Lunatic Fringe

by Allison Moon

  Lexie’s eyes mirrored the shadowed water as she shared a separate, deeper truth.

  “I’ve never felt this strong before. It came from nowhere. I’m feeling more. Not like emotions. Sensations. I know what each one of my toes feels like right now. My throat, my muscles, each part of me feels alive in its own right. And the map in my head; I was always so bad at directions. But now, I know exactly where my dorm is from here, and my father’s house, and the ocean. I know we’ll be able to see the moon in forty-five minutes. I know that Cassiopeia will appear over those trees soon, too. And it will set there.” She traced a path with her finger from horizon to horizon.

  Archer said nothing, squatting next to Lexie as she continued.

  “I know it’s cold but I don’t feel it.” Lexie exhaled a cloud of misty breath. “It feels like there is more oxygen in my lungs, more blood in my veins, more electricity in my brain. I feel like me, version two-point-oh.” She paused, looking out over the rushing water and sighed. “It’s amazing.” Lexie turned to look at Archer.

  “Did you know that?” Lexie asked. “Could you tell?”

  “Yes,” Archer replied.

  “Oh,” Lexie said. She let another silence fall across them, before asking “What do you think this all is?”

  Archer rocked back to sit cross-legged at Lexie’s side. “Growing up, maybe? College. Girls. Possibility. Such things can be dizzying.”

  “I bet you were way more stable when you were my age,” Lexie grumbled.

  “Ha! No.” Archer shook her head, as if enjoying the memories as they skittered through her brain. “Not one bit.”

  “I feel so confused, yet so much stronger. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “There’s another thing.” Lexie bit her lip, afraid of giving voice to the awful memories that had been troubling her all day, as if that would make them real again. “Last night there was something . . . Something happened.”

  Archer waited as Lexie stammered through her confession.

  “It was these girls . . . My friends, I guess. They kidnapped this guy. They beat him up. They insisted . . .” Lexie bit her tongue. “God, this sounds so crazy.”

  “Go ahead,” Archer said.

  “They said he was a werewolf.” Lexie laughed without humor at the recollection. “It’s insane. They’re insane. They tortured this guy, beat the shit out of him. I thought . . .” Lexie stretched her neck against the tension that grasped at it. “I thought they were nice, normal people. I thought they could be my friends.” She sat back and curled her arms around herself. “I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

  “I recommend starting with yourself,” Archer replied.

  Lexie laughed aloud, startling them both. “See, that doesn’t work either.” She stood and paced along the edge of the riverbank, where solid ground dissolved into thick mud. “I’m sorry I bolted last month. It was--I saw something.” She squeezed her eyes against the tears that clutched at her eyes. “My Nana, they said she was schizophrenic. She was always talking about the random-ass stuff she saw: ghosts and demons and animals that talked. Sometimes she would just be really mean. I know it’s genetic, and I think it’s really why my mom bailed on us.”

  Lexie inhaled deeply, as if the fresh air would flush out the fear. She didn’t want to continue, didn’t want to divulge the details of her warped vision in the cabin.

  Archer stood, wiping dirt from her jeans, then slid an arm around Lexie’s waist. She didn’t press. They stood together in the shared silence that was becoming a comfortable solace in their friendship.

  After a long while, Archer broke the silence. “You know that saying, ‘Not all who wander are lost’?”

  Lexie nodded.

  “Well,” Archer said, “not all who see things are crazy.”

  Lexie took a breath, wondering if that made her feel better, and the answer was yes, a little bit better, yes.

  “Can I offer you some advice?” Archer asked.

  Lexie nodded.

  “When you are confronted with something that doesn’t make sense or a question you don’t know the answer to, trying looking here.” She pressed her open palm against Lexie’s sternum. The heat penetrated Lexie’s skin and freed a tiny bit of the darkness that lurked there. “Thought follows feeling, not the other way around. You’ll always know the answer when you find peace within yourself.”

  Archer and Lexie stood together in the clearing, sharing their warmth.

  “What now?” Lexie asked.

  “Up,” Archer gestured to the cliff wall towering behind them. Thick sprigs of ivy clung to its rough face, and gnarled brush pierced the rock in smatterings of brownish-green.

