Читать книгу Reconnected - DH Steppler - Страница 11

One can only assume that Michael didn’t feel that the atmosphere was appropriate for Foreigner’s “Juke Box Hero.” He changed the music so fast that there were only seconds between the Rock ‘n Roll and the Classical sounds in the background. The instruments were muted and nearly lost in the air on the moving ship, making the sound that much more intimate – like an instrumental whisper.

After the meal was finished and the dishes were stashed in the hall, Michael said, “Looks like you’re going to have to sleep over again tonight. Can you handle that?”

“Don’t think I can handle anything else,” I replied.

“I am trying to figure out some way to get a bit of exercise. I’d like to have a catch but that’s probably not possible with the connection keeping us close…unless the connection will work if we are tethered together by a rope or a belt or something like that.” I was thinking out loud.

“I know of a way we can get some exercise.” Michael smiled at his innuendo …left myself wide open for that one.

“I was thinking of something that wouldn’t compromise our other lives – you know no broken promises.”

When I said that, Michael gave me a ‘ho-hum’ look – like it was of no concern to him, making the issue mine alone.

“Here’s an idea.” I said, glad that I had something to offer piecing the idea together in a matter of seconds.

“We can put the lounge chairs end to end so we can connect with our feet and then have a catch.”

Before I’d even finished, Michael was moving his lounge to meet my suggestion. We were hooked by our pinkies so he had to do some twisting and stretching to line up the two chairs.

He sat down next to me and slipped off his flip-flops, wiggled his toes at me, and removed my sandals. I was completely amused by his antics because it took great effort to keep the connection and still maneuver into position so that our feet met. It became my job to keep the connection with our feet while he set up his back rest – he needed to be comfortable for that physical and probably competitive endeavor.

Our positions were set but we needed to get our ‘catch’ object.

Fetching the toy that I had in mind could be a challenge. We leaned forward on our separate chairs, our feet connected, and took each other’s hand. The connection still vital, we swung our legs over to the same side and then just stood up. The ease and grace of the maneuver pleased us both. Our reward was eye contact and returning smiles like proud parents happy the young’uns didn’t fall on their butts again.

Because the slider to my cabin was unlocked I was able to quickly find the toy: a round, soft, spiky, rubber ball, extremely light weight with a little face in the middle of the spikes and four legs hanging limply from the air filled round body just barely longer than the soft spikes, with little feet. The whole thing was the size of a medium apple – perfect for a catch.

When I showed the ‘object’ to Michael, he took it from my right hand and squeezed it and tossed it in the air to catch on its descent. I intercepted without much effort.

Michael smiled and said, “What an odd thing for you to possess.”

I said, “Yeah, people surprise me, too.”

I turned toward the slider to go back.

Michael said, “Maybe you should gather your stuff for tonight and tomorrow. Would that take long?”

“Ok, two minutes tops,” I said.

I pulled him to the wardrobe to see what I had available to wear, grabbed another tank top and white shorts, clean undies, and a sweet little hooded sweatshirt I’d need right away.

Just before I stepped through the slider on the return trip, I got a flash of a premonition and turned around so fast I ran smack into Michael – a quick bolt of connectual energy surged through us, we grabbed each other, held tight, and stayed still. Then slowly we put space between us and when we could speak coherently, we hooked up.

“Sorry for that, I got a bit lazy; I’ll work on it. I need to step back to my bed for a sec to retrieve my medicine pouch.”

“Ok,” he said and moved aside so I could get to the drawer. I pulled my little purple bag from the drawer.

“Ready?” he hesitated, “…then come on, we’re losing light.”

We got back to the site for our catch without incident. Positioning ourselves in the game pose was as smooth as a dance. His feet were warm. Our connection was strong; it was nice.

Michael threw the object to me a bit too fast for the 7 feet between us. Not a problem for these quick reflexes. I caught his pitch and returned it so fast that he nearly didn’t catch it. It didn’t take him long to understand what I meant by a catch. The idea was to return the object as soon after you caught it as you possibly could. There are few rules; you can’t intentionally make the other player miss by a lousy throw. If you drop the object or don’t catch it, you’re eliminated.

Our catch was fast and fun; no mistake was made; our reflexes nearly evenly matched but I was holding back. Men don’t like to get shown up in sports especially by a woman. After a fast five minutes, Michael caught the object and said, “So what do I get if I win?”

“A bowl and a Snickers.” I said, “And, if I win, what?”

“A bowl and some jello,” he suggested.

“You’re on!” I hoped I wasn’t too confident. We laughed as the game began anew, concentration my middle name.

We threw that fluffy rubber object back and forth with accuracy and amazing velocity until we were both sweating from the exertion.

“If our feet get too sweating we may need to bind them together for the night as well as the catch.” I said.

I couldn’t tell what time it was when Denice popped her head through the skinny door between our balconies exactly but it was before the 10 o’clock theatre show.

