Chapter Fifteen
Emmet
I was so excited about moving into The Roosevelt. We had all my things packed up in boxes, which was a little disconcerting, but soon I’d be opening the boxes at my own apartment. My apartment with my boyfriend.
We went shopping at Target for our own dishes and pots and pans. I did most of the shopping. The one time Jeremey went, it didn’t go well.
It took us three tries to get to the store, to start. The first day we had an appointment to go, Icarus House called my mom to cancel. “Jeremey is having a bad day,” the aide told her.
I got upset and insisted Mom take me over, but they wouldn’t let us go upstairs. I paced in the living room and hummed and flapped while my mom argued—and then Darren signed to me.
Are you here for Jeremey?
Yes, I signed back. Why won’t they let me see my boyfriend?
Because he’s very sick today. In bed. Sometimes he cries.
That made my octopus go crazy. I signed to my mom I was not okay.
“Please—you need to let my son see his friend, if only so he can see Jeremey is safe,” she told the aide. “If you don’t, I can promise you you’re about to witness a very angry autistic young man.”
They argued a few more minutes, and Darren talked to me some more.
He might have a cold, or the flu.
I shook my head. He has depression. I’m scared, Darren. I don’t want him to try to kill himself again.
It would be hard to do that from his bed. He won’t get out of it.
It actually would be easy to use his bed, if he had somewhere he could string up the sheets. I hummed loudly and flapped my hands so hard they hurt. I hadn’t banged my head against the wall for a long time, but I wanted to do it then.
Mom calmed me down, and a few minutes later we were able to go upstairs to see Jeremey.
Looking at him scared me. He was in his bed, the sheets over his head, and when I called his name, he didn’t respond. I pulled the sheets back, and my stomach felt funny when I saw his face. He looked flat. I knew he was alive because he blinked, but he didn’t look like my Jeremey.
I felt nervous and upset. I didn’t know what to do.
Mom came up behind me and put a heavy hand on my arm. “Jeremey’s depression is bad today. They’ve given him some medicine to help.”
He looked like he had the day he’d first gone to the hospital. “Did his mom make him upset?”
“No. Nothing in particular made him upset, as far as the nurse could tell. That’s how depression works, jujube. Sometimes you’re sad for no reason at all.”
“But we were supposed to shop for our apartment stuff today. That’s a happy thing.”
“Depression likes to eat happy things, sometimes.”
Right now depression was eating my boyfriend. He looked almost scary. I knew it was the drugs, but I wondered what was going on inside his head.
“I hate depression, Mom. It sucks. It’s a bad disease.”
“Yes, sweetheart. It really is.” She tugged my arm. “Let’s let him rest.”
I pulled my arm away. “No. I’m not leaving him.”
Mom sighed. “Emmet, you can’t—”
“Not leaving him.” I sat on the floor and clamped a hand on to the metal frame of his bed. “Not until I know the depression won’t hurt him.”
Mom crouched beside me. “Sweetheart, he’s not going to attempt suicide again.”
“How do you know? Besides, it’s not him who wants to do it. It’s his bad octopus. What if the drugs—?”
I stopped talking because something was tickling my hair. When I turned, Jeremey was looking at me.
His eyes were dull and strange. I could see his light, but it was all messed up. I hummed. I was scared. Was Jeremey okay?
He petted my hair, and he smiled. It was a tiny smile, but it was a smile.
The touch was too soft, but I didn’t care. “Jeremey, don’t listen to the bad voices. You can’t kill yourself.”
“Honey, it doesn’t work like that—” Mom started to say this, but I put my hand over my ear and she stopped.
Jeremey kept petting my hair. He looked like he wanted to talk, but it took him several seconds to get started, and when he spoke, his words were slurry and quiet. “Not…going to. Just a…bad day. Sorry.”
“I want to make it better,” I told him.
“You can’t.” Mom stopped trying to pull me away, but she stayed beside me on the floor. “Jeremey has medicine—not his usual antidepressant. This is something else. A sedative. To calm him and help his brain unplug. He’s still having an intense depressive episode, but the drug is helping him separate from it. It makes him very tired, though.”
“It’s making him drool.”
Jeremey blinked long and slow, and on the last blink, his eyes stayed closed. I hummed, worried.
