Beyond Touched

by Ashley Logan

  “You know I really liked it when you called me Mr. Shermansky,” he says with a gentle smile. Confused, my forced smile turns into a frown.

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No,” he says, his face deadpan. “I really did like it.”

  “Good for you. What does that have to do with triangles?”

  “You hate them,” he says, looking at his board.

  “And?”

  “And if you’re ever going to accept them as part of your life, you have to make them likable. Or at least tolerable,” he says, doing something to make his small triangle bigger. Drawing a smiley face on it, he turns back to me. “Does this triangle still look scary?”

  Staring at him in disbelief, I look at the happy triangle. Shaking my head, I look back at him with what I’m sure must be a look that screams, ‘Are you fucking crazy?’

  Saying nothing, Damon turns his back to draw something else on the board. When he moves out of the way again, I laugh. His happy triangle now has arms reaching above it, it’s wearing a tutu and has stick legs that end in ballet slippers.

  “How about now?” he asks.

  “It’s not nearly as scary as your bizarre style of tutoring.”

  His lips twitch at the corner and he turns around again, pulling a drop-window down from the top of the screen. Selecting something, he turns around again and taps the triangle. It begins rotating, giving the appearance of a happy, two-dimensional triangle spinning in an endless pirouette.

  “How about now?”

  Watching the comical triangle ballerina spinning, I appreciate Damon’s efforts to make me smile. “This triangle is not scary.” I concede.

  “What do you think her name is?” Damon asks, also watching her spin.

  Snorting, I look at her. “I don’t know. The Great Tri-Zinski? I feel like she’s probably Russian if she pirouettes with such dedication without showing any signs of dizziness.”

  “Perfect. The Great Tri-Zinski is your triangle, Alexa. Anytime you come across a question involving a triangle, this is the triangle you will use. Forget about every other triangle. You don’t need them.” Tapping the screen, Damon stops her spin and does something that makes two of her sides longer, changing her appearance.

  “Like all dancers, she too is flexible. She can change into any triangle you might need, including this one,” he says, changing her again to create a right angle triangle. “You know this angle?” he asks, drawing a tiny square in the triangle’s corner.

  “Ninety degrees.”

  “Very good. The Great Tri-Zinski performs in many shows, so she has to be adaptable. This is the form she will take when she wants to play the role of a Roman with an alphabet.” Labeling the triangle’s sides a, b and c, Damon writes an equation at the bottom of the board and then opens my books to show the same equation. “Shall we begin with Pythagoras’ Theorem?” he asks, gesturing to a seat at the desk. Sitting next to me, he nudges my pencil towards me with a warm smile.

  Smiling back, I wipe my eyes before the tears burst their banks. “Thank you,” I whisper, taking up the pencil.

  “You’re welcome,” he says, kissing my head and pointing at the first question. “Let’s get that brain of yours ready to conquer. Even though your triangle doesn’t look worried about those letters hanging around her, we need her to make friends with them so we can introduce her to some tighter angles that really make her look sharp.”

  Giggling, I write out the first question. “You’re such a math nerd.”

  “I know. And look out, because it’s totally contagious,” he says, nudging me with his elbow as he watches me draw a diagram to help myself clarify the question. “Especially for people who already have some form of the disease.”

  “Are you calling me a geek?”

  “Who else reads Shakespeare and Poe on purpose?” he says, laughing a little.

  “It’s not a bad thing,” he insists when I frown. “I happen to think it’s incredibly sexy, but that’s inappropriate to say to a student, so I’d best not say any more on the subject.”

  “That would be wise, Mr. Shermansky.”

  Turning my focus to the problems in front of me, I slowly work through them, keeping only the dancing triangle in my mind. Amazingly, it makes it so much easier to concentrate and although I still need to refer to the formula each time, I think I’m actually getting the hang of it.

  Damon watches quietly and patiently until I get through the page of questions.

  “Very good, Alexa,” he says, as if he’s actually proud of me. “I think you did those last two at a great speed. And they’re all correct. How did it feel?”

