by J. C. Allen
It seemed awkward, but I’d come to realize that every one of my senses was on high alert when I was with him, and I still didn’t know exactly how to properly handle the feelings that he’d brought out of me. Especially, I realized, since I should have started getting used to them by now.
Well, perhaps “properly handle” wasn’t quite the right phrasing, but it certainly had me knocked off my normal game and how I would normally feel.
As Derek pulled into a parking garage and parked the bike, I pulled back a bit, not wanting to embarrass myself by being caught huffing his jacket. I could just picture his teasing now— “what, did you start inhaling while I was out? I didn’t realize that would get to you so much, Eve!” Just the thought of it left me a bit mortified, but thankfully, he never noticed.
He toed the kickstand out, steadied the motorcycle against it, and then moved off the bike with cat-like grace. I envied the sight of just how natural he was with the bike, with everything in his life. He had so much control… I wished I could have just a semblance of the grace he seemed to possess.
I mostly wished that I could just move with the confidence and certainty that he did. In that hospital room, if I’d been the one needled and tied up, I didn’t think I would have the courage to pull myself out of it. I just didn’t see a way that I would have been able to move out of the hospital if the doctors and nurses pressed for me to stay.
But, then again, I suppose we nicely balanced each other out. Derek was the unstoppable force, and I had to be the immovable object.
Or something like that.
He held his hand out to me and I took it as he helped me off the motorcycle. Catching my bearings, I looked around the area and once again wondered just exactly where Derek was planning to take me.
“You ready?” he said. “I had to take a moment too, honestly. You should have seen me this morning—I don’t think I’d ever consciously ridden so much.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
Derek shrugged, but in a rare moment, I could see the emotion on his face rather obviously.
“Usually when I’m on my bike, I get into a zen kind of state. It’s my chance to not worry about the Black Falcons or any other shit in my world. But this morning, I had to think about everything. How sharp I wanted to take a turn. How fast or slow I wanted to go. It just felt so unlike me and I really didn’t like it at all.”
He shrugged.
“It’s better just now, but it’s still not there.”
“I couldn’t even tell, honestly,” I said, pouting slightly at just how easy he’d made it look.
“I hide it well,” he said with an appreciative grin. “But I think you’re a bad liar.”
“Maybe, but speaking of bad liars,” I said with a wink. “You finally going to let me know where we are headed?”
“Hmm,” he said, deliberately stroking his chin, teasing me with the prospect of what was to come—or not. “Follow me. Allow me to do a little bit of showing rather than telling.”
I looked up, seeing that the sun was already hanging low in the sky. He led us down a few side streets and I looked around, seeing that we were definitely in the heart of the art district. Statues and sculptures lined the streets, and paintings—both publicly commissioned and the illegal-but-stunning graffiti—littered the walls and billboards that surrounded us.
I looked around in awe. Even there, outdoors, there was a certain air to the scene; something that would have felt familiar in a museum but without the stuffy sense of structure. The place was beautiful. It almost felt wrong to think of what would follow this event—there was just too much beauty here to sully it with something as simple as sex.
I adored the place as much as I could, because though I didn’t like admitting it, something seemed just a bit off about Derek. I remembered how, when he had walked into the apartment after going to see Matty and the shop, he had seemed unsettled. He had quickly hid it and hadn’t expressed anything since, but now that we were walking alone, he seemed to settle back into his mind.
I decided not to press any more about it, not since he hadn’t told me anything when he got home, but I made a note in the back of my mind not to let him fall out of concentration on me or whatever it was we were about to do—I knew firsthand the dangers of an idle mood for incessant brooding and unnecessary contemplation.
In any case, Derek led me along, letting me ogle the surroundings while steering the two of us along. I caught him glancing at a few things too, but for the most part, it was obvious he’d chosen this place for me and not for him. That made the whole thing even sweeter.
Then, finally, he slowed, and I, feeling the pace come to a pause, looked up. The shop, at first glance, seemed nondescript and neutral, but as I studied it further I caught sight of sign on a nearby placard that read:
“Annual Paintathon Night!”
I turned a curious eye towards him.
“Roost had suggested this, actually. He was the one who got the tickets for us, honestly,” he said, running his hand over his neck. He actually seemed embarrassed by that confession. “I hope that doesn’t bother you that it wasn’t my idea.”
“Why would that bother me?” I asked, offering him a warm smile.
I did, however, take great amusement in the idea of Derek having to approach Matty for tickets to this event. I could picture Matty’s trash talking to Derek, gently teasing him about having to soon become a painter for the brothel of sorts that Matty’s house had become. Given Derek’s reaction, I had a feeling that this had already happened to some degree.
“I don’t know,” he said, his face caught between guilt and confusion.
I was adoring him for this, realizing that he genuinely felt regretful that it hadn’t been entirely his idea. It only served to lend an even greater emphasis on how hard he was still trying to show me a good time—all despite having gotten out of the hospital only the day before. No rest for the weary, huh?
