Percival Everett - Wounded

“Care to show me?”

“I don’t know.” Felony snorted and stepped uneasy and I knew he was feeling my tension. I slowed my breathing and he went off the muscle. “Why do you want to go there?” I asked.

“I’m just curious to see it.”

“We don’t have flashlights,” I said.

“I just want to see where the damn cave is, John. But if you don’t want to show me. .”

“That’s not it.” I wheeled Felony about on his haunches. “Come on, let’s go. Over the ridge and facing the desert.”

On the way, she said, “It’s bad about that Castlebury.”

I agreed.

“I don’t want to talk or think about him, though.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“I know you’re thinking about him.”

“A little,” I said.

“Well, I don’t want to.”

“Okay,” I said. “What do you want to think about?”

“Us,” she said.

“I can do that.”

“See to it then,” she said. She laughed then kicked the mare and trotted away from me. Morgan was right about most things, mainly because she was patient. She’d been patient with me, that was for sure. She was smart and she lived hard.

At the entrance to the cave, we dismounted. I tied Felony by wedging a knot between two boulders. The App would stand on a dropped rein. We walked inside several yards.

“Wow,” Morgan said. “This really is a cave.”

“It stays this big for a while, then it branches a couple times. One of the branches opens into quite a large cavern. I’ve found only one tight spot. Tight for me anyway. I haven’t gone through it yet.”

“You are getting a little chunky there.” Morgan poked her index finger at my belt buckle.

“Watch out, sister,” I said. I caught her hand and pulled her to me. I felt excited and stupid. I kicked myself inside, realizing that any thoughts of Susie now were indulgent and convenient. I toyed with the lie that I was afraid of hurting her, so I kicked myself again. I looked at her eyes. “You understand, of course, that I’m basically stupid.”

“I noticed that right away.”

“I also have very strong feelings for you, ma’am.”

“So, you’re not completely stupid.”

“Apparently not.” I leaned forward and put my lips on Morgan’s. I closed my eyes this time. I pulled back. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Anytime.”

“So, let’s get out of here.”

Morgan shook her head and looked back into the cave. “Let’s go in a little deeper.”

“We don’t have a light,” I told her.

“So what?”

“Okay, let’s go.”

We walked in about thirty yards and made the first bend. Once around it, everything was pitch dark.

“Jesus,” Morgan said. “I’ve never seen it so dark.”

“That’s a funny way to put it.”

“So, why don’t we try that kiss again?” she asked.

I felt her breath on my chin as I reached around her. She was different in the complete dark, but I could still feel the beauty of her face. We kissed again, this time more urgently. This time I felt my lips soften more to hers. I touched her face. Morgan put her hand between us, placed her palm flat against my chest, then brushed down my body to below my belt. She put her open hand against my penis and pressed into me. I kissed her harder, finding the tip of her tongue with mine. I thought to be afraid, to become shy, but I let that go, smelling her hair in the dark, feeling the warmth of her breath on my ear and neck. I opened her jacket and shirt and touched her breasts. I thought that they seemed smaller in the dark and I liked that. I ran my hands up and around her neck, loving the heat of her skin. In the dark we were clumsy with our clothes, but we got them off, enough of them off, and Morgan and I made love, my backside on my jacket on the cool floor of the cave, she sitting on me. We didn’t say anything, but I listened to every sound she made, every breath she let out, every click she made with her fingernails. The fingernail clicking, a nervous action between thumb and forefinger I had witnessed before, in the light, when she was thinking. And behind that sound was the forever-there dripping of the cave’s water. When she came, at least I thought she came, a wave of fear like none I’d felt in a long while washed over me, made me shudder. I guess to her it felt like I had come. We stopped moving and lay there, her palms flat against my chest, my hands on her waist.

“I love you, John,” she said.

And in the dark there, I told her the truth, the whole scary truth. I said, “I love you, too.”

Finding our clothes in the dark was considerably more difficult than removing them had been. It wasn’t until we were back in the light that we could see what we had done. Both our shirts were incorrectly buttoned and I found myself squirming, then realized that my underwear was on backwards. Morgan watched while I stripped down to get things straight. I began to feel self-conscious, which was fairly dumb, given what we’d just done.

“Are you feeling shy?” she asked.

“No, why?”

“You’re covering up.”

“I am not.”

“You most certainly are,” she said.

I faced her. “I am not.”

“Mr. Hunt,” she sighed.

Then I covered up. “Okay, okay,” I said, pulling on my clothes. “So, I’m shy. What do you want from me?”

“Exactly this,” she said and kissed me while I buckled my belt.

The ride back was easier than I had imagined all those days before. We were relaxed, talking, laughing, and so Felony rode better than ever. We cantered across a meadow and then walked, letting the horses catch their breath.

“You’re good for me, young lady,” I said.

“Why do you say that, you old fart?”

“You’re good for this nutty horse, too.”

“So, you think we’ll ever do that again?” Morgan asked.

I looked at her and realized she was joking. “I suppose. Once or twice more, the events being judiciously spaced so we don’t become bored.”

“So, when were you thinking the next time might be?”

“Couple hours from now.”

We loosened the girths and walked the horses the last quarter-mile home. We didn’t speak, but it felt right. Morgan had to go home and see to Emily, and so I took the horses and got them squared away. When I walked into the house, Gus smiled at me, stared, and smiled some more.

“What’s with you?” I asked.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you?” I said.

“You had sex, didn’t you?”

“What?” I was embarrassed.

“It’s all over you.” Then I made the mistake of looking all over me.

“What are you talking about?”

“You had sex.”

“You’re a dirty old man,” I said.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “I was beginning to think there was something wrong with you. Prostate-wise or something.”

“No, apparently I’m okay.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“You’re not going to say anything to Emily, are you?”

“You think I’m a damn fool?” he asked.

“Now that you mention it.”

“We’re having what you call locker-room talk,” he said.

“That’s what you’re having. I’ll be in the other room.”

“I’m happy for you,” Gus said and turned toward the kitchen.

I WAS DEEPERinto the cave than I had ever been. I had taken a bag of chalk with me and was marking my trail as I went. My light found it easily and I felt more secure than ever. Without traffic from animals, I also felt confident that my powder markers would remain undisturbed. I made my way across the big room to another opening and pushed myself about three hundred yards deeper. The darkness was heavy, sweet, and thick, and it scared me more than a little. I squeezed through a tight spot, two walls of rock formed a twenty-foot-high, nine-inch-wide chimney. I promised myself to shed a few pounds once I had popped through and was looking at it from the other side. Looking at the “fat man’s misery,” I wondered if, in fact, I would be able to squeeze my fat behind back through. I recalled when a child got his head stuck between banister spindles and everyone was wondering how he got it through in the first place. My heart began to race and I reminded myself that I was panicking before I had reason to. I pushed my arm into the crack, then my shoulder. Then, turning to face my direction of travel, I pushed my head into the crevice. The space felt even tighter now. I was convinced that I was swelling with uncertainty. I inhaled my gut in and my hips. I inch-wormed my way through and popped out like a cork. I couldn’t help laughing. The feeling was exquisite, not only the feeling of freedom from the cramped place, but from the fear itself. I looked back at the crack, my headlamp illuminating it, dark all around and dark in its core.