Colorblind Ch. 01

Colorblind Ch. 01 [part 1 of 2]
By: AsylumSeeker (jmars_111@yahoo.com)

COLORBLIND By AsylumSeeker

Jess was invisible as she bussed the tables, picking up plates and utensils that had been left behind by grateful people down on their luck who came to the food bank for a free Christmas meal. It wasn't the way she had intended to spend her Christmas. She still wasn't quite sure why she'd decided to volunteer.

She was in her early forties, her slender body dressed in worn jeans and a burgundy sweatshirt with a once-colorful advertising logo on the front which had faded from use. Her shoulder-length red hair had been pulled back into a tight ponytail that dangled from the back of her neck, skewing left and right as she leaned left or right to fulfill her task.

Jess liked being inconspicuous. She'd never dressed to attract, especially not men. Not that she had anything against them, except maybe her father, but that was a different story. Men were biologically necessary, and she respected that. But she'd always preferred women, something which her father could never understand.

Her life was filled with broken relationships, the wreckage of which was scattered behind her like broken glass and twisted metal after a hurricane. Maybe that was why she hated so much to look back. There were happy times, but all she felt was the loneliness that always seemed to follow in the aftermath. And this time was no different.

She'd met Marcia in a club. The stranger had attracted Jess's attention from the onset, with her pretty blonde hair all done up with hair clips and a sexy outfit that seemed to shout, "I dare you to ask!"

After watching from a distance Jess finally worked up the courage, and a few shorts hours later they were in bed sharing their bodies.

It didn't last more than a few weeks, and once again Jess was left feeling lonely and in despair, longing for a real, lasting relationship. That was what her father wanted for her too, as he so frequently told her. A loving, lasting relationship with a "man", as God had intended. But nature seemed not to agree.

"Merry Christmas."

The words startled Jess from her thoughts. Her eyes lowered to the source of them and she saw a little boy about eight years old who was smiling up at her with the biggest, grateful eyes she'd ever seen. A smile tugged at her lips and she gently caressed the top of his head.

"Merry Christmas to you too," she responded. "Be sure to stop by the tree and see what Santa brought you before you leave, okay?"

He eagerly shook his head in agreement before Jess moved along to the next table. Once finished she lifted the heavy plastic tub she was carrying and walked back to the kitchen. After carefully placing it down on a metal table near the sink, Jess decided to step out back on the loading dock for a breath of fresh air.

She wasn't the only one. There was a man standing back there as well, smoking a cigarette. She reached into her pocket for one and raised it to her lips. They gave one another measured looks, briefly checking each other out.

He was about her age and looked to be rough around the edges, much like herself. He looked like a guy that life hadn't been easy on... again, much like herself. She sensed the lonely despair in his eyes, just as he must have sensed the same about her. Two lost souls floating down a lazy stream, just waiting for the next set of rapids to toss them about, never knowing when it might happen.

He noticed the unlit cigarette dangling from her lips and he reached for a lighter. She saw the polite gesture and waved him off, smiling appreciatively.

"I don't smoke," she explained.

"You could've fooled me," he responded with a snicker.

Danny Glover, maybe, with a little Samuel L. Jackson mixed in, she thought. He was handsome enough in his own right. She'd seen him in the kitchen several times over the past few hours dishing food onto serving plates and took notice of his good looks and nice build... and what appeared to be a prison tattoo that was visible on the right side of his neck, just above the collar of his jacket.

There was enough mystery about him to stir her curiosity. "What's your story? What brings you here to volunteer for Christmas dinner?"

He turned and looked at her hard, as if wondering how much to divulge to this strange woman that had a cigarette dangling from her lips who said she didn't smoke, and made a point of looking as least attractive as she could.

"I made mistakes when I was young," he started, watching for her reaction to the revelation. When there was none, he relaxed and continued. "I thought the world owed me, and I took and took and took. Then I discovered the harsh reality of life, that taking is a crime."

The man took a final drag of his cigarette and then turned toward the parking lot, stepped closer to the front of the loading dock and flicked the burning butt onto the gravel four feet below. He stared down at what remained of it until the last embers died out before turning back toward the woman.

"This is my way of paying society back, I guess. I served my time, which made the law happy. But now I'm trying to pay back the rest of it. This is the best way I know how."

