Invisible Fingerpaints On A Naked Canvas.

Warmer days had come and the thick air replaced the thick wool that had hugged our winter-clad legs. It was Madeleine Belon who first undid the buttons of her blouse to ties the ends in a knot to jiggle at her belly, revealing a slender, golden waist. She’d been the first to hitch her skirt up so it licked her thighs; the first to let her blouse hang open to reveal the soft curve of a girlish breast.1

She was mesmerising. Even Sarah Whittard- whom I’d once thought my best friend and who claimed, as only the cleverest and plainest of girls can do, that she would rather have brains, which she had, than beauty, which she did not- even she would have a hint of jealousy in her disdain when Madeleine sauntered by. Her confidence, her daring caught them all. All but me. I was more caught with the beauty of her willowy thighs, the glossy lips and tantalizing cleavage, denied before by rules we once regarded. But with Madeleine, the rules slipped away and fresh desires crept over me. There was no name for it then, not at barely fourteen. Nor did I name it when, two years later, I lay under Matt Campbell, his fingers pushing too roughly beneath my jeans, stiffening in my hands as I wondered yet again what the fuss had been about and contemplated what a perverse thing the male body was.  2

Later, I would lie on sheets that were not my own, the scent of a curious sex drifting over me. The candles had melted now, clumping in ogre-esque forms and creeping into the carpet and sheets that fluttered across my naked limbs. You smiled as my eyes flickered about the room, burning beauty into my mind. My breathing still heavy, every smell assaulted my senses and shuddered into my lungs. The petals you had jokingly scattered across me to chase away with a tender breath; the scent of sweat, beading on my back and thighs, kissing each other as you prised them apart; the wine you dribbled into my mouth, lapping eagerly despite the oaky taste and the taste of you, still sweet upon my lips, burning my throat with the musky delicacy.3

A kiss flitted across my lips, fragile, as if even air could break it. Your fingers crept across my thighs and brushed the wiry hair, teasing, tracing, up and up, across my belly and grazing my breast.4

The hands that lingered were too small, too delicate and feminine; the breath on my cheek too light, no stench of cheap beer and cigarettes; the body tight-pressed to mine too soft, too curvaceous. The perfume stung me, a strange fragrance that did not belong. 5

I did not belong. I should be clasped between jealous, possessive arms, rough and manly beneath their sleeves; not with my hands on another girl’s hips, feeling you move gently, the bones grinding noiselessly, the muscle twisting, the skin scraping skin; our cheeks so close, I could feel where a shadow should have been, where the hair should have ended. And our lips met once more and I was drowning once again; unable to breathe without engulfing the world we had painted; invisible fingerpaints on a naked canvas.6