Pigment

Birthday parties are as inevitable as death and taxes, in his line of work.

Today, the balloons are bright and the sky is reflective and the kids are screaming and the cake is wilting under the heat and the kids are still screaming. Hundreds of them. No, that’s an exaggeration. Dozens, then. 

The face paint on Andrew’s cheek is mildly claustrophobic, too — its clamminess heavy as the artist continues to add layers. So, Andrew breathes in. Breathes out. Swallows past the smell of sugar and pepperoni and overheating bounce house plastic. He looks for his wife, who ditched him a half hour ago. 

They’d expressly agreed Not to Ditch Each Other and to head out once the cake was cut. But, these parties have a way of drawing people apart. Now, Sophie is standing 40 feet to his right, just out of reach of the shade and his pleas. 

She smiles and nods to another mom, all while swaying under the onslaught of preschoolers threatening to take her out at the knee. He would say she deserves it, but he loves her. 

He, meanwhile, is balancing on a too-small chair while his son watches. 

“Handsome, Daddy,” his 4-year-old son beams, ants in his pants. The very son who convinced him to visit the face painting tent. 

“All done,” the artist says, handing him a mirror. “What do you think?” 

That I look like an asshole. “It’s great,” he responds before even seeing his reflection. Then, he catches a glimpse. “I . . .” He turns his head this way, that way. Rolls his neck. Straightens his shoulders. Andrew had pointed to the first sample picture on the board in the face painting tent, and now…

“You a prince, Daddy!” 

He supposes he is. He offers the artist a smile and the mirror, and she curtsies. Her cheeks flush pink.   

Andrew stands from the chair, his back ramrod. He takes measured steps toward his wife. His son bounces at his heels.  

“Looking good, Andrew,” shouts a passerby. 

Andrew dips his head, then continues his promenade across the yard. 

He reaches his wife and, instinctually, she welcomes him with a hand to his forearm. Then double-takes. 

“Andy,” she breathes, a nervous giggle hidden in her words. “You? Where have you been?” She sounds as if she’s just run a mile, her chest rising and falling. Her gaze sweeps his face, then settles on his eyes. 

“Oh, I . . .” 

The other woman interjects: “You have to share your skincare routine. You look about 10 years younger than the last time I saw you. Glowing.” She exhales, a hand to her chest. 

Andrew squints and purses his lips, unsure if she’s being facetious. “What do I use, babe?” he asks his wife. 

Sophie doesn’t take her eyes off him. “Just this stuff I saw on TikTok. I can send you a link.” Then to Andrew: “You do look . . . different. More . . .” 

“Well, I’m royalty now, so, yeah?” 

“Yeah?” She shakes the question from her head. 

As soon as the other woman leaves, Sophie reaches up on tip toes to whisper in his ear. “You’re so handsome, Andy. I don’t think I tell you that enough.”     

The party continues with the usual beats — games, pizza, presents – but he relaxes into it. The other parents make their way over one-by-one to say hello. He waves a hand. Nods his head. Entertains their greetings. 

And true to their word, Andrew, Sophie, and the children leave promptly after cake, Sophie’s arm linked with Andrew’s all the way to the car, like they’re newlyweds again. He waits until the kids are buckled in then kisses her against the hatchback. He wipes a smudge of blue paint from her cheek before climbing into the car himself.

This weekend, the party is for his seven-year-old daughter’s friend, so there are considerably fewer dinosaurs and substantially more tiaras. Andrew watches his daughter get a unicorn horn swiped across her freckled forehead, the pinks amalgamating. 

He asks if it’d be ok if he had a turn. If there are no kids waiting, of course. It’s just for fun. 

This artist acquiesces with a smirk, and Andrew tells her what he’d like. When he peers into the mirror five minutes later and sees the red and black paint of a superhero, his muscles flex themselves. Sophie steps up behind him and traces her fingers across the small of his back. 

“When did you start working out again?” she teases with a smile and a squeeze on his defined shoulder.  

Her pupils dilate when she catches their shared reflection. 

His voice turns deep, gruff. “All the better to save you with.” 

Sophie’s fingers cling to his shirt and dig into his skin. Before she can answer, Andrew notices movement on the edge of his vision. It’s a reflex, the way his arm flashes out to catch the falling child. 

This pint-sized human would have tumbled straight into the concrete, bare knees and ice cream be damned, if Andrew hadn’t been right there, thank God — Sophie recounts her husband’s prowess to anyone who will listen. A savior. 

Later, when Andrew overhears the birthday girl’s father discussing the pizza pickup, he offers to assist. He carries nine pies from a trunk to a folding table. His arms ripple. The other guests gasp, and their hands itch to applaud. 

During presents, Andrew watches a young guest — someone’s preteen brother — attempt to snatch a newly-opened toy from the pile. He’s there like lightning, his hand coming between the boy and the remote-control convertible. The boy’s father thanks Andrew for stepping in with his wayward son.  

