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   "I can't do this..."

   "Yes you can, breath deep and slow.   Keep breathing"

   "No, it's not helping.   Turn around!"

   "You're doing fine.   Just focus on the van's insides.   Everything is the same."

   "No, NO!   I hate you, I HATE YOU!   Why are you doing this to me?!?   Why do you hate me?   I was fine."    The cushioned armrest was being crushed with two hands.   Meghan was bent forward, almost in half, ducking, hiding.

   "You are fine now, Relax."

   "TAKE ME HOME NOW!"   Her foot stomped the floorboard, jerking the entire van.   Grey reflexively corrected and twisted his grip on the steering wheel.

   Stop him!   Hurt Him!   You control him!

   Moments ago Meghan had stepped beyond the verge and was exploring the full domain of panic.   It was the river that triggered it, the mouth of the Susquehanna where it emptied into the Chesapeake Bay near her home.   Its presence signified the end of her town, and they were passing over it now on a long edge of iron.   Hundreds of acres of land and water that hid thousands of pairs of eyes all in view, and each one violating every inch of her body.   She threw the seat-belt off and melted off the seat onto the maroon carpet chest first, covering her face with a pair of hands, anything to get underneath the tinted windows.   All of her restraint, the twenty years of it she had relied on since that day she had woken up from a life altering fever, it had been drained away.   Her lower hands scratched, gripped, fidgeted, one tore into the carpet and dug against rusty steel.   It was her turn over the water, and it was imposable to turn back, the same waters that Grey had to cross almost a month ago, and had emerged a changed man.

   It had seemed a good theory, or strategy...the packing went smooth enough, Meghan had even seemed cheerful.   She had even dug out her luggage, a hot pink that amused Grey to no end. He had shown no compunction about letting her know about it that day, which eventually set off a chase and hide-and-seek session.   Betty was left a week worth of food and water, her half-dozen babies already half-grown.   It was a holiday getaway, and nether had realized it yet.

   The bucket seats of the second row had been left behind in the bay, the remaining little square table between was opted in.   Meghan still had to lean back a bit to keep from hitting the roof, but at least she had some much needed legroom.   The seat belt was even worked out, slipping it between her second and third shoulders, under her breasts and around the waist.   She had sat like this fine the day before, playing solitaire as Grey tried to track down the smell of death in the vents, giving shifty glances when she tried to shuffle.

   "Are we over?"

   "Yes, you need to be sitting down.   What if we are pulled over?"

   "Like they would care..."   Meghan uncovered her head for a moment, peaking over the window to prove Grey was lying, arms spread to steady herself.

   "I'm wouldn't count on my repairs.   We might have an accident."

   "My back was killing me."

   "Use that pillow to brace the small of you back.   No one can see you through the tinted windows, remember?"

   "That was inside, what about now?   It's a bright day"

   "It should be even more effective."

   "I don't believe you.   I think I'm going to throw up."

   "Use the tumbler in the cup holder on the sides.   No...it's in the fake wood trim."

   "It’s happening..."   Meghan rocked back on her knees.   Top hands now near her mouth.

   "Just focus on breathing.   I think I promised you a story.   I think you wanted to know about how I became an orphan on your doorstep...so to speak."

   "Whatever, just...whatever, just keep talking."

   "Alright then, so, once upon a time, there was this man.   He came from money, old money, tied back into the generations of the industrial revolution.   His own father was a man of rare character.   A man who quieted a room by walking into it; it would be best for everyone to know what he had to say, a noble man, one of those who projected power, and grew an empire from the greatest city in the world.   Well, our subject could never be the titan that his father was; at least he could become an usurper.   Instead of respect, he intimidated.   Instead of inspiring, people despised him.   The subtle differences never mattered, as long as he got what he wanted.   Money was the scorecard.   He had his yacht in Florida, his ski cabin up north, his summer home, private planes, whatever his eyes fell on, even if he did not want them.   It was the form that mattered, because he lacked the substance.   He got whatever he desired and everyone desired what he had, and this is what he wanted..."

