Paresthesia Pt. 04

"Are you ready?" I ask. She takes a deep breath. Her chest is still padded. I wish it wasn't. It was perfect before, and now it is just a bit too manufactured to be anything actually good. She nods and starts.

The world goes gray at the merest thought. Before anything, I ditch the hat. I run a hand through my sharp stubble and feel the spring back push against my palm. There is something to be said of scratching it while thinking.

I go for her arms, bare skin soft and smooth and hard. She is stronger than me, and I don't mind. There are lines and shapes to trace on her, swells and dops. Part of me wants to get really insidious with the act. But I don't. She does not want that, she just has to sit there and think of where I would land, where I would touch. I have my answer and it is glorious. The moment ticks by and the world goes back to the way it was.

"Stomach," she sighs. Point to me, although I really don't keep track. She is here and I am touching her. That's all that matters.

I come back to the click and the words part her lips. The world goes gray.

I want her. I want her so bad. I want her looking to me from pillows and covers, urging me to come back to bed after the terrible realization that we are aware. I want her in the mornings rubbing sleep from her eyes and wearing comfy clothes. I want her dragging me along and me dragging her. I want her to look at me and smile for no other reason than I am here for her. I want to look at her and smile for no other reason than she is here for me.

I go for the stomach this time. It is smooth. It is hard. Toned and line, forged and sculpted. I have touched her stomach before and it has always been glorious. The shape has only become more and more defined over the years, each line cutting deeper and deeper, more and more of her sculpted, chiseled away. I am hard as well. Painfully, awkwardly so, and it only furthers my urges and needs to strip and do some terribly nefarious things.

"Shoulders," she says when the world goes back to how it should be. Another point to me. I don't put it in the tally. I want to touch her more. I want to strip her and see her naked. I want to rip that stupid unitard away from her. It only takes from her. Anything she wears only takes away from her.

I give the signal and we start again. I wait and I wait and I wait for the moment to come where she says something. And it never comes. It never manifests, but she still looks at me.

"It feels weird, right?" she asks.

"Little bit. I mean, it's always been kind of a weird thing we do, but that's never stopped us before."

"But I don't know. It just doesn't click this time."

"Then we don't have to play. We can just finish the drinks and watch the sunset."

That idea seems to please her and I am pleased that she has decided to sit in my lap. I don't think I should get a second chair for when we do this again.

---

I shouldn't be where I'm at, but I am. I am here on the poured stone of the sidewalk, looking down a long narrow patch of grass, engulfing and mirror smooth pond. I watch the towers of steel and glass sway and bend in the wind, just a few inches, just like they are made to. When anything is built that high, it has to have some flexibility to it. Winds and tremors and all sorts of things send the whole building tumbling down when it all aligns just right. I am here now, and the path to the moment felt right.

The reflection in the water shimmers. The wind takes the picture and makes it ripple. But I am not looking at the facsimile reflection. I have the real thing to gaze upon. Ivory towers, shimmering alabaster, the crawl of neon words proclaiming it as the Hall of Righteousness.

In all fairness, it is a beautiful building, if only for the novelty. It is white with splashes of red and blue tossed in for good measure. Very little in terms of open windows, but I know for the fact the roof can open up like a rose for the more aviary of the inhabitants. Bunks, a mess, armory, intel, everything that anyone could ever need in the fight against me.

Kind of odd that I am allowed to get this close to the front gate without setting off the alarms. It must be the hair. It's down right now, pulled back to neck, tied and tucked away. I am getting stubble along the edges again. I need to shave the rest of it off. Trim the edges of the mohawk as well.

The Hall is sharp. The Hall is wide. The Hall rises from the earth to pierce the sky in ivory needles tapered and pin. I do not like it. Kind of reminds me of a hand or something wresting the clouds away for being too high. I do not know where this arrogance comes from. It's not the tallest building in the city, not by a long shot. A couple to my left snap a picture with that open mouth excitement. They are both wearing Captain Solar T-shirts.

I raise my own phone and take a picture, just to blend in a bit. I already have my collection, but it never hurts. If someone starts looking through the gallery, though, then I'm in trouble. There are a few surprises from Hannah, and I haven't found all of them.

