by Allison Moon
Lexie reached up with the gratitude she had been giving to the moon. She gave it now to Archer, stroking the woman’s cheek, peering into her heart. Archer let Lexie’s adoration wrap itself around her like fleece. She slid her strong arms between Lexie’s back and the earth, and lifted her as gently as one might a child.
“Let me take you home,” Archer whispered. Lexie felt weightless as she was raised so easily into Archer’s chest. Lexie smiled, feeling like a rescued fairytale heroine. She looked at Archer, her head obscuring the moon. It haloed her chestnut hair with its light.
A great white ring surrounded the moon, signifying more rain to come. The colors of Archer’s face dissolved into the trees, the sky, the earth. They danced slowly and elegantly, like oil paints wrapping around and around one another. Her weight resting in Archer’s arms, Lexie let her head fall back. The forest floor became her sky, and the inky night became the sea below them, and she drifted away.
Chapter 8
Lexie awoke to a sunbeam prying at her eyelids. The light was weak and wintery, and a swift breeze sent branches shivering against a window. Her right hand was buried in a thick clump of white fur. She was in an unfamiliar room, lying on a pile of fleece beneath a pile of blankets. Dizziness assailed her as she flipped over to stare at the bare-beamed ceiling high above her. Beyond the dusty-paned windows, she heard a handsaw grating through branches, a few strokes before a snap, over and over.
She was in a small cabin. A banked fire burned in a hand-hewn fireplace, layers of slate stacked from the plank floors to the apex of the roof. Small clods of peat sizzled among the ash, filling the room with the smell of the deep forest. The heat from the fire was mild, but Lexie was sweating beneath the layers of blankets. A simple kitchen stood opposite to the fireplace: nothing more than an exposed copper tap over a deep steel basin, an ancient, propane-fueled refrigerator, and a wide, handmade farmhouse table that stretched the full length of the eating area. A whittled ship ladder led to a sleeping loft, but Lexie could see nothing of that from where she lay.
A cough sizzled in her chest, forcing out her breath in short, sharp bursts. Nausea swelled up her esophagus. She swallowed once, then again. Throwing off the blankets, Lexie jumped to her feet and ran to the kitchen to retch the watery contents of her stomach into the sink. She braced her arms on either side of the rim, heaving.
From outside came the clang of the saw dropping. Archer burst through the door and hurried to Lexie’s side, stroking her back as her body purged. Lexie’s last heave was empty and painful, nothing left to expel but bile. She let her knees buckle beneath her, sinking to the dusty floor. Archer followed her to the ground, holding her hand to Lexie’s chest. Lexie chased and caught her breath, clutching Archer’s hand within her own, pressed against the clammy sweat on her bare chest. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, taking comfort in Archer’s soft hand against her skin.
A quiet moment passed between them, then Archer said, “Come on, I’ll make you some tea.”
She lifted Lexie to her feet and eased her back to the downy lambskin and covered her with the blankets. Archer turned the knob of the propane tank beneath the stove. Clicking the lighter to the burner, the gas caught with a whoosh. She set a kettle on the flame, then returned to Lexie’s side, brushing away the small tears that rolled down the side of her face. “Shh. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” Lexie whispered, squeezing the tears out of her still-closed eyes.
“Don’t be. Nothing is wrong. Your body just needed to purge. It’s natural. It’s healthy.”
“No. That’s not . . .” Lexie’s voice trailed off, unable to speak her shame. Another silent moment passed. Archer ran her fingers through Lexie’s hair, calming her.
“It’s . . .” Lexie started again, “I bled all over your lambskin”
“What do you mean? Are you hurt?”
“No, I started my period yesterday. I always puke on my second day. It’s horrible . . .” Her voice battled tears, “I’m sure I leaked . . . “
Archer stroked the auburn curls that framed Lexie’s face. “Lexie, there’s no blood here. I saw it as you lay down.”
“No, there is. I feel all . . .” Lexie squeezed out more tears. “I’m wet.”
