"Watch where you're going asshole!" They were the first words she ever said to me. And I, being the amazing Deadpool that I am, whipped around and yelled it right back. I didn't even feel sorry when I noticed the large German Shepard with and orange vest or the long metal stick that was touching the ground. Hell, the pity or sympathy or regret didn't even come when I realized that behind those too large sunglasses she couldn't see me. She was telling me to watch out because she couldn't, and that almost struck a chord, but not quite.
"Go fuck yourself!" She yelled, a glare obviously building in her unseeing eyes.
"Maybe I will!" and she almost smiled. She didn't sling any more insults at me, and she didn't sic the seriously large dog on me either. Instead, she held out her hand and introduced herself.
"I'm Madison."
"Can I see your Square Garden?" I asked, taking her hand in mine and giving it a firm shake. The dog, whose leash was around the hand she'd offered, growled at me.
"Oh hush, Orion." She told the beast. Madison couldn't see me, couldn't see that I was wearing a mask or that I had blades strapped to my back or the guns in the belt at my waist.
"Wade Wilson." I finally said, dropping her hand. "You're really blind, huh?"
"One hundred percent!" She told me. "Happened a few years ago, got in a bad car accident. Now I've got this big lug and a shiny cane. At least, they told me it was shiny, it had better be shiny."
She's fucking perfect.
"It's shiny alright, shinier than the sword on my back." My quip was rewarded with the beautiful peal of her laughter.
"Look, Wade," she started, once her laughter resided. "I was just on my way to grab a slice of pizza. I could use a pair of eyes to make sure I'm picking the right one. Wanna come with me?"
"You'll pay." I could almost feel her rolling her eyes.
"I'll pay." She shook her head, and the long chestnut curls bounced around her.
"I'd say lead the way but..."
"Orion leads my way. You'd probably be a better lead."
"Well then come on!" I'd shouted, grabbing her hand and sprinting off in the direction of a good pizza joint that I knew.
That was the first time I met Madison Wilson. No, her name wasn't the same as mine then. It is now. We got married. Come on, I couldn't live the bachelor life for forever you know. But seriously, she was absolutely perfect. On our second date, I took her for ice cream. And I paid. We stood in a little corner ice cream shop and I whispered the flavors in her ear as she thought about what to choose. She told me it was the kindest thing anyone had done for her since she'd lost her sight. It wasn't exactly like she could tell what flavors there were, and the people who worked in the stores always got irritated when she asked. After that, I took her out to eat a lot. I always read her the menus and if there were pictures I would describe them. Within a few months I was spending more time with her than with any other woman I'd ever known. Eventually, I moved in with her. I helped her around the house, and in the shower, I made her pancakes, and I showered with her, I gave her foot rubs; AND I SHOWERED WITH HER. Practically every day. I mean, hello, hot girl needs assistance in the shower and I get to touch boobs. It was pretty sweet.
She was never upset with her blindness. Never angry at her disability. She accepted it and learned how to do other things. Of course, Madison never trusted herself to cook because she was afraid that she would get burned or catch on fire, so I started doing that for her too. And she never complained about that either. We could have eaten Chimichangas every meal for a week and she would just smile at me and ask me to pass her the Tabasco.
Madison was rather particular about the Tabasco. It had to be Tabasco. No other hot sauce worked for her. If I tried to switch it out with something different, she would know. Not just by the bottle shape either, she could taste it. She would always frown at me and then raise an eyebrow, remind me that she only ate Tabasco, and then patiently wait for me to give her the correct bottle. It was like a superpower. I once asked her if she was like Daredevil, if all her senses were heightened because she couldn't see. She laughed at that, and told me that they might be, but really she just knew what it tasted like, it was the only hot sauce she'd ever liked in her whole life, and she'd always eaten it on practically everything.
No joke, I saw her put it on a turkey sandwich once. Or twice. Or every time.
One day I sat her down and told her everything about me. I told her what I really was, what I really did, and how many people I thought I'd un-alived. She didn't care though. I never exactly knew how I should react to her response, but she was calm and she smiled and she told me it didn't change anything. I was still the same person, now she just knew. After that she took me to bed and didn't let me leave for three days.
She was great in bed though. I mean, I never thought a blind girl would be the best sex of my life but damn she was amazing. I figured it would be harder to have sex with her because she couldn't see what was going on, but she was the most receptive person to touch I've ever known. She could be wearing a bra and a thick sweater but one brush over where I knew her nipple was and she was putty in my hands.
The dog was cool, eventually. He warmed up to me after a copious amount of bacon. Who doesn't love bacon? Orion really was brilliant though. He always wore this expression after we'd get out of the shower or after we'd had sex. It was like the damn dog knew. And maybe he could. Maybe he could smell it or something, but every time it happened he wore a giant ass grin. Can dogs grin? I don't know, but it sure seemed like he was grinning at me. Hell I was grinning at me. She was fucking amazing.
