I lie with my head against Duncan’s chest. I like listening to his breathing. It’s so slow, controlled. I swear he breathes slower than I do. There’s something relaxing, hypnotic even, about the movement of my head on his chest as it rises… then falls.
“Your heart,” I whisper all of a sudden, frowning. “What the hell?”
“What is it?”
I gaze at my clock, watch the seconds hand tick by.
“It’s really slow.”
“Last time I measured, my resting rate was forty-five.”
“Forty-five?” I echo in disbelief. I think the last time I measured, my resting was in the eighties.
Sometimes, as I listen, I think that his heart has stopped, but then I’ll hear the beat, that one huge thud in his chest.
His skin is so warm, like he’s got a burning furnace inside of him. His body heat radiates into me, and when he wraps me up in his arms, I feel so safe, so comfortable, like I’ve escaped from everything I don’t like about my life, from the world altogether.
It’s just me and him, together, alone, without a worry in the world. I’ve got school in the morning, but fuck it, I want to stay up. We shouldn’t be in here together, lying naked like this, but fuck it, it’s what I want to do.
I feel immature thinking this way. I feel like a caricature of a young adult rebelling, but I can’t help it. It’s just the way he makes me feel.
I run my hand over his stomach, feel the bump of every abdominal muscle. His body is so tight, so trained. I know it can’t have been easy to get it like this. The discipline… it’s attractive. He’s in control of himself, and I like that.
“Duncan,” I say, trailing my finger up his chest to where the deep black tattoo of a house is on one side. “What is this of?”
He shifts a little under me. “It’s from a photograph,” he says.
“Of a house?”
“The group home I spent the most time in.”
“Why did you get a tattoo of it?”
“Have to remember where you came from.”
“Sometimes some of us want to forget,” I murmur.
He strokes my hair, fiddles with it, plays with it. I know he’s going to make knots that I’ll have to brush out, but I like that he does it.
“Was it like what you see on television? Living in a group home I mean.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Our television didn’t work half the time.”
“I mean, like, violence, drugs, kids skipping school, that kind of thing?”
He laughs. “I didn’t go to school for three-quarters of the year.”
“You didn’t get in trouble for that?”
“Who would get me in trouble? The truancy officers didn’t really care, they were just there for a quick buck. The teachers at the school focused on what they could: The kids who did turn up. Sand always falls through the cracks in your hand.”
“What about social workers at the home?”
He delves into his memories. “There were other boys who took up all their time, constantly getting into fights, getting into trouble with the police. Shoplifting, usually, but some started working corners real early. Or doing drug runs on bicycles.”
“Did you ever shoplift?”
“Yeah, every winter for nice jackets.”
“How did you even get out of the shop with a huge coat?”
“We’d run a whole system, you know?” he says, a kind of half-guilty, half-mischievous grin tugging at his lips. “One boy distracts the staff, the other pretends to fall over and knocks some stuff over. A few of us walk in, grab, and run.”
“Did you ever get caught?”
“Caught, no. Chased, yes.” He sighs. “It’s not like I’m proud of it. Half the time during winter we were never warm enough to spend a long time outside, and we always preferred to be outdoors than in the house.”
“Why?”
“It was brighter. We’d fool around, you know? Spit at cars from a bridge, throw ice at people… that kind of thing. It was better than being in a shitty house that was barely warm enough and hardly clean enough.”
“Was it tough?”
He shrugs. “I got used to it. There’s a way things work like with anything in life.”
“I read about it,” I say. “It was in a book Frank gave me for my birthday before, written by a teacher who worked with kids like…” I trail off.
“Like me?”
“Yeah. Sorry, I don’t mean it in a bad way.”
“What’s bad about it? I’m not ashamed of who I am or how I grew up.”
“Anyway, the writer said violence is a big problem.”
“Yeah, there are bullies. Nothing I couldn’t handle, but some kids had it bad.”
“How bad?”
