The Helping Hand

The night was made darker by the rain. Sky shrouded in brooding clouds. Lights dimmed. Cowering in the face of vengeful weather. The wipers on the screen fighting a losing battle. Runnels of water flowing this way and that. Never ending in their presence. An army of the infinite patiently grinding away a total victory.

He found he was leaning forward as though his face being nearer the screen would make a difference to his view. This revelation shamed him. Made him feel old. And in this reminder of his fading youth he felt a creeping loneliness. His time of dreams-come-true had passed. He no longer had a lifetime of exuberance to offer. They lied about middle age and by the time you did the maths, you were in your late forties and well on the downward path.

Sitting back in his seat, he tried to relax. A feat easier said than done at the best of times. Instead he experienced an inexplicable wave of sadness. An echo of loss as much for those things that had never happened in his life as those that had. He’d never been ready and in this failure of readiness he either missed the brief and misinterpreted the instructions or stepped back in an arrogant assumption that he’d have another opportunity to live his life more fully. Tomorrow was another con-trick. A glib measurement of time that stole futures.

The rain now pulsed against the windscreen with a hateful sigh. A water dragon attempting to repel his progress. He drove recklessly fast on roads made rivers. The surface writhing with a life of its own. He knew he was taking a risk. At any moment he could aquaplane from the relative safety of the tarmac riverbed. Another loss of the illusion of control. Risk enlivened him. Made him believe that he had more agency than he had outside this metal crate. Here he was in his own space. In this moment he owned this, his life and himself. Cocooned from the slings and arrows of all The Broken. Everyone had baggage. No one truly healed. Some of those so-called Healed were the worst of them. Hiding behind a shield of zealotry. Sermonising a false spirituality. Spewing quote after banal quote whilst all the while indulging in the same behaviours as the rest of them.

In the end, they all blamed. Blow the smoke away. Smash the mirrors. Blame was all that was left. Only on the deathbed was it possible to let go and finally take responsibility. Own all of it on the precipice of loss. At the point when none of it mattered anymore. There was no future and no one to judge the past. Only the moment. When he drove on the limit he neared that place and that state of being. A tourist in a world that could be. A world that never would be. He understood that every time he opened the car door and breathed in the atmosphere of stress and fear that drowned all hope.

The route was more treacherous now. He was off the path well-trodden. Preferred this terrain and the road that snaked through it. The grip was tested further. The car threatening to leg go. Shaking a protest. Thrusting its hips this way and that as he pressed down on the accelerator and belligerently forced his way forward.

When he saw it, he almost edited it from the final cut. So much of experienced life was discarded. The narrative was created through the filter of belief systems. So much footage captured only to be disregarded because it didn’t fit the desired story. Desire burnt away the benefits of clarity and made a mockery of the truth.

It was in the act of editing that the difference was made. He held the scissors in his hand, but something prevented him from carrying out the execution. There was a powerful pull. More than a feeling. His face creased in this unfamiliar oasis and the car slowed and slowed until it came to an uneasy rest by a farm gate. He drew in a breath and tried to exert his will, but the choice was already made.

Leaving the car where it was and not bothering to lock it, he hunched over and walked into the torrential rain. His front was soaked in a matter of seconds, but he barely registered the discomfort of the cold water, nor the mini-hammer blows from the driving rain.

As he neared it, he wondered whether the hazard lights had been flashing as he swept by. He didn’t think so, but now he couldn’t be sure. His uncertainty sent a shudder of fear through him. He prided himself in his certainty. Knew it to be a coping mechanism against the chaos of the world around him. Knew he clung onto his sanity as best he could even in the evidence of mental weakness and emotional volatility.

Abandoned cars at the side of the road were not a rare occurrence. He looked for the Police Aware stickers, but there were none. How could there be when the amber lights were still flashing. Those lights were asynchronous to the pulsing rain. They hurt his head and made him wary of the car itself. An innocuous Nissan SUV leaning down into the roadside ditch as though drinking the water. This stretch of road was enclosed by woodland. The short walk from his own car and the open field it was parked by seemed longer somehow. This another world. The relative safety of the warm and dry cabin lost to him.

