“I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.” Friday is almost naked with me in her bedroom. I could stay here for days. I dip the brush and get it close to her back. It’s almost a shame to cover up the phoenix tattoo. It’s purple and gray and rising from the ashes. “Did you draw this tattoo?” I ask, as I start to swipe.
“Yes.”
I keep painting. At least doing this, I get to explore all of her art. “It’s pretty. And moving.”
“It’s me right after I met you,” she says. Her voice is soft and curvy, just like her body. “Having a job and a family, even one that wasn’t mine, made me stronger. I felt like I could finally carry on.”
I explore the rest of her back as I paint all the ones. Then I move on to the two’s, and they’re purple. She smiles at me over her shoulder.
“You’re doing great,” she says.
“What’s this one?” I ask. I point to a deck of cards with a clown on the front. There’s a full house showing on the card faces.
“Life’s a gamble.”
“And this one?” I start to paint over her sailboat.
“Someday,” she says quietly, “I’ll sail into the sunset.”
“There are wedding rings on the sail?”
“Yes.”
“You want to be married.”
“Yes.”
My heart kicks in my chest.
“My back is my hopes and dreams. My front is my reality as I saw it at the time. Because I can face anything, as long as I let what happened to me push me forward.”
Damn. I don’t even know how to respond.
When her back is all covered, I scoot my chair to the side and she lifts her arm. “Just do the side. I can do the front.”
I don’t respond, because I’m not stopping.
She has a crashed sailboat on the front side of her belly. And right beside her pierced belly button is a deck of cards with a full house showing on the card faces. She had words like faith, hope and charity written on her back. And on her front, she has words like loss and a big F like you would see on a school paper. I don’t comment on those because she’s starting to squirm and I’m afraid she’ll make me stop.
I hover over an empty bassinette. I look up at her and see that she has closed her eyes, so I paint over it.
“I can’t figure out what we’re drawing.”
She grins. “I know. Isn’t it great?”
I chuckle. “If you say so.”
I paint up the side of her neck, where there’s a turtle and skulls and other crazy shit that is so Friday.
When there’s nothing left but her boobs, which are still covered by her shirt, she says, “My legs are going to be black.”
“You’re not walking out on the stage naked,” I say. No way in hell.
“No, I’m wearing black bathing suit bottoms.” She picks up a roller.
“Good.” I’d hate to have to tie her to the bedpost. Well, actually, I’d love to tie her to the bedpost.
“I need to take my pants off,” she says. Her face colors, and it’s so damn pretty.
I set the paintbrush down and start to hum to myself as I reach for the button of her pants. She lets me, still clutching onto that shirt. She’s wearing skimpy black bathing suit bottoms, and I whistle when I see them. She giggles, and the sound shoots straight to my heart. I shove her pants down, and she steps out of them.
I squat down in front of her, put one knee on the floor, and rest my elbow on the other. I look up and grin. “The view is nice from down here.”
She grins and looks away.
She doesn’t have a lot of art on her outer thighs except for a baby rattle that’s encased in a spider web. It sweeps across her knee. I know what that one is about. I roll over it with black paint, and then cover all the way down to her toes. She giggles when I do the inside of her foot. “Ticklish?” I ask.
“Hypersensitive right now,” she whispers.
“I need to get below your bottoms,” I tell her, “in case they shift.”
“Can you pull them down just a little?” she asks. “Not far.”
I hook my thumbs in the hips of her bottoms and tug them down. She makes a whispery noise, and I look up to find her talking to herself. It sounds like she’s saying, Don’t pass out, don’t pass out, don’t pass out, but I can’t be sure. I paint around her hips and her waistband and leave her bottoms turned down so it can dry for a minute. I lift her leg and rest her foot on my knee. I can see the inside of her thigh where her son’s footprints are, along with his date of birth. I lean forward and kiss her there. I linger, taking in the sweet feel of her soft skin against my lips, and I stop to smell the overwhelming scent that’s all Friday. Her leg starts to tremble so I roll it really quickly and lower it to the floor. I roll all the way up her thigh again, and then I look up at her and grin.