Mom kept talking. “He’s fine. Yes, the side effects of the drugs aren’t fantastic. But sometimes we need a day off from our brains. He’ll be better later. We need to leave, so he can rest.”
Why didn’t she understand I couldn’t leave? “Someone has to sit with him. Someone has to make sure it doesn’t get too dark for him.”
Mom started to tell me I couldn’t stay, but a sharp sound, like a bark, stopped her. I smiled and turned enough that I could see Darren with my camera eyes.
“Hi, Darren.”
Darren typed into his tablet, then held it up. A computer voice spoke. “Emmet, I will stay and watch your boyfriend for you. You can go home.”
Without moving my eyes, I looked at Jeremey, then at Darren, then at my mom. I wanted to stay—but I didn’t. I wanted to make sure Jeremey didn’t hurt himself or wasn’t lonely. But it scared me to see him all drugged like this. I didn’t want to think of Jeremey like that.
“Will you text me and let me know how he’s doing?” I asked Darren.
He tapped into his tablet again. “Yes, if you give me your phone number.”
I gave it to him. “Thank you, Darren.”
“No problem. Jeremey is my friend too.”
Darren did text me, several times, until in the evening Jeremey was able to. He didn’t talk much, just enough to tell me he was okay and feeling better but was still tired. I went to see him the next morning, and he wasn’t quite so drugged out, but he wasn’t himself, either. He cried a few times, and when I asked why, he said there was no reason. He started to apologize, but I told him to stop, and he did. We hugged a little, but he wanted to sleep again, so I hung out with Darren until Jeremey was awake from his nap.
“Sorry,” he said when we sat on his bed that evening. He wouldn’t look at me. “I don’t know what happened. I just felt all panicky, and then all heavy, and then it was just…bad. Very dark.”
“But you didn’t want to kill yourself?” Mom had told me not to ask, but I couldn’t help it. It worried me a lot.
He shook his head. “Not…really. I mean, I always do a little, but it’s not because I don’t want to be with you. It’s because it feels so hard to be alive. This time I hurt all over. I felt like I was sick. But I didn’t have a fever, or anything. Just depression.”
“Is it gone now?”
“No. But it’s quieter.”
That seemed better. “When you’re ready, we can still go shopping for the apartment.”
His hand tightened against his leg. “Okay. I’ll try. Hopefully I don’t have a panic attack.”
It took another couple of days before he was ready. He said he wanted to try the next day, but when Mom came to pick him up, he said he was sorry, but it wasn’t the right time. The day after, though, he got in the van, and we drove over to Target.
We went at a time it wasn’t busy, but we didn’t make it five minutes before he stopped in the middle of the cleaning products section, like he’d bumped into something. His body became rigid, his shoulders hunched, and he shut his eyes as his breath started coming fast. He didn’t say a word, but I knew this was a panic attack.
Mom knew too. She led him to the pharmacy area, where they had a bench, and made him sit down. The pharmacist came out, looking concerned, but Mom told her everything was fine. Mom never took her focus off Jeremey, and whenever she spoke, to him or anyone else, she kept her voice soft and gentle.
“Shh. You’re okay. Put your head between your knees if you need to.”
Jeremey didn’t, only shut his eyes tighter and tucked his chin to his chest as his breath came faster and faster. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about.” Mom stroked his shoulder, moving her hand to his back. I could tell she was trying to nudge his head down without making him do it.
Normally I worry when Jeremey has panic attacks, but my mom is a doctor, and she’d take care of him. I counted the different kinds of shoe insoles on the wall behind the bench while I waited. Beside me, my dad stood quietly, waiting to see if my mom would tell him to do anything. She did—she told him to go get a bottle of room-temperature mineral water from the shelf in the food section. The pharmacist brought out a cool hand towel, and my mom draped it over Jeremey’s neck. He’d put his head between his knees twice now, and his breathing was normal. But his eyes were full of water, and sometimes tears leaked out.
Six tears by my count, though one was large and might have been three or four tears in one.
“I tried so hard.” His voice was a whisper, all ragged and uncomfortable. “I thought maybe with you guys it would be better.”
“You’ve been through a lot lately.” Mom kept rubbing his back. It would have made me crazy, that much touching, but Jeremey loved it. “Do you want to keep trying, or do you need to rest?”
