“Can I… Can I read what it says? Your tattoo, I mean.”
He nods against me. “Sure.”
I tap his thigh. “Turn around.”
He turns, his front flat against the bed, the natural curves of his body along with his golden skin giving the impression of sand dunes in a desert, always moving, ever-changing, but still always the same. I lie on my side, trailing my index finger down his spine, and he shivers beneath me. When I reach his lower back, I lean in and press a kiss against one creamy-white globe, then the other. Kayden sucks in a breath, grinding his hips against the mattress, his body rippling with an outdrawn moan. Fuck, I can’t get over how responsive he is. With my fingers, I draw circles across his ass cheeks, random patterns, and his body becomes alight underneath my touch.
“Caleb,” he whines. “Caleb.”
I kiss him again, alternating kisses between his ass cheeks. I can smell him and myself on him, and I’m hard again. Not in an urgent, desperate way, but more like a subtle hum, a faint whisper of desire beneath myskin, like my body is singing with secret longing, some strange language it didn’t always have a tune for, but has now found with him, in Kayden’s arms. When I reach his tattoo, I stop, my lips hovering above his skin. I trace the letters with my tongue, and Kayden chants my name again and again like a prayer.Caleb. Caleb. Caleb.
I once, as a kid, asked my mom why she and Dad chose the name Caleb for me. If it meant something. She said they just liked it and thought it was a beautiful name, so I looked it up.Dog,it said, in Hebrew.Dog.Then I read on.Heart.It could mean heart, too. In the Old Testament, Caleb was the name of one of the twelve spies sent by Moses into Canaan. Of the Israelites who left Egypt with Moses, Caleb was the only one of two who lived to see the Promised Land. It didn’t mean anything to me back then, as a kid. My parents weren’t religious, and we didn’t go to church. The concept of the Promised Land carried no meaning to me, but now, hearing Kayden chant my name with such reverence, the memory stands more vivid than ever. The Promised Land. What if he is that,my promised land?Mine.
I kiss the words again and again like I want them to become part of me without even knowing what they say. “Read them to me,” I beg against his skin. “Read them to me.”
Kayden’s hand finds my hair, his fingers digging into my scalp as he holds me against him. His voice is calm and steady when he speaks, his eyes closed,“‘You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies. You may tread me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise. You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise.’”His voice breaks on the last syllable, and silence fills the room.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper against his skin. “Youare beautiful, Kayden.”
“It’s Maya Angelou,” he says quietly. I’ve heard the name, but I’m not familiar with her poems. “It’s about the courage and resilience of Black women. But… somehow it just struck a chord in me. It’s like… I know their unique experience isn’t mine, but I see myself in her words. They resonate. I am hated by some people, too, people who don’t even know me and will never know me, for the sole reason that I am trans. Because I am something I can change just as little as someone can change the color of their skin. It’s just…”
“What, sweetheart?”
“It’s just so sad, you know, and so unfair. And yet, so damn banal. The face of hate is always the same, so banal in its simplistic way of viewing the world. The subject of hate is the same, too. It’s anyone who refuses to let anyone else dictate who they are and their right to live as themselves. What they don’t understand, though, the haters, is that thehuman spirit is unbreakable. It never gives up. Long after the body has been broken and destroyed, the human spirit continues to exist. It rises again and again, because it cannot, it will not surrender to hate. Maya Angelou understood that because she lived it.”
His words have left me speechless. The fact that Kayden is so aware that some people hate him for just being him. It makes me so fucking angry. It makes me want to destroy anyone and anything that sees him as anything other than what he is: perfect in his own right.
I think Kayden senses the shift in me, because his voice grows all tender. “A change will come, Caleb. I believe it in my heart. I don’t know when or how, but itwillcome. I have to believe that, just like those who came before me believed it. Like Lucy Hicks Anderson and Michael Dillon. Or Roberta Cowell and Lili Elbe. I refuse to apologize for who I am.”
