Page 59 of The Charm Offensive
Instead, all he can focus on is why Dev is curled up in a camp chair half-asleep on the edge of set. By his lunch break, he’s in so many knots about it, he knows only one thing can help him. Oneperson.
Charlie finds Parisa shouting at a producer, which is pretty much what she does every time she comes to set. “Don’t stand there and tell meEver After’s perpetuation of internalized misogyny is unintentional, Aiden! If I were running this show, I would— Oh, hey, babe.” Her face immediately softens when she sees him.
“Do you want to go for a walk with me?”
Parisa follows him up the muddy path toward the castle. “You okay, Hot-Ass?” she asks when they’re out of earshot of the crew.
“Yeah, I just…” He takes three deep breaths. Parisa is his best friend. Hispansexualbest friend, who is unlikely to be scandalized by this news. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Finally,” is what Parisa says. She tugs him over to a damp bench on the side of the path, and they sit on their coats. “I’m ready.”
He takes three more deep breaths before he can say it, and still, it comes out as a question. “I maybe, sort of, have feelings for Dev? And, like, maybe kissed him?”
“Oh my God, really?” she asks in a monotone. “I am totally shocked by this unexpected revelation.”
“So, you knew, then?”
She shrugs. “I suspected.”
“How?”
“You talk about hima lot, and when you look at him, your whole face relaxes,” she says so matter-of-factly, Charlie feels like he might as well be ass-naked on this bench, completely exposed to the world. “Plus, as soon as I saw him, it just made sense. He’s your type.”
“You think my type is six-foot-four skinny dudes with unfortunate haircuts?”
“I can’t really explain why, but yes.”
“And you’re not mad at me?”
“Mad? Hot-Ass, you know I don’t legitimately want to marry you, right?”
“I do, but you also sent me on this show to get engaged to a woman, so…”
“Quite frankly, you kissing your producer is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened on this heteronormative cesspool of a shitty television show.”
He waits for her to pull out the rug, waits for the other shoe to drop. He waits for her to tell him he needs to keep this new development hidden away. But of course she doesn’t. “That’s… it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“I don’t see the need to have a whole sexual identity crisis about it,” she says, dismissively waving her hand in the direction of a tour group of loud French teenagers. “Unless youwantto have a sexual identity crisis about it. Are you freaking out about being attracted to dudes?”
“Not really,” he says. “Besides, I’m not really sure Iamattracted to dudes. Like, plural.”
“Are you sexually attracted to women?”
“I don’t know.… I don’t think so, no. I never have been before.” Then he collapses against her soft side. “What do you think that means?”
“So, youdowhat to have a whole sexual identity crisis about it? Okay. Do you think you might be asexual?” She asks it so simply, without any judgment or pressure, and he can’t believe in four years of friendship, they’ve never had this conversation. He wonders how many times Parisa wanted to initiate it and was patiently waiting for him to open the door just a crack.
“I’ve never really considered… but based on recent developments, no, I don’t think I’m asexual,” he finally says. “I’m definitely not sex-repulsed.”
“Not everyone who is asexual is. Asexuality is a spectrum.” Parisa holds her hands two feet apart like she’s measuring for a very small Ikea bookshelf. “On one end, you have allosexualpeople, or people who experience sexual attraction, and on the other end you have asexual people, who do not. But there is a whole range between those two things.”
“Very informative.”
“I’m just saying, you might be into dudes but also demisexual, which means you need emotional connection to feel sexual attraction. Or you might be demiromantic or graysexual or—”
He cringes. “I don’t know if the specific label is important to me.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” she says, “and you’re not obligated to figure it out, or come out, or explain yourself to anyone, ever. But also”—she drops her hands from their spectrum and tucks an arm around his shoulder—“labels can be nice sometimes. They can give us a language to understand ourselves and our hearts better. And they can help us find a community and develop a sense of belonging. I mean, if you didn’t have the correct label for your OCD, you wouldn’t be able to get the treatment you need, right?”
