The Wilderness Within by Smith John Claude

Author:Smith, John Claude [Smith, John Claude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Trepidatio Publishing, horror, transgressive, The Wilderness Within, forest, John Claude Smith
Publisher: JournalStone
Published: 2017-10-05T21:00:00+00:00

16: The Forest

The darkness was oppressive, as if it were a living thing trying to squeeze the confidence out of me: a boa constrictor, tenderizing the meal.

“You can hold it if you want.” She waved the flashlight; rays sliced through the night, glimpses of tree trunk and branch, of brambles and dirt, in swirling disarray. Slivers of forest, it seemed. Snapshots.

“I’d rather hold your hand—”

“I wanna hold your hand,” she sang loudly, a jolt that amused me greatly. The words died somewhere above us, at the tops of the trees, maybe eaten by the starry night. The thought made me think of one of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings, “Starry Night,” and how the night in the painting looked so tumultuous, so alive.

I pulled her closer.

“You want to hold more than my hand, don’t you?”

“Are you coming on to me?” I said, even though I’d taken the next step.

The air was humid. She nuzzled into me, breath hot against my neck. Sweat melded us together, the side of my shirt to the side of her blouse.

“Sticky,” she said, pulling away only to crowd in closer, as if this place she nuzzled was her place, where she had always belonged.

I wasn’t feeling anything weird out here this time. My senses were locked into Alethea, this astonishing woman, and not the miasmal sensations and smells that had assaulted me previously.

“Hey,” I said, pulling her face from its half-hearted perusal of the landscape, and my neck.

“Yes, hey,” she said, the lids of her eyes dipping slightly.

We kissed, her lips so soft, collapsing at the force of our desire, our tongues entwined as if they had a purpose beyond the simple edicts of a kiss, as if something buried deep within was being awakened and I was not sure if it was love or some primal urge or just confusion fluttering about in my head and body, loins tingling and aroused as well.

I remember being seventeen and the first real kiss I’d ever had—me, a late bloomer—not some spin-the-bottle slobbery mess, but that kiss that lets one know that something more was in motion, and exploring that something more was going to be so much fun. A kiss that feels like it has a life of its own, as if the two lips are taking the lead and the rest of the body and brain better strap in because something new has been discovered. I remember leaving that girl’s house (another redhead—my curse) before her parents got home—she was home sick from school, me not even worried about germs or the consequences of cutting school myself—running a bit because of the energy flowing through me, feeling more alive than I’d ever felt before. I remember leaping to grab a leaf off a tree, leaping and feeling like I could fly, like flight was a definite possibility. And why not? I felt superhuman, yet deep down I felt so vulnerable I wanted to cry even as a smile that wouldn’t go away for the rest of the day was plastered on my face.

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