#yes they are hipsters in brooklyn in 2013 because i’m pathetically nostalgic

[for-hunger]

Excerpt from the Hannibal/Will t4t forcemasc project that I started writing a few weeks ago / that brought me back to tumblr. H is late twenties, W is early twenties, W thinks H is cis but he is not (gaslight gatekeep girlboss).

He swallows his PBR. “I’m not a good transsexual anyways. I’m always forgetting to do my shot. People probably think I’m not dedicated to the whole project.”

“And why do you think that is?” H asks. “If it’s not that you’re not ‘dedicated’, as you say.”

W’s eyes flicker to look at him, shining dark in the pink light. “It’s a daily process. A kind of coping with- grief. Grief at the kind of life I’ll never have, like those guys are living, like you’ve seen in every movie and every book about gay men in my life.” He looks up at the group of cisfags at the bar. Two of them, a couple, look like brothers, one slightly squarer than the other. The same olive skin and bleached hair. He’s running his hand over the larger one’s chest, smiling. H wants to see what it’d be like to cut into that mouth. He wants W to watch him.

“They’re stinking with purity.” W says, his tone low with jealousy and, H notes with satisfaction, something more base. “Rank with unconscious belief.” He sips his beer again, calms himself. “Sometimes I can barely pull myself out of it.” He continues, “the process of denying to myself that I still have this kind of body. It was easier in high school, then I just, uh, wasn’t present.”

“Why do you see it as a denial?” H asks, honestly. “Why shouldn’t your body be just as naturally masculine as those?” He inclines his head towards the bar.

W shakes his head. His messy hair is halo’d around his head, his uneven shadow emphasizing his jaw. “It’s just how the world works. You wouldn’t know.”

A beat of silence. H asks, “And do all of us live in the same world?”

W gives him a suspicious look, his mouth twisting, brow furrowed.

“When I look at you, I see the potential for something vastly larger and more complex than anything contained in the daydreams of a few New Jersey twinks.”

W snorts. “The fuck is that supposed to mean? You changed your mind about diagnosing me, Doctor Lecter? Gonna tell me how I’m depressed and uhh, bipolar, and I need to go talk to an old hippie lady on the Upper East Side an hour a week?”

H doesn’t take the bait. “No. I’m proposing that I can help you. If you ask me to.”

H’s proposal works like this:

H will do W’s shot for him.

H will teach him basic exercises, to be carried out daily. He will film this, or do it in front of him.

W will use language for his body that doesn’t harm him.

W will reflect on what he might change or advance about his transition.

W’s orgasms will be at H’s mercy, he will not touch himself without permission, and H will administer physical punishments for infractions and oversights. W looks at him incredulously, but there’s a telltale excitement in his eyes. The boy’s had a dom before, but not like this. “You are doing violence to yourself when you deny your manhood, W. I propose we use violence for other purposes.”

H traces his long fingers up W’s thigh. “And then there are the means of influence other than violence.”

“Sugar to help the medicine go down.” W says, sounding less comfortably jaded than he wants.

“If you must.” H, his arm around him now, tugs at his hair. “And we’ll cut this, I think. For now.”

“You’re adding more conditions.” W points out.

“Our plan will evolve as you yourself evolve.” H says.

“And the same rules stand? Colors, safeword, et al?”

“Certainly.” H traces across W’s scalp, pushing the hair back from his brow. “This isn’t a contract, W. It’s a promise.”