“That’d be 11.50 for you, sir,” the lady behind the counter says in a voice that is flat with boredom. She doesn’t look at me, though, instead she talks to Lauren who is standing right next to me.
Lauren hesitates, her purse in her hands.
“Aides get a free
pass,” the lady explains with a fleeting look at me, frowning suspiciously at
the fact that Lauren doesn’t seem to know that.
“Oh, uh… right…”
Lauren blinks and hurriedly hands over the money that Romina gave her for my
entrance ticket. She cocks an eyebrow at me while she receives the change. “Too
weird,” she whispers into my ear, leaning down a bit as I roll through the
wheelchair entrance and deeper into the large, well air-conditioned museum building.
I smile up at her and
inwardly shake my head. Well, if she thinks that
is weird…
Lauren picked me up in
front of my hotel shortly after noon just as we’d agreed. She had changed from
her business dress and was wearing a flowing, green summer dress, carrying a
red leather bag around her shoulders and pulling her already packed suitcase
behind herself. Her dark brown hair was tied into a pony tail, the tips
swinging into her neck. She gave me an adorable smile as a greeting and kissed
my cheeks, her perfume enveloping me as she bent down.
Romina and Lauren had
had a long discussion on the phone before. I know because I had been in the
adjacent room, working on my nutrition shake that Romina had placed into the
cup holder on my wheelchair and positioned high enough so that I could reach
the straw myself. They had spoken about certain details of my condition, what
I’d need assistance with (almost everything) and what I’d manage on my own (not
much), and a couple of warning signs at which Lauren had to immediately call
one of the emergency numbers that Romina dictated her.
As I overheard the
crash-course I was almost ready to blow it all off. Who would go out with
someone who could choke on their own vomit while being fully conscious? Just
hearing Romina talk about all catastrophic eventualities made me sick. No one
in their right mind would want to have to bother with that.
Before we got into the
wheelchair-accessible taxi, Romina had explained to Lauren how the attendant
controls of my wheelchair worked and I had tried my best not to get disgruntled
as the two woman manipulated my chair, making it jolt forward and halt
abruptly, the strap around my chest digging into flesh and the fingers of my
right hand twitching to stop them messing around. Thankfully, Lauren had proven
herself a fast learner. She also passed the questionnaire that Romina fired at
her without a single error while the taxi driver stood next to us with the
doors of his car already open, unashamedly staring at me.
If she doesn’t think
that all of this was weird, I don’t know what’s wrong with her. But I’m not
complaining. The taxi driver stood around uselessly while Romina steered my
wheelchair over the ramp into the van and fastened the chair using the various
straps in the car. Lauren turned around on the front passenger seat, smiling at
me with a happy sparkle in her eyes as soon as I was settled. I still can’t get
over the thought that maybe she indeed enjoys looking at me as much as I do
looking at her.
That has been the only reason why I’ve not bailed this afternoon. I want to see Lauren again, even if it’s a pain in the ass for all of us to make it possible and although I feel terribly self-conscious and a bit scared, but I want to be able to look into her face and see her smile, just for a few more hours.
Plus, I also like art.
I would probably not have used my last afternoon at the conference to visit a
museum but I’m not completely opposed to it.
As it turns out, the
exhibition is in fact really interesting even from a scientific point of view. Basically
every single piece of art in the exhibition is made out of food: food in
various stages of decay and rot, some partly conserved and others left to waste
away on purpose, the exhibition changing with every day as a result of it. In
parts it has a certain morbid quality to it that I find very fascinating.
Lauren and I spend a long time in front of a large glass frame filled
with chocolate that was first melted and then congealed. It takes me a while to
steer the wheelchair close to the frame without ramming the wall behind it. We
stare at the various types of chocolate forming long strings and globs, black
and white and brown melting together, swirling and glistening and ending up in
the strangest shapes on their way to the bottom, where a thick layer of
chocolate has pooled. It’s strangely dark and terrifying, and the longer I look
the more detail I discover inside the frame, tiny sculptures and entire
landscapes made of chocolate, formed by gravity and pure chance, frozen in
time.
