Beneath The Skin(16)

“Drawer by the stove with the ice cream scoop and chopsticks.”

“Was that an actual offer?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow. “I mean …”

“Get me drunker and I just might take you up on that. For now, my fantasy of the hot pussy I’m dividing and conquering will do.”

“Nope. TMI. I’m good,” he blurts as he spins on his heel and slips out of the room as fast as he’d come in, the door clapping shut behind him and sounding like half a spanking.

And speaking of spanking, I resume stroking my cock as if I’d never been interrupted … except I can’t seem to see her face anymore. All I see is her backside, or the whipping of her black hair, or the blank, white nothingness of a canvas yet to be graced with a stroke of the pencil.

I breathe heavily, staring up at the ceiling and seeing nothing.

Fuckin’ nothing.





There’s a diner at the corner just off campus where Clayton, Dmitri, and I used to eat at once or twice a week all last year. It’s at this special diner that I see my best friend Clayton for the first time in almost a month. It’s just another Friday and the place is hopping like a bunny in the springtime.

I’m already seated and waiting for half an hour when Clayton Watts comes through the door in a skintight heather grey shirt that basically screams “I work out twenty-five hours a day” and “Don’t fuck with me” at the same time. Down his bicep and up the side of his blunt neck runs a network of dark, snakelike, thorny tattoos. His gaze is the dark, dangerous variety that, to those who aren’t his friends, ought to be damn intimidating to find yourself caught in.

If I was deaf like he is, I could pretend that every one of his footfalls shook the building and cast thundering booms throughout the whole diner, rattling plates and stirring silverware from their slumber.

Instead, his shoes softly shuffle as he approaches my table. His eyes find mine. “Hey,” he says, smirking down at me. “You order yet?”

“Yes. And I got you your usual.”

He sits down and lifts a quizzical eyebrow at me, to which I just nod, then point at him and hold up three fingers, then make an egg-shaped fist which looks like I’m cussing him out in some Italian hand language, but Clayton gets the message. He smirks appreciatively, then starts drumming his fingers on the table as he says, “Feels like it’s been forever since we’ve hung out, man. I miss our late nights.”

“You never come over anymore,” I complain when his eyes find my mouth, following my words. “Dessie takes up all your damn time.”

“Dessie?” He chuckles when I nod, then grabs a spoon and spins it on the table absently. “Things are getting pretty serious between us. It’s pretty fucking scary, actually, what she does to me.”

“Scary?”

“She’s got me thinking of things,” he goes on, staring down at that spoon after it stops spinning. He never used to talk this much; Dessie’s brought out his voice a lot over the past year. “Things I didn’t think I’d ever find myself thinking about, man. Kinda … kinda freaks me out.”

I lower my head to catch his gaze. “Like what?” I ask when he looks up, then tap my forehead with a finger. “What’re you thinkin’ about?”

He itches the side of his face where some dark stubble is coming in. “Like … permanent things. Long-term goals. What I want to do with my life. Or with her. Like … like maybe moving to New York someday.”

“New York??” I blurt.

His face breaks into a laugh, though only a sigh seems to escape his lips. “Dude, I told you. She’s got me all fucked up. In … in the best way possible.”

His phone vibrates and lights up, stealing his attention. As he looks down at it and starts to type a reply to whoever it is (I’ll give myself exactly one guess) I fold my arms on the table and wonder what the hell I’m gonna do without Clayton around. New York??

I sigh, my breath tickling the hairs on my arm. I mean, I guess I should have seen it coming. We all can’t just sit around our apartments playing games and sharing stories about our various sexual exploits all our lives, right? I know we need to give some honest consideration to our respective futures at some point, but to actually hear Clayton talk about it really sends my mind into a spin that begins and ends with the same question: What about me?

I don’t want to lose Clayton. Then a quiet voice in my head reminds me that I’ve already lost him as I watch him quietly text on his phone.

When he finally looks up, he smirks and says, “Dessie. Cece’s driving her crazy. Her uptight sister. Oh, she says hi.”