DAMON

Sitting with my back against the door, I wait, and think. It’s a curse to not be able to stop your brain from ticking.

Alexa thinks what we have is ruined, but I won’t let it be. I don’t know how to fail. I’ll make it right again and she’ll just have to let me love her, because that’s out there now. I was going to keep it secret until the right time, but it turns out that the right time was an hour ago. She needed to know it, even if she didn’t want to hear it.

The outer door opens and Smith walks in off the street. Looking me over, he gives me a confused look.

“Hey man. You stuck?” he asks, looking between the doors. “Don’t know the code, or trouble with round handles?”

“Both, actually,” I say with a smile. I like the way that Bruno’s friends act like having no hands is no big deal.

“Well, get up and I’ll let you in,” he says, returning my smile. “How long have you been trapped in here?”

I shuffle out of his way, but don’t stand up. “Not long enough yet. You go on up. Alexa will let me in when she wants to.”

Giving me a strange look, he opens the door and stops short. “Hey Lex,” he says, looking between the two of us. I can’t see her from the angle I’m on, but it’s probably for the best. Watching Smith’s face, I sigh and bring my knees up to my chest.

“You need me to bounce Damon?” he asks her quietly.

She doesn’t say anything, but Smith gives me a sympathetic look before heading upstairs. The door shuts behind him. I hug my knees a little tighter, telling myself it’s a good thing that she hasn’t decided what to do with me yet. She’s not letting me up, but she hasn’t taken the first opportunity to kick me out either.

“Damon?”

Spinning around, I glue my ear to the door. “I’m here.”

“I don’t know how to do this.”

This what? My captivity? A ‘relationship’? She still doesn’t realize we were doing it already?

“Um, there’s a code needed from this side, but on that side, I think it’s just a matter of turning the handle,” I say lightly, because clowning around is less likely to scare her.

“Urgh! You're such a...” The door bangs as if she’s hit it. “I mean I don’t know how to do this. Us. I can’t open the door knowing you’re going to hug me. I want you to, but I don’t deserve it. I have to tell you some things that will make you not want to hug me, but you already would have and then it’ll be harder to tell you. I told you I have too much baggage and that I can’t do a relationship! I told you.”

“I know you did.”

“Why didn’t you listen?”

“I liked you too much for it to matter.”

“But it does matter.”

“Not to me.”

“It does to me! I can’t trust a single natural response that runs through me, Damon. I’ve been warped. Molded by pain and abuse and survival and it’s left me wary and broken. I don’t know what’s real and what’s been twisted in my head. That’s my life and I don’t want to expose you to it. I don’t want that for you.”

“Can I hug you yet?” I say as if I’m growing bored. “Because it sounds like you need it.”

The door thumps again. Lower this time, as if she’s kicked it. I can hear her cursing and hopping around on the other side of the door.

“Are your toes okay? Do you need ice?”

She mutters something about icing me and I can’t help but smile.

“Can you please just take me seriously?” she whines.

“I’ve never been more serious about anything else in my life Alexa. I seriously love you. Nothing else matters.”

“What if I can never love you back?”

“Are you saying I’m unlovable?” I ask, still keeping my voice light, even though her words are killing me. “Because my mom says -”

“Damon!”

“What do you want me to say, Alexa? I’m not going to stop loving you because you’re scared of hurting me. It only makes me love you more. You might learn to love me back. I’ll lead by example. I’m willing to risk it.” Sighing, I look around my prison. “Alexa?”

“Yeah?” she says softly.

“I know I’m not... whole, but I love you with everything that I am.” Pressing my forehead to the door, I close my eyes and hope. “We can make it work. If you just give me a chance, you’ll see that we’re made for each other.”

Only silence comes from the other side of the door and I grit my teeth. “You hate hands. I don’t use them; can’t even stand to keep them in the house. You’ve lost your parents. I have a couple of perfectly good ones just lying around that would love to meet you. We both love broken things. You chose my painting and said that you loved him. We both love helping people, and learning, and teaching, and kids, and guitars and pie, and coffee with cream. I want to help you conquer math and teach you to drive. Alexa?”

The door gives way and I fall in, catching myself before hitting her boots. Jumping to my feet, I wrap my arms around her instantly, kissing the top of her golden head.

“I never thought I’d be so happy about a door opening in my life!”

“Drama queen,” comes her muffled response as I press her into my chest.

“Hey! You’d be happy too if you had to pee as badly as I do!” I joke.

She mutters something and pinches me.

