Chapter Fourteen

Opening tracks: Clan of Xymox, "A Forest" (Cure cover), Massive Attack, "Teardrop", Thievery Corporation, "Sweet Tides (Symphonik Version)", Caribou, "Yeti", Coldplay, "Clocks"

Author's note: This chapter gets a rating of MA for sexual content. Happy belated holidays. ;)

It had been quite a while since Erik's last excursion up a mountain. He wasn't really the outdoors type per se; when he needed time away in nature, he spent the weekend at his secluded property in the rural part of Westchester county. It was the primary location for all his serious meditation and ritual work, and almost entirely technology-free, with the notable exception of a sound system custom-built for the space. Laila would love it there, he thought as he followed the steep trail off the main road. He pictured her reaction to the music room, with its circular stained glass window and airy loft filled with acoustic instruments, and made a plan to take her there as soon as humanly possible—after he showed her the studio, of course.

Norvin Green State Forest at night was the kind of experience his wild heart could appreciate, rife with shady trees and primordial magic and the faint hint of campfire smoke on the breeze. Its 25-mile system of rambling trails was built from old logging roads of the previous centuries, dotted with rock formations, pitch pine, chestnut, cedar, and sassafras. The first stretch of the hike was a solid uphill workout, but it felt good, it felt purposeful to move, and the path soon leveled off. Cutting his way through the dark with the flashlight, Erik found himself at a crossroads, the intersection of the red and blue trails. Instantly, his mind conjured the legend of Robert Johnson, the infamous blues musician who sold his soul at the crossroads, and he flashed back to that fateful night in the desert long ago, when he decided to turn his life around.

I may be decrepit and debased, but my soul is my own, he reflected. It is the only thing of value that I possess, and I'd give it to her in a heartbeat if she asked. It was easy to blame their attraction on infatuation and hormones, on detoxing for days in close proximity, but these explanations crumbled in contrast to the direct experience of being in her presence. She was as stirring and evocative as any drug he'd ever taken, and he was hooked. From day one her dark eyes had cut through his defenses, and with one smile she had gutted him. Erik trusted his intuition implicitly; it was the only reason he'd managed to stay alive all these years, and part of him had known from the moment the nurse pulled back the screen that Laila would be someone special to him.

And here he was, six days later: standing at a literal and figurative crossroads, chasing after the junkie girl he adored with ineloquent proclamations of love on his lips. It was too perfectly absurd to be anything other than fate. As he passed through the center of the cross and blazed west, he knew he was taking the right steps, walking the path prescribed to him with a real sense of destiny. Perhaps everything had happened exactly the way it was supposed to. The Universe willed it: he was meant to be there.

The landscape began to change, trees and foliage giving way to large boulders and steep rocky expanses as the incline of the trail increased. Erik felt a rush of inspiration on the ascent. Before he knew it, he was singing.

"Come closer and see

See into the trees

Find the girl

While you can

Come closer and see

See into the dark

Just follow your eyes

Just follow your eyes

I hear her voice

Calling my name

The sound is deep

In the dark

I hear her voice

And start to run

Into the trees

Into the trees..."

He was almost at the summit and he reached the first scenic outlook, an open rock ledge with a view of more mountains to the north. The trail circled around to a large open area with pristine views of the highlands to the west and a smattering of short stone cairns, which served as an informal landmark. From here he was supposed to take an unmarked side trail to the left, which would lead to the stone living room. Erik paused to briefly catch his breath and take a drink of water, holding in a lungful of clean air as he admired what he could discern of the scenery. Once again, he caught a trace of campfire smoke on the wind. I'm so close, he thought, and pressed onward.

A little way past the cairns, he noticed the side trail. It was something that could have easily been missed, especially in the dark, and as he ventured off-course and cut through the underbrush his heart hammered and rose into his throat. The narrow path opened onto a second rocky clearing, and then he saw it, just like in her drawing—the jagged stone chairs set in a circle around the fire pit, floating like a mirage in the velvety black before a panoramic backdrop of endless rolling hills and stars. There was a small fire burning, and a dark figure huddled on one of the arm chairs. A few tall cairns stood nearby, stony guardians on the precipice. Erik passed them as he made his way across the clearing with the solemn, silent reverence of a pilgrim at mecca.

As he approached, the figure in the arm chair stirred. It was Laila, wrapped in a red ultra-lightweight sleeping bag and looking more disheveled and downtrodden than he had ever seen her. Her pale face was grim and streaked with tears, shining in the firelight. He cleared his throat and took a seat opposite her in the stone circle, and she startled so hard she nearly tumbled off her perch, knocking over the forty by her feet.