A clean wail pierces the calm afternoon. The couple jumps. The miasma of passersby jumps, although not as high. I do not. The red lights come on and the floating green letters all read alert. Someone out there is causing some trouble and the ants in the nest need to go out and address it. We won't get to see anything from this side. The garage is in the back. We can hear it though, the rumble of the squad car tearing up asphalt and concrete. I don't like it. It's not a good rumble. Too loud, too harsh for anything sane to draw comfort from. The couple likes it, in their childlike wonder at the display of power. I don't blame them. Well, a little bit. I blame them a little bit.

I don't like being here in front of the hall, so I don't sit and gawk. I have my pretense carried out and that is enough. There is no intel I was supposed to gather. No one even knows I'm here. Hannah thinks I went to the cages, and that's the truth. There was just a detour on the way back. It's all still real. It's all still standing as a brilliant light to beat back the dark. Its presence alone soothes the soul and calms the mind. My palms still sting. I took a bad hit at the cages and now they won't stop hurting.

"Excuse me," says the man with the Captain Solar T-shirt, "Could you take our picture?"

The man in question is taller than me. Not that hard, but I still run the math. I could take him. I have a baseball bat in a bag across my shoulders and he has glasses. It doesn't work out in a way that favors him. But he seems nice enough and he is willing to trust me with his phone. I shrug and take it.

"You just-" he starts.

"I know how to work a phone, my man," I say. He's still smiling and happy. His girl is still smiling and happy. Maybe that's how they met. A meet and greet with the man they idolize for some odd reason. I take the picture and I make them look as good as I can. There are limits to my power, though.

I take the moment when I hand it back. Solar's dumb face looks to me in the monochrome veil. He is not smiling. He is looking up defiantly, prideful, to a rising sun, a new day, the night once again vanquished. I am a petty bastard and I want to do something petty now. I give the phone a little push and it hangs in the air right when it leaves my skin.

My prize rests in his right front pocket. It is a wallet, simple black leather with a burned logo of ox horns on the bottom. And it has $20 inside. Then it doesn't. And mine does. Just to mess with the poor tourist a bit more, I slide the phone back to the wallet's place, with the wallet now in my hand. I mime the pose as best I can and give time the right of way.

He doesn't notice for what it's worth. He still has that goober smile on his face that slowly fades into confusion as to why a stranger is handing his wallet back to him. The math doesn't add up. I turn when most of his things are back where they belong and I am walking down the other way. I think I deserve a treat. Maybe the gift shop still has some Blast Wave merch.

---

My new coffee mug says Adagio on it and I am flabbergasted that they still had some of this stuff lying around. Better part of a decade since I've been on that roster. That has to say something about me. Not enough star power. I should get on the Beat Down train. It would be antithetical to the whole mindset, but it would probably sell. And if it was the whole DIY thing, I could justify the system to myself. Surprisingly, the coffee from the mug doesn't taste any better. If anything, it now has a weird metallic tang to it that I don't trust. Ceramic doesn't have an expiration date, but I doubt this cheap thing is ceramic of any kind.

The mug's mug displeases me, with the curly haired wig and the opera mask. I am smiling and I can't recall a reason why I would do that. I even have a conductor's baton waving jovially in my left hand. Music flows from the tips of my fingers and I can't quite like the image of what I was. Too pressed, too clean, too much not me. I was bald underneath that wig, and I think that was the worst part of it. Part of the reason I went full into the punk thing. And the music was better.

I take another sip and watch the TV. Spiders are playing away this time, down by 3 runs, ninth inning. Bases loaded and Laplanta's up to bat. We are officially in the field of dreams, if this all goes down the way it should, then everyone goes home happy. Laplanta's a coin flip though. Failure or success, it is spectacular. He raises a hand to the crowd and for a moment I want to riot. He should not be calling a dinger. Get the batting percentage up and I might allow him to do so. But no, it's just a wave to the crowd to try and build some heat. Acceptable, this is all acceptable for the moment.

I do like that old mask though. Simple gold painted metal with deep etches of pearl. All fake of course, not quite enough money for the real thing, but it looked good and it covered enough of my face. It would cut knuckles and helped with headbutts. My cloth domino now doesn't afford that luxury, but I have a baseball bat for heavy hitting. It sits on its rack on the far wall, slumbering peacefully. The old baton was sturdy enough for hitting people I wanted to hit, but it didn't have enough reach.

Laplanta's in position and steely eyed. Stanton, Deer, and Biedermeier are all leading off base and Biedermeier is going too far for my tastes. But he's the professional. I'm not. I'm just sitting on my ass waiting for my girlfriend to pick up dinner, reminiscing about dumb shit I was forced into when I was a teenager. My coffee is still too hot and I burn my tongue a bit.

I center myself. I will not devolve into yelling at the TV. I am not a savage. But Laplanta just had a strike and I am very close to reverting to some primal rage tapped just above the spinal cord. But I refrain. I am a man. I am civilized. I am calm, cool, collected, and everything serene.

"Goddamn idiot," I yell to the screen. He just got another strike. I can see the rage building in Deer's eyes. I hope it boils over. I really, really do. Every sport could be improved with a little hockey fight thrown in here and there.

A boom and a bang echo through my high ceilings and I jump like a startled deer. Pain, there is only pain. There can only be pain. My shin hit the table and now there is hot coffee down my front. I am dying. There will be peace once this all fades away. But I am pain.

"Babe," says Hannah, "I'm back. Got some of their pickles too. The spicy ones and the normal ones."

I whine and sob to attract pity. I do not get any. Hannah busies herself with setting the bag on the counter and rummaging through the drawers for plates. I don't know why. The sandwiches have wrappers. Those can be plates. But I am in pain, so much terrible pain and I cannot argue the point of wrappers that can be plates.

"Oh, quit your whining," she says, "You need to be less jumpy all the time. You'll be fine."

"No, I won't," I groan, "I'm going to die and then you'll have to live in this big warehouse all by yourself."

She saunters over, taking her sweet time to come and offer condolence. To be fair, it is a fair way away from the table. A quirk of the property really, drafty and echoey and can be kind of hard on the feet when the mornings are cold.

"Will a kiss make the pain go away, you big baby," she says. Her hands are on her hips and they are good hips. They make me feel a bit better. I nod. It's a good suggestion, really.

She leans over the back of the couch and her lips find my forehead. A soft peck and instantly, magically, it is all so much better than it was. There is no pain, no burn, no terrible awfulness to the world. There is just Hannah and her soft lips. And she even brought sandwiches. I look to the TV and the Spiders lost. Even she cannot cure the malicious universe of all its woes. But at least some of them.

I find the plates for her. I don't even bother to argue the point of wrappers. They are thrown away and forgotten. It is their destiny. I have my BLT and it is exactly what I wanted it to be. She has her prosciutto on ciabatta and it is exactly what she wanted it to be.

"Good game?" she asks.

"Not really," I say, "Breaker still cannot pitch to save his life. I would say he needs another season, but I said that last year so I doubt another one would do any better. Laplanta's still a coin toss. Deer's a good short stop, but not good enough to carry the rest."

"I understood the word pitch and that was about it," she says.

"That's about all I understand too. I just repeat what the guys on the post show say. That seems to do the trick. Everyone seems to think that I know things about baseball."

"I know things about theater. Did you know that The Hare on the Sea is coming in the fall? We should go."

I nod and hum some noncommittal noise. There are worse things to do than go to a play. Not many, but still. It's something. More things to help the civilized image I have so carefully cultivated.

"Did Sunday have anything to say when you saw him?" I ask.

"Yes and no. Had me go through what I know about their security, but it was mostly stuff he already knew from his network. Patrol schedules, support units, tactics. That sort of thing. Closest precinct's actually pretty far off. They're sending in the new recruits now for the Hall. Supposed to be a low-pressure environment, but I think it's just so the union can shuffle away the low performers."

"Do they still have to wear that uniform?"

"Oh yeah. If anything, the shoulder pads have gotten bigger. And that helmet is now full mirrored glass. Don't know what they are thinking. They look like chrome thumbs. They might actually be chrome thumbs."

I go for a pickle and my senses betray me. It's a spicy one. I spit it out. I have to spit it out. It would kill me otherwise.

