Zero (19 page)

But today, lying on top of my boyfriend, I am a goddess.

I’ve never—ever—felt this way in my life.

Which is why, as I’m kissing him, I sit back on my heels and peel my T-shirt off, exposing what little chest I have to him. To do whatever he wants. Everything he wants. Mike’s eyes light up … but he seems to
recede
somehow.

“Hey …,” he says.

I focus on his eyes. “Touch me,” I whisper, and in my head I add,
Please
.

He looks at me for a moment, then slowly raises his hands, unclasps my bra, and I shimmy out of it. I let it drop to the floor, and Mike covers my chest with both palms.

His touch is gentle, though his skin is rough, the same way his hands feel in mine when we hold them. His fingers start to move, exploring my body, and I … I guess
shudder
is the right word. My eyes close as if I have no control over them, and my head tilts back.

The flip side of this sex-saturated culture we live in is, um, that there’s a
reason
it sells.

And while we know,
we know
we shouldn’t buy into all the beauty and glamour hype, when all is said and done, we still want to feel sexy. There, I’ve said it. As Mike is exploring me, so quiet and so perfect, I feel it.

I feel
sexy
, and it feels
good
.

Until his hands drop.

My eyes flip open.

“What?” I say, a single harsh breath.

“We should …,” Mike starts, then stops.

My arms automatically move to cover myself. I’m a stupid bitch; that’s it. I let him in, so to speak, and it was a mistake, because I
am
fat, and ugly, and—

And he rescues me by pulling my arms back down. It’s not me after all.

“It’s just …”

“Okay, you
really
need to learn to finish your sentences.”

He sort of grins. “Sorry. I want to be careful. It’s hard to stop, and … I’m not ready.”

What?

So I say, “What?”

Mike sits up and touches my knee. “Listen. I told you there was a girl. Couple years back. I really felt … strongly … about her. And things went badly, to say the least, and now I wish I hadn’t …”

“Had sex with her?”

“Well … yeah.”

“I don’t
care
.” I do, of course. But not enough to have him
not touch me again. And as much as I want to know everything, I also want to know
nothing
.

“Okay, that’s great, but … I do.” He looks into my eyes. “You are so hot, Zero. You are beautiful—”

Say that again. And
again
.

“—and I do want to be with you. But I … I just …”

“Do you still love her?”

“Oh god, no! Positive. It’s not that. It’s not something I’m ready to do, is all. You know?”

“Did you, like,
catch
something?”

He half-grins. “No. No, nothing like that. I checked.
Couple
times, in fact. No.”

“It’s not me?”

“Absolutely not. I promise.”

“Okay, so then—” I debate for a second, then plunge ahead. “What happened?”

Mike takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says. “Well. She came up to me after our first show ever. At Phantasm, you know, before they closed down. She told me she loved the band and all that. So we started hanging out. Then dating. And sleeping together. Pretty quickly.”

My stomach flip-flops, but I try not to show it.

“We were on-again, off-again so many times, I think we both lost count. Break up, make up, have sex, break up, make up, so on and so forth. Till eventually she broke it off good and proper. And I didn’t respond very well to that.” He snorts. “That’s one way to put it, anyway.”

“What happened?” I repeat.

“Oh, I took a bit of a tumble,” Mike says with a grunt.
“Pretty much lost my mind. Major flip-out. Probably woulda ended up in some psych hospital if it wasn’t for the guys. They let me bounce around for a while. That lasted till I told them I was never gonna play again.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. So one night they showed up to the house and literally dragged me to a show. Black Phantom, in fact. Made me watch the whole gig. Which was awesome, of course. After the show, Hobbit goes, ‘That’ll be us whenever you get around to being in a rock band again.’ Eddie and Brook didn’t say anything, just gave me a couple thumps on the back, you know. And we left. Started rehearsing again the next day, and that’s when I decided I wanted that gold. Gave me something else to think about.”

Mike shakes himself a bit. “Anyway,” he says. “Point is, I honestly don’t know if
not
sleeping with her would have made a difference, but I do know that I hadn’t fallen like that for anyone before. And sleeping with her was totally meaningless. It didn’t mean anything with her.
To
her. I don’t want to feel like that again. Or let anyone
else
feel that way.”

