"Well, here we are," said Max, slipping the Jeep into four-wheel drive and leaving the blacktop road. I grabbed the handle above the door and gripped my seat with the other hand as the car bounced down a steep embankment. Max grinned at my fright as he maneuvered down the curvy road. He had negotiated the rough track thousands of times since he had begun taking care of my family's property, and the danger didn't matter.
My Aunt Margarite had lived as a recluse on the property nestled into Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains most of her life, writing poetry and short stories, and "talking to the squirrels," as my mother always joked. Margarite never allowed us to call her "Aunt" because that made her feel old. She was much younger than my mother and very different. I supposed Margarite had a life outside the house and her writing, but I was never sure. The house had stood empty for five years since she died of pneumonia at 48. Max lived rent free in the cottage behind the house in exchange for doing chores around the house and helping Margarite. He stayed on after Margarite died and opened up the house once or twice a year when my family visited.
Max was at least 10 years older than my 26, and I remembered having a crush on him during the summer of my sixteenth year. I admired his bronze, muscular chest and hard stomach as well as the parts that filled his jeans so perfectly. His dark hair, deep-set brown eyes, and chiseled jawbone gave him such a rugged, handsome look. When he caught me looking, I would turn away and blush. I never wanted him to know I liked him. That had been my last visit to the house, and I was afraid he had changed. When he met me at the train station, I was pleasantly surprised to find him as handsome as I remembered.
The dirt path leveled, and I saw the two-story house in the distance, the same as when I was a young girl. So much had happened since that happy, sixteenth summer. First high school, then four years of college. Boyfriends. Work. Dreams. I was no longer the innocent teenager who danced in baby-doll pajamas on the shore of a moonlit lake. I sometimes wanted that innocence to return, but I was afraid that girl was lost forever.
The lake was high from the spring snow melt, and the boat dock sat undisturbed on the glass reflection. Max parked next to the house and pulled my suitcases out of the back. I picked up the groceries we had bought on the way and followed him up the steps to the porch that spanned the front of the house. He managed to carry the bags and hold the screen door for me, smiling awkwardly at my silence.
The Victorian furniture that Margarite had loved so much was still there. The hardwood floors squeaked beneath the Persian rugs as I walked to the kitchen. I set the bags on the counter and looked around the familiar surroundings. I had many memories of sitting at the kitchen table, chatting with Margarite about words and writing. She loved talking about the taste and flavor of words, the art of creating a satisfying image, a perfect sentence. For her, writing was passion, and I never heard her speak so eloquently or so long about anything else. She might ask me about boys and dating, but she was only being polite. If she ever entertained an erotic thought, she never let on.
I remembered her advice when she noticed my attraction to Max. "Sex is a powerful thing, Jamie," she said. "Very powerful - like a car. Sometimes, you climb behind the wheel, and you know you want to speed, to take the car to its limits, to tempt fate. Better to resist those temptations. Better to drive the legal limit and arrive alive."
"I took your bags upstairs," said Max, bringing me back to the moment.
"Thanks," I said turning back to the groceries. He leaned against the kitchen counter next to me and watched as I opened the refrigerator and started unpacking the food.
"Your dad said you're going to stay all summer and write a book." He grabbed an apple out of the bag next to him and took a huge bite as he waited for my response.
"That's my plan," I said, bending over to put fresh tomatoes in the vegetable bin. I glanced over my shoulder to see if Max watched my behind. He didn't, and I was disappointed somehow. Although my mind told me that Max was pretty much off limits, my emotions wanted the attention. I berated myself for being so insecure about my attractiveness. Hadn't men always found me attractive? They had - up to a point, that telltale point. God, I hated that point.
"Margarite said this was the best place in the world to put mind to paper," said Max. "I hope the scenery inspires you as much as it did her."
I folded the bags and shoved them under the cupboard, avoiding his eyes. His presence made me feel like the 16-year-old who once peeked into his cottage window and saw the magazines with nude women on the cover discarded on the floor next to his bed. I had always wanted him to like me and yet there was something about him that frightened me.
"Me too," I said smiling as I walked toward the living room. The picture of Margarite and me, arm and arm on the boat dock, sat in the small frame on the fireplace mantel. Her long brown hair hung to one side, almost touching the breast covered by a starched shirt. She was the most beautiful woman I knew when I was growing up, and I was flattered when my father insisted that I looked like her.
"Anything else you need?" asked Max from the doorway. He seemed uncomfortable. My silence made him feel awkward, but I didn't care. I had fled men and demands I couldn't fulfill. I wanted to purge my feelings onto paper. I didn't want the distraction of another doomed relationship.
"Do you know where Margarite's typewriter is?" I asked, coming back to the hallway where he stood.