“Rest,” he said, no hesitation at all.
“That’s okay. We’ll try again once you’ve settled into your new place and are feeling confident.”
Jeremey didn’t say anything else, and after my dad returned with the mineral water, we walked them both to the food court area, which is mostly a Starbucks and an ICEE machine. My dad offered to take Jeremey to Icarus, or to drive him around in the car, but Jeremey said no.
“I can sit here and not freak out.” He sounded angry when he said it, which confused me, but Mom didn’t argue with him, just told my dad to text her if they needed anything.
We picked our cart back up, and once we were away from the food court, I texted her.
Mom, this is Emmet. Why is Jeremey angry? Why won’t he go to the car so he doesn’t have a panic attack?
She read her text, then glanced at me. “Can I answer you out loud, or do I need to text too?”
I glanced around us and shook my head before I texted. Too many people can listen. I don’t want them listening to Jeremey’s business.
Mom texted me. This is Mom. Jeremey is angry with himself. He wants to stay in the food court because he knows he’s lost the war, but he wants to win a battle.
I read her text three times. Finally I said, Mom, you don’t make any sense. Jeremey is not at war with anyone.
She made a winking Emoji. He knows he can’t shop with you, but he wants to challenge himself to simply stay in the store. That will make him feel as if he accomplished something.
That made sense. I wished he could have shopped with us. Doing it alone meant I would pick everything, which I enjoyed, except I wanted Jeremey to pick some things too. I tried to think of how we could modify shopping so he could participate.
“Maybe we can give him some choices,” I suggested. “We could take them to the food court.”
“That’s a good idea, but you told me he gets nervous when people make him pick.”
This was true. I frowned.
“Maybe you could take photos of things you thought he might like and send them to him for approval. He’ll probably say yes every time, but it will make him feel more a part of things. You could also ask him what his favorite color is and use it to make choices, and ask if he prefers big towels or regular-sized towels for himself. Things that won’t make him feel as if he has to guess the right answer.”
I thought it was a good idea, and it worked pretty well. I texted a lot of pictures to Jeremey, and like Mom said, he said they all looked good, but it included him. I already knew his favorite color, but I asked him anyway so he could still participate. Eventually I put my headphones in and called him, and I told him about the things I was looking at for our apartment. It wasn’t the same as having him there, but it was better than nothing.
We did more than shopping to get ready to move into The Roosevelt, though, and Jeremey was able to participate in all the other preparations. Althea and Mom gave us cooking lessons, and my dad showed me how to keep a spreadsheet for my bills. We made a lot of checklists so I wouldn’t forget to do anything, and we devised a new schedule which included doing laundry and going grocery shopping. Usually new things and change upset me, but this was an exciting shift.
I think Jeremey was excited too, but he was also nervous. His mom was definitely nervous, and she still didn’t like me. His dad’s mustache twitched all the time.
The day we moved in I had move in on my schedule for nine in the morning. We were there on the dot, and so was Bob, smiling and holding up two sets of keys. He’d aired out the apartment so it didn’t smell like paint anymore, but the leftover smell worried me a little, because it wasn’t the right smell of my house. It got better as we brought the boxes in, and my clothes.
I set up my bedroom first. We’d bought a new bed so I could still have my other bed at home. My new bed was a double bed, so I could have sex in it if I wanted. I told this to Mom, but she told me not to tell her those kinds of things. I told her she doesn’t make sense, and she said she understood but still didn’t want to hear about me having sex.
I’d asked Jeremey how we should set up the main living areas, but he said he didn’t care so long as he could sit on the couch and see the TV, and that there was a couch and a TV. He said I cared about setup more, so go ahead and take over. If anything bothered him, he’d tell me, but he said he doubted it would. So I positioned everything up exactly the way I wanted it.
All the floors were hardwood. Bob preferred them for dust control, and they were mostly the same hardwood floors the school had when it was a school. The kitchen had heavy tile, durable and easy to clean or replace. I put a soft rug down in front of the couch and between the TV because it was good for yoga. It was exactly four inches from the TV and four from the couch. The couch would move, since hardwood floors are slippery, but we put a heavy table behind it and anti-slip pads underneath. We had small end tables on each side of the couch, which was blue-green and soft to the touch. The fat stuffed chair matched it.
