Fever: Chapter 6 (Ed)

    The hard brass frame of your rifle feels cold against your palm.  The first thing you did after Zecora  left you in the darkness was to grab it from out of your pack.  If that Colonel Morgan or any of his backwards traitor militia are out looking for you tonight, you’re not about to let them stop you.  Not now that you’re so close; not now that you’ve tasted her lips again.
    The only thing to do is wait.  You count the beats of your thudding heart.  When you get to a hundred or so, you start over.  When you do that ten times, you suppose it’s been about ten minutes.  That’s good enough.  Zecora must have made it through town without causing a commotion – time for you to do the same.
    Chevalsboro is as quiet as it could be.  You stop in your tracks every now and then, listening for any pursuer on foot or horseback, your gun ready.  There’s nothing.  You’re alone. You push through, and soon you’re out of town, just like everybody wants.  You breathe a little easier as you walk back down that same dusty road that brought you into town this morning.
    Above you wheels a clear sky, full of stars.  The familiar milky way is like a trail above, leading the way down the dark road below.  There’s no moon tonight, but the stars are just bright enough to see by.  The sugarcane to your left rustles in a breeze blowing just barely strong enough to be cool.  To your right is the bayou.  It’s just a big, black imposing wall.  Zecora is in there somewhere waiting for you, if you’re interpreting her words correctly.  You wouldn’t want to go in there in the day time, but you’ll brave it at night for her.
    Zecora’s directions are etched into your memory as solidly as any carvings in marble.  Still, her words race through your mind over and over.  Soon you find the milepost painted blue.  It’s a thick square pole hammered into the ground by the side of the road.  You remember it suddenly, now that you can see it again.  You noticed it on your way into town, but had paid it no attention.  It’s covered with a splash of light blue paint.  Now, in the starlight, the color looks a deep purple or red.  Funny how colors can change like that.
    You turn and face into the forest.  It would be so easy to get lost in there.  Zecora said to head due west.  Wanting to be sure, you turn your gaze to the right.  The Big Dipper is up there.  Former slaves, now all free, used to place a lot of significance in that constellation.  When they would run, when they would get lost, they would find it then head north.  North to the Union, north to Canada, it didn’t matter as long as they were running from the hell of slavery.  Just below the Big Dipper is the north star. You square up to it, as straight as if you’re standing to attention, then you pivot left, sharp enough to please any drill instructor.  You take a deep breath and prepare yourself before penetrating that dark jungle.  You’re so focused on what you’re about to do, you don’t even notice the bright light slowly growing behind you.
    Once you finally do notice the glowing reflections on the branches above, your heart leaps into your throat.  The little hairs on your arms stand on end.  Morgan.  He’s found you.  You spin around to face him, fearing he’s got the drop on you.
    You breathe a sigh of relief.  You were so surprised, now all you can do is laugh at yourself. It’s just the moon, rising on the eastern horizon.  It’s past full, but still big and fat.  It looks especially large hovering on the horizon; it’s that old optical illusion you’ve been noticing since you were a kid.  The moon’s silver light is so bright, it’s almost hard to look at.  There’s plenty of light now, enough to distinguish color, and fine details.
    You turn around to the forest once more.  It’s not quite as threatening as before. Maybe it’s a good omen.  You steel yourself, and find it a little easier now that you feel embarrassed for being jumpy.  Then you step off of the road and into the Chevalsboro Bayou.
    It’s plenty dark.  The moonlight, though, is creeping in at a slant through the branches.  It’s enough to avoid the trees.  The forest floor is mostly flat and the roots aren’t tearing it up enough that you trip on them (something you had feared).  Plenty of dried leaves are crunching beneath your feet.  It’s making a terrible racket, at least in comparison to the rest of the woods.  As you did in town, you stop every now and then to listen. You almost jump when a nearby owl starts to hoot.  You start again and then stop, listening to that owl.  You’re getting your bearings just a bit by doing so.  You’re trying as best you can to walk straight west, but it’s not easy.  You look up from time to time, hoping to catch a good glimpse of the stars. At one point, you see a whole bunch of glowing eyes staring back down at you.  It takes a moment to realize that what you’re seeing is a mother possum, and a whole bunch of her pups clinging to her back.
