Blind Sight (27 page)

“In front of everybody?” Luke asks. “Or just you?”

“Say, just me.”

“I don’t think so,” Luke says. “But if you laughed and said something … I don’t know … mean about how I looked I might be embarrassed.”

“What if I just looked at you? Without saying anything?”

“Then no.” Luke swallows. He is glad of the extra room in Mark’s swim shorts.

“Are you sure?”

“No,” Luke says. “But I don’t think I’m ashamed of being naked. Like, innately. What I’m saying is that embarrassment or shame, that’s something that usually comes from outside forces, like ridicule, or, or … religion.” Luke is pleased that he is able to draw such a lucid explanation with Leila’s hand on his thigh and a narcotic in his system.
On the other hand, Luke considers that he might be, just a little bit, babbling.

“What about you?” Luke asks.

“I don’t like to be looked at,” says Leila, standing up.

“I’m going to get rid of people,” she says. “But you are staying.”

Leila moves off across to a group of her friends. Luke walks over to the table where he has stashed his phone and texts Mark
—evrythng cool, hangin out fer wile
—and then sits on the edge of the pool. An empty inflatable bed drifts by him and Luke pushes himself on top of it. Propelling himself about the pool gently on his pneumatic cushion, he appreciates the warm temperature of the water, heated, Luke estimates, to something like eighty degrees. Leila’s pool, in addition to being heated, is also chlorine-free and tiled on the sides in dark blue squares. Everywhere Luke looks there is something beautiful. The bougainvillea is beautiful, the Buddha heads are beautiful, Leila’s friends are beautiful, Leila is especially beautiful. The negative spaces between all these things are beautiful, and should not be called “negative.” Luke hopes that all this seen and felt beauty is causing positive spikes in his neuronal sequencing, to countereffect whatever damage the marijuana might be doing to his brain, and that he is breaking, on a cellular level, somewhat evenly. From his floating vantage point, Luke reviews the events of the afternoon. He allows them to fall gently through his mind, kaleidoscopically, in patterns.

The last of Leila’s friends and friends of friends leave.

“Luke,” says Leila.

“Leila,” says Luke.

“Want,” Leila asks, standing on one foot at the pool’s edge and looking down at Luke, “to get in the hot tub?”

Luke executes a slow fall off the floatation bed, surfaces, and swims to the edge of the pool.

“Yes,” he says. “Okay.”

“Now is your big moment,” Leila says, “to not be embarrassed.”

Luke watches Leila’s feet walk away. He looks at his fingers. He
lowers his chin into the pool until his lips are level with the water. He blows bubbles. He pulls himself out of the pool. He looks around and sees Leila is already seated in a corner of the hot tub. Leila waves something white in her hand. Luke realizes that this is her bikini. He stands, dripping, for a moment and then takes off his (Mark’s) swim trunks, places them jauntily on the usnisa crown of the nearest Buddha. Luke realizes that heretofore, his total nudity has mostly taken place in transition moments: from one set of clothing to the next, or from clothing to shower to towel-around-waist to more clothing. Luke finds the experience of open air upon his genitalia pleasant. Luke walks naked to the hot tub and gets in it. He supposes that Leila is watching him for all of this, but he does not directly look at Leila until he is submerged in the water. He feels he does this only slightly more quickly than he would have if dressed.

“And to think,” Leila says, “you went to church every Sunday.”

“And my Nana prays for me every day,” Luke answers. He has, he finds, been holding his breath.

“Guess it’s not working.”

“Have you ever noticed,” Luke muses, squaring himself opposite Leila, “that people only pray for things that could happen through some other physical cause? Like, people pray for rain, or for the infidel to be killed, or for the sickness to go away, but they don’t pray for rabbits to start speaking English, or for an addition on their house to be built overnight. If you really think prayer works, you should pray for rabbits to start talking. Because that would be cool.”

Luke tells himself to be calm and maintain a certain detachment. Leila is naked. He is naked. Nudity might not necessarily imply sexual activity. Luke resists the temptation to put a hand under the water and touch himself.

“That’s a very good point,” Leila says, extending a leg and placing her foot on Luke’s chest. This causes a slight contraction in Luke’s penis. Luke, who wants to touch something, puts his hand on the top of Leila’s foot.

“It’s the same with the power of positive thought.” Luke examines Leila’s toes. “People might tell you that if you release positive energy into the universe about getting into college, then that will somehow help. But they don’t suggest you release positive energy into the universe about rabbits being able to recite Shakespeare.”

“I guess people don’t think that would benefit mankind,” Leila says.

