Xavier

---

I couldn’t believe this was happening. It felt unreal. Surreal. But it was real, and it was the best day of my life. Beyond any dream or fantasy I’d ever had. Her naked body was…it was the stuff of dreams. A fantasy made real. That I got to see her, touch her? How could it be real? What had I done to deserve this?

My senses were on overload, everything inside me screaming. But—it felt good, beyond good, the feel of her skin like silk or velvet, the salt of her skin on my tongue, her hands in my hair, the wet slickness of her pussy around my fingers and against my mouth—so much, too much, and I didn’t want it to ever end. Everything was heightened. My entire body tingled and throbbed.

And now she was reaching for me.

I had a flashback of being at Brittany’s house, her cruel eyes and vicious laughter—I shut it out, pushed it away and focused my attention on Low, on her heavy round breasts, the damp curls of her pubic hair above her womanhood—what did I call it? What did she call it? I resolved to avoid calling it anything until I could figure out how to ask that question without sounding stupid.

She was leaning over me again, hooking two fingers into the elastic of my underwear. “I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel,” she said.

I swallowed hard, trying my best to shut out the flashbacks piling behind the walls I was frantically erecting in my mind.

“Okay,” I whispered, unable to say another syllable.

She drew my tight gray boxer-briefs away from my body, away from the throbbing shaft of my erection, and tugged them down. I lifted my hips, a knot in my throat, my pulse crashing in my ears. She slid them down past my butt and drew them off, tossing them aside.

I was naked. Lying on my back, my eyes on hers as she stared at my erection. I couldn’t breathe. Everything tingled and ached and throbbed. My senses were so far overloaded it felt like I was seconds from a total meltdown. My erection was so painful it felt like a white-hot spear stabbing and throbbing.

“Holy shit, Xavier,” Low muttered in a soft voice.

I frowned at her, teeth gritted. “What?”

She ran her palm down my stomach, giggling. “Your cock is huge.”

“I…oh. It is?”

She met my eyes as she hovered her hand over me. “I mean, I knew you were probably pretty well-endowed just from the size of the bulge behind your zipper, but this thing is…” She shook her head, laughing again. “Seriously the most incredible cock I’ve ever seen.”

I didn’t want to think about her seeing other cocks, but her words made something inside me swell. “Really?”

She leaned over me, her plump soft damp lips brushing my cheekbone. “Absolutely the fucking truth,” Low whispered. “And now…I’m going to touch you. Okay?”

Couldn’t breathe. She was going to touch me.

Bare.

Have you ever been with a girl, Xavier?

So dumb it’s adorable…

As if someone like ME could ever actually want someone like YOU…

I shut the voice out, focusing on the present, on Low’s voice in my ear, murmuring I wasn’t sure what, my head buzzing, my pulse too loud in my ears to hear anything. I watched as she settled her hand onto my erection, cupping me, and then her thumb and fingers wrapped around me. Explosive urgency rose inside me.

The feel of her hand on my cock was…god…oh god.

I forced my eyes open, staring down at her small pale hand around my cock, and then to her eyes, watching me.

“You’re so sexy, Xavier,” she said.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t manage words.

It was going to happen again. I would embarrass myself.

Too much, too fast.

Too soon.

I gritted my teeth, tried to hold back, but her touch was too perfect too soft too warm too smooth, and then she was sliding her fist down and back up.

She leaned close to me again, her lips brushing my year. “Don’t fight it, Xavier.”

“I—I can’t…” I gasped, gulping. “I’m…it feels too good, Low.”

“It’s supposed to feel good.” She nibbled on my earlobe. “It’s okay. Let it happen. Let go.”

I didn’t want to let go. It wasn’t okay. The last time that had happened in front of someone, it had been the most pivotally, fundamentally scarring moment of my entire life. I knew—mentally—that Low was very likely rather familiar with what would happen when I let go, and that my hang-up with this issue was unique to me, and probably ridiculous. I knew this. But I couldn’t fight it. Couldn’t stop the panic. Anxiety ruled me. Embarrassment owned me. Fear crashed through my skull, pulsed in my veins.

