The Care We Give in Secret

The circle of folding chairs was a familiar constellation, the fluorescent lights humming a flat, indifferent song. Leo watched the steam curl from his mug of terrible coffee, the paper cup soft and warm in his hands. The scent of stale cookies and industrial cleaner was the perfume of this particular kind of sanctuary. He’d been coming for over a year, a veteran of this shared, unglamorous trench warfare of transition. The routine was a comfort: the bad coffee, the worn linoleum, the way the group’s collective breath seemed to soften the edges of the harsh world waiting outside.

“I guess… I guess I’m just tired of being a lesson,” Morgan was saying, their voice a low, melodic thread in the quiet room. They sat across from Leo, legs crossed, picking at a loose thread on their jeans. “My existence isn’t a teachable moment for cis people. I’m not a walking FAQ.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the group. Nods, sighs, the soft clink of a spoon against ceramic. Leo found his eyes tracing the line of Morgan’s jaw, the subtle shadow where their weekly laser treatment was slowly winning its war. He’d noticed them the first meeting they attended, three months ago—a quiet presence with watchful green eyes and a nervous habit of twisting the silver ring on their thumb. Tonight, those eyes held a particular intensity, a weary fire that resonated deep in Leo’s own history.

“It’s the medical gatekeeping for me this week,” said Sam, to Leo’s left. “Another six-month wait for a consultation I’ve already been cleared for. It feels designed to make you give up.”

The conversation flowed, a river of shared frustrations and small victories. Leo shared his own update, the ongoing battle with a health insurance appeals process, his voice calm and measured. He was the steady one, the practical one. But his attention, like a compass needle, kept drifting back to Morgan, to the way they listened, truly listened, their whole body oriented toward the speaker. He saw the way Morgan’s fingers stilled on their jeans when he spoke, the slight tilt of their head. It felt like being heard on a frequency others often missed.

When the facilitator, Anya, brought the meeting to a close, the group dissolved into the soft chatter of packing up. Leo took his time, rinsing his mug at the small sink in the corner. The water was too hot, scalding his fingers, a minor punishment for the distraction Morgan had become.

“Your tip about the notary last time saved me about fifty bucks.”

Leo turned, water dripping from his hands. Morgan was there, leaning against the doorframe, their denim jacket slung over one shoulder. Up close, Leo could see the faint dusting of freckles across their nose, the slight chip in the polish on their thumbnail.

“Oh, good. Glad it helped,” Leo said, reaching for a paper towel. The flicker of warmth in his chest was becoming a familiar, treacherous response.

“I was wondering,” Morgan began, then stopped. Their gaze dropped to the linoleum, where a long, grey scuff mark cut a path towards the door, before rising to meet his again. “I’ve got this… letter from my endocrinologist. For top surgery. It’s full of legalese. Makes my head spin. You seem to have navigated all this. Would you… maybe look it over? Tell me if I’m missing something?”

It was a common enough request within these walls. The exchange of knowledge was a currency more valuable than anything. But the way Morgan asked—the slight hesitation that felt less like uncertainty and more like the prelude to something else, the way their eyes held his a beat too long—made Leo’s pulse trip against his ribs. He felt the unspoken rules of the space press in: This is for support. Keep it clean. Don’t complicate the sanctuary.

“Sure. Of course,” Leo said, his voice thankfully even. “Now?”

“My place is just a few blocks away. If that’s not… I mean, we could just sit in the parking lot.” Morgan offered the alternative like a test, their expression carefully neutral, but Leo saw the hopeful tension in their shoulders.

“Your place is fine,” Leo said, the words out before he could properly weigh them. He watched a visible relaxation soften Morgan’s posture, a quick breath released.

The walk was short, filled with the chill of the evening and the comfortable silence of two people who didn’t feel the need to fill the space with noise. Morgan’s apartment was a third-floor walk-up in an old brick building, the hallway smelling of cabbage and lemon-scented cleaner. At the door, Morgan fumbled with their keys, the metal jangling loudly in the quiet hall.

“It’s a mess,” they warned, pushing the door open.

