“What?”
Damn it. How he hated this conversation. “It’s a little soonfor me to want to… I’d rather just kiss and snuggle with you until the sun explodes.”
Cosmo stared for a moment, eyebrows furrowed, then picked up his shirt from the floor and pulled it back on. “I got caught up in the moment and wasn’t thinking.”
“I’m sorry. It frustrates me too.”
“I’m not frustrated, and don’t you dare apologize. I just don’t want to misstep. I don’t know enough about the nuances of asexuality, so I need you to tell me when we aren’t on the same page about things. If we spent more time together, would that make you more interested?”
“Like am I demisexual? Maybe? I think gray-ace might be more accurate. But yes, more time would help. This is just a little fast for me.” He took Cosmo’s hand and rubbed the pads of his fingers. “I don’t ever experience sexual attraction the way allosexual people seem to, but I still think about certain things with people I’m interested in: kissing them, touching their hands… I might feel some kind of diluted sexual attraction under certain circumstances. I’m still not sure about that. And sometimes kissing and touching and sex feels good, sometimes it feels like nothing. Might as well be a handshake.”
A dramatic blast of music came from the TV, and a woman screamed. Cosmo jumped and clung to Micah. On screen, an undead man with extra-juicy skin scuttled across the floor toward the woman. Cosmo put a hand over his eyes but peeked through his fingers.
Micah chuckled. “Are you scared?”
“This part is gross. He’s so…gooshy.And the way he crawls across the floor…” Cosmo shuddered.
“Should we change it to something else?”
“Heavens no.” Cosmo drew up his knees and huddled beside Micah. “But you can put your arm around me again.”
“I can do that.” He nuzzled Cosmo’s cheek. “I’m sorry if it isn’t enough.”
“Shush. You’re enough. Besides, that corpse on screen has definitely killed my boner.”
“He doesn’t turn you on? I mean, he’s very wet.”
“Ugh.” Cosmo feigned a gag.
Micah’s thoughts drifted away from the movie, pulled back every so often by Cosmo’s suppressed shrieks and his fingersdigging into Micah’s arms. It was hard to pay attention with the taste of Cosmo on his lips, with tangled timelines, and how much he yearned for Cosmo to be able to sit onhisbed, inhisapartment.
“Want to do something really weird with me?” Micah asked.
“Are you trying to turn me on again?”
“I need you to haunt me. Be my ghost.”
“How?”
“Show up at my apartment unannounced, and come inside without asking.”
Cosmo stiffened. “I won’t do that.”
“Please? You said you didn’t want my mental health to push you away. Help me? I need to practice letting someone inside if I’m ever going to beat this phobia.”
“But that isn’t what you’re asking for. I believe in consent.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I never come inside without permission.”
Oh lord. “I’m giving you consent. Welcoming someone across my threshold is too much for me, but I think this will work.”
“I couldn’t bear to give you a panic attack.”
“I don’t know who else to ask. And if it’s going to work with anyone, it will be you.” Cosmo was going to tell him to get a therapist, just like everyone else did. He was going to say consensual non-consent was disgusting and he didn’t want any part. “Just think of it as creepy role-playing.”
Cosmo drew his nails along Micah’s inner forearm and let out a deep sigh. “What shall I do?”
“Come over. But don’t tell me when. Tomorrow, four days from now, a week. I’ll leave a key under the flower pot. I’m in number twenty-six.”
“Alright, but I wish I had a sense of whether or not this would work. This would be a good time for presque vu to show up.”
