Life Underwater by Matthew J. Metzger

Author:Matthew J. Metzger [Metzger, Matthew J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: NineStar Press, LGBT, contemporary, academia, trans, non-binary, agender, asexual, interracial/intercultural, disability/phobia, family issues, #ownvoices
Publisher: NineStar Press, LLC
Published: 2018-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY WAS a relief, in more ways than one.

The first was that Ashraf had booked an inland tour, where there was no water to be seen except that which was sold in bottles. Petra was an ancient city, lost in great chasms of unforgiving rock. Wadi Rum was a dry riverbed in the middle of the desert, where the silence was eerie and the idea of a tide nothing short of ridiculous. And Mount Nebo, where Moses had first seen the Promised Land, offered the barest glimpse of the Dead Sea, salty and still, in the distance.

No water. No pools. No sea. Nothing to be afraid of, in any sense of the word.

The second was that he’d lain awake most of the night worrying. Despite Jamie’s assurances, Ashraf couldn’t see much hope in the dead of night, with the sound of the sea beyond the window keeping him constantly twitching, the dreams of his mother putting her foot down on the accelerator as the sea rushed up to meet them playing over and over in his head, and his tired, anxious mind picking apart their relationship and watching it unravel like a film. But then he took them to the must-see sights of Jordan, and their face lit up when they smiled at him like he was the centre of the universe.

It undid the whole sleepless night.

He wasn’t prone to bouts of insecurity—thanks to a mixture of his aromanticism and his pride, he suspected—but it had crept in a little last night all the same. Cutting Jamie off from sex was one thing, but that was something that could be done. Cutting them off from the water was impossible, and Ashraf had contemplated whether it was worth trying if his phobia was this strong.

But then Jamie beamed at him and threw their arms around his neck for a cheesy romantic selfie in the narrowest part of the passage down to Petra—the rose-coloured rock shadowing them in the tight chasm, and Jamie’s joy crushed in against Ashraf’s cheek like they were nothing more than newly-weds on holiday—and…his worries eased.

He was being daft. They’d talked about everything else. Jamie wore pyjama bottoms in bed and jerked it in the bathroom when they needed some sexual relief because they wanted him more than they wanted sex. Why get himself wound up that they couldn’t figure out a workaround for this? Jamie was right. He didn’t need to go diving with them—he just had to be able to smile at them from the deck of the boats they jumped off, and cuddle them in their wetsuit and damp towels when they surfaced again, babbling excitedly about barracudas and barnacles, brighter than a kid at Christmas.

And it helped that while Jamie moaned about his history obsession, they weren’t entirely immune to the wonders of ancient ruins. They insisted on going to the monastery above Petra, high on the mountainside, despite the several million steps in unyielding sunshine to get there, and peppered him

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