There are hidden valleys deep in the Appalachian Mountains where the walls of Reality are as thin as the line between man and beast, and nothing is as it first seems.
[Warning: Parts of this story include explicit descriptions of sex between women and men transformed into dogs. If you don't want to read that, don't read this story.]
'There's no place as beautiful as the Blue Ridge Mountains in the spring.' At least that's what my Grandma always used to say. So when she left my wife and I a sizeable sum of money, we decided to use it to buy a little cottage in the mountains she loved. After an exhausting morning touring the county with our realtor, I desperately needed some fresh air. My wife went into the antique shop next the real estate office, but I begged off, opting instead for a stroll in the park across the street. It wasn't much of a park, just a few trees around a grassy square, and an old wooden bench, currently occupied by a local.
"Mornin'. The man on the bench drawled as I approached. Seen from the front, he didn't look as old as the white in his hair suggested. He had gentle features and deep brown eyes. One hand idly scratched the brown and white mutt lying at his feet, who cracked an eye to give me the once-over and promptly went back to sleep.
"Good morning. Enjoying the weather?" I tried to be polite.
"Waitin' for the wife. Kinda like you, I reckon. He nodded at the antique shop my wife had entered.
"Yeah, who knows how long she'll be in there."
"She won't be out for a while, not with all the junk that Ginny's stored up. He shifted position with a chuckle, offering me a seat on the bench. As I sat, I noticed a small plaque screwed to the backrest that read "Liar's Bench." He must have noticed my gaze.
"Liar's bench," he said fondly, "You can hear a lot of tall tales from the old men that sit here most days, but if you want I'll tell you a better one--a true one. If'n ya want, that is."
"A true story?"
"As true as a mother's love, friend.
I had my doubts, but it's not like I had anything better to do while I waited, so I leaned back and waited for him to continue.
"Funny coincidence, some years ago my wife and I arrived in the Blue Ridge Mountains on a day much like today," he fixed me with those dark eyes and began his story, "I had been offered a teaching job here at Northeast Tennessee State University, you see.
All we could afford was a starter home near the Carolina border, backed up against the national forest. There were only a couple other places in our valley, an empty cottage, and a farm about 300 yards uphill along a rugged gravel trail. One morning, the two of us were outside painting our new house. At least I was; Rachel was sitting on the porch swing drinking lemonade and complaining.
"Remind me again why we moved here, Paul. Out here in the middle of fucking nowhere, where the only place to shop is Walmart--or Bi-Lo," She sighed and took a sip of lemonade "Where all the goddamn hillbilly, welfare moms and their bucktooth kids shop." She shook her head again and snorted "I mean really, there's only one gas station in town, and it has a video shop--who the watches video tapes anymore?" She finished with a sneer.
I'd heard it all before, yesterday, the day before, and every other day since we moved in, two weeks early. But what could I say? The job market for biology professors sucks and NTSU was the only one to offer me a tenure-track position. She wanted me to take a one-year contract in Washington, DC instead, but I'd seen enough long-term adjuncts to know where that road led.
"Fuck it. I need some vodka." Rachel scowled into her lemonade and went inside with a toss of her straw-colored hair. I watched her go, thinking about how her quick movements reminded me of the little animals I'd seen around our place. Come to think about it, her face did too, with wide-set brown eyes and a narrow chin.
I knew she wouldn't come out till afternoon, if at all. She'd be on the computer, browsing the reviews for new restaurants and shows opening in DC, where we'd lived while I completed my post-doc. Research, she called it--her dream was to be a food critic for the paper. When I went inside for lunch she would bitch about how long it had been since she'd gone out on a proper date--if she wasn't sleeping off the vodka.
Well, what about how long it's been since we've made love, I wanted to say. Our sex life had been great in DC, but since we moved here she either had a headache or not been in the mood every time I made a move. I got hard at night thinking about the woman next to me, the way her t-shirt hugged her curves and rode up in her sleep to expose her panties. Sometimes I fantasized about putting my dick in her half-opened mouth so she'd wake up horny and give me a blowjob, but I never had the courage. In the end, I usually jacked off into a sock and dropped it in the washing machine so she wouldn't notice.
Our valley is dead quiet most of the time. Occasionally we hear a truck engine-braking as it comes down Highway 321, but we're far enough away that we don't hear anything else but birds, dogs barking and sometimes the bleating from our neighbor's sheep. Maybe that was why I jumped when I heard a dented Ford pickup come bumping down the gravel trail from the adjacent farm for the first time. I stopped what I was doing and watched as he turned up onto our drive.
The truck jolted to a stop and a man got out. He was my height, but he packed a lot more muscle on his solid frame. Three days of stubble highlighted the strong lines of his jaw, and waves of brown hair spilled out from under a grungy cap.
"Howdy." His rugged appearance made me, with my Georgetown t-shirt and sweatpants, feel out of place in my own yard. Back then, Rachel always said I was "cute," with a round face and big eyes, but next to him I felt like a 99-pound nerd. My skin was still pasty compared to his and I'd have needed Rogaine to grow stubble on my face that thick.
"I know, I know, I don't look like that anymore, do I?" The man interrupted his story, hands raised to fend off my questioning look. Did he really expect me to believe that his lean and muscular figure had been 'cute' and 'round?' "Don't worry, we'll get to that. He said soothingly.
Anyway, I pushed my glasses up my nose and introduced myself.
"Hi. I'm Paul. Paul Redman. We just moved in here a couple of weeks ago. We...um...I mean, my wife and I. You...ah...live up the road?" I realized I was rambling nervously and closed my mouth.
"Ralph Trivette. Pleased to meet'cha, neighbor. That's our farm up yonder." He lifted his chin towards the gap in the woods from which he'd came. His voice was scratchy like he was out of practice.
"Nice to meet you too. I should introduce you to Rachel. I'll...um..." I stumbled. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea right now.
"No hurry," Ralph said. He didn't seem like a man who hurried. "We just stopped by to say hello on our way out."
"Okay...um..."