A Love Story

Men and women hunch together, twin planets moving in tortuous synchronicity with their moons. Men are sweaty, and imbued; women are giggly, and flirty, because booze takes them differently. If we were to use the planes focus, the sexes would be in different places, but visible, at all times, to their opposites.

A man lurks, the word deliberate, in the corner. He is not an attractive man. He is a mite overweight. His face is dominated by his nose. He is, however, of a more than moderate height, and he is strong, stronger than he knows, but that is just physical strength.

He spies a woman, waiting. She is correspondingly uninteresting. Her face is young, but spotted. Her body is shapely, but also overweight. Her hair is blonde, and she is wearing too much mascara. When she walks past, the man can smell her foundation, but to him that doesn't matter.

He walks to her, and they begin to talk. He is simply an ordinary sort; he enjoys football, and the simple pleasures, like getting drunk at a wedding. She is not dissimilar, but is of course of a feminine persuasion; she enjoys drinking, but not too much. She entertains thoughts of doing it with a girl, but only so far as her boyfriend would approve of or enjoy.

They two suffer the consequence of their inadequacy, this night. They talk; they meet their minds together. He thinks she is all kinds of good looking; she thinks the same, but hides it behind an irritation at his incessant attention. He asks for her number; she demurs.

They go home separate. She sleeps alone in her bed, as does he. He quite likes the thought of her; she tries not to think about him. His voice, his face, his body; it all comprises into an irritant for her. It shits her that she can't get him out of her head, out of her thoughts; she goes to work, and tells her friends about this shithead who followed her around at her friend's wedding, and how unbelievably annoying he was.

He talks to the groom, when he gets back from the honeymoon. They were both at paint ball, and at the pub after, they talk. He mentions her; she is the groom's cousin. They bag each other, but that in and of itself is standard. The groom offers to mention him to her, when they next talk; the man demurs, again. Won't be good to come across too desperate.

Eventually, there is another wedding, in the family. He and she both attend. His name is Nathan: hers is Chantelle. They both share drinks, hers being vodka cranberries, his beer or a scotch and coke.

They fall, drunk and dishevelled, into a hotel room. They are kissing each other; he is realising something he has fantasised sober and drunk, millions of times; she is revelling in the fact that she finally admits he is sexy, good-looking. The one she wants, for now.

The next day is awkward. He is twenty five; she is twenty seven. She thinks he is a regression; something she would do while drunk. He thinks she was good; a fantasy to look back on, later in life.

That they both enjoyed the sex they shared is not new. They wanted to think the other liked them; as far as they were concerned, the other was hooked on them. He thought she wouldn't or couldn't say no; she thought he couldn't do any better. Both were right, at least in this instance.

She is a nurse. She works in Tuesday nights. One night, he is at a boy's night; his friend has just gotten engaged. They went to a strip club, then to a bar. A man took offence at his appearance, and got into a deliberate altercation; a fight. He was never going to take the thing lying down.

He never took his boxing seriously; that he had taken lessons at all enabled him to live, to move out of the position he was in, out of the true damaging range of the blow that felled him. It hit him hard enough to render him unconscious, but not to do further brain damage. Yes, he was already not of high intelligence, but the punch the knocked him out was clumsy, not within the range that made it damaging. An unfortunate blow indeed.

She saw him, in the ER; her mind translated to recognition, then panic. She instantly willed him to be okay; fine, she prayed him so as well. He, in his placid, unconscious state, was more attractive than awake and speaking; she takes note of this, idly, while changing his medication.

His face is peaceful, unlined, as she stares at him without realising it. She takes note of his features, as abstractly as she can; objective as is possible. She looks at his lips; she remembers moaning into them, her body vibrating as he moved around and within her. She remembers how he tasted, how hard his body was, yet how she felt when he kissed her.

She looks away, at the perfect time.

He is deep, deep within himself. He cannot see through his eyes, nor hear with his ears. He can feel, though, through the black; he can feel her warmth through the layers of his skin.

He groans, and the sound is actuality.

