Ruby Stark

The first moment was in Matte’s garden, her on an old plastic school chair, me on her lap, my legs either side of her hips, my dress riding up and folding open to show my chest, our tongues touching and the sun on our hair. There were a lot more moments, but that was the first moment.

We pottered around in Bradford town and went for fish and chips with Matte’s housemate, Ani. I had forgotten how cheap everything is in the north: delicious fish, chips, bread and butter and an Iron Bru for three-fifty. I rarely eat crappy food, these days. I used to be stick-thin and, then for several years, I was small-branch-thin. However, my skinny fag frame is back: painfully protruding hips and ribs, boy bottom, a virtually concave stomach. I look like Sally in Potential:

We drank beer in a pub garden and talked about activist secrecy, or the lack there-of. We debated whether to walk way up to the top of the hill where there is a cemetery. We went home to decide, and then got into bed to decide, and then we began making love.

I don’t remember many specific details of that time.  I do know that she took off my tights, my dress, and my bra: more clothes than I’ve let anyone take off me in the last two years.

I can’t tell you how much of an impression her letter made on me. In it, she said she wanted to fuck me like a boy, or make love with me as a girl, or have sex with me as the weird, gender-troubled person I am. Those ideas were some of the most erotic I’ve ever heard.

So, she put her hand inside my underwear – I know that. She lay above me and stroked me – I know that. I gasped and choked and squeaked and sighed – I know that. Her face flushed and she half cried, half smiled, half shined as she made love to me – I know that. We listened to Bright Eyes – I know that.

Bright Eyes, At The Bottom Of Everything mp3

Afterwards, she went to get a glass of water and I lay in her bed and watched the curtains breathe haltingly in and out.

We lay in bed for a while and then I suggested a bath. We went into the bathroom and I ran the water and we got in. She lay back and I sat at the tap end and looked at her beautiful body. I slowly washed her skin with a sponge and we talked some words or others. Outside, the sandy york stone buildings looked like the beach under the blue cloud sky and sea and we listened to the people walking by on the street.

After getting dressed, I think we almost immediately took our clothes off again and fucked. I ate her out and she creaked and sighed and came and I got her come all over my mouth.

We went downstairs and she and her housemate, Ani, made some supper and I washed up. We had roasted beet-root and potatoes, and a sort of tahini sludge, and fried tofu and cabbage. It was all rather delicious. We talked about midwifery and Ani’s batshit insane herbalist remedies.

Matte and I went upstairs after supper and hung out in her room. I said I was going to put on my jarmeys and she said why didn’t I wear my dress to bed and I said OK and she said you’ve only been a girl for twelve hours and already I’m telling you what to wear. We got into bed and made love again. This time, she pushed one and then two fingers inside me and it scratched and hurt but felt so good.  As she made love to me, her expression became a shakingly moving sort of mix of laughter and tears.

Bright Eyes played and I heard their song, Land Locked Blues:

Bright Eyes, Land Locked Blues mp3

It begins, “If you walk away I’ll walk away”, which is so little a threat and so much a deal.  It made me think of the bit in Serpico where his girlfriend says she’s leaving and then runs out of the coffee-shop they’re in and he runs after her and puts his hand on her shoulder and she screws up all her courage and anger and says, “It’s finished!” and, then, “Are you going to walk away, or shall I?” and he looks at her with these vulnerable, still, lidded eyes and says, “I’m not going to walk away.”

The night slipped away too quickly and the morning came and we lay in bed and then I think we made love.  Then, we got up and went downstairs and I smoked in the garden and looked at the summery, dry brown earth.  She brought me a warm pitta bread with jam and a cup of coffee.

We went upstairs and realised we had some time to kill before going out.  “Bed?” she said.

I remember she lay on top of me and bucked against mine, fucking me like a boy.  Our breaths jerked out and she sounded so delightfully, incongruously girly.  I spread my legs and she pushed her hand between them and stroked me and whispiered in my ear, “God, you’re so wet.”  Then, she slid fingers in and out and pressed her palm against me and I gasped over and over and then I came.  I hardly ever come during sex.

We got up and walked through Bradford, bought a picnic at Tesco, then walked to a park where we hung out and ate figs and tooks swigs of water.  She talked about Ringolevio and I filed it away for purchase.  We then walked up into the woods and wandered amongst the trees.  We flaked out on some tree roots and ate onion bhajis and more figs and green olives and salsa scooped with Doritos.  She asked me whether I considered myself an anarchist and I said no.  She said she did and I asked her how she defined anarchist and she said she wants to help people and fight against oppressive systems.  She said she doesn’t agree with separatism, but, instead, the current system should be changed to make it how you want it.  I said that my problem with anarchy is that human nature seems to cultivate leaders – they appear in every organisation, from parliament to social centres.  They are charismatic and erudite and draw people to them, get them to agree and then organise them.  So, I wondered whether there was a way around this, because if not, you don’t got anarchy.

We somehow got onto strap-ons and she asked me if I’d ever considered getting one and I said I’d turned it over in my mind.  We agreed that props are not really our thing, and she said she might be into it if she gave it a go.

From there, we moved to gender and I explained that, for me, where gender and sex intersect is in their opposition.  So, I feel sexier being girly and submissive with a boy and more masculine and in control with girly girls.  We then got onto gender and names and she asked me if I’d ever considered a gender neutral name and I said that in my second year of University I had seriously considered asking people to call me Ben.  She thought that was cute and I said she could call me that if she liked but she said she already knew a Ben so I suggested Benjy.

On the way back, she picked up a sheet of paper lying on the road that read, “Call me.  [Mobile number] We never got to finish our conversation.” We speculated that it was romantic because of the opening “Call me” and the fact that there was a phone number meant that the beloved didn’t know the lover very well.  Further, because the piece of paper was uncrumpled, it had not been discarded by the beloved.  Had it never been given? Had it been dropped?

We left it where we found it.

We got home and had sex again and she asked if I could stay an extra night.  I said I wish I could [and, now, I wish I had - fuck work].  She said, “If you stay I can fuck you until you pass out”, and I blushed and got wet at the same time.

So, I left, and sat on the train, my cunt sore and battered and feeling like her fingers were still inside me.   At Peterborough, I sat on a railing with the sun in my eyes, listening to Land Locked Blues, smoking a cigarette, just feeling love: