So Different (13 page)

“It was. We’ll have to do that again,” he said, smiling, relaxed and mellow, catching the disquiet that skimmed across her face. He placed a kiss on her lips and rolled over, stood up a few seconds later, and entered his bathroom. She heard the toilet flush and he returned, bent over, and lifted her in his arms, a couple of condom packages in his hand.

“Pull the covers back,” he said, and held her while she pulled the duvet and top sheet back. He got in next to her, slid his arm under her head as a pillow. He reached for her wrist, looking at it, at the dots, a band circling each wrist.

“Why dots?” he asked, running his hand around her wrist.

“It’s Braille,” she said.

“I thought Braille was raised dots? Thought you needed to feel them.”

“It is, but you can learn to read by sight, by knowing the placement of the dots that form individual letters.”

“Oh,” he said, surprised.

“What does it say?”

“The one on my ankle reads Joshua.”

“I hadn’t noticed that one,” he said, looking down at her right ankle now. “Who’s Joshua?”

“My brother. He’s older and he’s blind,” she said.

“So that’s why the interest in the blind?” he asked, surprising her that he’d remembered.

“What do you mean?”

“Your brother. His loss of sight is the reason behind your work?”

“Yes, it is. He was hurt in the Iraq War during my senior year in high school. He came back home and it was really hard for him, adjusting to the loss of his vision. My brother was always this physical guy, a dude’s dude. Never met a woman he couldn’t charm. I’m sure you’re familiar with the type,” she said. He bit her ear lightly in response to her jab.

She laughed. “Anyway, he spent the first year at home in a funk, mad at the world, and then mad at us. We lived with our grandparents growing up. My grandfather died years ago.” She said, lost in her thoughts for a second. “So my grandmother about drove him crazy when he returned. She became this super protective woman, wouldn’t let him go anywhere without someone; tried to do everything for him, and I do mean
everything
. Cutting his food was the final straw, and it pulled him out of his funk enough to try and help himself, to see if he could live differently,” she said, looking over at him. “You’re sure you want to hear about this?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

“Okay, well, through the VA in Waco, he came across a person who worked there who was also blind but was living a full life—had a family, sighted wife, three boys. And there he was working, living a perfectly satisfying life. He worked full time and took care of his kids. So anyway, he told my brother about this school located in Austin where he could learn to live on his own. It’s a year program at a minimum, longer depending on your needs. Anyway, he went away and came back to us this new Joshua, who was really just the old Joshua before the accident.”

“Quite a story.”

“Not really. There are many stories like his; the blind having the choice to live out their lives just like the rest of us. So I went to college, studied hard, did my training, and I work there now, teaching,” she said.

“Like it?”

“Love it.” It was quiet for a while. He laid on his back now and she turned over to her side and placed her head on his chest.

“What’s about the other tattoos? What do they mean, the rings around your wrists?” he asked, taking both of her wrists into his hand, checking out the Braille lettering there.

“Can’t tell you,” she said.

“What?” he said, speechless for a second. “You can’t tell me?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?” he asked, no longer examining her wrist, an odd look in his eye.

“I just can’t.”

“Can’t tell me what the one on your back says, either?” he said, tracing his fingers over more Braille dots just below her neck.

“Nope, I can’t,” she said.

“Can’t or won’t?” he said.

She shrugged.

He didn’t know what to say to that. “I guess I’ll have to learn to read Braille if I want to know.”

“I guess so,” she said, her smile enigmatic. “So did I come here to talk, or was what happened earlier all I can expect for the night?” she asked. He laughed and somehow flipped her over onto her stomach before she could think, and ended up with his face near her ass.

He laughed again. That was the end of their talking for a while.

* * *

The alarm on her watch went off, waking her near midnight. She was tired. Good Lord, that was the last time she would open her mouth to a challenge…or maybe not. She smiled. He was sound asleep beside her and she smiled again. What was with all this smiling? She sat up, quietly moving so as not to wake him, making her way around the bed to the door. She reached for her boots and underwear quietly and walked, down the hall to the living room. She didn’t wake him, didn’t want to answer questions about not staying the night—which she tried to avoid—plus she had work tomorrow morning and preferred waking up in her home.

