Killing Kate (15 page)

“I’m scared for you,” he says. 
“Just because I can tell you’re unhappy.  If you’re depressed, I think you
should get help.  But I know how you feel and I can’t make you do anything
unless you’re dangerous.  Either to me or Devin or yourself or whomever.  But
as for being scared of you, no, not at all.”  He reaches under the table and I
feel his hand on my knee.  “I understand why Devin wants to help you so badly. 
It’s hard not to care about you, Jenna.”

I am so confused.  Why isn’t he
running out the door?  Why is he looking at me with something that’s not pity
or disgust but rather with concern and thoughtfulness?  Did he just say he cares
about me?  It’s too soon for that, I think.  I feel like my chest is going to
explode, and I don’t understand whether it’s a feeling of grief or relief.  “I
think I’m full,” I hear myself saying.  “Can I take this home?”

“Of course,” Justin says, and
motions to Jose.  I gush to Jose about how amazing the food was and swear I’ll be
back, if just for that mango salsa.  He apparently really wants me to come back
because he sends us home with a vat of it.  I feel bad for not eating more of
the steak, but I’m ready to burst.

“Next time you come,” Jose tells
me, “You try the fried ice cream.”  I swear I will but the thought of more food
makes me want to explode in tiny pieces all over the restaurant.  Jose kisses
my cheeks like an old friend and we say goodnight and leave.  The minute we are
outside Justin backs me up against the wall and kisses me.  Everything below my
waist becomes slippery and I almost lose my grip on the leftovers.

A group of gangbanger kids across
the street whistle at us and say something that’s likely obnoxious.  Thankfully
I don’t speak enough Spanish to know if we’re being insulted or complimented. 
“Can we go to your house?” I ask Justin.  He nods and opens my door for me to
let me into his car, just like his mother told him to.

“Just so we’re clear,” Justin says
as he drives toward his house.  “I don’t intend to fuck you tonight.”

“What?” I say, startled by the
comment.  “Well, I didn’t assume you would.”  Except that I did assume exactly
that.

He shakes his head.  “To further
clarify things,” he continues.  “I don’t intend to fuck you ever.”

I whirl my head to look at him. 
“So what, you tell me that you care about me, kiss me hard enough to melt me
into a pile of jelly, and then tell me you don’t want me?”

He looks at me pointedly.  “I think
something you are missing and have missed out on your whole life, Jenna, is the
difference between being fucked and being loved.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling like a
complete schmuck.  “I see.”

“You don’t see because you don’t
know,” he tells me.  “I’ve known you a long time, even though there’s a lot I
don’t know about you.  I’ve known Devin forever, and the one thing I know about
him is that he is the one person in your life that has loved you, but he’s your
brother.  Everyone else in your life has used you, or ‘fucked’ you, so to
speak.  I want to show you how you can be loved and also touched, because I
think your entire life you’ve associated men touching you with being used, or
fucked.”  He looks at me and I sheepishly look down and realize my hands are
pressing hard against my inner thighs, which are pushing themselves together. 
I want him to do everything to me that’s going through my head and I can barely
wait.  He takes my left wrist and pulls it away.  “Save that for when we get to
my place.”

“I can’t really wait,” I breathe.

“Smoke,” he tells me.  I do as he
asks me to, cracking the window and lighting up.  He takes my left hand and
clasps it in his right hand and squeezes.  I feel comforted and comfortable.

*

“I cleaned up for you,” Justin
tells me once we’re inside of his house.  “It was a sty this morning.”

“It’s fine,” I say.  Justin lives
in an old brick bungalow in Margate Park on a tree lined street.  It appears
quiet, though I know it’s not the greatest of neighborhoods.  We are standing
in his front room, or “fronchroom” as Chicago people like to say.  I follow him
back to his kitchen where he stashes our leftovers in the refrigerator.  I
notice all of the appliances are very up to date, even though his kitchen is
small.  “Don’t let me forget that salsa,” I tell him.

“I might,” he teases.  He grabs two
beers from the fridge and closes it behind him.  “Beer?”

