The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield by Anna Fishbeyn

Author:Anna Fishbeyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2017-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

Escape from New York

The city receded slowly behind us as we crawled along the George Washington Bridge. Cars grunted and grazed each other’s backsides. I rolled down a window and breathed in the diesel fuel with mysterious pleasure. I was smiling. My face burned from the glare of the hot August sun. He sped, passing every car, his eyes taking on a lion’s ferocity, his hands barely on the wheel. “I want you right now!” I said, as an empty highway unfurled before us.

I grabbed his thigh, his erection already swelling between his legs, and the sudden thrill of wanting and being able to have silenced me. You are here for me, for me, for the taking. And I, at last, am here for you.

Eight hours later we entered Acadia and the road narrowed, taking us into dark, uninhibited nature. Black mountains soared at our sides, pockmarked with yellow, orange, and red stones as if to signal the dawn of fall, and wild flowers peeked out of uneven grasslands in sweeping fuchsias, lavenders, and whites, bowing intermittently to make room for giant pines and evergreens. Brown earth unfurled at the feet of majestic orange-leafed oaks and naked birches swayed like emaciated ballerinas attempting flight. How did I get here, I wondered with a mingling of rapture and trepidation, how did I manage to grab this piece of happiness for myself—to do that which seemed impossible one year ago, one month, one week ago?

The car finally came to a halt, but there was nothing in front of us except more trees and road.

“We need to stop here because the road is too muddy up ahead,” he said.

“I love it here.”

“I knew you would—you belong in wild nature.”

“I’m practically Thoreau,” I chuckled.

“When I read him in college, I thought—that’s it, that’s what I need—nature.” He broke into a bitter laugh. “That’s why I majored in econ and moved to the city.”

He led me through the groves into a gold-speckled meadow. Overlooking a bay, nestled among evergreens, stood his cabin. Daisies and goldenrod swayed among the weeds, and a narrow dirt road led to the mouth of the ocean. Waves crashed against mud-colored sand and ringlets of foam scattered across it like blackened snowflakes. I imbibed the air and my childhood appeared, my lips parted to drink it, taste it, this brisk, clear, unpolluted air, air squeezed from the boughs of pines. I saw a tiny scrap of a girl, a blurred face and body; only my eyes retained the same lime-hued clarity and joy. The outside world emerged as those eyes had caught it: running up the rickety steps of our dacha, bringing stalks of corn for Grandmother to boil, huge sunflowers rising over our heads and our tongues maneuvering seeds out of cracked black shells, and laughter—mine and other children’s intermingling in the vines of memory with something vile, unthinkable. I grabbed a handful of brown earth with my fingers as though I were reaching for my past, and smelled my childhood through my nose.

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