Published: 17 Feb 2022

Part 1

Wilt

I watched Seth walk down the hall from the living room to the bedroom. He was wearing a T-shirt and boxer briefs that hugged his butt. The T-shirt was slowly falling back down around his waist, realigning its drape as he walked. It had been up around his arm pits from our make out session on the couch. God he was sexy. I’d wanted to pull the T-shirt over his head, pull down his briefs and get it on. But it was Saturday morning, and we had a date to pick up Adrian at the foster home.

Leaning back on the couch I watched his hips rise and fall. He always walked with a pronounced rise on each step, and he was still young and lithe enough that it was natural for him to move his weight from heel to the ball of his foot and onto his toes. That lift meant that with each step, the hip rose, too, and it was especially noticeable and attractive when he was in briefs. More so when he was naked. I felt myself smile with satisfaction and sheer pleasure. I was in a relationship again, and it was fun and exciting, and he was beautiful and thoughtful… and sexy!

It was New Year’s Day, and we’d had a pleasant at home celebration the evening before—the kind the pandemic forces you to have if you’re responsible. Within your own pod or family so there was a low risk of infection. We’d walked Adrian home after dinner and then came back for some champagne and New Year’s loving.

I thought back to Christmas Eve. It was only eight days ago, but what an eight days it had been. When we walked Adrian back to his foster home after opening presents at my house, Seth’s brother had been over-joyed as he held the leashes for Donner and Blitzen. They were wearing the stuffed deer antlers Adrian had chosen as the brothers’ Christmas gifts to me and the dogs. The dogs hadn’t resisted wearing them and appeared to understand it was cute and humorous. Finally, they looked a little bit like their namesakes, even if it was a goof.

At the foster home, Adrian insisted that the foster parents see the dogs with their antlers. They thought it was so cute, and it made Adrian’s evening. We said goodbye and wished everyone a Merry Christmas and started walking back to Seth’s apartment. That was when I told him that my brother the psychologist had confronted me about being in love. Seth had told me he loved me, and my brother pointedly asked if I’d told him how I felt. I told him I thought so, and he asked me if I’d told Seth. I had to confess to him that I hadn’t but later that night, right there on the sidewalk, I did. I told him I loved him and then told him I had another question and asked him why I was walking him home to an empty apartment? That he could come home with me… that was what I really wanted. He later told me that was what he was hoping for too. He’d smiled at me with those delectably soft lips, just a hint of coyness in his eyes as he had said, “I will if you make love to me.”

I told him he had to do the same and we headed for my house. We both knew full well that neither of us had made love to another person for a long time, to say nothing of not having been in a loving relationship for an even longer time. But he’d convinced me with his seriousness and excitement that we had a good chance to make this relationship work if we cared enough and committed to it, in spite of our age difference.

We’d turned out the house lights and then settled the dogs down on their beds, which were on the floor on the other side of my bedroom. Then I took him by the hand and led him to my bed. When he turned into my arms, I hugged him close and said softly into his ear, “I’m so glad you said yes. I do love you, even if it was so hard for me to get it out.”

He’d kissed my neck, hugging me back, and replied softly, “I understand. Don’t worry about it. I sent you a text with a heart. Your brother had to force your hand. We both have our hang ups, but we’ll work through them.”

“I meant it when I told you that I never thought I’d feel this way again.”

“I know the feeling, but here we are, and we do feel this way. So, why don’t we stop talking so you can kiss me and then tell me how we’re going to do this.”

I saw he was smiling softly as I leaned back to look at him in the soft light of the bedroom. “Oh, you’re going to get kissed, lover boy, you can count on that. Then I’m going to do what I’ve been dreaming about for a few weeks, and that’s slowly strip off all your clothes and see if I can’t kiss your entire body.”

“Oh, yeah! That sounds way sexy! You’ve got to promise not to go too fast, though. I want to undress you. I’ve been dreaming about what your body looks like, too, you know. I still haven’t seen your cock even though—“

I cut him off with my mouth on his, not needing to have him remind me of the time I’d choked about getting intimate. I pushed my tongue between his lips as I ran my hands up his back and into his hair. His body responded immediately. We’d both been waiting for this. By the time I had him down to his boxers and socks he was so hard he was straining in his briefs and leaking.

“Pull them off, then it’s my turn,” he said in a kind of low growl.

I did and he stepped out of them catching his socks with his toes at the same time, and stood before me naked for the first time. He was beautiful. He wasn’t cut or overdeveloped from lifting weights, but had enough mass on his slim torso to be balanced. Fit and balanced and beautiful. He almost seemed luminous in the soft light. “God, you’re gorgeous,” I said as I reached for him and stroked his chest, letting my hands slide down his flanks and come together holding his cock which stood up straight from a nicely trimmed bush of black hair. I started stroking it, loving the smooth feeling over its hardness.

“Slow down. You’re going too fast,” he said as he reached for my shirt and started undoing the buttons. I hated to let go of his cock. It felt so full and hot in my hand, pulsing as his heart raced. But I relented and watched, and then shivered as he took each piece of clothing off of me, kissing and licking as he did so. By the time he got all my clothes off and he’d taken my cock in his hand I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so horny and excited.

I pulled him closer for another kiss, and felt him take both our cocks in his hand, stroking them together. It was magical, and I just groaned into his mouth. “So good, so amazingly good…”

He groaned back and growled something I didn’t understand, but which clearly meant that he was as aroused as I was. I could feel the head of my cock in his pubes and his in mine, and we seemed about the same size. That was a nice thought!

“Seth, this feels amazing, but I don’t want to come like this. We’re making love to each other tonight. I want your cock in my mouth. I want you to feel every sensation and I want to taste you.”

He pulled back and grinned slyly. “Me, too. Sounds like a sixty-nine to me.” We pulled each other up onto the bed, kissing as we lowered ourselves on the mattress. Then we clambered around to get into position, and I shuddered as he licked up the underside of my cock, pulled the head into his mouth and then began taking it all in. He wanted it, meaning he wanted me, as much as I wanted him, and I followed suit and suddenly what had been a slow and sensuous beginning turned into a flurry of stroking, licking and sucking as we both responded to the almost desperate need we had to satisfy our horniness for each other.

We didn’t cum together, but close enough, erupting in each other’s mouth with an ecstatic groan. Then, as we caught our breath, it was almost automatic and unthinking how we’d maneuvered around and were both lying in each other’s arms, our faces together on the pillows.

His blue eyes were bright and shining as he looked at me, so I leaned over and kissed his lips and then the tip of his nose, giving him a soft hug.

“Was that loving enough?”

The smile that crept onto his lips warmed my heart, and then he said, “Totally… for starters.”

Seth

I’d left him lounging on the couch after we’d almost stripped each other and gotten it on. We couldn’t this morning, though. We’d slept in a little on this Saturday and had to pick up Adrian in less than an hour, at ten o’clock. We’d had an amazing fun-filled week with lots of love and lots of sex, interspersed through the domestic routine of the week after Christmas.

I knew Wilt was thinking about sex as I walked away from him, and I was consciously trying to accentuate the sway of my hips because I knew how sexy he thought that was. As we broke apart and I said I’d shower first, he’d softly sighed and said, “A week ago we were waking up from the first time we made love.”

I kissed his forehead and said, “Sure were. It was total bliss!” And it certainly had been. We’d stripped each other, and then done an amazing sixty-nine that started slow and soft, but quickly became hot and desperate and we went after what we both wanted and needed so much.

We were laying back on the bed afterwards, when he’d asked if it had been loving enough. I knew he was partly kidding, but also concerned, so I passed on my usual witty reply like, “You’re kidding, right?”

Instead, I’d just looked at him and smiled and then said, “Totally… for starters.”

I saw his eyes widen just a little, and a warm smile move across his lips, and I added, “Loving enough for starters, but not loving enough to show you how much you mean to me.”

As I put my head on his shoulder and he pulled me close he said softly, “I like the sound of that.” I let my fingers do the talking, circling around his nipples, then stroking down his belly and into the brown pubes that were the same color as his hair. I took hold of his now softened cock that was lying on his thigh.

“You’ve got a beautiful cock. So hot and so smooth. It felt so good to go down on you, to taste you, to make you part of me.”

“Exactly how I felt,” he said softly into the top of my head. “I noticed our cocks are about the same size. That’s nice.”

“It sure is,” I replied, now stroking the base off his flaccid cock. “That should mean we’ll be perfectly able to pleasure and satisfy each other.”

“Sounds like you’ve got plans. Tell me more.”

“I do have plans, I bet you do to. Balance is important. We’re about the same height, but you’re a little heavier than I am. We’re both in good condition, so we’re fit and flexible. Now we know we have about the same size cocks, so we’ll fit together really well.”

I was still stroking the base of his cock, which was just starting to plump. Wilt hadn’t replied but I was pretty sure I knew what he was thinking about.

“We’re making this relationship what we want it to be, right?” I didn’t wait for an answer, but went on. “I want our sex to be joyful and equal and liberating. I’m not a bottom boy. I like to fuck and be fucked. Andrew had this thing about being dominant and he almost always insisted on me bottoming. It was a control thing, I think.”

“I already told you that Andrew was an ass. I won’t say that again because I’ve seen your ass and its beautiful, like you, and I won’t use the word that describes this beautiful part of you in the same sentence with his name. He was more like a douche bag, and he didn’t deserve you.” He reached down and stroked his hand over my buttocks to make the point.

“Well, it’s over now.”

“Yeah, but we’re both carrying our baggage. Patrick preferred to be a top. I guess a lot of that was how much older he was than me… you know, that generation kind of thing.”

“Yeah, but now we can make this how we want it to be.” I leaned down and sucked on one nipple, then the other, flicking at them with my tongue and teasing at each one with my teeth. I could feel Wilt hardening some more.

“I like the idea that we can define how we have sex. I think it’s wonderful that we both like to give and to receive.” I heard him chuckle into my hair as he said that, and could feel the vibration come through his chest.

“It’s like everything else in our relationship. We’ll make it what we want it to be… so it’s the best for both of us.” I leaned up on one elbow, not letting go of his cock with my other hand and bent to kiss him.

I looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m not really used to a partner that wants what’s best for me. That works to make me feel so good… so loved.”

Wilt grinned, a soft and warm grin that said he was happy with what he’d heard and agreed with it. “Like you said, we’ll make it what we want, and it’ll be equal. Both of us asking and giving.”

I stroked him some more as I kissed him, and then said softly into his mouth, “Now, I want you to give me the Christmas present I’ve been dreaming about for weeks. I want you inside me. I want to feel you fill me and shoot your hot cum inside me, and then I’ll know it’s the best Christmas ever.”

I felt him gulp but I kept kissing him so he couldn’t talk, pushing my tongue into his mouth to meet his. He was growling something unintelligible, but his smile had widened to encompass his face and his eyes were glittering and I knew he agreed. And his cock was now hard and hot in my hand.

I pulled off his lips just long enough to say, “Lube?” He flicked his eyes at the bedside table and when I handed it to him, I said, “You’ll have to loosen me up. It’s been awhile.”

He was a patient and gentle lover, wanting to make sure that I was ready and to minimize the pain. Then I climbed up on his thighs stroking our cocks together for a minute. He groaned and I moved forward so I was straddling his hips, rubbing his cock in my crack.

“I want to see your face when you come inside me. I want to watch you make love to me. I want to see your face when you explode inside me.” As he pushed the head of his cock into me, there was once again that initial pain, but it passed, and the lube worked its magic. As he slid into me, I was glad I’d been loosening myself up, and then he was over my prostate. I gasped in pleasure, and he stopped. He’d been watching my face the whole time, and I nodded and said, “More.”

His reply was simply, “So hot,” and then he slowly thrust all the way into me. I felt like the connection I’d been dreaming about had suddenly happened, and after a stroke or two that feeling was replaced by the pure sensations of his hot cock working my insides, making me feel so alive. I could see it on his face, too. He was still watching me, but his eyes were now a little glazed over as the sensations of sex overtook his body as well.

I didn’t expect us to cum together the first time, and we didn’t. I was out of practice and my legs were starting to ache from holding my body weight and moving on him, but after four or five minutes I saw the expression on his face change from one of concentration to pure joy. I wasn’t far behind him, the heat building deep inside of me. I heard him getting close and I got to watch him cum, hearing his shout of ecstasy, and then feeling him shoot inside. It was everything I’d hoped for. Then, after he’d caught his breath, he did what Andrew never had done. Instead of pulling out and letting me jack myself off, he raised his knees so I could rest my back against his thighs and said, “Lean back.” He stayed inside me, and he locked his eyes on mine, wet his hand with saliva, and started stroking me as he mouthed the words “I love you.”

Oh my god! I was instantly hard again with his moist hand on my cock with his still plump cock still inside me. Hearing him tell me he loved me on top of that added up to the most amazing thing I’d ever felt. A minute later, when I came, I threw my head back, arching backwards against his legs, shooting up onto his chest. I couldn’t remember cumming like that in my life. When I finally caught my breath and slid back down his thighs, he was softly stroking my cock with one hand and making swirls in the cum pooled on his belly with the fingers of the other. “I don’t just like your cock,” he said softly with a devilish glint in his eyes, “I like your cum, too.” He scooped some up on his fingers and put it in his mouth, never taking his eyes from me. “Now I know exactly what you taste like, and I’ll never forget it.”

I thought I understood something about what bliss was from my reading in college, but I’d just discovered I really had no idea. This physical experience happening with the love we shared was so far beyond the intellectual construct that I was completely at a loss for words.

When I’d relaxed and Wilt pulled out, I immediately crawled up next to him, and he pulled me into a tight hug while he whispered sweet nothings into my ear. I’d never been happier in my life. Ever.

Wilt

I heard the shower turn off and then the razor buzz, and a couple of minutes later the closet doors open. I got up and headed down to take my own shower. He was in front of my closet, his arms spread with a hand on each door handle. The light was perfect, illuminating his body from the side, and he partially turned and glanced over his shoulder. His soft smile was framed by his beard. I slid my arms around his waist when I reached him, and pulled him back for a hug. His face came back against mine.

“You shaved and trimmed your beard. It feels so soft and sexy… you must have put conditioner in it.”

He giggled. “Sure did. I don’t want it scratchy when its rubbing on your body, especially when it’s down there between your thighs.”

“I loved the feeling between my thighs last night.”

“You were a high-performance guy last night, just in case I didn’t tell you.”

I tried to make light of it, but felt the tingling down there between my thighs. “I’ve got to get in the shower, or we’re going to be in trouble.”

“Well, late maybe… but never in trouble.”

