6. Matthew

6

MATTHEW

V alentine is stunning as she sleeps.

The concept of muses is as old as art itself. A muse can be anything that inspires. A place. A memory. A religion. A person. For me, today, she's the one.

I met Valentine on Tinder before Christmas. It's been nearly three weeks since she swiped right on me, and two since I convinced her she was safe with me. I don't blame her for being guarded or mistrustful. She's had more than her fair share of terrible—even terrifying experiences with men.

I'm shamelessly obsessed with her. If I could chain her to my bed, I might. Many of the sketches I've made reflect that—the level of intense need I feel to keep her nearby—available to satisfy any urge or whim of mine, even if it's as simple as this—the gift of watching her sleep.

She's perfect. Her beauty and her pliancy call to all the parts of me that make me examine myself, my abilities, my need. My cock stirs as she shifts onto her back and mindlessly runs a hand across her concave stomach. Her pale blonde hair catches in her lashes, and her full lips part slightly, no remnants of the glitter lipstick she wore last night remain.

I took care of that within moments of laying eyes on her.

I want to touch her so badly when she's like this, touch her body to sweeten her dreams. Explore every inch of her milky-white skin with my mouth where I feel things almost as intensely as I do with my cock.

"You're staring," she whispers.

"Can't help it," I admit, charcoal lines taking shape on the page of my open sketch book as the fantasy threatens to break apart. I keep it alive in the drawing.

"Mmm…" The hand on her belly moves down, beneath the sheet to adjust her cock, a sign of her arousal she has mixed feelings about.

I'm clear on my feelings about it, though. Salivating, I lick my lips and swallow, attempting to hide how blatantly turned on I am. "Valentine…"

"You want to play with it?" she asks sleepily.

Always.

Furiously sketching, I say. "If you'll let me."

"I like how you play with me. Should I stay still?"

"If you don't mind."

She plays the muse role well, flattered by it. Her work as a dancer makes her no stranger to people ogling her. The way she bends her back is art, pure and unfiltered.

"Are you cold? You mind taking off the sheet?" I ask.

"Since you asked nicely," she murmurs, keeping her eyes closed, but pushing down the sheet just enough to let me see her pubic bone.

"Hmm… Want me to use my imagination?"

"Can you use it to give me a slit with lips?"

"That's not you," I say gently. "And you're perfect."

Her cheeks flush. "Will you marry me?"

I grin, but remain silent, continuing to sketch the lines of her body, even the parts she sometimes wishes weren't there. But I wouldn't have her any other way.

My sexual awakening was like a category five hurricane, and I haven't escaped its path since. Those nine months with Fischer were the eye of the storm. Since he left, I've consumed the landscape.

Yes, I'm obsessed with beauty, but I find beauty in all forms, and I revel in it. Fill my mind and body with it. Feel it beneath my tongue and fingertips, wrapped around my cock, or inhale it into my soul.

As my sketch nears completion, my seduction begins.

"Valentine?"

"Yes, Matthew?"

"Will you let me suck it?"

She giggles. "Maybe…"

"Will you let me suck anything I want?"

"Like what?"

"Your pretty tits?"

" Mmm … I don't hate the sound of that."

She has small, pierced breasts, the result of injected hormones she's been taking since she was nineteen. Trans women run the gamut in terms of what they want in bed, just like anyone else. Depending on the hormones they take, or their perception of their bodies, I never know what I'm going to get.

Valentine prefers having sex with gay men, especially confused, closeted gay men, so having a cock works to her advantage more often than not. I'm neither confused, nor closeted. I want what I want when I want it, and today I want her. Badly. Every part of her. But she likes to taunt me with what she'll let me have and when.

"How long until you have to leave for work?" she asks.

"A few hours still."

"Don't you need to sleep?"

"You have somewhere you need to be?"

She works nights. The club where she dances is open until four a.m. "Sleeping," she says.

