A Perfect Blindness

by W. Lance Hunt

  She dips her head, and her body lists forward, and we kiss.

  Chapter 28

  Ought Not

  —Jonathan—

  “Now,” she whispers, her lips grazing mine in the shape of that syllable. She pulls back a couple of inches and looks at my face. “I want to do your back. Turn around.”

  I turn and feel her kneeling on one leg into the cushions of the couch, extending the other to the floor, straddling me across the lowest part of my back. The warmth of her legs spreads along mine. As her hands slide over my shirt, prodding, pushing, and rubbing my shoulders and back, my body melts. I sigh. Her hands move to my neck, and I feel her flesh on mine and how snugly she’s drawn herself against me—I feel warmth from her spread legs against my back.

  Something Amy would do. Tempting me. Teasing me.

  I turn and slide two fingers under the waistband of her jeans, grasping the button. Her belly’s so smooth and soft.

  She presses her hands into the cushion right behind her, and leans, slightly, back.

  My mind’s full with the thunder of my pulse.

  Wait. Jennifer: Amy saved my life. And you’re—

  I pull my fingers from under her waistband.

  “That was,” I say. “Magnificent. Really.”

  “If I had some oil”—her eyebrows rise—“I could really …”

  She kisses me, her tongue flicking through my lips.

  No. Not like this. Not pretending it’s Amy.

  I pull back. “Chris,” I say. “Doesn’t she need to get picked up?”

  “What?”

  “Chris. She’s at Smart Bar. Don’t you need to pick her up?”

  “I …”

  “If she cabs it back here now … you know. She might …”

  “Uh,” she says, shrinking away.

  “We can do something Monday. Better, right?”

  “What?” she asks, shaking her head.

  “Ron’s shooting here tomorrow, and I work later. But Monday I’m off; we have rehearsal, but it’s not going to go late. We’ll have time to relax. No rushing around. No one to pick up. Better, right?”

  Looking bewildered, she nods.

  “You two said you wanted to go home early tonight. Plus that awesome massage all but put me to sleep. Happens to people all the time, right?”

  “Yeah. All the time. Sure. You’re right,” she says, leaping up from the couch and almost tipping over.

  I catch her arm.

  “So we’ll see each other the day after tomorrow,” I say. “Rehearsal’ll start at six, six thirty. Won’t last too long. Come by at seven, eight. Or earlier. Listen for a bit. Then everyone’s gone.”

  She regards me warily, but eventually, she says, “Okay.”

  As we walk to the door, the thought I’ve made a horrid mistake convulses inside. We stand silently in the hallway, looking at the floor for a moment.

  “We’ll talk. The day after tomorrow,” I say, definitively.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  Then she disappears down the stairs.

  “You sure, Jonathan?” I ask myself.

  I close the door.

  “You sure that was right?” Not that it matters: needle in, damage done.

  But staying true to an ex-lover … no. I shake my head. She’s not the same shape as the hole Amy left, anyway. But neither was Nancy. So why her and not Jennifer?

  “Because sometimes I feel guilty about Nancy,” I whisper.

  • • • • •

  The next morning, the smells of eggs cooking wake me up. I toss off the sock covering my eyes and prop myself up on my elbows. Scott’s sitting at the table, writing. Lynda’s at the stove, scraping scrambled eggs onto a plate, wearing only one of his work shirts, her hair flaming red in the morning light pouring through the windows. She notices I’m up.

  “Morning,” she says. Scott glances over, nods, and then continues writing.

  I wave a couple of fingers back.

  “Eggs? Coffee?” she asks.

  I nod, and then, after throwing the covers off, I adjust the waistband on my boxers and amble over.

  “Look,” Scott says as I scrape the last of the eggs onto a plate. “I’ve got to put down the deposit for next Tuesday. Then head to work. Lynda’s staying for a shoot with Ron.”

  “Cool,” I say, shoveling in a mouthful of eggs.

  “Here’s a list of what we need Tuesday. All you need to do is call Soundworks to make sure they’ve got everything we need. The recording engineer said to call around four.”

