Mental Patience Ch 03

Author's Note: This is my story, I wrote it, stealing is lame. If you don't like it, don't read it. To all the editors and critics who repeatedly use 'clumsily worded' in their corrections for my potential use: The words I use are specific; get gooder brain power. Any comments and feedback, positive or negative, is appreciated - Not to mention everyone likes to have errors pointed out.

I apologize for the delay in chapters. My bad's bad; busy, busy. The next chapter is all sex and will be submitted in the 'First Time' category. Hope you enjoy this one.

Mental Patience, Part 3, Or

Accidents Happen, Part 2, and Interference, Part 1

"I can't believe you are so calm." Nicole sat leaning towards the table, both elbows upon it, holding her coffee cup as some sort mask in front of her face, ready to sip. Between morsels of sugar with a hint of coffee, and words, she constantly smiled at her new research project. She had barely touched her cherry pie.

"...I hate how arrogant this sounds, but it's not a big deal. I just understand the rules of existence and human communication better than you. I just absorb more information from my surroundings at one time.

You're

calm about owning the term 'sexuality' because it's always been that way for

you

." Elijah said without arrogance before taking another bite of his rhubarb pie.

He was sitting up straight, holding his fork in one hand and a napkin in the other, never quite touching to table. While he spoke, his fork

danced

on his finger tips with spins and twists, and his mouth was barren of food; Elijah always wiped his lips before he spoke to her.

He only had one creamer in the cup, Elijah loved the taste of the coffee at this place, so there was no need for more. So far as he could tell, this diner had his third favorite diner flavor coffee.

This was an old diner, a physical reference to times and ideals past. The floor was spotted and reflectively speckled; the ceiling was popcorn - and equally reflective as the floor; the walls were spotless glowing stainless steel, and the counter top matched the floor in pattern, as did the footrest for the counter top stools. The neon accents were perfect.

This particular location was a functioning work of art complete with individual table jukeboxes, a clock molded into the steel, and pies spinning in a cooled glass enclosure among other pastry delights aligned in a display case counter to the side.

Elijah had grown up near here, and this was one of his favorite places, not to mention

Storytellers

just happened to be five minutes away. They still gave saucers with the coffee cups; the waitresses call you 'hon' and it's a clean place. The safety of the environment kept people from arguing.

"That's a big deal, and a bold claim, mister." Nicole almost laughed out loud at the audacity of it. This was a whole new game, these were brand new tricks for a man. "That's like reading minds, or being a superhero."

"If a person can be born blind, than a person can be born seeing too much."

"It doesn't work that way, Eli, that dichotomy is false." Nicole was being sexy in her rebuttal, even if Elijah was talking crazy, and manipulating ideas as he saw fit.

"Says who? The scientists who swear they can measure the end of the Universe while still being unable to predict the weather?"

"..well..." Her confounded was real when he suddenly did not seem so crazy.

"Jessie Owens."

"What about him?" Nicole let the words hang in the air. She was figuring the trick out very well.

"Is he not super-human?"

"..well yeah, but..."

"No 'but' involved. He was the fastest man alive. His legs worked in conjunction with his body and his surroundings better than all others at one time. His records have since been beaten. Why can't a brain, or other parts of the body, work as well as a world class athlete's legs? You know, like in comparison." Elijah closed his eyes when he finished speaking, and leaned into the bulbous seat of the booth behind him, inaudibly setting down his fork on the plate.

"Bullshit. Prove it." Nicole called his bluff, cynical at his any attempt to explain otherwise. Elijah was quiet for a pause, she was about to interrupt him, but he lifted a finger of the hand that previously held the fork - to kindly delay her - while the napkin still sat snugly in the other hand. A moment later, he spoke.

"You thought the waitress, Diane, I think, was nice, right?" Elijah's eyes were still closed, and he had silently picked his fork back up.

"Yeah, she was, she called me pretty." Nicole was smiling, momentarily sitting up straight to the feeling before leaning back into the table, finally setting down her coffee cup, wondering why he had not answered her question.

