by Mimi Strong
While we’d been on our walk, I’d spotted some of the trails I’d ridden horses along years ago. The lake wasn’t that far from town, and if I took the shortcut through the trails, I’d be out to the highway in ten minutes. Fifteen minutes, tops.
From there, I’d have cellular service and be able to call Shayla, or even a taxi, for a ride.
Sure! Great idea! I’d just go crashing around through the woods in the dark at ten o’clock at night.
As I opened the trailer’s screen door with a squeak and stepped out into the bracing night air, I thought I was making a logical, intelligent choice.
HAH!
The moon was three-quarters full and at my back as I set off into the dark woods surrounding Dragonfly Lake.
The trail under my feet was mostly smooth, worn flat by many hikers, but a few exposed tree roots and fallen branches threatened to trip me up and make me feel even more foolish than I already felt.
I hadn’t worn a jacket, and now my bare arms were sniveling about the cold air and scratchy branches. Behind me, the trailer glowed like a space UFO. I stopped walking and stared at the rounded vessel that looked so much like an airplane minus the wings. How was it glowing? LED lights embedded along some of the aluminum seams? That had to be the answer, and not that it had come from another planet.
Dalton Deangelo was fully, completely human. So human!
I set off on the trail again, remembering the feel of his body in my hands. I’d cheated myself out of having him on top of me, thanks to my bunny rabbit blowjob. On the plus side, nobody gets pregnant from blowies. On the minus side… here I was getting lost in a dark forest, about to be taken by a sasquatch, or as the local folks call them, Forest Folk.
The term Forest Folk is misleading, making them sound like sprites or friendly spirits, but the Forest Folk in this part of the Pacific Northwest are not supernaturals you want to encounter. They’re part-human, part-sasquatch cannibals. They eat the toes of children who don’t clean up their bedrooms, and they have Santa Claus on speed dial. (Apparently, they have telephones.)
The best defense against Forest Folk is the same as what you learn in any self-defense course: run away. Forest Folk can regenerate missing body parts almost instantly, so even if you have an ax and chop off some limbs, they’ll grow new ones and then use their bloody old arms or legs to beat you to death.
About fifteen years back, one of the town librarians gathered up all the local legends and put them in an illustrated story book for children, which she self-published. The book was almost immediately banned, which only increased demand.
As I stumbled through the dark forest, my imagination kicked into overdrive. I regretted all those nights Shayla and I pored over the Forest Folk book at her house, reading by flashlight under the covers when we were supposed to be sleeping.
My favorite tale was the one about the Forest Folk man who kidnapped a fair maiden and was transformed by her love back into a human. There was something so romantic about that story, though it had some bestiality undertones that were likely the cause of the book ban.
I tripped over a dark branch that blended with the forest floor and fell onto my hands, hard. I stumbled up and shook my hands, thanking my many days spent lugging around heavy books for strengthening my wrists and preventing worse injury.
Something rustled in the woods. I froze, my ears prickling with attention. The night music—crickets chirping across the lake and breezes tickling the leaves—rose up around me.
“Hello?” I whispered. “Dalton?”
“Grrr.”
My mouth went dry and my heart tried to escape my body. “Dalton? Don’t joke around. I have a heart condition.” (That part was a lie; I do not have a heart condition, but the excuse does get you out of things like dodgeball and water pistol hide-n-seek.)
The growling sound came again, and this time did not sound at all like a handsome TV actor playing a prank.
Did beavers growl? I knew some were aggressive, and they could even kill a human if they got bitey and launched those massive sharp teeth at the femoral artery.
I listened for more noises as I pulled my phone out of my purse. There was still no reception, but the phone had a flashlight function. I turned it on, mindful of the battery drain, and slowly rotated, illuminating the trees around me.
Something that looked like a pair of eyes glinted back at me.
“Sugar!” I dropped the phone and the light turned off.
In the darkness, I heard heavy breathing. As I reached for my phone, fumbling around in the dirt and dried leaves, I swear I could also hear something slobbering and licking its lips.
I pulled my purse strap high on my shoulder and started marching with determination—the way you’re supposed to move when creeps take notice of you in the city. There was no busy street to cross, or crowded restaurant to run into for help, so I stepped up to a jog.
The slobbering, heavy-breathing, eye-glinting creature padded out onto the forest path behind me.
I dared not look back, but set off at a full-on gallop. Branches smacked me in the face as I wobbled left and right on the narrow path.
“Don’t run!” called out a man’s voice from behind me.
Don’t run? That’s exactly what a Forest Folk creature would say right before he catches you!
I ran faster.
“Don’t run!” he repeated.
Something was at my heels, biting my legs through my jeans and nipping my ass. A branch struck me in the face and I faltered, just as something struck my back and threw me down.
I landed hard on the ground, the breath knocked out of me. With weight on my back, I covered my neck with my hands in self-defense.
“Cujo, heel!” yelled the male voice.
With a sad-sounding yipe, the beast scrambled off my back.
I jumped up and whirled around.
“Peaches!”
“You!”