The apartment was small and cluttered, books stacked on the floor, plants fighting for light on every surface. It smelled of sandalwood incense and the ghost of last night’s stir-fry, underpinned by the faint, pleasant odor of damp soil from the overwatered ferns. They moved around each other in the compact kitchen, a careful dance in the narrow space. Morgan filled a kettle while Leo sat at the small, scarred wooden table, the important letter spread before him under the glow of a pendant lamp with a cracked glass shade.

He explained the clauses, the insurance codes, the necessary phrasing. Morgan stood behind him, leaning over his shoulder to follow his finger on the page. He was acutely aware of their proximity: the heat of their body a few inches from his back, the faint, clean scent of their soap—something herbal, like rosemary—cutting through the incense. Their breath stirred the hair near his temple when they asked a question.

“So this part here,” Morgan murmured, their voice close to his ear, “that’s just them covering their asses?”

“Basically. Standard CYA language.” Leo’s own voice sounded rough to his ears.

Morgan straightened up, putting a few deliberate inches of air between them. “Thank you. Really. It seems so obvious when you point it out.” They brought two mugs of tea to the table, the ceramic clinking softly, and sat across from him. The formal pretext was gone. They were just two people in a quiet room, the letter a spent bridge between them.

“How long post-op are you?” Morgan asked, their eyes flicking down to Leo’s chest for a brief, unguarded moment before returning to his face.

“Eight months,” Leo said. He didn’t mind the glance. In this context, it wasn’t invasive; it was a question, a point on a map they were both learning to read. “Still getting used to it. The phantom itch is gone, but the nerves are… rewiring. It’s strange. Good strange. But strange.”

“I dream about it,” Morgan said, their voice soft, almost confessional. They wrapped their hands around their mug. “The weight being gone. The feeling of a t-shirt lying flat. I get jealous of my own imagination, which is a new level of pathetic.”

Leo understood that jealousy. He remembered it viscerally, a hollow, yearning thing that lived in his throat and hands. “It’s worth the fight. All the paperwork, the waiting, the… the revealing of yourself to a dozen strangers in white coats. It’s worth it.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, listening to the hum of the refrigerator and the distant sigh of traffic. The light from the lamp cast deep shadows under Morgan’s eyes, making them look older, wearier, but also more real.

“Can I ask you something?” Morgan said finally, not looking up from their tea. “Not about the letter.”

“Okay.” Leo felt the atmosphere shift, thickening like the air before a storm.

“Does it feel… different? Being touched there? Now?”

The question hung in the air, intimate and direct, a stone dropped into the still pool of the kitchen. This was beyond the standard support-group sharing of frustrations and resources. This was mapping uncharted, personal territory.

Leo considered his words, weighing honesty against discretion. The careful walls he maintained here felt suddenly thin. “Yes. And no. The skin is mostly numb, tingly in patches. But the muscle underneath… it’s more sensitive than I expected. A touch here,” he gestured vaguely to his own chest, “feels… deeper. More internal. It’s not the same kind of surface sensation. It’s better. It’s mine.”

Morgan absorbed this, their expression one of intense focus, as if memorizing the description. They nodded slowly. “I want that,” they said, almost to themself, the words a quiet exhale.

The air in the small kitchen grew heavy, charged with something that had been humming beneath the surface since the community center. Leo felt a familiar tension coiling low in his belly, a desire he usually compartmentalized, locked away as too complicated, too fraught with the unspoken rules of their shared, fragile ecosystem.

“Morgan…” he started, not knowing what he intended to say. A warning? An invitation?

“I’m sorry,” they said quickly, color rising in their cheeks. They looked away, chastised. “That was too personal. Boundaries. I know.”

“It’s not that,” Leo said, reaching across the table without thinking, his fingers stopping just short of touching their hand. He pulled back, resting his own hand flat on the cool wood. “It’s just… this.” He gestured between them. “This, here, outside the group. It’s…”

“Complicated,” Morgan finished for him, finally meeting his eyes again. The vulnerability there was stark, but so was a glimmer of defiance.

“Yeah.”