Jess smiled warmly in thanks for his honesty and nodded her understanding.

"What about you?" he prompted.

"Mine's a bit longer," she cautioned from the start.

He chuckled. "Something told me that might be the case. The crowd's thinning out. I don't think we'll be missed."

"When I was growing up I always knew I was different," Jess began, wincing at the memory of the pain that had caused her. "My father always wanted the best for his little girl, and I did all I could to be the little girl he could be proud of. But when I got older, left home and started college, that all changed when I found myself attracted to another woman."

She glanced at him, watching for his reaction. Some people did react to her, judging her alternate lifestyle with cold contempt, even anger or hatred at times. But this man seemed unaffected.

"I tried to hide it and maintain appearances of ?normalcy', whatever that was, because I sure didn't feel normal," she admitted while continuing with her story. "I had a lot of relationships with women over the years, but none of them ever worked out for very long. I come with lots of baggage and that can drag a relationship down.

"With my parents, not living up to their high expectations really caused friction. I was their only child, and seeing me mature into what I am now, they just couldn't deal with it, so I quit trying and moved on. My father was the only one who tried to keep the family together, but he passed away before this past Thanksgiving. He was always one to preach about giving back to the community."

She got a little emotional as she thought of her father and grew quiet. The stranger sensed the change in her and broke the uncomfortable silence.

"So you're here for him," he surmised. "You couldn't be the daughter he wanted, but you thought this might be a way of reaching out, of doing something that might make him proud."

"To be honest I wasn't sure why I came, but what you said makes sense to me now," Jess decided. "Do you have a family to go home to?"

He thrust his hands into his jacket pockets to ward off the chill in the air and turned to look away. Jess knew he wasn't ignoring her, but was rather trying to decide if what he had to go home to could qualify as a home in any real sense of the word. She felt the same way.

"A cat and a hamster," he finally responded. "They're all I have now, but please... don't pity me. What I have or don't have all comes back on me. I used to push the blame onto everyone else, but prison gave me time to think."

She nodded her head in understanding. "I blame my parents, I blame nature, and I hold grudges against former lovers. Maybe I need a few years behind bars to clear my head."

His expression went blank as her comment, intended to be humorous, sent him to a dark place where he didn't like to be. She could see it in his eyes as he relived bad memories of a part of his life he could never escape from.

"I wouldn't recommend it."

He watched as a dog picked through the contents of a trash bag that had been left sitting beside a dumpster on the other side of the large gravel lot and felt sad for the animal. He wondered what it must be like for stray animals; probably not much different than the homeless, and not terribly different from his current station in life.

Jess cleared her throat. "Well, I guess I better get back inside."

The man turned and asked, "What's with the cigarette?"

She smiled and rolled her eyes as if acknowledging the silliness of the habit. "Two reasons, actually. I learned early on when I was prowling in the bars for companionship that it offered an opportunity for people to meet me."

That made sense to him, and he gestured with a nod of his head.

"And I also noticed in situations like this, most people tend to avoid smokers."

The man laughed hard and shook his head in disbelief. "Now let me get this straight. You keep an unlit cigarette in your mouth so that girls who might be interested in you have an excuse to break the ice, and at the same time you use it to keep people away."

She laughed and looked down, nodding her head before looking back up. "That's it. Crazy, isn't it? But that about sums it up. You see, I don't like many people, and usually avoid strangers altogether. Well, except for you."

"We're not strangers if we've met," he pointed out, and added, "I'm Tyrone."

"Jess," she replied, and the two shook hands, Jess not really noticing the difference between the colors of their skin.

"Jess," he repeated, amused by her idiosyncrasies. "It's my pleasure to meet you. Here, let me get the door."

<center>* * * * *</center>

Jess cleared the tables one final time, helped by several of the volunteers who had been cooking earlier. Afterwards she returned to the kitchen and watched Tyrone from a short distance away as he helped wash the dishes. He'd rolled up his long sleeves for the task and she could see his bare muscled arms and several scars that looked to be knife wounds.

He was quite good at scrubbing, and appeared comfortable doing it. Seeing an opportunity, Jess closed the distance and walked up to a drying rack, picking up a wet plate to dry off with a towel resting nearby.

"You make quite the dishwasher," she commented in a lighthearted tone.

