So, Life of a Librarian is a rewrite. I had the first 14 chapters done when I finally started listening to my characters rather than bulldozing them. I wrote a couple pages separate from the script when I let them finally talk. It helped me get a feel for the characters that otherwise were flat. These chapters aren’t really going to get worked into the script at this point, well, maybe, scenes 2 & 3…I don’t know yet, but I didn’t just want to throw them in the bin. Thought you might find it interesting what authors end up cutting out of their manuscripts or not ever getting to put in. Think of this like a Director’s cut, a couple scenes that never made it to the cutting room floor. They’re rough, and I’m not editing them much, so there’s slashes where I wanted to expand the scenes.

This is…well, one of these, the kitchen and the conversation, scene 1, this was how I came out to someone really close to me, so this is my first time sharing it with others. It was what helped me decide to rewrite Life of a Librarian and use it to explore myself further.

It does contain NSFW material on the spicy side-ish, so 18+ please and thank you.

Scene 1:

Tears ran as rivers down my cheeks.  I crumpled into a ball on the floor, pulling my knees to my chest.

//

I stiffened as Selwyn’s arms wrapped around me. I know he was trying to comfort me. I understood that at the base level. I might have batted eyes at him a couple times, but people touching me was beyond my comfort zone. Well. If I was being honest, sure, having him touch me in an intimate way had flitted around my head more than once.

His arms were warm and reassuring, but his breath caught in the back of his throat. A conversational cough. He let go before I could relax. “Deus?”

The question was a knot in my stomach, a walking horror in the back of my brain. I begged he wouldn’t ask what I knew he would.

“Um, yeah. You, you going to be okay?” he asked, shifting back from me by a good foot.  That was not the question I had expected. It was not the question he wanted to ask. Not by the way his fingers dragged across my back for half a second longer than necessary.

“Long day.” I shrugged, pulling myself off the kitchen floor.

“Anything I can do?” He offered his hand to help me up.  

I took it, letting him pull me to his height. Why he had to be so close was beyond me. I studied the floor near his feet and shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. I just. It’s so many things all at once.”

“Deus?” His fingers tightened on mine before letting go. I waited as the clock ticked over the hour. “Are you a girl?”

There it was. The question I hated having asked. The one I hated facing. I shoved my hands in my pocket and hunched my shoulders. Stepping back, I turned to the counter. “Does it matter what I am?”

“I’m sorry. That’s probably rude.” He shuffled out of the kitchen area to place himself against the column at the end of the counter.

“Male. Female. Some weird in between. I don’t really know how to explain it. I don’t feel right most of the time. I find it easier to be a guy more days than not.” I took up the knife and went back to cutting the carrots that had been my breaking point.

“I’m not sure I understand.” He settled against the column, rubbing a hand along his opposing arm.

“Congrats. That makes two of us.” I tossed the diced veg into the skillet. The oil popped at the intrusion.

He stepped back from the column, his hands placating. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone.”

I stared at the sizzling orange cubes and listened to his footsteps. Three would put him at the front door. “I don’t know how to answer you, Wyn.” I apologized for snapping at him. The door hinge creaked. “Come back. I promised you I’d make dinner.”

“You seem to need your space, and I keep treading on toes,” he admitted. I turned from my pan to look him in the eyes. A pained expression of confusion and something else creased his brows.

“I’m not a hermaphrodite,” I elaborated, turning back to the stove and flipped the gas to low. He eased back in the foyer. The click of the door was loud in the space. I waited for him to slip into the counter stool. “You’re disgusted?” I asked after the look he had plastered to his face at the door.

“No,” he denied vehemently, waving his hands.

I raised an eyebrow at his protest. His fingers retracted, balling up loosely on the countertop. His pointer finger unfurled to drag across the surface restlessly. “You can be whoever you want to be. I’m not going to tell you otherwise.”

I tossed in the roll of defrosted hamburger, salt, and pepper into the pan and jabbed at it with the spatula until it broke apart. “You and I, we were getting along pretty well there for a bit, weren’t we?” I asked, keeping my focus to the little spurts of grease rolling away from the frying meat.

