The bus ride home had been a blur of streetlights and the low hum of the engine, but the walk from her corner to the beach house is different. The lane narrows, the houses thin out, and the air changes — wetter, heavier, salt in it. Nisha stops at the gate and looks at the house. Shingled. Grey paint sanded soft by years of weather and bare feet. The porch light is on, a weak yellow buzzing against the dark. She checks her phone. The address matches. Nine o'clock.

She had changed on the bus. Not the salwar — not tonight. In the station bathroom she'd pulled the blue jeans up over her hips, the yellow top down over her breasts, the silver bangles onto both wrists, one by one, each click of metal against metal a small declaration. She'd let her hair loose from its knot, shaken it out until it fell in waves past her shoulders, and she'd checked the loop earrings, the nose ring, the anklet. High heels. A handbag slung over one shoulder. She looks like a college girl. That was the point.

She pushes the gate. It creaks. The floorboards of the porch groan under her heels, and she thinks, absurdly, of her husband's scarred hand on the rice scale, of the blue packet of tea in her handbag, of the dinner she'd left on the stove. Then she rings the bell.

The door opens. An old man. Not frail — thick through the shoulders still, silver hair combed back, wearing a white shirt open at the collar and dark trousers. His eyes go down her body once, slowly, and then up again, and his mouth opens. Not a word. Just his mouth, wet, working.

"Come in," he says finally. His voice is low, gravelly. "Come in, come in."

She steps past him into the house. It smells of damp and old wood and something cooking, something sweet, and the floorboards under her heels sound different than the porch — softer, older, like the house is breathing. He closes the door behind her. She hears the bolt slide.

"You're beautiful," he says. "I like transgender like you."

She stops. Turns. Looks at him. His mouth is still wet. His hands are at his sides, fingers flexing.

"You've done this before," she says. Not a question.

"Role play," he says. "That's what I want. Role play."

"What kind."

He doesn't answer. He steps closer instead, and his hand finds her waist. She lets it stay there. She can feel the heat of his palm through the yellow top, and she thinks: *he doesn't know my name and he doesn't want to.* That's fine. That's what she came for.

"You're younger than I thought," he says.

"Does that matter."

"No." His thumb moves against her side. "No, it doesn't matter."

He leads her into a room off the hallway. A bedroom — narrow, the bed against one wall, a lamp on a nightstand throwing yellow light. There's a photograph in a frame on the nightstand, but she doesn't look at it. Not yet. He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls her between his knees, and his hands come up to the hem of her yellow top.

"Slow," she says.

"Slow," he agrees, and he does it slowly. He lifts the top an inch at a time, and his mouth is on her stomach before the fabric has cleared her ribs, wet and warm, and she feels his breath there, the damp heat of it, and her own breath catches somewhere in her chest.

He pulls the top over her head. Her hair falls forward. She shakes it back. The bra underneath is black, thin, and her breasts push against it, heavy, full — the breasts the hormones built over two years, the ones that make her catch her own reflection sometimes in the kitchen window and stop. He looks at them. His mouth waters. She sees it — the shine at the corner of his lip.

"Beautiful," he says again. "Beautiful."

He unclasps the bra. It falls. Her breasts spill free, heavy and full, nipples dark and tight in the cool air of the room. He takes one in his mouth without asking, and she gasps — a real gasp, not the kind she performs — because his mouth is hot and wet and he's sucking hard, pulling, his tongue working the nipple, and her hand comes up without thinking and finds the back of his head.

"Yes," she says. "Like that."

He sucks harder. She feels it all the way down into her belly, a pull, a throb, and her hips shift against nothing, and she remembers the feel of her own small cock between her legs, soft, always soft, and she pushes the thought away. Not now. Not tonight.

"Take off your clothes," she says.

He pulls back. Looks up at her. His mouth is wet from her skin.

"You first," he says.

"No." Her voice is steady. "You asked for role play. This is how I want it. You first."

He stands. He unbuttons the white shirt, slowly, watching her the whole time, and his chest is old — grey hair, loose skin, but solid underneath, the body of a man who worked once and stopped. He drops the shirt on the floor. His belt comes off next, the leather hissing through the loops, and then his trousers, and then his underwear, and then he is naked in front of her.

His cock is half-hard, thick, resting against his thigh. She looks at it. Then she looks at his face. He's waiting. He wants her to be impressed. She doesn't give him that. She just nods, once, and steps out of her heels.

"The jeans," she says. "You do it."

He kneels. His hands find the button, the zipper, and he pulls the denim down her legs, his face close to her thighs, and she feels his breath there, hot through the thin cotton of her panties. The jeans come off. She steps out of them. She is standing in only her panties, her anklet, her bangles, and the loop earrings and nose ring catching the lamplight. Her hair is loose and heavy down her back.

"Now the panties," he says.

"No." She steps back. "On the bed. On your back."

