Twenty-Six
OREN
The bed shifting wakes me, but not completely. I shiver when the covers lift, allowing the cool air in and against my skin. It’s quickly closed out again and warmth surrounds me. It’s quiet and I’m already falling back asleep since I haven’t woken fully, anyway.
I’m just barely there when the bed shifts again. The blankets are being tucked tightly around me, cocooning me in. I smile blearily as Adak’s lips press against my forehead.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he murmurs softly. “Sleep, sweetheart.”
I sigh. As I drift off, not for the first time, I wonder how I found a life as opposite to the one I somehow escaped as it could get. The last thought I consciously have before sleep takes me is of how happy I am. I’ve never known happiness until now.
I’m in that semi-sleep state where I’m aware that I’m dreaming. I’m running on the beach. Laughing. Looking over my shoulder, I see Adak chasing me, a grin that has my heart fluttering on his handsome face.
Sand kicks up as I nearly fall and I stumble, laughing madly, as I scramble to catch my balance and keep running.
The scenery changes and we’re suddenly running through trees.
I’m dodging this way and that, Adak’s hand just barely missing me.
I’m sure he’s doing so intentionally to give me a fighting chance.
We run, play in the trees, and laugh as the light fades. When he catches me, we fall into a field of wildflowers with the moon overhead. His mouth is on mine as he kisses me, his hand moving down my stomach to grip my cock. I groan.
My groan wakes me and for a minute, I’m sure I can still feel Adak’s hand on me. My eyes flutter open and I realize it’s not Adak’s hand but my own. I flinch, letting myself go, which only makes my cock throb mercilessly.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve woken up hard. It’s as if my subconscious and my body were on the same page as my mind. Waking up with the stereotypical morning wood would have been problematic in my house. Maybe it was fear of ridicule and harassment that subdued my libido.
This morning, I don’t seem to have that problem. The way my balls ache, and my dick throbs miserably. I roll onto my back, trying to ignore it. When that doesn’t work, I shove the blankets off and head to the bathroom.
Turning on the shower, I shove my underwear down. They’ve already gathered a wet spot. I’m glad I’m alone. That’s embarrassing. No one even touched me but myself!
I step into the shower and for a minute, I stand under the hot water and close my eyes.
My showers before moving into Adak’s were three or four minutes at most and stolen moments within the dead of night.
All in an effort to have as few confrontations with my family as I could.
I never knew what it meant to enjoy a shower.
Now, as I stand under the water and let it fall over me, it feels like I’m shedding more and more memories of what it felt like to be a prisoner in my own home.
I may not have been locked in my room, as is my father’s new intent given the evidence we saw, but my life was programmed for me.
Part of me wonders if they somehow subliminally trained me to shower when they were sleeping, too.
Nothing distracts my cock from demanding attention. Taking a breath, I wrap my hand around myself and groan. My free hand braces on the wall in front of me and I stroke myself. Root to crown. Sometimes I cup my balls.
I can feel my cheeks burning. As I can count the number of times I woke up with a morning hard-on, I can also count the times I actually touched myself. But following the pleasure seems like an easy enough concept. When it feels good, keep doing that.
But it feels like something’s stopping me. My self-consciousness, even though no one is here or watching. No one knows. Was I also a victim of sex shaming? Is that another thing that was shoved at me in a way that I didn’t realize, but stuck to me subconsciously? Because I feel embarrassed.
Closing my eyes, I try to ignore it all. I’m not in that place anymore. That’s no longer my life. Everything I learned—intentionally or otherwise—is not true. I can touch myself if I want to.
I snort.
Okay, this isn’t working. How did Adak touch me? He knew exactly what I liked. Moving down my dick and flicking his wrist in a strange little twist. Oh. Yep, like that. He jerked me twice as if he’d been doing it my entire life. Like he just knew the way to touch me, to please me specifically.
Then a few nights ago, when he had me in his mouth. It was so wet and hot.
