Pride

I can feel the skin on the back of my neck starting to burn from the sun. Shit. I always forget sunscreen at Pride. 

It’s the Seattle Dyke March, and honestly, it’s worth the sunburn to see dykes with their tits out on the backs of motorcycles driven by old butches. In that spirit, I’m wearing my sluttiest Pride outfit to date—a mesh top with tape on my nipples, a bulldog harness, ripped up shorts, and Docs, all black.

I’m looking around the crowd for my friends as we wait for the announcer to start the speeches and begin the march. I stand at the top of a set of brick stairs overlooking a small park, where a set of t-shirts with puff paint have been strung up between the trees to dry. I wandered over there earlier and learned it was an LGBT survivors organization raising awareness for abuse within the queer community. I thought about making a t-shirt, but I don’t know what to say yet.

My eyes scan the crowd of dykes, and I smile to myself at the sight: butches, femmes, studs, dykes of all flavors. My eyes land on the back of a long-haired butch in a floral button-up, and I start to check them out…when they turn around, I make eye contact with an old hookup from a few years ago. It didn’t end well.

I panic and glance away immediately, of course, but the damage is done. I mean, it’s no surprise that Soph’s here. We both still live in the city. But did I have to make eye contact with her while I’m looking desperate and lonely waiting for my friends? Fuck. I remember what I’m wearing and my cheeks burn—not from the sun this time.

I look down and check my phone to see if Nat, Taylor, and Sam have texted me back yet. Sam says they’re down by the sidewalk and I push through the crowd—past Soph and her friends, past the announcer and performers getting ready—and find my friends standing in a group by the Lavender Rights Project table. Thank God. 

“I just saw Soph,” I groan to Sam.

Sam groans back and I dramatically rest my head on their shoulder while Nat and Taylor greet me with commiseration: “Sorry, dude. Good to see you. Fuck her! You look fucking hot, bro.” 

I blush again. This outfit is just a little bit out of my comfort zone, and it has me feeling self-conscious. The compliment makes me feel equally giddy and nervous. “Thanks, dude,” I reply. “So do you.” 

Taylor is wearing an open button-up with their top surgery scars peeking out. Nat is the rainbow type of dyke—a rainbow tie-dye tank top, shorts with rainbow fabric peeking out at the bottom, rainbow bracelets… you get the idea. Sam is wearing a black tank top that says “DYKE” in white. 

“You’re all hot,” I conclude.

The announcer’s microphone screeches and whines a little as she taps the mic. “Testing, testing,” the salt-and-pepper butch’s husky voice comes over the speaker. I’m swooning. She’s so hot.

She smiles and dives into a speech about the history of the Seattle Dyke March and how she was at the first Dyke March in 1994—the year I was born. I get lost trying to do mental math for a minute and guess her age while her sexy voice continues on about the radical dyke organizers of the past 29 years and beyond. She’s probably in her 50s? I stand in awe of the lesbian history before me, admiring the butch speaker and the other dyke elders standing behind her. 

Her speech concludes and she passes the microphone to a younger speaker, a twenty- or thirty-something with dark skin, blue braids, and a rainbow basketball-jersey tank. They share their name and pronouns and recite a slam poem about a man yelling “Dyke!” out a car window at them. They’re a good performer, and kind of cute, and I realize that I’m just a big old fucking dyke for all the other dykes. 

A few other performers go—a couple of musicians and an essayist. They pass off the microphone to a warm-skinned dyke in a mullet and ripped jean shorts, who begins to announce the route of the march. 

Motorcycles rev behind us, and Nat jumps in shock. I grab her arm and tell her it’s okay and to breathe. She always jumps at loud noises; it’s a PTSD thing. I turn to look at the bikers, and I’m so thirsty for the butches that I literally grab my bag and pull out my water bottle for a drink. Okay, maybe part of it is the heat, but… I’m thirsty.

The bikers drive off in the direction of the march route and we fall in line with the crowd, chatting cheerfully about Pride plans, where to eat after this, and butch shit like Sam’s latest necklace from the Home Depot chain aisle. There are people on the porches of their nice Capitol Hill apartments, waving rainbow flags and cheering at us. We cheer and wave back. 

