Chapter Sixteen
Lex
It’s only when I have to turn on a light that I realise how much time has passed in the blink of an eye.
It’s light again outside. I’m desperate for the toilet.
My throat is parched, and my stomach isn’t simply rumbling, it’s clawing at itself.
And the ache in my neck and the cramping pains in my hands are so uncomfortable, I curse out loud as I stretch out my body.
These are all familiar discomforts. They are all things I welcome, especially after a five-month drought.
They’re all signs that I’m doing what I truly believe I was put on this Earth to do.
To make art. To create. To lose myself in a greater purpose.
But I am still only human, and I need to empty my bladder and fill my stomach and also try to avoid a UTI. Again.
So I get up, go to the toilet, which I should probably clean at some point, empty my bladder, and then wash my hands and face.
The mirror above the sink is cracked – that’s how I found it on the street – but my reflection still reveals just how tired I am.
Tired, but with a lift in my lips that I can’t deny.
That small smile grows as I walk over to the makeshift kitchen that I installed along with the artists I used to share this space with, and I rummage around for whatever sustenance I can find.
After eating half a packet of out-of-date crackers, I fill a probably-not-very-clean pint glass with water, down it, and then refill it and drink that too.
Having taken care of all my basic needs, my eyes land on my work in progress, and already, I itch to get back to it.
I resist and pull my phone out of my back pocket.
I’m not surprised to find the battery has died.
That’s a common occurrence for me, even when I’m not deep in the zone creating.
I walk to the bed, plug it into the charger there, and leave it on top of the bed.
It’s as I’m heading back to my painting that I hear the door rattling. Someone is trying to get in.
I pause and wait, curious to see if they’ll announce themselves before I assume this is an attempted robbery. There’s no knocking, and no voice, and still more clanking of the chain I used to secure the door on the inside. Whoever it is, they’re persistent.
Staying completely still and waiting for something like panic to rise in me, I’m not surprised when it doesn’t spike in me.
Maybe I’m too tired for such a big reaction, or maybe I feel confident enough in the thick metal chain that’s securing a door that arguably could be kicked in with just a few forceful strikes, but I’m still more curious than concerned.
And then I hear a voice.
“Lex! I know you’re in there!”
Mari. It’s Mari.
Now panic wastes no time, raising my temperature before bringing it back down to an icy chill. My neck elongates, and my ears prick up, wanting to hear that voice again despite myself. My hands clench into fists, and I force myself to release them and shake my fingers out.
“Lex! Let me in!”
My smile returns, but it’s a different beast from the calm, contented tilt of my lips I had earlier. Now it’s a smirk. A grin. A little too close to a sneer.
With the door still rattling as Mari – always so persistent, even up against locked doors – continues to try to get in, I walk over and unlock the padlock, trying to keep my breath slow and measured. When I slide the door open, it’s still a small shock to see Mari standing there.
Even though I heard their voice, even though I know they’re in Amsterdam and have somehow started to orbit my world like a rogue asteroid, it’s still a shock to actually see them. To share space with them.
“Missing me already?” I cross my arms and lean against the door, which is open just enough to allow them entrance but not exactly invite it.
“We need to talk,” they say tightly, and then they push right past me, knocking me slightly off balance.
“Come on in,” I say, full of sarcasm. I turn to see Mari standing in the middle of my studio.
I watch as they do a slow twirl, looking all around them.
I wait for their eyes to settle on something, anything, so I can try to understand what they make of this, what is close to a compilation of my life’s work, but they don’t linger on anything particular.
That is, not until their eyes return to my face.
They pin me in place, ice blue and sharper than I’ve ever seen them.
“I’m here to tell you to stay away from Roos,” they say, pulling their shoulders back and punctuating the statement with a perfect little pout.
“Oh, is that right?” I force myself to move, hoping that helps to cover up how my face itches to crease into a flinch.
So, they’ve seen Roos again, and clearly, they’ve talked.
I move to my work in progress, checking that Mari can’t see it.
It’s interesting that the pull to start work on it again has faded away into the distance, but I pick up my brush regardless.
“Roos is too nice, too kind to say it to you herself, so I’m doing it for her.”
“How noble,” I snort without looking up, even though I can feel their chilling glare still on me.
“You broke her heart,” Mari spits out, each word like a bullet in my chest. “Twice.”
I flinch regardless, hoping my features are hidden enough that it’s not noticeable to them.
“So you’ve been talking.” I shrug as I pick up my paintbrush. “Two nights of sex and talking… I guess that means you really know Roos, and sure, you know exactly what’s right for her.”
I hear Mari’s feet shuffle across the dusty floor as they get closer to me.
Still, I don’t look up, just dip my brush in and out of paint with absolutely no purpose.