I felt her touch like fire on my skin. My breathing was ragged, and my hips were flexed upward as far as they would go. Her fist slid down my cock with exaggerated slowness—or perhaps my awareness of time was distorted, drugged by her touch.

I was a living dichotomy of sensation—

One half was chanting in a frenzy: touch me touch me touch me don’t stop god it feels so fucking good please never ever stop—

And the other half, just as manic: oh god it’s too much I can’t take it, it hurts don’t make me go there don’t make me embarrass myself in front of you like this I don’t want this where can I hide from this where can I hide from myself it’s too much too much too fucking much I can’t stop this—

I heard my breathing and a soughing and rasping in my throat as if I was having an asthma attack. My voice, groaning as if in utter agony. Her small warm strong delicate soft fingers traveling the length of my organ, swirling and twisting around the top before plunging down to the base, stroking there.

How long had it been going on?

Seconds.

Perhaps three full strokes of her fist.

And I couldn’t hold back. Already.

Please no, please no—

Have you ever been with a girl, Xavier?

That laughter.

The cruelty in her eyes.

It’s not her, Low is not Brittany—I told myself this, again and again with every firing of each synapse, but it made no difference.

I was fifteen again, in a bedroom with the popular girl, her cruel voice in my ear.

I opened my eyes, forced them to stay open, gazing at Low.

“There you are,” she murmured.

“Low—”

She leaned over me, and the soft weight of her breasts against my chest made me throb and ache and pulse closer to the precipice, so close I was riding a razor’s edge between control and embarrassment.

“I love the way your cock feels in my hand, Xavier,” she whispered in my ear. “Does it feel good for you?”

She nipped my earlobe. Her fist twisted around the head of my cock, and her lips skated over my cheek, and her tongue traced my lips, and her thumb smeared over the clear wetness seeping from the tip.

“Low—shit!” I grated past clenched teeth. “I can’t—I can’t—I fucking can’t—”

Weight behind my eyes, pressure in my skull. Pressure in my chest, in my balls. A furious maelstrom in my heart and brain and body, all aflame, all a roiling chaos out of my control, all centered on the slow slide of her hand around my cock.

I heard a whimper escape me, a small, helpless sound—and then a growl.

Low’s forehead nudged against mine, her eyes locked on her hand and my cock. “Yeah?” she whispered, a sultry, provocative breath. “You’re about to come, aren’t you? Let me have it, Xavier. Give it to me. Don’t hold it back.”

She didn’t understand—she didn’t understand.

This moment, this sensation was irrevocably and inextricably tangled with embarrassment and humiliation.

I focused on sensation—her hand, the soft gentle affectionate slow grip of her fingers around my cock; her breasts crushed against my chest, her nipples hardened; her thigh draped over mine, the tickling rasp of her pubic hair against my thigh as she ground her center against me; the scent of her skin, of her sex; the scent of her sex on my face, on my fingers; the taste of her sex on my lips, her essence still tangy and sweet and musky and intense on my tongue and lips; my cock, aching throbbing pulsing, balls boiling with a raging need I could no longer deny.

I’d held out as long as possible.

Thirty seconds?

She sat up, breasts swaying. She guided my hand to her breasts, and then used that same hand to cup my balls, which she massaged while stroking me.

The silken weight of her breast in my hand, her touch all over me, her beauty on display in front of me, sensation coursing through me—I was undone in that moment. She was my undoing—all of her, all that she was.

I exploded with a ragged cry. I felt myself release, choking back another moan of humiliation.

I watched—I had to watch. She wrapped both hands around my cock and stroked me slowly as I climaxed. My seed rocketed out of me with unbelievable force, striping up my belly and chest in a hot wet line, and over her fingers. She didn’t stop as I came, watching with what appeared to be sensual delight, lower lip caught in her teeth. More and more and more thick white viscous spurting cum, dripping all over her hands, both of them, trickling down her knuckles and the backs of her hands, still seeping out of me as she continued to stroke me.

She giggled. “Oh…my…god—you came so much,” she said, trailing a fingertip through the mess on my stomach and chest.

My heart stopped.

Lungs froze.