“I know.” Morgan leaned forward, elbows on the table, bridging the space he’d just maintained. “I felt it too. Last meeting. When you were talking about your voice dropping, and how your laugh changed. I kept thinking about what that sound would feel like. Close up. Against my ear.” The admission was a door swinging open on a creaking hinge. It was more than Leo had expected, a specificity that sent a jolt through him.

He held their gaze, the green of their eyes dark in the low light. The careful walls, the armor of shared struggle, seemed to thin, to become translucent. He could see the person behind them, hopeful and scared and wanting.

“What are we doing?” Leo asked, his voice low, barely above a whisper.

“I don’t know,” Morgan said. But they were leaning closer, their face now only inches from his. Their breath smelled of ginger tea. “Maybe… exploring?”

The first kiss was a question. Soft, tentative, a brush of lips that was more about permission than passion, testing the temperature of this new space between them. When Leo didn’t pull away, when he instead let his eyes fall shut, Morgan deepened it. Their hand came up to cup the side of his face, their thumb stroking his cheekbone with a tenderness that made Leo’s chest ache. He kissed back, a surge of warmth flooding him, so potent it felt like relief. It felt startlingly, profoundly normal, and yet entirely new. He was kissing someone who understood, without explanation or translation, the landscape of his body, the history written on it in scars and hormones and choice.

They broke apart, breathing a little unsteady. Morgan’s eyes searched his, their thumb still tracing his cheekbone.

“Is this okay?” Morgan whispered, the words a warm puff against his lips.

Leo nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah,” he breathed. “It’s… more than okay.”

They moved to the small living room, a space dominated by a worn, burgundy sofa piled with mismatched cushions and a faded crocheted blanket. The clinical questions fell away, replaced by a different kind of exploration, slow and deliberate. Morgan’s fingers found the hem of Leo’s shirt, a silent query. Leo nodded, and they helped him pull it over his head, the cotton catching briefly on his ears.

The cool air of the apartment raised goosebumps on his skin. Morgan’s gaze was not clinical, not curious in the way of a doctor assessing work. It was reverent. Their fingertips hovered over the twin scars, faded pink lines arcing under his pectorals, before tracing them with a touch so light it was almost imperceptible—a whisper against his skin.

“Beautiful,” they murmured.

The word unmoored Leo. He’d heard “healthy,” “well-healed,” “excellent results.” Never beautiful. The term, applied to this part of him he was still making peace with, lodged in his throat. He reached for Morgan, pulling them into another kiss, this one hotter, hungrier. His own hands slid under their soft, well-worn cotton shirt, feeling the warmth of their skin, the gentle swell of breasts still bound by a compressive sports bra. Morgan tensed for a fraction of a second, a tiny, instinctive flinch at the contact, a lifetime of dysphoria triggering, before melting into the touch with a soft, broken sound.

“You can,” they said against his lips, the words vibrating into him. “It’s… it’s okay. With you, it’s okay.”

Leo was slow, deliberate. He pushed the fabric up, exposing Morgan’s torso, the pale skin of their stomach, the dark band of the sports bra—a practical fortress. He met Morgan’s eyes, saw the vulnerability there, mixed with a fierce, defiant want. With their consenting nod, he helped them remove it, the elastic snapping softly. Morgan’s body was a map of its own—softer, curved, in the midst of its journey. They watched Leo’s face, anxiety tightening their features, their arms coming up slightly in a half-aborted gesture to cover themself.

Leo didn’t speak. He bent his head and took one nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the peak. Morgan gasped, a sharp, shocked sound that dissolved into a low, shuddering moan. Their back arched off the cushions, pressing more of themself into Leo’s mouth, their hands flying to his hair, not pushing, but holding on.

“God… oh, god, Leo,” they choked out, their voice thick. “I thought… I didn’t think I could feel that anymore. Not without wanting to crawl out of my skin.”

Leo understood. The dysphoria that could make pleasure feel like a violation, the way touch could be a minefield. To find a spot where touch was simply touch, where sensation was just sensation, unburdened by grief or dissonance—it was a kind of miracle. He switched to the other side, lavishing the same attention, learning the sounds Morgan made, the way their breath hitched.

