Page 62 of Kiss-Fist
My idea from the car has merit. It’s something I’ve used in the past, something I never thought I’d use with a man I was fucking, but it is what it is until he becomes fluent.
I have a virtual interpreter service on my laptop and if I call now, they can voice it for me. But before I make the call, I need to know something first.
I need some kind of promise that he really is going to stick to this and learn I can’t live like this forever. Being brutally honest with myself, I can admit I’m not the most patient man. I’m fussy and particular, and I don’t like change.
But for the right thing—for the right man—I will doanything I can to keep him. I just need to know he’s willing to give me the same in return.
Turning to face him fully, I take several steps forward, and he takes several back. I see the way his body gently shifts when he hits the wall. He can’t take his eyes off me, still so unsure about what to do, and I hate that.
I hate that look on his face. I miss the man who took me in his sorry excuse for an office like there was nothing else in the world he wanted but me, and in that moment, nothing would stand in his way.
Licking my lips, I lift my hand and press two fingers to his neck, to the place I marked him. When I push down, his lips part on what I assume is a gasp, and his eyes flutter closed for a beat.
As much as my dick wants it though, I can’t get distracted. I tap his shoulder and wait for him to look at me again. ‘I need to know.’ I keep my signs slow, closer to Signed English than ASL.
He mouths along, then nods for me to go on.
‘You will learn everything? Not stop?’
His face shifts. I’m not as versed in his expressions as I want to be, but I think it’s relief. I want it to be relief. He presses his hand to his heart, then tentatively lifts a finger to his lips first, then drops a flat hand to touch the top of his other in a closed fist.
‘I promise. I’m learning. I’m not going to stop. I will never stop. Always learning. For you.’
Something unknots in my chest. This isn’t the first time he’s made it known that he’s doing this for me, but this is the first time I believe that he’s not goingto quit as soon as he has the bare basics memorized. He’s not going to give up and put the burden on me.
He understands he can learn to sign, whereas I will never, ever be able to learn how to hear.
I want to kiss him. Instead, I take a step back and beckon him forward. ‘Get dry.’
He shakes his head. ‘Sorry, don’t understand that sign.’
I spell it, and he mouths the letters and frowns, then mouths them again. It’s easy to forget that he struggles with this because he’s dyslexic. It must be incredibly severe, and god, that meant the effort he put in to read everything I’ve been writing to him must have been as bad as it would have been for me to lipread all of it.
I feel a tiny pulse of guilt, though the truth is, there’s nothing we could have done about that. Between us is an opaque wall and while it’s getting clearer by the day, it’s going to take time. And work.
And that was something I hadn’t planned on. My dating life was terrible, but I always envisioned myself settling down with a nice Deaf man. A picket fence, maybe? A fish or two?
Thom was not supposed to be that person, but here he is, and I want no one else but him.
Reaching a hand out, I wait for him to take it, and then I tug him through the living room and hope he’s ignoring all the half-packed moving boxes shoved up against the walls.
My apartment bathroom is too small for two grown men, so I perch him at the end of my bed and quickly hunt for a couple of clean towels. It’s only now that I’m profoundlyaware of what a goddamn mess I am. Sometimes my outsides really do reflect my insides.
He takes the towel I hand him and shoots me a grateful smile. I turn before I can succumb to the temptation to pin him to my bed. Instead, I root around in my drawers for something acceptable for him to wear. He’s a goddamn redwood compared to me, but I have some clothes left over from a couple of old hookups, and one of them was close to Thom’s size.
I hand him sweats and a T-shirt, and he frowns, though he still signs, ‘Thank you.’
I nod stiffly, then turn around to strip out of my soaked shirt and slacks. I’m struggling into a sweater when I feel a tap on my shoulder.
‘Bathroom?’ he signs.
I jut my chin at the door, and he shoots me a thumbs-up before walking in. The room dims a little as the door shuts, and I breathe a tiny sigh of relief. I’m falling for him, and it’s killing me because that’s the easy part. It’s the rest—what comes after—that’s leaving me swimming in an ocean of doubt.
I know plenty of people get through shit like this. Not just hearing and Deaf. I’ve seen people left and right falling for others who only have basic comprehension of their language.
Hell, one of the professors in my department met his wife when he was backpacking through Greece. He swore she knew fifteen phrases in English, and he was working out of a Greek-English dictionary, but they’ve been married eighteen years now and have four kids.
It can work. Itcan.
