Darren won the game, which wasn’t ideal for Emmet, but he’s a good loser, and I think he was happy when he saw the prize for the winner: a pair of Bluetooth headphones. Darren hummed and hissed and hit the thank you button over and over on his iPad. They were nice headphones. I was glad Darren had won them too.
By this time it was almost midnight, so we turned on the television and watched the ball drop in Times Square. It was a time delay, of course, because midnight in New York had happened an hour ago. Though the party looked exciting, I could never in a million years go to anything as busy as that, but we had fun cheering and clapping at our party.
And then it was time for bed.
I gave Darren a tour of our apartment with Emmet, showing him where everything was, making sure he knew he was welcome to anything he needed. “I put fresh sheets on the bed, folded the way you like them. I remember how, I think, from when we were roommates. If they aren’t right, I know you’ll fix them, but I tried to get them close.”
Darren smiled, his nostrils flaring. He signed thank you—it was his kind of signing, which I don’t know a lot of, but I knew the Darren thank-you sign.
“You’re welcome.” I gestured to the room. “I put towels on the bed too, for when you want to take a shower. Emmet will give you a tour of the bathroom, because he has more rules about how it should be used. But there aren’t any rules about my room. I put all my things away so it wouldn’t be cluttered. Emmet helped me autism-proof it, but if something bothers you, don’t hesitate to tuck it into the closet or whatever you need to do. You know me. I’m not going to mind.”
Darren stood still for a long second, no reaction, no movement. Then he signed, his gestures quick and jerky, his body rocking as he punctuated each hand flick with a soft moan.
He must have been speaking to Emmet, because Emmet answered in the same sign. He seemed a little flustered to me, but I didn’t know why. Eventually he turned to me, his gaze fixed on my shoulder. “Darren would like to hug you. I told him it was okay so long as it wasn’t a boyfriend hug.”
I blinked, first at Emmet, then at Darren. But Darren doesn’t hug anyone, I wanted to say, though of course I didn’t. I only nodded. “Sure.” Then I stood still while I waited to experience a Darren hug.
I tried to think if Darren had even touched me before, outside of accidental brushes of hands as we’d exchanged objects or passed each other in hallways. I couldn’t think of any instance where that had happened. He was so touch averse, worse than Emmet. I wondered what I had said that had made him want to hug me, and why.
He approached me slowly, someone working up to a challenge. Darren was almost as tall as me, if he stood straight, which he normally didn’t. Normally he didn’t stand at all, preferring to sit on a couch or in a chair. Now he was before me, as if he were about to take me in his arms and lead me in a waltz, and I felt flustered. Darren was handsome, with dark hair and a pretty face, with sweet eyes. It was easy for people to not notice, to only see the external expressions of his disability, the way his body folded in on itself, the way it flattened him out and made him seem different than people on the mean. Right now, though, all I saw was a handsome young man, and I understood why Emmet had been unwilling to say yes.
Darren opened his arms and wrapped them around me like a vise. I couldn’t hug him back, because my arms were trapped, pressed against my chest and rendered useless. His grip was rigid, controlling every element of the hug. If it were Emmet hugging me, or someone on the staff, or David, I’d have put my head on their chest and relaxed into the embrace. Something told me not to do this with Darren. It occurred to me his pinning my arms hadn’t been an accident. For Darren hugging me meant just that, him hugging me and not the reverse. He could pin me, but not me him.
So this was a Darren hug. I’d never seen this before, let alone experienced it. I had a feeling few people had. I went soft inside, letting the privilege of my initiation sink in.
When he released me, he didn’t look at me, but I smiled at him, biting at the side of my lip. “Thanks, Darren.”
He made a thanks sign at me, and then he went into my room and closed the door.
Emmet hadn’t shown him the bathroom, which I worried would be a problem. But Emmet took my hand and led me into our bedroom. Immediately he drew me into his arms, embracing me in his own kind of awkward, though the tension in his touch made me touch his face, kiss his cheek.
“Emmet, are you okay?”
