by Sabre Rose
I kissed the top of his head. “I’m home, Dad.”
The snores stopped and he opened his eyes.
“Dinner’s ready.” I slid the pizza box onto the coffee table.
Dad sat forward. “Pineapple?”
“Of course.”
Dad was a man of habit. He never varied from his choice in pizza toppings just like he never varied his daily routine. Apparently, before my mother died, he used to live. He had friends. He went hunting and fishing. Now his rifles and rods were locked away and forgotten.
“I’ll just pop through the shower and then I’ll join you.” I tossed my jacket through the doorway to my bedroom. It landed on the bed then fell to the floor. “What are we watching?”
Dad looked up. “Coro,” he mumbled around pizza. Friday night. The two-hour special. Dad was obsessed. Not obsessed enough to stay awake, but that was the fault of the nearly empty whiskey bottle sitting on the floor beside him.
I always felt better after a shower. Less greasy. Wiping my hand across the mirror, I smeared away the fog. I looked so much like her. Same eyes. Same hair. Same mouth, nose, ears. Same face. I knew that it pained Dad to look at me sometimes because I reminded him of her. I reminded him of them both. He thought it didn’t show, but it was there in the slightest flicker of his eye, the smallest twitch of his brow.
Pain. Hurt. Loss.
So I did my best not to look like her. Phoebe was everything bold and bright and beautiful. She sang and she danced. She wore colourful dresses with plunging necklines and short hems. And without fail and despite the occasion, her lips always matched her nails. Her eyes flashed fun and mischief even though they were rimmed in darkness.
I hardly ever wore makeup. I dressed in jeans and t-shirts, sweaters and sneakers. I think it made it better. I didn’t see that look in Dad’s eye quite so often.
Half the pizza was gone and Dad’s eyelids were drooping by the time I walked back into the lounge. The television channel had been changed. Coro was over and a quiz show was on. Dad sort of grunted himself awake when I sat on the couch, ankles tucked beneath my knees.
“Henry the eighth.” Dad took a sip of whiskey, winking in my direction when the answer to his question proved correct. “Flatiron,” he guessed for the next.
I dragged the blanket from the back of the couch over my lap then picked up my phone.
One missed call.
You.
10:53pm.
As I stared at the time, you called again. I left the room and shut my bedroom door. It wasn’t that I didn’t want Dad to know about you. It was that I wanted to know more about you before he did. Besides, what would I have said? That I gave my phone number to a stranger? That I met someone I was unexplainably drawn to? That I had spent the majority of my day thinking about you?
I swiped to accept. “Hi.”
“Hi.” There was a sigh on the other end of the line. I imagined you biting your lip. They were already a shade darker than what was deemed normal. Like they were bruised with passion.
“I know this will sound creepy-”
“Interesting way to start a conversation.”
You laughed. Chuckled, really. “I’m an artist. Well, an art student.” That explained the smudges of black and the sharpness to your scent.
“Congratulations?” I wasn’t sure why you had called to tell me this.
“I was wondering if you would allow me to draw you.”
“Draw me?” I’d never been a huge conversationalist but it seemed around you, I was only capable of repeating the words you said.
“Yeah. I’ve debated all day about whether to call you, how best to broach the subject, but I couldn’t come up with a way to ask without sounding creepy. So I decided just to own it. I…” There was an exhale of air again and I wondered if you were smoking. “I just can’t get you out of my head. I figured maybe putting you on paper would help.”
“You or me?” I asked.
“You or me what?”
“Who will it help?”
“Oh.” Your voice fell. “Me. Just me. You can hang up if you like. I know this is strange. It’s just, I’m in my first year of art school but I started off studying law. Got a couple of years under my belt before it dawned on me that I didn’t want to be a lawyer. That was what the family wanted, you know?” You laughed again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to spill my life story. We can do something normal if you like. Go out for dinner? Get to know me a little before I start with the creepy stuff.”
