On an Impulse

"A woman doesn't smile at you like that," Sean gestured toward the camera, "unless she's a teensy bit attracted to you."

"Or, maybe she's just a nice person," Ultan rationalised.

"Maybe," Sean conceded. "But you're going to find out which one it is by asking her to dance at the reception later on."

"Can't I do something easier for you, like chop off my left thumb?"

Nonetheless, he wrote and rehearsed what he'd say to her straight through for the next several hours, all the while taking pictures as if on autopilot. A lifetime of learning how to mask himself and how to give people the reactions they expected would ensure that no one would know what an emotional mess he was.

His brain was hyper-aware of the bridesmaid who was as charismatic as she was gorgeous—through the vows, during the photoshoot in the garden behind the hall, and all the way into the boring speeches at the reception. Ultan tried not to care, but he always found himself scanning any given area for her.

At least obsession comes with its perks, he realised once they were through dinner and the DJ was geared up to begin. I haven't thought of that goddamned shirt tag since I first saw her. But now that the itch was suddenly back in spades and the bass beat of the music was threatening to shift his organs, it seemed like a good time to take a break. Asking anyone to dance would have to wait.

Slipping up the stairs with the surety that everyone else was in the hall, he looked for an empty dressing room. Once he found one that was unlocked, he loosened his cravat, tore open his vest, and yanked his shirttails out from his trousers. He was unable to wait another second before he could feel cool air on his skin.

Rubbing the nape of his neck once he was bare from the waist up, he collapsed on the nearby loveseat in relief and closed his eyes.

"That rough of a night, huh?"

The delicate English accent was the last thing he needed to hear, and it jolted him right off the couch and onto the floor.

"Oh, my goodness, I'm so sorry!" Out of nowhere, the woman he'd finally gotten out of his head—albeit in favour of an annoying clothing tag—was there to haunt him again. "I really apologise; I was over there in the armchair behind the door, and I didn't know what to do when you started to, um, undress." Her speckled eyes darted away from Ultan's lean chest.

"I... I was here for the same reason," she added. This woman's naked torso was not the imagery Ultan wanted in his brain just then, but he couldn't stop it, and there it stuck. "I mean," she steamrolled on in alarm when she realised what she'd said, "my heels were killing me and I had to take them off. I'm Samaira, by the way. You narrowly escaped me last night?"

He was sure his entire chest and face were bright red, at least enough to match the spot where his shirt tag had been chafing all day. He adjusted his glasses as he straightened up. Samaira.

"I'm Ultan. And I... I'm sorry about that," he cringed, unable to direct his gaze to her face. "I'm really shy and not good with people, especially beautiful women." He squeezed his eyes shut again. "I didn't mean—well, no, I did, but... maybe I should put my shirt back on."

Oh, please don't, Samaira mentally pled with him.

"No, that's the reason you came in here," she said aloud, reluctantly swiveling on her heel to face away from him and toward the door. "But that seems to be a nasty red patch on your upper back. If you want, I have some aloe vera cream in my purse."

Is she going to hand me the tube, or is she going to put it on me? Ultan panicked.

"Sure," he said aloud, trying his best to choke out the word without his voice cracking. As she gingerly stepped behind him and reached up, he couldn't decide which was more soothing; the cream or the delicate touch of the woman applying it.

"Ultan. That's lovely. Is your family from Ulster by any chance?" Ultan looked back at her in surprise, then became distracted by the way her off-the-shoulder capped sleeves clung to her glowing brown skin.

"How did you know that?" he asked. Samaira tried unsuccessfully to muffle a giggle. "Oh, right, I mean... I suppose someone from England would know that over someone from—it's just that no one's even pronounced it right until I literally spelled it out for them so..."

"Wow, I have no idea what that's like," Samaira said flatly, smiling to herself upon hearing his chuckles. She took in the freckles on his back while she let her fingertips slowly glide over his skin, wishing she could run them down the curve of his spine.

"Do you know what it's like to have everyone you meet ask if the Avengers are making another movie with you?" Ultan asked. Samaira couldn't control the giggles that erupted from her lips, unaware that the man before her was resisting the urge to turn around and kiss her.

