But it feels... safe? Simon has never, not once in his life, feltunsafe during sex, so he has no idea why this is new or surprising.
When Charlie says, “Come on, show me,” it shouldn’t feel like a fuse has been lit. When Charlie says, “All right, there you go, just like that,” Simon’s sure he should feel condescended to but instead he comes almost immediately.
Simon drifts, lets himself be moved around while Charlie picks his dumb free T-shirt off the floor and uses it to clean them up.
“Can I,” Simon mumbles, his eyes still shut, making a gesture in the direction of Charlie’s crotch.
Charlie snorts. “In a minute. Are you always like this?”
Simon’s face is smashed into Charlie’s shoulder, but he can open one eye, so that’s what he does. “Like what?”
Charlie laughs, low and rumbly. Simon can feel it against his skin, so he presses closer, burrows a little deeper, and stays there until Charlie drags him to bed.
Chapter Twenty-One
“How do the mugs go?” Charlie asks after breakfast. “You said the handles have to go a certain way.”
Simon pauses in washing the pan that he used to cook scrambled eggs. “I’m not supposed to make this other people’s problem.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Simon dries his hands on his pajama pants and shows Charlie how the mugs in the cabinet are arranged, all the handles pointing in the same direction, each mug equidistant from the mug next to it.
“Got it,” Charlie says.
“The real issue is stuff on the counter and in the sink. It’s not such a big deal here, but at home I start to feel like...”
“Like what?”
“Like there’s contamination. Germs? Not actual scientific germs, but like. Germ energy.”
“Anything else?”
The rest of Simon’s rules are self-contained inside his own mind—the right number of times to do certain things, items that need to be counted, some rituals. But that’s probably not what Charlie’s asking.
A few years ago, Simon paid for an evaluation, a couple thousand dollars out of pocket. He was sure there was something criticallywrong with him, possibly something brand-new and mysterious that the psychiatrist would want to write papers about. In the end, she’d told him that it was anxiety and mild OCD. Simon had been dubious. “You’re telling me I’m fine?” he’d asked. The doctor had blinked at him, tilted her head, and said, very slowly, “No, you have an anxiety disorder and OCD.”
“It’s mild OCD,” he says now, because Charlie already knows about the anxiety. “It’s worst when I’m already anxious or stressed.” When things are going well, the compulsions fade to a background hum, and Simon spends a delusional few weeks thinking he’s been cured.
“It costs me literally nothing to make sure the sink is empty or whatever the fuck,” Charlie says. “Just, like, FYI.”
The only person he’s talked to about this, other than his therapist, is Nora, and that’s because she has it too. Jamie knows, probably, just because he spends a lot of time with Simon and has eyes in his head, but he doesn’t know the details, or he’d never leave stuff all over the kitchen—which is partly why Simon’s never told him.
“I’m going to the hotel,” Charlie says.
“Oh.” Simon should probably have figured that a guided tour through his brain’s more ludicrous features would make anyone need a little space. Hell, Simon wouldn’t mind a little space from his own bullshit.
“For the gym,” Charlie says. “The gym in this building is even worse than the hotel gym. Want me to pick anything up while I’m out?”
“Take my key. I’ll probably be asleep when you get back.”
Charlie goggles at him, likely because he knows Simon slept for ten hours last night.
“Oh, whatever. If I want to sleep twelve hours a day, who does that hurt?”
Charlie laughs and kisses him and gets ready to leave.
Simon goes through what’s become his usual morning routine. A walk—this time with Edie—followed by lunch, then burrowing under about fifteen blankets and reading until he passes out. Sometimes he doesn’t fall asleep, but he figures that if his body needs this much rest, that’s what he’s going to give it. He gets more migraines when he isn’t well-rested, so maybe the inverse is also true.