Brain short-circuited—going haywire, showing me Brittany and feeding me her voice in my head even as I saw Low and heard her.

I was there, yet again, in that bedroom, that cruel laughter ringing out.

I’d humiliated myself yet again. In front of and all over the hands of a woman I liked and admired and was attracted to more strongly than any other human being I’d ever met.

Panic is what I felt.

She saw it.

“Xavier, it’s okay. It’s okay.” She scooted closer to me, leaning over me. “Breathe, Xavier. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—”

Her lovely features scrunched up in confusion. “Sorry? What the hell are you sorry for? That was amazing!”

“No, no—” I shook my head, sitting up and scrambling away, trying to escape the mess on my stomach and chest. “I—it’s all over me. It’s all over you. I can’t—I can’t—” Words refused to emerge coherently, because my brain was a hurricane of a million thoughts and emotions, overlapping and colliding and smashing and exploding, recriminating, shredding through my logical understanding.

She moved with me, reaching for me. “Xavier, wait! Just breathe, okay? It’s okay!”

“It’s not okay!” I shouted. “I’m not okay. This is not okay. I can’t handle this.”

“We can handle it together—”

“No, no, you don’t understand, you don’t fucking understand—I keep seeing her. I know you’re not her, but that’s all I see, it’s all I feel.” I was off the bed, flattened against the wall, the mess from my orgasm dripping down my body, a sensation I couldn’t stand. “God, get it off, get it off. I’m sorry—I’m sorry!”

Low, unashamedly still naked, hurried into the en suite bathroom and grabbed a hand towel and then returned to me with it.

“We can clean you up, Xavier. I’m sorry, I should’ve realized the sensation might be—”

I snatched the towel from her and grabbed her hands in mine. “No, god—no, get it off you first,” I snarled, scrubbing and wiping my cum off of her hands with panicked, clumsy movements. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—shit, shit, shit!—”

Low took the towel from me before I could finish cleaning her hands. “Xavier, stop—stop,” she snapped, firmly but not unkindly, and my eyes whipped up to hers. “I like your cum on my hands.”

She lifted her right hand, the one I hadn’t cleaned, up to her face, to her mouth, and her tongue flicked out and licked away a smeared droplet of my seed.

“I’m not embarrassed, or upset or grossed out—I’m happy,” she said, her eyes not wavering from my own incredulous gaze. “I’m ecstatic. I’m turned on. I’ve never been more attracted to anyone than I am right now, to you.”

“I’m embarrassed,” I said, closing my eyes as the truth emerged, involuntarily, from my lips. “I’m humiliated. It happened again.”

Her eyes widened. “It happened again? You mean—the story you told me about that nasty girl from your high school, that cruel trick she played on you?” Low pressed her face closer to mine, so all I could see was her fierce blue eyes. “That did not happen again, Xavier. I wanted to touch you because I’m attracted to you. I want you. I want this. I wanted to make you come, and I’m so fucking turned on by how hard you came that I could come again in a heartbeat. Watching you come, just from touching you with my hands—that was so fucking hot I can’t even—”

She grabbed my hand and guided it to her center, between her thighs, and guided my finger through the hot wet pink center, just beneath the apex of the triangle of reddish-gold curls. “Feel how wet I am? You did that to me. Watching you come, making you come did that to me.” She gestured around at the room. “It’s just you and me. No computer, no phone, no camera, just you and me. Just this moment we shared. You made me come. You made me feel more incredible than I’ve ever felt in my whole fucking life, Xavier! You! With your hands and your mouth, the way you touch me, the way you kiss me. You did that. And I want more of that with you. Do you understand?”

I jerked my hand away, rude and frantic from the welter of panic and doubt and confusion and sensory overload. “You don’t understand, Low.”

“What don’t I understand? Please explain it, because I’m confused.” For the first time since I’d known her, there was a hard note of anger in her voice.

“I hear everything you’re saying,” I started, closing my eyes, knowing I was about to unload a truth on her no one else knew about me. “But it doesn’t change the way this is processing for me.”

“Why?”