"Hello Laila," he said quietly. He could tell she was drunk.

"Erik!" she cried, the shock and disbelief playing across her face as she righted the toppled forty. "What are you doing here?"

He flashed her a little smile and a shrug. "It looks like I'm chasing after you."

She gawked at him openly over the flames. "You're not a figure of my imagination, right?" Her words were slightly slurred.

"I'm as real as you are." He reached into his backpack and pulled out the bottled water. "Here," he said, and walked over to her. "You should drink this."

Laila stared at the water bottle in his outstretched hand like it would disappear at any second. Eventually, she grabbed it and took a long thirsty drink, and he positioned himself on the seat next to hers, a respectful distance away. When she tried to give him the bottle, he gestured, "Drink some more," and reached over to throw a few branches from the wood pile onto the fire.

She took several gulps, wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and handed the bottle back to him. "Goddamn," she laughed, and hiccuped loudly. "I'm a fucking mess." Her expression shifted from one of amusement to despair.

"You're not a mess," he replied softly, admiring the wild corona of her hair and the way it framed her face, the dark circles under her eyes and the reddened center of her lips, chapped and bee-stung where she had repeatedly bit them. She was a blurry vision of haunted perfection. "If you are, you're the most beautiful mess I've ever seen." It was the absolute truth.

She sniffled and shook her head, trying to string her thoughts together. "I thought maybe... you were with her." Her voice cracked.

"She's married, Laila," he told her, attempting to convey complete sincerity through his tone. "There is nothing going on between us." His eyes burned into hers.

Laila didn't seem too convinced. "Why did she come to see you?"

He sighed heavily. "She wanted to return something to me, and keep a promise she made a long time ago. Nadir let it slip I was in rehab, and she visited of her own volition. I had no clue it was going to happen. She gave me this..." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the silky wedding invitation, followed by the jewelry box. "And this." He glanced down sheepishly. "I guess you've already seen it."

Laila swallowed hard, staring at the box. "If everything's okay, then why did you freak out?"

Erik put the items back in his pocket. "She told me some things about myself I didn't want to hear. Things I, uh, definitely needed to hear." He chuckled nervously and straightened his shoulders. "But I want to be better than that." He looked down at his bandaged palm and let his gaze travel to her face. "I'm really sorry, Laila. I hope you believe me."

They were starting to lean towards each another, sucked into mutual orbit. Laila sniffed and wiped at her glistening eyes. "I believe you," she murmured, and took a deep breath. "Why are you here, Erik?"

The fire of his convictions blazed in his chest. He got up and took off his fedora in one swift movement, then bent down on one knee before her and gently grabbed her hands. They were much cooler than his. "I am here, Laila Ward, because I refuse to let you slip through my fingers." He ran them over hers and felt her shiver. "You said everyone always leaves in the end. Well, I'm not going anywhere."

Her jaw dropped open as she struggled to process his statement, and then it hit her. She fell forward and hugged him with a savage, desperate grace. He took a shaky breath, wrapped his arms around her, and buried his masked face in the dark soft cloud of her hair. Their contours were perfectly aligned; the sweet sensation of her body was almost too much to bear. "Don't go," she purred into his neck.

"I won't," he promised hoarsely.

A few more seconds of bliss, and she pulled away to look at him. "Did you sign out AMA too?"

He broke into a wry grin. "Uh, not exactly." He sat back on his heels and grasped her icy hands in his. "I took a shortcut."

"Shortcut?"

"Stacy helped me set off the fire alarm, and I made my own exit."

A look of astonished epiphany dawned on her face. "So you broke out of rehab... and hiked up the side of a mountain in the dark... to find me." She giggled and coughed.

"Pretty much," he confirmed, lightly massaging her hands. "Laila, I care enough to chase after you."

A lone teardrop quivered and cascaded down her porcelain cheek, leaving behind a fresh silver track that he reached out and traced with a delicate finger. "I heard your song, you know," he continued, inching closer. "I heard the whole thing."

She blinked rapidly and flushed, struggling for words that wouldn't come out. "Erik..."

He held a finger to her pursed lips. "Wait," he insisted, and took a great breath to steel himself. "I'm going to take off the mask."

Her eyes grew round as saucers. "Are you sure?"

"I need you to know exactly what you're getting into before this goes any further." He clasped their hands together with a determined squeeze. "Look, this has been one of the craziest weeks of my entire life... and believe me, that's saying a lot. I went from nearly dying on Nadir's kitchen floor, to meeting you. You—" He got choked up, and paused to collect himself. "You've given me hope in something I thought was closed off to me forever."

"What's that?"

He smiled demurely. "I think you know, Laila."