We bought all these things new. Mrs. Samson had said she would give us her living room furniture and get replacements for herself, but my mom explained I’m sensitive to fabrics, so she bought them all. Also Mrs. Samson’s furniture is ugly, but Mom said I couldn’t say that.
The living room had one not-new thing: a rocker. It was the rocker from my room, but I wanted it in my living room now, by the window so I could watch the trains. We put our new dishes in the cupboards and our pans under the sink. These were some new dishes and some old, some from my house and some from his.
We went shopping at the co-op and filled our pantry and our fridge and had fruit on the counter. We had our own TV and DVR and Roku box, and I had my computer set up in my room. Everything was clean and amazing and wonderful.
Jeremey’s face was difficult to read. He carried boxes into his room, and he helped his dad set up his bed, which was his from his parents’ house. It was a double bed, like my new one. Except he wouldn’t have one at his house now, so if he got nervous and wanted to go home for a night, he’d have to sleep somewhere other than his room. That would make me sad, but I couldn’t tell if it made Jeremey sad.
I stayed away from Jeremey’s mom, which wasn’t hard since she barely looked at me, and when she did, her lips went flat like she was holding back angry words. Dad and Althea left as soon as things were unpacked, but Mom didn’t leave until the Samsons said goodbye. She was there in case Gabrielle was weird. Except some day Mrs. Samson would come over when my mom or Althea wasn’t around. I decided when that happened I would go to my room and put on headphones and write code.
Eventually the parents were all gone, and it was only Jeremey and me. He stood in the kitchen, leaning on the counter, and I stood by the window in case a train came. It had started to drizzle, so if a train came, it would be perfect—but I was more interested in watching Jeremey at that moment. He had his arms wrapped over his belly, but his face was flat, and his eyes behind his glasses were too complicated to read. I wondered if we were going to stand there until it was time to reheat the dinner my mom had put in the fridge.
I wondered if we would have sex today.
“So.” Jeremey’s shoulders hunched forward. “What do we do now?”
I wanted to suggest sex or kissing, but I was nervous. If he said no, it would be awkward, and I didn’t want anything to be awkward on our first day. “Dinner isn’t for two hours. But we could have a snack.”
“I’m not really hungry.”
I wasn’t either. I was horny, but still scared. “We could watch a movie, or we could play a game. On the computer in my room or on the Xbox in the living room.” We’d brought my Xbox from home.
I still couldn’t read anything on his face. “How about you show me your room?”
I did. We stood in the middle, and I pointed everything out. My bed, my dresser, my desk and computer, and another rocker in case I wanted to rock in here, though sometimes I used the floor and made my body the rocker. I didn’t tell Jeremey about how the bed was new and big for sex because I was still nervous. Except now that we were in the room, sex was all I could think about.
Jeremey didn’t seem to be thinking about making out. He put his hands in his pockets and turned around, looking at everything. Even the ceiling. But not me. “It’s nice. A lot like your old room, but different.”
That didn’t make sense, but I was too overwhelmed to point it out. All I could think about was how I wanted to ask him if he wanted to have sex, except I was too nervous to talk out loud. I wondered if I could write it.
Then I realized I could sign it.
“Jeremey, I want to teach you some more ASL.”
He stopped looking at the ceiling and turned to face me. “Okay.”
“Four words.” I made my hand flat and moved my fingers from my mouth to my cheek. I did it several times so he could learn it. “That one is kiss.”
His cheeks got red. “Okay.”
I felt embarrassed too, but I pushed the feeling away and focused on the lesson. “Next word.” I held out my hands, palms up, with my fingers open. I pulled them to my body, tightening my fingers a little. “Want. That sign means want.”
Jeremey nodded. His face was redder still, but he didn’t look upset.
“Third word.” I put my hands together like I was praying but placed them beside my ear and tilted my head. “That’s bed.”
He smiled. “I think I sort of knew that.”
“Last word.” I made the sign for the letter X with my right hand and moved it from my cheek to my mouth and back again. I did it several times. “That word is sex.”
Now I could tell Jeremey was nervous. Neither one of us could talk out loud, and he didn’t know enough sign. “Jeremey, go to your room and log in to IM chat.”
