I’ve never visited a tattoo parlor before. I look at the reclining leather chair, the sample art on the walls, and fidget, crossing my arms over my chest. I feel terribly out of place.
I’ve prepared myself for this mentally, or at least, I thought I had. Now that I’m actually here, the reality is sinking in, and adrenaline prickles under my scalp. Will I even be able to endure something like this? I have a high tolerance for pain, but pain administered by another person? That’s another matter. I imagine sitting there for hours, watching the needle penetrate my skin over and over, fighting the overpowering urge to flee. And of course, I’ll be shirtless the entire time.
Already, I want to run. But I’ve made up my mind. This is something I need to do.
The tattoo artist is tall and skinny, with a goatee and arms covered in lines of Sanskrit. He cocks an eyebrow at me as I sit in the chair. “You eighteen?” he asks.
I’m prepared for this. I’m not eighteen yet, not quite, but I’ve obtained the necessary paperwork to prove that I’m a legal adult. I show him.
“Okay,” he says, but he’s frowning. “You already got ink, or no?”
I stare blankly.
“This your first tattoo?” he clarifies.
“Yes.”
“And you’ve thought it through.”
“Yes.”
He squints at me and says, “You sure you don’t need someone’s permission for this? Because I don’t want to get in trouble.”
I’m getting impatient. I wonder if he interrogates all his customers; it seems like a funny way to do business. “There’s another tattoo parlor ten miles from here, and three more within a forty-mile radius. If you’re going to give me a difficult time, I don’t have a problem going to someone else.”
He blows air through one corner of his mouth and crosses his scrawny arms over his chest. “Well, it’s your skin,” he says. “So, you know what you want?”
I pull a piece of paper from my pocket, unfold it, and show him. He takes the paper from me and studies it a moment, his forehead creased. Then he nods. “Where?”
I point at the center of my chest, between my breasts: the place just over my heart. “Here.”
By the time I get home, I’m starting to wonder if the tattoo was a bad idea, after all. I’ve never even asked Stanley what he thinks about tattoos, because these things never occur to me until after the fact.
When I enter the kitchen, he’s sitting on a tall stool in front of the stove, stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce. The aroma of tomatoes, oregano, and garlic bread fills the air. He looks over his shoulder at me and smiles. “Hey. Dinner’s almost ready.” He glances at the clock. “I was hoping to have it done before you got back, but . . .”
“It’s okay.” I told him I’d be home at eight, since I didn’t know how long the process would take. I walk over, lay a hand on his shoulder, and kiss his temple.
It’s strange, how natural these gestures now feel.
His face turns toward me, and our lips meet. There’s a faint taste of sauce on his tongue; he must have been sampling it.
As we sit down to eat, I keep expecting him to ask me why I was gone for so long, but he doesn’t.
“So, how was work?” he says.
I tell him about Kitt, the three-legged fox, and Dewey the crow, who can tie a piece of red twine in a knot using his beak. I tell him about the hexagonal tiles on the cobblestone paths in the wooded area behind the shelter, about the koi pond with the little bubbling fountain. I was worried the fountain would bother me, but the sound of water doesn’t seem to affect me as much as it used to.
“You’re going to be wonderful there,” he says.
“Thank you.” I twirl my fork in my spaghetti, conscious of the sore spot on my chest. His tablecloth is off-white and green checkered. I find myself counting the rows of green squares, doing math in my head to estimate the total number of squares on the table. The tablecloth is rough-woven, the fibers thick and visible, a complicated crosshatch of strands overlapping and blending together. It’s easy to see them as a seamless whole, when I let my eyes drift out of focus, but nothing is ever seamless or simple if you study it closely.
“Is anything on your mind?” he asks.
I stand. “Come with me.”
His brow furrows. He starts to pick up his plate, but I say, “We’ll take care of that later.” I walk toward the bedroom. He follows me slowly. He’s graduated from wheelchair to crutches, but he still struggles getting from place to place.
Once we’re inside, I shut the door and face him. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, crutches resting beside him, and I’m reminded of that first night in the motel room.
I’m still wearing my work shirt. Now, I start to unbutton it.
His eyes widen. “What—”
“I got something for you today.” My shirt drops to the floor. I undo the clasp of my bra, and it falls. “Don’t touch it. It’s new.” Carefully, I peel off the bandage covering the tattoo.
It took a very long time, and it was agony. Not because of the physical pain, which was bearable. Forcing myself to be still for so long—putting myself at someone else’s mercy—went against everything in my nature. I remember sitting, rigid as a board, fingers digging into the arm of the chair, shaking so hard my teeth rattled. The tattoo artist kept smirking at me, as if my discomfort was the most hilarious thing he’d ever seen, and more than once I had to forcibly choke down the urge to kick him. But the result is worth it.
