Andre studied his coffee cup for a few minutes, eyes pensive, and then said, “There’s one thing I just can’t get over.”
“What is it?” Maybe he thought I was lying.
“You’re saying I had a vagina?”
I laughed out loud. “Yeah, Andre, and it was huge.”
He laughed and shook his head. Despite his joking, I could tell it was a lot to take in.
“I bet it was good, though,” he said, “between us.”
I sighed, warm memories filling my mind like a heady perfume. “I’m sure it was.”
“I miss that,” he said softly.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I miss that too.”
We didn’t say much more after that, finished our coffee and kept walking. In my car, I turned to him. “You can come home with me, you know? It’s a standing invitation.”
He sighed and studied his fingers resting on the dashboard. “I’m not ready for that yet.”
I wanted to ask him what he was waiting for, what I could do to prove he was safe with me, but I wanted him to come to me when he was ready. Instead I invited him to my art opening. I had some flyers in my backseat. I gave him one.
“Is it dressy?” he asked.
“Not unless you want to.”
He nodded. “I’ll try to make it. I got to check my work schedule.”
“All right.”
I pulled up in front of his apartment complex, and we did our good-bye thing, which was a handshake that turned into a hug, which seemed to get longer each time. Every time I was tempted to kiss his neck. I longed to taste his skin, to feel his bare chest pressed against mine. A hug gave me just enough to imagine it, and not nearly enough.
A few days later, on the night of my opening, I arrived at the gallery before anyone else. I knew it was uncool to be the first one to your own show, to not be fashionably late, but I was nervous as hell, and I wanted to make sure the paintings were all as they should be, as if a storm might have come through in the middle of the night and knocked them off the walls.
They were perfect. Nicky was the best, after all. I glanced around at them all with a mixture of pride and fear. It was a little overwhelming to have all my psychoses, fantasies, and darkest secrets staring back at me, kind of like being turned inside out and smeared on canvas. What would Andre think, to see himself so prominently featured? Would he think me obsessive? Would this be an invasion of his privacy? I should have warned him that dating an artist came with drawbacks, like the fact that your personal life might find its way onto a canvas.
There was little I could do now, so I asked the bartender for a drink. I was standing in front of the desert painting when Melissa arrived. Soon enough she found her way over to me.
She kissed my cheek and I embraced her. I supposed I’d forgiven her. She did deliver Andre to me, after all.
“Very subtle, Martin.” She pointed at the cactus erupting from Andre’s pelvic area.
“I’m more worried about the self-portrait. Who the hell would want to look at that for very long?”
She tilted her head, a little smile playing on her lips. “You might be surprised.”
“You’re happy, aren’t you?”
She nodded and smiled with satisfaction. “Yes, I am.”
“Only took you two hundred years.”
“I try not to think too much about time.” Her brow furrowed, a troubled look in her eyes.
I’d resolved myself to accept the mystery that was Melissa, but at times like this I couldn’t help but probe her. “Will you ever die, Melissa? Are you dead already?”
“We all die, Martin. We’re all reborn again.”
