Off the Path

We left the path. Hopped a ditch and, hand-in-hand, dipped into the shade of the trees. At first: relief. The day was blazing hot and the path was full of sun. The shade beneath the trees was cool and moist, wet and green. It felt like settling into a cool bath on a hot day.

The land sloped downhill. Here and there a cluster of mushrooms or a trickling stream. We wended our way down. We could still see the path, just. Then we couldn’t. Everything around us became green: a blanket of moss as thick as snow. Rare little sunbeams lanced down through the canopy like spotlights.

We fucked in one of those sunbeams. The moss was soft, springy. Oozing wet. She took off her dress, unbuckled her jeans and pushed them down around her knees. I did the same. As hot as it was on the path it was cool here, almost cold. We kissed standing up, then she went down on hands and knees and I entered her from behind.

She moaned. Arched her back and clawed up handfuls of moss. Everything around us was cold and wet – our two bodies an island of warmth. Perfect, glassy silence, broken only by the sounds we made. Wordless sounds, like mating calls. Formless. Prehistoric. I felt like I had never really heard the sound of me fucking before. Not isolated like this. Not without the background hum of traffic, or music, or the neighbours arguing next door.

It was the sounds of us that took me over the edge. The whimper when I pushed in extra deep, my hips snug against her arse. The begging, urgent gasp when I pulled back. The way she hissed and stuttered sometimes, like she was trying to say the word fuck, but not quite finding the breath for it.

I came. She pushed her hips back into me as I did. Clutched my hand, smearing dirt into my skin. There was a moment of absolute silence, as if we had slipped from the world altogether…

And then we were back. I heard birdsong. A sigh of wind high up in the trees. Our own, uneven breathing.

We lay on our backs in the moss. Up above the blue sky was framed by branches. Canopies never touch. The trees sense one another and leave gaps for light. I reached for her and we joined hands. We didn’t stay long. It was cold down there on the floor of the forest.

We were slow getting back to the path. We kept stopping to pick bark and dirt and moss from one another’s clothing. Even when we were back on the trail we kept finding it: shreds of green and brown. Little bits of forest. On the ferry home that evening she fell asleep against my shoulder and I discovered a tiny brown leaf just behind her ear, dry and smooth and perfect.