by Marie Sexton
“Wow.”
“Exactly. And then she quit a year later. Went back to playing soccer instead.”
I thought back to eighth grade, when I’d signed up for soccer. I played for half a year before my mother suggested I concentrate on not letting my stump flap around so much as I ran. My father bought me a skateboard, as if that could make up for it, but I never set foot on a soccer field again.
It was unnerving how much my life seemed to mirror June’s, and yet in every case, I had the dark, scary, nightmare version.
“Have you noticed the moon tonight?” Nick asked suddenly.
The change of subject surprised me. He was staring out my sliding glass door, and he reached out to me. “Come look,” he said as his fingers touched my arm.
Such a simple gesture, but it caused me to freeze in my tracks. Nobody ever touched my left arm. Not casually, at any rate. Sure, doctors had touched me there with cold, practical efficiency. And my mother had touched me there, but only out of embarrassed necessity. Friends or relatives occasionally, but always by accident. They always apologized for it, quickly turning away. But in twenty-eight years, I couldn’t recall anybody touching me there the way Nick was touching me now. I felt the need to hold perfectly still lest he realize he was touching my ruined arm and pull away.
His fingers moved again, a tickle on my flesh, a spark of energy that raced up my arm, over my shoulder, and raised goose bumps on the back of my neck. I shivered, suddenly transported back to a day from my childhood: sitting in the cold, prickly grass in the shade of a tree, the buzz of a distant lawnmower, traffic passing on the street, and me, enthralled by a ladybug crawling on my left arm. The almost imperceptible kiss of sensation as it crept down my biceps, over the inside of my elbow, around the pink apex of my stump, which was rife with nerve endings and exquisitely sensitive. That tiny, beautiful bug was oblivious to the horror beneath her feet. My left arm was as good as my right as far as she was concerned. In my whole life, no person had ever touched me like that, as if unaware that my left arm wasn’t normal.
Until Nick.
“Owen?” he asked. His hand shifted. Not pulling away, but changing from a brush of fingers to a gentle grip around my biceps. “Are you okay?”
I opened my eyes, like waking from a dream, to find him staring at me. My vision blurred.
“I’ve upset you. What did I do?”
Jesus, I was crying! I turned away, trying desperately to wipe my eyes. “It’s n-n-n—” And now I was stuttering too. As if I needed a reason to be more embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. Tell me what I did.”
“I’m fine. I’m s-sorry. Must be s-something in my eye.” God, was that really the best I could do?
“Owen?”
I felt his hand on my arm again, sliding downward toward the hideous joint of my elbow, and I pulled away, suddenly horrified. “Please,” I said, holding up my arms to ward him off, but that only served to draw attention to the fact that one was longer than the other. I looked at the stump of my left arm, pointed obscenely in his direction, and hurried to tuck it back down out of sight at my side. I tried to turn away, but I’d gone as far as I could. I was against the wall, and there he was, staring at me, his eyes wide—not with horror, but with compassion and confusion. I wiped furiously at my eyes. I forced my tongue to move without betraying me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just tell me what I did.”
How could I explain it? Talk of soccer and superheroes had left me raw, and something as simple as his hand on my arm had apparently done me in. “It’s n-not your fault.”
“But—”
“Give me a m-minute, okay?”
“Sure.”
And he did. He took a step back to give me space. I didn’t have to look at him to know he was still watching me, patiently waiting for me to get my shit together and stop acting like a freak. Waiting for me to get my traitorous tongue under control. I took a couple of deep breaths. I dried my cheeks. My heart had at least stopped racing. I wasn’t as flustered, which meant I could speak clearly. “I’m being stupid. It’s really no big deal—”
He reached out again and put his hand on my left shoulder, cutting my words short. For half a second I found myself wondering why he kept touching the left side of my body, but then I realized it was obvious—he was right-handed. And unlike most people, his discomfort at my disability didn’t overcome his natural inclination to use his dominant hand.
“Owen?” he asked again.
He was so earnest and reassuring, and I blurted out the answer without realizing I was going to do it. “Nobody touches me.”
He pulled his hand away, looking stricken. “You’re saying you don’t like to be touched?”
“No.” And suddenly the absurdity of the situation hit me. I laughed. It felt good, such a normal, healthy release of tension, but it made Nick look even more confused than before. “My arm,” I said, gesturing with my right hand toward it. “People don’t touch it.”
He blinked at me, processing that, and I saw comprehension dawn.
Now that the moment had passed, I was left with nothing but embarrassment that I’d overreacted, and in such a dramatic fashion. “I’m being stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” he said. He put his hand up again, slower this time, and brushed his fingertips over my upper arm. “Our skin is our largest sensory organ. Humans don’t just want to be touched. We need it. Babies who aren’t touched enough don’t thrive. Adults need it too. Wanting to be touched isn’t stupid. It’s normal.” He stroked my arm again. Not a mere touch this time. It was a caress. “What is our flesh for if not to feel?”
