Yours to Bare

by Jessica Hawkins

  My lungs inflate. No shit. I’m the first? Not even her boyfriend? I’ve built the journal up so much in my mind, this is like . . . like watching a flower open or witnessing her first orgasm. It’s getting to see something nobody else has, bringing down a wall, and now I want it even more. “Try. Please.”

  She looks at the coffee in my hand like I’m holding it hostage. I don’t give it to her.

  Dropping her eyes again, she scans the page a few times and begins. “‘Rough me up, dark as . . .’” She reads slowly, her voice raspy. With a short shake of her head, she tries to pass the journal back to me. “I can’t. You do it.”

  I walk by her to the other side of the room. If I stand still, she’ll notice how much a single sentence, not even a sentence, affects me. I could’ve guessed listening to her read would be sexy, but her bashfulness about it is making my pants uncomfortably tight. The girl who wrote these things was supposed to be bold. Daring. Walking sex. Halston is subtle, nuanced. Beautiful, but in a quiet way that draws me in.

  “Keep reading,” I say, pacing.

  She sighs. “‘Rough me up, dark as coffee. Burrow deep, make me drip with it, get me so high, I forget how it feels to . . . crash.’”

  Neither of us speaks.

  “There,” she says finally. “Happy?”

  Happy? I could eat the words like candy, right off her tongue.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks. “Did I do it wrong?”

  Words aren’t my strong suit, and I can’t describe how hers make me feel. That’s why I have the camera. The mug burns my palm. I offer it to her. “Hold it in your lap.”

  She looks from me to the coffee, obviously wary. She takes it, lowering it like I told her to, and shifts against the cushion. “It’s hot.”

  I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking how that intense heat feels against the tops of her thighs. I shouldn’t be so turned on by someone I can’t have, but it’s the first time in a year I’ve needed something more than air. I pick up my camera.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asks when I aim it at her.

  “Nothing.” I study her through the lens a few seconds. I desperately want to capture her confused, timid, curious expression, but I promised—not her face. “Show me your palm, just the right.”

  She balances the mug with one hand and opens the other.

  I slide the coffee table back a few feet to squat in front of her. I fold all her fingers into a fist except for the index and middle ones, and that alone sends my mind to the gutter. They’re my two favorite fingers, the same ones I’d use to see how wet she was before I fucked her.

  I breathe through my nose to calm myself. This isn’t just about me. She has to trust me for this to work. I step back a few paces and perch on the edge of the table. With the camera over one eye, I cut off anything above her lips and say, “Put your fingers in the coffee.”

  “They’ll burn.”

  “You don’t have to keep them there.”

  She curves both fingers and dips them into the mug, wincing from the sting of heat just as I snap the photo. She pulls them out and sticks them in her mouth but not before a stream of coffee spirals down her forearm.

  I capture it all and lower the camera. Normally, it’d take several shots to satisfy me, but that was it. That was the moment.

  “That’s it?” she asks.

  I lean my elbows on my knees and view the first photo. Her fingers are thrust into the mug in her lap like she’s going for climax, and one side of her mouth is curled in an ambiguous snarl. It could be pleasure. It could be pain. I show it to her.

  She nearly gasps. “It looks like I’m . . .”

  “Masturbating.”

  “But it’s a mug of coffee.”

  “Burrow deep.”

  We meet eyes, and it clicks for her. “Like what I wrote,” she says. “It’s just a cup of coffee, but . . .”

  “It feels like fucking.” I put it out there. “That’s your talent. I want to do that too, make people feel like that.”

  “You do,” she says, her gaze drifting back to the camera.

  Do I? I didn’t before, according to her. But her breasts rise and fall a little faster. Her cheeks are still flushed. Is she aroused? I’m tempted to check for myself, test her nipple with the pad of my thumb to see if it’s hard.

  Swallowing, I go to the next photo. Again, the frame spans mouth to lap. She’s sucking her fingers, her lips pink and plump. Coffee drips down the meat of her palm and over her wrist.

  She shakes her head. “You made me sexy.”

  “All I told you to do was put your fingers in the coffee.”

  “Have you done this before?” she asks. “For your own . . . not for work?”

