flowerboy

The skin was soft.

Heavy breathing, light touches to his collarbone, and soon he was falling. Falling into the pleasure, into the ecstatic bliss that he had kept from himself.

Why had he kept this from himself?

His mind was empty, filled with the sensation of hands on his body. So many hands, touching him, grasping him, whispering down his stomach. Hands feeling up his thighs and gripping his waist. Hands teasing him, flirting with his body in a delicate dance between the world and the sky.

Oh, why couldn't he a be a woman?

---

Max fidgeted with the top button on his shirt. Normally, he wouldn't have even done it, but he couldn't be caught alive with the sin covering his chest. It was conspicuous and ugly in the daylight, but he didn't regret any of it. Why would he?

Fuck. There he was. Max let go of the button and stiffened his back.

He was sitting at the dining table, newspaper in his hands. His glasses were low on the bridge of his nose, a cup of barely steaming tea forgotten on his right. In this light, he looked gentle. Kind even.

Almost.

Max knew better than to test his luck around him. Though the sun still hung in the sky, he knew that the monster only appeared at night.

Every night.

Like clockwork, when the moon ruled the dark waves of clouds, his father turned into something sinister. Ever since his mom left, at least. It was like the feminine energy in the household was holding back all the anger and resentment that continued to pile on for years.

Then one day, it was released.

He pushed the tide of memories to the back of his head and continued upstairs, careful to keep an eye on the figure flipping through the world's problems.

"Good afternoon, Max."

Max's jaw clenched, but he stopped obediently on the stair step. "Good afternoon."

His father didn't even look up at him, scanning an article carefully. "How is your girlfriend doing?"

Max blinked slowly, his jaw clenching harder. "She's good."

"Daniella, isn't it? You've never shown me a picture of her," his father said, flipping the page casually.

"No, I haven't." Max's grip on the stair banister tightened ever so slightly, his knuckles starting to strain and turn white.

As if he were a villain in a children's movie, he turned his head around to look at Max. His soft but piercing blue eyes stared into Max's soul, searching for any hint of hesitation on his face. Max remained calm, but his grasp tightened and he sucked in his cheeks slightly.

"You should bring her around sometime, don't you think?"

That half-smile, half-smirk. The glint in his eyes. The slight tilt in his eyebrows. Max could read that simple expression like an extended novel, maybe even a saga.

"I'll think about it," Max replied.

Satisfied, his father turned back around to his paper, carefully placing one leg over the other to cross it. He sighed audibly and took a sip from his tea.

Max started on the stairs again, making sure to avoid the crooked panels in the flooring to not make any more sound than he should. Once he was on the landing, he rushed for his room and made sure the door didn't slam behind him.