The memory alone has me grunting. I press my forehead to the cold tile as the memory comes flooding back. He touched my ass with his tongue. Pressing his finger to my hole and then my taint, making my eyes roll back and my back arch.
He sucked my balls into his mouth, one at a time, and used his tongue in such a way that I forgot how to form actual words. The way he moved over my dick turned my brain to literal mush. Like there was not a coherent thought around. Not for a very long time.
It was the single best orgasm of my life. And possibly only my dozenth.
Thinking about it is enough to have me coming on the shower wall. My life seems to be full of bests these days. While that didn’t compare to Adak’s mouth or even his hand on me, it was by far the best orgasm I’ve ever given myself.
For another minute, I remain where I am. And then the guilt hits me. Fuck, should I have even been thinking of him like that? Would he be mortified?
I whine, and it’s not a sexy sound. There needs to be a rule book, an instruction manual. Am I allowed to use memories as sex fodder? What if it’s not a memory but a fantasy of something we haven’t done?
These are the thoughts that plague me as I wash and clean the evidence of my load off the wall.
I dry quickly and toss my underwear into the laundry bin before heading into the closet to find another pair.
I’m still caught up in the worries of my mind that I don’t realize I’ve grabbed a pair of soft, lacy underwear from Albie until they’re on and it feels… very, very different.
But by this point, I’m already rolled back up in bed and can’t be convinced to get back up. Not when thoughts of Adak being upset at me thinking of him sucking me off won’t give my mind any peace.
I’m so lost in thought that I don’t hear the front door or his footsteps on the stairs an hour later. Not until his lips press against mine and I nearly jump out of my skin. Adak grins.
“Sleep well, sweetheart?”
I nod. He kisses me again.
“Going to take a shower. I’ll be right back.”
I nod again and swallow at him getting in the same shower I just sprayed my release all over. Hell, I hope I cleaned it properly!
I’m chewing my lip by the time Adak returns to the bedroom and climbs back into bed with me.
He pulls me to his chest and I have to stifle another groan because he’s still mostly naked.
Just in underwear like me. Since the first night that this kind of accidentally happened, this is how we’ve been sleeping.
Feeling his skin against mine, his body heat seeping into me with nothing separating us, is a brand new kind of heaven.
An entirely different kind of fantasy I hadn’t ever thought to have.
It’s intimacy that has nothing to do with sex at all.
To share space with someone like this, where your heart beats against another person’s, is probably the best feeling in the world.
“Did you have a nice hike?” I ask. He told me last night—and invited me along—that some of the team was planning a hike at sunrise. I wished him luck and fun.
“Mmm,” he answered, humming against my head. His hand slips down my back and my heart skips when it finds my underwear. “It was beautiful. I’ll show you pictures later.”
I nod as his fingers trace the shape of my new… are they panties? If they’re lace, that’s what they are right? Or did I just make that up? What changes this particular garment from underwear to panties?
“These are nice,” Adak says.
My guilt is too heavy at this point, so I decide that I have to come clean. “Adak? Can I ask you something?”
He kisses my head. “You don’t have to ask permission to ask me anything. Yes, always ask.”
I take a breath, unsure how to even bring it up. “This morning… I uh… touched myself? And was thinking about when you did. Is that okay?”
My heart has stopped entirely. I’m positive. Adak’s hand pauses on my ass and I fill with dread. He rolls me onto my back, hovering over me to look into my face, and I want to sink into the mattress.
His lips cover mine as he feathers kisses all over my mouth until I finally release the breath I was holding. “Yes. You can think about me all the time. You never leave my mind, Oren.”
While I truly love the idea that he’s always thinking about me, I fear that he doesn’t understand what I meant. “But… I was thinking about when you, erm, blew me? Is that okay?”
Adak sighs. “I think maybe I wasn’t entirely clear when I tried to explain.