  “What?” Lexie asked, with an incredulous brow.

  “It’s not really climbing,” Archer said. “It’s more hopping. Jumping. It’s easy, if you don’t overthink it.”

  Lexie’s brows raised high. She glanced from the wall to Archer and back. “Seriously?” she asked.

  “You said you were feeling strong,” Archer said. “Prove it.”

  Lexie shook her head.

  “Come on! Just try just to get to that ledge there.” She pointed to a mossy platform jutting out of the rock nine feet from the ground. “It’s essential for the surprise.”

  “This better be some surprise,” Lexie muttered.

  “Yep. Do it. You’ll love the view.” She nodded to the ledge like there was nothing to it.

  Lexie turned to the rock face. She could see more trees hanging over the edge, still high enough to catch the setting sun’s light, when all around the river was already in the gloaming. She edged back in preparation for a running start.

  “Do you think I’m crazy?” Lexie asked, already grinning like a lunatic as the adrenaline coursed through her veins.

  “Let’s find out.” Archer smiled wide as Lexie took her first bold steps into irrationality.

  Lexie trained her eyes on the ledge and dug her feet into the soil, bending over like a sprinter placing her feet before a race. She rubbed her hands together to draw blood into them. She burst into a sprint and, defying all natural sense of self-preservation, hurled herself onto the rock face, grasping the first ledge with both hands. She pulled herself up to her feet in one fluid motion, turned to her right and leapt again, catching with her eyes, and then with her hands another grip higher on the wall.

  Using her momentum, she propelled herself up now to the left, to reach the next jutting edge near the top. On this ledge, she paused, looking at the top now only four feet above her head. She set her feet, squatted deep and sprung vertically to catch the ledge. Her torso had already cleared the top when she realized her mistake of overshooting the handhold. At the apex of her leap, she forced her feet forward to land on the plateau. She landed heavily, and her weight shifted backwards into the void. Each muscle struggled to restructure her center of gravity; her lungs burned with the breath she had held since leaving the ground. With a great jerk of her torso, Lexie flung her arms forward, driving her body fully onto the plateau and crashing onto her hands and knees. A sharp pain shot up from her kneecaps while her hands drove deep into the rocky soil. The pain traveled up the same routes that the pleasure from Archer’s touch had just a few weeks and a few minutes before. Lexie used this pain to stand, rubbing her injured knee. Perched atop the highest ledge, she turned to look down at Archer, still on the ground below.

  “Don’t look at me. Check out the view!” Archer shouted.

  Lexie obeyed. The wilderness spread out below her in a verdant blanket. The last, molten curve of the sun sank into the glittering ocean miles beyond, casting swathes of magenta across the western sky. Backlit clouds stretched in long wisps from the horizon. Inky purple battled deep orange for dominion over the sky, with purple the inevitable conqueror. At the deepening blue of zenith, the first planets and brightest stars winked through the ragged remnants of the clouds. Lexie had to struggle to catch her breath in the face of such grandeur,
and Archer’s words came to her with a newfound clarity: Not all who see things are crazy.

  A soft thump behind Lexie diverted her attention from the splendid view. Archer brushed her bangs from her eyes as she stood from a crouch.

  “How to you feel?” Archer asked, stepping closer. Wordlessly, thoughtlessly, Lexie reached her arms around Archer and pulled their mouths together. It was a wet, vigorous kiss. Each nerve ending in her lips exalted in the sensation. When they separated, Lexie blinked and asked, “Is that weird?”

  Archer tilted her head. “Is what weird?”

  “Kissing me.”

  Archer licked her lips. “It’s . . . lovely. It’s delicious.”

  “Okay,” Lexie said, unsure of the motivation behind her question, other than self-sabotage. Had she killed the moment entirely? She looked away.

  “I like women, Lexie,” Archer said, taking Lexie’s hand and squeezing. “Kissing you isn’t ‘weird’.”

  Lexie nodded.

  “Is it weird kissing me?” Archer asked, turning the tables on Lexie’s question and discomfort.