  My mind flashes to Sadie, who, in this same apartment, played for my camera. Different couch, different situation. Since her, it’s been nothing but meaningless shit. Until now. “No,” I say.

  She glances at me from under her lashes, her bottom lip hanging, almost in a pout. “Really? Or are you just saying that?”

  “Yes, really.” I’m about to ask why she thinks I’d lie, but the hope in her eyes answers the question. She wants to be special. Maybe she doesn’t know she already is. Maybe she thinks I do this all the time. Her sudden doubt is stark against the lens-sharpened sensuality I just saw.

  “Halston. Look.” I move next to her on the couch and flip to the last of the three pictures—the tip of her tongue, pressed to her wrist bone as she catches a drop of coffee. I got her eyes in that one by accident. “You’re better than anything I’ve shot, but you know that.”

  Almost imperceptibly, her body softens, and she tucks her hair behind her ear. She isn’t spice-scented today, more girlish, like a flower. Not as strong as roses. I can’t really place it since most flowers smell the same to me. “What are you going to do with them?” she asks.

  “Nothing.” I flip between the photos. Fuck, they’re good. With some editing, they could be great. The composition isn’t perfect, but that makes them more real. The day’s end offers just enough natural light, and some darkness too. If I faded them with a filter, turned them gray, they’d be eerie, and sexy. “Or, I could post them.”

  “You think they’re good enough?”

  “You’re the expert,” I point out.

  “Not when it comes to myself. I think they’re, you know . . . I love them. But I’m biased.”

  “They need . . .”

  “What?” She looks me full in the face, and it suddenly occurs to me how close we are. Our outer thighs are pressed together. Lips within kissing distance. Her white skin is pink and patchy from the way we’ve been talking, and I think I could smooth it all away with my touch. I lean in. I need to take her mouth for my own. Dive into its heat, own her in seconds, claim what I should’ve days ago.

  She exhales a breath I can practically see, and I stop an inch from her mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  So much. So much is wrong with this. Cheating is the one thing I can’t do again. I’ve been scalded, and I’m still one giant scar. I’m vulnerable as fuck to Halston’s spell, but I knew that before she walked in the door. I have only myself to blame for feeling helpless. “Nothing,” I say, easing back. “It’s my issue. Not yours.”

  “What issue?”

  I shouldn’t have to tell her she has a fucking boyfriend. Isn’t that enough to explain why I won’t touch what doesn’t belong to me? “What was I saying?”

  Her shoulders fall. “That the photos need something. They’re not right?”

  “Yeah. No. They’re right.” I rub my jaw. I shaved for her. Did she notice? “I want your words.”

  She blinks a few times. “My words?”

  “As the caption.”

  “No.” Her eyebrows draw in. “No, you can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you, I didn’t write that for anyone but myself.”

  “And I told you, you should. You have a gift. Don’t waste
it.”

  “But it’s no good. I went to business school.” She shifts forward, away from me. “I look at art, I don’t create it.”

  “Then why do you write?”

  “To get it out. To feel something.”

  “Why do you have to write to feel?”

  She looks away. “I have a good life. Simple. My dad is conservative, and so are our clients. He’d be embarrassed if anyone in the industry found out. I would be embarrassed. I’m past the stage of my life where I need to shock people.”

  Maybe that’s a valid reason, but I recognize her fear. It took me almost ten years to work up the courage to take a second chance on my art, and even now, putting it out there isn’t easy. My best work comes from vulnerability, and nobody wants to be judged with their walls down. But I have yet to regret it. “Then nobody has to know,” I say. “Just us. I’ll make sure you remain anonymous. Promise.”

  She presses her lips together, suppressing either a smile or a frown, I can’t tell. She touches her palm to her chest. “My heart is racing. The thought of someone looking at me like that . . . or reading my stuff. I shouldn’t want to do it, should I? I don’t know.” She takes the camera from me and examines each photo again. “I think I do.”

  She may not know, but I have some idea. All the hints I’ve been collecting—the bra, the tattoo, the forbidden thoughts—tell me what I need to know. If she was raised conservatively, then she’s probably been burying her sexuality in this journal for a while, hiding it even from herself, and it’s seeping out in other ways.

