Published in the University of North Texas 2005 North Texas Review.
Outlines
He smokes and paces in front of Roberts Hall, the art building. A few steps toward the quad, a few steps back. He's got so much force in his shoulders as he hunches them, like a caged lion. I remember how his shoulders, almost junkie thin, look with the skin stretched tight over muscle, bone, tendons, corded out.
With a lazy smile, I lean my head into his line of sight. "Buongiorno, Pablo. Miss me?"
He reaches out and yanks me to him, his hand on the back of my neck. Our mouths meet so hard it can't even be called a kiss. I hook my thumbs in his back pockets after I move his Prismacolors out of the way. He leans his head back. "Maggie, Maggie. When'd you get in?"
"Midnight. Not so much on the sleep."
Tucking my head under his chin, he says, "I assume you didn't fall for any Roman boys then." The chuckle rumbles against my forehead.
I feel like a cat in the sun, ready to purr and sleep. He smells like paint thinner and pencil lead, smoke and Old Spice. "Only one boy for me." While he thinks on that, I extricate myself and hold up a Sharpie from his pocket. "How 'bout I show you what I learned while I studied all those Roman friezes and sculptures and Masterwork paintings?"
He gives me one of his looks--the "whatever" kind--and, plucking the marker from my fingers, spins me around before forcing me to sit. I sigh. He never lets me write on him. Me, though, I'm practically one of his mediums.
Bracing my sides with his knees, he passes a hand across the bare skin on my back. I shrug so that the tank top straps fall against my arms. The Sharpie almost doesn't cause any sensation as it passes over the skin, so I can't tell what he's drawing. But I can feel his fingers trailing over my shoulder blades, pressing against my spine.
When I first met him, he was in my Drawing III class, two easels from the center Van Gogh. He did everything--painted, drew, shaded--with a kind of contained violence, like he was declaring war on the canvas. He had the kind of slim build I like that's all angles. In the beginning, I'm not sure we ever really talked. All I do remember was wanting his hands on me.
One day, I saw him outside smoking. I had a dorm party later that night and a Sharpie in my pocket. He drew a flamenco dancer across my shoulders and went to the party with me. The rest, as they say, is history.
"There," he says, tucking the marker back into his pocket.
I don't bother twisting around to look. I won't see it anyway. "What is it?" I ask, smiling at him.
"It's a secret." He brushes my hair back over my shoulders with his hand. Before I can ask about the image again, he kisses me, and I lean back, hunching my shoulders so the ink doesn't smear. "Oh, I've missed you," he says into my hair.
"Yeah, I can see what you missed." But I'm teasing.
I came prepared today. Stuck in my back pocket is a plain jane black Sharpie. I take it and start to doodle a laurel-crowned bust of Claudius on the back of his hand. Without saying anything, he flips his hand away.
"What, I can't draw--" He kisses me again, so I'll shut up. He is so frustrating sometimes.
ooo
I wake up to the smell of cigarettes and paint thinner. It's 4 AM, and he's asleep on his stomach. Stupid jet lag. In the dark, I can just see the rise and fall of his back. His skin stretches tight over the angles of his shoulder blades, makes valleys of his ribs.
Sometimes he gets so caught up in the creation, he forgets to eat. I was afraid that I'd come back from my Italian summer to find a skeleton. A skeleton who would still draw on my skin with that irresistible touch.
Speaking of drawing. I stand up and find the bathroom in the dark. The light nearly blinds me, so it takes a few watery-eyed moments before I can see my reflection in the mirror.
The red lines are smudged, but I can still see the image of a beach, palm trees and sailboats and waves. I've had cats playing with yarn, gutted buildings, flags for the Fourth, women, men, planets, landscapes.
A changeable canvas. Permanent marker on Maggie, like oil on wood or acrylic on canvas or ink on paper.
I could be an art show by myself.
The lights are off again when I walk back to the bed. His artbox sits on a crate by the door. I pop the lid off, but he doesn't wake up. Excellent. I take all of his Sharpies out of the box--and he has every color he can find--and kneel on the bed next to him.
The outline first is in black because I am an illustrator, rather than an artist. I know the value in the coloring outside the lines, but there must first be lines. I follow with shading and color until he has beautiful peacock-feathered wings, wings like on a statue of Nike.
I look at my ink smudged hands as I pour the markers onto the floor, and I have a smile for myself. Maybe some of the violence I love in him has rubbed off on me.
I slip back under the sheet and kiss his face, his mouth, his eyes, his hands when he sleepily reaches for me. Arching against him, I try to keep the smile off my face and my fingers out of the still-wet markings on his back.
ooo
When I wake up at a decent hour, 9 AM, he's standing in front of the mirror on his dresser, back to it, something between a frown and a smirk on his face.
The colors are blended together, and I can see some came off on the sheets. Not that it matters with all the paint on them anyway. The outline still tells what the shape is, though. "Morning," I say, wondering what his reaction means.
"Maybe you shouldn't draw when I'm sleeping," he says, the frown in full on his face. "Seems to smudge a bit."
I get up with some apprehension. I press my face against his collarbone but peek over his shoulder, looking into the mirror to meet his eyes. "Are you mad at me?"
"It's actually quite good." Does that answer my question? Is it changing the subject? He shrugs and starts to leave the room. But he circles back around me to pick up his pants, saying, "Maybe after breakfast you can show me the rest of your new-found 'talian art." He slaps me on the ass as he passes by. "After breakfast. No Romans before coffee in this house."
ooo
After breakfast I tell him the story, narrating the pictures. The Sistine Chapel on his shoulder, the Coliseum on his thigh, a headless Venus on his arm, the blank faces of emperors on his hands. I draw a statue of Domition on his chest, but with his face instead of the Roman's.
I'm pretty sure he won't let me do this again, so I sign my name across his belly. With a sly smile, I ask, "So what about your story while I was gone? Tell it to me."
He tells me with his fingers and teeth, leaving the images in red-purple scrawl. I remember the first time I decided to want him, because I had a vision of this, how I would love it most of all. I was right.
But then he leaves to wash off all my drawings. I notice the red beach is gone from my back, replaced by a set of broken columns and a discarded laurel. I sigh. This was the part I couldn't foresee.
I really am an illustrator first. I can read and follow the bruises and bites, the sex and the routines. They are the outline. I can't see the insides, the mashed up colors and shadings, why I cannot move outside the lines he sets for me.
I guess we both have our designs on each other. Eventually we'll find they no longer work in concert. But I haven't finished quite what I started. So he still has time yet.