18. Ben #2
I followed easily, the smooth asphalt making a pleasant clicking sound. It was windy in the car park, and car horns blared to my left, so the street was to the west.
“Should I tell you where steps and stuff are?” she asked, her voice to my right. Oh, yeah, I didn’t mind her being my sighted guide at all.
“If you want to, but I can find them okay. Usually, practicing being a sighted guide is more about you not being so distracted about warning me about things my cane can find, like steps, that you walk into obstacles yourself.”
“If I’m too worried about telling you what’s ahead to pay attention myself, it defeats the purpose.”
“Exactly right, baby.” The sound of tapping was a soothing rhythm. “Your biggest job is to tell me if there’s anything overhead I might walk into since my cane won’t touch it. But on a street, that’s not usually an issue.”
Technically, she was also supposed to let me know about changes in terrain, like going from carpet to tile; people; and other obstacles; but that usually distracted people who hadn’t done a sighted guide before.
My cane let me know most of that information and it would be more seamless for her not to be suddenly worrying about everything in our path.
The other reason I chose to be on her left was random obstacles like streetlights, benches, newspaper stands, and stuff tended to closer to the edge of the street. Being on the inside allowed me worry about basic obstacles.
We started walking, and the wind picked up, hitting my face, telling me we’d left the parking garage. The sounds of people walking around us increased, snatches of conversation I tuned out.
I felt the slight incline a second before Ember said, “There’s a small step.”
“Up?” I asked, even though I already knew. I didn’t know a better way to correct her this early on. She was already self-conscious about making me feel bad.
“Oh my god, yes. Up.” She slowed her pace. I tapped with my cane, and it wasn’t big enough to be called a step, but it would have caused me to stumble if my foot hit it.
“There’s this weird uneven place where the parking garage asphalt meets the sidewalk,” she said, sounding personally annoyed that the path wasn’t perfectly flat.
I grinned. She sounded just like Rian.
We kept going down the sidewalk, my cane making a higher-pitched click.
Ember took us to the edge of the sidewalk, probably trying to give us enough room to walk almost side by side.
I was almost six feet tall, and my guess was she hit just above my shoulder.
I already had a good idea how wide the sidewalks in San Francisco were, but it was a good thought.
“Give yourself enough room to get around obstacles, too.” I tapped my cane for emphasis. “I still use my cane when Rian’s my sighted guide, if only to stop people from walking into me.”
“They still walk into you?” She sounded disgusted.
“Oh, yeah. I could do without the cane in a lot of places, but people just keep going, thinking I’m going to get out of their way.” I chuckled. “But I will absolutely run them over.”
“Idiots,” she muttered. “We’re going to turn the corner, and then the restaurant’s halfway down the block.”
“Nice day for a stroll,” I said. It could have been warmer, and the wind wasn’t helping, but walking downtown with an omega who smelled amazing topped high on my list of things that made mediocre weather tolerable.
“Is your studio far from here?” she asked, her voice bright with interest.
“What street are we on?” I hadn’t pulled up the address when I was listening to the menu.
“Oh, sorry.” She named the street.
“The studio’s only a few blocks over.” I squeezed her elbow. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I forget how much I take for granted.”
“Of course you do,” I replied. I liked that she offered to do a sighted guide even if she hadn’t done it before. “I take my ability to hear everything for granted. I’ve been around Hard of Hearing people and made the same assumptions.”
“Okay.” Ember sounded more confident. “I trust you to tell me if I’ve done something wrong, and I’ll watch some more YouTube videos.”
“Or you could just ask me.” I rubbed my thumb on her elbow again. “I told you before, I could be your teacher anytime.”
I was rewarded with a sharp increase of her lemon vanilla scent. I’d been craving lemon pound cake for weeks and it was all her fault.
The sound of the wind changed as we rounded the corner of the block, and the noises of the cars sounded flatter. Ember started moving toward me and stopped. “There’s a curve as we turn the city block. Do I keep going or turn us completely to the side?”
“You can self-correct, and I’ll match you.” The sound of the wind pitched differently as it curved around the block. “If there was a sharp turn, we could stop and reorient ourselves, but we don’t need to do that.”
“Will you show me how to do that later?”
“Another excuse to touch you? Absolutely.”
She laughed, and I felt her shoulders shift. I guessed she was shaking her head.