It’s also slightly
disgusting.
“Like looking into a
monster’s dietary tract,” Lauren comments in a whisper, shuddering a bit next
to me.
I chuckle. “A three
year old’s stomach after Halloween,” I counter.
Lauren looks down at
me from the side for a few seconds, then laughs. “Yes, exactly. A monster, as I
said.”
We’re still figuring
out the best way of communication between us two, without Romina to relay for me.
Typing is much too slow, from my experience. It may be appropriate for very short
discussions or more complex topics, but the talker just isn’t made for dating
purposes. So talking it is, and I work really hard on enunciating as clearly as
possible, hoping Lauren will get the gist. So far it has worked out alright.
When Lauren doesn’t understand my meaning at all, she tells me the parts that
are clear, and I can repeat the words that she missed. I feared it could be
awkward but that’s not the case with Lauren. When the guessing game gets too
wild, she laughs at herself and waits for me to use the talker.
Walking around the
exhibition with Lauren is fun and relaxing. We seem to have the same interests
and take similar amounts of time to enjoy a certain piece of art. When we move,
Lauren keeps close to me and sometimes briefly places a hand on my shoulder or
the underarm that commands the joystick. Every time she touches me I feel a soft
tingle in my skin, like electric current and I wonder if it feels the same for
her.
The exhibition has a
room with a giant rotating kitchen in it. It is one large box which is open
just on one side and is suspended in a way that it can rotate around itself the
entire time. The furniture inside is fixed to the walls of the box but
everything else that must have been on the kitchen table, inside the stove or
in the cupboards and shelves, has fallen out and is rumbling around in the box,
being tossed from wall to ceiling to wall to floor as the kitchen does another
circulation around itself. The noise is indescribable. A microwave, battered
pans and pots and broken china in various forms, shapes and colors, cutlery,
soup ladles, food leftovers, carving boards and plastic containers are sliding
along the surfaces and tumbling down the walls, creating a never ending
cacophony of kitchen utensils. The majority of what was inside the kitchen has
been transported outside by now, shards and broken parts littering the floor
around it, reaching well beyond the line marking the safe distance for
visitors.
I’m careful not to get
too close to the rotating kitchen and the broken china strewn around it, least
I may damage one of the wheels on my chair. Every time the kitchen drawers roll
shut or the larger cabinet doors bang close, I jump, startled. The air reeks of
spoiled food which is mostly stuck to the insides of the kitchen or spread over
the floor close to the rotating box, forming splatters in different shades of
red, orange and brown.
Lauren looks at me,
wrinkles her nose, and together we quickly leave the room again.
The next room is full
of sculptures made of butter. It is cooled down a lot more than any of the
other rooms to preserve the displays. The low temperature is a bit troubling
for me, as is the narrow space between the display cases. Lauren slows down
with me and trails behind me as I maneuver the wheelchair into the aisle
between the sculptures.
We don’t get far
before I narrowly miss the heels of a visitor blocking part of the way. He’s
almost smudging his nose against the glass of the display case in front of him,
which shows a naked woman bathing in the light of an invisible sun. I avoid
rolling over his feet with the wheels but my armrest slightly brushes against
his side.
The guy turns around,
agitated. “Watch where you're go-” His eyes grow wide as his gaze falls down on
me. “Oh... Sorry, sir…” His face turns a funny shade of red. “I'm really sorry,
I wasn't-”
“My fault,” I say.
The guy closes his
mouth and stares at me in horror. “Uh...” It’s obvious he didn’t understand me.
Lauren isn’t my aide.
I wanted this to be clear before we left. She’s only going to assist with
things I absolutely can’t deal with on my own. Like doors. Or narrow spaces.
But that’s basically where her duties at helping me end. This is supposed to be
a date of sorts. At least I hope it is.
But although Lauren is
not my aide, she’s actually rather good at substituting Romina.
