On Highway 17

He turned on his side and hugged her, but she was far away.

After a few minutes, the glaze disappeared from her eyes, she smiled and said, "I'm babbling like an old woman."

She stood up, leaving Cob alone on the floor. "I'm also not being a good hostess. The darkness is getting inside. Forgive me, I'll get a lantern going." She took her blue dress from the floor and walked out of the room—out of his life, Cob felt; and the feeling twisted his heart. He stood too, touched his guitar and imagined all the music they would make together, how good it would make him feel. She was wrong about fate. He wasn't wrong about anything.

She came back carrying his clothes. "They're dry," she said. He took them without wanting to put them on. His nakedness didn't embarrass him anymore. "I'm out of oil." She held up an empty paraffin lamp. "But there's more in the shed. I won't be long."

"Do you want me to go with you?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"It's raining," he said.

But she was already out the door.

* * *

He waited for a minute, several. Rain pitter-pattered harder. Ink dripped down the windows. Lightning turned the sky on, turned the sky off. He waited for several more minutes, opened the door and walked outside.

* * *

Raindrops splattered on the porch railing.

Cob's clothes got wet again.

Barefoot, he marched over wet grass and soft soil in no particular direction, squinting through the gloom and precipitation, searching for a shed—searching for Winnie—as mud cushioned his heels and surrounded his toes. Streams of water fell from overflowing leaves. Already, it was gathering in shallow puddles. He looked for footprints in the ground around them, but found none. The gap between lightning and thunder was closing.

"Cob."

Winnie's voice.

He wiped his face and stared ahead. Through the haze, he saw a bobbing light. On the other side of the mist: she was holding the lit paraffin lamp and waving to him. "Come on, Cob!"

He ran toward her.

He touched the bend of her elbow.

Together, they skipped over the surface of the wet grass and through the clinging mud, her lamp lighting their way, both of them starting to laugh, both slipping and sliding until, finally, they fell into the shelter of the shed.

* * *

The shed was aluminium, large and filled with crates and other old things. Winnie hung the paraffin lamp on a hook. Its unstable light flowed across the walls, the floor and their laughing faces. It flowed across Winnie's body and Cob wanted to feel the joy again, as thunder roared above and the rain beating against the roof of the shed was so loud he could barely hear her speak: "It's raining," she said; " Don't leave me," she said.

He remembered the first time he'd heard her voice and couldn't believe it was less than half-a-day ago. Back then, before, in the Tasty Totem where John F. Kennedy was reassuring about fallout shelters and he was hungry and saw her smiling from behind a table full of glass jars:

There was a horrible crash—

Of lightning.

They'd broken one of the jars. The wild blueberry spread had stained the tile floor and he shook her hand. "Winnie Youngblood," she'd introduced herself. It was a name that twelve hours ago he didn't know. It was a name that in twelve lifetimes he wouldn't forget.

They stepped toward each other.

"The forest is coming down," he said as she said, "I hope the dry trees don't catch fire." This morning, the lake had burned and for a few seconds he'd been driving into its flames. "It's not a fire," he said. From above, the rain pounded on the brittle, echoing aluminium. The shed bent and creaked. "It's nuclear war," he whispered, grabbing her hips and holding them tightly against himself. Her body squirmed, struggled against his grip. "I want to see—I want to look outside!" But she couldn't break through. "It's better if you don't. We should stay inside until it's over." Tears were streaming down her face. "So this is how it ends?" she said. The paraffin lamp spun; Winnie cast a monstrous shadow on the wall. Cob dug his fingers into her dress, her flesh. "I don't know. Tomorrow we'll wake up and if the world still exists, then—" She shoved a fist deep into his mouth.

"Tonight is the last night."

Cob's mouth feasted on the shapes of her knuckles. His heart pounded in tune with her ragged, sobbing breath. "So, let me go outside," she syncopated.

He didn't want to let her go anywhere. He wanted to keep her close, to tell her something, anything; but her fingers depressed his tongue, distorting his intention into a gurgle.

"No more words."

She reached back. Metal clanged against metal.

For a second, his mouth was empty, "Winnie," he managed to say—before tasting the flavour of leather. Her hands moved quickly: the knot tightened against the lump on the back of his skull, the buckle jangled. He was dumbfounded. She'd gagged him with an old work belt. He felt the metal rings and hooks where the tools should have been, resting on his wet shirt.

She petted his hair.

She massaged his shoulders.

He let his arms drop from the sides of her hips.

She moved toward the closed shed door. The blue dress stuck to her body like paint.

"Fated," she said, and reached for the outside.

Cob reached for her.

But around them was too much noise. He couldn't focus. He saw an old leash, shears, tin cans, the busted body of an acoustic guitar. He smelled leather and Winnie and moist wood. The cotton of her dress escaped from between his fingertips. He bit down on the work belt until leathery juice leaked into his gums. To catch her and to keep her. Truncated: To catch and to keep. Repeated: to catch and to keep, to catch and to keep. His mind rolled numb. He wanted to rub his knuckles into his eyes, into his brain. He'd been driving for too long. The next place he came to, he would stop and drink coffee and eat scrambled eggs every morning with Winnie...

He leapt.

His chest crashed into Winnie's back. Hers crashed into the door. Together, they fell; Cob on top of Winnie, they wrestled; her face: stone carved determination; his: overheating. Grunting, she bit at the veins of his exposed wrist. He separated hers and pinned them to the shed floor, tore the leash from its place on the wall, and wound it round one wrist, tightened, followed by the other, tightened, followed by the sight of her twitching lips. "Cob Augo," she said—he ripped the belt gag from his mouth, it dropped to his neck—and the rest of the sentence into his mouth, as he attacked and consumed her; exhaling hot breath, passionately kissed her.

