Hollow Healer

TW: Sex, swearing and troubled pasts.

Wooden floorboards creak beneath Billie’s bare feet. She told me to take off my shoes at the door so I’m there in my threadbare socks as if I care about the view from the window. The letting agent is spouting the usual bullshit. All I’m thinking about is that she tried to shake my hand when I entered.

            I can’t shake people’s hands. A touch is never just a touch with me. When my flesh touches someone else’s I see all the worst parts of their life. Things they’ve done or had done to them. Now I feel guilty because I recoiled at her outstretched hand as if she was revolting. I know from her expression and body language she took offence. I was instantly sorted from ‘neutral unknown’ to ‘dickhead’ in her mind.

            Billie is nodding and smiling as the woman talks because she wants all of this. She wants to see the rooftops of the city. She wants wide open space. She wants a security door instead of a block of wood and some deadbolts and latches.

            “I’ll give you both some time to look around on your own,” says the agent. She tucks orange hair behind her ear and curls a lip elegantly painted with lipstick into a smile. Her eyes flick to me for a millisecond she thinks I can’t see. She hates me. Worse, I think she’s scared of me. Fuck.

The heavy door clicks with a musical metallic sound. We’re alone. Billie Watanabe’s brown eyes glow with excitement. Her eyes roll across the high ceiling. Short arms spread wide as if she’s about to flap her wings and fly around the apartment.

            “What do you think?” She has a grin the Cheshire Cat would envy. “Could we live here?”

            “I guess.” I shrug and I know those were the wrong two words and the wrong gesture.

            “You guess. Come on Xander. I want to know what you’re thinking. Let me in there. We’ve been living together for two years now. I’ve been paying your rent that long at least.” Billie moves in and holds my arms, knowing its safe for me if she just touches the fabric of my jacket.

            “Where have you been the last few weeks?” Those deep brown eyes search mine. She rests her head on my chest. “I never know if you’re going to come back.”

            “Dealing with neo-Nazis.” I sigh. I play with her poker straight black hair.

            “For two months?” Her hands hold my back and start sliding down.

            “There are a lot of them. Less now.”

            “I missed you. Genzo missed you.” She rests her hands on my ass.

            “Who is Jenzo?”

            “Not Jenzo, hard g. Genzo. The cat, dumbass.”

            “My cat is called Toby.”

            Billie snorts, a sound like a pig enjoying a good meal. Her cheeks flush. “He’s not been your cat for a while Xander. You’re not the one who feeds him. You’re not the one who hugs him. You don’t take him to the vet.” Her voice is half scolding, half mourning.

            “I was working. There’s so much wrong in the world. I can’t just leave people out there to hurt and kill everyone.” Even taking a break with her like this feels like I’m letting someone down. Somewhere there’s a creep or a thug who’s hurting someone that I could have stopped.

            “It’s not all on you to save the world Xander. Sometimes you have to save yourself. I can see that you’re in pain. Let me heal you.” She starts worming a hand beneath my shirt.

            I pull away and hold my hands up. I shake my head. “I want to. You know I want to but it’s not that simple.” Her face turns red with anger.

            “Why not, Xander? What’s wrong with me?” She’s on the verge of crying. I can see the diamond sparkle of a tear waiting to drop from the corner of her eye. She’s beautiful and I’m fucking it all up.

            “Nothing’s wrong with you Billie but I can’t be with anyone. I’ve tried. All I see is pain. It’s not an aphrodisiac knowing someone’s every guilty secret. Do you know how hard it is trying to be intimate with someone and then you get a flash of their fear from some creep groping them on a bus twenty years ago? Every time.”

            I turn away from her and wander to the bedroom. The agent is outside, and I bet she’s listening to the whole thing. She’ll think we’re insane. Fuck it.

            Billie’s steps haunt mine. My socks hit carpet in the bedroom. Her hand grabs mine. I see her pain. The pain I’m causing. She has a tear hanging from her chin.

            I see more than the pain she knows. I go deep into the memories of her old life. Billie was a drug addict for a few years. She did terrible things that made her feel sick. Awful things were done to her that gave her nightmares. I took the horror and the grief and the guilt away. Those feelings are mine now.

            “I love you,” she says. Her eyes are red. She’s sniffing.

            “I love you too Billie.” I’m almost crying because I hate what this is doing to her. I hate that I can’t just see her as she is now. I don’t want the memories of everything she’s been through. I don’t want to see the worst moments of her life.

            “The woman you found all those years ago,” she says, unbuttoning her shirt. “That’s not me. We look alike but it’s not me.”