"Tell me," she countered breathlessly.

"I need you to see my face first."

She nodded and bit her lower lip.

It was the final moment of reckoning, and all around them the forest stilled, as though nature itself had stopped to serve as witness. Erik's hands trembled as he slowly reached up to remove the last symbolic barrier left between them. "Please don't scream," he muttered, that same old broken prayer, and he closed his eyes as smoke from the campfire hit his bare face. It was impossible not to cringe when he heard the breath catch involuntarily in her throat.

All was silent, except for the crackling fire, and he waited. "Erik," she whispered after what felt like an eternity. "Open your eyes." And he did.

Laila was transfixed, wide-eyed and tear-streaked, but she hadn't run away. In fact, she might have gotten a little closer. The firelight danced in her pupils as she stretched out an uncertain hand and it hovered in the air between them. "C-can I touch you?"

He nodded mutely, unable to speak, refuse, or look away, and his mind lurched. My God, she wants to touch me. Her hand made contact, and he sucked in his breath as she caressed the side of his deathly face, tracing her fingertips carefully over his jutting angular cheekbones, the deep ridges of his eye sockets, and the whorls of unnaturally smooth skin. Then she grew a little bolder, gliding over the ruined expanse where his nose should have been. When she ran her fingers through his tousled hair, he shuddered outright and leaned into her palm, his eyes fluttering half-closed.

"Oh Erik, you're the most beautiful mess I've ever seen," she confessed as she took back her hand, and he opened one eye to peer at her. She was beaming at him, and by some miracle of grace, she was smiling.

He let out a harsh bark of laughter. "What?"

"I don't care about your face," she told him. "I think it makes me love you more."

Now he was gaping at her. "What did you say?"

"You heard me," she mumbled, blushing furiously. "Don't make me say it again."

She didn't look away, and there it was—the naked truth of that declaration, amplified and reflected in the black tide pools of her eyes, brimming with watery adulation. She didn't care about the wasteland of his face. She loved him. In a heartbeat, Erik rushed forward to close the distance between them. He pressed his forehead flush against hers and buried his hands in the soft shaved nape of her neck, an act that elicited a low unconscious moan in response. He was on the brink of breaching her tantalizing lips when a powerful column of energy surged through him. She electrified his very soul. He gazed deep into her eyes and uttered, "Laila, I've wanted you since the moment I saw you." And finally, he kissed her.

Her lips parted instantly and they came together in a triumphant burst of gravity and heat, the light in perpetual extension streaming through them, so intense it could have been the birth of a whole new universe. He tasted the bitter salt of her tears in her wet hot mouth and failed to suppress a groan as she ran her hands over his chest, grabbing the lapels of his trench coat to pull him closer.

Eventually, they broke apart for air. "Hmmm..." Laila giggled deliriously, resting her forehead against his. "I can't believe you're here."

A mischievous smile played across his face. "Believe it, Laila," he snipped, and reclaimed her mouth in another passionate kiss.

Their tongues clashed. They were lost in each other, overcome with the need to taste and explore after so many days of restraint, clinging together like magnets that might never be separated. When Erik's knees started buckling he climbed onto the chair without breaking contact whatsoever. His hands made their way beneath her shirt and eagerly mapped the valley of her lower back, all the way down to the glorious curvature of her ass. She responded by threading a hand through his hair and running her nails across his shoulders, then pulled away with a kittenish smirk and submerged the entirety of his earlobe in her excruciatingly succulent mouth.

He moaned, loudly and helplessly. That was it—he grabbed her thighs, yanked her onto his lap, and slid his worshipful hands up and down the hour-glass shape of her legs, hips, and torso. She surrendered his ear and laughed delightedly, her whisper muffled against his neck. "You know, I dreamt this."

Erik pulled back to look at her. "Us?"

"Being here, with you." She meandered a finger down his chest with satisfaction. "Like this."

"Right now I could believe I'm dreaming," he quipped, and cradled her face in his hands. "Did I do this in your dream?" And he plundered her mouth shamelessly, slipping under her shirt to stroke her small pert breasts with his calloused fingertips, teasing and grazing the curved underside before flicking a hard nipple. The mewling sound that erupted from her throat caused the blood to rush red-hot through his body in a feverish cascade. He was rock-hard, and as she rubbed against him he lost all semblance of decorum and clamped his mouth over her nipple through the t-shirt.

"Ohhhh fuck, Erik," she panted.

He released her nipple and leered up at her. "Say that again," he growled.

Laila leaned forward until she hung over him. The wavy tendrils of her hair dangled into his vision. "Oh, fuck, Erik," she annunciated crisply, her dark eyes glittering with pleasure. In one fluid motion, she stripped her t-shirt off over the top of her head.

