(no subject)

[sekritomg]

Title: Catilinarian Orations
Author: sekrit_omg
Pairing: Stan/Kyle
Rating: R
Summary: One morning, Kyle wakes up with a vagina. LOL! Poor Kyle.
Note: I highly suggest you not take this too seriously.

On Sunday mornings, Kyle is used to waking up twice: Once when Stan gets up to go to church, and again when he comes back. Actually, strike that; Kyle gets up three times on Sundays: Once when Stan gets up, once when Stan comes back, and ultimately when they get up together and go have mediocre pancakes at that dirty little diner that doesn’t have real maple syrup. Kyle is aware that Stan’s parents are aware of this situation, and that they’re not entirely happy about it, but Randy and Sharon stopped parenting when Shelly went to college. More than disappointed, he thinks, they’re simply weirded out that the lazy Jewish boy is sleeping at their house while they’re not around, possibly if not probably riffling through their record collection and reading their mail.

In fact, all Kyle does is sleep. Stan’s measly little twin bed is great for having sex in, if only because Kyle is somewhat turned on by the idea that he might fall off the bed at any given moment. But the mattress is too uncomfortable, the blanket is too thin, and as much as he doesn’t particularly mind sleeping with half of his face tucked into Stan’s armpit hair, the only really decent rest he gets is during those three hours when Stan goes to do penance for being a slothful little sodomite. Stan’s pillow smells like his armpits anyway, so it’s something like all of the Stan with none of the neck spasms.

This had been their long-standing arrangement — since the summer between eighth and ninth grade, in fact. Long before penises came into it, there was still an overwhelming desire to sit up in bed together until 4 a.m. riffing on bullshit, eventually passing out on top of each other. And now penises were part of it, and neither of them was too nonplussed. It was like all that burgeoning sexuality just kind of cracked and pooled on Stan’s floor one Saturday night in June, shortly after sophomore year ended.

It is two years later, almost to the day, and nothing seems out of the ordinary when Kyle wakes up. But he knows something is wrong, because this is the first time he is waking up this morning and Stan is not waking up with him or even getting ready — Stan is gone, baby, gone. But he’s left a little note with a stick figure doodle of himself performing oral sex on a stick figure pope, and Kyle shakes his head sadly and sleepily for Stan, who has always bemoaned his great ideas and lack of a good outlet for them. Truthfully, of all the people they know, and they know at least 30 separate people, the only one who can make a sketch of a human being look like a human being is Butters, but Butters wouldn’t know what giving oral sex to the Pope liked like if you showed him a film of it.

Kyle is quietly contemplating the cruelty of being so damned creative and yet completely talentless when he inadvertently shifts his legs, rubbing them together as he stretches. This is where his disembodied dread solidifies — something is wrong. Something is missing. His thighs feel normal enough, hairy and probably too large, sore where handprint bruises mar his flesh. But that weight — the one he finds both impressively assuring and annoyingly stubborn — is gone entirely. Whipping off the covers, he expects to find that he is now asexual, a cherubic vestige of creation and innocence. Instead, what he finds is inherently disturbing; in place of a phallus, he now has a vagina.

He gets on his hands and knees, which is not so weird. He knows what Stan’s carpet feels like in this position, matted and fucked-up, splotches of wax and whatever crusting in unappealing shapes. He is frantic, not even bothering to feign disgust — it’s half his fault anyway; it’s awful rude to come into someone’s house and ejaculate all over their carpet and then just fall asleep without cleaning it up. He tears at whatever is under Stan’s bed with abandon for several minutes, pulling out all kinds of porno (gay and straight and horses, Jesus fucking Christ, Stan) and balled up T-shirts that haven’t been worn since ninth grade, maybe earlier. Stan wouldn’t fit into them now, anyway; his shapely arms would rip the seams. Kyle gives up, because he knows he’s just not going to find his penis under the bed, not ever. It’s not anywhere. It’s gone. He puts his head in his hands and careens. Lying on his side, he considers maybe putting on his pants, but he is tired, and his pants are so far away, maybe in the bathroom. Kyle is so used to thinking with his brain, and now he knows that the painful pounding of his heart is guiding him. He shuts his eyes, giving a little cry of frustration.

