I knew the skirt was going to be an argument because he’d ironed it.
Not me. Sam.
He irons exactly two things: the blue shirt he wore to his brother’s wedding, and whatever shirt is clean enough to pretend it’s a dress shirt when the office suddenly remembers he works there. He’s twenty-seven, a software tester who lives in gray hoodies, and I’m twenty-three and work at an independent bookstore. Everything else in our apartment comes out of the dryer in a pile on the bed and gets sorted according to whether somebody outside will see it.
The skirt had three pleats that would not lie flat, and he’d stood over the ironing board with a dish towel between the fabric and the iron because he was afraid of making it shiny. It was black-and-red plaid wool, heavy enough to hang straight when he held it up. He’d bought it from a vintage thrift shop on Tuesday, told me it was a joke on Wednesday, and hung it behind the bedroom door on Thursday.
Friday he ironed it.
The sushi was supposed to get here in forty-five minutes. I know because he had checked the delivery app twice while I was cleaning the bathroom mirror. Forty-five minutes is enough time to be brave if you already know what you want. It’s also long enough to talk yourself out of it four times.
“You put steam into that,” I said.
“Obviously.”
“It’s wool.”
“I can read a tag, Julian.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”
“You’re making the face.”
“What face?”
“The one you make when you know you’re about to be right about something.”
I was right about it, but I shut up. He laid the skirt across the bed with the pleats facing upward, the way he’d been taught to fold shirts in some previous life he refers to only when complaining about laundry.
On the bedside table was the little brass key. We’d made our own arrangement about it weeks earlier. There wasn’t anything ceremonial about that, either. We were grown men who could use full sentences, and the arrangement was ours. The key went in a little glass dish when we were done being dramatic and the dish lived beside a lamp that flickered if you touched the cord.
I picked it up, then put it down again.
“Want me to go make tea?” I asked.
“No.”
“Do you want me to stop looking at the skirt like it owes me money?”
“Also no.”
He walked into the bathroom wearing the white ribbed undershirt he’d had on all day. Stood under the vanity light, which makes everybody look as if they’re waiting for a prescription, and looked at himself.
“I don’t want it to be funny,” he said.
He’d said everything up to that point as a joke. The skirt was funny. The price tag was funny. The fact that a grown man had asked a vintage shop clerk how to keep pleats flat was funny. He’d been delivering the jokes preemptively, so neither of us would be caught without one.
I sat on the closed toilet lid. This was not my most majestic moment.
“Okay.”
“Not that you can’t laugh. I don’t mean we’re banned from laughing. I mean—”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
I waited.
“I want you to look at me the way you look at me when I’m wearing the stuff you already like,” he said. “Not like you won.”
There wasn’t a good clever answer. He’d done the hard part by saying it plainly; anything I said to make myself sound nice would just force him to sit through a speech.
“I like you in the stuff you choose,” I said.
He turned around. The bathroom light caught the little strip of silver in his left ear.
“I did choose it.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to have to let me be weird about this.”
“I can do that.”
He stepped into the skirt. The side zipper stuck halfway, and he made a sharp hissing sound at it that I had heard him make at IKEA flat-pack furniture. I stood up behind him and held the two sides of the waistband together while he pulled the tab. There wasn’t enough room in the bathroom for both of us to move properly. My hip hit the towel rack. His elbow bumped my shoulder. The zipper finally closed with a tiny click.
He looked at himself in the mirror, and the room went quiet in a way that had nothing to do with whether we were trying to be serious.
The skirt fit. It fell four inches above his knees, the wool sharp and crisp over his black tights.
“Turn,” I said.
He turned.
“Again.”
He did the slowest rotation in the history of human vanity. One side of his mouth kept trying to smile. His hands stayed flat against his thighs, like he didn’t know where they belonged.
“That looks good on you,” I said.
“You’re not just saying that?”
“I have been sitting on this very uncomfortable toilet lid for fifteen minutes waiting to say exactly that.”
He smiled properly then.
On the counter was a tube of peach lip balm he’d bought because his lips had been getting dry from the autumn wind. He picked it up, considered it, and put it back down. Then he picked it up again, popped the cap, and swept it once across his lower lip.
“Too much?”
“Are you asking what I want?”
He looked at me in the mirror.
“No,” he said, surprising both of us. “I’m asking if it looks good.”
“It does.”
The delivery app on his phone chimed. The tracker changed from forty-five minutes to fourteen.
Neither of us moved to change clothes.
bedroom mirror · ironing, pleats fanning
Sam didn’t look at the app. He caught my wrist, his grip surprisingly firm, and pulled me out of the bathroom and into the living room.
“Fourteen minutes,” I whispered.
“I heard the chime.”
