3 comments/ 12511 views/ 6 favorites Jonah By: talia_navar My favourite moments of the day are during my forty-five minute commute between work and home. They're the only times of the day that I let my mind go where I don't dare all the other hours. There I stroke her hair and make her tremble with kisses. I have whole conversations there. Sometimes I dare to tell her. Depending on the weather, how my customers talked to me, or how lunch is sitting she may laugh, yell or just walk away, but usually she softens and allows me to draw near. Sometimes she approaches me, drenched in rain or glowing in Saturday sunlight, lips parted and eyes darting. These are my favourite because I always end up doing the whole manly shoving her up against a wall thing, pinning her hands. It's a difficult balance cultivating these fantasies, surrounded by jostling commuters, and keeping them from going too far... it's awkward enough bumping up against the high schoolers and business women. On either end of the commute is the rest of my life, the parts that don't allow for fantasies. The downtown side is in a department store selling women's cosmetics that cost more than a day's salary for me, sometimes more than a week's. But tips are good... those women with their tight pants and sculpted cleavage appreciate a carefully timed wink when it comes from someone so dewy and humble as me. The blushes I coax from their botoxed cheeks are so much prettier than the ones I apply with squirrel hair brushes. The suburb side is the creaky little house with the powder blue siding and the cherry tree and porch swing. Too hot in summer, too cold in winter. Floorboards worn. Kitchen with those puke green appliances and turquoise walls. I hung orange curtains just to amplify the visual assault. The toilet will keep flushing unless you wiggle it twice while running the bathtub faucet. Each piece of comfy furniture is a dust mite ridden hug of wine stained velvet, corduroy or microfiber. Trinkets drip from every surface, even the ceiling. Things she's collected, found, cast off, and hoarded with intense, but brief, passion. When I walk up the concrete, moss lined path she's sitting as usual on the porch swing, casually crooked and wearing a long floaty skirt, one bare foot on the peeling white railing beside a sweating glass of sun tea. She wiggles her fingers at me through the railings, a little smile lighting her porcelain face. I wiggle my fingers right back. "So?" she asks without moving. "Four hundred and thirty," I tell her. My most expensive sale of the day. "And?" "Fifty dollars... in my boxers." And I tuck my hand into my shorts and pull out the bill. "Good flirting, cowboy," she tells me, only her eyes following as I clomp up the dry and cracking wooden stairs. "So what are you feeding this cowboy?" I ask and push the rusted chain to make her swing back and forth. Tendrils of auburn hair under her head kerchief shiver around her face with the breeze. "I was thinking pesto salmon and fresh minted peas." "What about those strawberries?" I ask because I picked them yesterday for her and I know she's so proud of how well they grew this year. This rouses her and she flops her bare feet to the hot, peeling-paint wood. She lifts one finger to me. "Ah but that's a secret." She drops a luscious wink and pads into the house, crooked screen door creaking. "Oil that please, Ellis," she mumbles as she slaps dirty feet through the cool darkness of the hall to the sunlight of the kitchen and its stained laminate. I test the door a few times before falling into the cool embrace of our home (their home). I slide off my loafers, tuck them underneath the table we found at the flea market a month after I moved in. The floor snaps and pops as my sock feet tread the distance to her. The kitchen smells of fresh basil, garlic and powdered sugar. Sugar dust catches the sunlight and dances like miniscule fairies, landing in her hair. "Spark it up, will you, cowboy?" she asks without turning around, fingers deep in pesto and fish. The back screen door creaks just as much as the front door, bangs harder, but she doesn't bother to ask me to oil it. She'll forget about asking me about either of them for another week. Maybe I'll get around to it tonight. The barbeque lights with a satisfying whump of air and whiff of rotten eggs. I always take the life of my eyebrows and floppy bangs into my hands when I light this old and rusted beast. A bee buzzes through the heat, becomes lazy, falls and sizzles. Rowan manages to keep the grass out here a luscious green, the kind that squishes beneath your bare feet and commands you to drop and roll and giggle. The front yard simply crisps in spots, no matter what she tries. She's given up and calls it our polka dot lawn. I go back inside and bring out the bottle of wine, slide it onto the counter in front of her. Her favourite: apricot. She squeals and beams at me, throws her arms around my neck (being sure not to get