Arachnodactyl

by Danny Knestaut

Rose let go. She stepped away.

  Ikey felt as if he was falling, plummeting from a tree without Rose to hold on to. He reached out. His hand smacked against a cupboard door. It rattled on its hinges.

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said. She hadn’t gone far away.

  “No,” Ikey said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” His hand gripped the edge of the cupboard and he leaned against it. He had meant to.

  “Why?” Ikey asked. “Why can’t I touch your face?”

  Rose stood quiet. Ikey strained to hear the patter of her heart, the point of it. Did Cross stick it in there for a purpose, or was it cruel artifice? Something to mock what she didn’t have?

  “Can you accept me for who I am?” Rose asked.

  Ikey straightened up, drawn from the thoughts of her heart.

  “Yes,” he said. “I can. I do. I think you are incredible. Amazing.”

  A few more seconds of silence flowered.

  “If you truly think that, then you can accept that I am faceless. If I stepped outside this home, no one would see anything of me other than this wretched body. And if I took off this veil and dropped it before me, then all would stare at my face and they still wouldn’t see it. They would see only their own pity. Their sad, oily pity collecting on my face. And I will have none of it. I will not bear it. I will not be a receptacle for their pity. I will not carry it around, bowed by its weight. My face is my own, and I don’t care to share it.”

  Ikey looked down. Somewhere beneath him was the floor. And it seemed so senseless. The floor.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I won’t try to touch your face again. I only wanted to know you better. I didn’t know.”

  Rose’s hand appeared on his arm again. “That’s all right. No harm was done.” Her fingertips traced down his arm until her hand wrapped around his. “I admire your curiosity. And your courage.” She squeezed his hand.

  Ikey flushed and closed his eyes. Bless the dark for concealing him, for hiding his own face. If he had courage he would have stood up to his dad. He wouldn’t be here. Ikey’s shoulders slumped. He wouldn’t be here, in the dark, his hand snug in Rose’s. He wouldn’t be aware of all the possibilities held by the world and by mechanisms. He wouldn’t be here to stand around with a gnawing sensation in his gut every time he thought of asking Rose about her construction, afraid of offending her, afraid the complexity found might be more than he could understand. Afraid of the answer.

  Ikey reached up and rubbed a hand over his own face. A patchy beard of several days covered his cheeks and grew around his lips. Without a mirror, without a morning routine beyond dressing and fleeing out the door behind Cross, he had neglected to shave. A stranger’s face sat under his own touch.

  “Thank you,” Ikey said, his fingertips resting on his cheek. The fuzz and flesh shifted like an animal under his touch.

  “How are your hands?” Rose asked. “Would you be up for another knitting lesson, or have you had enough excitement for the day?”

  Ikey blushed. “I think I can handle knitting.”

  Rose placed a hand on his breastbone. Ikey inhaled. His chest swelled under her touch.

  “Your other shirt is clean,” she said, “and probably dry by now. I’ll fetch it if you’ll wait for me in the sitting room.”

  Ikey reached out and placed his hands on either side of Rose’s torso. He drew her close and laid his head against her chest. His arms wrapped around the slightness of her as her own long, thin arms encased him and one of her hands settled into his hair and held his head against her ticking heart.

  His eyes closed. Against the firmness of her body, wrapped in her long embrace, a security settled over Ikey never before known. Hidden away in the dark, secreted from the men who spoke in tones of violence, he found that nothing could hurt him in the company of this magnificent creature who showed him kindness, who admired him and desired his company.

  He wanted to tell her that he loved her, but the old familiar fear shackled the words. Speaking might break the spell. Saying those words might trigger a response similar to when he tried to know her face with his fingers. There was yet so much about her that mystified him. If he wanted answers, if he wanted time to find those answers, then action would be required soon.

  Chapter Nineteen

  After Rose set Ikey up with his scarf, her own needles began to speak in the dark, and together they sat in silence and listened to their needles talk of knots and tension, loops and strings. An entire conversation spooled out between their working needles, and Ikey was content to sit and listen to the strange tongue. Knowing Rose sat close by satisfied him for the moment. No need to speak for her response, or reach out and find a bit of her in the dark and feel moored to the world.

