Love At First Bite

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  “Jose,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and smiling wider. “Are you going to show me, or what?”

  The fact that he’d grown shy about unveiling his work endeared him to her. The humility that had arrested him and had made him look away, along with all the qualifiers and disclaimers, made her want to hug him. She waited with great anticipation and much respect for him to share this intimate peek into his mind.

  “Yeah… it’s just that I only showed people the good stuff,” he said quietly, motioning to a few framed pencil sketches on the walls. “I got all hyped when I thought about it, and may have spoken too soon. I never let anyone see my books, my pads—where I was just messing around.” He turned away from the desk and leaned on the dresser. “It ain’t nothing, I guess. Just some old kid nightmares… like you’d wanna see that. You’ll probably look at them and go, ‘This brother is touched—loco,’ and then laugh, anyway.”

  She went to him and placed her palm gently in the center of his chest. “I would never laugh at something that came from inside you, Jose.” She stared up at him. “A little while ago, you asked me to trust you—and I did. I’ve never let anyone get that close to me, or make me open up like that.”

  He covered her hand with his own, nodded, and drew a deep breath, then let it out through his nose. “Okay. But promise not to laugh or run screaming into the driveway to hitchhike a ride outta here.”

  She kissed his cheek. “Lemme see what’s in there.”

  Slowly, he moved away from his perch against the dresser and she watched him go to the desk to extract several huge sketch pads. She sat on the edge of the bed and waited for him to sit down beside her.

  “These were when I was in high school and used to visit here for the summer,” he murmured, not looking at her as he opened the first book on her lap. “Wasn’t much else to do out here; no clubs and I was too young for the one bar they had in town. So, I sorta amused myself and helped Pops. Nothing special.”

  She was rendered mute, her fingers tracing the edges of the exquisitely detailed drawings. A quiet gasp of appreciation was all she could initially offer him as she turned the pages. “Wow…”

  Every image was a finely crafted series of individual dots and hatch lines, if one looked closely enough. But upon her pulling back, the minute markings evolved into epic images of demons and angels in furious battles… smoke, fire, huge, sinewy protectors standing tall with outrageous weapons, holding the line with female warrior counterparts against evil. Juanita lowered her face to the pages to better see how he’d patiently, painstakingly laid down each black mark to expertly make an entire living dream come to life on a single page.

  “Oh, my God, Jose,” she whispered in reverence. “How long did it take you to do one of these, let alone all of these?” She hadn’t even looked up at him. She couldn’t look up. The question had simply spilled from her lips in honest awe. Each page was a living fresco, jogging her memory, making her mind flex and bulk with images of her own that matched what she saw.

  “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I lose track of time when I’m working. I get all caught up, and that would always get me in trouble at home… or at school,” he said with a self-deprecating chuckle. “My mother thinks I’m a bum. Maybe she’s right. You can’t make money on stuff like this.”

  “Are you crazy?” Juanita whispered, turning pages, engrossed in his book.

  “Yeah, totally,” he said, laughing nervously and then standing to cross the room. “Told you.”

  She jerked her attention up to stare at him. “No. That’s not what I meant.” She held his gaze. “You’re a freakin’ genius, Jose. Why aren’t you in art school, or in galleries somewhere? A bum? Are you nuts?”

  His gaze left hers to seek the window. “Couldn’t get my tuition together, and—”

  “Did you ever apply for a scholarship, or send them your portfolio?” She was on her feet with a sketchbook extended. “With work like this, you could go anywhere, brother!”

  “I never applied… didn’t know they’d take me without cash on the barrelhead. Didn’t wanna get my hopes up for nothin’ that wouldn’t work out anyway.” He just looked at her.

  “Did you ever show these to a guidance counselor at school?” Indignant, she put the book with the others on the bed and stared at him. “Didn’t those damn people who are supposed to talk to kids about their future—because that’s their job—ever tell you, ‘Jose, man, you got skills. Lemme help you fill out an ap’ to apply to a big-name university’?”