her pesto fingers on my good flirting work shirt). "Oh Ellis! Just what I wanted! Perfect perfect you're perfect!" She bounces as she hugs me and smells of lavender and strawberries. I lose her warmth as quickly as she flung it at me and she's outside placing the delicate fish on the grill. I'm sure the neighbours suddenly have a craving for garlic. I open the wine and pour it into two mismatching glasses (mine thick pale aqua with rustic, Peruvian bubbles and crookedness, hers a paper thin crystal that sings the moment you touch the rim with a wet finger). I carry them both out and tuck hers in her waiting hand, flop in a hammock chair and watch the hummingbirds at the honeysuckle. She sips and sighs. "Perfect, isn't it?" The salmon behind her sizzles. I don't answer but admire her in my peripheral vision. Thoughts swell and I have to crush them. Before I can my hand slips over her barely exposed navel to rest on one jutting hip. My fingers tingle with the imagined touch. When the salmon is done, she fusses in the kitchen. I don't help because my duty is dishes. Sometimes she lets me barbeque a steak, even though she doesn't like them. I hear the creak/slam and then a plate appears in my hands, laden with thick coated fish and a puddle of peas. My fork was stolen from a hospital cafeteria. The food is delicious as usual. Afterwards I savour the garlic still on my tongue and watch as the sun slides behind the lilacs, dappling the grass. The moment stretches and she flops her dirty bare feet on the railing. I wish I could paint her toenails. She stays there, drinking her second glass of wine as I wash the dishes in water as hot as the weather will permit. As I prop them, dripping, over that ridiculously red towel she loves to use, a memory invades unbidden. Before, it was my turn to do dishes only when I visited. Beyond the noise of the water and steam I would hear their soft voices on the porch, their laughter. If I twisted my head to the left I could see them, sitting there in those hammock chairs, fingers casually entwined and caressing. I twist my head to the left now and see her sitting and rocking alone with her wine. When I'm done, I shake my hands and dry them on the red towel, then carry the second bottle of wine outside. The sun is golden and peeking between the branches in that secret evening way. I pour her a third glass, myself a second and sit. "I miss him, Ellis," she tells me and her voice sounds thick. "Can we lie on the grass and get drunk again?" I nod even though she doesn't see. She carries the bottle out and spreads herself on the green carpet. "I'll be back," I tell her and go change my clothes into something casual and white and crisp (grass stains be damned). When I get back out there and place myself carefully beside her, she's already on her fourth glass with cheeks flushed. I down my third just to catch up. She trembles as she pours me another, giggles. We both flop back and stare up at the darkening blue. But then my heart flutters as her head nestles into the crook of my shoulder, her hair tickling my chin and wafting lavender into my nostrils. When I first met her she smelled of lavender, although her hair was longer then. She was made of sweetness and laughter, I thought, and my heart had belonged to her from that moment. It was the day Jonah had brought her home to meet our parents, tell us they were engaged. Her cheeks had flushed with the celebratory wine (an inoffensive but cheap chardonnay) and I had smelled how sweet the wine was on her breath when she had placed a soft kiss beside my lips before padding upstairs to bed that night. Lavender and wine and gentle lips had filled my dreams that night. And almost every night since. They had married later that summer. She was a summer person, even bundled in a dozen layers during the winter she exuded the light of July. I was their best man. My brother had never looked happier, creased in smiles and damp with July sweat. Her dress had been simple and so white, with little yellow flowers at her waist and in her hair, grass stains growing around the hem of her skirt. Their first kiss as man and wife had shattered my poor fragile heart, and made it soar with hope for humanity. If two perfect people could find each other amongst it all, we must be doing something a little right. I lived with the pain of loving her. Sometimes it stabbed so hard it felt like razors to breathe. Especially when he stroked the back of her neck with his finger, which he often did. I could almost feel the soft hairs there on my own fingertips. When she visited us alone, she would speak of him tenderly and often. We would gather around a puzzle of a Monet painting and she would talk of their visit to the Louvre on their honeymoon. And then the streets of Paris and their stink and romance. It was icy with sleet the day we got the call. She was with us, warmed by hot cocoa laced with brandy. My father answered the phone and paled quickly. As