The Possibilities - Desire - A Collection of Short Stories

by Stormy Adams

  There was no mad pounding like the movies men seem to love so much, there was only this man above her, moving agonizingly slowly with absolute control over his body, his eyes impassioned and blazing with intense desire. She wished that it would never end. When he had reached as far as he could possibly go, it was Pat who became the wild one, shrieking and clawing in her pleasure as her hips writhed and drew from him the fiery essence that scalded her inside.

  She tucked her head in the hollow of his throat and listened as their hearts pounded, his weight delicious and welcome on her own body. It had never been like this for her before, and she had the dawning realization that it would never be this way again. What they had shared was a once in a lifetime experience, granted to very few. She sighed, more satisfied than she had ever been in her life, and she traced his back lightly as she lay there, savoring the moment.

  After they had recovered, Brian shyly showed her, larger spring-fed pool where they could bathe, and they took a great deal of pleasure in washing the swamp from each other’s bodies. Later, they moved their camp to the new hummock and set up the shelter, using fresh ferns beneath the poncho. Brian cut a new trench around the shelter and they lay the sun fresh blanket atop it.

  THE FEAST

  Brian managed to shoot a brace of ducks for their dinner while Pat collected firewood for the night, and then more for the signal fire should it be needed. She occupied herself with mindless chores as she savored the fantasy that was Brian. When he brought the ducks back and prepared them, she went to the big spring fed pool and bathed again, using a sliver of a bar of scented soap she had found in the suitcase she had abandoned at the old campsite.

  While the ducks were roasting in their foil wrappers, stuffed with the fruits, berries, and tubers Brian had collected, they made love on top of the blanket they would sleep beneath that night. Brian was tender and called her name over and over as he slowly built towards their mutual bliss. At the final moment she felt her soul open up in joy at the same time she felt the sadness. It was not the same, it would never be the same for them again. Both of them knew it.

  The ducks were delicious, and Pat was amazed at how Brian could wrangle such a gourmet meal from the beautiful but desolate swamp. They cleaned up their cooking mess and made the campsite ready for night. There were no clouds and they remembered the flare gun and flares in their watertight case, keeping it handy as they sat by the campfire and spoke quietly about their lives. When it was time for sleep, Pat eased beneath the blanket, nude and ready. Brian crawled in moments later and she reached for him eagerly.

  She was surprised when he stayed her hand, and even more surprised when he cradled her head in the crook of his strong arm and lay back on the waterproof bag they were again using as a pillow. “When this is all over,” he said in a strange voice, “you’ll go back to your husband and your children and your life. This will all be a dream and I’ll be far away.” He turned onto his side and gazed down into her limpid eyes. “I can’t tell you how much you mean to me, I don’t have the words. I can tell you this: I won’t cheapen what happened between us with ‘comfort’ sex. What happened between us was magic, something special I’ll never forget.”

  He was silent for a long moment before he spoke again. “What we did is against everything I believe in, what I stand for, and I should be ashamed of myself. I’m not. I’m a grown man and I’m not ashamed of what I felt and what we shared, but I know it’s not a forever thing.”

  Pat didn’t know what to say, her feelings huge and inexpressible. He had said what needed to be said. Suddenly she was exhausted, by the efforts of the day, their lovemaking, and the residual trauma of the crash. She fought to stay awake, but her eyes closed anyway and she fell asleep in the warm safety of Brian’s arms.

  On the fourth day they were packing the duffel bag with the things they would need on their trek through the swamp. Brian had estimated their position as best he could on the map, and had decided to head eastward. There was a park service road marked there that was the closest to their estimated position. There had been absolutely no air traffic over their area in four days. It was more than evident that the small crafts transponder had been damaged.

  Brian had done his best with the waterproof bag, lining it with plastic he pieced together with a half roll of duct tape he had scavenged from the aircraft and then filling it with the sweet spring water. They stumbled and waded through dense thorny thickets, and at one point they hit solid ground that was covered with kudzu. Brian said that the kudzu was a good sign that they were approaching civilization. He explained that all Kudzu originated from five plants that were imported to New Orleans by a botanist who intended it for use in stopping soil erosion. The stuff grew like wildfire and now stretched across the southeastern U.S. It was a nightmare to walk through.

