Chapter 14
fourteen
. . .
Don’t overthink it.
It takes a minute, and Akilah grabs her stuff from upstairs and runs after Tanner. She’s not far, barely down the street heading into the park.
“Tanner,” she shouts. There are too many people on the streets; she didn’t think this through. People turn to look at her, and suddenly she can hear colours. All she thought was that the woman who gave her everything she ever wanted was walking away without knowing Akilah loved her back.
Tanner spins, a smile on her face that suggests she does, in fact, know. That she gets Akilah on a level that no one else does, she sees when there are too many people around that her romantic gesture is about to crumble into panic.
Tanner holds onto her hand, grounding and supportive.
“Put your earplugs in, pretty girl. I’ve got you.”
“Niagara Falls is so cool,” Tanner mutters hours later.
“I’ll take you,” Akilah promises. They made it home with no repercussions. Well, Akilah is lying on the floor of the living room, towels and duvets under her, while Tanner paints on her back. The methodological movements lower her heart rate, and Tanner likes giving her tattoos in colour.
“I can see it on Google.”
Akilah hums. “I’ll take you anyway.” Tanner’s paintbrush floats around her back. Occasionally, she stops moving altogether. Akilah knows she’s preparing to say something, but then she stops. Perhaps she thinks Akilah is still overwhelmed. Maybe it’s just not that important.
“Tell me what you’re thinking about,” Akilah mutters when she leans for more paint.
“Your ability to stalk my movements does not go unnoticed.”
“Noted.”
Tanner laughs, a wistful sound that settles at the base of Akilah’s neck. She gives it a moment. Knows that not everyone is as forthcoming as she is.
“This afternoon, in the private room...”
“Mh-hmm.”
“Did you want to stop kissing? Because sometimes we kiss and you stop abruptly, and I can’t tell if it’s because you want to, which, of course. Anytime. Or ... if it’s because you think I’ll want to progress to something more.”
Akilah swallows. “I trust you.”
“I know.”
She flexes her fingers against her palm.
“I know you’d stop. Sometimes, I don’t want to have to say no.
So, I don’t let it get there, because I’ll always be letting you down.
” Akilah knows what it’s like. She likes to be messy and push things as far as she wants, but then it’s like leading them on.
The promise of something more that she takes back.
Even if she’s made it explicitly clear, it’s not like she can have something halfway.
“I love kissing you,” Tanner replies. She flicks the paint against her back some more.
“I wouldn’t try anything you didn’t lead.
If you want to make out and roll around on the couch, I’d love that.
If you want to kiss me for an hour as we lie on our sides and barely touch, I’d want that too.
Baby, I could straddle you, and I wouldn’t even grind against your thigh if you didn’t explicitly ask for it. ”
“You wouldn’t?” Akilah’s never known someone to mean what they say. Not like this. Not with her body.
Tanner shakes her head, her entire body moving with it.
“God, no. I want whatever you want and nothing more. I’m not joking when I say the thought of engaging in something sexual when you didn’t enthusiastically want that makes me want to lie in a grave.
It’s gross. It makes me feel like my skin is crawling.
But I want you. I want to hear you moan if you want that.
I want you to pull on my hair and gasp down my throat and grip my t-shirt.
I want what you want. All the time. I’d never do anything without you telling me to. ”
Akilah’s just never met someone like Tanner.
“I’m out of space,” she mumbles, pressing her lips to her neck.
“The waterfall looks sick, though. Don’t move.
” She stands up, and Akilah watches her go to the mantle in her painting shirt, an old, unnecessarily sexy, oversized linen shirt.
She grabs her phone and stands back over her to take photos.
“You’re literally artwork,” she says. “It’s criminal how attractive you are. Should I wash it off and start again?”
Akilah is tattooed all over her body, but she hasn’t been naked in front of anyone since she started taking hormones.
Even with sexual encounters, she was pretty much fully dressed.
She’s in underwear now. A thin bra that’s barely worth the material and matching pants.
They cover everything, but barely. Outlines and shapes are obvious.
“I can spin over,” she says, willing her heart not to thump on the floorboards. “If you want to do my front.”
“Okay,” Tanner replies calmly, though Akilah saw the way she stopped in her movements slightly. “Do you want shorts?”
“No.”
“Okay, let me swap the water out.”
Akilah spins, eyes fixed on the ceiling mouldings as she hears Tanner walking back. She knocks on the open door, forever giving her a way out of situations she put herself in.
“You may enter.”