Adrian Storm stood three feet away from me, his blond hair disheveled and his face shining with sweat in the moonlight. A skinny German Shepherd sat next to him, tongue lolling out.
“Your insane dog tried to kill me,” I said. “Why isn’t he on a leash? And his name is Cujo? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“He’s old and toothless. His bark is much worse than his bite.”
I rubbed my ass, now damp from the dog’s slobber. “He shouldn’t be biting people AT ALL!”
“He’s retired, but the old police dog training kicks in when he sees people running.”
My adrenaline was still in my blood, making my heart pound and dialing up my voice to shouting-level. “I’d be SO MAD if your dog wasn’t so DAMN CUTE!”
Cujo cocked his head to the side, his big tongue dangling.
“He’s my dad’s dog.”
Adrian’s father was a police officer in town, so that actually explained a lot.
“That’s NICE. How is YOUR DAD?” My adrenaline was still disrupting my volume control.
Adrian stepped closer, Cujo at his side and calm.
“Are you on drugs?”
“No.”
“You seem shaken up. I can see your arms trembling, and you’re yelling. Why were you running?”
I stared up at Adrian Storm’s handsome Nordic face, those chiseled cheekbones fierce in the wan moonlight. Teenaged me wasn’t stupid. He was a good-looking boy, scrawny or bulked up.
“I’m feeling much better now,” I said.
“Why did you run?”
“I can’t say, because you’ll never stop laughing.”
“Try me.”
“I thought you were Forest Folk, coming to cannibalize me, starting with my toes.”
He leaned down, bringing the tip of his nose to mine as he stared into my eyes.
“Did you eat any mushrooms? Perhaps little brown ones?”
I pushed him away, laughing. “I’m not high. I’m just… looking for higher ground to use my cell phone. And the highway. It’s this direction, right?”
“This direction? No, you’re headed straight for the Forest Folk lair.”
I punched him in the chest right over the band logo, and he didn’t flinch. It was like punching a brick wall of cuteness.
He laughed at my feeble efforts.
I yelled, “Shut the porch door, and stop telling lies!”
He licked his lips. “They start with the toes, but first they… tickle you!” He darted forward, jabbing at my sides with his fingers.
I screamed, and Cujo reacted by barking and knocking me to the ground again.
After a few choice words, Adrian got Cujo off me again and helped me to my feet.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “Are you stalking that actor who’s staying by the lake?”
“No!” I pretended to be fascinated by the twigs nesting in my hair. “I’m out here for other, completely unrelated reasons.”
Adrian grinned. Even without the lip ring, his smile brought back memories. All those long nights in the computer lab, and me being his you’re-a-girl buddy, answering his many hypothetical questions about asking out Chantalle Hart.
Unlike me, Chantalle Hart was a fun girl, who had fun with all the popular boys at Beaverdale High, the only high school in our little town. Chantalle was the one who taught me how to give a blowjob—using a banana from my lunch. She oozed sex appeal. So much so, that when she did the banana demonstration, I felt a strange tingling sensation in my panties, and wondered if I was a lesbian. For about two days, I was excited about maybe being a lesbian, and getting to join the Theater Appreciation Rocking Thespians, or TARTs, who were the de facto gay and lesbian alliance.
Then I also got those same tingles the next few times I ate a banana, so I realized it was the banana part of the equation that had gotten me excited.
But I digress.
Alone in the woods with my former crush, Adrian Storm, I pulled some twigs out of my hair and lied about why I was there. “I went for a hike and lost track of the time.”
“Of course. Let me walk you back to your car.”
“I don’t have a car, but you can walk me up to the road, if that’s okay with Cujo. Or if you have your car here, you could just drop me off in town.”
“I can do that.” He waved me on ahead of him, along the trail. “And I do know why you’re out here, but don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Okay,” I said cautiously.
“But if you get a big pay check for your work, maybe throw a bit my way.”
I shot him a dirty look. What exactly did he think I was doing out there? I didn’t want to know.
We walked in silence up to a cleared space for parking. The only vehicle in the lot was an expensive-looking, canary yellow sports car.
“I thought you were broke,” I said.
“I am. And cars like this are partly the reason why.” He opened the passenger door and folded the seat forward so Cujo could amble up into the back and sit on his towel. “Get in and enjoy it with me before the repo men track me down.”
I put on my seatbelt and looked around the interior of the car, admiring all the fancy dials in the dash.
Once he got in and settled, he turned to me and said, “Peaches, you’re a girl.”
“Yes. I am a girl.” I got that deja vu feeling, because of all the times he’d said that phrase to me back in high school. What followed would be a hypothetical question about a girl, but this time I didn’t mind.
As Adrian told me about this girl he’d met, who he couldn’t get a clear reading on, I rubbed my index finger back and forth across my lower lip and thought about what a great kisser Dalton Deangelo was.
Adrian Storm talked most of the way back to my house, but I wasn’t paying close attention. I kept thinking about Dalton, and the way his hot skin felt under my hands, and how if I got another date with him, I’d take things slower.
We pulled up in front of my house, where the lights were still on.
