A Path Less Traveled
Another doomed quest
As soon as he crested Skeleton Ridge, she noticed. Against a terrain where nothing moved and change took years, he stood out like the flare off a reflecting glass. She set aside the apples she’d been peeling and went inside to fetch her husband’s Remington. She made sure both barrels were loaded. But as she sat back down on her front porch, weapon comfortably cradled in her lap, her first thought wasn’t for safety; she wondered how it would feel to talk to someone.
Fifty yards out, she thought he might be one of the freedmen looking to escape the ruined South. But no, it was layers of dirt that blackened his skin, more than she’d ever seen on a body. She walked down the steps and out to her gate to meet him, shotgun cocked and aimed.
He gazed down at her from a horse more exhausted than he was. “If you shoot, lady, don’t miss. Otherwise I’ll have to blow your head off, and I truly don’t want that.”
“You won’t get that opportunity.” A long silence. Then, “What do you want?”
“Some water from your well, maybe. Then I’ll move on.”
It was a patient voice, though mismatched with his whiskey eyes; sharp and alert, they cut right through her.
“Where you headed?”
“No idea.”
“Sounds pretty damn dumb, you ask me.”
“Lookin’ for someone. When I find him, I’ll know I’m there.”
“Then what?”
“Guess one of us goes in the ground.”
Another man on a doomed quest. She slowly shook her head. “Chasing Death’s all you’re doing. Ain’t he coming after you soon enough?”
He said nothing, let the silence come back and fill the spaces like thick cotton.
“You all alone here?”
She almost said her husband and son would be back soon. She almost still believed it. Instead she said, “Fever took my men last autumn.”
He nodded. “Life ain’t fair.”
“Yeah, well… God don’t ask my opinion before he does stuff.”
More silence; then she lowered the gun. “Got a couple of buckets by the well. Fill ’em, I’ll heat up the water. You can make yourself presentable.”
He chuckled. “Don’t need a bath where I’m going.”
“You want me to cook you something to eat, you wash.”
She left onions, potatoes and dried beef simmering in fresh butter, then looked onto the back porch. He’d stripped down to tattered long johns and already managed to bring back some tone to his face. She picked up the clothes folded on the table and went outside.
“Get rid of them rags too. Everything.”
She indicated the clothes she carried. “These were my husband’s. They should fit.” She couldn’t make eye contact.
He took the clothes and set them on a stool, then peeled the cloth off his skin. Now she looked. Her eyes locked onto a bullet scar denting his right shoulder. She touched it, traced the circle with her fingertip. Then her eyes fell to the thick snake dangling gently between his thighs. The sight embarrassed her; she wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. She’d only seen one other. Were they all different?
“You really do stink. Take care of that. Dinner’s in ten minutes.”
She turned away. He grabbed her hand but held it loosely. She was free to pull away; she didn’t.
“You’re right about that, Ma’am. I ain’t bathed in a while. Truth is, I’m a little rusty. Maybe you could help?”
“What are you talking about?” Trying for indignation.
“You know damn good and well what.”
Everything inside started coming apart; her head felt light as air. For a second, she forgot to breathe. Then he placed the wash cloth in her hand.
No thoughts guided her, only some instinct she’d never known lurked within. She soaped up a good lather, then, starting with the scar, she rubbed, almost reverently, crossing over his hairy chest to his other shoulder, down, over hard edges and ripples, and other scars. She realized how much she wanted to know the stories behind each one.
Then, finally, she squatted before his majestic staff, wrapped the cloth around it and felt it stir from her touch. The soft flesh between her own thighs quickly turned to liquid.
His musky scent clouded her thoughts. She caressed his cock, cradled the wrinkled sack of his jewels in her hand and carefully squeezed them. He stiffened at her touch; what had been soft and wrinkled now turned smooth and hard. And long. The foreskin stretched back revealing a flared tip that seemed absolutely perfect in its shape and brick red color.
Her fist encircled it, slowly stroking. Her other hand still held his balls. She’d never spent this much time with a man’s tool; the excitement of discovery made her dizzy. Then she shocked herself even more: she leaned forward and kissed it, right at the tip where a glistening pearl of liquid had formed. She rolled it over her tongue, licked the tip again. And now, like the lowest of whores, she took the head into her mouth. And sucked. How did she know to do that? It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
He moaned, gasped and his hips shot forward, ramming himself down her throat. He gripped the back of her head, as though to keep her in place. He needn’t have worried. She was exactly where she wanted to be, and needed to be.
Another gasp now, and with a few more sharp thrusts, his white goo shot out in a torrent of backed-up need. He moaned like he was in pain. She didn’t think she’d ever heard a man sound so vulnerable.
His spunk filled her mouth and dribbled out her lips and down her chin. She did the only thing that seemed called for — she swallowed. And swallowed some more. The hot stuff kept spurting in an endless flood, like a dam burst inside him.