He blinked. “Why?”
“Because I want to talk to you.”
Jeremey laughed. “But we’re here, in the same apartment. We’re talking right now.”
“It will be better for this conversation if we have space. Go log in to IM. I’ll wait.”
He left, looking uncertain, but I ignored this and sat at my computer, where I was already logged in to iMessage. He still used an IBM computer, but Dad had helped him set up a Yahoo! account, and I had his account plugged into my iMessage. When I saw him come online, I sent him a message.
Hi Jeremey. This is Emmet.
He typed back. I know. This is weird when we’re in the same house.
I can’t tell you what I want to tell you to your face. We’re both too nervous, and you’re embarrassed.
It took him a second to write back. Are we going to talk about sex now?
Yes.
He paused. You’re right. This is probably better. Though I still feel silly.
Jeremey always felt silly, so I ignored that. Jeremey, I want to kiss you. I want to have sex with you. In my bed. Now. But when I said the word sex, you got nervous. Do you want to have sex with me?
I hummed and rocked while I waited for him to reply. I could hear him clicking.
I do, but I’m scared. Not of you but of sex. I’m afraid it will hurt.
I frowned at his IM, not understanding what he meant, but then I remembered the boards I had read. Oh. You’re talking about anal sex.
Yes.
That was interesting. I hadn’t been thinking about that. I meant more touching cocks and maybe rubbing them. I wasn’t sure about oral sex. Sometimes cocks smell.
You’re supposed to call them cocks, not penises, when it’s about sex. I’m not sure why, but it appears to be the rule. But whatever you call them, they’re sweaty.
I wasn’t thinking about anal sex with Jeremey until he wrote that in the chat, because an anus is where poop comes out, and that’s kind of gross to put a penis there, even if the guys in porn like it. Except when Jeremey said he thought it might hurt, he meant anal sex with my penis in his anus.
My cock got hard thinking about it.
Emmet, you’re too quiet, and now I’m more nervous.
Sorry. I sent it fast so he didn’t worry. I was thinking about my cock in your anus, and it distracted me.
I heard him laugh from his room. Okay that’s a pretty good excuse. He clicked some more. It distracts me too, but it scares me.
I have to research anal sex before we can do it. We could look it up together, maybe.
More clicking. I assume when you say research that’s not a sneaky way to get me to watch porn with you.
I frowned. I don’t understand. Then I added, Watching porn would be fun with you though.
He laughed again. What kind of sex did you mean, if not anal sex?
He wanted me to list it? I tried to think of everything I wanted to do to him.
I want to kiss you for a long time, on the bed. I want us to not wear shirts or pants while we do it. Not even underwear, sometimes. I want to masturbate with you. I want to touch your penis and maybe rub ours together. If we take a shower first, maybe we can try oral, but let’s go slow there. But nipples could be good to suck on. One message board said if you suck on a guy’s neck, he melts in your arms. I know they don’t mean literally melt, but I wondered what that would be like. I also want to touch your ass. Not the inside but the outside. You have a nice ass, and I want to see it naked. Maybe I’d kiss it after a shower. I watched a video where a guy fucked the tight space between his boyfriend’s legs, and they both enjoyed it, but maybe that’s too far for today.
I considered a moment, then decided that was most of the sex I’d thought about. I hit send.
I didn’t hear any typing, but Jeremey’s desk chair creaked. He walked into my room and stood in the door. His face was red, but he looked at me the way he looked when he wanted me to kiss him. He didn’t speak with his mouth, but he used his hands to sign ASL.
I want you kiss bed sex.
It didn’t make a lot of sense, but I understood what he meant. I stood. My pants were tight because my cock was very hard now. When I stood and undid my jeans button, Jeremey watched. He looked excited and nervous, and when I thought about taking my clothes off, I got nervous too.
Jeremey stepped away from the door and undid his pants.
We pushed them to the floor at the same time. I wore briefs and so did Jeremey, except mine were boxer briefs and his were standard ones. His were white with a black band at the top. I could see his cock in the pouch, poking toward his leg. It was long. So were his legs. Long and a little skinny, and pale.
“Sh-shirts too?” Jeremey asked.
I thought about Jeremey standing in front of me in only his underwear. “Shirts too.” I pulled mine off, then watched as he did the same.
