portrait of a handsome bastard

He thinks his hands are girly.
They are not so much feminine as they as are meticulously kept. I don’t ever remember his fingernails being dirty. In the courtyard, on a bench, I’d watch him pluck a cigarette from his lips and rest his elbow complacently against the wooden armrest. Slouched, he’d bend his neck back and blow a spindly stream of smoke to the sky. His fingers would balance the cigarette between themselves, skin touching paper touching skin, his tapered bones parallel. He handled everything like that cigarette--instruments, pens, the wheel of his car, my own hand--as if all that touched him was invaluable, and only he could be trusted to treat each item with due care. I loved that precision--those goddamn hands made the most banal gestures graceful, almost sinful. But when they actually were sinful, grace fell aside. They ripped. They threw. They clawed and pulled and negated their soft skin. I’d lie still, shocked, just staring at his brown eyes, down to the slope of his nose. I never knew what to feel at this moment, and should I have to pin it down, the closest word I could come up with is ‘prey.’ How could I not feel like prey? His violence, all in satisfying measure, belied his soft countenance. He could cuddle and attack in the same hour--this parallel left me paralyzed.
His recklessness was engulfing. He would grab my arm, push it forcefully against the dull headboard, and hold it there with his own until we both forgot that it hurt. His pale, slender arm would recede, then his fingers would trail my ribs, glide across the divide between my heart and hips, and at the moment I’d believe he was playing nice, his hands would tear the skin, leaving long, blushed marks--sharp evidence of where he’d been and a clue as to where he would soon go.
At that second, I’d look up, amazed to find his quiet eyes considering me, meditating my movements, my noise, my gaze. He’d smile, lips closed, then bite his lip, and allow his arms to bend like right angles on each side of me. His hands would gravitate toward my head, toward my hair, pulling it away from my face. One finger would trace the pithy curve from the top of my ear, to the point where it meets my temple, and follow along the bones of my cheek until he could lay his fingerprint on the corner of my nose, forever branding me his.
His hands aren’t girly. They’re exact.