“Hello?”
Not so much as a chirp of a cricket accompanies my voice.
“Anyone there?” I speak again, this time more quietly.
Again nothing. I spin around, taking the hose with me and wetting my shoes, then I jump back, guiding the water back to the empty bucket. Leaving it there, I take a short walk to the spigot and shut off the water after waiting ten minutes.
Scratches on the windows have me looking around, but no one is near me. I walk around to the back and then back to the water buckets. “If someone’s there, you should say something and stop trying to give people heart attacks.”
A bug flies into my face and I swat it away, searching around me again when what sounds similar to heavy breathing hits my ears. Closing my eyes, I go in the opposite direction, and the light panting follows me. My legs move faster, and my walking turns into a sprint further away from the house. I don’t know where I’m going but my body forces me this way, enjoying the chase too much.
I’ve never felt more alive, and when I glance at my watch, I have forty minutes until I’m supposed to meet my neighbor. My feet come to a halt and I lean forward, pressing my hands to my knees to catch my breath.
The soft panting has shifted to heavy breaths now and they sound only inches away instead of feet. The grouping of trees blocks a lot of the wooded area, and anyone could be behind me. Anyone.
Dizzy from exhilaration, I tug down my pants and underwear in one swoop. Needing to touch myself, I slip my hand between my legs and jerk my cock. Closing my eyes, I pretend I have a stalker and he’s standing behind me. I don’t know if I’m imagining the hot puffs of air on my neck or if they’re really happening. I go with the latter, pumping my hips and sliding a hand up my shirt to tug on one of my neglected nipples.
Balls drawing tight, my legs grow wobbly and I come with a grunt, tears rolling down my cheeks from the intensity.
“Fuck. I needed it so bad,” I whisper. “I really did.” I need something else too, but I’m not sure what. Whispers in my ear that it’s okay for me to come when I need to? To let go so I can feel better and free from all the what-ifs in my head? What if I fuck everything up? What if I lean too much into what Sheep Finder is offering only for him to pull away? What if my brother doesn’t come back home?
All those questions fade away more as I sink deeper into this wonderful euphoric feeling, losing myself in the trance my orgasm sent me into. I drag my body to the nearest tree and sit against it, closing my eyes until my mind’s no longer in an altered state.
When I stand up, I lose my balance at first, and hold on to a branch to steady myself, still feeling half trapped between earth and space. An engine roars close by, and I quickly pull up my clothes, checking over my appearance several times before walking closer to the approaching four-wheeler.
“There you are. I was looking for you in front of the house. I assumed that’s where we were meeting.”
I look behind me and then at him. “You mean you weren’t out here this whole time?”
“Why? Was I supposed to be?” He kills the engine and steps down to the ground. “Did you want me to be?” His voice shifts.
“Are you messing with me?” My face is hot and my vision isn’t a hundred percent clear yet.
“What do you mean? And no, I wasn’t out here.” His eyes lock on mine. “As far as I can see, you’ve been alone until now. Who knows why, though. It's not exactly safe to wander in the dark, you could get lost.”
“In my own back yard?”
“You don’t even recognize your own animals and you’ve wandered onto my property by accident more than once.”
“I thought you only recently got back or something.” I squint my eyes.
“It’s called a Ring camera.”
“So, you like watching everyone, then?”
“Not everyone.” He inches closer, touching my hair, and when he pulls back there’s a leaf resting between his fingers. “How’d that get in there?”
“How about we uh, get to those fence lessons?”
He purses his lips, tracing the new scrape on my arm from the tree bark. I never noticed it digging into my skin, too distracted from the daze I was in. And now I'm getting thrown off by the buzz his touch left behind.
“Yeah, sure. Take me to the energizer.”
He follows as I lead him closer to the house and the box that rests on a metal pike in the ground. After flipping it off, he checks the wires and fuses. “So, there may be metal touching metal somewhere. It has to be grounded.”
I’m the one doing the following after he flips the switch on, pulling a meter out of his pocket and checking the wires. “Yeah, it should be at a higher voltage than this.”
Cupping a hand to his ear, he leans down and walks along the fencing.