” His body is half on top of me and his weight is a comfort.
Reminding me he’s here. He wants to be here.
“The things about sex that stress me have nothing to do with how you think about me. It’s pressure.
Guilt. Bribes. Ultimatums. Making me feel like I’m a shitty boyfriend because I’m not aroused.
Making me feel broken or inadequate because I don’t feel aroused.
Trying to make me feel like shit by implying that I don’t find my partner attractive, as if I choose how my body and drive respond.
It’s the same as saying I choose to be gay or a heterosexual chooses to be straight.
Some things aren’t a choice and being put in a position where I’m made to feel like it is—that’s what causes issues in my relationship, Oren. ”
“That’s awful,” I say, horrified. “People have done that to you?”
He gives me a demure smile. “More than I care to admit.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him against me. “I’m sorry. That’s so awful.”
His arms slip under my back. “It is. It’s a really shitty way to live and those things have a way of eating at you.
But that’s what I was trying to say, Oren.
You can think about when I touch you all you want.
You can think about things I haven’t done to you, but you’d like me to.
I don’t even care if you ask me to do something that you’d like to experience or share with me.
I enjoy intimacy. I enjoy touch. Sometimes I enjoy giving my partner pleasure.
It’s when I feel pressured or guilted or anything where it’s not a choice that it becomes a problem. ”
I can’t imagine the things he’s heard. What’s been said to him. I feel sick to my stomach at the thought.
“I think the most conflicting emotions come from a partner who refuses to take care of his own needs and told me I’m neglecting him because I didn’t want sex.
Because I’m in a committed romantic relationship, it was expected of me to have sex with him.
Even knowing how I feel about sex, knowing that this is my body, and I should have complete autonomy over it, using guilt and obligation to try to coerce me into letting him use my body is basically stating that his needs were more important than mine.
His emotions were more important than mine because he was feeling neglected.
“What he didn’t see was that I understood everything he said.
I understand why he felt that way and I don’t necessarily disagree that it was unfair to him.
It was usually guilt or as simple as wanting to end his fucking whining that always made me give in.
It was always me making the sacrifice because he didn’t want to do it himself.
He had a partner, so he shouldn’t have to masturbate.
I should have taken care of his needs for him.
What he refused to see was that what he did was unfair to me. ”
“I won’t ever do that,” I promise. “Ever! I swear, Adak.”
I feel his smile against my neck. “Baby, I know. I believe you. Maybe I didn’t tell you this before because I don’t want you to feel like asking me for something is what’s going to make me feel like shit. I want you to ask. It’s how you respond that matters.”
“I think you’ve been very generous,” I say, because it’s the truth.
Adak chuckles, rolling so I’m now laying sprawled on top of him. I blush when his hands cup my ass. But then they move up and wrap tightly around me in a hug.
“It’s a misconception that all asexual people hate sex.
I don’t hate it. Most of what I hate regarding sex is how I’m made to feel about my role in it.
Again, I’m not always going to want to participate.
And I’m in no way saying that your needs aren’t just as important as mine.
But compromise isn’t going to bed angry one night because I don’t want to touch you in that way and then telling me you gave me what I wanted, and we didn’t have sex last night.
That’s not how it works. Sex might be a physical act, but it’s definitely emotional too.
And when I’m treated like that, I want to share those moments with that person less and less.
Which, I suppose, is why we’re thought to hate sex. ”
“I don’t want you to hate it and I never want you to feel like you have to touch me,” I tell him. My stomach churns at the thought of hurting him. “I wish I could take all that away from you.”
His arms tighten. “You know, I’m pretty sure I’ve been waiting my entire life for you, Oren. We were put on this earth to rescue each other. To heal each other.”
I nod. I’m not sure about fate or destiny or even whether some iteration of god exists, but I can definitely believe that. The fact our eyes met in a sea of over 15,000 faces? Something pulled us together.
I’m so fucking thankful it did.