    You almost start feeling a little comfortable in that forest, a little secure.  That is until you hear the low, deep rumbling coming off to one side.  Your mind races, trying to think of what different kinds of animal that could be.  There’s only one thing you can think of though: a panther.  Something that loud can’t be coming from a bobcat.  You’d rather face the home guard than a panther in the woods on a night like tonight.  You hope the thing is only growling so that you can know it’s there and avoid it.  You creep on, barely breathing, lest you make a sound and have it spring on you.
    You come to a tree.  There are plenty of trees in this forest, but this must be the one that Zecora was talking about.  You’ve never seen a tree like this before.  The other trees are cleared out a little, like they’re giving this one room to grow.  It’s certainly grown, it must be twice as tall as the others.  It has an enormous trunk at the base, rounding up like a jug with a thick knot of short, twisting branches at the top.  It’s also jet black.  The other trees are black, but only because it’s night.  In day they’d be brown and green, but this tree would still be black, like it’s been burnt.
    You edge around it, going north, like Zecora said.  It’s not hard to find the new trail.  The trees are thick here, except for a space between two of them that seems to pull you in.  It’s a trail alright; people come through here, or at least Zecora does.  The path is worn down by human steps.  You notice the dry leaves are gone – there’s only dirt. Then the squelching starts; you’re walking through mud.  You had hoped at first it was just a puddle, but it doesn’t stop, it only gets deeper.
    Stepping up onto the bank, you find this is what Zecora must have meant.  The ground is worn down here too.  What was once a trail is now turning into the swamp.  Pressing on, you find yourself having to slow down even more.  The tree roots grow large and thick, and it’s easy to stumble over them.  Here and there trees have fallen over the way.  The bark has been knocked off where you have to climb over them, by Zecora no doubt, so you know you’re on the right path.  What was once mud is now water, and there's no telling how deep.
    There are times when the bank runs out of room, and you have to leap over to the adjacent bank, before going on.  Frogs are plenty.  You can’t believe how many frogs there are. They were croaking when you entered the swamp, but more and more are coming out.  It keeps getting louder and louder.  Every now and then one will leap off a trunk or fall off a branch and into the water with a splash.  Sometimes, off in the distance, there’s a great big splash.  It must be the granddaddy of all bullfrogs.  Your mind can’t fathom what else it might be.
    The water’s growing higher.  Now all you can do is leap from one mass of tangled roots to another.  Occasionally you slip on your landing, and hit hard on your knees and chest.  Sometime you slip, and a foot plunges into the water.  You pull it out, fast as you can.  The water feels cold and slimy.  Your skin itches even after you pull it out.
    Now is the time when you really start to doubt yourself.  Fear creeps into your heart and it’s overtaking your drive to go on.  You don’t know if you’re going to make it.  Here you are, in the middle of the bayou, in the pitch black dark, leaping from one tree to another.  There’s a log passing by you now, in the water,  You know it’s not really a log.  You know that if you stick your foot in the water again, you’ll lose your leg, and given your predicament, your life shortly thereafter.  You find yourself hugging tight to the tree, eyes clenched shut, your heart and mind racing.
    You try to remind yourself of why you’re here.  You try to think of the first time you met Zecora, of the first time you saw her.  It was when you had your fever, when it broke.  You looked up and the only thing you could see were those two white eyes look down on you, and you felt like everything would be alright.
    You open your eyes again.  At first you think you’re seeing things.  Maybe you’ve lost your mind.  There are lights out in those woods.  They’re just very faint.  They’re sort of like those spots that you see if you rub your eyes too hard.  But they’re not that.  You can tilt and move your head, but the lights stay fixed.  Some are near, some are far.  Some are a kind of dull red, others unearthly blues or greens.  It takes you awhile to realize that what you’re looking at is foxfire.  It’s the weird glowing of mushrooms and molds.  You’ve never actually seen it before yourself, but you know plenty of other people you have, and you’ve never had reason to doubt them.
