Sociable

Once Heath left, Terry returned to his computer and went back to his writing. For a while more, he stared at it, before his father's words sank in. The sudden surge of emotion and inspiration carried him rapidly forward, for a little over a thousand words.

Then, a knock on the doorframe, light and almost delicate, and he saved and looked over to see his Dad leaning against the frame. He smiled, arms crossed, nodding toward the screen, “Any progress? Did I manage to say something that helped?”

“Yes, Dad, as always,” Terry confessed, “I will ... I'll try to be less embarrassed about you reading my stuff. You help a lot.” Alphonse smirked at his son, smug and self-assured, and Terry rolled his eyes and pushed himself back as he saw the time.

“Dinner's on the table, son,” his Dad confirmed, and Terry walked over with a nod, pausing in front of him. Alphonse then straightened and looped an arm around him, hugging him with one arm, then letting him go and pushing him ahead first.

“You know I'm proud of you,” Alphonse said, as he followed him to the modest house's kitchen-dining room combination, their pace relaxed, “You shouldn't be ashamed to write erotica, or even smut, son. All of your writing is good, and valid.”

“Okay. Thanks, Dad,” Terry answered, running his fingers through his hair, as he reached the kitchen table and slid down into his seat beside Heath, and across from Marguerite. Heath had already taken his serving, and now, Marguerite was.

“So what are you writing, exactly, anyway?” Marguerite asked, focusing her brown eyes on his, “I mean, Dad doesn't tell us shit. Says it isn't his story, not his place to tell us. So, I mean, we know you write sex stuff, but, like, what's this story?”

“Oh, a young gay man with Daddy issues starts sleeping with his sister's professor,” he answered, waiting as Rita took her serving of spaghetti and sauce made with stripped, shredded hot and sweet sausages. “I was having transition troubles.”

“Oh. Sounds kinky,” Rita answered, “So does the sister, like, get special preferential treatment because her brother's her professor's bitch?” Terry's cheeks warmed and Marguerite grinned mischievously at him, and he shook his head, quickly.

“No, absolutely not!” Terry answered, standing up abruptly when Rita finished taking her serving, picking up his plate as he did, “I haven't actually decided what their relationship is, him and his sister. It might not be nearly as warm as ours.”

“So, he might be sleeping with her professor to make her life harder, then?” Heath asked, “He offers to suck her professor off if the professor is more demanding of his sister, holds her to a higher standard then the entire remainder of the class?”

“I mean, I guess that could be one possibility, yeah,” Terry answered, humming thoughtfully as he piled noodles onto his plate, “Or maybe they have a rivalry and he's secretly supportive, so he's asking she be dragged up to a higher standard.”

“You know, sort of a tough love rivalry,” Terry concluded, before spooning marinara sauce and shredded sausage on top of the noodles. He sat back down, feeling a little awkward talking about his sex writing with his two younger siblings, too.

“Right, so you've still got a lot of brainstorming you need to do for the story,” Heath mused aloud, “You mind if Rita and I read it, too?” The idea mortified him, but Terry couldn't deny that, mortification aside, their father was always a real help.

“Mm. I'll think about it and get back to you, on that,” Terry answered, “For now, I'd like to unplug from my writing a little, and talk and think about something not related to it, please, if that would be all right?” Rita and Heath shrugged, nodding.

“Oh, sure. Sorry, I didn't mean to, like, make you feel pressured, or anything,” Rita answered, “Heath said you wanted me to come along for moral support on a date with his friend from the university. We'll learn to surf, according to Heath?”

“Yeah, that was what I was thinking,” Terry nodded, as their father started to take his own serving. “I felt like since he's a surfer, it would be somewhere he'd be comfortable, something he'd be comfortable with, and, I mean .. it's warm enough.”

Even for October, the weather remained rather warm. Sufficiently warm for going out in nothing but a pair of shorts and hopping on a surfboard. “Heath said that we should buy surfboards, because the rental ones are apparently ... quite bad.”

“Don't worry about that,” his father said, “Your debit cards have sufficient luxury spending money for date night costs. I'm glad you've decided to start looking, again. I was starting to feel concerned that you completely given up on the idea.”

“No, no. Not giving up, exactly,” Terry mumbled, between bites of dinner, before swallowing a mouthful. “Just wishing I was the one writing the story of my own love life. The characters I write tend to have better love lives than I feel I'll get.”

“Mm,” his dad replied with a hum, “Fair, and reasonable, though. Sadly, reality rarely lives up to the standards of fiction.” His Dad was always honest, even when the truth was unpleasant. Terry liked that about him.

