Some time ago, when I was a little girl, my Mother forced me to follow her to the market to buy groceries. She wouldn't leave me at home because then I'd be alone, and I'd wreck the place either cooking, or drawing. I didn't have a choice, so I followed her. We walked past a young man standing a dark alleyway that ran perpendicular to the main road. I almost called it the "pain" road because everyone that owned a shop down that street was either poor or dying.
Mother stopped and looked down at me, pointing at the young man as he finished his cigarette. She told me,
"Never bring a boy like that home to me. I'll never let you marry him."
Then she pulled on my hand and dragged me away, but I kept looking back. He was standing there with his back against his wall, tattoos covering his body up to his neck. His ears were lined with piercings. His head was shaved, strange for a man in this part of town. He finished his cigarette and walked out of the shadows, towards a drain, to drop what was left into it.
Mother was bargaining with the fishmonger for a discount because all the fish in his store weren't fresh. She wasn't looking at me. I abandoned my place and ran up to him, just so I could get a closer look. He was clean-shaven and handsome. I stared at the tattoos that ran up his arms. They looked like glittery scales on a fish. They were beautiful.
He crouched down and looked at me. I could smell fresh tobacco and cigarette smoke on him. I liked the smell. Father chewed tobacco, but this was nicer.
Mother cried out, like any other mother would, seeing her child next to a monster. She ran to me and pulled me away from him but she couldn't take all of me away from him. I turned back. He walked away slowly. Everyone on the street was looking at him but he didn't seem to care.
Now I walk over to the bed and put my arms around Zombie Boy as he sleeps. His face is peaceful. The bright morning sunlight shines on his face, the glare masking his tattoos. For a moment it seems like he doesn't have any. I notice but not really. I just see him sleeping there on our bed.
It feels so good to be dating a boy with tattoos. I used to walk down the streets getting stares from men. I didn't matter if I dressed like a whore or if I dressed like a nun. All I needed to do was have a pussy and they'd be staring. I know how helpless it feels to walk from one end of the train to the next to get away from a man eyeing you like a piece of meat, only to find others who are doing the same. So when I walked down the street by his side for the first time, finding out that all they noticed was he, I felt safe.
I never wanted to be in the spotlight. I felt safer in the shadows.
I kiss him on the cheek and he turns his face to the side. He'd been doing test shots with Formichetti all night and came home an hour before I woke up. I'd only realized he was home when the bed suddenly felt warmer. He'd crawled in beside me, tired and shagged, and he'd gone to sleep with his head on my stomach.
No one got that. They thought that all we did was tie each other up and whip each other till we orgasm and fucking trash our house. We didn't. We had moments like this where all we felt was loved. The problem was, people thought it all ended with the way he looked. It didn't.
I'd wake up after an afternoon nap to find him messing with my eyeliner, shading in the parts of his eyes that weren't dark enough.
"Should have gotten a better tattoo artist," he'd say. I'd say he looked fine but he'd still go on. It was like me with my fake eyelashes. They could never look natural enough, or perfect enough.
I loved him just the way he was. He knew that. It's just he loved himself so much he wanted to be a fucking perfectionist.
"Art isn't just drawing a fucking circle on a piece of paper and giving it a meaning. It doesn't do anything. It's about caring about your work enough to let it fucking kill you," he'd say while painting a picture of me with no clothes on, hunched around a silk cushion.
"I don't want to kill you," I said.
I knew how he felt, about everyone. He felt like they were out there trying to hurt him all the time. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, Zombie Boy would come home with his head down and he'd just disappear into our bathroom for hours. I'd just be sitting there on the couch, feeling like an idiot because I felt so helpless and I didn't know what to do. I was scared. He seemed so strong. At least, stronger than me. I was afraid that finding out who or whatever hurt him would just hurt me more and I'd break down and he'd have to comfort me as well.
Then one day I turned the knob on the door to check on him. He shouldn't have to go through this alone. I wanted to be there. I finally felt brave enough to. He was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, a lighted cigarette in his hand. He was looking at the tub, the strands of hair I'd forgotten to clean clogging up the drain.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said. I knew something had happened. It always did, and I always found out sooner or later because he'd tell me, or he'd write something about it in out diary, the one we both wrote in. This time I wanted him to tell me and I wanted him to know that I wanted to know, and I wasn't afraid to ask any more because I had to be strong for him.
"I was thinking, about you, and about this place," he said, wiping a tear out of the corner of his eyes. I put my arms around him, silently rocking him while I forced back the tears in my own eyes.
"About how much it means to me that I still have all this, especially since growing up, I had nothing. And to let a fucking bastard down the street ruin a day like this, which could have been so perfect, with you, would be one of the stupidest things I could do, ever," he ended. I buried my face in his jacket, my arms still around him. He took another puff of his cigarette and put it out on the edge of our tub.
"I don't feel like going out today. Lets just stay in. I torrented a movie and we'll order pizza," he said. I nodded.
"I'm sorry, I came in to make you feel better but I ended up crying too," I apologized. He smiled slightly, shaking his head.
"The fact that you walked through that door, means the world to me," he said, "I don't want you hurting yourself just because someone was an asshole to me."
"I'm not crying because of that. I mean, I don't know how anyone has the heart to say things like that to you but that's not why I'm crying. I'm crying because you're so fucking strong and brave and you inspire me so much. I don't know what I'll do without you," I say, "I'll just die."
"That's why I'm here, so you won't have to," he replies, stroking my hair. He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it, looking away.
"I want you to know, that if I ever had to give up all this fame, and the money. I would, all for you," he says, his voice heavy with sincerity and the burden the world had placed on his shoulders. I felt small beside him, like a baby bird beside its father, who could both protect it or teach it how to fly.
He'd never teach me how to fly. He was too afraid of me falling. So we stayed at home that night, watching some horror shit I was too scared to see. He'd go out tomorrow, and he might get hurt again. He said he could take it but I was so wrong. He'll go so close to killing himself and then he'll realize how much it'll hurt me and he'll stop. He was strong enough to hold up the world, but he couldn't stand me breaking down.
It feels so good to be dating a boy with tattoos.