Remembrances

March 7

Dear Chase,

I thought of you today. The weather teased us with a taste of spring at the beginning of March. The sky was clear, the sun was warm, and I decided to call in sick and spend my day reading in the park. After my morning shower, I stood in my closet, one towel wrapped around my body, another around my head, deciding what to wear. Hidden quietly behind my bulky winter sweaters was that dress you bought me. The one with the blue floral print.

I pulled it off the hanger. Folding it between my hands, I held it to my face and breathed its aroma. It still smelled like you. I was with you the last time I wore it.

I smiled. That was the night we had dinner at Mancuso's. One of the rare nights we dared being out where people we both knew might see us together. We were all sorts of daring that night. I dared you to try oysters for the first time; you said they felt like swallowing snot. You dared me to remove my panties and leave them behind when we left. They were one of my favorites, ones I liked to wear when I knew you'd be seeing them later, but I did it anyway.

A cool autumn breeze whispered to the exposed skin under my dress when we left. I whispered in your ear I felt cold and exposed. Your skilled fingers made me forget both those feelings. That was another daring thing we did that night. I started to protest when you slid my dress up my leg and I saw the cab driver adjust his mirror for a better view, but you kissed me, and I forgot what I was protesting. When we arrived at my apartment, he declined your tip and winked at me before driving away to find his next fare.

Standing in my closet today, thinking of you, I let the towel fall to the ground, slid the soft fabric of the dress over my head, and wore it the way I did leaving the restaurant. I put my hair in a bun, grabbed my book and a blanket, and was reading in the park fifteen minutes later.

I lay on my stomach under a tree, facing the pond, with my knees bent, propped up on my elbows and my book on the ground. The sun was warm on my skin. No breeze sought to sneak under my dress with its icy tongue. A stray hair stuck to my sweaty forehead. I tucked it behind my ear.

The park began to fill with other like-minded individuals playing hooky from work to enjoy the unseasonably warm day. Their motions drifted in and out of the periphery of my awareness as I tried to focus on my book. I had selected one of my favorites. One I had read several times before, in high school, in college, and when I moved to the city for my first job as a software developer and knew no one: 'Valley of the Horses', by Jean Auel.

I flipped page after page, reveling in the world she created, indulging in the fantasy, immersing myself in her words, remembering the voids it filled. Few people enjoy the escapism of reading like a deaf girl. It's one of the few opportunities I have to share language the same way everyone else does. Like a 'normal' person; you hated when I phrased it that way. It's one of the things I liked about you. You saw me as normal; except in the ways you saw me as extraordinary.

It wasn't until I reached the chapter where the decrepit woman touches Jondalar's penis with her crooked, arthritic finger and laughs when it responds with arousal that I realized I shared his arousal. My face was flushed. I glanced around the park, hoping no one knew my secrets. Hoping no one saw my flushed face, no one saw my knees had slowly drifted apart, no one saw my hand had slowly drifted underneath my body, and no one saw my dress bunched high on my belly.

I thought of you as I brought myself to climax right there in the park, under the tree, facing the pond. If anyone noticed, they didn't react. I thought of the way you liked to kiss your way down my neck starting behind my left ear, always my left ear, all the way to my collar bone. I thought of your skilled fingers somehow finding a secret passage under my skirt, or down the front of my pants, or through the legs of my shorts sending shivers down my legs and up my spine. I thought of all those moments we shared in closets; on the floor of my apartment; on empty subway cars; in the alleys behind the dance clubs I loved because, though I could not hear the music, I could certainly feel the bass; on park benches at this very park.

I walked home missing you. I know you are gone. I was at your funeral.

You may be gone; my hunger for you is not.

My love always,

Anna

March 10

Chase,

I saw your widow today. She smiled at me, like all strangers smile at the deaf girl trying to communicate with the butcher, or at the deli counter, or at a restaurant. I usually preorder online and just pick it up to avoid these situations, but you can't do that at a nail salon.

She must have moved if she's going to my salon. Your former flat probably reminds her of you. I understand how memories can make a woman uncomfortable. I told you that the night we met. How you had the same cologne as my uncle. The one who would watch his brother's poor, frail, deaf daughter while my father worked the night shift to pay for the special school I attended. My mom left us a month after the diagnosis and you needed help. She was a weak woman, my father explained. Couldn't handle the adversity. It wasn't my fault. My uncle wasn't my fault either, I knew.

We were at one of my favorite clubs. A club where the music was so loud I felt every pulse. A club where the only way to communicate was by texting. I didn't stand out at clubs like that.

I told you I liked the way you looked at me; like you saw me as a woman, not as a deaf woman, but that it would never work if you wore that cologne because you smelled like my uncle, and my uncle liked to do things to me I didn't enjoy. I couldn't be intimate with someone who shared a smell with someone like that.

You excused yourself to the bathroom and I scolded myself for being so forthcoming with someone I just met, for being so blatantly exposed and vulnerable in a place I had learned to find my strength, to stand out so awkwardly in a place I had learned to blend in with crowd. When you returned, your hair was wet, your face was wet, and you smelled like bathroom soap. I felt a heat between my legs I had never known before.