"Well, you are, but she's not. Look over my right shoulder, towards the door, but don't be obvious." Nicole turned her eyes towards the door ten or so booths away, spotting their waitress and another chatting. Just as Diane, that was her name, turned her head from her conversation towards a nearby table, Elijah spoke the word "nipples" aloud as she mouthed it; only Nicole heard him.

Nicole turned her eyes back towards Elijah while leaning the minuscule distance back into the booth, parting her lips in realization. His eyes were still closed, and the question was answered by a pattern of events that had not occurred to her in the least.

"No bullshit. Not exactly the scientific method, but no bull." Elijah went back to the pie, opening his eyes as he began to speak and sitting straight up once again, the only seated person in the diner whom was taller than the well padded seatbacks of the booths. "Though situational awareness comes with a catch, it makes a shell shocked gunner just the same as it makes a fighter ace." He spoke after the bite, eyes down and scanning, temporarily hunched at the words

"You're brain is sexy." Nicole licked her lips after she spoke.

"Sexy if I use my powers for good. Imagine if I were a creep." Elijah almost shivered after he spoke, still scanning the table without looking at it, his own words causing his body to react. "It gets better, though, just wait until you see me naked." Elijah dropped a fast wink in tune with a grin after he spoke, she would have missed it if she had not been looking at his eyes and their hypersensitive view. She was starting to realize that she could

feel

his words if she just stopped listening for what she expected, or wanted him to say.

"I can't wait." Nicole replied without pause, echoing his words. She was surprised at herself for the immediate outburst and not at all embarrassed. This man was a challenge.

"So what's the deal with your husband?" Elijah took another casual bite of his baked goodness with his eyes closed, it could easily have been mistaken as a blink; her surprised response at the blatant words could easily have been mistaken as offended.

***

"I know you just wanted me to come here and talk, and work it out, but I don't love you like you think, not yet. What I consider love is in no way what you

expect

..." - he spit the word - "...me to

give

you, and we are not going to work this out right now."

The pair sat in silence for a time, both staring forward on the steel framed wooden swing hung by chains - unswinging and seated inches apart - before Elijah spoke again.

"I can't do this anymore. I realize now that you may never understand, and making you happy is killing me, especially when the first time I say 'no' to something, you flip the fuck out and come running

here. To them

." Elijah looked like he was about to puke, but Heather did not see it, not in the unlit darkness in which they sat.

"I'm beginning to feel like I'm using you, and that I'm doing it for no reason." He spoke the words into her ear, finally facing her, and inadvertently, himself.

Heather just couldn't grasp his position because he knew this was going to happen when she did not, and he knew no better way of explaining. He was trying to make this easy, but chance was winning again despite the intentions.

"Maybe when she meets some other men, when she grows up, she'll see what I have to offer. Maybe she can trust me even after this truth," he thought to himself before speaking again.

"I know this appears selfish, and it is, but this was never completely about you. I'm not a dancing monkey, and I'm not their fucking Cinderella, not anymore. I told you that." Elijah knew she was still going to blame herself. "You know I hate this place, and I hate their side. You don't even see the sides."

Heather was crying now, but hiding it. The unlighted porch they sat upon, his

parents's

porch, was only filled with lighter shadows from the interior of the house; lights only in the distance and through the window treatments, on the dark, chilly, barely starlit evening. Elijah still saw the tears and heard the irregular breathing.

Elijah had designed, planned, and built this deck, unsupervised, as a chore, when he was twelve years old. The only real help was 'hold this, please' assistance from a sibling, nearly ten years ago. It was the thankless manual labor that drove him to renew his high school diploma in real time.

Heather was the only one tying him to this place now, the only reason he still came here when he knew he would only be used. His family was her family, even if they were not related.

The 'adopted' sister, thanks to a state program, that he had stayed away from for so long; the one that he had known for nine of his twenty-one sympathetic years, as she was the same age; the one that his family had to 'save' from her own.

Her

, this girl, she was the reason he still attended holiday family functions.

