“Fair point,” I agreed.
Then I had a thought that stopped me mentally in my tracks. “Hermia?” I tried to keep the incredulity out of my voice. “As in Hermes? And Aphrodite?”
“Aphrodite is my middle name.” She sounded a little embarrassed.
I could have laughed, but I knew it would be a really bad idea at that moment. “That’s a little on-the-nose, isn’t it? Being named after Herm-Aphrodite?”
Hermia sighed deeply again, and shifted against me. Her forehead was now touching my jawline. “Mum and dad meant well,” she said, a little defensively. “I think they really wanted me to make peace with my body, to find a way of being happy with who I am. In fact, I know they did. They told me they didn’t want me to live in denial of anything about myself. And I suppose it worked. I know who I am, what I am, and I accept it. I just hope other people can too, even if it seems unlikely sometimes.”
“They knew right from the start?”
She nodded, her forehead brushing my cheek. “It showed up on scans. You know, ultrasound and stuff? I don’t fully understand it really – I’m not a doctor or anything. The kit is all in there, somewhere inside my body, but sorta dormant: I don’t ovulate or menstruate. There are probably a couple of scientific papers all about me in medical journals somewhere. Anyway, I don’t know what their first reaction was, but by the time I was born, it seems my parents were ready to raise their little dickgirl.”
The sardonic way she said that last word made it clear she was not happy with it, and I made a mental note never to use it with her. She had clearly been through a lot of hurt in her life, and I meant to make sure none of it ever came from me.
“At least it solves one mystery,” I said. “I wondered if you were an angel. But Hermes and Aphrodite? You aren’t an angel. You’re a goddess!”
She lifted her head and playfully whacked my forearm, but the warmth in her eyes told me I had said the right thing. Her lips on mine confirmed it.
“So how about you?” she asked. “My turn for a stupid question: are you gay?”
“I didn’t think so,” I replied. “For sure, it’s still your feminine body and look that turn me on. But I can’t deny, so does your cock and balls. Maybe I am not homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual. Maybe I am just Hermiasexual. Whatever it is you are, that’s what I want.
“If I had to pick a category though? What are those initials… LGBT?”
“LGBTQIA+,” she said. “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, and a few other smaller groups that have been accepted into the movement. Remember where I work?”
“Well there we go then. That’s what I am. My sexuality is on the spectrum but doesn’t fit into any of those other categories, so I guess it’s Q. I am a queer man.”
“And obviously I am intersex,” she added.
“He was a Q. She was an I. Can I make it any more obvious!” I quipped.
It was not a very funny joke, but she laughed with what seemed genuine delight, and I found myself laughing too. Perhaps it was our elation at having found each other.
Then her face turned serious again. “Are you… Am I…” she hesitated, a note of vulnerability entering her voice that made me want to fight the world in her defence. It was not her turn, but I stayed quiet to hear what she would say.
“Am I… big enough for you?” she asked finally. “I- I’ve seen things on the internet. Hentai. They call it ‘futanari’. When you are looking for any kind of representation for someone like me online, you are bound to end up finding stuff like that. And some of them are massive. Huge breasts. Huge cocks, like as thick as their waists, and two or three feet long. I thought maybe when guys are into women with penises, they like…”
“No!” I replied emphatically, partly to reassure her and partly out of honesty. “I told you: you are perfect.” I put my free hand on her flaccid cock, and used the other to turn her cheek so my lips could meet hers. “Perfect: adjective,” I said, my eyes an inch from hers. “Bearing the greatest possible similarity to Hermia Aphrodite Corfield.”
That made her smile again.
“Seriously though,” I continued, “those images don’t do it for me. I think maybe that is one reason I was so sure I wasn’t interested. What you have seems so much more natural, and appealing. I love a sexy, feminine, well-proportioned body. Like yours.
“In fact,” I continued again, “you look a lot like a model. Have you ever done modelling?”
“I did a bit, when I was younger,” she replied, “back in my very early teens. I did it for a couple of years. I had an agent who seemed like the best in the business. He knew everyone, every step was planned out. He kept me moving in a constant program of clothes catalogues, adverts, and the like. It seemed as if my life was set.
“Then one day, after a late shoot with a magazine, he drove me back to his house instead of home. It was a great big place, like a mansion, in the middle of nowhere. He got me in his bedroom, and told me to take off my clothes. Looking back, it is so obvious what was going on, but I was young and naïve, only 13 years old. He told me he had to check something, make sure I was ready, before moving on with the next stage of my career, and I just… believed him.
“But it all changed when I took off my knickers. Suddenly he changed, from looking at me with hunger in his eyes, to screaming at me. “Get out! Get the fuck out!” The rage in his voice, the horror… I thought I must be the worst creature in the entire world, to make him suddenly so scared and angry.
“I left there in such a hurry that I forgot my purse and my phone, so I had to walk. That walk was probably the worst hour and three quarters of my life.
“The next day, I tried to call him, but he had blocked my number. I couldn’t contact him in any way. Worse, nobody else in the industry was answering my calls. I kept calling round, looking for another agent, but got nowhere. It wasn’t until months later that one of them took pity on me and told me: he had blacklisted me. He hadn’t told anyone why, but the message was clear that I was bad news. They assumed it was probably drugs, but it didn’t really matter. I was out.”
“That’s horrible,” I said comfortingly. “But hey, at least you didn’t get fucked by him. He probably does it all the time: picks up a pretty girl, grooms her, and eventually has his way with her. In fact, imagine not being worried that any of them will out you as a paedo, but being shit-scared of getting outed for this.”
“That occurred to me too,” she said. “Somehow, that made it worse. Like being intimate with me had that much more stigma than even child molestation.”
“That guy was a total creep,” I insisted. “Who gives a fuck what a pervert like him thinks.”
“I know.” She smiled, but it was a fragile smile. “I realized that eventually, but it did set me back years in mental health.”
“Do you think that is why you tried to pass as a boy for a while?” I asked.
She pursed her full, rosy lips in thought. “You know, I never thought about that, but yes. That incident happened when I was 13, and it was only a few months later, at 14, that I changed schools and identities. I must have still been feeling the effects from that awful night.