Nadirah brought Joni back home, and what followed would be one of the sweatiest but wonderfully fun few hours they’d experienced in a long time.
They shared themselves like never before and not just physically. They lay in the dark, naked, embraced in one another’s arms, and they talked about all kinds of things.
“I never thought I’d feel so safe with someone who wasn’t much bigger than me,” Joni said.
“I’m glad you feel that way,” Nadirah replied in a content but sleepy voice.
“You better not throw me out again, Officer, before all my medical needs are taken care of.”
“I won’t throw you out again.”
“You still didn’t tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“If it’s true that you weren’t interested in me or behind any of the prank calls I got after I called you.”
“What do you think is the case?”
“I guess I would have to go with an ‘I don’t know’ on the calls and a no on the interest.”
“So you don’t think I was interested in you?”
“Well, there are some things that indicate you might’ve been, but in the end, no, I don’t think you were.”
“Do you think I am now?”
Joni laughed and said, “Seeing that we just did almost everything that can be done in bed, I’d say yeah, there’s a good chance you might be. But you didn’t do me with a strap-on. You do that sort of thing?”
“I can if you want me to, but no, not usually.”
“How come?”
“I’m too tired for your twenty-question game, Joni.”
“Last question. I promise.”
“The cat jumped onto the bed.”
“Beat it, Booty,” Joni said. “Tonight, there are only two pussies in this bed, not three.”
“He’ll settle down by my feet soon enough,” Nadirah said, her voice growing sleepier.
“Good,” Joni said with a yawn. “Cuz I’m whipped. It ain’t every day that I cum four times in three hours. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever done that before in my life.”
Nadirah held her tighter and said, “If we weren’t so exhausted, you’d be past number five by now.”
“I’m sure I would be,” Joni agreed before she fell asleep, not liking the idea of leaving Nadirah in a few months, but knowing that day was inevitable.
Wasn’t it?
Joni looked at the screen and read aloud. “Before I fell asleep, I was crossing Nadirah with so many people, and she was freaking out and going hysterical. Nadirah was convinced, however, that the phone wires were crossed and not that someone was fooling around. She’s such a hysterical bitch and a crab, and at this point, I’m so glad we never even had a one-night stand. She’s too emotional and comes off as very cold, insensitive, and way too serious, tense, and irritable for my tastes. Torturing her is so fun, and she deserves it not so much for leading me on but just because of the bitch she is. Can’t say I feel much guilt in this case.” Joni concluded with a laugh as she read the near twenty-year-old journal excerpt from her journal on her laptop to Nadirah. Then she looked up at her.
She did not look happy at all.
“It’s not funny, Joni,” she said.
“Relax,” Joni said with a chuckle. “I later came to feel guilty for misbehaving, didn’t I? And you got me back for it by dragging my ass into court and calling me in return, if in fact you really did call me.”
“Real fucking funny, Joni. You had a real sick sense of humor, and in some ways, you still do.”
“Ah, but you still love me anyway,” Joni said, nuzzling up to Nadirah. “Did I cross you with the crisis center or did I just cross you with random strangers?”
Nadirah continued to glare at Joni, and just when Joni didn’t think she’d say anything more, she said, “You really had me worried the damn lines were crossed somehow.”
“I know,” Joni said, momentarily getting up to take a swig of her soda before straddling Nadirah’s lap and facing her. “I was good. Damn good.” She kissed Nadirah on the cheek.
The phone rang, and Nadirah stood up to answer it, practically knocking Joni right off her lap.
It was her lady friend.
“She’s pissing me off… Joni… Yeah, she’s pissing me off again… That’s true. Things are back to normal with us always arguing…”
So much so that Joni came to regret her words, not just because they angered Nadirah, but because she was afraid her “punishment” this time around would be a neglected libido. But after a few hours of quietly watching TV and showering together, Nadirah was as attentive as ever.
The day finally came for Joni to meet with an ear specialist named Dr. Hylan. He was a tall, slim man in his early forties and very friendly.
After a series of x-rays and CAT scans failed to show any significant problem, surgery was still recommended by the doctor in case a tumor was present that hadn’t appeared in the CAT scans.
“The problem could also be due to a build-up of dead skin within the inner ear that simply can’t shed itself due to the canal being fused shut. Or it could be the frame. Sometimes things like this can become sensitive and cause a lot of discomfort with time. That’s why I want to send you to another doctor who specializes in plastic surgery before we proceed. He may very well agree that the frame should be dismantled, at which time you can decide later on down the road if you want to once again have plastic surgery for the sake of appearances. But since we can’t know for sure just what the problem is, and since the problem could be serious—even potentially fatal—we will need to operate.”
“Operate how?” Nadirah asked, concern evident on her face.
“By creating an ear canal, building an eardrum, and restoring hearing through St. Joe’s state-of-the-art laser technology. The CAT scans are very promising in that the inner ear, from what we can see of it, looks great.”
Joni was processing the info within her mind. Finally, she said, “The thought of hearing in stereo is like, wow.”
“It should require two operations. First, there will be one big operation to create the initial canal, in which a skin graft will be done to build the canal. We usually take skin from the back of the arm. Then there’ll be a much smaller operation to ensure that it stays open because initially, it’s going to want to fuse shut.
“But will I really be able to hear?”
“There are no guarantees, so I can’t say for sure either way. But I think there’s a chance. You won’t know it right away, though, with all the packing.”
“Packing?”
The doctor nodded. “The canal will be packed with a dissolvable bandage of sorts, and the ear itself will be bandaged with gauze. But even once the packing and bandages are removed, it’s not like you’re going to have instant hearing. It will take a few days for the inner packing to break down enough, and there’s no saying how much hearing you’ll have.”
