Their Troublesome Crush Read online

  “Okay.” She thought about it for a moment, then continued. “Then if I don’t want to answer, I’ll say that. And then you leave it alone. Sound good?”

  “Well. I won’t know if it’s a rude question sometimes. Or too blunt. I’m often too blunt for people.”

  “That’s okay. I like blunt. And I just gave you permission to ask any question you have. So, none of them are rude.”

  Ernest blinked at her for probably a minute. It felt more like five. He’d never had an allistic person say that to him before. No rude questions, and she liked blunt? If only he was into cis people. She’d be perfect for him. Except of course for the whole metamour thing that was going so well. They’d just clicked, pretty much from the first, in that way that just happened for him with some people. Important people. He liked watching her with Daddy, liked how happy she made Gideon, how much she adored him. He got it; he adored Gideon too, figured they probably had matching swoony expressions on their faces as their gaze followed Gideon every time he was in a room. They’d hung out before, and it had been good, but it felt different today. Like the thread between them was stronger. It was probably because it was their first joint service project.

  “So, ask,” she said, nudging his boot with her cane.

  “You flag grey?” he managed.

  “Yup I sure do,” she said cheerfully. Waited a beat. Then she announced, “On the left.”

  Wait, what? How had he never known she was a bondage top? Or that she topped at all?

  “You’re a switch?”

  “Oh my, yes. A top-leaning switch, actually. When I submit, it’s rare, and often intense. But I mostly do D/s, some pain play, and I especially love bondage, from the other side of the kneel.”

  Ernest sat back, took a breath. “I had no idea,” he whispered.

  “Well why would you? You only see me with Sir, and I’m definitely not in topspace then. And we haven’t talked about kink when we’ve hung out. I know the community feels small, but…I don’t know your kinks, either. Want to tell me?” She waggled her brows.

  “Um. If you want to know.”

  “Yes, Ernest. I want to know.”

  “Well. I’m into Daddy/boy dynamic.”

  “Yeah, I gathered that.” She smiled.

  “I like D/s in a lot of its flavors, not just Daddy play. But at my core, I’m a service submissive, a good boy. Um. I don’t top, and I don’t do power-neutral kink, not my thing. I like pain—it often grounds me, calms me.”

  “Mmhm.”

  “And rope. I like rope. Not that I’ve done much of it. But when I have…it’s kind of like the pain. It helps hold me together.”

  “I’d like to hear more about that, sometime,” she said softly.

  “You want to hear about my bondage experiences?”

  “Well, sure. I meant more…I want to hear about how pain and bondage are…how did you put it? Grounding. Calming. Hold you together. I want to hear about that.”

  “Oh,” he said, feeling her gaze on him, sure he was blushing.

  “Sometime. Not necessarily today. And only if you want to tell me.”

  He nodded. His hand was tremoring, like it did when he was coming close to overwhelm. When she listened, she listened with everything. All of her was turned to him, focused on him. It was…whoa.

  Ernest pulled out his own bottle of water and took a few gulps, then he picked a cupcake. It seemed like a good idea to go with the one they named after the shop, right? He pulled out the knife he’d brought from home, and cut it in half. Then he cut one half into quarters, and grabbed one of the quarters.

  “You carry a butter knife in your backpack?”

  “Um. Yeah. I try to be prepared. Boy scout motto and all.”

  “I bet you make a great boy scout.” She had a lilt in her voice when she said that, which he didn’t know how to interpret.

  “I was a boy scout for Halloween! Daddy made some awesome badges for me.”

  “Try the cupcake, before you tell me about the badges.”

  “I can do even better.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I have a picture on my phone. Wanna see?”

  “Oh yes. After you try the cupcake. I want to see your reaction to that more.”

  Oh. No pressure at all. What if he didn’t like it? He closed his eyes as he tasted it, and damn. The texture of the vanilla buttercream was unreal, and the cake was so soft, so moist, and not as sweet as he’d expected, which totally balanced the intense sweetness of the frosting. He felt himself grin. It was the perfect cupcake. Amazing. Stupendous. He wanted to take this cupcake dancing.