He smiled. "It's one thing I learned in prison that actually has some value out here on the streets."

A few moments elapsed.

"Jess, I don't mean to pry and stop me if I am, but I had meant to ask about your family. You asked me who I had to go home to, but what about you?"

Her mood turned even more somber. "Nobody, really... there's my mom but we haven't spoken for months - well, since my father's funeral anyway. Those homecomings are never happy times so I'd rather avoid them altogether anyway. I did have someone for a while, but, well, you know."

"Another broken relationship and someone else to blame for all of your misfortunes," he added with a note of wry sarcasm.

The comment made her smile. "That's right. Oh, and don't forget that now I have another woman to hold a grudge against."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Are you going to give me a chance to give you a reason to hold a grudge against me, or is that a women-only kind of thing?"

That one took her a second to figure out. "Wow, I didn't see that one coming."

"That's something else prison teaches a person," he explained through a wide grin. "When you get a second chance at life, take it. So, are you?"

She looked over at his smiling face. He sure is handsome, she thought, while wondering what the rest of him looked like. But what did he possibly see in her?

"If you want," she finally agreed with an uncertain shrug of her shoulders. "I don't know why you'd want to get on this bus, but there's an open seat in back."

She hadn't realized the levity of her comment until Tyrone began laughing quite loudly. When it persisted she grew curious.

"Did I say something funny?"

"No, I just heard it funny," he tried to explain, but seeing the confusion remaining in her expression he dismissed the comment with a wave of a soapy hand and moved on. "Where do you live?"

"In the Wentworth district," she answered, still pondering the cause of his laugh. "What about you?"

"I live within walking distance," he announced and paused for her reaction, as this part of town was about as rough and run-down as it got. "I'd understand if -"

"No, not at all," she answered his question before it was even asked, knowing what he was about to say.

<center>* * * * *</center>

It was just beginning to get dark when they left together. He held her left hand in his right and she let him lead the way. Had it not been for Tyrone, she was sure she would've been quite nervous in this part of town with darkness settling around her. But he gave her a sense of security that Jess hadn't felt for quite some time.

He was a little embarrassed as they crossed a litter-strewn street and walked a few storefronts beyond. There was a narrow alley tucked in between an American cuisine restaurant and a payroll services business. His embarrassment returned as he led her down the alley to a side door that revealed a flight of steps leading up to a landing.

"I'm sorry, I know it's not -" he started to apologize, but she silenced him with an understanding smile.

After climbing the stairs and getting the door unlocked he showed her inside his small studio apartment. He tried to fix it up the best he could. At least he'd thought to tidy the place before leaving for the food bank earlier that day. Cleaning up after himself was a habit he'd developed during his prison days and he saw no good reason to shed it. Self-discipline was good for a man.

The door opened to the left into a small carpeted living room, which was sparsely occupied with a love seat across from the door along a wall, and a small TV on a metal stand to the right of the door. The room continued to the left, where carpeting ended and tile began, delineating the boundary of a small kitchen and, she presumed, a bathroom after that.

She didn't notice initially, but movement attracted her attention to a cat with dark fur that was laying along the top of the love seat, which then talked as if in greeting.

"Hello to you too," Jess responded back.

"That's Hitler," he introduced her to the cat, which elicited a questioning expression from her. "It's hard to see from a distance, but he has a dark marking, like a very short mustache. And he seems to take great pleasure in intimidating the hell out of the hamster. Can I offer you a cup of coffee?"

"That sounds good about now."

"Make yourself at home," he offered before stepping into the kitchen.

Jess slipped the coat off her shoulders and placed it on the arm of the love seat before sitting down on the right side. Hitler jumped down beside her and rubbed against the side of her left leg, purring softly. She smiled and pet the cat with her left hand, enjoying the silky feel of the fur and the vibrations from the purring.

"He's friendly," Jess commented as Tyrone filled the coffeemaker with water.

"He's not skittish, that's for sure," he remarked with a chuckle.

A few minutes later Tyrone rejoined her, holding two mugs of steaming coffee. "Do you like cream or sugar?"

"No, black is just fine," Jess answered as she looked up and smiled, accepting the mug as he handed it to her.

"You haven't asked the obvious question," he noticed after joining her. "It's the first one everyone usually asks, but I'm assuming you're holding back out of politeness."

