The truth is, it was intense.
For one thing, we were so close to each other. You’re never just inches away from people for long stretches of time like that. I was close enough to hear him breathing, and even to feel those breaths as they brushed over my arm. I could smell his aftershave, which was scented like cedar and juniper, I decided.
For another thing, I was really touching him. I was going deep—working the pads of my fingers over every inch of his face, from hairline to jaw, exploring his skin, and the muscles beneath that, and the bone structure even deeper.
I mean, I was no stranger to other people. I’d dated guys. Flirted. Kissed. Gone to bed. I’d lived with Ezra for two years. But even people I touched all the time … I didn’t touch them like this.
The fact that I was exploring him for the sake of art didn’t feel too relevant in that moment. The what was much stronger than the why.
And the what was skin against skin. Breath swirling around breath. Eyes closed.
To be honest, my heart was thumping so hard, I wondered if he could see it. Like my shirt fabric might actually be quivering over it like an echo.
I tried to keep it professional, I really did.
I worked my way around the landscape of his face, as I’d done before with my own. I started with the bone structure, to get oriented. The solidness of his cheekbones and the angle of his jaw.
Then the pads of my fingers went searching for details. The arc of his eyebrows. The depth and number of laugh lines at his eyes. The length of his lashes. The angles of his nose. I spent a lot of time working around the edge of his mouth, trying to get the lines and angles of his lips just right.
I felt it all. The warmth of his skin under my fingers. The feathery brush of his hair. The imperceptible hum and vibration of being alive.
It was artistically erotic, too. Is that a weird thing to say?
What I mean is, the whole experience was full-immersion pleasure—both physically and creatively. Shimmering with possibility. Rich and buttery with satisfaction. Igniting my attention in some very special way. Pulling me through the moment with a mounting sense of longing.
Each thing I did, each move I made, made me want more of whatever that was.
When I felt ready to start painting, I followed my instincts.
I sketched out Joe’s torso—his outline leaning into the frame with that kind of friendly, Labrador retriever energy he had. I found myself so immersed in rendering his body—those shoulders, the pecs and forearms, the trim angles of his fingers, resting on his jeans—that I didn’t work too hard on the face. I wasn’t avoiding it, exactly. I was just following the parts that called to me. The neck, the earlobes, the flop of the hair.
Everything I’d tried to do since the surgery had been about trying to get to the product. But now I settled into the process. I just painted. I kept my eyes closed to “look” at Joe, but I opened them in front of the canvas. I wanted to see the colors. I wanted to watch the brushstrokes happen. I wanted to see the painting appear in front of my eyes.
No matter what else might happen with this painting, the process of making it was bliss.
That counted for something.
At last, when I finally worked up the courage to sketch his face, I didn’t try to make it make sense.
I wasn’t thinking, What would Norman Rockwell do?
I was thinking about what I would do. What I needed to do—with each mark and each line—to render my experience of Joe’s face.
I was following my own compass. Wherever it would lead.
And it turned out, Sue was right. That was a win in itself.
* * *
I PAINTED—AND TOUCHED, and painted and touched—Joe for two solid hours that night.
He was endlessly patient. Didn’t check his phone or fall asleep or even ask for a glass of water. He just stayed with me the whole time, taking it all in.
When I’d done everything I could do for the night and I had a pretty full, dynamic early painted sketch, I thanked him, like he could go.
“Anyway,” I said, washing my hands at the sink. “I really appreciate you doing this for me. Congratulations. You’re almost free.”
“Free from what?” Joe asked.
“From me. Once the art show is over, we won’t have to see each other anymore.”
“Why wouldn’t we see each other?”
“I’m just saying. I’ve taken up a lot of your time.”
“I was hoping you’d give me roller-skating lessons.”
“But how would Dr. Michaux feel about that?”
Joe frowned. “Why would Dr. Michaux feel anything about that?”
“Aren’t you … you know?”
“What?” Joe took a swig of water. “Didn’t we talk about this?”
“You said you weren’t dating. But I figured you must be hooking up.”
Joe coughed. “What?”
“You’re always … coming out of her apartment,” I said. And a bunch of others.
“Yeah? So?”
“So aren’t you guys … together?”
“Wait—you thought we were—what?”
My fingers were still tingling from touching him. I shrugged.
Joe started laughing then, but I didn’t think it was funny. He leaned his head back and let out a big sigh. “I’m not dating Dr. Michaux. I am pet-sitting her snakes.”
Now it was my turn to be befuddled. “You’re what-sitting her whats?”
“Her snakes,” Joe confirmed. “Remember? Herpetologist? She has a whole den of snakes in there. Even an Indonesian flying snake. It’s pretty complicated, keeping them healthy.”
Okay. I could freak out about a penthouse full of flying snakes later.
First things first.
I needed to get this straight: “You’re … a snake sitter?”
“Pet sitter,” Joe corrected. “Why do you think I was feeding Parker’s cat?”
“That’s what you do for a living?”
I could feel Joe frowning, like that question was really odd. “It’s one of the things I do for a living,” he said.
“All that time … you were going in there to feed snakes?”
Joe nodded. “
“And so the brown bags were full of…?”
“Live mice,” Joe confirmed.
“Oh my god.”
Joe shrugged. “Food chain.”
“But,” I said as I tried to snap the pieces into place, “what about that time I saw you stumbling drunkenly into Dr. Michaux’s apartment?”
“Do you mean the time she had a stomach virus? And I was helping her down the hall from the elevator?”
“You weren’t hooking up?”
Joe shook his head.
“You were just helping her? Just being a Boy Scout? Kinda like when Parker pretended to faint?”
“I’m not a Boy Scout,” Joe said. “But, yes, I was helping.”
I was still working to take it in. “That’s what you’ve been doing? All this time?”
“Yep,” Joe said. “Mostly cats on this floor. And one bunny. Wait. Did you think that I was sleeping with all those people?”
“I mean, I hoped it was something else. But I couldn’t imagine what that would be.”
“You have a very limited imagination.”
“Well, I definitely wasn’t picturing flying snakes.”