“These woods are lovely, dark and deep...” The line kept running through Michael’s head as he trudged further up into the Berkshires on that morning, late in September. He shook his head, partly to clear away the mosquitoes that had returned with this brief spate of warm weather, partly in frustration at only being able to remember one line of the poem. He had overdressed, a city boy out in what passed for the wilderness of New England. The sweat dripped down the crease in the center of his forehead to slip under the rim of his wire–frame glasses and collect in small pools on his nose.
This second day of hiking was easier, somehow. Muscles which had been well–toned by college basketball two years ago, had finally started remembering how to move under pressure. Michael hadn’t added any flab to his thin frame since leaving college; hours and days spent hunched over a computer had, if anything, only emaciated his long body. A diet of coffee and donuts from the all–night Dunkin’ Donuts had kept him going through long nights of programming and debugging. But now — now he had escaped.
Escaped from a city he was growing to hate; New Haven had been bad enough as a student, but it was unbearable outside the guarded precincts of Yale. Escaped from a live–in girlfriend who was becoming more shrewish by the day. Did he even love her anymore? She was still lovely, at least at night. Escaped from her four cats, two dogs, and multitude of small rats in gleaming cages. Michael had escaped for two all–too–brief days of Indian summer sunlight spotting its way through stained glass leaves against a wide and empty sky. And he was determined to make the most of it.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” ...was that even the same poem? Same poet? He couldn’t remember. And this wood wasn’t yellow. There were still a few green leaves hanging determinedly on the darkening branches, but the overwhelming color was a joyous shouting red across the line of hills. He paused for breath on the trail at a ‘lookout point’, marked by a small camera signpost. It was stunning, of course. The hill fell away beneath his feet to a deep valley, cleft by a river winding far below. Leaves across the horizon were a patchwork of sunset colors, blazing fiercely in the sunlight. Michael almost felt like breaking out into a Gloria in praise of a God he’d never believed in. He laughed softly to himself as he turned back to the trail.
But there was singing. Somewhere not far ahead, just to the left of the trail, he could hear a woman’s voice, high and clear above the murmur of water leading down to the river below. Michael couldn’t quite make out the words, so far away, and he began to push his way through the underbrush towards that silver voice.
Sharp thorns scored light tracks along his hands as he pushed them away from his face, and the light dimmed as he went deeper and deeper into the trees. Michael was surprised, and a little disturbed, to know that there was someone else here on this desolate mountain. While he’d known that there were other hikers about, he’d deliberately taken a disused trail, paint faded almost to nothing, to avoid other people. He’d seen nobody for almost two days, and had liked it that way. He’d almost started to miss his girlfriend again.
The brush had been getting harder and harder to push through, but as he persevered he began to hear more voices. He still couldn’t make out their words, but low, throaty laughter danced across the still autumn air, pulling him forward through the thick growth. Suddenly, he broke through, almost falling flat onto his face as the trees gave way to a small clearing, a deep pool... and women.
So many women, it seemed at first, a horde of slim legs, shining teeth, tangled hair and soft breasts. For they were naked, all of them, clothes no doubt discarded nearby for the call of that pool, bright with glittering sparkles, deep as dying. It was a glorious pool, and they matched it. Michael had pulled back instinctively, and he crouched now in the shadow of an old oak, watching avidly. His lips glistened as he licked them over and over. He began counting the women, finding it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the slide of water of smooth, dark skin. None of the seven women were pale; no, tanned golden by weeks of playing in summer sunlight. Their hair was uniformly blond except for one, and she, she was red. Red as the leaves across the hills, red as sunset.
o0o
That one was tall, perhaps even taller than Michael. She sat on a rock for a moment listening to the singer standing by the pool, then leaned over to break the song, still unintelligible to Michael, with a kiss deep and long as the pool itself. Then, laughing wildly, she dived down into the water. When she came up, it clung to her body, caressing the line of imperious neck to impossibly high breasts to slender waist and hips and muscled legs, finally dripping off red–painted toes.
Michael didn’t know how long he watched before his legs began to cramp. He was sure these women wouldn’t appreciate his presence, and so, slowly, regretfully, began to ease his way back from the clearing, into the woods. And then she called him, a low, accented voice sensuous as silk.
“Come out.”
Michael stumbled from his hiding place in the shadow of the ancient oak, falling to one knee, hands braced to catch himself. His face and groin were burning as he looked up, though burning for different reasons. She only laughed at him, a rumble of laughter like muted thunder as one of the blond women stepped forward and reached out a hand to help him up. The blond’s hand was steady and dry in his damp one, her nails long and sharp and red as blood. She led him over to where the redhead sat on the flat rock, damp with the water dripping down.