"Probably in the attic with her unpublished work. I didn't know what to do with her writing stuff when she died, so I hauled it to the attic. Maybe you should open the boxes and decide what stays and what goes."
"I'll see how much time I have," I said. "My first priority is to write."
"Sure," Max said as he meandered toward the screen door. "Feel free to knock on my door if you need something - or if you want to talk. I'm around."
"Thanks for your help Max. I really appreciate you picking me up."
"No problem, Jamie. Really." He grinned crookedly as if embarrassed and slid out the screen door. I watched him stroll across the yard and enter his cottage.
"Forget it, girl," I said out loud. "Why start that all over again?"
I climbed the stairs to the second floor and found my suitcases in Margarite's bedroom. The white comforter and matching curtains accented the four-poster antique bed I had always coveted. Her room felt romantic, and I remembered fighting my mother about bunk beds when I was 12. My mother rolled her eyes when I told her I wanted a bed like Margarite's.
"Why?" my mother asked.
"Because I want to see moonlight dancing over the comforter," I answered. Mother raised her eyebrows and shook her head, and I lived with bunk beds for two more years.
The afternoon was dedicated to unpacking and getting settled. I changed into a pair of shorts and walked to the dock to gaze at the lake. I dangled my feet in the water for an hour, thinking about how much I owed my parents for this summer reprieve. They paid for four years of college at Penn State and expected me to bring my journalism career to full bloom by now - if not married with children.
But the corporate world hadn't excited me, and work seemed only a means to a monetary end. I wanted to write - like Margarite. I wanted to live as a wild animal and feel the grass between my toes. The high-rises of New York's publishing world frightened me, and the noise of the city blared in my ears. People expected things in the city. People wanted things, things I wasn't able to provide. I yearned for a place without demands. The peacefulness of the lake hugged me like a long lost friend.
As the late afternoon sun set against the forest on the far side of the lake, I ambled toward the house. I hadn't seen Max since the morning and wondered how he spent his day. I climbed to the second floor and opened the door at the end of the hall that led to the attic. Time to find Margarite's Smith-Corona.
The stairs creaked as if no one had stepped on them in years. The smell of dust and moth balls filled my nostrils as I climbed to the loft that had been built many years before. The peaked attic ceiling allowed me to stand if I stayed in the middle. Unfortunately, the boxes and abandoned furniture sat to the side, under the sloping roof that made me double over. The windows on the side walls provided enough light as I examined what remained of Margarite's life.
The dusty smell assaulted my nose, and I walked to the window to open it. I knelt against the faded cushions of a Victorian love seat perched against the wall and grappled with the latch on the window above. From where I knelt, I looked into Max's bedroom in the cottage below. My heart beat a little faster as I watched for signs of movement, but the room remained empty. I chided myself for even looking. What did I expect to see? And if I did see something, what could I do about it?
Nothing.
I turned back to the task at hand and hunted around for Margarite's typewriter. Several boxes displayed large black letters that stated the contents: Taxes, Contracts, Reviews. Closer to the stairs were four unlabeled boxes. I opened the first one and peered at three large files neatly stacked inside. Handwritten on the flap of the first was The Mystery of Coopertown.
I picked up the file, perused the first few pages, and found a letter dated March, 1982 from a publisher. Thank you for your recent submission," the letter began, "but we regret that your manuscript does not meet our current needs. We are encouraged by your effort and hope you will submit future projects for our consideration. I wondered if The Mystery of Coopertown was Margarite's first novel. Had she ever revised it? Had she tried to sell it again? I vowed to read the novel before the summer ended.
The second file was marked "poetry," and I quickly flipped through pages that must have taken years to write. Poetry had never been my calling. Every poem I wrote required hours of concentration as I poured a tidal wave of thought and emotion into a few short stanzas. I replaced the poetry file and looked at the third, largest folder titled Erotic Therapy. Therapy? What therapy had Margarite required? My fingers tingled as I pulled out the folder. I walked to the love seat and sat, curling my legs underneath me. I opened the cover, picked up the first page, and began reading.
The stars twinkle like small diamonds on deep velvet. The lake is perfectly calm, a black mirror for those bright stars. No sound invades your quiet; the birds have fallen asleep. You lie on your back on the dock, neither hot nor cold, perfect in your ease. A faint breeze tickles your cheek, almost a human touch lightly tracing the contours of your face. The feeling is exquisite.
You close your eyes and see his face as he leans over you, his fingers moving slowly, erotically over your skin. His hands are close to your skin but do not touch. You feel a charge of electricity building between finger and flesh, a warm, sensual, exciting trail of human fire. Then, he touches your cheek, drawing. The pattern reminds you of something long forgotten, an intricate, enlightening pattern you first glimpsed on a bedroom floor as the moon filtered through a veil of leaves. You remember the pattern because that was the first night he came to you, the first time he touched you, the first night the passion escaped as a small cry torn from deep inside.