  I’m not about to explain it to her, though. I don’t want this to stop. “Is that a yes?”

  She exchanges the camera for her coffee, and after a pause, looks at me. “That’s a lot of trust to put in you.”

  “I told you earlier—you’re safe with me.”

  “I’ve critiqued people’s work,” she says. “Sometimes solicited, sometimes not. If I put something out there . . .”

  “You’re opening yourself up to criticism. But does it feel less scary if nobody knows who you are?”

  Slowly, she nods. “A lot less scary.”

  I relax. I’m too relieved to get something I didn’t know I wanted a few minutes ago. “Then I’ll post this picture with your words, and you’ll see. People will love it. And if you’re still scared after that, I’ll take it down.”

  “And if I’m not?”

  I swallow dryly. “Then we can talk about posting the second one.”

  She nods and finally, a smile breaks through. “I should go. It’s getting late, and there’s dinner . . .”

  “Yeah. Okay.” I hold out her journal.

  She just looks at it, balling her fists in her lap. “Keep it.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her. “Yeah?”

  “Not forever. Only for a little while. When I take it home, I hide it, and it’s sad. Maybe it should be somewhere it can actually breathe.”

  “Like my nightstand?” I tease.

  She maintains eye contact, even as something darker passes over her face—desire? Fear? I’d pay a mint to read her thoughts at the moment. “If that’s where you want to keep it . . . I won’t stop you.”

  “I can’t be responsible for what it makes me do,” I say more gruffly than I mean.

  “Then I’ll be responsible.”

  God.

  Damn.

  This is the ultimate test of willpower. She’s flirting with me. She likes the idea of me reading her words at night, touching myself, and fuck if it doesn’t make me sort of crazy with lust. It’s best she leaves now before I make a huge mistake.

  I look out the window. Days are getting shorter, and it’s already dark. “I’ll walk you downstairs,” I say. “You should get a car home.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I insist.” I put the journal down. “Come.”

  I ride down the elevator with her and put her in a taxi. As she’s driven away, as my warmth cools, I begin to dread what’s ahead of me. Another night alone. I know her now. Her secrets, her small protests against what she thinks she’s supposed to be, the bow of her lips.

  Being alone when I don’t want to be is hard enough.

  Knowing everything she is, all that I won’t have next to me tonight, will make it worse.

  7

  One indication this won’t be a normal day is the fact that I’m the one who wakes up first. Seven minutes before Rich’s alarm goes off, I’m completely awake, as if I’d only blinked and hadn’t actually slept. Maybe I didn’t, because I’m still having the same thoughts I was as I’d drifted off last night.

  Finn read my journal, and he wasn’t repulsed.

  He was so un-repulsed, that he masturbated to it.

  He understood it. He felt inspired. Is there any higher compliment?

  Then, he almost kissed me. Finn almost kissed me.

  I look over my shoulder. Rich is fast asleep beside me, up to his nose in sheets and blankets despite central heating. I wouldn’t have stayed here last night, but I’d already promised him I would. The sheer white curtains glow with morning light, the opposite of Finn’s place, which is older than this apartment, more lived in, darker. Finn doesn’t have much, but his space seems to expect clutter.

  I won’t be alone again until Rich leaves for work. That’s only an hour away, but I don’t want to wait. I take my phone from the nightstand and sit up against the headboard. After pulling my hair back off my face, I check to see if Finn posted to Instagram. His username is already in my recent history from last night. There’s nothing new.

  I have four minutes until the alarm, so I search hashtags for erotic photographers. The results are graphic, not artful like Finn’s work. I angle my phone completely away from Rich and try #sexypoetry. More nudies. Most photos are of actual words typed out or handwritten on scraps of paper. I scroll and scroll and scroll. Some of it isn’t bad. Some is even beautiful.

  Rich wakes up with his alarm and turns over. “You’re already up?”

  “I’m checking for an e-mail.”

  “Yeah? About what?”

  I keep my eyes on my phone. “Just a client thing.”