When Stan does come back, Kyle is gone. His pope note is still there, but all of his copies of Hustler and Honcho are now splayed across the floor. Stan wonders if maybe his father was right, Kyle’s only been using him all these years to snoop around through the fascinating Marsh family photo albums and under their unmade beds. But he shakes it off, because that’s just not Kyle. Not bothering to change out of his starchy suit, Stan grabs his keys from the leaf-shaped bowl by the front door and runs after the missing boyfriend.

It doesn’t take Stan long to figure out he’s holed up in his room. What surprises Stan is that he’s just sitting there, docile and silent. He glances up lazily when Stan rolls in, panting, smashing his chest against the door to make sure it’s not just closed but also jammed, unopenable from the hallway. “You found me,” Kyle says dully. “You know, I’m not even going to pretend to be upset about the horses.” He narrows his eyes when Stan sits on the bed, after shedding his suit coat. “But girls, Stan? Oh my god.”

“Okay,” Stan pants. “I don’t like girls. You gotta believe me. I just like porn.”

“So, you don’t like girls?” Kyle asks.

“Well, if spending the past two years licking your ass means anything, then no.”

Kyle chokes out a little “oh, god,” and gets on his knees so he can undo his pants.

“Whoa.” Stan breathes easily, grasping Kyle’s hands to still them as they gracefully manipulate the zipper. “I thought you didn’t like doing this … here,” he says sloppily, glancing around Kyle’s room needlessly.

“I don’t.”

“Mmm, okay,” Stan agrees. “I’m into whatever you’re into.”

“Oh, just shut up, Stan.” There is a kind of identifiable weariness in Kyle’s voice, and Stan lets go of his hands, and backs off. Kyle easily slides his pants and underwear down in one slick movement, and Stan wonders if maybe this is a test, because he is now cursing the stiff itchiness of his church clothes, jacket or no jacket. He decides to split the difference, and stares into Kyle’s eyes while he pulls his long, unflattering blue shirt out of his long, unflattering pants.

“No, you retard,” Kyle urges. He slaps Stan’s hands away from his waist, and points down at his crotch. His voice is still trembling, but Stan still thinks this is a game, some kind of reverse-sexual mindfuck. They only ever screw in Stan’s bedroom, not counting that one time in the woods.

It is in this tense moment of realization that Stan decides not to make a big deal out of this. The part of him that appreciates Kyle as a best friend wants so badly to double over laughing; the boyfriend aspect wants to just hug him and start crying and ask, “Does it hurt?” He knows that he is a sexual person, enjoys these things to the hilt, and that whatever beginnings of arousal he was feeling when Kyle began undoing his fly are gone now, sizzling out like a campfire left to die. Splitting all of these differences, Stan swallows and asks, “How’d that happen?” And for calm effect, he decides to wipe some bangs out of eyes at the same time.

Now that Stan knows, there’s no reason to keep his pants down, so Kyle pulls them back up and gets down off of his knees. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “I woke up and it was like that.”

“Well, that’s really weird,” is all Stan can manage in reply.

“I know,” Kyle agrees.

There is this weird feeling in the air, and it’s not merely the leftover energy from graduation two weeks ago, or the heady cloud of amour that threatens to choke them on Sunday mornings in Stan’s room. It might be the air, which is beginning to thicken up now that it’s summer, but it’s probably that weird thing between Kyle’s legs. They’re both vaguely familiar with the concept in academic terms, but it’s been a long time since either of them was in a bedroom with one.

“So, um, what are we going to do?” Stan asks, scratching the back of his neck. He gets an urge to tuck his shirt back into his pants, but he doesn’t, because to do that he would need to unbuckle his belt and actually undo his damn pants and at this point in time, he doesn’t feel comfortable with those things. Kyle may no longer have one, but his masculinity is still viable, and Stan doesn’t want to begin to contemplate what might happen if he goes there.

“I don’t know,” Kyle confesses. Stan is becoming unnerved, because Kyle is not the silent type, and now he can only issue forth ominously ambiguous truncated statements. Stan decides he needs to perform damage control.