   Grey spoke with his eyes fixed on the road and mirrors, trying to remember his driver’s education, classes.   There was a jarring in the back of the van, another shake that caused him to swerve.   The driver of an accord in the next lane laid on his horn, and mouthed a few choice curses to Grey.   He checked on Meghan in the rear-view mirror.   If she had been listening there was no response, or reactions of any kind, which in itself was something.   At least she had returned to her seat.   Her elbow was on the armrest, her chin on its palm as she continued to slouch onto her side in her flannel and jeans, almost reclined.   Her eyes were fixed, if on steel or glass Grey could not tell.

   "...His first wife left him because of this.   His second left him for his infidelity.   The third was one of his greatest trophy's, not very bright, or skilled, but very beautiful and half his age.   He had a son with her, the only child he would recognize as his own, and his great legacy.   God bless her, she tried to love the man, and did very much love her son.   As the child grew however, his father became more domineering.    Not that he wasn't before, the child's fate was predetermined from birth; a clone even by name."

   "That was you..."   Meghan's voice was shallow and distant, as were her eyes.

   "Yes...the mother tried to shield her son, the son tied his best to please them both.   The dilemma was that there is an allure to power, and desire is something a child can very much understand.   His father had him selling magazines door-to-door at nine, interned him in the summers in real estate business at thirteen, taught him how to keep score, and how to cheat to win.   To his delight and envy, he found that his son had his grandfather's ability with people, to inspire them, or to convince them to work against their own best interest..."

   "You act like all of this was no big deal.   He must have hurt you bad to where the streets seemed better to you.   And you pretend like it's nothing."

   "I can't change the past, and it's not productive to dwell on anger."

   "You're in more denial than I am."   This stung, and left them both in silence for a while.   Grey's eyes drifted from the road, searching for something, an alternate path he had not seen before.   The hum and rhythm of the road, the passing of cars, they were novitiates to both.   Grey wished that he had managed to get the radio working.

   "...I got the grades, took summer school to graduate early, went to the college he told me to, got my degree in business and finance, and went to work for him.   I was humming right down the road, never testing the guardrails he had set for me, and he rewarded me well.   The world was going to be mine as...well...I've mentioned that before.   I lasted a year, then it was the streets."

   "So that's it huh?"

   "Essentially, yes."

   "So what was your rock bottom?"   She looked at him through the mirror, her eyes all he could see.

   "I would rather not."

   "We agreed, no secrets."

   "You did, but...fine.   Don't be angry."

   "It's a part of the past..."

   "Well...it happened in one of my father's apartments in New York city, not his favorite overlooking the park, but a nice one...as if he had any other.   It was on loan to me, another method of control, and his son had to have status...but i digress.   It's happened on a late summer night...during one of those unbearably hot heat waves.   I was a little hammered, my balls were sticking to my leg and the girl I was with had called it an early night. It was my fault really, the Long Island Iced Teas were speaking for me, not that I cared about it, or anything then.   I was in full swagger that night."

   "Well, the party was going on without her.   I propositioned the first couple of prostitutes I wandered across and took them back to my place to crack open a kilo of cocaine.   Come to think about it, I'm not even sure they were at all, but they were ready to party.   I was already drunk, I couldn't decide if I wanted sex or a hit first.   I woke up in the bathroom of all places, pitch dark, still messed up, not knowing if I had gotten into either.   McDonald's Straws piled like pick-up sticks, cocaine all over the table and chairs, like someone had fallen into it, or swung the bag around, only God knows.   Some of it dusted the collar and sleeves of my purple silk shirt."

   "It's not like this was the first time I had woke up like this, or even the worst.   I think it was perhaps because it hadn't been the first time; it was just one of many increasing variations on a theme.   I watched one of the 'ladies' dragging her ass across the floor, groaning.   Her 'dress' had long slipped off of her shoulders, and exposed her in tugs and jerks as she crawled along with fingers and toes to the cocaine, until she could push just enough together on the carpet so she could just get one more nose-full.   That was my moment of clarity, as you will, as I stood there seeing myself.   I grabbed my keys and wallet right there, and went for a walk to clear my head, leaving them behind.   I'm still walking to this day."

   "That's it?"   Her hand fell off of her chin, landing with a resounding thump on the armrest.