            “You don’t look like her.” She was broken. Covered in bruises. Smudged eyeliner. Half a face smile and tattoos as a brand from her pimp. I left him a drooling mess in his bed. She had enough happy memories to be whole without despair and sadness.

            “What do I look like?” She asks. Her shirt hits the floor.

            “Like no one I’ve ever met before.” She’s not the Billie I met. I see someone without fear. Without guilt. Without regret.

            “That explains the trouser tent,” she says. She’s smiling, unabashed as she undresses. “Look at me.” Her hand touches my cheek. A shiver of lust takes my breath away. I don’t feel anything from her past. I feel the pain of her left alone as I travelled the country but it’s melting away. Her lips press to mine. I close my eyes, hands on her back.

            She takes my hands on a guided tour. Her fingers pick at my buttons and zips. Her chest flushes with excitement.

            I’ve wanted this for so long. I have the memories of a thousand perverts, but I live like a monk. Lust is always there beneath the surface.

            We lie down on the bed, locked together. She bites her lip before she can moan but it’s too late for me. Her smile is everything I’ve needed, everything I’ve been too scared I would destroy. She clamps a hand over my mouth, looking at the doorway. Her smile is victory and ecstasy as her eyes close. Our bodies work with each other as one. Time means nothing.

            I gasp as the world returns.

            She freezes, shivers. Her legs wrap around my back and squeeze me into her. Our sweat melds. Our breath is the only sound in the room.

            Now that we’re not moving my sweat is cold in the breeze from the open plan living space. We’re kissing as if the winner eats the loser. One of us has a cut lip, I can tell from the metal taste but she hasn’t let go.

            “Excuse me have you two? Oh my god, I’m sorry.” The agent’s voice behind us breaks the spell.

            “Can you just give us a minute.” My lover has mischief in her eye. “Get the contract ready, we’re taking it.”

            “Certainly. Sorry.” I don’t hear her footsteps walking away.

            Billie mouths something. I frown. ‘She’s staring at your ass.’ I look back. The woman in the blue suit is looking at me.

            “We need a minute alone.”

            “Sorry,” says the agent, broken from her own spell she turns around, hands raised. I hear her heels clicking on the floorboards.

            “I think she changed her mind about you,” says Billie. “Seems like you changed your mind about me as well.” I kiss her. It’s not that I want her to stop talking. I just want to feel more. I haven’t felt the touch of a good person in years.

            A need deeper than lust, more primal than love makes me hold her as she held me. I lay my head on her shoulder and I feel tears in my eyes. She strokes my hair.

            “It’s alright Xan. I’ve got you now. I’m not going anywhere. Although we should probably get dressed when you pull out.” Just realising I’m still inside her gets me hard again. “Woah now. Let’s get rid of her, then round two. Yeah?” She kisses me.

            Her thumb wipes a tear away before it can roll down my cheek.

            We put our clothes on in a rush. She fusses with my collar, fixes my hair. We walk across the redwood boards to the front door. The agent, Shelly, is there with the contract on her clipboard.

            “Everything’s ready. Do you have a pen?”

            “He does,” says Billie, “but he just used up the ink.” She starts laughing. My face burns. The agent is sniggering and blushing as well. Billie takes the clipboard and the pen the agent gives her. She signs and hands the contract to me. I write my name in the box the agent highlighted, next to Billie Watanabe’s.

            “Is there anything else I can help you two with?” Shelly asks.

            “No thanks, he just lost his virginity. I think it’s a bit early for a threesome. Maybe after lunch, when we have sheets on the mattress.”

            Shelly looks at Billie like she’s serious.

            “When can we get the keys?” I ask.

            “Em. I just need to take the deposit and first month’s rent. After that I can get you the keys right away.” Her cheeks are the colour of ripe cherries. She can’t make eye contact with either of us.

            “I’m sorry about the handshake thing before.” I tell her. “I’m not very good around people I don’t know.” She’s squirming and my apology didn’t help.

            “It’s fine. Do you have cards to make the payment, or do you want to pay in cash?”

            “Card will be fine.” Billie nudges me as the agent flips to an app on her phone and pulls a card reader out of her handbag.

            I’m guilty again. I have no money. Taking the sins from shitty people doesn’t pay. It’s a service to humanity that’s left me perpetually broke. My lover types in her pin number and waits. When the machine makes a tinny beep, and a red light goes green Shelly smiles with all her white veneers.

            She pulls the keys from her bag and hands them over. Saying a quick thank you and good luck to our shoes she clops off down the hallway at a run. I hope she won’t fall down the stairs in her haste to get away from us.

            “Now all we need is Genzo.”

            “Toby.”

            “No,” she puts her hand on my arm, “Genzo.”