Page 27 of Let’s Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About

Fifteen

S adie’s pulse quickened when Josh spoke to her in that hushed tone, quietly commanding but also ceding power to her.

What a rush it gave, an unexpected wave of pleasure surging down her spine.

She had been curious if his puzzle-craving mind could solve this particular piece, and he’d taken the shortcut, straight through this particular weakness of hers.

But it didn’t feel like a weakness in his hands. It felt like a gift.

His eyes narrowed. “You can’t touch the art,” he whispered back.

“We’re already inside the art,” she replied. “I promise you. You can touch the rectangle.”

He made no other protests. He simply went over to the rectangle, holding his palm up as if he were searching his way in the dark.

And as she knew would happen, when he met the wall, when his palm touched the plane where he thought the rectangle was painted, his hand passed through the space, into the void beyond. He gasped.

There was not a gray rectangle on the wall. There was an illusion on the wall. In fact, the artist carved a hollow into the wall, shaped and illuminated in such a way to render it flat to the eye.

Sadie remembered well the sensation of putting her hand into that recess for the first time.

She walked beside him and did it again. Even though she knew what to expect, the curious feeling returned, a dissonance between the senses.

Sight telling her there was a surface before her, touch expecting solid but feeling only air, her body confused by its extension.

Into a space that shouldn’t exist. It was disorienting in a thrilling way, like the most sedate fun house.

A calm place to deeply experience this medley of sensations.

Josh waved his hand in the hollow. “What the…” He trailed off. He paused for a second, hand stilled in the secret little hollow, before he turned to face Sadie again. “I wouldn’t have known what to do if you hadn’t told me.”

He was stoking a fire in her. And he knew it. That smile of his, the one that went to his back teeth and hid nothing, gave him away. “I don’t think I always need to tell you what to do,” she said.

He gripped both her shoulders and walked her backward.

She bumped into the wall beside the doorway.

Hitting it first with her heels, then with her shoulder blades.

Josh pressed her there and covered her lips with his.

With hands bracing her against the wall, he tilted his head and stroked his tongue into her mouth.

Sadie felt the flash of panic, of we can’t be doing this in public , but that fire he stoked burned those thoughts to dust, and she met his tongue with eager strokes.

One of his hands gripped the side of her neck, under her ear, and she gave herself fully to the way he kissed, the way he’d cracked her code, the way he smelled like cedar and sunbaked earth.

When a nearby floorboard creaked, the kiss was over nearly as soon as it began.

A small gasp escaped her involuntarily as Josh stepped back, his thumb running over his lip as if to rub in the taste of her, his eyes mischievous and full of promise.

She’d never been more excited to see where things would lead with Josh.

But they had the rest of the museum to see.

Josh was so eager for her perspective on the artwork, and he wanted to know her favorite pieces. “One is here,” she said. “The other we will see last, before we leave.”

The kiss had shifted something in the way they traveled through the museum.

They stood closer. Josh placed a hand on the small of her back as they rounded a corner.

Later he tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear.

How to focus with this attention? Not because it was unwelcome, but because it was too welcome.

He was a glass of water she was consuming in tiny sips, but she was parched and wanted to drink him all the way down.

Each sip, each touch, was the sweetest torture.

She first brought him to the Soundsuit made by Nick Cave. One of the artists who inspired her tremendously.

Josh studied the Soundsuit , a wildly patterned crocheted bodysuit fitted with a headdress that exploded with found objects, including the horn of an old gramophone.

If someone wore the suit (though Sadie was quite sure she wouldn’t be able to squeeze into it), they would be disguised by the collection of materials concentrated around the head.

She loved the idea of art as disguise. In some ways, art was there to express yourself, but to literally hide yourself and create this alternate persona was a welcome chance to escape.

“I can clearly see a connection to your art through the textiles, but confess I don’t know your own work beyond what’s on Instagram,” Josh noted. “Do you also like to work with a variety of materials?”

“No, and that’s part of what I admire here.