“I still love you,” he offers, extending a clammy hand. Kyle looks at his hand for a moment, and then at Stan’s face, and then he makes a very you-must-be-shitting-me scowl. But his shoulders slump and he gives in, taking Stan’s hand.

Feeling overcome with emotions he can’t describe, Stan grabs Kyle and pulls him into the kind of tight embrace they shared after the first time they slept together — as a euphemism for sex, anyway — after tossing their mortarboards. It’s the only kind of reassurance Stan knows he can solidly give. “I won’t ever leave you,” he whispers, offering the same oversimplified reassurance he’s used to genuinely providing.

“Okay,” Kyle says sadly, letting himself just be hugged for a few moments. He inches his hand in between his hips and Stan’s, feeling out what he knows isn’t there. Stan’s soft manhood is pressed against his thigh, which is as stiff and solid and real as ever. And yet in between his legs, he only feels a hollow emptiness.

~

They decide one thing right away: They’re not going to tell Kyle’s parents. They’re going to keep this very quiet and very secret. Stan for a few days entertains the idea that maybe Kyle should see a doctor, but Kyle balks at this. “I don’t want to see any doctor,” he whines, and ultimately Stan agrees, because what is some doctor going to do? Either Kyle’s penis is coming back, or it’s gone forever, and if there is some medical treatment that can bring it back, there’s no way it’s going to happen without bringing Kyle’s parents into it. Bringing Kyle’s parents into it is only a recipe for boiled disaster, and Kyle predicts questions about his personal life, his sexuality. He doesn’t know what his parents know, and if they don’t he wants to keep it that way. College will come soon enough, and with college will come freedom. He’s been over this with Stan dozens if not hundreds of time.

Stan suggests that there’s no reason why this should be discussed as a sexual matter instead of a purely anatomical one. Because what is Kyle now, anyway? Neither of them is sure. He is the same as he always was, minus that crucial difference. “I don’t feel female,” Kyle announces on a somewhat regular basis, as the weeks turn to a month, which makes it early July. Stan morosely scribbles Clyde’s Independence Day barbecue on his calendar; Kyle sullenly watches from the bed.

“It should be fun,” Stan says blandly.

“Sure,” Kyle monotones. The truth is, they haven’t had fun — fun meaning sex or any good times at all, really — since Kyle lost his penis. They no longer go anywhere, or talk to very many people. Stan was surprised when Clyde called him, as they haven’t even talked to him since graduation. But there’s no reason not to go to a party. Kyle moans about it, tells Stan he thinks other people can tell. The other day in the laundry room, he could have sworn his mother was staring at his crotch; he thinks dogs are unafraid of him now that he can’t command them with his voice, ringing in its certain masculine vibrato.

“Don’t worry,” Stan tries. “Your voice sounds the same.”

“But dogs just know,” Kyle reasons.

“Nobody knows, Kyle. You’re the same boy you always were.”

“Except for this … thing between my legs,” he says unenthusiastically. He can’t make himself put the words “my” and “vagina” in the same sentence, even if they’re not in that order.

When Stan gets dressed for the party, he steps into a forest-green Speedo. He only owns Speedos, due to his four-year tenure on the swim team. Despite staying at Stan’s nearly every night since the change, it’s the first time Kyle’s really seen him in all his glory since then. His lips are dry, so he licks them, and Stan pauses. “What?” he asks nervously, catching Kyle’s glance.

“It looks good on you,” he says slowly, trying to register this feeling.

“What, my bathing suit?”

“Yeah,” Kyle confirms. “It fits nicely.”

“Thanks,” Stan says languidly. The truth is, he feels very awkward. He knows Kyle likes this bathing suit; he always has. Their first hookup was the evening after a swim meet; Kyle has thrust against his spandex-clad crotch madly, like a bitch in heat, making him come inside his own swimsuit. He is sitting on the bed now, hands folded pleasantly in his lap, a single flip-flop dangling precariously off the end of his left foot. His thin lips are pressed together tensely, and Stan sees in him the same boy he’s always loved, the same visage he’s always appreciated when clothed anyhow.

For his part, Kyle is trying to feel it out. He thinks it might be lust; the curvature of Stan’s (and he chokes on this word when he mouths it to himself) manhood is prominent, green for vitality, and he can make out the shape of the head through the fabric. But it could also be envy, because he misses the way they used to press them together, getting a little excited just for the thrill of seeing themselves side-by-side, that close.

