5. Gage Blaque
Gage Blaque
“ N ot everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” I read aloud from James Baldwin’s I Am Not Your Negro, while my girlfriend of three months, Kelsey, paced back and forth, upset that I hadn’t taken care of her.
“Not even on Valentine’s Day, Gage. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with you?” she screamed.
Besides the fact that I’m organized, persistent, clear with my intentions, and brutally honest? Nothing.
Kelsey Singleton, 31, was what society might label perfect.
About 5’6”, slender frame, smooth caramel skin, and thanks to Dr. Angie Seguoy—pleasantly sculpted with the kind of ass and tits that made men stare.
Add her hostess personality—life of every party, knew her way around a kitchen, spotless house, and my parents tolerated her. More so my father than my mother.
My mother felt like Kelsey had a hidden agenda, but let’s be honest, I was my mother's favorite son—any woman who approached me, my mother would say had a hidden agenda. But, if perfectionism had a leaderboard, Kelsey would be in the top ten.
You see, the world thought of her as perfect.
But as a high-functioning autistic adult, I didn’t think like the world.
I was intentional, strategic, and never bent myself to fit anyone else’s mold.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t an asshole—at least not on purpose.
But lying to make someone feel better? Forcing myself to appear physically, mentally, or emotionally “acceptable” to people who were going to talk shit anyway?
That was never going to be in my genetic makeup.
Kelsey was the stellar opposite. She wanted—no, needed—to be seen and heard.
We could walk into a grocery store in a city, hours from Havenbrook, and she’d come out knowing people’s birthdays, who wasn’t invited to what party, and how a whole family broke up over a thousand-dollar life insurance policy.
People were drawn to her personality. And while it wasn’t a flaw, I could hold against her having the personality of a puppy, and how could you not love a puppy?
Kelsey was just too damn much, all the damn time.
She required attention twenty-four hours a day and had no concept of personal space.
All day she’d be kissing me, rubbing my head, or singing so damn loud I swore she’d wake the dead—if the dead cared to know anything about the living.
And everything, I mean everything, had to be a social media post. I remember ordering three separate batches of fries once—not because the first two weren’t cooked well-done the way I liked—but because she had to get the picture just right.
My hand holding a fry at the perfect angle, her hashtags lined up: brunch with somebody’s son.
By the time she was done, my fries were room temperature, the crunch gone, the bite ruined.
She knew I was a high-functioning autistic adult, knew her over-the-top extroverted ways could trigger me, but she refused to tone it down.
Her excuse was “opposites attract” and that we balanced each other out.
Truthfully, I started to believe I was a fetish for her—always compared to some kind of chocolate cuisine, always reduced to pet names tied to my diagnosis.
“Ouch!” I yelped as a MAC lipstick bounced off the top of my head.
“Gage, are you even listening to me?”
“Yes, Kelsey, I’m listening. As a matter of fact, I believe the whole complex is listening to you—judging by your vocal octave and the fact that Mrs. Singwell upstairs has stopped vacuuming, presumably so she can hear you rant and rave,” I replied.
“Oh, hell no.” She waved her index finger at me. “Don’t try to cut me up in genius. Octave? I have one voice, not eight.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“It’s not funny, Gage,” she pouted.
“Come here,” I motioned, amplifying my normally low, deep voice.
She always said my tone made her wet and I wasn’t on that type of time.
Still pouting, she straddled me anyway. By the look in her eyes and the way she bit her bottom lip, I knew I had failed to prevent exactly what I tried to.
Cause and effect weren’t discomfort for me; hyperactivity with the intent to draw attention was.
“Look, Kelsey, it’s obvious I’m not enough for you. We’re going to break up, because I refuse to waste more time in a relationship where I want to hide from my partner most of the time. And you don’t have to keep whining like a dog in heat because I won’t fuck you,” I said flatly.
“Goddamn, nigga, could you have ripped the Band-Aid off any quicker?” she shot back, her tone full of disgust.
“Kelsey, I’m sorry—but you know I’m right. This ends today.”
