Closed RP

[bookblather]

Aaron still wasn't sure why he was here, trailing behind Joy as she alternately stared at a piece of paper in her hand and scanned the buildings to find their destination, but whatever, it wasn't as if he'd had anything better to do today. Probably why she'd dragged him along, actually, since he and Sean... he pushed away a pang of regret. That was over and done with, and this was a social call.

"Aha!" Joy said brightly, caught his arm, and led him across the street, into a small coffeeshop that wasn't, for a wonder, Starbucks. "Here we are, and there they are! James! Over here!"

Comments

[justice_turtle]

James nodded. "It's... I know how that is. Kind of. I never - well, I guess we all feel broken sometimes. I did, in high school. But it wasn't - you know, Mortimer was the first other ace I met for sure, that I knew about. I was just..." He laughed. "Stubborn as hell, or something, because I was just, well, he likes boys and she likes girls and he likes both of them, why can't I like none of them that way? And all of them at once, in my own way. I actually made up the word 'asexual' for myself. Time I met Mortimer, I was pretty secure in my sexuality."

[bookblather]

Aaron smiled, and looked down at his coffee. "I wish my self-discovery had been that painless. I mean, not my family, they were cool-- I mean, my mom told me it did not excuse me from giving her grandchildren, but you know moms-- but... everyone else, you know?"

He thought of Lorelai, of her sweet coaxing face and tone, and shivered. But James didn't want to hear about his sexual traumas. In fact, nobody did. "I found AVEN eventually though. That was a huge relief, knowing there were other people like me. Now I just sort of assume it."

[justice_turtle]

James reached across the table, stole a napkin neatly out of the stack by Mort's elbow - the ones not yet covered in scribbled calculations and diagrams, as opposed to the scattered ones Mort and Joy were still chattering avidly about - and started folding it neatly into an origami crane, looking at his hands instead of Aaron's face.

"You know, Aaron," he said slowly, "feel free to smack me down, but I get the impression you might like to know that I'm practically impossible to embarrass." He chuckled. He wasn't going to mention the time he'd spent exploring the San Francisco kink scene, at least not till he knew more about Aaron's embarrassment thresholds. "And I do know how to keep my mouth shut, contrary to appearances. If you want to talk about, y'know, whoever gave you a hard time or whatever..." Now he did look up. "I'm listening."

[bookblather]

"It's not..." Aaron stopped, considering, tapping his fingers on his paper cup of tea. "It's... not embarrassing, precisely. It's kind of... I had this girlfriend, once, and she had very specific ideas about how a relationship should go." He glanced at Joy, who was fortunately too involved in her conversation to be listening. "She... there was pressure."

[justice_turtle]

James grimaced sympathetically. "Yuck. Yeah, I know... not personally, I guess I've been really lucky, but I know how that goes." He very carefully didn't glance over at Mort; no identifying information, if he didn't have explicit permission to give it. Not even hints. That was his first rule of talking about other aces' experiences to anyone.

"I've even heard about an ace who got... assaulted by their prom date," he said. "Took the invitation as a come-on, I guess. I'll grant you, a lot of the time that's what it is, but sheesh!" He rolled his eyes dramatically. "Ask, people, why don't you!" He finished up with a wry commiserating grin in Aaron's direction.

[bookblather]

"Ugh, for God's sake." Aaron put his head down on the table and thunked his head gently against it for a moment. "At least mine.. ugh, well, you said you're unembarrassable, I'm going to take you at your word. My girlfriend at the time wanted to have sex and she convinced me that... I should try it once, you know? But God, it was the grossest and most embarrassing thing I've ever done. And she just didn't seem to be able to understand it."

[justice_turtle]

James winced in sympathy. "Man." He reached out to pat Aaron's shoulder, then stopped, raising his eyebrows: you mind?

[bookblather]

Aaron shook his head, even moved just a bit closer.

[justice_turtle]

James patted Aaron's shoulder - well, something between a pat and a squeeze, really. "I am so sorry, man. That sucks." He was silent for a minute, just resting his hand on Aaron's arm.

Mort and Joy were still talking; that is, Mort was talking at the moment. "So Noah says to the snakes, 'I thought I told all you animals to go forth and multiply.' And the snakes say, 'We can't, we're adders.'"

"Wait for it," James muttered under his breath. Mort must really be having fun if he was breaking out the math jokes.

"So Noah built them a log table."

[bookblather]

Joy burst into laughter, wrapping her arms around her stomach. "Oh, God, my mother's going to love that one. Did you hear that, Aaron?"

"I did," he said, grinning, "and what's more, I got it."

She stuck her tongue out at him, still grinning.