Between the Wood and the Wild

She swiped her tongue over her bottom lip, reveling in the heady combination of blood and sugar.  

     The ground seemed to purr beneath her bare feet like a great beast.  

     A hand slipped into her own, and she lifted her head, looking up from beneath her damp lashes . . . 

My coworker’s fingers were slick as he drew them from my jeans and leaned back against the side of his truck, breathing heavily.  

     My lashes fluttered as heat prickled over my skin, and I tipped my head back to the sky overhead—blue, like the color of the walls in my mother’s kitchen. I sucked in a breath and held it until it felt like my chest would cave in on itself from the pressure.  

     “Will I see you at the party tonight?”  

     Without looking at my coworker, I reached down and fastened the buttons on the front of my blouse, and then I scooped my bag from where I’d dropped it on the pavement.  

     I fumbled among the contents for a pack of cigarettes and tapped one out into my fingers, finally lifting my gaze as I flicked open my lighter. The end of the cigarette flared to life. 

     I took a long draw and then parted my lips, and for a moment, his face was obscured behind a veil of smoke.  

     “Ellis,” he said. 

     I cringed at the sound of my name on his lips. It reminded me of my mother, words sharp as a pinch. I resisted the urge to rub a hand against the soft skin of my shoulder to check for a bruise. 

     Instead, I brought the cigarette back to my lips and closed my eyes for several breaths. I didn’t even know his name. Perhaps if I hadn’t wanted him to get the wrong idea, I shouldn’t have let him finger-fuck me in the parking lot after the evening rush.  

     I opened my eyes as he gave a short huff. He walked around to the driver’s side of his truck, and when I remained rooted in place, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and lifted his chin.  

     “You coming?” he asked.  

     Another curl of smoke left my lips. “I’m going to walk home,” I announced. 

     His lips pressed into a thin line, and I braced myself for an argument, but then he yanked open the driver’s side door and climbed into the truck.  

     I watched him pull from the parking lot through a cloud of smoke, and then I tossed the remains of my cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of my boot.  

     Every feeling that I’d repressed that day suddenly came bubbling up in the form of hot, acrid bile at the back of my throat. I lurched towards the rear lot of the building, crumbling to my knees in the dried grass and emptying my stomach of its meager contents.  

     Tears stung at the corners of my eyes as I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. 

     I wanted to scream.  

     Not at anything in particular, but simply because sometimes everything just felt like too much. My clothes. My skin. Noise. Rules. Existence. It was too much. 

     Instead, I gulped in a lungful of air, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, like the instructions from the meditative books-on-tape that my sister stole from the library. I imagined her hands moving along to the narrator’s soothing voice: breathe in golden light . . . breathe out minimum wage and organic fair-trade coffee . . . 

I opened my eyes and fetched a bottle of water from my bag, swishing some of the liquid around in my mouth and then spitting into the grass. 

     I wanted to scream.  

     Instead, I picked myself up from the ground and brushed the dirt from my knees. 

     And then I started back home.  

The walk back to my grandmother’s house was quiet.  

     Fallen leaves skittered across the sidewalk, and the trees cast long, crooked shadows over the ground. The slight chill almost made me wish that I’d grabbed a coffee before I’d left work, but I knew that it would have only upset my stomach.  

     Every so often, I thought I made out the faint tinkling of bells, but when I strained to listen for it, there was only the sound of my own breathing. 

     There was a quote that I’d read once, about the curious gaps between things, and that was what it had felt like to arrive back at my childhood home after so many years—like slipping through a gap. 

     A gap between well-worn couch cushions, a gap between generations, a gap in a story . . .  

     It had been a two-hour drive, and I remembered the exact moment that the highway had given way to back roads and forest: everything had smelled damp and green and wild, like the ground after rain. It was one of the things that I’d missed most after our mother had dragged us off seven years ago—that, and the trees. There were hardly any trees in the city.  

     Our mother had tried to talk us out of moving back into our grandmother’s old house. But as much as she was paid to host lectures and argue thesis, there was nothing she could have said that would have changed our minds. My sister had gotten a scholarship to the local university, and we had both just turned eighteen—and I had been itching for years to free myself from my mother’s claws. 

     I slowed now as my grandmother’s house came into view, thinking of how it had always reminded me of a chapel, with its off-white paint and dark, tapered roof. I had never considered myself religious, but my mother had sparingly forced us to attend Sunday school for several years as children—at least, until my sister’s accident. 

     The memory of her lying on the ground like a broken doll, surrounded by branches, came on so suddenly that it felt as if I’d been punched in the gut. 