They’re both mortal sins, Kyle figures. Close enough. He makes a move, slipping a hand inside Stan’s little Speedo. Kyle feels that after a month of paltry masturbation after two years of rough fornication, Stan is tight with need, and his mouth is searching for intimacy, missing it dreadfully. Kyle knows it won’t take long, so he slips off his cargo shorts and guides Stan into this extremely weird place. He’s right, of course — it doesn’t take too long, and when he is done Kyle shoves him off, because he hates the way it feels in there. It’s weird to him — it reminds him of getting X-rays taken at the dentist, like he is salivating too much and things are poking him in weird places, all because there is something that doesn’t belong there inside of him, and as satisfying as it feels it’s also an invasion.

He doesn’t cry often, but he cries after this. Stan tries to help him, but Kyle asks for the truth. “Was it okay for you?” Kyle wants to know, blowing his nose.

“It was wrong,” Stan admits. “It was too wet. And too hot. It was like a jungle.”

“You’ve never been to the jungle,” Kyle notes.

“I can’t lie to you,” Stan says conclusively. “I respect you too much. I’m gay, and that’s a vagina. I don’t like it.”

Kyle admits, “That makes two of us.” Stan pulls his Speedo back up, and they go to the party. Feeling the sticky residue of that pale imitation of their former sex drooling down his thighs, Kyle spends most of the time sitting on a lawn chair in the corner of the yard, speaking to no one and feeling miserable. Stan brings him a Corona, and kisses his forehead. He feels it’s the least he can do for Kyle, because he loves him, godammit, and he wants it to be fine already. Truthfully, he’s just as scared as Kyle. It’s not really a gender issue, because Kyle knows who he is and always has. No, it’s a sex issue now, through and through. If he wanted it this way, he’d have gotten himself a girl. But he can’t just sit in the corner with Kyle and be miserable — people will wonder what’s wrong. So he talks with Cartman and Kenny about buying an eighth, maybe to enjoy after fireworks. He dances with a couple of girls to upbeat music, wondering if they can smell their kind on him. They don’t say anything.

Kyle is miserable watching Stan dance with Milly, and it’s only after a few numbers that he notices Clyde’s been standing next to him this whole time, breathing eerily like a steam vent. “I know,” he says sullenly.

“You do?” Kyle asks, afraid to admit to himself that it’s obvious.

“You don’t want to lose him, do you?”

“Well, no,” Kyle says emphatically, still stunned at Clyde’s newfound emotional intelligence.

“Come with me. I have something to show you.”

Upstairs, Clyde pulls out a manila folder. “Read them,” he says helpfully, flopping down on his plaid bedspread.

They are love notes; love notes from Craig, actually, all painfully rendered in that horrible, crabby print.

“Oh.” Kyle is unimpressed. “Good for you.”

“Good for me?” Clyde asks. “We weren’t sexually compatible.”

“Why not?” Kyle asks. He is intrigued now, because he half expects Clyde to break out his own vulva and just come right out and ask if he wants to scissor. But he doesn’t do this, and Kyle’s wandering eyes confirm what he already knows: Clyde’s masculinity is perfectly healthy.

“Craig, well…” Clyde becomes bashful. “He likes to top.”

“Really?” Kyle asks, making sure to sound as bored as he possibly can. “What, and so do you?”

“I can take it or leave it,” he admits. “But the problem is deeper.” Kyle still looks bored, so he just goes ahead and says it. “I don’t have an ass,” he admits.

“Yes, you do,” Kyle yawns. “It’s right there.” He pokes Clyde in his behind. “Kind of flat, but it’ll do in a pinch.”

“No, you misunderstand,” Clyde says. “I don’t have a rectum.”

“Oh.” Kyle is unimpressed. “Did you wake up one morning with an ass-vagina?”