“They just weren’t tough up here,” he says, tapping his temple. “That’s what it takes. You don’t have to be big or strong, you just got to be tough, not back down, not be afraid. They’re only other boys just like you, you know? Other kids who are also scared. We were all rejected, unwanted. Kids take it out on each other, that’s nothing new.”
“Yeah, I read about that, too, but the teacher was writing from a girl’s perspective. She said the toughest thing to deal with was constantly being reminded that you were unwanted, almost forgotten, you know? Like, it’s something that’s really easy to dwell on.”
“When you’re younger, yeah,” Duncan says, and I swear I hear a hitch in his voice, just a momentary break in that hard, outer shell. “You stop thinking about that shit as you get older. And then maybe, once you get older than that, you start thinking about it again. But I’m not there yet.”
“I read that in some group homes, the staff aren’t even allowed to hug the kids. Every kid needs hugs, right?”
“Hugs?” Duncan echoes.
“Yeah,” I say. “Affection. Otherwise they never learn to show it themselves. Group homes don’t prepare kids for normal adult life. They…”
My voice trails off. I’m embarrassed to have said that.
“I’m sorry.”
Duncan shrugs. “Like I said, I don’t think about that shit.”
But I don’t believe him. Otherwise, why would he get the tattoo of the house? It doesn’t make sense.
“I got this just to remind me, you know.”
I blink. It’s like he can read my mind.
“If you were wondering.”
“I was.” I decide to change the subject. “What about this?” I say, tracing the outline of his other big tattoo, a leaping tiger. It’s not snarling ferociously or anything, but it seems to be leaping over the house. It takes up the whole other side of his chest and stomach.
“I got that in Thailand,” he says. “Result of a drunken night out.”
“You went out drinking?”
“Yeah. Me and another kid from the village would sneak out, go into town, hit up the bars. It was always good for a laugh, all the foreign tourists making asses of themselves. Sure, I mean, I wasn’t Thai, you know, so I still was not one of them, but I mean, I caught on quick. Some of these guys, just embarrassing. They’d be falling off barstools, getting cleaned out by all the waitresses and dancers who knew an easy mark when they saw one.”
“Sounds fun,” I lie, not bothering to hide my distaste in my voice.
“You don’t like it.”
“I know the reputation Thailand has. I mean, the red-light reputation.”
“It’s not all like that,” he says, gently stroking my arm. “Actually, for the most part it’s pretty straight forward these days, but yes, there is a rep. Hey, it’s a poor country, and tourists bring their money in.”
“I don’t like it,” I say, knowing that maybe I’m being harsh, maybe I’m being judgmental. “Dad has pimps out here working for him, and they force the girls, give them no choice. I know it, and I hate it, and I bet for a lot of those girls over there, it’s the same.”
“I bet it is, too.”
“So why the tiger?” I say.
“Well, to be honest with you, it was the kid’s idea.”
“The kid?”
“Yeah, the other boy from the village. He was the closest one to my age, younger than me by a year I think. He said the tiger symbolized unconditional confidence and discipline in Buddhism, which was their faith… philosophy. He said the bald white man – what they called your Dad – was trying to make me his pet, and only through unconditional confidence in myself, and mental discipline, could I resist being enslaved.”
He shrugs.
“Why over the house?”
“I have to be confident about who I am, and that includes where I came from.”
“Huh,” I say. I didn’t actually expect the tattoo to have that much sentimental significance, though I don’t know why. Dad’s always hated tattoos, but now that I think about it, he hasn’t mentioned them with regard to Duncan once.
“What about these?” I run my hand over his shoulder, over the intricate script that adorns it, stretches around onto his back. It’s weird, because on his arms, he’s got tribal-inspired lines as well that run even on the underside his arms and down his ribcage and waist. It’s two totally different styles.
“The older ones, the tribal stuff, that was when I was a kid. You can see it’s all stretched because I didn’t hit my big growth spurt until I was about seventeen.”
“You got them before Thailand?”