  He didn’t know how to answer her. No one had ever gotten angry at him for not using his art to better his life. No one ever had fire in her eyes because he might not have followed his dream or used his passion to earn opportunity. But this gorgeous woman nearly had tears in her eyes, hands on hips, and looked like she was ready to fight the whole world for his cause.

  “Didn’t they tell you that you could work as a cartoonist or that you could be the next great film animator—or even be the mastermind behind all those expensive video games, working for the big companies? Oh, my God, Jose!” she exclaimed, beginning to pace. “This is a travesty! A bum? Your momma called you a bum? Do you know that you could design video sets for the music industry, or, or… oh, help me, Blessed Mary!”

  Juanita had placed her hands on top of her head and was now staring out of the window. Just seeing her so upset about no one understanding his hidden talent was blowing his mind.

  “They all told me to stop dreaming… to get the three Rs of reading, writing, and arithmetic down. Said that my SAT scores were pitiful, like my grades. Said that I was wasting time doodling in notebooks, and—”

  “They never saw your work?” Her hands slid off her head and hung loosely at her sides. “Never saw the quiet genius in you, a poor kid from the barrios.” Her voice became a whisper of outrage. “Never thought you had dreams worthy of anyone’s time. I know. Been there.”

  “The way you just broke down those industries and opportunities… you could be a businesswoman,” he said, pushing off the dresser to go collect his books to hide them away again. This was too intense and had been a bad idea.

  Her indignation made him nervous; he wasn’t used to anyone caring so deeply about him. “You should be counseling kids, giving them hope and direction,” he said, sudden depression weighing in on him. “Lotta parents just don’t know what’s out there, as far as different careers and stuff, and only want their kids to take the safe, guaranteed route… like a vo-tech school. I can’t blame them.” He shoved the books into the drawer and looked up at the few framed sketches on the walls. “You could be a talent agent, too,” he said, laughing sadly as he thought about the mural contract that he’d lost. ” ‘Nita, I was gonna paint the hell out of that wall… was gonna funk it out, trick that bitch out so lovely that there’d be accidents on the 405 from people staring.” Jose let his breath out hard and turned around to look at her.

  Tears stung her eyes and she swallowed hard. “How did you know?”

  “Know what?” He hadn’t meant to upset her by his outburst.

  “That I wanted to be a businesswoman, not a cashier in a drugstore?”

  “I thought that was a part-time thing, until you did your thing?” He closed the space between them. “With your mind… the way you just dissected my shit, pulled it apart, and came up with solutions that I couldn’t figure out? C’mon, girl. Be serious.”

  “You be serious,” she said, lifting her chin. “Vo-tech? You? I don’t care who told you that; it’s bogus.”

  “I just draw, but you seem like you were an As-and-Bs kinda student. Real book smart.”

  She turned away from him and went to stand by the window. “Yeah… I got straight As, but a lotta good that did me. When it came time to apply for college, they said that getting straight As at a low-expectations high school in the inner city wasn’t as good as coming from a top-notch public high school, or private school. Plus, my momma needed help at home, and nobody was he
lping me find scholarships. I learned about all that career and scholarship stuff on the fly, when customers would come into the store to buy what they needed to go off to school… I wanted to be them so bad, Jose, you just don’t know—and I’d eavesdrop or make small talk to get them to tell me where they were going and how they got there, just dreaming. Then I’d sneak to the library and try to figure out what they meant. But I’d missed my chance by then.”

  “It ain’t over till it’s over,” he said, coming to her and gently hugging her from behind. He placed a kiss on the top of her head. “You can still go if you want to; all you have to do is try.”

  She turned into his embrace and kissed the underside of his chin. “I’ll take that advice, if you will. Deal?”

  He nodded and shrugged. “I guess so—but you should go.”

