“Ouch! Fuck! That hurts!”
It was bliss, pure bliss. Sure it got lonely sometimes, I mean what more do you expect when your boyfriend is a rock star.
“Well, I told you it would.”
I loved John and he loved me and that was all that mattered. I know what you are thinking. The story was over, you got the guy, everything was perfect. Oh dear, you should know that nothing is ever perfect and no story ever ends.
So here I was 19, in New York, and getting a new tattoo. It is an addiction, by the way, their like potato chips, you can’t get just one. I sat back in the chair with a white knuckle grip on the handles.
“Just finish her, would you.”
“I told you, going across the shin really hurts.”
“I get the point, you told me. Just finish her.”
He looked back down to the red kimono he was filling in. My third tattoo, she is a geisha girl named Asia, drawn right across my right shin. I got my second tattoo right after coming to New York, a purple iris on my left shoulder blade. At this rate I’d have more than John by the time I was 25.
“There she is, she’s a beaut, if I do say so myself.” He smiled at my leg, oh so proud of his work. I sat up and looked down.
“A bit upside down, but beautiful none the less.”
“What do you mean it’s, oh,” he gave a nervous laugh. “I get it from your point of view she’s upside down.”
I just smiled at him. I got out of the chair and paid him. I walked outside into the blinding May sun. I pulled my sunglasses out of my hair and out them over my eyes. I pushed through the people, looking past them towards some imaginary goal. I needed to get back to the dorm. I had a psych final to study for, an English lit paper to finish, and I needed to finish packing. I had to move my stuff to John’s apartment and then I was going on tour with the Goo Goo Dolls for the summer. I would even have three days in Denver with Ivy, I couldn’t wait.
I walked into the refreshingly air conditioned dorm and hopped up the stairs to my suite.
College had been and interesting experience to this point. To begin with I shared my room with another girl and a suite with two boys. My roommates were great. (I think hell must have frozen over, because the housing department does not, I repeat not, make matches like this.) Erin was a punk princess/acting major, Ally (named for the first stunt he mastered) was a skater/art major, and Tarin was a freaky film student. We hung out at punk clubs and coffee houses, went to see indie flicks and films with subtitles, and knew every ramp tramp at NYU.
I did go to class, I did that a lot. Aside from the basics, I had taken English Lit, Psychology, and Photography. I fell in love with photography, I hardly ever left the dorm without a camera any more. For the few short weeks that John was home, I must have shot a dozen rolls of film of him. I spent more time in the dark room than I did sleeping.
I unlocked the door to the common area between the rooms.
“Anybody home?” I called as I tossed my keys on our kitchen counter.
“Sup, babe.” Ally walked out of his room with an empty cereal bowl. His tattered jeans and muscular torso were covered in specks of paint. He kissed me on the cheek and dropped his bowl in the sink.
“Hey.”
“So, let’s see.” He gave me his most charming smile, which even I had to admit was rather charming. I pulled up the leg of my loose fitting, Indian print pants. He got down on his knees and ran his hand lovingly down my shin. “Are you happy with it?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Good.” He stood and brushed a piece of hair from my face.
“Where are Erin and Tarin?”
“Erin is taking a final and Tarin is in the library.”
“What have you been up to all day?” I grabbed a Diet Coke out of the fridge and a glass from the cupboard.
“I finished the painting of Tarin and Erin.” I nearly missed the stool I was about to sit on. He came home every night frustrated because he felt he wasn’t capturing them well enough.
“You were having so much trouble, what did it?” I sat more firmly on the stool and poured my drink.
“Well, I had been painting for weeks without them posing because I had my basic outline. On a whim I asked them to come sit for me one more time. I stared at them for about five or ten minutes and suddenly it just clicked. I thanked them, they left and I finished it.”
“Let me see, please.” I gave him my best puppy dog eyes and full pout.
“On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Pose for me. I know there’s only a week left of school, but I think I can finish it.”
“Deal.”
“All right. Will you put on an old pair of jeans and get a hair tie. I’m going to grab a shirt and some shoes.”
“You want anything else?”
“You’ll see.”
“Uh, okay.” I went into my bedroom and put on a pair of well worn jeans.
“Come on, babe.”
Ally grabbed my hand and walked me towards the hall with all the art studios. We ran up to the third floor and down to the end of the hall. He unlocked the door and led me into the room. The walls were covered with small paintings and quotes left by former occupants.
“It’s over here,” he pulled me to a corner.
The canvas was still slick with wet paint. The painting was exquisite. Erin sat to the right of the middle with her back to us in a black tank top. Her head was bent forward, just barely exposing her pink, spiky hair. Tarin was obviously on his hands and knees, but you could only see him from the waist up and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. His right hand was pulling her tank top strap down and he was kissing her on the shoulder. There was a golden glow all around them. It was the most powerfully romantic thing I had ever seen. Years later I would buy that very painting from him.
“My god, Ally, it’s amazing.”
“You want it, it’s your’s.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t.”
“Yes, you could.”
“So, what do you want me to do?” I just changed the subject to get him distracted.
“Well, come here.” He led me to an old wooden chair, that sat in front of a mirror. “Are you wearing a bra?”
“Uh, no.”