Okay. So that wasn’t so bad. I expected worse. And I get it. I do.

But maybe it’s because Mom and Dad are both out of the house and we have my room—my bed—to ourselves, or maybe because there’s something sort of honorable about his decision … suddenly I want him even more than I did when I called him.

I trace a finger down his chest and tug his waistband a little. “So … what
can
we do?”

Mike takes a deep breath. “Uh …”

“Better hurry,” I say, and unpop his button. Mike swallows.

“I—can’t have sex with you. Right now.”

I shrug. “Okay.” I pull his zipper down. No idea what I’m doing here, but I’m pretty sure I can make it up as I go. How tough can it be? Still, I start shaking a little.

“Wait, hold on,” he goes, and for a second I’m—well,
disappointed
isn’t quite the right word. But then Mike sits up and gently pulls me down to the mattress so I’m on my back and he’s beside me.

I wait for him to say something, explain what’s going on; then the button on
my
shorts comes undone under his fingers, and
my
zipper goes down.

So, I’ve been putting on and taking off my own pants for, oh, sixteen-some years now, thanks. But when Mike does it, I can feel my pulse in my ears. Funny how another set of hands makes the mundane so
scintillating
. He tugs a little, and I lift my hips so he can take them off.

With his left hand, Mike explores my entire upper body: hair, face, neck, belly, you name it. He leans over me, kissing every inch of my throat, chest, stomach. My eyes close again, and a shiver starts working its way up my body.

With his
right
hand—

“Oh … kay,” I whisper.

Several embarrassing vocal sounds and clenched fingers and toes later, I’m half passed-out, I’m breathing hard, and for some reason I feel like crying. It’s not a sad or angry crying. It’s, like, happy, you know? But I don’t know how to explain that. Maybe someday I can paint it for him.

I feel
so good
.

“We can do
that
,” Mike says quietly, resting his head on my stomach.

I unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “ ’Kay,” I wheeze.

Breath from his nose tickles my skin as he laughs. “Cool,” he says.

We lie there for a while, not talking, our breath slowly becoming synchronized as I run a limp hand through his hair. I have done nothing in my life to deserve this.

After some time, my head finally clears. I think it’s that internal clock that warns you that sooner or later, Mom and/or Dad are gonna be coming home. If I want to be able to repeat this afternoon’s little escapade, I’ll need to get my boyfriend out of the house before they show up. I open my eyes and check the
Three Young Surrealist Women
clock. We have maybe twenty minutes before risking Mom returning.

“So … how do you feel?” I ask.

“Good.”

“Just good? Not really good?” I lift myself up. “I’m not sure that’s good enough.”

I scoot over onto my side, and Mike eases down onto his back. His jeans are still open the way I left them, and unless I’m mistaken, he’s … not quite ready for the day to end, either.

I sit up and hover over him, giving him a long kiss before sliding my fingers between the waistband of his plaid boxers and starting to tug them.

“What’re—” he starts.

“Shh,” I say, and give him another long, lingering kiss. “My turn.”

Hole in the
Wall looks dusty and disused in the afternoon daylight. Nights treat the shop better, when the only real light is one parking lot lamp and the fritzy orange neon sign.

I glance into the backseat. Protectively wrapped in an old tarp, resting flat, is what I consider my best painting so far: the black-and-white one with the colored rainbow Dr. Salinger helped me finish.

It’s been a couple days since we talked, and doubt has again built a bell tower from which to snipe away at my pedestrian confidence. She didn’t even show up yesterday, which wasn’t unusual but irritating.

I go around to the passenger door, open it, and remove my painting, using my hip to close the door. Holding the canvas close to my body, I walk to the entrance of the Hole, and take one last gulp of blistering air before creeping into the café.

Hole in the Wall is cool inside. A delicious aroma of coffee and nutmeg wafts into my nose. One person is behind the cashier’s counter. I’ve seen him before, striding about the shop, behind the register, cleaning tables, serving drinks; whoever he is, he has the run of the place. He’ll do.

He offers me a businesslike smile as I approach. “What can I get for you?”

Lifelong acclaim and countless imitators …?

His demeanor relaxes me some, but my hands are shaking.