He kissed her until his lungs hurt.

He kissed her until the blood pulsing through his ears drowned out every other sound.

And then he broke his lips away and stood.

Winnie sat up, holding her bound wrists in front of her.

"Stand up."

She did and he picked up the pair of shears that, for decades probably, had been waiting in the corner of the shed.

"Turn around."

When she had, he forced the shears open and slid their metal along her calf, more slowly up her thigh, carefully down the other thigh, and up again, between her legs, until the back of the bottom of her blue dress nestled neatly between the twin, ready blades.

He pressed the handles together: the blades sliced.

The dress parted, uncovering skin.

Cotton crumpled and fell.

Cob put the shears back in the corner and pressed his clothed self against Winnie's nakedness.

He pulled her backward.

Then down.

Then she was on hands and knees, struggling to keep her balance on bound wrists, and he was untying one of the strings from the old acoustic guitar. "Move your legs together," he said.

When the string was free he knelt behind her and wrapped it around her ankles. As he tightened, he tuned; as he tuned, the string dug, gradually, into Winnie's flesh. Cob was fascinated to realise that even such a small place on her body had such wonderful depth.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

"A little," she said. But he didn't loosen it.

He undressed behind her, where she couldn't see, and stroked himself while watching her shoulders fall to the floor and ass rise.

When he was ready, he mounted.

They both moaned as he slid his cock across—then into—her pussy.

Cob fucked. Winnie tried fucking back, throwing her hips against, crashing into, his; but he wouldn't let her. He'd caught her, now he would keep her. He fucked harder. Tonight was the last night. His fucking outmuscled hers until her hips gave way and her body gave in and, pressing his chest against her back, he palmed her throat, ran his fingers through her hair, and pulled back her head. The angle of penetration shifted ever-so-slightly. It felt deeper: good. Her skin felt smooth and slick. His cock felt snug inside her domesticated cunt. He wanted to make all of these feelings last forever. He wanted to pray to the gods to grant his wish. He wanted to be the Dead Horse River. He wanted Berkeley and concerts on elevated stages, coffee house crowds, lyrics, and the creation of music. He wanted joy. He wanted fame. He wanted to keep fucking.

And the harder he fucked, the better it felt. But the better it felt, the closer he was to orgasm. His distracted, feverishly horny mind sputtered, struggling with the problem of by this time tomorrow I'll be gone and never has a woman made me feel this way and this is the most important journey of my life. He was certain he wasn't wrong about anything. Yet there was something wrong with his engine, something festering inside. His body screamed. His body moaned. The gulls were clawing at his head again. The problem wasn't anything a man can fix with his right hand. The storm hailed; the hail dented the aluminium siding of the shed. Cob grunted, he gripped Winnie, his balls, tired, were rolling insufficiently along the fresh asphalt of Highway 17—

He came.

And disappeared into the rear-view.

* * *

The hail abated. The last few stones smacked into and slid off the roof. Cob was suddenly aware of being in the shed and everything in it: the acoustic guitar, the tin cans, the crumpled blue dress, the shears standing in the corner. He pulled out of Winnie at least; and stumbled backward, losing his balance into a pile of junk. It was louder but not nearly as bad as falling into the river.

Upon regaining his balance, he used the shears to cut through the belt around his neck and the guitar string binding Winnie's ankles. The skin on the latter was slightly raw. Next, he undid the leash tying together Winnie's wrists and handed her the ruined blue dress, in case she wanted to cover up. She handed it back, saying there was a blanket in one of the chests.

After he'd retrieved it, they sat together underneath.

Higher, the paraffin lamp hissed, guarding against the darkness that had spread itself over the world outside, as the remains of the rain dropped from the trees onto the roof of the shed. The storm had passed. The thunder sounded as far away as the morning.

Winnie bent her head against Cob's shoulder.

They warmed each other.

"I'm afraid of what's out there," she said after a quiet while. "Let's stay like this a bit longer."

"My grandfather played the acoustic," she said.

"Guitar," she said.

"I like it here," she said.

"I'm glad," she said—but, before she could finish, sleep slipped past the flickering light and stole her thoughtlessly away.

* * *

Winnie awoke in the shed, wrapped snugly in the blanket. Cob was gone. The paraffin lamp was gone. The air was cool. A bundle of clothes sat by the door. She dressed and stepped outside. The sky was overcast. The world was colourless and mute. She trudged toward home through the remnants of last night's rain showers. She brought the blanket with her. "Cob," she said, walking through the door. But there was no answer. She said the same into every room; every room did not answer. She sat on her bed and hugged her knees and saw that the backs of her ankles were still sore. She rubbed them and was glad that at least she had this temporary reminder of the colour the winds had blown into her life, even if only once and for only a few hours. Life persists, she told herself as she ate breakfast, and remembered the jars she had left with Arnold. She would have to get them. Maybe Arnold would decide to buy a few more. She put on her homemade boots. She left the house, turned toward Black Bear Portage, and there it was:

Cob's guitar.

Her heart leapt and she called out his name!

But, again, there was no answer.

Her heart fell.

But it did not fall completely, for somewhere deep within her soul (if such a thing exists) she felt the twinkling of a fledgling, strange sensation. She couldn't name it. Indeed, she'd hadn't experienced it before. But she knew that it was real. She couldn't explain—or even understand—how she knew that, but she did. It was a certainty. Just keep the guitar safe and wait. Just do that and Cob will come back, because the guitar is the most important detail.

She closed her eyes and pictured their reunion.

Her lips twitched.

For an instant, the picture of the imagined reunion twitched with them: a barely perceptible-distortion. For an instant, Winnie wasn't sure whether this new sensation was a blessing or the first symptom of some terrible disease.

But then she smiled.

And the distortion disappeared.