Songs_of_the_Satyrs (24 page)

In a few of her stranger dreams, people with purple eyes pranced over the land.

She poured herself a mug of coffee and sat at the kitchen table, turning her cell phone over so that she wouldn’t have to watch it blink. Gladys let out a hesitant sigh. She used to be able to sigh without restraint, one smooth exhalation, but not for many years now. Lately it was as though her lungs held on to the breath, as if her body was trying to prevent any oxygen from escaping. And so her sighs flowed out in broken spurts.

“If only I could relax, Grandpa.”

Have a seat, stay a while.

She giggled.

***

Grandpa’s land undulated with hills that ended before three valleys, where the ponds were hidden by tree groves. Gladys headed for the pond by the willow tree. She drove Grandpa’s four-wheeler through a mile stretch of corn, then bobbed through bumpy pasture that had once served as grazing ground for over five hundred head of Holstein cattle. The pasture gave way to woods and groves.

At first she couldn’t remember where the pond was situated, having been away from Grandpa’s land for five years. She detested the fact that her corporate world had stolen so much from her.

But after a half hour, she found the weeping willow reaching above the trees. The willow was the most recognizable landmark in the area, surrounded by elms and maples and cherry trees.

As she drew closer, the smaller trees filled the sky, blocking sight of the larger weeping sentinel, and she ended up losing her way a couple of times.

The land can become your friend if you let it lead you, Sissy.

She kept recalling Grandpa’s words, until those words became louder, as if he were sitting behind her, whispering into her ear. She grew accustomed to it.

She also began listening to the land,
feeling
her way to the weeping willow.

Her city friends just wouldn’t get it. But Grandpa would.

Finally, the ground turned into a slight decline, then a gully. She heard the sound of bubbling water, and was delighted when the gully turned into a brook. This brook hadn’t been here last time she visited, back when her parents were still alive. Mother Nature was always reshaping Grandpa’s land, creating a kind of natural earth art.

She stepped off the four-wheeler and followed the brook as it wound through clumps of miniature knolls and moss-covered trees. Finally, she stood beneath the cool shade of the willow. Nothing grew within thirty feet of it, as if the other trees could sense its eminence.

She brushed the long tendrils forming a green curtain aside, approaching the trunk. She touched the tree’s bark, an intimate gesture.

“Hello, my friend.”

She swore the tree shuddered.

Bob would tease her about being a tree hugger.

Oh well,
she thought.
He will never see you anyway, my friend.

She walked to the edge of the branches, sitting beneath tendrils swinging in the wind, the green curtain opening to form a small window. The algae-coated pond was reflective glass, surrounded by yellow reeds. She saw the large rock she’d used as a child to jump from into the deep part of the pond.

Here there was peace, a place of contemplative relaxation. She sighed, amazed that the oxygen rushing from her lungs flowed out in one smooth exhalation—no hesitancy, no halting spurts.

There’s a sense of freedom in these hills. The stress of living in that mouse maze of a city just falls away whenever you visit. Tell me it don’t.

“You’re right, Grandpa.”

She attributed it to the land, the healing balm that touched her soul. But maybe Grandpa really was with her, tending to her himself. Maybe he wasn’t just in her imagination. Maybe the little child within was giving Gladys’s worn soul the person she loved most.

She sprawled out, leaning back and staring up into golden splotches of sunlight fighting through the weeping green. Two dragonflies buzzed past, hovering near her face before flying over the pond.

The softness of the downy earth conformed to her body. She sank, content. The air, rich with lush fragrance, seeped into her pores like sunshine, and she might as well have been lying on feather pillows.

A peaceful feeling enveloped her, and she fell asleep, mesmerized by the land.

***

Gladys woke staring into golden shafts of sunlight. Then she saw a man’s shoulders. From her vantage point, she guessed him to be about eight or nine feet tall. The wind whipped the willow’s green tendrils, giving her a view of his muscled torso.

