Collide Into You: A Romantic Gender Swap Love Story (25 page)

All I succeeded in doing was igniting the fire in his eyes. In myself.

My God. I want to erase the space between us. I want to get as close as possible and do nothing but kiss Dillan all day, all night. His arms pull me in and I snuggle in. His legs open and I find that I nestle perfectly in his embrace. And when his tongue touches my lips, I want to embed myself as far into him as possible. My hands are on his face, possessing him, owning him.

This. This is what I’ve wanted for so long. But doubt has a way of creeping into tiny, insecure cracks.
But
…I’m in the military.
But
…I’ll get deployed.
But
…it will never work out.
But
…will you be faithful to me?
But
…will I be enough for you?
But
…can you keep up with me?

But right here, right now, he wants me and I want him. What’s to stop us? Why can’t we do this? We are obviously attracted to one another. Even in the opposite form. Which is…weird.

Strange things start happening to me. My body warms up. I’m flushed. Overheated. I feel a buzzing. My ears ring. Is it working? Are we changing?

God, say yes. Please. I can’t do this again. I can’t be Dillan for another day.
 

He grinds up into me, and an intense heat spreads into my lower region. Dillan’s penis. It’s…it’s…hard. It feels like pure energy, like I’m engorged with sexual prowess, and all I can think about is this: touch it, use it, massage it, feel it. In me.

When it begins to throb, I panic.

Dillan

T
HINGS
MOVE
. I
WANT
HER
to consume me. We shift to get comfortable. My legs. Her legs. My hands. Her hands. Her penis.
 

Wait, what?

I suck in a breath, I hear the catch in her throat, and she scrambles away from me. Her eyes, at first, are unfocused. But it isn’t long until a shadow passes over her face, a dark shadow, and I know she’s upset. The dark sky has nothing on the anger deep in Keira’s expression.

“
It
moved,” I say, sitting up. Okay. I feel extremely weird right now. My own penis was erect against my—Keira’s—most intimate parts. How to process this…is…is…very difficult. Does this mean she is turned on? That if she’s aroused, it stimulates an erection?
 

If yes, then I’m worried about my own mental state right now. If no, then I’m worried that my rock star genitalia has turned traitor.
 

“
It
did not move,” she says with as much grit and determination as humanly possible. She stands, but it isn’t pretty. Keira wasn’t lying when she said she was cramped up. She’s sort of hunched over like an old man. She stares at her crotch. The area is tented.

“I think it’s a good sign,” I say, standing up. I try to help her, but she won’t let me. “I mean, that
it’s
erect. That’s a good sign.”

It means you like me, Keira.
A small victory parade goes by in my head right now. With fireworks, marching bands, and those twirling baton things. On fire. Lots and lots of fire in this parade. Granted, I sort of feel like a thirteen-year-old boy for referring to my penis as
it
.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Dillan.”

I don’t blame her for being confused. It reminds me of the time my dad explained
the birds and the bees
to me. I was seventeen when that happened—probably a few years too late for such a talk—but useful all the same since I didn’t lose my virginity until after high school.

“Right, Keira, I’m sorry,” I mutter. “It will, uh, subside. The erec—”

“I know what you’re referring to!” She rubs her face and scratches at the beard growing there. The last time I shaved was Friday morning. The idea of Keira using a razor against my jaw scares the shit out of me. She’ll slice my throat instead. “Can we just go back to your apartment?”

“Yeah, sure,” I say.

One step forward. Two steps back.

Keira

I
STARE
AT
THE
TOILET
, the seat is up, and I’m in the ready position. No, I don’t need to throw up. That would be too easy. I’ve tried to pee for the last five minutes, but this damn erection will
not
go away. Dillan, trying to be helpful, only succeeds in being annoying on the other side of the door.

“Sometimes it takes a few minutes,” he says without prompting. Thankfully, he isn’t in here with me. Not that he didn’t try. I have a feeling that if he asked again, I might succumb, let him inside, and order him to tell me what I’m doing wrong. “There is another way, of course,” Dillan says after another minute passes.

“Yeah, and what’s that?”
Do I really want to know the answer?

“Masturbation.”

