Teeth

• Sara West, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2014

Frances repositions himself so he’s able to kiss a line over my jaw and down my neck, to my collarbones. I stretch my neck upwards and push my hips out to the edge of the sofa. Frances runs his hands carefully along my torso to rest on my thigh while he adds another mark on the soft flesh of my neck. His teeth create pock marks, his tongue slides over blood accidentally drawn and his breath cools it all down, sending a shiver down my spine.
He can take me apart so easily.
I let him create his artwork because it brings heat to the pit of my stomach and it makes my toes curl through the burgundy carpet and it pulls sounds of my mouth I would never have heard before if it weren’t for him.
He shifts lower and his overlapping front teeth create red lines like vapor trails from a plane through the blue sky in winter. I slide my hand up his bare thigh and tug at the bands on his underwear, asking for access. He grunts and shakes me off, then presses harder against the nape of my neck and rubs his thumb over my inner thigh with a reverence for myself that I never had. I shift my thighs apart further.
This is less of lust and more of love and I’m incredibly grateful that Frances can understand the difference and use this knowledge to take me apart and put me back together again as a whole different person.
I love him more than I could ever love myself and that’s the truth; I’ve done horrible things and Frances is untouched of such vile, such vular, such vicious acts. I want to curl up inside his heart and live there forever in his warmth and hope not to freeze him with my icy touch, I want to wind his veins through mine so we pump the same blood and above all I want to spend the rest of my life with him as co-dependently as possible and it’s not obsession that fuels, it’s love. He came to me at one of the worst points in my life and took me out from the streets and invited me into his home and he fed me and let me pet his cats and read his books and listen to his music and I am eternally grateful for everything that is Frances.