A few months ago I didn’t think that there was more than sex when it came to being close to someone. How wrong I was.
“Can you shift a bit closer to the couch?” I ask and I turn away slightly so Maeve can do so with some privacy.
“Like this?” she says, and I look back.
“Perfect.” I reach to turn on the lamp on my nightstand, then I move to turn the main light off. Before I move to climb on the bed and sit astride Maeve again, I look at her once more. I take in the curve of her back, how it narrows at her waist. I study the flare of her backside and I marvel at how soft and smooth and pale her skin is. I meant what I said. She’s beautiful. She’s beautiful in a way I don’t often appreciate because my brain – rightly or wrongly – is normally busy interpreting curves and skin and flesh into how it can be explored sexually, how it can be pleasured to orgasm, how it can be grabbed and sucked and fucked.
But I don’t want any of that right now. I want to paint. I want to paint on Maeve’s skin. I want to make art with her.
I sit down. “Am I too heavy?”
She snorts again, but this time it’s a lot louder. “You mean with all that muscle? Nah, you’re as light as a feather.”
“You know I could just write Fuck You on your back and be done with it.”
“And miss out on painting a crescent moon like what’s up there?” she says. “I don’t think so.”
I look down into the mirror and sure enough, there’s a perfectly curved crescent moon grinning down at us from high in the sky.
“Keep still,” I say and I reach for the palette and a tube of paint. “And don’t worry, I’m using water-based paints. It will all wash away in the shower after.”
“I can shower here?” she asks and the shy tone of her voice makes me pause.
“Not if you’re not comfortable doing so.”
“To be honest, I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” she admits.
“Spoken like a true Pisces rising.” I wait for her to look at me and for her eyebrow to kick up or a perfect pout to purse her lips but she doesn’t move, just like I asked.
“So what is it about my birth chart that has me doing this? Lying half-naked on a bed a million miles away from home while a porn star…”
“Anethicalporn star,” I emphasize as I return to mixing paints on the palette in my hand. “And honestly, Maeve, that’s you. It’s all you.”
She fakes a loud gasp and lifts her head slightly. “So you admit not every single event in life is dictated by the stars.”
I sigh softly but it’s not from exasperation or frustration. It’s more like resignation or maybe something easier, something more welcome than that. Something like peace.
“The way I like to see it is that we are the stars and the stars are us. We’re all made of the same matter, ultimately. So sometimes that means the stars are in charge, leading the way, lighting up a path that yes, I guess, is predestined. But other times, it’s all us. It’s all our stardust that’s in control.”
“Stardust,” Maeve repeats. “When you think about it like that, it makes you realise how insignificant and small we really are, doesn’t it?”
My eyes roll down her body again and I can’t believe she’s in my cabin, on my bed, under my body like this. “I don’t know, Maeve, this feels pretty significant to me.”
My voice is croaky and cracks on the last word. We both hear it. We both stay silent and let it fill the room.
“I’m going to paint you now.”
“Okay,” she says in a whisper.
And I put my brush on her soft skin.
*****
It takes longer than I expect, and yet the time doesn’t drag. It suspends. It expands. It fulfills.
First, I cover her back in a dark but cloudy gray. Almost black, it only has the smallest amount of white mixed in, but it’s enough to authentically depict the night sky which is never completely black, especially not on a clear night like tonight when the moon and stars are proudly shining while half the world sleeps.
But we are not asleep. Even though we’re barely speaking, even though silence fills the room, I am wide awake. And Maeve is too. Her body is completely still. Her breathing is steady and slow. But I can sense how she feels every stroke of my brush. I know she feels the paint dry and tighten her skin.