She hears the sound, and moves to his side. She presses the button that summons a doctor; this time, it is a pretty young woman, at least twenty four. She looks at least nominally Asian, but she lacks an accent when she speaks English.

The doctor talks to the man, and Chantelle hates that she is standing there, unable to do anything of substance. She feels all kinds of unattractive, bordering on ugly. She wishes that they were alone; the attachment she feels for his prone body is uncanny, bordering on the insane, obsessive.

The man squints, hoping to improve on the dimness around him. He cannot see anything, yet he can hear the sound of his IV; the constant beeping of the machine a bed away. He can hear the doctors voice; a beautiful sound, despite the pounding of his head. He tries to put a picture to the sound, yet the only face he can get is hers. Chantelles. He tries to dismiss it; tries to de-attach it from the voice, but it won't go away. Could be that he can smell her, but he wasn't sure.

The doctor asks him what is wrong; he tells her he can't see. Chantelle looks at him, then at the doctor; she may not be brilliant, but she is a good person, and she feels numb, sad; her eyes are still drawn to him, forced almost against her will, to him. Always, to him. She wanted to think she was being silly, but her eyes kept moving, ending any and every thought, exploring the planes of his face.

The next day is no better. She takes care of him; changes his IV, assists him on his way to the restroom. She falters at taking him to the shower; she cannot find the distance necessary to adequately clean him. He still cannot see. Was he aware that she was the nurse, the one looking for him now? He couldn't see her face, and it almost made her weep. She didn't even leave the hospital, even when her shift finished; she worried over him, sitting there, while he slept.

For him, the days are empty, bleak; the images he cannot see cannot be filled by the multitude of meanings he finds through sound, taste. His hands feel texture harder, rougher; he senses meaning in voices more. The young lady who is his doctor holds no hope his vision will return; she doesn't say so, but her voice does. The nurse that serves him doesn't like him; she never speaks. She smells so familiar; he wishes so hard it hurts that he could see her. It burns him that he can't, that he doesn't feel like he will, ever again.

It took a month for him to be capable of leaving the hospital; on the last day, he smells her. She is split in two; she doesn't want to speak to him; she wants to run to him, to press herself to him, and not just because she feels enormous sympathy for him. She so unbelievably wants him now; she admits it to herself, after she wakes, and before she sleeps. She hasn't slept with another since him; she glorifies that night, the one she dismissed at the time. He was fireworks for her, in her head.

He is dressed: his sister begins to push him out of his room, but he asks her to wait. Chantelle stands there, outside; too afraid to walk in, too scared of actually admitting to him, Nathan, that man who existed in her head and in the actuality beyond.

He speaks out: "I remember you. You have been there every day. I wanted to thank you for looking after me, even though you don't like me. I'd get you flowers, but I wouldn't know who to give them to. Anyway, thanks."

Nathan's sister sees her tears, and smiles at her. She pushes his wheelchair down the hall, then feeds him a shit excuse, and walks back to the room.

Chantelle is still there, sitting down in a chair. She almost hates herself; she tells herself she is being silly, unable to actually talk to him, to tell him she doesn't hate him, that she loves him. Her hand stalls to her lips at that last; she hadn't admitted it to herself, and her tears fall fresh as Nathans sister passes the doorframe.

They talk; they share. They almost become fast friends. The sister knows; Chantelle knows she knows. She invites her to the third wedding; the day for that most ominous of bachelor's nights. Chantelle says she was invited anyway, but please don't tell him I knew he was here. The sister nods; just, please talk, see him. Let him know it's okay; that he's still alive.

"Why don't you come downstairs with me, Chantelle? Say goodbye?" The sister asks; Chantelle shakes her head, hating herself for her weakness.

The wedding is muted. One of the groomsmen losing his sight will do that. But it isn't without joy; Nathan is almost happy, again. When his friend, the groom, asked him if he wanted him to put off the wedding, he punched him in the shoulder, hard; he was unbelievably happy that the blow connected. It corked the man's shoulder; the groom's tone of happy surprise was even better.

Indeed, Nathan is surprised at the degree his life had not changed, since he couldn't see. He gained the capacity to stand; he knew his room well enough to get dressed, go to the bathroom. He hadn't forgotten about the girl, Chantelle, but she wasn't at the forefront of his mind.

