Page 43 of Aftertaste

Cal dabbed the wound, the feeling like spreading acid over a swarm of bees. Kostya forced himself to breathe, to squeeze Maura’s hand, to not look at what might be an ER visit in the making.

“That’s… depressing,” he wheezed. “What else you got?”

“Your life line—here. It’s superlong, but it sort of breaks in two. Like a before and after.”

Cal was sealing his arm with gauze now, tight, the pressure like being stabbed.

“Ow! Ow!Ow! Fuck! What else?”

“You’re doing great, champ!” Cal said, way too cheerful for how much pain he was inflicting. “Just gotta get the plastic wrap.”

“Plastic wrap?!Tell me more!” Kostya begged Maura, his eyes streaming.

“Your—your head line—that’s this one. See how it breaks? It’s all dashed.”

“Nervous breakdowns?”

Cal began embalming him in cling wrap.

“Epiphanies! Aha moments. You have a lot of them.”

Kostya released a long, painful breath.

“All right, my dude!” Cal exclaimed. “All set!”

Kostya took a reluctant look at his arm. It had gone from sick ink to sad deli sandwich faster than you could say “antihistamine,” which felt like some sort of metaphor.

“Just breathe,” Maura said, and he did, slowly. “It’ll heal. Eventually.”

“Pain before beauty, right?” he choked out.

“Totally. You’re gonna be a priceless work of art.”

He stared at his arm again. (Well, what was left of it.)

“Thanks.” He looked back at Maura. “For um, yeah.” He waved his palm at her.

“No problem. That’ll be twenty-five bucks. Cash or check?”

“Wait? Are you—you serious?”

“Of course. I charge for my services.”

“But you just—”

“Or”—she shrugged a shoulder—“just this once, maybe you can pay me in drinks.”

He nodded, not entirely believing his luck.

AFTER MAURA’S TATTOO—which only took a few minutes in a back room—they left Last Rites and wandered southeast, which led them on a meandering tour of the Village and Soho, and a long conversation about restaurants. Which led to Maura raving emphatically about her favorite spots, some of which, to Kostya’s surprise, were solid recommendations (I’ve never heard anyone who wasn’t on a line talk about Frenchie’s!), which led to Kostya revealing that he’d become a chef (Seriously? Wow. That’s… unexpected.), and to him dishing out what he’d heard went on at this oyster bar she swore by (So steer clear on Tuesdays unless you’re into casualhookups. Actually, wait, what are you doing Tuesday?), which led to Maura turning an endearing shade of pink, and to her shoving Konstantin, in the painful arm by mistake (Oh, shit! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean—wait, are you crying?), and to him doubling over and needing to sit down, which led them to duck into the nearest bar (Booze! Need booze!), a spot called Mother’s Ruin, which served unexpectedly good old-fashioneds, and shots of tequila, and, because Maura was a bully, a flight of cheap champagne.Thatled them to a trash can on Crosby Street, where he held her hair back (This has never happened to me before—reeech—I swear to God!), and then to greasy burgers at Soho Park to absorb the rest of the liquor, except she wouldn’t let him pay (I owe you, for what I just subjected you to!), which led Kostya to figure that any minute she’d tell him he wassucha nice guy, agreat friend, that she’d love to grab breakfast sometime, or coffee, the kind of thing women always said when it fizzled, but instead her eyes lit up and she grabbed his uninjured wrist, asked if he wanted to have some real fun, which he thought was code for sex, but which wound up leading them to Chelsea, to a warehouse along the High Line, toNo Turning Back, four stories of immersive theater (… Oh. A play? Yeah… sounds, um, great.) from the people who producedSleep No More, and to silver plague masks hiding both their faces, to the embrace of the velvet dark as they wandered the levels of an Afterlife (Okay, fine, this is pretty cool….), to Maura’s hot hand in his, leading him through secret passageways, each intricate space filled with the most amazing things: dancers in flight, books stained with blood, Orpheus and Eurydice singing and falling and fucking and drowning in an indoor swimming pool, a masquerade ball, Hades and Persephone in a palace of fire, Hermes at a card table (Place your bets!), but despite the miracles of light and costume and set design around him, the visual feast, Kostya’s eyes were otherwise occupied, fixed only on Maura.

In the final scene, when Orpheus looks back and loses Eurydice forever, Maura leaned close and whispered,What an idiot, and Kostya grinned beneath his mask, nodded, breathed back,Punk move. If it’s love, you hold on.

They stayed so long the performance began again, looping anew, Orpheus playing his lute, wandering through a star-filled mist toward Eurydice, alive, resurrected, uplit in the next room, and Konstantin turned to follow them for a second time, but Maura squeezed his hand, pulled him into a stairwell instead, into a long kiss on the scooped stairs.

“Wanna get out of here?” she whispered, her breath hanging in the cold air.

It had been a long time since Kostya had been with anyone, since he’d felt the draw of desire for anything other than otherworldly answers, and he was so taken by it, swept up so completely by this impeccable moment, this sublime girl, that he dismissed the puff of cool air on the back of his neck, ignored the sensation climbing up the back of his throat, and barely registered the aftertaste spreading, for the third time, over his tongue.

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