“True enough, but as I’m learning, late is a big deal for Adrian.” I felt him nod and release my hug and then I turned for the bathroom.

I’d learned a lot about Adrian in the last week. I always closed my business for the week after Christmas, so my employees had a real holiday. It meant that the week before was really busy filling hospital orders, but it also let me go into the office alone, on my own schedule, to catch up on paperwork, start planning for the year ahead and do my personal yearend financial planning. The kinds of things that are so hard to make time for in a regular workday.

This week Seth was working his new job at the insurance agency so he couldn’t take days off, but he had been able to arrange to get off at four o’clock. I’d meet him at his office with the dogs, and then we’d walk to the foster home to pick up Adrian and go for a walk that ended up at my house where we had dinner together. The first day had been my first lesson on how literal people even with mild autism like Asperger’s can be. We’d told Adrian that we’d be walking from our offices and leaving at four o’clock and that should mean we’d be there at ten minutes after the hour. We were late leaving because of some customer call about an insurance policy.

Seth prepped me on the way. “We’re going to be late, and Adrian will be upset.”

“Really? Why?”

He then explained how even though Adrian was considered to be high functioning, he still took many things literally, and time was one of them. “He understands a lot of things exactly how we say them, and time is one of those things. He will have filed away 4:10 and absolutely expect us to be there by then because we said we would. He understands it literally and sees it as a literal commitment that we broke, and he’ll be getting anxious.” He paused, then went on. “You’ve seen some of it already, like when he asks what time it is. He isn’t asking if it’s late or hinting that time has gone by. He’s literally asking what the time is and gets upset if he isn’t told. Remember?”

I did. We’d been playing Scrabble and that exact thing happened and Adrian got upset when I’d just said, ‘It’s still early,’ and he didn’t get the answer he’d expected. Seth calmed him down and told me later that he’d been having so much fun watching Adrian trash me at the game he hadn’t been paying attention. I learned something that time about Seth and his ability to anticipate his brother’s problems and need.

When we got to the foster home Adrian was anxious, but not in a panic because the foster parents had known what to do. Seth started to try and calm him down, but it wasn’t necessary because as soon as he saw Donner and Blitzen everything in Adrian’s world became perfect. He knelt down and hugged them both at the same time. They both licked the sides of his face, and he started giggling and then when he looked up, he was smiling brightly, and all the anxiety was gone.

I looked at Seth and then the foster parents, who said, “Those dogs are good for that boy.” I smiled and nodded, and then handed Adrian the leashes and said, “Let’s start our walk.” Over dinner we made clear that the new target time for the walk would be 4:15.

We played Uno after dinner, and explained the new arrival time to the foster parents when we walked Adrian home. Another new thing was happening. Adrian was not only touching and hugging the dogs, but he’d hugged me a couple of times and was now letting me touch and hug him. Seth had explained how many people with ASD were very difficult to get to know because they wouldn’t or couldn’t make eye contact or verbalize and didn’t like to be touched, and that applied to many with Asperger’s. Some were even very sensitive to noise.

Another factor in Adrian’s case was that he had been bullied until he was transferred to a special needs high school. Quite a bit of the bullying was physical and so he was suspicious of being touched until he felt he adequately knew a person. I hadn’t tried to initiate a hug, but on the Sunday after Christmas he’d hugged me when we dropped him off. Seth smiled at me on the walk home. “The trust switch just opened up.”

“I know, I was surprised.”

“It just happens. I think it’s the last few weeks, the dogs, the walks, then Christmas Eve… all of it together. He feels accepted and comfortable and you’re now on the list of people he trusts.”

“Is part of it because he knows we’re together?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. He’s really intelligent, and far more clued in than you’d think. I have to think he knows something’s going on.” He grinned at me slyly.

I smiled back, happy the hug had happened, but also recognizing that it came with a responsibility not only to understand but also not to violate that trust.

The week had been like that. Yes, my office was closed, and Seth was working, but it felt like vacation. I’d only go in for a few hours a day, the dogs in tow, then go shopping and plan the dinners we’d cook together. Seth stayed with me every night. We’d walk home with the dogs after dropping Adrian off, settle them down, listen to some music or watch some TV, then go to bed… which was to say have sex.

Seth had made clear what he was looking for in a new sexual relationship, and I couldn’t argue with any of it. The idea of being open and accepting and asking was as liberating as it was exhilarating. We’d talked about it openly. About exploring new ways together, of being clean and ready for each other, of being able to ask and say what we wanted or needed, and being willing to do something even if it was new or challenging.

The second night he’d stayed with me we had further explored the approach. We were on our bed, naked and enjoying each other’s body. We were both hard and desirous and I thought I saw something in his eyes, some kind of desire or need. I might have been imagining it, but we’d committed to give each other as much pleasure as possible. I leaned forward and kissed him passionately and then whispered in his ear, “You know what I want tonight?”

His response was a kind of muffled, “whaaaaa?”

“I want you. I want you, in me.”

I heard something that sounded kind of like, “reaaaaaly?”

I had to fight back the chuckle, and said softly, “That’s our program. Giving each other pleasure. I told you that you have a beautiful cock, and I want that cock inside me.”

“God, yes,” he sighed.

We were both semi-hard, and I said, “Let’s start this way,” and swung around so we could do a sixty-nine. It had worked the night before and did again. Seth was fingering my pucker and I was careful to make sure we didn’t go too far. When I pulled off, he did too, and I handed him the lube.

He smiled at me, a soft glint in his eyes, and said simply, “Not yet,” and laid me down on the bed, spreading my legs. He laid down between them, licking the underside of my cock and sucking at my scrotum, and then he lifted my balls out of the way and licked my perineum. I literally shuddered. I’d never felt that, and when I looked down, he was watching me intently, gauging my reaction, and I saw a smile and that glint in his eyes.

“Oh, good! You like that.”

He dropped his head and licked a few more times. My eyes were closed, my head back, simply experiencing the sensations. Then I felt him lift my legs as his tongue went lower and danced around my hole. It felt like someone had thrown a switch as the sensations rippled outward and his tongue began to push in and then eventually dart in and out. I’d heard about sensory overload, but this was the first time I’d experienced it.

I writhed and wiggled as he used his tongue to pleasure me, and when after a couple of minutes he slowly stopped, and his head appeared from between my legs, there was a wry smile on his lips.

“Yes?”

“Oh, my god, yes,” I wheezed.

I could see the glint in his eyes. “You’re nice and wet now, and maybe I don’t need the lube, but it’s been a while like for me, and I want no pain. I just want you overwhelmed with pleasure.”

I watched him squeeze some lube on his fingers and felt him slide in one and then two fingers, slowly moving in circles to open me up. His eyes never wavered, locked onto mine, and when he knew I was ready he wiggled his eyebrows, lifted my legs once more and pushed his cock against me.

I was kind of emotionally overwhelmed and looked at him pleadingly. The smile widened and he said softly, “Tell me if it hurts.”

I nodded and he began to enter me. The pain came and went in seconds and then he was in me. My new lover was inside me! We were one, and he was pleasuring me… acting like I was the most important thing in his world right now. I almost dissolved on the spot with that thought… and then all thoughts vaporized as his cock ran past my prostate, as he slowly slid all the way inside me…paused, and then slowly withdrew.

I could see his eyes widen, almost as if his pupils were dilating, and he signed, “Oh my god, you feel so amazing. So tight and hot, and…” the sentence died as he pushed back in.

I realized I was recalling all of this as I showered, realizing that I was getting hard just from thinking about it. I turned the hot water down to cool the shower spray.

We had to be at the foster home on time at ten o’clock!

Seth

I’d been lying on Wilt’s bed while he took his shower. We both knew we were on a schedule and already almost running late, so good thing we weren’t showering together. After the last week there’s no way we’d have gotten out of there without deeply passionate wet sex.

I knew going into this week that I loved him, and he’d told me he loved me, but we were so far beyond that now in a whole new way that I wasn’t sure I could explain it to someone. I mean, yeah, we ‘loved’ each other. And we were having great sex, and we’d agreed our goal was to make the other as happy and satisfied as we could. But beyond that, we just seemed to fit, to work together. We enjoyed being together. What was that word my grandma used to use?

Compatible. That was it. We were compatible. The week of being together was something else, but a lot of how great it had been was just built on the everyday stuff we did. We’d get up and make coffee and breakfast. Shower and get ready for work—even if Wilt’s office was closed—then we’d walk to the office complex with the dogs. At lunch one of us would get takeout and eat in his office, then after work we’d walk to the foster home with the dogs to pick up Adrian. We’d all take a walk and then go on to Wilt’s house to prepare dinner that we all ate together, and then we’d walk him home. Just basic, everyday kind of things that we were doing together. Even last night, which had been New Year’s Eve was cool, even if domestic. With the pandemic we weren’t going to any party, but we’d gotten Adrian and walked the dogs followed by dinner and a game of Scrabble. Then a little goofing around with Adrian about New Year’s before we walked him home. When we got back, we settled the dogs and sipped a bottle of champagne while we talked about life and love. We didn’t make it till midnight, but we did have some good loving to celebrate the pending new year.

We fit together. It felt so good, I almost had to keep pinching myself. And part of that compatibility was that I loved his dogs and they loved me, while he gave all the indications that he loved Adrian and Adrian loved him. That was huge for me. I was all Adrian had left in the world, so it had to work with my partner, or it… it wouldn’t.

I glanced at the clock on the bedside table as I heard the shower turn off. Half an hour. We were good. Wilt would dress in ten, it would take five to organize Donner and Blitzen and get out the door, and we’d be there before ten o’clock, and no anxiety for Adrian.

We were walking hand in hand, and I had the leashes for the dogs because Wilt was checking his phone for messages or texts.

“Do we have any plans for tomorrow?”

“You have the phone in your hand,” I quipped, “what does your calendar say?”

He looked at me cross-eyed and smiled, and then said, “You know what I mean?”

“What’s up?”

“My brother invited us to their house for dinner. Meaning Sunday dinner in the early afternoon.”

“Oh…” I replied. “I guess the only thing is walking the dogs with Adrian.”

“Seth, they’re inviting all of us, including Adrian. What do you think?”

I paused. This was new. It had taken a long time for him to settle into the foster home, and nothing like this had happened since our grandma died when I was in college, and he had to go into the foster care.

“It’ll be a new thing, and there may be ‘moments,’ if you know what I mean. But if we make sure he understands that it’s your brother and his family it should be cool. Your brother’s a psychologist and he has to understand. Adrian trusts you. Can Donner and Blitzen come?”

“Good question? I wouldn’t have thought of that. Let me text Jordan.”

A minute later we had the answer, the dogs could come. I already really liked Jordan, and I’d never even met him. But Wilt told me that during the week he’d called and had a long conversation with him to understand more about Asperger’s and how it differed from autism. I was proud of him—yes, proud wasn’t too strong a word—proud that he took the initiative to learn more so he better understood what was what, and what to do or not to do.

When we talked about it later, he said Jordan had basically given him the clinical overview. That for over 70 years, doctors treated Asperger’s as its own diagnosis even though many believed Asperger’s was a milder form of autism, leading to the origin of the phrase “high-functioning.” Now, though, children with Asperger’s symptoms were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. While severe ASD can manifest with extreme mental disabilities, patients with Asperger’s have symptoms that are typically on the milder side, but every child experiences symptoms differently.

I understood Wilt knew something about autism and Asperger’s, but I could tell he was relieved to learn that Adrian’s condition was on the milder end of the spectrum. We talked then about how the main outward characteristics of a person with Asperger’s syndrome are poor social skills, weak verbal communication skills, and being clumsy. What he told me really struck him, of all the things Jordan had explained to him, was that a person with Asperger’s doesn’t have a clinically significant cognitive delay. When I replied that I’d told him Adrian was smart, but I wasn’t sure what cognitive delay meant, he told me that it meant intellectual function wasn’t below the expected average for the person’s age.

“It’s usually applied to children,” he said Jordan had told him, “and determining if there’s cognitive delay is part of how their condition is diagnosed. So, if Adrian didn’t have a significant cognitive delay, then he doesn’t have intellectual disabilities. In fact, he said that most children with Asperger’s have average or above-average intelligence. I didn’t know that.”

I smirked at him. “I told you he was really up there, and he had a memory like a trap. He’s trashed you at Scrabble and Uno, so I guess you’ve got firsthand experience to pair up with what Jordan told you.”

He grinned back at me, “I have, and I heard everything you said about your brother. I just had to understand it all my way, in my terminology. He’s just beginning to trust and accept me, and talk to me, so I’m just beginning to experience that side of him.”

I squeezed his hand. “I know he likes you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, he told me. He said he likes you almost as much as he likes Donner and Blitzen!”

Wilt squeezed my hand back and then said, “So, there’s hope for me yet?”

“Sure is,” I replied, and we walked up to the door of the foster home.

We had a great walk, even though it was raining on and off. The weather hadn’t turned cold, so it wasn’t uncomfortable, and the coolest part was now that Adrian had accepted Wilt as part of his circle of friends, Wilt felt he could ask him things. Like if he’d want to learn more about dog training and dog commands, and of course Adrian said, ‘Yes.’ So, we spent part of the walk with Wilt explaining about voice commands and hand motions, starting out with simple things like Sit and Stay.

I noticed that Wilt was being very specific in what he explained to Adrian, and how he told him what to do and what to expect, leaving no room for interpretation or confusion—the kind of things that could make him anxious. Adrian got it about as fast as he picked up new words for Scrabble! The dogs loved it too.

We had lunch at a Subway so we could eat outside under a canopy. Before we walked back to the foster home, we made a deal out of sitting down on a bench and Wilt explained that he had a brother who was married and had two children who were eleven and twelve years old, and that they’d invited us all to go to their house the next day for Sunday dinner. You could see the little furrows of concern form on his forehead immediately, but then Wilt went on to explain how nice they all were and then he asked Adrian a question.

“Can you guess where Donner and Blitzen got their names?”

Adrian frowned for a minute, then said, ”Their Santa’s reindeer names, so from Santa Claus or Christmas.”

Wilt smiled at him and said, “You’re close. It did have to do with Christmas. Ray and Rachel are my brother’s kids, and I got the dogs around Christmas time. Ray and Rachel insisted they had to have Christmas names, and they chose Donner and Blitzen.”

His eyes widened. “Really? Then they’re neat kids!”

Wilt chuckled, and replied, “Yeah, they are. They love Donner and Blitzen, too. I think you’ll like them. Do you want to go? We’d all go together.”

“Will Donner and Blitzen go, too?”

“They sure will. They were invited as well.”

Adrian was smiling and nodding, and said, “Yes. We’ll all be going then, won’t we?”