  “So should you,” she argued with a smile. Her fingers traced his mouth, her eyes following the invisible imprint of where her touch had landed. “Jose, you are so talented, have so much to offer the world with your inner vision. Promise me that, no matter what happens, you won’t allow yourself to wind up in some dead-end job that will kill your spirit.” She brushed his mouth with a kiss and then pulled back. “Do the wall, baby. That mural. Do it on paper, if you can’t have the wall right now. Add that into your going-to-college-or-bust portfolio. Put your all into it, like you would have up on that scaffolding. Please, dear God, whatever you do, don’t waste this gift.”

  The way her eyes searched his and her words coated his insides with heat lowered his mouth to hers in quiet surrender. Never in his life had anyone gone to bat for him like this, had ever pushed him so hard with such a tender shove. If he couldn’t give himself over to his art completely, today, at least, he could give his all to her.

  “Only on one condition,” he whispered.

  “Name it,” she murmured, running her fingers through his hair.

  “That you go to school with me and never stop looking at me like this when I show you my work.”

  “How could I stop looking at you like this, when you and your work makes me know there’s still hope and love and beauty in the world?” She grazed his mouth with a kiss and then shook her head. “Jose, you also make me know that I’m not crazy to dream… I’ve seen those same images before. They’d start behind my eyelids when I’d shut my eyes at night, like pinpoints of black dots fired by lights behind them… then the image would become clearer when my body would lift above it to see it all from an aerial view. And that’s just how you drew the sketches—dot by dot.”

  “You serious?” he whispered, the words catching thickly in his throat.

  “I swear it,” she replied, staring at him without blinking. “The thing I can’t understand is… how I know you?”

  She pulled out of his embrace and wrapped her arms around herself. “I have to just say this, because my mind won’t let it go.”

  He nodded and gave her space.

  “I’ve never been so afraid in all my life.” Her eyes sought his for confirmation and found it. “I didn’t know you, had never seen you, had no reason to trust you.” She looked away, shame glittering in her eyes made dazzling by the sunlight. “I don’t just meet men in the street, jump on a motorcycle with them, and do the wild thing on a bathroom floor in their grandparents’ house, of all places, for chrissakes.” She covered her face with her hands and breathed in deeply. “I’m not like that, Jose. I have some pride and some decency, no matter what you might think. And yet I’m here in a borrowed nightgown, half-naked. I’ve just given my body to a man for the first time, and I don’t even know his last name.”

  He went to her quickly and enfolded her in his arms. “Ciponte. My last name is Ciponte. And I know that you’ve never been with a guy like that, have to be freaked out, and have never done it before. That’s why I was so angry at myself for going there with you; you aren’t that type of… I mean—”

  “I’m not,” she said, huge tears spilling. “I have to get dressed and go home to my momma.”

  “I know, baby. We’ll get dressed right now and I’ll take you home. But I don’t want you to think that all this was the norm for me, either. It’s been a really long time since I had what you could call a girlfriend, or something. Years, and that’s no bull.” He raked his hair and kept his gaze on her, forcing her eyes to stay with his. “Guys get a bad rap for always being dawgs, but I swear on my father’s grave, I’ve never had an experience like what we just shared. So, don’t make it out to be dirty, in your mind. It was pure passion, from my point of view.”

  When she looked away, he returned her gaze to his with a gentle finger beneath her chin. “No, look at me—dead in the eyes so you can see the truth or a lie.” He let out a long breath filled with emotion. ” ‘Nita… No one has ever believed in me, treated me like I was their hero, given themselves to me without games. You think men don’t have feelings? You don’t think we ever dream of finding the one?”

  He released his hold on her and went back to his desk, yanked out a drawer, and selected a pad. “Look at this one,” he said, shoving the book toward her. “Every page owns my secret lover.”

  She cautiously accepted the book and he came closer.

  “Look at her,” he said, his voice becoming strident as he finally saw the eerie similarity between the woman standing in the room and the one gracing every page.

