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  Daisy

  The door opened, and I smmed my foot down on the gas pedal. The docks faded from view as we entered Marquette, Michigan. The sky was blue and the air was warm and the wind was gentle as we zoomed through a city of brick and stone and made our way towards our hotel. I was buzzing with adrenaline, sure to crash soon, but for right now I felt motherfucking ALIVE in a way I hadn’t in years. I’d gotten away from my dad and his goons again. And I’d keep running, keep fighting, until I was free.

  No going back. Not now. Not ever. I still didn’t know what, exactly, I was running towards, but to a very real extent it didn’t matter to me. What mattered was that I could do whatever I wanted. And that I had someone at my side who was willing to fight for me. Which he definitely was: he’d lied and pnned for me, held me, protected me, and would have put up hands for me had the situation called for it. He was strong and clever and persistent, incredibly witty, nerdy in the same ways I was, and so, so, so very pretty-

  And I knew him. I’d known him before. I was almost sure of it. He’d known me when I was… He didn’t remember me, though. There was no way. Why would he remember someone he sat down the row from in a film studies css more than four years ago, who he’d had to pick up the post-meltdown pieces of at a party one time? I’d never mattered to him that much. I hadn’t even remembered him until today.

  Who we were, who I’d been, that didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. I was on a mission to carve that version of myself away entirely, be rid of everything I’d been forced to be growing up. It would probably be ethical to have a conversation about this in case we…

  In case he…

  In case I…

  Actually, I was well-past ‘in case.’

  I wanted him. I saw him, and I thought about him, and I… I’d felt him. His skin, his hair, his face, his muscles. I wanted to feel below the belt, wanted to get down on my knees and take him into my mouth, wanted him to whisper sweet nothings into my ear when I did a good job and redden my ass with his palm when I didn’t. I wanted to feel him inside me, wanted to feel myself wrapped around him, wanted his hands on my breasts and his tongue down my throat. I wanted his scent all over me and his growls and grunts filling my ears.

  I wanted him.

  And I was reasonably sure he wanted me. Which was kind of a mind-fuck for me. Like, objectively, I knew I was good-looking. I had, quite literally, thousands of men and women who paid not-inconsiderable sums of money to look at me in varying states of undress, and quite a few of them had outright offered to take me on real, actual dates that would, presumably, end in coitus. But there was a difference between that and someone who I knew first and foremost in real life, who’d sat at the fringes of my existence erstwhile only to suddenly be dropped into the eye of Hurricane Daisy. All the complicated bullshit that came with me, with someone like me… It was a lot. And most people would take one look at it and run the fuck away.

  But not Adam Kurosawa. He was made of stronger stuff than that. He was (and I considered myself uniquely equipped to make this type of judgement) a real man. He was a real man, and, based on the way he’d held me in the cargo hold of that boat, based on the way he’d let me touch him, based on everything he was doing for me, based on his whole comment about flirting, he wanted me. Not even I could fail to pick up on that much.

  I didn’t know what I was running to. But he was running right alongside me.

  Maybe he deserved a reward for that. It didn’t have to… Didn’t have to mean anything. Long-term, post-surgery, the future was in flux for me. But there was a part of me that simply thought ‘fuck it.’

  “Fuck it,” I said as we wove through traffic.

  “Fuck what?” Adam said, looking at me with… I wasn’t sure. It could’ve been lust. It could’ve also been confusion.

  “So, there’s something I need to tell you,” I said, my heart rate shooting up. I could do this, it would be okay. I was better now. Better Than Perfect. And he would still see me that way. I knew it in my heart, in my soul, in my bones.

  “What’s that?”

  “We knew each other in college,” I said. “Not very well, but… Do you remember a hockey pyer named Oliver Johannson?”

  Adam looked at me very intently as I drove through the streets and slowed down in the lead up to a red light. We came to a stop, and I held my breath as I waited for him to respond.

  “Oh thank God,” he said. “I was afraid I was gonna have to ask if it was you.”

  My jaw dropped. The light stayed red. “You… You knew?”

  “Not right away, though I did think you looked familiar. I… I started to suspect when your dad screamed your deadname while he was chasing us. And then on the boat… Captain Hepburn just said it outright. But to be honest, I guess I was… I wanted it to be you.”

