Out of Touch (23 page)

             
“Especially given the neighborhood. Funny how time does that.”

             
“Four weeks ago, I thought I was alone, that I’d never tell anyone.”

             
She began to walk, more slowly now. Reggie wanted to tell her she wasn’t alone before, but he knew what she meant. He tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away and crossed both arms against her chest. Her voice, when she spoke, was full of tears, though her face showed fury like an animal just caged.

“Reggie, the night I discovered I could move things, I was ten-years-old. I moved a pencil by accident. Then I tried it again. Then I tried other stuff. By the time I went to bed, I’d rearranged most of my room, one little bit, or a few, at a time. I think I might have told my mom that first night, except there was a guest in the house. His name was Peter. He used to visit us two or three times a year. Other than relatives, he was the only person who ever stayed in our guest room.”

              Sarah’s face wrinkled in disgust. For a moment Reggie wasn’t sure if she reacted to the memory or to a particularly odiferous alley on their right. He wished she would stop and look at him while she talked.

             
“You know, my mom as good as told me the man she divorced wasn’t my real father. Until the meeting at CDC, I thought it might have been Peter. When I was a child, he-- he did things to me. At first, I thought they might be okay, if he was my father, because I knew there were different rules about touching and stuff between parents and kids.”

             
Reggie felt himself leaping to the end of a collapsing bridge, ready to protect the woman standing there from anything, but she kept standing all alone. “Are you saying –“

             
“Yeah, but that’s only part of it. He came to get me the night I first learned I was, ah, telekinetic. He took me to the guestroom. And all of a sudden I knew -- Before that, I thought he was trying to be nice to me, that he didn’t know how I felt. But that night I knew he didn’t care how I felt. He knew he was taking advantage of me. I was so hurt but also so angry. The anger and pain just consumed me, and then the bed in that room was on fire, and he let go of me. I ran outside crying.”

             
Reggie froze, wanting to hit someone but trying to offer priestly understanding instead. He heard his own voice come out flat as paper. “That was the guest room fire you said started from a cigarette?”

             
“That’s what my mom and the police believed. I don’t know if Peter believed that or made it up. He never came back. I never spoke about any of it.”

             
“But he lived.”

             
Sarah shook her head and stopped, brought back from wherever she’d been.

             
“Yeah, but what if he hadn’t?” Now there were tears on her face and her voice broke and squeaked.

             
Reggie imagined child Sarah setting the man instead of the bed on fire, and thought it would have served Peter right. But grown-up Sarah stood trembling even now, and he wondered if any child could deal with that. To Sarah he said, “I’m sorry. It must have been terrible.”

They’d stopped, without noticing, in front of a bookstore. Sarah stood with her neck and shoulders curving down, into shadow. But her hair, curly with humidity and disarranged from walking, reflected the streetlights on two sides and the store’s display light from behind. Against the backdrop of books, one actually a travel guide, and others with titles in Thai script, it was impossible not to think how far they’d come, and only the lines on a map would show it as simple. For a moment Reggie could play neither priest nor protector, and as himself he realized he wanted to marry Sarah. The thought startled him into raising his arms. He tried to reach out to Sarah with the motion, but she pulled away, and he realized she wasn’t finished. And she was walking again.

              “Don’t you see? I never put it together until the last couple weeks. All other teeks are teeps. That night I knew what Peter thought. Maybe I had telepathy, and I either turned it into fire or pushed it so far out of mind that I lost it.”

             
Those words struck Reggie like a pounding bell, and he called forward his priestly countenance again. He’d almost come to terms with the idea of telepaths living around him, but he really didn’t want his girlfriend to be one. Even if no one could read his thoughts now, he’d seen enough exclusive conversations. Still, he owed Sarah a sympathetic reply. Hadn’t he wanted to marry her a minute ago? Now there was a lump in his throat, a caving in sensation at his center.

             
“Does that mean you want to be a telepath?”

             
“I don’t know. In a way I feel robbed of something, but if my relatives were working for the government even then-- I don’t know what would have happened if they’d gotten me when I was ten. And I don’t know if my mother only had the genes on one side and wasn’t telepathic, or if she was hiding it, or if she’d repressed it in herself. I can’t know what my life would have been like any other way. And now, I’m not sure I’d want to change. The idea of hearing random people’s private thoughts-- well, it bothers me, but being able to talk to other telepaths might be useful, especially now.”

             
“I always knew you had secrets, though I never guessed they’d require a security clearance. I even suspected abuse sometimes but decided that wasn’t it.”

             
“Why?”

             
“I don’t know. It didn’t quite fit.”

             
“Didn’t fit –“

             
“Later. What I need to ask, even if this isn’t the time is, is this all of it?”

             
“Yes . . . No.” Sarah stopped walking, her face suspended in thought. Reggie braced himself, trying to prepare for absolutely anything. They stood in an empty plaza, a small square of mortared gray stones just off the road, as the early nightlife hurried by. Bangkok was starting to buzz, but the two of them stood separate, quiet. Sarah lightly ran a hand across his shoulder and the loose fabric of his sleeve, raising goose bumps in the humid Thai heat.

             
“I’ve always suspected I felt touch differently from other people,” Sarah spoke softly, looking away toward the street. “It affects everything I do more than any of the other, well, unusual stuff. But I never talked about it. It didn’t seem right to put it into words. And somehow I’d thought it went with being a teek, but it doesn’t seem to after all.”