  “It’s getting late,” Rose finally said.

  Ikey’s needles stopped speaking. Once he stopped, he noticed the scarf’s weight pulling on his wrists. “I suppose so,” he said. He transferred one needle to the other hand and felt the tongue of fabric dangling below. “It’s getting longer. I could almost wrap this around my neck.”

  The chair creaked as Rose leaned forward. One hand rested on the top of his thigh while the other reached around him and felt his progress. “It’s coming along nicely. You may be making mittens, or possibly a sweater before autumn sets in.”

  “The ship will be done before then,” Ikey said.

  “What does that matter?” Rose asked. “Do you plan to give up knitting once the ship is finished?”

  “Admiral Daughton won’t hire me for the next job. And Cross may not even keep me on that long. I’ll have to go away.”

  Rose’s other hand settled on his thigh.

  “You can’t take lessons from someone else? Knitting is a fairly common activity among women, as I understand it.”

  “Not like this. Not in the dark.”

  Rose’s hands slid away from him.

  “You don’t have to knit in the dark.”

  “I don’t need the light.”

  “What will you do in the future? Make your poor wife and children sit in the dark so you can knit in the evenings? Or will you lock yourself away from them, in a dark room?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Well, if you can’t knit in the light—”

  “I mean the wife. The children. I don’t want…”

  “You will. You’ll want a wife one day. And children. It’s the way of things.”

  “No. No, I won’t. Not like… I don’t want to marry. My dad married my mum, and… I don’t want… no children. I don’t want to.”

  Rose’s hand appeared on Ikey’s shoulder. “I’m sorry your dad is that way, but you won’t ever be like him. I can’t imagine that is in your nature. You’re too kind.”

  “I hit Cross.”

  Silence passed.

  “You hit Cross?” Rose asked.

  “It’s what set the workshop on fire. I hit him. On the jaw. And when he fell over, he knocked over the table and lantern.”

  Rose’s grip tightened. “And what did he do?”

  “He hit me. Hard. After I put out the fire.”

  “Where did he hit you?”

  “Above the eye. And in the gut.”

  Rose’s fingertips appeared at his temples and drifted around to his forehead.

  Ikey winced as she brushed the growing welt above his eye.

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said and drew her hands away. “Are you all right?”

  “You were touching my face.”

  The chair creaked with Rose’s movement.

  “It’s fine,” Ikey said. “You can touch my face. I would share that with you.”

  “Why did you hit Cross?”

  “He said… He was mean. I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to hit people.”

  Her hands appeared at his waist and then moved forward to encircle him. Her fingers laced together before his belly. Her chin, sharp and hard, settled on his right shoulder. Ikey tilted his head until the sides of their faces touched
through the veil.

  “This is what I mean,” Rose said, “about your bravery. It’s very brave of you to try and reject violence.”

  “But I hit Cross.”

  “And you know you shouldn’t have. You know it is wrong. Most men see violence as the wind that drives the world’s sails. It is taught to all from birth that violence is how men achieve their ends. Even now, as the war rages down on the Continent, the answer is not rational discussion, but a deadlier weapon.”

  “I’m helping,” Ikey said. “I came up with an idea. Cross is going to make the ship fly because of an idea I came up with.”

  Rose sat in silence. Ikey listened for cogs grinding inside her head.

  “It’s not your fault. You were compelled to help. Perhaps your idea will someday be used to bridge gaps instead of deliver bombs.”

  Ikey inhaled. His hand settled over Rose’s. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “It’s too late now. Ideas can’t be un-had.”

  “You would never do that, would you?”

  “Do what?”

  “Bombs. You’d never drop them on anyone. You wouldn’t fight in the war.”

  “No. Not that I could. I wouldn’t make much of a marksman, now would I?”

