Beautiful Beast

by Dayle A Dermatis

  From my end, it was because I wanted to talk. But I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to read her signs yet. I wasn’t sure I knew how to read any signs, honestly.

  Although we both sat in our corners of the sofa, instead of extending our legs out on our individual wings, we were sitting sideways, our feet sharing the same center cushion, although not touching. We’d done it almost simultaneously, a sign of the change in our relationship from distant to friendly.

  The coffee table smelled of lemon polish and the remotes had been lined up neatly, showing evidence that the invisible staff had swept through, maybe while we’d been at church.

  I felt more tongue-tied and awkward than I had during the interview segment of the pageant. At least there I’d had a question directed at me, and a format in which to begin answering it.

  When it comes to the question of my being gay…yes, I am, although I’ve never dated a girl. The question is, are you? And if you are, do you like me in that way?

  Sloppy, Mrs. Wentworth would say. Or she’d icily tell me about the church and its stance on homosexuality.

  Or she’d throw me out on my butt.

  When Taryn lingered on an offering, the trailer automatically started, but the TV was on mute. I couldn’t tell if the show was supposed to be a comedy or a drama, or even what it was about, which was a bad sign.

  Pondering that, I was surprised when she broke the silence. Keeping her gaze on the TV, she said, “So, you’re really going to do it again. Another pageant. Even though my mother eviscerated you.”

  I blew out a breath, wondering how to explain. “It’s my dream,” I said finally. “It’s been my dream forever. It’s part of who I am, and my stepping stone to a good university. I’m not ready to give up just because I didn’t win once. Your mother wasn’t wrong; I did screw up—”

  “You were a mess last night,” she said.

  Well, gee, thanks for that. Not that she was wrong.

  “Yes, she was harsh, and it hit me really hard. And I was missing my parents. You…were wonderful to me. At least something good came out of it.”

  Now she turned to me, a questioning look in her eyes.

  “We finally really talked. I feel like we’re finally friends.”

  I held my breath.

  “Yeah, friends,” Taryn said. “Turns out you’re not so bad.”

  I grinned tentatively, and she grinned back.

  Good. Good.

  “Oh, damn,” I said. “I talked to Aunt Pat today, but forgot to ask her about us visiting, dammit,” I said. “I’ll ask her the next time I call.”

  “If my mother will let us.” She didn’t sound confident.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Aunt Pat can be pretty persuasive. She and your mom seemed to get along fine when they met.”

  Of course, she probably didn’t know Aunt Pat was gay. That added another wrinkle to the problem.

  A movie didn’t seem to be in the cards, so I said, “Tell me about your art.”

  Her gaze slid back to the TV. “What’s there to tell?” Her voice was cautious again.

  “How you got started. What you love about it. Your favorite mediums, or your least favorite. That sort of thing.”

  “I just started drawing as a kid, and liked it, and was pretty good at it. So I convinced my mom to buy me some books on how to draw, how to paint. She used them as bribes: perform in a pageant, get a book or more art supplies.”

  Ouch,” I said.

  “My dad bought me a lot of stuff, too,” she said. “Before he left. He didn’t put conditions on it, though.”

  Was this an opening to ask about her dad, and why he left? I assumed it was just a regular divorce. Mrs. Wentworth was kind of…a lot to take. It was hard to imagine her with a husband.

  Before I could decide, Taryn continued. “I like pen and ink, and gouache. Oils aren’t my thing, although maybe I need to take a class or something to really learn.”

  “You said you want to go to school for art. Then what?”

  She shrugged. Somewhere during the conversation, she’d looked back at me, which made me happy.

  “Make a living at it,” she said. “Somehow. Get my portfolio in front of people, and go from there.”

  “Are you posting stuff online now?” I asked. “Or selling prints?”

  “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  Now I was in my element. I pulled my legs in and scooted towards her on the sofa. “You totally need to have a social media presence. At the very least, an Instagram account to show off your work.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not really into social media.” She shrugged. “It’s not like I have a lot of friends.”

