Leaping

Leaping

Diane Munier

The characters and
events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons,
living or
dead,
is coincidental and not intended by
the author.

Text copyright © 2015
Diane
Munier

All rights reserved.

No part of this book
may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Diane
Munier

Cover design by
SelfPubBookCovers.com/Todd

…survivors.

Leaping

Chapter
1

Alone
on the beach, walking, walking on the edge of land and sea, a dead jellyfish, a
gull and its flap and its cry, and gray water swirling into gray sky, and breathing
the salty damp and his hair stiff with it, and his face painted with it, and
his white clothes pressing against his flesh, the wet holding them to him like
transparent skin.

And
he saw the speck of another's approach. He hated the intrusion into
all the
gray, the flannel of his existence. A speck, a she
no less, with hair blowing and Picasso lines and sand daring to verify, she was
real.

Slow
rise and her head turned to the ocean, then looking down,
then
looking up.

Was
she “The Dreamer,” come to life? For him she was.
And so….

She
glided, and a skirt blowing and a sash, blue, directing the water's crash and
rush…and when she got near, so near he saw the flair of her nostrils and the
tremor in the tight bow of her upper lip…and he knew she was going to smile,
just smile, a flash, a click, for all-time… hello…good-bye.

And
he stopped and said, "I'm…Jordan Staley."

And
he was. He'd forgotten, but that didn't take it away…the truth.

She
stopped.

"I'm…I
live up there," and he thumbed toward the three-storied Victorian his
grandfather Douglas built. And he, Jordan, had been sent here by his concerned
aunt who knew he needed a place to shed his snakeskin, to come up pink and
ready to try again.

"I
was…it's so gray," she said, her voice soothing against the careless
waves, their heavy sloshing power, but her voice floating.

"You're
sad," he whispered.

She
smiled and started to continue her walk and he turned and followed the
direction she went, toward his house, his home.

Side-by-side
now,
and he watched their feet, all bare, and hers,
and his, and she looked back, over her shoulder and he saw it too, the ocean's
lick working to erase, to erase them.

"I'm
Cori," she said, drawing him back.

And
he had nothing to give that could come close, she already had his name.

"Are
you here for the winter?" he asked because he could be proper if it came
to it.

"I'm
here for three weeks," she said. "I…will resent you…so you know…now
that we've spoken."

He
didn't comment right off…too many things.

"You
resented me first, though," she said.

"I…I'm
just walking," he said, but he thought, my God.

"You're
private. I'm intruding. Now you're…escorting me?"

"It's
on my way," he defended.

And
so they neared his house…his life.

She finally spoke,
"What if we go through the whole process…and the last night we dare to get
honest and real and discover we like each other and we wasted all this
time?"

She
stopped walking…she waited for him to respond. He hadn't left the confines of
quiet.
Until he'd met her on his path.

"But
you can't just leap to the end of the story like that," she said, as if to
retract.

"You
can…leap to the end," he said, thinking of the piles of books in his room,
opened like tents, a tent-city spread across his floor, words and stories living
in them…him reading the last page only, one-night stands….

She
led now, away from the water…following his tracks, the new ones, and the old
ones, from too many walks like this and him returning without a catch…she put
her little feet in his big footed impressions, and she muddled the course of
his life….

She
took in a breath before taking on the stairs leading to his house. It was
imposing, he knew, in competition with the sea and with nothing around it, for
it was a sizable piece of land that came along with, and those who would seize
it for development didn't have enough, couldn't find enough.

So
he followed her there, and he saw this house differently now.

"I
wondered about this place," she said, leading him onto the huge
wrap-around porch.

She
went in first, and he followed her long skirt as it sailed his moors, his
threshold. He was her guest. This house was splendid…and neglected. Not from
dirt…it was cleaned three times a week…Mrs. Palm.
But from
life.
It had no life.

He
hadn't noticed before, just that it was large, that it cried out to accommodate
so much more, so many more. Would it draw her where he couldn't?

Her
hair was long, down her back, a mermaid's hair. What if she was?
A mermaid?

She
turned to
him,
and the color in her face, the light,
the awakening of this place…"I don't see you yet…your room. I need to see
your room."

He
shook his head. He had no idea…he didn't allow Mrs. Palm in there.

"Up…,"
he whispered, and the grand sweeping staircase rolled down into the center of
this great room like the house had a tongue, she was already running there,
skirt pulled tight in the back over a shapely round rump as she'd raised and
gathered the light fabric and her legs flashed cream and the bottoms of her
feet were a dark pink and he sprang to life and followed.

She
went down the left side of the landing, looking room to room, and he panted
from his run on the stairs, and she found his room at the end and she called
out and he went in after and she was in the middle of the room, spinning round,
looking at the books, their spines, their flapped covers. "There are so
many," she cried. "Oh," and she went to them, one and the other,
but she did not try to save them or pick them from the floor or close them, she
wanted their names, and she let them be, gulls with wings spread, dying on the
beach, his floor, each cawing, a story, a story, a story.

