by Greg Barth
I love it when a man grabs my ass.
I pulled his beanie hat off and tousled his brown hair.
I pulled both shirts off up over my head. I wasn’t wearing a bra. I heard him gasp as he leaned in and took one of my nipples into his mouth. He squeezed my ass harder.
I had never wanted to make love so bad.
He moved to stand up. I put my arms around his neck. He supported me with his hands under my ass. When he stood, I wrapped my legs around him. He carried me like that back to the bed and dropped me on the mattress on my back. I pushed my jeans and underwear down and parted my legs.
He undressed and climbed up on the bed with me.
He kissed and licked me between my legs, his facial hair mixing with my pubic hair. He found my special spot with his tongue. He flicked and probed at me. I pinched my nipples until I thought I would explode. At the last second, he moved up on top of me and slipped inside me. He thrust against me, his pelvis grinding at me until I felt I was on the brink again.
His body smelled of clean sweat.
I wrapped my legs tight around his waist.
It was going to happen. “Cum with me. Cum in me,” I said.
“You want me to?” he said.
“Cum in me. It’s okay,” I said.
A short time later, he did.
EIGHTEEN
SELENA
I went to sleep lying on my side with Todd pressed against my back, spooning me, his arm draped around me, his hand cupping my breast with my hand folded over his.
When I awoke later in the darkness, he was gone.
“Todd?” I said.
He didn’t answer. I heard a faint sound nearby.
“Max?” I said.
I heard the click of Max’s nails as he walked in from the other room. The faint sound I’d heard hadn’t been him.
I pushed back the covers and got out of bed. The fire had died down to a bed of orange coals. I walked over and stirred them with the poker and added another slim split of wood. The fire grew until I could see well. The smell of wood smoke filled the room.
Todd was in the shadows. He was naked and sitting on the floor. I could tell there was something wrong with him.
“Todd?” I said.
He did not respond.
“You’re scaring me, man. You okay?”
I went over to him. He looked up at me. I could see blood running down his chin. His face had reddened. There was a panicked, pleading look in his eyes. They were glassy with tears. His hand trembled.
“Todd? What is it?” I said. “What’s wrong?”
He opened his mouth but no words came out. His hand shook harder. I had never seen a more anguished look on a human face in all my life.
“What is it, baby? You’re really scaring me here. Can I get you something?”
The look of horror on his face intensified. Tears streamed down his cheeks. His face was bright red. I thought that maybe his blood pressure was dangerously high. I wanted to ease his panic and thought maybe a drink would help, but I didn’t know what impact that would have on his blood pressure.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
I lit an oil lamp with a match and carried it into the dining area. There was a half-smoked joint in the ashtray. It had been crushed out carefully to save the rest of the pot for another smoke. I took it and the lamp back into the bedroom.
I sat next to him. I put my hand on his back. His skin was tight and his muscles quivered under my touch.
“Let’s get you relaxed, baby,” I said.
I lit the joint with a match and took a long, deep draw. The sweet smoke filled my lungs. I took the joint out of my lips and turned it around, the burning tip held carefully inside my mouth. I positioned my face in front of Todd. I blew my smoke into his bleeding mouth. My breath pushed my smoke back through the joint and intensified the smoke going to Todd. He breathed it in. I did this several times until his hands trembled less.
When the joint was gone, I thought he could tolerate a drink. I went back to the kitchen and got a bottle of bourbon. I poured him a cup, returned to the bedroom, and helped him sip it carefully.
“Did you bite your mouth?” I said.
He didn’t answer.
I had been a cutter and knew that sometimes anxiety could cause the right kind of person to hurt himself. The nervous condition brought on by the panic attack could have led to that. Or his blood pressure was so high, he was somehow bleeding inside his mouth.
I was scared.
I tried several times to get him into bed, but he wouldn’t move.
I held him there on the floor, leaving his side only to stoke the fire or get more bourbon, until the sun came up. That morning, I put a pillow under his head and covered him. He lay naked on the floor in a fetal position. I gave him water to keep him from getting dehydrated. He didn’t even get up to pee. He simply passed his water on the floor.
Finally he slept.
I cleaned myself up and dressed. I made coffee and sat at the table smoking the last of my cigarettes trying to figure out what to do.
Two hours after he fell asleep, I heard a soul-wrenching cry coming from the bedroom. I had never heard a more anguished sound. Max whimpered and treaded lightly into the room with me.
Todd was sobbing, his pillow catching the tears that ran down his cheeks.
“Todd, I want to help you. I need you to tell me what’s wrong. Did I do this to you? Is this because of last night? If it is, then we don’t ever have to do that again, okay?”
He looked up at me, his eyes wide, his mouth open. His body trembled. He spoke no words. His beard was soaked with his tears.
I sat by him. “Baby, it’s okay,” I said. “Everything is okay. You’re safe and nothing is wrong and everything is okay. Okay?” I held his trembling hand.
That afternoon things hadn’t improved.
I made up my mind to go for help. The truck wasn’t fixed yet; I would have to walk. I knew I would probably be arrested, but I couldn’t stand seeing him that way.
I was putting my shoes on when I heard it. It was the sound of Jack’s Hummer coming up the trail.
Oh thank god.
I went out to the porch and waited for Jack to get there. He pulled up close to the porch and got out. He was dressed in a black parka, sunglasses, and his desert-camo boonie hat.
“Hi there, lovely,” he said in a loud voice. “Ain’t you just the prettiest thing?”
“Jack, something’s wrong with Todd,” I said.
He frowned and nodded his head. “I hate to hear that. How bad?”
“Bad.”
“How long?”
“Late last night. All day today.”
“Okay. What happened?”
I felt tears coming. I took a deep breath and suppressed them. “I did this, Jack. I did this to him.”
“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t.”
“We made love last night. It was the only time we’ve ever done that. And this morning, he’s having some kind of breakdown. I didn’t mean to, but I did this.”
Jack came up and took me in his arms. He held me. I couldn’t stop it. The emotion needed release. I burst into sobs. “Oh honey, you didn’t. A lot of people tried to hurt Todd, and they did a good job of it, okay? But you’re not one of them. Our man there, he spent too much time in the sandbox. He saw some horrific things over there. You cannot even imagine. He came back all fucked up. He’s a good, gentle man. But when he came home, Todd had a girlfriend. She suffered from depression and a bunch of other shit. Todd wasn’t himself when he came home. One night, shit happened, and they got into a fight. A bad one. Now—here’s the hard part—Todd slapped her a couple of times. He wasn’t himself. You understand?”
I nodded.
“Anyway, this young girlfriend of his? She killed herself. She left a scathing note to Todd before she did it. He’s carrying a load of guilt and regret that’s heavier than I can imagine. The man’s soul is just damned. It’s not his fault, and nob
ody can help him. He’s spent years isolated in the mountains, on the trail, in the cabin. But he’ll never forgive himself. He’s just too good a person to do that. I doubt he’s slept with a woman since her. Not until you.”
“How can we help him?” I said.
“Take me to him.”
We went inside the cabin. I took him to the bedroom. Max was sitting near the hearth. Todd was sitting naked on the floor, spitting blood from his mouth.
“Hey there, buddy,” Jack said. He turned to me and said, “His face is red.”
“It’s been that way the whole time. I helped him smoke some and he lay quiet for a while.”
“I’m going to need to take him down to the VA,” Jack said. “Get some clothes for him.”
I got Todd’s clothes. We worked together to get him dressed.
“Make me a list of things you need,” Jack said. “You should stay here.”
“I should go.”
“No. It’s too risky. You’re safer here.”
I shook my head. “I’m going.”
He took me by the shoulders with a firm grip and turned me to face him. He put a knuckle under my chin and pointed my face up until I was looking him in the eye.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, okay?”
I nodded.
“It might be good for him to be away from you until this passes.”
I swallowed and nodded. “Take care of him,” I said.
“It’ll be a few days, but I’ll have him back as soon as I can. And he’ll have some pills to take to help keep him calm. He’s going to be okay.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
We worked together to get Todd up and into the Hummer. As they pulled away, Todd raised a trembling hand and pressed it to the window.
I waved to him.
First Lenny, then Emily, Henry, and now Todd. I was starting to think that it wasn’t a good idea to be my friend.
NINETEEN
SELENA
Days passed without Todd.
I hunted. I killed. Max and I ate venison daily.
The meat from the winter game was lean and tough. I didn’t put on any weight. I was thin and hard. My cute little roll of belly fat disappeared. My arms were wiry with corded veins over my forearms.
Todd had unhooked the pump and drained the line to prevent freezing, so I had to carry water from the spring up to the cabin. Mornings, I would have to take an ax and break up the ice to get water in my pail.
My natural instincts kicked in more and more with each passing day in the wild. I was a lethal hunter in the frozen wilderness.
Snow came and went. I grew used to solitude and cold and the savage life that involved killing and cleaning your own meat. There were firearms in the cabin, but I used my arrows. These were short days of arrows, knives, blood, and cold. Night came fast, and with it the darkness. Fire was my best friend. It kept me warm, cooked my food, and gave me light to see.
I sharpened my skinning knife with a stone at the kitchen table. I had woof conversations with Max. Not because it was cute. I did it because it seemed natural. I stopped shaving. I didn’t mind that I looked like a werewolf from the waist down. My hair grew longer, the dark roots taking over the dyed blonde; the wounded part of my scalp had completely filled in, a streak of white in the midst of my long, dark hair.
I drank myself to the brink of oblivion each night.
I lost track of time. I only knew light, dark, and cold. And blood and fire.
One brisk morning as the mountaintop mist was thick and low to the ground, I spotted the shadow of a buck followed by three does along the treeline. I readied my bow, drew, and aimed along the cock feather, lining it up with the broadhead and the vital organ area of the buck.
I released.
The deer startled and burst into the trees.
I walked over to the treeline and checked their position.
I found hoof prints in the snow along with droppings, and dark blood. It was a kill. I tracked the blood on the snow into the forest. The buck was nowhere to be found. I knew it was a good hit by the color of the blood. He wouldn’t be able to run far. I tracked him down the steep slope. It was going to be a bitch to get the meat back up to the cabin, but I wasn’t going to waste this buck.
I tracked him down to a point where the fire access road wound around the mountain. I heard voices.
I knelt behind a tree and listened.
“...fucking lucky...” I heard a male voice say, followed by mumbling I couldn’t make out.
I stood to get a good view. Two men dressed in insulated coveralls and parkas stood on the road, over my kill.
The men were tall and lean and had scraggly hair and beards. One was a redhead and the other had black hair. The redhead wore a Russian-style fur hat. The black-haired man had a lower lip full of chewing tobacco. He had the type of lesions on his face that I associated with tweakers.
Both carried hunting rifles.
The redhead pulled a folding hunting knife from his pocket, unfolded the blade, locked it in place, and knelt over the deer carcass.
They weren’t going to get my buck.
I fixed an arrow, took a step, and slipped in the snow. I fell hard on my ass and slid down the slope. I came out on the road.
The men heard me come down. They stood there looking at me.
I stood and dusted myself off, picked up my bow and notched the arrow.
“Well, well, well, look at this,” the redhead said. “Looks like we’re going to get some pussy to start the day off with.”
“That’s my buck,” I said.
“You? You shot this buck?” He laughed. He shook his head and looked at me. “Bullshit.”
“I did. It’s mine.”
“You hear this shit? Little girl here thinks she can shoot a fucking compound bow and kill a deer? My ass.”
The blackhaired man spit tobacco juice. “She’s kinda purty, ain’t she?”
“I get her first,” the redhead said. “I ain’t had no pussy this good since high school.”
“She’s a tiny little thing,” the other guy said.
“Skinny little cunt.”
“This isn’t going to happen the way you think it is,” I said. I looked around. Where the hell is my dog when I need him?
“You know who she is?” the redhead said. He turned his eye to me. “You know who you are?”
“I’ve got a good idea who I am. I’m the person that’s walking out of here with that meat.”
“No. You’ve got it wrong,” the ginger said. “You’re that crusty vaj that everybody’s looking for. You’re worth a shitload to us. Almost as much as our latest batch. Not only are we going to fuck you, we’re going to turn you in.”
The black-haired man opened his eyes wide and said, “I’ll be goddamned.”
“I don’t like being called a crusty vaj,” I said.
“Cunt, then,” ginger said. He grinned at his friend. His teeth were black. He turned back to me. “That hole between your legs has got me itching for some, girl.” He rubbed his crotch through his coveralls and bounced up and down.
“Cunt has a ring to it. You boys move on down the road. I’ll dress out this buck and be on my way. You can go back to cooking meth and sucking each other’s dicks and all will be well with the world.”
“No. It don’t work that way. My dick’s getting sucked alright, but it’s gonna be from you.” Ginger raised his rifle.
Before the muzzle pointed in my direction, I raised the bow, drew, and released my arrow. The broadhead cleaved his nose, splitting it lengthwise. The tip emerged from the back of his head and dripped with gore. He stood there for a couple of seconds before collapsing to his knees.
I readied another arrow and drew.
The black-haired man looked down at his rifle held in front of him.
“Don’t do it,” I said. “Just don’t do it.”
“You mean you won’t...” he said.
My arrow hit him in the throat. His tobacco dr
opped from his lip. Blood gurgled from between his lips as he went down.
“Cocksuckers,” I said and drew my skinning knife.
TWENTY
SELENA
I sat at the table, drinking a glass of whiskey while waxing my bowstring. Max sat on the floor at my feet. He made crunching sounds as he worked on a deer bone with his teeth.
I heard a vehicle approaching. I went and opened the door. Took a few minutes before I saw headlights come into the mountaintop clearing.
It had been a long time since Jack had taken Todd for treatment. I was glad to see them returning.
A long, silver, old-model pickup pulled up to the cabin. A man stepped out of the cab. It wasn’t Jack. It wasn’t Todd.
It was Frankie White.
I sighed as he stepped up to the porch. I didn’t want his company, but I was hopeful that he had news regarding Todd’s condition. He carried a brown paper grocery sack in one arm.
Max went through the door and stood on the porch. He growled at Frankie.
“Hi there, Marie,” he said. He smiled as he walked up to the porch.
“Come in, Frankie,” I said and stepped out of the doorway, holding the door open for him.
“I don’t think your dog likes me much.”
“Out of the way, Max. If you have no better manners than that, you can stay outside while Frankie visits.”
Max stepped down from the porch and went around the corner of the cabin.
“Sorry. He’s just not used to visitors. Come on in.”
Frankie stepped through the door.
“You can put your sack on the table.” I came in behind him and moved my bow from the dining table.
“How have you been?” he said.
“Me? Fine. I’m hoping you have news from Todd.”
“I do. Todd’s doing well. They have him stabilized and he should be released from the VA soon. He was suffering from acute PTSD.”
“That’s a condition?”
“I guess. Fucking wars, huh?”