“I know what it’s like to have your heart broken by you, so yes, you could say I do know her pretty well, and I know that forgetting you is the only way to move forward. ”
If their previous statement was gunfire, that feels like a hand grenade thrown into my chest cavity. Even so, I keep my eyes down, and I find it easier than I expect to reply. “Just like you’ve forgotten all about me?”
The question seems to grow in the silence that follows, so much so, I brave a look at Mari. They’re standing still, stunned, save for a blue-flamed fire of rage in their eyes.
“You don’t know anything about me,” they say slowly.
It’s the perfect invitation. I put the brush down and stand once more. I notice their chest rising and falling under their jacket, and the longest, most colourful crochet scarf I’ve ever seen is wrapped around their neck more times than I can count.
“You think that’s true?” I ask as I step closer.
I catch the faintest hint of their jasmine and eucalyptus smell.
Always so exotic, always so different from everyone else in that smalltown we grew up in.
“You think I know nothing about you. About how you think you’re a completely different person from the nineteen-year-old you used to be?
Even though your life is practically unchanged since then.
You still live in the same town, don’t you?
You work with your mum like you always said you would, don’t you?
And I bet Kay’s Tattoo Studio is your whole world.
Your social life. Maybe a lover or two. But it's your past, your present, and your future. Isn’t it? ”
“You don’t know anything about me,” they repeat, but it’s a rushed, frustrated statement.
“I know that you think Roos is something special, which she is, but you’re wrong if you think she’s only your special thing,” I say it as evenly as I can.
To my slight surprise, Mari’s face melts into a smile. A very sly smile. “I know about her being polyamorous.”
I wait a beat too long to reply, and I want to curse myself. “And you’re okay with that? Has polyamory reached Gloucestershire?”
“Fuck you, Lex,” they hiss at me.
I laugh and turn away again, kneeling back down at the canvas. “You can see yourself out.”
“Not until you promise to stay away from Roos.”
I pick up the brush, and this time start to paint, unaware of what I’m doing, but knowing I have to do this, I have to move. I have to create. If I can only fall back in the zone, I’ll be safe again.
“Promise me, Lex,” they say, and I want to applaud them for how such a clear plea can sound anything but pleading.
“If Roos wants me to stay away from her, then I will,” I say, and I only look up when Mari doesn’t reply. “She doesn’t want me to, though, does she?”
“It’s the best thing for her,” Mari states.
I shrug. “And the best thing you can do is go home, Mari,” I continue to paint. “Go back to your mum and Dove, to your dads, and being a smalltown tattoo artist. Go back to being the only enby in the village. Go back to being a big fish in a little pond. You’ll drown here.”
They take another quick step forward, index finger pointed at me like a sword. “You know nothing about me! You know nothing about my life, who I am. You don’t get to tell me what to do. You don’t have any control over me anymore. You lost that privilege when you left me, just like you left Roos!”
A rush of energy has me springing up and moving to stand opposite them again.
“You’re not over me, are you?” I challenge.
“That’s why you’re here. You want me to stay away from Roos because you can’t bear the thought of me and her living happily ever after here in a city like this while you go back to seeing the same faces in the same two gay bars in town. ”
“Fuck you, Lex! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!” A deep red floods their cheeks, and tendons throb in their neck.
I inch closer. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to fuck me now. Looking like this, being the person I was always supposed to be.”
They blink at my words and pull their head back, but their body stays very still. I inhale their smell again and resist the urge to close my eyes and really hold it in my lungs.
“I bet you have a safe word now, don’t you?” I ask. “Go on, what is it?”
They don’t reply.
“Tell me your safe word, Mari,” I repeat my request. “Tell me so you can use it, and I’ll stop.”
“We’re not… This isn’t…” They trail off, the pink still flushing their cheeks, but their eyes have lost some of their iciness.
“What’s your safe word, Mari?”
They swallow slowly, and with it comes a new composure to their features.
“Paparùda.”
It’s another weapon detonated. A bomb. A sniper attack. A tank flattening my weak body.
Somehow, I manage a smile. “I see.”
“It’s not about you,” they say in a quiet voice.
“Of course it’s not.”
“I mean it, Lex. It’s not about you. None of this is about you. Roos and me. That’s exactly why you need to back off and – ”
They stop talking when I step close enough that the tips of our shoes touch and their breasts push up against my flat chest.
“What are you doing?” they ask and I dissect their tone, searching for fear, for reluctance, for disgust.
“Shutting you up,” I say, looking down at their pink lips, which are pouting at me in almost perfect heart shape. “Remember your safe word.”
“It’s not about you,” they whisper as their eyes search my face.
“It never is.” And then I grip the back of their head with one hand and slam my mouth against theirs.