Tears of remorse fell for his half-lived life as he paused to absorb the moment. Just this one moment when he felt so full. Full of friendship and culture and fine drink. Full of all of life’s amusements wrapped in their familiar cloak of sorrow. Tonight though, he’d felt a redeeming purpose, even a glint of romance, however fleeting and fragile and impossible it may be. Immersed in the world’s most noble of pleasures, he floated lazily in their current. How sweet the port; how sweet the verse of the master Yeats; how sweet the cry, and the wee sprite, the seductress. He would trade it all to lay with her this night. To feel her sweet embrace and the warm breath of her soft whisper. Just this one night. This one moment in time.

      Drifting now in his snug leather chair, inflamed by this otherworldly creature, “Patrick” traveled through time to the only relatable memory he could conjure. One other moment in time.

​

He was a young and vital twenty-five, despite his injury. And handsome, having been told often enough to allow for it. In the Pacific Northwest’s mesmerizing Emerald City, he and his Irish buddy were enjoying carefree, high-energy days. He’d recently taken the training that would change his life’s path, and these were his first few steps. They traveled with a mix of friends, including a not-so-threatening biker group. Not the
lawyers and doctors by day, motorcycle enthusiasts on the weekend type so prevalent
today. These were authentic bikers: leather-clad, kerchief-headed, tattooed, and lightly employed. One indication he was safe, though—they drank chardonnay from the Columbia River Valley, albeit from the same mason jars they drank everything else. Another was they welcomed the likes of Patrick into their circle.

     One night, he met two of the group’s girlfriends at McRory’s Whiskey Bar, a downtown establishment nearby where the Sonics played ball. One of his biker friends said, “Pat, meet Donna and Donna—the two Donnas.” He finished with, “They’re great,” sounding like Tony the Tiger raving about his Frosted Flakes.
     “Pleasure to meet you both.” He reached his hand out to a pair of adorable little bookends. All of five feet tall and a hundred curvy pounds, they were each clad in tight- fitting ripped blue jeans and time-worn, coffee-shaded leather jackets. One Donna had a thick mass of reddish hair to her mid-back and a sharper, more dangerous look to her face. The other Donna had shorter, wavier, honey-auburn hair and the disarming look of a round-faced, rose-cheeked cherub—like a kewpie doll all grown up. They both had a reputation for friskiness, said his biker friend. He said it differently. 

     When the evening at McRory’s ended, the group said their goodbyes by a streetlamp in the puddle-sheened street. The Donnas leaned in close and quietly invited Patrick back to their home. Not the group—just him. He was quick to accept. He was a “giving, loving and accepting man,” after all. What followed was one of the most memorable nights he’d ever had. It remains the case to this day.

      No, that didn’t happen. But he wouldn’t have turned down the offer, as disappointed as they’d likely have been.

      The drive to their home in Ballard was a pulsing blur through persistent raindrops until the bookends heroically tugged his wheelchair up three back steps and through their kitchen door. God damn, he remembers thinking, there are at least three steps into every friggin’ house in Seattle.

     When safely inside, dangerous Donna disappeared while kewpie doll Donna escorted him into her bedroom, saying, “I’ll get a glass of wine while you make yourself comfortable on the bed. Is that okay, Patrick? You don’t mind ‘Patrick,’ do you? I like
that.”

     Her near-whisper caused him to tingle. “No, it’s all just perfect, Donna; thank you.”
     Her bedroom was all fluffy and pillowy and lacy and girly. She returned with the
wine, a smoky burgundy in the appropriate bubble stemware, and then closed the bedroom door behind her. Sitting next to him on the bed, landing like a baby wren, she leaned in with a soft kiss that deepened with each passing second. Her lips were as pillowy as her bed, more luscious than the burgundy. Merely touching her face, then her arm, then her full round breasts sent her into a feverish state of shaking, quivering, and moaning. They undressed and laid back into the cloud—kissing and touching and tickling and moaning in unison.

      Wherever he stroked, her skin grew taut and goose-bumpy— especially her rose-shaded, candy-kiss nipples—and she shivered visibly. Her face radiated an internal heat as she tried to catch her breath, seeming nearly faint. He knew he wasn’t this good at whatever he was doing and suspected Donna was more than just frisky. But he couldn’t place the word. Whatever it was, she must have been the sweetest, gentlest, squishiest, most impassioned one in all recorded time. He was all that too this night, except maybe the squishy.

Patrick had little relevant experience and a shameful secret about to be revealed. The paraplegia had stolen his ability to maintain an erection. He’d get hard at times, but it would fade away too soon. Beyond that, the surface of his penis had close to zero
sensation, like much of his lower extremities. So, whenever it was touched, stroked, or otherwise attended to, he would need to fake the expected physical effect, pretending it felt incredible. Propping his head up on a pillow to watch helped, but lacking sensation muted his overall immersion. Rather than released to spontaneous abandon, his mind was too often deep in analysis and worry, set on not disappointing his companion or embarrassing himself. His fire was at the wrong periphery of the nervous system, and he remained locked in this hideous prison his entire adult life.

     More than even his sentence to the wheelchair, which didn’t seem to dissuade a select group of attractive women from their amorous pursuit, this brutal affliction thoroughly destroyed his confidence. He knew ahead of time he was doomed, so he was reticent even to begin. He dreaded the intimacy, the act, the moment, the expectation, the disappointment, the explanation, and the soothing, “don’t worry, it’s okay” response. So, he serially avoided it. He’d turned down enough nights like this one to live with a stinging sense of regret. The debilitating “woulda, coulda, shouldas.”

     Of course, most girls weren’t nearly as alluring or insistent as this teeny-weeny, grown-up kewpie doll had been on this night. And true to form, she expressed no disappointment when the desired response didn’t turn up. Maybe it was just as well he couldn’t go any further, given her uncontrolled shuddering that just petting had wrought. Intercourse may have killed her. Wishful thinking, he knew. Not the “killed” part. But this clearly wasn’t her first spin around an unfamiliar set of six-pack abs. He had an acute desire, a crying need, to feel deep inside of her molten creaminess and to satisfy her every whim—that he couldn’t was maddening.

    In his mortification, he held her quivering squishiness tight to his chest, cradling her heated face so he could drink in her abundant drool. He did everything he could, would do anything she asked, but he still wished he were the one causing such ecstatic convulsion and expectoration rather than the idea of him. Alas, that wasn’t how he rolled. She woke him at the first light with a tray of rich Seattle coffee, fresh-baked muffins, and succulent, just-picked berries. Leaning in once again, she gave him a pillowy, trembling, breathless kiss. One he can still feel all these years later—almost. With her mouth still on his, she said, “Thank you for staying the night, Patrick. It was so much fun.”

     “My God, Donna,” he responded, while kissing her honey hair with his grateful tears. “It was my pleasure. I’d love to see you again, anytime.” There were a few more times, probably to confirm that he couldn’t adequately fill her voracious need. But he would never again be invited to kewpies’ sweet, fluffy bed, and he would never again experience anything that would rival this dreamy night—this moment in time. [16]