His fingers curled and uncurled, leaving behind sporadic prints. He was sweating if he was leaving hazes across the fake granite like that. “We were.” He tucked his hands together to twirl his thumbs.

“Structurally, I am female.” I turned the pot of boiling water down and added in two cups of elbow noodles to it. “That’s not something you were expecting.”

“No. I thought your voice was high for a Master’s student, but you were pretty convincing otherwise.” He pulled his hands from the counter to rest his arms against the side.

“What’s the problem then?” I pressed, turning to the last of my pots. The water had darkened to a robust brown black. I lifted it from the stove and tossed a hot pad on the counter before throwing the teabags in the trashcan. The pitcher of ice was sweating near it, leaving a large puddle. I hunted down a dishtowel in one of the drawers and put the glassware on top of it to clean up the mess before pouring the tea over the ice.

“I think I’m interested in you,” Wyn admitted.

I looked up at that, my heart thumping in my chest. I set the pot on the counter before I dropped it. “That’s not where I thought this conversation was going.” I protested.

“It’s not how I wanted to have this conversation either.” He turned to study the empty bookshelves in my living room.

“Was this before or after figuring out I had boobs?” I tossed a couple tablespoons of chili powder at the browning meat.

He cleared his throat, startled at my phrasing. “Before.”

“Are you still interested?” I set the spatula down to study my guest.

“I don’t know.” Wyn pushed a hand into his hair to rest his ear on his palm. “I don’t really…”

“You liked me as a guy?” I came around to sit down in the seat next to him.

“Well, yeah.” He pressed his other arm across his stomach, his fingers burrowing into the green cashmere shirt.

“I’m not your type now.” I clarified.

“No.”

“Too bad. I thought you were cute. Better luck on the next fellow.” I rose to return to the kitchen. His fingers caught mine, stalling my move to put structure between us.

“You thought I was cute?” he asked, a soft pink running across his cheeks.

“I doubt you’d find that much comfort coming from a girl,” I bit out, wanting my fingers back.

“What did you mean by you ‘don’t really know’?” He relented, releasing me when I tugged for freedom.

I walked back into the kitchen, putting the counter between us. I swirled around the meat mixture and the noodles before setting the spatula down again. I had thought about this more than too many times. Rehearsed it in my head. The heat at my ears though was not reassuring. “I’ve called myself pangendered for several years now. Mom accepted it, and great uncle. They were pretty good with me asking if I could go by Thaddeus. Great Uncle Tad was beside himself with the fact I’d use his name.” I pulled the colander out of the bottom cabinet and set it in the sink.

“You’re trans?” Wyn asked.

“I don’t…I don’t know if I feel safe yet admitting that? Something about bills in houses and mad money mongers.” I turned the gas off and took the pot of noodles to the sink.

“You’re wearing a binder, and you’re going by a male name,” he pointed out.

“I still have moments where I like my dresses. They don’t squeeze me badly during certain times of the month.” I poured out the noodles and shook off the water.

“I’m not sure I follow?”

“Reason why I said that makes two of us.”

“Do you want to be a guy?”

“More often than not the older I get.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not sure I’d take the route of surgery. I’ve wondered about it. It’s been tempting. I don’t want to mess something up when everything kind of doesn’t work like it should already. As I said, some days, I’m good with my shape.”

“Do you like sex?” he asked.

Heat swept up my cheeks. What a conversation to be having at the very beginning of admitting I liked him. I dumped the noodles in with the goulash and stirred it. Silence pressed in on us as I plated up our meals and set a dish and fork in front of him. He waited patiently for me to set my plate next to him, walk around the counter, and sit down. 

“It’s okay if you don’t want to answer that. It was kind of sudden.” He mumbled, picking up his fork.

I stared at the food. Usually the smell would have had me wolfing the concoction down. It wasn’t special by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a staple for me. I had lost my appetite though. The sheen across the carrots was making my stomach cramp. “You watch porn?” I asked.

He choked on the noodles. “Um, well…”

“Know what a chastity cage is?” I pushed through the topic, numbing to my embarrassment

“Belt or cage?” he forced me to clarify.

“Cage. What would work for you, but I’ve got nothing there for it to do anything to me,” I elaborated.

