The Odor of Violet

by Ju Ephraime

  ***

  Damien sat in his chair looking out the window. He could not yet take in the fact that his sight was clearer today than it had been yesterday. He could see the trees outside his window. He could tell the wind was blowing strong because the branches were moving. The leaves were not very clear, but he could definitely see the tree and the branches.

  He had been able to see Jake when he was talking with him. He could not tell the color of his clothes, but he could definitely make out his shape. For so many years he had not been able to see his friend, and he wanted to share the moment with him, but something was holding him back. He believed it was fear that it was not real and he would wake up one day and find he was once again back in his sightless world. So he kept the information to himself. He made a promise that the day he could see everything around him clearly, when he could get up and walk without the wheelchair, when he could shave himself without assistance from either Jake or Lisa, then he would share his news with them, especially with Lisa. He could not wait to see what she looked like. The excitement of soon being able to see her had kept him from sleeping most of the night.

  He’d been awake when she had crept into his room so softly so not to wake him. It had taken a superhuman effort on his part not to call out to her. He wanted her in his bed, but he was going to let her come to him on her own. She was evidently hurt about Shelly, but he did not want anyone dictating his life. He had very little control over most things around him as it was. He had made up his mind that no one would dictate his personal life. In this he wouldn’t negotiate. He would take no interference from anyone, not even Jake. It might seem cruel, but it was the only way he knew to maintain some semblance of control in a world in which he had none.

  He had given very little thought to the problem of Shelly. He really did not feel anything for Shelly. He had put her off from coming to visit him because, when she came to him, he wanted to have regained full use of his sight. That way he could see her reaction when she saw he had moved on. He was no longer pining after her.

  He wheeled himself down the corridor and into his office. As he expected, Lisa was not there. He picked up the house phone and called her office.

  “Lisa, could you come in here please?” he asked as soon as she answered the phone. He gave her no opportunity to make any excuse by hanging up.

  Nineteen

  Lisa hung up the phone, fuming. She wanted to wait a while before she saw Damien again, but he apparently had other plans.

  She logged off her computer and made her way to Damien’s office. She knocked and waited for him to invite her in.

  She kept her face averted as she located him in his new favorite spot, at the window. “Here I am, Damien. What are you working on today?”

  “I’m not working on anything in particular, Lisa. I wanted to talk with you,” he said.

  “Okay, she said, trying to be a big girl. She looked directly at him and was met with those mesmerizing green eyes staring right into hers with an intensity that caused her newfound resolve to fly out the window. They were close enough that his scent reached her, and the now familiar awareness started deep in the pit of her stomach and traveled to her core, pooling between her thighs. She had to squeeze her legs together to stop herself from reaching out to touch him to run her fingers through his slightly tousled hair.

  She did not know how she would stand by quietly as he replaced her in his bed with someone else. She did not think she would be able to survive it. She might have to do what she’d done at the hospital—cut and run. Just the thought of not seeing him again caused a physical reaction in her guts, like a kick from a mule.

  “Whatever you are thinking, stop it, Lisa,” he said, surprising her.

  “How do you know what I’m thinking?” she asked him in wonder.

  “I could hear the wheels clicking around and around in your head. You are standing still, doing nothing. That’s how I know you are thinking hard about something or someone. Knowing the way women’s minds work, I’ll harbor a guess and say you are thinking about someone. Am I right or wrong?”

  Lisa was so taken aback she was speechless for a moment. This man surprised her every day. She knew when a person lost one of their senses then the others became sharper to compensate. Well, Damien epitomized this in a way that was almost frightening in its accuracy. The longer she was around him, the more enthralled she became by him. He was very perceptive, a rare quality in a man, which brought her back to the man sitting in the chair next to her.

  “What did you want me to do for you, Damien?” she asked again.

  “I wanted to know why you did not come to my bed last night. You know I was expecting you. You know I wanted you, no, needed you.”

  “We can’t all get what we want or need,” she responded.

  “Why are you depriving me of your sweetness?” he asked.

  “Damien, I believe one of us has to put a stop to whatever is happening between us, especially if your ex is back on the scene. I don’t believe it’s fair to either of us.”

  “So you made up your mind without even hearing my side---Without even discussing it with me? Typical woman,” he said.

  “What do you mean ‘typical woman’? You made your decision very clear when you got off the phone with Shelly. There was no doubt where you intended to go with this. I for one want no part of it,” she told him.

  “You want no part of me. Is that what you are saying?” he asked.

  “No, you know damn well that’s not what I’m saying. I will not play second fiddle to your ex, Damien, and further, we don’t have a thing going on. You made it clear you weren’t ready for a relationship, and I accepted that, but what I won’t accept is standing by and watch you play musical chairs with two women in your bed.”

  “My, how eloquently you put it,” he replied. “For the record, I had no intention of playing musical chairs with you or anyone else for that matter.”

