A Stolen Kiss

I had been riding for days in the Colorado Mountains when I decided that I had run far enough. There’s only so long you can run from something before you realise that the purpose is gone. Now I was just riding higher and higher, with no end in sight.

Isolation was sinking in.

It was only then that I came across him.

The warm glare of a liquid sun pierced through the trees ahead as I headed further towards the campsite from which it was originated. There, sat by the fire, was a man. Curled inwards and wrapped in a long, thick, black coat; his cowboy hat tilted over his face and a cigarette placed between his dry lips, he began to lift his head ever so slowly. Dark brown, dirty hair lay dust-ridden beneath his hat and his face was covered with earth. Years of weather-beaten creases lay around his stubble-grown mouth. The firelight searched for his eyes underneath his furrow brow, and when it found them, they glistened. Small yet deep, dark, brown eyes – hidden in a dirty, tough and rugged exterior – they glistened, as if there were a million mirrors on his eyes, each one a surface to reflect the light off of.

His eyes, they were wet.

“May I join you?” My mouth was suddenly dry, my heart racing.

“You got a horse. You got feet. You’re not tired, and what makes you think I need the company?” he muttered in his thick Southern American accent, a hint of sarcasm in the last notes.

Suddenly mad, I could feel the anger spray out and pulsate through me,
“I don’t, but I can’t very well sleep on a horse can I?”

He looked at me for a moment, his eyes narrowed, “Sit... Miss” he added with a sour tone.

Slightly reluctantly, I sat down in a huff. The moments that followed would initiate a chain reaction of events, ones which I wouldn’t be able to escape, even if I screamed and begged for days.

He sat across from me staring and scowling at first, examining me. It was as if I was a piece of dirt; foul and disgraceful. Yet as sickening as I was to him, as much as he appeared to loathe me, there was something that made him let me stay; something that now appeared to cause him pain and grief. As his expression turned into a painful one, I felt my face dissolve from anger to shock and confusion. As the creases in my forehead melted, my heart began to race again. He looked as though he were about to cry, his breathing becoming harder and shallower. Rising suddenly, he leapt off the rock he had been perched on and stalked off angrily into the surrounding forest.

I would sleep that night without a single thought in my head except for him.

The next morning I woke to the sun burning my eyelids at an hour which I thought was early, but the dark stranger was already gone. There was nothing around me but a burned out fire and a few pots and pans; small evidence that someone had been living there. I wondered for a moment how he could live so basically. A cold shudder ran down my back when I saw his pained expression repeated in my mind. Without reason I began to run, down the hill and away from the trees, I ran as fast as I could; my legs stopping for nothing.

* * *

When I returned for the day she was gone; nowhere to be seen. Her horse and bags were still there. I knew she would be back, not for these things, not for any reason she would understand, nor any that I would understand either. But I knew she would be back, why would this time be any different?

Hours passed and the sun crept back behind the mountains as the gloomy shadow of dusk and darkness slicked across the sky: a solid black space, no stars tonight. Almost like clockwork, I heard the hesitant footsteps cracking across the forest floor of a young, innocent woman. Her presence was overwhelming. Self-consciously she perched herself on a log and sighed. Her eyes darted about, struggling to find something to latch onto, before they were finally fixated on my eyes once more.

“I don’t know why I’m here.” She croaked, a worried expression crossing her face.

“It’s not something either of us can decipher. I just know it’s happened before.”

There was a long silence, but she didn’t look surprised or concerned. The look that was etched across her face was one of knowing, like she had known what was passing through my mind for a time, and now it was causing her pain. She burst into tears suddenly and sat sobbing across from me. I could do nothing but watch in painful knowing. I knew what was happening but there was nothing I could do to help. It was all too familiar to me now. Each gasp of breath that she took sent beads of ice- cold sweat down my neck. I could do nothing but sit and watch as realisation crept into both our minds. We couldn’t escape now.

* * *

The next morning I woke with tear-soaked eyes, my eyelashes still wet from what felt like a lifetime of crying. Crying for what I could not explain, for what I didn’t understand, for things that caused me pain.

His warmth was throbbing from behind me. He stood. Silent, still, inches away from me. His breath licked my neck. I did not turn around, afraid of what I would feel. He walked past me, slowly, hesitantly. We both sat opposite each other, this time, over a cold fire, on a cold morning, in a cold forest. Frost dripped and melted around me, the area around him was completely wet, sodden with melted frost. I was calm this time, yet more scared than I had ever been before.

“Were you afraid?” I asked, he paused in confusion, “of me?” I added.

“I was upset at first, because I knew you were coming, like all the others, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself.”

His head sunk into his chest, as if disgraced, angry and hateful.

“But then I found out what you were like. You were headstrong and mindful. You were different. No fear, only suspicion, at first.” His voice was painful, aching almost. But the thing most shocking was the thing that shocked me the least – the fact that in his face, in his voice and in his eyes, there was compassion; towards me.

I was speechless. I could add no further. There was nothing that I could say that would deepen his words, or make them more meaningful. We both rose to stand up and stood there watching each other intensely. Suddenly I felt my body buckle and weaken as I half-collapsed against a tree behind me, finally giving in.

Before I knew it, he was closing the distance between us, striding towards me, a look of purpose in his eyes. I knew what was going to happen and I was fully ready for it. He grabbed the sides of my head with a forceful wave of passion and brought my face to his. I clung onto his shoulders, my fingers digging into them. His nose moulded into mine and our lips paused millimetres away from each other. His hot breath pressed against my face, my lips and all around my mouth. He paused; we paused, as we clung tightly to one another. Then, in one last moment of fear, we both opened our eyes and trembled, before surrendering completely and melting into each other at last. His mouth, hot against mine, moved around my lips and we stood there, as one. When it was over, we both stood holding each other once more, eyes closed. It was calm, and I had never felt so scared in my entire life.

* * *

As I rode away, I felt a shadow fall upon me. I had known all along what he was talking about. I had known since the first night I met him, but now I could feel it, and I couldn’t help but feel empty. Scared and alone, left with but a memory.

But that was just him.

That was just his effect on me, how he made me feel;

the dark stranger whole stole a kiss from me.