I breathed a sigh of relief and when we got back to the foster home, we explained the plans for the next day to the foster parents. They thought it was a splendid idea because it expanded his socialization. “You have no idea how just attending the art class on Thursday evenings has helped, to say nothing about it improving his art abilities.”

Wilt

We’d agreed with Jordan that after we had dinner with his family, we’d all take a short walk with the dogs. He fully understood the connection Adrian had with the dogs and how that could be a common bond for everyone, so a dog walk was part of the plans. That meant Seth and I were free to sleep in a little Sunday morning before we went for a run.

I woke lying on my back with Seth on his side next to me, his arm over my chest. His breathing was deep and peaceful, and I watched the arm with its light dusting of black hair rise and fall along with my breathing. The week had been wonderful, and last night had been blissful again, and while I was hopeful for a great outcome from dinner with Jordan and his family, Seth and I both knew it would be back to normal come the next morning.

I hadn’t said anything specific, not wanting to pressure him one way or the other, but I’d reconciled myself to the reality that it meant full days of work for both of us, Seth sleeping in his apartment except on the weekends, our time with Adrian limited to the walk to art class on Thursday evening and then dog walks on the weekend. It would be painful to go back to that, but it was the living arrangements we had in place, and we had to accept that we’d been given a wondrous week together, and use that to build from.

I heard him sigh and move slightly against my shoulder. Then he said slowly, “Are you awake?”

“Yes, love. Just for a minute or two.”

“I love it when you call me love.”

I picked up his arm and kissed the back of his hand. “Love you totally.”

“I know, believe me. Me, too.” He paused, then added, “What else were you thinking about?”

“That next week starts tomorrow, and things will be back to normal,” I said dejectedly. “I’ve decided I don’t like normal after what we’ve had this week.”

“I get it. I’m with you. I don’t want it to end, but life goes on, right?”

“It feels like it’s going to have to. But we’ll make the best of it because it’s not permanent, and we’re in love, and we’re making this relationship be what we want. Isn’t that the plan?”

I felt him move against me again, and his fingers swirl around on my chest. “Yep, that’s the plan. As far as I’m concerned, it’s working so far. Agreed?”

I turned off the negative thoughts about the coming week and said, “I sure do. Best week of my life so far.”

“You’re serious?”

“I am.” I meant every bit of it, too.

“Me, too. And what you did to me last night was like the best sex I’ve ever had. I was kind of being a smart ass last month when I said you were a high-performance guy, but you know what? You are. Totally high-performance loving guy.” I felt his hand slide down the side of my chest and then he pulled me against him. “And you’re mine, and I’m the luckiest guy in Oregon… maybe in the entire USA!”

“I’m not going to argue with that, and I’ll second that motion. That said, we’ve got to get up and get going. The boys are getting restless, and we’ve got stuff to do today, and it starts with a run.”

He groaned.

Adrian was ready to go when we got to the foster home, and Seth rode in the back seat with him. It was only twenty minutes to Jordan’s house, and he and his wife Kathy came out the front door to meet us. They knew the dogs and understood that we wanted to make the arrival as low stress for Adrian as possible.

I got out of the Explorer and could see Adrian was looking up the sidewalk at the house. I said to him, “Why don’t you come to the back with me, and you can take the leashes and walk the dogs up to the house?”

He was a little nervous, and didn’t smile, but nodded. Seth squeezed his arm, and he got out and followed me around to the rear door. As it went up, I said “Stay” and both dogs did, then I clipped the leashes on their collars and handed them to Adrian.

“You know what to do now.”

He flicked his eyes at me briefly, more for acknowledgment than confirmation, and then said, “Come.”

Both dogs hopped out of the Explorer and Seth said, “Hold them till Wilt locks the car.”

He did and I lead off up the walk. I heard Seth say, “Okay, let’s go, Adrian,” and he in turn said, “Heel” to the dogs and our little procession walked up to meet Jordan and Kathy. They knew enough not to gush all over either Seth or Adrian, and when we got to the front stoop, I grinned at them and said, “Hi, you guys. I want you to meet Seth and his brother Adrian. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Adrian is working on becoming one of the best dog handlers in Portland.”

It took a couple of seconds, but I heard Adrian giggle, so I turned to look at him.

“It’s true, isn’t it? I mean look how good you are with Donner and Blitzen.”

He paused, unsure what it all implied, but then gave a little smile and nodded. That took the edge off and Kathy softly said, “Hello, Adrian, I’m Kathy and I am very impressed with how you handle those two dogs. After the ride they’ve had in the car, why don’t we given them a quick walk down the block, and you can show me how you do it?”

Adrian looked at Seth for approval, he nodded, and the three of them headed down the street with Donner and Blitzen, chatting away like they’d been friends for years. So, the dog walk was happening before dinner. Who knew?

“Good move, bro. How’d you know how to do that?”

I looked at my brother and smiled. “I heard what you told me, I’ve been paying attention to what’s going on… and I asked myself what you would do in the same circumstance. Then it was easy to figure out. Do something to take the pressure off, and that’s almost always the dogs. So, I started teaching him basic dog handling stuff.”

He grinned at me and pulled me in for a hug. “Good thing Kathy’s a schoolteacher. She knew just how to make Adrian feel at ease. You’ve got a good-looking boyfriend there. I can’t wait to meet him.”

Our time with Jordan’s family and even over dinner went well. Ray and Rachel were on best behavior, clearly having been primed not to be too noisy or questioning. After we ate Ray asked if Adrian wanted to see his room. He gave Seth a quick glance for approval, and Seth nodded right back and then Ray added, “You can bring the dogs. They always come down to my room.”

Half an hour later when we started to get organized to leave, I walked down to Ray’s room. They were playing Minecraft and the dogs were curled up at the foot of the bed asleep. They looked up and I asked casually, “Who’s winning?”

Ray looked at me with a pained expression. “Adrian says he doesn’t play much ‘cause they’ve only got one game console at the foster home, but we’re even. I thought I was pretty good and that he’d be easy to beat. Oh, well!” Then he looked at Adrian and grinned. “But your boyfriend’s brother learns fast. I’m going to have to do a bunch of practicing to stay ahead of him.”

Adrian shyly grinned and looked at me like he was kind of embarrassed. “Ray is good and gave me lots of hints.”

I grinned back and said, “You’re the man, Adrian. We’ve got to go home in thirty minutes, so why don’t you guys finish this game and then come down to the living room and we’ll get organized?”

We got Adrian back to the foster home on schedule, but it was the question he asked on the drive back that was the highlight of the day.

The dogs had laid down in the cargo area and Seth and Adrian were in the back seat. They’d talked about Adrian having a good time and meeting new friends, and how Ray had helped him get better at Minecraft, but had lapsed into silence. Adrian was staring straight ahead, out through the windshield. Then out of the blue he asked, “Seth, is Wilt your boyfriend now?”

In the rearview mirror I saw Seth’s head snap around. I was pretty sure they hadn’t talked about it in a lot of detail.

“Yeah, Adrian. Wilt is my boyfriend. How did you know?”

“Ray said he’s your boyfriend.”

“Really? Well, it’s true,” Seth said.

“I’ve been watching you guys. You guys love each other, huh?”

“We do. Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah, ‘cause love is good. I see you guys love each other. I didn’t see it with Andrew.”

I saw Seth kind of blanch and could tell he was at a loss for words. Finally, he choked out, “Thank you, Adrian. I thought I loved Andrew, but I was wrong. I really love Wilt, and he really loves me. You’re sure you’re okay with that?”

Adrian nodded, still looking ahead through the windshield, and then after a couple of seconds he said, “I love Wilt, too.”

We knew the dogs needed some more exercise when we got home, and it had started to rain. So, we changed clothes and took them out for another walk. We also talked about what had happened, and agreed that not just had Adrian done really well for his first time in a new situation with new people, but his level of observation or intuition had blown our minds.

“He never said anything bad about Andrew. I mean… I guess he never really said anything. But he was clued in, wasn’t he?”

I pulled him close to me. “I think we can say that in addition to being quite intelligent, he’s also more intuitive than he gets credit for. He figures out the emotional stuff on his own.”

“Yeah, I guess. Why would he have never said anything to me if he didn’t think Andrew and I loved each other?”

“I guess we could speculate that he didn’t think it was his place, but I think that would be imposing our social norms on him. We can ask Jordan, but my guess is just that he loves you as his brother, so he accepted the relationship you were in at face value. You weren’t being abused or anything, and Andrew wasn’t doing anything to him, so he just accepted it because it was you.” I paused, then went on, “I think another thing is that when you were in college you saw him infrequently and now that you live close by you see him frequently, but that’s different than being around him a lot. Now, I’m stretching here, but I’d guess that what he’s experienced with us and the dogs over the last couple of months, and especially all the time this last week, was acceptance and then the love we have… that he’s part of it.”

Seth squeezed my hand and pulled to stop us. When I looked at him, I could see his eyes were moist. “You do know what it means to me, to have you say that, don’t you?”

I pulled him into a hug. “I meant what I said, that I’d never felt like this before, the way I love you. And I’ve never felt love coming my way the way it does from you. Adrian’s in the mix, in our circle of love, and has to be able to pick up on that. I know the dogs can.”

Seth

It had been a totally upbeat and mind-blowing afternoon with Wilt’s brother and his family. I expected the kids to be kind of a pain and irritate Adrian, but they hadn’t. I don’t know if it was because of the dogs or because they were a psychologist’s kids. Either way, who cared—it worked.

Before we’d left, Wilt had gone down to Ray’s room to tell them to finish their game so we could get rolling, leaving me in the living room with Jordan. He asked about my college studies and the new job and if Wilt and I were getting along as well as it looked. He had a knowing smile on his face, and I knew he was giving me an opening.

“We do. I realized the other day that the word is one my grandma used. Compatible. We’re compatible even if he is older than me. Maybe that’s part of what makes it work.”

“Well, it sure looks healthy and happy from here. I want you to know that Wilt and I talk a lot. I’m not his therapist or anything, but you know… I’m a psychologist and I figured that part of my job was helping him out ‘cause he was a great older bro and helped me out a lot along the way. So, don’t assume he’s telling me confidential stuff or anything he shouldn’t when you hear we’ve been talking, alright?”

I could feel the slightest frown on my forehead, and felt a flash of paranoia, but then realized Jordan was simply trying to resolve in advance any worries I might have. “Well, I know you guys talk. He told me he called you a during the week to better understand Asperger’s. Anyway, you’re a professional, right?” I raised my eyebrows and smiled back at him. “I’m sure you wouldn’t violate confidentiality or anything.”

“You can count on that. He told me about the Coldplay lyrics you shared with him when he was still being resistant. That was very perceptive of you. I think it’s terrific that your position was one of re-framing your prior relationships to make a better future together. That was a pretty great line you dropped on him: Everybody gets their hearts ripped out; Got to keep dancing when the lights go out.

“So, you’re good with us being together?” I tried to sound confident, not wanting to sound like a pleading teenager.

“I’m more than good. You’re a capable and mature young man. I’d say you had to grow up a lot faster than most people between losing your parents and being responsible for Adrian, and you appear to have managed it well. You’re also reasonably good looking. I mean good looking enough, but I don’t understand why Wilt continues to claim you’re so sexy.”

He smiled at me as he said it, and the smile turned into a grin, and I found myself grinning back. We’d established common ground and I felt like I’d been accepted. We all said goodbye with hugs, and that included Adrian who didn’t seem to have a problem with it. He’d had a good time, they liked him, and then Adrian dropped the love bomb on us on the drive home.

He caught me by surprise, that was for sure. I couldn’t believe that he just came out and said what he did about Andrew and about loving Wilt. It made my day. But there was more. I mean Wilt had been very insightful about Andrew being more intuitive than we thought. Maybe I had missed that and like everyone else just assumed he wasn’t emotionally clued in. In the evening after we walked the dogs again and settled into kind of getting organized for the back-to-the-normal routine that would start the next day, Jordan called.

He wanted to talk to both of us, so we made it a FaceTime call and he started out telling us what a great afternoon it had been, how nice to meet me and Adrian, all of that. But he wasn’t faking it and he was sincere. At one point he looked at me and said, “Seth, I want to tell you something that Wilt’s going to hate hearing ‘cause I’m his little brother and all, but here’s the deal. Kathy and I talked about it after you all left, and we both like you a lot. You’re a cool guy and you’re responsible and caring. On top of that, though, we’ve never seen my brother happier.”

He paused, and all I could get out was, “Yeah?” That must have sounded really stupid!

“Yeah, really! And I know I’m putting you on the spot, but we want you to know how we feel. The kids liked you and Adrian a lot, too, and Kathy said to be sure and tell you that you’re ‘a keeper.’ You know what that is, don’t you?”

He was laughing softly, and when I glanced at Wilt, I could see he was embarrassed, but who cares. Does this mean that somehow we’re family now?

“Yeah, Jordan. I’m pretty sure I know what a keeper is. Strikes me like it’s right up there with quizzing your brother about if he’s in love with his boyfriend and if he’s told him or not?”

I tried to smile innocently at him, knowing my expression would be distorted over the FaceTime link.

“Touché, Seth. Good one. It’s all true. Wilt’s a wonderful person and he’s been a great older brother… even if he is a little slow in expressing how he feels.”

I could feel Wilt starting to squirm next to me. I was impressed he hadn’t said anything so far.

“So, Jordan, would it make you feel better if I assure you that he’s told me that he loves me and that this week he’s become extraordinarily adept at expressing himself in any number of ways, both emotional and physical?”

Jordan cracked up and Wilt hit me in the ribs softly with a fist. “Jesus, Seth. This is my little brother. Don’t tell him shit like that.”

We all ended up laughing and cutting up and then Jordan said, “Listen, there’s something else, something serious, I wanted to talk to you both about, too. Is that okay?”

We nodded, and he explained that when Wilt had called him during the week to talk about autism and Asperger’s he hadn’t wanted to do a total data dump, but help Wilt understand the big picture. He also wanted to limit what he said till he’d actually met Adrian and spent some time with him.

“What I want you both to know, and this is based just on my observation this afternoon, is that I talked to Wilt about how cognitive ability in childhood is used to determine if a child is developing normally or not, and then if not to help diagnose the condition. Are you with me?”

We both nodded, and Jordan went on. “So, here’s the detail. Setting aside the typical Asperger’s symptoms for a moment, assessing cognitive development has two components. One is intellectual functioning, namely the patient’s ability to learn, solve problems and understand the world. That’s often referred to as assessing IQ. We all know Adrian’s up there on the IQ scale, right?”