Archer grinned, shaking her head. “Lexie, there’s not. Here, look.” Archer guided Lexie to her side, pulling back the covers and exposing the entirety of the lambskin to the light. It shone as creamy white as buttermilk.
“See? You’re fine.” She ran her hand through the fur, feeling the warmth that Lexie had infused in it.
“That’s impossible.” Lexie sat up to look beneath her. No red, just white softness surrounding her. She noticed then that she was wearing the panties from last night, and nothing more.
“Where are my clothes?”
“Drying in the oven. You fell in mud last night and got filthy. I washed everything this morning. It should be dry soon. Let me loan you something in the meantime.”
Archer stood and climbed the ladder into the sleeping loft. Her footfalls creaked on the planks overhead. Before Archer could return, Lexie reached between her legs and returned with fingers glistening with clear moisture, as benign and sweet as sweat or spit. She pulled the string of her tampon. Holding it up, Lexie saw it was clean, as though her body had reabsorbed all the blood she had released the evening before. She leapt to toss the tampon in the trash as the teapot whistled. She hurried back to the lambskin, hiding herself beneath the blankets. Archer descended the ladder and tossed a cloth bundle at Lexie. Lexie snatched them up and changed under the covers as Archer turned to the stove and poured the water into two mugs. A scent of comfort filled the room.
“Do you recall last night?” Archer asked, odd eyes shining. Lexie didn’t think so at first but blushed as the memory returned. She resurfaced, wearing a brown t-shirt and a goofy smile. She wrapped cold fingers around the ceramic mug, warming them. They both inhaled the rising steam and sighed. Archer smiled, meeting Lexie’s gaze, and they sipped.
“Do you think it was the mushrooms?” Lexie asked.
“That stopped your period? Or made you vomit?”
Lexie shrugged, “Either, I guess.”
Archer shook her head. “No. It wasn’t the mushrooms.” She set down her mug and leaned onto her elbow, stroking Lexie’s forearm with her free hand. “Mushrooms--the right ones anyway--they heal. And if they wanted you to purge, you would have, right away.”
Lexie lay down, unsatisfied, letting Archer’s hand draw feathery tingles up and down her body. “Your friends really know how to party,” Lexie said with a weak chuckle.
Archer smiled and rolled onto her back. “Oh, that was nothing. You should see us at Beltane.”
A gust of autumnal wind blew against the windows and the light grew dim with passing clouds.
“I’m sorry,” Lexie said finally, with a sigh.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Archer said, with a dreaminess reserved for lazy Sunday mornings such as this one.
“I know. I guess . . . I’m just . . .It’s confusing.”
“What is?”
“Since school started . . . everything. I don’t know what’s going on in my body.”
Unlike the rebuke she would have expected from Blythe for a possible derogatory statement about women and their bodies, Archer made a sound of acknowledgement, and said, simply, “Tell me more.”
“I’d never kissed a girl before.”
“Until last night?”
“Well, no.” Lexie replied, almost embarrassed at that admission more than the first. “The night before.”
Archer chuckled and draped her arm around Lexie’s waist, pulling their bodies closer together.
“I know,” Archer said.
“You know? How?”
“I could smell her on you.”
“Oh.” Lexie chewed on her lip, contemplating that. “It was really nice. I mean, you were nicer, by far, but I don’t know. I’d n
ever really thought about it at all, boys or girls, kissing at all. It just--” Lexie could feel her mouth spinning out of control, and she struggled to steer herself back on course. She exhaled, making a sound like children make in the bathtub, imitating motorboats. “The past couple of days have been really intense, Archer.”
Archer let Lexie’s comment sink into the quiet of the room, before speaking again.
“It’s nothing you can’t handle.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because I see the strength in you. And the curiosity.” Archer smiled. “It will be intense, and then it won’t, and then it will again. And on and on. That’s life. The key is maintaining your stride.”
Lexie looked at Archer, their heads parallel to the earth and the sky.
They cuddled in silence on the fur, until the sunlight that had woken Lexie moved on to warm another corner and the fire clung to life on one charred log. Archer’s body against hers was warm and soft. She felt protected, as though this cabin were her home, and Archer’s body was all she needed for shelter.
