It was the second Friday in May and that meant it was time to see my psychiatrist again, but more importantly time to see Jethro. But the psychiatrist thing was first.

“So, how are things with that boy you liked?” was the first thing Dr Booker asked as he flipped through his notebook. Well, okay. Getting right into things, then.

I shrugged. “We’re dating now.”

I don’t know why I thought that would be a conversation ender. I really don’t.

My dad turned to me in surprise. “You didn’t tell me that!”

I shrugged again. That had been a conscious choice. I didn’t really like having conversations about, like… things. Any things, really. And especially not things that my parents could make embarrassing for me.

My dad frowned to himself. “Jethro didn’t say anything either. Though, come to think of it, I haven’t seen him around the office as much lately.”

“Well, he got the lead in his school play.”

“Oh! That does explain the Peter Pan costume. I thought it was just his latest fashion thing that I’m too old to understand.”

“Well, I think that’s fantastic, Casper,” Dr Booker said. “How has that been going so far?”

Another shrug. What did he want from me? We were dating. It was fine. 

“You don’t have any problems or concerns?” Dr Booker prompted.

“No?”

He nodded and spent a moment jotting something down in his notebook. “Well, maybe now would be a good time for you to have a talk with one of our nurses about sexual health.”

“Uh, I’m fine. We did sex ed at school.”

“Oh, I know, but that can be very general. I think it might be a good idea to talk to someone who understands your specific needs and situation. How would you feel about that?”

I had no idea if my specific needs and situation had more to do with being autistic or being gay. Maybe both? Either way, my feelings were pretty strongly against that whole thing.

“I mean, I can just Google it if there’s anything I need to know, right?”

And that was how, ten minutes later, I ended up alone in a room with a female nurse as she explained anal sex to me in even more intimate detail than my erotic fanfics had delved into. She covered other things too, like consent and STI’s. By the end of it I felt like she should give me a certificate to show I was now qualified to have safe, healthy sex, but instead she gave me a handful of condoms and little packets of lube.

In the car with my dad afterwards, I texted Jethro. I told my psychiatrist we were dating and he made me talk to a nurse about buttsex.

It was only after I hit send that I realised I’d never actually told him the doctor’s appointments I went to on the second Friday of every month were to see my psychiatrist. But, hey, my need for mental health care had to be blatantly obvious at this point, so finding out I was actually getting it could hardly invoke any further stigma.

He was probably in class just then, but it didn’t take him long to respond. Did you learn anything interesting?

Guess we’ll see what I retain after I’m done repressing this, I sent back. She asked me if I’d ever fingered myself, Jethro.

It was a few minutes before his next response. Sry, got in trouble for laughing in class. But wow. Didn’t know you’d have to go through so much to date me. Hope they didn’t make you regret it.

I buried a smile in my fist. Well, I’ve already paid the price now, so I figure we should stay together as long as possible so that it’s worth it.

In fifty years time someone will ask me how we’ve maintained such a long relationship and I’ll tell them, well, mostly through the sunk cost fallacy, Jethro sent back. BTW, I’m gonna be late today. Rehearsal after school.

Boo. OK.

But maybe you could ask your dad to pick you up a bit later and I could take you out to dinner?

I made a face at my phone. Take me out to dinner?

To a McDonald’s.

Ah. That I was down for. “Dad, can you pick me up from Jethro’s a bit later today?”

“Ooh, should I be worried about what that nurse might have inspired?”

I stared back down at my phone. “Nevermind, I’m going to ask Jethro if his parents can just adopt me instead.”

“Then you’d be brothers, idiot,” my dad pointed out. “Yes, fine. I’ll pick you up at eight, okay?”

“Mm hm,” was the only response he got. I was already texting Jethro again.

#

Jethro showed up just before four, dressed as Peter Pan. So, this whole thing was already going well. I mean… those tights. They were… snug. Of course, the tunic hid most of what I really wanted to see, but his legs looked very nice.

As soon as we were out of the building, Jethro pulled me in for a long, tight hug.

“Cool,” I said as I hugged him back. I was not sure why.

Jethro laughed quietly and pulled back, but he kept his hands on my arms. “I missed being able to touch you.”

“Can you really miss it when we’ve done hardly any touching?”

Jethro took my hand in his as we started walking. “Well, not much like… intimate touching, I guess. But I’ve been cutting your hair for a few months now, and that’s nice.”

“Huh. And here I thought I was the only one getting off on that.”

Jethro laughed so hard he had to stop walking for a moment as he doubled over. Even after he finally straightened back up, it took him a while of pressing his lips together forcefully to contain himself. “See, this is why I like you.”

“Inappropriate sexual jokes?”

“No, just… you see through the pretense, you know?”

“Not really.”

“I mean, like… you’re not the most open or easy to get to know guy, but when you do say things it’s just honest.”

“I think you’re confusing a lack of social skills with bravery.”

He grinned and shook his head. “No, see, that right there? That’s it again. It just makes me feel safe around you, I guess. You don’t dress things up or try to be anything you’re not.”

“I knew my crippling autism would help me out one day, but I never would have guessed it would be with forming a relationship with another person.”

“You never told me you were autistic.”

“I know.” Our hands were starting to get sweaty. I was pretty sure most of that was from me. I tangled my free hand in my necklace and fiddled with the beads. “I don’t really talk about myself much, I guess. I’m not great at judging what’s too much or what’s appropriate, so I mostly say nothing. Because as you noted, yeah, what does end up coming out of my mouth is kinda… unfiltered.”