    They’re sort of beautiful, in on odd sort of way.  They’re not bright, but you’re staring at them so intensely they actually do leave those ghostly spots in your vision.  They don’t cast enough light to see by, far from it, but you’re standing up straighter now, you’re leaning back and forth, side to side.  You can make out individual trees, not just near but far.  The whole forest is slowly coming into perspective for you.
    You remember stories over will o' the wisps, haunted lights that lead men to their dooms in swamps just like this.  This is nothing like that, this isn't threatening at all.  It’s almost comforting.  You can feel yourself calming down.  This forest seems like Zecora, in a way.  Dark, strange, exotic, alluring... magical.
    She's haunted your dreams for years, but she’s not in your dreams any more.  She’s real, and she’s waiting for you at the end of this unlikely path.  She gives you the resolve to keep going.  You make it the rest of the way.
    On the way, there’s one light stronger than the rest – brighter, warmer.  It grows as you get closer.  One last leap and your feet land on solid, dry ground.  There’s a little raised hillock in the middle of the swamp.  The light isn’t foxfire.  It’s real light, coming through a window.  There’s a little house before you, Zecora’s house.  You haven’t seen one like it before.  It’s made out of mud or clay or adobe, you don’t know what.  It’s got a roundish shape that fits snug with the landscape.  It’s small, but she built it herself, so you couldn’t expect more from one person.
    You stand before her low door.  You’re not sure if you should knock, or just go through.  You knock anyway.  “Come in,” the answer comes, in that voice you’ve longed to hear.  You pull the door open and step through.  It’s like walking into a soft wall, the atmosphere is so thick with aroma that it has a physical presence.  Spice, maybe some that were in that soup of long ago, but many more.  Oils.  Incenses.  It’s all muddled and heady.
    The room is small, so you see Zecora right away.  She’s standing beside a small fire, and she’s stark naked.  Her skin is nearly jet black, but it’s reflecting all sorts of wavy oranges and yellows from the fire.  It’s bright: her body is shimmering, she’s glistening with sweat, or perhaps she’s rubbed some kind of oil all over her skin. Only her striking erect nipples look truly black.  She doesn’t stand there long, but almost immediately walks over to you.  Her hips sway, her slick, full breasts shake.
    You reach for each other and your lips lock together once more.  Zecora’s trying to tear the shirt off your back while fighting your tongue with hers.  Your hands slide down her slippery back, and you grab her butt and squeeze hard.  Her body ripples and convulses in excitement.  She’s forgotten about your shirt – it’s your pants she wants off now.
    She’s not making it easy for herself.  She’s trying to undo your fly with one hand, but she’s got the other pressed firmly against the front of your trousers as she plays with your manhood.  She’s sliding her palm up the length of your rock hard shaft, then back down again to squeeze your balls.  With your hands still kneading her cheeks, you slide your fingers down the crack of her butt.  Your fingertips round the little firm circle of her asshole, and move beyond, then up inside of her warm, dripping wet pussy.  Another electric jerk makes her body convulse.  She’s got your pants off now, but she seems distracted by your fingers.  With one hand, she’s idly gliding her fingers up and down your bare, firm cock.  The other is just sort of hanging in the air, like she was going to do something with it but forgot what.  You’re trying to play with her clit, flicking at it with one finger while other fingers drive up high as far as they can reach.  She’s rocking her hips up and down, raising herself up and down on her toes, fucking your fingers as much as your fingers are fucking her.
    It’s an awkward angle, fingering her from behind, while your tongue dives down her throat.  When she breaks the kiss for a breath, you quickly switch hands, now fingering her from the front, massaging her mons of venus with your palm.  With the other hand now free, you place it on the back of her head, and pull her face in to kiss once more.  Inhaling sharply through your nose, you can smell her love on your fingers.  You wish you could taste it.  You’d like to lay her down on her back, and place your face between her thighs.  You’d love to lap at her and bite at her and tease her with your tongue while she presses her thighs around your temples, or runs her fingers across your scalp, or arches her back while moaning softly.