“Oh, yeah. Worked for a tattoo artist briefly, helped to clean up and watch the shop when he was too blazed out of his mind to come into work. He did these for me for free.”
I trace the jagged, flowing lines, am reminded of a serrated edge… maybe a dragon’s tail.
“And this stuff? The script?”
He rolls over, shows me his back. There I see lines upon lines of script, with some illustrations inlaid, like a magazine article or something. It covers his entire back.
“That’s Thai, a blessing from a Buddhist monk.”
I peer at the illustrations, try to make them out. He’s got four animals on his back, a tiger, a dragon, a fish, and something that looks like a bird. They sit at four points of a square, and inside is a depiction of a temple, surrounded by lines and lines of those flowing, liquid words.
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “They don’t tell you, and I never asked someone to translate.”
“Why not?”
He pauses, seems to think about it for a moment. “Because now it can say anything I want it to, I guess.”
“Was it the same monk who trained you to fight?”
“No. I had to go to a temple in the hills. My instructor took me. It was something he insisted on, and I saw no real reason not to. He said the ink they use is imbued with magic properties, and contains venom of a snake.”
“Really?” I ask, doubtful.
He shrugs. “We had to line up for three days, just waiting outside the temple. I wasn’t too interested, but he said it would protect me, make me incorruptible.”
“Did it hurt?”
“A little.”
“I kind of want a tattoo.”
“Do you know what of?”
“No,” I say truthfully. “Not really.” I laugh. “I don’t know, I like the idea, you know? It makes me feel kind of bad.”
“Get one if you like. It’s your decision.”
“It’s harder for girls to get tattoos.”
“How so?”
“We’re judged more.”
He turns a raised eyebrow at me, shakes his head.
“Think about it. There’s no equivalent for the word ‘tramp stamp’ for men’s tattoos, right? It’s just not the same. It’s cool when a guy has tattoos, but if a girl has it, she’s ‘alternative’ or whatever. Or going through a ‘phase’. Or people just assume it was a product of a drunk-night-out, you know? Or they think it’s ‘slutty’ or ‘skanky’.”
“Who cares what people think? You can’t control that.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“If you ever decide you want a tattoo, Dee, I’ll support you. I’ll come with you.”
I smile. “Thanks, but I don’t think that I ever will. Dad would hate it.”
“Don’t let him know.”
“Are you kidding me?” I cry. “God, I’d get an earful. He’d never stop.”
Duncan’s tongue wets his lips. He rolls onto his back again, and I lie in his arms.
“I’m not tired,” I tell him.
“Neither.”
“I can’t stop thinking about that guy, his swollen eyes… God, I hate living here.”
“You want to get out of here?” Duncan asks. “Tonight, I mean.”
“Go where?”
“Anywhere.”
“Why?”
“Well… we could just say good night and go to sleep,” he says. “But I don’t want tomorrow to come. Tomorrow, I leave… and I don’t know for how long.”
“To train,” I whisper. “With one of Dad’s old boxing buddies.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want tonight to end, either.”
“Come on, then. Let’s go.”
“But where?”
“Fuck it, we’ll go anywhere.”
He gets up, and I look at his naked, athletic, strong body, and then see that he’s caught me checking him out.
“Can’t a girl look?” I ask him.
“Look all you want. I want you to look.”
He starts to pull on his clothes, then extends an arm out to me. “Let’s go have some fun.”
I pause, then shake my head. “We shouldn’t. What if Dad catches us?”
“Fuck him, he’s out cold,” he says. “Come on, Dee. Live a little.”
I look at him for a moment, and it’s like a light switch just flips in my head. Why not, right? Why not be bad for once? Why not break the rules for once?
I get dressed with Duncan, ask him to empty my trash can into a plastic bag so we can take it out with us and chuck it. I don’t want to leave a condom in my room.
I tell him that I know a place we can go, a mall I used to go to as a kid.
“A mall?” he asks, a look of puzzlement on his face.
“We can go to the ice rink,” I tell him, grinning.