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i.
The first gift arrives before breakfast. Lugged up the stairs by a poor courier trying to dodge the morning rush of students who were already late to their eight a.m. classes.
“If you could just sign here,” the courier thrusts out his clipboard, not realizing that a man like Matt should have no idea what he is talking about or where.
“My roommate will-”
The stranger tuts his tongue, shakes his head. “You’re the addressee, you need to sign.”
Matt holds in a sigh. “I’m blind. I’m sure you can make an exception.”
“I really can’t,” the man says with indifference, and Matt is ready to detail how that disallowance is as discriminatory as it is absurd. “I’ve got other deliveries to make. Unless you want this shipped back to electric nachos or whatever the hell that is-”
“Hand me the pen,” Matt says the next instant, scribbling wherever he pleased on the document.
“No, one the line, on the line-” the man insists but Matt has already closed his hands around the oversized box and shut the door behind him.
“What is it about the word ‘blind’ that suddenly makes people deaf?” Foggy asks from the bathroom door, toothbrush still in his mouth
Matt scoffs, sets the dented cardboard box down on the floor, fingers tracing its surface. “The idea that if they ignore a disability long enough, it’ll somehow stop inconveniencing them.”
“Well, you did say you didn’t want to be treated with kid gloves,” Foggy jokes back, gargling and spitting. “Not saying those should be your only two options, but sad to say but not everyone’s as enlightened as me.”
Matt rolls his eyes, smiles despite himself, “you read half of one Helen Keller book.”
“And I wept like a baby- the card’s to the left, no my left. Here, I’ll help you open it," Foggy offers. "But if the first thing I see in there is some crazy French sex toy, I will never forgive you." Foggy tears at the tape with a butter knife from the kitchen sink.
“Greek, Foggy. She’s Greek.”
“And they’re probably just as kinky as the French. Moreso if ancient history is anything to go by.” Foggy pries the box open, revealing a sea package shells and wrapping paper. Insulation explained why Matt couldn’t hear anything inside. She does love a good surprise.
After a moment of rummaging, they hit paydirt. Plucking out a weighted ovular box, lidded with lacework knitting into a labyrinthine fabric. It wafts a telltale aroma before it is even opened; dark and heady and potent.
“All that work for a box of chocolates?” Foggy grumbles. But Matt ignores him, lifts the lid. He’s sure he can feel a smudge of lipstick over the surface. Knows that it is red to match the fire he sees, the fire he finds in her. He skims his fingers over the trove of sweets, feeling his way for his first bite. It melts on his tongue, rolls over his mouth. Smooth, milkless, slightly bitter. And a rawness there that warms his taste buds. A layer of dark cacao powder. Sea salt from an ocean he can’t even imagine.
It’s nothing like he’s ever tasted. No chemical sweetness, no waxy film. Just a perfect and bracingly honest, unmanufactured taste.
Matt almost forgets the card, his fingers glancing over the prim little pin pricked lettering addressed to himself. The braille he’s more than certain she stitched by hand. Matt smirks, licking his lips in the aftertaste as he follows with a slow moving, reverent fingertips over the places her’s have been.
Strolled by a confectionery in Hamburg. Thought of the horrid wash you Americans call chocolates and knew straight away you simply had to have the genuine article. Forgive the expensive indulgence and the airfare, but it could not wait until the start of spring semester.
Do enjoy them, Matthew. And see you soon.
-E.
p.s. I’m sorry I could not also fly in the saffron biscottis to pair... Trust me, they were divine. And I couldn't help myself.
You never can, Matt thinks to himself, while he himself makes no attempt to resist his need of another bite.
ii.
The second box arrives the next evening. Matt has just finished his summer term paper, was gearing up to proofread Foggy’s when the box is left outside their door with a thump.
“Hey could you check the door,” he asks Foggy. “I think someone’s out there.
“If it’s that moron who tried to cheat off you in torts again-”
Matt chuckles. “I hope so. I’d love a repeat of him trying to explain to Professor Schultz that he really can read braille.”
“It’s just another package from your not-so-secret admirer,” Foggy groans, package in tow. “I think I hear something sloshing around in there.”
