Page 14 of Homebound
The kitchen staff proved much more easy-going than the hag at the supply closet, and with her bucket full of warm water, Gemma arrived on the third floor in the jerky elevator.
Approaching Simon’s cell, she had to stop and catch her breath, apprehension and indecision making her heart beat faster and her face flush. But the thought of him suffering in filth, alone, overrode any misgivings that the rational part of her brain was pushing forth.
It was so quiet. She could hear Little Green Man cluttering about his cell farther down the corridor, and the lonely sound stood out so much more in the unusual silence. Taking in a deep breath, Gemma unlocked Simon’s cell and went in.
She was going to touch him. Against the dire warnings of Aunt Herise and Arlo, she was going to put her hands on the filthy, foreign creature and make him clean.
She rolled the bucket close to the cot.
“Okay, now, Mr. Simon. I need you to lie down on your back with your head over here, hair over the bucket. Can you do that for me?”
No reaction, of course, but she was prepared for that. Counting on the obedience he had exhibited when she had pulled at his blanket the other day, she gently took hold of his shoulders and pulled at him to turn him around. As if reading her mind, he unfolded his long limbs and proceeded to accommodate her by bending his arms at the elbows as he tried to lay down.
There was no space for the entire length of him.
Letting go of his shoulders, Gemma scooted down and worked to arrange his long legs by bending them at the knees and propping them against the wall for support.
Satisfied with the arrangement of his body, she pulled up a chair for her to sit on while working. The bowl with his untouched lunch was still in the seat, the gruel cold and congealed. She paused before removing the bowl and putting it on the floor.
“You haven’t eaten anything.” Distressed, she almost gave up. Why clean him? Only to place his freshly washed body in a casket? “Okay, we’ll get to it later.”
She fished out the sliver of soap from her waistband and got it ready. Fiddled with the bucket. Squirmed in her chair.
And had to admit that she was hesitant to touch the rat’s nest of his hair. The grime didn’t faze her; the intimacy of it did. Some deep-rooted primordial part of her bulked at such close contact with this creature, not knowing what kind of being his frail body hid. She was alone with him. What if? Could he harm her? Would he?
“Ridiculous, Gemma,” she muttered to herself. “He can’t harm you. He can’t even blow his nose.”
Getting a grip on her suddenly raging instinct to retreat, she resolutely reached for his hair and gathered handfuls of it - and nearly gasped in surprise. His hair, matted and greasy as it was, was pure silk to the touch. She laughed, leaning forward, her face directly over his.
“Your hair is out of this world, Simon. Bad pun, sorry. The entire you are out of this world. But it’s so soft. I hope you aren’t offended. Some men think complimenting their hair goes against their masculinity, but I mean you no disrespect. You just surprised me, that’s all.” She sighed. “Of course you aren’t offended. Silly me, you have to hear me to get offended.”
This close, she could see the impossibly finely grained skin of his face, papyrus-thin over his skull, and his prominent, hawkish nose that looked bizarre and different from her own. Instead of two nostrils down below, his was solid in the middle with three angled slits on each side, not dissimilar to fish gills, and those slits fluttered ever so slightly with each breath. At least he was breathing. She’d take it as a positive sign.
His huge eyes with the milky film covering the entire surface stared remotely. His empty gaze unnerved Gemma, and she dropped her eyes from his face.
She dunked the length of his hair into the bucket and swished it there, carefully pulling at the strands to untangle them. She wished she could give him a trim, but scissors - or any sharp objects - were not exactly up for grabs inside these walls.
Using the soap, she worked up a good leather and rinsed it in the bucket, and then did it a second time, using the pads of her fingers to rub his scalp to thoroughly cleanse it. She started humming a light melody as she worked for she never worked in silence. Music and dance were in her blood.
He remained motionless and detached. It was like he couldn't feel a thing. It was like he didn’t care. Like he was already dead on the inside.
Gemma gave his hair a final rinse and tenderly wiped his face with her hands. He had such delicate brows, like a young girl, fine and curved, set wide apart. She couldn’t resist tracing the white downy arches with her fingers.
Sick, blind, deaf, a convicted felon - he fascinated her. What was it about Simon? Was his very impairment a beacon for the protective instincts she hadn’t known she possessed?
She tried to wring the water out of the mass of his hair, and couldn’t quite gather it into one length. Clean, it became slippery, and the fine strands escaped her wet fingers as if the threads had a life of their own, delicate as pure silk and strong like nylon ropes. She grappled with it for a spell before twisting it into a rope to squeeze as much water out as she could without dislodging his scalp.
His toilet completed, she surveyed the results with a critical eye.
The mass of wet white hair spread on the cot next to Simon would have made Rapunzel green with envy. It glistened with a lustrous sheen, and there wasso muchof it. Gemma brushed it with her fingers, relishing in the guilty pleasure of feeling the silken strands against her work-roughened hands. She could sit and play with his hair for hours, but her break time was running out with the yard outing nearing its end.
Pulling her hair tie out of her pocket where it had been all along, - and feeling no guilt for deceiving the supply closet lady, - Gemma quickly braided Simon’s hair into a single plait. The effect was immediate and transformative. With the hair pulled back, his face emerged from the shadow of the tangle, strong, austere, and somehow powerful despite the sunken cheeks and wrinkled mouth. His bone structure bore the stamp of high intelligence and absolute self-control.
She cautioned herself against assigning him qualities she thought he should have. The fact was, Gemma had no earthly idea what kind of creature Simon had been when in full control of his faculties. He could've been a drooling, speechless wild beast like the Obu. Or a mean backstabbing snitch like the Xosa. Or a masturbating, toe-nail chewing horror like Little Green Man.
No, not that. Simon’s strong bone structure was too clean-cut for someone prone to deviant behavior. Surely degeneration would have left a mark on his pristine features.
She grasped Simon’s arms and tugged him upright. Docile, he sat up and turned like she wanted him to.
