Page 44 of Moist!

He removes his shirt and I can’t help, but stare. Craig is muscular, from his time in the army and working with the highway department, and I guess if he can throw me around those muscles aren’t just for show. It doesn’t occur to me that he’d ever use that strength against me.

He’s always so nice, polite, and helpful.

People around town really like him. He grabs at my shirt, ripping it open with a force I didn’t think people have.

Then he kisses me. His lips are hard, forcing my head back, rushing me in a way I don’t like.

I push his hands off my side, but he won’t stop.

I shuffle to the side, trying to take a step back and slow things down again.

It feels like I don’t have control of my body anymore.

“Craig!” I gasp.

The ground disappears from beneath me, the air rushing through my torn clothes.

The last thing I remember before the world goes dark is lightning flashing, the water surrounding me shining just bright enough for me to see a pale hand.

The sink in my apartment is leaking again, the steady drip, drip, drip waking me up with a groan.

It’s dark, cold, and so not like my lumpy mattress.

Beneath me is wet, so slick when I try sitting up the first time I slip.

My head is heavy and my throat burns. Whatever happened to me last night, whatever I did, is nowhere near bad enough for me to be this disoriented.

I didn’t do things like this. I’m not into poppers or getting so shit-faced I can’t remember who or what I’ve done. I blink trying to clear my vision.

It’s unnaturally dark, not an ounce of light breaking through my curtains. My fingers curl beneath me and it finally hits me. I’m not in bed. I’m on the ground. Damp rock, like some of the caves around the national forest, glides under my trembling finger tips.

“Hello?” I call out, my voice cracking and echoing off the walls and ceiling.

There’s no response. My heart aches in my chest, pounding against my rib cage faster than the water can drip from the ceiling.

Reports of those missing girls in Oregon flash through my mind.

Older reports of those chopped-up bodies they found in the river by the highway creep into my thoughts.

As true panic starts to set in, my thought race to rationalize what’s going on.

But the even more horrifying rumours of the lake monster start to take hold.

“Please, I just want to go home.”

Again, my voice carries through the dark space, but there’s no response.

I move carefully, cautiously getting onto all fours before shuffling around, making wide sweeping motions with my hands.

I feel for anything, a wall or a door hopefully, but every bump and divot I find in the floor beneath me has me jumping, skin tightening around my body as the hairs stand up.

My fingers fumble over an edge in the floor, dipping over the sharp edge, as I plunge forward.

Long arms shoot out just before my face hits the water.

I gasp as glowing algae illuminated a pair of steely eyes.

Any thoughts I have about the lake monster being fake vanish.

His pale skin is speckled with the glowing blue dots, clusters of them collecting around his head and bare shoulders.

As the light fades, I catch a glimpse of the webbing between the bases of his fingers.

“Can’t leave ya alone for ten minutes before you’re gettin’ yourself in trouble again, can I babydoll?”

He pushes me back up onto the rock, the algae sparking to light briefly as he moves through the water.

More algae clinging to his skin, but I can’t focus on that weirdness for long.

The feel of his hands unsticking to my skin and pulling on my leg hairs makes me shudder.

I scuttle as far away from that ledge as possible.

A warm, sticky residue coats me where the monster touched me, making me wonder what exactly this creature is.

A splash to my left has me jumping again, waves of the algae glowing and fading creating a beating light.

We are in some kind of cave or pit for sure.

There’s never enough light to catch sight of the ceiling so I guess this isn't just an old miner’s cave.

All I can really tell is that it's deep, and there's no way out except to swim.

I pull my knees up to my chest, even as I struggle to keep my breath inside me.

It comes out in pants, causing my whole body to ache from the lack of oxygen.

I gulp down a final breath, sucking a hollow bit of air into my lungs as utter darkness surrounds me again.

The hand comes back to me, grabbing my ankle, pulling my bare legs across the damp rock until my feet dangle in the water again.

The twinkling algae release enough light this time to make out more of the monster, writhing tentacles keeping his torso above the water.

Another shuddering breath escapes me, my chest rising, and the knowledge that I’m in my underwear seeps into my panic-addled mind.