  Was it so difficult to make mechanical eyes? Or did her blindness serve Cross? It seemed unlikely that he planned it, as often as he made remarks about the darkness. And if she could see, then why was Ikey here to help build the ship instead of working on an army of automatons to descend upon the Germans with nothing in their mechanical heads and hearts beyond the simple command to eradicate?

  “Why can’t you see?”

  Silence.

  “It’s who I am. I’ve been this way my whole life.”

  “Can Cross do anything about it?”

  “What would you have him do? Make me artificial eyes?”

  “He can’t?”

  “There are limits to his abilities. After all, he needs your help to complete the ship, doesn’t he?”

  Ikey thought of light and lenses and how one might build an artificial eye, but then his thoughts jumbled apart and fell to a heap. If he made automatons that could see, someone would place a gun in their hands. It appeared that no matter what he did, someone would turn it into a weapon. Was that what the blindness served? If Rose was blind, then it was unlikely anyone would try to make a weapon of her.

  But if Ikey could build an automaton that saw, he could set it to reject guns. To reject violence. To do nothing but good. They could pilot airships into wars and take the weapons from both sides and save everyone’s brothers.

  They could stand guard beside children and wives.

  “I need to know how you work,” Ikey said. The words leaped out of him before he had a chance to fear their impact.

  “How I work?”

  “How you tick. How you operate. What makes you run? How do you think?”

  “You’re awful sweet,” Rose said. “But perhaps you spend too much time with machines.”

  Ikey sat in the dark, unsure of what to make of her comment.

  “I didn’t mean to offend,” Rose said.

  “No,” Ikey said. “I’m not offended. I just… I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “That’s quite obvious, dear. People are not machines. You cannot open them up and rummage around inside, looking for the winding spring or what have you.”

  Ikey’s hands slid from Rose’s. “I know…”

  “You spent a lot of time alone as a child, didn’t you?”

  “I did. Until my uncle’s accident.”

  “It shows. But that means no one ever fully indoctrinated you to fear all that is different from you. I’m sorry you had to grow up in such a way. It must have been hard, I’m sure, but if I may be so selfish, I am grateful for the chance to share time with someone who doesn’t fear me and who isn’t repulsed by me. It’s a rare and special treat.”

  “I don’t fear you.”

  “I know. And it’s very flattering that you want to know me better. It makes me feel like a human being.”

  Ikey placed his hand back on Rose’s. She gave a small squeeze.

  Once again, he had no clue how to react to her last statement.

  “Come,” Rose said and stood. “It’s late.”

  Sleep stood far from Ikey. His mind raced in eight different directions, but the possibility of Rose’s hands on him obliterated every other thought. Ikey dropped his knitting into the basket and followed her up the stairs, down the hall, and into his bedroom. There, he thought of excusing himself, or grabbing the nightshirt and taking it to the water closet to change, but then he snickered at himself, his foolish modesty.

  Rose’s fingers touched his shoulder, then traced their way to his throat where they slipped the top shirt button through its hole. Her fingers dropped to the next button. He wished he could see, could have a lantern or a candle to watch those fingers at graceful work. But as her fingers flew down the row of buttons, his crotch stirred and stiffened at the thought of her approaching hands. The watching dissipated from his mind.

  After the last button slipped through its loop, Rose shoved his shirt back from Ikey’s shoulders. As he shrugged and pulled at the sleeves, Rose’s fingers slipped between his belt and pelvis and the backs of her fingers brushed against his stiff cock.

  A quiver shook his knees. Rose gripped his belt and pulled Ikey close. His arms wrapped around her, and suddenly, the complexity of women’s clothing became a great concern to him. He ran his hands along her back, feeling for hooks or fasteners or whatever held her dress to her body.

  Rose undid his belt and the buttons of his trousers, reached inside and took the length of Ikey in her hand. His cock throbbed under the hook of her thumb and against her palm. Her fingers pressed lightly against his scrotum and the base of his cock.

  As she rubbed, Ikey’s hands ceased their search and found purchase in the curves of Rose’s torso.

  “You should lie down,” Rose whispered. She pushed his trousers from his hips.

