Chapter 33
Around midnight I have to lie down, exhausted. But Phantom keeps painting. Silently, I watch them from the bed. The painting is still in its infancy, but it’s coming along nicely. My heart flutters with excitement at the thought of seeing it finished.
“Phantom,” I finally call to them. They turn to me with a question in their gaze. Their scars remain fully exposed. “We need to rest.”
They look as if they’d like to argue, but think better of it, wiping their hands with a rag as they walk over to me.
“We’ll wash up in the morning.”
They nod as I pat the empty space next to me.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” they say, looking over their shoulder. But the floor is completely covered in paint.
“Don’t be silly,” I argue, beaconing them again.
“I don’t deserve—”
My voice is stern. “Phantom.”
They nod again, tossing the rag on the floor. They discard their paint-soiled sweats, remaining in their underclothes, and climb in next to me.
“We’ll finish the painting tomorrow,” I promise, resting my forehead against their shoulder.
“Okay,” they say quietly.
“Do you feel better?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“It’s the act of painting, isn’t it?”
They nod. “It’s the only thing that quiets her down enough to allow me a moment out of my head.”
That must be Phantom’s way of coping with their mental illness and protecting others from the brunt of their mood swings—painting.
I nuzzle in closer, relishing Phantom’s closeness. Even though I’m tired beyond comprehension, my hand moves of its own accord, and suddenly, my fingers are trailing up their arm, gliding over the smooth hills and divots. Heat blossoms in my core, more insistent than ever before.
When I look up at Phantom, I find them flushed from the neck up, their fearful gaze on me once more. I move to take my hand away, but stop when they choke out, “It’s not—it’s just that—” they swallow thickly “—I—I’ve never—”
I interrupt them with a finger to their lips. “It’s okay. We can just sleep.”
But they surprise me by reaching out and gripping my chin between their thumb and forefinger, guiding my face back to theirs.
Our lips meet again, gentler and more tender than the first time.
My toes curl as their hands explore my body, slowly, lazily, as if we have all the time in the world, before finally finding purchase in my hair.
A husky chuckle leaves my lips when Phantom gently tugs a fistful.
“In the meantime,” I say against their mouth, “I hope we’ll be doing much more of this.”
Phantom smiles shyly as they release me, letting me return to my pillow. “Anything you want.”
A long beat of silence passes before I finally admit, “I want you.”
Cautiously, my hand drifts. Over my breasts, along the plain of my stomach, until it stalls just above the junction of my thighs. “I want you here,” I confess, the words barely a whisper.
Humiliated by my body’s desperation, I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to watch Phantom’s reaction. The covers shift as they move off the bed, the weight of their gaze agonizingly heavy.
The gauzy canopy comes into sudden focus at the feel of Phantom’s fingers hooking around the waistband of my sweatpants. In one swift motion, they fall to the paint-stained floor, and I’m left nearly bare from the waist down.
“What are you—” I squeal as Phantom slips one of my socks off, and then the other.
The determination in their gaze renders me silent. “You’ll have to show me what you like.”
Failing to conquer my breath, it’s all I can do to nod vigorously at them.
With deft, nimble fingers, Phantom frees me of my top next, their gaze, wild and hungry, falling on the thin cotton sports bra underneath. On instinct, my hands raise to cover myself, but Phantom captures them in their own. “Let me see you. Please.”
I release the breath caught in my throat and nod once more, slipping the bra straps from my shoulders slowly.
It’s only once Phantom fully returns to the bed, climbing to straddle my knees so they can trail hot, tender kisses along my collarbone, that I register the clean paintbrush tucked behind their opposite ear.
But I don’t have time to dwell on the thought as Phantom’s eager hands guide my bra up and over my head, leaving me dizzy with want as I watch them take in the sight of me.
“You are,” they pant, seeming as lost to their desire as I am, “a masterpiece, Maeve.”
“Touch me,” I plead, steering their hands over the ridges of my ribs toward my breasts.
“How?” they ask, the question drained of trepidation, and instead full of resolve.
“Like this,” I murmur while leading their thumb over the taut peak of my nipple. My back arches as the coil of need in my core tightens.
A quick study, Phantom folds at the waist, the satin-smooth scar tissue of their lips skating across the swell of my breasts. With careful reverence, they taste my chest until I’m practically squirming with impatience beneath them.
When Phantom’s eyes lock on mine, something shifts in their dual-toned gaze. Somewhere in that beautiful head of theirs, a plan is forming. And if the smirk quirking their lips is any indication, it’s a mischievous one.
I don’t even have time to question them before their mouth is on me again, traveling down the length of my stomach. When they reach the band of my underwear, they sit up before grabbing my hips and scooting us both toward the edge of the bed. “Phantom, what—”
But they’re already on their knees, shimming my undergarments down my thighs and tossing them over their shoulder, leaving me raw and tingling before them.
Their greedy gaze claims mine again. “I need you to show me.”
Swallowing thickly, I nod, knowing I could never refuse them anything. “Soft here,” I mutter while circling my slick apex with gentle fingers. “Then firmer here,” I instruct while dipping a finger into the hot core of me, “but start gentle, just in ca—”
Phantom interrupts by urging my hand away with their own.
Eyes glued to mine, they wrap a warm hand around my thigh, prying my legs further apart while they pepper kisses down the tender slope of my inner thigh.
I shudder at the sight: raven hair mussed, lips wet, eyes devoted.
