Burn (Songs of Submission #5)(8)

“Yeah.” I barely snapped out of it.

“Happy Thanksgiving.”

“National Orphan Feelbad Day,” I said. We clinked bottles and drank.

“Did you get a flight to BC?” Darren asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. Darren and Adam were going a day early to hang out in Vancouver. “Same plane as Kev.”

“And your passport?” Kevin pushed his longish black hair back for a second, lowered his hand, and it flopped below his eyes again.

“Done. Do you need me here for the breakdown and pack up tomorrow?”

“No way,” Kevin said, worrying the label on his beer bottle. “Pros do that. They’ll have it boxed by noon and at the B.C. Mod in a week. We just show up to put it all together and look pretty for the preview exhibit. Black tie. All rich guys. Just like you like them.”

“Fuck off.”

“Agreed.” Darren stood and took a last swig from his beer. “I gotta blow.”

“So to speak,” I shot back.

“Hilarious. See you on the couch.”

“You’re joking,” Kevin said. “You’re still sleeping on this ass**le’s couch?”

“If it happened to you, you’d feel uncomfortable and violated too.”

“The P.I. said the cameras were gone.”

“But I don’t know who put them there. Once I know, I’ll go back.”

“And how are you going to know?” Kevin asked. “I mean, you dumped the guy who hired the P.I.”

They couldn’t see my face go fire-engine red in the dark, which was just as well. They knew I’d split with Jonathan but not why. Kevin had a point, and Darren and I had gone over it all a hundred times. I should have told my mother to sell the place. Just pull it from under me. It wasn’t like I’d ever call it home again.

“On that note—“ Darren tossed his bottle in the recycling. “This city’s bouncing with parties in honor of National Day After Thanksgiving Day, and I’m being dragged to the g*y half of them.”

“Hey, wait!” Kevin said. “You guys have to sign the copyright papers.” He ran inside, and he came back out again as if they’d been right by the door. After setting a stack of papers on the crapped out old bar he’d salvaged from an empty lot, he handed Darren a pen. “Right here.”

“Dude, you got me signing papers by candlelight.” Darren put his face nose-close to the page, and Kevin laughed. Darren signed. I got up and did the same. I felt as though we were sealing a deal, probably because I was half tipsy, and the outdoor space, candlelit and cool, added a coat of profundity to the proceeding.

“To us—,” Kevin held his beer aloft. “The Nameless Threesome.” We clicked bottles to our collaborative name. We were a cooperative, the future of creation, the new trend in authorship. Collaborators. Teams. Kevin had seen the trend and made sure he was a part of it. Kevin was a visionary, even to the detriment of his own ego.

It had been fun. More fun than I’d anticipated, and for the first time in weeks, I didn’t feel anxious and alone.

When Darren left, Kevin held up his bottle. “Another?”

“I have to be at work at nine-thirty.”

He handed me another anyway. “This is a small show, but it was a good idea. I’m glad we did this.”

“Yeah. It was good. And I’ve never been that far north.”

“You’re smart, Monica, and you get it. You get what it is to make art I’ve been meaning to say something to you.”

“You’re not going to get maudlin on me, are you?” I leaned my elbows on the bar behind me, bottle dangling from one hand. The beer was going to my head.

“I was wrong. The way I treated you. Calling you Tweety Bird. Marginalizing you. I denied the world your beauty, and it was wrong to you and the world.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb. I was slow to react, and if I was being honest with myself, the human contact felt nice. He leaned in, his nose close to my cheek, and I caught his malt and chocolate smell. “You were right to leave.”

“Kevin, I—”

He put his full lips to mine, and my body responded by twisting. He held me. His tongue tasted of beer. I pushed him away.

“I can’t.”

“Why?” His face found my neck. I recoiled, hating that I was so hungry to be touched but only by one person.

“I’m in love with someone. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

He clamped both sides of my face. “I’ll live with it.”

When he went to kiss me again, I scrunched up my eyes and lips, shaking my head. He held me fast. I did not like it. The sweetness of being touched was gone, replaced by a feeling of violation, like control of my body was being taken from me. I panicked.

“Kevin, no!”

“Do you need a safeword?”

“What?” When I tried to pull away, he clamped his arms around me and shoved his knee between my legs, spreading them.

“Monica,” he said with effort as I wiggled. “Calm down. What’s the—”

I bit his shoulder, hard. He screamed, and when he pulled away, my teeth still had him. Skin broke. Blood soaked through his shirt. Faster than an insult, I felt a hard impact on my face, and I lost my bearings from the slap.