#non-binary steve

He remembers fighting with his parents, when they found the little plastic case of goopy lipglosses Carol had let him keep. He was seven years old and was crying, had screamed as loud as he could that if little boys weren’t allowed to play with makeup, then maybe I don’t want to be a boy.

When his parents started leaving him more often, their absences growing longer the older he got, he began going into his mother’s things, trying on her clothes. He was twelve when he first learned that women’s clothes were made of finer materials, were softer, felt like butter against his skin. He was thirteen and would slip into designer dresses each night, learning makeup from YouTube tutorials, practicing with things left in his mother’s vanity and whatever he could discreetly put in his pockets at Meldvald’s.

He got pretty good. Good enough that at sixteen, he wanted more, would go to stores in Indianapolis, would spend his allowance on dresses, skirts, blouses, frilly little things that fit, that made him feel good, correct.

The first time he put on a pair of lacy panties, he almost cried. the material was soft, the cotton tight and nice against him, the delicate lace trimming the waist and legs was pretty. Steve realized, all he ever wants to be in his life is pretty.

He began thinking of himself as a girl, a young woman. He would tuck his dick back, make the space between his legs flat, let his hair grow out more, long enough to braid, to pin with floral clips.

He started dressing up, going out. Finding bars that would let him in if he batted his false eyelashes just so, would overlook his obviously fake I.D. so that he could go in, talk to men that were too old for him, too interested in his doe eyes, his soft cheeks, men that would buy him drinks, fuck him in the back seats of their cars, whisper about how pretty he looked, men that would touch his cock and coo that his pussy was so tight.

He found he didn’t like that but would grit his teeth, didn’t understand why wearing women’s clothes felt so right but the idea of having a women’s body felt wrong. He didn’t get why he felt the most himself, the most comfortable with his dick tucked up in lace panties, but the minute a man told him he was a good girl he felt sick. 

When he was seventeen, he stopped going out, stopped dressing up. He had Nancy now, a beautiful young woman who wanted a nice, regular young man. He almost told her, almost told her so many times, but then she was drunk, slurring in his face that he was bullshit, that he was fake, like he didn’t already know.

So he kept to himself, started dressing up again, putting on a full face, a delicate outfit the minute he got home. He would dance around while cooking diner, would float around the house in heels and sweeping dresses. They made him feel better, feel good. He would dress up on particularly bad days, would wear his most beautiful pieces when he got poor grades, when his father told him he was a disappointment over the phone. He had been informed today by his English teacher she had assigned him a tutor.

So he had blinked back tears while blending eyeshadow, had put on his prettiest dress, a pretty dark green number, the fabric light, delicate feminine. He was ready to wallow in self-pity and makeup when there was a knock on the door, followed by the voice of his something-like-a-friend Billy Hargrove, announcing with a laugh that you should REALLY start lockin’ your front door, Harrington. Wouldn’t want someone UNSAVORY comin’ in.

Steve was frozen in the kitchen, his best-kept secret all over his face, his body. Billy didn’t even blink twice when he saw Steve, asked what’s cookin’? while leaning over the stove. Steve’s eyes were screwed shut, breathing fast when Billy looked back, took Steve’s shoulder lightly in his hands said, you need to breathe, Sweet Thing, take it slow, match me. He rubbed gently down Steve’s arms, his eyes clear blue when Steve was able to open his own teary ones.

“Billy, you need to swear to me you won’t tell, you, I, people can’t know. They’ll, I mean, I know I’m a fucking freak but no one-”

“Whoa, who said you’re a freak?” Billy’s eyes were sharp.

“Look at me, Billy. I’m, I don’t know what I am. Sometimes, sometimes I wish that I was a girl, but, but something about that feels just, bad, but, but being a fucking boy feels like shit too, and I just,” he was sobbing, loudly and openly, knew his dark liner was no doubt streaming down his face.

“Hey, that’s okay, Honey, you don’t have to know. You just have to feel good.” He led Steve in a few more breaths. “It’s not black and white, you don’t have to be one or the other. You can just be you. Can be Steve, if you want.”

“What-I don’t understand.”

“Well, you don’t feel right as a boy, but you feel just as not right as a girl. There’s more than that. You have more options.” He turned off the stove, led Steve to his bag, whipping out a laptop covered in worn stickers. “So basically, there’re a whole bunch of genders.” He pulled up an infographic on his screen, a color-coded mess of columns and descriptions. “There’s way more than man and woman. There are people who are non-binary, don’t adhere to the idea of two genders. Sometimes non-binary people identify as another gender, a third gender, sometimes they identify as a mixture of identities. Agender people often identify as having no gender at all. genderfluid people tend to fluctuate between identities, can feel agender one day, the next feel like a man, it all depends on the person.” He looked at Steve, hand gentle on his arm. “And none of it’s wrong. There’s no correct way to be a human. And they each are up to interpretation. There are people who identify as agender but choose to present a certain way, there are people who identify as male but choose to present androgynous, there’s no one way to do it.”

