by Diane Munier
Leaping
Diane Munier
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2015 Diane Munier
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Diane Munier
Cover design by SelfPubBookCovers.com/Todd
…survivors.
Leaping
Chapter 1
Alone on the beach, walking, walking on the edge of land and sea, a dead jellyfish, a gull and its flap and its cry, and gray water swirling into gray sky, and breathing the salty damp and his hair stiff with it, and his face painted with it, and his white clothes pressing against his flesh, the wet holding them to him like transparent skin.
And he saw the speck of another's approach. He hated the intrusion into all the gray, the flannel of his existence. A speck, a she no less, with hair blowing and Picasso lines and sand daring to verify, she was real.
Slow rise and her head turned to the ocean, then looking down, then looking up.
Was she “The Dreamer,” come to life? For him she was. And so….
She glided, and a skirt blowing and a sash, blue, directing the water's crash and rush…and when she got near, so near he saw the flair of her nostrils and the tremor in the tight bow of her upper lip…and he knew she was going to smile, just smile, a flash, a click, for all-time… hello…good-bye.
And he stopped and said, "I'm…Jordan Staley."
And he was. He'd forgotten, but that didn't take it away…the truth.
She stopped.
"I'm…I live up there," and he thumbed toward the three-storied Victorian his grandfather Douglas built. And he, Jordan, had been sent here by his concerned aunt who knew he needed a place to shed his snakeskin, to come up pink and ready to try again.
"I was…it's so gray," she said, her voice soothing against the careless waves, their heavy sloshing power, but her voice floating.
"You're sad," he whispered.
She smiled and started to continue her walk and he turned and followed the direction she went, toward his house, his home.
Side-by-side now, and he watched their feet, all bare, and hers, and his, and she looked back, over her shoulder and he saw it too, the ocean's lick working to erase, to erase them.
"I'm Cori," she said, drawing him back.
And he had nothing to give that could come close, she already had his name.
"Are you here for the winter?" he asked because he could be proper if it came to it.
"I'm here for three weeks," she said. "I…will resent you…so you know…now that we've spoken."
He didn't comment right off…too many things.
"You resented me first, though," she said.
"I…I'm just walking," he said, but he thought, my God.
"You're private. I'm intruding. Now you're…escorting me?"
"It's on my way," he defended.
And so they neared his house…his life.
She finally spoke, "What if we go through the whole process…and the last night we dare to get honest and real and discover we like each other and we wasted all this time?"
She stopped walking…she waited for him to respond. He hadn't left the confines of quiet. Until he'd met her on his path.
"But you can't just leap to the end of the story like that," she said, as if to retract.
"You can…leap to the end," he said, thinking of the piles of books in his room, opened like tents, a tent-city spread across his floor, words and stories living in them…him reading the last page only, one-night stands….
She led now, away from the water…following his tracks, the new ones, and the old ones, from too many walks like this and him returning without a catch…she put her little feet in his big footed impressions, and she muddled the course of his life….
She took in a breath before taking on the stairs leading to his house. It was imposing, he knew, in competition with the sea and with nothing around it, for it was a sizable piece of land that came along with, and those who would seize it for development didn't have enough, couldn't find enough.
So he followed her there, and he saw this house differently now.
"I wondered about this place," she said, leading him onto the huge wrap-around porch.
She went in first, and he followed her long skirt as it sailed his moors, his threshold. He was her guest. This house was splendid…and neglected. Not from dirt…it was cleaned three times a week…Mrs. Palm. But from life. It had no life.
He hadn't noticed before, just that it was large, that it cried out to accommodate so much more, so many more. Would it draw her where he couldn't?
Her hair was long, down her back, a mermaid's hair. What if she was? A mermaid?
She turned to him, and the color in her face, the light, the awakening of this place…"I don't see you yet…your room. I need to see your room."
He shook his head. He had no idea…he didn't allow Mrs. Palm in there.
"Up…," he whispered, and the grand sweeping staircase rolled down into the center of this great room like the house had a tongue, she was already running there, skirt pulled tight in the back over a shapely round rump as she'd raised and gathered the light fabric and her legs flashed cream and the bottoms of her feet were a dark pink and he sprang to life and followed.
She went down the left side of the landing, looking room to room, and he panted from his run on the stairs, and she found his room at the end and she called out and he went in after and she was in the middle of the room, spinning round, looking at the books, their spines, their flapped covers. "There are so many," she cried. "Oh," and she went to them, one and the other, but she did not try to save them or pick them from the floor or close them, she wanted their names, and she let them be, gulls with wings spread, dying on the beach, his floor, each cawing, a story, a story, a story.
She faced him. "You're…," she said softly, her hands gathered under her chin.
He didn't know what he was…but her….
"I'll come tonight. We'll meet on the beach."