He wasn’t wrong. Liquid rolls along the inside of the box in the shape of an elongated bottle, swirling from the neck to the base. It fills him with a restless eagerness, leaves him aware of his empty stomach and tightly corded neck. The summer term had been grueling, as grueling as her absence and all that it denied him. From relief, from culmination, from satisfaction.
Foggy hands over the card, produces the much-anticipated bottle. But something is wrong. Matt knows his friends every response down to the minutest movements. The fumbled stop, the hand to his chin, the slight shake to his head. Foggy is baffled.
“So, it’s green... Like, neon green? I’m gonna look for a tiny skull and crossbones on the label. I think she sent you a bottle of poison.”
“Just put it on the table,” Matt laughs, decides this time he’ll read the card first.
I was torn between the akvavit and the chartreuse, at first. But I settled on this. And I know what you're wondering, ‘where is my single malt scotch?’ But I promise you the finest rare cask scotch once I am stateside again. Until then I hope you remember that insipid garden party we crashed last spring-
That Matt vaguely remembers. Sneaking through some blueblood’s manor, raiding a locked liquor cabinet, fucking Elektra on the desk of some stranger.
The bar was shamefully understocked, filled with nothing but cordials and cherries. And that awful knock-off American absinthe. Too cloying, all sugar, no kick. I promised one day you would taste the real thing. And what you have in your hands is an artisanal micro-distilled bottle, perfect notes of fennel and anise. A spirit of this caliber that is still technically considered contraband in America... But if the illegalities leave a sour note, do know a bishop of the Archdiocese of Paris bequeathed it to me himself.
An outrageous story, as always. One Matt didn’t need her heartbeat beside him to know there was no reason to doubt in the slightest.
Not that he still didn’t want her there. Right where he could reach.
Matt uncorks the bottle, finds there a waxen seal there that’s already broken. She’s taken a taste, too tempted as always. And she’s the first thing he tastes when he puts his lips to the bottle.
It’s a wash of uncharted flavors. The names and origins are foreign and peculiar, almost bizarre. Every time he thinks he’s pinned down a scent, a herb, something new seeps across his taste buds, obscuring it, elevating it. Neither sweet nor dry, the alcohol biting but smothered in something even more intoxicating.
God, did he love this woman.
The next morning Matt is more than a little hungover, but Foggy appreciates the drunken edits he left on his term paper.
iii.
The next gift comes with explicit instructions.
Do not open in front of Franklin.
Try not fixating on that while begrudgingly making one’s way to office hours.
An exercise that proves as tedious as it is futile; his professor's remarks on his essay are nothing new or particularly worth the visit. It was only his outright refusal to expend the effort it would take to use the text to braille translator. If Matt wanted to know the finer details that decide his grades, then as far as the old man was concerned it would be Matt who made the allowances, not him.
The thing about tenure, it always went to their heads.
Matt couldn’t care less. The unopened box was waiting for him when he returned to his empty apartment. Foggy and Marci were on again, so it seems. Or Foggy has finally talked that girl from the Punjabi course into a cup of coffee. Either way, Matt has the place to himself.
The packaging is not so elaborate this time. A narrow box, filled with the folded creases of sheets layered inside. Silks, unmistakable in its fineness, the cool luster and an unbroken softness. But there’s more. There’s always more with her- a spritz of perfume, beneath it the revealing map of sweat.
She’s laid on these sheets. Somewhere alone, in the dark, mingling her scents into the fabrics. It has his blood is rousing before he can so much as hope to quell the reaction. He noses his face against the silks, wallows in it shamelessly. It’s a vinous, mouthwatering thing. Has him reaching for the card- For your futon, is all it reads, maddeningly brief. Because the woman is trying to ruin him, trying to drive him insane. She knows what he can smell on these sheets. That it savors of her body, her pheromones that no one but him could ever parse out. She knows how it would make him wants, dredge up a need to know where she had them last, twisted up around her. Where she put her mouth, her hands. How she touched herself. If she thought of him, and how. What she’s planning going to do to him when she's finished this tortuous long-distance flirtation.
Matt groans. Gets up to lock the door. Spreads the sheets across his bed for now.
He’s never been a fan of onanism but knows she’s left him no choice in the matter.
iv.
The next gift has Matt contemplating refunding his tuition to buy a plane ticket to somewhere, anywhere to hunt that woman down. And that’s before he even opens it.
