“I think you can really see a person’s soul when
you’re nightswimming in a lake with them,” she went on.
“Every compulsion they have is written on their face.”
She slid down into the water and stood in front of
him, watching his eyes intently. He realized he had no
desire left in him anymore, even as her breasts bobbed on
the surface of the water, a tease for his eyes only. Alarm
rose swift within him as reality came crashing back.
Suddenly it felt very important to get out of the
water.
“I’m really tired,” he said. “Maybe we should head
back to the cabin.”
She regarded him silently for a moment. “Sure. I’ll
race you to the dock.”
He meant to shake his head, or perhaps to say,
“I’m too tired to race,” but neither of those things were
possible. His throat felt crowded, like a vase crammed with
vines. When he tried to pull his feet up from the bottom of
the lake, they remained stuck in the mud as though he had
stepped unknowingly into a bog. He looked for her in a
panic, needing her to see him, but she had already turned
away and was stroking toward the dock.
As a cloud passed over the moon, his vision went
dark and didn’t return. Had she poisoned him? Slipped a
psychotropic drug into his food? He felt changed, stiff, his
muscles twisted into painful ropes of compressed sinew.
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