The beginning of a storm always makes me unsettled and anxious, like somewhere there’s a door I forgot to close or tools I forgot to put away. It’s probably left over from the bad storms growing up, when thunder would shake the house and someone would need to go close the shed doors or make sure all the chickens were in the hen house. I still hate the beginning ofThe Wizard of Oz. Watching Dorothy try to open the storm cellar after she’s been locked out makes me nauseous with panic.
I wipe down the counters. Re-wipe them. Glare at the hole in the corner where the chipmunk disappeared last week. I haven’t seen it again. I wonder if it’s okay, then remember that it’s a nuisance, then hope it hasn’t frozen to death. I pace back and forth a little, and finally, I give up.
“I’m gonna go check the outside,” I tell Andi, pulling on my coat. She’s in the bedroom, pulling things out of her frame pack and tossing them onto one of the beds. There’s no organizational system I can discern.
“What’s outside?” she calls back.
“Just making sure everything’s tied down.”
“Don’t be gone long, I dunno if I can drag you back in if something happens.”
“I’ll be—”
“Fine, yeah, I know,” she says. “Ten minutes.”
“Done,” I tell her, and step out.
It’s fuckingcold, the wind sinking through my layers like I’m not wearing anything, so I jam my hands into my pockets and swear under my breath and head for the truck.
There’s nothing in particular I’m looking for, nothing I think I’ve left out or open, so I give it a once-over: windows closed, parking brake on, toolbox in the back closed and locked. Same for the shed and the firewood lean-to against the side of it. None of the trees look likely to fall onto the cabin, though that’s always hard to tell. I trek over to the creek again even though I was there to fill our five-gallon containers earlier, but there’s nothing besides the sound of water over rocks. When I shine the flashlight onto it, the ice crystals forming against the banks glitter back at me.
I head back around the other side of the cabin because I like to make a complete circumnavigation of a place. The bedroom windows are still dimly lit, partly white from the electric lantern and partly yellow from the oil lamps. Using both is a slight waste of resources, but we’ve got enough lamp oil and spare batteries that I won’t give Andi grief about it.
I’m trudging past the windows, maybe ten or fifteen feet away, when movement catches my eye and I glance over. I’m exactly in time to see Andi pull a long-sleeved shirt over her head and toss it onto the bed, nothing on underneath besides an electric blue sports bra.
I stop. I inhale sharply enough that the cold air hurts my lungs, then force myself not to cough and don’t think about why. There’s an alarm going off somewhere in the back of my brain because I’m looking at a woman in an undergarment and that’s bad, it’s always bad, so much skin and not enough fabric in the way.
The alarm’s old and worn down and muted, but it’s there all right and I think it’ll be there forever, screaming at me while Andi scratches one shoulder with her opposite hand, her braid trailing messily down her back. She’s winter-pale and wearing leggings that come above her belly button; when she leans over the bed her braid falls forward and the waistband of her leggings cuts into her soft skin. I want my mouth there. I’m dizzy with lust.
I’m perfectly still, just beyond the dim pool of light spilling from the window. I’m watching her from the dark while she rifles through her clothes and doesn’t know I’m here. I shouldn’t have stopped. I shouldn’t be watching. I shouldn’t belusting. Andi holds up an item of clothing, sniffs it, drops it to the bed, and then hooks her fingers under the band of the sports bra and tugs.
A gentleman—a good person—would avert his eyes. I watch, lips parted in the darkness, trying to memorize the way she looks as she wiggles, hopping a little, and then her breasts bounce free. They’re full and round and pale, the lower curve kissing her ribcage, her pink nipples puckered in the cold. There’s a red line around her torso where the elastic was digging into her skin, and even from here I can tell it’s got striations in it, tiny ridges and valleys in her flesh.
I wonder what they’d feel like under my fingertips, my tongue, and ball my hand into a fist. I haven’t blinked. I’ve been holding my breath for fear that she could hear me if I breathe, though now she’s trying to pull the bra over her head, both arms in the air and her face covered, her braid tangled somewhere in the electric blue and she’s twisting and turning andjiggling—
She’s stuck, and I’m transfixed. I’m getting hard. I keep watching as she takes a deep breath and wriggles a little more and then finally pulls the bra off, shaking her head and making a face as she throws it onto the bed and then grabs something else.
Finally, I break away. Before I mount the steps to the porch I sit down on them for a moment, take off my gloves and hat, and let the cold bite into my skin. It doesn’t feelgoodbut it does feel right, like maybe it can freeze that out of my brain. I stood there. Iwatched, and that old voice saysit’s wrong to wantand a newer, correct one saysit’s wrong to watch without permission.
I consider throwing myself into the creek. Instead, I stand and open the door to the cabin.
I’ve barely got my coat and boots off when the bedroom door opens and Andi’s standing there in thermal underwear, the shirt rainbow-striped and the bottom avocado-patterned. I have no idea where she gets these things, because the stores I frequent sell long johns in three colors: white, gray, and black.
“Oh good,” she says, and she’s smiling, and her braid is over one shoulder, her feet bare and her top just tight enough with nothing underneath that I can see her nipples pointing at me. I want to lift her top and lick the marks her bra left behind. “You made it.”
“That wasn’t in question,” I say, running a hand through my hair and making eye contact. I can feel my face going red, and I hope it looks like I’m flushed from the cold.
“Your brother Reid called,” she says, nodding toward the kitchen, where my phone’s charging from a battery. “I almost answered, but then I figured…”
She leavesI’m not sure how he feels about meunsaid, which is fair.
“Thanks,” I say, and head into the kitchen because no one can leave me alone.
* * *
“They’re not really a migratory species,”I tell Reid for what has to be the thirtieth time. “And especially not the ones here. She’sfine.”
He makes his grumpy-slash-concerned face at me, the picture jerky because he insists that I videochat from the middle of nowhere via a satellite connection.