  Ikey backed up until the quilt pressed against the backs of his thighs. He sat on the bed. Rose’s hands touched his thighs, ran over his knees and down his shins. Her skirt rustled as her hands tugged at his shoelaces and pulled the boots from his feet.

  Once fully undressed, he pushed himself back onto the bed. Rose climbed on top of him. Layers of satin and cotton brushed against his legs, his knees, his thigh and rolled over his pecker.

  Rose’s skirts dropped onto his chest and belly, and then she had him in her hand again.

  Ikey gasped as a soft, warm wetness descended over his pecker, followed by the weight of Rose on his hips.

  She planted her hands on his chest. Rose rocked back and forth. Ikey lifted his hips in time, thrusting up and in as Rose ground her hips down and slowly picked up a rhythm.

  Rose moaned, and Ikey thrust his hips while his hands clutched fistfuls of quilt. An implosion wracked his muscles; every fiber of him contracted in order to force himself deeper into Rose as his body disappeared in a grinding flash of sensation. For a half-second, he couldn’t tell where his body ended or began. He knew only the palms of Rose pressing against his chest, pushing down, her fingers curled as if to dig into his chest and find purchase among his ribs.

  With a grunt, Ikey collapsed back against the covers.

  Rose patted Ikey on the chest with her fingers. “Enjoy yourself?”

  “Yes,” Ikey rasped, breathless. His mind staggered to pick itself up off the back of his skull. Something wasn’t right.

  “Good. I’m glad I can do that for you. You’ve been very kind to me.” Rose moved her hands to either side of Ikey and lifted herself off him. The weight shifted off him as she lifted one hand to deal with her skirts. After a rustling of satin, she collapsed onto the bed beside him.

  Ikey pushed himself up onto an elbow. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Rose said. “Quite well, actually.” Her hand touched his shoulder. �
��Why do you ask?”

  “You’re lying down.”

  “Yes,” Rose said. “Is that all right?”

  “Yes. I never… I never see you lie down.”

  Rose giggled. “It’s been known to happen. But not often with a man. Are you sure you are fine?”

  Ikey’s brain staggered to its feet and forced him to take a deep breath. A pungent, musky odor permeated the dark. A familiar scent. Out of place. Something from the farm.

  Animal.

  His heart stopped in his chest. “You’re a woman.”

  “Well,” Rose said as the tips of her fingers traced along Ikey’s arm, “I’d like to think I just removed any doubt.”

  Ikey reached out and found Rose’s torso. She lay on her side. His fingers brushed down across the satin, again feeling for ribs. Nothing but a solid, unyielding surface pressed against his fingers. At her waist, he turned his attention upward, tracing along her torso until he found a ridge above her breast. Beyond the ridge, a softness beneath the satin yielded to his touch. Farther yet, he found a collar bone.

  “Is something bothering you?” Rose asked. “Was that all right?”

  “Yes,” Ikey said, the word tossed out in an autonomic manner.

  “Yes, what? Yes, something is bothering you, or yes, that was all right?”

  His fingers returned to the ridge above her breast and traced it across her chest.

  A corset.

  His hand dropped away from her.

  “Ikey?”

  He wrapped his arm over her and drew his head to her chest. Her fingers nestled into his hair as he pressed an ear to her heart and closed his eyes to the dark.

  The beating of her heart lacked the forcefulness, the stubborn determination he had heard when hugging his mum, his uncle, and the rare occasions when he hugged his dad. Rose’s heart beat thinner, weaker, papery.

  “What’s the matter?” Rose whispered. Her fingers tightened in his hair.

  “Nothing,” Ikey said, and he said it because he didn’t have an answer. Or an answer he could articulate.

  Rose gave him a slight squeeze.

  Ikey lay in her arms, ear pressed to her heart, and listened to the blood being shoved around her body. Her embrace no longer felt like solid protection. Instead, it felt like clutching, a grab for comfort. She was no longer a pier that moored in him the dark, but merely adrift, the same as he.