French Kiss (Novella) (6 page)

“Cameron?” Maria looked up, finding Cameron’s face
in the darkness, lit up by the moonlight streaming in through the open window.

“Yes?”

“Have you done this before?”

Cameron laughed gently, “Well, sort of, I guess,
only it was nowhere near as good as this time, let’s put it that way.”

Maria ran her hands along Cameron’s muscular body,
enjoying the freedom and the feeling of having a man within her grasp for the
first time in her life. There had been one other, but it had never gotten
physical, circumstances had made sure of that.

“What about before? Before your accident? Did you
ever have a lover?”

“Yep, there was one girl, while I was still in
college. Emma Willen, she stole my heart right outta my chest, she did. Still hurts
now when I think about it,” Cameron said, his voice soft in the darkness as he
recalled the memories.

“Did you ever ... you know ...?” Maria asked, still
a little too shy to say the words, but Cameron knew what she meant.

“Yeah, we did. We were young, you know… and for us
it was a daily occurrence. More like exercise than an act of making love,
problem is ... it got so repetitive in the end, she left me and went off with
the college wrestling champion. Needless to say, I never saw her again. Dropped
out of college with her waster boyfriend and vanished ...”

Maria, reached up and stroked his face, “I’m sorry,
that must have hurt.” Her voice was soft, filled with sympathy.

Cameron shrugged, “It hurt alright, but you know,
you have to move on and right now, here with you, I’m one hundred percent sure
I’ve done that.”

Maria smiled. Before the evening had begun, she was
positive that Cameron was a good man, a man that she could potentially date and
perhaps even start a relationship with - if he would have her, that is. Laying
in the darkness with him, listening to his breathing in her ear, his strong
arms enclosing her, keeping her close to his muscular body, she realized that
what had developed over the course of the evening was far more than just a relationship
- it was a bond, a common understanding.

Yet another moment of silence descended over the
pair and Maria lay back, enjoying it. She was becoming sleepy, her eyes heavy,
her body relaxed, more so than it had been in a long time.

“Cameron?”

“Yes?” He sounded groggy as if he had nodded off
momentarily.

“I really better go to sleep now, I can barely keep
my eyes open and tomorrow morning I have a physical therapy session at 8:30. My
therapist says it’s best to start in the morning, as my body responds better to
the treatment.”

Cameron sounded like he was stretching, a long moan
emanating from him, before he answered her, sleepily. “Okay, Maria, I’m tired
too. Been a long evening, but one of the best of my life!”

Maria smiled, “Me too.”

“So where are we going tomorrow?” Cameron asked.

“Hmmm,” Maria thought for a second. “How about New
York?”

 “Good choice! I wonder what made you pick the Big
Apple?” Cameron laughed in her ear.

“Goodnight, Joe Buck!” Maria said, softly.

“Goodnight, Maria ...”

Cameron leant back in his high back leather recliner
and watched the screen as his computer went through the motions, shutting down
slowly.  Within a moment or two his room was bathed in silence and semi-darkness.
The only light came from a dirty street-light outside his window, but it vanished
as he pulled the curtains with one swipe of his strong arm. He was alone with
his thoughts.

Going over the evening spent with Maria in his head,
he closed his eyes, the images still fresh in his mind.  He smiled. It felt
good to be able to smile, with genuine happiness, perhaps for the first time
since he’d been discharged from hospital almost 3 years earlier.

Had it really been so long? He nodded and looked up
at the ceiling, recalling his conversation with Maria about God.

“If you ‘are’ real, thank you...” he said with a sly
grin.

The last three years had been like a dream to him.
He barely even remembered the last time he had actually had a conversation with
a girl, let alone share an intimate evening with one. Cybersex, or whatever you
call it, wasn’t like the real thing, of course… but it was the closest he had come
to making love in nearly 4 years.  

The war had engulfed him… consumed his life, his
family, everything. In the end, after 3 years of loyal service and 2 trips to
Iraq, it had spat him out as a broken man.  When he had returned home,
wheelchair bound for the rest of his life, he found himself virtually alone. 
For a time he lived with his mother, but she was quite frail and weak herself.
She had tried her best to care for him for the time she had left, but that
hadn’t been long.

She had passed away while Cameron was undergoing
therapy at the hospital; it had been his own decision to put himself through
such rigorous training.  Daily, he would endure torturous routines that pushed
his body to the limit, but it was the only way. The only way he and he alone
could care for himself, without the aid of a nurse. No matter how much his
mother had complained from what was to become her deathbed, he couldn’t be
persuaded otherwise.

Heaving himself up from his position on the
recliner, his strong arms rippling with the movement as the muscles he had
honed for hours and days on end, responded and served him, he turned to face
his bed, rolling his custom built wheelchair across the carpetless floor.

He had chosen not to decorate his one bedroom
apartment. He no longer needed such luxury. Nor was there any kind of decor in
his home at all, save for a picture of his mother on his bedside table. A
reminder of times gone past. Sometimes looking at the picture would cause him
to break down in tears, recalling how things had once been. The pain of loss,
not only of his mother but of his friends, but the loss of opportunities.  His
legs.

Cameron wheeled himself across the floor to his bed,
the covers rolled back and ready for him.  His military training still firmly
embedded in his psyche meant that everything was prepared and ready long before
he thought about retiring each night. He required no nurse to care for him
despite his difficulty getting around. He had worked his arms at the hospital until
they were so strong he was able to walk on them and a week later dismiss the
nurse that had cared for him for months. No longer would he be a burden on the
world.