His hand slid down, palming Morgan through their jeans, feeling the hard length of them straining against the denim. Morgan bucked into the pressure, a ragged groan torn from their throat. “Please…”

They helped each other out of the rest of their clothes, a fumbling, eager dance on the narrow couch, knees bumping, laughter mixing with shaky breaths. Naked, they paused, simply looking. It was not the polished, airbrushed nudity of fantasy. It was real, vulnerable, marked by injections and binders, by scars and hope and the quiet, daily labor of becoming. To Leo, it was the most profoundly erotic thing he had ever seen.

Morgan reached for him, their hand wrapping around his cock. The touch was electric, not just for the friction, but for the understanding behind it. It was the hand of someone who knew what it meant to have this, to have chosen this, to have fought for this alignment of flesh and self. Their strokes were confident, curious, learning his rhythm, their thumb smearing the bead of moisture at his tip.

“I want to taste you,” Morgan said, their voice husky with want.

They slid down, settling between Leo’s legs, the rough texture of the crocheted blanket scratching against their knees. When they took him into their mouth, it was with a focused, almost studious intensity that made Leo’s vision blur at the edges. They explored him, humming with satisfaction at the sounds he made, at the way his hips twitched involuntarily. Leo tangled his hands in Morgan’s dark hair, not guiding, just anchoring himself to the reality of this moment.

The build was slow and deep, a tide rising from his core, coiling tighter with each swipe of Morgan’s tongue. “Morgan, I’m going to…”

Morgan didn’t pull away. They took him deeper, swallowing around him as he came with a broken cry, his body arching off the cushions, every muscle taut before collapsing into boneless release.

As Leo floated back to himself, spent and trembling, Morgan crawled back up his body, kissing his stomach, the damp trail of hair leading down, his chest, finally his lips, sharing the taste of him. They were still hard, their erection pressing insistently against Leo’s thigh.

“Let me,” Leo said, his voice rough with use.

He urged Morgan onto their back and lowered his head between their legs. The scent here was musky, familiar yet new, uniquely them. He took them in his mouth, using his tongue and lips in a way he knew intimately from his own body, but attuned now to Morgan’s specific responses—the jerk of their hip at a certain pressure, the way their breath caught when he sucked gently. Morgan’s cries were less restrained now, a litany of “yes” and “right there” and “Leo, please, don’t stop.” Their hands fisted in the burgundy fabric of the cushion, their hips moving in a desperate, rising rhythm.

When they came, it was with a sob that sounded like release in every sense of the word. Their body shuddered violently, then went utterly limp, as if all the tension of weeks, of months, had been purged.

They lay tangled together in the afterglow, the evening light long gone, replaced by the orange glow of a streetlamp filtering through the blinds. The support group, the world outside, felt a universe away.

“So,” Morgan said eventually, their voice sleep-slurred as they traced idle patterns on Leo’s arm. “That happened.”

“It did.”

“It was…”

“Yeah.”

Leo spent the night, the narrow sofa forcing them into close contact. He woke before Morgan, in the grey pre-dawn light, to the sight of them sleeping deeply, their face finally relaxed, their breath puffing softly against his collarbone. The reality of it settled over him—warm, complicated, and undeniably right.

A week later, in the circle of chairs, everything was the same, and everything was different. Leo listened to a new member, a young guy named Eli, talk about his family’s rejection, his voice cracking. Leo’s heart ached for him, a clean, empathetic pain. His eyes met Morgan’s across the circle. Morgan gave a small, almost imperceptible nod towards Eli, a shared understanding of that particular grief. Then, a ghost of a different, private smile touched Morgan’s lips before vanishing, a secret held between them in the midst of the shared, communal pain.

After the meeting, they didn’t need to discuss it. They walked out together into the crisp night air, their shoulders brushing as they navigated the cracked pavement. This time, they went to Leo’s apartment, a quieter, more orderly space in a newer building, with clean lines and less clutter.

The kissing began as soon as the door clicked shut, hungry and deep, fueled by a week of stolen glances and charged silence. They were less tentative now, more sure of their welcome, their hands relearning the geography they’d started to map.

“I’ve been thinking,” Morgan said, as Leo kissed a trail down their neck, sucking lightly at the sensitive spot just above their collarbone. “About what you said. About sensation being different. Deeper.”