Nobody could be that tall, she thought, as a heavy grogginess filled her mind with fog. She saw butterflies fluttering over the pond, heard the brook behind her gurgling. The buzz of dragonflies combined with the warmth of sunshine oozing into the pores of her skin, hypnotic.

“Just a dream . . . ,” she muttered, smiling at her sudden arousal. She reached between her legs, pushing her fingers down the front of her pants.

How long since she’d last done this?

But there was no self-consciousness, no right or wrong now, as she brought her hand out of her pants and licked her fingers. No child could sneak into her bedroom. No relative could interrupt her. No chance of being caught. Alone and in the moment, she hesitated only briefly, wondering whether she was half asleep and actually touching herself, or completely asleep, dreaming.

As the weeping willow’s green tendrils swept over her body, the man appeared, at first facing her, then with his back to her. Her imagination took control as she fantasized, taking the man into her body, spreading her thighs to allow for a smoother transition, arching her back to ease the melding of two beings into one.

It felt so real. She suspected this was what people called a lucid dream.

He was inside her. She could smell his musty odor—which turned her on—and feel him sliding through her wetness, both bodies gyrating. A pheromonal rush of seduction captivated her senses. Her skin tingled, and a great heat burned between her thighs. Need was all she felt, a rich hunger so pure that she cried out.

Soon she was moaning, her back against the damp grass, the sounds of nature amidst a familiar rhythm she’d thought she’d never experience again. She knew this was a dream because the man was hairy from the waist down—well, not his penis, that portion of his body was perfect—but the rest of his lower extremities were that of a goat. The dream felt real, as did the orgasms exploding through her body. So powerful that she couldn’t help blurring fantasy with reality. But goat-men didn’t exist in the real world, where corporate lawyers ruled politicians for the sake of the almighty dollar.

She didn’t want to think about reality. She only wanted this man, this stranger, desired him deeper inside. A fantasy come to life, a lucid dream of pent-up sexual aggression; she wanted him to ravage her, to make love to her harder than anyone had ever done before.

Her whimpers became moans, then moans became screams of ecstasy. One orgasm tumbled into another, until it all blurred into one unified sensation, one whirling orgasmic universe containing only the sound of passionate screaming. Hips pushing out and up, thighs spread and giving as much as she was receiving—pure energy—she seeped into this universe, pouring herself into the fantasy.

Exhausted, she fell back asleep, her clothing torn. Already her eyes were closing, her gaze flowing down her lover’s body, from his nipple rings and chiseled chest to his rock hard abdominal muscles, until finally she was drifting further along, to shores where her imagination had never ventured before.

***

When she awoke, she was reaching for herself, wanting to feel herself again, when she heard a loud noise. It was the familiar pounding of a hoof against the earth, like a bull stamping. The ground vibrated beneath her, and Gladys quickly rose and began pulling her clothes back on. But her shirt was torn, ripped down the front.

“What the hell happened?”

She had no time to consider this. The beast was back. The same musky scent she’d smelled the day before filled the air. The thing was hidden in shadows and moving intently toward her. The tramping of hooves came nearer. Judging from the sound of its passage through the woods, the thing was huge, whatever it was.

She looked around, disoriented, trying to find the four-wheeler. She must have slept most of the day, because already the sun was low, hanging just above the trees beyond the pond.

On the ground around her were the impressions of hooves pushed deep into the soft earth, and deeper impressions closer to the pond, as if the creature had been thirsty after a rowdy romp of sex and—

Stop it!

But the thought wouldn’t leave her mind. Weren’t her clothes torn? Wasn’t she sore and wet?

She saw a strange cup where she had been sleeping. It was gold with two large handles on either side, the kind of thing she’d seen in movies depicting ancient Greeks. Gladys remembered drinking something syrupy sweet, like honey mixed with wine, but her mind was still foggy. She couldn’t be sure.

Had she dreamed it, or had someone put something in her drink? Had she even drunk anything?

She couldn’t be sure of this either.

