One (Bar Dance)

by Joy, Dani

  We were done with our first set and the one that reminded me of the cop that came to rescue me the last time that I had a man touching me was right in front of me. He touched me. I didn’t flinch. That was also a first. It felt safe. It felt comfortable. It felt right.

  He said, “I’m Rand. Rand Frasier and that has to be the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen.” He leaned forward and put his lips to mine. Closed mouthed and quick. He searched my face and did it again. He leaned back a touch and licked his lips. “I just told my brother that you looked like cotton candy. You taste like it too.” He then smiled at me.

  I smiled back.

  “Can I kiss you? Really kiss you?” He asked.

  That meant a lot to me. I had kissed three guys in high school. Had sex with one. That was a disappointment to say the least. The next guy to touch me was Toad. That went way beyond a disappointment. A dozen kisses from him. Sex once and a visit to the hospital. In the three years since then I had not let a man touch me. I touched patients because that was my job. I danced with my friends and touched them. That was also a kind of my job. One that I loved but they were also female. That wasn’t sexually orientated. This was. At least I hoped it was. Just looking at him made my heart flutter with excitement.

  I relaxed my shoulders, elbows and even my wrists as I moved towards this stranger, putting my hands against his chest and answered. “Please.”

  He leaned forward and started the kiss. Then he took over the kiss. Then I melted against him. His hands finally moved from just a light touch against my hips to pulling me against him.

  When he pulled away I realized that I had one hand in his hair pulling him closer. The other hand was digging against his shoulder. I was panting against his lips. Desperate for his touch.

  “I have to slow down.” He whispered to my lips. The music was so loud I wasn’t sure that I heard him correctly.

  I moved my mouth against his ear so that he could hear me and I could hear him.

  I said as softly as I dared so that he could still hear me. “What?” I asked cautiously.

  “I have to slow down honey. I feel that you need tenderness and care. I want to give that to you.”

  I started backwards at his statement. “What? Why…” I didn’t get a chance to finish my question when I heard Sam holler at me.

  “Terra, go get Keiley. Five.”

  The moment was shattered and I owed so much to Sam that I pulled away.

  Rand pulled me back close. “She is with my brother down that hallway. His name’s Adam.”

  I nodded. Rand kissed me lightly again. Then I sprinted away. This man scared the bejesus out of me. Not in a bad way. In a good way. He was the first one to touch me in years. My first kiss in years. The first man, ever, that I wanted to throw myself at. Literally.

  I was having totally inappropriate visions of caramel sauce, being me, drizzling all over ice cream, being him. I knew that my face was flushed. My heart was racing as I rushed out of the room. This wasn’t like me. I was totally out of my comfort zone.

  Then, good lord, I walked in on Keiley. She had her legs up around the other brother. Adam, Rand said his name was. I blurted as best as I could while trying to divert my eyes from what I was seeing. “Sam wants us on the bar in five. I can sub,” Good lord, did I really say that?

  “I’ll be there.” Keiley said around his arm with her feet back on the ground.

  “Good, you’re better with Sam than I am.” What I meant was if Sam touched me I would feel Rand’s hands against me. I would be a puddle on the bar and they would have to mop me up or put me in the dumpster. I knew that I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. Keiley had to dance with Sam and let me fade in to the background. I was just too stimulated. Just too much for one day. One night. One week. Hell. One year. Let’s face it. A lifetime of want had just seemed to infuse my brain with the very first touch of his lips.

  That was how much his kiss was. Too much. Yet I wanted more. A lot more.

  I felt my face go from flushed to the color of the ends of my hair as I raced back down the hallway. Keiley had mentioned hot monkey sex and that was it. I didn’t see Keiley and whatever his name was having hot monkey sex in the hallway outside of Sam’s office. I saw me and Rand. Against a wall. On the bar. In a bed. I was deciding how I was going to kill her when she sauntered out and she got lifted up on the bar. His hands on her body with her looking more than comfortable with it.

