I couldn't sleep when I first moved into my new dorm room. My sheets smelled like the store, newly bought and with little character. I wished I could have brought the old ones I had. My head was filled with a foreign scent that was so unfamiliar; it kept me up for hours on end. Meanwhile, Dan dreamed blissfully on the opposite side of me, unaccompanied for one rare moment, and not making any sound unless I held my breath and focused on the sound of his own patterned breaths.
I couldn't sleep then, and I couldn't sleep when Raphael was in my bed again because the smell of him by my side, and the smell of him lingering on my sheets, my pillows, my room, was like a pair of hands wrapped tightly around my throat. Extremely so that I had to turn on my back and breathe deeply ten times in a row just to feel normal again. Just to turn back on my side and stare at him again.
The darkness of my room was a cover up. His face didn't look the same, his shoulders didn't look the same, and the rest of his body was a limp shape beneath the covers. If I squinted my eyes, I could pretend he was someone else.
I squinted my eyes.
He moved, a little bit, a small shift, and I closed my eyes.
Pretending was a side-job now, a seasonal occupation. Except it seemed like every season was Raphael-season, where trees only sprouted green leaves under his command, and flowers only bloomed if he wanted them to.
The covers slid down an inch from his shoulders, and I watched as a section of his skin glittered in the dark before my eyelids weighed heavy and I lost sense of what was real and what was just a piece of my imagination.
—
Raphael lingered like the shadow of a forgotten furniture piece.
All I had to do was be there, stare at him as he writhed, and his body twisted. Sometimes he let me hold his hips in place, and sometimes he didn't ask for anything more than my eyes on his body.
Mine was a bridge he used to get to the way things were before, but he always seemed to forget something. Things like the morning cup of coffee when we woke up to tangled limbs, or the shower gel that lay half-used in his shower, in his apartment. Or the sound of his records that played in the back when I volunteered to make breakfast, and the hitching sound the player made every time it came across a scratch. He would laugh, and tell me a ridiculous story of how this one was scratched after a drunken night, or the other from a jealous ex-boyfriend who thought they were the perfect choice of weapon. They were. But he also forgot me. It seemed like every time he clenched around me, he would lock his wrists in a pair of invisible handcuffs, and declare that as an excuse not to reach out and card his fingers through my hair like he used to, or lace our fingers together. Or even touch himself. He never touched him self after, and I never volunteered.
I found myself dividing him into three different versions of himself. The one he used to be, and the one he became when Scarlet or Dan were around, the version of himself when we were alone in my room after 1am, and the version of himself when we were alone somewhere else at a more reasonable hour.
The latter was the one I found myself craving the most. The one where he would be looking at me like I was more than just someone he liked to fuck. Talk to me about things other than what he was going to do with his teeth, and how he was going to twist his hips. Things about his tattoo ideas, his fear of sharp needles that became a dark undertone neither of us ever brought up. I would imagine the mark on his thigh, but never allowed myself to voice my thoughts. Things about his apartment, even though I hadn't been in almost a month, and I missed how every inch of it was a reflection of himself. Sometimes he mentioned his friends, even though I never met them, but I learned all their names and background stories on how they met, and where they worked, and who they were seeing.
When we were with Dan, he always gave me pointed looks, to say "tell him, now. Ask him, now," but I always looked away and pretended I didn't hear. It wasn't until a few days after our revelation that Raphael finally had enough and demanded an explanation. Dan laughed and said we were close to guessing. "Try again," he said. "You're getting warmer."
Scarlet never lingered for too long. One movie, and she sneaked out the apartment. One meal, and she was suddenly called to the office on an important meeting. I wished she could stay, and I wished she would leave.
"We need to get you over this fear of yours," I said one day, when Scarlet decided we were running low on grocery even though she went on a spree just the day before.
Raphael was sketching on a notepad he found in one of the drawers. "Why? I'm content as I am."
"For the rest of your life?" I asked. "You want to wash the dishes and serve tea for the rest of your life?"
He shrugged, tucking the pencil behind his ear and holding the notepad from a distance. "I thought you liked tea."
"This isn't about tea."
He sighed. "Why do you care?"
Why did I care?
I had to leave for work after that, and he didn't bother following me there.
I tried again a few days later.
"I wouldn't mind being your test subject."
We were looking through art supplies in a small hidden store in the middle of the city. Raphael had a pack of charcoal pencils in his hands and was sifting through sketchbooks, muttering something about quality over quantity. "What test subject?"
"I was thinking that maybe you're afraid of needles on yourself, but if you had to tattoo someone else then it wouldn't be so bad."
