Human Hieroglyphix - Dex & Leila (17 page)

We were putting our dishes into the dishwasher, when Dex brought up the issue of birth control.

"I'm on the pill and like I told you, it's been a bit over six years since I've had sex."  I still hated to admit to it, but I'd rather be truthful.

Dex stilled at my words before straightening and turning to me.

"I just want to go on record and say that your ex was a fucking twat," Dex said quietly but firmly.

"Thanks, I think."

"I'm tested four times a year or more often as needed," he said, closing the dishwasher door.

"Why so often?" I asked wiping down the counters and bar.

"Work hazard.  While there is not a lot of blood when I'm inking, there is some.  So I try to reduce the risk by being extra careful to not getting any of my customer's blood on me.  Too many diseases can be transferred by blood-borne pathogens.  We have a rule at the shop that you can't work if you have any open cuts, scrapes or the rest especially on your hands because gloves have been known to break."

"Wow.  I didn't even think of that when I made my appointment."

"Most people, don't.  How's your ink by the way?"

I pulled my robe open to show him.

"Looks good, babe," he said softly, running his fingers over it.  "It's almost ready to be filled in."

It was quiet as we just stood together looking down at the beautiful ink on my hip.

Dex tilted his face to mine, his arm moving round my back.

"Why the Blue Pansy and pupa, babe?" he asked softly.

I sighed.  It really wasn't a secret since I'd already told more than a few people about it and since this beautiful man had touched the deepest part of me with both his fingers and mouth, I had no reason to keep the secret to myself.

"Let's go upstairs and I'll tell you why, okay?" I whispered tilting my face up and kissing him softly on his chin.

But I probably should have just kept it to myself because it pissed him off. 

Royally. 

And I learned in the few moments of silence following my explanation that Dex was not a man that quietly seethed when he was angry. 

Nope, my Dex was the kind of guy that got loud.

"Are you telling me that all this is because of a couple of stupid, mother-fucking
boys
that were speaking out of their fucking asses?" he shouted as he stood up and began to pace my bedroom.

"Not all of it, no.  But their words is what started me thinking about it."

"That is fucked up, Leila.  Completely and totally fucked up," he yelled, still pacing my room but now including hand gestures.  "You don't change a fucking thing about yourself based on a couple of fuckers that haven't got a clue, that are practically just off the playground. 
Christ
!"

I saw him stop and run his hands through his hair before he lowered them to his waist and turned to face me.  "What the
fuck
were you thinking, baby?"

"I saw you," I whispered.

"Wait…What?"

"I saw you, at Henry's."  I swallowed as I remembered how he looked back then, when he was with the woman in the red sequined top.  "I was there having dinner with Emily and you went to the bar with a woman."

He didn't say anything, so I continued.

"You were beautiful to me even in profile and I wanted…I wanted to be that woman.  To be with you like that.  I didn't know your name or where you worked or anything.  I just…I guess I just lusted after you from afar."

I glanced up and he was staring at me, so I went on with my confession.

"So I started making plans," I moved off my bed and went into the closet to get my notebook.  I handed it to him before climbing back up on the bed and sliding between the covers. 

I was trembling, but I don't think it was because of the chilly room.

I watched as he began flipping pages.

"I saw you again, the following Tuesday, in the bar at Enrique's.  You were by yourself and I saw your full face and froze on the spot."

I swallowed before going on.

"You were the most beautiful man I had ever seen."  I paused, caught up in the memory of how he had looked, there in the bar at Enrique's, grinning at something the bartender had said.  "I wanted you so bad, Dex." 

I took a deep breath and powered on, wanting to get it all out. 

Wanted to make him understand.

"So you can imagine how I felt when you were the artist that was going to give me my tattoo.  Dex?  I could barely breathe the entire time you worked on me.  Honest to God, honey, when you touched me, just even to wipe the blood and ink off, I thought I was going to come.  You inking me was one of the most
erotic
moments of my life."

"But, I didn't want to change myself just because a couple of dirty-minded little boys made fun of me or even because I wanted to look like someone you would find attractive.  I wanted to change
me
, for
me
.  I wasn't happy.  I wasn't happy with my looks or my life or the way I shied away from other people or the way I spent flying under the radar, living a drab life.  A
nothing
life."

I stopped speaking, to try and find the right words.

"The pupa, the cocoon, in my tattoo symbolizes my old life and my butterfly, the new life I'm making for myself."

Dex came back to the bed and handed me my notebook, not looking at me.  I just sat there with the notebook in my lap. 

Finally he sat down, his hands clasped between his legs.

"I saw you, Leila," he said slowly.  "That night at the shop and I thought you were beautiful.  You have the most amazing big, brown eyes and the most beautiful, creamy skin.  I remember thinking that the skin on your hip was almost too beautiful to ink." 

He reached across the bed and began rubbing my leg.

"I even loved the sound of your voice," he continued.  "When you showed me where you wanted your tattoo, I had to talk my dick into submission because that little bit of skin you showed me, the way you showed me, was hot.  That's why I didn't recognize you when I took you home from Henry's."

He looked at me, then dropped his eyes and kept rubbing my leg.

"Shit!  I get it now.  You were trying to show me your tattoo at Henry's." He laughed.  "I thought you were trying to take your fucking jeans off!"

Dex stood and pushed the sweat pants down before climbing into bed beside me. 

I let out a sigh of relief because I was kind of afraid that he was going to get dressed and leave after what I had told him.  I stood and went to put the notebook back in my closet before going back to bed.  I took my robe off, more conscious than ever of my naked state as I slipped back between the covers.  I laid on my back, with my head on a pillow, with Dex equally naked beside me.