But when he sat there, next to a table, and smelt her, he made the connection; she was there, the nurse from the hospital. He nudged his sister, and got her to give him a bouquet. She wheeled him over, and he tried not to sweat.

He struggled for the words; he didn't really know what to say to her, that her, that had looked after him, that hadn't told him she was there. Chantelle; the name shivered over his tongue. He wanted to say it again, but he held it in; who would want him now?

She blushes, as their fingers touch, over the ribbons surrounding the flowers. He takes a seat, next to her; she never leaves the chair and the table. The groom asks the best man to see they both get drinks, without either noticing. They didn't. They, still, aren't that smart.

They spend time together. She visits; he calls her. When he can arrange to visit her, he does. He cannot believe how happy he is around her; she loves him. She admits it to herself, again and again. She cannot deal a day without hearing him speak, seeing his face.

She moves to kiss him, one day; he feels her lips close over his, and his hands move to her shoulders. He rises out of the chair, and feels his way onto the couch, large enough for them to share. He doesn't think long enough to wonder why; he moves. Instinct drives him on.

She is nearly weeping at her happiness. She knows she is crying. And yet she is aroused, so much. Her eyes close, and stay that way; in this she is as blind as he is.

They both move, one being under the blackness of their feelings. I love him, she thinks; he cannot admit it to himself, anything.

Her skirt rumples upwards, to hover over her hips; he feels his way to lift her shirt. He kisses her, on the lips; he feels her collarbones, her shape, imprinting it in his head via osmosis. Her hands are on his neck, in his hair; they follow as he moves low, his tongue on her bare navel, tracing the line of her skirt edge. Denim is not the nicest tasting of fabrics.

She guides his fingers to a zip, at one side, as his tongue dips into her belly button. She laughs, breathlessly. He kisses her, pulling the dress down, and feeling the way back up to her panties. If he could see them, he would know they were pink, and new. He traces them, with his hands, creating their shape. He can smell her desire, and he feels something rise within him, to meet it.

He traces her groin with his tongue. He sips the air around her; it vibrates, thrumming with her desire. He doesn't take long to taste her, impatience getting the better of him.

He had gone down on women before, but not since the accident; better to think of it as that than what it was. It was so much better than it was before. He was so hard, but he felt no need to rush, or to move into her.

She tastes amazing. Not quite tangy, not quite salty, nor sweet, nor sour. Not anything other than ambrosia to his self; not that he would term it such.

She trembles. Her eyes are still closed, but they flutter, as she feels him touch her over and over. He is even better than she remembers, and she bites her tongue to stop from speaking and crying out. She arches, as he parts her with his mouth, and he french-kisses her centre.

He cannot breathe, not one bit, but that doesn't stop him. He knows her name, and they had talked over and more since he was hurt, but this solidified her in his head. It wasn't Chantelle, nor any other person. Now, she was her, that essence; it looks, sounds, tastes. By osmosis, her imprinted onto him.

He rises up, but he never loses contact with her. She thinks, idly, about how before this she hated to kiss her own desire off a man's face, but it's nothing. She would do anything, say anything, to kiss him now, and when he does, she swoons into the embrace, not fainting but losing herself into him.

Neither can think, can ascribe where one of them ends and the other begins. She is blind; he can see. When he enters her, over and over, neither can tell who is moving. Both are, both aren't, the world around them ascribing motion to their bodies that defies physics.

He is so hard, so ready within her. It begins, at the base of his spine, a tingle, a caress of warmth. It spreads, slowly, down, between his legs; it moves, away from his body, with his soul, into his cock, and surrounds him fully.

He pours himself within, and she can feel it, amazingly.

They lie together, and do not ruin the timelessness by speaking. She smiles, and he feels it against his chest. Her hair tickles as she moves against him, her lips finding the corner of his jaw, beneath his ear.

They whisper, together, little platitudes of love. Both are honest, completely for once. If they don't tell each other the sealing words, it is due to a fear of rushing. Their foolishness pales to wisdom.