  “People still find other people,” I said. “But okay. I mostly just Snapchat; the rest of it takes too much time. But you really should be selling stuff. My friend, Madison? Her little brother does anime and sells it on Deviant Art. He made enough to buy his own iPad Pro, and their mom is socking away some of the money for his college fund.”

  “I get an allowance…” she said, and I felt stupid. Of course she did—and clearly the Wentworths were not hurting for money. “…but it’s mostly enough for snacks and paint and brushes. On the other hand, having money for college would be a good idea. I don’t have a fund. My mother says that the money I won doing pageants would have gone to pay for my college, but since I dropped out…” She shrugged again. “I’m on my own.”

  I gasped. “That’s awful!”

  “You’ve met my mother: she uses money to control people. She gives me an allowance because she thinks it’s the normal thing to do, but I’m sure if I ever pissed her off enough, that would go away too.”

  I scooched closer. “We totally have to do this. I can get you set up online.”

  “What about my dear mother?” she asked. “She might not like it.”

  It was my turn to wrinkle my nose. “I can get around her watchdog software on your computer. Phone, too, if you want. I’ve just been too busy to look into it. The trick is to not turn off everything she can see, so she doesn’t realize.”

  “Beauty, brains, and a hacker?” Taryn said. “Are pageant contestants allowed to skirt the law like that?

  I smacked myself in the forehead. “That’s what I should be doing for the talent segment!”

  We both laughed, but believe me, I’d heard what she’d said. The important words. Beauty, brains.

  It make my heart jump. It made me hopeful.

  It gave me the courage to forge ahead. See if she would take another step in our friendship.

  “Give me a few days to figure it out,” I said. “I know what to do in theory, but I want to be sure I understand everything. Of course…if we’re going to set up a Deviant Art account for you, it means at some point I’m going to see your artwork…” I raised my eyebrows.

  She looked away, at the TV still showing the same trailer.

  Then she slid her legs off the sofa and stood. “All right,” she said, and motioned for me to follow her.

  We went to her bedroom. From the walk-in closet, Taryn carried multiple black portfolios, about two feet by three feet in size, and laid them on the bed.

  She unzipped one on all three sides so it opened up like a book. Then she stood back, shoved her hands in the pocket of her black sweatpants, and cocked her head to indicate I should look.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and turned the portfolio towards me.

  This one was full of pen and ink drawings. I didn’t know much about art—had never really studied it—and I was amazed at the detail from just a black pen on white paper. Some were just line drawings, others had shading using cross-hatching or narrow lines or even tiny crowded dots.

  I glanced at Taryn. She was looking at a print on her wall, or maybe at nothing at all. In any case, she was deliberately avoiding watching my reaction.

  I unzipped another case. This one had colored art—gouache, I think she’d said, whatever that was. It reminded me
of the artwork on her walls. Softer colors, but not pastels like for a six-year-old’s tea party. Warm rather than bright. As if seen through the haze of a high summer day.

  In both mediums, she favored powerful-looking women in a variety of settings. Even though many of the settings were familiar—city streets, ocean cliffs, and whatnot—they had a sense of the fantastic to them. Not full-on elfy-welfy fantasy, but as if magic were seeping through the cracks, or the place was in a world not quite our own.

  Some of the women were warriors, but again, not in medieval armor. One was Roman, I thought. Others maybe Greek. And still others with that fantasy feel.

  The rest of the women came from different walks of life, but they all had strength. In their eyes, in the press of their lips, the jut of their jaws, and in their stances.

  None of the women were classically beautiful, but they were…handsome, I think it’s called. Interesting, strong faces and bodies. As with the backgrounds, you could look at them again and again and catch something new every time, something you’d missed before.

  Some had cats at their feet, some I recognized from the shelter. Others had larger cats, such as panthers, and also wolves, and stags, and hawks.