We nodded again and he went on.

“The second thing that’s assessed is adaptive functioning, and that’s a fancy term for determining the patient’s ability to develop skills needed to live independently. Now, like I said, I’m talking to you based on what Wilt’s told me and what I observed this afternoon during my time with Adrian. I don’t know if he’s been tested for it, but my assessment is that he’s also reasonably high in the adaptive functioning category.”

We were quiet and then I slowly said, “What does that mean?”

“It means, if my read is correct, and he needs further assessment, that he has the capacity and skills to live independently. He’s going to be eighteen before long and that’s important because he doesn’t have to be in a foster home or group home or whatever for the rest of his life. He’ll probably always need a support network around him, but living independently is, I think, a real possibility. Okay, I’ve said my piece and didn’t mean to dump on you both. Thoughts?”

Wilt looked at me, his expression saying he didn’t have enough information to make an assessment or comment. It was on me.

“Wow, Jordan! I’ve known all along he was really smart, and I’m not sure the special needs school he goes to has figured that out or knows what to do with it. But he’s happier there, that’s for sure. He’s accepted for who he is and he’s not getting bullied and stuff. We lived with our grandma till I went to college, and then he was there till she died. He got himself to school and back and he does that now with some of the other kids in the foster home. I don’t know if there was ever any kind of assessments of what you called adaptive functioning. I think I would have known about it, and when grandma died and he was a minor and I was in college the state just did what they though was best and got him into a foster home, and it was after that he got moved into the special needs school. So, I don’t know what to say, really. Except that you’re a professional and maybe you’re seeing something, something important, that no one else had picked up on.”

Jordan gave us some time to process, like he probably did with a client in his office, then he said,

“Now listen, you guys. I didn’t call to dump on you or anything like that. But, Seth, you told me that Adrian’s seventeen, right?”

I nodded agreement.

“Alright, then. As you’ve already found out, Oregon has a very good foster care system and clearly, he’s in a good home with good foster parents. Here’s the thing, though. For almost all foster children, the day they turn 18, foster care ends and they can suddenly be on their own, responsible to find a place to live, manage their money, their shopping, their clothing, their food and try to continue their education. The fact is that it’s not just a shock to the child, but a lot of former foster kids have a hard time with all of these abrupt changes. They’re less likely to find a job, go to college or even find a place to sleep every night.”

I was silent again, then said, “I guess I knew it would only last while he was a minor, but I didn’t really think about what happens when he turns eighteen… I mean what really happens.”

“And I just told you guys,” Jordan replied, “that this call isn’t to dump on you or scare you. But the facts are the facts. When is Adrian’s birthday?”

“It’s the 10 of March.”

“That’s a little over two months away, and I’d guess the state would extend his time in foster care through the end of the school year. We have time to confirm that, and we have to start looking at the options and see where we go from here.” He paused and I was at a loss for words.

Wilt squeezed my hand and gave me a smile. “We’ll work it out, love. We will.”

I glanced at him and then back at Jordan. “I’m starting to feel really bad and embarrassed. How could I not have figured this out? I mean it’s like we’re driving toward a cliff, and I’ve been ignoring it or something?”

“Seth, it’s not uncommon. We all have to plan ahead in life, but he’s in a good situation now and it’s natural to assume or hope it will continue. Don’t beat yourself up about this. You’ve been very responsible in looking out for him so far. Just understand there’s a transition ahead, and you’ve got a team with you now and we’re here to help.”

I was still feeling stupid and embarrassed, so I just nodded and said, “Okay.”

After a minute, Jordan said, “Alright. Let’s leave it there. Like I said, the plan wasn’t to just dump this on you, more like open a new line of inquiry, something new to consider. Don’t just dwell on what happens when he turns eighteen. Instead think about the other part, what this new phase of his life can become. If I’m right, then it may open up a whole new range of possibilities for Adrian. If you’re okay with it, I’d be happy to meet with him regularly and maybe arrange some assessment. Things like that.”

I was suddenly overwhelmed. I squeezed Wilt’s hand and said, “That’s more than okay. I mean, really… that’d be great.” I had to take a deep breath and swallow and then I managed to choke out, “You really care about my little brother, don’t you?”

It felt so stupid to even say it, but very few people so far had cared about Adrian. And now in addition to my new boyfriend and his two dogs, here was his brother. I felt the tears on my cheeks and Jordan softly said, “Let’s continue later, okay. Just think about what I told you guys. I’m not talking about making a big deal out of this and embarrassing Adrian. Just some basic assessment. And, yes, I do care about your brother. So do Kathy and Ray and Rachel. We care about him the same way Wilt does.”

Wilt

Seth was pretty emotional when we ended the call with Jordan. I’d never seen him really flustered or deeply emotional, or at a loss for words. He naturally had a quick wit about him and never lacked for a response, but this was about the most important thing in his life and now associated with it was an implicit threat. He watched me close the call and set the phone down, and we were just looking at each other. I was hesitant to say anything in case he took it wrong.

He moved over closer to me on the couch, pulling us together into a tight hug. “Your brother is amazing,” he said softly into my chest.

I could feel his words reverberate. “He is pretty amazing,” I agreed. I could feel him hug me tighter and heard his breathing catch and realized he was working hard not to cry. So, I kissed the top of his head and hugged him back and just said, “It’s okay. Let it go.”

“Jordan said he likes Adrian as much as you do. Do you have any idea how afraid I’ve been that it would just be the scene with Andrew over and over? That no one would want to be with me other than for a hook up because I’ve got a brother with Asperger’s?” He was sobbing now.

“Yeah, I kinda do,” I said softly. “I can guess it’s part of why you’ve been alone so long after Andrew. If your boyfriend acts like he thinks your brother’s a leper or something, that’s got to leave some scars. You know I’ve got my scars, too.” I pushed his shoulder’s back a little and tipped his chin up. “I told you before that I know you and Adrian are a package deal. I love you, and I love your brother, too. I mean he’s cute and all, you know. With those blue eyes and black hair that make him look like a little you. I love him differently than you, but I do love him. You can go to the bank with that.”

His lips twitched and then he smiled that sweet soft smile he has, and he pulled his face into my neck. “You really are my high-performance guy, aren’t you?”

“If that’s what you need, that’s what I am. And, for the record, I’m pretty sure I need you just as much, too.”

We had dinner and talked about how it was different without Adrian, but agreed that Sunday dinner had worked out well to be a transition for him to have supper at the foster home and get used to life going back to normal. Seth told me how happy he’d been to see Adrian accepted and to fit in with Jordan and Kathy’s family.

“You noticed how he was part of the conversation at dinner, right?”

He looked at me and smiled. “Yeah, that was awesome.”

“And you’ve noticed that as the week’s gone on he’s been more conversational here at dinner, too?”

“Yeah, I have. I could see he was accepting the whole scene, being more and more comfortable with it and stuff. You got him talking about school and his art classes. Usually, he only talks about stuff like that with me. But that was him here with us and Donner and Blitzen. Today it was brand new people in a brand new place and he still did really well.”

“Well, love, my brother may be onto something. I’m not going to be liking going back to the old routine any more than you will, but let’s see if we can figure out how to get Adrian to meet with Jordan and then see where it goes?”

He nodded and then we got up to do the dishes, and the rest of the evening was pretty subdued.

Seth

I woke up feeling pretty good on Monday, even if it was back to normal. We went through our usual morning routing, and then I carried my duffle bag when we walked to the office. Wilt said it was silly, that he’d drive me to the apartment at lunch or after work, but I told him, No. I wanted to be able to walk home after work, and he’d probably get tied up with something at lunch, after his business being closed for a week. The same went for after work. I could imagine lots of orders or whatever, and his running late and feeling bad… no, not going there.

I gave him a quick kiss outside the insurance agency and walked inside as he headed down to his building. It didn’t take long, and I was completely caught up in the day’s workload and not dwelling on Wilt. Clients wanting to review their coverage for the new year. Those who were retired with investments wanting to adjust their monthly withdrawal now that they knew their social security increase for the year. And that was without even thinking about new policies, and all the office management stuff I was supposed to slowly begin to be in charge of.

It slowed down a little after eleven and I sent Wilt a text.

< Been swamped over here all morning. Now it’s quiet – missing you. Can you break free for lunch? ? >

It was only a minute later.

< Can’t do it. You were right-too busy. Staff meeting at lunch. I’m hating life already. ? >

I’d predicted it, but I didn’t like getting the answer I knew I should have expected.

< Got it. No prob. I’ve thought once or twice about what you did to me last night. Over the moon! ? >

The evening had been subdued, but when we got to bed the passion came out at full throttle. We kissed like mad and then settled into a nice sixty-nine. I wasn’t even thinking about what was next or where it was going. It just felt so good to be making love to Wilt. After a minute he pulled off and said, “Stop. Let’s not cum this way.” I glanced up at him and he smiled and wiggled his eyebrows, and then arranged himself against the pillows, leaning against the headboard. He smiled seductively and wagged a beckoning finger at me. I clambered around and crawled up between his legs, taking hold of his hard cock. He sighed as I took it in my mouth, and I heard him say, “Easy, easy.”

When I looked up, he had the lube in his hand and said to me seductively, “Remember when you were rubbing your ass on my cock and made me cum in my pants.”

I grinned and wiggled my eyebrows. “It wasn’t all me. Seems like you were pretty into it.”

“Oh yeah, love, I was. And I’ve been thinking about how we start with that, and see if we can make it better.” I was all ears. He pulled me up toward him, and turned me around so I was leaning against his torso, his pulsing cock pressed in my low back. Then very gently he reached around and gave my cock a few long soft strokes, sending shock waves through me.

“Lift up,” he whispered in my ear, and when I did, I felt his slick fingers on my hole and then sliding in, lubing me. I suddenly realized what he wanted to do. “Can you hold up there for a minute,” he said softly?

I nodded and could feel he was lubing his cock, and then carefully positioned himself against me. “Should be easy, but now you’re in control,” he said as he placed both hands under my thighs. The head of his cock was pushing against my hole, and I braced myself on his thighs as I consciously relaxed and settled down, feeling the pure pleasure of Wilt begin to slide inside me.

“Oh, god… so good, so hot,” he sighed in my ear as the head of his cock pushed in. That was all I needed to hear, and I let myself go all the way down on him, feeling the pure ecstasy of his cock slide over my prostate and all the way up into me. His hands were now stroking my sides and then my chest, tweaking my nipples as I started to move up and down on him. Our rhythm was slow and smooth, and the sensations became more and more intense.

I looked down at my cock and it was still pretty hard, and then I realized that what I wanted was all of Wilt deep inside of me, as far as possible. As I settled down wiggling my ass to take as much of him as I could, he thrust upwards, burying himself as deep in me as was possible. Just that feeling of him filling me was blowing my circuits, but then his lube-slicked hand took my cock and started stroking me feverishly. I tried to lift again, but I couldn’t move. I was being overwhelmed by the combined sensations of Wilt’s cock thrust deep inside me and his hand stroking me. The sensations that started to overwhelm me.

And they did, because within a minute I exploded, arching back against him, squealing and groaning in pure delight as his hand kept stroking me. I literally felt like I was going to faint, and then I heard him say again, “Baby, you’re so hot, so goo…. Oh, god, I’m cumming, too.”

It was a crescendo for both of us, and I recalled it all as I blankly looked at the application for a new insurance policy and felt myself start to get hard in my pants.

I didn’t expect a reply ‘cause he was swamped, but a minute later my phone pinged.

< Is there an emoji for over the moon? I’m not sure? ??? >

I snapped out of my reverie with a grin. That had been a good response!

< Ha, ha. Talk later >

Then it hit me. I’d be alone tonight.

< Can we get together this evening? >

I was feeling pathetic as I typed it, but it was how I felt, so I hit send.

It was only seconds later.

< So, I’m not the only one not wanting to be alone after work? >

< You’ve got that right >

< Let’s walk the dogs then get sushi >

We talked about it as we ate, and decided that missing each other the way we did just meant we loved each other that much. I told him I was still going back to my apartment, as much as I hated the idea.

“So, have we agreed that we need at least one or two fixes a day, time when we’re with each other?” He had a friendly smirk on his face, and I knew he wasn’t being a wise ass.

“I felt pathetic when I sent you the text about getting together this evening. I can’t believe that I couldn’t even go twelve hours without being with you.

“Nothing pathetic about it. If you hadn’t sent that text, I would have.”

He walked me to my apartment, kissed me goodnight outside on the sidewalk, and patted me on the ass as I turned to go inside.

Part 2

Wilt

The text came in at seven.

< It’s lonely in this bed, so just wondering. Are we meeting on Thursday at McMennamin’s? >

I grinned to myself. We hadn’t talked about it, but the thought certainly had crossed my mind.

< Are you asking me on a date? >

I thought I could see the expression on his face as he composed his reply.

< Well, you know! I’ve got to take Adrian to art class and, well, you’re not making me beg, are you? >

I felt satisfied. He had it as bad as I did.

< You do know what The Rolling Stones had to say about things like that, don’t you? >

He was a music fan, but he was younger so maybe he didn’t know the older Rolling Stones songs.

< And what would that be? >

I could feel the coyness come through the phone!

< Wild horses couldn’t keep me away! ? >

Then, before he could reply, I shot him another text.

< And I’m not happy in the afternoon when we don’t do lunch… and neither are the dogs. >

And that was the way the week went. We were trying to keep developing our relationship while being independent, but it was hard. However, the very things that made it hard were also what made it precious and heart-warming.

Cheryl, my office manager, had quizzed me on Monday about how my Christmas break had gone. I’d started out telling her just about the quality time in the office to catch up on paperwork and do annual planning… and she’d said “And?”

She’d worked for me for six years, longer than any of the other employees, so I guess she felt entitled. Then I told her about dong personal financial planning and being able to leave early to go shopping.

She’d said, “And… shopping for what?”

When I said, “Groceries and stuff,” she’d come right back. “Who were you cooking dinner for?”

“Cheryl! What is this? Twenty questions?”

She just grinned at me. “As a matter of fact, yes… it is. It’s your new boyfriend, isn’t it? I figured you’d spend more time together with him, and I think that’s great. You’re long overdue and that explains why you look so love-sick today.”

I looked at her like she’d just offended me.

“Get over it, boss. Love is love and it’s kind of obvious. I’m happy for you, by the way. We’ve all seen you meet him outside at lunch or after work with the dogs. You gave me and the bookkeeper a cursory introduction… which you had to do to get him past us and into your office. Are we all finally going to get to meet him properly, or is he some kind of national security risk?”