His hands move up my legs, spreading them apart for him to tread between and causing the bioluminescence around us to stay active

“You gonna thank me for saving your pretty self, babydoll, or you just gonna shake like a leaf?”

“Please,” I whimper, too confused to even process those words.

“I’ve been watchin’ you, ever since I woke up in this godforsaken nightmare.” One of the monster's limbs splashes wildly. “You wanted to see me, to find me, didn't you, baby? Well, ya done it. Ya can chew my ear off all ya want now.”

“Wha-who are you?”

The monster rises up at my question, closing the distance between us until I can feel his breath on my stubbled cheek.

“I’m hurt, babydoll. ”

A pout forms on his plush lips, his nose brushing against mine as he slowly taunts me. My eyes flutter as his breath mixes with mine; whiskey, cigarettes, candies, something other that doesn’t belong in this memory.

“ Mariner, ” I whisper, bringing a shaking hand up to his face.

The green mess brushes away from him easily, revealing the short black fade is still there.

I look into his eyes again, the blue in them no longer a reflection of the water, but the real silver-blue ones I remember.

The ones I struggle to not think about every day. “Mariner?”

“Missed you, babydoll, so much. Feels like I’ve been asleep for too long, and it turns out I was doin’ a bit more than sleepin’.” He squeezes my thighs before moving a hand up to touch my cheek. “I can see none of my messages were gettin’ to ya.”

“What messages? We all thought you were dead. You just ran off one day and they found your truck abandoned.”

“You think I’d just leave you behind, Obbie?” He pulls his face away from mine, a hard set on his greenish features.

“Mariner, no,” I murmur, his name sweet in my tongue as I touch him for the first time in a decade.

My hands fit so perfectly on his cheeks.

They’re smooth as ever, a bit cold from the water, but he’s still my man.

“Nobody could find ya. I looked and looked, Lydia was awful suspicious of me nosing around, but she moved on real quick once they all said you were dead. I didn’t want to believe them.

” I choke back a sob, a decades worth of guilt and grief boiling over inside of me.

“I couldn’t let you go. I got a job at the newspaper just to keep tabs on everything down at the station, I’m even writing the community reports now,” I laugh as tears keep falling.

“You ain’t ever listen when I told ya to stop sticking your nose into places it don’t belong,” he huffs, leaning into my touch.

“You’re the reason those dumb fishermen kept trying to talk to me, aren’t you?”

He smiles, the water splashing around him slightly like he can’t control what’s happening to the lower half of his body.

Mariner’s proud of himself, I guess, but a sudden rush of fear runs through me.

What if someone had actually seen him or hurt him?

It’s not like he has a gun, or like any of the fucking trigger happy idiots around town wouldn't shoot first and ask questions later.

“Calm down, babydoll, I can feel how upset ya are. Don’t-” he knocks his forehead against mine lightly, bringing me back just like he always did. “Don’t worry about me, just let me hold ya while I still can and I’ll take you back when the water goes back down.”

“I can’t lose ya again, Mariner,” I whimper, all the grief and loneliness I've kept hidden away comes pouring out of me. I wrap myself around him, my arms sliding through the algae stuck to his skin, refusing to let go. “Love you so much, s’always been you.”

“Fuck,” he chokes. “Goddamn it, Obbie.”

He kisses me. His lips are colder, slick, and a bit green, but just like I remember them.

I press myself into his soft chest, trying to be as close to him as possible.

Mariner licks the seam of my lips, nipping at my bottom lip just enough to get me to open up for him.

I moan at the taste of him, it’s different and the same all at once.

Memories of those six months are still so fresh in my mind.

The way his truck bed would creak late at night when we couldn't keep our hands off each other, at the movie theatre when he'd steal kisses between bites of popcorn, in his big old bed when his wife was out of town.

Desire twists with that familiar warmth, those feelings only Mariner can drag out of me coming back to life.

“Do you trust me, babydoll?” he breathes into my mouth.

“Forever.”

Mariner falls back, dropping us into the cool water. He shakes with laughter against me under the water, swimming us back to the top. My spluttering echoes around the cave, the water glowing again at being disturbed.

“Just beautiful as ever,” he hums before kissing me again .

I cling to Mariner, let him move my body the way he wants, just like he always used to. Fresh tears spring to my eyes.