he did we were tied to that single reaction in our own personal ways. Rowan's eyes had widened and become sparkly, I felt like my whole body had suddenly melted and was falling away from me in wet chunks, and our mother had clutched her knitting tight and stared into her husband. He said little over the phone, but somehow we knew in the heavy way he spoke just how terrible it would be as soon as he hung up. We learned in small doses that it was a car accident. A semi. A bridge. Black ice. It had been quick (which we learned later was a lie). Father drove us to the hospital, knuckles white on the steering wheel, accidentally turning on cold air instead of heat as we rode, chilled and not noticing. Rowan clutched my hand during the ride. I was too terrified to notice. I had moved in with her, into their home, one month after the funeral. Mom and Dad, their health failing, sold their house and rented a small room in a retirement home. Rowan was having trouble paying the bills. It only made sense. I took the room that was eventually to have become a nursery, but she didn't tell me that until months later, drunk and sobbing into my shirt. I tuck my arm under her now, brush fingertips on her velvet shoulder. Her head is a heavy and perfect weight on my shoulder. I breathe the gathering night, dampness and lingering warmth, tasting apricots. She's forgotten about dessert but that's okay. I would rather have her nestled here against me, as dangerous as that is. She turns against me, her arm reaching over my stomach, chin in my chest. She grabs the bottle of wine and chugs from it. I feel her throat swallow. Droplets cling to her lips as she offers me the bottle. I lift my head and chug. Our eyes meet as I drink and she has smiles in them, although her lips do not move. "Why do you stay with me, sweet Ellis?" she asks, her chin digging deeper as she speaks, her voice a rumble against my chest. Because I love you. "Because I want to," I tell her honestly. She nods, eyes searching mine. My heart is slamming and I'm sure she knows it. Her lips twitch into a grin. "Why do you let me stay?" I swallow and ask her. She considers this question and her answer, but her eyes never leave mine. "Sometimes you remind me of him." This answer hurts and she seems to know this because she rests her hand on my stomach and twirls her finger against my shirt there. "But really, you're Ellis. And I really like Ellis. My cowboy." She presses her lips against my chest briefly, makes a happy smacking sound and smiles. I can say nothing because my innards are in my throat, except for my heart which races under her. Her tenderness towards me, although frequent and always painful, feels different this time. More purposeful. Perhaps my drunken imagination. "Do you love me, Ellis?" she asks and my body is ice. I swallow and nod, the stars breaking out above us. The admission feels like a beast let loose to snarl and rip and tear and roar, yet the air is just as still as it was a moment ago. And then she looks away, at her hand toying with the buttons at my belly. She slides her hand under my shirt and my skin shivers. I dare not breathe. She sighs and rests her head against my shoulder again. "I knew it when we met, you know," she tells me simply. "I felt it every time Jonah touched me or kissed me when you were near." Her hand stretches against my skin, my hot cold skin. We lie there for so many minutes I can't believe I'm still alive. My body is rigid, I'm too terrified to move and hardly even breathe. The idea of doing anything more than this moment gives me is preposterous. "Tell me what you're thinking, Ellis," she says and moves her hand up my chest under my shirt. It's a tight fit, but her hand is so slender. "I don't think I can think," I admit. "Do you want to know what I'm thinking?" she finally asks after a long moment, her voice thick and fuzzy. "Yes," I admit. "That the stars are lovely, that you smell perfect, that you feel perfect, and that I am very drunk." And her hand slides out. She weaves her fingers into the base of my shirt and slowly begins to pop the buttons out of their tidy little holes. The night air is cool on my dry chest, but bursts into flames as she moves over it in slow caresses. "And that I have been very... very... lonely." She meets my eyes again and I see the pain in there. I furrow my brow in matching pain and confusion. "Tell me what you want," I beg and hope that she wants me, but brace myself to learn that she wants nothing more than this moment. "My sweet Ellis," she breathes and props herself up, fingers still moving over my exposed chest. And the pain gathers itself up into a ball inside me and unleashes as barely contained rage. I grab her hand, even relish in her gasp. "Stop unless you want..." I start and can't continue. My eyes dig into her, try to fathom her feminine depths. "Want you?" she asks, her smile dancing. "Yes," I answer, my fingers so tight around her hand I can feel her