Yesterday, I was talking to Ellie about how I wish I could be prettier. A vain thing to say, in a way, but I’ve always felt ugly. Even as a child, I thought my face was too long, my nose not small or cute enough.
“I want to be a Bishounen”, I said.
“But you already are one”, Ellie said.
The other nonbinary people who I see walking around the school sort of look the same. Not to make a generalization– there are lots of people who look and dress rather ‘normal’, or even in a masculine way. However, a great deal of the nonbinary people (theyfabs, as Ellie would say) are beautiful, and in addition to this, dress and look extremely femme. Not feminine in a traditional sense; I mean, none of them could be pretty cheerleaders from high school. But they all have dyed hair, short or long, and style it intensely. Their makeup skills are exquisite– glamorous tiktok eyeshadow, cat- or fox-style winged eyeliner, false lashes. Brilliant colors in their clothes. They wear skirts, low cut shirts and tops, earrings. Next to them, I look like a dark greenish-brown smudge. I almost never wear makeup these days. All my clothes have been chosen because they’re comfortable. Ellie said, “Maybe you feel ugly because you dress like a skater boy. You wear baggy, drab clothes. You could change your hairstyle, and ways of dress, and be prettier.” I sensed that she was right, but I don’t feel like squeezing into corsets, and I feel uncomfortable in skirts. It’s perfectly fine for the other people who want to do this, because it’s their presentation. But I really can’t bring myself to dress like them. Am I nonbinary because I was an ugly woman, or am I ugly because I’m nonbinary?
He only wanted to love girls. In my jealousy, desperation, I kept comparing myself to the pretty girls he would date. I met his ex once– she came to visit him. I was so surprised to see her that all I remember of her was that her hair was green, and she was really short. He told me about another girl, too– his best fuck. He said she ghosted him. I confessed that the best sex I ever had was with him. I didn’t mean much to him– not what he meant to me.
I knew he wished I had a dick. He said it himself, multiple times. I don’t think I understood how fucked up that was, until we parted ways. When we were in bed, and he would say that, I would just laugh and say, “me too”, or maybe even self-fetishize– “if I had a dick, I would be so deep in you right now”. It hurt but I tried not to show it. I’ve tried for so long to accept the body I am in– a weird woman’s body, androgynous breasts, no pussy hole to speak of. Severe vaginismus. He didn’t want to get close. He said, “sometimes one just isn’t in the mood to eat pussy. Like you said, about sucking dick.” I said, “But I said that, and I’ve sucked your dick countless times. You haven’t eaten me out once.”
What even was I to him?
In reality, I wasn’t even his first or second choice, in terms of gender identity. Undesirable, unwanted, a bit useless, even. He couldn’t enter me, even though we tried– my vagina muscles were too tight, they wouldn’t let him in. A blank space where my pussy should’ve been, like a mannequin. If a beautiful trans woman came along, or a hot cis man, he would be done with me.
A reality that I didn’t want to accept. Not man enough to be fucked, not woman enough to be loved.
Love is so bizarre. It strikes you, suddenly. That this strange man you’ve been casually hooking up with is someone who you feel like you couldn’t live without.
We looked at ourselves in the mirror. We looked good together– no, it wasn’t that. We looked more beautiful as individuals when we were holding each other.
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