Featured Story, April 2007
It's the slow-beating heart of winter, the cruelest month, when the earth's pelt of snow lies harsh over her raw, black bones. It's a hunting time, a hungry time, when the body's only heat comes from within. Scents carry in this season, animals find one another, mate for life.
Leafless trees jut up through the snow. A rime of ice sheets the black stones, and the snow lies thick and wet on the ground. The winter's story is written there.
One set of footprints leads over the park's snowy lawn, toward the trees. He follows.
It is a tame orchard, but a dozen steps in it becomes every forest there ever was. Rabbit tracks hop foursquare over his quarry's, the path crisscrosses that of squirrels and feral cats. The crows that loot the trash bins have left their signatures on the ground, clawprints and feather-slashes. He chases his own pluming breath down the trail, moving swiftly but carefully through the twilight silence.
Another trail joins the first at a jogging path, now just a flatter whiteness in the forest's blue shade. They wind off together, leaving the path. His heart beats faster.
He finds where they first stopped, under the leafless arches of a maple tree. The prints stop in the thick drift beneath it, and the snow clinging to the trunk is scuffed. A few curling black hairs hang from the bark. Snow and ice have fallen from the branch above, loosened by a grasping hand. A crocheted white scarf lies in the snow a body-length away.
He picks it up, smells snow and wind, warm leather, melon-scented shampoo and a hint of berry lip gloss. His lover's scent clings to it still, warm skin and breath blowing hot.
She joins him, already laughing, breath steaming, for these few stolen moments. It is a magic time, neither day nor night, and the park is the world and the world is empty, as though it belongs only to them.
He leads her off into the grove and she follows without question, pulling her hooded coat about her shoulders. The hood falls back as they run and he can't resist, catches her up and runs his hands through the sooty, cascading ringlets of her hair, warm and cool at the same time. He's come out without his gloves again and she scolds him for it, then thrusts his hands up under her jacket, against the warmth of her body. Beneath, she is wearing nothing but a thin sweater of cream-colored wool. He feels her nipples harden instantly under his cold palms. Her mouth seeks his, hot, with a hint of sweetness.
The taste of her piques him. He becomes more insistent. They stagger against a tree, where he levers her sweater over her breasts and parts the wings of her coat to reveal them, ripe and tawny and tipped with cinnamon brown.
A crow flutters in the tree above, the only witness. He holds her ribcage, bends to suck at her nipples, which swell and stiffen in his mouth. The fringed ends of her scarf tickle his face. He bats at it and she unwinds it, slips it about his neck, pulling him closer between her breasts. He draws on her skin with his tongue, scenting her. Her nipples are cold, hard as though frozen. He bites at them gently. Her cry is like a bird's in the silence.
They are both panting, the dampness of their breath condensing on heated skin, chilling it. He fumbles at the buttons of her jeans, eager to take her here, now. Her heart beats in her throat, under his lips.
In the distance, a dog barks, and the crows startle from faraway trees with a chorus of angry cries. He jerks away, then pulls her on. Not here. Not yet. Not deep enough. There is more to the forest, further to go.
Further, past a shallow creek, little more than an ice-crusted ditch. They leaped across here. He caught her when she staggered awkwardly on hidden ice. Stricken with each other, they left a twisting trail like a wounded thing, and he follows as their tracks wind down the stream.
There's a low concrete bridge here, where the jogging path loops through. It's covered with ice. The stream below is frozen grey and hard as a mirror. They stopped against the side of the bridge.
He drops to one knee, studies the marks pressed into the snow. Rough boot prints churned up freezing mud, and, there, knee-prints. One red glove lies beneath the undercut of the bridge. Another has fallen to the cracked ice, forgotten. A scent lingers – her smell, his, clinging to the concrete, even in the chill. He inhales deeply.
If he closes his eyes, he can see them.
Over they go, across the frozen, snow-scraped stream. She slips, he catches her. Cold air runs cruel fingers under their clothing. He doesn't mind it, and neither does she. There will be warmth enough, soon. They hurry down the bank, fetch up against a shadowed bridge.
