Gifts
Wendy insisted on calling today 'Christmas Eve Eve Eve,' but the Middleman was fairly sure she only did that to annoy Ida. It would also be their last night together for a while. Wendy's plane to Miami left in the morning, the round-trip ticket a gift from her mother. She'd be back just hours before the annual Art Crawl New Year's Eve with Lacey and her friends. They hadn't been apart this long since ... they'd met, actually. He wasn't looking forward to it.
Wendy's bags were packed, neatly stacked just inside the door of her/their bedroom at Middle HQ. He'd only have to carry them down to the car in the morning. "The Middle-Jet would get you there in half the time," the Middleman said quietly. Not as a literal suggestion; it would be silly to change her plans this late. He just felt the need, unusual for him, to be saying something.
"Mom's done this every year since I started art college," Wendy said. "One year she sends me a ticket home, the next she comes to California. She said I shouldn't pay for my own when I'd just now gotten decent money coming in. I've already got enough explaining to avoid." She patted his shoulder. Wendy's smile was small but affectionate. "Next year, when she's here, I can introduce you and it won't seem so sudden. "'Mike Middler,' this guy from work."
The choice of words warmed him. 'Mike Middler' was the name she'd made up for someone who wasn't 'just the Middleman' twenty-four hours a day. His original name had too many hurtful associations for both of them. "That seems fair. You deserve some family time together."
She hugged him. "Look on the bright side. Maybe an apocalypse will hit in the next ten hours and I'll have to stay here."
That surprised a genuine smile out of hiding. "We can hope."
Wendy opened a drawer on her side of the bed. "I should mention how hard you are to get presents for. The man who has everything, blah blah, isn't half as bad as the man who doesn't want anything. So this is what I came up with." She held out a package, not very large, wrapped in patterned brown paper that was evidently both handmade and Green.
"Thank you." The top item was a DVD case, with sailing ships and the words Master and Commander on the cover.
"Just because there's more to entertainment than cowboy movies," Wendy said a little shyly. "I was thinking, Navy -- different century, same idea. It's off a series of books. If you like them, there are about twenty in all. My dad loved them."
There were two books under the movie; the first with the same title, the second said Post Captain. Both were oversized paperbacks, creased and round-cornered with use. It took him a second to realize why. He opened a front cover. The words "Capt. Watson" were neatly written at the top of the page.
"I had Mom mail them..." Wendy started. She got no further before he wrapped her in a hug and took her breath away.
It took a lot of self control, a busy few minutes later, before the Middleman could make himself let go. But, "I have something for you, too."
His gift was much the same size as hers, but far heavier. He'd worked hard to wrap an irregular, roughly bowl-shaped object as neatly as possible. "Blunt instrument from a famous murder case?" Wendy guessed, hefting it.
"Not really."
She identified the gleam of fire-new bronze before she took in the shape. The 'bowl' was a cast of a man's two cupped hands. Wide palms, long fingers, a seamed scar at the base of one thumb ... not that she'd doubted their identity. "Oh. This is perfect." She ran her fingertips along the familiar contours. "You're not an artist ... is there a sculpture-o-matic in the basement I don't know about?"
"I asked Lacey to recommend someone," he said softly, nervousness soothed. "I'm glad you like it."
"He's good, whoever he is. I can practically see fingerprints." Wendy was still tracing the shape. Looked up. "You must've been up to the wrists in plaster for hours to get this detail."
"Lacey found a perfectionist." It had taken four tries to get an acceptable mold, actually. But anything that pleased Wendy was time well spent.
"I'm going to have to check the copy against the original." Wendy took his warm living hands, pressed them together above her breasts. "But after the movie. I want to see if you like it; not kidding about hard to find things."
She'd brought a television with built-in DVD player from home, and set it up opposite the foot of their bed. While the later stages of 'date night' always went well, Wendy had real grounds for complaint about the movie portion of the evenings. Die Hard, only the first one, had realistic enough tactics that he could enjoy it. Most other action movies had become unwatchable. It was a choice between complaining when something impossible happened or wincing silently, and either one broke Wendy's mood. Neither of them could tolerate martial-arts movies any more, even Bruce Lee. "If they mess up the rigging and the marlinspikes and things, I do not want to hear it," Wendy warned, half serious. She put in the disk and brought the remote control back with her to the foot of the bed.
He kicked off his shoes and let her use him as a back rest. "I promise. Tall ships were a little before my time, anyway."
The movie drew them both in. Wooden-ship tactics were as unfamiliar as space battles, but the human side -- adversaries playing cat and mouse, trying to outthink each other -- was universal. The Middleman noticed her glancing from the screen to him several times, put it down to residual gift-giver's anxiety.
The Middleman used mirrors mostly for shaving. It never occurred to him that Wendy was checking his looks against the actors on-screen and deciding in his favor every time. He knew that being fit and strong enough to do his job well had its aesthetic side. He knew, and was right, that Wendy would love him just as much if his regular features had been battered to unrecognizability. But he didn't have the right hormones to grasp the effect that sum total had on a woman. There had been long conversations, nights in the sublet when he wasn't there, with gestures and detailed descriptions and metaphors. And a charcoal sketch, at the end of one particularly giddy Thursday Drunk. Wendy had picked out a favorite sonnet, one of Shakespeare's cheerful ones. She was working up to asking him to pose nude, once she had her classical realism technique up to standard.
"Sad part," Wendy murmured against his ear. "Don't pause, I have to go to the bathroom anyway." She left the room.
He couldn't blame her. On screen, a midshipman who looked all of twelve was losing an arm to eighteenth-century field surgery. At least a few things about modern war were improved from the 'good old days.' He tried not to focus on details; combat experience was not a friend here. He waited for Wendy to come back.
The people in the movie were singing sea chanties when Wendy climbed back onto the bed. She hugged him from behind. "Blow the man down," she whispered, and bit delicately into his earlobe. The live, sweet-smelling heat against his back had to be her naked body. and was.
"Give me some time." He couldn't find the 'stop' or 'power' button on the remote. He found 'mute.' Close enough.
* * *
Wendy missed her flight the next morning. And four other flights to Miami. In the end she went in the Middlejet after all.