I felt the bed move and saw him above me.

"Guess what I'm trying to say, babe, is that I noticed you before you got contacts, got your hair cut and dressed different.  I noticed and I liked what I saw.  You were hot then and you're hot now."

Oh. My. God.

He leaned on his elbow and used his other hand to smooth the hair back from my face.

"I asked you out, Leila, after you smiled when you were so hung over you couldn't see straight because I remembered
you
.  You were my Goose-Bump, Blue Pansy girl."

I reached up and stroked his cheek.

"I get it, babe," he said turning his face towards my hand and planting a kiss on my palm.  "I went through my melt down a bit earlier than you but it sounds about the same."

"What do you mean?"

He moved and laid back down on the pillow.  I shifted so that I was facing him, watching his profile.

"I told you about my degree in accounting and my certification to be a CPA, right?"

"Uh-huh," I said softly

"I was working for McNabb in Colorado Springs.  Worked there for two years.  Two long fucking years.  I drove a
nice
car, lived in a
nice
condo in a
nice
development and was engaged to a
nice
girl.  But, like you, I had a moment--actually it was immediately following a nice vanilla, missionary - position sex with my nice little fiancé -- and it hit me that I wasn't happy.  I mean, like, at all."

Dex stopped speaking for a moment while I enjoyed looking at his profile.  He fluffed the duvet over him as he turned towards me and reached for my hand.

"I suddenly knew, knew that if I didn't get out of all of it, out of all that 'niceness', that I was going to die.  Die in my spirit.  I was acting like a robot in just about every area of my life and it made me sick."

"What did you do?" I asked quietly.

"I got up out of bed and told Nancy she could keep the ring and I left which I know probably shocked the shit out of her.  It shocked the shit out of me.  I was so predictable, in mind, body and spirit, that leaving her after having sex and telling her to keep the ring was huge.  And it was a pussy way of scraping her off, which I kind of regret.  When I got home, I looked around and realized that there was not one fucking thing in my house that reflected me.  The inner me.  Not
one
God damn thing."

He stopped for a moment.

"That was a shock, a shock to realize I was living someone else's life.  Not my own. The furnishings, the fucking pictures on the walls, even my clothes were so vanilla, so expected of me.  And I hated it. 
Hated
it, Elle.  I remember sitting on the stairs and realized that my whole fucking life, the life I had built was bland.  Bland so I fit in with all the other robots."

He stopped playing with my fingers and captured my gaze.

"I made a list, a list I'll show you when you come over.  Like yours, my list was everything I was going to change about myself -- everything I was going to jettison from my life; the car, the condo, the furniture, fucking everything.  I was going to change it
all
, how I looked, how I spoke, what I wanted, all of it."

He smiled softly but his eyes were far, far away, looking back.

"I decided to grow my hair out and have a goatee, but that was going to take time.  But clothes I could do right away.  So I went to the Harley Store on Nevada there in C.S. and bought my first pair of boots, a couple of belts with fucking righteous buckles, a t-shirt and a jacket.  Fuck, I was so intent on reinventing myself, I would've bought fucking Harley boxers if they had 'em!"

We both laughed at that one.  When his laughter died down, he continued.

"I also bought a 2003 Harley Fat Boy.  My first motorcycle, but I had to leave it there until I figured out how to get rid of my SUV.  Got to tell you, Elle, it was hard to walk away from the bike, 'cause it, even more than the clothes, represented the 'new me'.  The next morning, I called in sick, sold the SUV and took a taxi to go pick up my bike.  Called a realtor for the condo and sold it the following week.  As soon as the paperwork was signed, I called my manager at McNabb and told him I quit.  He didn't say much.  I think he was just as shocked as I was, but within two hours of quitting, I started getting calls from my ol' man which I didn't answer.  After a couple of hours after his calls, I started getting calls from Moms, which I did answer.  She must've called me four or five times and each time I had to settle her shit down.  After that fifth call from her, which I would bet was the result of my ol' man winding her up, I had the service disconnected for all my utilities.  I held a yard sale for everything in my condo, only holding on to a few clothes in a backpack to take with me.  Gave the realtor my bank info and hopped on my bike with absolutely no destination in mind."

"So, you reinvented yourself, too."

"Yeah, sweetheart, I did."

"Are you happy that you did that?"

"Yeah, I am," he said moving closer to me and draping his arm around my waist.

"Then why did you get so mad before?"

He moved his head, sharing my pillow as he moved even closer.

"Because I understand change, babe, but those major kind of changes need to be made by
you
from
your
heart, not by someone else.  And until you really broke it down for me, I thought you were only doing because of other people.  Get it?"

"Got it, sweetie", I replied, sliding my nose against his.

"Good.  Now let's get on with round two," he whispered moving on top of me before dropping his mouth to mine.

Chapter Nineteen

The next evening, I was driving south to Dex's shop where I was to meet up with him before we went to his place for dinner.

I opened the heavy glass door to the shop and saw that all five booths were busy.  Crystal was behind the counter and music that I now knew was Soundgarden's 'Black Hole Sun' was booming from the speakers, not quite loud enough to make the windows vibrate, but close.

I had spent the entire time from when Dex left that morning until I stopped to get ready to meet him at the shop, downloading from the online music store to my Nano.  I had listened to a sampling of each and every song that my friends (my friends!) had on their email playlists and then downloaded them.  All one hundred and one of them--Dex listed three albums from the Dave Matthews oeuvre alone.