  Unable to keep from smiling, I look up to see him grinning at me. “It felt pretty damn good, actually. What other tricks have you got in your repertoire?”

  “Oh you’ll see,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows at me. “Just wait until we get to parabolas and polynomials and I bring over my slingshot and rocket,” he says in all seriousness before pointing at my textbook. “I want you to do five more of these, while you’re feeling comfortable and familiar with them, then we’ll move on,” he says, turning the page for me and getting up to do something at his board. “What’s your email address? I can send through notes and things related to what we revise.”

  “It’s a Hotmail account, and I’m lexicon3000,” I reply distractedly. Tapping my calculator, I turn around when I hear him chuckling to himself. “What?”

  Shaking his head, he continues swiping things on his screen. “I knew you had the nerd virus.”

  “Yeah, well... you have a rocket.”

  “Rockets are awesome,” he says, laughing again. “You’re a word junkie! Lexicon?”

  Thinking my adopted email name is both clever and cool, I frown at him.

  “3000.”

  That only makes him laugh harder. Blushing, I return my attention to my workbook. A phone rings from over by Damon’s bag and he’s still trying to catch his breath from laughing as he makes his way over to it. Wiping a tear from his cheek, he swipes the screen and then taps it.

  “Hey Ma,” he says, still affected by the occasional chuckle.

  “Hi Damo. You sound happy. What’s so funny?”

  Clearing his throat, Damon looks across the room at me. “Nothing, Ma. Just studying with a friend is all.”

  “She sounds pretty,” his mother says, making me laugh.

  What the hell kind of assumption is that?

  Damon turns a delicious shade of red. “Yeah. Alexa is very pretty. Even with newspaper ink smudged across her forehead. And you’re on speaker-phone, so if you could not make me look like a total dick, I’d really appreciate it.”

  Now his mom is laughing. “I’ll do my best, but make no guarantees,” she says as I start rubbing furiously at my forehead. “I just wanted to call and ask if it was alright with you if we had thanksgiving dinner early. As in the weekend before. Lara says she’s got something important to do, so she won’t be able to make it home except for that weekend.”

  “Something?” Damon asks, his expression confused as he looks out the window. “Why does she always have to be so cryptic? What something important must she do?”

  “Someone important, if you ask me,” his mom replies, laughing again.

  “Mo-om!” Damon cries, tipping his head back in disgust.

  “Oh, grow up. She’s twenty-one years old.”

  “Doesn’t mean I want to think about it!” Damon says, pressing a stump to his head and flicking it away as if trying to gouge the very thought from his mind. Trying not to laugh, I pull my chair in and look at my books.

  Muttering something under his breath, Damon laughs lightly. “Thanks so much for calling, Ma. I’ll come for dinner whenever you want. Just please stop torturing me.”

  “Good. And remember you’re exempt from cooking this year because you’re on clean up.”

  “Oh man. Can’t I be on turkey, or decorations? Surely someone with hands would be better suited to the role of washing
dishes? I might break all of your fine china.”

  “Damon Shermansky, it’s your turn. Nobody likes doing dishes, but you’ll do your share, just like everyone else. Fancy using your hands as an excuse when we both know you’re perfectly capable of doing the task. It’s your turn and you will clean up.”

  “Okay Ma. Sheesh. It was worth a try.” Sighing, Damon looks at me and cringes. “Ma, I gotta go. I totally just lost all my cool points and have to earn them back. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay honey. Bye Alexa!” she calls through the phone to me.

  “Bye Mrs. Shermansky,” I reply with a smile, still rubbing at my forehead as Damon swipes his phone off. Standing completely still Damon watches me carefully.

  “How bad was that?” he eventually asks. “I can’t tell from the look on your face.”

  Shaking my head, I return my attention to the final question I need to complete. “I don’t think I’d say it was bad,” I say, tapping my calculator and writing in my answer. “It was definitely entertaining. Your mom seems really funny.”

