Are You Afraid of the Dark?

When I was in first grade they asked for my favorite color. I gave them the whole rainbow—plus black. Always black. 

They asked my father the same question at that age. He said they should have realized when he said black, he meant it as a cry for help. The way he covered pages with inky crayon was his way of telling them about the abuse he could not yet name. I hate that story so much. In fact, it’s why I’m more observant than most—I notice people’s pain. If I’d gotten better grades, maybe I would have gone to law school like my brother. He’s fighting for hurt people in tangible ways I used to wish I could.  

I see things in more abstract terms. My art work might help someone in a different way, let them know we’re all wired together with unseen fibers, that nothing is so shameful there’s no more hope. I get to control exactly what colors I use, how the shapes and lines flow, knowing all these choices impact my audience.  

A lot of people avoid black, can’t imagine chasing it beyond funerals. I’m not naive; I’ve had my share of loss. But if there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that leaving even one color out of the realm of possibilities stifles the whole truth.  

There can be beauty in darkness, and a sensual danger. The poetry of contrast comes from bold experimentation. Black is the color of shadows in the woods, the lurking mystery at the bottom of the pond, the depths of your wide pupils as you watch me close our bedroom door.  I wonder if you sense me as a shadow when I command you to close your eyes. You ask nicely for my touch and I reward you with the softest brush across your bare collarbone, looking down at your kneeling, naked form.  

My gaze floats up past you and I see myself in our mirror. I’m standing above you in my highest black heels, even though you’re the taller one. The black dye I freshened up yesterday obscures my blonde roots, and my long hair frames my face in delicate chaos.  

I’m careful to take the same meticulous care in my appearance as I do in my art. Black commands power, and feeds my intentions. I accept responsibility for you, for your growth, and for your confidence as well as my own. It took a few tries for me to realize this with past relationships—especially when I dated both guys and girls that wanted me to submit to them. In the past, I didn’t even realize I didn’t feel like myself yet. Starting things off from an honest place with you helped both of us move forward in a better direction.  

I lean over and trace across your lower back, watching my breasts threaten to spill out of my tight laced top. We’re more or less the same build other than this notable difference.  

“How’s that?” I ask, kissing your neck once I straighten up.  

“Good,” you answer. I hear your honesty.  

I smooth my black latex skirt against me, watch the light flicker across it, then vanish. A fact from a past art class returns—how black is really all the colors blended together, how it absorbs heat the most. Full and warm. Exactly how I strive to be with you.  

Your small breasts shift, compact and perfect. I see the way you have your hands folded behind your neck as you wait for me, chipped purple polish shining. You look as enticing as you did when I met you sophomore year, back when we had to guess at each other’s wishes and hide things behind a veil of more socially acceptable female interactions. 

I take in your heart shaped face, the wavy light brown hair that’s bobbed stylishly at your chin.  

A smile sparks across your mouth as I circle you.  

“Can I open my eyes now?” you ask.  

“Sure,” I say, and lean over to switch off the lights.  

Black takes the room, soft and familiar, as you laugh.  

“Next time, just get me my damn blindfold,” you complain playfully. “This is a little extra.”  

“But you like it, don’t you?” 

I see the faint outline of your head nod up and down, lit only by the moonlight from the sides of the curtain. I pull you to your feet, then ease you onto the bed. In the dark your eyes appear as twin shimmers, alive and vibrant and fixed on me alone. 

Your eyes looked that way at the bonfire we both attended for some special event in college.  You arrived with your ex, Chris, the president of your sorority chapter. I could tell you wanted to say hi, but Chris held you tight by your wrists. To most people it probably looked like average “big sister” enthusiasm, surely followed by girlish squeals of delight. But I saw how you frowned at her touch.  

“I do like it,” you sigh, bringing me back. I follow the curve of you, starting at the top and alternating with my hands and my tongue. By the time I’m at your pierced navel, you’re trembling. I love the way your whole body pleads for me.

But force myself to pause. I know you love and hate when I make you wait.  

You moan and tangle your fingers through my hair as I rest my cheek against your hip bone.  

“Can you please…?” 

You let the sentence trail off as I hold you.  

“Please what?” I ask innocently.  

“You know…” you hint.  

I prop myself up on my elbows.  

“I do, but I want you to be a brave girl and ask for it,” I say.  

You make a wordless noise of protest, begging.   

“What do you want?” I insist, in between sucking on your tiny, firm nipples.  “You know you don’t need to hold back with me like you did with Chris.”  

The recollection hangs in the air for a moment, and I wonder if I shouldn’t have said it out loud. It’s been a few years, but I still see how you hesitate sometimes, influenced by her demand you be her silent pet.  

Then I remember the night a week after the bonfire, when I started talking to you after our shared class. I wanted you to break up with Chris right away, but it took another year before she lost interest in you when more pledges came along. I’d already dreamed about what it would be like to care for you, to help you recover everything she’d made you stifle. You care so much about other people that you’re working to complete your license to become a mental health counselor. You’ve worked so hard on your own insecurities, and helped me pick apart some of mine, but we both know there’s no magic wand. It takes weekly—even daily—check-ins.

I feel you pull me close.  

“I want you...I want you to eat my pussy,” you admit, just above a whisper. “Long, hard strokes with your tongue, and on my inner thighs...”  

I know you can’t see me smile, but I am. I love challenging you to be bolder in what you want from me. I lower my lips back to your stomach and tug on the ring with my teeth. Most people assume I’m the one with tattoos and piercings, but they don’t know you were brave enough to get this done on a dare all the way back in high school. People tend to assume a lot about us, about what we do in the dark.

Now I nip at your skin, I hear you wince, and I draw back.  

“Too much?” I ask.  

“A little,” you answer, and I give you a light kiss of apology before moving on.  

To anchor myself in the dark, I press down on the sides of your hips and try to judge where to go next. When I lean down, I feel the softness of your inner thigh and stroke it. Your legs start to drift apart, and I nudge them.

“Let me get close,” I insist, resting my head against your pubic bone. I wait to give you another chance to change your mind.  

This time I really hear the confidence in your voice: “Get as close as you want.”  

You relax your legs completely and part them just for me. 

I lower myself further and lick the places I’ve just touched, inching slowly up your legs. I can practically taste you already as I inhale your scent. I realize how wet you’ve made me now and I can’t wait to push us both over the edge. You let out a fierce moan, and I savor how unapologetically loud you get once you truly let go.  

You’re nearly ready to scream when my tongue kneads your clit and I take you in my mouth. I cover you more completely than the darkness around us. You fall deep into the shade of my affections, the ache of what’s often unseen. 

Photo by Ahmose Athena