A carnation blossoms on my skin, bright red petals inked over my heart. It’s identical to the one Stanley gave me—the one I broke. It’s still tender, the skin around it faintly pink, but it’s not bleeding.
Stanley’s eyes widen. Slowly, he reaches out, but his fingers stop an inch from the flower.
I fidget and tug my braid, resisting the urge to avert my gaze and start studying the carpet. I feel exposed in a way that has nothing to do with my naked skin.
My heartbeats echo through the silence as I wait for him to say something. At last, he clasps my hand against his cheek, then turns his face and kisses the palm. “It’s beautiful,” he whispers.
The tension runs out of me, leaving me weak and shaky with relief. The last thing I want is for him to look at me when I’m naked and think, If only she didn’t have that stupid red blob between her tits.
He starts to reach toward it again, then stops. “Does it hurt?”
“A little.”
He lightly touches the skin just left of the carnation. The touch is as soft and tentative as the brush of a moth’s wing.
His gaze meets mine. “Can you . . . can you turn off the lights for a minute?” He smiles, though I can see the lines of tension around his eyes and mouth. “It’s easier for me to get undressed with the lights off.”
For a moment, everything inside me goes still. There’s a little leap in my chest, a breathless tremor of anticipation. I flip off the light switch.
The rustle of cloth breaks the silence. He’s taking off his shirt. The darkness is thick, tangible; it presses in on me like black fur, and no matter how I strain my eyes against it, I can’t see anything.
His fingers curl around my wrist, and he pulls my hand to his chest. I feel the roughness of scars against my fingertips. He’s tense, his breathing heavy and rapid as I slide my fingertips lower, feeling the ripples and hard lines of scar tissue. My hands glide over his shoulders, and I trace the length of a long scar running from the base of his neck to the middle of his back. I remember him telling me about how he broke his scapula, how they had to open him and reset the bone surgically; months of agony and immobility, compressed into a line of raised flesh. I trail my fingers lower down his back, and there is another scar. And then another. I touch his arms, and there are more. Eight, nine, ten, eleven.
I quickly lose track.
“I want to turn on the lights,” I say.
There’s a faint click in his throat as he swallows. “It’s okay. Go ahead.”
Instead of the light switch, I turn on the lamp. He’s naked, except for his boxers. The lamp’s soft amber glow casts pools of shadow in the hollows of his clavicles and between his ribs, emphasizing the thinness of his body. The scars are like a bas-relief sculpture carved on his skin, overlapping lines, some faded and almost invisible, others fresh and bright pink. There are dimples of scar tissue where surgical pins pierced his flesh—rows of them, marching alongside the straight lines of past incisions.
My fingers graze his chest. I trace the scars on his ribs, like Braille. A history of pain. But without that pain, he wouldn’t be who he is: someone with enough empathy to reach out to me, enough courage to love me. “You’re perfect, Stanley.”
Suddenly he seems very interested in his own bare feet. “You don’t have to say that.”
I kiss a jagged scar on his collarbone, and his breath shivers in his throat. My lips brush against a scar on his left pectoral. His chest heaves as I kiss another scar, then another. I take his hand in mine and kiss the palm. When our lips meet, I taste salty tears.
His hands slide over my skin. When his palm settles over my left breast, I push into the touch.
I want more. I want to touch him, to feel him respond to me.
My hand drifts down to his boxers, and his muscles tense.
“My legs are still—”
“You won’t have to move your legs. You won’t have to do anything. Just let me.”
He looks baffled. Then his eyes widen as realization sinks in. “You want to . . .”
“Yes.”
He closes his eyes and breathes in slowly. He seems to be struggling for control. “Alvie . . .” His eyes open, and he reaches out to touch my face and tuck a few strands of hair behind my ear. “I can’t ask that of you.”
“You aren’t asking,” I reply, a touch of impatience in my voice. “I want to.” I kneel beside him on the bed, feeling suddenly uncertain. “Do you not want it.”
“Of course I do,” he blurts out, then bites his lower lip. “It’s just . . .” His voice softens. “I want our first time to be more than that for you. It shouldn’t be about pleasing me. It should be something perfect, something you can remember for—”
I grip his wrists and pin them down to the bed. “Stanley.” He blinks up at me. “For once in your life, stop being selfless and let me suck your cock.”
His eyes go so wide I can see the whites all around. “Okay,” he says, breathless.
I release his wrists and examine his tented boxers. Carefully, I ease them down, and for a moment, I just look at him.