"All done," she announced, snapping the tube shut to Ultan's disappointment. "I should get back downstairs and make sure my daughter isn't getting into trouble."

"Oh, how old is she?" Ultan wondered aloud, unable to recall her near any small children that day.

"Eighteen," she said, checking her makeup. On an impulse, he blurted out the first thing that popped into his mind and immediately regretted it.

"Were you a teen mom?" You fucking idiot, you absolute doorknob. He gritted his jaw, as the thought vaguely crossed his mind that standing there shirtless was the least embarrassing thing about him at that moment. "I mean—I'm so sorry—I didn't mean—you just... you don't look any older than your early 30s, and I—"

"I'm 42," Samaira winked at him before opening the door and relishing the stunned expression on Ultan's face.

***********

"Ult, I'm going to say this as gently as possible," Jo started about three weeks later in his dark room. "You need to stop stalking my boss."

The red glow of the tiny basement room cast a bit of a sinister light on Jo's scowl. She didn't even know the University of Guelph had dark rooms until today, when Ultan invited her to choose wedding pics to print while Felix taught an evening class for the summer term.

"You look kind of scary right now," Ultan grinned while developing an 8.5 x 11 portrait of her and Felix in a garden setting. I knew the overcast afternoon was going to work in our favour, he thought triumphantly, forgetting about what Jo had just said. "Hey, look at this. Look at how the light plays off your dress right here. And you thought the clouds weren't going to help—"

"Focus, my friend," Jo said, taking a hold of his shoulders and turning him toward the laptop screen she was looking at. "See all these thumbnails I highlighted?" He squinted.

"You want all those for the album?"

"No, those are all pics of Samaira." Ultan was glad the red light covered up how crimson his face must have turned.

"Well... don't worry. I still took hundreds of you and Felix, the garden, the hall..." Jo sighed, exasperated, but Ultan hardly noticed. "Just put those ones in a different folder."

"Look, it's me. You can tell me what's really going on. I know you two would be a bit of an odd couple but I also know you'd really hit it off."

You don't know, Ultan thought, simultaneously annoyed and embarrassed by this conversation. But since she'd asked, he decided to oblige.

"Jo, I've had to mask my entire life," he began. "I'm masking my autism right now with you. I do it with everyone unless it's someone else who's also autistic, and even then it takes a while before each of us lets our guard down. That's because we're each used to talking in that polite, roundabout way that neurotypicals do—which makes no sense, might I add—and we're not sure we can relax just yet."

Jo's face softened, and she knew enough to not interrupt her friend at this point. He had his points lined up in his head and he'd have to start from the beginning if he lost track of where he was.

"Samaira is NT. She's sweet and talented and witty and god, breathtakingly beautiful and—did you know she's 42? I thought she was 28 and way too young for me, but anyway..." He paused to try to remember what he'd originally been saying. "Right, she's great, but she's not going to like me when I start to be myself."

"Felix and I like you and you've always been yourself to us," Jo said, her voice sympathetic.

"But you've never been in a relationship with me," Ultan countered.

"If you're talking about Julia, that girl is a dumpster fire regardless of how her brain functions," Jo read his mind. "If you'd said one word about how she'd left you to go after Felix all those years ago, he wouldn't have wasted his time on her." She took a closer look at the candid shots Ultan had taken of Samaira at the wedding, each one bringing out her beauty in a way Jo had never seen before.

"You, yourself, said Samaira is sweet. She's not going to judge you, especially not for the way you were born. But whatever you do, promise me you won't stalk her." The silence that followed set off Jo's spider sense and she slowly turned back to see the sheepish look on Ultan's face.

"Question: would it be considered stalking if I just happened to take an interest in the pop-rock stylings of Redundant Contraption?" Jo put her face in her hands. "And if I just happened to be at their shows over the last three weeks?"

"Ultan, you're killing me."

"What? I like their music, and I even bought a couple of t-shirts."

Meticulously marked on his desk calendar in neat printing that never went outside the confines of the box, were the band's upcoming gigs for the rest of the summer. Luckily, they were all closer to Guelph than Toronto, where he'd first watched Samaira drum.