“Yes. I’ve seen it a couple times.” He shrugged as he joined me in forming a wall around this conversation.

“The best I can describe my problem is, it feels like I’m perpetually trapped in one. Like, as long as nothing touches me there, that I can feel the weight, the sensation of having something there. It’s disconcerting otherwise. Sex isn’t something I’ve been able to find myself in. Don’t get me wrong. I like romance novels. I can get off on my own, but I haven’t found intercourse rewarding. It doesn’t feel right. Male, female, non-binary, gay, lesbian, I can run through the gammit watching them and find myself wanting to be the giver and the receiver in every one of them, but when it comes to reality, with the few partners I’ve actually had, it’s never been that end all be all sky breaking jubilation that romance authors put in their books. It breaks the image in my head and pulls me back to feeling trapped in a skin that doesn’t fit quite right.”

Scene 2:

He pressed me to the door, kissing, demanding, trying to slip into my skin. Fervent desire. A spiraling heat ignited a lake of fire within me. He was lean and all encompassing. I melted into him as he trailed kisses along my neck, my fingers digging into his sides if only to keep me from slipping to the floor.

“Make love to me, Deus,” he demanded, his eyes catching mine as he came up to capture my lips again. That pressing heat fizzled at the request. My heart stuttered and my fingers went cold. I let go of his obliques and my stomach dropped out from under me.

He eased off my lips to look down at me, a puzzled question running across his brow. “Are you…? I’m sorry. Is it not something you want to do?” He gave me room.

“I didn’t expect you to want to have me the way I am. If I’m just going to be a receptacle again, I’d rather cry.” I refused to let the shiver at my shoulders give me away.

“I should have talked to you about this before pushing your buttons, huh?” he murmured, taking my fingers gently to pull me farther into the darkness. His queen sized bed was piled with pillows and a goose down duvet. Selwyn sank down on the edge, keeping a light hold on my finger tips.

“What’s there to talk about? We’re attracted to each other, I just have a hang up.” I pushed at my cheek, willing the heat of threatened tears down.

“Your partners never really listened, did they?” He feathered his thumb over my nails.

“I mean, when I’m the way I am, this whole messed up problem I find myself in, I kind of just took what I could get for intimacy. The good girlfriend situation. No one ever accepted me as a maybe boyfriend, or a friend of some kind like that. No one really ever made an effort to work with my sense of being transgender. They just…saw my body and not me. Not the fact that some days, I don’t want to be touched a certain way. I don’t always want to be reminded that I have boobs attached to me, or that my hips are too wide to let me pass as androgynous. Some days I don’t want to be on the receiving end. Or in those fervent moments in bed, when I can get to a fantasizing point, and have it collapse on me with a misplaced word.” I pressed in on his fingers in an effort to keep the lump in my throat from choking me.

“I’m listening now, Deus. And I’ll listen until I’m deaf from trying.” He  slipped back farther to the center of the bed and pulled me to sit between his long legs, my back to his chest. He wrapped his arms around me to hold over my hands where I was comfortable wrapping them on my stomach. He placed his chin on my head and let me warm to the situation.

“I tried once, giving my last partner a book on the basic structure and function of what’s attached to me, to maybe help me get to an orgasm. Saying he’d read it, he only ever read a chapter before tossing it on the bottom shelf, never to touch it again. He wanted me to instruct him, when I couldn’t even explain it myself, not well. My explanations always broke down because I thought he read the book and thought it would be easy to go, ‘oh do this because of this one stupid biological fact that my muscular structure is bound to.’ I wanted to have a common ground to start at, where both of us had that foundation we could build off.

“After that, when I told him I wasn’t feeling seen in bed, intimacy became infrequent at best. He started stressing out about not helping me enough, which killed the mood. I felt even more stressed to perform, to try to get there as fast as he did, to act like I enjoyed it, when I desperately wanted to be normal, to share that part of me. Hoping that I wasn’t breaking things apart. It started eating at me. I wanted to be close, that warmth I get with expectation and need would still crop up, but every time I found myself pinned under him, I’d start getting low grade panic attacks. When we were finished, I’d roll over in the dark and cry myself to sleep. Having anything in me started making me anxious, reminding me that I was flipping broken. I couldn’t relax and enjoy what we had. The relationship collapsed because I couldn’t figure out how to make this damn thing work like I wanted it to. I wanted to be that woman that could do feminine things and enjoy it, but the more I tried, the more I realized that something was wrong with how I felt and how I saw myself in the mirror. I couldn’t be what he needed, no matter how hard I really wanted to.