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “Oh no is correct,” he retorted. “Let me ask you something, Lisa. How would you feel about being in a permanent relationship with a blind man? How would you feel having a blind man for the father of your children? Assuming you wanted children and that we had any from our union. Would you be able to spend day after day, night after night, year after year, with a sightless man? Keep in mind, there is no changing things. It’s not a sickness that I’ll recover from. My sight is gone, Lisa. You’d be having me, and taking me, for better or worse. In this instance, the marriage vows, ‘for better or for worse’ will be the rule of the day. How do you feel about it?”

  “Is this a marriage proposal? Are you asking me to marry you, Damien?” she wanted to know.

  “What I’m asking is how would you feel about having me as a husband. Take your time answering me because I’ll have the truth and nothing less,” he replied.

  “Damien, if you were really asking me to marry you then you would have my answer immediately. But since you are asking a hypothetical question, then I can’t answer you. You are looking to use my answer one way or another, and I want no part of it.”

  “You are taking the easy way out, and I consider that to be cowardly, Lisa.”

  “Who are you to accuse me of being a coward? You, who are afraid to accept your own shortcomings. You, who will choose isolation over companionship because you feel you have a point to prove. I no longer want to continue this discussion. If that’s all you wanted, I have to return to my office. I have quite a bit of work to get caught up on,” she told him, preparing to walk out the door.

  ***

  He couldn’t let her leave this way. Not angry at him. He needed her. “Didn’t you miss me last night, Lisa?” he said, holding her hand firmly in his.

  Damien couldn’t stop himself from touching her. He wanted to pull her onto his lap, but he didn’t want her to reject him. He was scared. He was scared of loving her, or wanting her and not being able to have her. This was the reason he thought of using Shelly as a shield against h
er. The way he felt about Shelly paled in comparison to the way he felt about Lisa. She could so easily destroy him. He heard himself saying her name in a shattered murmur. His eyes were stinging, and he was appalled to realize that he was on the verge of losing it. Something he had not done when Shelly had walked out on him.

  Through the blur of tears that were stinging his eyes, he realized he could see her features clearly. Her face was averted from him, but he could clearly see the outline of her face. The shock of seeing her face for the first time made it impossible for him to control the tremors that had his hand shaking so much. He had to drop her hand. Before he could stop her, she had fled.

  Damien sat there, too shocked to move. He wheeled the chair to the window, and there were the trees and branches covered with leaves, which were yellow in the fall temperature. Why was he still sitting in the wheelchair? He stood up and was able to see as far as the eye could see. He turned around in his office and saw the room he had retrofitted to accommodate his wheelchair for the first time. Everything looked so unfamiliar to him.

  He’d lived as a blind man for so long he didn’t know what to do or how to function in the seeing world. Damien flung himself across the day bed he kept in his office and allowed the tears to rack his body; something he’d not done since he was a boy of ten and his father had given him a whipping. His last whipping, if he recalled correctly, yet not even then had he felt so many emotions bombarding him as he was feeling today. He didn’t know how to take his life back. So he spent the remainder of the day and all of the night in his room with his door locked.

  When he finally left his room the next morning, he was so drained he was weak. He wanted to tell Jake and Lisa, but part of him was scared. He was scared to assume his role as the head of his home. He was so scared that he placed himself back into his wheelchair and wheeled himself into the breakfast room the next day, reverting back to the blind Damien. His secret safe for now, he’d bought himself some time. He needed that time to adjust--- he needed time to prepare.

  Twenty

  Damien had made his way to the breakfast room feeling like a fraud, but unable to make himself give up his chair. Wheeling into the room, he was happy to see Jake’s familiar face again. Jake immediately lifted his head from the bowl of scrambled eggs he was devouring when he saw him enter the room. Damien was happy to see Jake looked none the worse for wear after having not seen him in two years. He looked the same, maybe a bit more gaunt, but still the same old Jake. He moved his eyes from Jake and beheld his love.

  He had to call on acting skills, of which he had none, in order to keep his face expressionless, when all he wanted to was to go to her and bury his face in her luxurious hair. She was beautiful, his Lisa. Her cheekbones were high, and her eyes were large and tilted at the edge, giving them an almost almond shape. He could not tell the exact color because she was a couple of seats away from him; he did not want to stare too hard. Her lips were full, moist, and delectable, with the bottom lip fuller than the top. She was dark, with a heavy mass of hair held in place with a hair clip. Several strands had escaped and were framing her face, which she had averted from him. Her nose was long and straight with a slight tilt at the tip, giving her an impish look. He took the time to travel from her face to her neck and then made a brief stop on her luscious-looking breasts. She appeared to be tall, as he had suspected. How tall, he wouldn’t know until she stood up.

  He looked down at his cup, and she was there to fill it for him. He had been correct; she was tall, very tall for a woman. He wondered what ethnicity she was. He just couldn’t place it. She was uniquely beautiful. His body was reacting to her, as usual. Now that he had his sight back he would be better able to keep his condition hidden.

  “You’re awfully quiet this morning, Jake,” he said in an effort to cover his discomfort and get his mind thinking of something else.

  “I have nothing to say,” Jake replied.

  “That’s a first for you,” Damien rejoined.

  Lisa sighed, as if to say “they are not going to start this again this morning.”

  “What would you like to have for breakfast, Damien?” she asked.

