Chapter 2
Two
Picking at his nails, Rami stared at his bank account. The numbers were high but not high enough. He hadn’t realized inheriting a house would come with such severe complications—like an unpaid tax bill and a threat to foreclose and throw the place on the market for auction.
In all honesty, Rami might have let them too. He wasn’t really a sentimental sort of guy. Objects didn’t hold value in his head the way they did for other people. But he’d grown up in this house. He’d learned every skill in art he possessed under that roof. He sat at the knee of his grandfather and absorbed everything he possibly could, and it was a place that allowed him to be himself.
And for that reason alone, it was impossible to let go.
His parents loved him, but they expected more out of him. It wasn’t just a cultural thing, though that played a large part in it. It was also the fact that his parents’ only exposure to the idea of Autism came from media that insisted all Autistic kids were geniuses with talents that could lead to big money counting cards in Vegas—or whatever.
They didn’t expect their son to be mediocre and disinterested in anything that could lead him to a lucrative career. Of course, Rami also grew up a nervous mess because one kid had pantsed him in the seventh-grade locker room and learned the secret his parents demanded he guard with his life.
The whole school knew by sixth period, and the bullying was so bad within two days that he’d been put in the in-school suspension room for his own safety.
They’d moved after the incident, and his mother had planned to fight for an exception for PE so he wouldn’t risk changing in front of the other kids and his secret would be safe again. But the only school that could take him and offer him possible protection was the Catholic private school up the hill from where his grandfather lived. It might not have been so bad, but his parents, being devout Muslims, had struggled with the decision until the deadline to enroll him again.
He didn’t fully understand what the problem was. He’d never really believed Allah was real, whether it was the Christian version, or the Jewish one, or the imam who spoke to them every other Saturday when his parents dragged him and his siblings to mosque.
But Allah was just another figure, for the most part. Just another parental set of eyes watching him for the sins he might want to commit, and being as hyperobservant as he was—and eventually as obsessed with history as he became—he quickly realized that there were actions and consequences, and no amount of prayer or faith saved anyone.
So stepping foot in a Catholic school so he could finish his education around a bunch of kids who would never know the truth about his body wasn’t the worst punishment. Even if it was an exhausting one. The kids were cruel for other reasons—the curls in his hair, the shade of his skin, the fact that he stimmed openly in class when he was thinking and that his social awareness never extended to knowing when to stop info- dumping when someone tried to make polite conversation. It was hell, just like all middle schools were hell.
What made the whole thing bearable was sitting at his grandfather’s feet every afternoon and losing himself and all of his anxiety to the stroke of a paintbrush on canvas. That eventually led to carving marble—something he lacked the fine motor skills for. He eventually found his passion in clay sculptures, and it was the only thing currently keeping him from losing his mind as he struggled to handle the financial mess of the house.
His grandfather was gone now, but the memories remained, and he was resolved to do everything in his power to preserve this one lasting memory.
Which meant making choices his family could never know about because they were unhappy enough when he announced he was an Atheist on Eid al-Fitr the year he turned seventeen. He didn’t think they’d forgive him if he told them he was selling his body on a website in order to pay off his grandfather’s debt and have money left over so he could comfortably enjoy his life and be an artist without the starving part.
Or…maybe they would. But he wasn’t willing to risk it. He loved his parents and his siblings, and he didn’t want to make it weird.
His biggest problem was he was severely lacking in brain-to-mouth filter, and he tended to say whatever popped into his head without worrying about potential consequences. The only way for him to stop that was to lean hard on his hypervigilance, which tended to lead to frequent meltdowns and fatigue so severe he couldn’t work.
And that was something he couldn’t afford to do right now.
So he was planning for a very lonely year where he made excuses as to why he couldn’t go visit for holidays or his nieces’ birthdays, and he’d resume life as normal once he made the final payment and the house was secure.
But he missed them all.
A lot.
Making friends at his age was hard enough as it was. Making friends as a thirty-two-year-old Autistic artist was harder. Making friends as all of those things, plus having a secret FanCore account, was even worse. He’d actually met a guy at his gym, and they’d become workout buddies until the guy recognized his tattoo—something he struggled to hide when he was filming. Things got awkward as hell, and it took him a long time to realize why.