Small mercies, because the stress and anxiety of driving in the downtown core took him days to recover from. Jo picked up the calendar and peered at it, shaking her head.

"This isn't healthy, Ult."

"Being a fan of an amateur rock band isn't healthy?" Ultan knew he was being deliberately obtuse, and analysed that conversation with Jo over the next few days to figure out whether she'd been really annoyed with him or just mildly annoyed with him. He thought about it while getting ready for the Redundant Contraption show in Cambridge that Friday night.

Jo, is it actually stalking if I keep going to her shows? he texted her from his car.

You're still on that chat from three days ago? Jo replied. It wasn't the first time he'd circled back to a conversation days or a week after the fact. But since you asked, I'm going to say no.

He made sure to get a seat at the back of the bar—far enough that Samaira wouldn't see him, but enough to the side that he'd get a clear view of the drum kit. Just as he'd been doing for the last few weeks, he again noted the pattern. She'd slide her sticks out from her back pocket before sitting down, lay them on the snare, adjust the seat, and put her earmuffs on.

Her face was pure concentration for the rest of the show. Ultan loved how her lips remained slightly parted the entire time, and how her deep-set hazel eyes darted around as they kept track of what every band member in front of her was doing. And sometimes, she'd just drum with her eyes closed, bliss washing over her face while she submerged herself in the music.

Her arms are incredible, he noted, not for the first time. All that cardio has to be how she stays looking so young.

Despite being lost in his silent worship of Samaira, it struck Ultan that this show was different. She still took a sip from her water bottle between every song, resting her sticks on the snare. She still adjusted her earmuffs while the lead singer bantered with the audience. But the pattern was off. She would look toward stage-left now and then—directly where he was sitting.

She can't see you, he placated himself, wondering if he should leave before the show was over. The lights are too blinding where she's situated. Wait, what if Jo told her?? Caught in that whirlpool of contemplation for the next several minutes, he was zoned out over what he should do until it was too late.

"Ultan?" a musical voice lilted.

Fucking hell. He squeezed his eyes shut and cursed himself.

"I didn't know you were into this type of music," Samaira said, pulling out the chair across from him. "I mean, judging by how you left our Queen Street show early."

"Uhh, no, I, uh, I love your band," he stammered. The thin sheen of sweat that lined her neck gave her an ethereal sparkle.

"Really," she confidently stated, eyeing the camera around his neck. "Enough to show me the shots you took during the show?" The look of panic on Ultan's face must have been profound, as Samaira immediately backpedaled. "Okay, okay, I was just kidding. You don't need to show me anything. Just help me disassemble the kit and we'll call it even?"

As he all but leapt to his feet and scrambled toward the stage, Samaira mused what could possibly be on his memory card.

"Um, so... what's with the band name?" Ultan finally asked after they'd been taking down the drum set for a minute. If not for the bustle of the club around them, the silence would have been painfully awkward.

"Oh," Samaira grinned. "Liem Hyun—he's our lead singer; he's unplugging his guitar over there—" she pointed. "Liem is Korean and my family's originally from Bangladesh, so rice is a staple food in each of our cultures. But I never make rice in anything except a pot, while he swears by a rice cooker.

"We were jamming together at his place before we actually formed the band, and he asked me if I wanted his spare rice cooker to take home—for maybe the hundredth time—because in his mind, I'm apparently wasting years off my life by cooking rice in a pot."

Geez, four out of five dentists would fall in love with that smile, Ultan thought as his hands stopped moving. He stared at her, lost in how she glowed when she was talking about something she loved.

"I finally burst out, 'I have absolutely no use for that redundant contraption,'" she continued. "And it stuck because that's what I kept calling it every time I went over."

"Are..." Ultan paused, rehearsing the exact words he wanted to use. The memory of asking her whether she'd been a teenage mother still hit him like a brick in the middle of the night. "Are you two..." he trailed off, hoping she'd understand so he wouldn't have to figure out how to end that sentence.

"Oh, no, no, we're just friends. We're actually neighbours. He's one of the first people I met when my daughter Aalia and I shifted to Ajax from England four years ago."

