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Research has shown that a newborn does not develop normally if he is deprived of being touched.
To touch and be touched are essential acts for a human being...
When I look at him wearing his black compression shirt, a sense of excitement comes over me. The red stitching highlights his well-ripped arms. His toned core muscles show from underneath. His body is sculpted perfectly like a work of art by years of training, discipline, and personal sacrifice.
This black sweater is probably the only one he kept from the time he used to jump from rooftop as the vigilante known as the man in the black mask. Others, similar to it, have been torn or cut along his own flesh or were stained with blood. More often than not, that blood was his own.
From the open door of the bathroom, I look at him, uncomfortable and ashamed of my own damaged body but still full of desire for him. Sitting alone on the living room's couch with his black shirt, his torn jeans, simple woolen socks, I like how his empty eyes aim at something that isn't there just a few feet in front of him. He quietly drinks his beer. He looks tired but peaceful. The lack of concern on his face is striking and must be rare for such a tortured soul.
I notice that he doesn't rub his thumb on his fingers like he does when he looks nervous. He seems almost happy. Not that I mind the view of him wearing this close-fitted shirt but it remains a statement; it connects him directly to his double life that we talked about the other night after we trained. Considering his heighted senses that I still can't quite understand, the most logical reason I come up with is that he likes the softness of the fabric against his skin and the compressive relief for his aching body after a boxing training rather cruel on his fragile rib cage. For mine too, in fact.
His calm reassures me, soothes me, grounds me to my surroundings; it relieves me from my anxiety. I haven't known him long enough to reveal myself completely to him. He already figured that my body was broken, but at what point, I don't think that he knows. I am not ready yet for him to look closer at me in his own way. Even I hardly can look at myself in a mirror. My body is a mess, each scar having a horror story that comes with it.
It's the third time that I have come to his apartment to shower after training. I hope to spend the evening with him afterwards like the last time. The previous night, we ate, drank and talked. Our conversation was interspersed with moments of silence but not the awkward kind. Our silences were comfortable, giving our defenses time to stand down gradually, one after the other. Confidences of a fighter to a fighter.
I think of the dark secret he carries within him. To share it with me seems to have released him from a terrible weight. The last time, he insisted that I stay for the night. I secretly hope to stay here tonight too. The last time, he let me took the bed, lying to me that the sofa was just fine for him. Despite the few feet that separated us in the darkness of his apartment, I could guess that his desire for me was as strong as mine for him. This time again, this same desire fills me with warmth and reminds me that I am alive. It makes me somewhat forget the coldness of the winters of my past.
Nervous and feeling like I was about to take a leap of faith, I decide to come out of the bathroom with only a towel over my hips. I slowly walk to his room to collect the clean clothes I left on his bed. I can feel that he looks in a certain way at me and I see his face illuminates with a smile when I pass in front of him. His tender affection gets to me and fills me with a scary sensation of well-being that I haven't felt since ... I don't know, I just can't remember. There is something more, a feeling so deeply buried in me, I am not sure that I understand what it is.
It's my turn to put some jeans on, but for the first time in several years, I decide to stay shirtless. I look at him from where I stand in his room. He keeps smiling gently at me but says nothing. I know that he is listening at me, figuring me out.
I suddenly realize that the feeling that I couldn't identify when I'm with him is actually the absence of pity towards me. It's the same pity and lack of understanding of his condition that he must feel every day when he goes to work or when he simply walks down the street. I have too much love for him already to show him any pity whatsoever. I don't want to hide behind Matt's disability. I don't want his blindness to be an easy way out for my self-consciousness about my own scarred and metal body. He doesn't deserve this. No one but the doctors and therapists have seen me or touched me since the accident. Each time the medical team would gaze at me, I could feel that I wasn't a regular human being anymore. My life as a soldier was now being written as past tense.
I close my eyes for a moment and I feel him there, in the other room, waiting for me with his close-fitted shirt. I can't help but imagine his naked body underneath. I try to breathe slowly but my heart wants to beat out of my chest. When I open my eyes, I see him tilt his head slightly: he knows that I have something to say.
"Hey Matt,"
"How are you doin' Bucky? Not too much harm done?" He says with a bit of irony in his voice.
"Bastard! You're a jerk! I could bring you down in a matter of seconds in the ring if I wanted to." He laughs as I tell him those words.
He sighs. "I know. Who would dare to hit a guy at full force who can see fuck all right?" he says, still laughing, but I can sense a touch of regret and bitterness in his voice.
It hits me like a punch in the face. I realize that I have unintentionally inflicted to him the same treatment that I loathe. My guts hurt at the thought of what I did. I have a sudden urge to shout at him with all my soul that his disability was not the reason I held my strength back in the ring. I want to tell him that the reason was that I didn't want to hurt him like I've done to all those men who have crossed my path during the war. This war that I still can't talk about. So I stand there ashamed in silence.
He gets up and goes deftly to the kitchen to get two more beers. I follow him. As he closes the fridge door, I take the two bottles from him and place them on the counter to free his hands.
"Look Matt, I'm sorry. You deserve that I give you a 100%, I promise next time I'll do it with all my strength. It's just that..." I stop there, I still have enough pride not to sound like an imploring puppy.
He smiles sadly. He's probably used to being lied to by most people around him who think he needs to be protect from the truth. I gently take one of his hands with my good one. His touch soothes me. Since I've met him, I never felt that little thing that says he's sorry for me - not once in his voice or his eyes. If I let him touch me, will it still be the same? When I am with him I feel normal, I feel free, I feel alive again.
I bring his hand on my cheek so he can feel the side of my face. "You can look at me if you want to". It was all I could say with my strangled voice.
His left hand went through locks of my hair still wet while the other touches my face gently. With his thumb he draws my lips. His hands go down my neck and down to the top of my shoulders. He gently touches my right arm made of flesh and blood. Then, a shiver runs through me and tears roll off my eyes as his other hand goes to my artificial arm. With curiosity but gentleness and affection, his fingers run along the delineation were the prosthesis merges with my scarred skin. It's been so long since I let someone touch my body. Even the jabs and the uppercuts I had received from him these past weeks felt good. But having Matt looking at me with his hands made my heart want to burst out of my chest.
Continuing down along my arms, he takes my hands in his. The coldness of my left hand doesn't seem to bother him. He presses them behind his lower back. I feel the softness of the fabric of his sweater. He lets me remove it swiftly. The warmth of his body pressing against mine has the soothing effect of an anesthetic drug. There is no more pain in my body or in my head as I abandon myself to his lips. No doubt he will prefer the comfort of his bed tonight.