     I lowered my head and drew my arms tight across my stomach, staring down at the toes of my shoes as I concentrated hard on not stepping on any of the cracks in the sidewalk. 

     I looked up as the shadow of the house fell over me. It was set back against the forest, so that a majority of the property was cast in darkness, as if some great creature was always looming over my shoulder.  

     My concentration broke as I glimpsed a figure moving around in the backyard. I stumbled over my own feet and cursed when I stepped on a crack in the sidewalk. 

     My sister, Currer Bell, was dressed in a white house coat, her hair in loose twin braids and adorned with yellow dandelions. Her feet were bare, and she stood on her toes as she tied ribbons to the lowest hanging branches of a hawthorn tree.  

     We were identical—ash brown hair, brown eyes, slender face—but she was . . . softer. As if someone had taken a file and smoothed down her edges. Meanwhile, my mother had once told me—unprompted, and after two glasses of wine—that I ought to wear a sign around my neck that read: Caution: Sharp Object. 

     I suppose it was true that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. 

     My footsteps were quieted as I stepped from the sidewalk and into the grass to cross the yard to my sister. 

     Her back was to me, and I watched as she finished tying a ribbon and trailed her fingers over the pale satin before lowering back to her feet.  

     The sight of the ribbons fluttering in the wind tugged at a memory in the very back of my mind, but before I was able to grasp it, it slipped from my reach. Like the remnants of a childhood dream.  

     I shook my head. 

     There was a large, gray-ish shape in the grass beneath the hawthorn tree, and at my approach, it rose to its feet.  

      The creature was shaggy and stood as tall as my waist, and I thought that it might have been a wolfhound—albeit one that hadn’t seen a bath in several months. I held out my hand for it to sniff as it trotted over.  

     “Whose dog is this?” I asked my sister. “And don’t say yours.”  

     There was a flush to my sister’s skin as she turned to face me, her cheeks pink beneath a layer of light freckles. It made her look girlish and delicate, like a Waterhouse painting. 

     Or perhaps a princess who couldn’t be bothered with peasantry.  

     My sister’s hands danced in front of her as she signed, “His name is Heathcliff.” 

     The dog nudged at my hand with his wet nose, and then he turned and walked over to curl up beneath the tree once more. He tucked his head onto his front paws and closed his eyes.  

     “I didn’t ask his name.” 

     “He followed me home from class,” she replied. “You might have known that if you hadn’t been late.” 

     I flipped her off as I walked towards the back door of my grandmother’s house.  

     I stepped over a bowl of cream on the bottom step; it looked fresh, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was several days old.  

     My sister caught up with me a moment later, and I held open the screen door for her as she floated past me like a dandelion tuft and collapsed into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.  

     It looked the same as it had when I was younger—the kitchen, that is—decorated with dark wood and laminate and faded wallpaper that reminded me of sepia films. Even the appliances hadn’t been updated in several years. 

     Table salt lined the thresholds of the doors and windows, and there was a bundle of sticks hung beside the back door. Though I had inherited my grandmother’s house as the oldest, my sister had inherited her superstitions. 

     “You smell like sex and cigarette smoke,” my sister commented. “Is that why you’re late?” 

     “I was going to catch a ride, but I decided to walk home.” 

     I tossed my bag onto the table, and my sister’s eyes trailed after me as I took down a glass from one of the cabinets. I filled it with water from the sink and leaned back against the counter. 

     I glanced out the window towards the hawthorn tree. “Why were you hanging ribbons on the tree?” 

     “They’re not ribbons; they’re wishes,” my sister signed back. “For the fairies.” 

     “What did you wish for?” 

     A dandelion flower drifted from my sister’s hair and landed on the kitchen floor. “I would tell you if I could, but I can’t, so I won’t.” 

     “That was very Lewis Carroll of you,” I said. “Did you have British Lit today?”  

     For a moment, I thought that she hadn’t heard me. My sister picked at the bracelet of red string that was wrapped around her wrist, and then she said, “When we were little, we used to tie our wishes to the hawthorn tree. You once wished for a three-tier chocolate cake with raspberries.” Her fingers plucked at the string again. “We should have chocolate cake for dinner.” 

     “I don’t remember that,” I said. “And we’re having leftovers for dinner; there’s pasta in the fridge from the other night.” 

     My sister shook her head. “I gave it to Heathcliff.” 

     “What?” 

     “He was hungry, and I didn’t know what dogs eat,” she replied.  

     “Did you think he was too good for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” I snapped. 

     “It was past lunch time.”  

     I knew that I shouldn’t get angry. But I still felt the desire to scream lodged in my throat, and so I swallowed it down like I always did, along with the last of my water. I set my glass in the sink and turned away from her. 

