by Maya Wood
As they climbed and twisted further into the thick maze of tall trees, Alexis left the task of trailing Trevor’s lead to her horse. She was a mere passenger now, lost in the perturbing questions of what had transpired. Why had she stopped Trevor? She had wanted him, just as he had wanted her. She had burned for him, and yet she’d pulled away when every atom of her being compelled her to fall against his tender embrace. And why was Trevor so angry? Every time she reached the end of these questions, she rewound again, yielding nothing but an inscrutable nebula of confused thoughts and emotions.
Of one thing, she was sure. In the moment that she had felt the sweeping panic wrench her from his arms, she saw in a flash that they were acting out the wishes of the heart. But what could she want with Trevor? What could he want with her? It was so clearly unlikely, and yet it seemed the natural order of the cosmos. What could either of them expect to come of it?
Her eyes swept across Trevor’s back. She wondered if they were joined in thought, if he too was sorting out the implications of their brief encounter. Sighing forlornly, she noticed that he rode stiffly in his seat, as though he braced himself against the excruciating movements of the horse. She wished desperately that she could help him, at least offer him words of comfort, return to the days when she gave and he accepted with appreciation and humility. But she knew the sound of her voice would only give him the traction he needed to lash her, to put her in her place.
***
“We should reach the village in a day’s time,” Trevor informed her coldly one night after a day of mutual scathing remarks. He hadn’t traveled this far west, he explained, and had never heard of the village she had marked on the maps Lawrence and Alexis had drawn with the help of field researchers. In the morning, he would leave her at the camp, explore the area and confirm its location.
“Will you be okay by yourself?” She couldn’t help asking, her concern for his wellbeing trumping any pride or anger.
Trevor snickered and shook his head. “Look, if you wanted to run the show, you shouldn’t have hired me. I’d be happy to leave you here with your expert knowledge. Is that what you want?”
Alexis’ shoulders tensed as a bolt of indignation flashed through her. Let it go, she told herself. “And what about Lewis?”
Trevor snorted. “Keen to get rid of me?”
She couldn’t stifle the urge to roll her eyes. “I didn’t hire him,” she reminded him flatly.
“Lewis might already be there. Maybe you two will hit it off better than we did.” He whipped her with those black eyes.
“You’re such a Neanderthal,” she bridled.
When she awoke the next morning, she saw that Trevor had folded his bedroll. He was gone again, and despite the gnawing recollection of the last time she’d woken to his absence, Alexis felt a wave of cool relief. She convinced herself that she was better off without him. He was a louse, using her for nothing more than financial gain. She told herself that she was merely a dollar sign to him, and nothing more than a pathetic object of his lust. Why, then, could she not shake the need to be near him?
She coerced her mind to focus on the milestone she had reached. After a seemingly endless journey, she was one day shy of uncovering ground-breaking clues to her father’s lifelong research. She knew she should feel intoxicated by its closeness, that she should be chomping at the bit to reach the village. But when she imagined herself and Trevor surrounded by people, her spirits wilted at the idea that the intimacy they had experienced would be diluted by the distractions of her work.
At this she wagged her head in self-contempt. He was underneath her skin, making every cell clamor with need. She tried to drown him in the files she retrieved from her briefcase, in the long-winded, depressed letter stuffed with false enthusiasm she composed to her father. She flitted about the forest floor, setting up the lone tent, carving a pit for the fire. She snacked mindlessly on the dwindling supply of crackers, pressing the crumbs absently with her index finger.
When Trevor returned, he ignored her, dismounting the horse arthritically, and wet its wide haunches with water from a large leather pouch. She waited for him to say something, but he kept his back to her.
“Well?” she asked finally, watching as he lowered himself at the fire’s side, his sour face illuminated in the glow.
“It’s there,” he grunted. “About three hours from here. We’ll break camp first thing.”
Alexis nodded. “Good,” she said. “And you? How are you feeling?”
“Don’t worry about me, I told you,” he said, his voice prickly.
Alexis felt her blood boil against the crown of her head. “Don’t be stupid, Trevor.”