She sipped the coffee, enjoying the warmth it provided. "I'm not following."

"Everybody always asks what I did to get myself put in prison."

"Oh, that," she sighed. "I don't like looking back; it's not a pretty sight. Always forward, never back, that's my motto."

?We sure don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things," he realized with a chuckle. "I look back all the time, just to remind myself of how good I got it. I know this may not seem like much," he mentioned, gesturing at his meager apartment, "but it's a whole lot more than what I started out with."

"What do you do for a living?"

"This and that, here and there," he told her. "I'm not trying to be evasive, but I do odd jobs, you could say. In addition I work downstairs," he added, pointing at the floor under his feet. "Washing dishes, cleaning, painting, whatever needs to be done. In exchange I get to live here."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Jess decided. "As for myself, I'm a bank teller."

"Really?" Tyrone was surprised by that revelation. "I had pictured you working behind the scenes where you didn't have to interact with people, seeing as how you go to such great lengths to avoid the majority of them."

"I didn't say I was a popular teller," Jess responded with a wry grin. "I see them standing in line, eyes darting from window to window, hoping another teller frees up before me."

"And when one doesn't?"

"The same look of utter disappointment overcomes them as when they realize the lottery ticket in their hand is not a big winner," Jess explained.

"You like that, though, don't you?" Tyrone sensed. "You delight in their brief misery."

Her answer was candid. "Yes, I do."

When she took another sip of coffee he could see the mug was about empty and he quickly reacted. "Can I refresh your coffee for you?"

"No, I'd better not," she decided with a wince as her stomach began bothering her. "Thanks though, it was good."

He acknowledged her with a nod, stood up, and picked up the mug from her extended hand.

"Why banking?" he asked while stepping into the kitchen to set the mugs in the sink.

She watched as he returned to the love seat, briefly admiring his muscular form before answering. "For as long as I could remember my father always carried a grudge against banks. He'd take me with him on errands and many times he found the bank was closed for lunch, or he'd misjudged the time and had gotten there a few minutes too late, or better yet, discovered the bank closed for some obscure holiday that everybody else had to work on.

"He'd lean over, look into my eyes with an angry snarl on his face, and thrust his finger accusingly at the locked door. ?You should get a job at a bank when you grow up, Jess, those fuckers never work!' he'd say in a venomous tone."

"And so you did, just to spite him," Tyrone interjected with a chuckle. "If nothing else, Jess, you are an interesting person."

"No matter what you might think, I did not enter into a career in banking to piss my father off," she said defensively. "At least not consciously, but now that we look back on it, I'm starting to wonder."

"I'm sorry," he said apologetically. "I know you said you don't like to look back, and here I am taking you there and picking at old scabs. I just call it as I see it."

She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "No, that's okay. I never realized it before but maybe my father saw my career choice as a slap in the face, although that had never been my intention."

"Consciously, at any rate," he quickly pointed out.

She shook her head in mild disbelief. "Why am I here?"

"Because I asked you."

"And why did you ask me?" she persisted.

"Because I'm tired of being lonely, and of all the days of the year a person shouldn't feel lonely is on Christmas, that's why," he explained to her firmly. "And that includes you, Jess. You might be mad at the world, and at nearly everyone in it, but even you don't deserve to be lonely, not today."

Jess nodded her understanding. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

He leaned closer, moving his face within inches of hers, their eyes meeting in a deep gaze. He reached down and took her soft hands into his rough ones.

"I just have one more question, Jess. I can handle any answer as long as it's the truth."

She silently nodded, feeling the mood change around them.

"As a woman, do you have any interest in a man? In me?"

A smile tugged at her lips as she confessed, "I don't know why I do, but yes, I do."

"I'd offer to take you to bed, but..." he began, his voice trailing off.

"But what?" she asked.

"We're already sitting on it."

They both erupted into laughter which melted the rising tension between them away. Once it subsided they found themselves gazing deeply into one another's eyes once more. He leaned forward as their eyes closed, lips gently kissing.

The embrace was slow and tender, as if they were testing the waters before diving in. Jess wasn't used to being intimate with a man and she felt her body trembling nervously as she wondered if she'd be any good at it. Tyrone was a good man, she sensed, and she wanted to be good for him too.

After a few moments he straightened up and Jess looked for his reaction.

