Love is Blind by Chi Mangetsu
Chapter 2
The morning Yamaneko Sougi arrived, mother helped me into the second most comfortable dress I’ve yet to wear and gave me a bow to wear in my hair that she assured me was pretty, yellow and brocaded with lace, like my dress. I still have no idea what exactly what brocading means, but I’ll take her word that it was pretty. Pretty and yellow.
I waited in the living room with mother and daddy—whose work only required him to coming in for an evening meeting and that was a number of hours away. “Wow. How long has it been? Eight years or so since we graduated?” daddy said.
“That sounds about right yes,” mother said with a nod.
“Well I’m glad we’ve found someone to help Matilda. Are you excited, sweet-heart?”
I nodded. “Yes, daddy.”
“You know Mr. Sougi was good friends of your mommy and daddy in school? We used to hang out all the time. Drinking and dancing. After we had Brodie, we did that kind of stuff less, and then we graduated and we all kind of went our separate ways. Y’know he went on to because a language arts teacher. Seems to be doing all right for himself.”
“I gave daddy a half-hearted smile. “He sounds kind.”
“Yeah, was always such a nice person. Hold-your-hair-for-you sorta guy, right, Jeni?”
Mother smiled warmly. “More than once.”
“Wouldn’t trust anyone with my family’s well-being more. No offense, darling but your brother Hank is an idiot.”
Mother was about to respond when there was a resounding knock on the door. It wasn’t exactly loud, but for a knock, it had an incredible sense of presence.
“Come in,” spoke my parents simultaneously. The door opened inward and in stepped my tutor, Yamaneko Sougi. He is a lynx and was wearing a pair of tweed pants and a tweed jacket. He was a little taller than daddy but not by a lot, and… he smelled fantastic. He smelled fresh, warm, calm and kind, like linens fresh from the dryer and kettle-brewed tea with a touch of orange blossom honey. A scent you would want to luxuriate and allow yourself to drift away in, completely and without hesitation. Of course, that last bit I didn’t understand. Not for a while, anyway. But he smelled so good.
When my mind slowly returned to the world of the living, I realized there was a large paw reached out before me and a form, a face rather, at eye level. I smelled his embarrassment and snapped back to reality, reaching out to shake his hand that was so much bigger than mine that his gentle grasp practically engulfed it.
He relaxed. “A pleasure to meet you, Matilda.”
I tried to say something, anything, but I’m certain it would’ve been little more than a squeak, so I opted instead for a small nod as I felt my face grow scarlet.
“So, where will I be teaching her?”
Mother’s voice seemed nervous and she spoke, “Her room should be fine. She has a large desk there you two can work with and there are folding chairs in the walk-in. It’s so good to see you, Neko. How’ve you been?”
Mr. Sougi went on to tell how he’d been between substitution jobs the past year that took him all around the country while he was working on his master’s degree for teaching and that this tutor job came just in time. The fact that it was with his old friends was simply just another boon that he was so grateful for coming his way. It’d been more than a year since he’d had a tutoring job and he’d missed the personal interaction between teacher and student.
They continued discussing things old and things new for a good hour or so until daddy had to leave for work. He said how good it was to see Mr. Sougi again and told mother he loved her before heading out the door. Subtly the entire atmosphere of the room seemed to shift. It was more relaxed than it already was. I also found myself the subject of Mr. Sougi’s disarming scrutiny.
“My favorite color? I don’t—“
“Neko!” mother whispered as loud as possible.
“Oh. Right. Sorry. Um. S-so, I guess, uh, may I see your room, Matilda?” Neko stammered. I nodded and led the way, counting the steps from the living room to my bedroom and found myself distracted by a rustling sound behind me, but despite it I turning and raised an arm and said, “H-here we are.”
Behind me, mother chuckled softly.
“She doesn’t really sleep in the hamper closet does she, Jeni?”
“No! Of course she doesn’t, a few steps further, baby.”
My face flushed. That’d never happened before. Weird, I thought to myself. A bit further and I heard Mr. Sougi exclaim, “Wow. Lots of pink. Matches her hair and fur, doesn’t it?”
“She is a little girl, Yamaneko.”
“Ellipses.” Obviously he had no worthwhile response to retort, yet never before or since have I ever heard a literary device used in everyday speech. “So, shall we get started?”
I saw the two shadows become one for a few seconds as my mother embraced Mr. Sougi tightly and said, “It’s really great to see you again, Neko.”
“Hey, same here.”
Mother sighed again then, but it wasn’t the way she sighed to daddy.
It seemed…content. “Dinner is at seven.”
Over the next few weeks, Mr. Sougi taught me the basics of Braille: numbers and letters and from there, words and sentences. He remarked at how fast I learned, that he’d never before had a student that absorbed their studies like me. That made me smile.
I was too nervous to tell him that when he held his big paw over mine, I felt as if I could almost actually see the letters and words that hung above the bumps as my fingertips grazed slowly over them. When he took his hand away, everything fell back into hazy shadow, but usually I could remember things easily enough. Still, more and more I found my hand in his.
When mother would call us for dinner, that swaying part at about his waist height I’d cautiously slip my fingers between the grooves of and feel him give my hand a small squeeze. Except for the time I grabbed his tail and made him jump several feet in the air. Mother kept laughing at Mr. Sougi throughout dinner that night.
Things stayed this way for several months with daddy coming home every now and again smelling like women who weren’t my mother before leaving for work again a few hours later. Mr. Sougi would come over between nine and ten in the morning and we’d study, and he’d keep me company while mother worked and Brodie was at school. In the evenings, mother, Mr. Sougi and I would eat dinner then play games or watch television. And all the while my brother was blissfully unaware that whenever we sat on the couch together, mother and Mr. Sougi would occasionally stand to “tide up the kitchen” or mother would ask Mr. Sougi to “help her with something.”
They’d come back a few ten minutes or so later smelling like sweat and perfume. One such night mother hesitated to give me a good night kiss so I kneeled up on tiptoe and she kissed reluctantly kiss my lips. Her kiss tasted different. It was salty and sweet… and how Mr. Sougi smelled.
At the time I simply thought it strange, but when you’re not distracted by colors or sharpness in clarity, you tend to think things over more than other people; reach conclusions faster based on the small amount of information you receive from the world around you. I noticed the scents they gave off when they were near one another, of antici-pation liquefied. Daddy never noticed. He was never around long enough to have any idea. My older brother was nothing if not oblivious. I was the only one who knew, even if I had no idea what it is I knew. Still, it excited me to have something no one else had, that bit of knowledge that was my own, and I held on to it because it was important.
This continued on for a long while and soon I started noticing other things. Like occasionally when Mr. Sougi was tutoring me, I’d sit on his lap and soon I’d feel a slight rise from his trousers pressing against my bottom. It felt weird. It made me feel weird. Still, I’d get the warm fuzzies like when mother kissed me good night—especially when her lips tasted like my tutor.
I’d never move when I felt like that, even though I felt a little light-headed and my heart started thumping faster and my paws began to sweat. I’d just try to do my work despite the welcome distraction.
Sometimes I’d scoot forward on his lap and let my tail wag of its own will. I did a great job of acting like I was unaware of my teasing, even if I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. Still… I knew I did something right when I made his breath catch and his entire body would shake.
Nearly a year passed and everything was going just like always. That is, until mother’s 26th birthday. That was the day I found out exactly what secret I was keeping.
