Page 44 of Full Split
So. Fucking. Good…
I don’t know if that’s what he wants, though. And what’s even worse, I’m so far out of my league, I don’t know what goes whereor even how to ask. I just want to make him feel good, the way he does for me.
This is ridiculous. I’m almost forty, lying sweaty and half-naked in a falling down treehouse, making out and dry humping like a horny teenager. But, fuck, I feel alive. Buzzing like a live wire and ready to take on the world. After a shower. And maybe a nap.
“What are you thinking?” Niles asks, reaching to push a strand of hair off my forehead. I need a haircut.
I decide to go with honesty. “I was thinking that I’m almost forty and acting like a teenager, but also I never did this kind of thing back then. I don’t remember ever feeling like this before.”
“Like what?”
I stare up at the leaves overhead, hoping he can’t see how hot my cheeks are. “So fucking horny I might die.”
Niles snorts out a laugh.
“I’m being serious,” I say through my own laughter. “I’ve never had an experience where I felt like… Like I’m not pretending.”
“Pretending?”
“I don’t know.” I swallow. “Every relationship, I felt like I had to fake something. I’d feel attracted, but not—” I hesitate. “Not driven. Not the way they wanted. I’d go along with it because it felt easier than explaining why I didn’t feel whatever it was they felt. Sex was never a main motivator for me, even as a teenager. I never had these overwhelming urges, I guess.”
“So you had sex with your past partners even though you didn’t want to?”
Running a hand through my hair, I huff out a breath. “That makes it sound weird or coercive, and it wasn’t like that. I just… I felt bad that I didn’t feel the same way. And I didn’t want to make them upset by thinking there was something wrong with them when it was me who was broken, so I just pretended.”
Niles hums unhappily. “There’s a lot to unpack there, but let’s start with this. Do you think you might be asexual or demisexual?”
I shrug. “Maybe. Does it matter?”
He kisses my jaw. “Not really, if you’re happy where you are. Though it might help to know so you’re not beating yourself up about something that’s completely normal. There wasn’t anything wrong with you then, and there isn’t now. You have to know that.”
We’re getting way too close to an exposed nerve here, so instead of answering, I capture his mouth and try to distract us both with more kissing. Niles moans but pulls back.
“Wyatt, I mean it. There’s nothing broken about you.”
My chest clenches. Part of me wants to hear those words. I could have used them long ago when I was really lost. Back when I was a teenager, feeling like a complete outsider because I wasn’t interested in sex the same way everyone else was. Back when I got my girlfriend pregnant trying to prove that I had feelings for her.
Back when I thought that the idea of having sex with another person was abhorrent because I’d force myself to go through the motions whether I wanted to or not.
Sex became a chore. Something I had to do, and nothing I ever wanted to do. To the point where even the thought of having sex would make me shut down internally. Dating became a horror show, because the moment I even considered that the other person was nice or that I’d maybe like to see them again, my brain would go right to knowing I’d have to force myself to have sex, effectively ruining the date from the start.
As I got older, I did think maybe I was somewhere on the asexual spectrum, but what’s happening now, with Niles, is so different, I’m not sure what to think.
“I don’t know,” I say, for lack of anything better. “I just don’t know.”
“I do,” he says confidently. “And there’s nothing wrong with you.”
A scoff escapes me. “Yeah, right now everything’s going alright. But what if this is some kind of fluke? What if I stop feeling this excitement at the mere thought of your name? There’s a big part of me that worries that it won’t always be like this, and you’ll get tired of me. I’m worried that I’m too old for you, and not just because you’re young and my son’s best friend. Because there’s a very real chance that I won’t be enough for you.”
“Wyatt,” he says sternly, climbing over me and looking down with a serious expression. “There’s nothing broken about you.”
My cock pulses just having Niles on top of me like this. He notices and grins. “See?”
“If anything, the fact that I’m so boned up all the time lately is proof that there is something very,verywrong with me.”
Niles shrugs. “I can’t help it. I’m sexy.”
He says it in a teasing way, but fuck if he’s not dead right.