He changed gyms after that. It wasn’t worth the pain and suffering of listening to the guy make excuses why he was too busy to work out with Rami anymore.
Luckily, neither his parents nor his siblings knew he had a tattoo either, so that part wouldn’t give him away if they ever decided to venture into that side of the internet. He was safe there. He was just…very, very alone with this secret.
And he kind of thought that was how the rest of his life was going to go, except a hard-of-hearing man toppled into his driveway one afternoon and turned everything upside down. Rami had been certain his atrophied social skills would have sent the guy running—if he could run, though with his knee torn to shreds from the pavement, he wasn’t going anywhere fast.
Instead, the man—Skye—had asked for his number.
Which okay, no. That wasn’t true. With his rambling, Rami had been the one to ask for his number. And to suggest lunch. But instead of looking at him like he was a freak, Skye had just laughed softly and then let Rami put his number in his phone.
He’d promised to text that night, but instead of leaving Rami pacing and worried that the text would never come, one had popped through five minutes after his ride had pulled away from the house.
Unknown: This is Skye. Here’s my number so you have it.
Rami liked the way his name was spelled. He couldn’t help but pronounce the E in his head when he said his name. Sky-ee. It felt funny on his tongue but in a good way. Sky-ee. It fit him for some reason.
He was probably one of the most unique men Rami had ever set his eyes on, and he had an immediate urge to sketch him. He was tall and thin, but he was deceptively strong. He was denser than Rami was expecting him to be when he helped lift him off the lawn.
He had very European features—a sort of pinched, thin nose, barely there lips, rounded fingernails, and tattoos all over his pale skin. His hair was cut short—very trendy and sculpted in ways that Rami’s curls would never be.
Rami had fought the urge to ask to touch it so he could see if the product he used made it crunchy. But he also hated it when random strangers touched his hair, so he wasn’t about to be like them. He kept his fingers curled into his palm unless he was signing with Skye, and he’d resisted the desire to give in to his intrusive thought.
But Rami liked him immediately. If he wasn’t hoarding his virginity like a dragon hoarded gold—almost literally in this case since he’d planned to use that as his big climactic event on his channel—he probably would be making plans with how he was going to flirt his way into Skye’s bed.
Not that he’d ever accomplished that before, but also, no one had ever responded to Rami the way Skye did. And no one had ever been as tempting as him either. There was something about him, and Rami wanted more.
He just had to tread carefully because whatever this could be between them, he had a job to do, and he planned on doing it right. He could lie for his channel, but he didn’t want to invite the negative backlash when something so important was on the line.
Pulling a shower cap over his head, he grimaced at the sensation. He hated the way elastic felt along his scalp line, but it was worth it to avoid his hair getting wet. He never washed his own. He hated dealing with it, so he budgeted a salon trip three times a month to have it washed, conditioned, and detangled.
His curls were doing fine for now. And Skye didn’t seem to mind them when he was staring Rami up and down. His chest puffed out a little as he stepped under the lukewarm water and began to wash himself down with his thick, pearly, unscented soap.
The bits of clay clinging to his arm hair and the cracks and creases of his skin were stubborn. He used his nails to scrape as many as he could off, but he supposed that Skye had also seen him elbows-deep in wet clay, literally, and he didn’t mind that either.
The thought made him smile. The idea that someone might like him for him—someone could appreciate who he was without expecting him to mask just to fit in—was his greatest fantasy. And for a long time, he thought it was an unattainable one.
It was easier to stay a virgin and be true to himself than twist himself into shapes that left him raw and aching at the end of each day. That didn’t stop him from hoping that wouldn’t last forever, but he’d long since come to accept that might be his lot in life.
He sighed, pressing one hand to the wall as he took his other, covered in bubbles, and began to clean between his legs. His penis on the right was the longer one—the one with more sensation, though they both functioned perfectly fine. The one on the left was shorter and fatter and tended to get harder first but wasn’t as sensitive as the other.
These were things he’d never paid attention to before his channel. Before faceless strangers with bizarre screen names started pointing them out in the chat window. For a while, he hadn’t bothered reading what his audience had to say. He knew they were getting off on the fact that his body was different, and he assumed that was all that would matter.
But eventually, his donations began to drop, and he realized he had to do more. He had to be more. So he started taking requests. And then he started doing auctions.