I don’t know what it was about you that made my heart pound. Was it that you were a stranger? That I felt bold and daring talking to you? That I didn’t feel like me?
I caught my reflection in the mirror and saw my sister. “You can draw me.”
“I can?”
Again, looking back now, I wonder what you thought in that moment. I made it so easy.
“When?” you asked.
“Now?” I regretted the word as soon as it came out of my mouth. “Unless that’s too soon. Or too late. It’s after eleven.”
“It’s perfect. Come on over. I’ll order you a ride.”
The voices inside my head screamed, telling me I was stupid to go to a stranger’s house. It was dangerous. I didn’t know anything about you. If I had, if I had known the truth, I would have never gone. But I was feeling brave and bold and foolish. I took off my slippers and pulled on my trainers. I discarded my t-shirt and instead chose to wear an oversized sweater, one that hung loosely off my frame and exposed the skin of one shoulder. I shrugged my jacket on and kissed my father goodnight. He was sleeping in the chair again. No doubt he would still be there when I got back. But just in case he woke, I scribbled a note on the pad stuck to the fridge.
Gone out. Home by two.
The car was waiting. The driver wasn’t talkative, keeping his eyes on the road and the car filled with music so we didn’t feel the need to converse. The air freshener stuck in the shutters of the heater gave me a headache as it mixed with the scent of cigarette smoke. It reminded me faintly of you. You smelled of smoke. Smoke and rain and paint.
I chewed on the nail of my index finger.
The driver still didn’t say anything when we pulled up to your building. At first, I thought he must have made a mistake. It wasn’t a house. It wasn’t an apartment. It was an old shed in the industrial area. Bricks had fallen from the walls. One window was cracked. But the door opened and you were there, dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans, both covered in those dark smudges with the occasional splash of colour. Your feet were bare.
“You came.”
I climbed out of the car. “I said I would.”
“I wasn’t sure.” You stood back and opened the door. “Come in.” Light crept out over the pavement. Heavy rock music slipped through the gap. I followed you inside.
“Sorry.” You walked over to the stereo and turned it down. “I like music loud when I work.”
I wasn’t sure if I would have called what you were listening to music. It was more a mess of noise.
“Come over here. Take a look at some of my stuff.”
It was warm inside. There was an open fire in one corner. I shrugged my jacket off and hung it on the back of a chair. There was nowhere else to put it. The shed was crammed full. Paint was splattered over the wooden panels of the floor, over chairs and walls. The sink was filled with discarded brushes and cans, and paint trailed as a rainbow of colour twisting to the plug hole. There was a mattress in one corner. It looked worn, slept in. A pizza box from my work was open on the table, though it was empty. The coffee machine on the bench had fingerprints of colour stained on the handle.
You flicked through a stack of canvases. “I prefer to work with charcoal.” You pulled one out to show me. “Like this. This is how I want to draw you.”
Instead of the colourful and brash paintings that covered the walls, the one you showed me was simple and understated. A mixture of harsh lines and smudges. Black and shades of grey.
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�You’re talented.” And you were. There was something in your work, mostly in your portraits. It was like you could see the person behind them, the artist rather than the muse. The one you showed me of an old man sitting naked on a stool, arms crossed over his chest, his penis hidden by the cross of his legs, that one was my favourite. He must have looked straight at you as you did it. There was defiance in his stance. Like he didn’t give a fuck. He looked like I wished I could be.
Walking over to the window, you placed a stool in front of it. “Here.” You patted the stool. “Sit. Make yourself comfortable.”
Like that was possible. You were too consuming.
I pulled myself onto the stool, lifting my shoulders high, my back straight. Adjusting myself, I tucked my feet behind the railing of the stool, then I took them off and let them fall, but it felt strange, like I was a child too small for the seat.
You were rummaging through shelves, discarding books and paint cans, stained coffee mugs and brushes, until you found a packet of cigarettes and shook it. There was one remaining so you took it out and held it between your lips.