    It’s not the first time you’ve dreamed of this.  Yet she’s had similar dreams herself, of you, and she beats you to the punch.  Zecora starts to lower herself.  Before you can react, your tongue slides from out her mouth, and your fingers from out her pussy.
    She’s now kneeling directly in front of you.  All she has to do is open her mouth wide and move her face forward.  You’re so stiff, your cock goes sliding straight down her throat.
    It’s summer, and it’s the South, so it’s still hot and muggy, despite the late hour.  Your skin feels fervid and hot.  Somehow though Zecora’s mouth, her saliva, feels cool on your dick.  It brings relief along with intense sexual pleasure as the inside of her cheeks, and the top of her tongue, slide up and down your cock.  Your fingers grip tight at the back of her head.  You’re standing up straight and still, trying to let her do the work, but sometimes you can’t help yourself.  Sometimes your hips irresistibly drive forward, your hands pull her head in, and you drive your cock down deep until your balls are pressed against her chin.  You let her head go back again, allowing her to breathe, only after a few seconds of intense bliss.  If she minds, she doesn’t seem to show it.  Her hands are squeezing your ass, and half the time she’s pulling you in deep without your hips thrusting it in.  Sometimes you both do it at the same time, and nothing could feel better.
    You’ve been standing there, receiving her affection, for you don’t know how long.  As much as you’d like it to go on forever, it’s time to go on, it’s time for what you’ve been waiting for all this time.  You hook your hands under Zecora’s shoulders and pull up.  You have to use some amount of force – she doesn’t want to leave her place on her knees.  She knows what’s next though, and slowly risees, licking and kissing your body on her way up.
    Once she’s standing, once she’s kissing you on your lips once more, you start walking her backwards.  There’s a little cot where she makes her bed.  The back of her knees slowly press into it.  She lowers herself backwards down onto it, and you lay down on top.
    She’s spreading her legs for you and wrapping them around you.  This is like your dreams.  You don’t even need to use your hand, you simply flex and the engorged head of your penis presses right up against Zecora’s hot, wet pussy.  She lets out a short, choked grunt as it rubs, slick and smooth, across her clit.  Then you push your hips forward.  Your cock goes plunging in.
    You’re looking each other directly in the eyes when this happens.  Neither of you break the gaze, but your mouths fall open in identical looks of surprise.  You’ve both been dreaming of this moment, but neither dreamt it would feel this good.  With every ounce of strength you can muster, you start pounding your hips.  She’s clawing at your back, wanting more, her large breasts swinging in wide circles with every meaty slap.  Her nipples drag across your chest.  Still, you haven’t lost eye contact yet.
    Now you press down on top of her, pressing her tits between the both of you.  Despite your weight, you can feel her firm nipples prodding into you.  Zecora groans as you bury your face into the crook of her neck.  She moans as your thrusting diminishes to a slow grind, then surprises her with sudden, rapid-fire hammering.  She screams as she cums, the muscles of her thighs reflexively quivering while your rhythmic pumping continues unabated.
    You prop yourself up on your fists, still fucking.  You can see now you’re both dripping wet, slick and writhing with sweat.  It’s dripping off of your hair.  It’s pouring in a little stream down between her heaving breasts.  Zecora places a hand and your chest.  She pushes you gently until your back is up straight, your hands hooked beneath her knees.  Her eyes roll up and she gasps, then refocuses.  Now she’s hooking her knee up higher.  You fall out of her as she’s rolling herself over.
    Zecora wants you to take her from behind.  You oblige.  You grip firmly around her hips and drive your cock forward.  Instead of sliding it, it goes downward, pressing apart her thick outer lips and dragging its entire length along her clit.  She jerks in excitement and lets out a short grunt before reaching down and guiding you in with two fingers.  Again, both of your jaws drop open with that first sensation of it sliding in.  Her hand reaches back, first to vigorously rub her clit, then to play with your balls, stationary just beneath.  She kneads them and rolls them around briefly, then lets them go with a sigh.  She lowers her face down to the blanket, between her elbows.  You set to work again.
