Getting Off

But somehow she couldn’t.

“Paaaam.”

Her name, or at least the name she’d given him. His voice was low in pitch, raspy, as if dragged abrasively through his scarred throat.

“Yes, she’s right here, Bubba.”

“Paaaam.”

“I’m here, Alvin.”

“You came.” He had breath enough for a single phrase, then had to gather himself for the next one. “ ’S really you.”

“Yes.”

And, haltingly, in three-and four-word bursts, he told her and his sister how much she had meant to him, how her letters had kept his morale up throughout the horror of desert warfare, how he’d longed to return to her, how he’d despaired at her ever being able to find him after his accident.

“You never said, Bubba.”

“Try forget.” A ragged breath, a gathering of verbal forces. “She here now.”

“I’m here now,” she agreed, wondering what else she was supposed to say, and hard put to guess who he thought she was, and what role she played in his personal mythology.

“Sis…”

And he rasped out what he wanted. Some time alone with his Pam. Joanne was hesitant, then agreed it would be a chance for her to get the grocery shopping done, and see to a few other errands she never had a chance to run. You’re here all the time, he told her. You never get a minute to yourself. Take an hour, take two hours. And give him some time alone with his Pam.

It was hard to get the woman out of the trailer. She had to provide instructions for every possible contingency that might crop up during her absence. But finally Joanne was out the door, and they heard the Hyundai pull out and head off down the road.

“She gone.”

“Yes.”

“So who the fuck—” a ragged breath “are you?”

TWENTY

Who the fuck was she?

Well, that was easy. She told him she’d met him just once, at a bar in the West Twenties. That they’d gone back to her apartment where he’d spent the night before returning to his unit in Iraq.

He seemed to remember. Remembered the bar, thought he was in the wrong place with all the gays there, and then he got lucky after all. He remembered that. Remembered her, sort of. But her name, Pam—

“Well, I probably gave you a different name.”

But her real name was Pam?

“Yes, Pamela, Pam for short. Pam Headley.”

She’d come this close to saying Hedgemont, then remembered that was the name of the town. Changed it to Headley at the last moment.

And what was she doing there? She fumbled her way to an answer. She’d remembered his name, Googled it one day on a whim, and decided it wouldn’t take her that far out of her way to stop by and see him. She hadn’t known he’d been wounded, hadn’t known anything, and the last thing she wanted to do was intrude. But here she was, and if there was anything she could do for him—

“One thing.”

“What?”

Hesitation. As if he was afraid to tell her what he wanted.

Well, sure. Looking as he did, reduced to what he’d become, the cocksure quality that had struck her years ago was nowhere to be found.

“If it’s sexual,” she said, “anything at all, just tell me. I won’t have a problem with it. Whatever you want, just tell me.”

“Sex.”

“Whatever you’d like me to do—”

“Can’t feel anything.”

“Oh.”

“Neck down. Nothing.”

“I just thought—”

“Sometimes it gets hard.”

“It does?”

He got the words out, one ragged phrase at a time. He had no sensation there, but sometimes he got erections, and when it happened he knew it, sensed it somehow even without sensation. If his head was in the right position he could look down and see it.

And eventually it would go soft again, because he didn’t have a hand to jerk off with, and couldn’t have moved it if he did, or felt anything in either his hand or his penis. He’d tried to come by mental effort, tried to increase his excitement by thinking sexual thoughts, trotting out old memories, working up new fantasies. He let his thoughts run the gamut, tender, violent, aberrant. He’d entertain the memory or the fantasy for a while, and then his erection would subside, and that would be that.

Once or twice, though, he’d come very close while he was sleeping. Almost had a wet dream a time or two. Woke up, though, before he could climax, and that was as far as it went.

Jesus, she thought.

“Is it hard now?”

“Can’t see. But no, can tell it’s not.”

“May I see?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. A sheet covered his lower body, and she drew it down to mid-thigh. His penis was soft, and her hand went to it automatically, held it gently.

“Can you feel anything?”

“No.”

“But you like that I’m holding it.”

“Yeah.”

“And you can tell that I’m holding it, can’t you? I mean, of course you can, you can see what I’m doing, but let’s try something. Close your eyes, and I’ll hold it and then not hold it, like off and on, and you’ll know when I’m holding it and when I’m not. At least I think you will. Can we try that? Can you close your eyes?”

Eye, she thought. He only had one eye to close. Was it wrong to say what she’d said?

Well, it didn’t seem to matter. And he’d closed both eyes, anyway, because that’s how the eyelids seemed to work, you closed or opened them both at once, the real one and the glass one.

She played with him, fondled him. Then let go of him. Then held him again.

“You can tell, can’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Even if you can’t feel anything, you can tell. So deep inside somewhere, you’re feeling it. Your mind just doesn’t know it.”

“Maybe.”

“You have a beautiful penis. I don’t want to stop touching it. It doesn’t matter if it’s hard or soft. It’s just beautiful.”

And it was, sort of. In a sense it was just a dick, and God knows she’d seen enough of them in her time, but