Page 21 of The Intimacy of Skin

Tonight, I knew I could handle the cutting.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the aftermath.

Stopping the bleeding was no easy feat. The small ones always seemed to bleed the longest, and I’d waste forty minutes of my time along with what seemed like an entire roll of toilet paper.

I didn’t want to meticulously cleanse the stain of red from my skin or patch myself up with bandages.

No, tonight I felt a bone-deep exhaustion, and I just couldn’t do it.

“Can you sit with me?” Price’s question saved me from my thoughts.

I zeroed in on him, unaware that I had zoned out until he came back into focus. I know I should refuse. Ask him to head home so I could sleep soundly. But I didn’t. For whatever reason, I walked to the couch and took a seat right beside him.

He turned sideways, mirroring my position like Willow and I always did. Neither of us spoke the first words, refusing to be the one to break the bubble.

Price was looking at me. His eyes shifted from mine to my nose, my hurt cheek, down to my lips. I wasn’t sure if his gaze traveled elsewhere because I was too entranced in doing the same to him.

The air seemed to thicken. I wasn’t sure with what, but it felt heavier.

Price and I hadn’t been this close since the second night we saw each other.

I got lost in the amber of his eyes, imagining they were the flames of a bonfire, billowing against the steady, Southern wind.

There was a mesmerizing golden glow, calling out to me with music I thought only the occupants of Heaven could hear.

Fuck, I needed to say something. Anything to make my heart stop pounding. Something that could distract me from the pull I was feeling toward him.

Clearing my throat, I spoke first. “H-how did you get into cooking?”

It took him a second to respond. “That’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

He shook his head. “I’ll give you an abridged version.

Maybe one day, I’ll tell it all.” He shifted and heaved a deep sigh.

Small droplets of rain began to fall above the fire in his eyes, threatening to extinguish it.

“I had always loved food and cooking as a kid. I’d watch my mom closely, learning the movements while she made dinner.

I didn’t start dedicating much time to it until I was ten.

Cooking made my brain stop. I could focus on my hands, the flavors, the ingredients.

I messed around with new recipes or my own variations of the sort. ”

A smile tugged at his lips, one of his sharp canines poking through.

“Everything was okay when I was cooking. I wasn’t lying when I said my head was a mess.

It was worse when I was a child. I had… self-destructive tendencies, and when I was in the kitchen, I didn’t feel the need to do them.

When Mom and Dad were screaming at each other, pretending I couldn’t hear them, I could tune them out with the sounds.

“The whisk hitting the bowl while I mixed sauces or batter. The thunk of a knife against the cutting board. Sizzling of meat in the pan. It drowned the entire world out, helping me forget that my dad was rotting our family from the inside out. I kept that passion going until I started at The Arch, and the rest is history. I still love cooking, though my passion doesn’t fully align with how we run things at work.

When I’m alone, I cook very differently than I would there. ”

At some point, I had subconsciously moved closer to Price. Our knees were almost touching now. I didn’t move any further, though. I was fully enraptured in what he was telling me, giving me a glimpse into his life I hadn’t been privy to yet. “What’s your passion now?”

Price looked away. I noticed a slight tint rising on his cheeks.

Was that a blush? “I, uh, really love fine cuisine. My dream was always to work in a fine dining restaurant. So, I cook a lot of fancy shit. I love the attention to detail. The enhancement of ingredients is so simple. I mean, there’s also the incredibly challenging dishes.

I love the challenge. Being able to fail at something over and over until I get it right, just like some other famous chef, settles something inside of me.

There will never be a shortage of recipes or creations, so I’ll never get bored. ”

“Why do you work at The Arch and not some fancy place?”

“Oh, you know.” He shrugged, avoiding the question entirely.

I quirked an eyebrow at him but didn’t push. Like he said before, maybe he’d tell me everything one day. I held onto that possibility with a tight grip .

I looked down at our knees, now touching one another.

I could feel the warmth radiating from him through my jeans.

Price’s hands were clasped tightly in his lap, both manicured and soft-looking.

“How do you not have tons of burns and stuff? The other cooks seem to get new ones every day, it feels like. Your hands look fucking pristine.”

Price laughed at my question. “Promise you won’t laugh at me if I tell you?”

I squeezed my lips shut, miming a key locking them together.

He looked away again. Almost like he was trying to hide from me, he shifted on the couch, bringing us closer until the arm I had draped along the back of the couch was touching his. “I don’t wanna sound full of myself, but it’s hard not to with this.”

Without much thought behind the action, I placed my hand on his arm.

A muscle there twitched at my touch, flexing with pristinely maintained strength.

I tried not to think about how close we were.

The heat of his body radiated towards me.

The woodsy scent he carried with him overpowered anything else, the smell of spices from the food he cooked just barely noticeable beneath it.

I was trying to comfort him the best I could. I wasn’t very good with words. I tried to keep an inviting facial expression, hoping to exude patience and understanding.