   "No, that's the beginning, or the end.   It was pure hedonism, Kama.   My deity was the dark face of chaos and destruction.   I was determined to die young and leave an ugly corpse besides.   What do you want, amounts?   An inventory of kilos and condoms?   You wouldn't understand, I guess, a different world of experience than you know.   It was what I have been taught, carried out to the inevitable end, and no off-ramps.   It was everything I had known, and the only way I had was to run the rails.   Instead I went Moksha, not even knowing the concept yet let alone the word, seeking release."

   "No I guess I wouldn't.   And you wouldn't understand the need to be under total control.   Absolutely, every moment, or things get broken, people are hurt, and the desire, Jesus Christ, the urges.   To be the odd one out of life itself, to watch it all in flames...the boy who I first kissed, he did it as a put-on.   I put him in the hospital, at fourteen.   I was 'normal' then, didn't even use my new arms to do it.   I was scared to.   I didn't need to.   Look at me now."   Grey did, and noticed a single finger still digging into the deepening hole in the seat she had made.   "Look out at the world.   It's too fragile for me."

   "It's only because you let your fear control you.   You fear everything, including yourself."

   "What choice do I have?"

   "You always have a choice."

   That awkward silence returned as each had struck a wound.   Meghan began to fidget again, as she tried to keep brave, becoming engaged with the passing landscape.   "Don't stop, it helps."

   To his credit, he tried.   He spoke about his life and fears, trying to drive home his point only to get lost in the woods.   His stories were disjointed, the gritty bits, the parts that mattered were glossed over.   It seemed he feared something as well.

   But he continued for her sake, and she need it, if not the words, the smooth tenor and cadence of his voice and its effects.   As freeways converged and underpasses became common, she knew something big was coming, and right when she was starting to have faith that she was going to keep breakfast in place.   First they skirted Newark; not so bad she reasoned, there was space all around.   Then dead through Wilmington, which was worse, but at least it was over quickly.   Grey took the opportunity to change subjects, mentioning the Brandywine Creek and the War of Independence.   Perhaps she could do this after all.   She had been in a city's like that when she was young.   Meghan was proud of herself, awaiting Philadelphia with a new confidence, and then everything closed in.   The freeway even climbed on top of itself to try and find her, to crush her as another river loomed.   A thousand steel beasts with lidless glass eyes passed by every minute as they drove.   Not even when the freeway sunk into the ground was there any relief as multistory brick homes towered over her from above, compressing her as they threatened to shatter the thin window between them and leave her no place to hide.   But there was always a smooth voice there to guiding her through, even if just in reminding her to relax, to focus, and soon the buildings backed away, and became small again.   She would wonder how they ever seemed so big in the first place.

   "How do people live like this?   Where do they find the room to even grow?"

   "It's amazing what people can get used to.   It's the instinct to survive.   It's not all a bad thing, it limits your possessions to the things that matter.   I was through here a few months ago, not much love left.   You can be in the midst of a million souls, and still feel alone."

   "I get that, but it's different when it's in front of you and not a faded memory.   You can't turn this off, of close the book."

   "At least you stayed in your seat this time."

   New Jersey took its turn as two pioneers traveled over planes of grays, some flat, some vertical.   Man concurring nature, leaving nothing but crushed rock and sharp edges behind, staining the smaller buildings in brick red.   It repeated in towns small and large, Trenton, Edison, Newark and others whose names wouldn't stick.   Next was a small piece of the world that Grey knew more than by passing, one that once he looked over and down.   Meghan straightened up, nearly jamming her head against the roof of the van, anything to catch a view of the next city only a couple miles away across a river.

   "Did you ever go see Broadway?"   Meghan spoke with a soft innocence.

   "Yes, all the time.   It was one of the few things I genuinely enjoyed.   To be able to throw yourself out there every night, to become someone else and have people love you for it, and to hell with everything else.   It was something I could never do."

   "Yeah, me neither."

   "I even enjoyed the opera, even when I was younger, but I would have never let my father know it."

   "All of it...I would like to see it sometime...for real."

   "I hope someday you can."

   There was nowhere but onward through upstate New York.   Green and brown curves appeared between the straight gray planes, from spots to splotches, over the next couple of hours becoming the dominant features once again.   There was a pit stop for fuel for both the wagon and its occupants. Grey both congratulated himself that the van had lasted this long, and sent up a silent prayer that it would continue as he lifted the hood and took inventory.   He had pulled as much money as he dared, and there wasn't enough remaining to cover a major breakdown; there was no chance a second withdrawal would be overlooked.   Grey had not been surprised that the money was still there, why would he have removed it?   He did not need any more money.   It was much easier to leave it like bait.   Who knows when the mouse might nibble?