“You have two tattoos on your back, right?”
“Yeah. One on my shoulder and one on the small of my back.”
“Perfect. Can you put up your hair up, so it’s completely off your neck?”
“Sure.” I put my hair up, while Ally got out a canvas and his palette.
“Great. Now, take off your shirt and sit in the chair with your back to me.” I sat down and he got out his paints and brushes. “Okay. Now, fold your arms on the back of the chair and look into the mirror.”
“Like this?” I asked, as I did what he said.
“Perfect. Keep your face as expressionless as possible.” I stared at myself in the mirror, my slightly tanned arms, the smooth, pale skin from the top of my breasts to my neck.
“So, where did this idea come from?” I asked studying my expressionless face.
“Your new tattoo, I thought it would be interesting to do a painting of someone with tattoos. Plus, my professor wanted me to try to do something with reflections.” He smiled at me in the mirror. “Maybe you’ll be my Mona Lisa.”
“I doubt that.”
“Why not? You’re certainly beautiful and you definitely have that mystery and intrigue thing going on.”
I just laughed, I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s amazing, the chemistry that’s between Tarin and Erin in your painting.”
“You’d never guess they fight constantly, would you?”
“Nope.” I laughed, because Tarin and Erin did bicker constantly. I always thought it was because they were falling in love. “Love does strange things to people.”
“Wynter, they are not in love.”
“Right, and birds don’t fly.”
He rolled his eyes at my reflection. “Smart ass.”
I smiled. “I have more brains in my ass then you’ll ever have in your head.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, really.”
He gave me am evil grin and took one of his brushes out of the water he used to rinse them off.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Think about what,” he gave me his best innocent look.
“You know.”
“Oh, you mean this,” he flung the cold water on my bare back.
My eyes widened in shock.
“You did not just do that.”
“I did.”
“Oh, you’re gonna pay for that later, punk.”
“Talk is cheap.”
Now I know what you are thinking. At the time I did not realize he was flirting shamelessly with me. You know the saying “Love is blind?” Well, it makes you blind to a lot more than you realize at the time.
Ally fell into a trance as his brush flew across the canvas. I watched him paint in the mirror. He was cute, I’ll be the first to admit that. His hair was brown, but he kept it bleached. He had those deep brown eyes that looked like swirls of melted chocolate. He had this cute habit of chewing on his lower lip when he was lost in thought. He had smooth, creamy skin, nicer than most of the girls I knew. The fact that he was always covered in flecks of paint and always carried his sketchbook, just completed the picture.
He stopped painting suddenly and looked up at me.
“I think that’s all I’m gonna do today.”
“All right.”
“How long have I been painting?”
“Hour. Hour and half, maybe.”
“I always lose track of time. Well, you can get dressed again.”
“Okay.”
I pulled my shirt back on and watched him clean up.
“Well, let’s go.”
Ally locked up and we walked downstairs. We walked down the street, occasionally bumping into one another on purpose.
“Ally?”
“Yes, dear.”
“When are you going to tell me your real name?”
“Never,” he said, taking my hand in his.
“Ah, come on, please. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”
“No.”
“Please, please, please, please. Pretty please.”
“Huh, uh.”
“Ah, you’re no fun.”
“All right, I’ll make you a deal. You tell me who this mystery man you’re dating is, and I’ll tell you my name.”
I had never told anyone who John was, partly because I thought they wouldn’t believe me, partly because I didn’t want to get bombarded with requests to meet him. I eyed him suspiciously.
“Hmm, okay, but you can’t tell anyone either.”
“Deal.” We shook hands.
“You first.”
“Duncan.”
“Duncan?” He nodded an affirmation. “That’s not so bad.”
“Yeah, because it’s not your name. Okay, your turn.”
“John Rzeznik.”
“Who?”
“The guy from the Goo Goo Dolls.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“Wow. That’s cool. I guess that whole six degrees of separation thing is true. Now I know why you didn’t want to tell.”
“Yep.”
“How’d you meet him?”
So in the process of walking to dinner I told him the whole story, the one you already heard.
“From groupie to girlfriend,” he said, when I was done. By that time we were already eating.
“I don’t know. Sometimes I worry that I still am just a groupie.” That was the first time I had admitted that to anyone, including myself.
“Wynter, you could never be just a groupie. Ask him, I’m sure he’ll agree.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, stabbing my dinner with my fork. “It’s just so disconcerting, you know. How do you deal with this kind of thing? We constantly are getting told about all those things that make relationships difficult, but this topic is never covered.”
“It’s too weird. People don’t think about these kinds of things. You don’t even know anyone else dating a celebrity.”
“It probably doesn’t help that hardly anyone knows. I didn’t have anyone to talk to in New York until today.”
“In New York? Who else knows?”
“Ivy.”
“Ivy? Oh, your friend in Colorado.”
“Yeah, she was there through the whole ordeal of meeting him.”
“You miss her a lot, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s she doing?”
“Touring Europe. Avoiding school. Avoiding work. Maybe even life.”
“She’s a rich girl?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Smart ass.”
I smiled.
It was nice to have someone to talk to, but in retrospect it must have been really horrible for Ally. I really wanted to see John now. Ally was right, all I had to do was ask.
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