“He said it’s his
fault,” she explains to the guy and steps closer to me, almost casually slipping
one hand on my shoulder.
“Oh um…” The guy looks
from Lauren to me and back again, confusion on his face. He gets his base cap
off and wipes sweat from his forehead. I’ve no idea how he can be sweating in
this room that is more some kind of oversized fridge.
“Um… well, anyway. I
wish you a good day…” The guy has stumbled from the room before I could even
start to answer.
Anger about myself
makes me blush. “I’m sorry,” I tell Lauren, not meeting her eyes.
She just shrugs. “This
guy’s problem.”
I shake my head and barely
manage to suppress a sigh, glancing at the narrow aisle in front of me. “No, I
should have… Guess I need…” A situation like this was the entire point Romina
and Lauren practiced steering my wheelchair with the attendant controls, but
somehow I can’t bring myself to ask for Lauren’s help.
I don’t want her to be
my caretaker. I want her to be my friend. And much more than that.
“Come on,” Lauren
says, squeezing her hand on my shoulder. “The sculpture over there looks like
someone covered Trump in butter. I want to marvel at that.”
Instead of folding out
the controls behind my headrest, though, Lauren slides her left hand over my
right on the armrest. Her skin is soft and feels warm compared to mine. My
fingers twitch a bit as I try to relax despite the thrumming of my heart and I stare
up at her, afraid she might be taken aback.
Lauren smiles, her
eyes sparkling mysteriously. She moves my hand to the joystick, her fingers
closing firmly over my stiff ones, and tips the stick forward gently. The
wheelchair hums and rolls forward slowly and Lauren walks next to it, grinning
happily, her hand still on mine. Together we steer the wheelchair to a
sculpture that indeed has astonishing resemblance with the American president,
although the object label doesn’t specifically say whose head is modeled.
“Hm…” Lauren says,
leaning over my shoulder to look at the head. “Tempting idea indeed…” With her
help I steer the wheelchair down the narrow aisle to the next sculpture.
The cooled-down room
couldn’t be large enough and have enough sculptures for my taste. I love having
Lauren’s hand on mine and her being so close to me, so close I can smell her
perfume and study her beautiful brown eyes when she bends down to look at a
sculpture. I'm afraid I can’t tell you what other people are chiseled in butter in
there, because the whole time we’re in this room my mind is entirely somewhere
else.
Much too soon, though,
have we passed the last glass case in the row and are approaching the
passageway leading into a wider corridor, where there’s no need for Lauren to
help me steer the wheelchair. I want her to continue holding my hand, but I
know it’d probably be weird. She lets go reluctantly, brushing her fingers over
my knuckles, and then increases the gap between us by half a step, to make it
easier for me to avoid bumping the wheelchair into her.
I still feel the warm
patch on my hand for minutes afterward.
Both Lauren and my
most favorite piece is a small painting of sorts. It appears to be a rather
convincing sunset, possibly set in water colors, until one takes a closer look
and realizes it’s in fact a circular slice of sausage on blue and white paper,
with the fat soaked into the material and spread out, to make it look like the
rays of the sun over an ocean.
“This is um...
romantic, eh?” Lauren jokes quietly. She slips her hand in my tense neck, her
warm fingers settling down casually like they belong there.
I can barely suppress
a moan as a full body shudder runs through me. “Uh-huh...” I turn my head up to
meet her gaze and am surprised to see the heat flashing in her eyes. Her hands
are magic, the fingertips sending little thrills down my spine and I feel my
entire body reacting instantly. I want her so much it’s almost unbearable.
“Truly captivating…”
Lauren whispers. I’m not sure if she means the art in front of us but I’m very
aware that my left arm is tightening at my side and my legs tremble more than
before, my shoes clanging on the footrest. My head stays turned to Lauren,
thankfully. We continue staring at each other for so long that a queue forms
behind us. Other people want to see the small piece of art that is hanging all
alone on this wall. So I finally break eye contact, bring myself to move the
joystick to the side and then forward with all conscious effort I can muster,
and we leave the area.
