“Really?”
“Really. I sucked. And my feet hurt like hell the following day, not to mention I could barely sit down without crying.”
“But did you enjoy it?”
I look at them for a second. “Yeah, I did.”
They roll over and mirror my position. “I’d like to see you dance one day.”
Their comment silences me. It’s the first time one of us has even hinted at us seeing each other again, at this time in Las Vegas together not being when our friendship begins and ends. I’m silenced not by shock that they want to see me again. I’m silenced by the huge relief it brings me.
“And I’d like to watch you paint,” I tell them. “Maybe you could do it now?” I nod my head towards the darkness outside the window and squint up at the sky. “It’s nighttime now, and I can see some stars.”
“I don’t have any canvases. Jessica and Taylor took up painting recently too and they’ve cleared me out,” they explain with a soft smile. They seem anything but annoyed by this fact.
“Then paint me,” I say in a quiet but firm voice. I can’t explain where the idea comes from, I just know it’s what I want, what I crave in fact. And that feeling, that craving, is another sensation I can’t explain.
“You?”
“Paint my back,” I say and I sit up. I pull my top over my head. Just as my hands move to unclasp my bra at my back, Loncey’s hand lands on my shoulder.
“Maeve,” they say, softly and so gently. “Is this… is this what you want to do? Like really?”
I look over my shoulder and blink at them. “It’s not sexual, is it? You’re just going to paint the night sky on my back and then you’re going to take a photo of it so I can see what it looks like.”
“Of course it’s not sexual, but still, I…”
“Show me, Loncey. Show me how it’s not sexual. How it’s just you and your art and your stars.”
“And you.” Their hand travels down my arm, making the skin both warm and cool in its wake. “It’s you and me and the stars.”
My mouth goes dry. My stomach feels like it’s plummeting, and my silly traitorous eyes drop to Loncey’s lips. I’ve never wanted to kiss someone more. To have that connection with them. To have us joined. To have us as exactly that, anus.
I turn my head away for fear that this thought, this strange sort ofdesire– and fuck if I’m not accustomed to using that word – can be detected on my face. With my back still to Loncey, I unclasp my bra and slide it off my body.
Once free from the material of my bra, my nipples harden and although it’s not cold in Loncey’s cabin, a rush of goosebumps prickles across the skin of my chest. Determined to not cower or hide myself from them, I keep my shoulders back as I turn and move so I can lie face down on my front. I gather my hair and tuck it under my shoulder so it’s out of the way.
Loncey hasn’t moved. I’m also not even sure if they’re breathing because the cabin is suddenly completely silent. This lasts so long I have the gut-twisting thought that they’re about to tell me to get up, to get dressed, to stop flaunting myself about like a common whore, and a sharp heat climbs up my neck and reaches my cheeks.
But then Loncey speaks.
“Maeve?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I…” They pause and I hear their breath then. I hear how it changes. “Can I tell you that you’re beautiful?”
With my head resting on my folded arms, I close my eyes. I’m shocked when I have the sudden urge to cry. I get called beautiful one hundred times a day by one hundred strangers on the Internet, but this is different. This is Loncey.
And because it’s me, I make a crass joke of it.
“Sure look, I mean, if you must,” I say.
The bed shifts then as Loncey moves and because I don’t lift my head and I keep my eyes closed I have no idea what they’re doing, where they’re going.
“Can I touch you, Maeve?” Their voice comes from somewhere behind me, deep and low and serious.
“Yes,” I reply, momentarily embarrassed by how breathless I sound.