  Then I saw something pass between them. Something indescribable. In just minutes they had formed a bond. No that wasn’t it. They had found their bond. They were it for each other. They were meant to be. They fit each other.

  I watched Keiley toss her iPod to Sam and tell her to turn it on. Sam did, begrudgingly but she did it.

  When the music started playing I loved it. I knew what Keiley was saying. It was what I wanted to say to Rand and had no words for. I wanted what Keiley and his brother already had. I wanted it times a thousand. No. A million.

  Even that wasn’t enough so I poured my heart and soul in the dance. I tried to show him what I felt when he touched me.

  When we were done all six of us jumped off to the business side of the bar. Rand was simply just there, touching me again. His eyes searched my face and he said to me, “You are the most magnificent thing that I have ever seen. When you move,” He shook his head and took a breath, “It moves something inside of me that I didn’t know that I had.”

  For the first time in my life I knew that I had done something right. I finally understood what my dance teachers, Sam and Keiley had tried to explain to me ten thousand times. Also for the first time in my life I took a chance. A huge chance for me. I reached up and put my hands on Rand’s face. I pulled him towards me, then I kissed him. I willingly, wantonly kissed a man. He let me lead for a few seconds before he pulled me close and took over. He broke away from me breathing heavily.

  Keiley came close. “I’m leaving. I don’t need a ride.” She smiled at me. I knew that she was okay. I knew it. So was I. I let her leave knowing both of those things.

  I looked at Rand. “I’m not ready for you to come to my home.”

  He grinned. “How about we find some food and just talk.”

  I smirked at him. “I’m not exactly dressed for going out. That and I stink.”

  He lifted my arm and threw it around his neck. He bent his head down and sniffed. He lifted his face and scrunched up his nose. At my horrified expression he laughed. “If you think that is smelly you have never smelled a teenage boys feet. Or better yet, a room that have two guys sharing it. That ain’t nothin’.”

  I smiled at him before I started giggling.

  “I just rented a condo,” He kept talking, “Hidden Pines. Ten, fifteen minute drive from here. You know where that is?”

  Since I lived in the same complex I had a vague idea where it was. There were probably eighty units in the complex. They started small and got larger as did the numbers. “What unit?” I asked.

  He blushed. Actually blushed. “Twelve C.”

  One through thirty were postage sized. One bedroom. One bathroom. Galley kitchen. One uncovered parking spot. Most of them were facing the roadway. Not private. Not luxury. Just a place to put your stuff and exist. They didn’t start to get nice until you were in the fifties. Sam’s was seventy three B. It was more a town home than a condo. I didn’t mention that. I just nodded.

  “I know where that is. I’ll follow you.”

  Rand pulled my hand to his then started leading me away. I got to Sam and stopped. “I’m gone. I also have a kid in a bad way, I don’t…” That was as far as I got.

  Sam stopped scowling at the brother standing next to her. She turned towards me. She put one hand against my shoulder and leaned forward. “I knew. Knew you had talent. Until tonight you had never let it out.” She shook my shoulder then she continued. “If I had a wand and could make anything happen that should, I would wave it at you. You would,” She quit talking and one tear pooled i
n her left eye. “You showed that before and you would have brought audiences to their knees. You could have people paying thousands of dollars a ticket just to watch you.” She brushed my hair with her hand tucking it behind my ear.

  “You and Keiley,” I started.

  “Looked like amateurs next to you tonight. I always wondered. Now I know.”

  Her saying that to me meant the world. Both she and Keiley were beyond good. Either one of them could have been in professional dancers. She pulled me in for a tight hug, whispered in my ear. “Glad to see you back off the wagon. Go get ’em tiger.” Then she slapped my butt. Hard.

  I scowled at her and she laughed then she turned towards the other brother. “Get out of my space!”

  I left. With a strange man. Going to his rented condo. At least following him to his condo. I was thinking that I was a fool and knowing that I wasn’t.