His hands on my back gripped my shirt. “I don’t enjoy seeing other guys hold you. Even if it’s Darren, who I know only likes you as a friend. It makes me feel tight and scared inside.”
Emmet was jealous. The thought made me melt into goo as I rushed to soothe him. “Oh, Emmet. I could never love anyone but you, ever. No matter who held me.”
“I know, but it’s not fun seeing other people touch you.”
I nuzzled Emmet’s jaw—carefully, so as not to stimulate his senses in a way that would make him uncomfortable. “You can touch me now. Wherever you want to.”
“Take off your shirt, Jeremey.”
I took it off, handing it to him when I was finished. He carried it to the hamper and tucked it neatly inside. “I’ll wash it with my clothes and return it to you.”
I didn’t give a damn about my shirt, but I nodded. “Thank you.”
Emmet stared at my neck, but I knew he was also looking at my entire torso, admiring it. Thinking of what he wanted to do to it. To me. I bit my lip, the same place I had when I’d smiled at Darren, except now I wasn’t smiling, not at all. Now I was breathing long and slow, waiting for Emmet.
“Touch me,” I whispered, when I couldn’t wait any longer.
He put his hand in the center of my chest, splaying his fingers. I shut my eyes on a gasp and a breath, then opened them and watched as Emmet ran his fingers up and down, painting invisible lines across my skin with the pads of his fingers. My belly quavered, and eventually I had to clutch my fingers against the door to keep myself still for him.
“Is my touch too soft? Too hard?” he asked, fingers slowing to a halt at my belly button.
I shook my head, watching his hand. “It’s all good. I like it. All the feelings.”
“Do you want me to touch you more? Maybe without your pants?” His fingers tightened into a brief ball. “Maybe while I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
I tilted my face toward his mouth as he kissed me, moaning and canting my hips into his hand as he fumbled with my jeans. I had to help him with the jeans, and the kiss was clumsy because he was doing two things at once. Nobody’s ever going to mistake our make-out sessions for porn shoots or movie moments. I don’t care, though. He had his hand on my dick, and his mouth was on mine, and during the whole of it, I was in his arms, and he mine. I surrendered to the feel of him, the comfortable, safe space that was Emmet Washington.
When we stumbled to the bed finally, I only had my socks on, and I lay there watching, content and happy as Emmet undressed before he moved over me. He took our cocks together in his hand, brought mine in to help. Together we guided ourselves with a bit of lube toward release. Our breathing was heavy, bodies tight as we chased it—I shut my eyes and let go to the sensation of his body sliding against mine as we both fought for our orgasm. I listened to the sounds he made, the ones we made together, remembering, vaguely, the need to be quiet. Mostly, though, I spun out of my head, high on the feeling of being with the man I loved so much, until it was too much to bear and I cried out, my feelings and my ejaculate pouring out of me all at once. As I fell onto the bed, Emmet followed suit, coming onto my stomach, though he did so silently, with only a few gasps and soft grunts.
I lay there afterward, ready for sleep as he cleaned me up.
“Is it still okay if I sleep in here?” I could barely open my eyes, and my body felt like lead. I thought I should get the answer to this quickly. “I can go to the couch. It’s okay.”
“I want you to stay.” Emmet finished wi
ping himself off, put his pajama bottoms on, and climbed into bed beside me. “I had an idea. I thought, if I feel like I need space, I could put pillows down the middle.”
I smiled at him sleepily. “That’s a good idea. We should get a big bolster, if it works. Then maybe we could sleep together more often.”
Emmet pulled me to his body, tucking me close enough so my head rested on his shoulder. “Right now I want to hold you. Is that okay?”
I inhaled, long and slow, letting the scent of Emmet fill my nostrils as the weight of his body surrounded me, the thrill of the release he’d given me still humming inside of me. “Yes. It’s absolutely okay.”
CHAPTER NINE
Emmet
By the middle of January Mom still hadn’t gotten the dog for Jeremey, which logically I understood was how this process went, but practically the situation was frustrating. Though Jeremey had good days as well as bad days, New Year’s Eve being one of the better ones, he still struggled more than he should. He had another round of bad depression around the tenth of January, forcing him to stay first in bed and then in the apartment for several days, missing work and most activities.
