The Muse's Undoing

“Yeah,” I croak.

“What’s my name?”

“Matty… What happened?”

“You hit your head.”

“What?”

“Stay here, you’re bleeding. I see the cut.”

I’m not going anywhere. I’m only half-oriented. I know who I am and where I am, I just don’t get how I got here or what the hell is happening.

He’s back suddenly, pressing a damp dishtowel to my hairline muttering about my cane. He’s blurry, but I’m also quite drunk. One thing I do remember is that I didn’t stop drinking once we got back to my place.

“Do you have a first aid kit?” Matthew asks.

I shake my head, but that’s a mistake, and his grip on my chin gets firm fast. “Don’t. Move.”

He’s sitting on my lap, straddling me, hunched over and holding pressure to my forehead. “Hmph,” I grunt.

“Does it hurt?”

“Does what hurt?”

“Fischer…you’re scaring me. Do you think you can sit up?

“You’re kinda heavy.”

He scoots back and helps me sit. With some adjustments, we wind up close, knees bent, with my legs underneath his longer ones. It’s the kind of position where, if he were a woman, and we were both naked, and I were feeling up to it, I could pull him a few inches closer, and we’d be fucking. “What happened?” I ask so I stop picturing that.

“Your cane caught the coffee table leg. You face planted.”

“Great.”

“Yeah, well, it knocked you out. And you’re bleeding.”

“How long was I out?”

“A minute? I don’t know. I wasn’t counting. I was about to call 911 when you came to.”

“Sorry.”

“You should be,” he mumbles, his thumb worrying my cheekbone like that’s where the injury is, but I definitely feel it now, throbbing well above my other eye, where he’s still holding pressure. I squeeze his calves. “I’m okay.”

“You could have a concussion.”

“I’ll survive.”

He scowls and shakes his head. “You don’t know that.”

Liking the feel of his calf muscles, I give them another squeeze and a rub that I hope helps calm him down. “Maybe you should be a nurse,” I say.

His breath puffs on my mouth, and my stomach clenches. I’m just now realizing his legs are bare. “When did you change into this?”

“When you were in the shower. You don’t remember? We watched two episodes of Game of Thrones.”

“Oh…” Right. I sort of recall that. His legs are hairy, though, and that’s distracting me. His skin is warm, nearly hot. I can’t stop touching it. I remember when my legs were strong like this. I played lacrosse in high school. I used to have great legs. Matty’s never played a sport, though. He’s an artist. A sculptor. He works with heavy things…