  I didn’t need to look at any more. I was already beyond overwhelmed. I could have chosen one drawing, one painting, and spent the rest of the night with it.

  “Taryn, these—these are incredible,” I said. “No, better than that. I don’t know art-type words to describe them, but they…I feel them. It’s like I would know these women if I met them—as if I have met them.”

  She looked at me. Her hair was in her face, but I could see her eyes, and the small smile she couldn’t keep off her face, although it looked as though she was trying.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You don’t need the art-type words. You get it. Thank you.” She paused. “Also”—and her voice went quiet, almost a whisper—“there’s this. I was just playing around; it’s not finished work or anything. But I thought maybe you’d like to see it.”

  She held out the black-covered sketchbook I often saw her carrying, open to a page somewhere in the middle. When we had a break at the shelter, she’d sketch the cats, and when I was trying on pageant dresses, she’d ignored me and buried her head in the book.

  I took the book from her.

  My breath caught.

  She hadn’t been ignoring me. Just the opposite.

  It was a picture of me wearing the first dress I’d tried on, the yellow chiffon that Mrs. Wentworth and Kiara had nixed. It must have been when I first walked out in it, because even in the quick colored-pencil sketch, Taryn had captured the look in my eyes. The moment came back to me, clear as if it had happened a few minutes ago. The delight I’d felt from wearing a beautiful gown, one that made me feel like a Disney princess.

  A moment later, Mrs. Wentworth and Kiara had popped that bubble of delight.

  But now it was immortalized. And she’d captured it perfectly. I could feel the happiness radiating out of that simple sketch.

  “Oh my God, Taryn,” I said. “This is…this is…”

  I looked up, feeling tears welling.

  She reached out, turned the page. I gasped.

  Another sketch from that day, this time of me in the pinky-peach dress, the one with the aquamarine lace overlay and the mermaid train. My favorite of all the dresses.

  I looked strong, confident. My head was up, my shoulders back but not tensed. I had a little smile on my face, as if I was secretly ready to burst (and I kind of had been).

  I put a hand to my mouth. “I look so beautiful.”

  “That’s because you are.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said, meaning the sketches, and as I reached out to hug her, I realized what she’d said.

  I also realized that this was the first time we’d really touched, other than under the blanket fort, which had been a safe space for an emotionally wrecked me, both of us punchy and sleep-deprived. As I put my arms around her now, I was more aware of our bodies pressing together.

  At first, she hesitated, but then I felt her arms around my waist and she sort of leaned into me.

  We stood like that for what seemed like forever, and I couldn’t tell whether the heart pounding was mine, or hers, or both.

  Finally I pulled back, but although she loosened her grip, she didn’t let go. Now our faces were close, mine just a bit higher than hers.

  Our eyes met.

  Nineteen

  I wanted to kiss her. The thought raged through my brain, my body, to the point that I was shaking.

  But was it what she wanted?

  Her hair had gotten pushed back during our hug, and I could really see her dark eyes, searching mine. If I could have asked the question with my gaze, I would have. I tried. But it wasn’t enough.

  Moments ticked by as we stared at each other, so close.

  Finally I managed to choke out, “I want…may I…?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  And I hoped she was answering the question I was trying so desperately to ask.

  As it turned out, we came towards each other in mutual agreement, eyes fluttering shut when our lips touched.

  I didn’t have much experience kissing boys. All I knew was that it didn’t do much for me.

  I immediately knew kissing a girl was worlds apart: the soft lips, the tightening of Taryn’s fingers on my back, the breathy, broken, almost inaudible moan (hers? mine?) all delivered an energy I had been waiting for all my life without knowing it even existed.

  Finally we eased apart. I was still shaking, amazed that I could even stand. I backed towards the bed, and I felt her hand slip into mine as she followed. We carefully pushed aside the portfolios and sat next to each other, thighs touching, still holding hands.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Wow,” she agreed.