He glanced up and his fingers fell from the wooden rack. "What if I fuck up your skin like I did with mine?"
"Then I'll get someone to cover it up."
"No," he said, and turned away from me again.
"No? Why not? I'm volunteering."
"I don't want you to pity me, Jake," he snapped. "I already fucked up. I don't want to fuck up again."
"You wouldn't be fucking up," I said. "I want you to do it."
"No."
"Fine. But you're not going anywhere if you convince yourself you can't do it."
The next day, he showed up at the apartment and said we were going somewhere, but didn't say where. We ended up in his apartment, and as much as I hopped I could sit there and allow time to freeze like I used to, I knew we weren't there for fun.
He opened the door at the end of the hall and we walked into the room with large windows and bright lighting.
He stood by the tattoo machine and chewed his lips. "Take your jeans off."
I hesitated for a split second before complying, and my jeans fell to the ground.
"We'll start slow," he said, and walked me through the process of lying down comfortably so it wouldn't hurt as much, and sanitizing my skin. "What do you want?"
"I didn't think about it."
"You never thought about your first tattoo?"
"Have you?" I redirected the question.
"Obviously."
"So you always knew you wanted my name on your thigh?" I teased.
"Shut up."
I did, and he did his thing with the machine and kneeled close to my thigh until my hairs stood up. "Nervous?"
"Shut up," I said.
His hands started to shake, and he muttered a quiet curse. "Maybe if you told me what you wanted..."
"The last thing you sketched," I said, because I truly couldn't think of anything better, and if I started thinking, I would start thinking of other things. Like the fact that I was in his apartment again, and the last time i was here it didn't end well. But again, the last time I was here was also last time I woke up in his bed, surrounded by all things that smelled like him, touched by him.
I watched as he took a deep breath and nodded slowly, as if capturing the image in his head. He traced it carefully first with temporary ink, and I glanced at an upside down image of a cloud.
"A cloud?"
He silenced me with a look before replacing the temporary ink with the permanent one. "Ready?"
"Go for it."
I learned that it wasn't nearly as easy as it sounded, and it took a while for Raphael to calm his shaky hands and regulate his breathing. When he did, he met my eyes before focusing on the minuscule image on my skin.
It stung, but Raphael later said not as bad as it would have if the tattoo was on my inner thigh. He had to take breaks in between, even though the cloud was so small. He kept wiping away my blood, sweat slowly collecting at his forehead. Half-way through, his hand started to shake again, and we had to wait a couple of minutes before he got to it.
At the end, it took around half an hour when it should have taken just a few minutes.
"It's a little shaky here," Raphael pointing at the outer edge of the minimal cloud, careful not to touch it.
"I think it gives it some character," I said truthfully, and it did. I liked the way it looked more than I thought I would.
Raphael straightened up, put everything away, and covered up the tattoo. "It shouldn't itch too much."
"You did a great job," I said.
He looked down at his hands, red and flushed with pressure. "Maybe."
I took them in my own hands, ignoring the look on his face. "You did. I'd love to get more. Maybe one I could see without having to take my pants off every time."
He smiled a little. "Okay. But next time the design is on you."
"Really? I was thinking I would just cover myself with inked clouds from head to toe."
He shoved me playfully, and turned away before I could see him smile again.
We lingered at his apartment afterwards, and I knew he wanted me gone, to have some time to himself and reflect, but I wanted to stay.
Eventually though, I took my leave and walked towards his door with reluctance.
"Let me know if it bothers you," he said.
"I will."
"And if you change your mind about it."
"I won't."
"But if you do, it's okay. I won't mind."
"Raph."
He followed me to the door. "Okay."
"Breathe. You should celebrate. Pop a bottle of wine or something."
He nodded mutely, gazing at my face as if he was expecting to see something else there. I placed a hand on his arm. "I love it, all right? What more can I say to convince you?"
"Nothing." He exhaled. "I believe you."
Even though I told myself I wouldn't, I found myself leaning in for a kiss. He kissed me back, holding on to my shoulder in case I decided to pull away.
"I should go."
"Do you want me to come with?"
I thought of us in my bed, something we didn't do for a few days. "Not tonight. You should relax."
"I want to relax with you."
"I think it would be wiser if you spent some time on your own."
If he felt hurt by that, it didn't show. He nodded his head and said goodnight, and I walked away from his apartment thinking how much I wanted to take a quick peek inside his bedroom.
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late update for @LostAndInsecure4w. sorry I took so long. love ya <3
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