She got me with that one. She deserved better. “I’m sorry if I’ve come off as trying to hide something… I mean to hide him… it’s just that…” my sentence died.

“I know, Wilt. You don’t have to explain. I’ve worked for you long enough I’ve seen it. Remember, we talked about your problems with Patrick. I was here when he died. I was at the funeral with you. I’m happy for you. You seem energized and happy again. I’m just telling you that we all see this going on. Me and Stacy and the salespeople and the warehouse people and the drivers even. And we’re all happy for you. You don’t need to keep it all private unless you really want to.”

That was certainly cause for consideration! “You’re right Cheryl, I don’t, and I shouldn’t, and I won’t. I’m kind of rediscovering some stuff about myself and I guess I’m still kind of protective. My brother had to ask me if I was in love… and if I’d told him.”

“Told who? What’s his name again?”

“His name’s Seth, and he’s a really wonderful… I mean he’s just a great…”

She cut me off. “You’ve really got it bad, don’t you?” She was beaming a smile of pleasure, though. Happy that I was happy.

“I do. I never thought it would happen again, but it has.”

“So, when do I get to properly meet Seth?”

“Soon. This week. Tomorrow. Is that okay?”

I grinned at her feeling like I’d just been given the third degree by my parents after my first date in high school! And because of that Seth or I started getting sandwiches to go for lunch, ate them in my office with the dogs, and he met all of my employees.

Thursday Seth had to skip lunch because of something at his office. I was already at McMennamin’s when he walked in, and I admit my heart skipped as I watched him take off his mask in the mirror behind the bar. He glanced down the bar, saw me and broke into a huge smile. Just the hug he gave me from behind was the highlight of my day.

We’d skipped lunch together today because we were getting together in the evening, and I said, “Cheryl asked me if you weren’t feeling well.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, when you didn’t show for lunch.”

He smiled wryly. “So, lunch at your office is now a permanent fixture?”

I wiggled my eyebrows. “She seems to think so. You’ve made a good impression on her. She tends to watch out for me.”

“Yeah, you told me that. Like she was your mom or something?” He said it simply, not with any criticism, appreciating the concern that was behind it.

“She’s a great person. She was one of my mainstays. Without Jordan and her and the dogs I wouldn’t have made it through Patrick dying.”

Charlie, the bartender, slid by and asked if Seth wanted his usual, and he nodded in reply. Then he said, “I like her a lot too. Don’t get me wrong. I told you already that you’ve got a great crew. Everyone in your office gets along and acts like they’re on the same team. It’s pretty cool that they’re happy for you and accept me like that.”

I changed the subject. “Were you able to talk to Adrian on the walk to art class? How’s he adjusting to being back on the regular schedule?”

“Yeah, we talked a little, and you know I’ve called him every evening. He wasn’t happy Monday or Tuesday, but by yesterday he’d settled back into the routine, and tonight he seemed normal. He does want to know when he gets to come to dinner again, and when we’re walking the dogs. All of that.”

“We’ll talk to him about it on the walk from class, and plan a couple things for the weekend, How’s that? Then you can ask him about Jordan.”

He smiled and nodded his head as he sipped his beer.

Adrian seemed happy to see me, in his muted way, meaning he didn’t say much, but he was smiling, and his eyes were twinkling. As we walked Seth got him talking about art class, and then we talked about the upcoming weekend. Knowing that asking him what he wanted to do might be confusing to him I asked him if he’d be able to handle two long walks?

He nodded vigorously and said, “That will be good. Good for all of us and good exercise.”

Seth smiled at me, kind of letting me know I was doing okay, and I asked him if he’d like to come home with us after the walk and have dinner on Saturday.

He nodded again and smiled. “I like dinner with you guys and with Donner and Blitzen.”

“And we all like it with you.”

Seth then picked up the conversation. “Adrian, Jordan asked me to say hello to you.”

He nodded and smiled, and Seth went on. “He’d like to get to know you better. Do you want to do that?”

Adrian nodded again, the smile still on his face. “How about if we take you to meet with him while me and Wilt go shopping Sunday? Then we’ll pick you up and we’ll go for our walk with the Donner and Blitzen?”

He nodded again. “Jordan was nice. Will I see Ray and Rachel?”

“Maybe, if they’re home. We’ll see, okay?”

By this time, we were back at the foster home and said goodnight.

Seth

I was actually nervous about whether Adrian would go for meeting with Jordan, but was happy he liked him and had the positive associations. He usually wanted to stick with his routine, and we’d been mixing that up recently but he hadn’t gotten distressed, so I took that as a good sign. He’d told me about liking Ray and having fun playing Minecraft, so that undoubtedly helped.

Wilt pulled me out of my contemplation. “He was really into the walks, and I know a lot of it is because of the dogs, but it’s also good exercise for him. Does he get much exercise outside of PE at school? For that matter, does he even get PE at school?””

I told him some, but it was limited because many of the special needs kids had physical handicaps. Most of his exercise was walking to and from school. I thought I knew where Wilt was going with this. “Jordan told me about the motor skill deficiencies that Asperger’s patients can have, and I don’t see a lot. I mean, if he’s painting and drawing his fine motor skills have to be pretty good.”

“They are. His artwork is pretty good… you know, for a high school kid. What are you thinking about?”

“That he’s got some gross motor skill problems, that you can see when he walks. Not major, but they’re there. Has he ever run with you? Can he do that?”

I shook my head. “We tried a few times, and it didn’t work. I think it was too much to coordinate. You can see he walks pretty methodically, so running is harder.”

“We should get him a bicycle.”

I nodded. “That’d be good. I know he used to be able to ride, but he outgrew the bike he had at our grandma’s and there hasn’t been the money to buy another one. Kind of like my beater car.”

Wilt ignored the last comment. “I think bicycle riding will help with his motor skills, it’s more manageable than running, that’s for sure, and most importantly if he gets serious about it, it’s regular exercise. Jordan explained how narrowed interests and the ability to focus on certain things is impressive, but it can be at the expense of others. Lots of people with autism, and even those with Asperger’s ignore exercise and get overweight. I think it’s our responsibility to help him get fit and stay fit. Like not let him gain weight because he’s not exercising enough.”

“Good point.” I’d thought about the quality of food at the foster home, but I didn’t really know much. “I don’t know how good the food is that he gets at the home or at school. Just that he gets enough, you know, that he’s not going hungry or anything. Regular exercise is good, and spring will be here before long.”

“And then summer,” he continued. “Do you have a bicycle?”

I felt a flash of embarrassment. “No, same problem. After grandma died there wasn’t the money for that and college and helping Adrian. It was a car or a bike, and I figured I needed the car to come and visit him, and I’ve kept it, so I had wheels when necessary.”

“I’m thinking we should buy three mountain bikes. They’re more stable, so it’ll be easier for Adrian to ride. We could ride together. In the summer we could all go on trails and stuff. According to Jordan there’s plenty of great rides he takes his kids on.”

“You’re serious?” I wasn’t used to having spare money to throw around, let alone spend on things that weren’t necessary.

“Yeah, I am. Keeping him fit is important to his health and happiness. Riding together would be fun, and it’s important for us too. I know plenty of orthopedic surgeons, and you know what most of them will tell you about running and skiing after they’ve had a couple of beers?”

I didn’t get where he was going with this, and said so.

“They’ll laugh, and then say it’s job security. Then they tell you that our bodies aren’t built for all that pounding, and we’re just wearing out our joints prematurely. That means they get to do hip and knee replacement and make the big bucks!”

I smiled at that, recognizing the truth behind it, but still concerned. “Wilt, it’ll still be a lot of money.”

“Money well spent, and it’s for our health and well-being. You’re not going to argue with that are you?”

What could I say to that logic? So, that’s how Wilt set me up to check out the winter sales on mountain bikes that we fit into the weekend schedule along with grocery shopping and the dog walks.

I hadn’t even given Adrian having dinner with us a thought. Usually, I’d have been worried about him being all anxious or something, but knowing he saw it as coming over to Wilt’s house to be with the dogs and having dinner with us, took all the anxiety out of it.

On Saturday the walk was at a nearby county park, and it was raining lightly but we weren’t soaked when we got back. After drying off and feeding the dogs, we sat down at the kitchen table, and talked over some hot tea, eventually getting around to what we were having for dinner. Wilt then asked Adrian if he ever got to help prepare meals at the foster home.

He shook his head, looking concerned, like maybe he should have been doing that, or something.

Wilt grinned at him. “No worries, Adrian. I’m just asking. Has your brother told you yet that I’m a slave driver?”

The look of concern appeared on Adrian’s face, and then his eyes brightened, and a smile replaced the concern. ‘Naw, you’re not.”

“When he eats here, he has to help with dinner. Remember last week, he was in the kitchen with me when we cooked dinner. You were hanging out with the dogs. Remember?”

Adrian nodded his head.

“So, do you want to learn how to cook? You know start with the preparation part? You’ve done really well learning how to handle the dogs. I bet you’ll do just as well with the cooking stuff?”

Adrian’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Wilt glanced at me and winked. “Yeah. No knives right away, just starting with the basics and working up. Are you up for it?”

Somehow Wilt had put the offer together in a way that connected with him, and Adrian nodded his head and grinned. “Yeah. I’m up for it.”

That night Wilt taught him how to wash and tear lettuce for a salad, and after I’d sliced cucumbers and tomatoes and avocados, Adrian got to toss in the dressing.

When we were walking home after we dropped Adrian off at the home I said, “How did you know that would work? The whole cooking thing?”

“I didn’t. But he did well with the dog handling. Jordan says he thinks he can eventually handle independent living, so, it just made sense.”

I felt stupid. “Why didn’t I think of that before?”

He stopped me on the sidewalk and said, “Because you were worrying about other things. You do your cooking at home, and he eats his meals in the foster home or at school. Remember what Jordan said about not beating yourself up for this or that? You’re not Superman, Seth. You’re just you. Wonderful and caring and responsible you, but I think you’ve kind of had your plate full for a while trying to live your life and being responsible for him. Now we’ve got a bigger team. We can do more. We can involve him more. It was fun, wasn’t it?”

He was right. My high-performance guy was right. We now could do more, and it was fun. I just felt bad that I hadn’t been able to do more before. But I guess he was also right that I wasn’t Superman. Maybe I needed to meet with Jordan, too!

Wilt

I’d planned it so that the next day we’d drop Adrian off at Jordan’s house. Kathy had arranged to be out somewhere with Ray and Rachel this first time, so they were undisturbed. It only took a few minutes to assure that Adrian felt comfortable being with Jordan, and we took our leave.

Seth gave him a hug and said, “We’ll be back in an hour, okay. We’ll be back here at two o’clock and then we’ll take the dogs for their walk.”

Adrian nodded with a smile, and Jordan took him under his wing, and we left. I’d already done my research and decided on a bike shop, and in ten minutes we were there walking around with two Staffordshire bull terriers and looking at mountain bikes. I knew full well that at our level of riding competence most mountain bikes were the same and that this was less about the bikes than it was about the person selling the bike and how he’d do with Adrian.

A very fit salesperson wearing a knit wool beanie asked if he could help, and we said not yet and looked at brands and frames and colors. Then I went to the counter and asked who the manager was. Another man introduced himself as the assistant manager. “You know how it goes, the manager, who’s also the owner, doesn’t work on Sundays, so you’ve got me.”

I thanked him for his candor and explained that I was going to buy three decent quality mountain bikes, but that one of them was for my boyfriend’s brother who had mild autism and that for us the salesperson to work with him and fit the bike to him was way more important than the bike itself. He nodded in understanding and said, “Johnny, who’s here with me today rides competitively and is technically really good, but Ellen, our other salesperson would be better for what you’re describing. Is the brother with you?”

I explained that he wasn’t and that we were getting the purchase organized and we’d all return if it came together. “Ellen is off tomorrow and Tuesday, but back on Wednesday. Let me introduce you all and see what you can work out.”

In a minute we were talking about bikes and Asperger’s with a really nice and amazing fit young lady in her mid-twenties. She and the dogs clicked, and then she said, “I don’t know anything about autism or Asperger’s, but I’ve got a cousin with cerebral palsy, so I do know something about working with kids that have a handicap.”

Seth described Adrian and they talked about the kind of riding we’d be doing, and pretty soon she’d suggested and we’d settled on the brand and model of mountain bike and agreed we’d be back around four thirty on Wednesday.

On the drive back to Jordan’s house, Seth reached over and took my hand, and said, “Have I told you yet that you’re some kind of genius. My high-performance guy is also a genius!”

“No, not really. This is the kind of stuff you learn as you come up in sales. Like in my business, imagine that you’re out to sell some high-powered orthopedic surgeon on some new instrument or prosthesis. You have to know all about the product and how it works, right? But you also have to know a lot about the surgeon, what he likes or doesn’t. What his quirks or idiosyncrasies and expectations and needs are. Unless you’ve got that under control, the odds of failing are pretty high. So, for me, this wasn’t genius stuff. This was just making sure that we made sure the situation was as close to optimal for when we take Adrian in there, and he’s not getting distressed by some salesperson trying to up sell him on some expensive derailleur or losing patience and being a shithead because the guy doesn’t like his communication skills.”

He lifted up my hand and kissed the back of it and then said, “You’re so cute when you’re being humble. Like I said genius! I’d have never thought of half of that stuff.”

I flashed him a grin. “Teamwork, love. Teamwork!

It worked, too. On Wednesday we picked up Adrian after he got back from school and on the drive, Seth prepped him about how fun it would be to be able to ride mountain bikes together in the summer. He lit up and they talked about rides and stuff and then Seth dropped that we had time to look at bikes. When we got to the bike shop Ellen was waiting for us. She was friendly and open and told Adrian she liked Donner and Blitzen. She was very casual, and that put Adrian at ease. Seth and I stepped back and listened as Ellen asked him about the last bike he’d had, what he liked about it, and then walked him over and started showing him different bikes, explaining what had changed and improved since he’d last had a bike.

You could see Adrian was into it, absorbing the technical details about derailleurs and gear clusters, how bikes now had twenty-one gears, how shocks were built into the front forks and rear suspensions. I could imagine many of those words showing up in the next Scrabble game, and it was so obvious he was enjoying the interaction.

At the end, Adrian was totally sold on the bike he was going to get, and Ellen made sure it fit properly, had the right length seat post and a good quality seat. That plus a helmet. I paid for them and arranged to come back the next day by myself when I could put the rear seats down and load up all three bikes. Plus, a bike rack! It suddenly dawned on me that I’d need a way to haul these mountain bikes.

We dropped Adrian off in time for supper and headed for Seth’s apartment. He was leaning against the passenger door, looking at me sideways.