  Lexie shook her head, her hair flopping over her shoulders like a hound dog’s ears. She shrugged, helpless in her ambivalence.

  “Okay,” Archer said. “So, we’re going to do it again. And maybe it’ll help you figure it out.”

  Archer pulled Lexie’s mouth to hers. At first the kiss was soft and cozy, then a rod of heat spiraled up Lexie’s spine. Her muscles tensed, and she gripped at Archer’s hips, grasping bundles of flesh beneath flannel and denim. Lexie opened her mouth to Archer’s kiss, their lips and tongues holding onto one another, pulling slightly away, then crashing once again.

  Sparks sizzled down Lexie’s nerve endings, tracing an intricate grid of sensation over her body. Her blood surged in grand swells, and her lungs drew in all the oxygen the forest had to offer. She grew drunk on Archer’s scent--all mushrooms and musk, like soil after a heavy rain. Lexie wanted to bury herself in the scent, to pull each particle into her body to hold onto it for life.

  Archer clutched Lexie’s body with all her sturdy strength. Fingers pulling at hair, hands grasping necks and hips and shoulders and faces, tongues grappling, and each breath taking on a meaning of its own.

  Then it was Archer’s turn to push her away. “I want to show you what I made,” she said with flushed face and swollen lips. “That’s why I brought you here tonight, not to seduce you, though I’m pleased that it’s working out that way.”

  “This isn’t the surprise?” Lexie asked, gesturing to the splendid view.

  “This way.”

  Archer leapt atop a rise of boulders that stood at the cliff’s edge, carrying her twenty feet higher in two bounds. At the apex of the pile, she aimed for the trunk of a great cedar and leapt onto its lowest branch, disappearing into the foliage. Her hair whipped behind her as if helping her balance, and it was the only thing Lexie could see of her before she disappeared behind the massive tree trunk out of view. Unsure of her footing but riding the adrenaline that had carried her up the cliff face and to Archer’s lips, Lexie followed Archer’s charge. The fading sunlight spattered over the thick branches as through a shattered window. At the third branch Lexie paused, waiting for Archer to emerge and guide her for the remainder of the journey. When she didn’t appear, Lexie closed her eyes and inhaled. Archer’s path became as clear as a neon arrow, leading inwards. Lexie ducked her head beneath a bough. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw Archer standing on a great wooden platform. A hand-hewn treehouse.

  “Whoa,” Lexie whispered.

  Archer’s mood softened. “Do you like it?” she asked.

  “You built this?” Lexie responded, incredulous.

  Archer nodded.

  Lexie’s eyes followed the familiar curve of the wood. “Out of the tree that crashed into my room?”

  Archer nodded again. “I decided against a roof. I thought it’d be nice to lay beneath the stars.”

  Lexie looked up, the clear purple sky visible between the boughs. She examined the treehouse, running her palms along the wooden planks. Her eyes shone with glee. The center of the treehouse was one full disc from the crashed tree, six feet broad, the rings tracing its centuries of life before the fall. Wedges cut from the fallen oak branched out from the center like spokes, with cut planks spanning the space between each wedge, adding straight, bold lines to the pale, curved rings of the discs. The whole platform, fifteen feet in diameter, rested between three massive branches and the cedar’s trunk, perched like a lily pad. Laying atop the center of the disc was the lambskin. Lexie rushed to inspect it, shoving her hands into its fur, relearning all its secrets, including those it had of her.

  “It’s the one from your cabin,” Lexie said.

  “I knew how much you liked it,” Archer replied with a wide grin. Lexie knelt and breathed deep, soaking in the exceptional beauty of Archer’s craft.

  “How did you do all this?” Lexie asked, awe-struck.

  Archer replied, wryly, “You spend your days studying. I spend mine making stuff out of wood.”

  “I think you win,” Lexie replied.

  “You like it?” Archer asked with a sheepish grin.

  “Of course I do! How could I not?”

  Archer shrugged. “I so rarely understand the tastes of women.”

