There were a few protests, most of which I think was actually Ro, but the three kids soon filed out and went back across the road with Gunter.
I gestured to the door. “Should we go inside?”
He nodded, and I held the door open for him and followed him inside. There were very quick introductions to Ro, and with a big, somewhat-fake smile, she bundled up Merry and Bright in their blankets, picked up the basket, and carried it to the door. “I’ll just be over with the kids,” she said, and was gone.
I watched as she headed straight over to the youth clinic, and when I plucked up enough courage to actuallylook at the man beside me, he appeared to be just as nervous as me.
“Mr. Clark,” I began.
“Please, call me Wayne.”
“Wayne,” I amended. “I can guess why you’re here. And I’m really sorry. I don’t know what I did or what I said, but Deacon left here last night in a hurry, and I think he was upset?—”
He put his hand up and smiled. “It’s okay. He was agitated when he got home, yes. But he didn’t want to talk about it, so that was that. There’s no point in pushing because it just upsets him. Then this morning he said some things...” He paused and his eyes met mine. “Uh, I probably should have started this conversation at the beginning. You are aware Deacon has autism, yes?”
I nodded.
He sighed out a chuckle. “Phew. Thought for a minute I had to back up the info dump some more. He’s a great kid—” He made a face. “Well, he’s not a kid. He’s a grown man. But I just wanted to come down and have a chat. If Deac knew I was here, he’d be royally pissed.”
He clearly loved his son very much, and it made me smile. “I won’t tell him.”
His eyes met mine. “He likes you.” Then he put his hands up. “Now, I don’t need to know your personal business.”
“I’m gay,” I said, letting him off the hook. “Just putting it out there.”
“Oh,” he said. “Good. I mean, that’s good. Because he is too. Not that it was ever anything he came out and told us. He was never interested in anyone for a long time, not like that anyway, but as he got older, he always got flustered around the boys and never the girls, so we kinda assumed...” Then he sighed. “Then he went to college andthere was an incident with another guy that, well, it more than upset him. He almost quit school.”
“He told me,” I said. “Some guy kissed him without asking.”
He seemed surprised that I knew, but he nodded. “We’ve always taught him about the importance of consent, because sometimes people can give mixed signals, which is very confusing for him, so asking is always important. And anyway, long story short, after we talked about it, it was clear that he had liked that boy, and then he told us, yes, he does like guys. That was never an issue for us.” He looked me dead in the eye as if he needed me to see his sincerity. “I need you to know that. We don’t care who he likes.”
Oh god. Was this about to be a conversation about the birds and the bees?
Well, just the birds. Or just the bees. I never really understood that analogy. One was the pollinator, so?—
“Anyway,” he said, getting my attention.
“Yes, sorry. I am listening.”
“You look a little horrified,” he said. “I’m sorry if this is embarrassing.”
“No, no. Uh, you said Deacon said something this morning? About what upset him last night?”
He sighed, grateful, I think, that I was helping to move the conversation along. “Yes. He said you talked about sex.”
“Oh, dear god, no.”
“But then he mentioned Komodo dragons and starfish. Not entirely sure what that was about.”
I buried my face in my hands. “Oh, dear heavens.”
“Yeah, I was a bit lost on that too.”
I looked at him then and put my hand on his arm. “I’m asexual. That’s what that is. When you said we were talking about sex, we were talking about not having sex. How Idon’t feel sexual attraction, so whatever horrifying scenarios you were envisaging, it was the opposite of that.”
He stared. “Oh.”
“When I said asexual, he automatically assumed asexual reproduction.”