"Why would you even get those?" I moan, "They're terrible."

"Their delicious," she says, "And you pulled from the spicy jar. I don't know what you expected."

"I expected good pickles. And now I'm poisoned. I've been beaten up, burned and now I've been poisoned."

"You are such a wimp. Leather jacket like that, I thought you would be tough."

"I'm not tough. I just have spiky hair and that makes people think I'm tough. I'm soft and squidgy. It's all a big defense mechanism. Like a hedgehog."

I pull the look from her and I take the moment. Simple incredulous belief that I am even saying words this stupid. My tongue still burns and that acrid brine has slipped down the back of my throat. It refuses to leave. But she is looking at me like I'm the biggest idiot on the planet. And it's her fault, all her fault for choosing me.

She is smiling and she hates that she is smiling. There is enough annoyance to pull a grimace, but there is still that unyielding happiness at my buffoonery.

I just look at her in the frozen time. My moment to just take in her mouth, her nose, her eyes, her entire being. There is so much of her, sitting there in my gray. I do not think that we should go to the play for our excursion of culture. The museum, maybe, but this time we don't steal anything, just look. I still have my cut from her turncoat hanging around somewhere. Probably should give it back at some point. I snatch one from the jar of good and nice tasting ones. It helps. Not a lot but smooths away the worst of it.

I let it all move on again and she wrestles with the conflicting emotions.

"You did the time thing, didn't you," she sighs.

"Yeah. It was fun. Got the bad pickle taste out of my mouth with the good pickle."

"They're both good pickles. You just have the palate of a 5-year-old. You once said mayo is spicy."

"Yes, it was that jalapeno mayo you got from that Mexican store. It was supposed to be spicy. And you said it was spicy too."

She immediately grabs another one of the devil's gherkins and shoves it in her mouth. I am now somewhat frightened and that pull in my stomach has not come back. There is no escape from her grand plan.

Hannah vaults over the table and takes me to the ground, clattering the chair to the side and creaking the poor table. It was a gift from Sunday. Most of my furniture was and it all served me well. Industrial, steel and beech, part of the whole set. And now the chair is on the floor and there is a Hannah on me.

She kisses me and she tastes like spicy pickles and a Hannah. I like the second and I do not like the first. Still, any flavor of Hannah is a good Hannah.

"Does that taste better," she says.

"No, but that doesn't mean stop."

She does not stop and I feel the burn through my lips and it doesn't sting as much as I thought it would. Almost calming, in a weird way. Chemically and peppery but muted and dulled through vibrations.

"I think I might be learning the wrong lesson here," I murmur, "Cause what I'm getting is if I annoy you, we start making out."

"It's a good vent. Its either this or I hit you," she says while biting my lip, "And this is more fun for me too."

I enjoy this venting process and the fun we share, even if her breath kind of smells like cured ham and brine. I can't imagine mine is much better, but it doesn't matter all that much. I move my hands to her back and she cups my head in her palms. Terrible flavors but wonderful textures.

Her back ripples and pulses and she does not move away when I creep lower. She leans into my hand and I think she would like to have some fun. I hope so. I am currently creeping up her shirt again, tracing her spine, and everything she is doing tells me that she wants to go a bit father. The finger on my chest tracing lazy circles and the tongue darting past my lips says as much. Every time, every single goddamn time, I am surprised that there is no bra. I reach the shoulder blades and find smooth skin. No lace, no nylon, no wire, no whatever other fabric goes into chest support. Muscle and bone that shifts with my touch and flexes with wanton abandon.

She is under my shirt now, on my stomach, flowing up and up and up. Her fingertip trace leaves a steady rhythm of electric pulses. Wonderful, worming under the skin and the muscle and reverberating all the soul and the body for the ringing bell of my existence. She takes the thoughts and the will and all there is filters down to her touch. It makes the world of so many things and boils down to her and her alone. I dig my nails and run shapes across her shoulders. She likes that and hums some song of contentedness.

Some rather troublesome sensation slips in. I just banged my head and there will be a welt forming. Probably. Might have even split the skull. Could be bleeding out on the floor. I don't really care all that much. Hannah, there is still Hannah touching me and kissing me with wanton abandon.