  “I have to be at work at four,” I say.

  “I’ll already be on the floor. You can be a few minutes late.”

  And get stuck in that crap station next to the kitchen. “All right.”

  “Go over it. Make sure I’ve got everything before you call.”

  “Sure.”

  “When I get back from work, you’ll have to tell me what happened last night.”

  “Nothing to tell,” I say.

  “Nothing?”

  “Yep,” I say. “Said she had to go pick up Chris after about a half hour.”

  “Not what I was expecting to hear,” he says, looking almost pleased now.

  “Expecting?”

  “Well, you … alone … with girl. No Amy.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “You got it wrong.”

  “What part? She is a girl, isn’t she?”

  I scoff. “Yes. But no. I’m not looking for a substitute.”

  Scott raises his eyebrows and then picks up his coffee.

  “Think about it,” I say. “Who have you known me to be with? Ever.”

  “Well, Amy. And Nancy.”

  I nod. “Except for Nancy. I don’t know how to explain her. And still feel weird about it sometimes. So, yeah. Only Amy. That’s killed dead.” I purse my lips. “Now. Just don’t want it. Nothing.” I shake my head.

  “I—” Scott starts.

  “Let’s not talk about this.”

  “Okay,” he says, nodding, his expression skeptical yet pleased.

  Then he drains his coffee. “Look, I’ve got to get rolling. Deposit’s due soon. See ya tonight. Late. You”—he bends down and kisses Lynda—“I’ll call later.”

  She pats his thigh, and he leaves the table.

  “This band’s gotta start paying us soon.” Scott opens the door and disappears into the stairwell.

  “What time’s Ron coming over?” I ask. I dig that he’s using the space. It’s very boho, like I imagined it would be like living here.

  “What time is it?” she asks.

  “Eleven fifty.”

  “Wow. I gotta get ready. He’ll be here in about an hour. Scott said you had some extra towels. Soap …”

  “Everything’s in the bathroom. Towels are in the first locker.”

  As I watch her walk into the bathroom, I’m surprised at Scott. A woman? In your life? Won’t it “only get messy and interfere with” your success? But she’s busy succeeding herself. Right. So she’ll be around just enough: a night in bed and breakfast afterward every once in a while—maybe two or three days in a row. Maybe. Won’t ask for any more than that.

  It feels stuffy in here, so I open the windows on the south wall, letting a warm breeze gush in. The faint sounds of Lynda showering mix with the street noises.

  So, Jon-boy. There’s no one. Not after last night. Welcome to lonely.

  • • • • •

  The next evening, I’m rereading Mount Olive by Lawrence Durrell, waiting for everyone to show up for rehearsal. I’m avoiding thinking about last night; I cringe whenever I do.

  A knock at the door jerks me from prewar Alexandria.

  Nancy or AnnMarie arriving early. Scott’s still not home, so I trudge to the door, pu
sh down on the handle’s tab, and pull the heavy steel door open.

  Jennifer stands in waning sunlight.

  For a moment, I’m not actually sure I believe what I’m seeing.

  She has this inscrutable expression: nearly amused, a bit smug, but heavy with a challenge that I do everything exactly right.

  “Oh, yes,” I say, sweeping my arm into the loft for her to follow. “Please. Come in.”

  Inside we stand in the quiet. Unsure what I’m feeling, I point at the stereo. “What do you want to listen to?”

  “What’ve you got?”

  “Oh, lots and lots o’ stuff,” I say, leading her to our CD and vinyl collections. “Here,” I say, picking up a CD of The Cure’s Mixed Up. “I was about to put this on.”

  “Oh, yeah. I listen to that all the time. But I think I saw something,” she reaches down and picks up Soho’s Goddess. “I like ‘Hippychick.’ Wanna hear the rest.”

  “We’ll get you hooked right up.” I slip it in.

  Right as “Hippychick” starts, Scott gets back home.

  “Hey man,” he says, dropping his bag by the door. “Everyone’s going to be here any minute. Let’s get set up.”

  “Sorry,” I say to her.