At one point, Soph and her friends pass us and she glances at me. Fuck, I wish she wasn’t so goddamn handsome. I hate that I’m still attracted to her. 

We were friends with benefits for about six months in 2018, until Soph got a girlfriend and became monogamous with her. I was happy for her as my friend, but Soph’s girlfriend didn’t want us talking to each other anymore, so Soph cut me off. I was pissed. The “friend” part of friends with benefits is genuinely important to me. I was fine with the “benefits” being cut off, but having the friendship go with it… that hurt.

I take a deep breath and watch her walk away. Her ass always was her best feature: thick, round, and clad in tight Carhartts that show off her curves. God dammit. 

My friends nudge me and ask how I’m doing, and I nod that I’m fine. I shake it off and we finish the march at Broadway and Pine. 

“We’re two blocks from the Wildrose, do you wanna go?” Sam asks.

I brighten. The lesbian bar will be the place to be after the Dyke March. “Hell yeah,” I say. 

We arrive to a line out the door and a crowded dance floor. The music is bad—it always is—but it doesn’t matter. For once, the lesbian bar is actually full of lesbians. We get in the long line for drinks and I order a rum and Coke, swirling the ice with my straw and sipping while I observe the crowd. It takes five seconds for me to lock eyes with Soph again. A spark runs through me, and I tell myself it’s a spark of anger. 

I try to glare at her, but she smiles at me and waves, and I’m caught off guard. Her friend yells something in her ear, and she yells back, breaking eye contact with me. 

I turn to Sam and ask, “What the fuck? Dude. What?” 

“Dude… I have no idea. Do you want to stay?”

“Yeah, I wanna stay. I’m not leaving because of her.” 

“Do you want to talk to her?”

“No! Maybe? I don’t know.”

“Well it’s up to you, dude. Do you wanna dance?”

“Hell yeah I wanna dance,” I say firmly. I down my drink, feeling the buzz settle heavily into my veins. 

I have a little crush on Sam, and I grab their hand and pull them with me to the tiny dance floor. Soph is in the middle, so I have us hang around on the edge of the dancing, my back to the middle, pretending like Soph isn’t there. But she’s so obviously there. God. 

Nat and Taylor join us, and we dance to a song by Lizzo, which is the best thing the DJ has played yet. “Turn up the music, turn down the lights,” she sings.

I lose myself in the crowd, the loud music, the bass, the pleasant buzz of the rum, the feeling of Sam’s body against mine. My eyes flutter closed and I let the pleasure of it all wash over me. 

I feel tapping on my shoulder and open my eyes, and Sam is looking behind me with wide eyes. I turn around and Soph is smiling and waving shyly at me. 

“Hi!” she yells at me over the loud music. 

I don’t know what to do with my face, but I can feel that my eyebrows are furrowing and I try to smooth them out and do something else with my expression. 

“Hi!” I lean in to yell back, regretting it instantly because she smells so good. Her cologne smells like sandalwood, tobacco, and… honey? It makes my knees weak. 

“Can we talk?” she yells. I nod. She reaches for my hand and pulls me through the crowd to the patio outside where people are smoking cigarettes and vaping weed. 

“Hi,” she says again, no longer yelling. The now muffled music switches to a Cardi B song. She’s still holding my hand, and she drops it.

“Hi,” I say, a little suspiciously. 

“Listen, dude,” Soph starts. She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Ditching you as a friend for Rebecca was a shit move. She wasn’t worth it, either…” She chuckles a little, then shakes her head. “That’s not important. I’m sorry for how I treated you.”

I stand stunned, letting a beat pass, then two. I swallow. “I, uh… don’t know what to say.” It’s the truth. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” she says. “I just felt like I owed you an apology. You can go back to ignoring me now if you want. But, uh… if you wanna dance, I’m not opposed.” She grins at me, shrugging. 

I look at Soph skeptically and shake my head, but a smile turns up the corner of my mouth. “I need a drink.” 

“Let me buy you a drink?” she asks eagerly.

I sigh. “Okay. Rum and Coke.” 

She winks at me and turns on her heel, swaggering to the bar and waiting in a long ass line for me. I walk back to my friends, who all want to know what happened. 

“She’s buying me a drink,” I shrug. “She apologized.”