Instead of listening, she threw her arms around my neck and began delivering slow, deliberate licks and kisses along the side of my throat.
Then she started grinding with a rhythm so melodic you’d think Dance for You was playing.
My dick stiffened, betraying me, and her smirk told me she knew she’d accomplished her goal.
She looked down, watching me grow against her.
“Kelsey…” I groaned, refusing to put my hands on her waist and guide her movements.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t sexually attracted to her—the combination of her natural pheromones and YSL perfume could make a man climax on the spot.
But I was a virgin. And I’d always promised myself the woman I gave that part of me to wouldn’t be a regret.
She didn’t have to be my wife, but she had to be someone I could love, as a partner or at least a friend, until the end of my time here on Earth.
“You know you want this pussy. Let me taste that nut from the Snickers you call a dick, my dark-skin sexy-tism daddy,” she moaned, grinding harder and sucking at my neck.
My dick was a Snickers. Now I was “sexy-tism.” And somehow a father. If I slid even one of my eleven inches inside her, I knew I’d regret it for the rest of my life.
“Kelsey, please stop.” I halted her movements and stood up from my reading chair, carefully setting her on her feet. “You are amazing, Kelsey, but we just aren’t compatible. At this point, it feels like you’ve made it a personal mission to take my virginity.”
“Gage, seriously, you need to grow up. How the fuck you looking like a whole snack—full beard, thick curly hair, body of a warrior, dick thick like lima bean gravy—and expect me not to want to fuck you? What do you think the next woman’s going to want from you? A telegram, nigga?”
What is with this woman and food references? I thought to myself.
“My parents did a fantastic job combining DNA, and I know the biological effects of one human on another when admiration is involved. So yes, I very well expect the next woman to want to engage in sexual activity with me. My only prayer is that she’s finally the one—the woman I’d love to make cum repeatedly until she cries from exhaustion.
Not a woman thrown off track by her own reflection,” I shot back.
Kelsey had this bad habit of hyping my intellectual intelligence while downplaying my common sense. Nothing about my processing of life or information was delayed. I simply let my intelligence and emotional quotient lead rather than common sense, which is subjective.
“Fuck you, Gage, with your weird ass. This is exactly why I started fucking ole boy from the coffee shop. I’m too young, fly, and rare to be waiting on dick. I deserve to be satisfied.”
“But you’re not,” I said flatly.
“Not what, nigga?”
“You’re not satisfied.”
“And what makes you think that?”
“Thinking is a lack of knowing—an assumption. But this is more of an educated guess. I provide for you financially, take you on expensive dinners and trips, and pour into you daily to develop your long- and short-term goals.”
“So?” she shrugged.
“And ole boy from the coffee shop provides you with sexual release. So technically, you have everything you want. Why you still pressed about fucking me?”
Her hesitation, caught up in her own words, was a clear indication I’d stumped her.
I’d never been so sure of my decision not to just give myself away.
If I’d handed my virginity to Kelsey’s annoying ass, only to live with regret and find out she was cheating with the dude who makes the worst Chai Latte in the city, I would’ve been devastated. This selfish little bitch had to go.
“Ain’t even no need for you to answer, Kelsey. Get the fuck out.”
“Fuck you, Gage.”
“You never will. Now get your insecure ass the fuck out.”
“Insecure?” she snapped.
“Yeah. Issa Rae.” Oh shit, look at me making a joke. “Get the fuck out.”
“Your ass wasn’t sexually deprived—you’re just so used to men desiring you that these last three miserable months drove you crazy. I wouldn’t even let you smell my dick, let alone ride it.” I leaned in, each word deliberate. “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
“I live all the way across town, Gage. A ride service at this time is nonexistent, and I am not taking public transportation. Can you bring me home?”
“Call your coffee man.”
“He doesn’t drive, Gage,” she said, annoyance heavy in her tone.
“Ha. Now look who’s lacking common sense,” I laughed.
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Here you are—hot-in-the-ass—giving rides to a nigga who can’t even give you one.”
“Gage…”
“Get out.”