"Bless me with the leaf off of the tree
On it I see the freedom reign
We are falling. The light is calling,
Tears inside me calm me down," Annette sings.
The words and the notes warble and fly through the leaves and I can't help but admit she is good. She is incredibly good, and I shouldn't be surprised. Annette's work with the endless path does the soul good and I do not feel tired. There is nothing in the way of the next step, no wall, no hill, no gripping, sucking mud to bog down the movement from one moment to the next. It's all just so easy.
I don't know if I like it.
Certainly, easier than alone. And the body is in good shape, if a little stiff and tight. But slowly, the knitted bone and whole muscle find themselves back to where they were, where they were supposed to be. The mind though, the mind cannot stay still. It has the path in front of it and it needs to know where it leads. The body does not. It just keeps walking, keeps pushing forward, and keeps glancing over to Annette's chest and finding some dark satisfaction in the urge to rip off her clothes and take her to the earth. That can at least wait until we stop for the night. Maybe get a fire going beforehand.
Not that it is quite cold enough for a real fire. And we have each other to keep warm. It's odd, really. The lasting presence of someone by my side. A morning that was the same as the night before, the same body that will sleep next to me when night falls. My foot snags on a ditch and I almost stumble. The song stops and the forest goes silent.
"You okay, Cottontail," Annette snickers, "Hate for you to break something again."
"Well now we know how to make me better," I say, "And I think you like making me better."
"You're tempting me to actively start hurting you."
I smile and smother my own chuckle as she trips in the same damn spot.
"Shame we have no real way to make you better if you get hurt," I say. She smiles and I am amazed at how white her teeth can be. The black skin, blacker than pitch, make them look blinding and I can't look away. Even when the smile is tinged with playful anger at the fact that the world decided to slight her too.
"Same way as anyone else. Bed rest and being waited on hand and foot. And since you're the closest living thing to me, I guess that makes you de facto nurse maid."
I roll my eyes and she sings again, strumming that lyre, or lute, or I'm not even sure. It's not quite any of those things, neck a little too long, and I think it has too many strings. But it's good. That and her voice just slowly eke out the minutes to hours to days on the trail.
Simple, all so simple really. Sleep when tired. Eat when hungry. Lay together when the urge gets too strong, and she refuses to stop shaking her hips in that terrible way when she walks.
Third day, or maybe fourth, and we finally come to a river. Annette grins at me, wide and playful and immediately starts stripping down. I don't stop her. I have no intention of ever stopping that particular dance, but I do find myself joining her before I realize what I am doing, shedding leather and cotton, and almost running full tilt into the water. I beat her there, wading up to my waist before sinking to my back and just drifting under the sun. The water is cold and brisk and the wind whipping across the surface sends an exhilarating thrill over my skin. And I love it. I love the cold kiss of water, fanning my hair and letting me drift.
I'm happy. I'm oddly happy. The tense and the stress and the dull tight ache all take the current down river and I do not care to go fishing for them. Let them drift down to the ocean, let it all drift down the ocean, where some great leviathan of gaping maw and glinting teeth swallow everything terrible and evil and drag it down to the darkest depths the world can offer. I let an ugly sigh come from my chest and Annette snickers again.
"Feeling good Cottontail," she asks. The current shifts and swirls around me as she approaches and the heat from her skin breaks through the cold water.
"Amazing. Been forever since I've been swimming," I sigh.
Her hand crosses my stomach and I shiver, not quite just from the cold.
"You're playing a dangerous game."
"I am aware. Do you want me to stop?"
My hand wanders from the water and moves to her cheek. Her eyes are so green, so bright, just like the lips. I go to the back of her neck and she brings her lips to mine. She tastes like river. She tastes like rock and grass and soft breeze and hummed songs carried on wind and wave and I do not want to let her go. But I do and find her blushing, her body making heat to boil the water.
"Tonight," I say, and an odd pride comes with her disappointment that I cannot drag the sun down and smother it in slumber. She tentatively drives a hand lower, and the knot makes a very, very, very good case for me that I should retract that word immediately. I am enjoying the river too much, the soft kiss of ice water on soreness so engrained into my body that I almost forgotten they even existed.
"Still tonight."
She splashes me and I yelp as the cold water tries to go up my nose. I splash her back, kicking the full might of the river against her. She snickers and yelps and splashes me again.
We play. I have not used that word in years. Play. Carefree. Innocent. Although, I watch her chest jiggle and the curve of her torso as she bends and dives in every way but the innocent one. Devour, I want to devour her. She laughs and I laugh and come up sputtering after an unforeseen dive sends water into my lungs. My scars and my aches and all of the terrible things in my body don't seem so bad.
---
We haven't moved from the riverbank for the night. After scaring all the fish away, we lured them back with the unfortunate end fate of being skewered over a fire. It dries our hair too, imparts some of the lost heat to the grand river that takes and takes and takes from us all. And it gives some to the fish that just flakes away. Clear river water and clean stones and the air smells so good, fresh grass and coming dew.
We finish the meal and Annette comes to sit next to me, the heat from her core filtering through her skin and suffusing the air with her scent. She still smells like river and stone. Something sour though, lemons or limes, trickles through the air. She leans her head on my shoulder and the instinct takes over. I put my arm around her shoulder and hold her tight.
I almost don't want where this will end. I like this. This moment, the flickering dance of fire, the stars overhead and a body that is calmly sharing the moment with me, that's more than enough. The knot says otherwise, its tightening grip threatening to choke me if I do not loosen it, but I don't want to listen to it.
