Page 35 of Love Lessons

He already knew that it had been a bust and Zhong was just going back because they’d promised each other. That sucked. He wanted Zhong to find his person.

Zhong’s eyes softened. You know I’m not going to let this go. I think you need to explore this side of yourself to be happy. If you don’t want to do the munch, you could also try a kink club.

OK. I’ll go.

Zhong poked him in the shoulder. Good. Now turn around so I can give you a backrub.

When Dustin finally made it to the munch, he was late again. And again he stood in front of the door, debating whether or not to go in. But this time there wasn’t a stunning blond man to usher him inside. Quite the opposite in fact. The stunning blond man was the reason he wanted to flee.

But he wasn’t that much of a coward, and this was probably the only munch with Deaf participants in the area, so he needed to just get over himself. It wasn’t the first time he’d been stood up or dumped.

He decided that he would just follow Landon’s lead. If Landon was friendly, he’d be friendly. If Landon ignored him, he’d act the same. There wasn’t much else he could do. Mind made up, he popped in his ear plugs and opened the door, striding confidently toward the back room.

Only Landon wasn’t there.

He wasn’t sure whether he felt disappointed or relieved. He certainly felt a little silly for working himself up when the man wasn’t even present. Maybe he had actually been sick or overwhelmed with work and he needed to cut him a little slack.

The long table was full, with one group spilling over to a second table nearby. But since Ash was at the end of the long table it was an easy choice where to sit.

Ash was deep in conversation with a graceful blond woman, the straps of her dress revealing her delicate arms and shoulders. Dustin figured that it would be nice to get to know someone else who signed, so he was tentatively looking forward to meeting her.

After grabbing an extra chair from an empty table, he parked it at the corner and sat down.

Only to meet deep gray eyes.

The stunning woman wasn’t a stranger. It was Landon. And, fuck, he looked good in that dress, all long limbs and wide eyes. Dustin couldn’t help drifting his gaze over the elegant curves of his bare shoulders. His makeup was soft and natural, highlighting and enhancing, making his cheeks rounder and his lips pink and kissable.

Dustin almost couldn’t reconcile the two images in his head, the gangly, edgy man and this soft, delicate creature. How many masks did Landon wear? Or was this his true form? Who was he really?

Landon blinked for a second, and then offered his signature seductive smile, his head bowed and his eyes looking up. Well, that hadn’t changed.

Landon waved hello, and there was something subtly different about the movement. It was somehow just a bit more feminine. Not campy or over-acted. Just naturally a bit smaller and gentler. Dustin was fascinated.

He was also feeling a bit overwhelmed, with too many changes too quickly. And was Landon really just going to act like their evening together had never happened?

He returned the greeting, not sure what else to do.

You can call me Lena, by the way. Landon explained, fingerspelling the name and giving a name sign, an L stroked down the jaw. Landon’s name sign, an L tapped at the temple, which was the “masculine” area of the face, now made a lot more sense. Landon and Lena, male and female.

You can refer to me as WOMAN, Lena continued.

Dustin nodded slowly while he mentally reset things in his mind. Like pronouns? he finally asked. Lena had stated Ash's pronouns with introducing them, but in ASL you pointed to indicate a person and then signed MAN or WOMAN. Another pointing gesture would replace the pronoun for the rest of the conversation.

Lena agreed. I use she/her pronouns.

OK. Dustin could do that. But he had questions. Lots of questions.

He just wasn’t sure if he was allowed to ask them and how to phrase them. He had a few friends who were trans and genderqueer and they got annoyed having to explain themselves all the time. Are you… genderfluid? He fingerspelled the word. He hadn’t actually met anyone who identified that way, although he knew the term.

Lena nodded. You can sign it like this. She circled the letter G over her heart, a sign which he hadn’t seen for GENDER before. He only knew a sign made at the cheek that represented male and female, but this sign made it more personal. About how someone felt instead of how they were assigned in a binary. For FLUID she curled her first two fingers downward, adapting the word to denote a person, and waved them back and forth horizontally.

Ash laughed. My gender is more like this. They made the same circling sign for GENDER and then snaked their two curled fingers all over the space in front of them.

In that case, Lena added, I’m more like this. She signed GENDER, then made her two fingers hop precisely from the left to the right and back again, pausing for emphasis in each location. Only one at a time. Not both or in between.

Alright, that helped a lot. Her clothing definitely made it easy to identify her as Lena, and he noticed that her posture was straighter and her movements more graceful. It wasn’t anything forced or dramatic, just a cluster of subtle cues that added up to something that seemed more feminine.

Dustin still had more questions, but he wasn’t sure if he could ask them. He was curious about all of her choices and experiences, because this seemed like it was going to be really important to understanding who she was, but he also suspected that she’d be hesitant to share. And, honestly, he was trying to figure out what it would mean if he were lucky enough to end up in bed with her again.