Page 11 of Love Lessons

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. 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.

But today he was hoping to meet people that he might see again. And the stranger’s gray eyes were so warm and excited. He decided to be honest.

Kind of. I’m hearing, but I have an auditory processing disorder. Signing is easier for me because there’s nothing blocking me from understanding when the language is visual. So I’m actually… He drew a line with his index finger from his ear to the top of his head, subverting the sign for DEAF to indicate the lack of connection between his brain and his hearing, instead of between hearing and talking. It was a joke, but it was also pretty accurate.

The stranger laughed. Makes sense. I’m excited to have somebody new to chat with.

It was a relief to be accepted so easily. And was the man leaning closer? Was that flirting? Dustin’s heart was racing in his chest.

I assume you’re going to the munch. The man fingerspelled the word and Dustin wondered if there was a sign for it.

I… yes. How did you know?

Most people don’t think so hard about walking into a restaurant for a burger.I’m also one of the organizers and I heard from Bruce that someone who uses ASL was coming. The stranger winked at him. That was definitely flirting.

But he wasn’t going to let himself think about what all of that flirting meant. Or about how attractive the man was. He was just here to gather information.

He held open the door and gestured toward it with an “after you” motion.

Then, with a sense of relief, he pulled out a little case and popped in his ear plugs. They served the dual purpose of cancelling a lot of the noise that he found so overwhelming and alerting people that he might not understand them speaking. There was nothing he hated more than someone assuming he could interpret, since he could sign and supposedly hear, and then having to explain that spoken English mostly sounded like a foreign language to him.

He slipped the case into his pocket and took a few longer strides to catch up. As the stranger walked in front of him, he let himself look. Just a little.

Even dressed in a loose t-shirt and casual jeans, the stranger's slim musculature was enticing. While Dustin had never really thought much about longer hair on men, he couldn’t help watching how the straight, pale tresses gently swayed with each of his steps. Instead of making him look feminine, it looked edgy. Like he was a skateboarder. Or maybe a rockstar.

He wove through the tables with a loose-limbed confidence that Dustin could never hope to emulate. Dustin followed him, assuming that he would know where to go.