  “Oh.” He throws off the covers, stands, and stretches for the ceiling. Dark hair curls from under the hem of his t-shirt. “Need the shower?”

  “Go ahead.”

  When he’s in the bathroom and the water’s running, I return to my phone. I check Finn’s profile again, and there I am, forty-seven seconds old. At 7:01 A.M., he posted the first photo. Right underneath my coffee-soaked fingers and curled lip are my words.

  Rough me up, dark as coffee.

  Burrow deep, make me drip with it, get me so high,

  I forget how it feels

  to crash.

  It has no likes. No comments. Only sixty-one people follow Finn, so that shouldn’t bother me. Still, my disappointment surprises me.

  I go into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee before heading to the bathroom. Rich holds open the shower door for me, and we switch places. I scrub and shave while he dresses in a suit and tie.

  I wrap a towel around my hair and body and return to the kitchen for what’s usually the best part of my morning—my first cup of coffee. Today, though, I’m more eager about the photo. Outside of a few speeches and performances in middle school, I’ve never put myself on display this way. For people to judge. What if they think I’m unattractive? Or my caption is lame? I don’t know the first thing about real poetry. I just write what feels right. Somebody could easily call me out for that, and they’d have a point.

  Still, even though it makes my stomach churn, I grab my phone and type in my passcode. I can’t not check. Finn believes in me. Maybe he’s right, and I do have talent. Either way, I have to know.

  Before I check, I pour coffee to the brim. Just the smell, the warmth, settles my nerves a bit.

  “No e-mail yet?” Rich asks, drying his empty mug.

  “Mhm.” I refresh Finn’s profile. Twenty-four likes and two com
ments. In forty minutes. It’s not a ton, but for the small number of followers he has, it’s something. His other photos have much less, even the ones of pretty women.

  I hold my breath and read the comments.

  Fucking hottt

  What’s this quote from?

  My face warms. Strangers. They’re looking at my body and reading my words. My journal entries have always been provocative, but private. I’m someone’s art. Will Finn post all three? The last photo he took included part of my face.

  He has the power to expose me.

  A man I met only a week ago.

  Goosebumps rise over my skin. Would he do that? Last night I trusted him not to, but things aren’t as cut and dry in the light of morning. I should be worried. I’m just tense, though, anticipating, wondering what he’ll do next.

  “Earth to Halston.”

  I look up. Rich has his briefcase in hand. His chestnut-colored hair is neatly trimmed and styled. I can never tell when he gets it cut, because it always looks the same. “Sorry. Did you say something?” I ask.

  “Did I leave the water too warm? Your face is red.”

  I’m hot, and I’ve been hot since I left Finn’s last night. Since I arrived there, actually. I touch my throat. “A little.”

  “Sorry.” He checks his watch. The gold glints under the kitchen lights. “When will you be in today?”

  “Soon. I’m not ready yet.”

  “That’s okay. I’m a little early, so I’ll just see you at the office. Anyway, I was just asking if you’re staying here tonight?”

  “Oh. No. I haven’t been home in a few days.”

  “But you will tomorrow night, right? We have the Dietrich thing.”

  “Right.” I’d rather have a few days to myself, but I’ve already committed to the client dinner. Whether it’s Rich’s account or my dad’s, I’m still expected to show. Clients appreciate that we’re both a family business and a mid-size agency. The three of us are a package, Rich and I more show ponies at these dinners than valuable team members. “I’ll be here.”

  After Rich leaves, I remove my towel and look myself over in the bathroom mirror. I still haven’t gotten used to this body, how my curves are still there, only slighter, or how my smaller waist makes my breasts look larger, even though they’ve shrunk a bit. My nipples are swollen, as pink as my lips, but Rich and I haven’t had sex in weeks. I hadn’t noticed until last night. Until golden-haired, tall, muscular, attentive Finn leaned in. Until the way his one hand engulfed my coffee cup when he passed it to me, or until his magnificently green eyes lit up when he asked me to read to him. And his lips—God, his lips. They’re unreal, so pouty they’re almost feminine, except that the rest of his facial features are strong, his jawline sharp. It’s the most inviting mouth I’ve ever had the pleasure of almost kissing.