Bowl Full of Cherries (16 page)

“Why would she think that?” he asked, looking bitterly down at his heavy frame.

“Because Tyler told everyone this isn’t the first time you haven’t eaten.”

His brow knit and he shook his head. “What? No, that’s not—”

Crowley hadn’t been doing it right. He was smart enough, even, to
know
he wasn’t doing it right. He ate erratically, sometimes gulping down junk food and other times he wouldn’t eat at all, or eat as little as he could possibly manage. It was doing weird things to his blood sugar.

With the grace of a cat, Sondra hopped up onto the bathroom counter.

“I brought something to show you,” she said with a smile, and she produced an iPad from a ragged courier bag slung over her shoulder. With a tap and a few swipes, she had brought up a gallery of photos.

“What are these?” he asked, quietly taking his place on the closed commode.

“This is my work,” she said. “I’m a photographer. I tried to tell the cousins about it, but they don’t always listen and—”

“Wow,” Crowley said as he pressed the thumbnail and the picture expanded to fill the entire page. It was a portrait of an old woman, frail and delicate, completely nude. “That’s, uh….”

“Keep looking,” she said, and he swiped forward. Two women, again, nude. Curvaceous, their pert backsides turned toward the camera. He swiped again. Photos in color, in black-and-white, sepia, plays of light and dark, old and young alike, all tastefully naked.

“This is… beautiful.”

“Right?” she asked, kicking her feet so that her bare heels bounced off the cabinet.

“I want you to look at the one at the end. Keep swiping, one more, there.”

Crowley’s heart seized and when he looked up, he felt himself glaring. He didn’t mean to; the anger that came over him was primal.

“Is this a fucking joke?” He so rarely cursed that the word came out as if he were spitting.

“Why would it be a joke?” Sondra didn’t even flinch.

“He’s… he’s… huge. And naked. And you’re
laughing
at him.”

“That man is beautiful,” she said firmly. “Look at the way his eyes dance. Look at his playful smile. Look at the way the light plays off his body. He is
beautiful
.”

He wanted to throw the iPad.

“We’re a society that values one type of beauty. I was inspired by some photos I saw of a real-sized burlesque group. Completely raw. Joyous, unabashed nudity. I want to show bodies, Crowley.
Real
bodies on
real
people. Tell me.” Her voice was low and seductive. “What do you see when you look at yourself in the mirror?”

Crowley had stopped looking in the mirror very often and when he did, he tried to keep his eyes glued to his reflection’s eyes.
Don’t look down. Don’t assess the flaws. Don’t
ever
be naked in front of the mirror.
When he looked in the mirror, suddenly he wasn’t “big” or “fluffy” or “cuddly,” he was
fat.
What might otherwise be just a soft, extra layer over his muscles, a bit of a tummy, or thick thighs and padding, became something he loathed when he looked at himself directly.

He’d started walking all the time. He walked to school and home and around campus, always walking. And he’d thought about joining a gym or going with Tyler to one of the three yoga studios he was a member of, but he was suddenly so embarrassed to be seen near gym-bodies that he chickened out. So he did sit-ups and push-ups on the floor in the bedroom. No matter how many he did, it was never enough.

“Crowley,” Sondra said again. “If you’ll let me. I can use my camera to show you
exactly
how beautiful you are.”

R
ELL
WAS
sitting at his computer, running his priestess through town. He heard Crowley enter, heard the door quietly shut, heard the squeak of the trundle springs. He thought about picking up a few more quests, or selling some of his gray items for gold, but his heart—which had only been half into
Rain Queen
before—had gone completely out of the game.

Slowly, he turned in his chair, using his toe in the carpet for leverage.

Crowley was staring earnestly at him.

“I’m so sorry,” Crowley said. They weren’t the words Rell wanted to hear. He didn’t know which words he
did
want, but he knew that Crowley didn’t owe him any kind of apology. He’d asked to keep his clothes on; Rell had been the one who pushed.

