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He followed her up the stairs, noticing not for the first time that her legs were long. Her skirt made a slight swishing sound. He tried to catch her scent, but dry cleaning chemicals permeated the stairwell. She stopped at a battered brown door.
"Here," she said.
The room was small and very neat. It would have to be. Clutter would be dangerous. There was a table, a desk and chairs, a bed. There was a kitchen in one corner, and a door to the loo.
She turned to face him. "Okay, you say we're not so far apart. We all have scars. Fine. I know all about mine. What's so shocking about yours? You go first."
Nikolai looked around at the closed drapes and the bare lamps. Of course she wouldn't use lampshades. They would make the lamps useless to her. With the lamps on and the heavy drapery closed, it would be bright enough for her to see, but no one else could see in, so it was safe, even if it did not feel so.
"You need a lot of light to see. You have to take off glasses?" he asked.
Adele moved to the desk and switched on the light, hardly fumbling at all. "This is where I read, when I choose to use my eye to read." She fluttered her fingers in the air, meaning that she customarily used them for reading. There was a stack of thick books on a chair, with no colour on the covers. Braille. But on top of the books lay a large magnifying glass, like something Sherlock Holmes would use, on top of a movie magazine.
"And you remove glasses to read?" Nikolai asked. It was possible the sunglasses had some kind of prescription lens that enhanced her vision, or maybe they were only for hiding her ruined face.
"Do you have some fetish for scars?" she asked accusingly.
So they were only for hiding the scars. Nikolai held up his hands to show he meant no harm, hoping she would both see and understand the gesture. He only wanted to prove to her that he wasn't going to reject her for physical reasons, not when she had far greater reason to reject him. "No fetish. Am here to show you my scars, remember? I go first."
"Close your eyes," she commanded.
He did.
The scarf was warm from where it had been wrapped around her neck. It was silky against his eyelids. He breathed in and her scent was citrusy. She adjusted the blindfold until he could see nothing, although he could hear the click of a second light being turned on. It was disconcerting to be blind. He wasn't used to it.
"So, what's the big mystery?" Adele asked.
Nikolai took a deep breath.
The last time he'd been naked in front of anyone he'd almost died on the floor of a bathhouse.
He shrugged off his jacket. She took it and said she'd hang it on the back of a chair. Nice of her to care for his suit. He unbuttoned his shirt.
No one had ever seen him but whores and other vor. Maybe a few doctors and nurses. And the artists who had last tattooed him. He almost always kept covered up, because that was what you did when you had his kinds of tattoos. They weren't meant for show among civilians.
Part of the purpose of the tattoos is to make sure you can never live among non-vor again. There will be no passing for normal, no matter what side you ultimately choose. Mark of evil. Separates the good from the bad.
Nikolai took off his shirt.
She stood quietly in front of him and touched his shoulder. He pulled off his undershirt.
Her fingers were warm on his skin, outlining the marks he knew so well. They mapped out the shapes, traced his history, sometimes going over a particular word or line several times in a row, sometimes pressing into him, sometimes gliding over like a feather. Her breath wafted across his skin, warm and exciting, but the occasional cold touch of the magnifying glass reminded him that this was an examination.
Nothing was for certain yet.
"These aren't scars," she said. "Not real scars." In places the ink was slightly raised, enough for her to feel the change in topography, but not enough to denote broken skin. Her fingers roamed to his side. "This is a scar." Her other hand trailed along his arm. "This is another."
"From knife," he said, barely breathing, barely living. "Can you see it all?" he asked. "I want you to see it all."
"I can see," she said tersely. She was so close her lips brushed the skin of his shoulder. She moved back and traced the outline of a dome, her fingertips perilously close to his spine, then around front to his heart, his nipple. She spelled a word on his skin with the nail of her index finger, hard enough to make him hiss.
She said, "Mm, I think I can see. But I don't get it. What does this mean?" Her fingers touched a certain spot.
He began to explain. He started, and then he couldn’t stop. He explained about prison and hardship. Crimes he'd committed. Solitary confinement he'd endured. The code that kept him alive. And almost killed him. She asked many questions, and he answered them all patiently, trying not to lean into her hands. She felt along the knife scars with those infuriating calluses she'd grown from reading books.
Nikolai shivered under her touch.
Then she asked about the stars. He answered truthfully. The word "captain" sounded foreign to him. But then, all the words he spoke to her were foreign, weren't they?
When he was done, finished explaining, she tapped his chest. He sounded hollow. "So, you are a big man, is that it? Am I supposed to be intimidated?"
If she were smart, she would be. If she understood, she would be terrified. Or appalled. Or repulsed. But how could she ever understand such things? She was too far removed from his life. She knew nothing of crime and danger and death. Not from his side of the game.
But he refused to think of her as a victim. Survivor, yes. Casualty, maybe. Victim? Never.
"And you say they are on your knees, too?"
"I will kneel for no one," he affirmed. "No one but you." His hands moved to his belt so he could push down his trousers and show her the tattoos there, and on his legs and feet.
"I don't need to see them!" she said quickly. Alarmed. Of course, alarmed - alone in her room with a strange, tattooed man who was telling her he was a criminal and threatening to take off all his clothes.
And under them he was hard. So hard. Her clumsy examination of him made him ache for more. He'd not realized how much he yearned for the feel of innocent hands. Clean hands.
Her hands.
The scarf fluttered to the floor, caressing his chest as it fell. Nikolai braced for the searing light, but she'd turned off all the lamps. There was only a little daylight seeping through the curtains, but enough to see by. Enough to see she was facing away from him and her dark hair was uncovered and the oversized glasses were on the table, not on her face.
"You'll want to put your shirt back on now," she said. "You'll be out the door in a flash when you see this."
She turned around.
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