  “I knew it!” Nora crowed. “I knew you would love it.”

  He lazily opened his eyes just in time to see her put her quarter of the cupcake in her mouth. Ernest loved watching Nora eating sweets. She went all in; it seemed like she savored them with her whole self, all the way down to her shoes. In the five months they’d been hanging out as metamours, they had shared desserts. She never would pick because he would be eating most of it. She always said it wasn’t fair for her to choose. So Ernest had made a game out of learning her tastes. It made him so happy to find ones she especially liked, because when they made her particularly happy, she would wriggle a little in her seat after each bite, and hum. So he always knew. He liked knowing that he had made someone happy; it was one of the best things ever.

  This cupcake hadn’t made her that happy, but he had a hunch which one would, so he picked that one up next: double chocolate. It smelled amazing, not just chocolatey but with this marzipan edge to it. Ernest was a sucker for marzipan, and so was Gideon. When he tasted it, he groaned, because wow was that amazingly good. Rich, buttery, bursting with chocolate, and that frosting, the almond was perfection. She grinned at him when he opened his eyes.

  “Yup. That one’s my fave, too.”

  “I guessed it might be. Daddy would love this, probably the lemon too.”

  “You gonna try the lemon?” she asked.

  “No, I need to keep this glorious flavor in my mouth for as long as humanly possible, thank you. Now you taste it.”

  “I already know what it tastes like!”

  “Well, I don’t want to be pushy…but would you please taste it, if you can?” He really wanted to see her face while she tasted it.

  “Not today, cutie. I will…at the party. I’ll come find you when I’m about to eat one of these. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he agreed.

  “Now cough up that pic.”

  “How about this. You find me when you are going to eat that cupcake at the party…and I will show you the actual uniform.”

  “Only if you wear the kerchief for me.” She grinned at him. Nora had fat cheeks that hid most of her eyes when she grinned. It completely changed her face. When Nora grinned, she became all beautiful hooked nose and wide fat cheeks and double chin, with these gorgeous dramatic laugh lines. It made Ernest giddy just to look at her and see that amazing huge grin and know he had changed her face so that happiness had totally taken over. He was the one that had made her that happy, even if just for a moment.

  “Deal!”

  Tuesday April 12, 2011

  The cupcakes were gone, which was good. Not just because Ernest got to see Daddy’s face when he tried the lemon one (which was priceless), but because it was time to clean for Pesach. His housemates weren’t as observant as Ernest, but they promised not to bring chametz into the house after today, so Ernest could get started at least. He liked the cleaning; it was a time when he got to put their pantry in order, make sure everything was clean. There were a bunch of fiddly details, he had lists of things to check off, and knew exactly what to do, so life was pretty good this week. He knew that Gideon liked the way the kitchen felt after a deep clean like this, so on top of everything, he was doing something that pleased Daddy.

  He put on his cleaning playlist, which started out with “Sidewalk Tree,” and included his favorite showtunes. It wasn’t long before the music drew Judith out of her r
oom to sit in the living room nearby and sing along with him. She knew better than to try to talk to him while he was in hyperfocus, but it was nice to feel her presence nearby. Ernest decided to make brunch for dinner as a way to use some of the flour instead of just throwing it away, and soon the room was filled with the scent of chicken and waffles, one of his most favorite comfort foods. There would be leftovers for lunch tomorrow that everyone could have, including Gideon, who was on a date with Nora tonight.

  Judith smiled at him as he handed her a plate and settled on the couch next to her, plucking root beers out of each of the pockets in his favorite hoodie. She leaned into him in thanks, her weight comforting against him. It was lovely to cuddle on the couch with someone who was about his height, and about his size. Two rather short midsize fat folks just fit together in a sweet comforting way. It was nice to be around her; they were the best at not talking and being close, and sometimes that was exactly what he needed. He pulled up the list of movies he was pre-screening for Daddy’s birthday party, and she pointed to The Fifth Element, one of her favorite movies. They munched, and watched, and after he was done with food, he laid his head in her lap, grinning as Milla Jovovich exclaimed loudly about her multipass.

