Kaboom, page 20
The Journey song was one of his and Julie’s favorites. He’d sung that song here for her, just before leaving for Basic Training. Afterward she’d run her hands through his hair, mourning the fact that in forty-eight hours it would be buzz cut by an Army barber. Then they’d gone to his house, to his room, to his bed. His parents and Brooke had conveniently gone out of town overnight.
“No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” she insisted. “I remember when you wrote to me from basic training. You said the drill instructors told you and the other recruits that the word can’t was to be cut from your vocabulary. There is no can’t, Cowboy. You can.”
Clay had had a reputation as a great singer even back in high school. He could have had the lead in the school musical his senior year. They did West Side Story. The choir director had begged him to audition, although auditioning would have been a mere formality. The role of Tony would have been his for the taking. But the rehearsals would have conflicted with his track meets, so he’d declined. Instead, the lead had been sung by Dominic Fortunato, whose voice had cracked embarrassingly on the high notes.
“In fact I already signed you up for it.” She nodded her head towards where the karaoke equipment was set up, towards the bar manager who was looking at his list. The man looked around with a “who’s next?” expression on his face and, horror of horrors, Julie waved and pointed right at Clay.
“You what?” How could she do this to him? He was stuck with it now. He couldn’t refuse without embarrassing Julie.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be great,” she encouraged, urging him to his feet with a hand on his elbow. With more reluctance than if he were stepping into a lion’s den with a steak on a string around his neck, he gripped his cane and rose stiffly to his feet, feeling that his prosthesis had to be glowing through the fabric of his slacks.
Everybody was looking at him. He couldn't do this. He just couldn't. His heart pounded as it leaped up into his throat, and he felt a tiny bead of sweat trickle down his spine.
He had lost his leg. Did that mean he’d lost his voice too?
Why was he so nervous? He’d done this hundreds of times before, willingly, successfully. Had Kaboom torn that part of his life away, along with his leg? The bar manager handed him the microphone with an encouraging smile, and he almost dropped it on the floor. His hands had gone slick with nervous sweat and he gave an apprehensive glance at the audience looking at him expectantly as the manager stepped away and left him alone in front of them all.
It was too crowded, too uncertain. He had to get out of here. He saw the bar manager reach towards the laptop, about to press that key that would start his music.
The music started; the lyrics appeared on the monitor. Sweat beaded along his hairline, and his mouth went dry.
They were all looking at him. The freak. The cripple.
No. His physical disability had nothing to do with the stares of the audience. Sure, they’d seen him with his cane, limping. But only Julie was aware of his true condition. Everyone else was looking at him because they’d expected him to sing, and he was standing there silent.
You’re a total wimpy-ass coward, something in his brain said. You’ve faced down the Taliban in Afghanistan, and yet now you’re paralyzed in front of twenty ordinary people in a karaoke bar.
He turned to the bar manager manning the karaoke equipment.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he apologized. The guy smiled at hearing Clay address him as Sir. “Could we start over?”
The man nodded and killed the music.
“First time singing karaoke?” he asked.
“No, I’ve done it before,” Clay replied. “Just not -” He couldn’t say, just not since my world went Kaboom and I lost my joy of everything. He simply muttered, “just not for a while.”
He still wasn’t sure he could do this, but he looked at Julie and she smiled at him and he saw her mouth the words I love you just as the bar manager started the music again. As soon as the first piano notes started to fill the air, he knew. He could do this. He could sing this because he was the karaoke king and yes, he did still have a voice.
He opened his mouth, and he sang.
The words scrolled across on the monitor, but he barely looked at them. He knew this song, and it knew him. He could sing this song with his eyes closed, and for part of it, he did.
As soon as that first smooth line passed his lips he knew he had the attention of everybody there. People fell silent and listened, even strangers. Usually during karaoke singing, people tended to go about whatever they were doing, coming, going, ordering food or drinks, perhaps wincing if the singer was off-key or screechy, but for the most part only paying attention if they knew the performer. But not when Clay sang. Before Kaboom, when he sang, they stopped what they were doing and listened. Tonight, despite Kaboom, they still listened. They didn’t care if one of his legs was made of titanium and polypropylene.
He had eyes only for Julie while he sang, but he was aware of everyone else watching and listening.
He closed his eyes briefly during the drum riff at the end of the first verse, letting the song flow through him.
By the time the song was half through, several of the people listening had activated the flashlight app on their phones and were waving it back and forth the way people used to wave cigarette lighters at concerts in the eighties. He had them in the palm of his hand as he had in the past, before Kaboom. When he hit the high notes he could feel the palpable gasp from his audience. He held the final note for a full nine seconds. Most amateur singers couldn’t do that. Some professional singers couldn’t do it either.
There was a moment of stunned silence when the song ended, not even the sound of a glass clinking or a bottle being opened, and then the entire bar erupted in applause. Julie stood up, put two fingers in her mouth, and emitted a whistle that was probably heard by every dog in northern Illinois. Unbelievably, she actually turned to the people sitting at the next table, complete strangers, and said, “That’s my boyfriend!” The bar manager came running up and shook Clay’s hand, while Clay wobbled and swayed and leaned on his cane for stability.