  How screwed up was that?

  Chapter Three

  I heard the alarm going off on my phone. It should have been the one next to my bed but it wasn’t.

  Something was seriously wrong if I heard it and my phone wasn’t in my hands. I set the alarm to remind myself that it was time to leave for work. If it was ringing and I wasn’t ready to go out the door, something was wrong.

  And it was.

  I had a crick in my back which could be from sitting with Dakota all day yesterday. I was also not at my place. I was lying over something very warm and kind of soft, but not. I lurched up and tried to move over the warm thing that happened to be Rand. I was on his couch curled up over him. He was sound asleep until my knee hit between his thighs and he lifted me off of his crotch.

  “Careful there babe. I like those parts to work.” He said sleepily with a hand over his crotch.

  I landed on my feet and stood shakily for a second or two before I started rambling. “Work. Got to go.” I said sleepily yet on the verge of panic.

  He sat up, swung his legs to the edge and then stood up. He watched as I rubbed my eyes. We had ordered pizza. Eaten almost all of the large pie before he turned on the TV. I remember watching a few minutes of some kind of sports show before I obviously fell asleep. Here I was now. Half asleep in scrubs that I had in my trunk. I had changed into them after doing a spit bath in his sink while we waited for food. “Go use the bathroom. Wash your face and brush your hair. I think that I have a spare toothbrush in one of the drawers.” He turned me as he kissed me lightly. “Go.”

  I walked out of the bathroom, put on my shoes and grabbed my purse. I was ready to go but not wanting to when Rand walked to me. He said in his best fifties wifely voice. “Have a good day honey. See you when you get home.” He held breakfast in his hands out to me.

  I started laughing and he spoke again. “I work ten to six. When’s your lunch?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “On my feet when I can.”

  “Mine’s at two. Find me if you can. If not I’ll find you end of shift.” He then really kissed me then turned me towards the door.

  I left his condo with a freshly microwaved breakfast sandwich that tasted like crap and a bottled cold coffee that tasted wonderful. Guess yin and yang come in all different flavors.

  I walked in to work two minutes late. Not bad considering how my morning had started.

  I was assigned to Dakota again. He was my only patient today. When I walked in his room I saw why. He was gray. Not pale. Not unhealthy pale. He was gray as he neared death but he was still fighting to live.

  He should have gone in a coma overnight. It would have been a blessing for him to do it. He was in so much pain that I could see it. I upped his morphine as the doctor had ordered. I started washing his extremities. His arms and face first. I saved his feet for last. I started applying lotion carefully as not to hurt or tax his nerves. The whole time I did this I sang to him. He adored Pink. What songs that I remembered I sang. What I didn’t remember the words to I hummed. I saw him start to get sick. I ran out of the room screaming at another nurse to care for him while I got meds. When I found we were out of Haldol on the floor I ran to the elevator.

  I should have known that we were running low. I should have had it filled on the floor. I should have, could have, would have, had I been thinking. I didn’t. Now I was behind the eight ball and Dakota was going to pay the price. There were other drugs that would have worked but not as well as that one. He responded best to it. I ran to the elevator and a couple was exiting it. I ran in and pushed the button for the main floor. When it hit the floor with the door opening far too slow for my liking, I ran to the pharmacy. Rand was there. I yelled Dakota’s name telling him to get me the drug ‘now’.

  Rand typed and sprinted. He threw me a box and a package of syringes overhand. I caught them and ran back to the elevator. I hit the button three times. It didn’t open. I was running out of time so I ran to the stairs, pulled open the door and sprinted up the four flights back to Dakota’s room.

  I knew the dosage by heart. I didn’t even look at his chart. I cleaned up after him and rambled calm words at him as I held damp wash clothes to his forehead and neck. His parents knew the drill and had moved to the top of the bed together. Touching him lightly without rubbing his skin and aggravating his over taxed nerves.