bones grinding. Her response is so soft, like the starlight on us. "I do." My brain, my body, without a thought, I clutch my other hand into her liquid hair and launch myself at her lips. Shaking so hard I feel feverish, my lips pour out every fantasy kiss that's ever run through my desperate thoughts since I first met her. I cringe with the pain of it but can't stop, can't stop. I let go of her hand and grasp my fingers at her face and feel the electricity there. My kisses are so desperate and devouring it takes many moments for me to realize hers are just as fervent as mine. My fingers brush wetness on her cheeks and the shock of it pulls me away from her, our lips sticky and unwilling to let go. I regard the tears on her face with confusion, touch them softly. My eyes beg her to tell me she's sure she wants this. I can't make the words come. She sniffles and nods, tears clinging to her lips as she laughs warmly at my concern. "So much," she tells me, her voice shaking and laughing, happy. "You have no idea how much." So I kiss her again, just as hungrily but now softer and sweeter and slower, tasting her tears. It's the way I would kiss her under the stars in my dreams and fantasies. And now it's real. Her lips less sweet than I imagined, more pesto-y, but just as delicious. I roll her backwards against the grass, my body rigid over hers as she melts against me. Her hands stroke my arms as I nibble kisses at her throat. Lust makes me clumsy and I can't figure out how to untie her vest. She chuckles into my kiss and helps, drawing the fabric aside to reveal breasts I knew would be perfect, tipped with pale pink. I knew because I've studied her figure a thousand million times before, in person, in my mind, in photos. I know them and yet the reality of them is so magical that I just admire them as she breathes and watches me. They taste as sweet as I imagined her lips would. I cup one as I suckle, maybe a little too hard but she doesn't seem to mind as she runs fingers through my hair. When she pops the button of my jeans out, unzips me slowly, I huff in the perfume of her hair and run fingers from her shoulder to her elbow and back again. When she slides her hand inside, I blush at how hot and hard she finds me. Her eyes just twinkle at me as I pant. She runs a thumb over the tip and it just feels so wet and perfect that I gnaw at my lip. Over her skirt I cup my hand, fingers searching. I rub when she gasps, desperation making me rough. I tuck my hand under the elastic of the skirt, find her thin cotton panties and slide over them. I think they're the ones with butterflies embroidered on them. I just washed those yesterday, hanging them to dry in the sun because she hates to waste electricity on the dryer. My fingers dig behind her panties and find her soft hair. Finding hair is almost a novelty nowadays, and it arouses me fiercely. I look in her eyes as they gloss over while my finger rubs around the entrance of her pussy, my thumb a pressure on her clit. Her hand has begun a slow stroke on my cock. And still we just gaze at each other. She helps to pull her skirt and panties off, and I help to remove my jeans and boxers. She sits to slide her vest off her arms and pulls my shirt off mine, hands following the contours of my muscles. And then we're naked in the summer night, kitchen and moon light glowing on us. When we kiss next I forget that we have bodies, even naked bodies. All I can do is touch her face, the silk of her hair, her ears. I move my mouth against her cheek and tell her the things I always wanted to. She's here, listening, hearing, and wanting to hear. "Rowan I love you so completely. I want to do so many things to you. Please let me do things to you. Please just let me. I love you so much," I breathe all in a rush against the damp roses of her cheek. She shakes with what could be laughter or pleasure or both. "Do things to me, cowboy. Make me love you. I think I could," she whispers back and I cringe in painful hope. I kneel in the grass, soft as a bed, and pull her towards me. She wraps pale thighs around my hips, slender arms around my neck, and nuzzles her nose against my cheek, smiling something small and secret. I breathe in her ear and she must hear how rough my breaths become as she finds my cock and rubs herself against it, hair tickling and teasing. I groan and even find myself whimpering. "Fuck me, cowboy. Fuck me slow and hard," she says against my cheek and then pulls away and looks at me. She watches my face as I slide inside her. Her wetness. Her warmth. Her silken tightness. My eyes widen and clench all at once and I bite my lip to keep from gasping, but do anyways. When I'm in she finally tilts her head back, eyes half-lidded and lets out a long, slow breath. I lick at her throat as I slide out again, push slowly back in, driving my cock deep. Jonah and the Fairy (This story has nagged at me for close to a year now and it finally got to the point that I had to