Tanner laughs. She places the water jug and the refilled paints next to them on her makeshift dust sheet. She sits next to her, presses her lips to her shoulder and dips her brush.
“I’m going to paint a forest.”
“You can sit on me,” Akilah says, tapping the floor. “Like before. If you want.”
“Do you want that?”
Akilah tries not to panic. Tanner loves her; she knows it. She loves her, but she hasn’t seen her. Not completely. What if it freaks her out? What if she doesn’t want to look at her? Akilah doesn’t want to be touched, but her heart might break if Tanner doesn’t want to touch her either.
“Look at me,” Tanner whispers, her hand light against her jaw. Akilah feels the paint stains her skin, but Tanner’s thumb makes it all better. “I love you. I think you’re perfect. I would even if I never saw your body outside of black clothing and devilishly slashed shirts.”
Akilah swallows a laugh.
“If you want to show me anything, I’ll greedily accept. But only do it because it’s something you want. I’ll be here regardless. If you never want me to touch you, I’ll be right here.”
“You love me anyway?”
“Oh, baby,” Tanner says, her eyes damp. “I adore you.”
She can’t think too far beyond this moment, Tanner’s breaths slow and follow a far more normal rhythm once more. She’s beautiful, hers and glowing yellow in the faint light of the living room. Akilah wants to eat her alive. Metaphorically, right now. Physically, one day.
“I would like it if you were on top of me,” she says, then, “I like looking at you.”
It takes a moment, but soon enough Tanner shifts, her knees on either side of her hips.
Eyes wide and glassy, and face all flushed the way Akilah likes it.
She’s glad she can conjure this out of nowhere.
They don’t need fingers and lips; she needs a well-timed joke, or to bring her a tea without asking, or to give her something she doesn’t give anyone else.
“I don’t know how to do this. Or what you need from me,” Akilah says, her fingertips against Tanner’s knees as she bends forward to paint the first stroke against her chest. She feels delirious.
It presses against her ribs, this feeling.
It expands furiously in her chest, stretching her skin taut, making her heart feel too big for her body.
It’s in her lungs, in her pulse, in the blood that surges hot beneath her skin. It’s everywhere. Tanner is everywhere.
“But I know that I love you,” she says, her eyes trained on the dip of Tanner’s shirt. “I don’t know how to be enough for you. But I know that if you did nothing else for the rest of your life, you are still more than I ever could have hoped for, and far more than I deserve.”
When Akilah’s eyes make it up to her face, she finds Tanner already looking back at her, unsuccessfully tamping down a shy smile. There has never been a more welcome sight.
“Ilah,” she says, reaching for her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm.
“You give me more than I ever thought I’d get.
You give me someone to call when something exciting happens or when I want to talk about nothing.
You make ordinary things feel like I’m walking on the moon.
Do you know how bad I hated food shopping?
And now I get to push the trolley around, watch you scowl at how much sugar is in cereal, and buy three boxes anyway.
You give me the love I didn’t dare to dream about.
You give me someone to live my life with.
You don’t need to know how to be enough. Baby, you already are.”
“Don’t make me cry,” she whispers. “Talk about something else.”
Tanner laughs, leaning down to kiss her properly. Then she pulls back, creates another casual masterpiece on her chest.
“You’ve got great boobs,” she says. “Are they natural?”
Akilah frowns. “Well, they grew when I took hormones.”
“I only got mine with hormones,” she says with a shrug. “I meant, did you get surgery?”
“Oh,” she replies. “No. I’m allergic to dimethiconol, so it makes surgery risky.”
“Is that why you haven’t gotten bottom surgery?”
Akilah shrugs. “At the start it was, then there were solutions, but it’s frightfully expensive, and I don’t know. It didn’t seem like something I wanted enough to do it.”
Tanner nods.
“I could – if you wanted me to, I could look into it.”
Tanner frowns. “Imagine I told you I could get a boob job for you.”
“Don’t be gross.” It’s not the same thing, but Akilah appreciates it all the same.
“I mean this in the nicest way possible; I don’t care what’s between your legs.”
“Okay, rude.” Tanner laughs, kisses her quietly. Akilah relishes the newfound closeness that has nothing to do with the lack of space between them.
“I love you,” she mutters against her lips.
Akilah’s mouth brushes against the shell of her ear. “I love you, too.” Her voice sounds too shy, borderline conspiratorial. Tanner smiles against her jaw.
“I know, you do, you beautiful thing. I know.”