ROMANCE: PARANORMAL ROMANCE: Coveted by the Werewolves (Paranormal MMF Bisexual Menage Romance) (New Adult Shifter Romance Short Stories) (25 page)

                      It all changed overnight.  Suddenly, Alex was the figure headed towards her in the high school hallway clad in black, platform combat boots and black jeans tight enough to show off his skinny frame.  He had not filled out yet, for he was only sixteen.  But sixteen can be intense when you’re lining your eyes with kohl and shaving one side of your head to make a statement.

                      Clara never knew what statement Alex was trying to make.

                      It was all before she knew how he drew.  She had pegged him for an artsy type from the way he held a pen in her social studies class, his long, slim fingers wrapped around it like an outlet and a friend.  But she lost interest for a while for other, more shiny guys who caught her attention like a magpies’ for over a year.  At that time, Cara had crushes on many guys at once, secret crushes that she would rarely whisper in the ear of Emily, her best female friend.  Some of the crushes weren’t too bad to share, such as Josh, captain of the football team who asked her for her phone number one glittering October day.  But others, like her quiet attraction to Alex, she kept to herself, because she figured nobody but her could see past the buckled leather jacket and antisocial air.

                      It was Emily and her obsessiveness that finally lead Clara back to Alex Floravsky their senior year of high school.  In the era of social media, it was unbelievably easy—and undeniably exciting—to stalk people from the privacy of your living room.  She saw that Emily had started liking someone named Tulip’s pictures, and she began to scroll through them herself.

                      They ignited something in her; she felt as if she had not seen something that intense in a long, long time.  Some of them were terrible—great, elongated goblins taking large, chomping bites out of nude bodies—but even in these grotesque images there was a beauty, something that drew the eye.  Others were peaceful, bald blue aliens sitting on the horizon of a cyberutopia, arms folded over knees, waiting for judgment to arrive.  Who was this Tulip?  She had not seen talent like this in years, and it unsettled her.

                      Several cyberclicks later and she realized that this talented Tulip was none other than Alex Floravsky.  He had chosen himself a pseudonym she presumed was a play on his last name, which contained the Latin for flowers, although his particular choice was still a mystery to her.  She continued to scroll through his album of new works, astounded repeatedly at what she found.  Here was a couple, their bodies waving like banners in the wind, floating across a bright blue sky towards each other.  In the next one, there was a rotting skull that was eating the staircase of life, one eye dangling from its socket and observing all the world, including the people brave enough to mount the staircase.  A few satirical pieces on Hitler, a few nudes with meaty thighs and high, round breasts, bionic women with gearpieces for shoulders, and then Clara discovered her favorites.  They were the ones that did not look out into the future or go back to some hideously primeval past, but instead, focused on the inescapable present.  A man with a weathered, lined face in a fisherman’s cap clamping a cigarette between his teeth; a dictator clasping his chapped hands together, the tired, roughened extremities chafing against one another and the weight of life; finally, Clara’s favorite, a carpenter with many hands sprouting from his body as if he was a Hindi god, crafted a female doll form with little but a paring knife.

                      At this last, Clara paused.  This stirred memories within her, association for which she was struggling to find a name.  The best works were the ones devoid of any color, because it is often so difficult to find color in bleak reality.  She went flipping past, but returned to the carpenter, again and again.  And then, before she could stop herself, she added a comment of her own beneath it.

                     
How very ‘Shoemaker and Eleves’ of you
, she wrote, a personal message to Alex Floravsky, pardon, Tulip, if she had ever seen one.  She tried to brush off the oddness she felt and how assured she was of rejection, and closed the album entirely when her screen pinged and she saw that someone had replied to her comment.

                     
It’s titled ‘God,’
Alex Floravsky wrote,
But it seems you’ve sussed out my inspiration.

                      It was then that all of Clara’s beliefs about the boy behind the black eyeliner and tight pants were quietly and certainly affirmed.

                      Emily, of course, went bonkers for Tulip.  “He’s just so…cool,” she stressed to Clara day after day, week after week.  This did not surprise Clara in the least.  Emily belonged to the class of girls who throw themselves fully into the interests of their current guy obsession if only to prove to him just how much they have in common; more than that, however, Emily would claim that she had always been interested in these hobbies, no matter how far away from her actual desires they were.  Suddenly, Emily was listening to death metal, ringing her own eyes in dark liner, and wearing band tees that were so new you could smell the online marketplace from which she had purchased them right on them.

                      It wasn’t like Clara could blame her.  Unable to help herself, she had shown her parents Alex Floravsky’s work, and they had collectively agreed on his undeniable talent.  She stared deep into the colors and lines of his work until she could see the pictures on her retinas when she closed her eyes.  But while his bold nudes, infiltrated as they were by a teenage boy’s desires, were daring and futuristic, and his other works equally superior, Clara had a feeling Alex Floravsky did not have a swelled-up head.  Instead, he struck her as someone with a gentle and quiet sense of humor, given the little smile that played upon his lips whenever she would make a sarcastic remark in class.

                      This idea that she somehow knew Alex always stayed with Clara, well beyond the social studies class they shared.  When Emily, exasperated that her persistent online comments were not making Alex message her personally, finally decided to go for broke and ask him to prom, Clara knew the answer to her question immediately.  She did not think Emily, with her substantial bulk, overbearing Jewish-mom attitude, and complete lack of subtlety, understood the kind of person Alex truly was.  It wasn’t that she thought Alex would turn her down because Emily was heavy or annoying.  Instead, when Emily came to her crying, relating his answer, Clara stroked her back soothingly, and smiled, for just a moment.