He shook his head no. He didn't know. "Yes," he whispered.
She walked quickly to him, and his heart…he felt it move, and he smelled her skin, the salt on it. “I…I don’t know if we'll leap…to the end."
He didn't know either…or anything.
"Well…good-bye," and she smiled, and he let her go for three seconds and he followed and she was already halfway to the stairs.
He called out, "Wait."
She turned to him, such beauty.
"I…what time?"
"Dark," she said. Then light as a wisp, her skirt vibrating around her legs, she descended, the tongue, and went out.
He wouldn't go. She was obviously mental and he didn't want this. It was his refuge and she'd come inside…he couldn't have this.
But he met her hours later. He was first. He told himself it's what he did, walking there. It's what he did and he wouldn't stop for her. So he met her in almost the same place and like before she approached, only this time she hurried to him.
"Hello," and she took his hand and he turned and she pulled him toward his house.
All the while he was quiet. She was beautiful. He'd not been remiss in what he knew when he'd first seen her. She was lovely.
She hurried up the stairs to his porch and he followed, like an eager boy.
She hurried to his room. "What are you doing?" he said, but even he heard the lack of conviction.
She turned to him, let
ting the cloth bag she carried drop to the floor. "We're to the end…the end," she said, in the center of his room, and the books he'd stacked against the wall, and she untied the knot at her side and her dress opened and she let it fall from her shoulders, and slide down her arms and her bare skin and feminine form, her beauty, and, "My God," he said again.
She was crazy. Crazy and astounding. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, almost pleading with her.
"It's the end. We'll work our way backwards. We'll start here, and we'll move to the point we were at this morning…when we met…and smiled…and you said your name…and then beyond to where we don't know each other at all. By then I'll be gone. Three weeks."
"Why?"
"I'm here," she whispered, stepping to him, her hands lifting to rest on his chest, her face, breath soft. "Leap," she said. "Leap with me. You like endings. Like your books."
But…he didn't know her. So how could he leap….
"Pretend," she whispered.
And she looked at his lips as she raised on her toes and her lips, slowly against his own, kiss, and the whispered word, "Leap," and he closed his eyes, not that he wanted to, but it was right enough and real enough, and she was flesh and soft and round and willing…and warm…and kind.
He had never…leapt…in flesh. And his hands on her pulling her in…and another kiss, and he fell into it now, leaned into her, then she pulled back and led him to his bed.
He stood and she undressed him and he looked at her, all of her…leaping. He took off his pants and she removed his underwear, and then she took his hand and laid down on his bed, and just that…he lay beside, and they looked at each other for a longtime, and he touched her then, and moved his hand all over her skin.
The next kiss went deep and he was gone, flying and floating and burning up…leaping, he broke open then, frenzy with her that culminated in anger, and hunger, in breath, and clawing gasp, in release, oh my God I’m still alive…I’m still…I’m still….
He held himself then, his weight off her, and he kept his eyes closed and stilled himself, waited for his heart to slow down. He stole a quick look as he dropped beside her. She was sweet. He felt shame, just a flash, but more…he was grateful. And he pulled her to him. "Thank-you," he whispered.
"Thank you," she laughed, tamed and spent and supple flesh, and the shadows on the ceiling and the dark gray beyond and they stilled like the deeper quieter places under the waves. And the ocean lifted them, lifted the house, and they floated…they swayed….
And the next he knew he was awakening and the gulls and sunlight, and the heavy roll of the sea, and his mind and memory sparked and the bed empty and just a note and one word, hyphenated, good-bye.
And so it was the end. And the beginning of the almost end. Day two.
Chapter 2
What was he before now? Looking…but feeling more than seeing. He was not in the present…he was blind.
Where had he been? There was nothing to point to, just the tracks she had invaded. There were no accomplishments beyond the walking.
It's what he did now, wearing the same clothes as the day before, the ones she had helped him remove or removed altogether.
It wasn't lust, but that was involved. It was desperate, sick, demanding…shattering.
He didn't need her thoughts, her facts, her words. He needed everything else.
So after he'd awakened and dealt with her absence…he'd stepped into the ocean, the water cold and foamy with impatience, and he let the water take her scent from his skin and replace it with a thousand other bits of life-and-death and God and devil.
He stood in the water wearing only his pants, and his fingers wide and battered about with the force of the water, and he stood there until the freezing took over and the shuddering, the punishing, the beautiful miserable abuse that meant he was here.
He started to walk. His teeth chattered, and his hair was plastered in a heavy flap that slapped over his forehead and he pushed it back but it didn't stay, it wouldn't.
And he waited for her, surely she would come…back.
He got further this time. Nearly to the cabins, the place he never wanted to reach, stopped before he did, lest they see him and wave…and expect.
She was right. He'd resented her first. His anonymity…gone. "I'm Jordan Staley," he'd said. And from there, the second story…his room…his books…his bed…his needy sounds and his despair.
