"You should count them," Siobhan says. Ryan chuckles, a touch awkwardly. He didn't mean to tease her, not exactly, it was just...he's never seen a woman with so many freckles before. They cover her face from chin to forehead, dappling her skin in so many places that there scarcely seems room for them all on such a waif of a girl. And he...he's never quite sure how to deal with Siobhan. She always seems to put him a little bit off-balance. He thought that maybe a few jokes might do the same to her, get them on an equal footing. But now he's not so sure.
Because now she knows he looks at her. She's looking back at him, a cast to her eyes that won't tell him whether or not she's kidding. "No, I'm serious," she says, in a voice that doesn't exactly sound like she's telling the truth. "I've never had the patience myself, but you seem like you're interested." She shifts position to face him directly, challenging him with her stare. "Go ahead and try to count."
Ryan smiles nervously. He's not sure whether this is flirting, or an attempt at harmless revenge for the joke about having too many freckles to count. He doesn't know how to exit the topic gracefully, and he's certainly not about to leave--this study session in Siobhan's dorm room is the closest he's gotten to her since they first had classes together, and he's hoping that somehow he can turn it into something more. Assuming he hasn't already screwed it up.
He decides to play along with the joke, or the request, or whatever it is. "One," he begins, pretending to peer closely at a random spot on her skin. "Two, three, four..."
"Ah! Not like that," Siobhan responds with a mock sharpness to her voice. "Count silently. And methodically. Focus on a point, say...the tip of my chin. Keep an eye on a single freckle there, really get to know it so that you'll be able to come back to it later if you lose count. Memorize its position, its shape, watch it move as I talk. When you close your eyes, you should still be able to see it."
Ryan trails into silence and stares, feeling increasingly uncertain about the whole thing. He'd rather be looking at her hazel-green eyes, which seem far more fun to get lost in, but she's clearly expecting him to keep going with this and he's not quite sure how to get out of it now without upsetting her. So he finds a freckle on the tip of her chin, part of an adorable little dusting of red specks that scatter across her jawline, and he watches it. He looks at the way it fits into the pattern of freckles around it, studies its position relative to her lips and her nose, blinks once or twice to make sure that he can find it when his eyes refocus.
Siobhan seems satisfied that he's following instructions, because she says, "Got it? Good. Now...start counting. You can move in a spiral pattern, moving out from that freckle to the ones around it. Count each one, let your eyes go in a widening circle radiating from that spot and moving outwards. You'll need to stay focused, of course. If you pay too much attention to my words, you might lose your count, and then you'd have to start over. It's far more important to keep watching, keep counting..."
It's not as easy as it looks. Ryan loses count twice within the first few minutes, trying despite Siobhan's instructions to listen to her and pay attention to her freckles at the same time. He keeps wanting to look her in the eyes to show that he's really listening, but every time he does that he loses track of where he was and has to begin again. But with each time, the map of her skin becomes more familiar. He begins to recognize her freckles as intimate landmarks, milestones marking a particular number as he falls into the rhythm of counting them up.
Her voice becomes a comforting drone in the background as the numbers tick on in his head. "Just let yourself center on my face, let your thoughts fade away so you can better focus on counting. Everything else in your mind is becoming background noise, as you shut out those distractions one by one and wind your eyes outward in the spiral. Counting up, up, up for me, studying the curve of my chin, the line of my jaw, the tilt of my nose. Becoming...intimate...with my face."
Something about the sensuous purr in Siobhan's last sentence makes Ryan blush furiously, but he's not sure why because he can't exactly remember her last sentence. Thinking about it distracts him from counting, and he's already up to sixty-seven. He's just past her mouth now, watching them move as he counts the dusting of tiny dots just above her upper lip, and he feels like he really has the hang of it. All the distracting questions in his head are gone. He's not thinking about whether Siobhan likes him, or whether she invited him here for something more than just studying, or how he can convince her to want something more than just studying without being creepy...he's just counting. Sixty-eight. Sixty-nine. Seventy. Seventy-one.
"That's it," Siobhan says. Ryan doesn't remember what 'it' was, but he's apparently doing it right because she sounds incredibly pleased with him right now. "Around...and around...and around, eyes moving in a lazy circle as you let everything else go except the steady progression of the numbers, one freckle to the next to the next to the next. Your eyes move slower and slower as the circle widens, each loop taking longer and longer as you clear your mind of all those distracting thoughts and ideas and just focus on the numbers. My voice and my words flowing into the back of your mind--there's no need to really think about what I'm saying, it's all just helping you with your task. You like it when I help you remember what you need to be doing, don't you?"
"Yes," Ryan answers, more to avoid the distracting pressure to answer than because he really agrees. He doesn't disagree, either--it's one of those questions that's so vague and meaningless as to be impossible to say no to. But it doesn't really matter. It's not something he really needs to think about. Not when he's up to eighty-three now. He experiences a brief flicker of uncertainty as he tries to remember just what the question was, but he can't concentrate on that and counting at the same time without losing track, and he doesn't want to lose count. Not now.
"Good boy!" Siobhan replies, putting just enough of a pixie's lilt into her voice that the part of Ryan that feels condescended to is subsumed by the part of him that feels flirted with. Then both of them get smoothed away by the endless tick of numbers in his head. "You're doing so well now, focused and concentrated and happy to be making me happy. It's such a peaceful, relaxing thing to do, staring and counting and letting your eyes make their slow, lazy path while you let me do all the work of thinking. Isn't that right?"
"Yes," Ryan says again, his mind simply supplying the word as a thing to say. He doesn't have the mental energy to focus on really engaging with Siobhan's conversation, not when he's studying the freckles on her nose in intimate detail and counting every last one, even the overlapping dapple of little dots right between her eyes. It feels a bit rude, just tuning out the details of her words and vacantly agreeing, but somehow Ryan is certain that she doesn't mind. She seems very happy to be doing all the work of...of talking...and letting him get on with his task. Ryan is almost surprised at how happy he feels too.
"That's it," Siobhan coos, taking Ryan's hand in her own. Ryan almost loses count at that--the spiral she traces onto the back of his hand with her finger is surprising and more than a little distracting--but after a few moments, it becomes soothing instead. Just another thing helping him stay relaxed, stay focused, stay deeply and intimately centered on her beauty. "And I am beautiful, aren't I?"
"Yes," Ryan says, not sure exactly what part of that last thought was his and what part was hers. It feels increasingly difficult to tell them apart. He's suddenly aware of how sluggish his thoughts are, how thick and muzzy his head feels. Forming an individual idea feels like a tremendous effort, like there's not enough room in his mind for words and numbers and he's got to keep the numbers ticking up and up and up, got to keep counting and watching and staring and focusing and...and...
One hundred eleven. One hundred twelve. One hundred thirteen. Ryan forgets what he was thinking about.