  “You wanted it to be me? Why?” I asked.

  He rubbed his eye and ughed nervously. “This is embarrassing.”

  “Adam, please.”

  “Back in college, I, uh… Well, I had a bit of a crush on you.”

  Something festered in my gut, and my brow wrinkled in confusion and disgust. “You had a crush on… On that? That thing I had to pretend to be? Well I hate to break it to you, but I-”

  “No, no, it’s not like that!”

  “Then what is it like?”

  “... We had a css together. Film studies. We sat in the same row. And I… I always liked listening to you talk,” Adam said, scratching the side of his head.

  “You remember,” I whispered.

  “And there was this one time, at a party, you’d… You had a meltdown, and I-”

  “That WAS you! Holy shit!” I said, eyes widening. “I didn’t think it could be- that you…. You were there all along. I just didn’t notice you.”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking out the window, ears turning pink.

  “Well then I really am a dumb jock,” I said. “Because I… Oh, Adam. You have no idea how much I wish I’d noticed you before. That I’d remembered you more clearly.”

  “Really?” he said. It was practically a gasp.

  “Really,” I nodded.

  The light turned green, and I pushed down on the gas and took us forward.

  “I was there at your st game,” he said. “The one where you got injured. I knew you were graduating, so I wanted to shoot my shot. I didn’t really think I had a chance, I just knew that if I didn’t say anything I’d regret it for the rest of my life. But then you got hurt and you… I didn’t think you needed me.”

  “Well that’s where you’re wrong, Kurosawa,” I said, and something started welling up behind my eyes. Just a few more blocks to the inn, I could make it, I could make it, I could make it… No, no I could not make it, those were definitely tears streaming down my face. “If the st couple days have proven anything, it’s that I absolutely need you. I always did. And I still do.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Completely,” I said. Two more blocks. “And moreover, I don’t just need you, Adam. I also want you.”

  “You want me?”

  “Of course I want you, you dork,” I said. “You’re kind and charismatic and beautiful. How could I not want you?”

  “I’m… I’m just not used to women being this direct.”

  “Autistic girls are like that,” I said, forcing a smile. Oh God, please don’t shoot me down, I didn’t work up all this courage to get shot down. “And so I guess I just have to ask. You say you used to have a crush on me. On the old me. How do you feel about the new me?”

  “How do I feel?” he said, raking a hand through his beautiful, beautiful hair. “Daisy… You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever id eyes on.”

  My jaw dropped. I squeaked. That-

  “You’re fucking precious, okay?” Adam continued. “Like, I look at you, and I just see this incredibly strong person who’s exhausted, and I wanna take care of you. Protect you. Not because you can’t do that yourself- I know you can, you’ve made it this far for a reason- but because you… You’ve never had anyone do that for you, I don’t think. Do I have that right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, choking back fresh tears.

  “I wanna do that for you. You fell into my arms, and I don’t wanna let you go. I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll lose you again. And maybe this is melodramatic, but I just got you back. I know you were never mine before, and you don’t owe me anything, but the past couple days have been, for ck of a better word, fucking magical, and I’d have to be a crazy person not to at least try to… Wait, what are we doing?”

  “I’m pulling over,” I said as I did exactly that, depositing us in an empty parking lot for what I assumed was a Halloween costume store during part of the year.

  “Why are you-”

  “So I can do this,” I said, my thoughts clear and my actions never seeming simpler. I knew exactly what to do. I needed Adam to know I wasn’t going anywhere, and that he’d said exactly what he should have said, done exactly what he should’ve done, and now…

  Now everything was out in the open. And there was no reason not to grab a fistful of his shirt, pull him towards me, and put his sweet lips on my lips.

  So I did.

  His stubble tickled my face, and I worked my hands through his perfect hair while he unbuckled his seatbelt and pushed forward himself. He cupped my cheeks, his calloused hands and delicate fingers warm on my skin. His scent filled my nose, like an evergreen forest in the middle of a winter. All natural and beautifully verdant even in the most driving of blizzards. I was the snow, the frost, the ice, but he was more than enough to handle me. He wouldn’t back down, wouldn’t wilt, wouldn’t flee. He could withstand all that I brought with me. He would thrive with me, and hopefully thrive within me as well.