Heather thought Elijah was scared, or maybe confused since he was a silly boy, for the nine years they never spoke. She too felt the same natural draw that he felt towards her. His family often agreed with her situational assessment. "He thinks too much," they would say, assuming he would never hear them speak and thinking they were right, assuming he would not feel the influence of their words.

"We'll try and set you up with him," and "He does that because," never aiding the situation, and they refused to give up to his pure chagrin; they always tried to manipulate the pair together when it would happen on it's own. Her friends caused problems as well by adding fuel when she fawned over his greatness and what he could do for her.

Elijah would be perfect for this young woman in all eyes but his own, he could make her happy forever and show her the world, and she would 'fix' him for the family. "He could give you whatever you want," her friends would say, "plus he's soooo cute."

Elijah expected perfect, or at least an attempt, in return. Anything less and he would be holding back the potential, something that was always in short supply.

"If only she could see it," he often thought, "If only I could explain it. If only I didn't feel like a piece of meat. Maybe I interfered. Maybe it was all too soon. Maybe I'm an asshole."

The star crossed pair never uttered a word beyond 'hello' until their first date, nine years after they met. Wordlessly they miscommunicated (yup) until that day, even though they were feet apart whenever in the same room during all of those years. She thought that he was acting to mirror a chaste Victorian style romance, and that he was being the dutiful, hardworking, self-reliant, and shy handsome son.

Elijah was trying to save her from this moment on the porch, this truth that was going to break them up before they began: That he was holding back who he was, that he did something that he should not have. Something he had done for as long as he could remember.

He was trying to ignore her in those nine years, telling himself he could wait nine more if he had to, until she could see past his societal front, knowing (read: hoping) she could see that he was different on her own.

It was the assumptions that did it. Heather assumed she had seen all that he had to offer, she assumed that she was right, and she assumed she had control of the situation when it was never about control.

Elijah figured out what was going on, but would not understand it until later: It

was

too soon. They were on the porch entirely because of Elijah's lack of self control, his lack of patience; he had thought somehow that he was finally dealt an ace, which it was, but chance suckered him into a bet that he could not win.

Elijah glanced over at the cracked open window to his left. His mother was listening on the other side behind the shade; the lights in that room were off, but even invisible, she was there. Her unseen presence was making his skin crawl. She was going to poison Heather's mind as to what was really going on, just as soon as he left.

"It's all my fault anyway," Elijah thought to himself, almost laughing at the absurdity and the truth of it, and in turn appearing, to Heather, as to think Heather was a joke and the conversation they were having was funny to him; appearing as if he did not care.

"I just want you to stop telling me what I should be, and leave me alone until you get it. In the two years we've been together, you still don't know who I am, and you refuse to quit thinking that you do. We see each other at least five times a week, and loneliness is depressing me. You don't even car what I do for a living, only that I make money in a worthless monetary system."

"Ohmygod." Heather put her head down. She was beginning to understand why he would not ask her to marry him, and understand him even less as he continued on. It never occurred to Heather to tell Elijah to shut his mouth, to suggest that he might be wrong, or that she was ignoring what she did not understand for the sake of the sensations he made her feel.

"I've only been doing all of this for you, so that this wouldn't happen. I wanted to show you how good things could be, and you expect only the good things that you want, and you want them right now, instantly, without realizing what it took to make them happen, or even if I want to be involved."

Elijah paused; he wanted to see if Heather would speak. Eventually, when she did not, he continued.

"You have never asked me a question that wasn't about something you wanted. You seem to only tell me what I am doing wrong these days, and how I should act so you get something you want."

He paused again, and in turn, eventually continued after a silence.

"You do realize there are two sides to this thing, right? Sex isn't the only thing I desire from you, you know?"

Heather ran into the house, wailing, because her heart could take no more, she did not know what the hell Elijah was talking about, even if she did memorize every word.

Elijah stood up and sighed. "Fuck. I'm a piece of shit..." he uttered in near silence to himself before going to his car and driving the forty-five minutes back to his house.

He was tired; all of this would let him sleep easily, for he would crash and stop thinking about the wasted time, for once.