Then again, hard to tell the weary to get rest when they don’t want it.
“Guess I didn’t want you to think it meant less or something. I mean—”
“Don’t worry,” I said, kissing him partially to shut him up, partially to cheer him up. “This sounds so fun! Let’s go! I want to see your painting skills!”
We walked into the store, seeing signs for the studio and followed them. A woman greeted us and Derek handed over the tickets. She pointed us over to where we would pick out what we wanted to paint and I was surprised at how much of a variety there was. I walked over, looking at the different styled platforms—the usual canvases were there, but there were also dinner plates, glasses, sheets, and even clothing.
“What catches your eye?” Derek asked.
“Well, I’m not the best at painting,” I said, chuckling nervously. I thought of what was the least likely to be seen in public, the most likely to be seen only between Derek and I. “Maybe just a plate to start, right?”
“Good idea,” he said, also picking out a plate. “So, we got ourselves the plates. What should we paint?”
For such a simple question, I found myself contemplating the idea rather heavily. I had no chance of painting anything more complicated than a backyard, but I also wanted it to be something meaningful—not having any kids meant I didn’t have to magically appease some four year old’s drawings by hanging them on the fridge, especially when the person who drew like a four year old was me.
Or Derek. All respect, love, but I hope you draw just as bad as I do. We can be crappy together!
“Are we painting the same thing?” I looked over at him.
He shrugged and looked back at me, offering me a wide grin.
“I hadn’t really considered that,” he said. “Hell, I was just hoping you weren’t going to run away because you couldn’t draw.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” I teased. “I’d be more scared of you getting cold feet at the door and walking out.”
“Me?!? When have you ever known me to walk out?”
“Oh, I don’t know, about thirty-six hours ago in the hospital?”
It took a second for Derek, but he gave an “ah ha” smile and nod when he got my play on his words.
I saw a small laminated sheet in the middle of the table and grabbed it, looking down to see the suggested drawings. The ideas seemed easy enough, and I figured with my limited abilities it would be better to take a suggestion than attempt to create something original. None of them seemed too purposeful or meaningful… but who was I to care that much about it? At this point, I’d given up the idea of being “meaningful” and was just focused on having fun.
Finally, spotting something that I thought might be simple enough, I pointed.
“How about this?” I asked.
“The sunrise?” he said, nodding his own appreciation.
Or, you know, he’s just going along with it because it’s the simplest thing.
Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s half the reason I picked it.
“Yeah! I think that’s our design,” I agreed. “Seems simple enough, anyway.”
“I mean, what’s the worst that could go wrong?”
Well, in the minutes that followed, I learned something valuable—or was reminded of it, I should say.
“Simple enough,” as it turned out, wasn’t simple enough.
And damn, “the worst that could go wrong” was quite a bit.
At least it’s in the context of painting and not something much, much worse.
Twenty minutes later, we were both looking down at our individual plates in a mixture of amusement and horror. What was supposed to be the “beginners” suggestion had turned to a splattering of multiple colors on a plate. If a drunken college student had collapsed into a pile of rainbow-colored paint cans and poured them out onto a jagged, uneven surface, I suspect his design would have made more sense than what we produced.
Fortunately, we both had the same level of “skill” for this. And, realizing that we were both obviously a long way from even being considered decent beginners, we burst out laughing.
Our “masterpieces,” or so the instructor was kind enough to call them, were nothing more than nonsensical smears of various shades that barely formed cohesive shapes let alone an identifiable image. Frankly, I think we laughed as much at the hipster instructor who wanted us to love what we had created as the embarrassing lack of skill we actually had.
My sun, I realized with equal doses of humor and disgust, looked more like a bloody wad of sickness produced by a hangover. At least the mountains, which were little more than triangles in the original stencil, could boast that, indeed, they only had three sides and three corners. A triangle could aspire to little more.
But, I had put my best foot forward. And it was not nearly enough, and that was A-OK with me.
Because Derek’s plate could not even lay claim to a triangle. The mountains, like an extra chromosome in a fetus, sported an additional angle that deformed the entire product. What was likely an attempt at another peak had melted into a vision of something resembling a wart. His sun, which was thankfully circular, was a bright and aggressive yellow that lent itself more to what looked like an unfinished smiley emoji than an actual sun.
At least his clouds looked better than mine. But that was about all I could give him—or would give him, for that matter. My competitive streak had come out just a bit.
“Wow, we suck,” Derek said.
“Yeah, we really do,” I agreed, still working to collect myself.
It felt like we were both keeping up the charade of a funeral, mourning our hopes and dreams for producing art worth half a shit. Of course, that wasn’t really the case—we never really had hopes and dreams of doing that—but it was kind of oddly fun to play this out, especially since we’d narrowly avoided having to do another funeral.
“Well then, with this all done… what do you say we go get some dinner and nurse our bruised egos now that we’ve found out neither of us are artists?”
“Oh, I don’t think we ever assumed either of us were artists,” I said. “So in comparison, yes, let’s do it. Dinner sounds perfect.”