“
I’m
sorry,” Rell said, but the other words he might have spoken died in his throat. He didn’t know what to do, what to say to move forward. Was he not supposed to want Crowley? Or not show that he wanted Crowley? One thing he knew, there was no getting to that stage again without asking about it.

“I want to know what happened. All of it. Tyler said something about Peter Yeats. Who is that?”

Rell expected Crowley to tense up, to go blank-eyed, to shake again. Instead, he pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs.

“He’s just this asshole I knew in high school,” Crowley said quietly, looking down at the large square of sunlight that illuminated the dark carpet. He pressed his thumbs together hard so that the tips of them turned white. “This… guy… I thought might be interested in me. Right? Like anyone would be interested in
me
.”

That pissed Rell off.

“Uh, hi. My name is Averell Lang, we made out last night? Got really close to having sex today? Yeah, I’m pretty certain I’ve got the ‘interested in you’ thing down pat.”

Crowley blinked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“I think you did mean it,” Rell said quietly. “I think you absolutely meant it. And I want to know why. I want to know what could possibly have made you hate yourself so much that my kissing you and my cock at-the-ready don’t show you how much I’m interested in you. I’ve got a bad feeling it’s this Peter guy.”

“Maybe.” The word was barely a whisper. “Peter Yeats asked me out on a ‘date’ when I was fifteen years old. He was a Junior. Gorgeous. Do you know how excited I was?”

Rell sat back in the chair and listened.

“Peter was athletic and popular and good-looking and he noticed
me
. At a party full of hot, popular kids, he noticed
me
and he asked me out. Said he’d been too
shy
to ask before.” Crowley almost spit the words out, and he clamped his hands so tightly together, Rell was afraid he’d snap a finger. “I was a moron. I was a damn moron.”

“Why? Because someone asked you out? Why would you—?”

“It was going to be my first date.” He looked up at Rell then. His dark brown eyes shimmered with tears. “Right? So
stupid
. We went out to eat. The whole time he’s feeding me and I….” Crowley choked on the words. “I liked food back then.
A lot
. And he was eating too. I didn’t think anything about it. He’s taking pictures, I think we’re having fun. We go back to his house. He says he wants to… to kiss me. It’s a fairy tale.”

Crowley’s eyes were blank, and Rell knew he was far away from Susset. He was in Kansas City, fifteen years old, and right there in the middle of that night.

“We go to his room. He shuts the door. He takes off his shirt. He’s really fit. He tells me to take off mine. And I’m… I’m so stupid. I do. I take off my shirt.”

“You were a kid,” Rell tried to comfort, but Crowley pushed on.

“But I was massive, Rell,” Crowley says. “Way bigger than now. I should have known… should have known he was screwing with me. He had this bottle of chocolate syrup sitting next to the bed. I remember thinking that was weird, right? Because… why…?” His voice had thinned out to the point where it almost wasn’t a voice at all. “He comes over and he….”

Fear and something akin to rage filled Averell then. He had to force himself to ask as calmly as possible, “Did he do something to you?”

“I thought we were going to kiss and… he… pushed me down on the bed. And he—” The tears fell hot and fast down Crowley’s cheeks. Each one breaking Rell’s heart just a little more. “H-he smeared the chocolate syrup on my f-face. And h-he… took a picture.”

“
What?
”

“The
worst
part? I’m lying there, thinking that maybe I’m being dumb. Maybe it’s a joke I-I don’t get… and… then he stands up and he laughs and says, ‘Hold on, I just have to post this to Facebook.’ And then my phone buzzes and I’ve been tagged. Me, laying on the bed, without m-my shirt… syrup all around my mouth, and the caption says….” He forced a swallow. “
Fatty thinks he’s going to get laid.
Fat-shaming F-T-W.” Crowley tossed his head back and cried, streaming tears.