She picked up the cup to smell it and determine if anything else had been added to the wine, but whatever was in the woods suddenly began moving toward her fast. She flung the cup aside and ran from the weeping willow.

She raced past elms and the stumps of cherry trees, out past the edge of the woods where the pasture began. When she got to the four-wheeler, she found it destroyed, the engine torn out. Surrounding it: the deep impression of hooves.

“Damn it!”

The beast was still coming for her, through thick briars and brambles. So loud, getting more so as it neared. She thought of the pasture she’d have to run through. And then there was the road going through a mile of corn.

But she had no choice.

She took off sprinting, remembering something Grandpa used to say:
You need to put your feet on the ground, feel the pulse of the earth beneath you, otherwise you lose your connection.

She ran, her ankles bending each time her foot landed in a pothole.

After a short distance, something burst from the woods behind her. A heavy branch flew past, nearly clubbing her head. She heard the snort of a large animal. The sound vibrated in the air, almost a baritone of raw power. It sounded like a two-ton bull.

The earth shook as the creature got closer. It seemed to be almost upon her, about to bear down on her. She risked a glance over her shoulder, but saw only the strange man at the perimeter of the woods, the one with the cloven hooves and hairy legs, stroking his erect penis.

You’re not real! Can’t be real!

She heard the sound of clomping hooves, as if a horse ran alongside her, but there was nothing there. She slowed and as she did so, the sound diminished, and she realized the goat man wasn't chasing her.

She looked down and screamed; she saw cloven hooves instead of human feet. Tendrils of her shredded jeans blew in the wind, and she saw white hairs sprouting up all along her legs.

“No!” She looked back at the thing that had drugged and ravaged her. “You bastard.”

The goat man flinched, shoulders bunching. Then he lowered his head and charged. Ram horns grew from his skull with each step, thick and looping over his pointed ears. He roared, and Gladys ran as fast as her hindquarters would carry.

This land will save you if you save it first, Sissy. This land will be your salvation, as will the moon and stars. All you have to do is remove the city stink. When you do that, the woods will move through you.

The moon was rising, and she felt a cold strength shining down from above, giving her energy, empowering her to run faster than she’d ever run before. Perhaps it was her new mutation, the goat legs that propelled her so quickly. Yet she couldn’t deny the exhilarating power the moon possessed, beaming down, passing
through
and energizing her.

Was this what Grandpa had meant about the woods moving through her?

Despite the fear she felt in the pit of her stomach, new sensations beyond anything she’d ever sensed swept through her: the earth, moon, soil, and trees—all of them speaking to her, all of them rejoicing in her newfound strength.

How had she ignored these sensations her entire life?

She heard the ground vibrate beneath her trampling hooves; felt earthworms and insects tremble under her tread. She smelled rotted bodies of fallen trees and remains of dead animals, buried and absorbed, making the soil nutrient rich. And the grass communicated a scent, bringing to mind all things of the earth, both predator and prey.

There’s music in these hills, Sissy. Music that most people never hear.

The wrath of the goat man swept through the pasture. It was a presence, an angry power that dominated and subjugated everything in its path. She felt his sexual need, but his anger was stronger, a meteor cutting through the air, making it difficult for her to breathe.

He was just behind her, his hooves pounding out an angry rhythm.

Somehow she had made it to the cornfield, but the road was still a good hundred yards away. She lowered her head and blasted through stalks of corn. Tingling sensations pricked her scalp, and when she reached up she discovered horn nubs.

The goat man roared again.

At that moment she wouldn’t have been surprised to see him step out before her, wouldn’t have been surprised to see anything preternatural. Wasn’t that what she was now? Wasn’t she becoming one with the night? A goat lady similar to her enraged lover?

She began laughing hysterically, unable to run while thinking about rutting with the goat man, because reality had become so ridiculous.

It’s in your blood, Sissy. The land, my genes—it’s all tied together through our bloodline.

She stopped and turned around. The goat man stopped as well, breathing hard, his breaths slapping against the cornstalks, moving them like wind.