T H O U
In the fog between memory and sleep, Daniel's fingertips trace patterns on his skin.
I was thinking about graphesthesia while we were stuck in chains yesterday, he says, and wraps a warm hand casually around his wrist, pushing soft, old cashmere up past his elbow. Three quarters distracted by the feel of Daniel's fingers, he chuffs and says back, Gosh, Daniel, so was I!
Daniel doesn't even pause to roll his eyes, he knows him that well and is that interested in whatever new idea he wants to present. I was thinking how useful it would be, sometimes—
—times we're stuck in chains?
Yeah, if we established a tactile version of our hand signals. It'd be really easy to adapt.
He smiles at him, lazy and indulgent, ensconced in his couch with a smooth beer and an Irish coffee-warmed Daniel, and waggles his upturned palm: Okay, show.
Okay, here, look: What does this mean? Daniel arranges his forearm across his knee and paints an invisible ideogram. He's right; after a moment of consideration, it's easy to translate feathery sensation to the shape of his own hand in the field. On my signal. On my signal.
Daniel shoots him an owlish look over the tops of his glasses and feeds him another one. Silence. Out loud, he says, Aht! and gets a flash of grin. The fire pops and Daniel shifts a little closer, into it, hm-ing to himself. Next one's weirder. He thinks of it as a spatial relations exercise. The big hand and the little hand form an L. Hostile, 3 o'clock.
He gets stumped by the fourth, just a single curved stroke, until Daniel says, Close your eyes, Jack, and does it again, and this time he feels it, not the symbol, but the intention, and remembers a hundred times he's seen that exact curve in Daniel's eyebrows, and he says aloud, Are you ready? Are you with me, can you move, can you run, are we good? Are you okay? Daniel taps his wrist in satisfaction. Then he traces the same line, but doesn't lift at the end, just stays for an extra beat with his thumb resting on his pulse, and he smiles and doesn't bother to respond, because that one's clear as day. I'm ready. I'm with you.
Later, alone in Jack's bed, fantasy translates the touch of Daniel's steady hands from wrist to shoulder, shoulder to waist, from desire to communicate to communication of desire. In the places where words confuse and confound, touch takes over, speaks heat and friction. Daniel's hands on his body would speak pleasure and attention, curiosity and
the hand on his body is not Daniel's, and it startles still and eases itself away—I am not here, I was not here—the moment it notices that he is not asleep. He breathes deeply and evenly; his heart pounds in his chest. A moment later, the bed shifts minutely, and a door slides open and shut, jostling the air, and then he is alone. Phantom language burns his skin, misremembered, uninterpretable. JD lies awake.
March 30, 2009
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