“No, you misunderstand,” Clyde repeats, only to launch into the story of the miserable April afternoon when he had his colostomy. He is appropriately graphic, leaving Kyle with a sinking feeling in his stomach while he painfully clenches his ass. It has taken Kyle this long to remember that it exists, but here was poor Clyde, who didn’t have any back-end at all. For all the ballyhoo about his butt, it is the first time in his life that Kyle really realizes what kind of impact it might have on the non-digestive aspects of his being. He blushes, and Clyde sits down next to him.

“Why are you telling me this?” Kyle squeezes his legs together protectively, not sure if he is guarding his sex organs or just ashamed of them or what, but he is rather wary of Clyde in general. Clyde’s sad eyes make him uncomfortable. It’s never something Kyle really thinks about — Clyde is just another guy in the class, another guy Stan might stare at in the locker room after swim practice while Kyle is left sitting on the bleachers. Up to now Kyle has never even considered that Clyde might be gay, or might not have a rectum. He eases up a little, however, when he realizes that without a rectum, Clyde is of no interest to Stan, and probably never will be. Stan likes to trade off, and that’s just it — he’s quite serious about the trading. No trading, no deal.

“I see a lot of love between you guys,” Clyde is saying by way of answer, and Kyle almost snorts in derision, because this is just effed-up insane. Clyde doesn’t even know them; how can he know what there is between them, what they might at risk of losing? “When Craig left me, I promised myself I would do whatever I could to protect other people’s relationships. I need you guys to make it.”

“I’m horrified,” Kyle says quite plainly. “Who are you, some kind of anti-dumping crusader?” He pauses. “And for that matter, how the fuck do you know I’m missing my penis?”

“It’s in your posture.”

“I’m flattered,” Kyle replies. “But believe me, it was nowhere near big enough to have any significant impact on my posture.”

Clyde just sighs and says, “It’s emotional, dude. It’s emotional.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Kyle lolls.

“So how are we going to keep you guys from splitting up?” Clyde cracks his fingers, ready for action.

“We are not doing anything. Stan says he won’t leave me.”

“Well, of course. That’s what he says.”

Kyle’s eyes widen. “I trust Stan more than anyone on the planet,” Kyle concludes. He gets up off the bed. “You’re a freak, Clyde. Please never speak to me again.” Clyde makes no attempt to run after Kyle in any kind of classical way. He simply sighs and gets up, stretches and hobbles down the stairs, back out to the party.

For his part, Kyle barges in on Stan and his current dance partner, Wendy, a tried-and-true stand-by. “Excuse me,” he growls, shoving her out of the way.

She meekly protests, shocked more than anything; it is the only time she can ever remember being pushed aside during a dance. “Hey!” she snaps, but Clyde is watching this, and he takes the opportunity to pull her against him, and place her hand on his hip.

“Hey yourself,” he says coolly. “How are you doing?” She nods noncommittally, and they dance to an embarrassingly cool remix of the 1812 overture.

Stan grabs onto Kyle’s behind for dear life, and pulls him close. “This music is horrible,” he says, and Kyle can just tell that his eyes are a little glassy with inebriation — he’s buzzed, no doubt, but not a lost cause.

“I like it,” Kyle confesses by way of reply. “I like dancing with you.”

“Kyle,” Stan says. “This is the first time we have ever, ever danced together.” A pause, and Stan sniffs in between his words. “In public.”

“I know,” Kyle says appreciatively. “Let’s not waste this.”

~

After the dancing, and after Clyde’s parents have chased them all away with a garden hose, Kyle and Stan are sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Broflovski residence, watching the fireworks. Stan grouses that he should never have given Cartman his $20, because here it is several hours later, and he hasn’t seen either the return of his cash or any kind of mood-enhancer. Kyle just takes it all in, especially that slippery feeling between his legs. He is praying that Stan cannot detect the weird odor Kyle is so certain must be emanating from his loins. Stan, he knows, is too much of a gentleman to say anything. At best, he would perform a song and dance about wanting to get to bed, and then excuse himself for the evening.

But no, Stan is sitting right here, nursing a Corona (in honor of Independence Day, naturally) and caressing Kyle’s thigh. If his parents were home, Kyle might feel uneasy with this, but they’re not, and the combination of cool breezes coming off the mountains and Stan’s dry fingertips playing with his wiry hairs is calming. It almost feels too normal. Except, of course, for that squishy feeling. How could he forget about that?