   Meghan ate lightly as they went, and watched people and places pass by her unmindful.   The edge was gone; this was a world of curves, arcs and rolls.   Nature was in charge again, and you followed her guidance.   Her backdrop went from blues to yellows, oranges and reds before fading to darkness.   The beams from the headlights reflected on the skeletons of pines, birch and the maples that Vermont was famous for.   The skyscrapers were now rolling hills, the stars became their windows.   Where Maryland was influenced by Jack Frost, this seemed near his kingdom.   That van's heater could do all too all too little its space warm, the fan being short-circuited on low speed.   Meghan put her thick jade wool sweater on, glad for once that it covered her many arms.   A wind was rising from the north-west, and the stars began to blink out one-by-one out that way.

   "I guess I didn't get all the smell out of the vents after all."

   "Sorry, that was me."   Meghan smiled a sheepish smile.

   "Wow..."

   "I'm a little stressed out.   And it's been a long time in here..."

   "We have to stop anyways.   We need gas again, and supplies."

   "How much farther do we have anyways?   My bladder is about to burst."   Grey had noticed the squirming, aged shocks informed him of this many tens of miles ago.

   "Not much farther.   Bolton's about a half-hour away, but I have to find a dirt road before there, and it's been a seriously long time.   We're near the Green Mountains now."

   "This is your Father's ski lodge, right?"

   "Yes, you figured it out?"

   "It wasn't rocket science.   How do you know he's not there?"

   "He's in his mid-sixties, and he never liked the cold anyways."

   "What if he sold it?"

   "No, it's a part of his score, and he lets clients use it.   He has people to keep it stocked and cleaned.   It'll have all the usual diversions, at least the legal ones.   There just won't be perishables, that's why we have to stop."

   "I'll be OK, just make it quick."

   Meghan watched him from door-to-door; her face inches from the glass, her eyes could not be torn away, her anxiousness returning, whimpering slightly as soon as he slipped out of sight. "Who's the stray now?" Meghan sighed.   The parking lot was nearly empty this late at night, and Grey had chosen a dark corner of it besides.   The fingers of one hand began to drum for just a moment before she corrected it.   "It's OK, I am fine.   I am growing...I could REALLY use a toilet."   Her hand inched to the handle of one of the swinging doors.   "There is one inside the store right now...What the worst that could happen, Weekly World News?"    She bit her lip, eyes bouncing between the grocery store and behind it.   "What about the tree-line.   It's good enough for bears..."

   Meghan closed her eyes just for a moment, trying to focus past the conflicting urges of her body, opening them to notice a small child just stepping out onto the parking lot.   It was a girl, about six and bundled in pink to the point where walking had become a challenge once again.   She ran, or gave it her best attempt, in an innocent joy across the pavement.   Her tall, thin father broke into a run from the grocery store to scoop her up, chiding her for her careless as he clutched her close.   Meghan forgot for a moment her dilemma as she watched the scene play out.   The father pointed across the street towards the sky, his daughter all the time wiggling against his grip as she laughed and clapped her mittens.    Meghan wanted to share the girl’s joy, to see happiness, but she was enthralled by the girl herself.   The little thing lurched out to catch something, almost to disaster, assured that no harm could happen in his arms.   In a few moments of patience she could have chosen from abundance, snowflakes large and floating through the breeze.   The van itself was not immune.   Flakes fell on its silver hood only to immediately melt from the heat of the engine.   A hand the size of a shovel blade appeared from just a crack between the double doors of the van, just for a moment, just long enough to scoop a few flakes of something wet and cold, only to have them turn to spirit as soon as the hand retreated inside.   Grey would return with a cart full of food and supplies in ignorance, his pace quickening as he raised his head to watch the snow fall underneath the sodium street lights.   Bags were tossed helter skelter behind the seat

   "You might want to reorganize these as we go, we don't have long. I don't know how much I trust these 'all-weather' tires."

   "There's not much snow yet."

   "It wouldn't stay that way, and it's already sticking."