Nodding, Derek collected our “mess-terpieces” in a gift bag—promising that we’d laugh more over them later in the privacy of his condo—and headed out. The instructor told us to come again to fulfill our potential, and while we were polite, there was absolutely zero chance either of us had any potential left in the bag.
“How much do you wanna bet that Matty knew this would happen?” Derek said. “Probably knew damn well that we were going to look like fools. Guess that’s his way of punishing me for being stupid on the bike.”
Considering this, I decided to gift the “mess-terpieces” to Matty. Either he was the artistic sort and the plates would serve as a sort of twisted present… or, at the very least, they’d represent an ironic “thank you” for the unique date. It had been his idea, after all.
Plus, I think it would have given him some nice relief from what his house had turned into.
Or, as I thought with a shudder, it would encourage all the girls at his place to start producing their own artwork, turning it into an artistic brothel.
Oh, he’s definitely getting these plates then.
“So, where to eat?” Derek said.
I decided that while I had a few ideas in mind… I wanted to relish the freedom I had. I wanted to enjoy the chance to just dash out and see what we came upon.
“Why don’t we just see where the road takes us?”
He regarded me then with a sense of awe and admiration. I blushed, realizing that, in a part of town where everything was a work of art, he was looking at me like I was the most inspired vision he could find.
“Good plan,” he said, grabbing my hand.
We walked a few blocks, bantering about what era we’d need to hit before what we produced could be considered art, before coming across a street filled with a few different eateries.
Looking around at the different restaurants, we settled on a small American Bistro that had a live band playing. After being sat, I looked at the menu and had some amusing flashbacks to our first meal at Waffle House.
“Now, what should we order?” he said, as if leading me in to a suggestion.
“One of everything?” I offered, teasingly.
“Don’t tempt me,” he said, sounding dangerously serious.
While Derek refrained from ordering every item on the menu, our table had still been covered in plates when he’d been done. I was once again surprised at just how much of the food we had cleared, and I smiled, leaning back against the booth.
As we stepped out of the bistro, I was surprised at how dark it had gotten. I hadn’t even realized we had been out for as long as we had. As Derek led us back to the parking garage, I smiled giddily, knowing that the night was nowhere near over—in fact, it was time to write the sequel to last night when we got home.
That was, until I saw him.
At first, there was no way that I would have identified the guy standing a block away from the parking lot as anything other than a loner.
But when I saw that he was wearing the same baseball cap as he had when he first approached me in Samsville… and I saw that knowing wicked grin spread over his face when he made eye contact with me… I knew Chuck, once again, had found me.
I glared at him and he just winked like a sicko.
“Damn, you OK?”
I snapped out of it when I looked up at Derek, who had no idea why I had suddenly gotten so furious.
“Your grip just turned into that of a mob boss’,” he said. “You alright?”
If ever there was a time that Derek could have done something to Chuck, it was now.
But what, exactly, was he going to do? Beat him for calling me a slut the day before? Kill him for sending me off to prostitution land? It might give Derek a ton of satisfaction, but there was nothing I could witness that would make me feel good.
He was, no matter how I spun it, still
family. It was my curse that I could never look past that.
But I could look past the darkness Chuck brought for the sake of having a good time tonight.
“Sorry, just… sometimes zone out and think of the past.”
“Don’t I know that,” he said. “But, hey, good news, we’re here.”
Derek’s cat-like reflexes played back in reverse as he mounted his motorcycle, and he smiled back at me as I followed suit—feeling much less graceful in doing so.
“Hurry back home,” I said. “And I hope you’re ready for round two.”
At the moment, truthfully, I faked those words. Seeing my brother had killed any libido I had, any desire to feel sexy. Seeing Chuck made me feel like a slut.
“You a whore or not?”
“Yes ma’am!” Derek said, hitting the ignition.
But I knew that one long bike ride with Derek, feeling his muscles control the bike with ease, would have him hot and heavy by the time we got home.
Because if that didn’t work, nothing would.
I could feel the excitement grow as we sped through the highway, heading back to Derek’s condo. I closed my eyes, loving the feel of the night air hitting my face as Derek expertly wove through the streets.
Yeah, seeing Chuck had put a damper on my initial mood. But it had not capped my libido as I feared it would; it had merely reset it to zero. Time on the bike and a few wayward touches—all when Derek was stopped, of course—returned it, and by the time we got on the street of Derek’s apartment, I had zero thoughts of my brother.
And, for that matter, I was too into what was about to happen to ever think about Chuck.
The thing was, last night’s sex had felt like us ripping at each other’s clothes like two hungry dogs just eager to eat. As enjoyable and as delightful as the orgasm was, we had rushed into it, barely spending any time to feel and enjoy the moment. It was a necessity to have sex as we did.
But this, here? Oh, baby. Oh, this was going to be relished, enjoyed, and appreciated every single second he was inside of me or I was feeling him or he was feeling me.