“I don’t know how you want me to sit.”
I’m not sure if you knew what it felt like to have someone study you the way you studied me. I felt exposed under your gaze. I hadn’t noticed it in the movie theatre but your eyes were a piercing blue. They turned my skin cold. Or maybe it was hot. I couldn’t tell. With a box in your hands and an unlit cigarette in your mouth, you walked over to me, staring so intently I had to drop my gaze.
“Here.” You lifted my chin with your finger. “Sit with your body to the window and look back over your shoulder.” Your voice was muffled and the cigarette bounced up and down as you spoke.
I did as you instructed. Rain splattered across the window and blurred the lights of the city. I looked back at you over my shoulder. Your eyes fell over my body, assessing, contemplating. And then you stepped forward, sliding your hand around my neck, gathering my hair to let it fall down my back. You tugged on the sleeve of my sweater, exposing my shoulder.
Taking the cigarette out of your mouth, you said, “Perfect.”
Walking over to the fire, you placed the cigarette between your lips and bent low, allowing the flame to lick the tip. I didn’t know how you could stand so close and not shy away from the burn. Maybe you liked pain. “Are you okay to stay like that? Are you comfortable?”
I nodded and you pulled an easel from the wall, setting it up behind me. You were so close I could have reached out and touched you.
And then you started.
You chose each pencil carefully, but you didn’t only use them. Your fingers became soiled in darkness as you smeared your work, sometimes rubbing furiously against the canvas and at other times using only the faintest of strokes. Most people painted with their hands but you used your entire body. Your mouth, full and red as it was, twisted and contorted with concentration even as the cigarette burned between your lips. Your feet shifted restlessly over the wooden floor.
I lost track of time as I sat there and watched you. Each time you looked up and found me staring, you locked your eyes on mine unabashedly. The ash of your cigarette fell to the floor. The tension was thicker than the smoke that filled the room. It compressed my chest, left me feeling naked and vulnerable.
“You know that’s bad for you.” I couldn’t stand the silence any longer. I needed something, anything to break the tightness in my chest. Whatever it was.
You looked over at me and smiled. There was something so lazy about your expression. It could have been the way your eyelids drooped over your eyes. It could have been the slowness of your smile.
“Have you never done anything bad before, Sophie?”
“Not willingly, not something that I know would damage my health like smoking does.”
You placed your pencil back in the box and took the cigarette out of your mouth, letting it fall to the floor and twisting it with the ball of your bare foot. You walked over, your silhouette outlined by the light of the streetlamp shining through the window, and stood before me.
“You’ve never wanted to do something bad? Never wanted to take control away from the people who say you can’t?”
I thought about all the unanswered questions in my life and dropped my eyes. “Maybe.”
I felt, rather than saw your hand reach out. You touched my cheek first. Just the faintest of strokes. Delicate. Soft. I lifted my gaze again and got trapped in yours. You were studying me. Your eyes skipped over my face, resting on each of my features, following the lines of my bones.
“Isn’t the thrill of the experience more important than the result?”
Your hand slipped down my neck. I imagined the dark lines you left behind, tracing my body as though it were one of your paintings. Then your fingers wrapped around my throat. Not tight. But firm enough that you felt the rise and fall as I swallowed. Firm enough that it excited me.
It excited you too. Black flames licked your irises. Passion ignited your stance and you took a step closer. With your fingers digging into my flesh, you lowered your mouth to mine, searching for approval in my expression. Your lips were softer than I had imagined. But they burned. They scorched my skin, making it feel as though tiny layers peeled away under your touch. The pressure around my neck increased, tugging, pulling me to my feet as your kiss became more desperate. I pressed my body against yours and felt the firmness of you pressing back.
You were hard. I was soft.
I melted against you and a gasp or a moan escaped.
Releasing me, you tugged at the hem of your paint-stained t-shirt, pulling it over your head, revealing your nakedness. We stood looking at each other, chests rising and falling. Then your eyes trailed down my body and your hands reached out to take the hem of my sweater, slowly pulling it over my head until I too, stood bare before you.