I forced my eyes open, forced myself to meet her blue eyes with mine as I dropped the bomb. “Don’t you get it? Haven’t you been listening?” I knew I was being unkind, being unfair, but I couldn’t help it. “Sensory overload, difficulty with social situations, tendency toward involuntary physical tics, combined with unusual mental capacity in one or more areas—do those symptoms mean anything to you, Low?”

She shook her head slowly. “What—what are you saying, Xavier?”

“I’m not just really smart, Low—I’m fucking autistic!” I paced away, stomping, gasping for breath, as I said out loud for the first time the diagnosis I figured out for myself more than three years ago. “High-functioning autistic with savant tendencies.”

She blinked, stammered. “I—I…what? Autistic?” Low inhaled sharply.

“I’ve never seen a doctor for an official diagnosis, but I’ve read dozens of case studies, and I’ve memorized everything modern neurology, psychology, and biology knows about Autism Spectrum Disorder, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’m on the spectrum.” I returned to where she was, and slid down to sit on the floor, back to the wall, facing her again.

“On—on the spectrum?”

“Autism is—it’s not like most disorders, where you either have it or you don’t, where it displays largely the same way in everyone. It’s a spectrum, meaning a broad range of potential ways it can present. Low functioning would be on one end of the spectrum, what you’d think of when you hear the word ‘autistic’—” I was in lecture mode, now, retreating into facts to get away from feelings. “You know, slapping and flapping and nonverbal and all that. The farther to the other end of the spectrum you go, the less obvious it becomes.”

“But you’re—you’re normal.”

I laughed, a sarcastic bark. “No, I’m not. I’m far from normal. I’ve gone through hell my entire life to hide how abnormal I am. I have physical tics. Difficulty verbalizing things. The worst of it for me is social and physical. I get caught up in my own world; I get lost in my thoughts and obsessions and forget about the people around me. I get overwhelmed easily, and when I do, it’s impossible for me to get out of it. If I count or work through an equation, or distract myself mentally somehow, I can slow down the process of getting overwhelmed, but doing so marks me out as…a freak or whatever.”

Low breathed out a sigh, fidgeting with the towel. “You’re not a freak, Xavier. Don’t you dare say that about yourself.”

“Low—” I began, but she cut in impatiently.

“No, I won’t hear it. Different, yes, sure, okay—and that’s a huge part of what I like about you, everything that makes you different.” She glanced down, gently and gingerly wiping at the mess on my torso with the towel, folding and wiping until I was clean. “More to the point, though—you’re on the spectrum…so what? What does that have to do with—with us? With me? With what happened in high school and everything we’ve done together?”

Her proximity was too much, her scent, her heat, the tactile memory of her touch, the pounding need for more of everything she was despite my mounting panic and anxiety. I was counting the freckles on her skin in an attempt to fight my panic, but the fact that the path of freckles across her shoulders and throat led down to her breasts didn’t help.

I swallowed hard and closed my eyes against the manic press of humiliation at the answer I knew I had to give her. “What happened with—with that girl, whose name I don’t even want to say ever again—that was the single most painful and humiliating moment in my life. It—it fucked me up, Low.” I choked on my words but kept going. “Part of the disorder is a tendency to fixate, and to…to sort of equate a significant emotional trauma with a particular physical sensation. Everyone does this, but because of my heightened sensitivity and tendency toward sensory overload, it’s just…worse for me.”

Low’s eyes closed as she followed the logic. “So when she did what she did to you, humiliating you and sharing it with the school—you equated that humiliation with coming.”

“Yes. But even before that, masturbation was difficult for me, simply because my issue with touch extends to myself, and the process of getting myself to orgasm despite my sensory issue was frequently just…too difficult to be worth it, so I tended to avoid arousal, keeping my mind occupied in other ways. I took to sports and exercise to alleviate the physical aspect of it, resulting in a need to push harder and harder to evade and avoid my natural hormonal responses and inclinations.”