   "You think we could find quiet bathroom away from everyone?"

   "Maybe an old gas station that has one outside, if you don't mind the filth."

   "I can wait.   Bladder of steel, you know."   Her legs crossed.

   "We're close."   It was all starting to feel a little cliché to Grey.   The beginning to his own little cheesy horror film, or porno, what was the difference anyways?   No one drove in New York City, and the homeless don't have cars, and now he had to deal with the snow.   He was a wrong turn, or a patch of ice away from the 'Hash Slinging Slasher'.   He reasoned the surface roads to be safer, And Grey was encouraged when he discovered a two lane road running roughly parallel between the freeway and the river, only to find himself driving by a graveyard, causing a cartoonish gulp as he choked down his nerve.

   Meghan was oblivious to all of this, preoccupied as she was with her own problems, as Grey strangled the steering wheel, turning his knuckles white.   She knew the snow well, she had grown up in it, and her home got a good plenty more than this.   The flakes teased her like old childhood friends playing outside, taunting her, while she was stuck inside with the flu, as they increased in numbers and momentum while shrinking in size.   But this time she could, and she might.   Her anticipation increased in proportion to his anxiety, and the miles passed with a painful slowness.

   "This is it..."   Another small town, what would have been called a trading post back in the day, unfolded between the mountain ridges in front of them.

   "This isn't Bolton, it's a whole different town."

   "I know this town, it's barely changed.   We have to cross the river here.   Bolton is even smaller, a mailbox really.   There's no bridge afterwards."

   "You sure?"

   "I hope so."

   There was a dead end, and some momentary backtracking as tempers flared up, not to be the last.   Finally, a road the river was on his right side, and the mountains to his left.   Only a few more lonely miles were to go.   The snow blew against the windshield, attempting to bury the van as it had done to the road where a blanket many inches deep already lie.   Only a single pair of tire tracks ran opposite their own.     Far from a race to the finish, this one was a tired, drunken crawl.   Meghan was ending the race as anxious as when it begun.   At least it was for entirely different reasons now.

   "Dammit."   Grey tied to slow down, attempted to turn the van around, and lost control entirely as the van preformed a slow speed spin-out, making its own U-turn as it slid into the opposite ditch on the mountainside.   Meghan laughed, her head bobbing with the ride until the back end came to jarring stop on the mountainside, causing a shrill yelp to escape her lips.   "You do know that if we wreck you have no way home?"

   "That's fine.   I'll just start those Sasquatch rumors...Rawr."   He two uncovered arms hands were drawn up as claws in an afterthought as she held a twisted face.

   "It's your van..."

   "I never thought I would use it again.   You've got more into it then I do now.    What was that all about anyways?"

   "I just missed the dirt road; I can't see more than fifty feet in this anymore.   We had to turn around."   The van still purred, satisfied in its stunt and wanting no more of traveling in this flurry.   He tried to ease the van along with no result, then tried rocking it forward and reverse in a violent display of roaring metal fury, with nothing to show for it except for a deeper rut and an angry passenger.

   "Stop it! You're killing me!"

   "Hold on, let me check this out."   Grey snuggled into his jacket as deeply as he could fit before daring the weather.   "There doesn't seem to be any real damage, but the back tire is stuck on ice in the ditch, and the other is just spinning in air," his voice muffled by glass and choked by a gust of wind.   "I need something to put underneath it."   Grey searched up the mountainside for any inspiration, digging through the snow with bare hands while warm air blew throughout the protecting fabric embrace of the van.    "There's just nothing out here, all the branches are to brittle, the boulders are all frozen in the ground."   Meghan pinched her eyes shut at this, if only she could do this with her ears so she would not have to hear the words she knew were coming.

   The side doors, now facing the mountain, were unlatched and left to fall open to gravity.   "I'll get it.   Get back behind the wheel."

   "Meghan, are you sure?"   She slipped out of the seat, sliding across the carpet to a sitting position on the floorboard, her feet draped outside onto the dirt.

   "Yes, I'm fine...this has to happen eventually, right?   In any case I can't stay in here stuck on the side of the road, about to explode.   There's no one else stupid enough to drive in this."

   "That's for sure."

   "...There can't be anyone to see me, in the middle of nowhere, at night, with all of this snow," Meghan muttered, a reassurance to herself more than anything else.

