Page 11 of Love Lessons: Expanded Edition

I was thinking I should date someone else who’s asexual, too. So, you know, they wouldn’t want to do things I wasn’t interested in.

Dustin perked up when he realized how serious Zhong was about this. After all, turnabout was only fair play. So it sounds like you’re going to be hitting up some ace groups, right?

Maybe? I’m not really sure what I’m looking for yet.

Oh, no. If I’m going to a munch you’re definitely going to some meetup for asexual romantic people. I bet they even have dating sites for that.

Deal,Zhong said, too quickly. You go to the munch three times and I’ll go to three ace meetings. There’s one that meets on Wednesday nights.

Dammit. He’d been planning that all along. Fine. You better tell me all about it.

Well, you have to tell me, too.

Like that hadn’t been what was going to happen anyway.

***

Dustin had spent the past few days dreading and anticipating the munch. Now, he stood in front of the restaurant door, rocking back and forth on his feet. He reached for the handle and felt the cool metal under his hand.

No, he couldn’t do this. He tucked his hand back into his pocket. What the hell was he doing here anyway?

He hated feeling uncomfortable. He’d managed to set up a whole career and life to avoid putting himself into situations like this. He wasn’t sure whether the overlapping conversations in the restaurant or the theme of those conversations would be worse.

It was just meeting a group of people after all. Right? They were going to eat some food, chat a bit, and then all go home. It wasn’t like anything kinky was going to happen in the middle of the bagels and waffles.

He reached toward the handle again, but his mind started to fill in more of the story. The people he was meeting weren’t going to do anything kinky right now. But they would probably talk about kinky things. Then they’d find out that he didn't know anything, that he wasn't really a part of the lifestyle. He was a fraud.

He couldn’t do this.

He turned away from the door and felt a hard shove against the entire left side of his body.

“Sorry,” he said automatically.

Then he looked up into deep gray eyes. The other man stepped back a fraction, still so close that he could feel the heat of his body, and favored him with a sunny smile. They’d just slammed into each other so hard that Dustin was still scrambling for balance, but for some reason the stranger seemed happy to be standing next to him.

Dustin was also a bit off balance because the man was stunning. His pale blond hair fell to his shoulders, but somehow that didn’t detract from his masculinity as it framed his face. He was lanky and tall, and still standing so close that Dustin could inhale the warm scent of sweat and spice from his skin.

Dustin dropped his eyes, startled by his proximity, but found himself tracing the stranger’s long neck with his gaze. His ratty band t-shirt was loose at the collar, and Dustin wished it would slide down just a bit more so that he could see more of that tempting hollow above his clavicle.

It took Dustin a moment to register that the man was speaking, and he scrambled to catch up.

“... a problem…. should... you turning.”

Dustin didn’t catch much of his words, since he’d been too distracted by the stranger’s shoulders to look at his mouth, which usually helped him make sense of speech. But he caught the flavor of the response in that deep, resonant voice and assumed it was an apology.

More importantly, he noticed that the stranger’s speech was slightly toneless, the words not quite pronounced with the cadence and shape of a hearing person.

Do you sign? Dustin tentatively asked.

The man stepped back a little further, and Dustin both appreciated and regretted the distance. Dustin hadn’t come here to do anything but make friends, but there was something about the man’s smile, the way that he looked deeply into his eyes, that made him want to reach out and touch.

I do! A smile lit his face again. Are you Deaf, too?

Oh, right. Dustin took a step back himself, but not too far, so they could communicate.

This was always the moment. At check-out counters and quick interactions with strangers on the street, he tried to speech read and used as much of his hearing as he could, then acted like he understood. It was usually easy to guess or fill in the blanks when someone just wanted to know if you were using credit or debit.

When he signed with Deaf people who he wasn’t likely to see again, he just said he was Deaf. It was easier, and it gave him a ready welcome. He didn’t have to prove he was “Deaf enough” to be there, though usually Deaf people understood his condition better than hearing people.