"I can suck you to sleep," I say, wanting that sexy cock in my mouth so badly I'm willing to beg, though I know she'd rather have it the other way around, sucking me…not that I'm opposed… It's only that I want to make her come. I want to go to work with the image of her head thrown back, gasping as she's overtaken, the taste of her cum lingering on my tongue. But there are other ways to make Valentine come, as she and I both know.

"You're bad ," she murmurs, her eyes barely open, aiming a sultry gaze at me.

"You love how much I want you," I remind her.

"Against my better judgment."

I set my sketchbook and charcoal pencil aside, climbing back into bed with her.

She stretches a thin hand out to stroke my cheek, her long, bejeweled nails scratching lightly through the scruff on my jaw. She's all snow-pale skin with pink accents, begging to be smudged black by my fingertips. Tiffany blue eyes. Enchanting. "Tell me a secret," I say.

"You're one of the most beautiful boys I've ever seen."

I smile. "That's not a secret."

"Tell me one, then," she says.

I move closer, resting a hand on her hip and bringing her closer to me, longing for her friction against my rapidly filling cock. "What kind of secret?"

"A dirty secret," she says as she obeys my body's unspoken need and pulls herself flush to me, her hand wrapping around the back of my neck, her leg around my waist.

I wouldn't even know where to begin. I'm a silo filled with filthy secrets. I grind our cocks together, my body vibrating with lust. "I wanna make you choke on my cum."

She licks her lips and presses them to mine. "Will you draw a picture of me like that? Your cum spilling out of my mouth?"

"I'll tattoo it on my inner thigh."

"Fuck me," she says, thrusting her hips, her voice deeper now and insanely stirring, " Breed me."

"Let me suck you."

"Dirty boy."

"You want me to beg?"

"Anyone ever tell you you're irresistible?"

The word is a trigger of my own making. A lifetime spent unable to say no has left me unable to resist anything. I've made a mess of myself and my heart with zero sense of self-preservation. I exist in a perpetual state of emptiness, and I have no one to blame but myself and mornings just like this.

"Talk is cheap," I say, suddenly desperate to spend myself inside her. I physically rearrange her slight body to face away from me.

"What happened to sucking?"

"I changed my mind."

"You're gonna be rough, aren't you? You're mad at me now," she says, and her tone implies it's not a question—rough is what she wants.

After ripping open a condom, I slap her ass so hard, she grunts—the sound distinctly masculine. "Shut up and take this cock like a good girl."

"You look like shit."

"That's not what I heard."

Maggie sits across from me with perfect posture at the coffee shop in Lincoln Square, two doors down from the apartment building where she lives with her fiancé of two years—Good old Stuart. "Who, pray tell, took a look at you today and said otherwise?"

I give her a cryptic glance

"You're still seeing Valentine."

"I am, and she thinks I look great. Wanna see my hickey?" I reach for my belt as a joke until she stops me with two hands up and a high-pitched giggle.

"You're so full of shit."

I wink and pick up my paper cup. I pounded a triple espresso shot before switching to green tea. I probably don't look my best. Val and I are like a bonfire. When we're together, we burn hot, well into the night. Neither of us sleeps half as much as we should.

Maggie plucks at her lower lip before taking another sip of her cappuccino.

She and I have the same wavy dark hair, same dark blue eyes and square jaws with chin clefts. But she's about a foot shorter with our dad's thinner lips and slightly hooked nose. Also, his shitty eyesight. Today she's wearing her coke-bottle glasses with her hair in a messy bun. She's on her way to a night fashion shoot once we're done here.

Luckily, our comings and goings align more often these days than not. She's still one of my only friends. If working evenings and nights meant I didn't get to see her at least a few times a week, I doubt I'd have taken the full-time doorman job at the Eastmoor when they offered.

To be clear—I don't identify as a doorman. I'm an artist, but in this town, we've all gotta pay the bills.

While I sketch a caricature of her on my napkin, she says, "Oh, guess what! I don't know how I forgot to tell you this. Stu and I set a date."

I nearly choke on the hot tea when it hits my throat. "You what ?"

