Is it because she never squints? She never frowns, never needs to try to sharpen her gaze. “You don’t look it.”
She shrugs. “What does that even mean?”
“Were you always…”
“Imperfect?”
“Blind? I don’t know what the PC term is these days. Know what? I’m tired of standing here. Move.”
“Where to?”
I think of her house, of the layout. I want a couch, and a fucking cup of coffee. “Living room. The one in the back.”
She shrugs and holds out an arm as if she wants me to guide her. I’m not sure what to do and take her hand in mine. She recoils and darts back, wincing a little when she shifts her weight. “I don’t need—”
“I’m sorry,” I say at the same time, feeling utterly stupid. Of course she doesn’t need me guiding her around. What the fuck was I thinking? “After you.”
“Is there even such a thing anymore?” she says after we’ve walked down the stairs in silence.
“What do you mean?”
“PC. Political correctness. Does anyone still bother?”
I think of the lootings and the killings. The factions. Them and us. “It’s what separates us from the animals.”
“Animals,” she says. Taking a step back, she holds out an arm and drags the tips of her fingers along the backrest of the couch. “I hear them at night, you know. In the walls.”
“Mice?”
Eve looks even more distant than usual, then seems to snap back to the present. “Ghosts.” She rounds the couch in a perfect arc, sits down, pulls her legs up, and arranges her dress to hide them.
I scoff as I sit on the table before her. I don’t believe in the supernatural. What we see is what we get. There’s nothing else out there.
She holds up her arm, letting it hang in the air between us, her hand an inch from my nose. I expect her to lean forward, to touch me, but she doesn't move. Her eerie light blue eyes seem to see into another dimension. They’re not unseeing like I’d have imagined a blind person’s eyes look. It’s more as if she sees something I don’t.
“How old are you, Adam?”
Suddenly I feel defensive. It’s a more intrusive question than I thought when I asked her the same thing. “Twenty-seven,” I mutter.
“A child,” she whispers.
“I’m not a child!”
“No.” She gives out a short laugh. “You have a child. You have a little one you try to protect.”
Toad.
If my skin didn’t feel too tight before, it definitely does now. “How the fuck do you know?”
“You smell of longing. And of baby powder.”
I open my mouth to object. She’s a fucking lunatic.
“Beneath the sharpness of the oil, the harsh stench of gunpowder.” She smiles. “Don’t worry. No one else would sense that. I promise. You don’t smell like a baby.”
“Are you patronizing me? I have killed men for looking at me funny.”
“Well, I’m not looking. Am I?” Her smile turns skewed, less loony, a lot sexier.
“So…your eyes?”
“No,” she says lightly. “I was born with eyesight. My mother didn’t believe in modern medicine. I got a preventable disease when I was two years old. It affected my brain. Made me blind.”
I already hate her family, wherever they are. I hope they’re dead. “That’s absolutely crap.”
“It’s okay. I lost my eyesight but gained mind sight.”
“That’s just bullshit.”
She shakes her head slowly. “No, Adam. You are a man with many skills, but there are things you haven’t seen, and perhaps never will.”
I don’t like her words. I know I live a limited life. We all do. I don’t like what she’s implying. We all know there’s more out there. Or was. I decide to deflect.
“Do you remember anything? Seeing anything, I mean.”
“Lights,” she says immediately. “I remember colors. In my mind the colors turn to shapes. I have recreated them every day since then.”
“Your workshop in the basement?”
“Did you peek?”
“I’ve been busy keeping track of you. I haven’t had the time.”
A small smile plays on her face. “Keeping track of me? Where do you think I’m going? I can’t go out. I don’t have a phone. I’m stuck here, at your complete mercy. Why don’t you go take a look at my art?”