“So if I, if I feel good like this,” Steve gestured to the dress, the smeared makeup. “I can still be, a guy, like I can just be a guy that likes to look like a girl.”

“If that feels best to you. Like I said, you don’t have to  be a guy, just because that’s what you were assigned at birth.”

“What do you mean? ‘Assigned at birth’?”

“That means the gender that’s on your birth certificate. It’s just a better way of saying like, male-bodied, since that can be, kinda shitty for people. And like, what even is a male body, you know?”

“You’re getting a little introspective for me here, Bill.”

“Basically, just because you were born with a dick and a doctor was like, it’s a boy, doesn’t mean you have to be a boy that likes looking like a girl, or whatever you said. That’s a perfectly valid way to be, a femme presenting guy, don’t get me wrong, but earlier you said you didn’t feel right as a boy, and I just don’t want you to back yourself into a corner.” Steve blinked.

“Yeah, I think, I think you’re right. I don’t, I’m not a guy. I don’t think.”

“You do not have to know right now. You literally just learned about this, you don’t have to like immediately make a choice. Take some time. Try different labels, try different pronouns, try no labels, see what feels best.” He smiled, looking at Steve softly. “If you want to, I can, like, help you. If you, if you think of something you want to try, it may be nice to, like, hear it from someone else.”

“What was, what was the one that was like, sometimes people identify as like, another gender?” Billy typed away, pulling up a new article.

“I think you mean non-binary. It’s more of an umbrella term to some people, they find more leeway in it.” He scrolled down, pointing at a list of pronouns. “So, some people who identify as non-binary also use alternative pronouns, things like they or ze, which is a way for them to be referred to outside of the gender binary.” Steve’s mind was racing. He tested the words on his tongue, thinking ze, sie, hir to himself, to, themself?

“But if I identify, as, as non-binary, or something, can I still, like, dress like this?”

“Of course. Identity and expression are two different things. To some, they go hand-in-hand, but to others, they can be totally separate.”

“I think, as of right now I think non-binary is okay.” Billy beamed.

“Okay! You don’t have to decide right now, and some folks never decide, they spend their lives flowing through different ways to identify and express themselves, and again, that’s totally fuckin’ okay. Nothing has to magically click into place for you. You can experiment.”

“Can I, can we experiment with, with they. I kinda, it kinda makes sense.” Billy just kept grinning, his smile huge and beautiful.

“Yes, I can do that.” But his face fell, “But I, I mean, this is fuckin’ Hawkins, and I don't’ know, I mean, is it, like safe?” Steve felt like their heart was breaking.

“No, it’s, I don’t think it is, I mean, there haven’t been like incidents but also, we don’t have a lot of people that are, like, openly different.” Billy’s brow was drawn.

“I can, I can call you whatever you want just the two of us, but, I don’t want to like, out you-”

“You can, you can say he was it’s, when it’s other people. I don’t, I don’t want this to get back to my dad, or anything.” Billy’s eyes were sharp.

“I can do that, I can protect you, like that.” He was nodding vigorously. “I just, I wanted to be on the same page, didn’t want to be like misgendering you behind your back and make you feel like shit.”

“You have my express permission to, uh, misgender me, or whatever you just said.” Steve sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “I just gotta get outta this fuckin’ town, man. Then I’ll be good. Live my little queer life outside of the shitty bar outside of town.” Billy laughed.

“You go there?”

“I used to, when I was first kinda, questioning myself. Used to let guys fuck me and call me, like, their pretty little slut or whatever. Not my finest moments.”

“Christ, Stevie. That’s some deep shit. I went once when I first got into town, and some guy was like, I wanna hear you screaming ‘Daddy’ for me and I was like, nope. No thank you to That.” Steve laughed with him.

“I’m pretty sure I did let that guy fuck me. Bily groaned.

“Stevie, no. Don’t call random men Daddy.”

“I’m not gonna lie to you, Bill, I got a lot of daddy issues.”

“Yeah, me too, but not that many.”

“Just enough to be called Daddy, then?” Billy went red, dropped his eyes from Steve as they cackled. “Hit the nail on the fuckin’ head then, didn’t I?”

“Whatever, you little asshole. Let’s just fuckin’ get on with your English homework that is why I’m here after all. Go grab your books.” Steve grinned, leaning in close to Billy.