Page 19 of Forever Winter

“This isn’t gonna to work,” I say shaking my head. “Take your clothes off.”

She snorts. “Are you high?”

I shrug. “I’m all stripped down in here Katie,” I say as I flip through pages and pages of her sketches, of me naked and her hands skating over my body, of lips and tongues, of entangled limps. “Only fair I get you in the same state.”

It takes her a few seconds to respond, and I can see her mind working, but then she smirks, and says, “Only if youstrip downfirst.”ThatI can do. I smile and tug off my jacket, but she shakes her head. “No, not like that. You’ve never had trouble being naked James, but I want you naked in a different way. Tell me something, a truth, and I’ll take something off.”

A truth. It’s a game she wants, and I’ve never been one to walk away from a game. I’m good at playing, and Katie knows that. All too well. “Alright, what do you want to know?”

“These are your truths. You decide.”

I run my hand over my chin as I think. A truth. I can do that. “Sometimes when I fuck other women, I pretend they’re you. Most of the time actually.”

“Yeah? And when’s the last time you fucked another woman?”

“The night I called you.” She nods but doesn’t take anything off. “That was a truth, Katie.”

“A truth, but not an honest one. I decide which ones are good enough to warrant you seeing me naked again. Another.”

Anhonesttruth. I reveal something about me, something real, Katie reveals a part of her body, I get her naked, she strips me down. I huff out a sigh. “I’m staying with my dad,” I say quietly, and she says nothing, just stares. “And… he wants to makeamends.”

“And… you don’t want that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I think—I think Ilikebeing angry with him, you know? I think I like hating him. It feels easy. Those feelings feel easy. And forgiving him? That feels… impossible.”

Moments pass, her eyes locked with mine, but then she pushes her hips up and peels off her skirt. Her panties are light blue, and my pants suddenly feel much too tight. I swallow and drop my eyes back to the white page in front of me, dragging the black charcoal pencil across the page, outlining her legs, her feet, her soft skin.

But I need more of her. More Katie, more of her body, more of that skin. I just need more, which meanssheneeds more. More truth. “My… my mom called me. Back in LA.” My sigh comes out shaky, and so I focus on the black I’m skimming across the page. “She’d seen my picture online, I guess. Wanted money.”

Katie’s brows pull together before she says, “I’m sorry.”

I shrug. “She walked out on me Kate, shouldn’t have expected anything less.”

She nods, and then tugs at the navy blue sweater she’d been wearing. It drops to the floor. “Did you give it to her? The money she asked for?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like being angry with her? Do you like hating her like you do your dad?”

I shake my head. “No. I hate it.”

Kate lifts her tank top over her head and settles back onto the desk. Bra and panties. Two more. Only two more truths. I draw out the curve of her back and the bones of her hips and the arc of her breasts. And I still need more, but I don’t know what else to say. Thankfully, Katie speaks next.

“Why did you come here?”

That answer comes easy. “Because I can’t breathe without you.”

The rise and fall of her chest pulls my attention to her tits, and I don’t look away when she reaches behind her back and undoes her bra, I don’t break my line of sight when she pulls it off and drops it to the floor.

“Fuck,” I say, swallowing.

I don’t stop my sketching. I draw the peaks of her breasts and spend too much time with the shadow and the detail and working on committing every one of her curves to memory.

“One more,” she says, and I’ve lost my tongue, but Katie already knows what truth she wants. “The last time you saidI love youto someone, when was that?”

Another easy answer, but it’s not easy to get out, to say outload. “I—” I clear my throat, thinking that maybe she’s naked enough, that I can draw what I want when she’s in nothing but those tiny light blue panties. But this is the game she wanted, that I agreed to play, and so I say it. “The day my mom left.”

There’d been a bag packed by the door. “I love you honey, okay? You have to remember that,” she’d said to me.

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