  I managed to get away a few times. Using the facilities. Getting a drink of water. Eating power bars. I didn’t make it to lunch with Rand. I couldn’t leave Dakota for that long. He needed me, or at worst, I needed to be there for him. It was nearly the end of my shift. I was sitting in a chair next to the bed singing ‘Crystal Ball’ softly when I felt more than saw Rand come in the room.

  He walked up behind me and put one hand on my shoulder. I looked up and smiled at him and finished the song.

  Dakota’s vitals were in the toilet. How he was still keeping his eyes even cracked was beyond me. His eyes followed my gaze.

  When I finished the song Rand spoke quietly but directly to Dakota. “Hey buddy. Your dad and mom are here and they got each other. I got Terra here and it is my job to take her home. I’ll give her one more song with you though.”

  I had my eyes back to Dakota when I saw one of the most life altering things I could have ever seen. A weight was lifted off of him. He wasn’t holding on for himself. He was holding on for the people around him. Rand had just given permission for him to let go. He needed to let go and until he was given permission he didn’t know how to just… let go. He was too young yet to know how to do that but enough of a man to want to try.

  I started singing ‘Glitter in the Air’ as I reached out and touched the back of his hand that was against his chest.

  His new nurse walked in but stayed back to let me sing this song. I got to the line where Pink holds her breath in the song when I heard the rattle. It’s commonly called the death rattle. It’s when the last breath escapes it isn’t done with the help of the diaphragm. I looked to the monitors. The volume was off. The warning beeps were just too much for anyone to handle. I saw the flat line.

  I stood. My job and my shift were over. Rand led me out of the room then stopped me about five feet down the hall. He took me to the wall then covered my body with his. He saw the tears on my face and misinterpreted them. They were not of sadness. They were of relief. I put my lips against the pulse point on his neck and kissed it. I pushed against his chest lightly and he lifted his head.

  “You are the smartest man I have ever known. You single handedly fixed something that I should have days ago.” I smiled a wobbly smile at him as I said that.

  His eyes opened wide at that. “What?”

  “That kid just tortured himself for the people around him. He’s been doing that for months. Suffering in unimaginable pain.” I took a deep breath. “You gave him permission not to. That was brilliant and delivered at the right time.” I wiggled a bit. He had me plastered against the wall so I couldn’t move too much.

  Rand repeated himself if not a bit louder. “What?”

  “I should have saw it. He was holding on for the
wrong reasons. He was never going home. Now he is out of pain. His parents can stop being in pain with him. I can help the kids who will go home. You fixed it all with what you said to him.” I wiped my face. “You don’t know me yet but I love what I do. What I hate is when I can’t help fix what needs to be fixed. You did it. Not me. Now I am starved. I had a crappy breakfast and about six power bars today. I need protein and to move.” I gave him a wiggle. “Let’s stop and get Arby’s and change my clothes. Then we can go to Stogies and get in one round and get out.”

  Rand’s eyes were still wide. His mouth opened and closed a few times trying to find the words that he needed to say but didn’t know what they were.

  I watched for a minute then gave him what he needed. “I didn’t say that wasn’t devastating. It is. We lost him. We. His doctors, nurses, most importantly his family. Now we move on.” I shook his arms with the ‘we’. “His family has had to cope with waiting for the loss. Now they can try to heal. His doctors and nurses, including me, can go on to help who we can.”

  Rand put his hands against my neck and never got a chance to speak. Dakota’s parents walked out the door of his room. They were shattered. I saw it immediately but I dared not move. They saw me and stopped. I spoke as I separated myself from Rand. “Kim, Jim.” That is all that I got out.

  “You were his favorite. He talked about you when you weren’t there.” Jim said and cleared his throat. Twice.

  “The song that you sang, the last one.” Kim looked at me with a look that was more than pleading, “We are having a memorial not a burial. He wanted to be cremated. Will you come and sing that, for us. For Dakota?”