“Yeah?” Leo mumbled against their skin, his hands sliding under their shirt.

“I want to feel it. On you. While you’re… inside me.”

Leo understood. He took their hand and led them to the bedroom, a room dominated by a large, low bed with crisp, grey sheets. He lay back, and Morgan straddled his hips, their movements assured. They took Leo’s cock in hand, guiding it to their entrance. They were tight, and Leo could see the concentration on their face in the soft light from the bedside lamp, the mixture of apprehension and raw desire.

“Go slow,” Leo whispered, his hands coming to rest on their thighs, feeling the muscle quiver.

Morgan sank down, inch by exquisite inch, a slow, burning stretch that made them both gasp. When they were fully seated, a low, guttural moan escaped Morgan, their head falling forward. They were so deep inside Morgan, and the look on Morgan’s face when they lifted their head was one of stunned, wide-eyed revelation.

“Oh, fuck,” Morgan breathed, their voice trembling. “It’s… you’re so… I can feel you everywhere.”

They began to move, a slow, rocking grind that was less about frantic friction and more about savoring the profound fullness. Leo’s hands settled on their hips, feeling the powerful muscles work beneath the skin. He could feel every internal clench, every flutter around him. Morgan’s head fell back again, exposing the long, elegant line of their throat. Then, tentatively, they placed their own hands on their chest, over their breasts, squeezing, pinching their own nipples experimentally.

“See?” they gasped, looking down at Leo, their eyes dark and glazed with pleasure. “It’s different now. When I do this… when you’re in me… it doesn’t feel wrong. It doesn’t feel like mine in a bad way. It feels like it’s for you. For this.” Their rhythm stuttered as they tweaked a nipple, a sharp gasp punching out of them.

The shift in perspective, in power, was subtle but intoxicating. Morgan was using their body, a body they were often at war with, to give and receive pleasure without conflict, to actively participate in a way that felt affirming rather than dissociative. Leo thrust up gently to meet them, and the pace quickened incrementally. The room filled with the slick sounds of their joining, ragged breathing, and helpless, hungry noises. The cool, smooth sheets bunched beneath them, a contrast to the heat of their skin.

“Touch yourself,” Leo urged, his voice strained with the effort of holding back. “Let me see you come.”

Morgan’s hand slipped between their own legs, rubbing quick, frantic circles. Their movements became erratic, their rhythm breaking apart as pleasure coiled too tight. “Leo… I’m gonna… I can’t—”

“Come for me,” Leo growled, his own control fraying.

It was all the permission they needed. Morgan’s body locked, a silent, open-mouthed scream on their lips as they came, pulsing tightly, rhythmically around him. The intense, milking sensation tipped Leo over the edge, and he followed, spilling into them with a shout, his hips lifting off the bed.

They collapsed together, a sweaty, sated heap on the tangled grey sheets. Morgan didn’t pull away immediately, resting their forehead against Leo’s shoulder, their breath slowly evening out.

“I never thought I could do that,” Morgan whispered into the quiet room. “Just… let go like that. Be in my body like that.”

“You’re incredible,” Leo said, and he meant it in every possible way—their courage, their hunger, their capacity for pleasure.

The meetings continued, a weekly anchor. They were careful, professional, supportive within the four walls of the community center. They offered advice, shared resources, held space for others. But their eyes would meet across the circle during a quiet moment, and a current would pass between them, a promise of what came after, a secret language of glances and subtle shifts in posture.

One evening, after a particularly grueling meeting dominated by stories of public harassment and transphobic violence, the energy between them was charged, frantic with the need to reclaim a sense of power, of ownership, of pure, uncomplicated agency. The world felt sharp and hostile, and they needed a refuge made of flesh and breath.

They barely made it into Leo’s apartment. His back was against the door almost before it was fully closed, Morgan’s mouth hot and demanding on his, tasting of salt and anger and need. There was a roughness to them tonight, a sharp edge that hadn’t been there before. Morgan’s hands tugged at his clothes with impatient urgency.