She shifted more to the left slowly, and I adjusted my pace, but the curve of the pavement under my feet told me we were going around a turn, and I was able to anticipate the curve without Ember having to nudge me.
“How do you know how much of a turn that was? I thought I’d have to, like, try not to run into you.”
I scuffed my shoes. “I know it looks like a magic trick, but it’s just being aware of how things sound around me along with how the terrain feels.”
“That’s so cool,” she said, sounding impressed. We kept walking, and it was easy to keep pace with her. I was glad she didn’t go too slow.
“How do you want me to handle the door?” Ember slowed down to a stop. “We’re going to stand off to the side so we can talk without being in the walkway.”
“Good idea. It’s a double door, I assume?”
I’d forgotten all about directions for sighted guides and doorways. I could have gone up the stairs and opened the door myself, but part of me loved that she wanted to know the right way of doing things.
Maybe it was because learning meant she expected to need to do this more than once.
I could only hope.
“Yes,” she said, some of her lemon cake scent tickling me. “Brown wooden double doors with three steps leading up.”
“Good job being precise,” I said. “Are they narrow or deep? And does the door pull or push open?”
“It pulls open. The steps are, uhhh, narrow. Not very tall.” Ember laughed. “I’m going to need to get better at directions.”
“It’s fine.” I tapped my hand on her elbow. “First, you put your hand behind your back.”
“The narrow passageway signal?” She perked up. “I saw that bit in a video.”
“That’s the one. Extended your arm back a little bit so I don’t walk on the back of your feet.”
She shifted her arm, and I kept my hand on her forearm. “I feel like I need a serving tray, like on the historical channel.” Ember giggled.
“Rian said the same thing,” I said. “Now, when we get to the door, you’re going to put your hand on the handle. I’ll slide my hand down and open the door. You’ll walk through and I’ll follow behind.”
“Can I ask, isn’t it easier to let me open the door for you?”
“We could, but then I have no idea where the door actually is. If the guide isn’t paying attention, the door might hit me. I personally prefer opening the door myself.”
“True, true. Okay we got this.”
I was speaking from personal experience. Rian was good with doors, but when I was growing up, my dad was constantly distracted with worries about things I didn’t care about, like people trying to walk through when we were entering.
I could have told Ember about the proper technique for stairs, but I was comfortable with them, and I didn’t want her to have too many new instructions at once.
“I’m going to line us up with the doorway,” Ember said. She sounded so happy, like she was out shopping, not guiding me through the city. It was nice she wasn’t acting like this was a burden. I could have worked around it, but I was glad I didn’t have to.
“Great idea.” I squeezed her wrist. “I’m ready when you are.” I kept my cane closer to my body. I’d need it for the stairs, but since we were cutting across the flow of the sidewalk traffic, I didn’t want it too wide.
Ember walked forward before jerking to a stop. “Excuse you, we’re walking here.”
She sounded so put out. I laughed. “So bossy.”
“People need to get out of the way.” She huffed, and a few more feet led us to the stairs.
“Go up the first one without you?” she asked, sounding a bit panicked. Maybe I should have given her quick instructions on stairs after all.
“Yes, I’ll follow you.” I tapped the front of the step with my cane. “I know where it is.”
It wasn’t the same as seeing, I was sure, but I’d been around steps like these, wide and narrow leading up to a restaurant, so I barely needed my cane to tell me where the next one was.
Ember went up slowly and then stopped. “I’m going to put my hand on the handle.”
“Go ahead.”
“Here, let me get that,” a stranger’s voice said to our left.
“Let me,” Ember said quickly. “I want to learn.”
The voice chuckled as I slid my hand down her arm and reached the handle. “Shouldn’t this be the other way around? Alpha holds the door for the omega?”
I opened the door, feeling the weight of the wood and inhaling the scent of freshly baked bread and something roasted.
“I’m a twenty-first century omega. I can open my own doors,” Ember said primly. “I also have an omega boyfriend that uses a toy knot on me.”
I choked a laugh. “Oh my god.”
“Thanks for getting the door, Ben.” She patted my arm and stepped into the restaurant. Scattered voices surrounded us, so I slid my cane down to the ground and tapped around. The click was soft and muted, so we were on carpet.
“Oh, he’s blind,” he alpha dudebro said behind us. “I could have gotten the door.”