  NO CONTACT

  Towards the end of their second day of walking that they heard the engine of a small plane puttering above and to the east of them. Excitedly, Brian removed the flare gun and one of the five flares from the waterproof case and fired it into the air. They waited breathlessly for the plane to circle back around to them, but it never came.

  “Did you see that flare Jake?” Don Williams asked his buddy. They were flying a section of power line, checking to see if the Kudzu abatement crew needed to come out. The crap grew so fast that they had to fly the line at least once a month. Once it started on a tower, kudzu could destroy the huge power transmission towers in literally no time at all.

  “No,” Jake said, ‘but you’d better mark the GPS location, we’re running on fumes. When you’ve entered it in the flight log, get on the horn and see if you can find out if they’re looking for anyone out here. If nobody else is interested, we’ll come back and check it ourselves.” Don did as he was told.

  “I can’t believe they didn’t see that,” Pat moaned miserably.

  “Where there’s one plane, there’ll be another,” Brian said affably. “Why don’t we settle here for the night? I saw some squirrel’s nests a little ways back and I can make us a pretty good supper…you look bushed.” Tiredly, Pat agreed and sat down where she stood. Within an hour, Brian was back and cooking the squirrels in the ragged pieces of tinfoil.

  He looked up at the sky in mid-bite, dropping his squirrel and racing to the flare gun. Fumbling the case open, he loaded a flare and fired it into the air before Pat even heard the sound of the helicopter. Within minutes, the Sheriff’s Department helicopter was on the ground, and they were saved.

  Pat was crying as she watched Brian get in the patrol car for his ride to the airport. Their goodbyes were said, and they had exchanged phone numbers and addresses, though they both knew the information would never be used. She turned and walked back into the motel Paul had booked for her…he and the boys were ecstatic that she had been found, and they were on their way up from Jacksonville, where they had been waiting anxiously for word of her since the day of her disappearance. Her heart was filled with gratitude and love for the special man in the funny green hat and what they had shared together in the depths of the Okefenokee, but her life was in front of her, and she would very soon be reunited with the man she truly loved and the two small boys that were the most important things in her life. She wadded up the paper with Brian’s name and address and tossed it into a nearby wastebasket. She wouldn’t contact him again, but she would never, ever forget him.

  SPANISH MOSS AND HONEYSUCKLE

  CHANCE MEETING

  “I said no!” Gillian said to the crude drunken biker with the massive arms and foul body odor, pushing him away from her. His huge paws had been rubbing on her body since she arrived at the biker bar, and she was mad as hell. No one made a move to help her, they were afraid of him. She knew she was in the wrong place at the wrong time…but she had come here for a good reason. Gillian knew that she was dressed more than a little wild, but she was angry because the way she was dressed didn’t give anyone the right to manhandle her. True, she accepted the fact that when she we
nt to the biker bar dressed in low cut tight jeans and a tee shirt cut just below her firm braless breasts she was going to get a lot of attention. She craved attention in the worst sort of way and she accepted that some of the guys staring at her were not going to be the guys she wanted to hang with…but looking was one thing and touching was something else again. She swung with her long strapped purse and connected with the Neanderthal’s hard head. Something inside it shattered with a tinkle of broken glass, and she thought it might be her compact.

  She had drawn a small trickle of blood, and the bald Neanderthal touched the side of his head, drawing back his hand with blood on it. He grinned at her in a frightening way, and began backing her into a dim corner. Gillian was in deep shit, and she knew it. She prepared to swing yet again when she noticed a sudden silence in the bar behind her. The Neanderthal licked his lips and his eyes shifted nervously from her to the silence behind her. There was a fierce flame in his eyes, but it seemed to slowly flicker out. Suddenly, Gillian was more afraid of what was behind her than she was of the mean bastard in front of her.