Once, I had her under me, a half melted pile of goo, and I was going for a third round; the healing factor helps a lot when it comes to sex. Madison's eyes were about to be permanently rolled into the back of her head from the amount of pleasure she was in. There's something to be said about the fact that women can orgasm multiple times, that's for damn sure, because I couldn't get her to stop. She'd had about thirteen at this point and I was working on a fourteenth. I wanted to hear her scream my name. Then suddenly it was like the world froze and with a strength I didn't know such a little woman could have she flipped us over and was riding me. In that moment, it wasn't her screaming my name as she rode out an earth shattering orgasm, it was me.
I'm telling you, there were tears.
After, as I held her close to my chest as though she were the most precious thing in the world (which she was), she reached up and wiped my face; as if she somehow knew there were tears. By this point, she'd touched my skin many times and had never run screaming from it, in all of its deformed glory, and was unaffected by the texture.
"It's okay, you know." Madison had murmured as she snuggled her chestnut covered head into my bare chest. "I still cry too sometimes."
At the time, I simply nodded, not entirely understanding the gravity of what she was telling me. It took a long time to really know why she would cry. She told me once, after a long night filled with copious amounts of sex and a few tears. Madison explained to me that after the accident, she didn't know if she was beautiful anymore. She didn't really think she was to begin with, but once she couldn't see she threw all hope of looking good out the window. It didn't really matter, she'd said. Wanting to be beautiful and feeling beautiful, they were just vain concepts derived by a world that was too stupid to find things that were really beautiful. But, she supposed, it was an innate feeling in a person to want to be perceived as desirable, and really who wanted a blind chick that couldn't even tell if she was pretty or not. Then I came along, and showed her that her smart mouth was her best feature, and it was great because she didn't even have to see it. I found her, and even though she couldn't see me, and even though I wasn't the prettiest sight in the world, I wanted her.
That was the first night I told her that I loved her. It was also the night I asked her to be Mrs. Wilson.
I wish she could have seen herself on the day that we got married. She'd have thought that she'd never been more beautiful. I knew better of course. I liked her best first thing in the morning when her hair was still mussed from sex the night before and she wasn't wearing those obnoxious sunglasses yet; when she was dressed in only a large white t-shirt that was covered in food stains or paint or sometimes even blood. I liked her best under me in bed, her curls wild around her and her unseeing eyes rolled back into her head as she came. I liked her best in the shower, drenched and relaxed. I liked her best sitting at the table as she would read a braille book aloud and sip a glass of white wine while I sat across from her rubbing her feet. I liked her best when she was crouched down, giving her beast of a dog a treat for doing a good day's work. I liked her best with pizza sauce all over her face and those ridiculous sunglasses obscuring her eyes. I liked her best yelling at me and telling me to watch it because I was an asshole.
After that day, we discussed children. Only once. In all the years I'd been with her I'd never known that her sight wasn't the only thing the car accident had taken from her. I offered, right then and there I offered to do anything. I offered to try to find a way to share my healing factor, to adopt, to get a surrogate, anything. She smiled at me, her once green eyes wet, and declined. She told me she'd long since come to terms with the fact that she couldn't have children. It was probably better that she didn't anyway. How could she take care of one when she couldn't see to do it. Orion was like her child, she claimed. She took care of him, fed him, groomed him, loved him. And in a way, he loved her back. (He was really always her dog, if she was on the couch, he was in her lap. He always slept at the foot of her side of the bed. All the bacon in the world couldn't buy me the love that he had for her.)
We spent years together. Eventually we moved out of the apartment she'd lived in for years and I bought her a house. She couldn't see it, but Madison loved the bath tub. Orion got old and we eventually had other dogs. Never another German Shepard, but other dogs. Sometimes there would even be a cat in the mix. I always made dinner, and breakfast, and chimichangas. I even learned how to make pizza at home. I spent thirty years trying to be the best husband that I could.
Which is why today, as Madison is laying in that bed with machines all around her beeping and whirring, all I can think about is the years we spent together. She looks so frail, frailer than I've ever seen her look. Her chestnut curls have long since been grey, even if I lied to her and told her she always retained her color. They're no longer bouncy and full of life, but they're now calm waves of silver that hang thinly, almost limply around her face. Her breathing is labored, and the end is drawing closer.
Madison turns and smiles softly at me.
"Watch where you're going asshole." She murmurs, looking at me but never really seeing. A tear runs down my face.
"Maddy, I could still fix you. I could make it better. Please." She shakes her head, and for a moment I see those beautiful chestnut curls glinting in the sunlight again.
"Wade," it's one word, just my name, and it causes more tears to run down my cheeks. "You gave me the best life I could ever ask for." She reaches up, looking to caress my face one last time. "I only wanted one life, and I'm glad I got to live it with you." I leaned into her caress and her smile widens.
"It's okay, you know." She whispers, dropping her hand as the last of her strength leaves her.
The machines let out a last, long, low beep.