  She shrugs. “Worked late. What can you do?”

  “Want to help?” I ask.

  “Why not.”

  Since we only break all the way down and pack up if we’re playing out, there’s not much to do except turn on the equipment and hook up the mics. Most people don’t care about anything more than the on switch and the volume nob, but she asks about organizing the cables and connections. While I’m showing her how we run the mics to the PA, AnnMarie arrives.

  “Looking to roadie?” AnnMarie asks, dressed in a short skirt and heels, which, as usual, aren’t quite sexy on her.

  “Nah. Checking out how you run your sound.”

  “Learn anything?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” Jennifer says. “Clever solution for your mics, running that simple PA. I like it.”

  AnnMarie runs a quick check of her drum machines and mic. By then Scott’s changed out of his waitron uniform, plugged in his Stratocaster, set it on its stand, and poured himself a vodka on rocks. Then Nancy arrives smiling at her inside joke, as usual. A couple of minutes later, Ron gets back and moves the last of his light stands off to the side.

  “Okay, guys,” Scott says, picking up his guitar. “Four songs. Perfectly. Exactly like we’re going to lay them down.”

  For the next couple hours, we run through the songs we’re recording on our demo, getting each one sounding tight. By then it’s almost ten thirty. Scott gives a last couple of notes on “Just Walk Away” while I lean on the keyboard. I’m having trouble believing Jennifer’s bothered to stay. Not only are rehearsals boring—same song, over and over; notes; this tweak; that change; repeat; and then on to the next song, and the next—but also because of what happened, or rather didn’t happen, last night.

  “That’s it,” he says.

  “Ron and I are heading to Exit for Bondage-A-Gogo,” Nancy says. “Anyone else?”

  Ron holds up a pair of handcuffs.

  “No thanks,” AnnMarie says. “I hate having to be unlocked to go pee.”

  “Meeting Lynda at hers,” Scott says.

  “Not I,” I say. “Beat. Work early.”

  “No thanks,” Jennifer says, remaining on the couch.

  In a few minutes, it’s quiet and we’re alone. Again. I feel the loft pushing me toward her. Everything is telling me it’s okay—that I’m free. And need someone.

  Reaching down, I take her hands and lift her from the couch. She reaches her arms around my neck and leans forward to kiss me.

  Need this.

  I run my fingers down her sleek back, feeling her small, firm breasts pressed into my chest. I nuzzle her ear, which is pierced with a dozen earrings in a row. Each hoop flicks off my tongue in turn, from her lobe up, until I’ve sampled every one. They taste so much better than loneliness.

  I’m betraying no one.

  Her hand finds the top button of my jeans and tugs on it, pulling it open; then she opens the next and the next. I slip my fingers into the waistband of her jeans, sliding them across her soft, smooth skin until I can feel the fly of her jeans. This time I unbutton and I unzip it. Sitting down, she pulls her shirt over her head, leaving only a sheer black bra. Reaching behind her, I ease apart the clasp; it falls away, leaving her half naked.

  And oh, so different.

  Then Jennifer lays out on the couch. I grasp the waist of her jeans, and she pushes her hips up, letting me pull them over them, and then her thighs, revealing a tattoo of a black panther crouching high on her right thigh, its tail flicking the edge of her black panties. With the jeans finally at her feet, she kicks them off. Then I slip my fingers under the waistband of her panties. She thrusts her hips up again and I slide the soft, silky black fabric down her smooth legs. I kiss her panther from tail to nose.

  She pulls at my shirt, and I take it off as she peels down my jeans. I sit to kick them off, and then I lie atop her; she’s so smooth, so warm, and so firm. Then she wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me down, and it all goes so softly, so easily.

  So different. Why did you keep this from me, Amy? Because I can simply love her. Not turn her into music?

  Chapter 29

  The Future Sound of Ourselves

  —Scott—

  Through the thick plate-glass window separating the sound room from the studio, I watch Jonathan. Eyes closed, he presses the headphones to an ear, listening intently to the playback of the instrument tracks for “Just Walk Away” we laid down earlier. He weaves his head back and forth, waiting for the right moment to sing. The swish of his hair keeps time.

