He pressed the handles together. The blades sliced.
Slicing, they travelled upward along the spinal groove of Winnie’s back.
The dress parted, uncovering skin.
Cotton crumpled and fell.
Cob put the shears back in the corner and pressed his clothed self against Winnie’s nakedness.
He pulled her backward.
Then down.
Then she was on hands and knees, struggling to keep her balance on bound wrists, and he was untying one of the strings from the old acoustic guitar. “Move your legs together,” he said.
When the string was free he knelt behind her and wrapped it around her ankles. As he tightened, he tuned. As he tuned, the string dug, gradually, into Winnie’s flesh. Cob was fascinated to realise that even such a small place on her body had such wonderful depth.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“A little,” she said. But he didn’t loosen it.
He undressed behind her, where she couldn’t see, and stroked himself while watching her shoulders dip to the floor as her ass rose in counterpoint.
When he was ready, he mounted.
They both moaned as he slid his cock across — then into — her pussy.
Cob fucked. Winnie tried fucking back, throwing her hips against, crashing into, his. But he wouldn’t let her. He’d caught her, now he would keep her. He fucked harder. Tonight was the last night. His fucking outmuscled hers until her hips gave way and her body gave in and, pressing his chest against her back, he palmed her throat, ran his fingers through her hair, and pulled back her head. The angle of penetration shifted ever so slightly. It felt deeper. It felt good. Her skin felt smooth and slick. His cock felt snug inside her domesticated cunt. He wanted to make all of these feelings last forever. He wanted to pray to the gods to grant his wish. He wanted to be the Dead Horse River. He wanted Berkeley and concerts on elevated stages, coffee house crowds, lyrics, and the creation of music. He wanted joy. He wanted fame. He wanted to keep fucking.
And the harder he fucked, the better it felt. But the better it felt, the closer he was to orgasm. His distracted, feverishly horny mind sputtered, struggling with the problem of by this time tomorrow I’ll be gone and never has a woman made me feel this way and this is the most important journey of my life. He was certain he wasn’t wrong about anything. Yet there was something wrong with his engine, something festering inside. His body screamed. His body moaned. The gulls were clawing at his head again. The problem wasn’t anything a man can fix with his right hand. The storm hailed; the hail dented the aluminium siding of the shed. Cob grunted, he gripped Winnie, his balls, tired, were rolling insufficiently along the fresh asphalt of Highway 17 —
He came.
And disappeared into the rear view.
The hail abated. The last few stones smacked into and slid off the roof. Cob was suddenly aware of the shed and everything in it: the acoustic guitar, the tin cans, the crumpled blue dress, the shears standing in the corner. He pulled out of Winnie at last, before stumbling backward and losing his balance into a pile of junk. It was louder but not nearly as bad as falling into the river.
Upon regaining his balance, he used the shears to cut through the belt around his neck and the guitar string binding Winnie’s ankles. The skin on the latter was slightly raw. Next, he undid the leash tying together Winnie’s wrists and handed her the ruined blue dress, in case she wanted to cover up. She handed it back, saying there was a blanket in one of the chests.
After he’d retrieved it, they sat together underneath.
Higher, the paraffin lamp hissed, guarding against the darkness that had spread itself over the world outside, as the remains of the rain dropped from the trees onto the roof of the shed. The storm had passed. The thunder sounded as far away as the morning.
Winnie bent her head against Cob’s shoulder.
They warmed each other.
“I’m afraid of what’s out there,” she said after a quiet while. “Let’s stay like this a bit longer.”
Their warmth grew deeper, eliciting sleep.
“My grandfather played the acoustic…” she said.
“Guitar…” she said.
“I like it here,” she said.
“I’m glad…” she said. But, before she could finish, sleep slipped past the flickering light and stole her thoughtlessly away.
Winnie awoke in the shed, wrapped snugly in the blanket. Cob was gone. The paraffin lamp was gone. The air was cool. A bundle of clothes sat by the door. She dressed and stepped outside. The sky was overcast. The world was colourless and mute. She trudged toward home through the remnants of last night’s rain showers. She brought the blanket with her. “Cob,” she said, walking through the door. But there was no answer. She said the same into every room, and every room did not answer. She sat on her bed and hugged her knees and saw that the backs of her ankles were still sore. She rubbed them and was glad that at least she had this temporary reminder of the colour the winds had blown into her life, even if only once and for only a few hours. Life persists, she told herself as she ate breakfast, and remembered the jars she had left with Arnold. She would have to get them. Maybe Arnold would decide to buy a few more. She put on her homemade boots. She left the house, turned toward Black Bear Portage, and there it was:
Cob’s guitar!
Her heart leapt and she called out his name.
But, again, there was no answer.
Her heart fell.
But it did not fall completely, for somewhere deep within her soul (if such a thing exists) she felt the twinkling of a fledgling, strange sensation. She couldn’t name it. Indeed, she’d hadn’t experienced it before. But she knew that it was real. She couldn’t explain — or even understand — how she knew that, but she did. It was a certainty. Just keep the guitar safe and wait. Just do that and Cob will come back, because the guitar is the most important detail.
She closed her eyes and pictured their reunion.
Her lips twitched.
For an instant, the picture of the imagined reunion twitched with them — a barely perceptible distortion. For an instant, Winnie wasn’t sure whether this new sensation was a blessing or the first symptom of some terrible disease.
But then she smiled.
And the distortion disappeared.
♦♦♦♦
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