I didn’t take off work this time, though I wanted to. Jeremey insisted it would upset him more to think every time he had a bad round of depression I would get less work done, and so we’d reached a compromise. Darren came over to be my stand-in.
David stayed with him too, but there was only so much he could do, and Jeremey did need someone more able-bodied around him. Darren did have some physical limitations, but not as many as David, and between the two of them they could get a lot of nursing done for Jeremey when his depression kept him bedridden.
David had become close with Darren, so much so that I got jealous because I thought maybe David wanted to replace me as his favorite Blues Brother. David had said this idea was ridiculous, who could replace Elwood? But Darren helped him a lot, he told me, because he knew about software for people with disabilities, plus he understood David’s situation. Also I stopped being jealous when I learned David had used his superpower, which was annoying people until they told him things they otherwise wouldn’t tell anyone, and he’d super-powered Darren into confessing what had upset him on New Year’s Eve. When I heard the secret David had discovered, I wanted Darren over to The Roosevelt as much as possible.
One of the problems with our population, autistic people and people with disabilities and depression and people not on the mean in general, is that everyone else doesn’t care about us or think about us at all. Why this is a problem is because when able-bodied people on the mean don’t think about you or care about you, when you need things, they don’t listen. And people like Darren and David need a lot of things, more than people on the mean. I need a lot of things too, but I’m a different case because I’m high functioning. Plus I’m what my mom calls a poster child. I am not on a poster and I am not a child, but this means I am a good example, better than the usual, and this means people want to help me because I look and sound the way they think is right, the way people are supposed to be.
Who people don’t want to help is Stuart, who yells all the time, even though he can’t help it.
I have a difficult time with Stuart myself, to be honest. I know he can’t help how he is, but his disability and mine don’t always mesh well. It doesn’t help that ever since the Roosevelt Blues Brothers made our video he’s decided he and I should be best friends, which is something I don’t want. I think he wants to be a Roosevelt Blues Brother too, and he’s definitely not one. I feel bad saying it, but I could never be with him the way I am with David and Darren and Jeremey. He’s too intense, too loud. He needs to be friends with Cameron, who is also loud and intense sometimes.
My reluctance to be with Stuart only proved my point, though. If Stuart didn’t have family with money, he would be in big trouble because he would be somewhere like Icarus. There aren’t many places in society for someone with disabilities such as his, and the places that weren’t The Roosevelt are scary. Group homes like Icarus rely on public funds, and public funds are threatened because people in government decide we don’t need it or are spending it badly. None of the people who decide these things go to Icarus and look at the residents. Or the walls with big cracks. They don’t notice there are no pictures or all the rooms are sad-feeling, or all the games are broken. They don’t talk to the staff, who are young and inexperienced and frustrated. They read reports by people who want to do other things with the money that is meant to be spent on our population, then make decisions convenient for their plans. My mom says they avoid looking too closely at us so they don’t disturb their consciences. I think she’s right.
The problem is, a lot happens when people don’t regard you as a real person. They think they can ignore you, and worse, they think they can use you. Sometimes they think they can use you the way a staff member was using a resident on New Year’s Eve, when Darren walked in and caught the staff member assaulting her.
He’d heard her crying out in her room, and though to most people it had sounded like the same kind of yelling as always, Darren knew the difference, and he went in because he thought she was hurt. When he saw what was happening to her, he started shouting too and turned on the alarm on his iPad. The staff member assaulting the resident had swung at him and tried to break his tablet. When the other staff had come, at first the assaulter had blamed the assault on Darren, but since they’d seen him in the lounge five minutes before, and since the female resident also accused the staff member, no one bought the lie. The staff member had been taken away by the police, and the resident to the hospital.
Darren had been offered a session with an emergency counselor and some anxiety medication, and given an extra dessert. This was all anyone had done to soothe him after what he’d seen.