So to take his mind off of it, he talks about Clyde. “What a hero, looking out for our relationship,” Stan notes when the story is concluded. “Let’s send him a fruit basket or something.” Kyle drinks in Stan’s wry grin, and silently mouths a wish on a firework as it crumbles in the deep violet sky to a shower of tiny white missiles. Please, he begs no one in particular. Please don’t take this away from me. “What are you doing?” Stan wants to know.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t let Clyde get to you,” Stan cautions.

“Oh, I won’t. It’s just…

“I think Clyde has always been a kind of equal-opportunity sleaze,” Stan opines.

“I guess,” Kyle non-commits.

“Do you think he was trying to pick you up?”

“I don’t know.” The truth is, perhaps Kyle did think that, but he is far too absorbed in the moment to worry about Clyde. Clyde is insignificant, and so is everyone else. When they go to college in a month and a half, and the beginning of this little fairytale of theirs continues to congeal, Clyde’s part in the story will be over. Hell, even Cartman’s and Kenny’s roles will be significantly reduced. All that will be left is Stan and Kyle, and whatever they have between them. Kyle sweats as he hopes and wonders whether there will still be something left between them by then, or if it will be sucked into the gaping void that sits between his thighs now.

Beer always makes Stan lusty, and at Stan’s house that night, they screw like six times. Kyle doesn’t want to admit it, but during the third go, pressed up against the air-conditioned-cool glass of Stan’s bedroom window, his nipples harden, and he thinks about Clyde. Not in a sexual way — he just feels superior is all, because he can do this (if indeed he is doing anything in this passive place) and Clyde has never been so lucky. Stan accidentally grabs for Kyle’s dick a couple of times during their marathon session, and each time he recoils nearly immediately. While resting after time No. 5 (with Kyle bent over Stan’s laundry hamper), Stan absently toys with Kyle’s nipples. Kyle is beginning to think that perhaps like a blind person who develops an enriched sense of hearing, his tits are becoming overly sensitive. He gasps a little. He fidgets a little. Stan shakes the fog of sleepiness and sex from his mind for long enough to plant a smooch on waiting lips, and then he says, “Well, I still don’t like it.”

“That’s nice,” Kyle yawns, too tired to protest what he knows in academic terms are words of cruelty.

“But, I mean…” Stan is very sly, the way he dips one finger into that private abyss. “It’s part of you, isn’t it?”

“Stop it.” Kyle shoves Stan’s hand away as tears come to his eyes. “It’s not me. This isn’t me.”

“Then tell me, Kyle, who is it?”

Kyle doesn’t know. He is beginning to forget himself. The old Kyle would never have let Stan go for so long without sex that he feels the need to work it off inside Kyle’s ass six times in five hours. Come to think of it, the old Kyle would never have let himself go a month without sex, and in that month he would have given it to Stan just as often as he got it in return. This is insane. He tells himself that Stan is trying to be supportive, hasn’t left him for a newer, shiner model with a bigger — or rather, any — unit. Stan is trying his best, Kyle tells himself. He’s trying the best he can, he’s trying the best he can, he’s doing the best he can considering he’s just a stupid man—

Kyle stops himself mid-thought. He’s gender-baiting, and it worries him. Stan is no more a man than I am, he tells himself. I might not have a cock, but I still have my Y chromosome. As Stan kisses the tears away and very gently readies Kyle for round six, Kyle promises himself he will learn to make do with what he has now. Because if this is who he is now — if Stan is willing to accept him — then he must accept himself. He doesn’t come this time, just like he didn’t come the other five times, but he does enjoy the corkscrew motions of Stan’s fingers on his chest.

They go to sleep as the sun comes up, and Kyle inhales the familiar scent of Stan’s masculinity rising off of his sweat-swathed skin. It has always been a comfort to him in times of desperation, and now, it’s the one thing that remains constant. In fact, it’s the one thing that allows him to rest. It’s unthinkable that Stan would ever spend the night at his house, and they need to be together, or Kyle can’t sleep. So they continue to stay at the Marshes’, and as July 5th dawns, Kyle reminds himself that this sticky hole between his legs is the very real reason he can’t go home again.

Continued here.