Cave works in modes that I’ve never been able to access.

I struggle to imagine using found materials the way he can.

This is why his work is here and mine likely never will be.

It’s what my teachers said in art school, and it plagues me still.

I’m constrained by my material choices, constrained by my interest in working within traditions, afraid to step out. More of a craftsperson than an artist.”

“So you want to call up this kind of energy in yourself,” Josh said.

“Something like that.” She didn’t exactly want to be like a different artist. She wanted to be herself, and running toward yourself was somehow harder than running away.

She had to learn to say yes to herself instead of saying yes to other people.

That’s part of what this art felt like to her.

It looked like what it would feel like to say yes and let her ideas run loose instead of corralling them with her negativity.

“I know I’m not supposed to touch this one,” Josh said, “but I want to, so badly. It makes me want to dance.”

She thought of dancing with Josh to shake out the anxiety of the tornado warning, the first time she discovered he smelled like cedar. The first time she learned he kissed like someone who loved to eat pussy. Somehow it made her do something entirely against her nature. She took Josh by the hand.

“Here, there’s lots more to see,” she said, and pulled him toward another gallery.

They walked like that, disgustingly hand in hand, through the rest of the museum.

Sometimes Josh traced a little shape on the side of her wrist with his thumb, adding fuel to the fire.

Sadie was at war with herself. She tried to tell herself that it was okay to enjoy these sensations, it was okay to say yes to these advances from Josh.

But she tried to fight it because she was going back to Los Angeles soon enough and why complicate things?

Then he’d interlace his fingers with hers, and all that skin sliding against skin made her powerless again.

He was trying, over and over, to give the power to her, to let her lead the way.

And every time she did, she only felt less in control, and more like she was enchanted by his jack-o’-lantern smile, his twinkling eyes, his touch, his curious questions that showed how much attention he paid to her. It was infuriating.

By the time they worked their way to the first floor of the museum, she convinced herself none of this was a big deal.

Josh was one person passing through her life.

He wouldn’t be the first, and he wouldn’t be the last, and the more she worried about the significance of every touch and every word, the sillier the whole thing got.

She was never what anyone would call easygoing, she knew that, but she could try to unwind a little.

“What’s your other favorite piece?” Josh asked, remembering she’d mentioned two. “We’re almost through with all the art.”

She gestured to the wall opposite the staircase.

It was painted with a series of irregular shapes in different colors.

Each shape was made of at least three straight lines, but there wasn’t a regular square or hexagon to be found.

Although they fit together with no gaps, nothing approaching a regular tiling pattern was apparent.

“An artist painted this wall?” Josh asked.

“Not technically,” she explained. “That’s why I love it. The artist, Sol LeWitt, made the instructions for the painting. The painting itself is perfunctory and could be carried out by anyone. The concept is the art.”

“I definitely see why this is your other favorite,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” she asked.

“When we were looking at those textiles before, you were talking about how long it takes to design the fabric and set the loom up. You said the actual weaving part is almost perfunctory. It’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it?”

How had she made herself so easily seen by him? What was he doing to her? Instead of throwing these emotions away like a boomerang, knowing such a move would only be a temporary reprieve, she decided to simply let herself feel them.

“Sol LeWitt was living my absolute dream, handing painstakingly crafted ideas out to other people to bring to life. Meanwhile, Nick Cave works in a wildly creative way that I could only dream of. Dreams, dreams, dreams.”

“I bet you could do both,” Josh said, so offhandedly, so confidently, it made her want to kiss him again. Instead she asked him what his favorite piece had been that day.

“I don’t think I have to tell you that it was the gray rectangle,” he said, barely above a whisper.

There they were again, these fucking emotions, crashing over her in waves.

She liked him, his flirtatiousness, and inexplicably, his cheerfulness.

She didn’t find herself wishing to match his demeanor; she enjoyed basking in it.

A lizard doesn’t need to be warm-blooded: it needs a rock heated by the sun.

She could sit in the sunshine. But only long enough not to get burned.