My cock stirs at her words. At my complete mercy. I can have any woman I point at back at the compound, but I’ve found myself less and less interested. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the challenge? For some reason I’ve forced myself to keep my head out of the gutter since I got here. I’ve watched her thin robe wet and hugging her curves snugly. I stood in silence as she peeled it off and changed into dry, ill-fitting, utterly ugly clothes. I was too caught up in the moment, too used to our new way of life where you Do. Not. Touch a stranger, to even think the thought, to even allow the blood to rush to my cock. But here we are. A day and a night later, it’s too late to think about keeping the distance.
It’s a piss-poor cliché – a stunning woman who doesn’t know how beautiful she is. In this case it must be the absolute truth. Eve is a white spot on the map. Uncharted territory.
She darts to her feet and screams. Stumbling backward and falling over the back of the couch, Eve disappears with a grunt. I’m up the next moment, leaping over the couch, finding her huddled on the floor, hugging her knees.
“No touching!” she cries.
My fingertips tingle with a recent memory. I didn’t even think it over. I just wanted… I see it before me as a perfect frozen moment, my hand on her knee. I want to touch her now. Again. Why shouldn’t I? I splay my fingers and brush her hair. It sticks out in all different directions, like a mad halo of near-white afro curls. It’s dry and tickles my skin as I shove my fingers deep into her thick mane, then I grab a tight hold and pull back her head, arching her neck beautifully.
“I’ll touch you however much I want, Eve.”
I don’t know what I expected would happen. Whatever it was, it wasn’t that her face would turn into stone, an expressionless façade over pain deeper than I had ever imagined would exist.
Eve
“I’ll touch you however much I want.”
His warm, tender voice, uttering the cruelest of statements, claiming rights he doesn’t have, reducing me to an object, as if I am not heart and soul, as if I don’t have thoughts, needs, and a mind of my own. His voice is warm, but it’s a traitorous sound because as much as the timbre makes my body hum in resonance, the words make my spirit freeze in fear.
Men are beasts. It’s all I know – all I’ve ever been told. Stay away. Be grateful that you’re useless because all they do is take for their own pleasure.
So I’ve stayed away. I never had a choice. I’ve been locked inside first by my family, then by my blindness and the plague that ran across the world. Now I’m locked in place by a stranger’s hand, wrapped tightly in my hair, pulling at my roots, making my scalp sting.
I try to imagine it, but I don’t know how it works. What do men do to women? It must be terrible. Mother said she had children for God. I don’t know what God wanted with me, though. I’m not meant to procreate. I’m an abomination. A ghost.
A voice.
A hand on my cheek.
“For fuck’s sake. Eve!”
A grip around my chin.
I wait for the blow, breathless. His scent is in my nostrils. It’s everywhere. My skin is raw where he touches it.
The house waits. Everything waits.
Finally, I can’t hold it in, and I slam up my fists in the direction of his voice, letting it all out on a never-ending wail.
“Don’t touch me! Please!” I battle his arms. It feels like fighting an eight-armed demon. His hands are everywhere. Finally, he has me bundled together, my back against his rapidly rising and falling chest, his cheek, raspy with coarse hair, pressed against mi
ne. I make little residual attempts at getting away, but my arms are pressed tightly to my sides, and only my toes touch the floor. He holds me with long, strong arms. They could have felt safe, hadn’t he been so terrifying. His scent has deceived me. His voice has lulled me into thinking he is a better man. Mother was right. All men are monsters.
“Eve. I’m really fucking tired of this shit. I don’t want to be here. I’m fucking stuck. I haven’t had any coffee since yesterday morning because I didn’t want you to smell it and know I was here. I’ve only had a can of beans that I stole out of your cupboard when you were sleeping, and as for sleeping, I need like six more hours of fucking sleep. Stop. Fighting.”
I exhale on a shudder. My heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest but calms slowly as he doesn’t move or talk again. That’s too much information for me to take in at once. I decide on something I can grasp, something I can actually accomplish. “I can make you coffee.”
Adam’s chest shakes. He’s laughing. My belly fills with anger that chases away the fear.
“I can make coffee.”