She dressed quietly, using the sliver of moon shining through the mini blinds near the empty eating area to find her hoodie. She pulled it over her t-shirt in deference to the cool night. She grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and picked up her helmet.

Now how to lock up? There were two locks. One needed a key, which she didn’t have. The smaller one she could lock from the inside and close the door. He would be safe; this
was
Austin, after all. The latest the major crime had been someone stealing fish out of the city’s nature garden. She loved this city for so many reasons. She opened the door and the cool air greeted her. She pulled his door closed behind her, checking to make sure it was locked.

She made her way to her bike, unlocked it, pushed her bag so the strap lay across her front and the bag part against her back, started her little engine, and drove away. Damn, he was good, she thought again. He tasted like some more kind of good, which hadn’t been her plan. And what the hell had she done, telling him about her brother? Just one good screw and she gave away all of the state’s secrets. So now what? Well, he didn’t have her number, but that hadn’t stopped him before. Maybe he’d be satisfied now that he’d gotten to spend almost the whole night with her. Maybe his itch had been scratched, his curiosity satisfied.

She shouldn’t go back. He was too good to drink of too often. She could get drunk and lose herself in his wilderness for who knew how long.

Hopefully that was the end of that for him. It was for her for sure. He lived close to her. He didn’t know that, either, probably thought she lived with her parents in the hood somewhere, the same place she’d lived with her boo, the giver of her bruises. And why did he have to seem so surprised by her choices? Not so much about the derby—that she was a hard-hitting punker didn’t surprise him—but the job working with the blind had.

Yes, she had forgiven his first impressions of her, but she’d knew it wasn’t the only one he probably held. What did he know of difficulties? Nice guy, she admitted, but born into the upper white-collar sphere where the world was his oyster. She’d met his type before. They’d come over after she left the rink, wanting to see if there was any truth to the rumor that
once you go black, you never go back.
It made her crazy. She’d seen his type before, wanting to see what it was like with her kind; throw in punk rocker on top of being black and people expected she would be wild. Testing out two stereotypes in one night was a hard proposition to pass up.

The size of your chip will weigh you down,
her brother’s voice said in her head. He’d said it to her enough when she had gotten angry at some injustice in the world, some treatment of one group or another, some assumptions people held about the blind, about AA, about pick a group; everyone had their expectations for what and who they were. It made her angry and kept the oversize chip squarely in place on her shoulder.

She sat at the red light, the last one before she reached her street, her home. She knew people saw what they wanted to see, put people in categories and tried to keep them there. She understood at the basic level that it was easier for them to do that, easy for them to understand the world if they could place you in a box. Then they were okay, more content with their own boxes, more at peace with their understanding of the world. If you ever challenged their worldview, it threw them, and then all hell broke loose.

She pulled into her drive, rolled up to the front door, killed her engine, and hopped off. She unlocked the front door, pulled her light and compact sunny yellow E-max 120S—her electric scooter—into her living room. This scooter had been way beyond her means, and out of her price range, but she’d found this one on Craigslist. A steal. Lucky her.

She locked her door behind her and headed for bed, choosing to shower in the morning. His cologne lingered on her skin. She could smell him as she undressed, losing everything except her boxers. She pulled back the covers and slid in, pulling them over her nearly nude body. She loved the feel of cool sheets against her skin, loved the way that man smelled. She smelled his scent now, a small cloud around her. She closed her eyes, remembering what it was like to have him inside her as she fell asleep.

* * *

Wednesday morning Adam awoke to the sound of his alarm. He opened one eye and peered at his clock. It was six-thirty. He looked over to the other side of his bed. It was vacant. His first thought was that he wasn’t surprised; his second, that maybe it was for the best. He turned over onto his back and looked over at the early morning sunlight peering in through the window.