He'd slept. And he'd awakened. Where was she? Where was she with this stupid game?
She came out then, on her stoop. Her cabin was the first, away from the others but too close, still. She must have seen his approach from her window. She wore a cotton dress and a sweater over. Feet bare. Scarf in her hair.
She hadn't expected him…at all…and in his pants…only.
He walked closer.
"I have coffee," she said, but no smile.
She turned to go in, waited holding the door wide, and he followed.
It was small in here, but not without appeal. Her. That was the appeal. There were drawings on the wall…colored chalk. This was more than he wanted. He couldn't breathe in here.
"Sit," she said and he went to one of two blue kitchen chairs and he sat, and there were newspapers on the table, stacked and used, and he kept himself away from them and their black blood.
"Do you take it black? Do you want cream?" she asked.
Here's what he wanted, he sat up, raised up and took her by the arm and when he fell back to the chair she came with him, and he pulled her onto his lap and tore off her sweater and ran his hands over her breasts…here was what he wanted…all he wanted…and he had his hand in her hair, he felt the knot on her scarf and he pulled this off and his hand buried in her hair now, and her head in his hand and her hair spilling over his arm, and he crushed his lips to hers. Oh soft and warm and wet and…here was what he wanted.
She was limp, not resisting, not turning him away, and he insisted with his mouth, his kiss, he insisted she come to life and give him life, and he kissed her, and she was open, open and she leaned back and he wrapped his arm around her back, but she leaned away and they went to the floor and he was barely aware of how, but they were there on the linoleum, and he had her then, his hands under her dress and on her and her on him and the kiss, the kiss, and he pulled from her as he tried to give to seek to know her his hands moving all over her body, her sweet body that conformed and opened and kept him as close, as close, and he was frantic and wild and wondering where this life had been hiding, but he couldn't get to it without her, and she stilled him and he tried to calm as he laid there and she kept her hand over his heart and she looked at him, into him, and he needed this almost as much as her flesh. He needed her to look at him and not run.
"I'm doing this because of all I know about you," she said and he wanted to trust her…wanted it more than he remembered wanting anything…since….
"The…the newspapers?" he panted for he did not understand.
"No. What I know from all we've shared…through all the days we've spent together."
Oh. The crazy. She was crazy. They'd just met. But they were leaping. He forgot.
"Don't talk," he said and he raised and caught her mouth in another kiss, a frantic, rhythmic last chance kiss that she returned now, and she moved and they rolled and she was beneath, and he spread over her, like a building storm, then he took her there, and it hurt to feel her body’s velvet grasp, to be completely taken by hope and good and…"Cori."
She was quiet as she stilled and clenched and he gave her this stream of hot sorrow that broke free to seek some eternity, faraway from him.
When it was over he felt shame. He felt shame for taking so much. For reducing her to the impossible task of jump-starting his will…and on the floor.
He moved off of her. She stayed put. Had she been crying? "Did I hurt you?" he asked.
"No," she said, looking away.
He sat up and felt the wild hair he hadn't had cut in too long, and she did not move,
not even to pull her dress to respectable length. He had consumed her.
So he straightened the dress, covered her private self at least. "I'm sorry," he whispered, her thigh soft.
"For?" She found her scarf on the floor and wiped her face.
"This, of course," he said tersely. He hated stupid explanations…to make them.
"It's alright," she whispered, a smile of all things. "Tomorrow you say thank you."
"Tomorrow?" There was no future in this.
"Yes. Moving backwards…I can see into the future." She smiled so beautifully. He grazed her cheek with the back of his finger.
"There's no tomorrow," he said.
"It's already happened. Last night…was tomorrow."
"Stop," he whispered. "Just…stop."
"We can't stop," she said. "We put it in motion. We leaped. There are events which have led to this…and now we have to live them out. Remember…the pages you don't read…remember?"
Well he'd heard enough. He got up then, like an old man, and he righted his pants, and they were cold and wet and he must look like an animal.
"It's because of what you've been through."
"I haven't been through anything. I don't like your game. This was a mistake," he said and he went to her sink and there was a colander and potato peelings. He used the glass there and filled it and drank and his lies wouldn't go down. He set the glass in place as he heard her move from the floor behind him.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"There's nothing to be sorry for," she said, and he felt her hand on his shoulder.
He let his head sag then. She was a stranger. This was madness.
He moved away, to the door. "I won't…," he said, then he went out.
He walked with quick purpose, down her porch, across the sand, along the path he'd made there. It was going sour, sour, and if it did…there was nothing…and he knew that…he'd accepted it…and she'd crashed into the gray…still…fog…and she was killing him.
She did not follow, she did not call out, "Stop." And that cut him most of all…the words he did not need. Before now.