She
faced him. "You're…," she said softly, her hands gathered under her
chin.

He
didn't know what he was…but her….

"I'll come
tonight. We'll meet on the beach."

He
shook his head no. He didn't know. "Yes," he whispered.

She
walked quickly to him, and his heart…he felt it move, and he smelled her skin,
the salt on it. “I…I don’t know if we'll leap…to the end."

He
didn't know either…or anything.

"Well…good-bye,"
and she smiled, and he let her go for three seconds and he followed and she was
already halfway to the stairs.

He
called out, "Wait."

She
turned to him, such beauty.

"I…what
time?"

"Dark,"
she said. Then light as a wisp, her skirt vibrating around her legs, she
descended, the tongue, and went out.

He
wouldn't go. She was obviously mental and he didn't want this. It was his
refuge and she'd come inside…he couldn't have this.

But
he met her hours later. He was first. He told himself it's what he did, walking
there. It's what he did and he wouldn't stop for her. So he met her in almost
the same place and like before she approached, only this time she hurried to
him.

"
Hello,"
and she took his hand and he turned and she
pulled him toward his house.

All
the while he was quiet. She was beautiful. He'd not been remiss in what he knew
when he'd first seen her. She was lovely.

She
hurried up the stairs to his porch and he followed, like an eager boy.

She
hurried to his room. "What are you doing?" he said, but even he heard
the lack of conviction.

She
turned to him, letting the cloth bag she carried drop to the floor. "We're
to the end…the end," she said, in the center of his room, and the books
he'd stacked against the wall, and she untied the knot at her side and her
dress opened and she let it fall from her shoulders, and slide down her arms
and her bare skin and feminine form, her beauty, and, "My God," he
said again.

She
was crazy.
Crazy and astounding.
"Why are you
doing this?" he asked, almost pleading with her.

"It's
the end. We'll work our way backwards. We'll start here, and we'll move to the
point we were at this morning…when we met…and smiled…and you said your name…and
then beyond to where we don't know each other at all. By then I'll be gone.
Three weeks."

"Why?"

"I'm
here," she whispered, stepping to him, her hands lifting to rest on his
chest, her face,
breath
soft. "Leap," she
said. "Leap with me. You like endings. Like your books."

But…he
didn't know her. So how could he leap…
.

"Pretend,"
she whispered.

And
she looked at his lips as she raised on her toes and her lips, slowly against
his own, kiss, and the whispered word, "Leap," and he closed his
eyes, not that he wanted to, but it was right enough and real enough, and she
was flesh and soft and round and willing…and warm…and kind.

He
had never…leapt…in flesh. And his hands on her pulling her in…and another kiss,
and he fell into it now, leaned into her, then she pulled back and led him to
his bed.

He stood and she undressed
him and he looked at her, all of her…leaping. He took off his pants and she
removed his underwear, and then she took his hand and laid down on his bed, and
just that…he lay beside, and they looked at each other for a longtime, and he
touched her then, and moved his hand all over her skin.

The
next kiss went deep and he was gone, flying and floating and burning
up…leaping, he broke open then,
 
frenzy
with her that culminated in anger, and hunger, in breath, and clawing gasp, in
release, oh my God I’m still alive…I’m still…I’m still….

He
held himself then, his weight off her, and he kept his eyes closed and stilled
himself, waited for his heart to slow down. He stole a quick look as he dropped
beside her. She was sweet. He felt shame, just a flash, but more…he was
grateful. And he pulled her to him. "Thank-you," he whispered.

"Thank
you," she laughed, tamed and spent and supple flesh, and the shadows on
the ceiling and the dark gray beyond and they stilled like the deeper quieter
places under the waves. And the ocean lifted them, lifted the house, and they
floated…they swayed….

And
the next he knew he was awakening and the gulls and sunlight, and the heavy
roll of the sea, and his mind and memory sparked and the bed empty and just a
note and one word, hyphenated, good-bye.

And
so it was the end. And the beginning of the almost end.
Day
two.

Chapter
2

What
was he before now? Looking…but feeling more than seeing. He was not in the
present…he was blind.

Where
had he been? There was nothing to point to, just the tracks she had invaded.
There were no accomplishments beyond the walking.

It's
what he did
now,
wearing the same clothes as the day
before, the ones she had helped him remove or removed altogether.

It
wasn't lust, but that was involved. It was desperate, sick,
demanding…shattering.

He
didn't need her thoughts, her facts,
her
words. He
needed everything else.

So
after he'd awakened and dealt with her absence…he'd stepped into the ocean, the
water cold and foamy with impatience, and he let the water take her scent from
his skin and replace it with a thousand other bits of life-and-death and God
and devil.

He
stood in the water wearing only his pants, and his fingers wide and battered
about with the force of the water, and he stood there until the freezing took
over and the shuddering, the punishing,
the
beautiful
miserable abuse that meant he was here.

He
started to walk. His teeth chattered, and his hair was plastered in a heavy
flap that slapped over his forehead and he pushed it back but it didn't stay,
it wouldn't.