  Growing more unnerved by the discovery, he led Juanita to the mirror that hung over the dresser and took the book from her to hold it up beside her face. “Same body, same hair. Every pose is you—same eyes, I just didn’t have the rest of the face. The hero is standing in front of her, guns blazing, trying to keep demons at bay.” Jose flipped another page and forced her to stare more deeply into the mirror. “Got her on his bike, rough-riding out of hellfire.”

  He flipped another page quickly, growing more urgent that she see into his heart. “Then he was so grateful to be alive that he made love to her in a tangle of passion in the mist—place to be determined, location unknown.” He slammed the book shut and flung it on the dresser, bracing a hand against the furniture on either side of her body.

  They both stared at each other’s reflection in the mirror.

  “Operative words—he made love to her, didn’t screw her,” Jose murmured, his eyes never leaving the mirror. “Would die for her, would take a bullet for her, would battle the darkness, just for her. Fell in love with her somewhere in the mist, I guess when he was losing his mind. I don’t know when that happened, or how. I’m just the artist that draws them. All I know is, for years, he couldn’t wait to go to sleep so she’d come to him in a dream. Years of wanting someone to see that he was a hero deep inside, and to have someone to call his own, someone who had his back, someone who could see what he saw and had vision. Artist by day, superhero by night… Years, ‘Nita, that’s how long he’d been waiting for her to step across the threshold of a dream and be made flesh, and be real.”

  She nodded, tears now streaming down her face while she stared at his pain-filled expression. “Years of running through the darkness in dreams,” she whispered. “Years of feeling different, and knowing she was… years of waiting for that voice she knew by heart in her head. Years of waiting for those right eyes that saw her as more than a booty call, some chica airhead to use and then throw away… hoping, believing, knowing there was only one man in the world who could chase the demons away. Only one who made her feel like a princess and special… who would make her body yield and then burn and give her all… and then feeling so foolish for having to bite her lip to keep from saying that she was falling in love with him the moment he took her in the steam on a bathroom floor.”

  His ardent kiss on the side of her neck caused a hard shiver at the same time his hands swiftly traced up her arms to produce a gasp.

  “I can’t explain this,” he said in a hot whisper, aggressively nuzzling her neck. “I can’t explain what we saw out there, or how I can be feeling this so strong with everything that just went
down.” He delivered mind-stunning kisses against her jawline and then shoulder. “I can’t explain why I can’t keep my hands off you, or can even think about something like that after what we just went through.” He dragged his nose up the side of her neck and squeezed his eyes shut tightly, breathing her in. “I’ll take you home, if that’s where you wanna go. But don’t ask me to stop feeling like this about you, okay?”

  “I can’t explain it, either,” she said, her breaths coming out with the words in short, staccato pants. Her body moved against his and her voice became strangled as she tried to speak. “It doesn’t make sense. After what we just saw we should both be so wigged out right now that… it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Does it have to?” he said in a low rush, his hands covering her breasts. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, gently kneading her flesh while capturing her nipples between his forefingers and thumbs. “All I know is you looked at my drawings like you were looking into my soul, ‘Nita.”

  His voice fractured as he began to slowly pump against her backside through her nightgown. “All I know is that it’s like I found you from somewhere in my mind, like some weird and wonderful out-of-body experience,” he murmured, ending the statement on a deep, sensual moan. “And, baby, if you came to life from my sketches, I’m not ready for you to disappear yet… can’t bear the thought of you being black-and-white, two-dimensional, anymore.” He kissed the nape of her neck when her head dropped forward and her hands braced on the dresser. “Oh, shit, I need you in three-D right now.”

  Unable to withstand his impassioned outburst, common sense fled her as she reached back and yanked at the sides of his sweatpants, pulling them down over his hips. They both looked up into the mirror at the same time.

  “Go ‘head,” she said on a hard exhale. “I’ve been waiting for you to step out of my dreams and become real, too.”