Badge of Honour

‘Wait,’ I ask her, ‘this is with women? Cis women?’

She shakes her head. ‘Rarely. Usually it’s crossdressers, drag people, guys with a fetish for spandex and fishnets.’

‘Right.’

‘I mean a couple of cis women, but sort of as favours? There was a dominatrix I knew and…’

‘What was that like?’

‘Pretty good, but she was going for pins, not submissions. She facesat me in a weird way though.’

‘Weird how?’

‘Face down. I had her big thighs either side of my head and my nose and mouth shoved up against this dusty dungeon floor.’

‘Ugh.’

‘It was great. I loved it.’

‘Jesus, Ruby.’

She holds her lighter to the bowl of her pipe and inhales, then passes it to me. Under the first of the ash the powdered buds glow like coal.

‘And Rachel.’

‘Bloody Hell! Wasn’t that when - ?’

‘I was presenting as male then, yeah. She’d dress me in her clothes and make my face up, then kick my ass.’

I raise an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah yeah I know, file under obvious clues.’

I pass the pipe back to her. This is a weird conversation.

‘How did that come about?’

‘I came out to her. About liking…this.’ She gestures to the floor around us, Valerie’s mattress, our clothes scattered over the floor, ripped tights and stretched knickers. Her belly still red where I punched it, her breasts still showing the marks from my fingers.

‘And she was okay with it?’

‘Hmmm. She didn’t take much convincing. It’s a seductive thing, to be told you’re admired for your strength.’

‘You cower before them so invitingly.’

‘Huh?’

‘Nothing. Song lyric. So why on Earth did you and Rachel split up then? I mean if she was willing to indulge your wrestling fetish…’

‘Well, that didn’t last the whole of the marriage.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, dear Emma, if you had ever been in a long-term monogamous relationship instead of standing at the still point of a polyamorous tornado, you’d know that the sexual side of it becomes less…prominent after a while?’

‘Ah. Lesbian bed death.’

‘I guess so, in a way. And also, um, I knocked her out.’

‘Holy SHIT Ruby! How the fuck – ’

‘It was an accident, okay? She was on top of me, I pushed her back – I mean I was struggling but not really struggling, you know? I was enjoying being held down, anyway, I pushed her back a little but I hadn’t clocked the table was above us and…she hit it. Spark out. I had to move to the side to avoid being trapped underneath her.’

‘Jesus!’

‘I was shitting myself. I thought I’d fucking killed her. I was doing the whole movie thing, oh fuck, trying to remember how to do CBT…’

‘How would that help?’

She nods her head from side to side, retracing her steps. ‘CPR. Don’t you die on me, all that…’

‘Did you actually say don’t you die on me?’

‘Just about. Anyway, she wasn’t out long. I don’t know if you’ve ever been knocked out before…’

‘I have not, thankfully.’

‘I haven’t either. I’d really like to be knocked out some day though, that’d be awesome.’

‘You are a very special person.’

‘Ha ha. Anyway, being knocked out does not actually last that long. It’s a few seconds, a minute, not huge amounts of time. She came round pretty quickly.’

‘How did she feel about that?’

‘I think she felt kind of excited about it, actually. She wanted to go again.’

‘Did you?’

She looks at me like I’ve asked her to buttfuck the Pope in full Rangers kit. ‘No! For all I knew she might have had concussion. I told her that was enough for the night and we stopped. And we didn’t do it again, actually.’

‘You were worried you’d hurt her?’

‘Yeah. People don’t realise how dangerous the average living room is as a fighting environment. I mean even here you have to watch out for the desk and the radiator, the shelves at the end, but there isn’t a coffee table. The coffee table is the first thing you get rid of, if you’re going to do this stuff.’

‘Duly noted. So how were things afterwards?’

‘Like I say, she seemed kind of excited. It was a story she’d return to sometimes. Remember that time you knocked me out? It was like a badge of honour, a memory of adventure, taking risks. Like my mum telling the story about my uncle nearly killing her with an axe.’

‘Christ, Ruby, what the fuck is your family?’

‘It’s not actually as crazy as it sounds. I just mean that…I think women don’t get sanction as adventurers, you know? It’s getting better, but especially in the past…I just…I don’t know. She had a quiet life. She was a teacher! She didn’t have many memories of her body being strong, of snapping back, of being tough. Sometimes I think I took that away from her, because I was frightened.’

‘Hmmm. Ruby Ross, you are one weird fucking lady.’

‘Look who’s talking.’

I flip her off and roll up on my knees. ‘Wanna go again?’

She smiles.