“You’re late!” the man groans between his teeth, throwing the cigarette and smashing it with his foot onto the muddy ground.
I lock the car and head towards him. “You’re earl…” I try uttering, but his hand grabs my elbow and drags me on the narrow path, away from the street. “Sorry! I’m late, alright! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I try jerking away from his grip, but he just stops and I find myself face smashed onto his chest. “Will you keep that dirty mouth of yours shut until I explicitly specify otherwise?” he says raising my chin with not one of his most gentle gestures.
I’d nod for confirmation, hadn’t he pinned my eyes with his scowl and my under-jaw with his fingers. I blink. He gets it and releases me.
I watch and wait in silence as he grabs his backpack and lights on another cigar. To my disappointing expectation, he leads us on the muddy path, away from civilization. He leads me, so to say. He’s more like twitching my elbow and dragging me like a slave on a leash, at a pace I am finding great difficulties keeping, given my silvery stiletto shoes. Why on Earth, I’m asking my other self while the path gets narrower and muddier, why on Earth did he ask me to dress up elegantly and then set the meeting location to - I quote - that old dried well on the northern edge of the city? The self is quiet, as quiet as it was in the first place by not having given a single thought about this. Before accepting it. Before ecstatically accepting it on the first blink.
As I - along with all my selves - become more and more aware of the temperature and texture of the native ground underneath my feet, it also gets more and more clear to my shivering brains that it’s quite unlikely he’s taking me to a many-starred hotel where we’d be having dinner in bed followed by a hot bubble bath before falling asleep into each other’s arms…
Had I thought of counting steps, it might be now the fiftieth or so. But I didn’t, so I might as well be at fifty or five hundred steps away from the road when he stops again - I believe he does that deliberately - turning around and bumping his chest into my face. He looks past me. I follow his gaze.
“We’re safe now” he grins to himself.
Definitely. I couldn’t agree more. There’s no horizon line promising to show up in the near future, nor the recent past. There are plenty of trees to smash your head against to choose from, though. Yeah, you definitely lost me in here. Good thing I trust him, or I’d say I’m fucked in this dirty middle of nowhere. Bad thing I trust him…
He puts down his backpack and starts ransacking through its items. I’m hoping for a jacket at least as warm as his looks like, but I could do with just a sweater on top of my black silk dress. Apparently, I could do with less - much less - he decides. Being led like a slave on a leash, that was a metaphor, you know? That WAS a metaphor…
You stupid fuck! There’s no way you’re tying my hands - or whatever - with that shit and drag me around like a pet on a leash! Panic flashes into my eyes while I mutely follow the unwelcome accessory, briefly begging for a word or gesture of reassurance. The scorned item leaves my sight while the twisting of my wrists and the rough fabric scratching my skin give me the undoubtedly clue that I’m being shackled, arms behind my back. He does his magic back there and whispers into my ear, startling me one step forward: “Move!”
“Wait!” I hear him as soon as I start try to unglue my foot from the mud. He comes in front of me and kneels - what the fuck???. “Take’em off.”
Now this is getting nice and interesting. Have a woman dress up like for an elegant party, bring her into the middle of nowhere-land-forest, tie her hands to the back and make her walk bare-feet onto a muddy filthy chilly sort-of-path, that’s so tremendously close to my idea of the perfect romantic date.
“Move!”
After approximately forever, just a couple of minutes before freezing to death or just collapsing into the arms of my new friend the mud, I feel him stopping at the end of the rope. As if to predict his words, cold drops find their way between leaves and branches and come covering me in sweet shivering moist.
“Perfect”, he mumbles and starts unpacking dozens of undefined… uhmm… objects. They’re either all waterproof, or it’s just only raining down on me. I’d go for the first option…
My make-up is all rained on my face. My wet hair gives me the best warmth I could ask for. My expensive dress is all muddy and ruined. My shoulders are shaking like cold vanilla pudding. If only I could have my hands to hold and embrace myself, I’d ask for nothing else.
I fall to my knees. No more cold little drops pouring from the merciless sky now - or no more live senses left to perceive them, just irregular metallic-like squeezes pinching me and sticking into my skin. Once a few seconds, loud lightnings, mostly miles behind me with a few disturbingly close, bring to awareness the closeness of the ground. The trunk of some tree scratches my palms - Who untied me? - and I lean against it like it is my long waited for savior and lover.
And so he is, for it helps me lean on its branches, tearing my dress in the process, into dozens of strings from below my hips. I know trees don’t talk - not in my life-time, at least - but the howling wind encourages sweet whispers from its leaves and its cold rustle is the first comforting word I’ve heard ever since entering this damned forest “Shushh, my love, it’s ok now. You’ll be just ok.”
It’d be a good time to look for my man and ask for some help, for some strong hands holding me and some cold lips reassuring me that I am NOT being spoken to and comforted by a tree. I’m left to the fun of the trees, it seems. Luckily they’re tied to the ground, or they’d start chasing me. Well, except this one that’s dragging me through the filthy mud “Come love me, child. Come cuddle, just let me see the eyes. The lightnings are your friends, baby-doll. Look up at me and let those tears find their way to your lips… Yess! Like that! Juuust great! Don’t move now for a second baby…..”
I’m tired. I think I’m tired.
“Baby? I… I think we should go back… I think we’re lost and I even think I heard the trees talking to me, which is totally silly, you would agree. So… it’s either I’m the only one actually lost, in which case you’d better show up quickly ‘cos I’m about to get fucking scared, or we’re both lost and the trees hold you prisoner, in which case I’m fucked! Now… I can’t tell for sure which is the case, for I swear I feel I’m on the ground with some big heavy weight crushing me and I’m as sure as hell frightened to death by this something moving spasmodically between my thighs… And there’s this… some-one-thing else holding my arms above my head and… yuck!, some wet cold snake-like creature… umm… twisting inside my… umm… let me!… aaaamm… mouth…”