Finally, I turned and said, “What?”

“You’re totally into this aren’t you? I mean the whole scene.”

“What do you mean?” I was feeling a little embarrassed.

“I mean the me and Adrian scene. Apart from me being your boyfriend and lover. I’m just more and more amazed how much you’re into this.”

I swallowed, knowing it was time, and said, “Jordan asked me if I understand that with you, I didn’t just get a fabulous boyfriend, but I get a family.”

“He asked what?”

“That’s what he asked. You know the same guy that asked me if I loved you and then put me on the spot about whether I’d told you or not. That guy.”

“Oh… that guy!” Seth’s voice was reflective. “I’m getting to love that guy a lot. Isn’t he kind of already like by brother-in-law or something?”

I choked up on that one. “He’s already starting to feel that way… and so am I.”

“For real? So, you’re cool with getting a family this way? I mean most boyfriends don’t come prepackaged like this, especially with Adrian’s problems.”

“You know, love, I’m not the brightest bulb in the box, and it’s Jordan that’s the psychologist, not me… and that’s for a reason. But I have learned a few things along the way from being around him, and one of them is that I don’t think of Adrian’s situation as a problem. Like Jordan, I see that he has limitations, but also is full of possibilities and opportunities.”

“That sounds great, but you’re not the psychologist, Jordan is.”

“I know that, but you know what? I run my own business and I learned a long time ago that good leadership is helping people become all that they can. Is this so different?”

Seth shook his head.

“So, there you are,” I said. “The difference being that in this case I also get this incredibly sexy boyfriend who’s an amazing lover. That’s the bonus in this deal.”

Seth was giggling, and I pulled up in front of his apartment.

“I mean it. You’re an amazing lover, with a beautiful body. And you know what?”

He had to fight to stop giggling, but he did and then gulped and said, “What?”

“I don’t want that gorgeous soft ass sleeping alone in that cold bed in your apartment anymore.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Will you move in with me? Please? It’s better for all of us.”

Seth

I couldn’t argue with the logic, so we went up to my apartment and threw as many clothes as we could fit in a couple of duffle bags and started there. We’d work on the rest of the stuff later.

Truth? I’d dreamed about this happening, and I knew my lease on the apartment was up for renewal in two months, but I hadn’t told Wilt that because I didn’t want to put him on the spot where he thought he had to rescue me or something. But still, it was so great… it felt so good.

We walked into the house, said hello to the dogs, then Wilt led me down to his bedroom. He opened the doors to one of the two closets, and in one sweeping move lifted all the clothes on hangers off and said, “This one’s yours.”

He walked over to the other closet and started hanging the clothes up and said, “We’ll need to get another dresser, so you have your own. We’ll do that this week, okay?”

I looked at him, probably looking a little incredulous, and he stopped what he was doing. He took two quick steps over to me and grabbed my hand, saying, “Come here,” pulling me down onto the bed. It was a tight and warm cuddle. “In my mind, this isn’t hard. I love you. I want to be with you. Everyone who knows about us says it’s so obvious. I just want us to be together. Is that what you want?”

“Yeah, totally.”

“Then let’s not make this complicated, okay. I mean by worrying about who’s idea it was or who’s in charge or who’s paying or whatever. We’re in this together. I think we both know that by now, don’t we?”

I nodded, and I could feel a smile forming on my lips. “I love you totally. You know that. You’ve also got a lot more than I do. I don’t want to seem like a… like a taker, or something.”

“Fuck that. You’re not a taker. I almost have to force you into accepting everything, and actually I respect that. I’ve been successful in business and I’m lucky, I’ve already got more than I can probably spend in a lifetime. But you know what I learned with Patrick? All that doesn’t matter. You can have all the money and all the success and all the toys and still be miserable as shit. Being alone isn’t fun even if you’ve got a lot of money.” He paused, slowing down his thoughts and looking at me with the most open and exposed expression I’d yet seen on his face.

“Are you with me on that?”

“I am. Being alone isn’t fun when you’re broke either, so I get it.”

“Cool. So, let’s not make a huge deal out of this. You’ve got a new job and a new career path, and it won’t be long before you’re making the big bucks. You may not think so now, but I know so. So, let’s just put all this who’s got the money shit aside and enjoy being with each other and make the most out of every day. For that matter, make the most out of every minute. What a’ya think?”

“I think, game on. I think I love you more each day. I think it all makes perfect sense. And I also think that if we’re going to make the most out of every minute, then it should start with this minute. So, you should take your clothes off right now so I can go to work on loving that body you’ve got.

The expression that came onto his face was priceless!

---

Jordan called us the next evening and wanted to talk about his meeting with Adrian. “Look, it went really well. Nothing to panic about or anything, I just want to give you both my impressions. So, let’s start with that, and some of it one or both of you will know, some you may not. There are ten most common symptoms associated with Asperger’s. And Adrian’s got them all to greater or lesser degree.”

He paused. “Did you hear what I said, to greater or lesser degree?”

He was forcing us to hear what he said and acknowledge it. We did, and he went on.

“Okay, I’m going to run down the list and where I think Adrian sits with each one. Among the most common is failure to develop friendships because of lack of social skills. He’s got that one, but his social skills are better than most. Related to that is selective mutism, when they only speak freely with people that they’re comfortable with and not with strangers. I qualified as somewhere in between, and he and I talked together just fine.”

I nudged Wilt and said, “Tell him about the bicycle salesperson.” Wilt explained how it went with Ellen in the bike shop, and Jordan said, “Great, that confirms what I’m saying. Not that he’s perfect with strangers, but that he can do it. Another big one is the inability to empathize, and that’s common to most people with Asperger’s and all with autism. The thing is that as they mature, they learn the acceptable social response for interacting with others. That’s different than intuitively knowing how to empathize and truly understanding another person’s feelings, but the point is that he’s not devoid of the ability to empathize, and he’s good at the learned behavior part. Thoughts?”

I glanced at Wilt, and then said, “I think you know that on the drive home from your house when we had dinner with you, he asked if we were boyfriends and then said that he can feel that we’re in love and that it wasn’t that way with me and Andrew.”

Jordan smiled encouragingly. “That’s my point. He’s not devoid and he is able to intuit, and the rest he compensates for by learning how to behave. The next two kind of go together and that’s the inability to make eye contact and social awkwardness. He’s got a little of that, but not a lot. He can engage, which is great. Lots of people think Asperger’s patients are not passionate, and I can tell you that’s not the case. He’s absolutely passionate about you, Seth. He thinks you’re the most important thing in the world and he understands what you’ve done for him. He may not be able to explain it logically, if you know what I mean, but he gets it. You guys have a bond for life, and that bond is extending to the dogs and to Wilt.”

I looked at Wilt again and smiled, but this time took his hand and squeezed.

“Okay, moving along. Some of the others are kind of categorized together. That starts with narrowed interests and the ability to really focus. He’s clearly got those, but his range of interests is broader than most. Meaning math and art and dogs are pretty distinct things. Some patients have such narrow interest that it’s like playing video games or making models are the only things in their lives. His interests are much broader, and that’s key to being able to live independently. We’ve already talked about the literal interpretation dynamic, like about time, and while he’s literally inclined, it’s not extreme. That ties to sticking to a routine. That’s his tendency, but he has some flexibility, even if it requires preparation on the front end. There are lots of patients who won’t or can’t change their routines. Are you with me so far? I know this is a lot of stuff.”

We both nodded, and I could feel some questions forming in my brain, but I wasn’t ready to ask them yet.

“Okay, so now the last two, and they’re quite positive. Asperger’s patients typically have excellent pattern recognition, and that works two ways. First, as a way to understand the world and make sense of their surroundings, but also just a natural ability that they have. They see patterns and logical connections. Adrian has that in spades, and it’s evident in his math abilities and his capability in art. Lastly, there’s the motor skill subject, and it’s clear he has some gross motor skill limitations, but not major, but his fine motor skills are quite good. I mean, you guys know this boy can handle a paint brush, right?”

We laughed, the relief evident in our voices that most of what Jordan was telling us was positive.

“So, where does that leave us,” Wilt asked.

“In a good position. I stand by my first impression that he’s very intelligent and has a high capacity for independent living eventually. While being in the special needs school has undoubtedly helped him on the more social side of things, I think he’s failed to be challenged. For instance, he’s very capable at math and told me he’s always gotten A+ grades. But he hasn’t been pushed to test the limits or see where it can be applied. He likes and is good at art, but he had to enroll in a community art program to learn more advanced technique. Personally, I think you should explore enrolling him in a summer coding camp program to test applying some of those skills. Many Asperger’s patients become very good coders and software developers.”

He looked at me. “Seth, you’re his brother. Does what I’m saying add up? Does it correlate with your experience and understanding?”

I immediately felt kind of stupid again. “Well, yeah, overall, it does. I mean everything you’ve said rings true, but… but I just feel bad that I didn’t figure out a lot of that myself. You know the part about testing his math abilities, or that it took Wilt saying we needed to buy him a bicycle to keep him fit and healthy. You know what I mean?”

“I’m going to say again that I think you need to quit beating yourself up. I have the advantage of a degree in psychology and years of clinical practice, so I can reel all this stuff off and make it sound obvious. It’s not. You’ve been in the trenches with your brother and doing a very good job of it. So, can we agree right now that you’ll quit beating yourself up about the things that you think you didn’t do when, in fact, you were not in a position to do them?”

That stung! I knew what I was supposed to say, but I was struggling.

“Seth.”

He made me look him in the eyes over FaceTime.

“Seth, I’m convinced you did all you could. You’re not much older than Adrian. How much can you be expected to do, for God’s sake. You need to stop holding yourself to some unachievable standard. I’m talking to you now as my friend and my brother’s boyfriend, alright. I care about you, too, and we’re all in this together. So, let’s all agree that we’ll acknowledge what we’re able to do and agree what we’re going to do, and work together to execute a game plan. Okay.”

I was still silent, working through what he’d said and the accompanying guilt I’d been carrying around.

Wilt, my high-performance boyfriend, came to the rescue.

“Jordan, I can tell you something that happened today that’s part of that game plan we’re going to execute together.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I convinced Seth it was time for him to move in with me. That I was as tired of living in this house alone as he was of living in his apartment alone, and that we needed to do this for us.”

I could see Jordan smiling, and then that smile become a grin. “I think that’s marvelous. Good for you guys. Now, that said, ever the clinician, I need to say something else, if it’s okay.”

We both nodded. “I don’t think there’s anything more important you could do right now for Adrian than that. He loves you both. You’re forming a family, and one of the big missing elements in his life since his grandma died, and he went into foster care is family. Seth, don’t get me wrong, but I have to tell you that you need it, too. Wilt, you do, too. We all do.”

Wilt was quiet, and Jordan looked back at me. “I understand your commitment to your brother. Wilt’s told me how he feels about Adrian. So, this family you’re agreeing to put together, you two, Donner and Blitzen and Adrian, is wonderful. The love you two share is the glue that’s going to make it all go.”

So, a week ago Adrian dropped the love bomb and today Jordan dropped the family bomb.

---

Wilt

During the following week we spent some time each day after work moving Seth’s belongings out of this apartment. I had a three-bedroom house so we stacked the things we couldn’t use immediately in one of them. His furniture had been bought used when he was in college, so we agreed to donate most of it to Good Will. Then we bought him a dresser, one that kind of matched the one I already had. He insisted on paying for it himself, and I thought it was commendable.

One of those evenings a woman who had an apartment on the same floor came down the hall as we were carrying stuff out and asked about his leaving. He was beaming when he told her he was moving in with his boyfriend. I’d just come out the door into the hallway with boxes in my arms, and the woman turned to look at me and said, “I assume this is the lucky man?”

Seth said, “Sure is. Lucky me, huh? This is my beau and his name’s Wilt.”

She looked at me admiringly and said, “Beau? How charming.”

Seth replied, “Most people think it means love, or lover, and that’s the way it’s used, but originally in French it meant handsome.” He looked straight at me, standing there kind of mute with boxes in my arms and said to her, “Don’t you think he’s handsome?”

They both had a laugh and then we chatted for a few minutes. At the end of which she said, “I have a friend who’s looking to move up from a studio to a one-bedroom apartment. When’s your lease up? Can I tell her about it?”

Seth said sure, and then added, “My lease is up in March. Wilt convinced me to live with him and why would I wait?”

She nodded in agreement, and we said goodbye.

On the drive home, I glanced at him and said, “Now, tell me, where did this beau stuff come from.”

“It’s true, it’s an old French phrase that came into English usage. It first got my attention reading about Beau Brummel, in the early 19 Century, who was an amazingly attractive man who actually established a fashion of dress that rejected overly ornate clothes in favor of understated, but perfectly fitted, bespoke garments.” He glanced at me and said, “That’s how I think of you. Incredibly handsome and with a striking but understated persona.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. Handsome, loving and understated. There’s a statue of Beau Brummel in London and it says, “to be truly elegant one should not be noticed.” I haven’t seen it, I mean in person, but I’ve read about it.”

He was watching me, smiling coyly, and I just rolled my eyes. He went on, “I didn’t tell you about the date on the lease before on purpose. There’s nothing I was hoping for more than that we could live together, but I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to do something to rescue me.”

I smiled in response. “I understand, love. No worries.”

“I also wasn’t not telling you so that I’d have a fall back or something.” He paused and looked out the windshield. “I know it might look that way, but you know, I’ve got to be able to handle my own things.”

I pulled into the driveway, and took his hand after I put the Explorer in park. “I know you do. You’ve done a pretty good job all around. So, let’s just forget about it and get this stuff inside. Then we can have a drink and think about dinner.”

Later, when we made love, he whispered in my ear, “Oh, god! That feels so good. Nothing feels better than having my beau inside me.” When I’d first heard him refer to me as his beau, I wasn’t so sure. But when he said it that way, my heart leapt.

By Thursday the apartment had been cleaned out and all of Seth’s belongings were in our house. He’d been cautious about putting any of his possessions out, but I encouraged it, and slowly some appeared, including a watercolor that Adrian had done the previous fall in art class. We met at McMennamin’s, and I mentioned the painting to Adrian when we walked him home. He smiled with pride about it and said it was his best still life. Seth used that as a way to tell him we’d hung it in the dining room because he was living with me now. The new information didn’t faze Adrian at all.

I felt like we’d passed a huge milestone. At least I knew I had, and I couldn’t have been happier with the cumulative effect of all the domestic elements. Waking up with Seth next to me and hearing him whisper something soft and sweet like “How’s my beau this morning,” then having breakfast together, walking to work, seeing each other during the day, walking the dogs on the way home, preparing dinner together. He’d told me he’d realized that compatible, the term his grandma had used, was how he felt about how we fit together, and I had to agree. I knew it wasn’t all going to be warm and fuzzy, and sooner or later we’d disagree about something or other, but it certainly seemed like we’d both been through enough in life that we more than appreciated what we had together.