"Turns out we actually are going through with it."

I let out a huff. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"Well, save the date, Matty, because it's happening. Mom practically burst into confetti when I told her."

"Are you pregnant or something?"

"Maybe."

My mouth goes slack. "Shut the fuck up."

"I'm kidding. Jesus. But I think I'm ready to be."

"Whoa." I lean back in my seat and study my sister's smug grin.

"It's not like you're gonna give ‘em grand babies," she says.

I scowl. "You don't know that."

"Mmhmm… unless there's something about Valentine I read wrong."

"Val's my muse, not my girlfriend. And I date cis women, too. Sometimes."

"Oh, that's right…"

"Don't," I say to cut off whatever assessment of me she's cooking up in her too-smart head.

"Anyway—be my man of honor?"

"I'm still not sure Stuart's good enough for you."

"You and Fish said you like Stuart!"

"He's okay…for a finance bro."

Maggie laughs. "Right. My uptight finance bro who plays cello in a string quartet and never misses a slam poetry open mic night."

Stu has layers, I'll give him that. I find him less impressive than Fischer does, though. But Maggie could probably present me with a billionaire philanthropist, and I'd still find him not worthy of her.

"So, when's the date?" I ask.

"October 17 th ."

"Six months? You sure you're gonna be ready? I mean it's only been what? Eight, nine years now?"

She gives me an annoyed look. "Would you have been okay with me marrying him when we were twenty-one?"

Point to Maggie. She and Stuart have never even taken a break, much less broken up. Makes me wonder what Stu's like in bed, but I dismiss the thought quickly because I could probably get hung up on it if I thought about it too long. He's got some decent "assets" for a finance bro.

"Fine. I'll be your man of honor. Is this gonna be small, or…?"

She makes a face, and I get the sense I won't like the answer. "You know Stu's family."

"Ah…they want the whole nine, huh? What's the venue? Let me guess. The Plaza?"

"Close. The Pierre."

I roll my eyes. "I know one of the waiters there."

"Look, I get it. But it's beautiful. Stu's family is splitting the bill, Mom and Dad are cool with it—I'm not complaining. Do all of you Upper East Side peons have like, a secret club or something? You do, don't you?"

"It's a union, but we do have a secret handshake," I kid.

"Figures. The keepers of secrets. I bet you see some salacious shit over there."

"My lips are sealed." Because she's right. I do. I've even taken part in some salacious shit over there .

But our family isn't like Stuart's. We're well-connected with a different sort of influential people in Manhattan, but we're in no way considered "society."

Dad's been an Art History professor at NYU since before Maggie and I were born, and Mom is retired from her corporate job in Manhattan fashion.These days, her primary hobby is doting on her lone grandson and begging for more. Her grandkid clock is ticking loudly now that she's over seventy. Fischer's kid Vaughn was a gateway drug. She wants more. She never says as much, but it's heavily implied. The stack of pink baby blankets screams for itself.

Luckily, Mom's backed off me. Once she was forced to wrap her mind around my unconventional sexuality, she stopped asking questions. For now.

"Fischer's back right?" Maggie asks.

"As far as I know, he moved back in today."

"You haven't talked to him?"

"Not yet," I say, an anxious twist destabilizing my core. It makes me want to check my phone. I am expecting to hear from him. I feel like I should be high up on his list, but who knows? If there's one thing our older brother is not it's predictable. No one knows that better than I do.

"Well, tell him to let us know some dates so we can plan around you guys' schedules."

"Seriously—don't worry about it." I'd rather be locked in a closet for three days without food than attend Stuart's bachelor party with all his rich finance friends, whether Fischer's with me or not. I check my watch. "I should get going."

" Ugh. Fine. Dinner this weekend?"

"I'll text you. Gotta check my schedule." I'm not the best at planning in advance. I know whether I'm working, but that's about it.

We hug outside the coffee shop and say our goodbyes for now. She heads in the direction of the subway station, and I cross Columbus Circle to the park, on my way to the Upper East Side.