   "Just keep your sweater on, you'll lose a couple of feet in the ditch."

   Meghan hoisted herself to standing by her hand on the van's roof, determined to jump in with both feet only to stumble on the uneven earth, or at least she would come to blame it later.   Her face turned white as the snow, even her fiery hair seemed to pale.   She finally managed to steady herself after several seconds of struggle, calming herself with a deep breath, a wide stance on bended knees.   A pair of arms revealed themselves momentarily from underneath the sweater to balance her only to be pulled back in, her top pair already occupied with cradling her head.   Grey tried to steady her.

   "No, I have this."   She waved him off, straightening herself, then pulling her sweater back down.   "Get ready."   Grey complied, understanding that this van was going to be moving shortly irregardless of where he happened to be.   Meghan leaned into it until her head fell level with its roof, driving a shoulder into the rear of the van with her long and prominent legs with a power that could match a draft horse, the van could only resist momentarily before being driven forward.

   "I got it, let’s go!"   Before he even finished she was back inside, exhaling deeply as the doors close.

   "Get me somewhere safe, and soon."

   It was almost anticlimactic, especially after everything it had taken to get there.   Perhaps because it was everything you would have expected.   At the end of a stretch of gravel road in a wide clearing, tucked between the crooks of two mountains stood the cabin, complete with a high angled roof and a window-wall facing south that nearly ran its entire width and height.   Its wood was bare and treated to look rustic.   The snow giving the red metal roof an accent, while gathering into a drift on the far side as it fell.

   "Can you help me with the groceries, I'll grab the door."   Grey had a dozen memories competing for his attention, bright memories lying in the shadows of adult understanding.   Gingerly, he stepped in his worn sneakers through the snow, up the six-pack of steps only to fumble through his keys with one hand while holding a bag in the other.   "There, got it."   The bolt slid smoothly, and the door opened and a cloud of musk and mold was exchanged with the frozen forest air.   "Wow, He's really let this place go it seems.   I don't think anyone's been inside for a while. Well, what do you think?"   It was the scene as he waved Megan inside, headlights cutting through the dark to cut an impossibly long shadow of her form on the trees, inside a place from his youth, and the feeling of accomplishment he had in making it with her there, it gave him fresh eyes.   Meghan had been waiting in a show of stoicism at the bottom of the wood steps, her head waist level to him, eight paper bags in her six arms, layered with arms to support them both underneath and around.   It became in a moment, real.

   "Bathroom, now!"

   "Wow...uhm, watch out for the overhang above the deck, and the door frame, and the furniture.   I need to flip the breaker."   Meghan needed to turn sideways and crouch to wiggle herself and the cargo through the door.

   "I am in control...I am in control," she muttered through the process.

"It's behind the kitchen in the back.   The living room has a vaulted roof, but the..."   There was a thud and a clang.

   "Oww..."

   "...Sorry, the track light…I need to shut the van off."   He slunk off to return only moments later, final bag in hand.   The waxing half-moon left enough of a silver sheen over the dark wood walls and furnishings for him to make his way by.   It was almost as cold inside as out, which was unexpected.   Typically the heat would have been left on at least a minimal level.   He left his bag next to others on the kitchen bar that acted as the official division between the two rooms.

   "Gary?"    Meghan appeared a dozen minutes later to find herself alone, moving herself into the living room to straighten herself out.

   "Here."   A light blinded her.

   "Knock it off!"

   "Sorry, I got a flashlight working."

   "The toilet water was frozen.   Well, was, not anymore...I fixed that."   The sheepish grin returned as her face went a shade pinker.   Grey chuckled at this, to which Meghan mocked with a slight sneer.   Her hidden arms were relaxed, falling out underneath the hem of her sweater.

   "I don't get it.   I don't think anyone has been here for a very long time.   Look at this dust.   Maybe he forgot about the place.   It could be to our advantage though, as long as the pipes still function.   Anyway this is it."   He gave Meghan a quick visual tour with the flashlight beam.   "Living room, kitchen, the bedroom is up those stairs by the fireplace, lofted above the kitchen.   its open space up there, just a guardrail, so be careful."

   "It' so...small"

   "It'll be fine.   I'm going to grab some fire wood so we can warm this place up."

