SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2023 #3
“What?” Polly says, sounding shrill. “We were just getting started.” Her satisfaction has turned to embarrassment. She shifts away from him and sits up. “You have a girlfriend, don’t you?”
He laughs softly and sits up beside her, smoothing down the mess that Polly made of his curls. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t have a girlfriend. I thought it was obvious that I’m out of practice in that area.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem,” he says, looking as calm and thoughtful as he always does. He takes her hand and puts it up against his heart. “There’s just something about you that makes me want our first time to be special.” He shrugs and smiles. “Is that weird?”
She shakes her head, even though she thinks it is. He’s not like any guy she’s ever known. She feels silly and immature in comparison. “No, that’s not weird at all,” she says. “It’s nice. I’m just not used to guys like you.”
He takes her hand in his and squeezes it. “Guys like me? What does that mean?”
“Smart and mature and not out for just one thing.” He nods, looking as though he’s considering her words carefully.
“And who hang out in the woods and give creepy serial-killer vibes.” He breaks into a wide smile and laughs out loud, and Polly feels the energy of it all the way down her spine and into the backs of her knees.
“It’s a good icebreaker. The serial-killer thing.”
“Speaking of the woods,” she adds, hoping to keep him there longer. “My dad got lost in them last night for, like, eight hours. He found his way out this morning, but he doesn’t remember a thing that happened in there.”
“Were you worried?”
“Yeah. I was really worried. I thought he might get eaten by a wild animal or die in there or something.”
Gray shakes his head and scrunches up his face as though what she said smelled bad. “There’s nothing in there that would hurt him, Polly. You and your family have nothing to be afraid of when it comes to the woods. Nothing at all.”
“Yeah, no, I see that now,” she stammers slightly. “But when he went into the woods he and my mom were in a major fight. Since he came out this morning he’s been so nice and loving to her. I haven’t seen them get along this well, like, ever.”
Gray sweeps out his arm and looks up to the ceiling as though it’s the open sky.
“ ‘Into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.’ ” He waits for her to identify the source.
Polly shakes her head. “John Muir, the mountaineer,” he says, as though that explains everything.
“It’s a perfect metaphor for what happened to your dad. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah. Totally,” she says with enthusiasm even though she’s not sure it was that profound.
He sighs. “Anyway, I really should go.” He gets up off the bed and stands above her so that the LED lights create an eerie blue aura around him and make his skin look as though he were just pulled from the bottom of a frozen lake.
Blowing her a kiss like Romeo from under the balcony, he slips through the open window and into the night.
His pine scent lingers, and she lies down on her bed to curl up with it.
Opening her phone, she does a quick search about Portishead and is shocked to see that the band is thirty years old.
She wonders how Gray even heard about them.
She adds the Essentials playlist to her library and then turns up the music.
When she’s with him she feels like he’s the one leading, but she has no idea where they’re going or where they’ll end up.
The words whisper through her head as she lies there listening to the music of their first kiss, clinging to what’s left of his scent.
He went into the woods to lose his mind and find his soul.
Alice
They had sex for the first time in a year and a half.
She had been keeping track, despite Geoff’s impression that she didn’t care enough to notice.
Yes, there were days, weeks, months even when she felt nothing.
Not a bit of stirring in that department, but then there were also stretches when she was horny as hell, when there was lots of stirring.
During those periods she found it was easier to just take care of things herself.
At some point grief, marital issues, and hormonal fluxes had turned her body into a sovereign nation, and asking for any kind of foreign aid felt like far too much trouble than it was worth.
Besides, it only took about five minutes for her to satiate herself.
She ignored the fact that it didn’t satisfy her longing and left her feeling lonely.
That’s why, when Geoff kissed her deeply, told her how much he loved her, then slowly ran a hand down her spine, something uncorked in Alice’s psyche.
For the first time in she couldn’t even remember how long, her body was not insisting on isolation; it was not her enemy.
It was her ally and they both wanted the same thing—contact.
She wanted it so badly that it overwhelmed her concerns about the softness of her belly or the sag in her boobs.
She wasn’t sure if it was because they’d gone so long without having sex or because something about being lost in the woods for a night had changed Geoff, but the sex felt new.
They didn’t follow the routine that got them both to climax as quickly as possible so that they could roll away from each other and get some sleep.
They did things they hadn’t done for years.
When he went down on her, it felt like the work of three tongues, not just one, and his hands sought out places they never had before.
There was sweat and groans and moans—real ones—there was the sound of skin slapping skin, there were dirty words whispered with proclamations of love following right behind them, eyes closed with pleasure and opened to witness it in the other.
It was carnal and loving at the same time, it was making up for lost time and starting fresh.
In some moments Alice felt like they were two wild animals fucking for survival; at other times they were new lovers only just learning each other’s bodies.
Even Geoff’s smell was new: earth, leaves, pine. He still had it, even after a day out of the forest and a shower. It wasn’t unpleasant exactly. It might have even worked like some kind of pheromone, but it was just a bit too earthy.
It will be gone by morning, she reassures herself as she begins to drift off, utterly exhausted.
They’re lying naked on a bed that has been wiped clean of top sheets and blankets.
She has not rushed to put clothes on or push his arm off.
For once, she does not feel like fleeing from him after having sex; she feels like staying right where she is and falling into a deep sleep.
“Do you mind if I go for a swim?” Geoff’s question brings her back from the brink of unconsciousness.
“Right now?” she asks, opening her eyes. “Isn’t it cold?”
Geoff lifts his arm off her sweaty chest, and it makes a soft sucking sound.
“It was warm today, so the water is probably good. Even if it’s not, I’m so hot I won’t be able to sleep.
” He gets out of bed and walks over to her side still naked.
She surveys his body in the light from the en suite bathroom.
Is it her imagination or does he look fitter, younger, not as paunchy?
Amazing what good sex can do. Transform the way you see a person.
He bends down and kisses her on the lips and then her cheeks and her forehead. “I’m really glad we did that,” he says.
“Me too,” she answers, meaning it. One night in the woods?
That’s all it took for them both to finally appreciate each other—to just be better?
He leaves the room, and she drifts off to sleep, only to be woken fifteen minutes later by an overwhelming need to pee.
She rarely makes it through the night these days without multiple trips to the bathroom.
On her way back to bed she stops at her dresser for some pajamas and while slipping them on glances out the window to the backyard.
The pool lights are on, but the water is still, and Geoff is nowhere to be seen.
Peering closer, she scans the yard and sees a figure standing at the edge of the woods.
By the height and shape of it, she’s sure it’s him.
He’s standing perfectly still, arms at his sides, in only his bathing suit despite the October chill.
Alice grabs her phone off the bedside table and taps on the trail-cam app, going to the live function so that she can figure out what he’s looking at.
The screen is static. She curses the useless piece of crap and goes back to the window.
Geoff has turned away from the woods and is slowly walking across the yard toward the house.
Alice quickly gets into bed and assumes the position.
Why she feels the need to act like she’s sleeping, like she didn’t just see her husband staring into the dark of the woods, she’s not sure.
It’s an instinctual feeling, and when he comes into the bedroom, bringing that woodsy scent with him, she keeps her eyes closed tight until she finally does drift off to sleep.