“That looks like fun,” she said gladness in her voice, happy I’d a friend to have a catch with. That massaged her guilt for not coming to see me before her dinner at Sabatini’s like she’d said she would. She put too much pressure on herself to take care of things for everyone. As we hadn’t really spoken since we got aboard ship she was out of the loop and didn’t even know about the connection between Michael and me. She was in a hurry again so I saw no reason to tell her then. She was gone in less than a minute. Before she left, she looked at Michael

“Don’t feel bad when you lose; no one ever beats her.”

Now that was an exaggeration but I couldn’t say when was the last time I got beat at a catch, one of my favorite games, one of my family’s favorite games.

The game was invented when my kids were little. I worked a variety of part-time jobs when I was home with the kids, one was a telemarketing job. When I was on the phone, my kids would be lulled into thinking that they could misbehave because I was engaged on the phone and couldn’t chase after them. I remedied that by using all the socks in the house that had holes or were too small. I rolled the socks up into a tight ball and stitched them down so they would remain in a ball. Everyday I made more until I had a giant box of them; I stored them near the phone. Whenever my charges started to act up, I’d nail them with a sock ball. It didn’t take long before they recognized that I had “deadly” aim and rarely missed what I was aiming at…then again, they are a product of me and caught on almost as fast; they just had to see it coming to be able to catch it and not get hit by it.

So, my telemarketing job morphed into a fierce game of catch with all three of them. They got so they loved it and so did I because I saw just how incredibly coordinated each of them were. When I played against all of them at once, I was forced to increase my own skill at the “eye/hand” coordination thing.

Even with my back ground in the game, I could see that Michael was a fast learner whose skills increased enough to give me a pretty fair challenge in the first hours of play. Yeah, we had the catch until we could no longer see and our arms were too tired to throw the object back.

At about 11:30 we called the game and I packed a bowl. After our smoke, Michael said “Looks like it’s time for another little adventure and test of the connect; I need to use the bathroom. What needs doing and how long will it take?”

“Same routine as last night; I need to pee, wash my face and hands, brush my teeth and switch into my night clothes. Shall we handle it like last night – you know, do what we can together and save the disconnect just for our toilet time?”

“Ok.”

I snagged all my toiletries and my last set of silk pajamas and leaned forward on my lounge to receive Michaels offered hand – we maintained the connection very smoothly. Michael led us to the bathroom. When we got to the door he turned to hug me but I stopped him by putting my bundle in front of me.

“Let’s not mess with the connect until we need to. I think if we deepen the connection and then disconnect our reconnect is sweet but very dangerous.”

He looked at me with disappointment in his eyes but didn’t protest as he knew I was right.

I stepped through the door and went into action still maintaining contact with the door and through it with Michael. His being in full body contact with the door really helped.

I switched into the pajamas and peed in record time. When the toilet flushed, Michael was in the room with me. We’d developed a synchronicity that worked so well. If we didn’t get carried away with our appreciation for each other it would end up an easy game of catch.

Before we knew it, it was my turn to be on the other side of the door.

Our connection felt pretty strong even through the wall but after only a couple of minutes I could feel Michael’s anxiety. I felt his fear and responded with strength and resolve and it soothed him like a calming temple rub. Our breathing matched and we both sighed.

Finally I heard Michael’s “I’m coming.”

He stepped out of the bathroom and into my arms. We stood motionless in a tight embrace for a minute, hooked up and headed for the balcony. We both felt smug as hell for the way we handled the short disconnect.

Michael eyeballed the pushed together beds in the cabin but said nothing as we went straight to our own chairs on the balcony.

“Did you want to try the feet connection tonight and leave the chairs the way they are?” He asked his voice sad.

“It worked pretty well during the catch so let’s try it, my only concern is that we may disconnect due to nothing hooking up between us.”

I thought about that for awhile until I came up with a solution – looked in my sundry bag for the first aid kit, I knew there was an ace bandage in it.

I looked up from the bag and suggested.

“We could keep this near by so if we have an issue in the night, we can wrap our feet together. D’you think that will work?”

“Yeah, should work.” Michael seemed subdued but I didn’t pry. If he wanted to talk about it, he knew I was available.

We stood together then straddling the lounge chair, with our hands together we swung our legs up onto the lounge, keeping our knees bent so that we could reach each other until our feet made the connection. We put our feet together and then pushed until we were fully reclined. The connection was pretty strong but I felt a bit lost. We synchronized our breathing; sighed our big sigh.

He said, “Good night, Helen…” he hesitated “please don’t let the connect slip. You know I’ll get connected in what ever way I can …just to warn you.”

“Everything will be fine; good night Michael.”

Then I added, “We have our work cut out for us tomorrow.”

As soon as I closed my eyes I was out and slept like a rock until about 5 a.m. something disturbed my sleep. When I opened my eyes, I saw that Michael had pulled himself into my chair and was cuddled next to me. No wonder the connection was so strong. ‘Well’, I thought. ‘Maybe this is how we should have started’. I hoped he felt more secure. A big sigh to match the one coming from him and then slumber took me – back to dreamland.

The next time I woke up, Michael was next to me and smiling.