  My hands drifted down his neck, his chest, his waist, while his hands did the same before stopping just above my breasts.

  So I took him by the wrists and guided those gorgeous hands of his to my breasts, pcing them right on top as I started slipping him tongue. He got the idea pretty quickly, fingers kneading into my sensitive flesh as he massaged my orbs and sent waves of pleasure through my chest and into the rest of my body. I swung my legs around and hooked them across his back, leaning more and more on him. He was a few inches shorter than me, but I wanted him to feel big. Like the biggest man to ever live. And he was already better than most of the ones I’d ever met, so he was well on the way.

  He tweaked my nipples, and I groaned into his mouth as more and more ecstasy solidified in my body. I was a snowfke dancing in the wind, twirling about every which way and loving the ride he was taking me on. He started pnting kisses on my neck, and I reached my hands down towards his crotch. His rod was straining against the confines of his pants and his undies, and it was my solemn duty to set the little man free.

  I unzipped, and found that the little man was… Uh, not little at all, holy shit.

  “Jesus, Adam!” I excimed.

  “What?” he ughed.

  “Does that thing have its own zipcode?”

  “Pfftt, no, Daisy, it doesn’t,” he said as he reached through my neckline and dragged his knuckles across my under-boob.

  “Do you, mmmm, do you have a license for that weapon?” “Nope, I’m just carrying it regardless of what the w says.”

  “Well at least tell me you’re not open-carrying?”

  “Of course not. Don’t wanna intimidate everyone with it,” he grinned, so smug, so self-assured as he nipped a hickey onto my neck and a fresh flower of pleasure bloomed on a stinging field of pain, and dammit I really liked this side of him.

  “Think I can handle it?” I asked. “Not exactly a girl’s gun we’re looking at here.”

  “Daisy, you can do absolutely anything you set your mind to,” Adam said with his husky baritone, looking me square in the face with his darkened eyes and hungry smile. “You’re a force of nature. You’re unstoppable.”

  I blushed. “I dunno about that-”

  “I speak only the truth, sweetheart,” Adam said. “You are one of a kind. Ain’t never been one like you, and there never will be again. You’re singur. You’re my Rapunzel, my valkyrie, my yuki-onna. You’re this perfect fucking snowfke drifting down from the sky above, and you nded on me. But I won’t let you melt. I’ll preserve you. You wanna know why?”

  “Why?” I said into his mouth as we continued our game of tonsil-hockey.

  “Because I’ve waited almost five years for this moment,” he said. “And so far it, so far YOU, are everything I dreamt of and more.”

  My nipples went diamond-hard and my libido was an explosion of thunder-snow. This man saw the whole universe when he looked into my eyes, and coming from him I actually believed it. I wanted to believe it. I felt like I truly was everything he saw me as.

  He needed to know what I saw too. I wasn’t the best with words, even in my fully-masked state. I was a rambler, a babbler, a yapper. I just said whatever bizarre stream of consciousness came to mind, or I didn’t say a damn thing at all.

  Actions spoke louder than words, however.

  I reached between his legs and took him in hand. He was hairier down there then I’d expected, so I scratched his garden with my long, unchewed nails (thank God I hadn’t slipped up on that front) as my other hand traced the edges of his foreskin. He shuddered and groaned as I started pumping him, forward and back, forward and back, while massaging his balls and giving him a hickey of his own. He kissed my temple, my earlobe, my throat, my lips as I kept pace. Kept jerking him off, my hands sliding over hard wood on the under and over sides, as I slid it back and forth over his upper thigh, as I took the shaft between both hands and worked it like I was trying to start a fire with a stick.

  “How am I doing?” I purred.

  “So good,” he growled. “You’re doing so good, sweetheart.”

  “You really mean it?” I asked timidly. “It’s my first time.”

  “That can’t be-”

  “With a cis guy, I mean.”

  “Oh, gotcha. Well, I got good news. You’re a natural. Seriously, this is… Oh, damn. Oh, damn,” he said, his Adam’s Apple (heh) bobbing up and down as he drowned in a sea of his own rapturous joy.

  I was triumphant. Sublime. Spectacur. I was doing this for him. I made him feel better than he probably had in years. Me, Daisy DeMille. It had been over a year since I’d had sex, and I’d never done this with someone like him, but I still had it. I was still more than capable of making my partners go crazy. And dammit, I was fucking proud of that.

