Continued from Angel from Montgomery: Part 4

The light of dawn is cold, its thin fingers spreading across the glass panels, long and slender like a skeleton’s. Felix rubs his eyes, the movement splintering his awareness with a pain that shoves him into wakefulness. He looks down at himself. His wrists are bandaged, as are his ankles. He sits up, confused, and stares at the fragile white ash in the woodstove, which was a fire the night before.

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Continued from Angel from Montgomery: Part 3

Two weeks after naked Dianne emerged from his woodline, Felix Finn’s ability to go more than a couple minutes without thinking about her is nonexistent. Unsurprising, given how dramatically she had entered his life, and how drastically she had altered it. For the first time in years, Felix can glimpse a world beyond the hated prison of his sexuality, a world unshackled by the past. He had longed to tear those bars apart and greet that world, whole and alive, but with Dianne no violent escape had been required. She had simply, with quiet confidence, fit the key into the lock, popping open the door.

After their bedroom escapades, in the cold light of morning, things had felt almost awkward - both of them shyly stealing silent glances. But there had been a peace to the silence as well. An acceptance. The same acceptance that, when faced with the monster within him, had caused her not to turn away but to reach out a gentle hand toward the snapping, thrashing thing and lay her palm on its heaving neck, murmuring soft words and stroking its muzzle. Taming it.

The memory of their time together still thrilled him, but with every passing day he grew less certain that the feeling was mutual. Yet - surely, she needn’t have allowed him to walk her all the way back to the cabin she was renting nine miles away (NINE miles)? Something told him that she had wanted Felix to know where she was staying.

The cool wind stirs the needles of the fir trees, rushing like water. In the distance, Felix discerns a similar sound, but steadier, more purposeful. The stream. The birds flit quietly between the trees, casting fleeting shadows on the ground. His footsteps are muffled by the thick bed of pine needles. His skin tingles. His heart thumps a rhythm against his ribs he hasn’t heard in years -

Hope.

He barely feels the weight of the logs on his back.

‘You’re getting your hopes up for nothing’, mutters a voice from the back of his mind. A clawed fist drags his guts for a moment, but he shakes it off, refusing to let doubt dampen his spirits. The day is clear and bright, the air cool. Every scarred rockface and glistening needle is hyperrealistic, abundantly present. Felix breathes the crisp air deeply, relishing the way it fills his chest, caressing his lungs from the inside.

What a beautiful day, he thinks.

The babble of the stream is growing more distinct, rippling off the stones and trees.

Must be close now.

Dianne’s cabin was located only a hundred yards from the stream. If he follows it long enough, he should find it. To be sure, he checks his satellite phone. The waypoint to Dianne’s cabin is still marked from the last time he had made this journey with Dianne at his side - a ‘D’ nestled against a squiggly blue line indicating the stream.

Only another quarter mile, he thinks, heart pounding and not wholly from exertion. Would she be happy to see him? Disappointed? He reflects on what they had talked about on their walk - the birds that had caught their eyes, the sun, the wind. Nothing of the previous night or that morning. Nothing of his past. But she might want to know more now. Rounding the bend, which should mark the final stretch between him and Dianne’s cabin, a flash of movement catches his eye on the opposite bank.

A young woman is kneeling by the river, among the roots of a large quaking aspen. Her dark hair falls down her back, swishing gently from side to side. In a rush of excitement, Felix picks up his pace and opens his mouth to call her name, then stops short. It is indeed Dianne, as naked as the moment he had first seen her.

Blindfolded.

Undulating.

Her hips are moving rhythmically, muscles rippling along her spine. Her head is tipped back, lips parted. Her form is so crushingly beautiful, his knees buckle as though he might fall to them in worship of her. His cock stirs, tingling heat at the root of his being. The beast inside licks its lips, watchful.

With her hands planted on the ground in front of her, Felix can’t see much of her front, but she seems to be straddling one of the aspen’s roots, knees in the dirt, thin calves flexing.

Felix is growing harder by the moment.

The beast paces, lips curled.

As though bewitched, he tugs off his boots and then his trousers. He drops them on the bank, along with his pack of firewood, then steps into the river.

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Continued from Angel from Montgomery: Part 2

Embers still glow among the white ashes in the woodstove, made dimmer as the pale light of morning trickles into the tiny cabin. Felix’s eyes crack open. With surprise, he finds that his view is not of the treetops to the East, visible from the window of his loft, but of the Wyoming Range to the West, still gray in the morning light. And he is on the couch, not his bed. Confused, he sits up and looks around. Images of the night before bubble into his consciousness: a dark-haired woman with rope held between cunning fingers, hard nipples pressing through cotton fabric, smooth skin flickering in the firelight. It couldn’t have been real, a suspicion seemingly confirmed by the lack of evidence around him. But the quiet satisfaction within him tells a different story. A kind of satisfaction he hasn’t known in years.

