Ellen Datlow - Off Limits

She fell into the forest, swallowed by a thicket of trees. Frank closed his eyes, in his mind marking the spot where she landed as just beyond the boundary of the quarry works. The road up the mountainside from where he stood would take him to the bridge a few miles down, then across to the gravel strip leading into the quarry works. He knew the patch of land where she touched down. He’d get there before anyone else. This angel was going to be his.

A cassette tape of Roy Buchanan, his guitar screaming “Country Boogie,” filled the car. Frank drove in haste, warily watching the Sunday roads for errant traffic. He reached the gravel road quickly, sped up, his compact car shifting over the stones like a skier on icy snow. Past the quarry to a dirt road, into the forest, he turned his headlights on. The canopy of fir and evergreen blotted out the sun. His beams found a twisting path which slowed him down.

When he found the way blocked by fallen trees, he pulled over, his heart working like a jackhammer. He got out of the car to stand in the lush, still shade. His mind’s eye was on the area where the angel had landed, and he would let that image guide him as he wended his way through the dense growth of the forest floor. He was feeling what his father had called the “feral hunting mechanism.” Allowing himself to be led by pure sensation. A sensation of hunger, not for food but for something else: prey, love, release. It drove him forward, blinding him with an appetite he didn’t understand.

After a while, Frank began to spin in the shadowy light. Sweat poured through his scalp, down his neck, into his shirt. She was there, not far, but his sense of direction had begun to elude him. The ground had flattened out. He was no longer near the ridge-line. He was lost. Frustration grew until he howled out loud. The sound came from a cavern of sheer anger, rising up with the power of a child’s fear.

The sounds of animals scurrying away yanked him from his rage. He told himself to breathe. Relax. Turning to his left, he headed toward a shaft of light a couple of hundred feet away. The ground began to slope and he knew he had found his direction again. As he neared the light, he felt the frustration pass into irritation then disappear as elation filled him.

“There you are,” he whispered. He found her, resplendent on the mossy loam amidst ferns at the edge of an opening in the trees.

Frank slowed until he was just out of view, behind a tree. The shaft of light seemed focused on her. For a moment, Frank could swear he heard a choir of angels in the far distance. He stood there, watching, searching for signs she was alive. God was watching, too, he thought. Cautiously, he moved near.

Her wings were wrapped about her like a gossamer chrysalis. Up close, he saw that her wings weren’t made of feathers, but long thin flaps of pearlescent white skin. The angel’s face was turned toward the earth, her pale golden hair splayed against the ferns. Bare feet curled out from the bottom of her wings; the toes long, tapering to pink points.

He wiped his dirty hands on his jeans and reached out to touch her. As his fingertips alighted upon her wing, she quaked. Frank recoiled, then suddenly, without a warning of sorrow, fell to his knees weeping.

“Oh… my angel. God, please, don’t let her die.” A deep, barbed pain ripped forth from him, wrenching his body with spasms of anguish. He blubbered over her, a ten-year-old boy once again, mourning his father. Seeing him at the bottom of the cliff, his body twisted in ways for which it was not built. An accident. An act of God. He hadn’t cried since. Or perhaps it was at his brother’s funeral. He felt as weak and flimsy as a new leaf. His father would have told him to get a hold of himself. He had an angel to save.

All business, Frank began untangling the angel’s hair from the foliage. He put his hand under her neck and turned her face up. Her skin was so pale, he thought she was dead. He put his dirty hand against her cheek, full of hope. She felt warm!

“Come on, angel, I’m just going to lift you up and carry you to my car. I won’t hurt you.” He worked his hands under her and swept her into his arms. Incredibly, she was almost weightless. When he’d carried Sharon down from his car just a couple of hours ago, she’d felt like a two-hundred-pound sack of flour. The angel was as light as a loaf of bread.

With her life in his hands, Frank moved stealthily toward his car. The angel made cooing noises, occasionally forming her lips around a word. He thought she whispered “Lord” a few times, though he could swear everything he heard was like a thought in his own head.

Effortlessly, his car came into view, as if every frantic and false move he’d made before in trying to find her had been amended. He looked up, thinking God had the life of this angel in His interest as well.

Frank attempted to lay her down in the backseat, but she was a foot too long. Scrunching her feet, bending her knees, he got the door shut, cramming her in. He went into the trunk and got out the blanket he’d used with Sharon. It was littered with leaves and detritus. The bloodstains had turned nearly black. It disturbed him, having to put it over the angel, but there was no way he could risk anyone seeing her before he got her home.

“It’ll be all right, angel. I’ll just take you to my place and fix you up. Okay?” He cranked the car on, turned it around, and raced back into the city, to the privacy of his apartment.

Frank set her on his bed. He clasped his hands in reverence, staring down at her. She was like a huge, beautiful waxen doll.

He poured warm water and bath oil into a bowl, retrieved a towel from his linen rack, then commenced ablutions. Her wings clung to her until he began wiping them with the warm water. As they fell away, he eyed her body, draped in a diaphanous fabric. Her breasts were high and small, her mons hairless. She had no navel, nor did her rib cage extend below her breasts. Her torso was long, hipless; her legs also lengthy and thin. Her ankles were crossed, much to Frank’s annoyance. He wanted to see her precious honeypot. He thought even God would understand his curiosity. How often did a mortal see an angel this close up?

Lifting the material of her gown, he washed her body. He felt the spreading heat in his groin, hoping God wouldn’t think he was a pervert. He spread her legs, staring at the seamless flesh there.

“Sheesh! She’s a fucking Barbie doll.” Maybe if he pried the skin apart…

She moaned, her arms rising up from her wings, self-consciously pulling down her gown. Frank grumbled. He wiped down her feet, then brushed her hair. It was thick and felt fake, like thin nylon filament. Not the silky stuff he expected. Nevertheless, running his fingers through it was keeping him hot.

Just then, he remembered God, His ever-present love… and judgment. Frank swam in a torrent of guilt. “I’ll just leave you here and let you rest. Call out if you need me. I’m Frank Garland. Frank.”

He leaned over her, staring at her mouth, his cock still throbbing in his jeans. She had no discernible lips, but he could imagine her mouth opening, closing around his … Shit, he thought, he was acting like a pervert. As God was his witness, this was an angel, not some self-serving bitch!

Just the same, he didn’t want her flying off on him. He tied her up with clean nylon rope, then left her there while he took a cold shower.

Frank turned down the Charger game when he thought he heard her calling. Her voice had the quality of a wind chime tinkling in his head. When he hurried into the bedroom, she was wrestling with the ropes, her wings strained against the constriction. Her mouth worked, but no sound came. Instead, Frank heard her entreaty—frenzied, fearful—in his mind.