I retreated yet again into the factual realm to avoid the emotional one, which put me back into the more formal pattern of speech. “This is all still true. But when that event occurred, any hope of enjoying climax was erased. The approach to that sensation is wrought with emotional landmines. I see her face, hear her voice, her cruel, mocking laughter. It is more like punishment than pleasure, because I remember how she made me feel. Touching myself was impossible—is nearly impossible, even still. And reaching any kind of rapport with a female has always been equally impossible. Compound my social difficulties stemming from ASD with the trauma of what she did to me, and women are usually impossible for me. I don’t trust people in general and women in particular, and I trust myself even less. It’s not just psychological, but neurological as well.”

She blinked hard, sucking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “So what happened with Bri—with her…”

I nodded, understanding her underlying question. “It was the closest I have ever come—until today—to any kind of sexual encounter.”

She didn’t answer immediately. “Anything? Ever?”

I attempted to regain my dignity, such as it could be. “Anything, ever.” I met her eyes with mine. “I am a virgin, Low. In every possible way. When we held hands, it was the first time I’ve held hands with a girl. When we kissed, it was the first time. Aside from the encounter with Brittany Delaney-Price, I have never, until you, seen a naked woman in person, touched a woman’s body, or been touched by a woman in any way.”

“Jesus.” She turned away, pacing to the sliding glass door, arms crossed over her chest, one hand lifted to toy with a curl of hair.

I couldn’t help the way my eyes followed the sway and bounce of her buttocks, the way one cheek tilted and shifted as she leaned her weight on one leg, the other slightly bent.

“You can’t be all that surprised,” I said. “Surely it was obvious in everything I did that I was either a virgin or very, very inexperienced.”

“No, I’m not surprised.” She turned around, eyes blazing. “And I don’t care. Does that make me a horrible person? Did I…do you feel like I took advantage of you? Did I pull you into my web of seduction? Did I defile you?”

I stepped toward her. “No, Low! You didn’t take advantage of me. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I made every choice at every step of the way out of my own free will. You didn’t defile me. You didn’t seduce me—well, at least, not in a way that I would view negatively.” I swallowed hard, a knot in my throat. “This is…it’s on me, Low. It’s my issues causing this. Not you.”

“Why does there have to be an issue?” she asked.

“Because—” I broke off, had to start again. “Because I still don’t understand you, or what you want from me, or how you could like me, or how you could enjoy anything that’s happened. How someone like you could want to be with someone like me. An awkward autistic virgin, more interested in robots and quantum physics and Shakespeare than people or TV. I’m difficult and complicated—I’m a freak. And you’re—”

She cut in again, that note of anger in her voice once more. “Xavier, you’re not—”

“I am!” I shouted. “It’s exactly what I am! I’ve come to grips with that, and for the most part, I’m okay with it. Then I met you and—I finally understood what I’ve been missing out on all these years…and what we just did—what I let you do to me and what I did to you? I finally understand what desire really is. I know I’m weird, and hard to understand and be around. I want to believe you when you say you understand, but I just…can’t. Most people would be able to get past something like this, see a therapist, or give themselves time and just eventually let it go. I can’t. I’ve tried and I am trying, but I just…can’t.”

She moved closer to me. “You can, Xavier. Did you think you could ever get through something like what we just did together?”

I laughed bitterly. “Not in a million years.” I gestured between us. “And I’m not exactly getting through it, am I?”

“You are—we are…we are.” She sounded…upset. Hurt. Confused. Anxious, scared—I couldn’t parse it all, couldn’t perform the emotional calculus to understand her. “Just…try, Xavier. Keep trying.”

I shook my head, backing away from her. “I can’t. I can’t.” I jammed my feet into my jeans and snagged up my shoes, and socks. “You’re too much. You’re perfect, and you’re incredible. You’ve given me—more than I can express, but I—I just can’t do this.” I moved past her, through the door, jogging down the stairs and onto the deck.

She followed me, the bedsheet wrapped around her torso, the edges flapping in the breeze as she stood on the deck mere inches behind me. “Don’t run from this, Xavier. Please.”

I was breathing heavily, not daring to turn around, not daring to look at her. “I don’t know how to do this.”

I smelled her behind me, felt her behind me. “Xavier—”

“I’m sorry. For everything.” Then I left…again.

But not before I heard her answer, “I’m not.”