She turned to face Archer, whose eyes were closed, resting. “Your cabin is beautiful.”
Archer opened her eyes and in the first moment, they were like a shark’s, the pupils spilling black to the edges of her irises. Her right eye looked like a solar eclipse, the left, like a lunar one. In the next moment, her pupils contracted to tiny dots on their landscapes of color.
“Thank you. It took me quite a while to get it just right.” She leaned up onto one elbow, gesturing to the fireplace, “I knocked that down three times before I liked it enough.” She chuckled at herself. “I guess I’m kind of a sloppy perfectionist.”
Lexie’s eyes widened with awe, “You built this place?”
“I did. I am quite butch,” she joked.
“I guess so.” Lexie sat up on her elbows and scanned the room, the walls of logs stacked one on top of the other, the floors tongued and grooved so snugly that she barely felt the cracks between each board as she danced her fingers across them. The roof reached its apex high above their heads, a single log that spanned the length of the whole cabin. It was made from a massive sequoia that, rather than rotting in the woods, was exalted in its grave as the crux of the homestead.
Lexie’s glance returned to Archer’s face, with those mismatched eyes that glittered in the dying flame’s light.
Archer looked back into Lexie, the moment filling with quiet desire. She reached her hand to Lexie’s face, running her fingers down her cheek, then cupping the side of her neck.
Nervous, Lexie struggled to find words to fill the space.
“Have you lived here long?”
Without removing her hand, Archer answered, “Yes.”
“Alone?”
Archer grimaced, the first such expression Lexie had witnessed from her. “I built this place for myself. I had a family once, elsewhere.”
“What happened?” Lexie tread carefully, concerned about divorces or car accidents or the other mundane disasters than wrench modern families apart.
“It’s a long story,” Archer pulled away from Lexie, who immediately regretted pursuing this conversation. “A love triangle, I guess you could say, though it was more like a love hexagon. And then some bad pressure from external forces.” Her breath was heavy, and Lexie watched her rib cage expand and contract like a great, snoring beast’s. “The casualties were numerous.”
Lexie hoped Archer was speaking metaphorically.
“In the end, it was clear it would be best if I left, so I did.”
“Where did you go?”
“I traveled for quite a long time. Wandered all over, but I couldn’t not come back here.”
Lexie was surprised that this tiny part of the world would beckon anyone to return. “Why?” she asked.
“This is my home,” Archer said, a shocking sadness in her dissonant eyes.
It was Lexie’s turn to offer solace. She slipped out from beneath the blankets and crawled to Archer’s supine body. The bare skin of her legs drew goosebumps in the exposed air. Leaning over Archer, she stroked her forehead, stroked her cheeks, her ears, her neck, her shoulders. With her sweeping fingertips, she felt as though she could learn all of Archer’s secrets, dancing throughout the space like dust. They flitted in and out of Lexie’s field of vision, some begging to be addressed, but most just there, hanging in the air like Chinese lanterns, sweetly stoic in their vigilance. Lexie’s hair fell like soft vines against Archer’s cheeks, casting shadows on both their faces, the waning firelight struggling to peek through her lazy spirals.
Lexie licked her lips and tasted the yarrow of the tea and the sweat of her skin. Memories of the night before flitted through her mind as her senses keened and swaggered, trying out new combinations, stretching against their prior bounds. She pushed them beyond the old edges of her reality, picking apart the deluge of input to find the subtle, significant parts. Like Archer’s scent. Like the weight of Lexie’s body pressing against the heels of her hands. Like the tugging of her hair at the roots, or the moisture inside her mouth, as Archer awakened her hunger.
She was getting drunk on Archer’s face, on her musk, on the feeling of their skin skidding against one another. And like the drunkard that she was, her body begged for more. Clutching the dip of Archer’s waist, Lexie leaned down to pick up where they had left off the night before. Their lips met, wet and warm. Her whole body swooned and relaxed. The blood drained from her brain and spread through her body, shutting down her rationality. Her mind, most often located somewhere roughly behind her eyes and above her ears, had migrated and now lived in her lips, where they touched Archer’s, and on the side of her face, where Archer’s hand held her. It glanced into being in her eyelashes, where they flickered against Archer’s, and in her breasts, pressed against Archer’s chest.