“Yes please,” I say as I watch him
open them up.  His arms tense up with working the bottle opener and I like
watching them.  In addition to his dragon tattoo, he has a small tattoo on his
left wrist of a dinosaur.  “I like your ink,” I tell him.  “What’s the
significance?”

He smiles.  “It’s a Brontosaurus,”
he explains.

“Those didn’t actually exist, you
know?” I ask him.

“I know,” he replies.  “I like them
though, because they’re proof that people aren’t always right about
everything.”

“That’s for sure,” I agree.  “Is
that and the dragon your only tattoos?”

“For now,” he says.  He hands me my
beer and watches me drink about half of it in one gulp.  I’m suddenly really
thirsty.  “What about you?  Do you have any tattoos?”

I shake my head.  “Maybe one day. 
I asked Devin a bunch of times to draw me something that’s for me but he never
does.”

“What would you get?” he asks me.

I shrug.  “I’m not sure.  I never
think of anything clever like your Brontosaurus tattoo.  I guess a bird,
maybe.”

He looks confused.  “Why a bird?”

I’m slightly embarrassed.  “Because
there are different ways a bird can live, and it’s not up to the bird, but
rather how people treat the bird.  Like you can own a bird as a pet and it will
live and die in a cage.  Or a bird can be born in the wild and will be free to
go where it wants.  And in some rare instances, a bird born in a cage can
become free, or a bird born in the wild can become caged.”

“Birds born in a cage and released
would probably die if they were released in the wild,” Justin says.

“Probably,” I agree, suddenly
feeling sad.  “But who would know or care?”  We both consider that for a bit. 
“So give me the tour,” I say, breaking the silence.  “Or is the rest of your
house too messy to show me?  Did you stash stuff under beds and in closets for
company?”

Justin grins.  “I can show you
around most of the rooms.  Do you need to use the bathroom or anything?  It’s
right there.”  He walks me out of the kitchen and into the hallway where the
bathroom is.  “This door is my bedroom,” he says, opening the door and showing
me a very basic bedroom with blue walls and grey bedding and curtains.  The boy
has curtains, I think, though I’m not sure why it shocks me.  Part of me is
wishing the tour would end in the bedroom, but Justin leads me away to another
door.  He opens it to reveal stairs leading to a basement.  “Down there is my
studio,” he says.

“Can I see it?” I ask.  He nods and
leads me down the stairs.  The basement is partially finished with tiled floors
and white walls on one side.  Behind a wall with a door on the other side is
for storage of Justin’s artwork and supplies, he shows me.  He has several
works in progress including a huge six foot painting of a smiling geisha, a
series of small paintings of different parts of a tree that he tells me will
look really cool when they are hung up in pieces on a large wall, and a
portrait of an old man sitting on the El looking sleepy.  “You paint a lot of
different types of stuff,” I say.  “But you’re really talented.”

“Thanks,” Justin says.  “I’m hoping
to get the tree into an exhibit coming up this fall, and I have plans to do an
underwater scene similar to that.  Maybe I do a bunch of birds instead.”

“Funny,” I say, feeling his eyes
bore into me as he watches for my reaction.

“Or,” he continues, “I could give
you a tattoo right now.  How would you like that?”  He walks to me and I let
him kiss me again, feeling lightheaded.  His hands pull me toward him by my
waist and I let my hands come up to his hair.  It’s thick and a bit long in
back, I notice.  I push his mouth down to my neck and moan softly as his lips
move against it and down to my shoulders.  He moves the strap of my linen sundress
away to uncover the rest of my shoulder, and then stands back to look at me.  I
meet his smoldering gaze and feel my heart pounding.  “Can I take this off?” he
asks me, hooking a finger into the strap of my dress.  I nod and let him pull
it over my head, and I am standing in my bra and panties in the middle of his
basement.  He looks me up and down, but not in a creepy way, but more in the
way that artists tend to view things, assessing and studying.  “I think you’re
beautiful,” he finally says.

In response, I take off my bra and
toss it aside.  Justin’s eyes widen but he doesn’t move.  “Stop,” he says
before I can remove my panties.  “I’m going to paint you.”

“Now?” I say.  “Are you kidding?” 
I watch as he sorts through his materials and tubes of paint.  I didn’t really
come by to model for him, I think, but what the hell.