“Well, I’m the king and queen of too much, so don’t worry.” Jethro lifted our joined hands up and planted a kiss on my knuckles. “Thanks for telling me about the autism thing, though. It helps me understand some things a bit better. Maybe? I don’t know that much about autism, honestly.”

“Autism is like… having everything cranked right up, all the time. And you can’t pick out the important bits.”

“That sounds like it sucks.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Sorry if I like… pushed you too hard on things, or put you in situations that were too overwhelming or whatever.”

“Pfft, don’t do that.” I stopped messing with my necklace to shove him playfully on the shoulder. “I’m not fragile. Or, well, no, I’m incredibly fragile, but you don’t have to be all super careful with me. I know what my limits are. I can say no.”

Jethro laughed. “Okay, cool. How are you at Mario Kart?”

“Fucking terrible.”

“Want to play when we get back to my place?”

“Yeah. Sounds good.”

So that was what we did for the next couple of hours. The gaming stuff was downstairs, but Jethro’s parents were still at work so we didn’t have to go through all that awkwardness. I sucked at most of the games we tried, because let’s face it my reflexes were fucking awful, but eventually Jethro put in a co-op puzzle game and that I could do. 

Not long after five I heard the front door open and did my best to pretend I was deaf to everything but the game as someone entered the living room behind us.

Jethro looked up, though. “Hey, mum.”

Fuck. Now I’d have to acknowledge her. 

I looked back at her and murmured, “Hi.”

Yup. Nailed it. That was definitely the polite way to greet your boyfriend’s mother. I returned my attention to the game.

“It’s nice to see you, Casper,” she said to my back. Fuck, oops, awkward. “Are you staying for dinner?”

I turned back to look at her, but Jethro was already answering for me.

“No, I’m taking him out to McDonald’s.”

“Oh, that’ll be nice.” She walked over and planted a kiss on the top of his head, then cast her voice lower. “You’re still wearing your costume?”

He twisted his head and smiled up at her. “I like it.”

She smiled and shook her head. “We’ll buy you some tights of your own on the weekend.”

“Yes, good. They won’t let me wear those at school, though.”

“They let the girls wear them under their skirts, don’t they?”

“Yeah. Well, probably stockings, usually.”

“I’ll have a chat with the administration and see what they’ll let you do. I wish there were schools around here that didn’t insist on uniforms. Casper, is your school this restrictive?”

“Uh…” I didn’t know where to look. Oh, right, probably at her, since she was fucking talking to me. “I don’t really know. I’m too boring to find out, I guess.”

“You’re not boring,” Jethro insisted.

“Not many kids share Jethro’s eccentricities,” his mum said, “but it frustrates me that they limit student’s self expression so much. Especially when they enforce it along a strict gender binary.”

I nodded. I knew what she meant but, like, not enough to actually contribute to the conversation.

“The last thing our children need is to be constantly forced into these boxes,” she continued. “In some ways, I feel like it’s worse than it was when I was young. These days, more than ever, everything is either for girls or for boys. They gendered Kinder Surprises! They have pink ones and blue ones now. It’s a travesty.”

“And all the nice smelling soap and stuff is marketed at girls,” I offered.

“Exactly! You know, I always thought it was a bit silly, but now that I see what it’s like for someone who doesn’t want to follow the rules it makes me so angry. It’s just so unnecessary.”

“The rules of society often are.”

“Right? You get it.” She turned back to Jethro. “Do you two need money for dinner?”

“Nah, I’ve got money.” Jethro stood up and stretched. “Cas, you want to head out now?”

“Yeah, okay.”

I expected Jethro to go get changed before we went out, but he didn’t and in retrospect I didn’t know why I’d thought he would. McDonald’s didn’t have a terribly strict dress code. He tucked his wallet under the band of his tights and led the way to the front door.

It was just starting to get dark as we left the house. Jethro took my hand in his. “Sorry if my mum was a bit much for you. I’ve noticed you try to avoid my parents.”

“Oh, baby, I try to avoid everyone. I tried to avoid you when we first met.” I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed the back of it. “I like her, though. She cares about you.”

“Yeah, both my parents have been pretty great about all this. I’ve been lucky.”

“Are you nonbinary?”

Jethro turned his head to look at me. The question seemed to take him off guard, and hey, maybe that was fair since I hadn’t even known what the fucking pansexual pride flag looked like.

“I don’t know,” Jethro said. “Maybe. Yeah. Is that okay?”

I clicked my tongue. “Well, I did just have an extensive lesson on how to have sex with guys. If you’re not a guy, guess we’re going to have to go back to the drawing board on that one.”

Jethro laughed. “Oh no. All your education, useless.”

“Hmm. Does this mean you’re not my boyfriend? What’s the word for that?”

Jethro waved his free hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t worry about that. Some nonbinary people hate language that genders them a certain way, especially as their assigned gender, but I prefer to just use whatever’s least confusing. I don’t care what people call me or what they see me as, so long as they don’t try to dictate how I dress or act.”

“I already wasn’t doing that, so that’s easy.”

“Yeah, that’s what I like about you. You’re…” He pressed his lips together and shrugged. “I don’t know. Every time I try to come up with a way to describe you, you point out how extremely inaccurate it is in other ways. And you’re not wrong. Maybe what I really mean when I talk about how calm you are is how calm you make me feel.”

“You don’t make me feel calm,” I admitted. “But you make me enjoy feeling not calm. You make me want something, even though it’s not safe or easy.”

That felt like maybe too much, too honest, but then he gave me a soft smile and squeezed my hand and I realised it was okay.