Sensations

I had no time to focus on the fact that Joshua’s sinfully long fingers were entangled with my own since I was far too busy guiding him safely through the throng of people crowding the hallway without dropping any of his precious belongings. He let me tug him along though he was still out of it and the simple action put a smile on my lips because my delusional mind translated the simple action into the fact that Joshua must trust me. However, I couldn’t spend my time analyzing my most recent realization since I was more worried about Joshua than anything else. He seems… vulnerable and vulnerability simply isn’t something that can be associated with Joshua.

I slowly pushed him into the journalism classroom, placing my hand on his lower back to guide him carefully and slowly to our jointed desk. He seems to have been completely zoned for he just let me lead him along, his feet pushing him in the direction that my hands would nudge them though they were probably weighed down like lead. This is so unlike Joshua, so extremely unusual. He was always poised and composed, completely expectant and prepared for the unexpected, but something had quite obviously triggered a worry within him.

It was obvious to tell that I wasn’t the only one that was worried and curious about him since Mrs. Noon had also immediately noticed something different about Joshua, prompting her to send me an inquisitive nod. I just shook my head, leaning my head to the side and apologizing with my eyes as I continued to lead him to our desk, grumbling to myself about how I wish I actually knew what’s bugging him.

We reached the desk and Joshua sat down, his hands balling into fists on the tabletop as he got comfortable in his chair. My body seated itself in the seat next to his as I pulled both of our backpacks with me. I quickly grabbed his and opened it up, taking out that special and probably extremely expensive laptop of his and opening it up to make sure that it was still functional. I almost thanked the heavens when I saw the default background pop up without any scratches or those ugly black and rainbow blotches that appear when the screen breaks. Joshua got really lucky with this one. I slipped his laptop back into the bag before zipping it up quickly and placing it next to him in its usual spot.

My fingers drummed against the black surface of our desk mercilessly as the rest of the class filed in, quickly getting to work on our first assignment, though I honestly did nothing but watch Joshua the entire period. I figured that if I let him get lost in his thoughts he would eventually relax, but I had no such luck. I so greatly wanted to grab his attention and ask what was bothering him and making him seem like a completely new person.

A smile spread itself across my lips as I realized that I did have a way to grab his attention so I used it to my advantage by slowly inching my hand towards his, my fingers brushing themselves along the naturally tanned skin on the back of his hand. His head arched towards mine slowly, almost curiously, as if I had finally shocked him out of his dreamlike state. He turned his hand around so that I was cradling the back of it in my palm, his fingers curling upwards. I’m guessing he knew what he wanted since I gently placed his cane back in his palm and his fingers automatically curled around it.

He smiled at me graciously before turning back to the front of the classroom and resuming his previous position. The only difference was that he was now white knuckling the folded up cane.

I sighed before calling out his name softly, my boredom getting the best of me, my curiosity almost getting the best of me as well. “I was wondering if you wanted to come to my house after school,” I muttered, trying to mask my excitement and smiling as I realized that I did a pretty good job. “The assignment is due tomorrow and we still have to complete the conclusion and edit it,” I explained, trying to sound more professional and work-driven instead of letting him know that I really just wanted to be around him and see what was wrong with him.

He paused, his eyebrow arching as he thought. God, he’s so adorable. “That’s a good idea,” he finally sighed, leaning back to the seat as if the idea calmed him a bit.

Good, that’s what I was going for.

*

I parked my car in my driveway and looked at Joshua expectantly, not exactly sure when he would and wouldn’t require my help. His hands slid along the passenger door before he smiled victoriously, his hands fiddling with the trigger to open the door before just that happened. He hoisted himself out of the car with the help of the door, his cane clutched firmly in one hand and his backpack sitting dutifully on his shoulders.

A smile situated itself on my lips as I got out of the car and walked towards him, figuring he’d need help navigating an unfamiliar place. However, he seems to continuously find ways to surprise me with how independent he is for someone with a condition that forces him to rely on others quite often. He walked around my car, his hands skimming the hood until he was directly in front of the car, a lost expression now placed on his features.

I laughed before putting my hand on the small of his back and guiding him to the front steps of my grandparent’s house. Worry quickly consumed me. It’s just three simple steps, but how can I expect a blind boy to manage them when I can’t because they’re so slippery and unsteady. I really need to tell grandpa to get those fixed.

I pushed my shoulder into Joshua’s upper back since he is taller than me, though he’s skin and bones with willowy muscles while mine are a tiny bit more pronounced. My arm swung itself around his waist, a smile forming on my lips when I realized that he’s shapely in an almost feminine way. I hoisted him up, and quickly walked up the three steps, laughing at how a cute yet shocked gasp passed his lips and he wiggled playfully against my chest in curiosity.

