Summer of the Boy

by Zolton Arthur, Sarah

  No.

  “It’s what people in love do. We’re in love.”

  I can’t help but smile. “Yes. You’re right. It is and we sure as hell are.”

  “So do you want to? With me?” he asks, so unsure. How could he be unsure? How could he think I wouldn’t want to?

  “Yes,” I whisper back, my insides dissolving into a soft jelly consistency as he stands in front of me looking expectantly for what? For me to make the first move? We should talk it out first. Neither of us have done this before.

  Ridley moves to lie down next to me, his legs bent at the knees hanging over the side of the bed, feet resting on the floor. He twists his torso, propping himself up on his elbow so we’re face to face. God, he’s beautiful. A beautiful, beautiful man. I open my mouth to speak but Rid beats me to it.

  “I, uh, walked to the store last night,” he says, surprising the hell out of me. “After you brought me home, after my mom fell asleep.”

  “The store?” I ask. “What store?”

  “You know, the store that sells toys and movies and stuff?” Shit. A sex shop? Ridley walked to a sex shop after I dropped him off at home. “The guy behind the counter hooked me up. Though…” Rid looks away. Pauses and then continues, “I had to tell him the kind of sex I was into so he could help.”

  “Babe, you should have waited. I’d have gone with you.”

  “I know but I, um, I had to do it by myself. To prove that I could do it. Does that make sense?”

  “Makes perfect sense.” Then to let him off the hook I move us to new topic territory, “What did you get?”

  He rolls over to the table beside his bed and pulls a bag from the crack between the table and bed. Upturning the bag, a bottle of UltraGlide lube, a box of condoms and a couple of toys fall in between us. Yep. Red, gelled plastic butt plugs. The package even says curved for prostate stimulation. Rid isn’t messing around. Back at school, with my ex, the sight of these (although his weren’t red) sitting on his bed had me clenched up tight. Nothing getting in there. But here, with Ridley, I’m excited to experience this with him.

  “He says we should start with the toys a little first. Then um, move to the next step.”

  “Okay. What else did he say?”

  Rid bites his lip. “That it’ll probably hurt the first time, but the pain won’t last. That a dollop of this lube goes a long way and that we’ll have to decide who’s on bottom, who’s top, or if we’re willing to switch. He said he’s vers. Short for versatile. That means someone who gives and takes.”

  I’m well acquainted with the term, having had a boyfriend for five months last year and hanging with a mostly gay contingent among my friends and classmates. I just wasn’t ready to let that boyfriend show me his versatility. Ridley though? Come and get it, baby.

  “Since neither of us has been here before, I think we should try both positions to see what works best for us individually and as a couple,” Rid says, finally.

  “Sure. Sounds like a plan. You’ve really given this a lot of thought. I’m proud of you, you know?” And I am, so damn proud of him. I think I’d let Ridley do just about anything right now. His mother continues to treat him like a child, but he’s more adult than almost any adult his age I know. Asking questions when he doesn’t understand something instead of winging it and hoping for the best. Thinking major life decisions through before taking the step. What we’re about to do is a major life decision. Once done, there’s no going back. We’ve done it.

  He communicates the way only Ridley can, through his smile. Damn that smile will be the death of me one day. Maybe even today. Hopefully not today. He and I have too much living to do.

  We go at each other like any other time we’re messing around. Rid likes us to get naked at the same time. With his OCD tendencies, it’s shirts first, pants second. Underwear third if underwear are worn. That mostly falls on me because Rid likes to go commando depending on the fabric he’s wearing. From there we’re hands and mouths, kissing, stroking, licking, sucking, touching. The difference being, today we don’t stop.

  Lubed up fingers progress to lubed up toys. Lubed up toys progress to ecstasy. We take our time getting to know each other’s bodies, and what feels good compared to what feels best. I can hardly wrap my head around being here, doing this with him. All the sensation hitting at once. I’m one giant mass of sensation. The whole process is as beautiful as it is awkward. I mean, I’m sliding part of my body inside him. He’s sliding a part of his body inside me.