The next couple of weeks just seemed to move by, and on the couple of days that we had no rain and some sun we’d get Adrian after school and take a short bike ride. It only took a ride or two for him to be totally comfortable with the new mountain bike, and he even mentioned riding it to and from school. We told him we didn’t think that would work with him living in the foster home, and he seemed to accept it.

Jordan kept meeting with him on Sundays, and my respect for my brother grew exponentially over those weeks. He called us on either Sunday or Monday evening to brief us on how it went, and most of it was further understanding about how Adrian coped with the symptoms of Asperger’s and then specifically about how Jordan was working with him about skill development in those areas. During the first call in February he said to Seth, “Adrian’s birthday came up today, and I’m pretty certain that he’s not connecting the dots that he turns eighteen and that impacts his being in foster care.”

Seth’s immediately asked, “We haven’t done anything about that yet. What should we do?”

Jordan suggested speaking to the foster parents to learn who his case manager was, and then speak to him/her about a continuation at the foster home until he graduated from high school. “Can I make a suggestion?”

Seth nodded and he went on. “You should become his guardian. In practical terms, there’s two age thresholds, namely eighteen and twenty-one. When he turns eighteen that’s technically the end of foster care, and it’s also the age of consent for sex and he has to register with the selective service system, things like that. But the legal age is still twenty-one, so he can’t make legally binding decisions by himself. As his brother it shouldn’t be difficult to do that, and it will protect him.”

I squeezed Seth’s hand and said, “I’ll call my attorney tomorrow. I think Jordan’s right about doing it, and it shouldn’t be hard.”

He nodded, and then said, “You guys are both right, but even if we can extend the foster care until he graduates, what then?”

Jordan was quiet and I knew he was purposefully not stepping into my space. “I think we should start thinking about him moving in here and living with us.”

“You’re serious,” Seth asked in almost a whisper. “You’d do that?”

“We’ve been talking about family, haven’t we? I seem to remember that my brother pointed out that my boyfriend came with a family?” I poked him in the ribs, trying to lighten it up a little.

“Yeah, I know, and he did… but, you know… it’s a huge thing. I mean it’s one thing to talk about it, but to do it… Wilt, I’ve thought about it, but it seemed more like a dream.”

Jordan stepped in at that point and said, “You don’t need to decide right now, and you should take your time and talk it through and fully understand all the ramifications and responsibilities. There’s the legal and physical dimensions as well as the emotional and familial. The latter have to do with his Asperger’s. What you need to do right away, in my opinion, is pursue the guardianship. You’ll be in a better position to discuss continuation with the case worker if he or she understands that you’re doing it in order to prepare for Adrian’s future.

We left it there, and the next day I called my attorney and he set up a phone conference for us the following day and confirmed that Jordan was right. As the adult minor of a brother with no other living relatives it would be straight forward to petition the court to award guardianship. He said he’d start the petition process and that he thought it could happen within a month or two. He also confirmed Jordan’s opinion that it strengthen making the case for continuance.

Progress! My boyfriend and love of my life was sharing my house, and his brother could end up with us as well, if everything worked out.

Seth

I’ve known Wilt long enough that by now I shouldn’t be surprised by his generosity. One side of my brain says I shouldn’t have been surprised at all by the way he just accepted that Adrian should probably live with us when he had to leave foster care. The other side of my brain was where the fear and paranoia lived, and that was the side that had made me avoid even bringing it up because it seemed like such a huge thing, such a massive ask.

Wilt’s lawyer had been really nice and was pretty sharp and made it sound easy. Still, I figured there’d be complications. Somehow, I figured nothing went easy with the court system. Maybe I’d watched to many TV shows.

Wilt and I talked about it after the call with Jordan, and he continued to talk about it like it was obvious, just the natural extension of the way our relationship was going. I tried to raise objections but realized that was the wrong approach unless I wanted to hurt his feelings.

The next morning at work I shot him a text.

< Just so you know, I’m sitting here still amazed by what you said last night about Adrian living with us. I can’t find an emoji with the top of its head blown off! >

I felt kind of dumb having this conversation by text, but I felt I needed to really put how I felt in front of him. His reply was simple.

< No need. I love you and I love Adrian. Oh, and Donner and Blitzen love you guys, too. That kind of seals the deal, right? >

Just before his reply came in, I found one.

< Oh, look. I found one, but it’s not even close to how mind blowing what you did was. ? >

I didn’t know what he’d say, but he did reply.

< Heh, heh! Yeah, that one’s pretty lame. Stop overthinking it all, okay. Just accept that love’s what’s going on! >

His reply gave me pause.

< Okay. You’re right. I can do that, and I will. ??? >

In the afternoon I called the foster parents and arranged to come over after work. They thought what I was proposing was a good idea and really didn’t want Adrian moved during the school year. They said they’d make that point strongly and gave me the case manager’s name. Their suggestion was to try and set up a meeting with her on her next regular visit which was the following week. I called her and outlined the situation and she agreed to meet with me and the foster parents. That was a good start.

Wilt

It turned out that the next call with Jordan was more eye-opening than the one when he raised the subject of guardianship.

Adrian hadn’t said anything about what they discussed, but that was normal. Seth and I knew it wasn’t patient confidentiality, just that he wasn’t naturally chatty and didn’t voluntarily share personal information unless he needed something. It seemed like he just accepted his weekly meeting with Jordan as part of his routine, like going to art class, and unless he was asked about it, didn’t say anything. We’d decided early on that we weren’t going to quiz him. It would be up to him to tell us if and when he was ready or he needed something.

Jordan went right to the heart of it when he called on Monday night. “We spent much of the time discussing coping mechanisms and skill development, and that went well. When I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to talk about he got quite reflective. I asked a couple of questions, and he was slow responding but then he opened up and we talked about romantic and sexual love.”

Whoa! I could see Seth’s eyes widen and he shot me a glance and then smiled, almost deviously.

“Where did that come from, do you suppose?” He tried to sound surprised as he asked.

“Seth, I don’t look like I just fell off the cabbage truck, do I?”

Seth giggled. “No, sorry. I didn’t mean anything like that.”

“Good to know, because I’m looking at the cause.”

“What? Me?”

“Well, yes. Or, more specifically, the two of you. You’re very much in love and you show it not just towards each other. You told me what Adrian said about your relationship with Andrew and how different the relationship you two have is. He said you two guys love each other, right?”

Seth nodded.

“Okay, so he didn’t experience love in your relationship with Andrew, and he lives in a foster home so while the foster parents may love him in their way, he’s not experiencing romantic love in any way there or at school, where he spends most of the rest of his time. We’ve agreed he’s more intuitive than expected. He’s tuned into your love and being included in that circle of love. Our conversation started there about love in general, and then romantic love more specifically. And then it went on from there to sexual love. All in broad terms, mind you, but you need to know that’s on his mind.”

I knew better than to jump into the middle of this discussion and just smiled at Seth, kind of telling him to go on.

“So, I guess I understand the basics of what you’re telling us, but what does it mean.”

“It means just what I said.” Jordan grinned at him devilishly, like he used to do when we were kids and he had me flummoxed about some subject or had caught me out doing something and he was in control of his older brother.

“Let me make it easy on you, okay? I’ll start by talking about love and sex and sexuality and then we’ll talk about Adrian. It starts with the simple fact that all these patients are human and have sexual drives like the rest of us and research has found that people with ASD do seek out sexual relationships and experience the full range of human sexual activities and behaviors. However, there’s a qualifier here, and it’s important to remember that Asperger’s patients are low on the spectrum, and referred to as high functioning. Even so, studies of Asperger’s patients in relationships with what are called neurotypical people – meaning they don’t have ASD– have shown that as many as fifty percent had no sexual activity. Now, remember that there’s even a spectrum within Asperger’s patients, and they have sexual needs comparable to the general population, including positive attitudes towards sexuality and the desire to engage in sexual activity. However, the very difficulties with social interactions that are at the core of Asperger’s syndrome make achieving an appropriate and satisfying sexual relationship quite difficult.”

Seth had been very attentive, and I was trying to take it all in, too. He said, “Jordan, help me out. I’m confused. Some of that doesn’t make sense to me, like it’s conflicting or something.”

“That’s understandable. Let’s start with this fact. Sexual interactions are one of the most complex and demanding of all human social behaviors, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the core symptoms of Asperger’s, combined with limited sexual knowledge and experience, either make it very difficult to engage, or result in no interest. Remember the ten most common symptoms we talked about earlier? Social awareness and learning how to interact socially are necessary for learning appropriate sexual interplay. Factor in some of those symptoms and it’s not hard to see how that makes for real complications in understanding how to engage sexually. For these patients it’s not easy to learn how to interact with others and it can be difficult to recognize interpersonal cues. We take for granted the ability to communicate with others and consider the other person’s point of view. We take for granted soft touches, whispering sweet nothings, expressing our feelings, using terms of endearment. Those aren’t givens for patients with Asperger’s and they all work together to make it difficult to sort through the complexities of a satisfying sexual experience.”

He stopped and looked at both of us. “Are you with me so far?” We nodded.

“So, start with those difficulties in communicating to and understanding the point of view of the partner. Now add in that for many of these patients there could be self-mutism or sensitivity to touch and it’s easy to see why it could be difficult. That begins to explain why for many, sexual expression becomes private and self-satisfying. Then add in the tendency to focus and for repetitive behavior and you can see where excessive masturbation can be part of the profile. I’m not saying this is the case with Adrian, I’m describing the overall dynamic.”

“Well, I know he masturbates. Or at least he used to.” Seth paused, thinking, “I guess I don’t know for certain for the last couple of years. But he started about the same age I did, like twelve or thirteen, and we did it together for a while, but then I came out in high school and started dating, and… shit! Do you think because I started dating and left him alone with himself that he got a fixation or something?”

“No, Seth. I’m not saying that. I have no idea if he has a fixation or masturbates excessively. I just know that like any other seventeen-year-old boy he does. And guess what? That’s healthy and makes him normal. Okay?”

Seth nodded, but was still quiet.

“Let’s take this up a level about romantic love. Sexual attraction takes place in the context of romantic attraction, and research has shown that for neurotypical people in relationships with Asperger’s patients the biggest source of sexual incompatibility and unhappiness is the lack of emotional intimacy. Does that surprise you?”

“Well, no,” Seth said. “It fits with all the other stuff we’ve been talking about. That they’re really intelligent and smart but have trouble communicating how they feel inside. I’d never thought about what you said, that romantic love and sexual interplay are the most complex things humans do. That kind of puts it in perspective.”

Jordan chuckled and said, “You’re getting the big picture. That’s good. So, here’s another way to look at it. Even in cases where there is sexual activity in couples, whether one or both have Asperger’s, the thing that’s most lacking is romance, and the absence of it over time has a detrimental effect on the quality of the relationship and the willingness of either partner to participate in making love. For most people emotional closeness is a prerequisite for sex, and without it making love can become non-existent. So, you can see how important to a relationship and to romance are empathy, trust, sharing of thoughts and feelings, willingness to resolve conflicts, and genuine interest in the partner’s physical and emotional experience. All things that we take for granted. That’s what makes it so difficult to achieve a romantic relationship, let alone a compatible sexual relationship for these patients.”

Seth was quiet, looking down at the table in front of the couch we were sitting on. Finally, Jordan said, “Seth, are you there?”

“Yeah, I am. I feel so fucking stupid. I mean I had no idea about some of this, or didn’t understand it. That Adrian could be so mixed up when it comes to romance, to love. Or even about sex. And I could have done more to help him, but I didn’t. I mean, I guess I just assumed it would be different for him. Like he’s got his version and I’ve got mine, even if I’m gay. Is that self-centered tunnel vision, or what?”

“Seth, we agreed you’d stop beating yourself up, remember? You’re getting a dose of university level psychology, so take it easy on yourself. I wouldn’t be laying all this on you if you didn’t care so much to start with and didn’t understand the basics of his condition so well. On top of that, you’re bringing him more intimately into your family, so you need to know what might happen. Both you and Wilt do. People tend to always hear and latch onto the worst-case stuff, and I’m not telling you that it applies to Adrian. I’m giving you the big picture because I think you can handle it.”

“I get that.”

“Seth, I want you to prove me right in my assessment that you can handle it.”

There were tears forming in Seth’s eyes. Finally, he mumbled, “I’ll try. Okay? I’ll try. That’s all I can do.”

Seth

And I thought the part about making a family was the bomb. Then Jordan lays all this stuff on us about how fucking impossible it is for Asperger’s patients to love and be loved. God almighty! And I should have been doing something to help him and I didn’t!

Jordan said we had plenty to think about and should stop. Was he ever right! We said goodbye and I just sat there mute. I couldn’t believe that on top of all this other stuff I’d found out that I only partly understood, now I’m finding out that I don’t know all this stuff about sex and romance. With my own brother!

I hadn’t even noticed that Wilt had moved over close to me and pulled me into a hug. He kissed the side of my head and said very softly, “You have to stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop beating yourself up. Stop thinking you’re supposed to know all this stuff and be some kind of Asperger’s wonder-worker for your brother.”

I knew he was trying to help, but I just got angry. “What the fuck does that mean? He’s my brother and I’m all he’s got, and I’m supposed to have been taking care of him and now I find out he’s got all these sexual issues I didn’t even know about and that he’ll probably never have a love life. I’m supposed to let that go? Act like it isn’t a thing?”

“Baby,” he said softly in my ear, “you’re over-reacting to the volume of new information. I know a lot of it sounded scary, but you know what?”

I was pissed, so pissed! I couldn’t believe my boyfriend was blowing this off like it was nothing. He knows full well I’ve been there for Adrian, I’ve been responsible for him, that I’ve done all that I could.

Well, the truth? Fact is I didn’t do all that I could because I didn’t know enough and was busy going to college and getting a job and having a relationship. A romantic relationship and having sex and getting laid and enjoying it… all those things that Adrian would probably never have. What the fuck!

“Baby, if you need to yell, do it. If you need to hit something, I’ll get something you can pound on. You’ve got to let the emotion out and get over this.”

“Wilt, you don’t understand. He’s not your brother, you’re not in the middle of—”

Wilt put his hand over my mouth. “Stop. First, I love you and I always will. Second, I am in the middle of this because you’re my boyfriend and we live together, so whatever you’re going through I’m going through. Third, I want you to try and understand the difference of where we are right now.”