    Now you’re pumping like a well-greased machine.  The little bed is shaking and creaking, but you don’t slow down because of it.  You feel yourself naturally slowing down, and she raises herself up high enough that her back is against your chest.  You haven’t fallen out, you’re just slowly grinding, rocking yourself inside of her.  Your hands grab at her tits to support her.  You squeeze tight, pinching her nipples between your fingers.  She turns her head as far as it will reach, and you awkwardly kiss.  Your hips and hers shift oddly, driven more by animal instinct than rational intent.  Her mouth goes slack, she’s not really kissing you now.  She can’t concentrate to do so.  You can tell she’s having another orgasm by the way her hot breath slowly escapes her lungs.
    Zecora drops back down onto all fours again, still out of breath, but eager to please you as much as you’ve pleased her.  Your hands leave her waist and now fix hard against her butt cheeks.  They shake and heave with every slapping thrust.  You’re close now.  You’ve been building this up for a long time.  It’s not just physical lust, it’s been an emotional, mental, spiritual build up of years that’s now about to explode.
    You cum.  Somebody’s screaming, but you’re not sure if it’s you or her or both of you.  You had intended to shoot inside of her; you wanted to fill her up.  Your orgasm makes you clumsy.  Instead, your cock slips out at the last moment.  With the next thrust, your head goes sliding up between her cheeks.  The moment your balls slap against her pussy, you ejaculate, sending a great stream spurting high into the air, and down onto her back.  You hump a few more times, shooting a thick load with every one.  She makes soft noises as your semen falls down on her.  You’re sure she can feel every drop.  She knows every little drop means you’ve been fulfilled.
    Your thighs quiver, your knees shake.  All your strength is gone.  You manage a glance downward.  There are thick white wavy lines all over Zecora’s smooth, beautiful back.  You collapse into the bed, an exhausted mess.  One hand is still gripped firmly to her cheek, a thumb is still pulling her lips apart.  You see her pussy for just a second, reflecting the fading firelight.  It’s the most amazing shade of pink in that great moon of black: a perfect valentine’s heart.
    Then Zecora’s turning around.  She’s climbing on top of you.  There are a million unfocused, unformed thoughts racing through your reeling mind.  You can’t concentrate on any of them, your brain, your whole shaking seizing body is still stricken with the most intense orgasm you’ve ever had in your life.
    Zecora’s planting kisses all over you.  She’s mashing her breasts into her chest.  She’s holding you close.  This night is about so much more than sex and relief and orgasms.  This is your shared dream.  You’re together.  You’re together.  You’re together.

    It’s sometime very late at night, closer to dawn than sunset.  Neither of you have slept.  You made love a second time.  Then a third.  There’s the will for a fourth, but your bodies are weak and only human.  You’re holding Zecora, your chest pressed against her back.  Your knees are behind her knees.  One arm is over her, and you’re holding a breast in your palm.  The fire has died down, only the coals remaining, glowing a weak red beneath a fine layer of ash.  There was once enough light to observe weird masks and fetishes that Zecora had carved and used to decorate her house.  It’s gotten too dark to see them now though.  You’ve come to realize the blanket you’re both lying on is the pelt of an enormous panther.  You don’t know if Zecora herself stalked, killed, and skinned the great beast, but it’s easy enough to imagine.
    You start to breathe together.  Your hearts are drums playing the same beat.  Then you feel Zecora’s body tense, as if she’s about to do something.
    “Do you love me?” she asks.  It’s the first words from her mouth since she invited you in.
    You don’t answer right away.  It’s not because you don’t know, but you want to dwell on it first.  You think about the night you first saw her, about how she brought you back to life.  You think about how it felt when you left her, and all you wanted to do was go back.  You think about all you did since them.  All that marching, all that fighting, all those nights standing sentry duty in the rain, all that squalor and filth, all those major battles and minor skirmishes, all that ducking under sniper fire or falling shells where you might have died at any moment.  The memory of her brought you through all of that.  You thought about all those times you thought you’d never see her again, but never stopped loving her anyway.  You think about the friends who were killed, and you never told them of your love.  You think about your parents back in Ohio, whom you’ve abandoned to find her.