When he was finally empty, she stood, experienced a moment of supreme awkwardness—how do you look at a man after doing such a perverted thing—then she melted into his arms. He drew her tight. Finding her footing on the common ground they’d both created together, she let herself absorb the perfection of this utterly strange and unfathomable moment.
“Guess I blew my whole load,” he said, sheepishly. His still hard shaft pushed against her.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Looks like this thing’s gonna be here a while.”
She held him tighter. She’d forgotten how it felt to have strong arms embrace her. They stood like that a while. It occurred to her that maybe it had been a long time since he’d held something soft in his own arms.
She kissed him. “God, this feels good,” she murmured, and reached for his cock. It was still hard. “What do you say we find some useful work for this beast?”
He drew back, studied her with a cocked eyebrow and the hint of a grin. “Well… ain’t you just my kind of lady.”
“You call me what you want. Just so long as you stick that thing in me.”
He started to unbutton her dress down the front, but seemed to falter, like he wasn’t sure how to proceed. She had an idea what the problem might be. She took his hands, looked up at him and asked, “When’s the last time you was with a woman who wasn’t a whore?”
His face settled a bit. “Well, I’d have to think about that, I guess. A while. A good while.”
“Fine.” She gripped the front of her dress and ripped it open. Buttons shot everywhere. “Make me your whore. Fuck me like you’d fuck a whore.” She shed the material and now pulled her simple cotton slip over her head. And there they stood, both naked and raw, consumed by forces neither of them had much experience with.
She waited for his next move, but instead, he stepped back and just gazed at her. He slowly shook his head in disbelief. “God damn, you’re beautiful.” And then he was on her.
He raised her off the floor and set her on the table. He put his arms between her legs and spread them wide. Then, while his cock sought entry into her most precious of secrets, he reached behind her back and raised her up toward him. He kissed her, hard, rough, crushing his mouth against hers, while at the same time, his cock pressed forward into her body.
She was ready for him. She didn’t know much about how these things worked, only that she was sopping wet and made a smooth, easy passage for him. He pushed, slowly, a bit at a time, pulled back some, then pressed on farther, deep now, until she felt his ballsack rocking against her. She’d never have believed she could have taken the whole of his rod into her, but now, she simply basked in the exquisite feeling of him stretching her, near to being torn apart.
He pulled back, held the tip of his cock right at the opening, ran it back and forth a few times, then drove back into her, faster this time. And back out, then back in again, building with each stroke, going faster, slamming her harder, until she felt like a steam engine driving into her. Nothing else filled her thoughts, only the pounding of his cock.
Then something flared within, a pressure, a heat, a feeling that she was steadily losing control, a feeling of being surrounded and absorbed by a white void that left her floating.
She said things to him, scarcely aware of what was coming out of her mouth — vile things, filthy things, things she’d never imagined herself saying, things she’d never known how to say. Was she possessed by a demon? Then it was just whimpers, cries, guttural yelps with each ragged breath. And all the while that machine-like pounding that kept a steady rhythm between her legs, each driving thrust pushing her closer to something so intense, it frightened her.
But when the moment finally came, all the frenzied movement and the incoherent sounds froze as she was seized by a current of energy well beyond her ability to deal with, like having a twister unleashed within. It was fearsome, it was exquisite, it was delicious. She couldn’t control it, could just ride with it until finally it let her back down.
Which it did. By the time she was focused on her surroundings, he’d already unloaded in her a second time. She could tell by the slippery feeling of her thighs rubbing together. They stayed like that a while more, his cock now turning soft and finally slipping out of her. What she should do next she couldn’t have said. What do you do when you’re whole life has been turned inside-out?
Later, they ate dinner, a little overcooked but certainly delicious. He ate like he fucked—ravenously. They sat at the dining room table, naked.
“It ain’t like there’s any neighbors to peek in the windows,” she joked. Then, after a moment, “I loved my husband. I’ve missed him every day since he left. I don’t regret a single moment of the nine years we spent together.”
He stopped eating now, just watched her closely.
“But he never once made me feel like you did today. Didn’t know that was possible.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You any good at fixing stuff?”
He laughed. “I’ve been on my own since I was twelve. Seems like I’d have to have learned a few things.”
“From the condition of your body, I’d say you been tempting Death most of that time. He’s gonna catch up with you, like it or not.”
He said nothing. Just listened.
“Guess I’m saying, you might think about chasing after life, for a change.” She stabbed a potato with her fork. “A man says he doesn’t know where he’s heading could have taken any path, all of them the same. But you took the path that led you here. Don’t know about you, but I don’t believe in coincidence.”
Then she let the silence fill up the space between them as they finished eating. Finally he asked, “What do you need fixing?”
“Everything. You name it.” A pause. “But first off, you might think about finishing the job you started on me, today.”
They locked eyes.
“How about it, Cowboy?”
