… he says.

It’s been a strange week. October is always a bit weird – neither summer nor 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. Yes, 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 clinched things – 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.

“The only company I had was this dog, who was about six by then. And those nights helped me get through it all, once I stopped crying.

“I mean, I was under the duvet, it’s not like he saw anything. But he knew something was going on as I looked at pictures of girls like you on my phone and wanked like a piston for hours.”

“Good for you.”

I sense him smile, and he strokes my chest.

“It got so that his company became part of it – again, not physically, but… There’s that kindness that dogs have, that beautiful wisdom in their eyes. We don’t deserve them, really.”

“No, we don’t…”

“A lot of my lost love ended up going on that furry goon with his silly floppy ears and his black and white coat. It felt as if I was radiating excess love, unwanted love, love I couldn’t help making, and he was somehow soaking it up. It made what was essentially a lonely activity into something warm and comforting. I genuinely think that dog got me through it all.”

He sighs again.

“Eventually, this place completed, and I moved in.” He manages a little cough of grief. “Then my mum went into a home. I got some her stuff, which includes a lot of things from my childhood.”

He gestures around. I feel that tightening of the chest that signifies a pang of guilt.

“Sorry about wrecking it.”

“No, it needed to be done. Plus, you are so fucking hot. Being with you, being in you, is like some deep chain reaction. And yet…” His breath judders. “I can’t cum. Not anymore. Jack isn’t here, and I can’t get a dog of my own because I work long hours.

“You see, Jack was there during those desperate, magical nights when I came. It was as if his spirit guided me. Now he’s gone, and without him, nothing happens. I go on and on like a machine.”

He scrubs a hand over his face in frustration. I feel his stomach go hard with it.

It’s then that I have one of my Very Good Ideas. They never come when I demand them – instead, they grow like flowers from the chaotic soil of problems most people can’t even comprehend. I guess being trans demands a degree of special cunning simply to get safely through the day.

Reluctantly, I ease up from the comfortable shape we have made of ourselves. I hear his breath catch. He thinks I am going to leave him because he is too strange, too difficult.

As if.

“Back in a sec.”

I touch his cock, one of those outrageous, intimate things you can only do at times like these. I want to linger, the tips of my fingers on the warm, rubbery muscle – but I have work to do.

Standing, I stretch in a satisfyingly smooth motion. With my back to Ginger, I tense the powerful muscles in my arse and run both hands through my slick hair, which rustles down the centre of my back.

Then I slink out of the room into the street-lit hallway, find my bag at the bottom of the stairs, and dig out my phone. I stand there and scroll, a naked woman gleaming with sex in a stranger’s house.

When I find what I’m looking for I go back into the living room and pick my way across the debris field. Ginger waits, pretending he’s not nervous.

“Here,” I say, and hold out the phone. “What do you think?”

His eyes widen, and his mouth drops open.

“Is that him?”

Such is his adorable hopefulness that the natural urge to sarcasm quickly fades. I try to think of what to say.

“It could be.”

Ginger stares at my phone.

On it is a video of a black and white springer spaniel. The spaniel is on his bed, but he doesn’t want to stay there. He wags his tail and half gets up, then his head dips a little and his ears go down.

Someone must have told him to stay. He is a good boy, so he does as he’s told even as those big, mournfully kind eyes fix their gaze on the camera.

It’s as if he’s looking right at us.

The dog shifts and sits up. So, he’s smart enough to do as he’s told, but is also seeing how far he can go with this subtle canine rebellion.

He moves his front paws and that long thin doggy tongue lolls. Then – and this next bit is so adorable my throat goes thick – he yawns. It’s as if his body is telling him to go to sleep, even though he wants to stay with whoever is filming him.

Love beams out of my phone, and although Ginger laughs his eyes are wet.

“You’re very clever,” he manages.

I smile at him and prop my phone on a couple of old electric toys in faded boxes – Astro Wars and Merlin. A metre away, they won’t get knocked over by any imminent thrashing.

Ginger is breathless as the video starts again. He rubs the back of his neck and blinks rapidly, his eyes flicking from me to the screen.

My skin feels sensitive – even more so than before. I feel faint and my heart goes faster. We are both nervous, keen for Ginger to regain his power.

On the phone, Jack 2 wags his tail and dips his head. I mimic him, then go further and take Ginger in my mouth. I taste myself, which makes me suck harder.

Ginger moans and puts his hand on my head. The touch is pleasant, soothing even. He pushes down into my throat. His cock feels different this time – impatient rather than efficient, almost out of his control.

He twitches and moans, winding his hand into my hair until he can use it like a handle. Then he moves my mouth up and down him at the rhythm he likes, ramming it deep enough for me to manage my gag reflex, which I don’t mind doing at all.

Finally, impatience overwhelms him – I can sense it in an increased rhythm that’s bracingly, chokingly brutal. He yanks my mouth off his cock and lifts me so he can kiss me.

He forgets to breathe, gulps, then kisses me harder. I seem delicious to him, as if he must consume me. Despite how far he got his cock down my throat, he only kisses my lips, as if to push his tongue in would be too overwhelming.

My head gets light, and I shiver with pleasure. That beloved fluttering in my chest tells me I’m ready to go again – yes, yes!

Ginger lays me on my side facing the phone, where Jack 2 is yawning. It isn’t any less cute a second time.

“I feel this connection with you,” he whispers as he licks my neck. “That you came up with…” He points at the phone. “That level of wit, that level of care…”

He is breathless and when he pushes against my back he is so hard that the length of him thrums with erotic frequency. My nerve endings tingle and my muscles lose tension. I am melting, becoming inarticulate as new heat rises through me.

“Fuck me.” My voice is hoarse, desperate.

His hands are clumsy with desire, but he manages to rest the side of my head on his left arm. As Jack 2 wags his tail, Ginger pushes into me, seizing me tight to erase all distance between us.

His hand flutters down my shivering front and grips me between the legs. Gleaming veins snake along his arm as my sex is crushed until I squeak. For a breathless moment, I wonder if he will do me damage and if I should move.

He lets go. I miss his brutal grip at once. Then he slaps me there, a stinging flick of the wrist that jerks me further onto his cock, driving it even deeper.

I picture my tight body held fast and used for pleasure, yearning for his touch no matter how violent. Hot and slippery, I can smell myself and him. When he grabs my sex again, he claps his hand over my mouth afterwards. We whoop in the scent. He strokes my hair, holds my face, and gasps, “You’re beautiful.”

Jack 2 is a smudge of kind light as Ginger kisses my cheek, then the corner of my mouth. He leans closer, but I never find out what he is about to do next because he jerks and screams, the piercing sound welcome. It chokes off as he starts to buck and thrash, his body convulsing as I’m stretched, the pain of it balanced with joy.

Thank you Jack 2, my sweet friend.

Ginger cries out – astonished, triumphant, but tinged with climactic grief. However amazing he feels, he must withdraw soon and the unwanted space between us will reopen.

But he goes on, until I almost feel gallons of pumped cum in a scalding wanton rush.

At this rate he’s going to manage the impossible and make me pregnant.

His hand grips me once more, the pressure somehow perfect. Brutal yet tender, it’s enough to send another blast of hot wet electricity from my core out into his hand, then another, and oh God another –

Demented, he mashes and slaps and punches and I love it love it love it –

For I find I am the bridge of love, and he has crossed me once and for all.