put it out there. I don't write in the Sci-Fi & Fantasy category yet here I am doing just that, so for all those that read this story please be gentle with me.) Throughout history the name Jonah has always been associated with bad luck and to be honest up until eighteen months ago I'm sure I would have been right up there with agreeing with you. You see it became tradition that the name Jonah was given to the first son of every generation and as far back as I have managed to trace, that tradition was almost welded into our family. My Dad sure must of breathed a sigh of relief when he read up on that one and I'm sure it was with a certain amount a glee that he handed this 'gift' to me. Mom protested of course but the whole family both Jonah's and none Jonah's alike just ganged up on her so Jonah it was. Mom's rebellious streak held out and she was the only one that called me by my middle name, David. Now why couldn't this tradition have been to call every generation's first son David, life sure would have been much easier on us Jonah's. You see, selected Jonah's in our family live on a mountain, we are known as the keepers of the mountain. Quite what we keep has always been a mystery to me after all a mountain is a mountain in anyone's book so who would want to keep one, and yet we do and for several generations I've been told. Anyway sit back and let me tell you what happened eighteen months ago and maybe it will answer some questions. ******* Mom knocked on my bedroom door and then entered the tears in her eyes and the letter in her hand told me this was going to be a bad day on such a big scale. She paused trying so hard to think of anyway she could to say what needed to be said, Dad came along side his arm around her waist in support. Dad whispered something to her and although she nodded her head Mom set off into a fresh bout of crying, yet all I could do was sit and watch these events as they unfolded still not knowing what the heck was going on. "This is yours son, I'm sorry really I am." Holding an envelope in her hand she was crumpling up the letter she had in the other. I took it and read the front all it had on it was the word 'Jonah' shrugging my shoulder I opened it and read three lines. An appointment was made with a lawyer for the next day along with a time and that was it. But judging from Mom's reactions it didn't take much to figure that my uncle was now dead. The mood of the house was somber; Dad was constantly in contact with the lawyers trying to sort out the funeral arrangements only to be told they had already been taken care of. Dad was furious but the lawyers wouldn't budge the tradition of the Jonah's, or rather the keeper's in our family took precedence over his appeals to have his brother brought home and buried here. His brother was buried that same day in the town close to the mountain and there was nothing he could do about it. My meeting with the law firm Statchet, Bingham and Cross the next day went just as well. This same law firm had handled all of the Jonah's business for as far back as any of us could remember. I was shown into the office of Mr Abraham Trenton III and instantly disliked him. More so when he sat me down and with folder in hand started placing sheet of paper after paper in front of me mumbling the words 'sign here'. Now thoroughly pissed off I got up and with my folks in tow walked out and went home much to the consternation of Mr Trenton III and his still unsigned paperwork. A day later I received a letter from the law firm re-booking my appointment, I in turn phoned back and cancelled it. The law firm was getting more and more desperate as weeks turned into months, once even coming to the house to be told by me that I wasn't in and with a smile slamming the door in there face. But as they say all good things do come to an end. The folks were getting real pressure from the rest of the family, to them I was turning my back on a tradition that our family had held dear for so long that no one could remember why we still hold it so dear, the lawyers were on the phone daily now even offering to remove Mr Trenton III permanently from all involvement in this and any other Jonah case and replacing him with another from the firm, and then there was that nagging feeling I was having lately that I was being watched. In frustration I phoned the law firm and agreed to their terms and also that I wouldn't come into the firm until I had been to the mountain and had a look for myself, they instantly agreed and I started to wonder who was putting so much pressure on them to do so. The mood also changed within the family as well and I could clearly see the weight lift off my Dad's shoulders. Mom held her own council on this, telling me it was up to me what I did and she would back me to the hilt if I ever changed my mind. ******* Pulling up alongside the cabin and getting my first look at it, my mind was just about made up there and then to go back to civilization