He dropped to his knees on the thick woven rug between the sofa and the coffee table. The pleats fanned out across the low-pile carpet in a wide circle of red and black tartan, settling against his bare thighs where the tights ended. He leaned back on his heels, breathing hard, looking up at me with his lips shiny with peach balm.
“You’re not taking it off?” I asked.
“No,” Sam said, his voice dropping an octave. “Lift it.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. I knelt in front of him, reaching out with both hands to bunch the heavy wool in my fists. I gathered it slowly, hiking the hem past his hips. Underneath, his black lace briefs were tented tight, the curved stainless steel cage beneath them pressing hard against the sheer fabric. He was locked up, completely caged, aching and desperate.
“Sam…”
“Don’t unlock it,” he ordered softly, his hands coming down to rest on my shoulders. “I want it like this. In the skirt.”
I slid the lace down his thighs, leaving the cage exposed. The metal was warm from his body, the tiny padlock resting heavy against his balls. I leaned down and kissed his throat, tasting the clean soap on his skin, then found his mouth. The peach balm was sweet and slick against my lips. He kissed me back hungrily, his hands tangling in my hair, pulling me down until our chests were pressed flush.
“Please,” he murmured against my mouth. “Touch me.”
I reached for the bottle of massage oil on the bottom shelf of the coffee table. I coated my palm, slicking two fingers, and reached between his legs from behind. When my thumb brushed against his entrance, he let out a shuddering gasp, his hips arching off his calves.
“Julian—”
“I’ve got you, pretty boy.”
The praise hit him like a physical blow. He buried his face in my neck, trembling as I pressed my first finger in. He was hot, tight, and ready, gripping me with an eagerness that made my own breath hitch. I added a second finger, working him open with slow, scissoring strokes, feeling the ring of his cage shift against my wrist with every movement.
“Look at you,” I whispered into his ear. “On the rug in your skirt, taking my fingers while the sushi’s on the elevator.”
“Shut up,” he groaned, but his hips bucked forward, chasing the stretch. “Just—get inside me.”
I didn’t make him wait. I unfastened my trousers, kicked them free, and positioned myself behind him. He stayed on his knees, his hands braced flat against the edge of the coffee table, the wool skirt bunched around his waist like a ruffled belt.
I pressed the head of my cock against his rim. He pushed back against me instantly, guiding me in. With one smooth, deliberate thrust, I buried myself to the hilt.
Sam cried out, a high, breathy sound that bounced off the apartment ceiling. The fullness stretched him wide, pinning him forward. His fingers curled around the edge of the table, his knuckles whitening.
“Good?” I breathed, resting my hands on his hips right over the wool waistband.
“So good. Fuck, Julian, move.”
I started to stroke, slow and deep, pulling almost all the way out before sinking back in until my hips slapped against his ass. The wool pleats rustled with every thrust, brushing against our thighs, a soft tactile whisper underneath the wet, heavy sounds of our bodies colliding. He couldn’t touch his cock, couldn’t stroke himself—every ounce of pleasure was centered entirely where I was filling him.
His head fell back against my chest. His breathing turned ragged, little whimpers spilling from his lips every time my cock rubbed the spot inside him.
“You’re so tight around me,” I murmured, leaning in to bite gently at his collarbone. “You like being fucked in this?”
“Yes,” he gasped, sobbing the word out. “Yes, God, please don’t stop—”
I picked up the pace, my thrusts turning hard and rhythmic, driving him into the table. The cage clinked softly against his thighs. He was completely undone, shaking in my grip, his inner walls clenching around me in desperate, tight spasms.
“Julian, I’m gonna—I’m close—”
“Come for me, Sam.”
He let out a broken, ragged shout as his orgasm hit, clenching around my cock so hard I saw stars. His hips jerked helplessly against the rug, the hands-free climax tearing through him in long, shuddering waves. The sensation pushed me over the edge; I thrust twice more, burying myself deep, and came with a groan that rattled my chest, filling him up while holding the pleated skirt tight in both hands.
For two minutes, neither of us moved. We stayed tangled on the rug, chests heaving, listening to the hum of the refrigerator.
Then the apartment buzzer downstairs sounded. A sharp, loud buzz.
Sam started laughing, a breathless, exhausted laugh, his forehead resting against the coffee table.
dining chair · skirt up, cage exposed, sushi arriving
We ate the sushi on the couch because the dining table was covered in the pile of clothes he had pulled out of the closet and then refused to put away. The delivery driver hadn’t said anything about the skirt. He was interested in whether we had the correct order and why the building number was missing from the app.
Afterward, the skirt ended up over the back of the dining chair, which was where we’d intended to sit when we bought the table. The peach balm had left a faint mark on the collar of my shirt.
On Saturday he ironed the skirt again.
No joke this time. He just asked where we kept the clean dish towels.
