Beneath The Skin(46)

The sunlight cooks me again as I stroll slowly across campus. It might be something to do with Chloe’s words, but I find my mind trying to defy her, as if her scathing speech was a challenge. She thinks I have no depth? Nell thinks the idea of me being deep is a joke? Even Dmitri, as nice and polite as he is about it, never goes into much detail with me about the stories he writes. I sometimes wonder if it’s because he thinks I won’t get it … or care.

I’m sick of people treating me like a dumb jock. I didn’t even play sports in high school. Hell, the jocks I was friends with back then were driven and smart, from what I remember. One even got accepted to goddamn Yale.

Dmitri’s latest story is about an organ donor coming back to life to go on a quest to get his heart back? That shit’s deep. I wish I’d thought of it. Then again, an idea is just that until you make it into a story and, well, I don’t know if I have the patience to put that many damn words together.

Then you have Nell painting headless dogs and beautiful women with nothing censored but their mouths. Isn’t that shit deep, too? That kind of work makes a statement.

So what the hell kind of depth do I have to show for?

What statement am I trying to make?

Just thinking about Nell makes me hurt all over again.

Students pass by me in pairs, like everyone in the world’s a couple but me. I walk alone, passing lovers and buddies and groups gathered under trees. Among one such group by the psychology building, a girl turns away from her friend to watch as I pass by, and I’m struck by her knowing gaze, wondering if she’s checking me out, or if we’ve already done the deed in the back of a supply closet in that very building.

I should remember, shouldn’t I?

Or is she just another bowling pin I struck down at the end of the lane, swept away, forgotten?

I finally settle in a spot under a tree near the School of Art tunnel on a grassy knoll. It’s there that I pull out my sub, unwrap it, and finally sink my teeth into its peppery, meaty goodness. I watch people as they pass by, trying to see something beyond what I’m just literally seeing. I’m determined for something bold and brilliant to occur to me. The deep and meaningful thing worthy of an artist’s attention … Something worthy of a photographer’s skillful eye.

Chewing with conviction, I stare and I stare at the world, waiting to see that brilliant … amazing … something.





NELL



I might be wearing clothes, but over them I’m wearing something else, something thicker and darker, something that can’t be seen.

Guilt?

Frustration?

Embarrassment?

And it weighs so much, my posture is literally broken all day. I stare at the blank canvas, which taunts me. Here I am with a campus studio all to myself, and nothing’s coming.

I feel like I totally ruined my night with Brant. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but maybe some innocent, dreaming part of me actually enjoyed his presence. He did everything right, didn’t he?

Something happened after I got off. Suddenly, I grew afraid. With all the horniness drained from me, my emotions changed, and all the reality flooded in like a cold, unwanted shower. That was worsened by the ill-timed text Brant received, which served as some dark, ironic reminder of whose face I just let between my legs.

Just thinking about that makes my thighs squeeze together. I can still feel him there when I close my eyes.

Fuck. No one has ever touched me like that. No one has ever made me climb so damn high before.

My breathing changes just from thinking about it.

As if he’s already down there again. Oh, god.

I pop open my eyes, pushing those irresistibly sexy memories of Brant and the other night away. I take a deep breath, as if that’ll help, but it only seems to remind me of how I sighed deeply when his tongue probed me … and his mouth did whatever the hell sort of sexy voodoo it was doing down there.

My heart’s beating so fast, I literally set down my charcoal pencil and put a hand to my chest.

It’s more than what he does to my body. I learned that, too, after I came. There’s more there than just a hot face, a perfect sculpted body, and a cocky smile that can level trees. And when I realized that I’d let my feelings ignite, when I realized that even after my orgasm I still wanted to hold him close, when I realized that I wanted him to stay … that’s when I knew I was royally fucked.

Brant isn’t someone to grow feelings like that for, especially this fast. I’d be the world’s greatest moron. That’s like building a tower of cards at the peak of a hill just because the wind’s calm that day. Sure, admire your tower and all its delicate balance for its short little life, but you’d better be ready to watch it fall.