His nipples were erect. I wanted to touch them.
I walked over to him, and I did touch. I pressed my thumb against the red bead. Jeremey shivered and put a hand on my hip.
“W-we’re still wearing socks,” he whispered as I kept rubbing.
“And underwear.” His nipple got harder and harder the more I touched it, and in his briefs his cock got bigger and bigger. “Should we take them off?”
He had his eyes shut and breathed rough and fast. “I…I don’t know. M-maybe not—oh—today.”
I wasn’t disappointed. Underwear was sexy too. “When I have an orgasm, I have to take my penis out because I don’t want to make a mess. But it’s okay. I have cum rags by the bed.”
Eyes still shut, Jeremey moved closer to me. He kissed my naked shoulder, then ran his tongue on the skin. It made me so hard it almost hurt.
“Jeremey, I want to lie on the bed with you and kiss you and touch your cock inside your underwear.”
He gasped and kissed my neck. “Yes.”
It’s true. A guy does melt if his boyfriend sucks on his neck. The veins stay in place because there’s definitely blood flow, but the muscles all relax like they’ve spent too long in the sun.
I’ve thought about sex for a long time. My parents let me watch some porn, but we had to talk about it after was the rule, since they said porn was unrealistic. We talked about condoms and sexually transmitted diseases and how they spread. Jeremey was a virgin and so was I, but I promised my mom we would get tested anyway, so Dr. North took the samples and took care of that before we moved in. We were negative. It was fine. I had done research about positions and how to not accidentally hurt someone. I knew a lot about sex.
But I learned the day I first had sex with Jeremey that it’s one of those things that is different in real life no matter how much you study it.
I was supposed to pay attention to my partner and his needs, but even with our underwear on, touching and kissing Jeremey made me so excited I felt as if I could masturbate ten times in a row, though the male refractory period means that’s not ever possible. I was torn. I wanted to get my cock out and shoot right away, but I wanted to kiss and touch him more, and once I had an orgasm, my body wouldn’t care about sex even if my brain did. The Internet said to think about baseball statistics, but I don’t care about baseball. I configured pi for a few minutes, but then I switched to remembering code. I tried to turn the feelings Jeremey gave me into code in my head, and that worked.
Sometimes funny things work on brains, and it’s better not to ask why and go with it.
We breathed really hard while we kissed, and we wiggled. Jeremey liked it when I pressed him into things while we kissed. It’s the same as the weighted blanket I use sometimes when I sleep. He enjoys the pressure of being held down, and he liked it when our cocks rubbed together through our underwear. I tried out a few things, moving my hips in circles, and that made him cry out and make all kinds of noises, but he also said, “Don’t stop.”
You know, everything I read said noises were okay in sex, but if autistic people make noises because things are too intense and it’s not sex, everyone acts as if it’s a big scandal. People make less sense than my mom or brains.
I loved Jeremey’s noises. Sometimes I made noises with him, and he liked that. He didn’t care if I hummed or grunted or anything. It was all good so long as I touched his cock. He wanted me to kiss him almost rough and rub his cock at the same time. The code in my head got intense.
“Stop,” Jeremey said when I broke the kiss. He sounded as if he’d run up all the stairs in The Roosevelt. “I’m going to come.”
I rubbed the tip of his cock with my thumb through his underwear. “I want to watch you masturbate. I want to see your cock.”
Jeremey bit his lip, then pressed his cock into my hand. “How…how about you masturbate me.”
That sounded good. “Let me take off your underwear.”
He let me do that, but he got nervous when I pulled them all the way to his ankles and opened his legs so I could see his cock and his balls. They were red. His cock stood up like a pole in the middle of his groin, waving around a little bit.
“I want to take off my underwear also,” I told him. He nodded, but when he tried to close his knees, I stopped him. “No, leave them open. I like to look at your naked cock and balls.”
His cock twitched more. “Okay.”
I moved my underwear down to my feet and stepped out of them, but I left my socks on. His were on too. “I want to masturbate us together. Push my balls against you and stroke both our cocks at the same time.”
Jeremey’s knees wobbled. “Okay.”
I knelt on the bed and brought our bodies together. His skin was hot, but his balls and cock were warmer. He sucked in a breath when our cocks touched. When I put my hand over his cock, he made a kind of hissing noise.