  God must have a real sense of humor to come up with sex. And now I’m a hundred percent sure porn is fake. I laugh because it feels so damn good, yet we fumble when things get too slick. At first he thinks he’s doing it wrong, but as we move and kiss, I assure him the best way I can that my laugh is because he makes me so happy.

  To some up, the toys are a good call, the lube helps but adjustments definitely have to be made—one dollop or two?—because it hurts at first, for the both of us. But the pain doesn’t last long for either of us. The same as for every couple in history, we figure it out.

  I make love to my boyfriend.

  Not just sex.

  You have to be in love to make love, and we make love.

  If it’s possible to feel closer to another living person, I cannot fathom the logistics of that one. He was already in my heart before he ever entered my body. But the thing is, now he owns it. And although he has a harder time expressing his emotions, I have to believe he feels the same way.

  No, I know he feels the same. A man like Ridley wouldn’t be lying in this bed right now if he didn’t.

  Once I help him dispose of the condom, we fall back, both our heads landing on his pillow. Ridley wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me so I rest taut against him. From there I roll onto my side and hitch my bent knee over his thigh, resting my chin on his chest.

  “Rid?”

  He stares at the ceiling and I’m dying to know what thoughts draw him away from me after what we just did together.

  “If it’s too much, I mean, for you to touch me now. Too much stimulus, you don’t have to hold me.”

  “Are you happy?” he asks in lieu of answering my question.

  “I seriously couldn’t be happier.”

  His eyes stay averted but a smirk creeps over his face. “This is what we’re supposed to do.”

  “Babe, we’re together no matter what. So don’t worry about what you think we’re supposed to do. I only want you happy. We can make our own rules as we go.”

  He keeps his hand around my waist still, but the other goes rigid against my thigh. Open. Close. Only twice before he reins it in and calms himself down.

  “Wow, Rid. You calmed yourself.”

  “I’m an adult. Adults don’t have meltdowns. So I thought about touching you to calm myself. Touching you makes me happy.”

  “Touching you makes me happy too.”

  Rid starts absently trailing his fingers up and down my arm. “Gabe wasn’t your boyfriend, then.” It’s a statement not a question.

  “Nope. Only had one other. I think Gabe wanted to be my boyfriend, but he’s still not ready to face it.”

  “So that other guy, together five months and you never did that with him? You never wanted to try it out? Because that was the best thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

  “I wanted to take that step with someone I loved. I never loved him.”

  “But you did with me, because what we have is real.”

  “It so is, babe. Everything about us is real. And it might sound stupid, or just be the post-coitus getting the best of me, but being with you makes me hopeful for life, for the future, you know?”

  “Not stupid. Though, might be the post-coitus, but still I’m the luckiest man in the world. You love me.” He says it as factually as one would say “the sun is bright.” Then he bends his head to kiss me. “We’re going to do that again, aren’t we?”

  “Whenever you want, Rid.”

  “I
think I’m going to marry you.”

  “Oh, um… you do?”

  “Not now. We still have college, but yeah. After. I’ve decided, I’m going to marry you.”

  Chapter Nine

  Three days after he gave me the best night of my life, we have a couple packets and pamphlets from the college spread out over the dining room table. Both our laptops open, so we can look up classes for Rid to register for, for the fall semester. I registered for mine at the end of last semester. He’s trying hard to suppress the panic because him leaving, it’s becoming real. And as much as he wants to be independent, in his almost twenty years of life, he’s never spent a whole night away from his mom. She never allowed it.

  For the past hour we’ve been quasi-bickering about the classes he should take as compared to the ones he wants to take, which are the hardest classes to take. My thought, it might be best for him to ease into his college experience. Being in a real classroom is way different from a homeschool classroom. What the professors expect of you, or how hard they are to learn from can make or break your freshman year. His thought, he’s just as capable as me. Like I don’t know that.