You have never forgotten that night or its wild love. He remembers too. His finger sketches that miracle of light and shadow that marked your coming alive. Until that point, you were paralyzed between hot and cold, knowing the heat existed deep inside but unable to summon the volcanic lava to the surface. That night your need bubbled like a steamy spring, letting great clouds of desire escape into the dark. His gentle touch unleashed the genie of passion, granting your wishes.
The pattern on your cheek stays where he has touched. Knowing how the pattern imprints its fervor on your senses, his hand roams downward. You feel his knowing finger slip inside the elastic of your suit and find your soft, scented skin. Vanilla, you smell the sweet scent. You hear him breathe deep of you, relishing your smell. His finger slips along a strap and pulls it off one shoulder. His finger dances along your suit, across breasts already yearning for a touch, and up to the other strap. As it slides down, you feel the wind on your nipples, a zephyr that kisses and tantalizes. You shiver with delight, for the breeze plays and teases.
His hands substitute for the breeze, rubbing and swirling. Across and around, down, up, over, his hand is like some small, soft, furry animal cavorting over your breasts. Your nipples rise in anticipation as that joyous creature flits about, its sole purpose to excite you. A smile widens your face, but you dare not look. The magical animal sends shivers down your spine as it touches blood gorged skin. Even as your body shakes, you feel the creature begin to nibble, to feed on your breasts. Small teeth rub and bite, pull and squeeze. The roughness is just enough to make you gasp once or twice. What kind of sprite knows how to excite you so? What manner of fairy tickles and taunts so? You don't know, and you don't care. It is enough for you to grow wet under the feel of the breeze, teeth, and touch.
Your scent draws the creature. It smells the wetness of you, and it slips beneath the nylon of your suit and slithers across your belly. You know what it seeks. You know it wants to slake its thirst at the well of your desire. It creeps forward, a tiny beast intent on your essence. Spanning your navel, it slinks through your hair, a predator easing through the jungle of your love, preying on you, hunting you with a primal instinct you find utterly exhilarating.
Your body waits and wants. You want nothing more than to feel the creature feed, and at the same time you fear the touch. It consumes, draining you of every molecule of energy, tapping your inner soul and leaving you a dried husk devoid of human feeling. Yet you need that touch, that draining. You need to have your wellspring found and exploited. You need to relinquish some fierce energy that glows hot inside. The predator licks at the edges of you, a warm tongue that promises release and growth. Instinctually, the beast laps at you, tasting your special musk. Your body gushes anew, and the creature sips you, intoxicating itself on your precious fluid.
Suddenly, the creature is transformed from some fuzzy thing to a warm, slithering, probing eel. You feel the sinuous thing touch you inside, probing, licking, tasting, wanting to find that spot that makes your hips arch with anticipation. You moan as the magical thing touches that special place. Your hips arch, and the creature touches a second time, then a third. Knowing you, it dances a hot fairy tip of wetness on you, coaxing out your most hidden and delicate treasure. The beast charms your womanhood out of its veil and licks it with lightning strokes. Your hips arch. Your body yearns.
The creature senses your surrender and rings your preciousness with passion. The lake vanishes. Sound ceases. Time stops. You lose yourself in the rising tide of passion. Swept along with the beast and the touch, you press against the creature whose antics become as quick as hummingbird wings. It touches and before you can even react, it touches again, and each touch raises the level of desire. Your hands clench. Your teeth grind. You gasp and thrust as the magical thing wrings more fluid from you, more desire. Just as you think you might explode, your body captures the creature, holding it firmly against your treasure as you rub yourself on it. Spasms ripple along the length of the beast, delicious spasms that echo through the length of your body. Deep tremors like earthquakes rock the foundations of your body. You have caged the creature, and you milk it for your pleasure.
The tide rises to high mark and recedes.
You hear the crickets. You smell the lake. You look and see the stars twinkling. The warm breeze skips across your cheek. He's not there any longer, but you can still feel him, smell him. You shiver slightly as the wetness of your suit touches your skin.
My breathing was labored as I closed the file. I tried to ignore the wetness between my legs. Was Margarite writing about Max or another lover of long ago? What lover? Margarite had never had a lover as far as anyone knew. Who came to Margarite on the dock? I looked out the window, searching for Max. Had he read this file when he packed Margarite's belongings? Did he know I would find these writings, this erotic therapy?
The light was fading in the attic. I considered taking the file downstairs, but wondered if I should I even be reading it. These were Margarite's personal stories, and I suddenly felt guilty as if I were reading her diary; these stories weren't meant for public consumption. I returned the file to the box before going downstairs.
©Copyright 1996 - 1998 Angela Preston. These stories may not be reprinted in any form without written permission.