Adrian said, “So should I just ask her out? Actors and actresses are so weird. They’re very outgoing people, and I think they have to be. To do their jobs, they have to connect with their characters and with the other actors instantly. It’s, like, visceral.”
“This girl is an actress?”
“Yes. That’s why I feel so weird around her, like there are cameras on us when she talks to me. Everything she says to me sounds so measured and precise.”
“Huh.”
“It doesn’t feel real to me, but I still like it. I love the attention, even if it’s pretend.”
“What do you mean, pretend?”
“Well, she’s an actress. That makes her the world’s best liar, doesn’t it? Even if she’s honest, how would I ever know?”
“Don’t you trust your instincts?”
Cujo sneezed in the back seat and stood up, wagging his tail and bonking it against the window. He seemed like a nice enough dog when he wasn’t knocking me to the ground.
“I used to trust my instincts,” he said. “Then I gambled away my future.”
“You could just take it one day at a time,” I said to Adrian. “Whether it goes anywhere or not, it’s fun while it lasts, right?”
He turned to me, his pale eyes lit by the streetlamps and suddenly looking haunted. “It’s no fun to be played a fool and have your heart ripped out.”
I laughed to lighten the mood. “Not even a little bit?”
He tilted his head, as though seeing me in a new light. “How about you? Are you seeing anyone?”
Ah, so clearly he thought I was doing something other than Dalton out at Dragonfly Lake. Perhaps taking pictures to sell to the tabloids. That added up.
“I’m seeing someone,” I said. “Right now is the fun part, before my heart gets ripped out.”
“Be careful. I know you’re as tough as ten-dollar nails, but even a girl like you can get hurt.”
“A girl like me?” What. The. Fuck?
CHAPTER 10
“A girl like me?” I repeated.
Adrian Storm turned to stare ahead at the clock on the dashboard, and tapped the steering wheel rhythmically. “Good seeing you, Petra.”
I pushed open the car door, got out, and slammed it behind me without a word. I stomped up to the house. What the hell? A girl like me?
I fumbled with my keys and the lock, choking on indignation.
A girl like me. Did he mean a fat girl?
Of course he did.
That was why he used to talk so candidly to me about his girl problems. He never saw me as a viable dating option, and he still didn’t.
I hoped he did date some actress and get his heart ripped out. He had it coming.
A girl like me. Hah!
He couldn’t handle a girl like me. It took a real man to do that job.
I stomped up the stairs and found Shayla lounging in the clawfoot bath tub, the tea kettle on the floor next to her.
I put down the toilet seat and sat down next to her.
Her eyes widened. “You’re filthy! What happened? Do you need me to call the police? Or should I put Vaseline on my face and slick my hair back so we can go kick some ass?”
“Easy there, One-Woman Army of Vengeance. Dalton was a perfect gentleman. I just took a shortcut on the way home and got treated like a training dummy by a retired, toothless police dog.”
“And you say you’re not the fun one. I ate a tin of Almond Roca and stalked people from high school on the computer all night.”
“Freaky. It’s like we’re magically trading places.”
I thought about telling her all about Adrian insulting me, but my mouth didn’t want to make the effort. Screw him.
Shayla sunk down into the tub, opened her mouth to let water pool in, then spat it at me in a perfect arc.
I sat there and got soaked, too exhausted from my crazy night to get out of the way.
“Tell me what depraved sexual things you let Dalton Deangelo do to you,” Shayla said. “Or I’ll keep sprayin
g you with water.”
“Well, you know how I always say I can’t see the fuss over receiving oral sex?”
Her face lit up.
“Let’s just say I’m a believer,” I said. “This postal outlet is now open for incoming mail of the tongue variety.”
“You dirty slut!”
I got up and closed the bathroom window, because Mr. Galloway didn’t need to know what a dirty slut I was, and I was about to tell Shayla every detail, even the embarrassing ones. Especially the embarrassing ones.
I woke up in my own bed, which contained only me and some fig newton cookie crumbs—a few more fig newton cookie crumbs than I would recommend for a good night’s sleep.
Shayla and I had stayed up far too late discussing every word out of Dalton’s mouth and what it all could mean.
She annoyed me, actually. The way she acted like what happened next was completely up to me. Bullshit it was.
I hate when people tell you “it’s all about the attitude” and “fake it ’til you make it.”
You know what that advice amounts to? Kicking you when you’re down. Because now it’s your fault, because you didn’t believe in yourself enough. You didn’t clap your hands, and all the pixies died… or however that story goes. You know what I mean.
If a willingness to be confident was all it took, we’d all be confident. We’d all leave the house in one-piece rompers, ass hanging out for everyone to enjoy.
That morning, I should have been in a great mood, but I wasn’t. That’s the thing about moods—they’re not logical. And change is stressful, even if it’s good change like dating someone hot.
When you have nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose, but dating a hot guy meant I could potentially fuck everything up with a hot guy.
Argh!
I took it out on myself by putting on a drab outfit of dark brown cords and an olive green button-down shirt. I looked like I was going off to war.
What people wouldn’t know was that underneath those drab clothes, I wore a hot pink bra and panties set—another brand-new set I had been saving for a special occasion. Apparently, that occasion was today.