This was why Sally was so upset, because she’d come into the middle of this mess and had seen how poorly the aftermath was being handled. Then she’d heard it was the fourth assault to have happened at Icarus in the past three years.
David wanted to get Darren out of Icarus, and in the meantime, he brought him over to The Roosevelt as often as he could. I think he told his dad, because Bob was always telling Darren to stay over whenever he wanted and had a funny look on his face that kind of matched the guilty emotion card in my deck, even though it made no sense because Bob hadn’t done anything to be guilty about. Darren had stayed over three more times in our apartment, borrowing Jeremey’s room. If it weren’t for Jeremey’s depression, I would have thought more seriously about taking him as our roommate for good and seeing if we could work out a deal for the rent. But when Jeremey’s depression came back so strongly, he had to have his own space, and me mine. While Darren could visit, he couldn’t stay with us all the time. It wouldn’t be healthy for any of us.
Darren was great as a nurse, though, and he and David were perfect together with Jeremey. David always messed up the apartment when he was in it, knocking things over and leaving them out, but Darren went around behind him and picked them up, and he read all my labels and followed all the instructions because he knew they were important to me. I felt okay about leaving Jeremey when they were there with him.
It didn’t mean I didn’t think about Jeremey the entire time I was at Workiva, though, and I had a harder time with my job in general. Usually I’m a steady worker, and my supervisor tells me how much work I get done in a voice I know means she’s impressed with how well I’m doing, but not in January. One day she called me into her office for a meeting, and she asked me if anything was wrong. “You seem distracted and unfocused, and that’s not like you.”
I had to rock for a minute before I could answer, but I didn’t mind rocking in front of Kaya. She’s kind and understands rocking and humming help me focus. She waited patiently while I figured out how to answer her question. “I’m fine, but I’m distracted by a lot of problems with my friends and my boyfriend, and with the residential facility where I live.”
�
�I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling down. Do you want to tell me about your problems? I would love to listen.” When I didn’t answer right away, she added, “We could go to the ball pit first, if that would help.”
The ball pit was something Workiva had installed since I started working there, and I was proud of it because it was my idea. There are other companies that have stress-relieving things such as adult play areas, and a few have ball pits, but Workiva built the ball pit for me. Kaya says they’re appreciative to have a brilliant worker like me in this area and want to do what they can to retain me. I can take my laptop and work in there if I want, but mostly I enjoy going in there and doing some thinking. It’s like a sensory sack at work. Except sometimes other staff go in with me, and we play together.
Kaya went with me now, and we had fun jumping into the balls, throwing them into the air and at the walls. We never throw them at one another, but sometimes we play catch. Once we got done jumping around, we sat in opposite corners and tossed blue balls back and forth. I only wanted to toss blue balls today, and she said she didn’t mind.
“Can you tell me what kind of problems your friends and Jeremey are having now?” she asked as we threw the balls.
I decided I could. “Jeremey is having bad depression again. He can barely do his job with David, and he isn’t even watching Ellen much anymore. My mom is trying to get him a service dog, but it’s expensive and takes a long time. I wanted to help, but it costs a lot of money. My friend Darren lives in a bad residential house. He wants to live in The Roosevelt, but it costs too much money and he doesn’t have any, and his parents don’t have much at all. I wish I could help him, but I think I’m going to have to pay for Jeremey to live at The Roosevelt soon. Which is fine because I want to marry him. But I don’t know how his insurance will work if we get married. And I still can’t afford a dog and his bill at The Roosevelt. And The Roosevelt is having trouble too because of the state budget changes and because of shady backroom deals.” I squeezed the ball I was meant to throw tight in my hands, staring at it. “Do you think Workiva would pay me more if I worked harder? I could come to the ball pit less and eat my lunch faster. If I skipped my dessert, I could save five minutes. Also if I ate in the break room instead of the cafeteria, this would account for another five minutes. With ten minutes less ball pit time, that’s twenty minutes a day. One hundred minutes a week. In a month I could save six more hours. Do you think Workiva would pay me more for that?”
Shelter the Sea Page 8