It took him a split-second to recover from the sight of her nude from the waist up. She was nothing less than an absolute goddess in the flesh, Galatea come to life. His hands immediately went to work traversing the silky smooth planes of her body, sculpting every supple curve with his rough palms and pianist's fingers. With a roguish glint, he licked and traced his tongue along the line up the center of her taut, toned abdomen, all the way to her breasts. Laila buckled and moaned, then gasped aloud as he took her nipples in his mouth one by one and lavished them with his tongue. In a fit, she grinded up against him and threw her head back in ecstasy.

When she reached down unexpectedly to stroke the hard outline of his erection, he nearly came in his pants. "Laila," he grunted as she started to pull at his extraneous layers of clothing. "Are you sure you want this?" In another time, in another universe, he might have waited, but they were making their own rules and he had to have her.

She pulled back and nodded emphatically. "I told you..." She pressed her lips to his, and began to slowly cover his skeletal face with ravenous kisses. "I want..." She licked the hollow of his cheek. "To cross..." She made her way across his face, not sparing a single inch. "Every line." And she flashed the most bewitching, coquettish smile he'd ever seen straight into his soul.

Erik was rendered speechless. A fraction of a second later, they collided in a breathless frenzy. She tugged at the sleeves of his trench coat and he tore it off agitatedly with her assistance, followed by his hoodie and t-shirt. Laila paused to admire him shirtless, gleefully running her curious hands over his lean marble-white chest. She paid particular attention to his tattoos and the numerous battle scars scattered across his arms and torso. "I bet these have a lot of interesting stories," she murmured, licking a scar from an old stab wound before closing in on his nipple.

He almost lost it again, struggling for composure as he clasped her shoulders, and she ceased her exquisite torture. "I will tell you the story behind each one," he swore, heaving and gazing at her through heavy-lidded eyes. "But not—right—now."

She snaked off his lap to disrobe and he moved to help her, only to uncover the many laces on her boots. Of course, they had no zippers. "Fucking Doc Martens," he cursed, shaking his head as he frantically undid the laces on one boot while Laila dealt with the other. Eventually, both boots were off. She rolled her skinny black jeans down her legs and playfully kicked them away, followed by her boy-cut panties, revealing the whole of her lush, fabulous ass and the sword tattoo running the length of her upper right thigh.

Erik was instantly aflame. Although it hardly seemed possible, he was even more aroused. "Oh God, I knew it was a sword," he groaned, bucking towards her and reaching out to cup her breasts as she prepared to mount his lap. He had thought about it at length the day he noticed the tip peeking out of her shorts, not to mention the titillating morning he glimpsed her in a towel.

She was on a one-track mission now, grappling with his fly. "Laila," he sputtered, eyes rolling into the back of his head as she palmed his straining manhood and pulled down the zipper. "It's been a really long time since I was with anyone."

"Mmmm, same," she replied.

"But I just got tested, and I'm clean."

She glanced at him. "So am I," she whispered. "And I have an IUD."

He shuddered violently as she ran her fingers over his groin, coyly reached into his pants, and squeezed his raging hard-on through his underwear. "I might not last very long," he gasped ruefully.

Laila's pupils flared. "Well, I'm not going anywhere, so you can take your time later. The only thing that matters..." She kissed him full on the lips for several seconds, then slyly released the cock from his pants. "...is right now." He let out a sonorous moan as her hand closed around his aching shaft and gave a few firm, agonizing pumps.

It took every ounce of self control Erik possessed not to spew when she climbed on top of him and positioned his head at the velvety threshold of her warm, slick entrance. The world of the mountaintop flickered and spun around them like a magic lantern; she looked deep into his eyes with a dreamy smile and tenderly stroked his face, then barreled down with a grunt as he plunged into her.

They both cried out in harmony, and he gripped her perfect ass and kissed her roughly as she slowly began to ride him. It was, without a doubt, the most memorable fuck of his entire life, but fuck was hardly the right word—it was the holy act of hieros gamos, man and woman stripped of their personal identities and reduced to the purest essence of their respective forms: Man and Woman, Priest and Priestess, Shiva and Shakti, reveling in the infinite dance of matter and energy, the spirit and the flesh, a ritual older than time and humanity, and perhaps the Universe itself.

She made short work of him. "Laila, Laila, I'm going to come," he groaned through gritted teeth, desperately trying to hold back as their pace accelerated.