  After the world had been saved, Ernest still wasn’t up for moving. It was too cozy here, with his head in Judith’s lap. And he had lost momentum. He could be done cleaning for the night; he was already ahead of schedule anyway. Judith seemed content, too, humming quietly as she stroked his hair. So he let himself drift, thinking about the next steps for Gideon’s party, what he needed to do before he met up with Nora on Sunday. It took a bit before he registered that Judith had asked something, and he had to ask her to repeat it.

  “Gideon’s with Nora tonight?”

  “Oh. Yes, he said he’d be home, but pretty late.”

  “How are things going, with you and Nora?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you’re spending all this time together, planning for Gideon’s birthday. You were friendly in a metamour way before. Is it bringing you closer, causing conflict, changing things?”

  “Why would it change things?” That came out a bit sharp. He didn’t mask much with Judith, which she’d told him she really appreciated, as she’d been pressured by her most recent ex to mask her own autism. She said it helped her to mask less herself, being around him when he wasn’t masking. But letting that kind of reaction out always made him a bit nervous about how people might react, even her. Judith just kept stroking his hair, so it was probably okay.

  “I know, babe. I know. Change is hard.”

  Ernest didn’t like change, and didn’t like the idea that Judith thought change seemed inevitable. “I don’t like it,” he blurted out grumpily.

  “I don’t like it either. But some change is good. I’m glad I moved in here, even though it changed things in so many ways. It made us closer, didn’t it?”

  Judith had always been chosen family, along with a sort of metamour, because she was Gideon’s ex. But since she’d moved in, they’d become much closer friends, and had begun writing a musical together, a modern retelling of the Bashevis story “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy,” this time leaving in the transness, queerness, and polyamory. Unlike another version that Shall Not Be Named.

  Ernest grinned. “Yes, that was good. I’m glad you live here, J. I’m glad we’re closer now. And I’m excited to be working on this show with you.”

  “Yes, it is good. Maybe change with Nora could be good, too. Do things feel different?”

  “Yeah, maybe. She makes me nervous more.”

  “Oh? Tell me about that.”

  “Like, I get all flustered, and she puzzles me more than she used to, I can’t figure out what she means sometimes. I get all tremory, you know.” He demonstrated with his hand.

  “Hmmm.”

  “And there was this one moment…where it kind of felt like I was full of bubbles, was almost dizzy.” He closed his eyes, remembering.

  “Tell me more about that moment. What were you both doing then?”

  “We were looking at the cupcakes display case.”

  “Was it the cupcakes that made the bubbles, Ernest?” she said, a lilt in her voice.

  “No. I had looked at the display on my own earlier: no bubbles.”

  “Was she maybe standing close to you?”

  “Yeah, she was, she’d taken my hand and tugged me over there…and while we were looking, she stood really close. Her hair brushed my cheek. It smelled like rain.”

  “Ah. Well, you do like rain. Had you ever touched, before this?”

  “No. This was the first time.” He’d been really aware of that, too.

  “Ah. So that’s a new thing. Anything else new?”

  “Well. She said I could ask her anything. Like, anything.” Judith looked as surprised as he felt. “Nobody ever did that before.”

  “Huh. Nobody ever gave me blanket permission for questions before, either. What made her do that? Was there a question you were holding back?”

  “Yeah, I guess I made it obvious, too. She had a grey hanky. I had no clue she was into bondage, but there she was with a grey hanky. But it felt rude to ask, until she gave permission like that.”

  “Oh my.” Judith whistled. “So, she’s into bondage?”

  “Yes, as a top. I had no idea she even switched!”

  “You told me once that you were into bondage, right?”

  “Yeahhh. It’s the best thing, J. Rope, especially. It’s like this reset button when I’m getting overwhelmed or all wound up. Like a weighted blanket, but better. Calms me down in the best way.”