                      “He said prom w—wasn’t his thing!” Emily hiccupped, her great bulk shuddering in Clara’s slender arms.  “But then I saw photos online of him at this girl’s prom, and so I asked him and he said—”

                      “That it had been his girlfriend from last year’s prom?  Yeah, I figured,” Clara said, cutting Emily off before she could launch into a tirade about how awful Alex was for “lying” to her.  “Em, did you really think his answer would be different?  I mean, come on, you know what he’s like; he hardly talks to anyone at school.  Why would he want to go dance with all of the people who give him such a wide berth?  He probably went just to make his girlfriend happy; are they still together?”

                      “He said they broke up,” Emily answered, drawing her sleeve against her nose.

                      It wasn’t until she was laying in bed much later, her laptop open to Alex’s album, that Clara even wondered why she had asked that last question.  It was strange to think of Alex having a girlfriend, but perhaps it was not too great a surprise, given how talented he was.  In his latest work, featuring a deranged albino clown, she could see the workings of his mind, how he took the nightmarish and made it elegant.  She clicked FOLLOW on his page and shut her laptop off.

*                    *                    *

                      It was Clara who recognized him first, although it was hard, given his new look.  She had taken the train all the way to the last stop with two of her friends to watch the weekend fireworks by the shore, and they were all chattering about some newfangled movie when she spotted the Sex God down the train platform.

                      Soft black hair, and a lot of it.  Pale, translucent skin, dark denim jeans, and a simple black V-neck tee on his endlessly long and lanky frame.  Pants tight enough to show thigh and raise some serious questions about his sexuality, but Clara knew that she could forgive him anything and take him in any capacity he demonstrated himself, even if it was simply as eye candy.

                      She remembered the first time Tulip had posted a shirtless picture of himself on her online feed, and how the sight of it had made her mouth go dry.  She didn’t know whether he was experimenting with his sexuality or had discovered the glory of the gym, but sitting at her computer screen drinking in the lean abs and sculpted pecs, she found that she did not care.  This, combined with the puppy-like veiled gentleness in his dark eyes and the fantastic artwork that he continued to put out, year after year, made him quite an addition to her spank bank.  Clara almost laughed aloud at the term as she neared Alex Floravsky on the train station, knowing that none of her friends would have expected this of her.  She heard it all across pop culture, the tale of the good girl having a taste for the bad boys, but given that she suspected Alex was not nearly as bad as he seemed beneath all the tits and thighs he drew, she did not offer up her feelings to her girlfriends, for it was none of their business.

                      They had gone together to the same college for almost a year before running into each other.  They greeted each other warmly, a fact which surprised her, given that they had not talked in high school save for the bandied comments between them on his artwork.  He looked genuinely happy to see her then, a fact she soothed herself with when, one drunken night a few weeks later, she messaged him asking him if he would ever consider working with her on a project, maybe creating a children’s book together.  To her surprise, he had said yes, and although the opportunity never arose, she carried his answer around like a balm to her ego for all these years, well into graduate school.  It seemed to be an unspoken connection if she had ever seen one.

                      And now, nearing him on the platform and assuring herself it was indeed him, she could feel her brain waves will him to look up and notice her.  An extra wiggle of her hip and a flip of her hair, and Tulip’s heterosexuality woke up and took notice; still, it was a few moments before recognition dawned on his face.

                      “Alex Florasky?” Clara queried, her friends so lost in the chatter they did not realize she was not with them until they were almost at the stairs.  They milled around, drinking in Tulip the Sex God with their eyes and hormones, jealousy at the fact that Clara had seemingly approached him without provocation or shame.

                      “Holy—Clara!” he cried, and immediately wrapped her in a smile and a hug.  Clara’s heart almost gave out at the feeling of his powerful arms around her.  God damn, but he had finally grown into that form.  “Shit, how many years has it been?” he asked, releasing her, a warm smile playing around his lips.

                      “Oh, about six, I’d say.  I hear you go by Tulip now.”

                      “Yeah, yeah,” he waved it off, and to her surprise, blushing.  “It was a play on my last name and on the idea of ‘two lips’—supposed to be sexy or something, you know.”

                      “Ha!  I knew it was something like that!” she cried triumphantly.  And then the second portion of what he said hit her and she felt a stirring between her legs as she considered the two lips of Alex’s wide mouth, which looked endearingly soft.

                      “So what have you been up to?” he asked, shoving his hands into his pockets, the muscles of his upper arms bunching appealingly.

How could somebody with that much force in his arms wield a pen so deftly? Clara wondered.  “Oh, you know, I’m studying up to be a psychoanalyst; crazy always was my forte,” she joked, and was gratified to hear Alex chuckle with her.

                      “Always knew you were headed for great things,” he told her, and Clara suddenly felt warm.

                      “And how about you, Mr. Big Time Artist?” she asked.  “Last I heard, you were making paintings on commission.”

                      “Yeah, I’m still doing that, which is pretty sweet.  But it doesn’t really help make the rent on time, so I’m doing some work over at this tattoo parlor on East street; I share a room with one of the other artists.  It works.”

                      “Oh man, I love me an artist that starves for his art,” Clara said.

                      “I always did have a penchant for ramen noodles and digital pens,” Alex cracked, and suddenly, it was there between them, this warmth, this shared meeting of the eyes that told her there was something appreciative in it for him, too.

                      “Well, from whatever I can see, your work gets better every year; I wish I had half your skill.”

                      “You always were my number one fan,” he answered, and his tone was strangely sincere.

                      “You know, my friends over there look like they’re dying to meet you; I’ve shown them some of your works and I think they’d love to meet the mastermind behind them all.”  In truth, her friends would probably just want to meet the tall, dangerous-looking guy who seemed so interested in their short, curvy little friend, but Clara didn’t think it was necessary to say all that to Alex.  She did catch on to the odd look that passed his face in that moment, as if the precious privacy of their shared moment had been intruded upon.