I can’t think about
anything or anyone else than Lauren for the rest of the exhibition. Her walking
next to me, her touching me occasionally, her ponytail swinging into her long
neck and the glimpse of her naked thighs under her green dress, it all makes me
constantly teeter on the edge of madness. Just shortly before the end of the
exhibition I roll past a rather small, somewhat hidden opening in the wall and notice
a dark room behind it. I react instinctively and knock the joystick to the
side. The armrests of the powerchair almost scrape the doorjambs but I make it
fit through with sheer luck. Lauren, who has had her hand on my shoulder,
follows with a surprised gasp.
The room we enter is almost
completely dark. It seems to be used as a storage for either art or cleaning
utensils. In fact, I don’t really care and I don’t wonder about who left it
open. Some distance into it I turn the wheelchair around abruptly. It can go in
very tight circles and Lauren obviously didn’t expect that. She more or less
falls into my lap with a small yelp, but she doesn’t seem to object.
“Geez, Patrick,” she
giggles and slightly wiggles around until she’s almost straddling me in my
chair. “That’s-”
Lauren inhales a gasp
when my right hand touches her lower back. It requires some effort but I manage
to land it softly with most of my fingers splayed out. I don’t pull her toward
me, for once because I lack the strength and also because I’m not entirely sure
she wants the same thing as I do. My heart is thrumming in my chest as I stare
into her face and pray that I’ve not misread all the signs. She reaches with
her hands to my face, framing it gently and leans closer. I don’t dare to move
consciously although I know it would probably be my place to close the last
inch but I don’t have enough faith in my body’s abilities not to screw things
up now. I can count Lauren’s long eyelashes and smell the sweetness of her
breath before her lips meet mine.
I’m not the best
kisser. I wish I was but there’s no way to make kissing enjoyable when one
party is constantly jerking away, even if it’s involuntarily. But at least I
made sure that there’s no spit on my face anywhere. That was my greatest
concern during the entire afternoon. Not because I thought Lauren and I would
kiss eventually, I don’t think I believed I could get this lucky. No, simply
because I didn’t want her to have to clean saliva off me again. Although I have
the small suspicion she wouldn’t mind.
My head stays still
for the entire time we kiss while the world seems to hold its breath with me. I
feel my hand tighten on her back and my legs writhe under hers but mostly I
feel the unbelievable softness of her lips against mine, and her fingers
digging into my scalp. She pulls back slowly and reluctantly, not a second too
early before my face is contorting with sudden spasms and my head is thrown
back against the headrest.
“Oh fuck…” Lauren
watches as most of the strongest spasms pass and then presses her body closer.
She places soft kisses along the side of my still mildly twitching face and my
neck, making me shudder and gasp. It feels incredible. Her hands slide over
both of my arms, following the bent shape of my left until she cups my
quivering fist that’s leaning against my chest. I squint at her in the darkness
as she stills, afraid I might see repulsion in her face but there’s only
trembling anticipation.
“Patrick, please…” she
hisses. “T-touch me…”
I stare at her. A
second of inattentiveness makes my left fist slide out from under her hand and
my arm jerks through the air uncontrollably. My right hand has slipped from her
back already before and is writhing in my lap. I clench my teeth. I can’t do
it, can’t she see? I might get lucky from time to time and get enough control
over my right arm to move it somewhere close to where I want it to be, but it’s
not permanent. The brief moment of power was gone the second she kissed me, and
replaced by foggy arousal that makes all voluntary movement feel hundred times
harder than it usually already is.
Out of some reason,
though, all of that doesn’t seem to matter. I don’t really need to be able to
touch Lauren properly to make her breath speed up and her cheeks heat. I don’t
know what it is that gets her going but it must be something I do because she
surges in and captures my lips with hers again, moaning into my mouth. We kiss
for a longer time than I’ve ever kissed anyone, regularly interrupted by my
head jerking away. It seems like neither of us cares much about it, anymore.
