“Yeah, me too.”
He reached out and touched my knee, and his fingertip brushed the scar that I still hadn’t managed to bring myself to touch. He did it slowly, softly, following its entire outline. Then he grabbed my calf and held it.
“What happened?” he asked.
It was hard to respond with his touch there, feeling like a hot iron brand, but I began. “A car blew a red light and destroyed my leg. They had to operate on me a bunch of times. The doctors did what they could, but it’s still screwed up. You know, I got my admissions letter from the ABT the same day it happened.”
“Man, that sucks.”
“It does,” I agreed, looking down and toying with the ice in my glass and feeling his fingertips sinking into me. Despite the burn of the tequila, I swallowed down everything that was left.
“You in the mood for another?” he asked. I nodded, even though I wasn’t usually much of a drinker and could already feel my head getting cloudy. “The same, or something different?”
I looked up at the menu, biting my lip, and responded as I read the ingredients, “I’d like to try another one. I’m between the Orgasm and the Sex on the Beach. Which do you recommend?”
“I mean, there’s a natural order there.” I could tell he’d thought that was funny. He tried not to laugh as I stared over at him and he raised his eyebrows. With a snicker, he ordered another round from the waitress, and bent over to see if he could ask me a question.
“Of course,” I replied
“The guys…the male ballerinas… I saw those tights they wear and, like, they’re very snug! What do they do so you don’t see their, uh…their junk?”
Oh my God. Was he actually asking me that?
“They wear a special kind of belt,” I murmured, “that gathers everything up into a little package.”
“Got it. That makes sense.”
“Why were you thinking about that?”
“No reason.”
“Come on, Lucas, spit it out!”
“You know what tucking is? The thing drag queens do to hide their stuff…”
I nodded, deeply entertained at the thought of Matías trying to do that. “You mean like with tape and all? No, of course that’s not what they do!”
He clicked his tongue. “How am I supposed to know? Anyway, my mind always tends to go in a kind of perverted direction.”
I saw a little sparkle in his eyes with their crow’s-feet next to them, and the dimples that bordered his lips when he grinned.
And I stopped resisting.
I let myself go.
I let things happen.
Because deep down, I wasn’t strong.
I wasn’t firm.
I was an exhausted girl who wouldn’t allow herself to feel what she wanted.
Tired of pretending to be in control when inside me, everything was chaos.
Hounded by the wish that something would change, but unable to let that wish sprout wings.
24