“Think of all the things rabbits could teach us,” Luke answers. “And think of an all-rabbit
King Lear.
”

“I asked the universe for you to get naked in the hot tub with me,” Leila says. “Actually, I prayed to Jesus Christ for it. So maybe God does exist.”

“You took off your clothes too,” Luke points out. “That slanted your odds. That’s like praying to God to kill the infidel you are about to shoot in the head.”

“That feels good.” Leila wiggles her toes against Luke’s chest. “I like having my feet held.”

Luke takes hold of Leila’s foot more firmly. He wants to put her toes in his mouth. He wants to put himself inside her. He wants. He wants.

“Were you bored?” Leila asks. “With my friends? I was suddenly totally bored by everybody today. You were the only person who wasn’t, like, boring me stiff.”

“I wasn’t bored.” Luke puts his thumb into Leila’s instep, which is a thing that Luke likes particularly to be done on his own feet. Luke wishes Leila hadn’t used the word “stiff.”

Leila shuts her eyes and rests her head back on the edge of the hot tub.

“Talk some more,” Leila says, “my little infidel.”

For a moment, as Leila adjusts her position, Luke is able to see through the water to the top of Leila’s left breast. Luke is very glad of the suggestion to talk more. Luke thinks maybe he should hold off, for the moment, on more intimate contact with Leila, until he has
submitted the idea of more contact with Leila to reasoned thought, or at least until he is more accustomed to what is now, he knows, a full hard-on.

“Where is your mom?” Luke asks. “And your sisters? Where is … where is everybody?”

“Malibu,” Leila says. “They come back tomorrow morning. We’re going to London tomorrow night. Did I tell you? My mom wants me to go with her to the
Chimera
premiere. I think I might be slightly more useful to her than the twins for the next few months. She can be the mother of a hip teenager with her finger on the pulse of the youth culture. I’m only going because my stepfather is staying here with the twins and he’s always wanting to make sure I know that he loves me too. It’s really tiring. I’m like, listen, you don’t have to love me. I don’t love you. I don’t say that because my mom gets incredibly happy when my stepfather and I say ‘I love you’ to each other. Seriously, she tears up. She’s like, ‘It makes me so happy that you are happy,’ and I’m like, ‘Be serious. It makes you so happy that
you
are so happy.’ ”

“It could be both, couldn’t it?” Luke is not really feeling stoned anymore, although his mouth feels very dry.

“It could,” Leila says. “Let’s not talk about family.”

“Okay. I’m sort of thirsty.”

“Are you still stoned? There’s a bottle of water right next to your head.”

Luke drinks about half the bottle. He moves cautiously, not wanting Leila to remove her foot from his chest.

“I don’t think I’m stoned.”

“Me either.”

Leila tightens her grip on the edge of the hot tub, extends her other foot, and puts it gently and precisely in Luke’s lap. Luke stops rubbing Leila’s foot.

“Don’t stop,” Leila says, tracing the outline of Luke’s erection with the side of her foot.

“Um … Leila?”

“Well then,” Leila says, seriously. “Sometimes being in a Jacuzzi makes my skin itch.”

Leila removes both her feet from Luke and floats forward, placing her hands on the edge of the hot tub on either side of Luke’s shoulders, and bringing her face close to his. Luke licks his lips, leans forward, and kisses Leila. Luke judges the extent to which Leila is kissing him back to be enough that he can extend an underwater hand and touch Leila’s underwater hip. Leila moves closer, and Luke can now feel her breasts against his chest. Luke tries to angle his hips away from Leila so that his erection is not touching her, even though he wants to pretty much mash it against her. He’s not sure where Leila’s legs are. He’s not sure what can, or could, or should, happen next. For several minutes, Luke is almost content with what is happening in the present, but this ends, and Luke, deciding that he would like to be an agent of whatever happens next, stands up, pulling Leila with him, who grabs his shoulders and moves her mouth away. Luke’s hard-on is at an uncomfortable angle against Leila’s stomach.

“Shut your eyes,” Leila says. “Please.”

Luke shuts his eyes. Leila detaches herself from him. Luke can hear the sound of her stepping out of the hot tub.

“Okay,” says Leila. “You can open them.”

Luke turns around. Leila has wrapped a towel around herself, and is holding one out to Luke.

“Come on,” she says.

Luke pulls himself out of the hot tub and takes the towel. Leila walks to one of the cabanas. Luke follows her, awkwardly, on account of his erection. Without the buoyancy of the water, his penis feels extremely heavy, and not quite a part of the rest of his anatomy. He tries holding his penis with the towel in such a way that it looks like he is just casually holding the towel.