The side of his lip twitched with a nervous smile. “When I was a kid, I got burns and cuts all the time. I was really clumsy. As I got older, I got more serious about cooking. It was my lifeline, you know?”

I nodded.

“Anyway, I used to hate my hands. Didn’t care for them much.

Isn’t that odd?” He chuckled at himself, stealing a glance at me before shaking his head.

“My hands used to cause a lot of destruction. But then, there I was, creating something everybody needed. A basic need most forms of life have. Food. I wasn’t only making food; I was creating fucking edible art. ”

He cringed a bit. “Sorry, that sounds so cheesy.”

I shook my head at him, noticing that I had once again closed more distance between us. “Keep going.”

“My hands are important to me now. They create something sustaining. If I were to hurt my hands, I’d lose the one thing I love the most. So, I’m careful.

A lot more careful than the other cooks.

I’m hyper-vigilant to my surroundings. I pay extreme attention to what I’m doing just so I don’t harm myself. ”

Price was looking at his hands now, palms up. I couldn’t stop myself. There was an invisible force tugging at me, forcing my hand to cover one of his. God, they were smooth.

Gentle.

Beautiful.

The complete opposite of who I was as a person.

After hearing his explanation, I noticed tiny, faded scars littering the skin over the top of his hand.

I guessed they were from when he was young, but they didn’t look like burns.

They were jagged, most of them grouped in threes or more, almost like deep scratches.

Were they from a jagged knife? Or perhaps an unruly childhood cat?

“That’s why you hit that guy with your elbow, huh?” I asked.

He gripped my hand, squeezing it. “Yeah, it was out of habit. I do what I can to protect my hands.”

“And your quirky need for more than one lotion?”

He barked out a laugh at me. Our bodies jostled with the couch, vibrating with the force of his joy. I knew his laugh would play on repeat in my mind later. I joined him, letting our laughter harmonize and bounce off the walls together.

When we got ahold of ourselves, I was still holding his hand. I didn’t let go, and I didn’t dwell on it. It had been years since I’d idly touched someone like that other than Willow. “I don’t think any of that is weird. It makes sense.”

I looked down at our joined hands, a sudden craving to kiss his knuckles creeping into my mind. I must’ve been messed up from the beating I took. That must be why when I looked up into Price’s eyes, my heart started to beat faster.

The rush of heat flashing up my back had to be a symptom of sorts. It had nothing to do with the fact that all I could see was a kind, tortured soul staring back at me from within his pupils.

For the first time, I could see something similar between us. Sadness hid just deep enough to be out of sight, but I knew Price was hiding something, just like me.

Something I didn’t know or understand. He hadn’t told me with words, yet I understood all the same. We both had demons that came with rules.

If we didn’t follow those rules, we would drown. With mine, I had to sell my body and carve my misgivings straight into my skin.

His, I wasn’t sure of yet. But I wanted to know.

Price looked at me, and I could see it. I could tell he was searching my eyes for the same. “I’ve talked a lot about me. Can I ask you a question now?”

I seriously must have been hit in the head hard because in no other lifetime would I have agreed. Yet I did. Easily. “Sure.”

My hand was getting slightly sweaty from Price’s grip, but he didn’t let go. He didn’t seem to care or notice in the slightest. “Why did you start sex work?”

The question felt like a gut punch. Harder than the one I’d received earlier. It traveled up my stomach, lodging itself in my esophagus. My muscles went rigid, and my heart pounded against the bones of my ribcage.

I hadn’t given it much thought. If I did, I knew I’d crumble.

Once I lost my resolve, I wouldn’t ever gain it back.

The way he looked at me, how he genuinely cared about my answer, broke something inside of me once more.

My grip on control was so loose I was dangerously close to losing it completely.

He looked at me with kindness. Compassion I didn’t want nor deserve. I’d been asked why before. Willow started asking when we were young, despite my never giving a true answer.

“It’s fun!”

“I wanted to.”

“I like sex.”

“There are no other gay guys around here. Not out ones, anyway.”

“It’s great money.”

Excuses for the reality. Little white lies in exchange for her fragile heart staying intact. All I did was lie. To myself, to Willow, to Mom, to the faces of the men I fucked for money.

I lied to protect myself. I lied to myself, and I wasn’t fucking ready to face that.

I froze, stuck staring at Price, unsure of which way to go. I could just spill one of the million lies I had. I should have just said it wasn’t his business.

Price was tearing me apart. Piece by piece, I was losing it all. I was drowning, floating under an ocean covered with ice. I couldn’t see an exit, couldn’t find a stray ray of sunlight to kick my feet towards.

I’d never spoken an ounce of truth about my sex work. Why I did it, how I started, and why I had the preferences I did. I had made it through eight years of spilling horse shit; I was sure I could go one night longer.

For some fucked-up reason, I didn’t. I opened my mouth, and what came out wasn’t a little white lie. It tasted worse on my tongue than any lie I had ever told, but it was real, and it was raw. The truth amongst a hundred thousand lies.

I blew out a long, exhausted breath. “I didn’t have a choice.”