He was squatting by the fire when she said it, poking the blazing wedges of dried wood with a strong, gnarled stick. He let it drop to the ground, his back expanding in ire. He ran his fingers through his hair, the locks pulling compliantly from his eyes and he raised his face to her with a slowness that made her own heated anger congeal into fright.
“Stupid?” His voice was a terrifying rumble. “Well, if the world-renowned Dr. Scott says it, it must be so.”
“I didn’t mean it that way –“
“I know how you meant it.” Now he stood up completely, towering above her. She couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. After a moment of agonizing silence, he said, “I just think it’s funny, is all,” his voice twisted sardonically. “You think you’re so smart, Red. You think because you’ve read a few books, gone to a fancy school that you’re better. But you’re a fraud,” he spat. “You’d be lost here…no, you are lost here. You’re just the person they sent to take notes, to go back to “civilization” and pat yourself on the back that you pissed on the island before anyone else did. You were right, Red,” he said, finally taking a breath. “I do think you’re silly. You’re a silly woman who ought to go back to Boston, marry your prince, and play wife. You’d be much better at it than any of this.”
Alexis’ spirit stretched between bitter venom and crippling disappointment. All at once she felt his heart’s wrath pour on her, and she looked up at him helplessly. The fire swathed her face in light, catching the tears welling at her lids. She felt her chin rise and tremble, her lips parting as she tried to catch her breath. How could he?
Trevor’s heart swelled in his chest, and for a split second he felt it burst as he saw the tears gather in her eyes. The soulful allure of this small, flaming haired creature had aroused in him a longing he had long entombed, and he would be damned to hell if he was to admit it. She had turned from him, made her feelings clear when he had exposed himself only to find that she pushed away, and he would whip her until he couldn’t remember the poignant loveliness of her touch, or the softness of her gaze.
“What’s this?” he mocked her. “You’re crying? How original.”
Alexis’ shoulders pitched as she fought to stifle the sobs surging mutinously from her gut. “How can you be so cruel?” Her head sank into her palms. “I don’t understand…we were so…you were so kind to me…”
Like a bullfighter, he saw the opportunity to slay the weakened prey, and with a sadistic sneer, he plunged the sword into the fragile softness of her vulnerability. He let out a howl of laughter, “Oh! I get it!” He slapped his thigh in comic hilarity. “You actually think that I give a damn? Foolish, foolish woman.” He shook his head theatrically, tsk-tsked as he wagged his finger. “The only difference between you and any other woman I’ve had, and believe me, I’ve had my fair share, is that you were harder to crack.”
Her mind cringed at the thought of giving him the pleasure of seeing her suffer with this announcement, but her sadness was beyond control and she let out a long, helpless wail, her voice splitting with heartbreak. As though possessed by a maniacal spirit, Alexis lunged from the log, her bloodless fists balls of white, and she assailed him in the electric blindness of her rage. She felt her knuckles pummel his chest, her hair flying wildly around her.
She was coming at him so quickly,
her arms flailing and striking as indiscriminately as a drunk man in a bar fight. He lifted his arms, shielding himself from her onslaught until he seized his moment and grabbed the smallness of her wrists in his palms. She thrashed rabidly against him, and he saw in her eyes that he had gone too far. He knew that she could not un-see the burning script of those savage falsehoods, and his heart clawed into his throat with remorse.
And then he gathered her in his arms, her frame tiny and feral as she writhed, her mouth screaming into the barrel of his chest. He cradled her head against him until he could feel his heart pounding soulfully against her crimson cheek. She wrenched away, raising her hand to slap his face. He accepted it in submission, and she buckled forward as her hand slid from his stinging skin.
“Alexis,” he croaked.
He swept her up and she fell against him helplessly like a rag doll as he lowered their bodies to the ground atop the woolen pad of her bedroll. An instant searing torch flared inside, every inch of his skin clamoring to feel her touch. He let her head fall back, saw that her face glistened wet, and caressed the lovely rise of her cheekbone with his chin.
