The forest was all around us, and we were in its centre, protected and soothed by this glittering eye.
‘We have arrived,’ I whispered.
You nodded.
‘She didn’t promise too much, that old woman!’ Your cry was sudden, jump-starting you into action. You stripped off your clothes, abandoned them one by one until you were completely free, the white of your ass contrasting with the brown of your back, jumping in with a scream that echoed across the clearing. You re-emerged with a triumphant smile.
‘You coming?’
First I slipped off my sandals, then my shirt. I folded it carefully and lay it on a soft spot on the ground. I took off my shorts, and then, with a flicker of hesitation, my underwear. You had turned away, swum a little way off. I stood there feeling the wind graze my chest, tickle me between my legs. I looked at the water. I couldn’t see through its body, couldn’t assess its contents. But I stepped in. And the water embraced me completely, softly and coolly. I felt myself anew, as if something in me had been switched on after a long time. It was a sensation of lightness and power and total inconsequence. I began to move, and every movement propelled me forward. The sky above was lighter than the water, specked with tiny clouds. I was conscious of the unknown underneath.
‘See, you can do it!’ you screamed from across the lake, ecstatic.
I was calm.
My body moved in your direction, and you looked at me, suddenly calmed too. With your arms outstretched to the sides, you were like a ballet dancer hovering in flight. Under the surface of the water something warm rattled in my belly. I approached, until I could see the drops of water on your forehead and on the tip of your nose and in the corners of your mouth. We didn’t say a thing. We looked at each other, already beyond words. You were there and I was there, close, breathing. And I moved into your circle. All the way to your waiting body and your calm, open face and the drops on your lips. Your arms closed around me. Hard. And then we were one single body floating in the lake, weightless, never touching the ground.
That evening, as the sun began to set, we pitched the tent underneath a large pine. It was still warm and the lake had turned black and cicadas sang calmly and there was no light anywhere but the thin slice of moon. We lay down on our sleeping bags. Wind blew softly against the tent, and the only sound was that of the tree above us swaying along, its needles rustling and whispering to themselves. We lay on our backs, hands folded beneath our heads, our elbows touching lightly. Through the flap in the tent’s roof we saw the sky filled with stars. They were tiny and there didn’t seem to be many, but the closer you looked the more there were. You could never hold on to all of them. Looking at them made my head spin warmly.
‘I’m glad this happened,’ I said, enjoying the sound of my voice and its gentle vibration in my body.
‘Me too.’ You turned your head towards me, your eyes bright. ‘I knew it would happen since the beginning,’ you said, smiling.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah. When you looked at me that first day, when we arrived. You’re easy to read.’
I laughed and pushed against you. ‘Oh yeah?’
You smelled of water and pines. There was softness, and there was hardness. I could sense your tan under my fingertips, and with your strong, solid hands you drew me afresh, creating me, the small of my back, my inner thighs … and you. Your back, your chest, your stomach, your thighs, your cock. Hard and impossibly close beneath the softness of your briefs, caressing my palm, obvious, world-shattering, demanding. We moved fervently, struggling. There was so much I could not get enough of, so much I would never be able to grasp or possess, no matter how much I tried. And I tried, we tried. Covering ourselves with each other, merging into one, pulling, following the pull, letting its current take over. Our sighs were shared, refused to release us. The night reminded me of the Easter bonfires I would watch as a child in the park nearby, where the pyramid of wood burned from top to bottom, chasing the ghosts of winter, bringing a thaw, releasing the warmth from the dormant, the resting.