ADRIAN'S PEACE
Jim Roberts

Page 73

Melanie was short, but not frail. She certainly couldn't have weighed much. If her body hadn't been stretched over such a big frame, she would have been considered skinny. With her short square build, she took on the features of a woman instead of the girl that she more nearly approached in years. In life men had been constantly attracted to her, although it wasn't for her physical beauty. She wasn't even particularly pretty. Her expressive eyes, her soft skin were contributing qualities in a rare individual. There are always men willing to touch the woman within whom the animal still rages, and she was as uncaged as any woman Adrian would ever meet.

Melanie's favorite pastime was to swim in the stream. When she did, the clean water would wash past her naked body in soft clouds. It buoyed her up and let her drift in freedom along the surface of the pond. Not that she wouldn't have been free anyway. Nothing had ever had enough strength to really keep her bound, except Paul, her husband, and she had left him, partly for that very reason. Still, he crossed her mind from time to time, especially since she had come here and was so alone. But, there were other people in her past and they came up in her memory just as often as he did. She didn't really miss any of them. She wanted the kind of company they brought her. Most of all, she longed for the excitement of the lives they led. It was so quiet and unchanging in this place.

Otherwise, she was a great murderer of flowers. She had spotted some on her way to the pond. The sun would set in the evening, and they would be hers. She would tie them in her hair along with the scarf that wrapped around her head and hung down to her hips.

As Adrian flailed away out in the water, she had hoped that he wouldn't drown, but that didn't seem likely because she had been all over the pond and it had never gotten above her head. Eventually, he had crawled up on the bank and was saved. He waved his hand and she laughed at him, but waved back. He disappeared into the undergrowth beside the stream. For a while, she thought that he might not be coming over to her, that he had gotten lost. When he turned aside the mass of green which stood on the edge of her clearing, she got her first good look at him. He was just another skinny kid with long hair. He looked all right.

"Lost your shoe," she teased.

"Well, yeah," Adrian stammered, looking down at his single bare foot.

"What's your name?"

"Adrian Course. What's yours?"

"Melanie. You know, I was starting to wonder if you were going to drown. I didn't think it was that deep."

"Doesn't seem to be except in one place," he laughed.

"My neck is getting sore from looking up at you. Why don't you sit down? It'll make it easier for us to talk."

Adrian plopped down. He sounded like a wet sponge hitting a kitchen floor. His grimy bluejeans splattered creek slime on her naked body and daubed her tanned skin a deeper shade of brown.

"Goddamn it. You're getting that fucking mud everywhere." Melanie's eyes flashed with fury as she spoke.

"I guess, I ..." Adrian never got to finish.

"You know, you're as dirty as my little brother." Melanie's whole expression had changed. The anger vanished. She climbed up on her knees and bent over him. She untied his shirt and pulled the sleeves off of his arms. She unbuckled his belt. Adrian put his hands on her buttocks and drew her toward him. She jerked back.

"You need a bath," she said.

"A bath? In that nasty water," he exclaimed.

"It's a lot cleaner than you are. This is a beautiful place. Just because we're stuck here is no reason to be more like pigs than people."

"I haven't found anything beautiful about it," he said, looking around. His eye caught the metalically colored body of a dragonfly. He noticed other things that seemed to prove him wrong. A flower peeked half hidden from a rough web of foliage. Even the water wasn't quit the depthless green he had come to expect. It was pretty clear except along the muddy trail of water which lead to Melanie. She never waited on anybody, and had already waded in and was floating comfortably a few feet from the shore. Her toe came up out of the water and she twitched it at Adrian.

"Come on, Adrian. You can trust me. Since you can't swim, I won't hold your head under the water. I'll just give you a bath.

"I can swim at least as good as you, " he called.

He kicked off his pants, and followed her in. The Hero felt some apprehension, but when it rose no higher than his waist, he stopped worrying. Melanie must have washed some other man before. She scrubbed him all over with her hands just like she had soap in them. She broke her word and pushed his head under the water a few times. She ran her fingers through his hair trying to get it clean.

"I swear. Men can let themselves get so dirty. When they start smelling like they sleep in stalls, they sure aren't sleeping with any woman. When was the last time you had a bath?" she asked.

"I don't know," Adrian said. The question embarrassed him.

She moved down his body rubbing hard. To Adrian's thin frame, this rough massage felt about like a scrub board being run over by a thick