  “Yeah. She’s a real hoot,” he says coming to sit next to me again and checking through my work. Smiling, he gives a nod of approval and flips through the textbook, probably to find some of those angles he was talking about.

  “Does your mom drive you nuts?” he asks casually as he presses the pages flat at the next section.

  Surprised, I keep my eyes on the books. “Ah, no.” My hollow voice gives me away, so I don’t bother to hide anything. “She died when I was eight, so we never really got to that part of the relationship.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he says, sitting up straight and looking at me. “I -. That must have been very hard,” he says, his voice collapsing a little to sound more similar to mine.

  “Actually it was only the beginning of the hard stuff,” I say quietly. “But I’ve survived so far, and I’ll be damned if a stupid math test is going to stop me from doing what I want, so shall we continue?”

  Watching me a moment longer, Damon nods. Staring at the textbook a while, he finally gets up and returns to his Jamboard. Clearing his throat, he alters my triangle’s sides to make her look skinny and slanted.

  “Angles,” he says, drawing an arrow to point at each one. “What to call them and how to measure them with, and without tools.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  DAMON

  Ultimately, I think the study session went well. After pizza, Alexa showered and went downstairs to prepare for her performance. While I wait for the show to start, I hang out with Bruno by the club’s open door. He admits far more people than I would have imagined visit a strip club on a Monday night, and I take it all in from my spot against the wall as I sip at my beer and think about Alexa. And triangles. And her dead mother. My imagination is running wild with what might have happened to her in the years after that.

  “You look like you’re going to throw up,” Bruno says, leaning out the door and scanning the street before giving me his full attention. “You need to go and sit down?”

  Shaking my head, I take another sip of my beer. “Just thinking about unpleasant things. I’ll stop now,” I reassure him. “I might throw up if I don’t.”

  Bruno eyes me warily. “How was the study session?”

  “Good. Productive, I think. She’s a smart girl.”

  Nodding, Bruno cards two guys and admits them. “So you think your plan of hanging around until she can’t live without you will work?” he asks, laughing a little.

  “Don’t laugh. It’s entirely feasible. I’m a very likable person.”

  “Then why don’t you sound as confident as you did when you explained it to me this morning?”

  Shrugging, I look into the club to see all of the men, and some women, who have come to enjoy the evening’s entertainment.

  “It might be a more complex situation than my original estimate. I’m sure I can figure it out, I just need the time-frame to be a bit flexible.” So long as I can convince Alexa to put up with me after she passes her test, I should be able to keep convincing her. Technically.

  Sighing a little, I set my jaw. “I’m cautiously optimistic.”

  “Well go be cautiously optimistic inside. Your green-around-the-gills ‘thinking face’ is bad for business,” he says, pushing me towards the bar.

  “Thanks for the chat,” I call over my shoulder as I raise my right no-hand to flip him the invisible bird. He laughs, so I know he got it. Pulling up a stool at the bar, I return Benji’s greeting nod.

  “Thanks for dinner. You’re a fine cook.”

  “Thanks,” Benji says with a grin. “You think I’d be better off financially, being the master behind the vast recipes of Dante’s Pizza Palace, but alas I have not yet received a single ounce of the recognition I so greatly deserve,” he jokes. “You’re staying for the whole show?”

  Shaking my head, I turn to the curtains that hide the empty stage. “I’m just here for Alexa. She said she has a double act to open and then a solo some time after. Then we’re heading back upstairs to study.”

  “Study,” he repeats, grinning as he nods. “Good one. Last night, I studied this girl so hard we put a dent in her wall. I have to go around there tonight and fix it before she’ll let me study again.”

  Laughing, I shake my head and drink my beer as he greets a woman approaching the bar. Turning around as I hear the music change, I watch Smith climb the side steps to the stage and walk in front of the curtain. Dressed in a well fitted shirt and tailored pants, he looks different to the guy I met yesterday wearing ripped jeans and a t-shirt, but he definitely fits the image of the club now, which is actually pretty classy. Booths line most walls and tables fill the center space, so it appears to be set up for entertaining, but I imagine it also allows for general socialization between sets.