I’m well familiar with male anatomy, of course. I’ve seen photos. But this is different. This is Stanley.
My heart is beating fast, my mouth dry, and I realize that I’m nervous. Of course. I’ve never done anything like this. Before I met him, I’d never allowed myself to get close enough to anyone to even consider it. After opening my mind to him and telling him the darkest secrets of my past, physical contact shouldn’t feel so overwhelmingly significant.
Our eyes meet. There’s an expression on his face I have no words for. It calms me, somehow, to know that this is just as new for him. I rest my hands on his slender thighs. “Are you ready.”
He nods. I swallow a few times, trying to generate some saliva, and lower my head.
He tenses briefly, then relaxes. Surrendering, trusting.
Once I let go of my anxiety, it’s not difficult. I lose myself in it, my mind a daze of concentration, noting his responses and adjusting my movements accordingly. I listen to everything; the little hitches and shivers of his breath, the soft, husky groans rising from his throat, the rustle of sheets as he shifts.
Stanley never lets himself relax. Not like this. I didn’t realize, until this moment, how much I’ve longed to see him this way, with all his guards down—not worrying or thinking or distracted by concern over me, not doubting himself or striving to be worthy. Just lost in feeling, in his own nerves. Somewhere deep in my body, there’s a pulse, a growing ache. I ignore it, pushing all those sensations into a corner of my mind, leaving the rest of it a cool, efficient computer.
When his eyelids slip shut, I freeze. I need to see his eyes; I need all the available data, to know if I’m doing something wrong. I lift my head long enough to say, “Keep them open.”
His eyelids snap up. And I lower my head again.
His muscles tense beneath my palm, then clench. His breathing grows faster. “Alvie,” he gasps. “I—I’m gonna—” He cries out.
I pull back, not quite fast enough, and double over in a fit of coughing. Eyes watering, I retreat to the bathroom to rinse out my mouth and drink some water from the tap. When I return, he starts stammering apologies. I silence him with a kiss, then lay my head on his chest. His heart is still pounding. After a moment, it begins to slow. He rests his hand on my back and murmurs, “That felt really good.”
My head is buzzing. I feel the way I did after my first few sips of wine, before it started to cloud my head. Light. Pleasantly warm.
I did that, I think. I made him feel that.
He reaches out to touch my face, fingertips brushing over my cheekbone. He tucks a lock of damp hair behind my ear. “How do you feel? Are you— I mean—” His eyes move in small flickers, searching my face. “Do you want anything?”
“Like what.”
He touches me through my jeans—a light, soft touch.
My heartbeat quickens.
It would be easy to stop now. To retreat, reassess, find my center of control. But I don’t want to stop.
Slowly I remove my jeans, then my underwear.
At first he is gentle, almost cautious. I hold still, barely breathing, as he explores me . . . then, gradually, I begin to relax. I find myself arching into his touch, like a cat, my body moving on its own.
The sensations are strange. New. But not bad. There’s pressure, some stinging. I squirm.
“Alvie?” he says, his voice low and anxious. “Are you—”
“Keep going.”
He does.
For a brief moment, I find myself thinking about the nature show that first gave me the idea to proposition him—the polar bears rutting in the snow, how businesslike and unceremonial it was, and how at the time that had appealed to me because it seemed simple. This is different. I should have known it would be different. His breathless, intent focus, the way he looks at me through wide eyes, as though I am the only thing in his world—I feel seen. Every move, every breath, is significant. We are both so vulnerable, so open to each other, and for once, I don’t feel the urge to look away.
Stanley, I think. Stanley, Stanley . . .
Then everything goes white.
When I come back to myself, I’m lying next to him, his arms around me. There’s a sense of weightlessness, as if I’m lifting out of my body, looking down at both of us in the bed.
He holds me tighter. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” My skin is damp with sweat, my head is spinning; it’s too much to absorb, too much everything, and for a moment I want my Rubik’s Cube, the cool comfort of plastic beneath my fingers, the straightforward simplicity of rows of color clicking into place. Instead, I focus on the gentle pressure of Stanley’s arms around me, the heat of his skin.
For now, this is enough.
His hand brushes my leg. I curl against his side, resting my head on his shoulder.
“I love you,” he whispers, his lips moving against my ear.
I open my mouth. At first, the words don’t want to come out. Even now, my throat closes up, my body resisting through sheer force of habit. Then something inside me relaxes. “I love you, too, Stanley.”
He holds me close and tight, his arms a sheltering burrow around me, and buries his face against my hair.
I hear a low, peculiar sound, almost like the cooing of a dove, so soft it’s nearly inaudible, and I realize it’s coming from my own throat. It’s the same sound that rabbits make when they’re happy.