My nipples hardened under your gaze, poking through the fabric of my bra. You looked up and then back down, a question floating across your features. I slid one strap down my shoulder. Then the other.
Your breathing quickened even more as I reached behind, unclasped the hook, and let the lace fall to the floor.
The appreciation in your eyes changed from an artist inspecting his muse to that of a lover drinking in the curves of their beloved. Reaching out, you stroked a finger over the swell of my breast. Goosebumps prickled.
But with that touch, it was as though someone turned on the light in a darkened room and I could see again. I was blinded. Startled by the fact that I was there. With you. A stranger.
Stumbling back, I reached down to grab my discarded clothing, pulling it to my chest. “I should go.”
Was it amusement or regret that splashed across your face? “I’m sorry.” You reached out for me but stopped when I stepped away. “I moved too fast. I shouldn’t have-”
“No. No. You didn’t do anything I didn’t want.”
The sounds of the world had come back. Music played. Rain dropped on the tin roof. And then I saw the clock on the wall. Ten minutes past three. How had time eluded me so easily?
“Is that time right? I need to get home to my father.”
You nodded, pulling your t-shirt back over your head, messing your hair and making me wish the lights in my brain had remained switched off.
I twisted, struggling with the hooks of my bra. “I told him I’d be home before two.”
That’s when you stepped closer. Your hands gently took hold of my arms and my skin prickled as you turned me and did up my bra. Your breath was hot as you whispered in my ear, “I didn’t mean to scare you away.”
My heart thumped. What was it about you that did this to me? Why did I feel as though my chest was about to explode? Why was it that I only felt this mixture of exquisite pain and pleasure when I was around you?
Your gaze was unsettling. “Will you come back to see my drawing once it’s complete?”
I nodded. Or, at least I think I did. It was hard to know. I may have kissed you.
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But when I walked out the door to the car waiting in the rain and I looked back over my shoulder, it was my sister’s face I saw staring back at me from that canvas. I knew it wasn’t mine because there was a beauty to it that could only ever belong to her.
three
I twisted my key in the lock quietly, not wanting to alert Dad to the fact that I was arriving home so late. He was still in his chair, light from the TV splashed across his face, empty whiskey bottle at his side.
There was a blanket I used for nights like this, and I placed it over Dad, folding it back under his chin and placing a kiss on his forehead. He stirred. He sighed and uttered the name of my sister.
I didn’t turn the TV off, just turned down the volume. Somehow, I think it made it easier for him to sleep with noise in the background. Maybe they muted the voices of his own nightmares.
My bedroom was bigger than Dad’s. It was the one he used to share with Mum, but after she died, he didn’t want to sleep there anymore so it became Phoebe’s and mine. We painted the walls, changed them from yellow to grey. I was only three when it happened. Phoebe was nine. Her pain was louder than mine. She remembered more. She remembered the knock of the police. The muttered words that told of the accident that killed her. I only remember my sister’s tears.
Once Phoebe was gone, I kept the outline of the world map she had drawn on the only wall uninterrupted by windows or doors. She had painted it in one night as we talked about the places we wanted to see. She had a pile of old travel magazines and we cut out pictures of the Eiffel Tower, the pyramids of Giza, the Taj Mahal, the crystal clear beaches of Greece, anywhere and anything we wanted to see. We attached them to hooks of string and strung them over the drawing pins stuck on the map.
She often did things like that late at night. She would arrive home from a job, alive, awake and full of life and get me from my bed. She didn’t like to be alone. Sometimes she would put on music and we would dance. Other times we would watch scary movies hiding under a blanket with only our eyes peeking out.
I ran my finger over the wall and watched the little pictures flutter with the disturbance. Flopping onto my bed, I pulled out my phone and checked the bank balance. Not too much more to go and then I could escape this place. I was almost free.