Between The Lines

He's smaller than the other go-go boy dancing on the bar, and he moves a bit awkwardly, like it's his first time. I can tell that it's not by his lips; the slightly puckered smirk tells me this boy knows he's sexy. He doesn't have to try.

He has long black hair and looks like he might be part Asian or Native American. But then, maybe that's just the dark pointy eyeliner. He's smooth, virtually hairless except for the soft down that I can make out when he moves just so in the dim, reddish light. He's wearing a dark blue bandana tied around his forehead to keep the hair out of his eyes and his entire back is covered with one large tattoo. It's some sort of scene, the sort of thing you see on those Discovery Channel shows about the origins of tattooing. I imagine some stern faced old Samoan tapping ink into this boy's smooth virgin skin for hours at a time. And when it's over, he's no longer a boy, but a man, bearing his scars proudly. "This is what I have seen," they say for him, "This is the pain I can endure. This is who I am."

I move closer to the bar and stand beneath him, looking up. I stay there, drink in hand, sometimes watching him, sometimes leaning against the bar with my back to him. It's like I'm standing guard, and I feel annoyed when other people tip him and whisper into his ear. I wonder what they're saying and if they know him and how.

He has a beautiful pelt, I think, like a big game hunger looking at my next trophy. But I dont' want to skin him. I want to write things in between the lines on his back. Secrets and stories that he'll never see, in languages he can't read. I want to etch my story into his, like cavemen carved their stories into stone so the world would remember them. Except I don't need the world to remember me. Just one man. My story written between the lines of his.