“What do they call those Russian dolls that open like plastic Easter eggs?” Foggy teases as Matt pulls one cardboard box out of another cardboard box.
“Matryoshka,” Matt says.
“Gesundheit.”
The second to last box reveals another note, and the final box inside that contains a round velvet case. It opens with a clack. Embedded inside is a wristband, soft leather, metal hinge and an engraved face of a timepiece.
“A blind man’s Rollex? How much do those go for?”
Matt doesn’t answer, too busy searching for the auditory button. Waits for the unnatural mechanized voice to broadcast too loud- tell the whole world he’s a clueless blind man.
But it doesn’t come.
Instead, he finds delicate machinery. Raised metal segments for the hour markers, recessed indents for the minutes. Instead of clock hands, there are miniscule ball bearings rolling around the edge and front surface. Intricate, effective, and imperceptible to the world around him.
“So, it’s like a blind man’s Rollex?” Foggy asks.
“No,” Matt answers, almost numbly. “It’s more than that.”
The realization of just how much more hits him, swift and unsteady. Matt sinks into the old armchair the Nelson family donated last semester, still tracing the face of the watch.
It was 3:42.
3:43.
3:44.
3:45.
If he concentrated enough he could hear the slide of the magnetize mechanics at work. But Matt lets the minutes tick by, slow and silent and reverent. Hardly notices when Foggy excuses himself, lost all interest without contraband booze and says he’ll be back whenever. The undersized living room fills with the lengthening pause, a timeout in the game Matt hadn’t realized he was losing.
An hour passes before he remembers the note.
You’ll be on time to see me, won’t you Matthew?
v.
Her last gift is just a time and date, directions to her new apartment. The doorman is expecting him. The elevator ride is excruciatingly slow. It’s been far too long since they were in the same room together.
Elektra is setting the table. Lit candlesticks radiating around her. There’s an uncorked bottle of vino blanco let to breathe, perspiring in a bucket of ice. A heated bisque she stirs with a ladle. A roast marinating in broth, thyme, rosemary, and vegetables.
“Smells good,” is all Matt can muster in greeting. He could kick himself. Keeps his feet planted to resist the urge. Weeks of missing her and he’s more than a little dumbfounded that she’s right here. He’s here. Finally.
But it feels wrong.
“I can’t take the credit. Though I did personal antagonize Armand and Vasiliy over every detail.”
“I’m sure they were well compensated for their pain and suffering.”
“That goes without saying.” She plucks the bottle and begins to pour into one chalice, then the other. It bubbles and froths and she sneaks a taste before offering him a taste.
He can’t bring himself to accept it. Finds himself huffing out a pained bit of laughter. Shrugging, rocking on his feet. His hands in his pockets. “Money really is no object to you.”
She sets down the glasses on the table behind her. Moves towards him in measured gait, watching and assessing the same way she had the night they met at the bar. She’s barefoot on the marble tiles, a whole head shorter than him. Reaches for his face.
“You didn’t like your gifts.” Matt can taste her self-reproach.
“No,” he takes her hands. Kisses them on ever knuckle. God, he’d missed these hands. “No, I loved them. Each of them. I promise”
“But-” she presses apprehensively, a terse quiet fearfulness that Matt has never heard before. He hates it.
“I thought I would come here and everything would be…” Matt ran his hands through her hair, minding every inch of her like a touchstone. “Perfect.”
“And it’s not.”
“It’s nothing you did. Trust me, it’s- it’s me.”
“Wow. How terribly cliché.” Less fear, more indignant. There’s his girl.
“That’s not what I meant but-" Matt trails off. Struggles with what he has to say next. Because he wants to stay. He does. "Don’t get angry. But I have to go.
“What? You just got here.”
And I’ll be right back. Just give me an hour, two tops.”
“This is ridiculous. I’m coming with you.”
“No. you just, just wait right here. Okay,” he kisses her soft, slow, “don’t move.”
“That isn’t fair, Matthew!” she calls after him.
“Neither were those sheets.”
And the elevator door closes behind him.
vi.
After the first ten minutes, Elektra blows out the candles. Tosses the bisque out at a quarter after. The salad wilts then, and she drinks Matthew’s glass of wine and another at half past.