     A red light was blinking on the answering machine by the living room doorway, indicating a message, so I walked over and pressed the button to listen.  

     My mother’s voice came over the speaker.  

     “Sentenced to voicemail once again,” she huffed in her tenured, no-nonsense voice. I imagined her swirling a glass of wine and smoothing a hand over her pressed, white blouse. “Currer Bell, I know you’re hovering nearby listening. I wanted to remind you that I’m going to be in Boston next week for a women’s conference; I left the number for the hotel on my last message, though I have no doubt it was deleted. Tell your sister that I deserve a call back at some point. This cantankerous teen-angst wasn’t amusing at thirteen, and I don’t know why she thinks it would be now. I recall one of the reasons you both decided to leave me was because you are mature adults, but I have yet to see any evidence of that—” 

     I immediately hit DELETE without waiting for the message to finish. 

     I pushed my hair back from my face and turned towards the stairs. Without looking at my sister, I said, “I’m going to take a shower. We’ll talk about dinner—and the dog—later.” 

     The ancient hardwood groaned beneath my feet as I trudged up the steps to my bedroom.  

     I flicked on the lights and closed the door behind me, and then, against my better judgment, I drew the collar of my blouse to my nose and sniffed. Sex and cigarette smoke.  

     I stripped out of my clothes and tossed them into the laundry basket, and then I grabbed a bath robe from the back of my door. As I tied the knot around my waist, I glanced around the room. 

     The walls were painted a deep green, and there were still remnants of my childhood here and there, like in the glow-in-the-dark plastic stars stuck to the ceiling or the pencil marks on the door frame tracking my height.  

     All of my belongings had fit neatly into two cardboard boxes during the move, and they were now scattered throughout the room: clothes, a cassette player, a number of books, some crumpled posters torn from the pages of a magazine, and a handmade quilt that I’d bought at a flea market in the city.  

     I chewed on my bottom lip, feeling small and out of place, because while not much had changed—I had.  

     My fingers plucked at a loose string on my sleeve as I turned my back on the room and walked to the bathroom down the hall.  

     I locked the door and turned on the shower, letting the robe fall to the floor. Despite the steam, my breasts pebbled as the air hit them, and I dropped my head back, running my fingers through my hair.  

     My gaze flickered to the window overtop of the toilet.  

     In spite of the fact that the bathroom was on the second floor, it was not the first time that I felt as if I was being watched. I would never have admitted it—not to my sister, and certainly not to my mother, the paragon of women’s studies—but I loved the idea of being watched. Of being desired so intently, without even touching. 

     A flush spread across my chest, and my skin prickled beneath the imaginary gaze. All of my nerves and anger melted away as heat flooded my body. 

     As I lifted my hands to cup my breasts, I tried to imagine what I must look like from  

another perspective. My thick thighs and the soft mound of my stomach. My full lips and slender face, scattered with light freckles.  

     I opened the glass door to the shower and stepped inside, tipping my head back at the assault of hot water against my skin. 

     My hands trailed over my body, skimming over my stomach and hips, slowly making their way towards the heat that I felt gathering between my legs. The quick hookup in the parking lot with my coworker had been just that—quick.  

     A small whimper escaped my lips as my fingers skirted the wetness on my inner thighs, and I leaned back against the shower wall. My eyes fell closed, but I could still feel that imaginary gaze on me. 

     I couldn’t remember if it had been this way when I was younger—that feeling of being watched. My memories from when we lived with my grandmother were muddled and hazy, at best. 

     A tremor ran through my body at the first stroke of my fingers over my clit.  

My breath quickened, and I arched my back as I pressed a finger into myself and then drew it back out, swirling the wetness over the sensitive bud. I bit my lip to stifle a groan.  

     My hips undulated in time with my fingers, the movements growing more and more desperate as I chased my orgasm. My legs trembled, and I placed my free hand against the wall for support. 

     My eyes flickered open, and I gazed out the window towards the forest, seeking out my imaginary voyeur.  

     Come for me. 

     My mouth gaped open as I fell over the edge, my clit pulsing beneath my fingers until the stimulation was too much. I dropped my head against the wall of the shower and closed my eyes once more.  

     When the aftershocks had subsided, I straightened from the wall and pushed my fingers through my dampened hair. My tongue darted out to lick up the water that had gathered on my upper lip.  

     I gave myself a moment to steady my breathing, and then I turned off the water and stepped from the shower. I wrapped a towel around my midsection and opened the bathroom door to lean out into the hall. 

     “Get dressed!” I shouted to my sister. “We’re going to a party!”