Carmen - "Gentle Touch" - scene1


He used to touch me all the time.  A hand on my shoulder, on my back, a nearness that I didn't recognise as anything he didn't give to the others.  It was a comfort in my rare moments of doubt.  God I was sure of myself then, but when I did doubt, when that occasional realisation of what I, we, try to do, sank in through the haze of double shifts and lack of sleep, he was there.  He likes, liked, to be close physically, as if that was the only way he could get there.   One time I think he touched me out of need for himself, to be near someone and reassure himself that there were still bodies that breathed.

But now when I've finally shaken my own fucking stupid blindness, now I see and now he's too far away.  Now he's separated from all of us by the wall of leadership.  He thought we didn't need it but it still got a hold of him and took him away.  Now he's different.  He might not want to play the political game and doesn't choose to half the time, but inside his head there are voices that divide him from us.  Well from me. 

Three weeks ago I woke up with a cricked neck in the coffee room, no idea what time it was, not much clue who I was for a moment.  The first thing I saw was Gil sitting opposite me and he was watching me, not reading, not smiling, and my insides did a slip-slide, left-right, before my brain managed to process the pain in my neck and I started groaning.

His hands on my shoulders gently brought me upright while I was busy staring at the bright lines on the inside of my eyelids.  When his palm covered my neck and his thumb massaged the base of my cranium my eyes shot wide open.  His face was maybe six inches from mine and his eyes were closed.  This was so far from a clap on my shoulder that I couldn't speak.  I shut my eyes so I didn't have to look at him and breathed in.  He might not wear cologne but he has his own distinctive scent, a combination of male and warmth and whatever he washes his clothes with.  It's kind of hot.

"Breathe out Nicky," he said, his voice full of a smile, and I let out that breath I hadn't meant to hold on a laugh.  In that same moment he stood up.  I was probably still blinking when he asked me if I needed a drink.

"Water, please."  Preferably a big bucket to stick my head in.

I leant back and stared at the ceiling, waiting for my nerve endings to stop twitching.

"What time is it?"

"Eleven."  Gil handed me the icy water and I managed to take it without touching him.

"Morning or night?  Never can tell in this place." 

"Morning.  You've only been asleep a half hour."  He was heading for the door and had gone before I could wonder how long he'd been watching me.

So that was three weeks ago and I can count on one hand the number of times he's touched me since then.  I know this because I've been counting.  Since that day I've been doing a whole lot of analysing and reconsidering and counting.

My counts come to three 'Nicky's' (we're mostly on Nick), two times when he was peering over my shoulder down a scope and I should have given him more space but didn't so his arm was against mine, three claps on the shoulder (one right, two left) and one look that I would like to interpret as longing but probably was just him thinking how dumb I am.