“We had this idyllic relationship other than my problem in the bedroom and I didn’t want it to break down. It got worse and the idea of returning to that need to perform has me on edge. It’s worse, because I know I’m not…you know. I’m not the guy you’d rather have holding you in the middle of the night. I don’t have the equipment, and you don’t want to go having boobs pressed against you at four in the morning.” I pushed to escape, suddenly too self conscious of my hips, my breathing, my skin burning, begging to be ripped off so I could apologize for existing.

 He pulled me tighter to him, wrapping me in his heat. “Please, don’t leave. I want to understand. You are scared of disappointing me and disappointing yourself?”

I pushed my face into his arm, tears bursting. My heart was in my throat and texture was too much to bare. A weight settled into my chest, pulling my lungs down. My ears were ringing and I couldn’t swallow. “I can’t breath.” I gasped.

Selwyn released me immediately, giving me room. He shuffled around until he was sitting face to face with me, my hands in his once again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was going to put you on edge,” he apologized while I fought to count through twenty. He let go of my hands to reach for my necklace, pulling it up over my head. “This. You fidget with it a lot. Do you need this?” He laid the beads in my fingers. The smoothness of the stone was cool and reassuring. Breath in. Breath out. Click. Click. Click. I ran the small orbs beneath my fingerprints as I told myself to breath. Selwyn sat back and waited patiently as my gaze drifted from dark corner to dark corner and I wrestled with my brain to remember how to control my heart and lungs. One hundred and eight forward and one hundred and eight back and I was able to come back to him.

“I’m sorry.” I rubbed over the massive pendant at the end of the mala.

“Do not apologize for this, Deus. Never. Don’t do it. You’ve learned to cope while you were falling to pieces.” He shifted to the end of the bed and got up. I sat where he left me, clicking through my beads as I waited for him to come back. He returned with a glass of water and offered it to me. I took it, sipping on the coolness. I had not realized how parched my mouth had gone.

“Thank you, Wyn.” I leaned over and set the half empty glass on the nightstand. He toggled the lamp on, shedding the space in soft orange light.

Scene 3:

“What do you think about cuddling?” Selwyn asked.

“I like cuddling,” I took the bowl of chopped vegetables and tossed them into the macaroni salad he was helping me prep for dinner.

“Do you mind if we play with more than just cuddling?” He set the cutting board and knife in the sink.

//

“What are your thoughts on taking this back to the bedroom?”

//

“When I asked you a while back if you would make love to me, I think I didn’t phrase it in such a way that you would understand my meaning, and that was my fault.” He turned back to me from the dresser drawer with a strap-on and a small blue dildo in his hands. I blinked at the presentation of toys.

“Oh! Oh, no, I didn’t get that meaning from you at all last time. I’m sorry,” I apologized.

“Are you interested?” He asked. I held my hands out, my voice evaporating. The tips of my ears went warm as he handed me the black leather and silicone.

“I’m not sure what else you want. I read some posts saying a vibrator is good and others saying it wasn’t. I bought an egg. Do you want me to get that out?” Wyn asked as he walked into the bathroom to rummage in cabinets.

I stared at the blue silicon dong in my hand, rendered in complete detail from the hung balls to the thick head. No more than the length of my hand, it was unexpected. “No, I’m good not for tonight. Uh, Wyn?” I called after him.

“What’s up?” Another cabinet door clicked closed and he muttered to himself.

“I’ve never used one of these before, well, not on someone else in this context. Are you sure about this?” I slipped the flange into the dock on the strap.

He returned from his hunt with a vibrant red bottle with the name Pole Grease scrawled across it in edgy white letters. Setting it down on the nightstand he bent to kiss me. “I’m willing to give it a try.”

“When did you even get this thing? I thought you didn’t date inside the Guild?” I asked, standing up to figure out the contraption.