Alexis slumped in his arms, overcome with the exhaustion of an exorcism, too tired to fight herself any longer. Once again she felt the lava-hot bud between her legs mushroom until it radiated to every limb, coursing over the surface of her skin. Her body seized in unworldly hunger when she felt his hands cup her warmth, his fingers pressing hard against her. Her mouth parted and she let out a low, throaty moan. He watched her lips open around the sound and her eyes roll back beneath her lids. Instantly he grew hard, and the air caught in his throat.
He lowered her to the ground, and she felt the large flat of his palms grope the firmness of her thighs as he pulled her legs apart. The air was cool against her as he tore at the cotton skirt, hiking it high along her hipbone.
He paused above her a moment, watching the torturous, feminine curves of her body undulate as she ached for him. He was panting now. He tore savagely at the collar of her dress and the flimsy material gave easily, revealing the exquisite lines of her breasts. A moan, born from the depths of his body, peeled low into the night. Trevor let his hands graze softly along the porcelain skin of her stomach, and he kneaded the flesh, his hands rising to meet the roundness of her breasts. His fingers pressed deep into their fullness. Alexis squirmed, whimpering, gulping for air to steady the seizures of her body.
He sank against her, his mouth open on her neck as he memorized her every contour with his tongue. When their mouths met, she felt his hand shoot to his waistline, his body trembling with urgency as he unfastened his pants.
Her back arched instinctively, knowing what she wanted was pressed firmly against her now, and the center of her being searched feverishly for his naked hardness. “Trevor,” she begged. He opened his mouth, bit her chin, his eyes clamped on hers. He buried himself between her thighs, their bodies fused, and his eyes lit as he pushed himself into her. They let out a shared cry of delirium. It was the sound of a flawless confession.
Alexis sucked at the air, pulled at the shock of hair gathered in her fist, dug her nails into the supple flesh of his back as he filled her, grinding her against the earth. His breath tore in his throat, and they locked each other in a searing gaze. Her vision flashed explosive blasts of white as her body climbed into staggering ecstasy, his thrusts becoming quicker, deeper. She squeezed the thickness of his body in her legs, coiling them tightly over the muscled roundness of his bottom. At that moment, she felt the sinewy curves of his back arch, his eyes flash darkly, and they screamed into the wild.
Alexis awoke the next morning, the sky suspended in gray as it waited for the sun to climb sleepily above the horizon. She felt a steady gush of breath on her neck, and she turned to see that Trevor’s face was buried in the velvet of her fallen hair. They both lay exposed above the bedroll, their naked skin dewy from the forest’s gentle mist, and she burrowed deeply into the warmth of his body behind her. She had never so totally reveled in the heavy solidness of a man’s thigh wedged behind the curve of her bottom, the coarse hair against her silken skin. His arm wrung tightly over her ribs, his hand curled at the slender line of her stomach. She felt the hypnotic undulation of his breathing, the comforting thud of his heart against her back.
She began to laugh, the air catching in her lungs as all the details flooded her mind. The warmth began to spread inside her when she remembered the weight of his body crushing her into the earth. She bit her lip, the grin spreading wildly across her face as she thought of the truth that they both had declared with their bodies. She moaned inwardly, her mind swirling in happiness.
When Trevor stirred, she felt his arms tighten around her and his warm breath caress her neck as his lips met the lobe of her ear. “Good morning,” his voice scratched in her ear. Alexis giggled, turned to him and his hand trailed along the hourglass slope of her waist and hips. “Do you know how beautiful you are, Red?” he asked her, his black eyes serious.
Alexis gulped, cleared her throat. She pulled from him, an embarrassed smile pulling into her cheeks. She stood nervously, covering her breasts and the nakedness between her legs. “I should put some clothes on,” she said, and scurried to the small pile of her discarded clothing.
Trevor did not let his eyes fall from her, and he memorized the exact shade of her skin, the mole at her hipbone, the golden hair at the dimpled small of her back. He thought how he had admired many female forms in his life, the sexual thrill. But when he saw her, he found that a lump rose in his throat, as though her beauty transcended the erotic. She was sublime, and he struggled to breathe as he understood what she had come to mean to him.