Not “akin” to rage—this was full-on rage. Averell Lang wanted to drive to Kansas City and break Peter Yeats’s stupid fucking face. Break his face, put it on Facebook. Or better yet, Twitter with its fantastic hashtags: #douchegotwhatwascomingtohim. Instead Rell leaned forward in the chair and grabbed Crowley’s hands, using all his strength to pry them apart. When his fingers finally came loose, he squeezed both Crowley’s hands tightly.

“That’s fucked up, Owl.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Rell squeezed tighter, shaking Crowley’s hands in his. “Doesn’t matter? It completely matters. Look at me.
Please
.”

Crowley was trying so hard to stop the tears, but they ran in rivers down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry I pushed you earlier. About your shirt. I got so caught up, I didn’t even think.” Rell took a deep breath. He’d never been one to think much about his words, but now he chose them carefully. “I’m not Peter Yeats. He was a sad, pathetic jerk who probably secretly hated himself. Who knows. When I asked to get closer to you, it’s because I wanted to be closer to you. No photographs. No teasing. In my eyes, Crowley, there’s nothing to tease.”

Crowley tried to look away, but Rell reached out and caught his face gently with one hand. “Why would I lie to you about this? Huh?”

“I don’t know,” Crowley said. “I don’t know anything. I especially don’t know why you’d like me.”

“Crowley, I’ve always been with girls.”

“I know.” He sounded so pained when he said it.

“No, you don’t understand. I’m not saying because I think there’s anything wrong with
this
. With us. I’m saying it because everything is
right
with us. I mean, sure, in the past, I could see a guy was conceptually handsome. Like, oh, hey there Mr. Strong Jaw, you’re magazine handsome. But it’s not like any guy’s ever made my dick twitch.”

Crowley flushed but did not look away.

“
Before you
,” he corrected. “We can move as slow as you want, Crowley Fredericks. You want to stay totally clothed. That’s fine. You want to put on
extra
clothes, that’s fine too. I will find and bring you a parka from the garage. The point is, I’m not going to push you again, except to say….” He slipped out of his chair and onto the floor, kneeling at Crowley’s feet, and tenderly stroked the tears off his cheek. “I think you’re gorgeous. And I
want
to see you naked. When you are ready. I want to have you completely bare in my bed.”

“What if you don’t like what you see?”

“I like what I see.”

“But what i-if… when I’m naked… you can’t see past the… fat?”

Crowley’s eyes fluttered closed, dark lashes against freckled cheeks. Rell stretched up and gently kissed his lids. He cupped Crowley’s face and whispered, “You are not fat, Crowley. You remember your ‘bowl’? You talked about it the first day you were here. Well, I don’t see it.”

For a long time, Crowley was silent, just breathing, stilling his tears. Rell could feel Crowley’s pulse beneath his fingertips. It had been fluttering fast, but now it was calming. When he spoke, his words came out on an exhaled breath.

“Sondra offered to take my picture.”

“Sondra?” Rell asked, kissing away the last of the tears that still lingered at the corners of his eyes, kissing his wet cheeks, kissing his lips. “Portrait photography?”

“She does these, um, nudes.”

Her
Beautiful Body Experiment
.

“What did you tell her?” Thoughts of Crowley, completely naked, exposing himself for the camera made Rell hard.

“I haven’t told her anything yet… but….” Slowly he opened his eyes, moved, just a little so that he could kiss Rell back. A long, searching kiss. He moaned. “School was hell after Peter. Everyone had seen the picture. I wanted to change schools, but I couldn’t explain what was going on to Mom without telling her I was gay. So I just took it. Some parents found out—they tried to talk to Mom but she didn’t understand social media and when she asked me what they were talking about, I just lied and said they’d confused me with someone else.”

“You were all alone.”

“I should have… I mean…. After Peter, I had to talk to the school counselor. She was so old and she gave me this whole, ‘life is a series of lessons’ spiel. They wanted me to do mediation with Peter, but I wouldn’t do it. Nothing helped. At the time, she said, ‘Love yourself, Crowley.’”