Brandishing the shears he used for pruning and haircuts, Knives felt about his head. He sat in the soft grass of the third chamber, trimming his hair, wondering why she was watching.
Vanessa's eyes were trained on his head as he cut, stoic. How to break the silence?
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a fluffy feline approach.
"Close your eyes."
She hesitated, but did so, holding her hands over her eyes as the sounds of snipping continued.
"Okay…look," he told her, placing the styled cat before her. He'd poodle-cut its fur, but it was purring good-naturedly from the attention.
"That's so mean!" she cried, but she broke into a laugh in spite of herself.
Ah, it was so good to hear her laugh. To…really…laugh. He breathed in, deeply; the air tasted sweet.
He finished up his own cut, cropping it short as usual. "It'll grow back."
"In the meantime, his friends will tease him." She sat back on the grass beside him, watching him clean up the hairline.
"Good enough," Knives said, setting the shears aside and blowing hairs out of his nose. "I need a shower."
Vanessa sat there, playing with her thumb.
Knives walked off towards the next chamber, where they showered in the privacy of a wooded grotto.
He could hear her, walking slowly, a ways behind him.
At the grotto, Knives slipped between the close-quartered branches. Still, he heard her footsteps through the trees.
He was already barefoot, in patched jeans after removing the hair-spotted shirt. He hung his shirt on a branch and went to the chain to pull the water reserve loose.
A cat ran out from the trees and skitted off to some dry place.
Some little branch broke, at chest height, and he knew she was there.
"If you want to shower first, just say so, I won't mind," he called out.
The rustling came closer, until she was in the clearing beside him, with eyes downcast. "I want to shower" she mumbled, "…with you…?"
Looking down on himself, he wasn't so sure he wanted her to.
Embarrassed, he cleared his throat. "I'll be done in a second, really."
"I won't look" she insisted, taking off her own clothing behind him.
Turning away from her, he was shocked. Why? "I won't look, either," he replied, as casually as he could. Just keep it cool, Knives, he thought to himself. He disrobed completely and began to shake his clothes clean under the 'rain.'
Rubbing the water over his skin to clean, he kept his eyes trained on a tree branch. What a weird shaped leaf.
He crouched down to rub the sand from his ankles, but felt her brush against him in the motion.
But hadn't she been quite a bit further from him than that?
He finished with his ankles, but his hands felt sort of cold and numb. When he stood back up, the blood left his head for a moment and he almost felt he might fall. Part of him wanted this shower to last forever, to get more interesting, but the other, northerly part wanted the shower to be over soon.
Arms wrapped around his chest from behind. He felt her press into his back.
What to say, what to do…did everything just go black, or white? Please don't look…
"Can I look at you?" she whispered carefully.
Oh, does she know where this is headed? he wondered. What cruel joke…
Her arms came down and she moved away from him a bit. "Do you want to look at me, first?"
"Sure." That wasn't the right word. His head was spinning.
"Ok, then," she muttered.
Knives turned so slowly that he wondered if Gunsmoke was turning against him. It's just a body, he told himself, nudity is natural, nothing out of the ordinary, just nudity. His eyes were open, he was looking.
He saw the thighs, the flesh missing in deep valleys on each leg.
Her eyes were shut tight, arms at her sides, but tensed.
Her legs had been blown off. He'd seen the gore of death, but she was alive and the bloody stumps she once had were now reattached. Reattached, with flesh missing. When he'd first seen these thighs, she was unconscious, and he was disgusted. He'd averted his eyes and covered her, repelled by them. It must have hurt terribly.
He remembered having pieces of himself blown off in the past, flesh blown away by his dear brother…the pain drove him near madness…But he'd engineered new flesh for himself, he wasn't left scarred. None of him was missing.
What did she want…?
"It doesn't anger me anymore," he offered, quietly.
The water was coming down thin, it was almost finished. The shower was over. Lucky thing, he thought, reminded once more of himself.
He just wanted to get dressed before she saw…
What did she expect, anyway? What was her point, if she had one?
She opened her mouth to speak, then stopped.
"I'm still attracted to your body," he blurted out.
He thought he meant that reassuringly, but it didn't come out like that. Those eyes, maybe if he could look into her eyes she would get his meaning.
Her eyes were open.
The water was gone.
Her gaze rose meet his. He was just about to say something when he forgot what. Because she had been looking down.
She glanced down for a moment and then up, her mouth closed, but breathing fast through her nose.
She'd looked down.
Wonderful.
Turning abruptly, he stepped fast through the trees, wanting to get away. The branches scratched at him, he was moving too fast, not very careful, and then he was out. He breathed in the air that was humid as ever, walking swiftly towards the shack.
She was following him, probably staring at him.
At least it was the back of him.