  Before finding classes, we’d been in touch with the student disabilities center at the college. He’ll be allowed to sit in front in all his classes and have an iPad with an external microphone to take his notes for him because as part of his autism, Rid can’t really handle touching pens or pencils. All his work he’ll submit via internet or have someone else write for him on group projects or whatever.

  I know mess makes him agitated, so having these pamphlets spread over the table coupled with the stress of telling his mom he’s leaving for school, well, he’s antsier than normal. I’m choosing to think of it as cute because I know he can’t help himself. Part of me wants to make everything better for him, tell his mom for him, clean up the mess for him. But John the therapist says dealing with what makes him uncomfortable helps him to socialize better.

  We hear his mother’s car pull into the driveway and I scramble to shove the pamphlets into my backpack while Rid finishes up and logs off the school’s website.

  “Clear your history,” I remind him. Because she’s the type of woman to check and he’s not ready for the confrontation yet. He does, then switches to an online job listing site for our area. He logs on right as his mother walks in carrying two shopping bags, one in each hand.

  “Do you need any help, Ms. McAllister?”

  “Sure. Rid,” she says pointedly. “There are more bags in the trunk.”

  “Can I help?” I ask, almost affronted. I’m trying here. How many times can a guy extend a damn olive branch?

  “Ridley has it,” she assures me.

  After he rises from his chair, shooting his mother a disgusted look, and heads into the garage, I can’t hold my tongue any longer. “You, you just refuse to like me,” I mutter while packing up my computer.

  “You have purple hair and piercings. Why of all the people you could choose, do you choose my son? The two of you couldn’t be more different.”

  “It’s just hair. I think the piercings are cool. He thinks the piercings are cool, because we’re not as different as you might think. Rid’s a fantastic guy, loads of fun to hang with, so why wouldn’t I want to? It pisses me off that more people don’t.”

  “That’s another thing, I don’t appreciate how you talk around him. He doesn’t need to hear words like that.”

  I stare at her, I’ll admit, dumfounded. Because, what? “You mean piss?”

  “That would be one he’s using now.”

  “He hears worse than that at work.”

  “Yes, well… you spend the most time with him.”

  “So you’re saying I’m a bad influence?”

  “You said it.”

  “No,” I correct her. “I voiced it. You couldn’t be any clearer if you’d screamed it in my face. Open your eyes for once and look at the strides he’s made this summer. I’m not as bad an influence as you think. John doesn’t think I’m bad for Rid.”

  “John’s not his parent.”

  “Mom.” Ridley must have been listening. We both turn not having realized he had come back in with the shopping bags. She flinches when he calls her name a second time, “Mom,” he says again, more forcefully, gritted through heavily clenched teeth. “You will not talk to him like that.”

  Wow.

  Wow.

  Without thinking, I go with my first instinct, to reach out to him, to hold him and comfort him. Let him know I have his back. Last minute I realize my mistake and stop abruptly. Apparently not good enough for Ridley anymore, he looks at me, shakes his head once and grabs at my wrist pulling me the rest of the way over to him, wrapping an arm around my waist. Not how one holds a friend. Even as blind as she tries to stay, she can’t deny his gesture. Though even if she were stubborn enough to try, what he does next well…

  The bags he’d been carrying dropped on the floor by his feet. The hand not around my waist, he hangs at his side, but not opening or closing. The man has never made such a dominant, confidant statement to his mother in front of me before. And judging by way her eyes go round and her mouth gapes open, he’s just never made it period.

  Looking her directly in the eyes, he lays it out for her. “I’m in love with him. We’re together, a couple. You won’t disrespect him like that again.”

  I shouldn’t have found it hot. I should have found it scary, mortifying or a plethora of other emotions because he just dropped the L bomb. The BF bomb. To his mother. But turned on is the only thing besides an overwhelming sense of love that I feel. Because seeing Rid take charge, god, it’s hot.