Wherever Lexie pressed her body against Archer, her mind rose to the surface of her skin, like sparks of static electricity jumping between two charged points. Lips pressed moist and firm together, Archer inhaled deeply through her nose and pulled Lexie tighter against her. Lexie buried her hot face into Archer’s hair, spread across the fleece spread, mingling with it. Lexie couldn’t tell the difference and didn’t care. It all smelled like Archer; it all felt like heaven.
Lexie’s body clenched the rush of pleasure. A wave of moisture surged between her legs, soaking her underwear. Lexie arched her neck as Archer nipped her.
A wave of panic waited on the other side of the bliss that carried her. It swept her back into her head, away from the magical points of contact with Archer. The anxiety claimed her whole body, snatching the pleasure and replacing it with the need to move, go, run. She wanted Archer to take her, to keep her from running, to lay her flat against the ground and pour her body into to her, enveloping each piece of flesh, inside and out. But the questions started, like a sniff of cocaine to the brain. Lexie’s mind started talking and wouldn’t shut up. First came the images, flashes of moments that led her here: Blythe and her smile; Renee and her legs; Mitch and his dimples; Archer and her eyes. These clues amassed in a pile of rough edges and meandering through-lines, like tangled skeins of mismatched yarn. The tangle meant nothing as a group, but the hint of meaning was enough to cloud Lexie’s mind, forcing down the trap door of sensation. This wasn’t like the night with the Pack, when “No” was the simplest and most appropriate response. Here, joined with Archer, each cell of her body yearned to scream the word Yes.
She tried to again steer her mind back into her flesh, focusing on Archer’s tongue in her ear. Archer responded to her unspoken need, rolling Lexie over onto her back, and pressing her thigh between Lexie’s legs, holding her wrists above her head, restraining, liberating. Everything was wet, her neck, her ear, her mouth, her thighs. The moisture acted as facilitator, easing the friction of Archer’s thigh, stimulating sensation, leaving Lexie begging for more, always more. Her body wouldn’t be satisfied until she was bathing in their combined fluids, all sl
ick and salty sweet.
But her mind had a mind of its own. In the twilit space of touch, lust, and limited resources of blood, it intruded again with the voice from her dreams. Strange women sang and spoke, begging to be heard, though Lexie couldn’t heed them even if she wanted to. They spoke in sigils, mojo, and music, tearing her attention away from Archer and the cabin, pulling her like sirens to the jagged rocks of her tangled subconscious, inciting her to flee. She wanted them to shut the fuck up and leave her alone with Archer. They thrummed as loudly as the drums from the night before, a bassy, urgent call telling her that she was doing something wrong. These voices rarely bled into her waking life, but here they were, forcing Lexie’s eyes open, inciting her to movement. She resisted.
The light waned as the orb of the sun dipped behind heavy clouds. Archer’s face changed shape before Lexie’s eyes. It melted and twisted, flashing illusions over the real. She looked like the space between channels on a radio, all static and white noise that only the strongest characteristics could break past. Her nose lengthened, her skin darkened, and her hair swirled like seaweed at low tide. Lexie caught her breath, wanting to look away but enraptured by the glamour that was ensnaring them both. When Archer spoke, it echoed from the depths of a deep well, distant and lost.
“Lexie?” she asked. “Are you alright?”
“I . . .” Lexie struggled to communicate, but she could only think of her Nana and the absurd things she claimed as her brain decayed.
Nana Lou developed schizophrenia when Lexie’s mother was a teenager, and she spent the remaining years of her life ensconced in a nursing home. As a child, visiting Nana was a frightening experience that entailed detailed descriptions of the sky as it shattered in shards, or translations of the cackling of the crows outside the window. Lexie suspected this genetic legacy was the true impetus behind her mother’s disappearance, to save her husband and child from the burden of insanity.