Carnal Currents

The first time I saw him, I was elbow-deep in a bucket of ice water, fishing for the last bottle of cheap white wine.

It was a party in a loft in Bushwick, the kind of place where the walls were exposed brick and the furniture was deliberately mismatched, as if poverty were an aesthetic choice. My friend Dana had dragged me there with the promise of free alcohol and "interesting people," which in her vocabulary meant people with trust funds and art degrees who liked to talk about their trauma as though it were a limited-edition vinyl.

I'd been standing by the makeshift bar for twenty minutes, nursing a warm gin and tonic and trying to figure out how to leave without offending Dana, when I spotted the wine bottle floating just out of reach. The ice water was cold enough to make my fingers ache, and I was cursing under my breath, a steady stream of profanity that would've made my mother clutch her pearls.

"Need a hand?"

The voice came from behind me, low and amused. I turned, and there he was.

He was tall. Not in the way that models are tall, all angles and sharp edges, but in a way that felt solid. Grounded. He had dark hair that curled just slightly at the ends, like it couldn't quite decide whether to be messy or neat, and eyes the color of whiskey held up to a flame. His smile was crooked, one corner of his mouth tugging upward like he knew something I didn't.

"I've got it," I said, because I'm stubborn, and also because I'd already committed to this ridiculous task and I wasn't about to admit defeat in front of a stranger.

He didn't move. Just stood there, watching me with that half-smile, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. "You're gonna freeze your arm off."

"It's fine."

"It's turning blue."

I looked down. He was right. My fingers were starting to look like something out of a medical textbook, all pale and pruned and vaguely alarming. I pulled my hand out of the bucket with as much dignity as I could muster, which wasn't much, and shook the water off like a dog.

"See?" I said. "Fine."

He laughed. It was a good laugh, warm and unforced, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "You're a terrible liar."

"I'm a great liar. You just caught me off guard."

"Fair enough." He reached past me, his arm brushing mine, and plunged his hand into the bucket without hesitation. His fingers closed around the bottle, and he pulled it out with a triumphant little flourish, water dripping down his wrist and onto the concrete floor. "There. Now you don't have to lose a limb for mediocre wine."

I took the bottle from him. Our fingers touched, brief and electric, and I felt something shift in my chest, a small tectonic movement that I chose to ignore.

"I'm Will," he said.

"Clara."

"Clara." He said my name like he was tasting it, rolling it around in his mouth. "I haven't seen you around before. You're not one of Dana's usual crowd."

"How do you know Dana?"

"She's my cousin. Well, second cousin. Or maybe third. Our families are complicated." He shrugged. "I mostly just show up for the free booze."

"That's a terrible reason to go to a party."

"What's your reason?"

I considered lying. I considered saying something clever, something that would make me sound mysterious and interesting, like I had a life full of intrigue and purpose. Instead, I told the truth.

"I'm here because my roommate dragged me out of the apartment and threatened to hide my books if I didn't come."

"Ah. A reader."

"Guilty."

"What do you read?"

"Everything. Anything. I'm not picky." I twisted the cap off the wine bottle, took a long swig directly from the neck. It was warm and slightly sour, but it did the job. "What about you? Do you read?"

"Not as much as I should. I'm more of a... visual person."

"That's a pretentious way of saying you watch a lot of TV."

He laughed again, and I felt that shift in my chest again, stronger this time. "You're brutal."

"I'm honest. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

I looked at him, really looked at him, and for a moment the noise of the party faded into the background, the chatter and the music and the clinking of glasses all dissolving into a low hum. He was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read, something between curiosity and recognition, like he was seeing someone he'd been looking for without knowing it.

"There's a difference," I said. "Honesty is about facts. Brutality is about intent."

"And your intent?"

"To weed out the people who can't handle me."

He nodded slowly, like that made perfect sense to him. "Makes sense. No point wasting time on people who don't get it."

"Exactly."

We stood there for a moment, the wine bottle between us, and I became acutely aware of the fact that I was still holding it, that my fingers were wrapped around the neck like I was afraid someone would take it from me. Which, knowing this crowd, was a legitimate concern.

"Do you want to get out of here?" he asked.

I blinked. "What?"

"Not like that. I mean, this party is kind of terrible, right? The music's bad, the wine's worse, and I'm pretty sure I saw someone crying in the bathroom earlier."

"That's just Dana's friend Marcus. He does that."

"See? Terrible." He smiled, and it was a different smile this time, softer, almost shy. "There's a diner around the corner. Best pancakes in Brooklyn. I'll buy you a stack."

I should have said no. I had work in the morning, and I didn't know him, and I had a strict policy against going anywhere with strange men at midnight. But there was something about the way he looked at me, open and unguarded, like he had nothing to hide and nothing to prove, that made me want to say yes.

"Pancakes," I said. "You're bribing me with pancakes."

"Is it working?"

I set the wine bottle down on the table, grabbed my jacket from the back of a nearby chair, and headed for the door. "You're paying."

The diner was exactly what you'd expect from a place that served pancakes at midnight in Brooklyn. Cracked vinyl booths, a jukebox that only played songs from the seventies, and a waitress named Flo who looked like she'd seen everything and was impressed by none of it. Will ordered two stacks of blueberry pancakes and a pot of coffee, and we sat across from each other in a booth by the window, watching the streetlights flicker in the rain.

"So," I said, wrapping my hands around my coffee mug, "what's your deal?"

"My deal?"

"Everyone has a deal. A thing they're running from, a thing they're running toward. What's yours?"

He poured syrup over his pancakes in a slow, deliberate spiral, and I watched his hands, the way his fingers moved with a kind of practiced ease. "I'm a photographer," he said. "Or I'm trying to be. I dropped out of law school two years ago, and my parents haven't really forgiven me for it."

"Law school to photography. That's a big leap."

"It was either that or spend the rest of my life doing something I hated." He shrugged. "I'd rather be broke and happy than rich and miserable."

"That's a nice sentiment. Doesn't always work out that way."

"I know." He looked up at me, and his eyes were serious now, the humor gone. "But I'd rather try and fail than never try at all."

I didn't have a response to that. I'd spent most of my life playing it safe, choosing the practical option, the responsible choice. I had a job in publishing that paid the bills but drained my soul, an apartment I could barely afford, and a string of relationships that had all ended the same way: with me pulling away before things got too real.

"What about you?" he asked. "What's your deal?"

I thought about lying again. But there was something about the way he was looking at me, patient and expectant, that made me want to tell the truth.

"I'm scared," I said. "All the time. Of everything. Of failing, of succeeding, of being alone, of not being alone. I'm scared of wasting my life and I'm scared of changing it."

The words hung in the air between us, heavy and raw. I hadn't meant to say any of that. I hadn't meant to crack myself open like that, not to a stranger, not in a diner at midnight.

But Will just nodded, like he understood. Like he'd been there too.

"Okay," he said. "So we're both scared. That's a start."

He reached across the table and took my hand, his fingers warm and steady against mine. And for the first time in a long time, I didn't pull away.