The last one had been allowing the winner to buy him a sex toy that he could fuck, and he’d say their screen name on camera as he came. He used a voice modulator for his own protection, but no one seemed to care. He raised enough for one whole tax payment and enough to see an extra zero in his savings account.
He understood now why people liked this life. He’d never really considered how much less stress came from being able to keep the lights on and food in his stomach. But he also understood how exhausting working like this could get.
He didn’t want to be famous. He ignored every email he got from porn studios offering him ridiculous money to appear in a film because they all wanted his face, and that wasn’t something he was willing to do.
In a world where privacy rarely existed, he wanted to cling to his own for as long as he could. He wanted moments where he could meet a random, adorable man with bright blue hearing aids and a sunny smile, and that man would have no idea who he was.
That felt important in a world of the superficial.
Rinsing off, Rami quickly stepped out and dried his body. He grabbed his lotion off the counter, then sat at the edge of his bed and rubbed it into his skin. He wasn’t a big fan of scents, but this one had just a touch of jasmine mixed in, and it reminded him of his grandmother. She’d died when he was six, but for him, his scent memory was the strongest, so with the little bottle of lotion, it was like she was with him for that moment.
He liked feeling connected to her and his grandfather. They knew about his differences— all of his differences—and they’d loved him exactly as he was. Just like they’d loved each other through all the stuff they’d been through, moving countries and trying to raise a family in a place they were never allowed to feel fully welcome.
He wanted to honor that memory by never giving up on himself or his dreams.
Digging his toes into the carpet, Rami shuffled to the pile of clothes he’d picked out and tried not to feel overwhelmed by choice. Most of his stuff was the same in varying colors. The same T-shirt, the same Henley, the same jeans. But he wanted to do something nice for his lunch date with Skye.
He knew this date couldn’t go anywhere—not really. Most men would not be willing to wait several weeks to get in his pants without a real explanation as to why he couldn’t have sex, so he didn’t have high expectations.
But there was still a tiny spark of hope in his gut.
He went with a soft button-up and a pair of tight, stretchy, acid-washed jeans. They were technically for women, but he didn’t care. Wearing them felt like a tight hug, and it kept him grounded when the anxiety of being in public was too much.
He turned right and left in front of the mirror and wished he was a better judge of himself. Was he hot? Did that matter?
His phone started buzzing, and he nearly tripped over himself getting to the nightstand.
Unknown: Are we going dressy or casual?
Ah, he really needed to update Skye’s name in his contacts. He did that first, then stared at the message again. Was he supposed to know this? He went casual every chance he got. He’d worn a suit once and swore it had become sentient and attempted to choke him to death for the afternoon he was forced to wear it. But he hadn’t ever really gone on dates. He didn’t know if there was some sort of protocol he was missing.
Rami: Casual? I put jeans on, but I can change. I don’t know where we’re going.
Skye: It’s a bar, but it’s quiet.
Rami: Oh. I don’t drink.
Skye: You don’t have to drink sweetheart. I don’t plan to. They have really good appetizers. If you’re having second thoughts, though, I understand. Just let me know.
Rami: I want to go. I just don’t like being embarrassed when I get stuff wrong.
Skye: Neither do I. I’m going to put on my favorite sweatpants and I’ll see you in half an hour. Oh, my friend is going to be driving since I can’t right now. I hope that’s okay. I have a bike, and I could put you on the handlebars, but I thought that wasn’t a good idea for a first date.
The image immediately burned itself into Rami’s brain, and he burst into laughter. No one had ever made him feel like this before. No one. Skye wasn’t making fun of him. He was the one worried that Rami might change his mind, which was…weird.
But in the best way.
Rami: Is your friend nice?
Skye: Very.
Rami: Then I’m okay with it.
Skye: Wonderful. See you soon.
See him soon. Skye would see him soon, and they’d go have lunch, and maybe—if he was very, very lucky—they’d hold hands. Kissing him was technically on the table since Rami had kissed before, but he didn’t know if he should. He didn’t know if that would be unfair or not.
All he knew was what he wanted. That wasn’t the complicated part. The worst of it was knowing he couldn’t have it, while Skye seemed to offer it with open hands and a willing smile. How was he supposed to say no?
How was he supposed to risk losing what might be the best thing that ever happened to him in order to save his very quiet, very lonely life?