and pull the cabin down. It just felt too remote for my taste, but a promise was a promise and so with continuing doubts about why I was here in the first place I left the comfort of my truck and ventured towards the cabin. What surprised me was how clean everything was, considering my uncle had died several months back and it had taken me this long to take time off of work, from the outside there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it. Hearing footsteps coming from the side and then seeing a man come around the corner of the cabin instantly shocked me. At first the man stood and looked at me, feeling like he was trespassing I suppose he noticed my glare and he smiled and for some reason I was more at ease, re-evaluating him. He stood just over five foot although the way he leaned on the stick that was just as tall as he was I would think about adding maybe another two inches to that, his beard was grey totally contrasting with his brown eyes. The animal skin jacket and trousers he wore seemed to suit him although I kept getting the feeling I was looking at Grizzly Adams, and even when he dropped his pack off his back and with the aid of the stick started walking towards me I still didn't feel threatened by his actions. "I guess you're Jonah, the names Jacob." We shook and smiled. "I see news travels fast in this neck of the woods. Yes I'm Jonah." "We've been expecting you, the mountain doesn't seem complete without a Jonah here, and I hope you like the cabin." Shrugging my shoulders I still stood watching him, too many questions and no answers and that's a puzzle I just can't stand, so I tried again. "You from around here?" Jacob sensed something in my question and smiled that disarming smile of his. "Oh I'm from everywhere, I tended to drop by and see how old Jonah was getting on and we used to share a drink on the porch and watch the occasional sun set, glad to see with you here now that tradition can continue." Something in his statement didn't feel right and no matter how many times I run it over in my head, the answer still remained the same. "We'll see Jacob. I'm only here for a week I have yet to decide if I want to live here." This time the smile faltered before his eyes smiled and shaking his head, slowly turning and walking back to his pack bent down and picked it up, slung it over his shoulder and walking back around the side of the cabin. I followed a few moments later only to find no sign of him anywhere. Now feeling a little weirded out I walked back to the truck pulled my bag out and entered the cabin. The inside was just as neat and tidy as the outside, even the fire was lit and burning up a nice warm feeling. Making a mental note to add a lock to the door on my next trip into town I set about making the place my home for the next week. By the time I had straightened everything out it was dark outside, grabbing a coffee and sitting on the porch watching the stars, listening to the breeze through the trees and the fireflies that skipped across the clearing started to give me a new perspective about the place. Hell why lie, I was so at peace here I just didn't know places like this existed, yes there was something odd about the place but something magical as well and natural born cynics like me don't come across this sort of thing all that often. With the remnants of my coffee now cold I headed for the door and bed only to feel the hairs on the back of my neck raise. Looking out towards the clearing was a useless act considering the only illumination on the mountain was coming from the stars, but I simply couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched again. I must have spent a good ten minutes looking outwards trying to put my mind at ease, eventually shrugging my shoulders and heading inside to sleep. Morning brought the dawn song of what felt like every bird on the mountain. Since there was little point in trying to sleep in I got up, made breakfast and sat out on the porch, for a moment I still had that nagging feeling that I was being watched, and finally even that left me to be replaced again by the peace I felt last night. There was no point in fighting off the inevitable, I was hooked, this mountain held me in its grasp and there seemed little point in denying it. I totally understood why my uncle lived here and why he rarely came to family gatherings. Over the next weeks and then month I put my business in order and listened to Mom as she gave me reasons why I was insane and didn't have to follow the tradition of the rest of the Jonah's. Finally Dad whispered in my ear and the stroke of genius of inviting Mom onto the mountain for a visit put her at ease, she came for a week and stayed for two. Mom was now on my side and that was important to me, she even met Jacob and his charm and there sight seeing trips all over the mountain won her over, as I took her home she realized that she was out numbered and out maneuvered. ******* Soon the