“Don't worry, if Heath's surfer dude doesn't work out,” Rita said, “Well, I've had a few friends ask about you, a few I bet would be okay with you having a pussy, might even prefer it.” Terry's cheeks warmed pink, and Rita stuck her tongue out.

“You know what I mean!” she said, swiftly, “Point is, if you've decided you're ready to look for someone, you can count on us, we're with you. You're awesome, and we'll find someone that'll see it and who'll appreciate how awesome you are. K?”

“Okay,” he answered, smiling in spite of the embarrassment, because it really was nice to know you had people with you, family members who cared enough to help. He knew, from news articles he'd read, about too many families that didn't.

Terry was, in truth, tired of virginity, tired of knowing as much about sex as he did, solely from research. He wanted to be able to write from firsthand experience. He wanted to experience it, even if he knew a lot of erotic novelists were asexual.

I'll need to buy birth control, he mused to himself, Once I've found someone worth having sex with. Given that he could count on the fact he was male-seeming, that wouldn't be a problem. They'd see a man, assume he was purchasing it for a girlfriend.

At least Dad isn't offering to introduce me to someone, too, he mused silently, as much entertained by the idea as mortified by it. Granted, it was entirely conceivable that his father knew someone with children that included eligible singletons, as well.

Terry decided not to ask his father about that, though. Heath's friend stood a fair to decent chance of being a good match. He doubted Heath would've offered to set them up if Giovanni gave him bad vibes. Heath was usually a good judge of character.

For a while, dinner went silent. Terry couldn't be certain, but he had a feeling Marguerite was already compiling a list of reserve candidates. Heath was likely wracking his brain to determine if he knew anyone else he could introduce him to.

As Terry often did, he finished his dinner, first, and stood up, taking his dishes to the dishwasher. He stocked the dishes in neatly, then returned to the table, motioning toward the dinner, “Anyone planning on having a second helping, tonight?”

When they shook their heads, Terry collected the pot of noodles and carried it over to the kitchen counter. He potted it up into something smaller and put it in the refrigerator, then repeated the process with the wide, shallow pot with the sauce.

Once that was done, he cleared the table of the potholders, then left the kitchen, returning to his room. He looked at his computer, then groaned and flopped down on his bed, instead. For a moment, he lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

A minute later, his tablet emitted another of those weird chime sounds, and he blinked. He pushed himself up, propping himself up on his palms, and looked over at it. Terry tilted his head, staring at the black panel of the tablet for a moment.

Another flash of MRE showed up on the screen again, just for a moment. There were a number of things that the acronym could mean, the most obvious being military jargon. He doubted that was it, since a Meal, Ready-to-Eat wouldn't text him.

Granted, it wasn't the sound of a text message coming in, so far as he knew, but that just made it weirder. He furrowed his brow, staring at it, as the screen went black. Then it blinked again, and the icon returned, again, weird little heart and all.

“What the fuck is that?” he slid off his bed, crossing the room to where his tablet sat on his dresser. Propped up to be a bit more visible while it charged, it looked as if it had reached full charge. That wouldn't explain the weird icon, and chiming.

He picked it up, and swiped it open. Immediately, he saw a new and unfamiliar icon in one corner of the screen. Blinking as if it had just been downloaded and was ready to use, he shrugged and tapped on it, letting the screen open up for him.

Relationship Editor, it said, over the top of something that looked like a wire frame of a heart, precise enough that he'd mistaken it for a faceted crystal from a distance. He tilted his head, lifting one eyebrow at it, and just tapped Get Started.

“Get Started. Like, what, is this a game?” he asked, watching as a menu coalesced on the screen in front of him, one which started with Relationship Profiles at the top. “Oh. Great. My tablet overheard me, and downloaded a dating sim for me?”

Given all the surveillance going on in the world, right now, he wouldn't really be shocked to learn his tablet was suddenly spying on him. Then again, it could've just been the company randomly deciding to include it with some standard update.

“Let's see. Relationship Profiles, User Profile, Perks ... Perks? Okay ... Recommendations, and Settings,” he tilted his head at that, then rolled his shoulders and shrugged. “All right. Not sure I need a dating simulator, but, eh, why the fuck not, eh?”

It wasn't as if he had any better plans, tonight, other than staring at his computer writing an erotica that he really needed to take a break from. He didn't feel like writing, tonight, not really, and his Dad did often remind him to take a break ... ...

Fuck it. I'm taking the night off to play this new game, I guess, Terry decided, Let's see, where to start, though ...