Suddenly, Ultan wanted to know everything about her, but packing up a drum set would only take so long and he needed to spend hours listening to her talk. A few minutes later out by her van in the parking lot, he found himself handing her the last cymbal stand and musing how to extend their time together.

"Jo told me you like to take pictures of things out in nature," Samaira caught him by surprise. "If that's something you do often, would you mind if I tagged along?"

It's really that easy for neurotypicals, isn't it? Ultan thought, relieved. I've been editing in my head how to ask her out for weeks and she just comes out with that.

"Yes," he blurted out, as if the offer came with a three-second expiry. "I, I mean, no, I wouldn't mind. I mean, sure that would be fun."

"You don't have to be nervous," Samaira beamed, her smile reaching her eyes. "Remember, I've already seen you shirtless." She squeezed his hand after shutting the hatch on her van. He thought he would faint when she reached into his back pocket, fished out his phone, and input her number.

"Just text me where and when," she winked at him before driving off.

Ultan watched the weather forecast like a hawk for the next few days, making sure the prediction for that weekend would still be overcast but not rainy. The conditions would be perfect out by the ravine near his house, where he'd caught the most detailed close-ups of frogs and Canada geese. Plus, he wanted to miss roasting in the August sun.

"This is it?" Samaira asked him when they reached the ravine the next Saturday afternoon, blissfully ignorant of how her white t-shirt and cut-off jean shorts had made him trip a few times on the five-minute walk over from his house. She brushed her fingers across the reeds growing out of the bog that surrounded the creek nearby.

It's so sweet how he takes joy in something so simple, she thought. Samaira had been wondering what was up with this guy since Jo told her he'd been at every one of her band's gigs over the last month, apparently hiding somewhere in the back.

He's tall, attractive... maybe a little awkward, but it's kind of endearing. Ultan's back muscles pressed against his gray polo shirt as he squatted to watch a snail slide from the grass onto the gravel path. She waited for his response, but he stayed in position, entranced by the tiny creature.

I've never known anyone so shy, though... or so taken with the little things. She stood behind him and cleared her throat, which jolted him back to earth.

"Sorry!" he looked up at her in alarm. "You said something. What did you say?" Samaira laughed.

"I asked if this was the magical place you come to all the time. You went on about it so much I thought it'd be a sprawling park." The three acres of green space was untouched by the city except to make sure the path was clear, and the bridge over the creek wasn't in disrepair.

"It doesn't have to be huge to be magical," Ultan replied. "Come here." She knelt beside him and gazed at the snail. "Think about how hard this little guy is working, just to get across the width of this path. It's only three meters, but it's gonna take him half the day. And he's risking his life! Just one bicycle in the wrong spot and it's curtains."

Ultan spoke without looking at her once, and she noticed he did that a lot—she'd catch him staring at her now and then, but he balked at eye contact. She listened patiently as he then launched into all kinds of facts about snails, from talking about the patterns on their shells to explaining what their slimy trail was comprised of.

Is he just ultra polite and timid? Is this why he's still single? Samaira pondered through Ultan's info dump. He could literally be married to a fashion model by now. Jo had also told her that he'd been something of a child genius, skipping a couple of grades and getting his doctorate at 23. On the side, he'd worked as a professional photographer, shooting for Chatelaine and Elle Canada.

Most guys would never give up that life to teach at a university, at least not this young, she thought. He was a puzzle.

"...and I know you're going to think I'm lying about this, but snails have the most teeth out of any animal, depending on the species. That tiny little mouth can house up to 20,000—"

"Why'd you quit photographing for magazines?" Samaira let slip. Ultan looked like he'd been caught stealing. "I'm—I'm sorry," she stumbled. "The information about snails is really quite interesting, and I didn't think for a second they were in first place in terms of teeth," she looked into his olive eyes, "but I can look all of that up. I can't look up the answer to what I just asked you."

Ultan stood up, and she followed him to the middle of the bridge. As the frogs beneath the wooden planks hummed to each other, Samaira perused Ultan's face while he planned out his response.

"I wanted something less glamourous," he finally said, leaning against the guard rail. "You keep running into the same people over and over in an industry like that, and it's not fun when you don't exactly get along with them." Samaira decided to take a giant leap.