Amber
The next day, I finally start to feel a little better and am able to help Granite make some more progress on the house. While we are working, we talk about a lot of different things and it makes the day go by so fast that it is quickly already afternoon. We talk about what we will do if I am actually pregnant, which of course I continue to point out and insist that I amnot. As we entertain the idea though, we are both in agreement that nothing is more important than us being together, and that whatever else happens; we will make it work. Then we try to figure out what is going on with Tom, Lana, and Pete and why there is a continual weird vibe around them that we just can’t seem to put our finger on.
As I work alongside him, I start doing things without thinking that I never would have even thought I could have done months ago. Things like peeling long strips of bark from the tree and being able to hand-stitch them together with long pieces of the sturdy mountain grass in order to make large pieces of usable “fabric” to protect the open elements of the cabin from the weather. Granite looks over at me and gives me an impressed nod.
“You’ve really gotten quite good with your survival skills,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling pleased with myself.
He’s right, I have. I hadn’t really taken the time to acknowledge all that I had learned and become able to do, but now that he has pointed it out; I am actually quite impressed with myself and with how much my survival skills have improved.
“Hey, can you show me a few more things?” I ask.
“Like what?” he says.
“I don’t know, just other things that would be good for me to be able to do. Maybe something like how to start a fire without matches or how to make tincture? I just want to increase my survivalism repertoire if we’re going to be living off-grid forever.”
Granite laughs.
“Sure,” he says as he stops working and runs the back of his fingers down along the side of my face. “I’ll teach you everything you want to know. Come on, let’s go learn about how to start a fire with no matches.”
“Right now?” I ask.
“Yeah, we’ve gotten a lot accomplished today and it’s nearing evening. Let’s take a little well-earned break until dinner. Then you can help me pull some fish from the stream, forage for edible mushrooms, and we can cook a romantic woodland dinner together.”
Granite grins at me and I can’t help but let out a giggle.
“How is it that you can make survivalism in the middle of winter on the mountains so sexy and appealing?” I tease.
“The forest is magical,” he answers as he leans forward to kiss me. “You just have to know how to see the magic around you.”
He’s right, and every moment with him is magical. I take his hand as he leads me out into the thicket of trees until we get to a place alongside a small, winding stream that is bordered by an edge of flat stones.
“Pick two,” he says as he points down at the stones.
“Does it matter what size or shape they are?” I ask.
“Flat and easy to hold in your hand.”
I bent down and chose two smooth, flat stones that were both about the size of the inside of my palm.
“Perfect,” Granite says as he rubs his fingers over the stones in my hands.
He positions the stones in my palms and then wraps his fingers around my hands to guide me and show me how to hold them and hit them together with enough pressure and friction to make them spark. I start to get frustrated when, after multiple attempts and my palms starting to get sore, there is still no sign of a spark. But Granite tells me to keep trying and makes slight adjustments and comments to the angle of the stones and the force with which I am hitting them against each other.
“It’s more of a pressured rub, than just a hit of the stones against each other,” he says. “When the two stones collide, they do more than just hit each other. They hit against each other with a harsh rub that causes friction; a friction that is so quick and sharp that it creates a spark.
There is something about the tone in his voice as he is talking about colliding and a rubbing friction that makes a heated feeling start to swell in my chest. His hands let go of mine so that I can try again, and this time when I hit the stones against each other, they create the tiniest amber ember that shoots out from between them.
“I did it!” I squeal with excitement. “Look, did you see that?”
“Yes, I saw it,” he laughs. “See? I told you that you could do it.”
I turn to look at granite and am suddenly just overcome with an intense desire to have him; right here and right now, in the middle of the forest. I drop the rocks from my hand and as soon as they fall against the soft ground, Granite pulls me against his body. He feels it too, this immense longing. Maybe it is because we hadn’t been able to make love to each other for a while that felt like a long and drawn-out torture of waiting until I was feeling better. Maybe it was the magical and isolated moment in the woods in which everything seemed calm and magical and full of the combustive possibility to create a passionate spark. Whatever the reason for it, we both gave into it and relished in the moment to make love out in the open beneath the encroaching dusk that filled the sky with a pinkish light between the treetops.
As Granite lays me gently down onto the soft, mossy earth, and carefully undresses us both just enough to be able to join our bodies together; I am enraptured by the feeling of the raw and natural power of Granite pushing himself into my body as we lay against the forest floor. Thereissomething magical and mystical about knowing that the living earth beneath us shares in the feeling of carnal passion as we move against it, and that the animals of the forest are witness to the audible moans of pleasure that echo throughout the forest and are carried atop of the cold breeze. This is a moment of perfection, and when it eventually ends; we are both satiated and grounded with contentment.
We walk back to our little dwelling area, feeling renewed and completely not prepared for the sight that awaits us there.
Granite grabs my hand and pulls me to a quick halt as soon as he looks ahead and sees the unfinished cabin come into view. As soon as I see it too, I put my hand over my mouth in complete and utter shock. The tent and all of the progress that we had made on our little house, has been destroyed. Nothing aside from a pile of rubble and torn things remained. And the only person standing there, amidst all of the destruction and looking at us with a resolute stare is Pete.
“I’m sorry,” he says as soon as he sees us come into view. “But I had to destroy all of your stuff so that you would leave. Now you have no choice but to listen to me and go. You need to leave,now, while you still can.”