   Soon a fire from well-practiced hands thrived in its stone recess, providing both badly needed warmth and light which cast itself some forty feet across the room to the entrance.   Meghan and Grey rested close between it and a coarse threaded rustic sofa, stretching out over a large throw rug which covered and accented the hard wood floor.   Smudged flames fluttered across the polished wood walls, spotlighting the couple as the shadows danced in the dark room, making space for their rhythmic movements by pushing everything else into the background.   It was them and the fire, everything else seemed unimportant in the dark, far away.   Meghan huddled with her bare hands poking out from underneath her sweater, huddling around her drawn in legs.   Only the top pair was stretched behind her, propping her upright.   Grey sat off to the side, content to poke at the fire.

   "Your hair always reminded me of fire.   It fits you."

   "My mother's hair turned green, I think I told you that.   She would explain to me that my hair was the colors of fall, the season following the green."   Meghan words drifted softly and light, remembering simpler times.   She took her boots off one at a time, relishing in the release, tossing them lightly away somewhere.   Her legs stretched out full length in front of her slightly apart, as she leaned back, resting her weight on six points of hand or elbow.

   "I feel stupid for never realizing this.   You're mostly barefoot.   Where do you get boots in that size?   They would have to be custom."

   "Yup, size twen-TY-six."

   "Seeing you walking around barefoot all the time, It always reminded me of the terminators crushing those bone skulls.   I don't know why."

   "I wear the boots to protect them when I work, otherwise forget it."   There was a chuckle in her voice.

   Grey watched as she wiggled her toes for emphasis, trying to understand his comparison.   Perhaps it was the high arch, or the corded tendons just underneath the skin, or just the sheer size.   They were just too wide in proportion, not just strictly long, much like the rest of her.   There was a lot of shape and detail to them, the texture of the skin at it followed the contours of sinew and joint.   He was drawn in close to this, and tried silhouetting his fingers over the top of her foot without touching them, covering perhaps a third of their total length.

   "Careful, they're sensitive."   Her foot twitched in expectation of contact.

   "You're ticklish?"

   "Don't tell anyone..."

   "Your toes, they're almost as long as my fingers.   You ever tried to write with them?"

   "You think I need more things to write with?   Once, I sent some guy a JPEG's of my feet.   I was offered a thousand dollars for a foot job."

   "Well, whatever floats your boat I guess..."

   "Not a foot man huh?   How about my legs?"   Meghan grinned with her head cocked as she twisted herself hips to one side, running the fingers two left hands down her long aching thighs, packed into her poor straining jeans.

   "You get custom shoes, but not clothes?"

   "...And gloves.   I got to know a leather worker on a project, who knew another guy.   I told him it was for one of my jobs and bam, a dozen boots and several dozen work gloves, and a few nice ones besides."

   "But not clothes."

   "You think custom boots are cheap?   How do you expect me to pay for all of it?"

   "As long as you have a reason then..."

   "I never had anyone to care...still don't it seems..."

   Except for the sizzle and pop of the fire, nothing existed to track time except for the gradual warming of the cabin.   Meghan tried her best not to stare at him, sucking in her lip and forcing her breath even.   She was too old for that behavior.   Instead, she gave an exaggerated yawn, and stretched her legs, holding them together and flat at the knees, then running her hands down them as she stretched her back, and finally the arms themselves, raising them all at once over her head, each fighting the others to get the most vertical.   The most furtive of glances was given Grey, just to make sure she had him hooked, before she started to pull off the sweater, agonizingly deliberate.   Her middle arms pulled at the sleeves holding the top pair while her bottom arms drug the hem over her bulbous breasts, rocking an exaggerated arch into her back as she popped the sweater over them, causing her breasts to jut out even further as they were drawn into the sway and tugged by cloth, only to have them roll slowly down her lowest forearms as gravity tried to exert an influence in any noticeable way.

   "I guess I had better find the fuse box before the food spoils, and turn the gas on..."   Grey stood to leave, but Meghan lunged towards him.

   "What is it with you?   Not Tits?   How about Ass?   You won't find better.   We're in a cabin in the woods, the fire's roaring.   What do I have to do?    What was that kiss then?   This is like a blue balling.   Are you fucking gay or something?"