Fuck, that stung! Had I forgotten that I love the guy who’s holding me in his arms, who’s actually holding me together right now? Had I forgotten that we’re supposed to be in love and so we are in this together?

That’s when I really started crying. Wilt just let me go till I was cried out. Then, softly he said, “Baby, do you need to yell or pound on something?”

Now I was beginning to feel really dumb. Dumb, but also the kind of pleasure that comes from getting to the other side of a problem and knowing you’ll be okay and that the person you need is there for you.

“No, I don’t need to yell or pound anything. I just need you.” I started crying again, finally babbling out, something like “I’m sorry I’m such a case. Fuck! What a together boyfriend you’ve got, huh?”

He kissed the side of my head again and said, “Hey, I love my boyfriend. You know why? He’s real. No bullshit, no evasiveness, just the real deal. And on top of that he calls me his beau ‘cause he thinks I’m so handsome!”

I figured he’d be pretty disappointed with me, but he just tipped my chin up and kissed me. Slid his tongue over my lips and forced them apart and then slid inside, making me respond and kiss him back.

I was so emotional I’d run out of words, and just clung to him, pulling myself as close to his warmth and strength as I could.

Finally, I said, softly, “Tell me why you’re not freaked out by what Jordan just told us.”

His voice was soft, but it was strong and clear. “It starts with this simple fact. Adrian’s not my brother and I don’t have the history you do, and I haven’t been in your position for the last ten years. On top of that, because of the job I have, I have to deal with tons of clinical information all the time. Listening to Jordan, for me, was like being at an orthopedic conference and hearing a talk about a new procedure. They study and describe everything. All the good outcomes and all the bad outcomes. What was done right and what was done wrong. Where the devices and even the surgical technique went wrong and could be improved. The full range of it, and I guess it would be easy to fixate on the negatives and the bad outcomes. And they do occur sometimes.”

He pulled me closer, as if that was even possible, and kissed my forehead.

“So, here’s what I heard. There’s this whole range of stuff for Asperger’s patients, all these symptoms and challenges, right? About romance and love and about sex itself. Guess what, though? Our concern isn’t all those patients? Our concern certainly isn’t the ones with fixations and acute communication problems. The one’s who can’t emote and who have no intuition. Are you with me?”

I finally realized what he was saying and where he was going.

“Our concern is with one person. Your brother, Adrian. Who not only is high functioning and low on the Asperger’s spectrum, but also had shown us that he’s more perceptive and adaptive and intuitive than you or me or anyone else thought? Are you following me? We’re not talking about some guy who doesn’t communicate or leave his room and jacks off twenty times a day. We’re talking about Adrian. And guess what? Jordan was being a good psychologist and giving us the full story, the big picture. And I, for one, don’t think most of that stuff applies to your brother. I’m not saying he’ll fall in love tomorrow and ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after like in a Hollywood movie. Some of this will be hard. For him. For us. Okay? So what. Lots of life is hard. We already know that don’t we?”

He stopped, waiting for me. I had turned my face into his neck as I listened, and I just nodded my head.

I heard him say, “So, you know what I’m going to do?”

I shook my head against his neck. I wasn’t ready to face it yet.

“I’m going to do what we agreed to do. I’m going to keep on dancing when the lights go out. Are you with me?”

That did it. This time I really did start crying. But this time it wasn’t anger or self-pity. I just needed to cry it all out and get rid of the emotion. And my high-performance boyfriend let me do it.

Wilt

We went to bed early after Jordan’s call. By the time Seth was all cried out he was emotionally drained. So, I half carried him to our bedroom, took him into the bathroom and turned on the shower and told him I’d be back in a few. I took Donner and Blitzen out for a final pee walk, and then settled them down on their beds. When I walked back in the bathroom, Seth was toweling off his pink body.

“Did the hot water help, baby?”

He just nodded his head, smiling innocently, and said, “I love you so much.”

“Me, too. Let’s get you to bed, and I’ll brush my teeth and be right there.”

I pulled him close and within seconds of his head resting on my shoulder he was asleep. I wasn’t far behind him

I called Jordan the next day to fill him in, and he started to tell me some more stuff, but I stopped him. “Let’s do this on another call tonight, okay? Seth needs to be part of this. He’s over the emotional reaction.”

Jordan agreed, and when he called Seth immediately apologized for being so clueless and getting all emotional. Jordan just said, “No worries, Seth. I feel just as strong an attachment to my brother as you do.”

Then he went on to explain how patients on with ASD have more challenges understanding and defining their own sexuality because for typical children it grows out of how they feel about their developing body, how they understand feelings of intimacy and attraction and affection for others. All of which are challenges, especially for Asperger’s patients. He spent a little time explaining how those patients develop sexually in the same way as other teenagers do, but they might need extra help to build the social skills and understanding that goes along with sexual development. Then he explained how some are sexually attracted to people of the opposite gender, some are attracted to people of the same sex, and some are bisexual. We talked for a few minutes about how sexual attraction and sexual identity aren’t the same things and that even with those attractions, Asperger’s patients might not identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual. They might identify as heterosexual.

Jordan then pointed out how it can also be hard for teenagers with Asperger’s to express sexual feelings. “He’s started to do that with me, a little, but that’s understandable since I’m one step removed and not part of the immediate family circle. I know you’re close, but you just need to be aware that he may have difficulties expressing those feelings to you. Just be sensitive to that and be open if he should bring it up… unless you’ll be too embarrassed to talk to him about them!“

I saw Seth wince, then smile at Jordan and then he said, “No, I’ll be able to handle it. You’ve helped me a lot in understanding all of this. And believe it or not, your older brother helped me a lot, too. Go figure!”

“Way to go, Wilt,” Jordan exuded over the phone, a grin plastered on his face. He went on. “Just a few more things. You need to be ready to talk with him about sexual identity and sexual relations when the time comes. Don’t push it, just be open and ready. We know he masturbates, but he hasn’t told me any of the details. I can’t imagine it’s easy or convenient in a foster home, so if the subject comes up, engage. It’ll be important later because when he comes to live in your home it will be a different and more open dynamic than where he is now, and you’ll need to make sure he understands the routine and the rules, what’s acceptable and what’s not, all of that.”

I heard Seth start giggling, and turned to look at him.

He gasped for breath, and then said, “Sorry! Sorry, Jordan, I was just suddenly overtaken by the mental image of the conversation you had with Ray about how masturbation was okay and perfectly normal, but that there was this routine and these rules, and this was acceptable and that was not!”

Seth was using his hands for emphasis, waving the left one way about ‘acceptable’ and the right one the other way about ‘not acceptable.’ It was too funny, and we all cracked up.

When he stopped laughing, Jordan said, “If you’re a good brother I’ll tell you the details some time.”

That brought another round of laughs, and ended the call.

Seth had his meeting with the foster parents and the case manager, and it went well. She was impressed he was seeking legal guardianship and told them that would help her make the case for continuance till he graduated from high school. When she asked what the plans were after graduation, he said Adrian would be living with him, and then said his psychologist had recommended enrolling him in a summer coding camp program to assess his abilities. Since he still had the lease on his apartment, he had a legal permanent address he could provide.

Seth

I was amazed at how smoothly it went with the case worker. The foster parents had been right, and they made a strong case about how well he fit in, how well he was doing at school, about the additional art class he was taking, and about how disruptive to all of that it would be to remove him simply because he had turned eighteen. She agreed with them and told me to get her a copy of the petition for guardianship as soon as it was filed with the court.

I called Wilt’s attorney on the way back to the office and he said he’d filed the petition and that he expected the countersigned documents back in a day to two and would call me, and that the clerk of court told him that with no other relatives it was likely to be finalized within a month. Yay! I had to text Wilt.

< Looking good! Case worker will make the case. Attorney says a maybe a month! Yeah! ? >

It was only a few minutes before Wilt replied.

< Very cool. I’ll be running late this evening. >

< No prob! I’ll just cook dinner. I’ll also have a couple of cold IPAs ready for my beau! >

Over dinner we talked about how it was a week till Valentine’s Day. Wilt swallowed the food that was in his mouth, and his eyes took on an amused look as he sipped his IPA. “What’s on your mind, love?”

I know I grinned back, probably looking silly, and I did feel little silly. Maybe gushy or romantic. ”Something for us.“

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we’ve been together a few months and I’ve been living with you for a few weeks and… well, I know we’re not married to anything, but I want to do something that says we’re together. Is that silly?”

“No, not silly. It’s romantic. In fact, it’s lovely and romantic. What are you thinking?”

I could tell I was kind of blushing. “Rings. Just some plain bands or something. Nothing ornate. You know, understated like Beau Brummel! I want something on me, that has your name on it or in it. Can we do that?”

“You’re blushing. You don’t do that very often. You’re usually so together and in control. Just like me!” He grinned as he made the last comment

“I know, but it’s how I’m feeling… and I hope you feel it, too. Please?”

Wilt paused, and I could see a twinkle in his eyes, and I knew he was good with it, he just wanted to play with me for a bit. He took another sip of his IPA, as if he was considering a major legal contract of something. Well, it was kind of major, lol!

Finally, after seconds of me having to bite my tongue to stay quiet, he said, “Seems to me the last one to say ‘Please,’ was me, about you moving in and living with me. So, that makes it my turn.”

I felt the grin of pleasure start to spread across my face. “I was right, you’re not just my high-performance guy, you really are my beau. Can we go to the jeweler’s tomorrow? It’ll take time to have them engraved.”

We agreed, and then he said, “There’s another thing we should do on Valentine’s Day, since you’re making the case for love, and so much of the last few months had been about love. I think we should include Adrian. Like invite him over for dinner. We could start the conversation about guardianship, but I think he should be part of this, don’t you?”

He’d just made my day, topping off what I wanted with the kindest thing! So, that’s what we did. Valentine’s Day was Monday, and we picked out bands the next day and were able to pick them up on Saturday, and we arranged with the foster parents that we would pick Adrian up shortly after he got home from school.

When we woke up Monday morning, Wilt was on his back and my head was on his shoulder with my arm over his chest. I lay there like I often did when I awoke first, feeling the rise and fall of my arm on his chest, the steady pattern of his breathing and the warmth that radiated off of him. In my mind the warmth was synonymous with love. I felt him stir.

“How’s my beau this morning?”

He yawned. “Happy because the guy who’s asking is right here next to me.”

“Happy Valentine’s,” I said softly. “I love you.”

He rolled over so we were facing each other. “I do too, and I’ve been thinking. It’s been four months since I met you because of that dumb phone promotion, and I’ve been happier every day. So, I want you to know that and that I promise to tell you I love you every day, even if I’m having a bad day and don’t want to.”

I felt the emotional rush in my chest, and leaned forward to kiss him. “That’s so sweet. I promise, too. I promise never to make you have to guess about my feelings, even if it means I have to give up being in control.”

He smiled back and kissed me. “I used to hate Valentine’s Day when I was in school. It all seemed to dumb and fake. Running around with cards and all those pink and red hearts, all of that. But I feel different about it now.”

I wiggled my eyebrows. “Sounds like you’ve got the love bug.”

“Sure do.”

We intended to walk the dogs after picking Adrian up from the foster home, but he came out wearing his pack and carrying a package he said shouldn’t get wet, so we walked to the house to drop them off and then headed to the park. We cleaned up when we got back, fed Donner and Blitzen, and settled down to work on dinner. Wilt had been instructing Adrian on how to safely and efficiently use a chef’s knife, and tonight he was assigned slicing mushrooms and the trimming and cutting green beans.

When he’d done that and wiped off the chef’s knife, he looked at us and said, “What’s next.”

Wilt told him to get a medium frying pan with a lid, heat some oil and then stir in the sliced mushrooms and add some garlic powder. “Now, turn the heat down low and put the lid on so they steam. Every few minutes give them a stir till they’re cooked, then we’ll add some sherry and reduce that and stir in some butter and slide the pan to the back of the stove. Then when the beans are streamed, you’ll stir them into the mushrooms and your vegetable dish will be complete.

The beans accompanied potatoes and grilled chicken breast. It was terrific.

Wilt

Over dinner we broached the guardianship subject and while he didn’t understand the legal ramifications, he understood that we were doing something to benefit him. We’d let him know about continuance of foster care and his coming to live with us when the time was right.

We cleaned up and washed the dishes together, and then went into the living room. Seth carried a bottle of champagne and a drink for Adrian. “Don’t drink any yet, okay?” Adrian nodded and then watched his brother open the bottle and pour the light golden liquid into two flutes.

He hand one flute to me and then looked from me to Adrian and said, “today’s Valentine’s Day and Wilt and I are going to do something that we want you to be part of.”

Adrian nodded, and said, “That’s nice. Valentine’s Day is special.”

“Why is that.”

He grinned and said, “Because it’s about love.”

Seth gave him an adoring brotherly smile and replied, “You’re right, Adrian, it is.”

He glanced at me, and blew me a kiss, after which I said, “Adrian, because it’s about love is why Seth and I are doing something tonight that we want you to be part of it. Because it’s Valentine’s Day we’re giving each other rings to show we’re together and how much we love each other.”

Adrian’s eyes widened. “Are you getting married?”

I chuckled, looked at Seth and then said, “No, not yet.”

“But we probably will,” Seth added.

Adrian smiled widely than said, “Then you’ll be my brother, too.”

“Yes, I will.” I pointed to the two ring boxes on the table. “Each one has a ring inside, and they’ve got our names on them. Will you give me Seth’s and give him mine?”

He did, looking very serious. We both took the rings out of their boxes and slid them on each other’s finger. Then I kissed him, and he kissed me back, but we kept it short and sweet. Adrian was grinning like it was Christmas.

I looked back at him and said, “Adrian, I love Seth and he loves me, and we both love you.”

“I love you guys.”

“We know you do, Adrian. That makes me very happy.”

Adrian was quiet, and his brow was slightly furrowed like he does when he’s thinking.

He looked from me to Seth and back, his face almost neutral except for the slightest smile and the light sparkling in his eyes.

“I want love like you guys have.”

That made me choke and swallow hard, and I felt Seth squeeze my hand.

Seth

I couldn’t believe what Adrian had just said, that he wanted love like we had. None of us knew if he understood his sexual identity, even though he knew I was gay and that Wilt and I were together. The most important thing was that at some level he understood love and wanted it. It made my heart soar.

“I have a Valentine’s present for you guys.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Adrian.”

He walked to the room that would soon be his, where he’d put his pack and the package when we got home.

He came back with what had been in the package. It was about fifteen by twenty-five inches and about an inch thick.

“I made a painting for you guys.”

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