He finds a blanket and spreads it
out over the floor.  “Sit down,” he tells me, gently pressing down on my
shoulders.  I do as I’m told.  He kneels down and kisses me again.  Then he pulls
away and silently appears to consider something.  “Do you trust me?” he asks
me.  “I promise you with my life I would never hurt you, Jenna.”  I nod,
feeling the conviction in his voice.  I do trust him, completely, though
perhaps I shouldn’t.  At this point in my life, I couldn’t possibly experience
much else I haven’t experienced in terms of pain and disappointment.  I watch as
he produces a black scarf.

“Are you going to tie me up?” I ask
hesitantly.

“No,” he says, and I feel somewhat
relieved.  “I am going to blindfold you, though, if you’ll let me.”

That was actually a new one.  I
didn’t expect him to say anything like that.  “Okay,” I agree.  “As long as you
promise not to walk away from me and leave me down here half naked for a week
with no food or water.”

“Maybe only a few days,” he says,
grinning.  Then he looks serious again.  “I promise I’ll put your clothes back
on before I leave you down here blindfolded.”  My heart starts to pound a
little bit harder in my chest.  When I don’t say anything, he continues.  “I’m
joking.  I’m not tying you up, remember?  You can push the blindfold off it
it’s too much for you, okay?  I’m not going to leave you by yourself.  I’ll be
touching you the whole time.  And if I’m not, I’ll talk so you know where I
am.”

That sounds good.  “Thank you,” I
whisper, sort of feeling like I’m going to cry.  He’s so nice, I think.  I
can’t remember a man being so nice to me when I was almost naked before.

Justin sits behind me and covers my
eyes with the scarf.  It’s silk, I think, and feels soft and cool on my eyes
and temples.  “Lie down,” he tells me, and helps me settle back.  He plants a
soft kiss on my lips.  “Can you lie very still for me, Jenna?  This might feel
a little cold and I don’t want you to jump or anything.”

“I’ll try,” I say.

“And keep your hands at your
sides,” Justin says to me.  I realize that they’ve traveled down between my
thighs again.

“Sorry,” I say.  “Sometimes I don’t
even know I’m doing it until I…” I trail off as I feel the soft tip of Justin’s
paintbrush running down my neck.  “Oh.”

“Good ‘oh’ or bad ‘oh’?”

“Good.  Very, very good.”  I feel
the silky tip trail down my collarbone and it gives me goose bumps.  He takes
it off me and I feel it again on my nipple, wet with paint.  It circles my
right nipple and trails across my chest and over to my right one, and around
that one.

“I think I’ll change to a number
six,” I hear him mumble.  “And use some cadmium red medium for this part.”  I
giggle and feel a thicker brush trace below my breasts.  My nipples feel stiff
and the paint drying on them makes them feel stiffer.  “When your front dries
I’d love to flip you over and paint your back.”

“I’m in your hands,” I tell him. 
“You have free reign of my body to do as you please.”

In response, I feel his hands trail
over my belly and I breathe in sharply.  Since I don’t know what to anticipate,
every touch is unexpected.  He takes the sides of my panties in his fingers and
slowly peels them off.  I lift myself up slightly to let him pull them off me. 
The air feels cool and dry below my waist where I’m already very wet.  “The
brush I’m about to use is dry,” he tells me.  “I’m using it to soak up
everything here before you spill.  May I?”  I nod and bite my lip.  The touch
of the brush between my legs is soft and slow, and he draws it against me back
to front and twists the tip against my swollen clit.  I moan and my hands grab
his wrists and push my hips forward against the brush.  He responds by burying
his face between my legs.

He tastes me slowly and takes his
time, yet I am coming in less than a minute.  I feel the resulting wetness all
over my thighs.  I’m not sure whether it is paint or my own juices or Justin’s
saliva, and I don’t care.

“I guess it was pointless to wipe
you up,” Justin tells me.  “But I still have more of you to paint.  Just lie
back and relax.”  I am still twitching, but Justin brings his hands over me to
settle me down.  In a minute I am lying back and still.  “Are you comfortable?”
he asks me.