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I’m heading towards the mini-fridge for his cake, when…something stops me. The quiet. I peer into the hall. For once, it’s empty. Nate’s door is closed. There’s not a single person in sight. A wave of recklessness washes over me. Or maybe it’s desperation, the impending separation pounding throughout my body. My hand hovers above my door handle. And then I take action.
I shut my door.
Josh swallows. We’ve been so careful to follow the rules. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“My birthday is looking much better.”
I flick off the overhead light.
“Also much darker,” he says.
I fumble towards my desk, turn on a lamp, and remove something small and round from the fridge – a glossy chocolate mousse and hazelnut cake. I light a perfect ring of candles around the edge and softly sing “Joyeux anniversaire”. It has the same tune as its English counterpart. Josh grins at my singing voice, which he’s never heard before.
“Sultry,” he says.
I can tell he approves. It’s embarrassing, but pleasing. Josh closes his eyes and all eighteen candles are extinguished in a single blow.
“You got your wish!”
Josh nods at my door. “I did.”
I swat him with our forks. He grabs them and uses them to pull me down beside him. We’re laughing as we dig into the cake, but it doesn’t take long before I’m dizzy with sugar. I fall backwards into the bed. Josh makes it a few more minutes before shoving away the platter and collapsing beside me. He groans a happy groan. I lace my fingers through his right hand, and he winces in the lamplight.
I immediately let go. “Tendinitis?”
“It’s fine.”
I give him a look.
“Okay,” he admits. “It’s kind of bad right now.”
We stare at his hand. It twitches.
“Oh-oh,” I say sadly. “Mon petit chou.”
Josh’s head shoots up in surprise. It’s the first time I’ve called him by a term of endearment. My little cabbage. It’s like calling someone “sweet pea”. His expression melts, but he looks down and away. “You still make me nervous, you know.”
“I do?”
“I feel like this…awkward giant around you. You’re like this perfect porcelain doll. Delicate and sweet and pretty.”
I smile. “I won’t break.”
Josh returns the smile. “No?”
“No. And neither will you.” I take his hand back into mine and massage his fingers gently. The tendons are so tight that they feel like cords of rope beneath his skin. He grimaces. I pause, but his expression turns weak. Pleading. I press harder, and he closes his eyes. Harder still. He moans. I rub each finger slowly, up and down, one after the other. The muscles loosen, but they never relax. They’re too overworked.
“I should do this more often. Your poor hand needs help.”
Josh cracks one eye. “I’m all right.”
“Are you kidding? At this rate, you’ll be crippled by twenty.” I continue massaging. “Have you been to a doctor?”
He takes his hand back from me. “It feels better now.”
“I’m sorry.” The rebuke stings.
But Josh gives me a teasing smile. “That’s not what I meant.” He bends over, reaches into his bag on my floor, and removes…his brush pen.
“Oh.” My shoulders sag. “You want to draw.”
“Yes. You.”
That perks me up. I try to hand him a sketchbook, but he refuses it.
“No,” he says. “I want to draw on you.”
The air is charged. I swallow. Josh notices the movement and kisses my throat. My eyes close. He trails faint kisses around my neck, over my jawline. Onto my lips. I respond with a deeper kiss, harder, starved for his taste. A hand slides across my bare legs, touching the line where my skirt meets my thighs. The other hand tugs on the bottom of my sweater. A question.
Our eyes open. His pupils are dark and dilated.
I don’t drop his gaze as I pull off the sweater. Underneath, I’m wearing a silk camisole. I reach down to take it off, too, but he places a hand on my arm to stop me.
“I want to start here,” he says.
Josh pulls me to my feet. His head tilts as he studies his canvas – my milky white skin. I don’t blush. He moves in. The tip of his brush touches my shoulder first. His strokes are long and careful, delicate and swift. My eyes close. The ink sweeps smoothly across my skin. The brush tickles the top of my chest, my neck, my arms, my hands. My feet, my calves, and the back of my knees. My thighs.
My breath catches.
“There,” he whispers.
I open my eyes before a full-length mirror. I’m covered in garden roses, spinning compasses, falling leaves, desert islands, Joshua trees, and intricate geometric patterns. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful. I turn to him in wonder, and he holds out the pen.
“Your turn,” he says.
My stomach clenches. “You know I can’t draw.”
“That’s not true. Everyone can draw.”
I shake my head, gesturing down my body. “Not like this.”
Josh removes his shirt. Heavenly gods. He’s so gorgeous I could weep.
“I don’t know where to begin,” I say.
He clasps my hand around his pen, and he kisses one side of my mouth. And then the other. “I’ll get you started.” Together, we draw a simple heart over his real heart. I laugh, which makes him laugh. “See?” he says. “It’s easy.”
So…I draw.
My lines are not as confident, and my illustrations are not as recognizable. I decide to stick with circles and swirls. Josh watches me work. I cover his chest, his neck, his back, his arms, his fingers. His abdomen.
“There,” I say. “I’m out of skin.”
He stares into the mirror for a
long time. I sit on the edge of the bed. At last, he turns to me. “Thank you.”
For some reason, now is the moment I blush. “You like?”
“I love.”
His words hang in the air. The atmosphere begins to shake. Does he mean…?
Josh sits beside me. He touches his forehead to mine. He closes his eyes and says, “Isla Martin. I’m in love with you.”
My universe explodes.
“I love you, too. Josh. I love you so much.”
Our bodies press against each other, and the ink on his chest stamps a reverse image onto my camisole. His heart over mine. I fall backwards and pull him down with me. His hips arch away as he tries to hide what this is doing to him, but that only makes me press against him harder. We kiss with abandon. Together, we remove my camisole. The ink smears. It spreads from his chest onto mine. It spreads across our bodies in handprints, across my blankets in smeared limbs. I undo his belt buckle and unzip his jeans, and we roll into the cake, and there’s hazelnut glaze and chocolate mousse and black ink—
The fluorescent light is blinding. “You really should fix—”
“Jesus, Kurt!” I say.
Josh blocks my body with his. “Shut the fucking door!”
But Kurt is frozen.
“Shut the door!” we shout.
He does. The stairwell beside my door clangs open, and his feet race upward. My heart slams against my chest. I throw Josh’s shirt at him. “Nate will have heard that.”
Josh yanks it on. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”
“I’m sorry. He didn’t mean it. Kurt.”
My boyfriend kisses me, quick as a dart, and he’s gone. Another clang and Nate’s door fwoomps open as the stairwell door clangs shut again. Maybe Nate didn’t see Josh. Maybe he doesn’t know the shouting came from my room. Maybe.
There’s a sharp rap on my door.
“Hnngh?” I say in my best I-was-asleep voice.
“That was the second time,” Nate says from the hall. “If it happens again, I have to report you to the head of school, and she will suspend you both.” He waits. “Just say ‘okay’, Isla.”
“Okay.” It barely leaves my throat. I’m dying. The junior in the room beside mine shifts around in her bed. I pray that she’s still asleep.