  “What?” She sort of whisper yells, aghast. Placing her hand over her heart. “Ridley, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then she looks at me. “What have you done to him? He’s not… he’s just… he’s just autistic.”

  “No mom. I’m autistic, and I’m gay. You have to deal with it. You either accept it or you don’t, but either way, it’s the truth. I’m autistic. I’m gay. And I’m in love with Leif Fraser.” I can sense a little of his bravado draining away. Standing up to her takes a lot from him. He starts to drop his gaze, but catches himself so she can’t throw that in his face. He ends with, “I love you, Mom. But you can’t talk to him like that. Never again.”

  The woman acts like she wants to say something but leaves a long, drawn out pause. I wish she’d just get on with whatever she wants to say so I can kiss my boyfriend. Respectfully, of course, like other couples do in front of parents. My mother will be absolutely thrilled he’s put his foot down to his mother about us. My problem will be keeping her from showing up on their doorstep unannounced with her Autism and Homosexuality pamphlet ready to discuss Rid’s and my future together.

  I’ve been so tired of sneaking around, and now everyone of importance knows. My family, Amanda, and now Ms. McAllister. Rid doesn’t know the gift he’s given me.

  The happy glow fades when Ms. McAllister looks at me, “You need to go.”

  Is she kidding? He’s my boyfriend. I love him. He loves me. Why is that so bad?

  “Okay.” Ridley moves his arm from around my waist to hold my hand, and starts to lead me toward the garage door off the kitchen. “Let’s go.”

  “I was talking to him.” She calls after us.

  “No. You were talking to us both.”

  When he reaches for the doorknob, I still his hand, “Babe, are you sure?”

  “Leif, I gave her a chance. We could have talked it out like adults. Sat and given her the chance to ask us questions. She chose wrong. That’s on her. Now let’s go.”

  Who is this man and what did he do with my sweet, demure, autistic boyfriend? It appears as if I’m dating a badass now.

  Because he walks us fast, after like two seconds we’re at my car where he pushes me against the driver-side door and plants a hot and heavy kiss on me. Putting his foot down with his mother must equal us coming out to the world as a couple. I’m v
ery okay with it. To hold his hand whenever I get the urge to hold his hand? To kiss him and not have to worry about who might see us, we’re on our way to living the dream.

  Pulling back from a kiss with the intensity of the kiss he planted, we’re both heaving trying to recapture some of the breaths we didn’t take while our lips were locked. “Hey,” I ask him between pants. “You feel good enough to try driving again?”

  “You’ll let me?”

  I nod.

  “Back roads?” he asks.

  “Back roads are fine.”

  “Then yes, I’d like to try to drive again.”

  It takes us ten extra minutes to leave his driveway because Ridley has to be comfortable enough. Seat adjustments, mirror placement, in cabin temperature, as he calls it. Radio at the perfect volume. Though, seeing him back out with the confidence of a man makes the extra time so worthwhile.

  I can honestly say I hate his mother right now.

  He’s a man, not a child. So what, he’s gay. Get over it. He has. He’s been living that life, a life independent of her if she chose to see it, for a while now. But that’s the crux isn’t it? She doesn’t choose to see it. Wait until she finds out about school.

  The silence filling the car, the concentration on his face, Ridley wants so badly to do well. Getting a driver’s license would mean the world to him.

  A quarter mile warning before turns, that’s my job to warn him as the navigator. And then just to remind him, and to push his comfort zone, which John the therapist told me to do, I point out each turn he needs to take which dictates an, “I know.” Every time.

  Finally we reach the backest back roads and I watch as Rid visibly relaxes his shoulders, loosening his grip on the steering wheel.

  “Can I talk again?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he answers, but without looking at me. At first I thinks it’s just concentration, but he has that look again. The one saying something’s swimming around in that brain of his.

  Even with something on his mind, he has no reason not to look at me. I’ve told him time and again there’s nothing he can’t say to me. “Talk to me, Rid. What’s wrong?”