  The sun dipped beneath the sea, a gray line barely limning the distant tree line. The disappearing light dragged with it the color from the world. Lexie rose and pulled her close by the hips, pressing her body to Archer’s. Lexie’s breasts rubbed against Archer’s, with only the thin barriers of Lexie’s t-shirt and Archer’s vest between them. Her hands dug into the fabric of Archer’s jeans, firm flesh giving beneath each pressed fingertip. Lexie’s breath quickened, and moisture rushed to her mouth, armpits, and groin.

  The treehouse swirled with their shared scents. Each breath Lexie took drove her heart to beat faster. Archer eased Lexie down to the lambskin, pinning her wrists above her head. Lexie’s chest rose and sank like a felled buck struggling through its last breaths. Each inhale flushed her body with more sensation, more warmth, more pleasure, until she was so overwhelmed she could no longer label what she was feeling.

  Archer rose above Lexie, pulling off Lexie’s t-shirt. The cool air rushed to envelop Lexie’s bare skin. With one deft move, Archer unsnapped Lexie’s bra and pushed it up, her mouth gliding over Lexie’s breast. Lexie pressed up into Archer’s mouth, surrendering to the sensations. She luxuriated under the weight of Archer’s body, the strength of her grip on her wrist, the power behind her hips. The tiny hairs on her skin rose to meet Archer’s touch, creating vapor trails of desire in the space between them.

  The pure pleasure was so intense she lost her capacity for speech, but still her brain fought for dominion. “Wait . . . I--”

  Archer stopped. “What?”

  “I . . .” Lexie thought she wanted to say that she shouldn’t. She thought she wanted to run, like she did the morning at Archer’s cabin. It seemed like the smart thing to do, even the right thing to do. But her back was arched and her toes were curled, and all she really wanted was Archer’s mouth on her neck, her hair draped across her breasts, her hands . . . everywhere. What Lexie thought she wanted betrayed what she actually wanted, which was to be exactly where she was at that moment.

  Lexie shut herself up with a kiss, shaking herself free from the constraints of fear and judgment that had stolen her focus. Archer responded by pushing back into her, her hands gliding up and down her body, stroking her hair, shoulders, breasts, abdomen, and hips. Archer danced her fingertips across Lexie’s bare breasts. Tingles of delight scattered along the surface of her skin, like minnows in a shallow pond.

  Archer followed her fingertips with her mouth. Lexie moaned, stretching to encourage sensation to travel freely up and down her spine. The sound of her moan shocked her; she’d never emitted such a sound before. Masturbating at home had always been silent by necessity. Now, as each rotation
of Archer’s tongue around Lexie’s areola drove Lexie deeper into submissive ecstasy, her voice fought to break free. Her own sounds of pleasure excited her even more. Lexie’s jeans dampened, simultaneously hot and cool.

  The scent of Lexie’s desire filled the air, eliciting an animalistic moan from Archer’s own throat as she pressed harder against Lexie’s prone body. She bit on this tender flesh; Lexie jerked at the mix of pleasure and pain. It reminded her of her mother braiding her hair as a child, always just a little too tight, a burning tugging at her scalp. Lexie responded by grabbing a handful of Archer’s hair in her hand and pulling. Archer’s neck arched, silhouetted against the darkening sky.

  Venus shimmered over Archer’s right shoulder as the sky gave up the rest of its blue for purple. Her eyes were soft and deep, catching the fading light like polished precious metals. Lexie pleaded with her mind to memorize the moment, when lust and the fruition of lust flowed effortlessly, one after the other.

  Without intending to, she thought again of her mother, that Summer had once been eighteen too, beneath a lover’s body, falling in love with a certain person at a certain time. Then she considered her grandmother and what she may have felt beneath the weight of the most perfectly beautiful person in the world, at the moment when stricken with a thousand ways of saying Yes.

  Did love-making beneath stars feel similar from one generation to the next? Did cultural perceptions of gender and political bodies stretch their knotted hands back that far? Were they strong enough to infiltrate a moment as clear as two eager bodies falling in love?

  Lexie struggled to remove the context and constructs restraining her in her memorization of the moment, lying supine beneath her lover. She returned to the clarity of the scene, the breeze tracing across the saliva on her breasts, the warmth entering her hand through the crown of Archer’s skull, so much happening and so much left to do.