Andrew’s body is invigorated. His focus is sharp. His only mission left? Bath and bed for the kids before 8pm. Because Sophie needs him.  

He carries her to the car, crossing-the-threshold style, while the kids trail behind shrieking and whooping. She’s giggling, too, burying her face in his straining chest.  

At home, mission accomplished, Andrew pins his wife against the wall with his hips. She runs her hands down his sides. 

“With great power comes great responsibility,” he rumbles against her neck, before he makes love to her with gravity-defying feats of strength and stamina.   

When he finally takes his own shower and sees his clean, smooth face through the fog, he senses an absence. He sighs, and his veins and straining muscles deflate with the exhale.

Another party for his daughter’s circle, and, since this is a real sophisticated soiree, there are two face painters. Andrew won’t have to wait long for a turn, so he lets his son go first. 

He chooses a pirate this time, wondering what a little rebellion will feel like on his skin. 

He keeps his mischief in check throughout the party, only stealing two extra cupcakes to bring home. He knows he’ll be hungry after he plunders Sophie’s treasure. She might be, too, actually. He swipes a third. 

The other parents give his dark swagger a wide berth out of respect. But not his wife. She’s holding a sweating soda and eyeing Andrew from across the lawn, her straw always just out of reach of her searching lips because she can’t bother to tear her eyes away from him to find it.  

He notices a few of the other dads have colorful cheeks and foreheads, too — scorpions, dinosaurs, and panthers, the paint overwhelming their features — while their wives titter with Sophie. She must have let them in on their secret, and the other couples were brave enough to try it.

When the party ends, Sophie scurries to him, and he hoists her over his shoulder. It’s only a few blocks’ walk home, so he carries her the whole way. The kids have run ahead of them this time, chanting a sea shanty they made up that’s also suspiciously reminiscent of a famous theme park ride.  

Row, row, the sea is calling;

We want treasure! We row till morning; 

Yo-ho, yo-ho, we’re a pirate family!

Dinner is a feast of cured meat, cheese, crusty bread, and chicken nuggets, drowned with ale and sparkling water from goblets dug out of the hutch. The kids continue with their shanties through bathtime. Sophie swishes her skirts and beckons Andrew to the bedroom with a crooked finger.     

The stolen cupcakes, slightly squished, fuel them. 

When the next weekend is absent of a party, Andrew’s cheeks are itchingly dry. His jawline seems inordinately weak. He almost considers a trip to the local craft store to see if they carry face paint. He does check online. But, alas, they don’t have it, and Amazon will take three days to deliver, and by that point it will almost be another weekend and another party, and . . .

He doesn’t have to wait long. The preschool is hosting a family carnival, and one of the teachers is filling the role of artist. After watching a few paint jobs, though, Andrew volunteers to do his own.  

He browses the sample photos, though he’s already certain what he’s in the mood for. The jungle-themed party all but cements his decision, with images of the equator's variegated fauna and wildlife inspiring him. Yet, it’s a different variegation that ends up catchin his curiosity — that of a tabby cat. Really, a kitten. He could be so playful; his tongue so rough; his footfalls soft. What if . . .

He glances toward his wife. Sophie is watching him, licking her lips.  

So, instead, he becomes power and potent energy. 

In his tiger form, he stalks through the party, lithe and smooth, sensing and scenting the crowd. His teeth are long, and his claws are sharpened to points. He looks for threats, and, finding none, takes to basking in the courtyard’s sun. The fathers watch him, even attempt to mimic his electric nonchalance in their get-ups. Andrew broadens his shoulders, giving them a good view. 

This time when Sophie joins him, she, too, is painted. He quirks his head, taking in her pink and gold tiara, the swirls across her temples. His heart races. His eyebrows twitch. In all his coolness, he sidles up to her. She is his princess. He, her fierce protector. 

The crowd around them almost cheers, though the other women are more concerned with rushing to join the line for their own flowery paint — now that it’s clearly de rigueur.

When Andrew and Sophie meet in carnal pleasure later that night, he consumes her. Devours her in all her softness. She lets him feast. 

After, when he uses a damp cloth to wipe the paint from her body and his own, an odd sense of insatiate hunger gurgles beneath the relief of shrinking limbs.         

Following the positive reception, Sophie has the enthusiastic idea to learn from YouTube videos, so they can spend their weeknights, too, donned in colors. Andrew, a bear; Sophie, a flower. He, a lion; she, a mouse. A beast and a damsel. Or a tentacled sea monster, with extra dexterity to take out the trash and grab her ass in one pass. It’s intoxicating — motivating — the way she bows under his touch or a glance. 

The kids ignore them, as long as they’re fed and bathed and have clean clothes. He assumes they’re getting their homework done. If he’s not working or checking his email for birthday e-vites, he’s thinking of animals and reminding himself of the way Sophie’s doe eyes darken when she sees his manliness take shape.    

