Page 36 of Memories of the Lost

“I have to pee, anyway.” She looked for something to drape around her nakedness, but there was nothing close by, and honestly, she didn’t feel self-conscious in the least. She swung her hips as she padded toward the bathroom, glancing over her shoulder to make sure he was watching. He was propped up on one elbow, appreciative.

Peeing away a UTI from so much sex, she washed her hands and face and tender vagina. In the mirror, her face was flushed, her hair tousled, and she thought she looked beautiful. Liam made it so.

He was on his back when she came out, golden and taut. Again, she glimpsed the Renaissance angel she’d first imagined when she saw him for the first time at the gallery. He held out an arm. “Come back.”

“In a minute.” She grabbed a long sweater off a hook for warmth, then poured two big glasses of water from the pitcher in the fridge. On the way back, she tucked a sketchbook and a box of charcoals under her arms and carried it all back to bed.

“Are you freezing?” she asked. “I can turn on a space heater.”

“I’m all right.”

“Can I sketch you? Like this?”

A tiny smile quirked the edge of his mouth. “Like one of your French girls?”

She tilted her head, confused.

“You’ve never seenTitanic?”

“Afraid not.”

“That’s just sad,” he said. “We’re going to watch it together.”

“If you say so.”

He rolled on his side, head in the crook of his palm. “Tell me what to do.”

“Just like that,” she said, already sketching. The newsprint was made for fast sketches. She did a handful of gesture drawings, capturing the length of his legs and the width of his thighs, his rectangular torso and the rounds of his shoulders. She drew quickly, looking without emotion or judgment, only trying to see what shapes were really there. After a few minutes, she switched to closer studies. His ribs, wound with tattooed script.Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames,one read. And another,Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you love. It will not lead you astray.She touched the second one. “That’s how I feel about painting.”

She captured the shape of his head, which made her think so much of an angel that she gave the suggestion of a halo, then sketched his knees and elbows, his hips and genitals, and then his beautiful, beautiful face.

Only then did she realize that she didn’t see an animal.

“What is it?” He touched her leg. “You look stricken.”

“It’s just kind of weird.” The charcoal was in her hand, paper at the ready, so she couldn’t help but keep sketching—the angles of his ear, the shape of his fingernails. “I don’t draw humans as humans. I always see them as animals.”

“Like what kind of animals?”

“Everything.” She gestured toward the easels and the paintings in shadow. “Wolves, badgers. Today, the Realtor made me think of a black swan, and the server was a fawn.”

“Oh, that’s quite good. But?”

She showed him the drawing. “I see you as an angel.”

He laughed. “I think I’ve properly demonstrated that I’m mortal.”

“Indeed.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just odd that I don’t see an animal.”

“I think I’m kind of sad about that, honestly.”

She set the drawing materials aside. “Don’t be.” She pulled the duvet over them, cold in the gathering dark.

It felt completely natural to fall asleep with him. In some part of her brain, she knew that the whole thing was going to look really foolish in some future time, but this was now. She was enchanted, and she didn’t care.

After such a long day, she fell into a deep sleep. At some point, the cat arrived and circled her feet, meowing not like a cat but a girl pretending to be a cat, and then he turned into a girl with big blue eyes and a laughing mouth. Tillie recognized her own face as they ran into a forest, dashing between trees. A dog romped along beside them, and they were all laughing and running, running and laughing, and then abruptly, Tillie tripped and fell, and the fall was long, falling and falling and falling—

Before she hit the ground, she startled herself awake.