Now it's her turn. She shoves him against the concrete, and he feels it cold against his back even as she presses so warm against his front.
Her hands are all over him, under his jacket, on his chest, hot. She thrusts her fingers into his jeans, a tight fit, grabs him at the base. He fills her fist, stiffening. She kisses him and he bites at her lip, sucks at the tender flesh.
She drops unexpectedly, crouching in the snow. Under her jacket he can still see the hard beads of her nipples straining through her sweater. He rests one hand on her shoulders, strokes the dense curls at the nape of her neck.
She strips her gloves off with her teeth, works his belt, his zipper, with deft little fingers. He doesn't feel the cold at first, just a coolness, then the moist warmth of her breath against his cock. But when she leans forward and licks him playfully, then the chill nips him, like a burn.
The heat of her mouth sliding down makes him groan but the wetness is cold in her wake, like peppermint, and he catches his breath in his teeth, hissing a plume of steam. It is as though she is painting him with cold. Her hand creeps around his flank, squeezing his ass and pulling him deeper into her mouth. The cold burns up under his coat, against the small of his back. Cold concrete steals his warmth, he arches into her mouth to escape it. She looks up at him with her dark eyes, the eyes of a wild thing. The sight of her mouth on him is nearly as hot as the liquid feel of it, like warm oil.
He pants, close to finishing, but she's not done running yet. She leaves him, flees up the embankment toward some secret destination of her own.
He only stands there for three heartbeats before he adjusts himself as well as he is able and gives chase, not certain where he will catch her, but certain of what he will do to her when he does.
Chase. Pursuit. This is their game, an ancient one that never grows old.
One flees on foot, lighter, upslope. The other follows, gaining ground with a longer stride.
The tracks lead into the woods' heart. There is a trail leading from the bridge and it is this they followed, their footprints dark in the smooth-spread snow.
Not so far behind, now. The prints are melting wet and spreading, and in the still air he can hear cries – animal cries of a breast brought to ground.
He moves carefully, not wishing to break upon them unexpected. This is the most critical part of the game. The stillness, the mantling snow, is like a shroud which he tries not to disturb.
Another cry, heated, and he moves closer, past a brake of sleeping azaleas and young junipers thick with bluish berries, and there he sights them for the first time.
He is joined with her. She leans over the bench, fists knotted in her own black wool coat, while he fucks her from behind. All that is visible is her tanned flank and side, part of one breast where he has thrust his hand up under her sweater to grab it. Her dark hair spills in her face like an animal's mane, and he rides her roughly.
Their clothing muffles the sounds of flesh striking flesh, but still he sees the shocks as she ripples, bends, under the hard thrusts.
Her lover pants, gasps, blonde hair spilling out of its ponytail and into his shadowed eyes. He takes a handful of her black ringlets, drives himself into her. His jacket lies forgotten in the snow on one end of the bench. Over the breadth of his shoulders are her wet handprints. Snow melted from the trees above has spotted his shirt. Sweat sheens his arms. The cold is fierce, but he obviously feels nothing but her heat.
She has gone far beyond cold as well. One of her hands has stolen down, and she is rubbing at her clit as she grinds back against his cock. The look on her face mirrors her lover's, unintentionally, mouth open, brows drawn together.
Watching, he leans against a tree. The breath burns within him. Their cries fill the cold, still space, fill him, until he aches with it.
They are beautiful together, truly beautiful, as is everything that is wild.
His fingers are cold, and the warmth of her burns him when he pushes them into her.
He's caught her here, or she's let him catch her, in this little clearing. Now he has her pressed against an old wooden picnic table. She's lost her gloves. Her hands, thrust under his jacket, are wet from catching herself in the snow.
He works his fingers deeper and she rolls her hips against him, begging for more as he drags them slowly out. Her clit slips under his fingers, and from her parted lips escape urgent little sounds. Her juices wet him to the wrist, slippery and so quickly chilled. Urgency builds in him – he wants to be inside her, now, but she won't yield. She has hold of his wrist and grinds against him.
His fingers slide deeper. Her body shudders. She falls back into the snow atop the table, and her hitching breath rises from her mouth as steam.
