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 un
derstand 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."
10
Harlow
* * *
Once again, I stood with my heart bleeding in my throat, watching Xavier literally run away from me. He had his shoes and socks in one hand, running down the docks at a pace so punishing it seemed impossible he could sustain it, yet he did sustain it until after he was out of sight.
When he was gone, I sank onto the chaise lounge, loosely wrapped in a bed sheet, the cool wind off the water pebbling my skin.
Autistic.
A virgin.
The virgin part wasn't a surprise. It didn't bother me, either. He was within a couple years of my own age and he was an adult both cognitively and legally. He was clearly capable of making his own decisions. He was a man, just...a sexually inexperienced one. In some ways his inexperience made a physical relationship with him all the more fun and exciting and different and unique, in ways he was probably embarrassed by. When he forgot to be overwhelmed and just indulged in his senses, he exuded wonder and awe and appreciation and passion and desire. He kissed like he'd been created for that singular purpose. When he touched me and went down on me--which he'd done without hesitation or qualm--he was hesitant at first and then increasingly masterful and dizzying.
I didn't regret a single thing I'd done with him-- and I didn't feel bad about any of it. I just wish I'd been able to understand how deeply he'd been affected by what that bitch had done to him, so I could be more...I don't know...better at helping him past the trauma to a place where he could simply enjoy sex.
The autism aspect was more concerning. I'd had no clue autism was a spectrum until he'd told me and explained it. Did it mean he was handicapped in some way? Not from my perspective, no. He'd always seemed one hundred percent self-aware, aware of me, and capable of and willing to make decisions for himself with total understanding of risk versus reward. He was just...different. Superior, in many ways, to anyone I'd ever met. Socially, sure, he didn't quite fit into the average or normal boxes. But that was part of what made him so fresh and interesting and attractive. Yeah, he was awkward at times. Hard to understand at times. Impossible to predict, always. But talking to him, being with him, being around him--it was a blast of fresh air to someone like me, having spent so many years among a crowd of a certain type.
At NYU, in the fine arts program, you could reliably expect everyone to be smart, well educated, sophisticated, creative, artistic, difficult, mostly wealthy--with all the usual foibles and quirks of being all of those things. Of course there were outliers and the different; as you get everywhere you go, whatever you do. And then in Hollywood everyone is an actor, or has a script they're working on, everyone is waiting for a callback or script approval or for the right producer to discover their material. In the industry, people fall into predictable camps and cliques and circles. In the A-list world, things get even smaller despite having the entire world at your fingertips--you trust few people, allow fewer still into your inner world. Even seeing the world is done through a filter, through the screen of wealth and celebrity, dodging fans and crowds and anticipating recognition, and being catered to and fawned over. Those are good things, amazing things which few will ever have, making me absurdly fortunate, and I know it. Yet, it is a closeted way of life and it eventually gets old.
Xavier...he fits into none of the molds or archetypes I've seen anywhere, he fits into no group, no clique. To him, I suppose, that made him a freak, but to me...it was as refreshing and exhilarating as being in the fresh air and natural beauty of Alaska after living in the smog and urban chaos of LA.
I was...
He'd been gone less than five minutes, and I missed him.
Still sitting on the chaise lounge wrapped in a sheet, I glanced to the deck and saw his T-shirt, forgotten; I picked it up, sniffed it, inhaling his scent. I shrugged into it and discarded the sheet as I snagged my laptop and went back inside and connected to the Internet. I began researching Autism Spectrum Disorder and the high-functioning end of the scale, and what it looked like, what it meant psychologically and socially, emotionally and physically.
A million questions assaulted me as I researched and read, and began to understand a bit more of what made Xavier tick in terms of ASD, and how that related to the situation I found myself in with him.
Was the touch and sensory issue connected? That led me down a whole new rabbit hole of research and articles and websites, and what I learned once again made more sense because of my experience with him.