All of their focus is on me, as if I’m the center of their entire universe.
As if it could all come crumbling down around them, and as long as I stayed like this, breathless, panting, and alive, they’d be fine. Perfectly fucking fine.
My muscles tense in uncertainty when they pull the paintbrush from behind their ear, a teasing gleam in their eye. “Relax,” they urge before brushing their lips against my flushed skin again. “Trust me.”
Free from the weight of their gaze, I let my eyelids flutter closed and fist the smooth velvet comforter in my hands as I do as they ask. Trust them. Wholly and implicitly.
The first sweep of the paintbrush at my apex sends me reeling, all of my nerve endings firing at once. A desperate moan escapes me unbidden, but I can’t bring myself to care. Trembling with want, I lift my head, pinning Phantom under my gaze, only to find them grinning.
They waste no time, teasing me with another expert, feather-light brushstroke, and then another, and another, until the ecstasy has my eyes rolling back in their sockets.
The moment the length of their finger, and then a second, enters me, moving at the exact rhythm my body needs, meeting my hips motion for motion—all the while torturing me with tantalizingly soft strokes of that infernal paintbrush—I know I’m a goner.
My heart, my soul, and now, my body, belong completely to this other being.
Imperfect and broken and so gloriously human.
When the soft heat of their mouth replaces the paintbrush, stars flash behind my eyelids and my fingernails dig encouragingly into the back of Phantom’s scalp. Their guttural, pleading groan, the vibration of which reaches all the way into the marrow of my bones, sends me over the edge.
The steady rhythm of Phantom’s tongue and fingers carry me through waves upon waves of pleasure, until sated, I melt into the bed at my back.
I make a valiant effort to rally, wanting desperately to bring Phantom to the same euphoria, but as they climb back into bed beside me, molding their body against my own, they quietly decline.
“If we don’t sleep soon,” they mutter against my hair listlessly, “we’ll die.” Nuzzling deeper into the crook of my neck, they continue, “I don’t think anything could bring me as much pleasure as that just did anyway.”
Smiling, I whisper into the covers, “Is that a challenge?”
After a few quiet minutes, I wonder whether or not they heard me as Phantom’s breaths grow deeper and more even, confirming their journey into unconsciousness. I relax, knowing that, for the moment, they’re sleeping soundly.
Despite my own weariness, sleep never comes. Instead, I remain stuck in a tangle of thoughts, impatiently trying to tease them apart, as I listen to Phantom breathe.
What started out as Phantom’s cage became their key.
Their parents laid the foundation with unrealistic expectations and forged the walls with conditional love.
Then they trapped an innocent child in that cage and told them to fly with the birds.
See that bird up there? The rainbow-colored one?
Be more like them. More bright, more colorful, more graceful. More.
But it was an impossible task. A bird in a cage can’t soar through the clouds. They set Phantom up for failure from the start. And yet, somehow, the art that originally chained them to the ground, melted and morphed into something new. Something lifesaving.
Whenever the cage felt too small, or the hungry hands of the shadows came reaching for them, Phantom used art to break out.
The reprieve didn’t last forever. Sadly, nothing ever does.
But it provided small moments of freedom.
Moments that are likely the only reason Phantom’s lying next to me now, still drawing life into their lungs.
I lift my head to gaze upon their sleeping face.
Their hair is greasy and the dark circles under their eyes are stark against their pale skin.
They look a little unwell, and yet, they have a faint hint of a smile upon their lips, even in slumber.
Gently, I lift my hand to trace the scars around their mouth.
They’re uneven, covering more skin on the left side of their mouth and jaw than the right.
The healed skin is of a pinkish hue, the color of a garden rose in spring.
Phantom must view these scars as a ball and chain. A constant reminder of their flaws and failures. Maybe they even see them as ugly. But I see them as battle scars. Proof of battles hard fought, and while lost at the time, damn worth fighting again.
They shift beneath my touch, momentarily stirring from their sleep, so I remove my hand until they still again. Dried paint still covers the side of my palm. The sight brings a new question to the forefront of my mind.
What is painting to me?
For the longest time it felt like a means to an end, a plot for attention.
But what did it start out as? I think back to my early childhood, to the first memories I have of painting.
In my mind, I relive moments in art class making handprint turkeys and filling in paint-by-numbers prints.
We took a field trip to a nearby art museum in second or third grade, and I remember crying quietly in the galleries, overwhelmed by all the beauty surrounding me.
I did love it once. And thanks to Phantom, I know I love it again.
My gaze drifts back to them. Their mouth has fallen open slightly, and I suppress a giggle.
I’d forgotten how much joy painting brings me. The internal kind of joy. Not the external gratification I got from all the likes, comments, and shares. I’d convinced myself that was joy, but I was wrong. Phantom reminded me what real joy from art feels like.
Thanks to them, my love for art was reborn.
I might’ve used art for attention, acknowledgment, and recognition, but that’s not what I needed from art. I had what I needed from it all along. Passion, inspiration, creativity. So, from now on, I’ll paint just for me.
And now, with Phantom, I have someone to share it with. All of it. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the breathtaking.
Looking back to our canvas I smile to myself. Phantom was right. They may have provided unique opportunities for me to succeed in the art world, but I was only able to persevere because of my passion and skill.
Nobody else can do what we do.
Our talents and hearts deserve to be nurtured, and so, tomorrow, we will.
One kiss and one brushstroke at a time.