She cocked her head, studying him carefully, from the thatch of windswept stringy hair, down the length of his sweat–stained clothing, pausing briefly at the all–too–evident bulge in his pants. She didn’t look particularly impressed.
“You don’t look like a hunter.” she said. Michael shook his head, while trying to place her accent. It seemed familiar, somehow, like something he’d heard before, but he couldn’t name exactly where.
“I’m just a hiker.” he explained, trying his best scapegrace smile, wondering if he’d wandered accidentally onto private property. The paint signs had gotten very faint towards the end of his trail. “I’m just here to admire the... beauty...” and his voice trailed off as his blush deepened. Michael tried desperately to keep his eyes on her face and off her naked body.
Then she smiled at him, a smile so stunning he was dizzy with the force of it. Her teeth flashed like a model’s, bright and sharp in the sunlight. “We like admirers” she said, and with that beckoned to the six blond women, calling them over from their perches on rocks, their games in the water, their rolling in the drying autumn grass and fallen leaves. They came with fragments of red leaf caught in their tangled hair, with clear water drying
And then they were touching him. Michael tensed, unsure what to do or say in this totally impossible situation. They murmured gently among themselves, laughing in some foreign language as they eased off his backpack, untied the sweater wrapped around his waist, pulled off his Vikings cap. They began kissing his neck, his chest, his hard nipples as they unbuttoned his cotton shirt and slid it off his shoulders. The blondes ran their uniformly long fingernails down his chest and back as one knelt in front of him, undoing his pants and removing them, dropping sharp kisses on his trembling thighs. Michael lifted his legs, one at a time, blindly. They took off boots and socks and pants, his gaze still focused on the blurring face of the redhead and her brightly shining eyes. Then, with their hands and mouths moving over him, she leaned over... and kissed him, sliding her tongue deep into his mouth. It was then that he collapsed.
Michael came back to consciousness to find himself erect against the aging oak, the rough bark pressed into the tender skin of back and buttocks. His arms had been drawn carefully back and tied with some sort of cord, maybe vines. She was standing in front of him, smiling that bright smile again. He was still dizzy.
“I have a question for you.” she said.”Well, I have a lot of questions for you!” Michael began to bluster. He was suddenly terrifyingly, exilharatingly sure that he would not be seeing his girlfriend, his job, their apartment or her rats again. Now that he had been stripped of his clothing, he felt oddly free to gaze his fill, and his eyes drank in the curves and planes of her body, broken only by a patch of flaming hair.
She seemed to enjoy his gaze, continuing to smile as she watched his eyes watching her. Then she spoke again.
“What do you want?”
Suddenly time seemed to still and thicken so that Michael had all the time he needed to remember: the days of college when he and his friends, self–proclaimed geniuses, would stay up till dawn promising to see the world and taste its women in wide open fields and hot dark rooms; the clarity of nights without sleep as he talked and fucked and laughed with a girl with wide dark eyes who’d left him when once he slept too late; dancing naked in the rain, all alone. But closer was job, cats, safety, overpowering fear, and the love of a woman probably still asleep back home. And now he knew how much he loved her after all, so much more than either of them had ever thought. So that he almost said, ‘to go home’. But he’d gotten too much sleep lately, it seemed.
“You.” he answered, suddenly certain, suddenly sure.
And then she was laughing above him as she reached out and sliced apart the bonds with impossibly sharp fingernails. The women surrounded them, touching them everywhere it seemed as her skin slid against his ready body and she bent to kiss his neck. That was the first and only pain, a sudden sharp tearing though he did not scream as he worshipped her with strong limbs and violent burning thrusts.
Somehow she managed to say just then, “Only that, beloved, for the right answer” before rising to meet him, her red hair falling around him in streams of blood and fire, their long red nails raking down his back. And so Michael rose to ecstasy, fully conscious, fully clear that nothing, nothing could be beyond this.
Hours later, they had long since bathed the last traces away, and they were once again beautiful in the moonlight. The wildness had faded for a while, sated by that long orgy in the sunset splendor of fallen leaves. The blond women were dancing slowly and languorously in the outpouring of the full moon. On Diana’s face was something that on another might be mistaken for regret; but he had been lost from that first moment, after all. And then she joined them in their dance, and it grew wild once again.