Page 29

July 26th

He was oh-oh-my-god he was him and he was all of him and Jesus Christ there was more of him than I’d expected.

I gulped and tried desperately to force oxygen to my brain, maybe get the reasoning process restarted, some sort of motor function, the ability to blink—I’d take anything at this point.

Skyler was standing center stage, buck-ass nekkid, as if he couldn’t care less.

I tried to shut my eyes but I couldn’t; it was a bit like staring into the sun, though I guess, considering, the moon would be a more appropriate metaphor.

I tried to shake myself, but there was no getting around the fact that what stood before me was the vision I’d been conjuring up every night for days now. Only better. No way had I imagined skin that flawless, or a frame that spare, to say nothing of other portions of anatomy I had never dared to exaggerate in my mind. My god, I couldn’t look away. Someone was going to notice! I wasn’t even drawing anything! Was I still holding a pencil?

My fingers tightened around the graphite—

CRACK.

There was a dry shuffling as dozens of heads turned toward me, and Skyler’s beautiful eyes flicked up to find me in the sea of faces—then widened in recognition.

It was all I could do to keep from stabbing myself in the neck with the pencil stub and thereby bringing an end to this torture. A lightning bolt from god would have been particularly welcome, tearing through the ceiling and incinerating me where I sat in my conductive little puddle of humiliation.

If only Skyler would put some clothes on, my higher brain functions would return ...

As it was, Armand requested a change of pose, and I all but attempted to garrote myself with my shoelaces as light and shadow dripped in and out of crevices on Skyler’s body, outlining so much more than a human structure.

He really was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my entire life. And he maintained eye contact, shifting into the new position, and then he—

He smiled.

At me.

And I reacted with all the dignified poise that you’d expect and fell out of my chair.