But this is gonna hurt. it’s clear as I trip from our darkness back into the too bright world. My shirt sticking to my belly and chest, my skirt floating semi-crushed around me.
I’ll apologize to Max. I’ll buy her a new one.
Yeah right. She won’t want it. She’ll be so happy I ruined it she’ll frame it on her wall.
A giggle tumbles from me, though it’s almost a sob. Then another. This one truly half-and-half. Actually, fuck that. This isn’t sad. This is good. It’s a fucking lot to deal with, but it’s good.
I’m good.
I let my next breath build me up again, give me courage, give me strength. The next is even better. It gives me a spine and a smile.
Someone stumbles by, wearing nothing but a collar and a constellation of bruises. Their glassy gaze meets mine. We share a grin.
I offer an exhausted, “Good night.”
“Sweet dreams,” they reply.
“Yeah. You, too.”
I sail back to the tent on my very own cloud.
18
Grace
I wakeup feeling tender and wide open, full of bittersweet nostalgia for something that’s still flowing in my veins. Still hurts. Still feels good.
The urge to draw forces me to grab my pad, half asleep under my blankets, and sketch out something from my dreams. It’s a wolf, outlined in edges rough, but solid. The fact that it’s meant to be inked into skin doesn’t occur to me until I set it down and stretch my sore body.
Oh my God, I feel abused. Every part of me’s aching and strained. My knees look the way they did in elementary school—skinned and scabbed over and skinned again. And, like wounds made while playing as a kid, they’re painful, but in the end worth it.
Grinning like a fool, I tiptoe out into the heat of the day, set the electric kettle to boil and promptly forget it when I start sketching again. First, it’s a picture of my knees, filthy and scratched and beautiful as a badge of honor. I understand Max’s pride, suddenly, in her bruises and pinpricks and rope burns.
Next, I do a jaunty doodle of a tall, very thin white man with a parrot on his shoulder, who dances by to whatever’s playing in his earbuds, looking like he’s escaped the set of yet anotherPirates of the Caribbeanmovie. Then, the little brown birds pecking at the campfire leftovers at the site across the way. I turn the page and make the birds bigger, flip it again and make them people—clothed in scraps, clawing at crumbs on the ground.
I shriek when a shadow leans over my shoulder.
The birds flutter off in a wild flap of wings.
“Sorry,” Max says, smelling of toothpaste and sleep. “What’s this?” She points at the drawing and it’s all I can do not to hide it. It feels too personal right now. Almost sore, like my trophies from last night.
She’s watching me with knowing eyes. I sigh and flip it so she can see the picture.
“Wow. Let me see.”
I hand her the book, unable to watch her go through the pages.
“Holy shit.” She turns it around to show me a nude, strung up on a cross, face to one side, body half limp from pleasure and pain and exhaustion. “Mistress Mandy’s gonna love this. You could sell it to her. Or her sub, but Mandy’s gonna go apeshit. Grace, this is incredible. How have you gotten better without practice?” She glances up at me and immediately rolls her eyes. “Please. Just let me give you the occasional compliment, okay? I know you hate it, but—”
“It’s fine,” I cut in. “Thank you. And, I guess I’m…inspired.”
She perks up. “That’s great. How long’s it been since you picked up a pencil and drew? Or a tattoo gun?”
I give her a wry look. “You know how long.”
“Yeah.” She hands me back the pad back so I can continue and I immediately sketch in a deep line between the woman’s eyes, moving her closer to agony or ecstasy or that liminal place between. “You could make money doing tattoos, you know. You don’t have to paint houses.”
She’s right. I’d need to invest, but that’s not been the only thing keeping me away. “It felt weird, after Dad died. You know?”