Lauren nips and sucks at my lower lip and draws a low groan out of me. I barely
notice her taking my right hand in hers, but suddenly I can feel the perfect
curves of her breasts under my fingertips and I can sense the nipples hardening
beneath the light fabric of her dress as she leads my twitching fingers over
them. I don’t think I’ve ever experience anything this beautiful.
I guess we would’ve
gone much farther than this, had a spasm not forced my head back violently
again, knocking it into the headrest. For a second I’m not looking at Lauren’s
blown eyes and brown strands of hair falling into her glowing face but at the
ceiling of the room we’re in.
“Lauren…”
Lauren’s hands have
lowered and she’s fiddling with my belt, breathing heavily over me.
“Lauren… stop.”
Her fingers still
although I’m not sure she understood me. “What…? Patrick, are you okay?”
I grunt and nod. “Yes,
I’m… This isn’t a storeroom.”
Lauren stops, halfway
about to kiss me again. “What?”
“This… isn’t a…
storeroom,” I repeat, consciously slowing my speech down even more. I’m still
staring at the ceiling and at what appears to be stars in the sky. For a second
my mind even tricks me into believing I’m looking at the Great Bear, which is
the only constellation I’d recognize. But this is clearly stupid since it’s
still too early to be night.
“It’s not a… what…? I
don’t—Holy shit!”
Lauren is looking up
at the ceiling with me. Now that our eyes have adjusted to the dimness, we see
that the room is much larger than it appeared on first glance. The ceiling is
arching high over us and from above dangle what must be several hundred-
“Sausages…”
Lauren is right. Hundreds
if not thousands of sausages are hanging on long threats from the ceiling,
emitting a faint blueish glow. I giggle against Lauren’s side as she moves to
sit sideways on my lap and leans into me to get a better look up.
“Sausages, my ass,”
Lauren mumbles unbelieving and laughs as well, her back shaking against my
chest.
We sit like this for a
while, staring at the mysterious wonder above us. A few visitors find their way
through the small opening into the room, some with their phones illuminating leaflets
from the museum. If we’d picked them up at the entrance we’d known there was a
room showing sausages glowing in the dark. But we didn’t. I’m glad we didn’t
but I’m also sad at the same time that I noticed at all that the room was part
of the exhibition. Of course it was lucky, too, because although I very much
enjoyed what we did yesterday, having sex in a public exhibition room is maybe
a bit too much too soon.
I may be open for
adventure but I’m not really sure I’ll ever be ready for something like that.
“Should we go?” Lauren
finally whispers into my ear. She has made herself comfortable in my lap, her
head resting on my shoulder and one hand splayed on my stomach. We’re far
enough into the room that most visitor do not even spot us before they leave
again. I’ve wondered if the mild jerking my body does from time to time bothers
Lauren, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.
“Mmmh…” I answer and
swallow against the sudden tightness in my throat. “Okay.” I’d like to stop
time here and never leave this room again. I could keep Lauren close to me,
forever, feeling her heart beat through the layers of fabric between us and
heat radiating out from her body. But I realize we should probably leave. We
both have a plane to catch.
The sound of my voice attracts
attention from a group of visitors who has just entered. They look over to us,
some shining their phone lights into our direction. Lauren shifts but before
she can sit up straight, I manage to place a kiss into her neck, making her
giggle softly.
It’s worth the scandalized whispers
ReplyDeleteHeck yeah it is!
Ahh, such a tender, funny chapter. The kissing scene is heart-stopping, and I love the dark absurdity of all of the art exhibits in the background - great descriptions there. Oh, and the sequence with Lauren helping Patrick steer his chair - *hand pressed to heart* :D
Thanks Rowan, I always enjoy reading your comments :D Haha, yes I think this exhibition had a lasting effect on me or it wouldn’t have made it into one of my stories.
DeleteAmazing and so devv-lishly original.