***

"It's like he was pretending to be the man I loved, the man we know." Heather sobbed into his mother's shoulder - her pseudo mother's shoulder, her friend and confidant - on the bed in the spare room. "He was talking so... strange..." heather was able to say when she caught her breath.

The spare room was really her room away from the on-campus housing she had at school. It was Elijah's old room after his parents kicked him out at eighteen for dating a woman they did not approve of, and because he refused to work in the family business. The room was remodeled within a week; it was Heather's within three. Her clothes were in the draws, he thing were store in the bins at the top of the closet.

"That's not Elijah, baby. Elijah's a good man. He does what he's told. That boy was trying to sound smart. I don't know who that boy was." His mother hugged the young girl and began to pretend to cry from behind a tissue.

***

"Linda and the boys want to meet you. I talked to Linda after she talked to the boys." Nicole was sitting in Elijah's ride, outside of

Storytellers

in the lot where the customers park. Her shift started in half of a hour, 7:00 PM, and the coffee was just what she needed.

"Ha." Elijah actually said the word and performed it at the same time. "You would have boys, wouldn't you? Woman like you should never be married. You have too much life for marriage, marriage kills some people. Marriage only works if nothing changes, or with real love."

"Yeah, they all want to sleep with me, Linda too. That's why she wants to meet you. She wants to have a three-way."

"Hmm..." Elijah actually said and performed the word. Again. A new trick. "That sounds like fun. A bit coincidental, but... fun. Depends on what she's like." Elijah looked far away, smiling to ignore the fact that she had probably slept with all of them. "How about Friday night?" he said aloud while internally thinking "You'd better not try that 'pet' shit on me."

"I'll make it happen." Nicole's smile was devilish, appearing wild. "Want to come watch me dance?"

Nicole was sitting on top of one long leg, on the seat, wearing newer, looser, almost baggy, and darker jeans than the day of the first date - though still riding daringly low. She was facing Elijah while simultaneously sticking out her ass with a foot on the floor, and grabbing her ribs by sliding a hand up each side.

She was wearing a small white 'wife beater' in a man's cut, without a bra, and with one red beaded necklace for a necklace while the second red beaded necklace was used as a belt and followed by a matching bracelet with earrings. The colored accents of her running sneakers matched the package, the combination of it all added to Elijah's visual buffet. Her nipples hardened as her hands slid, protruding darkly through the cotton fabric of the thin shirt.

Elijah was instantly erect, and as far as he could tell, her nipples were Hershey's perfect.

"No thanks, Jezebel. Not like that. Not in that club. Let me know what time Friday, yeah?" Elijah put his sunglasses on, even though it was almost dark, trying very hard, but remaining unnoticed, to stay calm.

"Uh, yeah..." Nicole's face went flat, and then confused - like she wanted to ask a ton of questions - and her arms went limp while her hands went to the opposite sides of her waist shortly after she opened the door. She began to think that she should be offended, in spite of the chivalry, and in spite of the way the words

felt

.

"See ya," she said to Elijah through the open passenger's door, with a feigned smile and a confused face.

"Bye-bye, beautiful Nicole." he said with perfection. She closed the door to the car, softly, and began walking. She heard his exhaust with the ignition, and the sound of Elijah leaving, but only after she placed her hand on the back door to the club to open it with her key.

She had been hugging herself and smiling, feeling warm inside from his words as she walked to the club while her brain told her to be angry. She turned to see him watching her ass with a smile, because Elijah was watching her ass with a smile. She was beginning to understand the what: that maybe things aren't what she's had always thought they should be.

***

"Shhh.. He doesn't know she's a virgin."

He did know. Elijah may have been just as young, but he was not stupid. He knew Heather was a virgin, and he knew Jennifer and Trisha thought he could not hear their gossip. Besides that, Heather, his eventual girlfriend, was giving an obvious gawk to her friends in their 'secret code' they had devised over a lifetime.

Elijah had cracked that code quickly. "Nineteen-year-old college sophomores are stupid," Elijah thought to himself as he said, "I'm going to go grab a smoke on the balcony, it's nice out. I'll be back in a few."