Felix rubs his eyes, then jerks his hands back at a sudden spike of pain. His wrists are rubbed raw, exposing new pink flesh. It wasn’t a dream. The angel was real. His angel. He stares at his wounds, the knowledge flowing over him in a warm lavender tide, his heart drumming a golden tattoo at the memory. He caresses the raw skin lovingly as though the flesh beneath his fingers is hers. He is marked by her, the woman who freed him from himself. A woman who had liberated him by making him her captive. A woman…nowhere to be found, he realizes, looking around as though she might appear from behind the staircase or under the coffee table. Maybe I could have hallucinated all of it, he thinks, like stigmata. This seems a more likely explanation than a strange woman wandering up to his cabin naked, eating his stew, then tying him up and fucking him. Slowly, he rises, feeling the same rawness in his ankles. It all seems far too good to be true - so much more than he deserved, and more than any woman should have been willing to give, especially a stranger. Felix is struck by a need to know for certain. Either his angel is upstairs in his bed, or she left, or she was never here. He takes a deep breath. Tentatively, he mounts the spiral staircase. If she is here, she’s going to think I’m a creep, he tells himself, and almost turns back. But doesn’t. Like a coin rolling inexorably to the center of one of those Whirl-a-Wish vortexes he’d seen at the mall as a child, he is drawn, round and round, up the spiral stairs to the woman he hopes desperately is more than just a fantasy. Peeking over the top of the stairs into the loft, he is met with a beautiful sight.

Long dark hair in disarray, slender fingers dangling over the edge of the bed, lies the petite form of his angel in repose. She stirs, turns over, sleepy eyes fluttering open to meet his. Dianne smiles through the tangle of hair obscuring her face and Felix can’t help but smile back.

“Sorry. I just…I had to make sure this wasn’t all a dream,” he says. Dianne pushes her hair out of her face and stretches under the covers like a cat in a sunbeam. “Really sorry to bother you,” he whispers, turning away to begin his descent.

“Don’t,” murmurs the dark-haired angel in his bed. “You don’t need to go.” Feeling foolish, Felix hesitates then continues his retreat, albeit slowly.

“No, I should, I’m sorry. I’ll see you when you’re up.”

“Stay,” Dianne says, reaching an arm out in his direction. Affection twangs his heart like a guitar string in a bossa nova melody. He hesitates.

“You sure?”

“Yes,” she says with some finality, pawing away the remainder of her hair to look at him. “Felix, come here.”

The command sends a little thrill up his spine. Yes, ma’am, he assents with delight. He makes his way to her, stooping a bit beneath the low ceiling. She catches his hand and tugs him down to the bed.

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Continued from Angel from Montgomery: Part 1

One hand clutches empty air, the other his swollen cock. His orgasm fizzles, seeping back into his body and leaving in its wake a throbbing, painful ache of terrible aloneness. He is incredibly hard, painfully erect. He wants to scream and rage, but such demonstrations have never helped.

He turns off the water and takes a deep breath. He grabs the towel from its hook, realizes it’s still damp. With a rush of shame, Felix remembers the dark-haired woman in his house. Had she heard? He may have spoken aloud during his…fantasizing.

Not that it matters, he tells himself. I’m fucked no matter what. He rubs his wet hair with the towel, then dries the rest of his body. He replaces the towel on its hook, making a mental note to do laundry tomorrow, then pulls on a pair of boxers and turns off the bathroom light.

The young woman is not to be found in the living room, and he feels a pang of guilt and disappointment. The bowl she had used is washed and sitting on its shelf. Felix puts the pot of stew back in the refrigerator, then kneels by the woodstove. He fills the stove with logs and covers them with kindling, lighting it. Once the fire is going, he shuts off the rest of the lights downstairs and lays down on the sofa. He closes his eyes, willing sleep to come. Eventually, it does.

Something causes him to stir. His eyelids flutter open and he sees Dianne walking past him into the kitchen. He shuts his eyes again, feigning sleep. There is the sound of running water, then nothing. Quiet feet pad past his sofa, only inches away, then pause. Felix keeps his eyes closed.

Abruptly, he feels the weight of her body on his, hot breath on his neck. A soft kiss lands there. A whimper escapes him. He opens his eyes to find Dianne straddling him, looking down with lamplike eyes. With a trembling hand, Felix runs his fingers through her hair, tucking a stray lock behind her ear.

“Dianne, I can’t,” he says, his heart twisting like an old washrag. She blinks.

“Why are you celibate?” she asks. “I don’t think you want to be.” Her gaze is tender and hopeful. His pulse quickens and his cock responds, shifting in his boxers. She must have felt it too because she glances down, then back up to meet his eyes. “See?” she asks, smiling playfully. She starts to reach a hand into his boxers, but he catches her wrist, gently.