             
Reggie’s skin remembered the touch of Sarah’s hands, and other parts, especially during sex. She was an unusually attentive lover, always seeming to orchestrate her movements with complex care. Sometimes he would be caught up in a moment, and then realize he’d stopped one hand in mid stroke. But Sarah’s movements only increased in diversity and symphony. It wasn’t something he’d thought about in words, although he’d certainly noticed before.

             
“That’s all?”

             
She nodded, and he reached a hand to touch her face. She slid her cheek into the motion, completing it.

He said, “Maybe I knew that, at least in bed.”

“Is that why you’re with me?”

“No.” He felt a wave of indignation that cooled his erotic memories. But gazing up at him was Sarah, who in her honesty shivered with doubt. “No, I don’t think any relationship works without good sex, but that’s never been why I was with you.”

“Well, do you still want me, knowing everything?”

His palm tingled from touching her. There was nothing about her he didn’t want, but he couldn’t find the words to say it.

“Yes.”

She reached out to take his hand, the one still tingling from the last touch, and they walked back toward the hotel. Reggie saw tears pool in the corners of her eyes. He resisted the urge to wipe them away or to speak.

April 19 - 20, 2025 – Bangkok, Thailand

The hot water held Sarah. She felt safe and relaxed. In such warm air, the bath didn’t chill quickly; the air above was just cool enough for contrast. She missed the feel of her long hair drifting around her, but when she slid down and moved her head back and forth, she could feel the little hairs swishing, able to switch back and forth quickly. She moved her arm from side to side, just under the surface of the water. The tiny hairs brushed the current when pushed against their grain, but settled easily when pulled the other way.

Tears slid down her face into the water. She submerged, losing the itchy salt into the mostly fresh water. Tears had been trickling out for days, but it took no energy to shed them. She told herself the tears were taking away the images that hurt her. The rigid terror of the flight attendants on the plane. The uncertainty of hurting people when she burned the CDC. The pain in her childhood self that last time Peter took her to the guestroom. All her life, she had imagined telling someone everything, being completely known and real. She’d even imagined that person being Reggie. But getting it all out hadn’t cured the pain the way she’d hoped. She’d seen how Reggie struggled to accept it all their first day in Bangkok, and on the airplane there had been moments when he looked away, as if she were a monster. He’d given up so much for her without knowing who she really was, but what if despite his best intentions he couldn’t fully accept the truth?

Sarah hid underwater, dissipating the thoughts and the tears. It was probably time to get out of the bath. Reggie would be in the main room, studying the newspaper for places to live or for work they could do. They’d trudged through pouring rain yesterday to pick up their residency papers. They’d stood in line, given their names, been handed work permits. The secretary didn’t even look at them. To her it was just
routine.

Five days ago, they’d entered Thailand on what might be considered a hijacked plane. Yesterday, they’d picked up papers as if there were nothing unusual about it. Other than the startling efficiency, it was like any other move.

Sarah climbed out of the tub. She toweled off and drained the water. Wrapped in the wide, shaggy towel, she sauntered out to where Reggie sat, fully dressed, with the Bangkok Post spread across the bed.

“Any luck?”

“Do we need a place with a bathtub?”

Sarah pulled out her only clean clothes. “We should go shopping.”

“I’ve been saying that for days.”

“Yes, but it was raining then.”

“And you were busy sulking.”

“I’m still sulking, but I’m ready to do it outside in the sunlight.”

There was a knock at the door. Sarah finished pulling on her shirt as Reggie went to answer it.

“Package, special delivery, international express. I thought I should bring it up?” The busboy sounded eager to please, or eager for a tip.

Reggie stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind him, but Sarah could still hear his conversation.

“Don’t you have someplace you could keep it until tomorrow?”

“It’s refrigerated.”

“Well surely you have – oh, never mind. Thank you. It was good of you to bring it up.”

Reggie came inside and put the box in the mini-fridge under the bar. He went back to his paper as if nothing had happened.

“What’s that?”

“Just pretend it’s not there.”

“You’re up to something. Tell or I’ll shake my wet hair at you.”

“Less dangerous than it used to be.”

“Actually, it works quite well. Shall I demonstrate?”

“It’s a surprise, for tomorrow. You’ll have to wait.” Reggie was pretending to read. He was the image of the nonchalant patriarch with his morning paper. If Sarah dropped it now, what would he do? He’d be disappointed, wouldn’t he? Surely he’d come up with another scheme for tomorrow, but it wouldn’t have the same spontaneity then. Sarah knew her duty. She even felt herself warming to the part.

“Open it now, and I’ll go clothes shopping with you.”

“We were going to do that anyway!”

“This way I’ll be less sulky.”

“I get to buy you an Easter dress.”

“Does it have to be a dress?”

“We’ll see. But I get to buy you something pretty and you can’t complain about me paying for it.”

“I get to help choose?”

“Okay, but you have to try on the stuff I like.”

“Deal.”

Reggie handed her the box. It was stamped “Keep Refrigerated” and felt enticingly cool. Instead of listing a name, it had been sent to Hotel Siam, Room 1411 from See’s Candies in Long Beach, CA, USA. The name made Sarah taste chocolate and smile like a kid.

“You shouldn’t have,” she said as she worked through the packing tape.

“Wrong,” Reggie laughed as he cleared away the newspaper.

Inside the box was an Easter basket complete with chocolate bunny and a couple dozen filled chocolates. There were also four Bordeaux filled Easter eggs.

“How do you remember everything I like? And when did you order it? And four eggs?”