When you asked if you could take me home, I said yes without thinking of my roommate sharing a one room flat with me. If she wasn't deaf like me, we would have woken her as we stumbled through the door and fell onto the couch. She would have heard us kissing until kissing was torture. She would have seen me undo your belt, unbutton your slacks, and pull your cock into my mouth while you unzipped the little black dress, my only little black dress at the time, and slid the straps off my shoulders and down my arms so you could fondle what little breasts I could carry on such a small frame.

If my roommate wasn't deaf, she surely would have heard the gasp I made when you slid your fingers in me that first time. She would have heard the guttural moan I felt escaping my body when the dam broke and my passion spilled forth, covering your fingers with my scent. A scent I hoped you wouldn't wash off.

If she was awake, she could have watched as I slid your pants to your knees and climbed on top of you. She would have seen me bouncing up and down with the urgency of a woman about to lose everything about herself but not caring if she did.

If she could hear, I'm sure she would know the springs in the old couch her and I found at the thrift store up the street squeaked as loud and at the same pitch as I did. She could have explained to me, later, when you had gone home to your wife, what you sounded like when you filled me with your seed. I felt your body tense beneath me. You gripped my ass in clenched fists so tightly I had bruises that lasted a week. You sat up, your suit jacket still on, your tie falling to one side, and let out a breath so forceful it blew my hair back. Your breath smelled of mint and whiskey.

If she knew anything, my roommate never said a word; or signed one. She did wonder where the white, crusty spot on the couch could have come from, but it cleaned up and she never asked.

The same can be said of your wife at the salon. If she knew anything, she gave no indication. She surely saw me at your funeral; the mysterious woman dressed in black at the back of the room crying and not interacting with anyone. I try not to be noticed; I seldom succeed. She simply smiled at me, the way everyone does, paid her bill, and left.

I went home with my memories.

Remembering you always,

Anna

April 4

My dearest Chase,

Today is Easter. I agreed to meet some friends for a fancy brunch. This required me to wear my fancy hat, the one with the half-veil I keep in the hat box at the top of my closet. It's the one you bought me for the surprise trip to the Kentucky Derby. I keep all my keepsakes from you in that box, and that's why I found it. The note you wrote me after our first night.

'Anna - You filled a spot in my life I did not know was missing. When I saw you dancing in the middle of the club by yourself, unashamed to be by yourself, I decided to approach you to get my first rejection of the night over with. But you danced with me. You leaned into me. You grinded against me. You even seemed to grind harder when you felt my erection; I knew you felt it. My pants didn't provide much resistance to it. When you later told me about your uncle, I knew I had to be with you. I knew I wanted to inspire your vaginal mucosa. You projected strength from vulnerability. You have an effortless simplicity to your extraordinary beauty. All the things my wife doesn't have. I'd like to see you again, if you'll still have me.'

As I read your note again, all the emotions from the first time I read it came flooding back. The anger discovering you were married. The shame from realizing I didn't care. I was impressed you knew about vaginal mucosa (I had to look it up); I was less impressed once I learned you were a doctor. Mostly, I remembered how you made me feel normal and desired and, admittedly, aroused.

I texted you the minute I finished reading it.

"Yes," I said, "I will still have you. Now would be good."

You texted back: "Prove it."

That was the first time I sent a nude picture of myself to anyone. The first time I had ever taken a nude picture of myself, or had a nude picture taken of me, or had my nude image digitized in any way. I probably took thirty before I sent you two. I was nervous sending them. I didn't know if you were an 'ass man', or a 'breast man'. Did you want close ups of my pink folds, or did you want more artistry? Were you more Playboy or Penthouse?

I paced my apartment for several minutes waiting for your response, glad my roommate was still at the gym so she wouldn't be asking questions I wasn't ready to answer.

Your only response was an address. It was a hotel and you met me in the lobby.

We rushed to the room you reserved and my clothes were on the floor before you finished removing your shoes. I stood before you, naked and trembling, waiting for you to do what you wanted to me. Tie me to the bed. Fuck me in the ass. I didn't care. I was ready for anything and ready to dismiss any second thoughts or morning-after regrets.

You started with taking pictures. You asked me to lean against the wall, one arm up, the other down, legs crossed at the ankles. You took my picture in this pose from the front, from the side, from the back, while lying on the floor, and while standing on the bed.

You positioned me on the bed. My face was in the pillow, my knees were under my hips, and my fingers were in my sex. You asked me to prepare myself for you. I complied. You took photos from a distance, from directly behind me, and as close as you could without losing focus.

The sex we had was energetic, fulfilling and tender. You didn't use me and I didn't feel used. Our bodies glistened with sweat in the cool room when we cuddled in post-coital exhaustion. You showed me the pictures and I feigned embarrassment. Your favorite was the last one you took before entering me. The one where my fingers were covered with my white, sticky mucosa and you knew I was ready. We had sex again after that.

I left the hotel feeling reborn. I left feeling I was a phoenix rising from the ash heap of the dumpster fire that had been my childhood. I felt a woman. I felt like I loved you.

Today it is Easter. You are gone, and you won't be resurrecting today or any other day. Deep down, I know this. I miss you. I am grateful for having known you. I have to move beyond you.

I have to stop writing to you. And now I will.

With final regards and best wishes,

Anna