ReplyDeleteThanks Pepper! *hugs*
DeleteThe museum was amazing and your descriptions .So funny. The kissing and touching so sweet.
ReplyDeleteThanks, blueskye :) Aww, I’m so glad you like it!
DeleteI've wanted for this chapter to go on forever... That was amazing!! It could have come right out of my fantasy world (Patrick in general, but this chapter in particular). Thank you so much for sharing!!
ReplyDeletelisa
Thanks, lisa! I immensely enjoyed imagining this scene, so I’m glad it was equally enjoyable to read :)
DeleteI read two last chapters in a row and sorry that I'm going to comment the previous chapter here as well! :)
ReplyDeleteAlthough it was very clear from the first chapter that Patrick is a bright one, the previous chapter moved it to the new level for me. I loved him being the strong one to suggest Lauren seriously starting dealing with her issues. Patrick voicing his own struggles pulled of course all my heart strings... Also, I admired him figuratively taking the lead and 'leading' them to the outdoors coffee stand. And the cockiness in the sentence, 'They need to get used to waiting anyway.' clearly shows who's in control here! :)
I've always had a soft spot for those who are intelligent and strong in mind despite being frail in body...
In this chapter the art exhibition was an intriguing setting to their date. The descriptions of exhibits livened the story up and triggered the reader's imagination, e.g. the butter-covered head of a Famous Someone... :)
It was sweet how they figured out their communication and as mentioned above - the way how Lauren helped steer Patrick's wheelchair was inexplicably romantic... :)
But now to the climax of this chapter: you were such a master of building up tension! First the darkened room, then the first kiss and then the next and... then Patrick noticing the sausages in the ceiling and sensing the there's something wrong (again he's the clever one to figure it out!)!! By that time all my experiences with bad comedies kicked in because I thought that their little intimate scene was being filmed and there was a huge crowd of people watching it in the neighboring room... (you know, having the heat-sensitive cameras or some other unknown technical miracles!) :) :)
I felt very much relieved when it turned out much more innocent - nobody had actually seen what had been going on although what they had seen was considered scandalising!! :)
Even though their romantic moment was disrupted, it was kind of you to gift it to them. I don't know how you'll continue their story but even if everything ends here, it was an ending for both of them to remember with fondness (you shouldn't expect too much from a 24h conference relationship, I think...).
All in all, the story so far has been a wonderful read, thank you so much for writing and Annabelle for beta-reading!
Oh, what a sweet and thoughtful comment! Can't tell you how happy it makes me :) Thanks for commenting on both chapters, which is of course totally fine. I'm glad you liked the last one, too.
Delete"I've always had a soft spot for those who are intelligent and strong in mind despite being frail in body... "
This pretty much sums it up for me as well! Very well put. I think I might like the combination, the inhrent contradiction maybe, but I also like exploring how strangers react to people like Patrick. He's probably underestimated very often but I think he has his ways to change perceptions really quickly.
Awww, I'm so glad you liked the kissing scene! I don't know how often I rewrote it. Haha, you've watched too many bad comedies. No, I wanted them to have this happy moment and would never have completely destroyed it like that. Although I'll keep this idea in mind for another couple in maybe another story :P
This is not the last chapter, but there are in fact not many chapters left.
Please forget this bad comedy idea because there are already too many great-moments-getting-ruined-in-the-most-humiliating-way situations out there, I think! :)
DeleteOn the theoretical level I know that watchers/readers seek for new storylines and situations and writers have to come up with more and more shocking scenarios to meet the needs... And I don't know how to find the balance, i.e. how to create engaging scenes without repeating well-known scenarios and/or adding below-the-belt-jokes just for the sake of novelty...
Long story short, what I want to say is that your stories offer enough thrill and excitement without any 'bad comedy' effects as well!! :) As a reader I fully trust your imagination and intuition to keep me engaged and entertained while going on the ride with your characters! :)
Thank you for your reply and always looking forward to your new chapters and stories! ♥