“I’m kidding!” I cry, rubbing my arm up and down her back as I press my cheek to the top of her head and sigh. “I hope you don’t plan on dancing tonight, because I don’t think I can let you go.”

“I’m not dancing, but I do have to pee, and you’re not coming with me, so don’t get too attached.”

Clearing my throat, I nod. “You’re right. That would be uncomfortable.”

“You can let me go now.”

“Just a bit longer.”

Alexa sighs as if she’s annoyed, but her body melts into mine a bit more and it makes me smile. Giving her another squeeze, I sigh too. “Okay. We can finish this later,” I say, slowly releasing her. “I’m definitely allowed to come upstairs?” I ask as she starts to climb.

Turning back to me with puffy eyes and her hair nearly falling from her lopsided, pencil-held bun, she gives me a careful appraisal. Nodding once, she continues on her way.

***

WHEN ALEXA ARRIVES in her room, she’s clearly spent some of her time in the bathroom putting herself back together. Her hair is braided to one side and her face is no longer splotched and puffy from crying. Taking off her boots, she tucks them into the closet. Removing her socks, she slides her feet into her sheepskin slipper boots, shrugs out of her sweater and throws it over her chair before coming to sit next to me on her bed.

“I don’t want you to expect too much from me,” she says, looking straight ahead and not at me.

“Even if I know you’re capable of it?”

She sends me a warning look and I hold my no-palms up. “Okay.”

Chewing the inside of her cheek, she looks at her lap. “I only made up the rules after I started work here at Beyond,” she says quietly. “Because I wanted to change. They were as much of a guide for me as they are for the men I tried to... learn from. On. With?”

Shaking her head, she continues. “I’ve been trying to learn how to enjoy myself without getting hurt.”

I think about that for a moment, trying to comprehend. I want to understand everything about Alexa so that I can find where I might fit in her life.

“At risk of putting myself out of the equation, do you even need a man for that?” I ask with my phantom fingers crossed.

“I don’t like to be touched by hands,” she says quietly. “Not even my own.”

Wow. I clear my throat and shrug.

“I don’t touch myself either. It’s overrated anyway.”

She snuffles a little and looks sideways at me. “Do you miss it?”

“Not when I’m around you,” I say with a smile and nudge her in the ribs with my elbow. “I don’t miss it as much as playing the guitar.”

“Will you teach me that too?” she asks in that sweet voice of hers and I almost collapse in relief that she might actually keep me around long enough to do so.

“I’d love to.”

“If you stick around long enough?”

“That’s up to you, Alexa.”

When I say her name, her eyes close and she lifts her chin a little. “Maybe,” she whispers. Looking down again, she reaches sideways and pulls Charlotte into her lap, resting her chin on the doll’s head.

“After Dad went to prison, I went into foster care,” she says quietly. “Not all of the horror stories you hear are true, but some of them are.” With a sad sigh, she shrinks a little more.

“I was thirteen by then. Totally alone. I knew that men liked me and I knew why. I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t help the way I looked. When I’d come to terms with it, I decided to... use it to my advantage.” Hiding her eyes, Alexa keeps her head down. “I was in a few rough homes and I fought off what I could, but I soon came to realize that if I gave myself to the strongest person, he’d keep the others away.” Pausing to let me absorb that a while, Alexa sighs.

“There weren’t a lot of them, but I was bounced around a few homes, so there were a couple.” Running her hand over Charlotte’s hair, Alexa rests her chin there again. “I was fourteen when I met Kyle. He was sixteen at the time, and the toughest kid in that last home. He was kind to me at first, and although he took what I had to offer, he taught me it could feel good sometimes.” Taking a deep breath, she lets out a shuddering sigh and continues to look straight ahead.

“It didn’t always feel good, but it was the best thing I had at the time and I clung to it.” Shaking her head, she continues. “Some stuff went down in the home and we decided to split before we were beaten for something we didn’t do. We left town and hit the streets, avoiding cops, moving around with the weather. I spent a lot of time in libraries - probably because Kyle preferred not to. We had some good times and some... not so good.”

Shrugging, Alexa sweeps some hair behind her ears. “When I was seventeen, my relationship with Kyle hit a new low when he wanted to use me for income. It was probably about what you’d expect; given the fact that you have a tendency to imagine worst case scenarios. I caught wind of his plans and ran.”

Refusing to let my mind go there, I focus on how she would’ve gotten out of the situation. “Is that how you met Sam?”