“The steps are hard to manage and I didn’t want to risk anything,” I murmured softly, moving aside to open the door.

A soft, “oh,” passed Joshua’s lips as I situated my hand on his lower back again, something that I realized he doesn’t really mind.

“There’s a step,” I muttered, watching as his foot slowly lifted in the air and gently placed itself on the hardwood floor of my house, his other foot following soon after.

I jumped inside and closed the door behind me, putting my hands on Joshua’s waist as I pushed him forward. “I figured we could go to my room,” I explained softly, passing the kitchen and widening my eyes in response to Grandma’s widened eyes. Her facial expression screamed nothing but evil intent and I’d rather put off Joshua having to meet her as long as possible. I love her, but she’s embarrassing, just as every other parent and grandparent should be.

I slowly rotated his hips, telling him to make a left before I told him that there was a staircase. His hands gripped the railing as he slowly navigated them, the toe of his sneakers never leaving the carpeted steps. He truly knows how to get his way around almost everything. We walked down the hallway and made it to my room rather quickly and I silently thanked grandma for making sure I had a clean room because that certainly came in handy at times like this.

Joshua carefully kept walking forward until his knees and thighs hit my bed. He leaned forward, brushing his hands across the smooth surface of the folded up blanket before stepping on the heels of his shoes and slipping them off slowly, climbing onto my bed and crawling to the side with the pillows on it, settling himself against a stack of the majority of them.

“Hog,” I muttered playfully as I took my own shoes off and climbed up the bed, leaning against the wall and crossing my legs in the area between Joshua’s spread outgorgeous figure.

“Whatever,” he scoffed as he placed his backpack on the ground near the bed gently, his cane sitting inches away from his hand dutifully.

“So, what else do you want to add to the project?” I questioned as I took out my binder, flipping to the page that we had everything written out on.

“I think the project’s stupid,” Joshua muttered, inclining his head towards me. I grunted as I continued to take everything out, tossing my backpack over my bed carelessly afterwards. “I’m supposed to write about myself and my aspirations,” he explained, “but I have to do that with someone else. And it’s not only someone I barely know anything about, it’s someone who I can’t even tell you what he looks like. Details about his life are virtually unknown to me besides the simple little facts about his personality,” he elaborated.

“I come up to your neck, comfortably leaning my head against your heart,” I explained. “I have black hair, blue eyes. I’m rather pale…” I continued. “I burn too easily in the sun.”

Joshua looked at me, a smug look on his features as his eyebrow arched adorably in a way that only Joshua could pull off cleanly without seeming egotistical. “That doesn’t really help me at all,” he said rather amusedly.

My mouth dropped as my hand came up to my forehead, a rather audible slap resonating throughout my bedroom, only furthering my level of embarrassment once Joshua chuckled. “I’m so sorry,” I apologized.

“Sometimes people forget,” he said simply, shrugging his shoulders as if I didn’t just fuck up majorly.

“It’s easy to forget when you refuse to allow your disability to get the best of you,” I said thoughtfully. “It’s a rather admirable trait of yours.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled around a smile, dipping his head slightly and bringing his hands up to rub his eyes behind his special glasses. He sighed as he took them off, placing them in his lap. I almost melted right there at the sudden sight of his gorgeous, striking eyes. It’s a shame that such gorgeous portals can never be used.

“How do you see people?” I asked out of the blue, my curiosity getting the best of me. I subconsciously shifted closer to him, my bottom lip being taken between my teeth, but Joshua wouldn’t notice.

“I don’t see,” he answered simply, a knowing smile on his face.

“Not what I meant and you know that,” I scolded in response, a smile placing itself on my lips at our playful banter.

“Have you ever been blindfolded and you had to touch something and form an image of what you were touching in your mind?” He questioned me.

“Yeah,” I muttered, my thoughts somehow taking me back to those annoying zoo parties that we all wanted to have when we were six years old since we got to play with all the animals and had to guess what they were.

“It’s sort of like that,” he explained.

I nodded my head before scooting up to him so that my knees were pressed against his lower torso. “Then why don’t you go around trying to figure out what people look like?” I questioned curiously, allowing it to finally get the best of me.

“It’s sort of weird if you ask a person you barely know if you can touch their face,” Joshua said around a chuckle, making me laugh too since the image that formed in my mind was just too funny.

“You see with the sensation of touch,” I said simply, summing up this entire conversation.

“Basically,” Joshua murmured. “It’s not like I could use the sensation of sight,” he said almost a bit sarcastically. It surprised me, how open and willing he is to talk about his condition when he’s very defensive about it with others.

