R. Hernández - An Innocent Fashion

“I’m sure.”

“How about your shirt?” I asked, reaching out to unbutton it. “You’re all wet, and — you know.” It hung down like a piece of cotton chainmail, reeking of chlorine. I got one button, two buttons, and was starting to see down his incredible chest when he pinned my hand back against the mattress.

“Hold on now,” he said. The wet shirt shuddered. “I can do it myself. Just — you get to bed.”

“Well,” Madeline laughed, “I guess this is what I get for missing a night out with the boys.” She laid down her earrings onto the base of the lamp with a soft clink, and stripped off her silk blouse.

I was tugging at Dorian’s shirt now, trying to tear it off him, like in the movies.

He took my other hand and pinned it to the mattress too, so that his slick, half-dressed body was suspended above me, wet shirt swinging. I floundered a little to free myself, then relaxed and blinked up at him.

“Listen to me, babe — you are extremely drunk,” he said. “You’re going to wake up tomorrow, and everything’s going to be all right. You have to trust me. There’s water right there if you need some, and we’ll be here the whole time, okay?”

I licked my lips and gazed up at his mouth.

“ Okay? ” He shook me by both wrists with his hands. The mattress creak-creaked, and a diamond of sweat, or maybe pool water, fell from his hair onto my forehead. I flinched at the drop of cold, shuddering as it dripped into my eye.

“Sorry,” he said, wiping it off with his thumb.

Before he could protest, I thrust my face up to his unsuspecting mouth and kissed him.

I held it as long as I dared— one Mississippi, two Mississippi , eyes shut, hanging from his lips like a child from a monkey bar. He breathed on my face and I pulled back, a slow string of saliva forming like a glistening clothesline between us, before— pop! just like a soap bubble — it disappeared, and all that was left was a shiny bead on Dorian’s bottom lip.

The whole thing was fast — like stealing another kid’s ice-cream cone, and running off.

Dorian blinked a couple of times, stunned. He opened his mouth, as though conflicted between a breath and an utterance, but before he could decide I slipped out from under his grasp. I turned over, covered myself with my blanket, and giggled.

I could hear him shift his weight, trying to think of something.

“That’s your fault,” he said to Madeline finally. “You’re the one who always encouraged—”

“Oh, stop it,” she snapped. “Who cares?”

I peeked out from under the covers as he glowered at her meaningfully. Madeline rolled her eyes and slipped out of her skirt, which crumbled into a pleated jacquard mound. “Don’t be so childish,” she told Dorian. She adjusted her burgundy lace bra, then sliding into bed in front of me, turned her head to kiss my cheek.

“Hold me,” she said. I was in a haze, the taste of Dorian’s lips filling me like ether.

Madeline pressed her back against me, and I dangled my arm around her tiny waist. She smiled through a satisfied sigh as she curled up her legs, squeezing my hand against her cool, naked stomach. “Come on now,” she whined at Dorian, “turn off the light and get in.”

He clicked off the lamp and slumped into the mattress beside me. The heavy breathing began. I felt his eyes upon my back. For a minute he was still. Then he sighed and wrapped himself around me from behind — the three of us woven together once more, like a rope — while in the dark Madeline murmured over and over, “Nothing has changed, nothing has changed. ”

The next morning we awoke in a pool of intermingled sweat, the sun cooking our ripe flesh through the tin ceiling above our heads.

Madeline woke up first. She crawled on her knees and nudged Dorian and me. “You have work soon,” she reminded us.

Dorian was still holding me. I heard his lips smack together in my ear.

“I’m going to shower,” Madeline whispered. She leaned over my body to kiss him, and her hair fell over my face as their lips touched. I felt her slide toward the edge of the mattress, then heard the ladder creak as she descended.

Dorian peeled himself away from me like a piece of plastic wrap and sat up, bumping his head.

I stirred. The sudden absence of his warm, damp body felt so uncomfortable that I groaned, and pressing the sheets against me, sat up slowly beside him. Sweat ran down our arms. Beneath our overlapping bodies on the sheets we had left a seeping blotch, a damp, faintly lilac bruise, as if we had been three sweating slices of grapefruit set upon a napkin overnight.

A vaguely succulent smell hung in the air, chlorine mixing with the nectar from our pores. It dripped like condensation into memories of yesterday’s reality: champagne, pool water, and my saliva on Dorian’s lips.

“Messages from Mom,” Dorian said next to me. “That’s how I know it was a fun night.”

I turned my head up, still lost in a trance — perplexed to see him there at all, instead of faded away like a dream.

“She hates it when I’m photographed drinking,” he continued, holding his phone between his hands on his lap. “For her it’s okay, because models are paid to be incoherent. But she thinks if I try to get a real job, people will think all I do is drink champagne for a living.”

“Well, that’s sort of true, isn’t it?” I yawned.

“Shut up.” He went yawning after me, and gave my shoulder a push.

Thirsty, I licked my lips a little. “What are you talking about anyway?”

He handed me the phone. His mother had sent him a halfhearted, “Not again, Dorian,” with a link to New York magazine’s website, and a slideshow of the previous night’s party.

“Are you in here?” I asked, scrolling through.

Of course he was. With the exception of the empty glass against his lips, Dorian looked like a figure on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, floating in the pool with his angelic consorts Kaija and Plum, his luminous white arm around some black mass draped against his shoulder like a wet fur cloak. I began to scroll away, then realized, in a sudden flash of recognition — it was me. I was the cloak.

I laughed out loud. I didn’t remember having my picture taken at all, yet there I was, with my dopey, drunken grin shining out from under my waterlogged hair.

I had been photographed at a party, I realized — just like some kind of socialite. Did it mean, perhaps, that I was really on my way to becoming. somebody?

“What’s it say?” Dorian asked me.

I was so enlivened to think that someone had photographed me at all that I hadn’t scrolled down to read the caption.

“It’s just our names. Kaija Goodman, Plum Bonavich, Dorian Belgraves . oh. ” I trailed off, choking a little on my own saliva. “. Guest ,” I finished.

That was me. Guest , like an extra in the bottom of a film credit roll: Girl at Diner 1 . Girl at Diner 2 . Man Walking Dog . Guest .

“They didn’t know my name,” I said.

“You’re lucky then, aren’t you? Otherwise your mom might be complaining to you too.”

I handed Dorian back his phone.

“Don’t worry, there’ll be other parties,” he said, sensing my dejection. I felt his hand touch my head. The gesture reminded me of going to church as a young boy, when the pastor cupped his hand over me and said in Spanish, “May the Lord bless you and keep you.” That was always my favorite part of the mass, because afterward my head tingled and I liked to think that it was the Holy Spirit flowing through me.

He ran his fingers lightly through my hair, his touch feeling like a hundred Holy Sprits flowing through me. I looked up from my lap and into one of those moments in life marked by utmost clarity. From the depths of Dorian’s expansive eyes, I saw the truth flowing: Aside from Madeline, Dorian was the best love I had — the best love I’d ever had, and ever would. A love so perfect, it even looked perfect.