Alexa nods. “I met her in Niagara. She and Larry helped me get to Buffalo. They’re good people. They believe some pretty far out things about Big Brother that keep them from joining the rest of the world indoors, but they’re good people,” she explains, as if I need convincing beyond the fact that they’d helped her.

“I almost screwed that friendship up too,” she says sadly.

“How so?”

Looking to the ceiling, she shakes her head. “By doing what I always did. Sam was stronger, so I gave myself to her.”

“You what?”

“We were together,” Alexa clarifies, not looking at me as her cheeks heat. “She was good to me. She didn’t like the way I cringed when she tried to touch me, so she ended it. She knew it wasn’t what I wanted.”

“She loves you?”

“I think so, but I’m no good at dealing with that, as you know. Besides that, I’m not into girls. Even though they’ve done horrible things to me, at the end of the day, I still prefer men in that way.”

“For which I am grateful,” I say with a smile as I nudge her with my elbow. “Is there more?”

“To explain why I don’t like hands on my body, or over my mouth, or why I don’t like being held down, or pinned against things? I think you understand without me telling you more.”

“Did you ever tell the authorities?”

“They still haven’t found Kyle yet to punish him for what I now know he did do before we left, so no. I’ve never bothered to tell them. I got out and started again on my own. I’m still trying to learn the things I missed along the way; trying to catch up on the life I could have had. Hence the high school equivalency, and the look but don’t touch dancing, and the rules. I’m trying to find out how to use my skills without hurting anyone, including myself.”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask, wanting to hug her again so bad that my phantom fingers are twitching.

“I kind of want to be a teacher,” she says, blushing as she raises her head a little to smile at me. “Stupid, huh?”

“I think you’ll make an excellent teacher. Maybe you could help me with something?”

“The athlete-slash-genius come science wiz that still somehow manages to be socially apt? Yeah, I’m sure I can help you with anything you could possibly be struggling with. Dillhole.”

“Well you’ve already taught me that my tantrums are stupid, and that I don’t want to go back to a life without you, so if you could just teach me how to love you without you pushing me away, I’d be really grateful. I’ll trade you for other lessons, if you like. Lessons from the childhood you never got to have. You’ve missed out on some great stuff, but there’s still time to learn. Did you ever learn to ski? I could take you. I’m rambling again. Will you teach me? Alexa?”

“I don’t know if I can,” she says, her voice trembling. “I don’t have all the answers myself.”

“Maybe we can learn together?” I ask, hearing the hope in my voice and its resemblance to begging.

“You still want me?” she asks, looking into my eyes with disbelief. “Even though I’ve been the fuck-hole of every nasty asshole I’ve ever met?”

Flinching at her words, I shake my head. “That’s not who you are Alexa.”

“When I saw you, I was instantly turned on,” she says, still looking straight at me.

“Um... good?”

“You were handsome and looked strong and fit and you went into a fighting gym,” she says, counting off the apparent attributes on her fingers, but her tone makes me wary. “I was turned on because after years of it, I’m still hard-wired to ready myself for some tough motherfucker to take whatever he wants from me. Sam had just told me that Kyle had been in town and that she and Larry had run him off. Less than an hour after hearing that, I’m in your arms making you want me. That isn’t normal behavior. I’m sick, Damon. I can’t separate what I should feel from what I do feel.”

“Are you calling me a tough motherfucker in a good way, or a bad way? Because it sounds like the bad way. While I appreciate the title and find it fitting for someone who has been through some of the things that I have, I don’t like the inference that I’m like those other men you’ve told me about.”

“You’re not like them! But I don’t know how to use that information, Damon!”

Frowning, I run back through what she’s said to decipher what it is she’s trying to tell me.

“You think you need protection, but you don’t want protection?”

“If anything, I want not to need protection,” she says, flopping backwards onto the bed. “But the world is a fucked up place and I don’t know where we fit Damon. You and me.”

“Is here okay?” I ask, gesturing to the space around us.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you know it’s really weird hearing you swear?”

Groaning she covers her face.

“It’s probably because the first time we met you said ‘fudging fudge-crackers’. I really think you’re complicating something that doesn’t need to be more complicated. I love you. I want to be with you.” Frowning again, I think about her being turned on when she first saw me. She thought I had hands then.

“Alexa?”

Groaning again as she shivers, she rolls away and sits up again, slowly turning to face me. “Yeah?”

I take a moment to build up my courage. Taking a few deep breaths in preparation, I set my jaw as I meet her eyes. Before I can say anything, her expression changes to one of concern. “What is it?”

“Do I still turn you on?”