  This is the last of his vocal tracks. After this, we’ve only the backing vocals to record.

  He starts singing into the large mic. He sounds better than I imagined, Sammy.

  “You guys’re damned tight,” Mike says. He’s the sound engineer and looks about seventeen. At first I couldn’t take him seriously. I got over my doubts, though, once I saw how quickly and sharply he handled the banks of black boxes and patch cables on the control board, knowing exactly how to make what we suggested happen. He’s pulling the rolling one-inch reel-to-reel deck alongside him.

  “Keep it up like this,” he says, “and we can start talking mix tonight.”

  “I’ve got the time.”

  On an overstuffed white leather couch below the window, AnnMarie and Nancy sit with Jennifer. Why are you even here?

  On the other side of the window, Jonathan still sways as if in a trance.

  A moment later, he begins singing again, right on time.

  When the song finishes, the reel-to-reel starts whirring back to the beginning of the song.

  “Backing vocals, right?” Mike asks.

  “Last of them,” I say.

  Nancy and AnnMarie stand up.

  “B and C mics again,” Mike says to himself as he leans over the wide, segmented board, pulling out patch cords and plugging them into new slots, and then checking various levels.

  Jonathan hangs his headphones over the back of a chair in the soundproof room. He picks his way through the jungle of mic stands, wires, travel boxes, and drums, and past his keyboard and a rack filled with small percussion instruments, and pushes open the thick, sealed door.

  “Nancy,” the sound engineer says, holding out a pair of headphones to her. “Plug them in next to the others. The B slot. AnnMarie, use his. Move them to the C slot.”

  “Guys. Last track, last song,” I say. “We’ve been kicking ass so far. Let’s kill on this.” I watch AnnMarie adjusting her mic in the sound room. I get a sensation that feels like a million ants crawling over me. It’s that same feeling of destiny I had sixteen y
ears ago. Finally, after all those years and all the shit we’ve taken, this is it. We’ll make it. Soon.

  “Okay,” the sound engineer says, leaning over to a mic sticking up from the control board and pressing the red talk button. “Let’s have a few seconds of quiet. Then I need you to sing for a couple, exactly like you would normally. Let me set my levels. Then we’re live.”

  They give thumbs up.

  I catch a glimpse of Jennifer laying her head on Jonathan’s shoulder.

  Not here. That’s simply not professional.

  The music begins again, and I watch them lean close to the mic, and in time with Jonathan’s vocals, they start singing, layering their voices on top of his. They sound better than they ever have. I listen to the sound of our future selves.

  “That’s a wrap,” the sound engineer says as the reel-to-reel whirs, rewinding. “We’ve still got about twenty minutes. Do you want to talk about your mix?”

  “Yeah, there’re a couple of three things I’d like to bounce off of you,” Jonathan says. “Like this idea for some echo effects in ‘Just Walk Away,’ when Nancy sings that line right after,” he says. Then he sings: “It’s safer this way … Remember the silence … and walk away …” He molds his singing with his hands. “Right there.”

  “Echo’s easy. You’ll have to show me exactly. But before we go on,” Mike says, “I’ve been cooped up in here since ten this morning. Can we move this to Lounge Ax for a beer or two?”

  “Sure,” Jonathan says.

  After Mike boxes the tape of our session, writing “Mercurial Visions” and the date across the top, he slides it onto a slot on a wall of shelves and then grabs his lighter and smokes. With that, he leads us along the hardwood floors of the quiet white hallway, down the long stairwell, and out into the noise of Lincoln Avenue. Even at a quarter after one in the morning, traffic clogs the two working lanes. We dart between the slow-moving cars, and the sound of live music grows clearer.

  Here Jennifer turns from being merely annoying to being an actual problem.

  A bouncer is checking IDs outside the door of Lounge Ax.

  Jennifer tells Jonathan she doesn’t have an ID, so he asks Mike if “there’s someplace we can go where they don’t card?”