He'd never been officially diagnosed, he'd said. How had this been missed his whole life? Could anything have been done to help him learn to cope and function, if he'd had a proper early diagnosis? According to what he'd said of his childhood, he'd sort of raised himself, with his older brother helping out as much as he could. Which was how it had been missed, clearly. He'd figured it out himself while trying to understand why he was so different.
I imagined a young Xavier, isolated, lonely, feeling trapped in his own head, unable to form normal friendships, without the love and support of either mother or father--he seems to love and look up to his eldest brother, but no matter how good an elder sibling does at playing parent, I doubt it could ever be the same. I imagined him trying desperately to figure himself out, to find a way to fit in, to be normal, or at least understand why he didn't...wasn't...couldn't.
If he couldn't form a basic friendship because expressing emotions was difficult or impossible, if he was hypersensitive, if he had suffered emotional trauma at the hands of cruel high schoolers, if he already had difficulty trusting his own judgment let alone trusting another person...how could he ever have a normal relationship?
My heart squeezed, twisted, cracked.
And I'd been angling for a casual sexual relationship. Jesus.
I know I had no way of knowing. But still.
Clearly, that wasn't going to be possible.
Was a romantic relationship even possible?
I still had no idea how he felt about me. Was he mad at me for pushing a physical relationship on him? I didn't think I'd intentionally manipulated him, or seduced him in any kind of malicious way. I just...I wanted him. I'd seen evidence that he wanted me, but he'd been hesitant to follow that desire.
Guilt and shame hit like a lightning bolt. I'd been assuming, either consciously or subconsciously--or a bit of both, really--that he was hesitant because of who I am, because of what I look like. I'd been approaching him the whole time as the woman who'd literally been told her whole life how gorgeous and sexy and desirable she was, as the woman used to being pursued and ogled and pestered and desired and obsessed over, as the woman chased by paparazzi hoping for a single photograph of me which would be sold for thousands of dollars, as the woman who could have any man she wanted with a snap of her fingers.
Xavier had no interest in any of that. He had no idea who I was, what my background was. He was just...attracted to me. Physically, obviously. But also for who I am...
He was attracted to Low.
Not Harlow Grace, movie star and sex symbol.
Low, just a girl.
Worse yet, he'd left hints and clues all along that weren't just weird or a little different,
they were the source of uniqueness that went beyond simple personality quirks. The way he'd occasionally pat the sides of his legs, or seem to get lost in his thoughts while staring at a wave or a bird or a pattern on the floor, the way whenever he looked directly at me, it seemed...forced, or difficult for him. As if direct eye-to-eye contact was something he'd learned would make him seem more "normal" so he'd learned to fake it. There were so many things, now that I knew what to look for.
But I'd been selfish. Seeing only what I wanted and not really ever taking into consideration, truly, what he was saying. What he meant. How everything I said and did affected him.
Had I pushed him too far?
God, what a mess.
I put the laptop aside and sat on my private balcony, cocooned in the warmth and masculine scent of his T-shirt.
I should just go back to LA. Forget all this. Forget him, forget us.
Wait...us?
I laughed as awareness of what I'd just thought hit me. But the laugh turned, with startling abruptness, into tears.
Us?
I thought I'd gone into whatever this was with Xavier as a strictly temporary thing. A hookup. A vacation romance, with a built-in shelf life.
Now I was thinking about us?
He'd left.
He couldn't handle me, couldn't handle what I wanted. What I was. What I represented. What he wanted.
Could he handle who I was? My god, I could barely handle who I was.
Us?
I was in Ketchikan to get away, not to get tangled up in some crazy web of emotion...
Yet here I was, sitting alone on my boat, crying over a man.
Forget him?
Not likely.
Even if--when, rather--I went back to LA and resumed my life, resumed acting, resumed the whole crazy game...I knew I wouldn't forget him. I'd hear his voice, the way he would talk when he was explaining something...
Would anyone ever look at me the way he did? That awe, that raw unfiltered appreciation and need and desire, undiluted and pure. The way he would touch me, as if just getting to hold my hand was a gift, as if kissing me was something precious.
Badd Boy Page 14