“I want you to fuck me,” Morgan panted, biting at Leo’s lower lip, not quite hard enough to break the skin. “Hard. Make me forget everything except this. Make me feel strong.”

They ended up in the shower, steam fogging the glass enclosure, the world outside reduced to a blur of white noise. The water was almost too hot, pelting their skin. Morgan was bent over, hands braced against the small, cool, square tiles, the grout lines rough under their fingertips. Leo pressed into them from behind, the water sluicing over their joined bodies, making everything slick and heated. The angle was deep, relentless. He gripped Morgan’s hips, his fingers leaving pale, then pink, marks on their rain-wet skin. The drumbeat of the water on the fibreglass tub was a percussive counterpoint to their ragged breathing.

“Is this what you want?” Leo grunted, driving into them, each thrust a punctuation mark against the day’s cruelties.

“Yes! God, yes! More! Don’t be gentle!” Morgan pushed back against him, meeting him thrust for thrust, their cries echoing off the tiles, swallowed by the steam and the water’s roar. It was cathartic, a physical exorcism. Leo lost himself in the rhythm, in the heat, in the powerful clench of Morgan’s body around him, in the way their skin smelled of clean sweat and Leo’s own soap under the spray. It was fierce, almost brutal in its honesty, and when they both came—Morgan first with a shout that was half-sob, Leo following with a groan that felt ripped from his core—it was with a sense of purgation, of having fought the world back, together, in this small, private arena.

After, wrapped in thick, absorbent towels on the bathroom floor, the tiles cool and hard beneath them, Morgan started to laugh, a slightly hysterical, utterly free sound that bubbled up from their chest.

“What?” Leo asked, smiling despite his own exhaustion, reaching out to push a damp lock of hair from Morgan’s forehead.

“We’re a mess,” Morgan said, grinning, their eyes bright. “A beautiful, complicated, fucking amazing mess. I have shower water in my sinuses.”

Leo pulled them close, their damp bodies meeting through the terrycloth. “The best kind of mess.”

As the weeks turned into months, their explorations became a language of their own, a dialect of touch and sigh and whispered affirmation. They learned each other’s bodies not as finished products, but as works in progress, landscapes under constant, gentle revision. Morgan started hormones, and they celebrated the first tender, achy swelling of new breast tissue, the subtle shifts in scent and skin texture, not with clinical distance, but with sensual, joyful appreciation. Leo would kiss the sore spots gently, making Morgan shiver, and they would spend hours just lying together, Morgan guiding Leo’s hand to feel the nascent changes, their eyes closed in concentration.

Leo, more settled in his own transition, found a new kind of joy in witnessing and facilitating Morgan’s journey, in being the safe harbor where they could experience their changing body without judgment or expectation. It was mutual aid of the most intimate kind.

One night, lying in the post-coital haze in Leo’s bed, the city lights painting faint stripes across the ceiling, Morgan traced the lines of Leo’s top surgery scars with a fingertip, following the familiar paths.

“This… us… it doesn’t feel like it fits in the ‘support group’ box anymore,” Morgan said, their voice thoughtful. “It’s outgrown it.”

“No,” Leo agreed, turning onto his side to face them. “It doesn’t. It hasn’t for a while.”

“What is it, then?”

In the dim light, Morgan’s face was all soft shadows and quiet longing, their features blurred by the darkness and proximity. Leo reached out, tracing the line of their eyebrow. “It’s just us,” he said simply. “Two people who found each other in a hard place. Who understand the cost of things. Who get to show each other… the rewards. The secret, good parts.”

Morgan kissed him, slow and sweet, a kiss that tasted like the future. “I like that. Just us.”

They still attended the meetings. The circle of chairs remained their sanctuary, a necessary touchstone with a community that understood the specific weight they carried. But afterwards, they would walk out into the night, sometimes hand in hand, sometimes with shoulders brushing, always with a shared glance that spoke of a private destination. They walked towards a different kind of sanctuary, one they built together in the spaces between words: in the worship of scars under lamplight, in the celebration of change whispered against sweat-damp skin, in the profound, erotic understanding of what it meant to build a body, and a life, piece by chosen, hard-won piece. The care they gave in secret was the foundation of everything else.