Despite those flashing lights casting an eerie glow about it, the car was shrouded in darkness. He did not notice, let alone question the rear lights and headlights not being on. That did not fit. And that was not the only thing that did not fit. The edit naturally removed the incongruous. But deep down, he still felt a growing unease. Told himself it was at the prospect of what he was about to encounter as he walked down the flank of the stricken car. His squeamish imagination sending him flashes of blood red stills and mishappen human forms. He had no idea what he’d do if faced with a grievously injured driver. A weasley inner voice shamed him as it said he could leave right now and no one would be any the wiser. He would know of his cowardice though, and that was enough. That was his humanity. The decent part of him that he liked to think was the real him, even when the damning evidence said otherwise.

At the driver’s door he took in a breath and braced himself for what was to come. As though aiding and abetting the coming drama, the rain eased off to a light drizzle. As his hand found the door handle he saw her. She was sitting perfectly still. Frozen almost. Eyes unblinking. He thought about knocking on the window, but his hand was already pulling at the handle and he readied himself for a dramatic reaction that never came. She did not jump at this sudden development. Instead she turned and smiled at him.

She smiled and sighed, “thank goodness,” she said gently, “thank goodness you’re here.”

“Are you OK?” he asked automatically.

“I think so,” she said, a puzzled expression crossing her face, “yes, I think so.”

He looked at her and the car and that wheedling inner voice piped up again; this looks staged. He dismissed it. Called it rude. Tried not to admit that he at least partially agreed. Had registered that the air bag hadn’t deployed. Triumphed over his doubt by asking a simple question; why would anyone do that?

Helping her out of the car, he urged her to be careful. Shock and adrenaline can do strange things to people. Blind them to pain and injury. She smiled that smile again and thanked him. Then she fell into his arms unexpectedly. Her weight suddenly against him. Giving him no option other than to hold her, “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t have come along.”

He wanted to answer, but found that he could not. There was something disconcerting about their contact and yet he was responding to her. There was a curious want there. Something he’d encountered occasionally, but never truly experienced.

“There you are!”

The moment was ruptured by those words. He felt himself jolted backwards and the hug was broken. In the breaking of it, he felt guilty. As though he’d crossed a line. Caught in the act.

Confused, he looked askance at the woman before diverting his eyes towards the source of the words. She was changed. A look of fear passed between them. A message sent by her requesting his continued help. A message that accorded with the scene he had spotted and become a part of. Something was not right here and now he had a focal point for that sense of wrongness.

The man stood in the woodland. He had not moved since saying those three words. Words that sounded ominous. Their meaning detached from the sound of them. Reluctantly, he broke his gaze from the woman. Felt her hand brush his forearm. Find his hand. Take it. Squeeze it.

This emboldened him and set his course of action. She needed him and in this need he had purpose.

“Who are you?” he asked the figure in the woodland. The man had not moved nearer. There was a threat to him all the same. Lurking. Ready to pounce. He would have to take care with this man. He was dangerous.

“I’m…” the pause gave anything that followed the lie, “…her friend.”

“Well, so am I,” the words came from a place of courage that he did not know he had. She squeezed his hand again. Encouraging him. He felt her presence and was warmed by it. Did not take his eyes off the man half concealed in darkness. Thought him to be short in stature, but no less dangerous for it. He could not see the man’s eyes. They hid in shadow. But the baleful stare made itself known. There was hate and anger there. An animalistic energy combined with the cruelty only those who never grow up contain. A callous regard from someone who was never fully made. The lack a vindictive engine room.

He shuddered at the impasse as it took shape. She let go of his hand and slipped her arm around his waist. Her body closing the distance. Something in him stirred. A fluttering in his stomach. An arousal that made his breath catch in his chest. He needed to leave this place. With her. Take her to safety. A comfortable space in which he could explore these feelings she was provoking within him.

“We’re going,” he said firmly.

“You can’t!” there was a loss of composure in the man now. A desperation. He stepped forward. The movement was gross. Not human. He stepped backwards, pulling the woman with him. Never taking his eyes from the man.

Now the rain returned. Baptising them. Changing everything. He carried on backing away.

“You’re making a mistake!” the man was verging on hysterical now.

He guided the woman to the side of the road and turned, the road was safer. His car not so very far away. This was his ground and he knew it well. Was stronger for having left that strange place where the trees were buckled and gnarled.

The man called out after them as they walked away, “please! She isn’t what she seems!” There were other words. Half heard, but drowned by the driving rain. Words that were more of a warning than those he’d heard. Before they left the shadow of the woods he fancied he heard a cry that may have been laughter. A bitter and twisted sound of anguish and triumph. He shivered. She stroked his back in what seemed to be a proprietorial manner. His need to be needed overrode any misgivings he may have had. His plan, to take her back to his home usurped everything else. The weather demanded such a withdrawal. A retreat to the warm and dry.