It’s embarrassing. Sitting alone in her own humiliation. Surrounded by the remnants of an exercise in romance that has clearly been a failure. She should have just bought flowers. Or shown up in his bed naked the same way she had the time she needed to win over that Spanish financier. That had never failed.
Why did she think she could see this through?
Elektra sighs. Perhaps Matthew knew she was lying, without ever knowing it. Not by the beat of her heart, but by that wonderful, judicious soul of his.
And he had almost called her perfect.
She breaks a plate then. Quite accidentally on purpose.
Somewhere, Stick is laughing at her.
The bottle is empty but still intact when Matthew strides back in, kicking off his shoes, a brown paper bag in his hands.
“Mind the glass,” she warns him bitterly.
His stupid handsome brow furrows when he asks, “what happened here?”
“You said two hours tops,” Elektra reminds him. “And I know you have a shiny new Breguet timepiece. If you cared enough to use it.”
Matt raises his arm, pulls down his sleeve, admiringly showing it off. “Of course I use it. It’s my favorite thing in the world. Because I know that you knew how much I hated those automated voices. Because of how embarrassing and loud and they are-”
Elektra isn’t won over. “It costs a small fortune, you know,” she goads him, “and I remember how much you hate it when I spend money on you. Let me retrieve the receipt to rub it in your face.”
“You’re trying to pick a fight,” Matthew laughs.
“If I want a fight I get one,” she tells him as he encircles her in his arms.
“I believe it,” he kisses her, and she pushes him. He doesn’t get to win.
“Do you know how many people I have ever gifted anything to? Without, ceremony or pretense… or, or expectation?”
“No,” Matt says after a moment.
“Just you,” she mutters under her breath.
“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”
“You’re not funny,” she tells him, shoving at his shoulder. “None of this is funny.” But still, he kisses her head, the top of her hairline, leans down to press his forehead to her. This time she doesn’t push him away.
“I got you something.”
“I’m sure it’s tiny and sad,” she jibes.
“We’re not all daughters of billionaires. But I got it anyway. It’s my way of giving back-”
He hands her the crumpled bag. Which she grudgingly unwraps. Inside there's a trinket-laden vial. A delicate perfume bottle. Diamond studded and carved glass that catches light in a crystalline prism. She pries the top piece off to waft the scent into the air. Top notes of blood mandarin and mint. Detects rose and spice heart notes… and something more. She breathes deeper, eyes closed. Lemongrass
It’s decadent. It’s refined. Her eyes snap open. It’s so far out of his price range that it hits her. “How on earth could you afford this?”
Matt’s smile is all teeth, rubs the back of his neck. “See, the thing is. I couldn’t. Afford it, that is.”
The realization reels in. Elektra almost doesn’t dare believe it. “...Matthew?”
“I needed to get you something… something good enough. Because you’re- more than I ever imagined. Because you're eager and insatiable and you're never satisfied until I am too... And you see me. You see me," he insists, earnest, emphatic. "Not the blind man, fumbling around, burdening everyone around him…” Matthew chokes off whatever might come next. Changes lanes, effortlessly. “Besides, I’m sure that boutique was insured. One smash and grab won’t put them out of business.”
“You committed grand larceny,” Elektra coos. “For me.”
“That charge might be pushing it," he chuckles. "It’s petty theft at worse.”
“These are genuine diamonds, Matthew.”
“Oh." He blinks. Smiles again. "Grand larceny it is, then.”
“You broke the law.”
Matt shrugs. “I’ve aided and abetted more than a few of your B&E’s-”
“You stole it for me." With her hands, she pulls him down to her level. In so many more ways than one. She’ll love it forever. The same way Elektra knows then she’s lost to him. For the rest of her life. Matthew doesn’t even know how terribly he’s won. If she has her way, he never would.
“Dinner is cold. But the bed is warm…” she unbuttons his shirt. “And tomorrow I have one last gift for you.”
“Oh?” he pulls his undershirt over his head. “What’s that.”
“We’ll visit an old friend.”
“They can wait,” Matt says, lifting her up, her legs wrapping around him.
Indeed. She’d have Roscoe Sweeney right where she wanted him tomorrow. And she and Matthew would begin their lives together.
fin.