Suddenly embarrassment was the last thing on my mind. There wasn’t much space left between us, but he managed to move closer. My mouth went dry. I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding.
He stroked both of my arms. His smile turned from gentle and soothing to something that made the blood in my veins rush quickly toward my groin. He leaned forward and kissed my jaw, causing my breath to catch in my throat. His lips teased toward my ear. “The question is,” he said, his voice low and husky, “where else haven’t you been touched lately?”
I whimpered because it was all I could do. The implication of his words made me dizzy. My cock tried to burst from my jeans. His left arm snuck behind me, around my waist. He ran the fingers of his right hand down my stomach. I put my good arm around his neck, moaning as his fingers reached the buttons on my jeans, anticipating where he’d touch me next, aching desperately for it, wondering without alarm if I’d come in my jeans before he got them undone. I didn’t care if I did. All those years of telling myself I could be straight if only I met the right woman were suddenly revealed for sheer folly. I didn’t want the right woman. I wanted a man.
I wanted Nick.
He kissed my neck. His erection pushed against mine. It sent a tremor through me, knowing he was as turned on as I was. He slid his hand inside my jeans to cup my groin, and I moaned, arching into him, panting with impatience, ready to give every inch of myself to him. No matter that I was a virgin. No matter that I had no idea what to do. Whatever he wanted, I was ready for it.
Desperate for it.
But then he stopped.
I waited, my heart pounding, my cock straining for more of his touch. Nick took a deep, shuddering breath. He moved his hand away from my groin.
“Nick?” I asked in a hoarse whisper.
He put his forehead on my shoulder. He didn’t let me go, but his grip loosened. He put both of his hands on my hips, allowing a tiny gap to grow between us. “I’m sorry.” His voice was so soft, I almost didn’t hear him.
“Please don’t stop.”
“I have to.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.”
And yet he offered no explanation. I could only come up with one possibility. “Is it me?”
His laugh was full of bitterness. “That depends on how
you look at it.”
That stung, and I took my arm from around his neck, wishing I could pull away, but I was still trapped against the wall.
He must have sensed my dismay, and he stepped back to meet my eyes. It wasn’t disgust or shame I saw there, but grief. It made me want to hold him and comfort him, even though I had no idea what was going on.
He cupped my cheek in his hand. “No, Owen. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s not your fault. I suppose I could blame you for being so damn tempting. All I can think about is how much I want to touch you….”
My world seemed to spin. I was tempting? I was all he could think about? “Then what’s the problem?”
“I can’t.” He kissed my forehead. A quick, tender gesture that made my throat ache. “Good night, Owen.” And before I could respond, before I could even catch my breath, he let me go.
And he left.
Chapter Five
THE NEXT few days were torture. I didn’t see Nick at all, although I couldn’t stop thinking about him or about how perfect it had felt when he touched me. It had been only a few short minutes, and yet in that time, I felt as if all my insecurities had disappeared. For those brief moments, I’d felt brave and sexy.
I’d felt whole.
And yet now I was afraid to face him. I was afraid of what I might see in his eyes.
On the fifth day, June appeared at my door. “I found us a teacher. She’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
I could only blink at her in surprise. I’d all but forgotten her idea of taking piano lessons. I certainly hadn’t expected her to appear on my front porch having already lined up an instructor.
“What if I’m busy?”
“But you’re not, are you? Nick says you work from home. That means you’re available.”
I wanted to be annoyed at her and her wild dark hair and her cocky grin, but what good would it do? Instead I went like a condemned man down the steps to Nick’s place.
“Her name’s Amelia. Like Amelia Bedelia. Remember those books?”
“No.”
“She’s going to come twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays at five thirty. Lessons are an hour long. We’ll split the cost, okay?”
Did I have a choice?
“She has a recital scheduled the week before Christmas. She asked if we wanted to play in it, and I told her—”
“No!”
“—yes.”
“We haven’t even learned a note yet!”
“Well, so what? She says lots of her beginning students will be playing in it.”
“Oh God,” I moaned. The recital was two months away, and already I could feel my blood pressure climbing. I wondered if I could appeal to Nick to talk June out of it.
Of course, that would mean facing him.
He came in from the kitchen to greet me, looking self-conscious and nervous. “I’m glad you came. I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me.”
I looked over at June, who was riffling through the music in the piano bench. I stepped closer to Nick and spoke quietly, giving us a semblance of privacy. “Given how we left things, it seems more likely that you wouldn’t want to see me.”
He sighed, looking down at the floor. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
I could accept the apology, but I wanted more. I wanted to know what had gone wrong. “You mean you’re sorry you left?”
“I’m sorry I let myself get carried away like I did.”
Not what I wanted to hear, and I still had no idea why he’d chosen to leave me with a bad case of blue balls.
“Are you mad?” he asked.
“Not mad so much as confused.”
“I don’t blame you.” But still, he didn’t offer an explanation. He smiled weakly at me. “Friends, right?”
Is that my only option? But what I said was, “Of course.” I wondered if he could hear the disappointment in my voice.