“Emmet, I’m going to come really fast.”
I was too. “Think of something boring. Count.”
He shook his head and moved his hips so our balls banged together. His eyes were closed tight. “I can’t. All I want to do is shut my head off and hump you like an animal. But I’ll come so fast it’ll be embarrassing.”
My hips were moving too, slow at first but faster and faster. I liked how hard Jeremey breathed. I wanted to do what he said he wanted: to watch him shut his head off. “I’ll count for you. I’ll count to twenty. It’s not that long, but it’s long enough we can enjoy it. You can’t come until I get to twenty, but you can be an animal until then.”
Jeremey’s whole throat moved when he swallowed. His hips kept moving faster, and his cock was leaking out the tip. “Okay. I’ll try to hold on.”
“Just listen to me and enjoy the feeling. Our first time having sex. This is called frotting.” I jerked our cocks and rolled my hips in a circle so our balls were snuggled tight. “Do you like frotting?”
Jeremey made gasping noises as if he didn’t have enough air. “Please start counting.”
I counted. I didn’t count fast, but I let my hips move quickly. I moved our cocks together, both the tips leaking. Jeremey made amazing noises, and his hips pressed tight to mine. I gave him firm pressure because he enjoys it, and he also likes it when I move my hips sharp and fast, not gentle. He flailed his hands all over, kind of flapping with his whole arms. At fifteen he gave a long, loud cry that made my balls tingle and almost made me shoot. I started counting faster, and then it was twenty and everything went crazy.
Jeremey made a loud, loud noise and arched his whole body—his semen went like a fountain, and I got so distracted I watched. I hadn’t come yet, but my cock got so excited watching him I let go and jerked myself fast so I shot too. My semen landed on Jeremey’s chest, some of it on his mouth. I wouldn’t have enjoyed the sensation. Semen gets cold quickly, but Jeremey lay there with his chest heaving, his eyes closed, his mouth open with semen on his lips, as if he wanted more.
He was so pretty my cock shot a little bit a second time.
I was tired and wanted to lie beside him, but I got the cum rag first and cleaned up. I called it a cum rag because that’s what the Internet called it, but I actually use baby wipes so I don’t have to be sticky. Jeremey’s belly twitched when I touched him with the wipe, though they were warm since I have a wipe warmer and I’d turned it on before we got in bed. I think he twitched because his sensations were as high as a person with autism.
My sensations were high too, but I didn’t want to be by myself yet. I wanted to hold Jeremey and kiss him and see if he enjoyed the sex. I hurried with cleanup, and then we got under the covers. Jeremey snuggled against me, his penis along my leg. It was getting soft, but it was still happy from sex.
“We’ve had sex now.” I stared at the ceiling, all my feelings so loud their colors swirled in clouds above me. “It was good. I want to do it again after we rest.”
Jeremey’s hands moved on my skin, but when I jerked at the touch, he stilled. “I’m sorry. I forgot you don’t like light touch.”
“Everything is loud right now,” I told him.
“Is it okay if I stay here with you, or do you need to be alone?”
That was a tricky question. I thought maybe I did need to be by myself, but Jeremey didn’t want to be alone, and anyway my research said cuddling was important to bonding. “I want you to stay,” I told him. “But everything is very loud.”
“How can I stay and not make it so loud for you?”
I thought about it for a minute. Jeremey needed touch, and I thought maybe I did too. But I needed stillness. I wondered if maybe I could touch him and it would be okay.
I ended up holding him with his back to my front. It made him feel close, but I felt as if I had enough space to find myself again. Once he went to sleep, I would get up and go rock in the living room to process and enjoy the rain pelting against the window. I told myself I could wait, that my brain could count to twenty for a different reason this time.
My plan worked, and my brain octopus didn’t have a fit. It was happy to wait, and then once Jeremey was asleep, it liked sitting in the chair, rocking and humming and flapping and counting train cars during a rainstorm. I felt proud of myself. Not many people would understand how difficult that had been for me, but that is what being an adult is. Doing hard things and nobody knowing or helping.
I lived independently, I had a checking account, I had sex, and I made my own modifications. Though I had been legally an adult for a while now, that day was the first time I knew I really was one.