Reckless

“He has bushy eyebrows,” I said. “Didn’t Scrooge have bushy eyebrows? I think the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future visited me today.”

“Oh, Sam, that’s terrible. This situation definitely calls for an ICEE,” Romeo smiled and leaned under the blue-raspberry spout. He turned the lever before I could stop him. Blue-raspberry funneled into his mouth. “Ahh, eah, at’s oooo ooood.” He sounded exactly like Homer Simpson.

I broke into laughter.

Romeo kept going, swallowing more and more and more ICEE slush. “Stop, Romeo! You’re going to hurt yourself!” I pushed the lever closed.

Romeo stood back up, an ICEE-eating grin on his face. His eyes were watering.

“Are you okay?” I asked, concerned.

Looking around nervously, he choked out a cough.

He looked back at me, eyes glazed.

“Romeo? Are you okay?” I was getting worried.

He blinked several times forcefully, then his face pinched to a pinpoint. “Owwwwww!!” he hollered in extreme pain. “My head!!!!”

I burst out laughing. Sometimes, when doing something stupid, it was safer to let the idiots go first. “Do you want some hot coffee or something?” I offered compassionately.

Romeo shook his head like a wet dog. His lips flapped and he made a “Gugga-gugga-gugga” noise, then winced and jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “My eyes feel like someone’s stabbing them!”

“Let me get you some hot water.” I filled a coffee cup with hot water, then added cold water from the soda machine until it wasn’t scalding. “Drink this.”

Romeo gulped it down.

“Hold some in your mouth,” I said, “to warm your, ah, brain?”

He did. A look of relief washed over his face.

“Don’t choke on it,” I cautioned.

He swallowed it carefully down.

“Better?”

He nodded. “Remind me never to do that again.”

“Will do. Where’s Kamiko?” She and Romeo always seemed to be joined at the hip, but not in the way we all know Romeo liked to join at hips.

“Kamiko has some lab for Biology. I think she said they’re dissecting unicorns today. So, how’s the old Grab-n-Dash treating you, Sam?”

I returned to my seat behind the cash register. “Fantastic,” I said sarcastically.

“Sorry,” he said sympathetically. “Are you at least managing to get some studying done?”

“No. I’m not supposed to. Anyway, it’s usually pretty busy. I doubt I could concentrate.”

“Sam, I know you need the money, because of your parents and all, and I’d totally offer to have you live with me in the dorms, but I wouldn’t want you ruining my reputation. I mean, if people saw a girl sleeping in my room, they’d think I was straight,” he said, as if sniffing dirty sweat socks.

I giggled. “Thanks anyway. I’m doing okay. As long as I don’t have any other bad news drop into my lap this quarter, I’ll be fine,” I smiled nervously.

Because, it was possible that things could get worse, no matter how unlikely that seemed.

I crossed my fingers and sighed to myself. I sure hoped not. I didn’t think I could handle anything else.

When business started to pick up, Romeo left. I thanked him for keeping me company, but he knew I needed to work.

Despite the frenzy of customers over the remainder of my shift, a sense of loneliness permeated my bones and a growing worry filled my belly. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I texted Christos, but never received a reply.

When I finished my shift at seven, I called him. But all I received in answer was a text.

Slammed busy at studio. Talk later.

I really, really hoped this wasn’t becoming a routine with us.

SAMANTHA

Another week had gone by and nothing had changed. Christos was always busy at his studio. I was always busy at work, or in class, or studying.

I was overwhelmed. I slept poorly and my stress level was pushed to the max. It was starting to mess with my head. I noticed it recently in sculpting class.

It was that stupid Hunter Blakeley.

Not that he was doing anything different. He still hit on me with annoying regularity, but I blew him off with equal frequency. It wasn’t him.

It was the sculpting.

Sculpting was some kind of crazy voodoo magic, I’m telling you. Making a sculpture of a naked person standing right in front of you connected you to their body in an intimate way, whether you wanted it to or not. In Life Drawing last quarter, this hadn’t been a problem. One reason was that none of the male models had been hot, other than Christos.

Yes Hunter was hot, but I think sculpting him made my anxiety worse than if I’d been drawing him.

In drawing, you put down charcoal on paper in a visual representation of what you were looking at. Your contact with the two-dimensional drawing surface was through the tip of your pencil.

Sculpting, on the other hand, required that you use your hands and fingers to shape the three-dimensional sculpture. To touch it. Lately, I’d started noticing that weird voodoo magic at work. On me.

The more I worked over my sculpture of Hunter, touching it, massaging it, and caressing the clay into an emulation of Hunter’s musculature, the more it sort of felt like, well…like I was touching Hunter. And I had the eerie feeling he somehow felt it. Stupid, I know.

The moment I finally realized this, I had gasped quietly and pulled my fingers away from my sculpture, as if I’d been touching his naked flesh.

I had been about to reshape the inner thigh of Sculpture Hunter’s right leg, right up near his…yes. His package, which hung from my sculpture in a 1/3rd scale representation of his actual…package.

You had to include the clay package because if you didn’t, it constantly threw your proportions off. Most of the other students had a little clay blob to represent the man bits, as did I. Romeo, of course, had made his totally lifelike down to every mushroomy detail.

But even with my blobby, nondescript lump hanging between Sculpture Hunter’s legs, there was that final, distinctive moment when I’d felt like I was about to bump the side of my hand into Hunter’s actual package as I slid my fingers between the thighs of Sculpture Hunter.

I suddenly stopped myself, feeling like I was about to cheat on Christos somehow. I couldn’t explain it.

Was I attracted to Hunter? I shuddered.

No.

There was no way.

I took a deep breath and looked around the room at the other students. All were busy working away, their faces intense with concentration.

Was I the only one having trouble with this part?

I steeled myself. I could do this. It was just a class assignment, right? Just lumps and blobs of clay. Nothing more.

Right?

I took a deep breath and tried again. I ran my fingers up the inside of Sculpture Hunter’s legs. It wasn’t so bad. I pressed my fingers more firmly against Sculpture Hunter’s thighs, right near his blobby package.

That was when I noticed Hunter smirking right at me. Like he’d felt my touch.

OMG! Had he?

I yanked my hands away.

My face boiled with embarrassment as I grabbed a sculpting tool and busily worked over Sculpture Hunter’s left foot. I felt my cheeks flashing like fire engine lights.