  “Wow, you make it sound so good. Pain does that for me.”

  “Yeah, me too, but in a slightly different way.” He thought about it for a moment, before continuing. “Bondage kinda feels like it puts me back together when I’m falling apart?”

  “Ohhh. Yeah, I see what you mean about it being like a weighted blanket.”

  Ernest closed his eyes, remembering the last time he’d been tied up. He’d been at a weekend kink event with VJ, the dominant he did service with sometimes, and ze’d had a buddy do it. It was nine months ago, but he could still feel the comfort of the chest harness, and the joy he’d felt, getting to wear it under his clothes as he’d gone about his day doing service for VJ. That had been one of the best days of his life.

  It was like some of the great things about a binder, but he could actually breathe. He’d had to stop wearing a binder almost immediately because it messed with his singing too much and it triggered panic attacks to not be able to take full breaths. But the chest harness was this glorious thing that held him close and helped him focus and manage a big loud place with too many people, better than anything else ever had. He had been a very good boy, in circumstances where that would have been very difficult without it. That’s why he thought of it as the magic purple harness.

  “Ernest?” That was Judith’s voice. It felt a bit far away, so he worked on being present.

  “Yeah?”

  “You went away there for a few minutes. Where did you go?”

  “Oh. I was thinking about bondage.”

  “Ah. So, Ernest. Can you remember another time you had that bubbly feeling you had looking at the cupcakes?”

  “Oh. Um. Let me think. That day I was helping clean up after a party here, before Gideon and I got together. And we were over there in the kitchen doing dishes. He was washing, and I was drying. And his hand brushed mine as he handed me a glass. And then he smiled, and said I was being such a good helper. I got so flustered, I almost dropped the glass.”

  “Ah. Okay. Ernest, I have a theory about what is making you flustered and full of bubbles and stuff around Nora.”

  “You do? What is it?”

  “Is it possible you might have a crush on her?”

  Ernest blinked a few times, trying to process the idea. “But. But. But she’s cis.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I’ve
never had a crush on a cis person, J. In my life. I’m not attracted to cis people.”

  “Okay,” Judith said calmly.

  “So, that can’t be it.”

  “Okay. Except I kinda think it is?”

  “But how could it be?” This made no sense. What was Judith talking about?

  “Well. I don’t know. Maybe it’s like when my lesbian friend was doing all this anti-racism activism in the queer chorus with a gay man…and they ended up kissing?”

  “Wait, what? You never told me that story.”

  “It’s not anyone you know anyway,” she said, dismissing that. “The point is, she was still a lesbian. But she also fell for a dude. ‘Cause life is complicated.”

  “I don’t know, Judith. This has never been complicated for me before.”

  “I might be wrong,” she said gently. “But maybe it’s worth thinking about?”

  “Maybe.” Ernest got up, and made himself some tea, needing to move his hands. He was pretty sure that Judith was wrong. He wished he was 100% sure, but pretty sure would have to do, for now. It was unsettling to think that something about himself that had felt certain and steadfast might be murky or complicated or not always true. It made him agitated, which meant he probably needed to stim. And to be alone, so he didn’t have to manage input from other people. He said goodnight to Judith and went into the room he shared with Gideon.

  Ernest put on the Original Broadway Cast album of My Fair Lady and lay in bed, hugging his pillow. His feet were especially agitated, so he lay on his side and let his legs run and his arm tremor as he listened. There was something comforting about a familiar sequence of songs, one he’d listened to for much of his life. They were like an unbroken chain in his brain, one song linked to the next, and tracing the links felt good. By the time Julie Andrews was singing that she couldn’t go to bed, his feet had stopped needing to run. He was still in his cleaning clothes, hadn’t brushed his teeth, and his tea was sitting untouched on the bedside table, but Ernest felt heavy and exhausted, like his whole system was just shutting down. He sunk into sleep so fast he didn’t even remember to take off his glasses or turn off the bedside lamp.