  I bit his lower lip then kissed him hard and deep while I kept stroking him, pumping him, scratching him. I ran my finger over his taint and drank in his woodsy musk and pressed against his hard, lean, sinewy body. He would always catch me. He would always carry me. And he’d be more than happy to do so if I could make him feel like this.

  Looking at him writing in pleasure, I felt the same. My therapist called it ‘hyper-empathy.’ Apparently it was decently common for autistic people, and I usually thought of it as a pain in the ass, at that moment I’d never been more grateful for it. I felt what he felt. And he felt very, very good.

  “Sweetheart,” he said. “I’m not gonna be able to hold back much longer.”

  “Go right ahead, lover,” I said. “I don’t mind one bit.”

  That was all the invitation he needed. He blew his load into my hand, and I cupped it all in my palms. He screamed while his chest heaved haggard breaths and he spurted and spurted until finally he was done and a small pond of white ambrosia was in my palms.

  “What are you… What are you gonna do with all that, sweetheart?” he asked. He was on cloud nine, and I was up there with him.

  Without answering, I took it to my mouth and drank from it like it was a goblet of vintage wine. And honestly, having had vintage wine, this stuff tasted way better. I licked my hands clean, making sure I got every st drop. So much salty goodness I refused to let go to waste. When it was over I was a drooling mess with my hair in disarray and my makeup no doubt ruined, but I didn’t care. The way he was looking at me, like I was some kind of sex goddess who’d given him a sneak-preview of heaven above, was more than enough to cancel out any shame or embarrassment.

  He kissed me again, tongue exploring my mouth, hands gripping my breasts hard and tight while I squealed into his mouth. “So that’s what I taste like,” he whispered.

  “Mmmm,” I purred.

  “Damn. I’m delicious.”

  “Fuck yeah, you are,” I said.

  “Does that count as road-head?”

  “No, it’s only road-head if it’s a blowjob.”

  “Really? I thought it was a catch-all for car-sex.”

  “Nope, it’s gotta be head to be road-head,” I said.

  “Does the car have to be moving?”

  “I don’t think so?” I said, scratching my eyebrow and ughing. “Besides, that sounds dangerous.”

  “More dangerous than jumping off the top deck of a boat and being pulled through a porthole?”

  “That wasn’t dangerous at all,” I said, waving my hands dismissively. “Know why?”

  He smirked like some kind of sultry man-whore who knew full-well he was God’s gift to women but was rarely given the chance to prove it. “Because I was there to catch you.”

  I kissed his forehead. “Now you’re getting it. Also, was that your way of saying you want road-head?”

  “I’m… I am open to the concept.”

  “Well that’s something we can talk about,” I said, brushing a strand of hair out of my face… And then immediately wincing.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I just got your jizz in my hair,” I said. “I mean, maybe not much of it, considering my appetite, but like… Ugh, I should’ve washed my hands.”

  “Why don’t we get to the hotel, then?” Adam said gently. “You can shower, we can fool around more-”

  “Confident, are we?”

  “Daisy, we just had a full on anime love confession scene that turned into a porno. You bet your ass I’m confident right now.” “Touche.”

  He sniffed my hair. “For what it’s worth, I’ve heard this stuff is good for your hair.”

  I cackled, then turned the car back on and started us out of the parking lot. “Oh yeah? Where did you hear that? Some cheap erotica?”

  “No, actually, Crispin’s fiance Lily said that once.”

  “Jesus Christ, seriously?” I said as we got back onto the road.

  “Yeah. Though she was pretty baked at the time.”

  “She sounds like a real character.”

  “You have no idea. Apparently she used to be gay until Crispin gave her a bi awakening.”

  “Holy shit, he flipped a lesbian?”

  “Yes, yes he did. Though he hates it when people say it like that.”

  “So I should absolutely say it if I ever meet him?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. Yes you should,” Adam grinned. “And you will. Meet him, I mean. And everyone else. They’re gonna… They’re gonna love you.”

  I hummed to myself as we drove to the hotel, joyous over both what had happened and how sure Adam was about introducing me to his friends. I didn’t know what would happen once we got to Boston, but now… Now I was at least willing to be hopeful about it.