Chapter 2: Flesh Design
Fleet-footed Ruby bounced beside Coral. The brunette was a pocket rocket: five foot two, eyes summer blue, and a booty designed for tight-fitting, faded denim. Today suited her as a study hall day and college fundraiser, a uniform-free event. A drab grey skirt and blazer never complemented the pixie!
"Rubes, what do you think? An interesting image."
Coral handed Ruby the book.
This eluded me. The brunette's interests sidestepped our fascination for the fine arts. Regardless, the college's valedictorian shoo-in glanced at the sketch.
Coral filled in bits of our prior conversation. Ruby, as per usual, unloaded bold on essential details gathered fast.
"Dear me! You'd be able to draw Josh, sweetie."
Blue eyes looked up at all five-foot-seven of Coral.
"And puppy boy could sketch himself blindfolded—if he is not already going blind."
Ruby said this without paying attention to me.
"Sweet pea, ask me to draw you?"
The brunette gazed at Coral as she dropped the book on the table. Ruby parted her lips, delicate and thin. Fertile and demanding.
Her action flustered Coral, who spread the reference books, looking anywhere other than at her friend.
The forthright brunette directed at me, "Would you draw yourself?"
If you did, I volleyed in my mind.
Instead, my eyes dropped, and my hands flipped random pages in a Klimt biography.
"Got an appointment for a low tattoo."
Ruby perhaps disclosed this to ease herself from an embarrassed Coral, and her need to go. I wondered if she checked the library seeking her girlfriend to accompany her to ink a matching tramp stamp.
"Catch you later."
The little minx waved backwards.
Ruby sensed I knew when to press or not pressure Coral.
I never liked an uncomfortable bestie, so I re-opened the art book at The Kiss.
"Wait."
Spluttered, since making a request to the brunette entered rare territory.
"Do you like this?"
Ruby spun, spread her hands on the table and scrutinised the celebrated painting.
"Yes. The picture shows passion if you could stand outside yourself. But who wants to by-stand passion?"
"Don't you love how the woman's toes curl," a re-poised Coral, "Toes curl in the perfect kiss, according to Luke."
As she repeated my words, golly, my shoulders straightened.
Ruby launched, scathing, her hands flying.
"Toes! Seriously, Coral, I'm out of here."
With a flouncing ponytail, she raced away.
"Where are you getting the tattoo?"
My bestie rubbed her chin as Ruby gathered distance from us.
The slick, provocative brunette swivelled.
"A fair way south," she said, fluttering at Coral.
The brunette's eyelashes were her primary sensual weapon. My bestie sustained composure under a daring Ruby ogle.
"Honey, are you sure?" warned Coral, "Ink is permanent!"
"Sure! I determined this years ago. I'm going, bye."
She swaggered, her thumbs pushed into designer jeans' back pockets. I pondered whether to snub the world or enjoy a stealthy girlfriend glance. Her watermelon scarf and fine-haired ponytail swished in tandem. Ruby's petite, sharp figure disappeared through the library doors. However, her image lingered as an insight hit.
A pixie hairstyle might snare Coral. If the brunette's booty hadn't already!
Coral, side on, browsed the nearby shelf of art books, selecting an Art Nouveau publication. She flipped through the illustrations.
I pondered. Where was I with Coral?
She coordinated her life, pivoting on Josh, her boyfriend, whirling around him like a carousel. I dallied as she considered a girl-girl experience, jealous. I knew Coral's pally glances at me versus her ardent Josh daze. And how she averted her eyes when meeting Ruby.
Coral was Josh's girlfriend when I found myself attracted to her as more than a friend. We shared our final year of college. Yet, alongside Ruby, I coveted the opportunity to rouse an intimate bestie in my direction. Convincing myself that the possibility existed because Josh's and Coral's relationship experienced tensions.
I expected more of Coral's art insights, but the college's PA interrupted us — a voice mid-sentence. The message lacked a school context. I noted an American accent and a public speaking tone. I glanced at Coral to offer answers as her current events awareness surpassed mine.
"A speech," I mouthed.
She shrugged, though she concentrated.
The political content bored, monotone. Our troupe lived for the personal and responded only to ourselves. Never, nothing national or international in our sights. I switched off. I wished Coral's focus on me, and I hoped the small Klimt sketch would re-engage her.
The re-opened book I pushed across the table.
"Back to this."
"Shh!"
'After this,' her eyes said.
Coral lost the thread of the address. She curled a lock.
Then, Mr Lane, our English Literature teacher, passed near us. He was an affable scholar behind a fluffy beard.
"What's the speech?" I said.
"Oh, Nixon has resigned," as he kept moving, "Leaving The Oval Office."
The speech dragged. The voice I preferred was Coral's punchy candid offerings, her occasional pressured rattled babble, and her concerned sideswipes, which I deserved.
Mr Lane provided the context, and Coral processed the rest. I continued, focused on her golden locks.
The words 'leaving' and 'God's grace' closed the statement.
The PA clicked, closing and silencing momentous events unrelated to our troupe.
We epitomised young. Whilst Josh filled Coral's mind, my bestie often preoccupied mine. Ruby's temporal lobe sought to retract Goldilocks' hidden foreskin. As for everyone else in the world, they passed us as we passed by them.
Later in life, I discovered the word sonder. This coined term addresses every person passing us, or anyone we see casually or overhear, has yearnings. Heads full of thoughts as intense, noble, mundane, defective, or gaudy as ours. And they web labyrinthine into a myriad of interconnected stories, including sex we will never know. And in time and space, these hopes of others mean everything to them, as our lives and memories are our 'souls' to us.
In the library, my immediate goal was to complete an art assignment. Any wistful thinking on the amber-eyed Jenny pined over a lone beach mise-en-scene. Other foggy dreams fished at ways to lure Coral. The raven-haired Jenny treading water in my thoughts. There, submerged in my mind, like intimate letters kept and never re-read. Hoarded in a shoebox, tucked in a wardrobe.
Beyond peer time, education and church occupied me—my life mixed table tennis, pinball machines, design and art. Work and play overlaid sensual, stirring passions like my friends.
Coral excelled at netball and tennis, and she thought Josh, her bear, was on hold. But, after planning what she intended to tell him, she would see him later. Josh had gained his driver's licence and a new panel van. Max, his older mate, pressured him to modify the car. So he skipped study hall to tinker and adjust the suspension.
Josh and I shared pennant table tennis as a team game. However, my mate's overriding interest was legit sex. Centred on himself, he missed Ruby's swelling, direct overtures towards his girlfriend.
Ruby played netball alongside Coral. The brunette's talents included show jumping and sailing. A skilled rider devoted to her horse, Champion, and her sabot, Tuesday, named after The Rolling Stones song.
The pixie won using top-notch preparation. In the past, Coral and I pried into her lead time at an equestrian meet and a bayside regatta. On each occasion, my bestie wondered if her girlfriend won fair.
After Ruby left the library, we assumed a tattoo ornamented her skin. The brunette lived freewheeling, marked before flesh designs became fashionably feminine.
Ruby's tattoo remained a secret in the short term. Hidden like intimate recall in memory. Where our mind's eye etches intertwined élan vitals.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone