Penn's Woodland

by David Connor

  “Abee was already then as she is now, you know that, yes?” Celia asked.

  I said that I did.

  “She had been for a time. We found her in her bed the morning after, covered with blood, her hair sticky, her clothes soaked red, a kitchen knife beside her bed.”

  I gasped as the realization cut me like one of our own.

  “Back before that night, for some time before, Virginia continued to visit, once we no longer worked for your family. While I tended to someone else’s house, mine was invaded. I can see where poor Judah may have needed a respite, some free time from caring for his sister. I cannot blame him for allowing what he had to know I would not. What I could not imagine was Virginia sitting with Abee out of kindness, and so I made it stop, the moment I discovered it. The seed had already been implanted, however.”

  “It is not your fault, either,” Abel said.

  “Isn’t it? I want to blame Virginia for putting notions in my daughter’s head. I want to blame confusion over what she may have seen in those woods—you and Judah, engaged in an act she may not have recognized as romantic, but one that could easily appear and sound violent to the eyes of one unfamiliar with two men joined in such a way, if I may be so crass.” Celia looked at the tabletop now. “She said Judah was like an animal, like the ones from Virginia’s stories. She still says he was hurting you.”

  “No.”

  “No. But how could she realize what she was witnessing? She claimed Judah carried you off afterwards. After he’d—”

  “Home. He brought…me home. I had…a seizure.”

  “Abee thought dead, or hurt, at least. She attacked him on his way back through the woods. She didn’t want him coming home afterward, maybe. She was afraid of that. The circumstances are not completely clear, sweet Pennsylvania, but the culprit is. Abee’s words filled in enough of the disturbing puzzle pieces and the rest came together on its own. There is no doubt. I protected my children as Georgia thought she was protecting you, in the only way that I could think of to do it, by keeping quiet and keeping her away from your family and her brother. Her family. Well, you are all family, as you now know. Anyway, Judah and I stayed with the Marches. Abee and Abel stayed at home. I was unaware of your inner struggles.” Celia looked at me then. “That is a lie. I knew what the people around here accused you of. I made a choice. I’m sorry.”

  “Do not…be. Thank you…for the truth.”

  “When Georgia started hinting at Abee being a part of your family, that is when we fled and hid even more.”

  “Maybe…more recent? When…Virginia…got sick?”

  “Yes.” Celia stood. Abel followed. “I hope this can put it all to rest. I wish you happiness, dear child.” I stood as well, and Celia leaned across to kiss me on the cheek. “I love you. Always have. And if you and Judah had ended up together…Well…I would have been happy for both of you.”

  As the Mobley family made their way down the driveway, Ewan held me tightly against his side, the one not supported against the sideboard. Georgia, stronger than she would have people believe, had broken his ankle with a large metal pipe before having poor, confused Del throw him into the pit. She had manipulated him in much the same way Virginia had Abee.

  “That is all very sad,” Ewan declared.

  “Yes.” I agreed that it was. “Maybe things…will be less sad…going forward.”

  Epilogue

  Pennsylvania

  I left my darling Ewan in the bed I love sharing with him. Making love to him was still beyond what I had imagined it could be. A month had passed, however, and Ewan had not left the property, though his ankle was now healed. That worried me some. As much as I loved having him beside me every moment of every day, I feared he could never be content with the situation as it was.

  I was on the walkway. Although my life had changed considerably, although Ewan was beside me and I shared near every thought with him, I still recited my actions and thoughts in my head and then wrote them down later, when I could.

  Ewan says that does not make me crazy, I wrote that mild morn. He tells I must have the mind of an author, and I should someday publish my musings, some imaginary tales, or else the real one that recently happened, all in my own words.

  The walkway was beautiful now. The roof was gone, the spiky, short posts as well. It looked completely different. The scrollwork on the path rose only waist-high and the heart shapes looked like hearts. Mine and Ewan’s, I imagined them as.

  As I made my way to the gazebo alone, I listened to the birds and watched the moths and the butterflies. Solitude was not as painful anymore, since I knew it was temporary, merely countable minutes, the longest span thus far being only forty-five until Ewan joined me or I him.

  A grasshopper leapt into view, and then away just as quickly. It was a beautiful late spring day. April was like summer here much of the month, and I felt as I would l never tire of being outside, even when winter returned.

  “Hello, Pennsylvania.”

  Ewan’s voice did not startle me. I had expected him to show up eventually. Already aroused, I planned on getting him there quickly, inside the gazebo. It was time we made some happy memories in these woods.

  I stripped him slowly, as I knew he sometimes got impatient with foreplay and I felt like teasing him that day.

  “There is no rush,” I told him, as he got me out of my trousers and immediately reached for my pulsating thickness. “No one will…catch us, I assure…you.”

  “Del might, perhaps.”

  “I told him…not to. I wish for him…a love so wonderful…as ours someday, Ewan.”

  “We will put it to plan to find him one. Everyone should be as happy as you’ve made me.”

  I was up against chilly iron, chilly even on such a warm morn with the sun not yet on it. My bare buttocks were split, and it too was teased by cold probing. I was suddenly turned and the warmth of Ewan’s tongue immediately after was shocking at first, but quickly accustomed, I surrendered to his mouth. I had not yet taken him up inside me, and still sometimes worried I was awkward and unsatisfying when I entered him.

  “Is this the place and the time when you allow me to fulfill that desire yet unfulfilled within you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I whispered, even as I stared at the length and girth of his manhood with its shocking pink tip and the wild thatch atop it, all bushy and prickly whenever my face got near. The taste of him on my lips almost brought me still. I warned him away with his hands as I worked the full inches of him in my mouth.

  On my back, I took just a bit of him before I grimaced and squirmed and he pulled back and out. Not since Judah had I been in that position and in many, many ways I felt again like a virgin. Ewan was tolerant, kind, and oh-so-gentle. The final time he pressed his dome to my opening, I in turn pushed against it, begging him on further, to part me and enter, and thrust until he filled me with his warmth, then flowing heat.

  I lay naked in Ewan’s arms after. I’d marked him once again, just as I had the paper the very first time I’d laid my eyes upon him. We were still breathing hard and though Ewan’s penis lay shiny and spent against his thigh, I swore I still felt it where he’d emptied it in my moist, welcoming space. “I think…it is time…you return to work,” I said, when it seemed a proper time to speak.

  “Are you tired of having me about?”

  “Never. But…I want…you fulfilled.”

  “Perhaps it is time. There is a possible project in New York. Will you come? I know you and Judah spoke of going there someday.”

  I immediately tensed. “Childish wishes.”

  “Though his was realized for a time.”

  “I do…not feel…ready.”

  “Oh.”

  “Does this make you angry?”

  “I understand. But I fear you being alone, even for just a matter of days.”

  “I am not…alone. I have…Del. I will…miss you…every moment…you are gone. But the way…you say…‘Hello, Pennsylvania,’ shall warm
my heart…the moment you…return.”

  “And I will. Always. You have my word.”

  “I trust it.”

  “I love you.”

  “Say…it now.” I kissed him.

  “Hello, Pennsylvania.” And Ewan kissed me back.

  We made love again, there that morning and the next, before Ewan departed, our goodbye kiss was with his mark still on my lips and the taste of him still on my tongue. I was waiting for him in the gazebo when he returned and Ewan knew right where to find me.

  “Hello, Pennsylvania.”

  Flush and breathless with anticipation and sexual need after eight torturous days, we came together again. I climaxed all through his chest hair instead of in his orifice, as I wished to see the contrast of pure white against the darkness of its pelt.

  “Next time, I will come with you,” I said, as I played in the wetness of it afterward. I still remained uncertain if the promise could be kept, but I’d meant it when I’d said it, and would do my best to follow through.

  “I rather feel I can never leave again without you,” Ewan said.

  Naked top to waist, with pants around our ankles and still in shoes in socks due to haste, the warmth of May and love, and also that of extreme contentment washed over me. As unsure as I was about traveling along, it was equally concluded I could never let him go by himself. Ewan spoke precisely the same thought himself. “If you are unable, I simply shall not go. Time will tell how this will develop.”

  “Yes,” I said. I had made it to the woods, one step further, one mile, I began to think I could manage it. “Maybe for Christmas you can take me back to Scotland.”

  “It’s a beautiful country, which would be all the more lovely if seen through your eyes.”

  We kissed and I began to imagine where we might go and how I might write of it.

  THE END

  ABOUT DAVID CONNOR

  David has always wanted to be a daytime drama writer. His books are like soap operas in print, filled with intrigue, romance, comedy, and drama. His imagination refuses to shut off even when he sleeps. Many of David’s plots and ideas come from nightly dreams and nightmares. He lives in upstate New York with a kitty cat named Molly and the spirits of several doggies and kitties who have passed on. David enjoys writing (of course), puttering in the garden, and naps for new story ideas.

  For more information, visit facebook.com/mmromcomsinprint.

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