“Want to leave the shirt on?” He asked when I reached for my dress shirt buttons. I stilled at the question. I rubbed at one of the buttons. The fact he asked. The fact he listened. I smiled at the carpet like a fool and nodded.

“The night after we had dinner together at your apartment, I came home and did what any good librarian does.” He slipped his t-shirt off casually, giving me my first moment to enjoy his physique. “I went and researched and deep dived some forums to better understand you and things that would help make a relationship between us potentially more comfortable for the both of us.”

“You did?” I looked up at him in surprise.

“I like you for your personality. I find your companionship enjoyable. And everytime I watch you Read, I start having problems keeping myself presentable for polite society.” He flicked his belt buckle. “One nice thing about this that I will say I found supremely useful from the forums: I at least got to choose my partner’s size and still get the partner I wanted. You know how many jerks there are with a size I like?”

“Small is good?” I asked, watching as he flipped the buttons on his jeans.

“Prostate isn’t that deep to warrant a monster, and I’d like to be able to walk tomorrow morning.” He pushed the material from his hips to leave him in a pair of grey boxer briefs. I followed suit, butterflies trying to escape my stomach as I let my slacks fall away.

“We match.” Wyn took my fingers loosely and tugged me to him.

“Found a decent manufacturer that makes the style to fit my body type.” My shorts were longer in the leg than the women’s model of ‘boy shorts’, and they had been seen to sit on my hips without riding up and bunching like men’s tended to.

“How do you feel about compliments and what we’re doing?” He brushed a stray hair behind my ear and leaned down to my lips.

“Don’t call me beautiful and we’ll get along just fine,” I murmured against his kiss.

“I find you handsome when you’re Reading, but damn you’re cute right now.” He pulled me to him, pressing until I could identify every muscle through my clothes.

“I like that.” I slid my free hand down his back to admire his build.

“So, thoughts about using that?” He asked after the strap.

“I think I’m willing to give it a go, if you’re ok with it. Might have to tell me what feels good.” I released my grasp on it when he reached for it. He took it and knelt down in front of me. Gingerly taking first one foot, then the other, he slid it up my legs and secured it.

“Not too tight?” He checked the fit, skirting the join of my legs. I sucked in my breath as a demanding throb echoed through my being. I shook my head when he looked up at me. Looking down at myself, that feeling that everything fit together, that momentary roll over of my dysphoria was something I wanted to keep chained to me forever.

“You still good with what we’re doing?” He checked as he slid his tongue along my shaft. A firestorm burst across my skin as I fixated on his tongue, his refusal to look away from me.

“Hi.” The strangled greeting was the only word I could muster past my sudden desire to watch him continue what he was doing.

“Hello.” He twisted his tongue across the head. He slipped a hand up the back of my thigh and settled his other around my shaft. Every nerve ending burned at the sight of him as he went down on me. I shivered as his nails bit into my skin, refusing to let go. Running my fingers through his hair, his eyelashes swept to his cheekbones. I warmed to the view, his length pressing tight between his legs. A note strangled in my throat.

He came up for air, catching my eyes once more. “You’re enjoying yourself.” He smirked. “I was hoping to find a way to keep this from being one sided.”

“I could watch you for hours,” I whispered, my voice cracking.

“Watch?” He asked, running his tongue along the head. A shiver ran up my spine involuntarily. “Hmm?”

I watched gears click over his head. He played with me, keeping eye contact before withdrawing once more. He let go of my thigh to find his length. “Mind if I?” He asked, pulling at his waistband to free himself.

I nodded, heat burning through my limbs as I watched him take himself and slowly stroke as he came back to licking. “Are you enjoying yourself?” I whispered, entranced with his movements.

“I might have a thing for dress shirts,” he admitted with a cocky grin.

“I’ve got those in spades.” I returned his smile, leading him back to what had been doing so well to spark a fire in me. He obliged before rising to stand up in front of me. I tentatively reached out, skimming the soft underside of his head. His breath strangled in the back of his throat.

“I’d like to see you in every one of them.” He shifted to lean on me as I feathered down his shaft. He pushed free of what remained of his clothes, leaving himself bare to the elements. I skimmed farther, cupping his balls carefully, rolling them, slipping (scene unfinished)

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