Taking hold of the harness that hung ready by his
bed, he pulled himself up.  This was a routine he had done nightly for 2 years.
Once he was safely up onto the harness hanging above his bed, he leant down,
kissed his mother and smiled.

Tonight, no tears would fall. For the first time
since Iraq, he felt human again. Meeting Maria and spending time with her
within Second Life had allowed him to regain some of the confidence he had left
behind.

As he settled into bed, pushing the harness away
with one hand, he thought back to the man he had been before Iraq. Normally,
such an act would have been difficult but he found that he could now remember,
without anguish enveloping him, without the uncontrollable sobs wracking his
body as they had so many times before. His pillow would be dry tonight.

Just 3 years earlier, Cameron had been a 29 year-old
soldier, with high expectations of his own life.

His superiors had always picked him out for great
things, if he kept his head down and continued to put in the effort. Iraq was
supposed to be the catalyst to greater things for him.

A promotion? Glory. Experience. Fame and riches in
the private sector?  Maybe even a career in politics?

Certainly he would get married upon returning from
duty.

All that potential was taken away from him in the
blink of an eye, when his confident nature got the better of him while on
patrol.

Part of that young, ambitious man had returned as
the evening with Maria had worn on and in the end, the real Cameron had begun
to emerge from hibernation – he could feel within him a spark.  He was regaining
some of his old zest for life.

A landmine may have blown his legs and his dreams to
kingdom come, but Maria had in the space of a few encounters filled in part of
the yawning void within him that had been growing ever larger as time went on.

Cameron closed his eyes, a smile that he couldn’t
wipe away even if he wanted to still lingered as he drifted off into a fitful,
undisturbed rest.

Maria logged off her computer and sat for a moment,
a smile fixed upon her face as she went over the night in her mind once more. She
looked up at the clock on her bedroom wall, taking note that it was nearly 1am.

Her mother would call her soon to see what was
taking her so long. If only she didn’t need assistance to get in and out of bed
every night, she could enjoy the kind of privacy other 24 year-old girls no
doubt enjoyed at home.

Her mother always reminded her “You are one of the
lucky ones, so be grateful, young lady.”

She was right.

Although she was born with cerebral palsy, it wasn’t
as serious as it might have been. Her arms were okay for the most part with the
muscles there already trained and strengthened significantly, meaning she could
perform normal things like operate a mouse. She gave thanks for that.

Her legs were a different matter altogether though,
as no matter how much rigorous training and therapy she underwent, they just
wouldn’t respond in the way she needed them too. Once, they had.

She wheeled over to the wardrobe, custom built so
that everything hung at waist level for a normal person, but just right for
her. She stretched up out of her wheelchair and reached for her favorite
nightie, the one that hung just above the knee, a height she was beginning to
like.

Quietly, she slipped off her clothes in the semi
darkness of her small bedroom, her haven, a safe corner of the world that had
sheltered her since she was a young teen.

Cameron ... what are you doing now?

She thought about Cameron as she slipped the nightie
over her head, allowing it to glide over her body, a faint sensation that
reminded her of Cameron’s gentle touch, against her skin, though she knew she
had yet to feel him outside of her own imagination. She supposed that was one
of the magical things about Second Life - it showed and revealed only so much,
the rest you had to fill in yourself.

Second Life at one time had been a joke to her.

“A second life?  People are just kidding themselves,”
she had once said, a feeling of scorn filling her during an online chat in a
forum for other Cerebral Palsy sufferers like herself. They had told her how
they now had boyfriends and saw them every night – traveling the world in the
virtual reality simulation where geography was no obstacle and creative minds
could reproduce anything from the physical world that they wanted.  Visit the
Titanic?  Sure, you can do that!  Experience sky diving?  Your avatar can.

She laughed at them back then.

Now, she herself was a member of Second Life. She
had even designed her character in the way she perceived herself, almost 6 feett
tall, a round, petite face with a small mouth that was painted with burgundy
lipstick, and long hair stretching to her buttocks. All of it was able to be
changed at the click of a mouse button if her mood varied.

All those nights she had laid alone.  Her mind was
her playground after all. There was nowhere else for her.  In the ‘real’ world,
of course, she had plenty to entertain herself with - she didn’t need legs for
most of that.

Those things didn’t involve romance and mystery...
the intangible, forbidden element that had eluded her.

Until now.

Her nightie hung over her shoulders, cool against
her skin and as she brushed her flowing hair, with each long stroke, it rustled
and rasped gently against her skin.

 “Maria? Are you ready for bed yet?” her mother’s
voice echoed, gentle but insistent.

Wheeling herself away from the mirror at her
dresser, she rolled over to the door and slid back the bolt, the one factor
that gave her a smidge of independence as a young woman.

Taking a deep breath, she fixed her face in its
usual pose, satisfied but not ecstatic. Her mother would recognize the change
and kick up a stink if she suspected that Maria was up to something.

It had always been that way, Maria thought as she
sat and listened to the rhythmic pounding of her mother’s feet approaching,
stair by stair.

For years, they had been a sad excuse for a family.
Her mother alone and clearly needing a man in her life, but unwilling to admit
it, and Maria now also needing the kind of companionship that only a man could
provide.

What a pair we are.

“Hey, mom. How ya doing?”

Her mother stood at the door, her hand pushing it
all the way open until it was as far as it would go - against the cherry
blossom-pink wall of her bedroom.  It was just another shade of burgundy as far
as Maria was concerned.