months took on a life of their own, the only times I was ever off the mountain was going to get supplies and visit my folks, thankfully they came to me as well. Dad told me once on one of our walks with Jacob that his one regret was that we as a family never came to see his brother while he was on the mountain. Jacob told him that his brother understood and he never begrudged him the life he had with my Mom, it was strange how Jacob had seemed to have snuck into my life to the point where he seemed to be a permanent fixture, my folks looked on him as an eccentric uncle and told him so. I can still hear his laugh ringing across the mountainside even now. It was on one of my trips into town for supplies that things changed dramatically. Not sensing any great change, had I known would I have done anything different? I could lie and say yes but one look at my eyes and you would know my heart would give me away. "Jonah you best stay in town tonight." Henry was standing by the door to the store, a photo in his hand I was just about to speak when he detached himself from the door, walked to the edge of the porch and showed me the picture. "I've just pulled this off the weather stations satellite feed, them clouds are the other side of the mountain and if that lot comes down all at once its liable to wash away half the mountain top." My first instinct was to agree with him. The picture in his hand contrasted totally with the bright blue skies above us but something in the back of my mind kept telling me I needed to be on the mountain so I waved Henry goodbye and headed back. The wheels of the pickup just touching the small dust road leading to the bridge before the first of the rain hit the screen, rapidly turning into a downpour so bad that the wipers had trouble keeping up with the water hammering onto the screen. The rain clouds so dense now that I had to turn on the lights, the darkness growing by the second and the noise of the rain hitting the truck kept me fully alert and very worried. Even in four wheel drive the pickup was having trouble keeping to the dirt track, my knuckles where white I gripped the wheel so hard trying to keep a straight line and not end up slamming sideways into a tree. Lightning added to my problems, flashes causing my night vision to be all but useless to me now. I knew I couldn't increase my speed as much as I wanted to; the old road had now become too treacherous to even attempt it. The rain had already washed away the dust layer causing the hard under layer to just let the water run down at a frightening rate. Even the risk of using the brakes had to be considered twice. The next lighting fork allowed me to see the bridge up ahead and my heart sank, the force of the rain now had made the river higher and it was now time to start worrying about the bridge. Gingerly I placed the front wheels onto the bridge and waited, it gave a groan. Opening the window made the noise sound almost human like; the rain had already soaked my head and chest and made life real difficult when I tried to look up the mountain. Bits of debris followed the rushing white water hitting one of the main supports, the vibrations going through the bridge now being felt through the trucks steering wheel. Again that need to be on the mountain was pushing me but my instinct for survival still urged caution, crossing this bridge now and in this weather was insane yet I smiled to myself as I pushed the gearshift and the truck slowly rolled forward. The rain seemed to intensify making it look like the bridge was its own private river, my hands ached with the grip I held that wheel my knuckles white and contrasting with the blackness of the wheel. Now halfway across and looking straight ahead desperate not to look down or distract myself in any way, I'm sure if it wasn't rain running down my face it would have been sweat. Suddenly I yelped as I heard a crack then the left hand side of the truck dipped, all movement forward now ceased, and terror gripped me forcing instinct to take over and my shaking hand stuck in into reverse, nothing. "Well Jonah your already wet you may as well get it over with." Leaving what I thought was the safety of my truck and moving to the front to inspect the damage. Inwardly I groaned, one of the boards had obviously weathered and snapped wedging the front tire into the gap. Another roar and crash made me look out towards the rushing water running down the mountain. I'm sure the look of horror on my face didn't do the true fear in me justice. A huge tree now came crashing down the river pulling up yet more trees in its wake and slammed into the bridges main support. The force sent me against the truck and then to the floor of the bridge. It felt like the bridge moved an inch, instinctively I held onto the truck as another tree followed the last one against the support. The shudder made the truck lurch and the fear of dieing outdid any sentiment I had for that truck any day. I