My stomach drops. Yes, of course that would be his answer. I’ve avoided looking at the male junk between my legs, but I can no longer avert my eyes. It isn’t unlike my previous lovers’ nether regions, though his is somewhat more…
impressive
. He’s cut and it’s thick, long, red, and it throbs under my fingertips. I don’t even know why I’m still touching it. It isn’t like I’m aiming it or anything. I’m aroused
and
I have to pee. What a stupid conundrum. I’m also a little hungry.

Dillan owns a perfect specimen. Part of me would love to experiment by touching him and just seeing what happens. I mean, I have the opportunity to experience what it feels like to be a man. To have sex…as a man. To masturbate…as a man. Would it feel like a rush? A thrill?

Yes. All of those things. But would it be right? No. I don’t want him doing any of that while he’s in
my
body. Plus, I have no doubt that I’d do it all wrong anyway. I’d probably rub the skin off or something.

“Not. Going. To. Happen,” I say to Dillan through the door. He just laughs.

“All right, calm your horses, sweetheart,” he says. I wonder if he’s actually sitting against the door as he talks to me. “Since we may be here a while, I might as well tell you that Alec asked you out again.”

My head tilts and I resist the urge to groan. “What did you say?”
 

“I invited him over Monday night. I’m cooking him dinner. Afterward, we’ll conduct a bit of a romantic, NFL Pro video game foreplay. If we have time, we might even mud wrestle. At any rate, he seemed receptive to the idea. You do own a bikini, right?”

Part of me wants to be angry at Dillan. The other part is confused as to why I’m not angry. I guess I’m just too confused to think straight. I could probably sort everything out if I wasn’t in his body. As I listen to him and mull out my emotions, the erection subsides. Finally, I pee. Hooray! Now where’s my gold star?

“I assume everything after the video game piece is a spot of fiction, right?” I ask, opening the door. He falls over. He was, indeed, sitting down and leaning against the door. We both look like shit. I’m splotchy after the run. Dried sweat clings everywhere. I wonder if he can see the confusion and frustration on my face.
 

Dillan, who still hasn’t figured out how to make a simple ponytail, seems, I don’t know, oblivious?
No
, I think.
He’s more than clued in.
Dillan is an expert at all of this. Granted, not the body-swapping part, but everything else. Foreplay. Lovemaking. Flirting.

He stands up in the doorway, a silly grin on his face. “Depends on your definition of
fiction
,” he says. Shaking my head, I reach around him and fix the ponytail. It’s not like I need to see what I’m doing since I’ve been pulling my hair up my whole life. Besides, I don’t want to get too close to Dillan. Might have a repeat of Operation Erection, and deflating said Operation Erection isn’t exactly easy. I suspect he can read my mind. He doesn’t even move a muscle.

“Monday night, huh?” I ask. “Because of the away game series in Arizona?”

“Yup,” he says casually.

Dinner. That isn’t so bad. And I can hang out in the bedroom to make sure Dillan behaves. Satisfied, I smile at the thought. I look at Dillan expectantly. He doesn’t move.

Clearing my throat, I say, “Dillan?”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to leave the bathroom now.”

Dillan

W
E
SETTLE
FOR
OUR
OWN
bedrooms again, and this time neither of us leaves the room to talk to the other. Not that I wouldn’t mind it if she came back in. Just being close to her does amazing things to me. I’m tired as hell, though I’m kept awake because my body sings. It hums. It wants her. I want her. I want to feel her on top of me again. I want to feel her lust—her desire—pulse against me again.

I
want.
I
need.
 

This isn’t about me, is it? It’s about Keira. It’s about getting her to trust me. And if I keep trying to hump her every time I’m within a foot of her, then she’ll never, ever, come to trust me. Earlier, as we stood in the bathroom, and I spied the shower behind her, all I wanted to do was grab her by the shoulders and direct her into the tub. I’d clean her. Slowly. Precisely. To the point of no return.

It sounds strange given the fact that she’s in my body, but I have a feeling that once it started, I wouldn’t know where she began and I ended. I want to be the same with her. One with her. When that happens, then we’ll swap. I’m sure of it.

Well, I’m not one hundred percent sure. But, close enough.

