Page 5 of The Fates We Tame
I’ve been around the club long enough, even in my limited memory, that I know we never talk about club business outside the club. And while every single part of me believes there is sincerity in what Dr. Polunin says, I couldn’t risk telling her, even if I knew.
I tip my chin at the laptop on her desk. “It’s all in your files, Doc. Happened like they said.”
“You’re putting a lot of faith in your friends.”
“They’re my brothers. That’s what we do.”
“I will see you on Thursday, Theo.”
I head back to my room and pick up my swim shorts. I’m not allowed to lift weights. Too much strain. Everything has to be gentle. But I sure as fuck need to get my heart rate up. I strip and look at myself in the mirror, comparing what I see to the images I’ve been sent of myself from the past year. My messy dark blonde hair is longer on top and shorter on the sides. It was shaved on one side for surgery, and I just evened it out, so I have the fixings of a fauxhawk growing back. There are pinkish-red scars, still healing, where my skin was peeled back so my skull could be plated back together. I’m a little softer around the middle than before. Time in a hospital bed will do that to you.
Mom told me I always worked out. Apparently, I’d bang on about how it was good for my mental health. Even when I was deployed, I worked out every day. I’m going to believe my past self and do what I can to use exercise to get better.
I’m covered in tattoos. Some I remember getting, like the four-leaf clover on my thigh I got in Mexico. Some I’ve figured out their importance, like Iron Outlaws and biker tattoos. Others, I have no idea. There are a set of initials on my shoulder,a date on my arm, and a poor quality tat of a fish blowing a kiss on my hip. Without context and history, they mean nothing to me.
I pull on my shorts and head to the rehab center’s large pool on the ground floor. Its restful blue and white tiles and piped-in ocean sounds make it feel more like a spa. A lifeguard stands watching. I suppose the risk of drowning is high when you could black out in the water.
This place is wild. Depending on the severity of your injury, you can walk around the place like it’s a fucking cruise ship. All-you-can-eat buffet. Pool. Massages, mandatory and optional. But in between, there are scheduled therapies and treatments, like speech pathology. Makes me feel sick that rich fuckers get all this and everyone outside these walls relies on an utterly broken health care model.
And yet, here I am. Using it anyway. Because why would I turn down the best medical treatment money can buy?
There are chaise lounges around the outside, but no one is sitting on them. On one are two towels and a black eye patch. A woman is in the pool, obviously a strong swimmer. She has that natural technique, where her head is in the water for a stroke, then turns away to suck in air on the next.
I grab a towel from the rack and put it on a lounger of my own. My body aches and pulls as I struggle to lift my T-shirt off. My left arm and hand don’t work properly, but I don’t want to think about that now.
As I turn to walk to the pool steps, the woman is climbing out. She’s in a utilitarian black one-piece, short but curvy as fuck. Thick thighs, solid ass, and snatched waist. It takes her a minute and the use of a railing to stand. Her gait is unsteady as she limps to her sun lounger. As I lift my gaze, the scars begin. Over her arm, her shoulder. She lifts one of the towels to her face, then looks around as she lowers it.
“Shit,” she says as she spots me, immediately dropping the towel and scrambling for the eye patch. She snaps it on over her wet hair, but it’s too late. I already saw the scar that crosses her cheek, which I’m guessing is the reason she has no eye.
Bizarrely, it doesn’t faze me at all. Must be my medic training I don’t remember. “Hey, it’s okay,” I say.
She runs her thumb beneath the patch, then turns to face me. “Don’t want to scare anyone when I don’t have my prosthetic eye in, but I find swimming in it aggravates me.”
“Former army…medic,” I reassure her.
She smiles. “Another patient said I could be Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween in a couple of days.”
I remember that movie coming out. Went to watch it with King. “Pretty sure he didn’t have an…” I can’t think of the word for her black eye thing, even though I had it a minute ago.
“Eye patch,” she provides.
“Yes. You’re more sparrow the bird than Sparrow the pirate.”
She has a pretty smile and healthy rack. The funny thing is, I don’t remember most of the sex I’ve had in my life, but the idea of fucking her tits comes to me.
“More sparrow the bird than pirate. I like it. I’m Sophia,” she says, bundling herself up into a towel.
“Theo,” I say. Everyone at the club calls meSwitch, and I remember enough about club life that it’s the biggest compliment, bond, and acceptance a man could wish for. But that feels like a life I’m not ready to claim yet because it fills the years I don’t remember.
And I can’t remember how I got the name, which seems pivotal to feeling comfortable using it.
“Let me guess. A construction accident.”
I step into the water, because the way she keeps running her tongue over her lower lip is giving me a boner. The first organic, non-morning wood I’ve had since the accident. “Bike wreck.”
“Ouch. Mine was a car. Until I apparently thought it could fly like an airplane and went airborne. At least, so I’ve been told.” She chuckles at that. “Anyway, enjoy your swim, Theo,” she says, and I watch as she leaves in the direction of the changing room.
I guess everyone here has their own story.
