Good Chance

The thin sliver of sunlight drifts lazily across my body and into my eyes, waking me up, I can’t tell the time from the angle but my dry throat and headache indicate it's been long enough for a hangover to fill my body with the remnants of the poison I consumed last night.

The mattress under my back feels comfortable but my body is weighed down by Michael curled around me, his arms hooked around my waist, his head resting atop mine, our legs awkwardly entwined with the blankets. Skin against skin against cloth. My body aches in several ways, I want to fall back asleep but I don’t think I could; even with my eyes shut, the golden light of the sun hurts.

I’d be content to lay there forever but the sun fills my retinas and brands the cones and rods in my eyes with its radiance. Over seconds, maybe days, I slowly pull away from his lovely grasp.

Free! But at what cost? It's cold outside of his grasp, I pick up a plaid shirt thrown in the corner of the room and find my own underwear halfway across the living room floor. The shirt is a little loose, apparently I’m smaller than Michael in at least one way, but it's comfortable, soft, a hug in red and black and yellow.

His house is even fuller now it's lit by dawn light, paintings and canvases and paints and things I only recognise from my brief foray in the art room storage room. I run my hands over the edge of some of the work, it feels rougher than I expected. Most of them are of people, people I don’t know and a few people I do know; all of them Michael. It feels peaceful, a room filled with love and devotion. None of them were hung on the walls. All the art there belonged to other people.

His kitchen was surprisingly well stocked for a student, putting mine to shame, I find the ingredients for breakfast; bacon, eggs, bread and apples. A quick breakfast hard to ruin but yet still filled with the potential for mistakes. How does he like his toast? His bacon? Eggs scrambled or fried? Fried firmly or softly or even poached. I’ve never poached an egg.

It almost overwhelms me, a wave of questions and connections, filling me until I lose myself, my vision blurs a little but the hot pan brings me back to sharp reality in an instant. I run my finger under the cold water of the tap until it goes numb. The bacon is crisp and the eggs fried until a soft frill edges them.

“Toast.” I murmur to myself, looking around the small kitchen for a toaster, I find it placed by a kettle, neither look like they’re in use often but they’re there, so I take a chance that the toaster is set to his own preference. It pops up a light gold and I use the plate I found on his drying rack; its plain but sophisticated in grey and black to make it look pretty. I think I got my crockery on sale in a supermarket.

I approach the crack of his bedroom door with apprehension, a single over laden plate in both hands, the cutlery awkwardly in my hand against it, from this side it feels daunting, something to overcome, only the soft sounds of him stirring compelled me on into the room again.

From the doorway, he looks…indescribable, the draping of the deep green sheets drape over him like marble, his hair is mussy, falling across his pale skin and the matching pillow case. I find myself staring for a few moments longer, taking in the way his eyelashes almost brush his cheek, the way his fingers hold onto the sheets, dust swirling in the thin beam of light that illuminates him like a spotlight.

Either from my entry or the smell of food the Adonis rises from the emerald sea and looks at me, or the food, with reverence. With love.

“Hey,” He leans on one hand and looks at me from the bed for a few moments before patting the bed beside him, “That all for me?”

I sit at the edge of where he touched and feel myself smile uncontrollably, “I’ll share.”

Michael reaches up and caresses my smiling cheek, “Damn I was hoping you’d make me pay for it.”

“I’ve made you pay enough. So now you get breakfast.”

He takes the plate from me and sits up against the headboard, with one hand holding the plate he pulls me close against him, again, his arm around my waist, keeping me there. I rest my head against his chest, the bare flesh warm like the sun that falls across us.

We eat in mostly silence, enjoying each other's company in a purely physical capacity, existing exactly in the same moment, the same space. No thoughts, just tactile sensations and touches leaving my mind blank, smooth, just me and Michael.

“Can I get a solid answer for my own selfishness?” His fingers trail up my thigh, under the shirt and over my hip, curiously they creep higher to my chest, parting the shirt I hadn’t buttoned so it fell open with the gentlest movement.

I feel like my body is being played like a violin, it's electric, on edge just enough to send shivers down my spine but not enough to make me hurt, “I’m all yours.”

A sweet kiss, delicate at first but soon the emotions rise to the surface, his hand moves from my chest into my hair, holding me close, not that I would part if I wanted to. It’s not forceful but it's pressing, excited, I’m aware I’m overthinking it, I’m aware that overthinking it ruins it, makes the mood something else. I’m objective and he’s artistic.

The plate clatters to the floor and startles us apart, only at the lips, his arms still on me. It’s nice, overthinking aside.

“Did it break?” I don’t dare look.

He peers around, “All good, back to business.”

I place a hand on his lips, bold, “Before we get trapped in bed all day, I want to see the sketch you did of me.”

Genuine startlement, “I completely forgot. One sec.”

He comes back with the sketchbook already open in his hands, the pages are neat, the art is messy. He sits in front of me and offers it in both hands like a prayer; its larger than a normal piece of paper, a sketch in pencil. Several sketches.

My body in fragments, a hand, a cheek, an eye, myself as if strewn across the floor the way I was on the chaise lounge. It feels…wrong to look at, even though it's me, it's private, I’m intruding. I want to touch it, to feel the graphite smudge against my fingers.

“So…” Michael seems almost nervous, the usual carefree smile replaced with something young and sweet; shyness, “What do you think?”

“You see me this way?” I feel tears prick at my eyes, “I look like a model.”

The shyness melts for a brief moment, “You were a model.”

“You know what I mean…I look…handsome. Like something out of a painting.” I gently touch the blank parts of the paper, what few they are, “I feel like I’m looking at something…intimate, almost perverse, like it's a peephole, but I’m looking at myself. I want you to do it again.”

“If you’re getting perversion I clearly depicted you well,” Michael reached out and tried to take the sketchpad back, "You can give it back now.”

I pull it away, on instinct, clinging to the edges, “It feels different to the art I saw in the exhibition. If I were to try to be…artistic, I’d say it looks like there is emotion in this one. Excitement. You…got excited over me, like you couldn’t wait to draw my body.”

Michael is staring at me, was I wrong?

“Are you sure you’re not an artist? If you say things like that I can’t help but think you’re hiding a portfolio of work from me.”

It’s been so sweet I almost forgot I’d been lying to him the whole time; I’m a fraud, I know nothing of art. Nausea rises in my throat, suffocating, I can’t move my tongue, it's heavy and swollen in my mouth, a weight of muscle; useless. I'm useless.

“You should let me see your house now you’ve seen mine.”

Michael takes the sketchpad from me and places it on the bed beside us, closed, his hands feel like they’re edged with needles, sharp, nails dragging across my skin. I manage to nod and that seems to be enough to satisfy him, he pulls me into a kiss; my useless tongue becoming useful again.