Eventually, as the sun starts to rise, I fall into a deep, undisturbed sleep, and several hours later, Keira wakes me up by punching one of my shoulders.

“Wake up,” she orders. “Make me some damn breakfast, Dillan.” She holds a cup of coffee and it’s enough to lure me right out of bed and into a sitting position. I take it from her and look over at the clock. Three in the afternoon. “What’s the plan for today?” Sunlight pours into my bedroom. Keira’s wearing a pair of my black boxers and a black T-shirt. I really need a shave, too.
 

“Plan?” I croak out. The coffee burns my tongue. Needs a bit of sugar. That must be remnants of Keira saying that. I like my coffee black.

“We did what I wanted last night. You know: running. Now, it’s your turn. I must warn you, though. I can hardly walk. All of your muscles have atrophied.” She shrugs as if it’s no big deal. But even the shrugging appears to hurt. I stifle a laugh. She adds, “You are getting old, after all.”

“Old? My ass. I’m thirty. I’m in the prime of my life, thank you very much.” I stand up and wish to God that I hadn’t. Everything hurts. Badly. My legs are like solid bricks.

“You may have been born thirty years ago, but your muscles are at least a hundred.”

“I think I overdid it last night,” I say.

“Which part of last night are you referring to?”

I give her an unenthusiastic, flat grin. “Ha-ha. Funny. How about
all
of last night?”
Liar! You do not regret a single thing and you know it.

Now it’s her turn to look at me in a perturbed fashion, like she knows what I’m thinking but refuses to acknowledge it out loud. “You may have a point.”

“What would
you
like to do today?” I ask after taking another sip of coffee. “I mean, what will make you understand me better?”

“I’m curious to learn the history—the real history—behind your
Nine Year Crush
.” There’s something behind her back. She swings her arm around. Swimming trunks. She tosses a tiny bathing suit at me. “I hear your building has a swimming pool.”

I am going to kill Jon.

Keira

A
COUPLE
OF
MINUTES
LATER
, Dillan shouts, “Um, Keira! I need help. Like, tons and tons of help here.” I’m nearly shocked when he enters the living room naked. I’m not used to seeing myself in the nude like this. Like, ever, I suppose. In his hands he holds the bikini like it’s a writhing snake. “How on earth do you put this on? It’s nothing but a bunch of strings.”

Chuckling, I manage to get it on him and snug enough so that it doesn’t fall off the second he moves.

“There,” I say. The green-and-yellow paisley bathing suit looks good on my frame. Dillan, however, is standing like a spaz and looks just plain awkward while wearing it.

“I’m shocked you actually own a bikini. I just figured you swam in a scuba diving outfit.”

“Didn’t have enough room in the duffle bag when I moved up here.”

Dillan shakes his head. “She’s got jokes. I like it.”

“Come on. Let’s go.”

The pool in Dillan’s apartment is on the roof. The heat of the sun glares down and the place is packed. Luckily, we’re able to find at least one unoccupied chair. We’ll share. I put our towels down and look around. The roof is more than just the pool. There’s a small bar area for social gatherings and, on the other end, a presentation stage. The type where someone might put on a play. Or sing karaoke. My bet’s on the latter thought.

The Capitol and the rest of The Mall are somewhat visible from the edge. This will be a great place to watch Fourth of July fireworks. I’ll have to remember to ask Dillan about that later on.

I’m not immune to the looks we receive the moment we step out onto the roof. Everyone stares at us. The women ogle me and my bronze chest, whereas the men, and some boys, stare at Dillan. I’m not sure if it’s because they think he’s good-looking or if it has anything to do with the fact that he shuffles like an old man. An old man in a little bikini.

It dawns on me that maybe Dillan’s had a relationship or two with some of the women in his building. Great. One more thing to worry about. I view everyone with distrust. I know I shouldn’t, but I do.

Then I realize it’s because
both of us
are shuffling like senior citizens.

I’d love to jump into the deep end, but my hip flexors, and every muscle attached, won’t let me do more than slowly walk into the pool. A second later someone grabs my hand. Dillan. He walks down with me.

“Steps. Hurt,” he mutters. “Ouch.”

“You just want me to break you fall if you slip,” I say, pretending to sound insulted.