Now she clutches him inside, a velvet vise. He can smell her, a scent so sharp he can almost taste it. She bites her lip with white teeth. Color rises in her windburned cheeks. There is no longer any cold, no winter. Only fire and need.
He wants her, can't – won't – wait any longer. He strips her wet coat off and throws her face-down across it, backside up.
Already he has his cock in his hand, shoves her jeans down only far enough, and then he's pushing against her, her heat searing him before he thrusts deep, thrusts home, thrusts straight up into the core of her. She simmers, so hot that he feels he'll catch fire.
The bulk of his coat is too much, he can't reach her well enough. He flings his jacket away, careless of what might happen to it, careless of the cold, and throws himself atop her like an animal. His hands slide through the snow on the table before he gets a grip on her coat, runs his other hand over her tits, her tight, heaving belly. She flinches back from the cold, pushing harder against him.
Together they shiver, shudder, the cold just harsh enough to hold them back, to draw it out. He sweats with exertion, she trembles. He feels her fingers on him. She's stroking herself, and dragging her fingertips over him as well. He covers her hand with his, grinds against her as her cries grow sharper and more wild.
When she comes, he feels her tightness throb, then loosen about him, open out into glorious, wet warmth. Her body goes slack, each thrust forces out a low moan. He braces one knee on the bench, rams his cock into her, feeling her hot juices chilling on his shaft, trickling down his balls. He is close. Her fingers push at him, dig at him.
He leans over, panting steam in her ear like a beast. It is all he can do not to tear at her with his teeth, to bite her nape like a beast. She turns and chews at his jaw, and he snarls, hauls her back against him. Now he does bite her, the side of her neck beneath the ear, her shoulder beneath the sweater.
"Inside," she whispers, panting into his mouth. "Come inside me. I want to feel you dripping out of me all the way home."
He longs for her mouth, to taste himself on her lips after she has tasted him, but this is what they have come for. He'll fill her, and she'll run along home in time for dinner, sly little vixen, and give her husband something extra.
It is wonderful, in the cold, to have someone waiting for you in the warmth of home.
She puts a wriggle in her hips, working her round backside against him, bending his cock from side to side. A harsh, inarticulate cry escapes him, he thrusts a final handful of times and then arches, driving himself into her body with every muscle in back and hips and thighs, until he can feel his backbone creaking like a bowstring.
Pleasure rips through him like a shot, stealing evening and park and cold from him, leaving him nothing but her, her warmth, her wetness, the smell of her hair and the feel of her body under his. When he comes inside her, it is like he's melting into her, or she into him. He does not remember to breathe until she does, her ribs shifting under the arm he's flung around her.
He kisses her cheek and they nuzzle. Her mouth finds his, they press lip to lip, their breath as one.
He leaves the scarf hanging from the tree, slides his hand down it as he turns, just once glances back at them.
Their breath plumes in the air. Winter evening deepens to night, and he can no longer see the bright of their eyes, the color of their clothes. Only the glow of their flesh, so warm. It is how the beasts must see, in monochrome, through the eyes of hunger. They look happy, content, as the night unfurls around them.
He cuts through the trees, vanishing into the gloom.
One set of footprints leads away.
When he returns to the apartment his lover meets him there, throws him against the door, breath already coming ragged. Their cold-bitten lips meet for a moment, tongues burning together, hands fighting layers of clothing heavy with snowmelt. Here is what he waited for, pursuit, capture. His lover, urgent and carnivorous, a feral gleam in his eye.
A savage tooth draws blood, a tight hand on stiffening flesh draws a groan from a windburned throat. They are both still wearing coats, melting snow chilling them.
"You followed us."
His lover pushes him against the door, forces his legs apart with his own. Body to body, trembling. They are both hard. Teeth nip his neck.
"I can smell her," his lover sighs. "All over you."
The smell of the winter still surrounds them, carried in on their clothes: juniper and cold wind, and heated, fever-tender skin.
He puts a hand to his lover's shoulder, pushing him down.
"Taste her. I've brought her back, just for you."