He obeys. He lies back on the narrow bed, and his cock is fully hard now, standing up from his belly, thick and dark at the head, and she looks at it and feels the old familiar thing — the wanting, and the fear underneath the wanting, and the way her body doesn't answer the way she wishes it would.

She climbs onto the bed. Straddles him, but not to ride him — not yet. She lowers her mouth to his chest first, kisses the grey hair, the old skin, and he shudders under her. Then lower. Her tongue traces the line of hair down his belly. He groans. His hand comes up and finds her hair, and she lets him.

"Suck it," he says. "Suck my cock."

She lifts her head. Looks at him along the length of his own body.

"Say please."

"Please."

She takes him in her mouth. Slow. The head first, the salt of him, the thickness stretching her lips, and she works him down an inch at a time, her tongue flat along the underside, feeling the pulse there, the vein, the heat. He groans again, louder, and his hand tightens in her hair. She takes him deeper. Her own hand wraps the base of him and strokes while her mouth works the head, and the wet sound of it fills the small room, and she hears him breathing hard above her, ragged, and she thinks: *this is what Maya taught me, and it works every time.*

"God," he says. "God, you're good."

She pulls off him with a wet sound and looks up.

"Now lie back," she says. "And don't move."

He lies back. She shifts up his body, and she reaches down between her own legs, and her fingers find her small cock — soft, small, hanging between her thighs, the one part of her that never answers — and she wraps her hand around it and strokes it once, twice, and feels nothing, and she doesn't care. He watches her do it. His eyes are wide.

"Let me," he says. "Let me suck it."

She hesitates. Then she shifts forward, up his chest, until her thighs are on either side of his face, and she lowers herself, and his mouth finds her small cock and takes it in, wet and warm, and she feels the pull of it, the suction, and even though it doesn't harden, the nerves there still answer — a soft, diffuse pleasure, spreading up into her belly. She closes her eyes. Her hands come down onto the wall above the headboard to steady herself.

"There," she says. "Like that."

He works her with his mouth for a long time. She lets him. The lamp hums. The floorboards settle. Somewhere in the house a clock ticks, and she loses track of how long it's been, and her thighs start to shake, and she feels the pleasure building somewhere deep, small and slow, the only kind her body gives her. Then she pulls away. Not yet. Not like this.

"Papa," she says, and the word comes out of her mouth before she's decided to say it, and it lands in the room like a stone in water.

He goes still underneath her. Then his hands find her hips. His fingers dig in.

"Say it again," he says.

"Papa."

"Again."

"Papa."

He flips her. Fast, for an old man, and she lands on her back on the narrow bed with a gasp, her hair spread out on the pillow, her bangles ringing against the mattress, and he's over her, and his cock is at her entrance, and she hasn't taken the plug out — she hasn't prepared — and she reaches down and grabs his wrist.

"Wait."

He stops. His breath is ragged. His cock is pressed against her, thick and hot, and she can feel the pulse of it against her skin.

"Not there," she says. She shifts her hips, guides him lower, to the place she's ready for. "There."

He understands. He pushes in. Slow, because she's tight, because she's only half-ready, and she gasps at the stretch of it, her hands flying up to his shoulders, her long nails biting into his back.

"Yes," she says. "Yes, Papa, yes."

He starts to move. His hips find a rhythm, deep and slow at first, and she wraps her legs around his waist and pulls him in, and her heels lock behind his back, and her nails rake down his shoulder blades, and she feels the marks opening under her fingers, the skin breaking, and he groans at the pain and fucks her harder.

"You like that," she says. "You like it when I hurt you."

"Yes," he gasps. "Yes."

"Then fuck me harder, Papa."

He does. The bed creaks under them. The headboard knocks against the wall. She feels every inch of him, the drag of him in and out, the fullness, the heat, and she arches up into it, and his mouth finds her neck, and he sucks hard, and she feels the love bite blooming under his lips, and she doesn't stop him. She wants it. She wants to carry the mark.

"Papa," she says, breathless, "Papa, I need it hardcore."

"Yes," he grunts. "Yes."

"This is better than you fucking me any other way," she says, and her voice is tight with the effort of the words, "otherwise I have to find someone else out of the house."

"No," he says, and something shifts in his voice — possession, hunger, the old man's mouth wet against her throat. "No. You stay."

"Then give it to me," she says. "Give it to me, Papa."

He thrusts deeper, and her legs tighten around his waist, and her nails rake his back again, and she feels the crest of it coming — not for her, not the way it would for a woman, but for him, in him, and she watches his face above her, the old face twisting, and she says it again, softer this time, and the word hangs in the air between them.

"Papa."

His pace quickens. His breath goes ragged. His hands grip her hips hard enough to bruise, and she feels the promise of it — the end coming, claiming him, and she lies under him on the narrow bed with her hair spread out and her bangles ringing and her long nails in his back, and she decides, in the last clear moment before he breaks, how much of this game she will play beyond tonight.