  A million things to say raced through my brain, but I couldn’t pick one of them. We sat in silence, and I simply enjoyed the feel of her fingers entwined with mine.

  “I didn’t know you were queer,” she said finally.

  “I didn’t know you were.”

  We both laughed shakily.

  “I’ve never dated a girl before,” I said.

  “Neither have I.” She snorted. “Obviously.”

  “Stop that,” I said. “This is a no-recriminations-zone conversation. But I like that we were each other’s first kiss.”

  “I never thought it would be with you,” she said.

  “Ouch!” I wasn’t sure if she was kidding, honestly.

  “No, I mean…” She glanced away, back at me. “I always thought you were pretty, but I was invisible to you.”

  “I’m sorry—” I started, but she cut me off.

  “It’s not your fault. I make myself invisible. It was safer that way, anyway, because I didn’t know you were queer, too.”

  “I didn’t know you were, either. And you weren’t entirely invisible,” I pointed out. “I remembered which classes we had together this year.”

  She grinned shyly. I liked that she was smiling more and more. It lit up her face. “That actually meant a lot to me.”

  I squeezed her hand.

  “So, what now?” she asked.

  I had no real idea. “Now we…keep on getting to know each other better. Keep hanging out. We’re still friends, just…better.”

  “Better. I like that.”

  I looked at the portfolios scattered on the mauve and white bedspread. “Thank you for showing me your artwork. It’s really amazing.”

  I saw the flush suffuse her cheeks. “Thanks. I’m glad you like it.”

  My phone chimed. I pulled it from my pocket. “Damn, it’s late. I have to be up tomorrow to work with Carlos.”

  I brushed a kiss on her cheek, and the flush deepened, even as she smiled. She squeezed my hand, slid her fingers away.

  I stood up and headed for the door.

  “Oh, Annabelle?”

  I turned.

  Ta
ryn bit her lip. “My mother can’t know. She can never know.”

  “I get it,” I said. “Don’t worry—she won’t hear it from me.” Of course I wouldn’t tell Mrs. Wentworth. She’d go crazy, and it would come back on both of us. I couldn’t risk that, especially if it put my pageant dreams at risk. “Goodnight.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  My heart light, I floated across the hallway to my room.

  As I went through my pre-bed skin care routine, I kept reviewing the kiss in my mind. The look in Taryn’s eyes. The softness of her lips. The warm wave over my body telling me that this was right.

  I thought I’d be awake all night, but the lack of sleep from the night before (nap notwithstanding) meant I was out when my head hit the pillow. I woke up with a stiff neck, as if I’d been stuck in the same position all night, but a hot shower took care of that.

  Taryn was making eggs in the kitchen. Knowing her mother could walk in at any time, all I said was “Morning,” and I briefly touched her arm as I went by her to pour myself a cup of coffee.

  “Morning,” she said. “Guess what? You’re back on eggs with yolks.”

  “Thank goodness for small miracles,” I said. I leaned back against the island, clutching the coffee, as she slid the scrambled eggs onto two plates. There were already two slices of bacon and half a sliced avocado on each plate. My stomach rumbled. I grabbed two forks from the drawer. “Thank you. You’re a good cook.”

  She glanced at me as she carried her plate to the table. “This is pretty much the extent of my cooking knowledge, since the rest of the meals are brought in. But I don’t mind doing it. It’s relaxing.”

  It was just the right amount of food to give me the energy I needed for today’s workout with Carlos. It had been nice to have a few days off, but I wanted those triceps.

  I wanted everything to be perfect for the next pageant.

  “Hm,” Carlos said when he arrived and surveyed me in my Spandex workout bra and leggings, which were black with green piping. “Somebody’s a little poochy today.”

  Oh no. The chocolate-and-Dorito fest had bloated me right out. I hadn’t noticed, but when I looked down, I realized he was right.