Page 8 of Spinning Out of Control

Teracht

“May I kiss you?” I had asked him, even though my instinct was to just lean in and do it. Humans were very concerned with consent, and I did not want to upset Caleb, especially not at this moment. He looked so lost, as if one wrong touch could shatter whatever fragile mask he had built in place since his accident.

He hesitated for a moment before he nodded. “Yes.”

My hand on his cheek stayed there as I leaned down and pressed my lips carefully to his. My experience with kissing had been entirely based on what I’d watched on TV, giving my own hand experimental kisses until I figured out the lip position, not completely unlike drinking through a straw, which I often did. So, I was sure it was not an exceptionally good kiss. But Caleb nearly melted into the touch, his left hand sliding up to hold my hand on his face lightly as he kissed me back. This new sensation was strange, sending a soft, pleasant warmth through my body unlike anything I had felt before. Was this why humans liked kissing so much? Did they feel this warm rush throughout their bodies when they touched mouths too?

We held the kiss, which I was pretty sure meant that he liked it. I wasn’t sure if it might hurt his injuries, and I certainly did not want to make him feel pain in any way. I shifted a little, trying to put more of the kiss against the left side of his lips.

After a few moments, we did have to pull back to breathe. He moved his hand to brush his fingers over his lips, as if to check if they were still there. I smiled slightly. “Was that all right?”

“Yeah. Thank you,” he said. “That was really nice. I… Wow, it’s been a while since anyone has touched me like that.”

I laughed. “I don’t think I have ever touched anyone that way.”

“You didn’t have a… a girlf… boy… spider-friend in the monster world?” he asked, looking a bit flustered as he tried to figure out how to phrase it.

“No. My kind are not very affectionate,” I said. He didn’t need to know yet that female spiders often ate their young if they did not flee the nest fast enough when they were born. “And you are the first human I have chosen to spend time with.”

He blinked, then gave me a sheepish grin. “And I’m doing such a great job at first impressions.”

I shook my head. “It is new for both of us. I have already forgiven you for the things you said when you were angry.”

He flushed and looked down. His one hand had curled into the knees of his pants and seemed to be trembling just a bit. “I had no right to be angry at you. I’m sorry again.”

“I forgive you again,” I said, and he let out a soft snort of laughter, looking up at me. I had not meant it to be funny, but seeing Caleb laugh made me feel good all over. Despite the injuries that he was obviously very self-conscious about, he was still ridiculously handsome, and his smile lit up his whole face.

“You’re the first… anything that I’ve really spent time with since my accident,” he admitted. “My mom came to stay when I first got out of the hospital, and a couple friends came over to check on me, but, I don’t know, things changed. I think it’s like you said, I’m not the same guy I was back in August. Not even just my looks and having to adapt to life with only one hand. My whole life changed. I could have died, but I didn’t. And I’m acting like I died anyway.”

I hesitated for a moment. “I know that my situation is not the same as yours, but I feel like perhaps I understand, at least a little. I haven’t left this house except for a few rare moments. Because…” I took a deep breath and let it out. “Because I am afraid. I am afraid people will judge me, as a monster. They will think I am scary or evil. So, I stay here, because I tell myself it will hurt less to hide alone than to have someone be cruel.”

“Fuck.” Caleb let out a gasp of air. “Yes, that’s what we’re both doing. We’re hiding from the world because we don’t want the world to hurt us.”

The fact that humans could be just as cruel to humans who were from there as they could be to monsters who were not made no sense to me. “You think that other humans will judge you for something that you can’t control?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said with a bit of scoff, though I knew he wasn’t trying to be mean. “Unfortunately, a lot of humans suck. They don’t like people who are different. Who are ugly or damaged.”

“I don’t think you are either of those things,” I said and meant every word of it. My hand reached out to cover his left that was still clutching his pants leg. “I think you are hurting and angry, which is understandable.”

He looked up in surprise at my touch, but his hand shifted to curl into mine. After a moment, he lifted the stump of his right forearm and laid it on the top of my hand holding his, his ocean blue eyes watching me. I wondered if it was a test of some kind, to see how I would react to his injury touching me. It hurt me to think that his touch might have repulsed someone else, that they might have pulled away from someone who was obviously in pain and in desperate want of connection. I reached up my other hand to rub lightly at the scarred stump, careful not to catch his skin with my pointed fingertips. “I am not afraid of you.”

Caleb swallowed hard. “You’re not?”

“Why would I be? You were in an accident. What happened was awful, and I can’t imagine how much pain it has caused you. But I do not want to be a source of pain for you, or you for me.”

Caleb turned his eyes up to mine, and I could see what looked like tears forming in them again. “Teracht…”

“Please don’t cry,” I said quickly, afraid I had messed up and said something I shouldn’t have. “I don’t want you to be sad.”

“Sorry,” he said, pulling his right arm away to swipe at his eyes. “It’s not you. God, it’s not you.” He took a deep breath, his fingers on his left hand curling around mine. “It’s just been so long since I’ve felt anything except angry and bitter. I don’t want to feel that way. And you’re making me feel things.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, starting to draw my hand away, albeit reluctantly, but he held tight to it.

“No, not… I don’t want you to stop. I… I like you touching me. It’s been so long since anyone touched me.”

I smiled softly, brushing my hand very lightly up his right forearm toward his shoulder. “I would like to touch you and see all of you.”

“I haven’t let anyone see my body except for doctors and my mom since the accident,” Caleb said.

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