“Try a week of foreplay and a warm-up session this afternoon.” I laugh. “Missionary position gets a bad rap, but I like it. Makes the guy work for it, while I still get some control over angle and friction. Plus I get to see that face.” I pat his cheek.
He scoffs, but he’s smiling. “Surely that can’t be the most interesting sex you’ve ever had.”
“Maybe not the most interesting but it was definitely the most satisfying. I’ll take satisfying over interesting any day.” And then I hesitate, wondering if he’s circling around what he really wants to say. “Was it not great for you?”
He doesn’t answer for a moment, and my gladness caves in, blackening like the burnt fragments of the skriken in the forest.
“It was simple. Beautiful. The best sex I’ve had in a very long time,” he says. “And I’m trying to figure out why.”
I sigh in relief. “Maybe I’m just that good.”
He laughs. “Maybe you are.” He props himself on one elbow to give me a kiss—not on the mouth this time but on the forehead. A soft, warm press of his lips, a lingering breath, and then one more kiss before he tugs the pillow under his head and settles down.
Those kisses melt me into a gooey mess. Long after he has fallen asleep, I lie against him in the shadowed motel room, quiet tears leaking from my eyes, torn between the worst and best memories of my life.
The dismembered body of my father. The vow I swore on his tombstone.
And my two forehead kisses from Dorian Gray.
21
Dorian
A woman’s nude body is tucked against me, one tattooed leg hooked over mine.
Her bandaged hand lies over my heart, paint-smudged fingers slightly curled. Her breasts are pressed against my ribs, her pink-and-black hair trailing along my arm. She smells like floral deodorant and sea-salt air and the sweetish tang of oil paint.
We’re lying on sheets with a thread count lower than my IQ, yet I could stay here comfortably for years.
The air conditioner in the motel room hums loudly before knocking off with a faint clunk. I lift my head slightly, careful not to disturb Baz. On the bureau across the room is the chaos of chip bags and candy bars she brought back from the vending machine last night. Not a drop of alcohol in sight. I’m used to starting my day with whiskey or wine.
A line of bright-yellow sunshine glows between the heavy curtains of the window. Unease crawls through me. By now, I’d usually be getting up to check on my painting. I spend nights away from it sometimes, but not since I noticed its decay. The compulsion to goto it, to check on it, to stare at it rattles my contentment, gnaws deep into my calm. The care and safety of the portrait is my strongest addiction.
I need a cigarette, a drink, a needleful of heroin—something. I tense, ready to rise.
Baz’s head shifts slightly against my shoulder, and she sighs gently in her sleep.
I look down at her face.
She’s so fucking beautiful.
I’ve seen beautiful—all kinds—and I don’t understand why this particular face, this specific collection of delicate, symmetrical features should hold such charm for me. There’s something in the sly, sensual shape of her lips, something in the rounded pertness of her chin, the soft contours of her cheekbones, the arch of her eyebrows. Something in the slight upward tilt of her nose and the shape of her small ear, studded and pierced with so much metal. Her heart, too, is pierced, thrust through with excruciating memories, still bleeding around the embedded iron.
I have to leave my studs in my earlobes all the time, or the holes will heal. If only her heart could mend itself as easily. The agony of her father’s death stands in the way of what I want. Guilt and fear prevent her from embracing her gift. Unfortunate, for both of us.
Idly, I sweep my hand along the tempting inward curve of her waist, then up over the arch of her hip. She sleeps on, lips parted.
When I came inside her last night, my whole body tremored with the best orgasm I’d had in months—maybe years. I don’t understand how I could come that hard in fucking missionary position, without drugs, alcohol, toys, multiple partners, or my usual kinks.
The sex was basic. Simple. But when I looked into her eyes,damn it if I didn’t feel my heart seizing up. It was like she was pulling my wretched soul back into my chest, and a riptide of emotion along with it.
Her ability doesn’t work like that. I know that’s not what happened; I can still feel the tether between me and the painting. Thank fuck, because the last thing I need is for my soul to be back in this body. I’d be vulnerable again. I’d have to heal and age like everyone else, and I can’t. I can’t. Iwon’tdo that. I won’tbethat. I won’t be common and weak and mortal.
She has to comprehend that. She has to see that putting me back together isn’t the solution. She must be made to understand.
I’ll show her the painting today, and if she suggests pulling my soul back into my body, I’ll show her something else. I’ll reveal the cruelty of time, the great tragedy of the human race. Whatever we may pretend, we are corrupted husks, fragile and flaking.
But I have transcended, by luck and by love. I will not yield what I’ve gained or give up the privilege I’ve held for over a century.