“I don’t…,” he begins, then falters. “I can’t. I can’t be trusted. I hurt people,” he says. “I can’t let myself lose control.”

“Control?” she asks, peering at him.

“Yes,” he replies solemnly. “When I lose control, people get hurt.” He hesitates. “Women get hurt.” His chest is tight, breath short. He is shocked at himself for admitting this to her, but also indescribably relieved.

“I see,” she says seriously, then stands. He mourns the sweet pressure of her body against his, but nods. This is the only way. She climbs the stairs to the loft, leaving Felix alone in his agony. He considers masturbating, then decides not to risk it after his failed attempt in the shower.

You stupid old man, he sighs ruefully to himself.

The sound of feet on the stairwell pricks his ears. He opens his eyes and props himself up on his elbows. His angel has returned, holding something in her hands.

The rope.

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The yellow light of the setting sun is slipping down behind the mountains like sand falling to the bottom of an hourglass. The chill that had been driven into the earth throughout the day by the sun’s golden rays now seeps out into the air as the light recedes. Every moment more indigo fills the sky.

Felix takes a deep breath and lifts a steaming mug to his lips, gently blowing across its surface to cool it. His pale blue eyes absorb the view before him with passive appreciation. He pushes his feet against the floor of his porch, sending his rocking chair backward, then forward, then backward.

“What an old man I am,” he chuckles ruefully to himself. On evenings such as these, rocking alone on his porch with his mug of chamomile tea, Felix imagines he must be the picture-perfect vision of an Old Man. His once-dark beard is now mostly grizzled gray, and Father Time has permanently etched laughter into the corners of his eyes, but Felix Finn is only forty-three.

From inside the tiny cabin croons the voice of John Prine, spun into existence by the vinyl disk turning on a shelf in the living room. Felix hums along, rocking.

“You forgive us and we’ll forgive you,” he sings to himself, taking another sip of chamomile tea. “and we’ll whistle and go fishin’ in heaven,” he sings softly. Tomorrow might be a good day for fishing, he thinks, then remembers the broken-down truck. The nearest stream is six miles away - not too far to walk, but Felix isn’t desperate for food. He shot a deer two weeks ago, and there is plenty of venison remaining. Guess I should fix that damn thing soon though, he thinks, and takes another sip of tea.

In the silence left by the needle’s search for the next song, Felix hears the night-birds waking up, trilling in their echoing soulful way. The bats are whirling above. Tiny paws scamper over the bed of pine needles covering the ground below. He wonders if any of the critters he hears are black-footed ferrets.

John Prine’s guitar resumes its twanging.

The light is fading fast now, leaving the legendary Wyoming sky to fill with stars. In his flannel shirt, cupping a mug of hot tea, Felix feels pleasantly buffered from the cool night. He smiles into the evening and rocks back in his chair.

“Make me an angel,” he sings softly, “that flies from Montgomery.”

The bats continue their swooping and careening. Felix tracks their darting movements with a soft smile. He has always had a soft spot for bats. He thinks of them as real-life dragons: not fierce guardians of piles of gold but furry freewheeling twilight sprites.

A disturbance at the treeline catches his eye, and he sits up and peers in its direction. A hunched human shape is materializing at the edge of the pines, moving toward him. Keeping his eyes fixed on the spot, Felix sets down his mug and feels behind him for his hunting rifle. His fingers brush against the stock of the gun, and he considers picking it up, but decides against it. It’s good to have at hand in a pinch, but he’d rather not escalate things unnecessarily.

A visitor at this hour, or any hour for that matter, is unheard of. The nearest neighbor is Phil Clapboard, four miles away on the edge of little Bondurant. I doubt anyone besides him even knows I’m here, Felix thinks, his curiosity and suspicion growing in equal measure. As the figure steps through a patch of fading light, Felix’s blue eyes widen in disbelief.

“Make me an angel,” John Prine croons.

What on earth…,Felix thinks, registering the details of the approaching figure. Slight, pale, dark-haired, with one arm hugging her chest and the other hand held over the fork of her legs: a woman, stark naked. For an absurd moment, Felix wonders if the combination of John Prine and his own loneliness has summoned an actual angel. But, unlike the woman approaching with hunched shoulders and walking briskly enough to be on the verge of scurrying, a real angel wouldn’t be ashamed of its nakedness, he reasons.

Her attempts to cover herself as she walks are ineffective, and every few steps Felix can make out a dark hint of pubic hair or what might be a nipple peeking out over her forearm. Heat floods his cheeks and he looks away quickly, but the erotic strangeness of the spectacle continues to draw his gaze. His fingers twist in the air as though around a lock of her dark hair.

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