“She what?” Nat asks. 

“I didn’t think she was capable of that,” Taylor says.

I laugh. “I guess she is.”

I lose myself in the dancing. I almost forget about Soph until she’s back at my shoulder, tapping. She’s holding my rum and Coke and smirking at me, in that way she used to when she was thinking about fucking me. It sends a wave of fire through my body that I’m not prepared for. 

“Your drink, bro,” she says. She was always calling me bro when she wanted to flirt with me. She knows I like it.

God dammit. Soph is seducing me.

And it’s working. 

I take the drink from her and sip, eager for the fuzziness to blur my brain and make this bad decision seem better than it’s gonna feel tomorrow morning.

The music goes quiet between songs. Soph puts her hand on my waist and leans into my ear, clouding my judgment with her cologne. “Do you want to dance?” she asks in her seductive voice, the one that makes me melt. 

I don’t trust my voice not to waver, so I just nod. “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars comes on, and I laugh at how cheesy it is, but I step to the left, to the right, snapping my fingers and lip syncing along. Soph grins and dances along with me, not touching me—not yet. 

It’s not until a slow R&B song comes on that she puts her hands on me, resting them on my waist, firmly holding me as we dance up on each other. A fire licks up my belly and reddens my cheeks.

Fuck, I think. God dammit. I want to get fucked, and God, does Soph know how to fuck me right. 

I can tell she’s thinking the same thing, from the way she’s eyeing me and biting her lip. It’s making memories flash through my mind: snippets of getting fucked in my old studio apartment, Soph’s strap buried inside my cunt, moans ripped from my throat as I begged for more.

I turn with my back to Soph, and my friends are looking as confused as I feel. I shrug at them. Soph’s hands squeeze my waist and electricity shoots through my body. I lean back into her and we move our bodies to the music. 

I lose myself to the feeling of her body on mine, her roaming hands now gripping my hips. I close my eyes, focusing on Soph and blocking out the stares of Taylor, Nat, and Sam. The bass rolls over me in waves, Soph’s hips matching the beat of the song as she grinds into me. 

I’m still holding my drink and I swallow the rest of it, looking for a place to put it down. Nat takes it from me and throws it in a trash can behind her, raising an eyebrow at me. I grin back at her sheepishly. 

The music changes to a hip-hop song I don’t recognize, and I turn around to face Soph, putting my arms on her shoulders and locking our hips together, grinding into her and relishing in the sweet electric pleasure that pulses in my core. 

I want to kiss her, and I glance down at her mouth, imagining it on mine. I bite my lip. She sees, smirking as her hands trail up my back to my neck, where she grips firmly. I swallow. She wraps her arm around my back and pulls me into her, looking at me hungrily. It makes my knees weak. I stare into her brown eyes, dark from arousal and the whiskey I can smell on her breath.

Her tongue darts out to lick her lips, and I glance down. She leans into me slowly, and my eyes flutter closed. Her lips meet mine, and her mouth is slow and hot, and she tastes like whiskey and cigarettes and her, that old familiar taste and scent. Her soft tongue slips out to tease my lips, and I whimper. She can’t possibly hear it over the music, but she must feel it, because she grins into the kiss and then kisses me harder. 

I melt into her, into our familiar rhythm, this song-and-dance we haven’t done for years, and yet we both remember the steps. 

The kiss deepens, becoming a heady mix of teeth and tongue and lips and heat and desire. Soph’s hands begin to roam my body, her hand moving from my neck to grip my short hair, trailing from my waist to my hips to my ass. I moan into her and give myself to all of it, to all of her expert touches, to this bewildering experience.

There’s a pause between songs, and in the quiet moment, Soph leans into my ear and asks, “Do you want to take this to the photobooth?” She nods over her shoulder at the vintage photobooth, which she’s fucked me in so many times. So smooth, like she had it planned. 

God. This is a terrible idea. I know it is. 

I nod.

She grins and pulls me by the hand to the tiny photobooth at the back of the bar, closing the little red velvet curtain for “privacy.” She pushes me against the wall and shoves her legs between my thighs, grabbing my hips and making me grind down on her, my hard clit rubbing against my boxers. 

“Fuck, Soph,” I curse.