“Man, that was awesome!” the manager said, as Clay panted with exertion. He had done this. He’d sung again. He hadn’t lost his voice. Hope fluttered in his heart. He wanted to go to Julie, to hold her close, but the bar manager was still talking to him.
“Hey, listen, I have a friend who’s the manager of a Journey tribute band and I know they're looking for a new singer. Would you be willing to let your hair grow long, maybe grow a mustache?”
For a brief time, before Kaboom, before enlisting in the Army, Clay had considered pursuing a career as a professional singer. What a dumb idea that had been. He had barely survived standing up in front of twenty people.
“Thanks,” he muttered. “But, I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?” the guy persisted. “At least consider it. I have never heard a voice like yours, and I’ve heard lots of people singing here.”
“I know I can sing,” Clay said. “But I can't perform.”
“Well, when your leg heals,” the guy said.
If only. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.” He turned away from the people still applauding and pulled up his pants leg slightly, just enough to let the manager see a few inches of his prosthesis.
“Oh.” The one-syllable said volumes.
Had he just revealed his prosthesis, his disability, his lack of wholeness, to a stranger? And it hadn’t even killed him.
“Do you mind if I ask what happened?” The guy’s face was full of sympathy, empathy, but no revulsion, which surprised Clay. He’d expected the guy to back away, recoil from the sight of metal where there should be flesh.
His voice low, Clay just said, “Afghanistan.”
“Shit.” It was an expletive of sympathy. “Well, I sure hope you come back here and sing again. In fact, your tab is on me.” He nodded over to where Julie sat at their table, beaming at him. “That your girl?”
His girl? Was Julie his girl? She sure looked like it, with pride shining from her eyes, and God, he wished it could be so. He was seriously starting to question his decision to break off their relationship. The bar manager took his hesitation as an affirmative. “You’re a lucky guy, dude.” He gave Clay a brief back slap. “Come back and sing for us again, would you?”
Clay nodded, his heart filled with mixed emotions, and made his way back to where Julie waited, bouncing with excitement.
“I knew you could do it!” she enthused. “That was so fabulous, my Cowboy.”
“I didn’t think I could do it at first,” he admitted.
“Of course you could,” she said, hugging him. Then she put one hand on the side of his face, a gesture of affection that made him glow inside, and murmured, “Let’s go home, Cowboy. My parents are away for the weekend.”
Home? Home? Was she inviting him to her house, to be alone while her parents were gone? This was the scenario he had dreamed of, fantasized about, every moment since he’d deployed to Afghanistan. But now, it was different. He was different, his life was different. So different that he’d had to break up with Julie, the love of his life.
But he wasn’t a saint. He’d thought Kaboom had turned him into a cold robot devoid of feelings, but he’d been utterly wrong to think that. He was only a man, a man in love, and there was no way he could or would decline her invitation.
Sixteen
It was a dream, not real. It had to be. This couldn’t be actually happening. He was with his Julie, going into her parent’s empty house, slipping into her bedroom in the dark, closing the door. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him, and he no longer cared that he’d broken up with her. They were on the bed and their clothes were starting to melt away when the reality crashed in on him.
He was an amputee. An AKA – Above the Knee Amputee, with two artificial joints to maneuver rather than one. It was much more traumatic than a mere BKA – Below the Knee Amputee. He shouldn’t be here, didn’t deserve to be here, no matter how much he wanted to. The contest between the desire and the reality tore him apart.
Couldn’t he just for once stop being this neurotic basket case, and just be Julie’s lover?
His shirt and hers were off, her bra disappeared, and the feeling of her breasts pressed against his chest was driving him wild. All his feelings for her came rushing to the surface – love and lust and a tremendous desire for comfort. His desire for her touch was like a hunger living in his skin. The sudden heat was incredible, a furnace blast of sexual fire unlike anything he’d ever felt before. But the reality revealed itself when Julie hooked her fingers into the waistband of his slacks. A moment later they hit the floor.
And there it was, in all its hideous titanium glory. His prosthesis, that repulsive monstrosity that nobody this side of Germany had ever seen, exposed now to Julie’s view, on display for her disgust and rejection. He burned with humiliation that she should see him, the real him, the new and damaged him, his stump and prosthesis revealed in all their scarred deficiency and shiny metallic grotesqueness, and felt himself scoot away from her on the bed.
Time slowed and stretched out as he waited for her to turn away in revulsion.
But Julie did no such thing. She gazed into his eyes, then her hands slipped down to his stump, to the socket of the prosthesis. “Would you be more comfortable with this off?” she asked, as casually as if she were referring to a hat or a sock.
Yes, he would be more comfortable with it off, generally speaking, but then it would be even worse, his stump would be completely visible, no hiding, no covering. He couldn’t speak, barely found the wherewithal to nod a tiny bit.
“Show me how.” The words were soft, caring, and amazingly erotic.
Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, his brain was reminding him. He wasn’t sure if he was mentally willing the words into Julie’s psyche, or his own, but he was pretty sure that freaking out was imminent now that his prosthesis was revealed. He couldn’t quite believe he was doing this, but he put his hand on hers and showed her how to press her fingers under the cuff and ease it away from the shrinker sock. The prosthesis was nudged away and fell on the floor with a slight metallic ping.
It was a bit scary to have his prosthesis out of his reach, even though he hated the thing. Maybe because without it he was helpless. One-legged. A freak. He was a freak when he had it on, but he was even more of a freak without it.
“I’m sorry, Julie. You shouldn’t have to see this.”
“I think I deserve to see it.”
“Nobody deserves to see something so gross.” And she hadn’t even seen the end of the stump under the shrinker sock, the part with the scars.
“It’s not gross,” Julie insisted. “How can you say that?”
The answer was obvious. “Because it’s true.”
“Nope, you’re wrong,” she insisted.
“I hate that thing.” There was no need for him to specify what he meant by that thing. They both knew he was referring to the great big pink elephant in the room. His prosthesis.
She looked surprised. “Why should you hate it? It’s a miracle of modern technology. It enables you to walk.”
“How can you think of it as a good thing?”
“Because the alternative would be to not have you here at all and I couldn’t live with that.”
He wanted to argue the point further, but he couldn’t. Julie was kissing him.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. That was not a problem. There was nothing involving her fingers on him that could ever hurt him. “What about this?” She touched the fabric of the shrinker sock covering his residual limb.
“Leave it,” he told her, and then another reality engulfed him.
“Shit,” he muttered, his face getting red and hot as he looked away. “I don’t have – I wasn’t expecting -” He broke off in hideous embarrassment.
“You mean you don’t have a condom?” she asked. “Don’t worry, I have some.” And suddenly, somehow, a foil packet was in his hand. “Not that it matters, Cowboy. I’m on the pill, and I’ve never, ever been with anyone other than you.”
“Me either,” he assured her, but still he tore open the wrapper, sat next to her and rolled the condom on.
She lay back and reached for him, urging him on top of her, her hands running along his sides and hips. God, she was positioning them, aligning their bodies, and he had only one knee with which to guide himself. He wobbled and fell prone, trying not to squish her or let his stump touch her. Despair engulfed him.
“I can’t do this, Julie, I just can’t.”
Quick as a snake, her hand was between his legs, groping him, and he almost lost it right then and there in her hand.
“I have evidence here that says otherwise,” she declared.
Arousal wasn’t the problem. He was so hard he was afraid it was going to break off. The problem was more an issue of logistics. Three limbs entangled where there should be four.
“Lay back,” she instructed, and the take-charge tone of her voice turned him on even more.
Julie pulled a pillow from the head of the bed and tucked it under his stump. “Is that more comfortable?” she asked. How did she know to do that?
“I hope you haven’t been talking to Jacoby about this.”
“No,” she said. “Some things I can figure out for myself.”
She draped a leg over his waist and slid over him, forcing him to lay flat on the bed with her on top. It was dim, almost dark in the room – he was glad she hadn’t wanted the lights on – and with less sight than normal, he let his other senses kick in. The scent of her, her sweet personal fragrance, and the soft touch of her warm, eager skin filled his soul. She leaned forward to kiss him, and his body reacted instantaneously and intensely. A sound that was almost a growl breathed from him, as he fisted his hands in her hair and felt the soft strands caress his knuckles.
“Is this OK?” she murmured against his mouth.
OK didn’t begin to describe it. This was heaven. They had never done it like this before, with her on top, but at this moment, it was his favorite thing ever in life. The weight of her on top of him, the way her soft curves fit his body, were pure joy. She rose up, but before he could protest at the slight movement away from him, she came back down with him inside her.
Oh God. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. If he died at this moment, he’d die a happy, satisfied man. She was a part of him; he was in her, they were one complete entity, and he never wanted it to end. His hands moved up to cup her breasts, those perfect, round breasts that his fingers had been longing to caress for almost a year. At his touch he heard her make a sound almost identical to his groaning growl. It amazed him that she was as turned on as he was, and he would never, ever forget the look of fervor on her face, not if he lived to be a hundred.
Maybe they did it for hours, her moving on him, him pumping inside her, or maybe it was only a minute until she gasped, and clenched around him as the sound and feel of her orgasm took him over the edge also, and he surged up with a moaning cry of completion, then pulled her down on top of him to kiss her as he came, to hold onto her and his sanity at the same time.
They were both sweaty when they came back down to reality and disposed of the condom. Then she laid her head on his shoulder with a possessive sigh of contentment.
Right now, he wasn’t worried about strange noises or things coming at him. Maybe he was just too spent to pander to his anxieties at the moment. He had always, since the day he and Julie had been apart, remembered and relived every moment of their lovemaking. The tentative, awkward first time, the slightly more confident second time, while he’d been home on leave just before his deployment. But it wasn’t only the actual intercourse that he’d remembered and fantasized about. It was also the little touches that had made him smile and sigh, until Kaboom.
The way she brushed her fingers along his temple. When she kissed the corner of his mouth and he could tell from the touch of her lips that she was smiling.