"You're doing just fine," he assured her with a warm smile. "I just wanted to take this off."

She nodded her head in amazement. "How did you know what I was thinking?"

Jess watched as he pulled his shirt off over his head, revealing a dark, muscled chest with broad shoulders. There were several black tattoos visible, mixed with more of the scars like she'd seen on his arms. She reached out to trace her fingers along some of the scars, noting their texture.

"Shank scars," he said in answer to her unasked question. "And these are gang markings. It's the way I found to survive in the big house. Not everyone does. It can be like a war zone in there."

"What's a shank?" Jess wondered.

"It's like a knife, but it can made out of a toothbrush, a piece of sharpened metal, a spring from a bed, just about anything you can imagine," he explained, wanting her to see this part of his past life. "I look at these sometimes and wonder how I managed to live through those eight years of hell."

She could only imagine what he'd been through. "It must have been frightening."

"It was, but you couldn't show it," he pointed out. "Fear is a sign of weakness, and weakness is preyed upon."

He'd mentioned prison earlier, but it was a concept she couldn't quite grasp. But these scars, the tattoos, these made it real for her. Tyrone saw the wonder in her eyes as she delicately touched each and every scar as if memorizing them, and then the tattoos that branded his brown skin like medals on a soldier's chest. She knew all these things told a story, a scary one at that, and one day she wanted to know how to read it.

Jess straightened up and quickly pulled off her sweatshirt, exposing her body from the waist up. As she sat there, Tyrone had a chance to inspect her like she had done to him.

"My scars are all on the inside," she told him when she saw him looking.

"Yeah, well... those can be just as damaging."

Jess had never connected with anyone in her life as quickly as she had with Tyrone. He understood her, he "got" who she was and accepted it with such ease that it amazed her. This guy that society tried to throw away had fought his way back, and somehow he had found her. How unlikely was that?

His hands reached out and his fingers tenderly began to trace along her curvatures, causing her nipples to stiffen with arousal. Jess closed her eyes and concentrated on the wonderful way he had of exploring her body. There was no rush, and Tyrone impressed her with his patience; minutes passed as he celebrated her companionship and in the simple act of loving another.

Afterwards his arms reached around her shoulders, pulling her down on top of him, pressing his scarred chest against her soft, shapely one. Their open mouths met again, but this time there was the spark of passion and gone was the tenderness of earlier, instead replaced by a hunger that caused the embrace to be heated, tongues swirling, exploring the other's mouth.

What had started out being just another miserable, hopeless day had somehow been transformed into a magical one that would not be soon forgotten by either of them. With the feverish kissing came increased arousal, and soon hands loosened the remaining clothing, pushing, jerking, or tugging it from their awakened bodies.

When her fingers felt his cock, it caused her to gasp at the sheer size and hardness. But knowing the man who wielded it gave her a sense of security, and soon her wet center was aching with desire and a yearning to be filled.

Tyrone was nothing if not respectful and tender as he widened her thighs and settled between them, guiding the tip of his manhood into her hot slit. His penetration was slow as her canal was stretched, but moments later she was taking more and more of his length. Once he'd filled her with all he had, their bodies tightly hugged as he began to love her in earnest.

For Jess, it was so different being with a man, yet for the first time it felt so right. She fell into a rhythm with his thrusting hips, delighting in the feel of his swollen cock filling her body so completely, willing her own hips to eagerly drive into his crotch.

All of the loneliness and despair seemed to evaporate as Jess finally found a person she could connect with at a meaningful level. Moments later her form clenched hard beneath him, writhing and shaking as a climax erupted. He sustained his powerful thrusts, taking pleasure in her pleasure as her body ground against his, wetness soaking her sex and his.

The love-play went on for another minute before Tyrone achieved release. As he pounded into her pussy hard, he stiffened and groaned while ejaculating his pleasure. They hugged in silence, grateful at having found one another on a day they both hated to celebrate in loneliness.

It was the first time in a long time Jess had been with a man, yet it felt so natural. She delighted in the aftermath of their lovemaking, hugging and cuddling, kissing and touching.

"I don't want this to end, Jess," he whispered. "I don't want to be another grudge."

"I don't want that either, but they all start this way," she promptly answered. "It takes awhile, but my baggage catches up with me."

"You'd be surprised at how many bags that I can carry."