ran for it. I never knew that the sound of wood that I once looked on as so solid now twisting and breaking could ever make noises like this, too scared to even look back I just kept running watching my feet as best I could while the bridge floor seemed to do its own dance under me. With one final lunge I jumped away from the bridge and to the safety of the muddy river bank gasping for air, my truck gave its last farewell groan as it and the bridge disappeared into the river. Not feeling brave enough to look down the steep bank to look at the damage I just picked myself up accepted that I couldn't get any wetter and inwardly hoped I wouldn't get struck by the lightning dancing across the mountain, simply cussed out a few words my Mom, even at my age would slap my ass for and started my walk to the cabin, dry clothes and a roaring fire. ******* My clothes seemed to stick to me like a second skin, getting them off was taking longer and longer until with one final effort my pants were now a sodden heap on the floor the rain soaked jeans spreading their excess water across the cabin floor. The fire started to grow and pushed its warmth over me and further into the cabin. Another flash of lighting instinctively made me wince. The roar of thunder was almost instant telling me the storm had now crested the mountain. Another flash and again the roar of thunder, instantly I was alert, something was very wrong. Yet again a flash of lighting this time the thunder telling me it was directly overhead now. Again I heard it, my mind processing the information and me stubbornly refusing to believe it. I could have sworn it was a woman's scream, leaping to my feet and rushing to the door I doused the lights hoping it would help me see beyond the porch and deeper into the clearing. I squinted against the rain in a effort to see anything I was just about to call out when the lighting again flashed only this time the thunder came a couple of seconds later, the storm was slowly moving off the mountain. Again my brain was processing what it had seen in the second of light afforded by the lightning. Legs, I had seen legs at the far end of the clearing by one of the trees that marked the path by the mountain spring. Instinctively I grabbed a coat and hat, my nakedness under the coat not even thought about. The rain had soaked my coat before I had even gone more than a few feet the mud pool that was now the clearing causing me to struggle for every foothold. Taking a moment to check my bearings and precede the legs had not moved, another crack of lighting helped in lighting my path but also warning me that it was still dangerous to be out here in this weather. Kneeling next to the woman I cringed she had obviously collided with the tree her dress was torn, I checked for a pulse and called out to her, she made no movement. Another crack of lightning, this one hit the tree, there was a loud bang and flames the branch directly above us seemed to explode and groan, its own weight now adding to its impetus as it gave a sudden lurch and leaned towards the ground. Instinctively I grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the tree a ripping sound telling me the dress refused to leave. I couldn't afford the time to look down now I had to keep pulling the woman away from the tree and the branch that would soon come away and fall to the ground right where she lay. The roar of thunder only seemed to add to the urgency of my movements, any additional damage I was doing to this woman would have to be dealt with later. I knew I had seconds now and had to make a choice. "Shit Jonah she's a woman not a sack of corn. Man up." I told myself. My decision made I pulled her upright and in one swift move pulled her over my shoulder into a fireman's lift and run for it. Seconds later there was a sound of a whoosh, then a bang and the ground seemed to shake as the branch hit the floor of the clearing I just kept moving my lungs burned so much with the effort. My foot touched the step to the porch and I almost fell forward, the hand rail came into my view and I held onto it pulling us both onto the porch and into the cabin. Gasping for every breath my whole body in agony with the effort of carrying this now semi naked woman out of harms way and into my cabin, smiling to myself when I actually thought I sounded like an old man not a twenty one year old, placing the woman onto the bed, my eyes trying desperately not to check her out as I did so and rebuking myself when I actually did. I had never seem a woman with such shocking red hair, it's length stopped just below her shoulder blades, her skin was fair as you would expect from a redhead. She had rather broad shoulders for a woman, yet still seemed to complement her body shape very well, her breasts looked to me like a B-cup with areolas that covered the top of her breast and complimented with small nipples that were about half the size of erasers. She was sure skinny for a woman.