“How long will she be in the hospital?” Nadirah asked.
“She shouldn’t need to be admitted. The operation itself should take about three hours, and while she’ll certainly be sore, groggy, and dizzy, she should be able to be released soon after she wakes up.”
“Do I need to take time off from work to be with her?”
“I don’t think so. Just the first day or two, and then she should be fine left alone.”
“Wow,” Joni said, amazed. “Things have come a long way since the seventies. Back then, I had to have in-patient surgery and be in the hospital for nearly a week just to construct the frame, yet now I can go home the same day I have a canal made. Wow!”
“Yes, things have come a long way since then,” the doctor agreed with a smile.
While they waited until they could see the plastic surgeon the following week, they did the two things they seemed best at: arguing and having intimate encounters. Either way, it was getting apparent to Nadirah that things were different with Joni. Theirs was a more passionate kind of sex, and the more time that passed, the more Nadirah tossed caution to the wind and allowed herself to feel what she swore she’d never let herself feel. But it was true that a part of her had come to care for Joni very much, maybe even love her. And she wasn’t so sure anymore that she minded feeling the way she had come to feel.
They had gotten to know quite a bit about one another. When she really stopped to think about it, Nadirah was shocked at just how much she’d learned about Joni, from the simplest of trivial things to the more complex and in-depth things. She was shocked if only because she just hadn’t expected to ever see or hear from Joni again, let alone learn anything more than what little she’d learned years ago about the little devil she’d come to love.
Instead of getting on her nerves, she found Joni’s laughter uplifting as she’d run throughout the place when she’d play with the cat or around the outside of the place.
Joni let her unburden herself to her after a hard day at work and listened with genuine interest, and always, always with those many questions about everything and anything.
Joni was more than just a lover. She was a friend. They still argued, but they had pretty much come to accept the fact that that was just how they were. Nadirah had a dominant personality, and Joni was a feisty little firecracker.
The mornings were rushed, though they enjoyed each other’s company in the evenings during the week. They did things together on the weekends, and while they visited Nadirah’s mother every other weekend or so, neither Joni nor her mother seemed in a hurry to warm up to each other.
“Didn’t you have money for doctors before you had the nerve to marry my daughter for insurance?” Mrs. Haddad asked Joni one day when they were at the austere woman’s house for dinner.
“Nope,” Joni said, “and you thought all we Jews were rich.”
Nadirah dropped her fork and glared dangerously at Joni, who was trying not to laugh.
Mrs. Haddad wasn’t sure what to say at first. She simply gazed at her, now chewing her scalloped potatoes much slower. Finally, she said, “You may not be rich, but I’ll bet you’re cheap.”
Now Nadirah turned to glare at her mother. “Mom!”
“It’s okay,” Joni said. “It’s true. I’m a real cheapie. I look for bargains everywhere.”
“That’s enough, Joni,” Nadirah said.
But Mrs. Haddad and Joni were determined to go at each other.
“I want you filing for a divorce as soon as your surgery is over with. Do you hear me, young lady?”
“Loud and clear, though I’m not exactly young anymore. Don’t worry, Mrs. Haddad. Your daughter doesn’t play for keeps; she just plays.”
“Shut up now,” Nadirah demanded in a voice that Joni was quick to comply with, though she had a hard time trying not to laugh.
Mrs. Haddad glanced back and forth between Joni and her daughter, not sure what to make of the unlikely duo. Finally, she shook her head and tossed her napkin into her now empty plate.
Joni giggled.
“Do you believe in dream premonitions?” Joni asked Nadirah one night as they lay in bed. “And being able to mentally have an effect on the outcome of things depending on your mood or your determination?”
“How did we go from tomorrow’s shopping plans to this in half a second?” Nadirah asked.
“Do you?”
“I don’t know about dream premonitions, Joni. I’m a person of science, logic, and fact. But of course, your attitude is going to affect things and even people.”
“But what if it was a bit extreme with you? What if you didn’t even know you were doing it for a while until others brought it to light for you, and what if you still didn’t mean for certain things to happen?”
“Joni, I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I’m a little tired right now for this kind of analytical talk. But I can tell you this much.”
“What’s that?”
“You really need to put your writing talents to better use instead of writing things like ‘bet this banana doesn’t taste as good as I do’ on the outside of my banana like you did when you packed my lunch this morning, which happened to fall out of the bag and be picked up and read by my boss.”
As expected, Joni cut a round of laughter rather than a show of sympathy. “Okay, no more banana doodling. Do you believe one can jinx things into happening by writing about them in a certain way depending on what the subject is about?”
“Ask me some other time.”
Joni’s lips sought Nadirah’s in the darkness for a kiss. Nadirah returned the kiss, and then Joni said, “Good night, Officer.”
“G’night.”
“Te amo.”
“What?”
“I love you.”
“No, you don’t, Joni. You just love the convenience I’ve given you, and the sex, and the insurance, and the medical treatment.”
“Oh, right. I can’t wait to have my head drilled. Yeah, I just love it, alright. And we don’t have sex; we make love. Only I can see that and admit it. You can’t.”
“How can you possibly love me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You still don’t know much about me.”
“Yeah, but I know how I feel. It’s just one of those existing things.”
“That exists in your mind but isn’t real.”
“No, it’s definitely real. I just can’t explain it. The day you can explain why some people kill their own kids is the day I’ll be able to explain why I love you. But I’m sure of how I feel. You’ve just never been in love before yourself, so you’re not quite familiar with the feeling.”
Nadirah smiled softly in the darkness, for she knew that was no longer quite true.
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