He turns on his side, looking down at me, his eyes burning with an internal flame I’ve seen in glimpses since he was a small child and came home from school, fuming with anger and indignation because someone had called Emily a racist slur, and later, when the hate was directed at him. I have no idea who those people are, the names he just mentioned, and I feel bad that I don’t, because I can tell they matter to Kayden.
His bottom lip trembles with indignation. “Why is it always the responsibility of the hated to love and forgive their haters? How come we are always asked to endure and forget and be the bigger person? Fuck that shit. I say fuck it like Maya said fuck it.” An outdrawn sigh leaves his body, and he suddenly smiles, breathtakingly beautiful in all his strength and power. He shrugs, his cheeks flaming red. “So, yeah, that’s my tattoo.” Then he laughs. “Anything else you wanna know?”
I smile too, then shake my head. “No, I’m good. The only thing I wanna know is if you look as fucking stunning when you wake in the morning as you do right now.” It’s true. Kayden has stolen the air right out of my lungs with his quiet strength.
He snorts. “Well, you don’t have to wonder. I can tell you right now I don’t.”
I reach for him and pull him against me. “I don’t believe that for one second.”
“It’s true.” He wiggles in my hold when I nibble his neck.
“Well, I guess I just have to see for myself then.”
“I guess,” he murmurs against my heart, his voice sleepy. Yawning, he snuggles against me, and I close my eyes, breathing him in. I always knew Kayden was special, but he is truly magnificent. I don’t know if Ideserve him, if I’m worthy of someone like him, but perhaps it doesn’t matter what I think. Perhaps it only matters what Kayden thinks.
Chapter Seventeen
Kayden
Dawn has barely broken when I wake, the empty spot next to me still warm, the outline of Caleb’s body still visible on the sheets. A cool breeze blows through the slightly ajar window, whispering along my naked arms. The world is quiet except for faint birdsong and distant music coming from somewhere in Caleb’s house.Caleb’s house. Caleb’s bed. Caleb’s arms.I slept in Caleb’s arms, enveloped by his large, solid body, his heart beating softly beneath my cheek. It feels unreal, and still, it feels more real than any connection I’ve ever had with another person before.
I stretch on the bed, the tips of my fingers touching the wooden headboard, as I wiggle my toes. I’m completely naked. I have no idea where my clothes are. Parts of yesterday are such a blur while others stand as clear as if it was happening right now. Caleb seeing my tattoo. The instant feeling of being in free fall, then Caleb catching me, making me feel safe again. Telling him about my tattoo. Caleb making love to my body, my scars, my dick. I shiver at the recollection of the sounds he made when he came on top of me, and then I blush as I remember how I shattered beneath him.
I get up and search the floor for my clothes only to find them in a neat pile on a chair, my packer placed carefully on top of my boxer briefs. Tears fill my eyes at the gentle gesture, and if my heart wasn’t already full of him, it is now. I love him. I love Caleb. I’ve always loved him, but this kind of love is different from the infatuation and hero worship of a child, and the physical pull I’ve felt toward him since returning home. This is a feeling that inhabits every cell of my body and goes beyond anything I ever imagined. It’s a feeling that is irrevocably tied to the feeling of safety I experience whenever Caleb is close, and that multiplies whenever I’m in his arms and he calls mesweetheartorbaby. It’s terrifying and wonderful all at once.
I pull on my briefs and tuck my packer into them. I cup the front and close my eyes. I’m a man, and last night I made love to another man.Because I think that’s what we did, when Caleb’s body moved against mine, such careful intent in his every movement, our bodies so in sync.
Opening my eyes, my gaze lands on one of Caleb’s hoodies, draped across the back of the chair. I coast my fingers along the soft, gray material. Wrapping my fingers around the hood, I pull it toward me and bury my face against the front. Caleb’s scent engulfs me, the smell of the ocean and the wind. The way the air tingles when the coastline is covered in a layer of thin mist. It’s the way home smells, all the small nuances as they come together as a whole.