Jude
Every night when I return to the apartment, I expect Emily to be gone. But every night, she’s there, waiting for me. Sitting on the couch watching nature documentaries; lying in bed after work; in the shower. It’s strange to have a woman living with me. I’ve never experienced it before. But what’s stranger is that we don’t fuck, or kiss, or anything even close to fucking or kissing.
Most nights over these two weeks, I come back with some kind of injury. It’s not unusual in my business. In fact, it’s run-of-the-mill. If I got a bonus for every new scar I received, I’d be getting bonuses every night of my life.
The first time I walk through the door with a fresh gash down my eye, Emily gasps and jumps to her feet. She turns away from what has to be her sixth viewing of Planet Earth, which is how I know she’s taking it seriously; she loves this one documentary more than anything else.
“What happened?” she demands. There’s iron in her voice, the iron of a protector, and it makes me smile. “There’s nothing to grin about.” She points at the cut, a line which starts above my eyebrow, skips my eye, and ends halfway down my cheek. “Does it hurt? Here, sit down.”
I normally take care of my injuries myself with a slug of whisky and some self-stitching I learnt back when I started in the life. But when Emily leads me to the couch, sits me down, and starts fussing over me, I’ve got to admit part of me enjoys it. A pretty big part, too. She retrieves the first-aid kit from the kitchen and tends to me with skilled hands.
“Have you done this before?”
She winces. “Often,” she admits. “Though usually I’m doing it in a mirror.”
“Ah.” My blood freezes in my veins every time she mentions her asshole brother, but I fight back the rage. Rage is a tool, to be aimed, to be used with skill. Getting angry at a phantom doesn’t do anybody any good.
She patches me up quickly, skillfully, and then forces me to sit down with her and watch TV. Perhaps forces is a bit of an overstatement. It’s not like I put up much of a fight. In truth, it’s nice to sit down with her, relax, let the madness of the day sink away.
The second time I return with a fresh wound—this time badly grazed knuckles—she doesn’t as much as bat an eyelid. She just walks into the kitchen, gets the kit, and goes about her work. I come to savor the feeling of her hands, even if they are probing painful cuts and scabs. Her fingers are small, thin, but always warm and capable. She never wavers, never flinches. She’s stronger than she realizes, I think, over and over.
As the nights move on—and one of us sleeps on the couch—I begin to wonder why the hell I’m not making a move. It’s not like me to hesitate when it comes to women. I’m usually quick to act and slow to think, but with Emily it’s the other way around. It seems all I can do is think. Most of all, I think about the comparison she made between me and her asshole brother. It whirls around and around in my head until it echoes all over my skull. Neither of you take my feelings into account. Normally, I’d laugh something like that off. Who cares if I take a woman’s feelings into account? But with Emily, I can’t help but care. Whether it’s how breakable she looks, how cute and enthusiastic she is, how caring, how kind, how genuinely good, I don’t know.
All I know is that nights pass and nothing happens.
Maybe, I think one night when she’s bandaging my arm, I should just take her. I went down on her and she didn’t stop me. Maybe if I just took her, right now, she wouldn’t put up a fight, either. And she came, hard. I felt it. Felt the vibrations in her body. She moaned. Damn, she moaned loudly. I’m sure if I took her, she’d enjoy it.
When the bandaging is done and she’s placing the things back in the first-aid box, I tell myself to lean forward, grab her, kiss her. But I don’t. Something stops me, something I’ve never felt before, never dreamed a man like me could feel. Self-doubt, I realize with a shock. Me, Jude Kelly, killer, doubting myself.
We don’t fuck that night. We watch TV instead.
She improves my apartment, too, turning it from a place where I crash and watch TV to an actual home. She’s like a goddamn house fairy. Over the weeks, she buys pictures, beautiful landscapes of faraway valleys and groves, and hangs them on the wall. She buys a glittering purple vase and fills it with fresh flowers. Rugs begin to appear all over the place, soft on the feet and appealing to the eye. New utensils appear in my kitchen.
Seeing her every day is driving me crazy. I need her. That’s the truth. Need her bad. But I don’t want to be like Patrick in her eyes. I couldn’t stand that. I don’t want her to think of me as a monster. I want something else, instead, something I’ve never wanted with a woman before.
I want her to see me as a person.