“Hi,” I say, little more than a wheeze. “Um. Actually, I wanted to, um, show you this and, um, see if you wanted to, um, hang it? Or whatever?” I set my future, covered with a paint-stained drape, on the counter.

“Well, let’s take a look at it,” he says, and carefully unwraps the picture. He lifts it up and stands it on the countertop, holding it at arm’s length, his fingers placed gently against the sides of the canvas so as to not touch the paint.

“Hm,” he says. “This is nice. Good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Yes, I like this. Very nice.” He sets the painting down and extends a hand. “Eli. I run the place.”

Oh
. I shake his hand. “Zer—um, Amanda Walsh.”

“Nice to meet you, Amanda,” Eli says. “I’ve seen you here once or twice, right?” He winks at me.

“Yeah … once or twice. You’re friends with Dr. Salinger?”

Eli’s eyes widen. “Deb? We go back quite a ways. Are you a student of hers?”

“Yeah. Yes. Summer school.”

“She’s a unique personality.”

Uh, yeah.

Eli reaches under the counter and produces a tape dispenser and small white tag attached to a thin string. He picks up a pen, scrawls on the tag, and holds it up for me to see.

“Fair?” he asks.

It’s the first time I’ve been here and not wanted something to drink; the thought of coffee curdles my stomach as I stare at the ridiculous numbers he’s written. What is that, pi? A hypotenuse? A cosine, maybe? No idea, because no one, on this planet or any other, will fork over that kind of cash. Not for
me
.

“Um … you think someone will pay that?”

Eli frowns and looks at his number. “Sure,” he goes. “Don’t you?”

“I …”

“Trust me,” Eli says, and tapes the string to the back of the picture so the tag hangs down. He picks up the painting and looks around for a place to hang it. “Ah,” he says, and walks a few feet to a blank space on the wall. Right beside the crimson-black tondo I like so much. He hangs it up and brushes his hands together.

“It’s a good one,” Eli says. “This won’t be here long.”

Clearly he measures time in ice ages. But I don’t argue.

Eli takes my phone number and promises to call when the painting sells, explaining that Hole in the Wall takes 20 percent off the top of the sale. I nod and agree because he can keep it
all
if the thing ever gets picked up, for all I care.

But it’s done. I did it. My tiny signature,
Amanda Walsh
, rendered in white gloss, catches the light from an overhead lamp and sparkles.

I say goodbye to Eli, and he gives me an encouraging handshake. I go to my car, get in, and shut my eyes.

“Okay,” I say out loud. “Okay.”

As I start the car, I catch myself wishing—hoping—that if the painting
does
in fact ever sell, it will be before the start of the fall semester, or at least sometime during it, so I can tell Dr. Salinger.

Still. Whether it does or not … I did it.

I head over to Mike’s to pick him up. His dad’s truck is gone when I arrive.

Mike opens the door. He’s in shorts and nothing else. “Howdy,” he says with a smile.

“Howdy back,” I say, and step in. “Ready to go?”

He glances down at his bare chest. “Sure, why not.”

I grin and give his ribs a poke. We go to his room, where he riffles through his dresser.

“You look good,” he says casually as he pulls a black T-shirt over his head.

I glance down at myself. Agent Orange T-shirt, cutoffs with my green Dalí belt, and my monkey boots.

“Liar,” I say.

Mike winces.
“Really?”

“I’m sorry, I just meant—”

“Okay, this stops now,” he says, and comes over to me. He kicks his door closed, and for the first time I see the cheap full-length mirror nailed to the back.

“What size is that shirt?” he asks, pulling me to stand in front of him so we’re both looking in the mirror.

“Large. Obviously.”

“Large.
I
wear a large, and I’m not a big guy. You should be wearing a small. Medium, tops.”

“You don’t like how I dress?”

“I love how you dress. I’m saying it should fit you.”

“Well, I don’t feel like advertising my fat ass.”

“Your …? Okay, take your belt off.”

I do, and wonder why. Does he have tantalizing plans for it?

Mike grabs the waistband of my shorts in one hand and a handful of my T-shirt in the back in the other and pulls them both taut. I suck in a breath and stand up straight, shoulders back. My spine offers a tiny
crack!
I should
maybe
consider
possibly
standing like this more often,
sometimes
.