I almost fall when he suddenly lets me go. He steadies me with a hand on my elbow.
“Then get to it, woman.”
I have to get my bearings first, but then I put one shaky step in front of the other and make my way to the kitchen, feeling and hearing him trail right behind me, his presence so close it makes the skin on my back tingle. The memory of his hands on me burns as hot as ever the kiln in my workshop.
I make quick work with the brewer. The earthy scent of coffee is delicious and makes my mouth water. Neither of us speaks. I feel the sun on my face and try to imagine the outside. For the first time in a long while I have someone new I can ask, someone who can describe it to me, with their own interpretation. My mind spins from the possibilities. I want the news, but what if I’d get disappointed? What if it doesn’t look like I imagine it?
I jump and choke down a cry as his hands suddenly grips mine and turn them over, palms up.
I’ll touch you however much I want.
Calloused fingertips trace my scars. His moves are slow and measured. The fresher wounds sting, and I let out a hiss of pain as he fingers them. Apart from that, it’s not uncomfortable. I’m just not used to anyone touching me. Ever.
“What happened to your hands?”
I try to pull back, embarrassed. The brewer gurgles louder, higher pitched. He won’t let me hide my hands.
“Burns. They are burns.”
“Why do you have so many burn marks?”
“Is it bad?”
He’s quiet, moving his fingers over mine as if he’s reading me. “Yeah, they’re pretty bad.”
“I’m sorry.”
The brewer gurgles even louder, then it stops with a little snap. The smell of coffee is even more enticing when it mingles with oil, anger, and adrenaline.
“Why are you sorry? Who did this to you?”
I laugh and pull my hands out of his. He lets me this time. I grab two cups out of the cupboard and put them on the counter. I trace the slightly uneven surface. They’re mine. I made them. A very long time ago. I pour coffee for us and then turn, holding up a cup in the space between us.
“I do it to myself. It’s from the kiln. In my workshop.”
He cups my hands that’s holding the cup. There’s no anger in him now, only surprise and unease. “Is this yours? You made this?”
His touch isn’t unpleasant. I haven’t forgotten his hard grip when we wrestled behind the couch, but it’s clear that touching doesn’t have to be only bad.
“Do you like it?” I haven’t looked for anyone’s approval since my grandmother died. There has been no one who could care. Suddenly, I’m shy. Suddenly I want his approval. It surprises me and shames me. It’s vanity, and it’s a sin. Mother said I was always vain, and that’s why God took away my eyes.
His hold lightens, and he lets me push the cup into his hands. When I don’t carry the weight anymore, I let go.
“It’s very nice, Eve. What more have you done?”
I spin around, pour the other cup and grab it, turning toward him again. “Do you want to see?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Chapter Six
Eve
He’s silent a long time as he moves through my workshop. As always, I don’t know how much time passes as I busy myself with the kiln and take out the bust and the pottery from yesterday. I used to glaze them back in the day, but since Kiki stopped selling, I stopped caring about the surface. I just want to create the shapes. If the outside life ever comes back to what it used to be, or maybe a new normal, I can put glaze on them then. As it is now, no one sees what I make anyway.
Except today, someone does.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore.
“What do you think?” I haven’t heard him move in a while, and I’m unsure of where he’s at.
His heavy steps approach from the left. There are slight crunches when his soles hit little pebbles of dried clay. I turn to him. His hand on mine makes my heart jump in surprise. It’s not unfriendly. It’s surprisingly unthreatening, in fact.
“Are you all right?” he asks, his voice softer than before.
I frown. I’m never ‘all right’. But I’m no more or less all right now than I was yesterday.
Maybe a little less today, by the way, but I see no reason to tell him about all my fears. “Yes. Or, well… What?”
“Do you know what it fucking looks like down here? In there? On the shelves in your storage.”
My heart flutters with worry. I desperately hope that there hasn’t been a water leakage, or that some animals have found their way in to destroy—
“I have seen some shit in my life, Eve. But this…”
I can’t take it anymore. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Fuck. I don’t know what to call it. Deformed body parts, girl. Everything in there looks like it’s in pain. Fuck’s sake. How sick are you?”