I sighed before grabbing his hand and placing it on my forearm. “See me,” I said simply, though my mind was swarming with greedy thoughts of having his long fingers run across my skin. The fingers that I so desperately wanted to run across my skin were straying along the skin of my bicep almost uncertainly. “If I felt weird, I wouldn’t have asked you to.” I muttered. “If we’re supposed to spend the next few months together, you deserve to know what I look like,” I elaborated further, smiling victoriously when I felt his fingers press against the skin of my bicep more firmly.

Joshua sat up as a mask of concentration overtook his features, both of his hands finding a bicep of their own as he squeezed them almost questioningly, a smile forming on his features soon after. It was almost shy and uncertain, and the way he cocked his head to the side made me smile in response, running my tongue across my bottom lip really quickly.

His hands strayed along my shoulders, grasping them firmly before his touch turned soft at my neck, his sinfully long fingers wrapping around the back of it as his thumbs traced my throat and then my jaw line, his lips parting almost slightly in the process. His fingers played with the longer strands of my hair at the back of my neck before he lifted his hands up and dug them into my scalp, dragging his fingers through my hair. I almost groaned at the feeling since I absolutely loved when someone raked their hands through my hair, but I somehow held it back, instead deciding to lean my head into his touch, scooting my body closer to his. He must have noticed that because he sat up and away from the pillows before he mimicked my position, pushing both of his knees against my own and leaning forward a bit.

His hands stopped at my hair and came downwards a bit, tickling my ears as they want to softly caress my cheeks, his fingers running across my cheekbones as if they needed to memorize their shape and angles. His hands moved upwards to trace my forehead then my eyebrows before I quickly shut my eyes, allowing darkness to overcome me as I felt his feather-soft touch along my eyelids. His left hand went back to caressing my cheek and I leaned into his touch almost greedily, welcoming the way his amazing fingers curled into my raven locks as the fingertips of his other hand slowly traced my nose from the bridge to the top and back up again.

It was at that moment that something had suddenly dawned on me. This entire experience had an almost - dare I say it - intimate feel to it. I watched Joshua’s facial expressions greedily as his fingertips slowly neared closer and closer to my lips, his lips parting slightly just as they touched the corner of my upper lip. This was completely different than I expected it to be, but I like it this way, it’s as if we’re finally crossing a new barrier and we’re now experiencing something that Joshua doesn’t really do openly. And that’s why I ever so gently took the pad of his pointer finger in between my teeth, nipping it softly as it ran along the middle of my upper lip since I got too caught up in the moment.

An almost breathily and inaudible gasp passed his parted lips as he leaned forward so that his forehead was only inches from mine, his fingers suddenly torn away. I apologized profusely once I realized my mistake, quickly grabbing his hand and slowly bringing it back up to my other cheek as I waited for his next move, my eyes shutting quickly when his fingers immediately found their way back to my upper lip and finished tracing it before moving to my bottom one. He pressed down on it almost harshly before softening his touch and humming in apology. I sighed, allowing my needs to get the better of me since I didn’t trust my voice. I pulled his finger past my lips for the second time tonight, biting down a bit more harshly and padding my tongue against the pad of his finger before slowly releasing it and moving so that it was back against my lip. My form of acceptance, so to speak, and it didn’t seem that Joshua minded much since his breath had caught in his throat for a second. Because of him, I’m starting to notice little things I probably wouldn’t have noticed before unless I was extremely focused.

His fingers continued to run across my bottom lip a few times before they went back to my neck, curling into the loose tendrils of my hair and tugging a bit playfully. I wanted to groan at the way he was teasing me. He quickly trailed his fingers down my arms, applying more pressure at the area he now knew held muscle. He’s a greedy little thing.

I paid extra attention to how the fingers of his left hand fondled the bottom of my t-shirt, contemplating what to do before they stopped and went to my wrists, his fingers trailing along my palms before tangling with my own as he pulled them into his lap. His head tilted downwards with a content little smile, yet it was still angled upwards towards mine.

My back straightened as I allowed my fingers to dance with his, my mind whirling with one thousand possibilities. I didn’t think that would happen… No, I wouldn’t even dream of that happening. I didn’t believe that I’d ever feel a level of intimacy as explosive as what I just experienced when someone simply ran their precious fingers over my pale skin and plump lips, or when someone tangled their hands in my hair and ran them through my hair so greedily.

I pulled my fingers away from Joshua’s gently, smiling at the way his fingers grabbed onto mine as if to pull them back and his mouth opened to form a silent mewl of disappointment. His entire being screamed with curiosity and the evident need to explore, but I just… can’t do it right now. I just placed my hand on his knee, massaging soothing circles into it apologetically as I grabbed our journalism work again. I need time to process all of this.

“We should get back to work,” I murmured softly, scooting away from him so that I was leaning against the wall again. I frowned as he sighed and leaned back against the pillows almost dejectedly, his legs spreading out into their previous position slowly.

“Yeah,” he murmured so quietly that I barely heard it.

That shouldn't have happened…