  The clientele certainly seems more up-market and tame than some of the riff-raff I’ve seen at other strip joints, and they seem well-suited to the almost glamorous atmosphere of the club. My eyes return to Smith as he greets the crowd.

  “Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the one, the amazing, Beyond the Horny Buffalo. Tonight your eyes will feast upon beauty and grace in such epic proportions it defies belief. Every dancer will delight you with their awe-inspiring abilities and style, delivering a unique level of entertainment that by far surpasses anything you will see at any other club in the city,” he announces with the rich voice of someone who should be working in the radio industry. “In this club, we’ll take you beyond the familiar to the simply extraordinary. You can show your appreciation by using the specially labeled envelopes on your tables - yes that’s right, the one’s printed with the names of our lovely ladies. Simply place your tips inside and pop them through one of the slots if you like what you see. Our girls just love it when people appreciate them, but please do keep your hands and other body parts entirely to yourselves as our stunning dancers excite you beyond your wildest dreams. Sit back, relax, and enjoy a drink with your friends as we welcome you to a wondrous world that borders on fantasy. A world that shows people in a light beyond what you thought you knew. First up, please welcome to the stage, Diamond and Flex,” Smith says in clear, showman tones. Holding out a presenter’s arm, he travels sideways as the curtain begins to rise from the dim stage.

  A soft circle of light begins to pulse and bloom in the center of the stage as an interesting piece of music begins to play, jazz-like in style. As Bettina (or Teeny, as they call her) and Alexa saunter on to the stage from opposite sides, they move with the deep beat. Swallowing the last of my beer, I set the bottle on the bar before I drop it.

  Dressed in nude-toned bodysuits, they appear to be completely naked, except for the few gleaming, strategically-placed sequins setting my mind at ease. Another beer replaces my empty bottle and I feel Benji pat me on the shoulder as I stare at the stage, transfixed.

  Diamond and Flex meet at center-stage, having mirrored each other’s movements along the way. Still doing so, their movements refle
ct each other perfectly. The effect is all the more intriguing because while Alexa’s fair hair and skin tone has a rich tan, Teeny’s dark hair and chocolate skin is in deep contrast, leading both petite women to appear as distinct opposites. I watch fascinated, as the center light drops and two others light up on either side of the stage. That’s when I see the two weird metal structures that the spots have highlighted.

  With the same immaculate timing, the girls move to opposite structures. On closer inspection, the strange things appear to be stepped into tiny platforms. Climbing them like dainty stairs, the girls do the same eye-catching moves atop those tiny platforms, before one of the lights flicks out.

  Only Alexa is highlighted now, and I am completely amazed as she puts her hands on two of the platforms and turns herself upside down. Moving with the music, she balances and twists her body into all manner of pretzel shapes, making me wonder where in the world her bones are. I don’t know when upside-down became so sexy, but I’m now convinced of its merits.

  Too soon, Alexa’s light goes out and Teeny’s light shines again, allowing her to show off her talents. I feel kind of rude turning away, but I also feel strangely uncomfortable watching someone that isn’t Alexa. Taking the beer Benji has so helpfully supplied me, I take a long drink. Benji winks and shakes his head at me as his eyes return to the stage. Glancing over my shoulder, I turn back around as Alexa’s light flicks back on and they reflect each other’s movements again, but upside down this time. The strength and skill involved is mind-boggling and I’m still trying to comprehend it as the girls finish balancing and flip from their stands.

  Making their reflected way back to the center of the stage, they dance in front of each other as if each of them is pleasantly parading themselves in front of an actual mirror. Their brazen moves flaunt all of those glorious assets that girls have and I swallow roughly as my internal temperature rises even higher. As the music begins to wind down, they give each other a peck on each cheek, European-style, and walk away from each other with sassy hips as the audience erupts into applause. Unable to clap myself, I drum my arms on the bar in appreciation.