She shuts me up with a kiss, and I grind on her leg of my own accord, desperate for the friction. I stick my hands in her long hair —I always was so attracted to LHBs—and tug at the base of her skull. She groans and I smile into the kiss, delighted to have gotten a sound out of her. 

Her hands move from my hips to my thighs, squeezing and rubbing the insides of my jeans with her thumbs. I gulp. Her hands move higher until I’m grinding on her hand and whimpering into her mouth. 

She pulls her mouth away. “Fuck,” she pants. “Can I finger you?” she asks, sounding eager. 

I swallow a moan, and look at the camera behind her. I smile. “Only if you pay for the pictures of it.”

She groans and grins at me. “You little fucking slut,” she murmurs in my ear. I feel my cunt clench at the word slut.

She pulls out her wallet and turns to the screen, paying for a roll of four photos. She pushes me against the side of the photobooth and kisses my neck, rubbing me over my jeans. The first photo clicks. 

She unbuttons and unzips my jeans, reaches into my boxers, and strokes at my wetness. I gasp, my mouth wide open. Click. 

She eagerly dips a finger inside me and I moan, rutting my hips into her hand to try to get her deeper inside me. I grip my hands in her hair. Click.

“Reach into your pants, play with your clit, and make yourself cum on my fingers, you little slut,” she demands. I nod eagerly. I slip into my pants to rub my clit. My hips buck and I moan, and she clamps a hand over my mouth, fucking me harder while I scream, muffled into her hand. 

The last photo clicks. 

Soph slips another finger inside me, and my eyes roll back. I keep frantically rubbing at my clit, whimpers escaping into Soph’s hand. 

She starts whispering dirty things in my ear, knowing how it gets me off. “You dirty fucking slut, taking my fingers in front of all these nice dykes,” she says in a commanding, husky voice. 

I feel myself clench on her fingers. 

“Fuck, you little fucking whore, you like that? You like when I call you a slut? You’re certainly acting like one. That’s a good girl.”

Good boy, I try to say, muffled against her hand. She pulls away.

“What’s that, slut?”

“Good boy,” I repeat. What can I say? Gender feelings changed over the past few years. 

“Good boy,” she says with a grin. “That’s hot.” She shoves me against the wall with her arm across my collarbone. “Tell me more, boy.” 

“I, uh…” She’s still fingering me, and my fingers are still rubbing my clit. “I’m into daddy kink now? It’s hot.” 

I flush red at the admission. She was always into being called Daddy, but at the time, I didn’t like it. Then I read George’s Boi, and well, my feelings changed there, too. 

“That’s what I’m talking about. Good fucking boy. Say it. Call me Daddy.”

“Fuck,” I whimper. “Daddy.”

“Come on, boy, say it like you mean it.” 

“Please, Daddy, please can I cum? I’m so close.” 

“That’s it, boy. Beg for it. I like hearing you beg.” 

“Oh, please, Daddy, please, please, please… Please, I need it. I’m so—I’m so close.” 

“Tell me you’re a slut.”

“I’m a slut, Daddy.” 

“Good boy.”

My pussy clenches again. Soph grins. 

“You like that, don’t you, boy? You like being my good boy? Cum for me, boy. Be a good boy and cum for Daddy.” 

The words are like electricity straight to my clit, and I moan helplessly—but the music is still louder than me. 

“That’s right, let me hear it, boy,” she groans. 

“Fuck yes, Daddy, fuck yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” I repeat over and over as my orgasm shakes through me, my cunt clenching repeatedly on Soph’s fingers as I cry out. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…” 

I whimper through the aftershocks. 

“Fuck,” I say in a deeper, clearer voice, panting, laughing. “Fuuuck.”  

“God, you’re such a good fucking slut,” Soph says in awe. She slips her fingers out of me and I grab her wrist, guiding her fingers to my mouth while I stare at her. I suck off her fingers, never breaking eye contact. 

“Fuck,” she swears. “God, can I take you home and fuck you, Alex?”

I suck her off more, exaggerating my movements in the way I know turns her on. Then I let her fingers go with a pop, and I smirk “Yeah, Daddy. You can fuck me.”

I button myself back up and we leave the photobooth, but the pictures are gone.