  “I’ll have some sausage and potatoes, thank you,” he replied, keeping his eyes closed to hide the lust in them and to avoid staring at her.

  He busied himself with his breakfast, waiting until Jake had left the room so he could feast his eyes on his love. He didn’t want to take the chance in front of Jake. He didn’t think he could fool him for long.

  He almost breathed a sigh of relief when Jake finally left the room. Lisa got up to follow him, and he had to stop her. He needed her near him a bit longer. “Can you get me a glass of orange juice, Lisa?’

  “Sure. Would you like a full glass or half?”

  “Half a glass would do fine,” he replied.

  He wanted to see all of her, and getting the orange juice would require her to walk almost to the end of the room to the side bar. As she walked away from him, he had to take a deep breath and adjust himself in the chair. Lisa did not just walk. She swung her hips in a walk that oozed such sex appeal that he was gasping by the time she handed him the glass of orange juice. How was he going to keep up this pretense? It would destroy him if he had to be look at her every day and not have her. He had to be alone. He wheeled his chair through the door, claiming that he wouldn’t be needing her assistance as he’d be busy working on the accounting for one of his projects. He had not touched the orange juice.

  He wheeled the chair into his office and locked the door after him. He was finally able to relax. He stood up from his chair and went to stand in front of the window. He stood there for so long that, by the time he went to his desk, it was almost lunchtime.

  He never grew tired of looking outside at the trees, the grass, the sky, everything! Before, he had taken all this for granted; now he couldn’t get enough of them. He was like a kid with a toy. He was so excited that he was good for nothing for the rest of the day. He found a pair of his old sunglasses that were so reflective anyone looking at him would only see a reflection of him or herself. He would hide himself behind those glasses as he observed the world around him and got reacquainted with it. If anyone asked he would simply say his eyes had suddenly become a bit sensitive to bright light. It was quite a stretch, and he wasn’t sure the ruse would work. But he needed to buy some time, and for right now that was the best he could come up with.

  Damien thought it was ironic that he’d prayed so long and hard to gain his sight back and, now that he had it, he had to wait to share it with the two most important people in his life. Actually, he could not share it with anyone. Because if it got out, then his entire plan would come unhinged, if it did not become unhinged before with the task he had set himself up for.

  Realizing it was lunchtime; he donned his sunglasses and wheeled himself into the dining room. He took his seat, as he usually did, hoping that Jake and Lisa remained none the wiser.

  However, during lunch, Lisa wanted to know why he was wearing sunglasses indoors and whether there was something wrong with his eyes. Jake wasted no time putting in his two-pence theory, concluding that he, Damien, wanted to hide his lascivious thoughts from them.

  He was so dead on target that Damien found himself laughing along with them, as he explained about the fictitious glare that was bothering his eyes. Lisa immediately wanted to call Dr. Chavez to set up an appointment for him. Damien had to dissuade her from that action. The last thing he needed was for any of his doctors to examine him now.

  When it was time for dinner, he left his sunglasses in his room to avoid a repeat of the lunchtime episode. He wheeled himself into dinner and waited to be served like a good boy. After all, he was the one imposing this on himself now, so he just had to deal with it.

  Dinner was the most uncomfortable and frustrating experience for him because he could not stare at Lisa as he wanted to, like he’d been able to during lunch. He finished his dinner in record time and left while she and Jake w
ere still working on their dessert. He could not wait to enter his room, where he locked his door and turned on the television to a sports channel. He enjoyed the game before retiring for the night. He knew Lisa was not going to come to his room, so he left his door locked.

  He was still watching the basketball game when he saw the handle of his door turn. He did not move, and after the second try, he heard the steps walking away. He felt like a prick, deceiving her this way, but he just had to be sure of her feelings for him. His mind now off the game, he began thinking. How on earth had a woman who looked like Lisa, with her body and everything else, remained a virgin at her age? Why had she saved herself, only to give it to a blind man? These questions and a lot more like them kept him awake half the night. This was his second almost sleepless night. Something had to give. He eventually gave into asleep, though he was no closer to solving his problem.

  Twenty-One

  Lisa walked back to her room on legs that had suddenly gone weak. She was so traumatized that she did not even know how she’d made it back to her room. She was praying she didn't run into Jake because she did not know how she would be able to hide her hurt and pain from him.

  From the day Jake had given her the task of checking in on Damien at nights, she had looked forward to it. She loved watching him sleep. She had used that time to feast her eyes on him and imagine herself in his bed making love to him. She was so driven by her need to have Damien make love to her that, when she saw he felt the same way about her, there was no stopping her then. Now, after only one night of bliss, she was locked out of the only place she felt whole in this house.

  She fell into bed without removing her clothes. She slept with her shoes and everything on. When she finally woke up, it was 4:30 A.M. There was no point in going back to sleep now. She changed into her sneakers and sweats and went for a run around the property. There was a track a half an hour away, but she didn't feel that adventurous. She just did not want to be in her room any more, and it was too early to go into her office to begin working. That would broadcast her situation to anyone who'd happen to see her. And she did not want to appear desperate…even though she was just that. Desperate!