   "Meghan...you’re hurting me."   He was wincing hard, the pain plain to see in his face and body.

   Her two lower left hands and one of the right had grabbed Grey by the calves and an ankle with a python grip.   She gasped and recoiled as she saw this, releasing two, only to find the last would not behave, and had to be pried it off.   Grey was thrown off balance as she jerked at the final offender, collapsing onto the sofa behind them, wincing in pain.

   "God dammit, why?   What wrong with me?"

   "Nothing," Grey moaned quietly.   "...It's normal.   It's your subconscious acting on the inner desires that you deny.   You're not the only one.   It's just impulse control, exaggerated like the rest of you."   Meghan sat staring at those offending lower hands, touching her thumb to each finger in sequence, one hand at a time.   Her body trembled.   "You have to find yourself."

   "Grey, do you think I'm pretty?"

   "Yes…"

   "Why won't you touch me?"

   "I realized something earlier.   I've done whatever I wanted here...with this...to you.   I didn't give a dam about you feelings or if I hurt you.   I just saw a problem and was compelled to fix it.   I could have hurt you terribly...destroyed a unique and precious flower, all for my ego."

   "But you didn't.   I don't care.   Touch me."

   "I've done you wrong."

   "Arrugh!"   Her voice had gained an entire octave.   Her top right hand grabbed his, firmly, but gently pressing his fingers onto the yielding skin of her cheek as she sat crossed-legged on the floor, leaning in front of him.   She focused on the feel of his calloused fingers as her eyes closed, its rough texture causing all the more sensation in her skin.   "You can't break me anymore than you can break iron.   Touch me."

   And he did as she held cupped his hand in hers, maintained only to encourage him, and to hold him all the more, yielding to all his wandering.   His fingers glided across her face so softly that that he could distinguish her freckles, to the point where neither was sure it was real, until her ear lobe slid between his fingers, setting off goosebumps across her skin.   His hand was so small, like a boy's to her face, just getting on the path to manhood, a hand that glided down her collar over a prominent trapezius muscle, every bit of friction setting of a fire in both.   His fingers fell further, underneath her flannel to her top left shoulder.   He couldn't even try to wrap his fingers around the muscle of it, or get it to yield as he squeezed it.

   "I'm sorry."

   "Don't be."

   His hand didn't have far to go to find finally find something soft.   Indeed, it seemed imposable to avoid as she slowly unbuttoned the top two buttons of her flannel shirt with a free arm to allow access.   Many times Grey had pondered why the fates had such a perverse sense of irony to have cursed such a paragon of Amazonian strength with such exaggerated icons of womanhood.   Her industrial strength bra had an unenviable job trying to keep her breasts contained.   The tension on its straps was unenviable, and it left a third of soft curves overflow wherever its cotton edges came to an end.   He felt their warmth and quiver as her breathing became fast and shallow, the smooth, firm skin of their upper sweeps that were pressed up and together to nearly a right angle from her chest, their convergence drawing everything into deep cleavage that wanted to swallow him whole.   Her eyes lit up in a mischievous green fire as she gave a hungry grin.   She pulled her shoulders together and flexed the pectoral muscles, and a trap snapped shut with his hand inside, now buried between eight inches of feminine flesh.   He tried to dislodge it in a queer desperation with no luck, trying for leverage with a foot on the floor or her stomach itself only to have it swatted away, only to finally be allowed with his free hand to shift her flesh and lever himself free, only to receive a ridiculous pouting frown and crossed arms that served to deepen her trap to the point of impossibility.   If there was a place on the earth in that moment where chaos had been perfected, it was in his mind.

   "Oh, poo!"

   "I guess...I better get this done."   Grey rose to his feet, mind still lost in the billows of her fold.

   "I will get you.   Don't you worry.   In the meantime, I'll enjoy the chase."

   "I bet you will."

   "You didn't seem to mind.   You seem to have something trying to escape you pants too.   I guess you are a grower."

   "Never you mind that."

   "Oh, but I will.   I will find your thing."

   "I'll be right back...and Meghan, I'm a hair guy.   The longer and thicker, the better.   Its shine, its flow in the wind, its color, straw blonde, or raven black or anything in between, I love it."

   "Great...so in six or eight years I could be your Rapunzel and the tower."