She grinned devilishly and lifted herself off him at the very last instant until only the tip of his dick was inside her. "Do it Erik," she hissed, and he reeled with mindless ecstasy, still attempting to resist the urges of his body. She got right in his face, clasped his cavernous cheeks in her palms, and kissed him passionately, then without warning slammed down hard onto his weeping, pearling cock. Behind them, the night sky swirled and exploded like a living, breathing Van Gogh painting, pulsing with love and benevolence and the simple joy of being alive and together, united in the moment.

He climaxed so hard he went momentarily blind, lost in a flood of white light, heat, and salvation. "Ohhhh Laila," he burbled deliriously, coming back to himself but unable to articulate any further, and with a victorious smirk she caught his lips once again.

Together. They were together at last, and for the rest of her life, Laila would never think of the stone living room the same way again. She climbed off Erik and groped around clumsily in dark, searching for her pants while he threw on his shirt and went to work re-stoking the campfire. It had almost gone out while they were occupied. To their good fortune, someone had left behind a small wood pile, likely from Labor Day weekend. By the time Laila put on everything but her boots, the fire was going strong.

Erik lounged on the stone arm chair, still trying to catch his breath. He took a big swig of bottled water and beheld her lithe silhouette with awestruck eyes. "Come here Laila," he called languorously, his rich voice dripping with honey. The chair was more than wide enough to accommodate two. He pulled her into his arms and swept the red sleeping bag blanket smoothly around them both.

"Mmmm," she purred agreeably, snuggling up to his chest and resting against him. It was hard to believe that only an hour earlier, she had been alone and heartbroken, crying into her beer. She sighed contentedly. "This is so much better than before."

He laughed and nestled his face in the fuzzy junction between her neck and her shoulder. "I agree," he chimed, nuzzling her softly. "And the night's not over yet."

Laila glanced up at the starry canopy above them and the highlands in the distance. "Do you like it here?" she asked after a beat.

"It's very beautiful," Erik told her, but he wasn't looking at the sky. He zeroed in on her face until he captured her lips with his, and pulled back with a daze in his green-gold eyes. "You're very beautiful," he added huskily.

She returned the kiss with enthusiasm and they lost themselves for a good minute. "I don't want this night to ever end," she confessed.

"It doesn't have to," he said, stroking her cheek. "Come home with me."

"Really?" Her heart soared.

He ran an appreciative hand down her side and rolled his eyes affectionately. "Yes, really. I'll show you the studio, and we can jam and hang out or whatever, and I'll drive you home. I promise."

"You'll drive me back to New Jersey?"

He scoffed. "I'll drive you anywhere if it means I get another day with you."

"Okay," she beamed. "I just need to stop home first. I, uh, sort of borrowed Roxy's car."

"So I noticed." He tapped her nose playfully. "But your father didn't seem to."

"Wait, you met my dad?"

He shrugged and waved noncommittally. "I may have stopped by your house briefly after I left the hospital." A look of utter panic infused her face. "Don't worry," he snickered, "he thinks you're still in rehab."

She exhaled guiltily. "I'm a horrible person."

"Shhhh." Erik repositioned himself so that he was hovering over her and trailed languid kisses along her neck and shoulders. "Sweetheart, you are the best kind of person," he murmured as she surrendered to his ministrations. "Seeing you like this inspires me. It makes me think of a poem..."

"What poem?"

"It's a piece by William Carlos Williams," he said, a fire brewing in his eyes. He kissed her hard on the mouth and ran his heavenly hands gratuitously all over her body. "You lethargic, waiting upon me, waiting for the fire," he intoned, slowly pulling up her t-shirt to expose her breasts. "And I, attendant upon you, shaken by your beauty..." He cupped one breast and kissed it, and she shivered. "Shaken by your beauty..." He squeezed the other breast and gave it the same treatment. "Shaken."

Laila was suddenly in heat again, and she rolled her hips in frustration. "Settle down, sweet Laila," he crooned as he licked her midriff and worked his way to the fly on her jeans. "Allow me to demonstrate to you one of the singular benefits of having no nose." And with a wicked, impish grin, he pulled down the zipper with his teeth.

Author's note: Over the past month, the first five chapters of this story have undergone a substantial edit, mainly for grammar and flow. No major events have been changed, but certain elements have been fleshed out, such as Erik and Laila's first real conversation at the end of Chapter Two.

The stone living room is a real place, as is every location in this story, and the directions are 100% accurate.

The song Erik sings at the beginning of the chapter is "A Forest" by the Cure (an excellent cover by Clan of Xymox is on the soundtrack), and the William Carlos Williams quote is from his epic poem, Paterson.

Thank you for sticking with me through this tale, which is as much a work of the soul as a piece of fanfiction. We are two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through, so there are still more surprises to come!