“Thank you.”

She said the words quietly in the confines of his car. Seated in the same way she had been in the stricken car. He turned to look upon her. Her skirt ridden up as she’d taken her seat. He took in her legs and looking upwards the curve of her breast. Wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman.

They drove in a passionate silence. An intense foreplay that exhausted and dizzied him. He mashed the accelerator to the floor in his haste to get her home. Now the drive was an inconvenience. His perspective nudged sideways towards the alien. He only noticed he’d failed to turn the wipers on as he pulled up into the drive. Seeing and yet unseeing. His mind dwelling in the future. A future where he succumbed to her.

The rescue almost complete. He looked about him for any further danger as he opened her car door and ushered her to the threshold of his home. His excitement was clear in his eyes. He could not take them from her.

At the door, he fumbled with his keys. Willed them into the lock. Stepping forth eagerly and turning towards her.

“Are you sure?” she asked meekly, but he saw a hunger in her, a hunger that outmatched his own desire.

He nodded. She looked upon him as though she needed more reassurance than that. He found pleasure in offering his hand to her, “come inside,” he told her.

She took his hand and stepped into his house. He smiled, but she did not reciprocate. Bit her lip instead, sending a thrill through him. His imagination running wild. His heart beating a tattoo in his chest. Blood rushing from his head and towards a point of no return.

“Take a seat,” he said as he pointed to the living room. Rushing to the kitchen to grab two tumblers and half fill them with whisky. Leaving cupboard doors wide open and the whisky on the side, he almost ran to the living room door, slowing himself before he came into view. Not wanting to signal too much of his eagerness.

She had remained on her feet. Standing there, he took her in. Her skirt seemed shorter. Revealing a hint of stocking tops. A design upon both legs that he’d mistook for a pattern on the nylon. Seeing now that it was an intricate tattoo. He imagined tracing that pattern over and over again. Taking his time. Exploring her. A couple of the buttons on her blouse were undone. Her hair adding droplets to the exposed cleavage. Another hint of a tattoo emerging between her breasts. His mind provided an image of a serpent residing upon her flesh.

Closing the distance between them, he handed her a tumbler. The continuing silence enveloped them as she took a sip of her drink. Her eyes boring into his with a meaning he could not escape. She took another drink. A large mouthful. Bending her knees to place the tumbler on the coffee table she rose up and smiled before parting her lips and allowing some of the amber liquid to spill forth. Adding to the droplets of water.

He let out a low groan as she slipped an arm around his waist. A hand to the back of his head. Guiding him towards her. To taste the spilled whisky and taste her. He lapped at her hungrily and she moaned in response.

As she pushed him backwards onto the sofa and stood before him he swore he saw the tattoo on her right thigh move. A slithering motion that stilled his breath. But then she raised her skirt even higher and straddled him. Her eyes filled with lust and hunger. As her mouth found his and her hands grasped his wrists, he felt unfamiliar movements. Something wrapping itself around him. Pulling him into her. Something piercing the soft flesh of his wrists. It should have hurt. Instead he felt another wave of pleasure. Intense for the promise of more to come.

Pinned beneath her. Responding to her writhing motions as she kissed him harder and harder. Not quite understanding how she’d freed him from his trousers but giving himself over to the sensation of her slipping down upon him. He had a fleeting recollection of the man in the woods. That man had tried to warn him. Became agitated. Almost hysterical. An incongruous cry that spoke of loss but also the cruel consequences of a callous game being won.

He'd wanted to help her. He told himself this as she rose and fell upon him. Working herself against him. Pulling him closer. Her embrace just that bit tighter each time. Her mouth clamped against his. Sucking the breath from him. He was losing himself in her. Wanted this more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life. Ignored his inner voice as it whispered a weakening protest. Asked him questions that he’d never answer. Her wet hair swaying to and fro with her movements. Each time he felt it against his cheeks and ears. Then it stayed in place. Slipping and slivering against his skin. Through his hair. Around his head. Pulling him all the closer to her. Holding him there. Her hungry mouth against his. Hungry. Always hungry. Slipping deeper inside her. Feeling the hunger pulsing around him. Encouraging him forward. Urging that release that would change everything. An exquisite pleasure from which he would never return.

The stricken car was a trap. The man in the woods had casually pushed it free of the ditch with an impossible strength. Even now he was pulling up outside the house. Soon he’d join them. For he was hungry too.