What a night that had been. Of course he hadn’t heard her leave. He was sleeping like the dead, tired after the third time lasted longer than he expected. He’d fallen asleep, sated and satisfied. He’d remember that session well. It had been the most rigorous of them all. The first had set the course for the next. He’d been in control, setting the pace, maintaining the rhythm, choosing slow over fast, wanting to savor the punch that came so forcefully at the end of each. Whew. Got goose bumps just thinking about them.

The last had been all her, all energy. Her power source should be placed in bottle form, available at your local pharmacy. He had been wiped afterward and could barely keep his eyes open.

He took in a lungful of air. His eyes found the ceiling again. Maybe now that he spent the almost night with her, he could move on. He should move on. It shouldn’t be a problem. It had been more work than he’d imagined just getting her to spend a half night with him. He wasn’t up to working for more, not for something that was transitory at best.

He was good now, he thought. It was okay to put a period to them, skirting around the thought that this could be more. Not when he’d just gotten out of one, although to be honest, that felt like a different time in his life.

Interesting though, the part about her brother—the reason behind what she did for a living. What must losing your eyesight feel like? He’d seen the men and women making their way around town, their canes moving from left to right. His father’s dental practice was in the area near where Mariah worked, and he passed them as they waited to cross the street. He watched, amazed at the courage it required, and wondered if he’d have the same courage to forge ahead if he lost his vision.

He turned over onto his stomach, reached under his bed, and pulled out the picture of Jamie, framed, courtesy of her. It was taken after her graduation. She was a beautiful woman and, surprisingly, his heart remained quiet at his examination. She was a reminder to look before you leap, critically review your choice before you purchased. One never knew what lurked under the surface.

The outside was beautiful, the revered model of what most men were led to believe they wanted. She was the bride in white atop the pedestal, and he’d signed up without giving it any thought, had bought into the ideal that was set before him. Lucky him now. He’d barely escaped, counting his lucky stars daily to have gotten away with as little damage as he had.

He pushed the picture back under his bed and pushed his cover aside. He’d shower, dress, and then stop somewhere for some breakfast—something more substantial than his normal breakfast taco and coffee from the Taco Post. He needed pancakes. He was starving.
What a night,
he thought, moving his feet toward the shower.

* * *

“You ready?” Mariah asked Hannah, her 1-3 p.m. appointment. They were standing inside the main post office downtown. It was Hannah’s destination today, a test of her traveling around town skills. Hannah was a sweet girl who lost her eyesight as a result of an illness. They had taken the bus over, and Mariah had walked beside Hannah as she’d made her way into the post office.

“Tell me how to get back,” Mariah said.

“It’s all right turns, once you leave the front door. So, I’ll take a right after I leave here, find the sidewalk, another right at the end of it, and then another right, then follow the sidewalk to the bus stop,” Hannah said.

“How will you know what bus to take?”

“I’ll ask the driver.”

“Okay, then, get going. I need to mail a letter, so I’ll meet you at the bus stop when I’m done.”

“Okay,” Hannah said before turning to leave.

Mariah stood and watched her exit, watching as she made a right turn too soon, then continued to stand and watch Hannah as she ran into the wall, and followed her progress as she figured it out, corrected herself, and returned the way she’d come.

Mariah went on to mail her letter, her thoughts on Adam.
Whew
. He’d surprised her. Not because he was good—she’d expected that—although appearances, she learned from past liaisons, could be deceptive.

Not with him, though. He was more than she expected, more focused, not like in the car. He’d kept up with her then, but she came away with the notion that she’d somehow surprised him, that somehow the night hadn’t gone quite like he’d planned. This time he was more in control, had that hips-holding-hers-in-place thing down pat. And who knew that she’d like it?

She put her letter in the box marked ‘stamped’ while she pondered, really strongly considering giving him a call. But what would she say?
Can I have some more? I like the way you bump and grind.
Nope, even though she wanted to, very much.