lex makes a soft humming noise. Xe likes that too. Xe likes being Roos’ little slut.
Thwack. I’m hit.
“One,” I grit out.
Thwack. It’s Lex’s turn.
“One,” xe says, xir voice just as strained.
The next four strikes burn the tops of my thighs, but my body is flooded with endorphins, so each hit comes with warmth and a light-headedness that forces me to really concentrate on each number, repeating it over and over in my mind until the next impact.
Next to me, Lex’s voice gets tighter, and I can see xir jaw is so tense there is a new definition there. Xe squeezes xir eyes closed. Xir brow is deeply furrowed.
“Five,” I gasp, my voice almost singing the word.
I hear the flogger as it hits Lex’s backside, but xe doesn’t say anything. Xir whole face is screwed up in pain, and xir shoulder muscles are taut and tense.
“I don’t hear you,” Roos says warningly.
I slide my hand over and touch the tips of my fingers to Lex’s. Immediately, xir eyes jump open and xe stares at me.
“You’re okay,” I say, not knowing what else to say, but suddenly the threat feels real. I can’t say if it’s the flogger in Roos’ hand or if it’s something else, something bigger, something I can’t see, something I’ll never understand, but I don’t want Lex to punish xemself. I don’t want xem to feel the wrong kind of pain anymore. I’m realising that it never served me for xem to suffer. It will never serve me if xe keeps on suffering. If anything, maybe it would set us both free. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
My words make Lex’s features soften, so much xir jaw goes slack and xir eyes grow wide, pupils dilating.
“Five!” Lex yells out, but xe keeps xir eyes on mine. And xe keeps my gaze as Roos hits me again, and I call out, “Six!”
We stay like that, fingertips touching and eyes holding one another through the remaining strikes, and Roos really does make them count. Sitting down will be murder tomorrow, but I don’t care. I hope she leaves welts so deep they scar because I want to remember this night forever. The night my queen found her crown again, and the night I found my long-lost best friend.
“Very good,” Roos says, and I hear a soft thud as I assume she drops the evil, evil flogger. A beat later, and I feel one of her hands on my butt, stroking the curve of my hip and lightly caressing all the places she was brutally unforgiving with. When Lex’s eyes close, I know she’s doing the same for xem. I watch as Lex arches xir back and pushes back into Roos’ touch. It’s graceful and cat-like, and I can’t fucking deny how sexy xe looks. How sexy xe always looks. Imay have made it my full-time job to ignore it the last six months, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t noticed it or felt it.