She does not go home, that night. They stay together for the weekend. She comes over every day for the next week, and they sleep together every night. He doesn't dare to ask her to marry him, not yet. If this had happened before he lost his sight, he would have, but now things have changed. In his mind, he has gone from being a catch to a burden. He can't work, nor do anything for her; his heart aches for both what he has lost and for her if she stays.

She is literally on cloud nine. Her days are as spring clouds so fleeting as to pass no shower over a summer existence. She smiles to herself, thinking of him, and goes about her duties. However, she is far more perceptive than we give her credit for. She knows how he feels about himself, more or less, so she won't rush him at all. Let him reassure himself that she is there, next to him, because she wants him, and that she is going nowhere.

Nathan's mother visits him, and with her she brings a man. If Nathan could see him, he would observe the cane, the beautiful golden Labrador, and the black glasses. But the man is businesslike, as he sits, and introduces himself. The man opens a suitcase, and brings out a sheet of paper with bumps on it, and runs his own fingers over them, lightly.

The man gives Nathan a sheet, and directs the index finger of his right hand to a space. There are six indents in place, and he explains that in these six places a form of written language exists. Braille, the man said. With it, you can read again. You can write, and you can type.

The words hit Nathan like a blow. He was as unaware of the existence of blind people as anyone; he remembered that the doctors had mentioned reading, but it hadn't sunk in properly. He is excited, but apprehensive; he never liked reading, before. He wasn't any good at it in school.

Over the next few weeks, the blind man returns. Sometimes his mother brings him; others, Chantelle drops him off. Nathan can find his way around his home, easily. It became almost easy to picture the room as it was, how it would have looked if he could see it; that realisation surprised him by the lack of bitterness that accompanied it. He could find a milk bottle by feeling the texture of the bottle, herbs by their smell. The blind man had supplied him with little stickers, which Chantelle had put on the keys of the microwave, so when he felt them he knew what number he had, which setting he found. And he could read them, with ever growing ease.

That he found it difficult to learn was true; as he knew, he was not the best student. But he tried, and practiced; he would not be a burden on those he loved. He would not.

He got a payout from the government, weekly, to assist with his living. He used the first payment to purchase a keyboard, one that could be plugged into his computer, which had their letters bumped into them.

Did it take long for him to begin writing? Perhaps. But when he did he found it amazing that the things which emerged were more like a cacophony than a tune; so much detail and life. He kept going; he listened to the radio, to the television, and wrote reviews. He maintained a blog, which he asked Chantelle to post for him, and she did.

Then, he thought about it, and decided to sit down, and write about her. The woman who changed his life, so much for the better. He put everything he knew about her onto the pages he couldn't see, and how he loved her.

And around that theme, he illustrates a world, and a plot.

He asks his mother to read it, to tell him if it was any good. She loves it; beautiful, amazing. It isn't poetic so much as it's honest, brutally heartbreakingly honest. And it speaks, of him and his simplicity, his pain, his love, his life.

He has it sent to an agent, who calls him as soon as she read it. Chantelle drives him to the city, and leads him inside; they haven't quite gotten around to getting him a dog yet. They all joke that they would get jealous of a dog that was smarter than them.

She never told Nathan that she had not renewed her lease, which he hadn't asked about. It was fine, because she was always there, with him. Did she resent how much she looked for and to him? She looks within, and asked herself that question, over and over, and she finds, quite surprisingly, that the answer is not really. She privately always saw herself as a bit selfish (before, she would have said 'independent').

His novel, about her, gets published. She smiles, as she reads the paperback he gets her, her face reddening as the words recall their first time together; the fumbling drunken hands clutching at formal clothes.

She is speechless, when she finished. The novel says 'I love you' better than any words. He lifted his head, from the back of the armchair he was in, putting a book aside.

He finds his way to her, and kneels before her, between her legs.

"What'd you think?"

She kisses him softly on the cheek. "I love you, too, dear."

He smiles. "I'm glad you liked it."

"I still can't believe you wrote a book."

He laughs. "I can't either."

She leans back, as he starts to get up, but starts when he stops halfway.