That morning, Trevor behaved like a schoolboy, his eyes shy, his tone submissive. Rather than fight the frightening urges of his heart, he seized every chance to touch her, pull her against him, hear the soft hum of her voice in his ear. He said the things he’d wanted to say before, all the times he’d let his ego speak the ripping words of self-defense.
“Alexis,” he started timidly, reaching to stroke the curls cascading around her face. “I,” he swallowed. “I wanted to talk about the things I said last night.”
“Oh.” Alexis chewed her lip and watched her hands suddenly fidgeting. She wanted desperately to bury those words. He had, after all, said so much more in other ways. “Trevor, don’t worry. I know you didn’t mean it.”
Trevor felt his throat close. Of all the people he’d ever hurt, he had never regretted inflicting pain so much as he did the evening before. “No, please.” Trevor was totally unaccustomed to laying himself out so plainly, and he struggled with the newness of this exposure. “It’s not even that I didn’t mean it.” He took her hand. “It was a complete lie. I’m so sorry, Alexis. I struck you down in order to save myself.”
Alexis found herself smiling involuntarily. “I need you to know,” he continued. “I need you to know that I think you’re truly the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. I’m honored to know you,” he said, his voice hard. “It’s so easy to be what others want or expect. It must have been a nightmare to be strong, to sacrifice all that you did in order to become the woman you are.”
He lifted his eyes to her. Her bottom lip was curling in a tremble. He raised the pad of his thumb to stroke it. “I’m so grateful that you were strong, and that you got on that boat, and that you found me.”
In an instant they were sealed in a breathless embrace. He buried his face in her neck. He was lost, tethered to earth only by this tiny woman, and his spirit spiraled madly from the terror and ecstasy of it.
They had dressed and eaten, and the wind had begun to settle. Both agreed with transparent reluctance that they should go before the air stilled and warmed. Alexis had strewn a rocky tablet with her briefcase’s files, her notepad open as she remembered last-minute details of her research questions. “I’m just about finished. Nature calls,” she smiled at him. As she passed him to find the small stream tucked behind the forest trees, he
reached out his hands, grabbed her by the waist and pulled her onto his lap. She parted her mouth, panting suddenly as she felt his tongue trace the fullness of her lower lip.
“Don’t get lost,” he joked, and returned her to her feet.
Trevor slumped forward, his elbows propped against his knees as he stared wistfully at the grass. He saw the long, wispy blades sigh in the whisper of wind which now passed low along the forest’s floor. Alexis’ stationary folder snapped open and a loose leaf of paper caught like a sail, coasting on the current until it settled at the toe of his weathered boot. He clutched the thin, flapping sheet in his fingers and moved to shut the folder when his eyes caught on the addressee of the letter. Dearest Philip, it read.
Trevor averted his eyes. It wasn’t his business to read her letter, he told himself despite the mounting curiosity. He placed it at the top of her stationary, his fingers pushing the folder closed when his gaze swept innocently over her slanted, cursive script. I can’t begin to describe the ape that is my guide. Had I let myself calm from the unnerving departure of my colleague, Henry Patterson, I might have seen what a mistake it was to hire him. He’s the most loathsome human being I’ve ever met, and I’m counting the days when I will be free of this wholly uneducated heathen of a man.
He noticed that he had stopped breathing, his heart beating flashes of white into his eyes. He shook his head, his face sinking into a foul frown. His jaw flexed and his fingers curled violently around the paper’s edges. He read further.
I cling to the memory of the night before I left for this place. How nothing made more sense than to feel your arms around me, and to pledge our lives together. Now I am living out the experience I’d dreamt of with the allure of ignorant fantasy, and I know all the more what I left behind me. I am ever yours, and I hope that when I return, I will still hold a place in your heart. Trevor gagged, his eyes bleeding angry wetness. The letter crackled loudly as he balled it into his fist and buried it in the pocket of his trousers. His heart, which had just moments before sung with an unknown bliss, locked shut, entombed by raging darkness.