He gestured toward June. “I’m sorry about this too. I managed to talk her out of the conjoined twins Halloween costume, but she had her heart set on learning piano.”
“The lessons are one thing. It’s the recital that has me scared to death.”
“You’ll do great.” The doorbell rang, and June ran into the living room to answer it. Nick gestured toward the kitchen. “I’m just starting to make dinner. Will you stay? Maybe we can watch the Monday night football game?”
I didn’t know the first thing about football, but I had nothing better to do, and no matter what had happened between us, he was still the only friend I had. “I’d like that.”
“I’LL ADMIT, I’ve never taught students jointly like this before,” Amelia said to June and me at the beginning of the lesson. She was in her early fifties and wore her slate-gray hair in a tight knot on top of her head. Her speech was as careful and as proper as her hair. “The fact that you’ve both studied music before, however briefly, will be a great help. Learning rhythm can be one of the greatest obstacles for adults, but you already know the basics. The notes will be easy as well. The challenge will be learning to work together. Even the most advanced students sometimes struggle with tempo, especially when they reach a difficult passage in the music, but the two of you will also have to worry about matching each other’s tempo.”
June and I sat side by side on the piano bench. Amelia sat next to us on a chair Nick had dragged in from the kitchen. “Can it be done?” I asked. “Or are we kidding ourselves?”
For the first time, she smiled, and the effect was extraordinary. In the blink of an eye, she went from unforgiving schoolmarm to some kind of nurturing great-aunt. “It can certainly be done. Every musician who’s ever played a duet has struggled with it, and that’s really what we’re talking about here, isn’t it? You’ll be playing as a duet. But it will require patience and practice.”
Her little speech inspired me. All along I’d been thinking of us as two broken people trying to play piano together, trying to pretend we were one whole pianist, but her view of it was far more practical. Duets were common.
Normal, even.
The first lesson mostly consisted of review—counting time, key signatures, notes. She left us each with a deck of flash cards and a primer book for adults, which was radically different from the beginner books we’d found in the bench. She also showed us a few different pieces we could play in the recital.
“You’re not ready to play any of these today, of course, but you may as well pick a song. That way you can start to become familiar with the fingering, and we’ll know what to concentrate on.”
In the end, June and I selected Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” “A good choice,” Amelia said. “A standard for beginning students. It has a nice, simple tempo but a bright, uplifting sound.”
Finally, it ended, and we were advised to practice daily. I had Nick’s piano, and June assured me she’d buy an electronic keyboard, but we’d also have to arrange to practice together on occasion.
“Just think of it,” June said when Amelia was gone. “Today, ‘Ode to Joy.’ Tomorrow, Carnegie Hall.”
I SPENT a great deal of time at Nick’s apartment over the next couple of weeks. I practiced relentlessly until I began to worry I’d drive Nick insane.
“Don’t be silly,” he said when I mentioned it. “I like listening to you.”
“How can you like it? I can barely even play songs.” Mostly it was finger exercises and scales, and even those I stumbled on more often than not.
“Maybe I like having you here,” he said, his gaze flirtatious and direct.
I blushed furiously, but I loved hearing it.
He gave me a key and told me I could practice during the day while he was at work, but I rarely did. I chose to spend those hours attending to my own day job. Besides, practicing after he came home gave me an excuse to be with him. He fed me dinner more often than not. Despite having taken me to the Greek restaurant, he preferred cooking his own meals because he had no control over what restaurants put in his food. A bit eccentric maybe, but it d
ovetailed well with my reluctance to go to crowded restaurants. After dinner, we’d take his dogs for a walk, and then we’d settle on the couch for an hour or two of TV before I went home. It was simple, but it was my favorite part of the day. He was always patient and understanding. I was comfortable with him in a way I’d rarely been with anybody.
“Tell me about your stutter,” he said one night. We were sitting on the back porch, watching the dogs play in the yard. The sky was beginning to darken, an orange glow appearing in the west. It was chilly, but we were warm and comfortable in our jackets.
“What about it?”
“I’m curious, that’s all. You mentioned once that it used to be bad, and yet except for that time at the restaurant, I’ve barely noticed it.”
“It’s better than it used to be.”
“Because of some kind of therapy?”
I’d intentionally avoided that question the first time he’d asked it, but it seemed dishonest to do it again. “Partly I’ve learned to deal with it. To talk a bit slower and to anticipate what might trip me up.”
“And what’s the other part?”
I sighed and hugged my arms around myself, more for comfort than for warmth. “The w-worst thing is feeling like somebody is focusing on me, waiting for me.”
“Like the waitress.”
“Yes. Restaurants were always the worst. My m-m-mother would force me to order, but she h-hated if I stuttered. She’d say, ‘Try to sound normal this time.’”
“You mother said that? She actually implied that you’re somehow not normal?”
“W-well, I’m not. Sh-she was trying to help.” Even if her idea of helping had often made things worse. I didn’t want to try to explain it, but I’d inadvertently stumbled into the heart of the issue anyway: my mother.