I sag with relief. Oh. That.
“There’s pottery too,” I say lightly, trying to even out the burden of his visit to my inferno, my version of Hell. Poor Adam. It was never meant to be experienced like this, all thrown at him at once.
“Pottery…” He snorts out an odd-sounding laugh. “Did you do all that stuff?”
“I’ve been working on it a very long time. I’m sorry if it upset you—”
“Upset? For the ever loving— Who the fuck hurt you?”
Every nerve cell in my body sizzles with memories. Words. Canes. Belts. Isolation. Cold showers. Sin. Sin. Sin.
Who hurt me?
Who didn’t hurt me?
“Eve?” His fingers touch my chin. I recoil, but then I come back for more. He likes to touch. Touching means death. How is he alive? I close my eyes and tilt my head ever so slightly in his direction. My insides ache. I never knew a touch could be so addictive. “How do you get by? Are you alone?” His thumb strokes my cheek, back and forth. The sound that passes my lips is one of pain. I stumble back, biting down on my lip so that it won’t tremble.
Alone?
Yes. Achingly so.
“Kiki comes by once a week with groceries. She helps me pay my bills. Water and electricity. I don’t use much of anything… Except—” I spread out my arms. “Clay.”
“And who is Kiki?”
His deep murmur of a voice startles me. He’s much closer than I expected. I stumble back a step and connect with the railing to the stairs.
“Kiki Kann. She’s…my gallerist. My—” I lick my dry lips. “Friend.”
“Mm-hmm. And when does Kiki come by the next time?” There’s a new tension in his voice, an interest that sets off a flutter of worry in the pit of my belly. And he’s close. So, so close. My shoulders shoot up to my ears, and every muscle is so tense that I think I’ll break.
“Tomorrow,” I gasp. My own breath bounces hot on his lips and returns as a little puff.
“Tomorrow,” he echoes.
> His breath is coffee and hunger, lack of sleep and too much emotion. He is so close that if I lean forward even the slightest, our lips will touch. I wonder if he tastes like he smells. I want to try him, but I can’t, I mustn’t.
“Why—Why are you asking about Kiki?”
“I want to taste you.”
His unexpected words, echoing my own thoughts as if they had corporealized, jolt me. A bolt of heat surges through me, followed by a numbness that spreads from my feet upward until my knees fold. I stagger, but he catches me. Then his lips are on mine. Full, like mine, soft but hard, hesitant and eager.
And then he’s gone.
I stumble forward, flailing to catch something so I don’t fall. Adam is there, but I fall anyway – not my body, it’s safe in his arms – but my insides. A void opens beneath me, a roaring inferno, swirling, reaching its cold tendrils toward me. Gasping, I rub my eyes hard, forcing myself back to the basement of my grandmother’s house, to my workshop, to my never-changing present, that has suddenly become ever-changing. I don’t know the rules anymore. I don’t know how to breathe.
“I’ll take care of you,” he mumbles against my hair, then he scoops me up in his arms, his muscles tightly coiled under my back and my thighs, his chest heaving as he carries me up the stairs.
“What are you doing?”
We keep moving. The air changes. The smell. Hallway. Living room. His breaths get a little harsher in the second set of stairs. Upper corridor with all the rooms. Ever so carefully, he lays me down on something soft. I recognize the texture of my bedspread beneath my palm and scramble back in sudden panic. We’re on my bed. He took me to bed?
I’ll touch you however much I want.
“Don’t!”
Don’t lie with me.
“Don’t what?”
“Please.”
Please, touch me again.
“Please what?”
“You know.”
“Know what I know? I don’t know shit, Eve. You make me feel funny stuff. I want to taste you, feel you, open you up and see what hides inside. It makes me fucking furious that you can’t see me!”
I Am Eve Page 4