Their colors change with the seasons, and Sophie decides that, this year, they will host a New Year’s block party. They develop a plan — just the right idea, they assure each other giddily: invite their neighbors and friends from their children’s schools, and hire a top artist to travel all the way from The City. They will be celebrated for their ingenuity! 

While the town’s brood of youngsters dance in a cacophony of sparklers and bang snaps, men and women snake around their court, waiting for a turn in the artist’s chair. They huddle against each other to ward against the cold and conspire on their designs. A few of the men even shout barbs down the line – taunts to each other about who will be fiercest or the most virile. The wives demure behind shy eyes and hummed laughs.

Andrew smirks. He, who has bestowed this gift to his neighbors, who has allowed them this chance to enter the new year in a new form, is confident in his choice. Though a rainbow of fireworks caught his attention initially, the menacing flames that now encircle his eyes will light up the night brighter than any glittery spectacle.  

He searches for Sophie to show her. And to feed his fire with her oxygen. He sees her down the block, her back to him. In an instant, he’s there, spinning her toward him, not hiding his plans to engulf her.  

Instead, when he sees what she’s done, the conflagration travels down his whole chest. Its embers sit low in his belly, in his flesh even absent of paint. 

Silver threads fan out across her brow, ladder down her nose, kiss her lips, trace the lines of her jaw and neck. From one temple, a dense, black body lays in wait, its articulated legs — all eight — stretch across her forehead and cheek. One gets lost in the crease of her eyelid. 

“Sophie,” he exhales. He almost tastes the bittersweetness of bait.   

“I thought the colors would match . . . for later,” she says, and he knows. The black nightgown with silver threads that she saves for special occasions — the one she wore for his birthday last year.

Andrew studies her. He traces a finger across each filament. “Black widows eat their mates.”   

Sophie’s hand flies to her mouth, but she can’t hide her blush. 

He draws her fingers away and leans down to her ear. “I’m not scared.” 

Their neighbors’ deferential hush at seeing this peculiar match-up speaks volumes.

When the ball has dropped, when the neighbors have left, when all the hot chocolate has been drunk, and the artist tipped handsomely, Sophie lures Andrew to her web.         

Seeking more, more, more, they push the boundaries of what they thought they knew. Every evening, when Andrew steps through the door from work, he takes stock of his thrumming heart. He settles the children in front of the TV. Then, he and Sophie slough their daywear to reveal a matched fierceness: a shark churning in stormy waves, or wolves stalking each other. She’s a python undulating through their shared space. He’s a piranha, quick and sharp. These new beings keep them up till the earliest hours. And when his alarm blares at 6am each morning, the tedium of attiring himself in the shell of a middle-aged financial analyst makes Andrew’s skin crawl. 

At a birthday party in the spring (who cares who’s), Andrew enters through the flap of a white tent. He absorbs the portraits of great heroes and cartoon royalty, of renowned desert animals and the ocean’s most majestic creatures. Forest nymphs model in gilt frames. As has become custom now at these get-togethers, inspirations line the plastic walls — palaces erected solely for artists to exact transformations. Andrew’s lungs welcome the invasion of clay and chemical chalk. He breathes it into his metamorphosis.           

The artist guides him to a silver chair in the corner. It’s just the two of them inside the opaque, flapping structure. He knows Sophie is next door making her choice. They had let all the other party-goers mutate first, as they prefer to emerge, alchemized, to a captive audience no longer impatient for a turn. 

As he sits, his eye catches a luna moth, painted to extravagance, near one of the tent’s folds. It’s almost dragon-like in its coloration and shape. The subtlety of it nudges at him. The silkiness of the wings. The roundness of its edges. 

Andrew announces his selection and feels only serene anticipation as the striations of experimentation harden and settle across the bridge of his nose. 

When he and Sophie finally exit their respective tents to the anticipating crowd, the gasps drown out the sound of wayward children splashing in the far-off pool. 

Andrew blinks, dips his head. He feels their collective gaze searching for scales or some other pointy thing to excuse his choice.   

Sophie — a battle-hardened warrior — steps forward, waving to their onlookers with a commanding sweep of her arm. Their eyes move to her, the mosaic of their irises mirroring the path of her hand. Away from him. The crowd parts for her, and Andrew looks on as they slowly reform in a loose circle, blocking his view while giving her space to march to the snack table. They follow, salivating.  

As the party continues in its usual beats — games, pizza, presents — Andrew studies: Sophie’s painted disciples shower her with compliments and take turns resting their hands on her arms as if they could melt into her and become one shared, mighty body. 

Andrew tells himself to ignore the whispers of those who relegated him to the edge, where his wings aren’t so pronounced and can better blend with the fence line. He wipes his sweaty palms on his pant legs. They celebrated his change before, he wants to shout to anyone who will listen. 

But they’re too busy turning toward Sophie like she’s their sun.