  Spinning quickly, she turned to see what had silenced the bar and her mauler. What she saw froze her in her tracks. He was tall, probably six-one in his stocking feet, and he wore faded jeans, a black pocket tee shirt, and a worn leather bomber jacket. His feet were clad in a pair of Acme walking heel cowboy boots that were scuffed and a little down at the heels. He didn’t have the massive muscles of the Neanderthal, his were long and ropy and just plain dangerous looking. Wavy black hair shone in the dim light of the bar, and a lock of it fell over one eye or rather, the patch where an eye used to be. Apparently the stray lock didn’t bother him, because he made no effort to tuck it back into place. He had a square jaw with a day’s growth of stubble still on it, a nice complexion, and dazzlingly white teeth that barely showed through the tight grin on his face.

  One piercing blue eye showed out from under his thick black eyebrows, and he simply stood behind her, saying nothing at all. The silence extended, and there was no sound in the bar. Gillian noticed a small black metal insignia with white writing and red trim pinned to the chest of the worn bomber jacket. The white letters spelled out ‘1St Ranger Bn’. It was a scroll, and there was something faintly familiar about it, she had seen it before. Then she noticed the man’s unearthly stillness, she couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.

  Neanderthal was the first to break the silence. “Just havin’ a little fun here, Ranger,” he said nervously, “I didn’t know she was your woman.” Trying his best to maintain his dignity, the scarred bald man stood erect and walked warily around the quiet man and out into the parking lot. It was still so quiet inside that everyone could hear the sound of the old shovelhead Harley being kicked to life and roaring away into the night. His woman?

  The sound came back in the bar, and everyone went on about their business. The bartender popped the top on a Corona beer and inserted a twist of lime in the neck, passing it to the quiet man. “Thanks buddy,” he said quietly, “that’s on the house” and then moved off down the bar to serve another customer. The quiet man, never having said a word or even acknowledged anyone else’s existence, took his beer and moved to an empty single table at the back of the bar.

  Gillian grabbed the closest waitress. “Who the hell is that?”

  “I don’t know honey,” the pretty waitress said, tugging at her blouse to make her cleavage stand out a little more. “The guys just call him Ranger, I’ve never heard anybody call him anything else. He spooked me at first, but he’s been coming in for nearly a year now, always sits at the same table. Never says a word to anybody, never bothers anybody.”

  Gillian was confused. “If he never bothers anybody, why was everyone so afraid of him? This whole place got quiet as a graveyard when he came in.”

  The waitress laughed, and Gillian could tell there was a story coming by the way the waitress leaned against the bar and put her tray down. “The man that was messin’ with you?” It was a question so Gillian nodded her understanding. “He’s Joel Truax and he’s the meanest sonofabitch that ever come out of the swamps of Northwest Florida. He’ll fight at the drop of a hat and laugh while he’s doin’ it. I guess it was the second or third time Ranger came in here, dressed just like he is tonight. We had an old drunk that used to hang around here, Mike somethin’ I think his name was, and he was a Viet Nam veteran who only had one leg. Joel was slapping old Mike around and making fun of his missing leg. Mike couldn’t take care of himself anymore, too old and too drunk to care I guess, and everybody here is scared shitless of Joel Truax. Anyway,” she said, pausing for a breath before rattling on, “Ranger come in the door and stepped between Mike and Joel. Joel bellowed and rushed him, and I swear to God, I saw it myself and I still don’t know what Ranger did, but Joel was on the floor and there were some serious dents and scars scattered about his face and shoulders to add to his collection. Ranger never said a word, just picked old Mike up and took him outside. I talked to a bunch of people that were here that night, and not one damned one of ‘em could tell me how Ranger done it. Ever since, Joel Truax keeps his distance from the man.” Gillian thanked the girl and gave her a five dollar tip for her time, and then ordered a Corona, with a twist of lime in the neck.

  Gillian watched him as she made her way to the back of the bar. He was a strikingly handsome man, and the black eye patch gave him a rakish, dangerous look that sent shivers down her back. He was actually kind of frightening. Gillian was drawn to him like a moth to a candle. Right at this moment, she was convinced that Ranger was the faceless man who haunted her dreams as she lay alone in her bed at night, the flames of desire smoldering in her belly.

