Livingston Manor
Elliot is slamming “windex shooters”, watching the hanging mirror reflect his best friends faces who are waiting for him to finish. Katy is still watching him and smiling, Chris is encouraging him to keep going.
“I’ve never seen anything like this!”
“We want you to finish!”
“I’m going to,” Elliot replied.
He was holding himself up by the arms of the chair, looking into the faces of his friends for signs of support. His sense of time was fucked, everything happened now in pockets, frames and brackets. The woods they walked into were a different city, the path was the same but the way out had changed. The light shifted, the way the light can shift on you between 11am to 3pm. He finished the last shooter, and put the glass on the table.
“I fucking knew it.” Chris said.
“Incredible!” said Katy.
Together they walked back onto the path side by side. Chris was acting like a new baby, climbing tree trunks that had fallen during the floods last month - picking up random rocks and plants from the ground, holding them for a bit and then throwing them off the path. The ferns from before now seemed like aliens, an entire forest full of fern babies. Everything seemed easy and equally more on purpose.
When they finally came to the clearing, the sky stopped them. It was just more blue now - more blue than they’d ever seen it. All at once they burst out laughing - falling on their knees in the tall grass, laughing hysterically and bumping shoulders. The pool off to the left was suddenly overgrown - the fence around it was missing. Elliot thought he saw a deer, but he wasn’t sure. After a few minutes, they all worked to collect themselves and weaved towards the house slowly, stopping at the blackberry bush and the fire pit.
The house was a small one bedroom hunting cabin with an A-frame roof, and wide wooden porch. The driveway out was a small dirt path that led through an opening into the woods, up a hill that rounded to the left and out of sight.
The last time Elliot was here it was January and snowing, buried, and freezing. He thought of his dog getting out late at night to make footprints around the house in circles in the fresh snow. Each time she would widenen the circles like crop marks. He remembered studying them in the morning. He remembered the feeling of the cabin alone at night surrounded by that much snow and endless black woods. He remembered the anonymous animal noises that came out of every direction until dawn.
“Beautiful.” - said Katy.
Elliot looked at her - her face was shining up against the green summer backdrop, and her eyes were locked on him. He felt sick and nauseous. Windex tasted like soap, he thought. Chris and Katy were muttering and mixing words that didn’t make sense to Him. Elliot grabbed for his stomach and began walking quickly towards the house, leaving Chris and Katy at the fire-pit. The changes happened quickly, as he widened the space between himself and the group, the sounds and lights dropped. Things became less saturated as he became aware of his breathing. His heart was louder, he could hear himself moving. As his footsteps touched the porch he was afraid.
Once inside he saw the setup from earlier. A large speaker, two long collections of wire running into a computer with a single input source. A loud “drone” in C Major was coming from the speaker, and it wasn’t a loop but it never stopped. It just dipped up and down slightly. Elliot pictured a red furnace with himself stuck inside it. He was in the guts of this house - he knew it. Finding the closest bathroom, Elliot dropped onto his knees and puked light blue water into the toilet. It was acidic and burned his throat, he gagged and kept puking until he couldn’t anymore.
He could feel his pulse in his face, and he was sweating. The drone was loud enough that you forgot it was even there - it covered everything in the house like a light. Red burning ovens, he thought of his parents. And of his brother.
Before he knew it, Katy was standing next to him, helping him to his feet. Her eyes were very green, and the freckles on her cheeks and nose gave her a beauty he couldn’t process. It was incredible to look at her, she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen. Looking at Katy, Elliot imagined he was looking at a piece of art, in the most dumb pronounced and literal way possible. He never studied the same part of her twice. Her mouth, the connection and shape of her lips. The space between her eyes, and the tilt of her head and her teeth, and how everything on her body felt framed just for him. All of this balanced perfectly, under the soft fringe of her hair and it was enough to make him pass out or maybe explode.
This is how Elliot felt every time he’d been around her over the past few months. When they sat In silence as friends at their first meetings. Arms touching casually, by accident or not. He always felt a raw strong heated attraction towards her, and he knew she felt too.
She stepped towards Elliott as if to hug him, but instead she rested the side of her cheek against the side of his - in a style of embrace he didn’t recognize but could feel through his whole body. Her hands found his hands, and things stayed this way. Another time bracket opened and they went with it. He wanted to kiss her, he didn’t know why he’d never kissed her before now. He felt like he was home. Elliot had sweat on his forehead and could feel it there - he knew she could feel it too, he knew he was probably sweating on her.
Without any open signal they turned their heads quickly in time to catch meet with their lips. They opened their mouths slightly, just enough to latch onto the inside of each other. The tips of their Tongues touched but barely moved. Katy held Elliots hands as they rubbed their lips together. Soft and warm, lips on lip. Elliot’s stomach fluttered in the same way it feels to be very high up looking down. Her small tits pressed against him and he felt her nipples harden through her t-shirt against his body. As the kissing intensified he put his hands in her hair, gently cradling her head in his hands. The smell of her shampoo came off her, as he made slow fists with his hands tangled in the back of her hair. She pushed her mouth harder against his mouth. Elliot thought to himself, that he would never open his eyes for anything again.
A few hours later it would storm. The three friends watched the sky turn dark green and brown, eventually pounding everything with torrential summer rain. Katy took off her clothes and stepped into it, she was crying or laughing they couldn’t tell. The rain stopped after fifteen minutes, and Katy was standing in the grass soaking wet now under the hot sun. the sky turned blue again. Katy stood motionless drying, enjoying the sensation of the rain drying on her skin. Elliot and Chris watched her in silence. As the shooters wore off, they opened the last bottle of red wine. Elliot made a fire, Chris took the Swordfish steaks out and lay them on the table next to the sliced lemons. They were starving.