    “Yes,” you tell her.  “I love you.  I’m madly in love with you and I always have been since my fever broke. I love you more than anything in this world, or whatever might lay beyond.”
    Zecora slowly exhales.  You can feel her pulse increasing through the soft flesh of her breast.  Her buttocks, too, press a little further into your crotch, as if she wants to remind her body that her man is still really there.
    “Will you stay with me?” Zecora asks.
    “Always,” you say, answering immediately this time.  “I’m never going to leave you ever again.  I’ve had enough of the world without you.  I want to spend the rest of my life with you, until you’re a very old woman and I’m a very old man.”
    Her butt shifts around again, like she’s pleased with the answer.  “You love me and you’ll never leave me.  Will you be faithful to me?  Would you make me your wife?”
    Again the answer comes quickly.  “I’d marry you tomorrow if we could.  It won’t come easy finding a pastor who would marry us, a white man and a negress.  Not in this country, or I suspect in any countries in the world.  That doesn’t matter to me though, you’d still be my wife and the pastors can all go to hell and rot if they’ve got a problem with it.”  Surely Zecora must know you’d never be legally married.  That’s likely why she said ‘would’ instead of ‘will.”
    She’s rubbing her butt against you again.  She keeps it up until your semi-erect penis becomes lodged between her cheeks.  She rubs a little more, then lays still.  You suppose she wants to go a fourth time, but you’re reluctant to admit that you haven’t got the energy.
    “Would you give me a baby?” she asks.
    “Sure,” you smile in the darkness, almost chuckling.  “I’d give you lots of babies.  As many as you want.  As many as you can bear.  We’ll have a great big family.”  You are under the impression that this is sort of the idle, meaningless, silly sort of talk that all lovers share when near sleep, and overwhelmed with post-orgasmic bliss.  It’s just loose, foolish chatter, at least you thought it was.
    Then Zecora tenses up.  “Would you love them?” Zecora asks.  “Will you love your children?”
    The smile drops from your face.  “What?” you reply, confused.
    “Would you love the children I bear you?” she repeats.  “Will you raise them?  Will you treat them as your own?  Will you teach them and help them grow?  Will you respect them and be proud of them and honor them as your heirs?  Would you treat them rightly?  Would you think of them as your own flesh and blood?  Would you love the children I give you as much as if I were a white woman?”
    You understand Zecora’s fears now.  There are white people in this nation.  There are black people, formerly slaves, in this nation.  And there are many thousands of people anywhere in between.  Most of them them are progeny of white men and their female slaves, who used them for sexual pleasure when they weren’t using them for field labor.  These men treat their children just the same as they treat any other nigger.
    “I’ll love them,” you reassure Zecora.  “I’ll love them with all my heart, because they’re my own flesh and blood.  I’ll break my back to provide for them.  I don’t know if I’m going to raise them strict or spoil them rotten, but I’d be the best father any man can be.  I’ll be proud of them, I know it.  As soon as they’re old enough, I’m taking them straight to visit their grandparents and show them off.”
    “Their grandparents in Ohio?” she asks.
    “Yes.  And their grandparents in Africa,” you answer.
    Her body jerks, as if she’s been struck by lightning.  You’re holding her close, but not tight enough to keep from spinning around in your arms and planting her lips firmly against yours.  Now she’s rolling you onto your back and straddling you.  Lips still locked tight, you feel wetness against your cheeks, it’s her tears of joy, falling down on you.  The shifting, rocking wetness against your now hard dick is something else entirely.  She keeps humping, and you’re ready for a fourth time after all.
    She guides you in with her fingers, then straightens back up on top of you as she rides.  You’re hypnotized, first by her heaving dark nipples.  Then when your hands cover those up, her white eyes as she looks lovingly down at you.  It’s that same look you saw when you woke up from your fever in the hospital.
    Even now, you’re not sure if maybe you really died and woke up in heaven.  You’ll always think of her as your angel.