Her eyebrows go high as her eyes widen. “Are you kidding?”

“If you thought I was like that, but now you know I’m not, do I... Am I...” Swallowing roughly, I tuck my stumps into my armpits and try to spit out the words.

Standing up, Alexa comes in front of me and straddles my lap. Taking my face in her hands, her eyes chase mine until she pins me with her gaze. Wetting her lips, she presses them to mine, taking my breath away with one of her amazingly sweet kisses. Pushing against me, she tries to make me lean back on the bed, but I pull away to the side.

“I didn’t ask you because I wanted you to do that, Alexa!” Closing my eyes I release a pained sigh. “I’m not an insensitive asshole who would spend the afternoon talking about your abuse history and then expect some sort of sexual payment for sticking around. I just need to know if I have a chance. If you could want someone like me.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you with the kiss! I told you I’m no good at this. You have superhero good looks and I love the way you make me feel when I’m with you. You’re so gentle and respectful and you make me come so easily. How could I not like that?” she says, taking hold of my face again so I can’t avoid her eyes. “Are you pulling away because you don’t want me? Now that you know everything?”

Glaring at her, I shift slightly beneath her. “Does it feel like I don’t want you, Alexa?”

Moving against my hard length she shivers. Her eyelids flicker as her head tilts back slightly. “I want you too,” she whispers as her head tilts forward and she kisses me again. “What does that make me?” she whispers against my lips before pressing her forehead to mine.

“Amazing,” I reply, kissing her softly and moaning as she moves against my dick again. “I should go home,” I mumble against her lips.

Pulling back in a rush, Alexa stares at me and covers her lips.

“If we keep going, you’re going to get sick of me and I’m going to miss another day of classes,” I try to explain. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think that we should wait a while before we have sex again.”

Looking confused, and then upset, Alexa opens her mouth to speak, but closes it again as her eyes glaze with a sheen of tears. I shake my head and continue, rushing to explain.

“I want you. Believe me, I do. But I think that maybe we should start again and take things slowly. We moved so quickly. It’s not surprising we got in a tangle. I want to see you. Tomorrow - if that’s not too soon for you. After classes and your math lesson, can I please take you out on a date?”

“A date?” she asks, as if the word is foreign.

“I want to spend time with you that isn’t confused by sexual feelings that you can’t place. The easiest way to do that is to take sex out of the equation. We can put it back in when we’re ready. It’s just an idea. If you don’t want to try it, I’m sure I’ll enjoy that too. I just thought it might be healthier to take it one step at a time; even though we already jumped straight into the deep end and I loved it. Shit. Why am I suggesting this?” I ask as I pull my eyes away from her gorgeous face to stare at the ceiling, which only increases the sensation of her hot little body straddling my straining erection.

Climbing off me, Alexa pulls me up to standing and hops up onto her bed to kiss me on the nose. “I think it’s because you love me. I can appreciate that. What time do you want to come over tomorrow for our study date, and what time is our actual date, because some of us have to work.”

“I’ll be finished class at three and I’ll come over to study as soon after that as you’ll have me. As for our actual date, it will depend what you have time for. We could do dinner before you dance, or go to a movie after you dance, or we could stay in and play cards, or you could play some guitar, or we could go dancing, though I don’t think you’ll be able to keep up with me, because I’m very good.”

“Is that right?”

Unable to keep from returning her smile, I shake my head. “Not at all. But I’d try really hard not to stand on your feet.”

“How do you hold a hand of cards?”

“I pay someone else to hold them.”

Alexa raises an eyebrow at me.

“I have a system.”

“I’m sure you do. You seem to have a system for everything.”

“I do okay.”

“Are you going to watch me dance?”

Taking a deep breath, I think about that seriously. “It might be torturous to watch and not be able to follow through, but I think I’d still like to. Is that alright?”

“So long as you know it’ll be just as torturous dancing for you when I know there’ll be no relief afterward.”

“So it’s settled?”

Stroking my beard under my chin, Alexa delivers a soft, sweet kiss to my lips. “Let the torture begin.”

Groaning, I tuck my dick away and take a step back. “I’m going to go now. You can text me or call me anytime. I’m not good at texting, but I can call if you want me to, and I can email from home, if you want to have a conversation without saying things out loud.”

“You’re very good at considering all the options.”

“It’s a hobby.” Groaning again, I shake my head. “It’s not. I just can’t turn it off. I love you, and I’m definitely going before I do or say anything else that might impair the fragile progress we’ve made.”