BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

▬▬ 37

SUNDAY
27 OCTOBER, 1990
ISAIAH

               'How many minutes d'you reckon till one of us gets hard? I bet ten.'

Dorian snaps out of his dissociation.

He let me stay in his dorm over the weekend so I could rest until my flare calmed. I spent all of Saturday sleeping and eating only fruit or a piece of bread here and there, knowing I wouldn't be able to keep anything else down; though I'm sure all of House Perses know I stay here, running to the floor's shared toilets to throw up every hour might breach their hospitality enough for at least one to report me to staff. When Dorian came back this morning, he brought four plastic containers of leftovers from Sabbath prepared by his family cook, Jabób, who ironically lives only a few blocks away from me in Lower Halsett where the Polish sector borders the Caribbean one.

Now, well-fed and thoroughly showered, I feel perfectly healthy — well, as healthy as I ever do. Fatigue, that constant chaperone, a mock father figure, is always present in the periphery. Disregarding the past week which doesn't count because I was crying the first night and drugged delirious the other two, this is the first time we're sharing his bed since we've started to kiss.

Desire can't be crammed back into its straightjacket. The ceiling becomes a projector screen for memories and neither of us can find the plug. His lips on mine, mine on his, mine between his teeth, his hand at the back of my neck, my grip on his uniform tie, his fingers twisted in my braids, my name on his tongue.

If the tension won't go away, what choice is there but to welcome it?

I glance at him with a stifled grin. 'You don't wanna bet? Nice! That means I automatically win.'

Dorian mouths replies he never finds the voice to speak. I hear them nonetheless: Why would you say that? Don't say that! You can't win when I never participated. We haven't bet on anything, what are you winning?

In psychic unison, we turn onto our sides to face each other over the infinitesimal distance. A tremor palpitates in my chest. Is it my heart?

'I'll probably need to go home tomorrow...'

Sensing my anxiety, Dorian reaches for my hand.

He shifts our fingers one row so that his thumb falls over mine and my pinky is last, feels it out a moment, and moves back. Then he lifts my fingers straight and plants his palm over mine. My fingers are half a centimetre longer than his, as they have been for the past three years of him doing this.

Still, Dorian smiles at the sight. 'I like how perfectly our hands fit together.'

Blood rushes to my cheeks but he does me the mercy of pretending he doesn't notice. 

With his free hand, Dorian inches forward to pluck my Star of David from the mattress. I watch him thumb the silver for nearly a minute before I reciprocate, because what should you do when someone you love caresses your relationship with God than do the same?

But Dorian's chain is much shorter and his pendant is tucked under the ridge of his collarbone. There's no avoiding the brush of my fingers against him. You have such beautiful skin.

'You have such beautiful skin.'

The back of my neck burns. Though we both know the weight of being Black in a European country, we've never expressly spoken about the violence with which treat our own features and the submission to the belief that we can be smart and we can be skilled but we can never be beautiful. I haven't believed that for a long time. I haven't believed that since I met him. I don't think he believes it anymore either.