Textual Relations by Cate Ashwood

Author:Cate Ashwood [Ashwood, Cate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

Asher dropped me off at my place a little after two a.m. The street deserted, I didn’t think twice when he walked me to my door, leaning into me with one hand braced beside my head to kiss me again.

This time, unlike our first good-night kiss, I didn’t hesitate. In the hours we’d spent making out in the middle of the forest, responding to Asher had become second nature. His kisses left me dizzy and disoriented, but not in an unpleasant way.

He said good night, and I watched him walk away, realizing belatedly I could have invited him in. It was late, though, and probably for the best that I had some time and space to sort out what had happened.

I shut the door behind me and locked it before padding to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. It was warm inside my house, summer’s heat right around the corner, but hot tea always helped me straighten my thoughts. If it hadn’t been for the Indonesian gold black tea I’d discovered the year I finished my undergraduate degree, I don’t think I’d have made it through grad school with my sanity intact.

I filled the biggest mug I owned and carried it to the chair near the window in the living room. I wasn’t ready to sleep yet. My mind was a squall of thoughts and memories, and I didn’t know which to address first. It was overwhelming, and so I opted to replay the evening, image by image, indulging in the best parts more than once.

Did everyone who went through a sexual awakening feel this way? Why had I always identified as a straight man? Was it that I was lacking in that much self-awareness? And the thought I might harbor attraction for men was so foreign? Maybe it was that our society tended to lean toward the heteronormative and I’d never thought about it. Then again, I couldn’t remember a time from my childhood where I’d felt infatuated with a girl. I hadn’t had normal crushes like all the other kids in my class, but I’d always chalked that up to being so socially awkward that adding another element of chance for embarrassment had been too much for my adolescent brain to handle.

But then there was the bigger question… If I wasn’t straight, then what was I? Gay? Bisexual? Was there some other label out there that fit me better? There was no denying my response to Asher, though. Physiological and emotional both left no uncertainties about my attraction to him.

By the time I’d finished my tea, I still hadn’t come up with any answers, and so for lack of anything better to do, I got ready for bed and climbed in.

Cognitive dissonance was running roughshod over my brain. For the second time, as a direct result of kissing Asher, I spent another sleepless night tossing and turning and trying to untangle the mess of thoughts that had snarled themselves up.

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