“Can you pull this out?” Leila points to the white futon couch inside the cabana. Luke secures his towel as best he can, all things considered, and pulls the futon out until it is flat.

“So, shut your eyes,” Leila says again.

Luke shuts his eyes.

Leila takes off Luke’s towel.

Luke feels his penis jump slightly, of its own accord. He wishes, for a moment, to cover himself.

Leila kisses Luke’s stomach.

Luke thinks he might, actually, fall over. He separates his feet into a wider, more secure stance. He wishes he had something to hold on to.

Luke’s eyes are closed and he is not sure where exactly Leila is, or in what position, other than in front of him, because her hands are not touching him, but he can imagine where the top of Leila’s head is relative to her mouth, which is now moving lower, and slightly to the right of his penis. Luke reaches out and touches what he feels to be Leila’s ear. Is she going to …?

“Whatever you do,” Leila says. “Do not open your eyes.”

Luke is about to ask why when Leila puts her mouth around Luke’s erection and her hands on his hips. Luke grabs Leila’s hair with both hands. He is worried for a moment, about Leila’s teeth, and then, quite soon, worried that something, some force of nature, a rogue comet striking the pool deck maybe, will stop Leila from doing what she is doing. Luke’s erection no longer seems foreign to his body, but connected in some deep and significant way to every part of it and now especially to a sound coming from the back of his throat. He can feel sweat on the backs of his knees. His stomach is jumping. Luke remembers the moment when you feel the wave lift the surfboard, lift you, realizes he is clutching Leila’s hair very hard, and releases it. For a moment his arms flail, pinwheeling.

“Wait,” Luke says, before he drowns.

Leila puts one hand on the base of his penis and slides her mouth away. The cool air is not as pleasant, now that he knows better. With his eyes shut, Luke tries to imagine what his face looks like with his eyes shut.

“Can I open my eyes?” Luke asks.

“No.”

“Well, then you have to let me touch you.”

“Okay. That’s fair.”

“I don’t want to presume,” Luke says dizzily. “But … do … you have a condom?”

Leila giggles.

“I love that you are standing there naked with a hard-on and you don’t want to
presume
. Presume away. I have a condom. I put one under the futon about an hour ago. Because I, unlike you, am a big presumer.”

“Am I supposed to search under the bed with my eyes closed?” Luke asks, trying to calm himself.

“Would you?”

“Yes,” Luke says, thickly. “Yes. Totally. I would. Yes.”

“No, I’ve got it,” Leila says. “Don’t worry.”

Luke leans down. Leila guides his hands to the top of the futon. He can feel her moving backward, on her knees, he thinks. Luke kneels down on the bed. Luke reminds himself that his brain knew how to see before his eyes ever saw anything, that he can do this, he will do this. He leans forward, reaches out a hand, which Leila guides to her waist. Luke pulls her to him and kisses her as hard as he can, which Leila seems to like because she pulls Luke down on top of her.

Leila’s rapid breathing, thinks Luke, is a sign that he is doing something correctly. He is momentarily flummoxed by the desire to do everything all at once, everything he has ever thought of, or imagined, and the desire to slow each moment down, to better imprint it on his memory. They roll, this way and that, on the futon. Luke tries to position himself in such a way that his erection is not touching Leila, because he is not sure if that is something she would like and because his penis is now so sensitive that he is afraid of what any friction or contact with Leila might do to it. Luke puts his hand in between Leila’s legs. Leila makes sounds, which seem to Luke to
be like the sounds he is making. Luke wonders why people ever do anything but this, really, when this is so clearly the best thing anyone can do, ever. Eventually, Luke finds himself on his hands and knees, above Leila. He hears Leila opening up the wrapping of the condom. Yes, thinks Luke. Yesyesyesyesyes. Leila slides the condom on Luke, who hopes that Leila will also guide him through the next step. Leila, one hand on Luke’s hip and one hand on his penis, pulls Luke downward, and, after a moment of angling, into her. Luke drops down to his elbows. Leila brings her legs up, her knees hugging his rib cage. Luke begins moving back and forth. Okay, thinks Luke. Okay, this is this is this is this is this, this, this, this, this. After awhile Luke senses, in the distance, a moment where he will no longer be able to contain all of this and its this-ness within his own body. This moment comes sooner than he thought, then comes, quite literally, in a series of jagged and contracted pulses. Luke’s shoulders jump toward his ears, he says, “Yah,” and “Shuh,” and “Guh,” with no intention of saying any of these things. He feels a singularly pleasant burn at the point of ejaculation, and a shuddering in his stomach. The front of his head throbs. Luke collapses on top of Leila, his open mouth in her hair, completely stunned.