  “Thank you for saving me,” she said, slipping into a chair and pushing the Corona towards him. His one good eye took in her tight, low cut jeans, her hard flat belly, the cutoff tee shirt, the shoulder length deep auburn hair cascading in a cloud around her elegantly sculptured neck, and her deep, sea green eyes. Only after he had looked her over carefully did his eye dart back down to stare at her small firm unfettered breasts beneath the thin tee shirt. She flushed, but she didn’t try to hide the hardening nipples beginning to poke through the thin fabric of her tee shirt…with a rush of heat, she realized she wanted him to look. There was a terrifying mix of emotions inside her at the moment, and she didn’t know if she wanted to run or throw herself at this walking paradox. Finally, he nodded and took her beer after finishing his own. Half an hour later, frustrated Gillian left the bar. The man known to her only as ‘Ranger’ had never uttered a word.

  She fumbled with her keys at the door of her apartment, finally unlocking the door and stepping inside. There had been no one else in the hallway, but she’d had the oddest feeling of being watched. A quick perusal of the contents of her purse showed that her compact had indeed been shattered, and she picked the bits of plastic and mirror out before turning to get a can of cat food out of the cupboard for Whiskers, her Siamese cat. Whiskers was busy weaving between her ankles and rubbing up against her leg…until the cat food was in his dish, at which time Gillian became invisible. She started the hot water running in her bath and walked into her bedroom to undress. All through the long soak she turned the encounter over in her mind. Even as her rational mind set alarm bells ringing in her head, Gillian’s heart and body were not listening.

  She lay in her king sized bed, painfully aware of the empty space beside her, vacant since she had thrown her ex husband out four years ago.

  Every friend and family member Gillian had warned her that she was too young to marry at seventeen, and only her intent to file suit for emancipation had made her parents reluctantly sign their permission for her to marry Jason the day after their high school graduation. She would only have had to wait two months for her eighteenth birthday, but Gillian was an extremely determined young woman.

  Even after the honeymoon was over and the questioning jealousy began to spoil her marriage, Gillian held on to the idea that she could chan
ge Jason. She was very sensitive about his miserable childhood and the loss of his mother at an early age. It was only much later that she learned that his mother had fled because of the beatings administered by Jason’s abusive father. After five years during which Jason had beaten and abused her and continually refused to seek help, Gillian had finally kicked him to the curb. She hadn’t dated since she threw him out.

  Gillian had thrown herself into her work, obtaining her Bachelors Degree by attending night classes at the local university while working full time during the day. It had meant living tight, and giving up any sort of social life, but she had done it. Getting the degree had earned her a massive promotion at work, and she had rewarded herself with a late model used Harley Davidson Softail. Motorcycles were the shared interest that had tied her to Jason in the first place, and she had retained her love of the big machines even when her love for Jason had dissolved. The ride back from the biker bar hadn’t helped in her unsettled frame of mind, the rough vibrations of the motor contributing to the heat between her thighs.

  Gillian willed her eyes closed as she lay on her back. Moments later, they popped open again. Getting up and walking to her living room she checked the thermostat. Seventy-four degrees. She turned the control down and returned to her bed, leaving the covers off. Unable to get comfortable, she tossed and turned. Her nightgown clung to her, her nipples rising against the subtle pressure of the fabric, Gillian again stood up and tossed the nightgown to the floor.

  She lay back in the bed, luxuriating in her nudity, stretching much the same way as Whiskers did when he was settling down for sleep. Fifteen minutes later she was staring at the ceiling again, her fingers inching towards her center. It was no use, she knew what she would have to do to get any sleep at all tonight. She opened the drawer of her bedside table and withdrew her battery operated buddy. Switched on, the comforting hum of the device lulled her and the image that had unsettled her to begin with rushed to the forefront of her mind. She could feel the day’s growth of stubble as he kissed her, and his patch was not intimidating as he rose above her in her fantasy. His fierce and dangerous demeanor changed to something else, something deliciously wicked as her mind and the electric device transported her to another plane of existence.