Ian stood before the Only One locking the door of the Hothouse behind him. His eyes were wider than usual, his pupils large and glassy. Only One uncurled from her sleepy position between the ferns. She eyed the weekend conservationist without interest. He was naked and moving deliberately before her, his legs white and mechanical like lego. He smells different sensed Only One staring curiously at his crotch.
Instinctively she knew not to trust him. He knelt down beside her on all fours, becoming quickly erect with the earthiness of her. Only half realising that she hadn't returned his feelings. He talked about himself. He said, SCREWING UP THE ECOSYSTEM.
She became within herself. Retreating instinctively from his aggression. Soon he would be within her and without her. Vibrations of his excitement were uncommon to her.
In his fury driven by fury - he struggled to be closer to her - grasping her coarse hair between his fingers - pushing her small face into his chest. She didn't resist. She had never experienced such fear before. Her face collapsed like wet bark beneath the pressure. Her hair stringy and organic like canopy and buttress roots, that scratched and drew blood from beneath his fingernails.
He penetrated her quickly in the humid conditions of the Hothouse. She was torn. He licked at her nipples lost like a man - sucked desperately at her breasts - but there was only humus with traces of animal sweat. He felt himself being pulled beneath the forest floor. Only One fought the invader. He was frightened that she was rotting away as he screwed her.
YOU'RE ROUGH, he rasped. I CAN'T HOLD BACK MUCH LONGER.
She focused on the struggle for life in the forest. How they stuck to and fed from each other, in a slow and final battle for sunlight and sustenance. She hardened herself against the physical onslaught of her invader. Epiphytes mulching the dead litter of canopy. Parasites stuck to the backs of spiders while chewing their way to the insides. The weekend conservationist was like this. She began to resist.
THAT'S IT. THAT'S IT. THAT'S IT.
He groaned, tensing on top of her. She barely felt the new indifference he held for her, and his terrible alienation as he slipped away from her, rolling onto some plastic pots, red faced and panting with relief. She kneeled by some floor litter wiping her legs with a leaf. I SHOULD EAT YOU, her cool eyes said.
He laughed lightly and said that he was finished for awhile, but that if she liked, she could massage his scalp. Something tightened inside her, as she struggled to remain at one with herself. Pieces of moss growth and bark dirt shattered on her knees and she picked them away like scabs with her teeth.
DID YOU LIKE IT THEN? He half-grinned, sleepy after the exercise.
She sniffed the unstable air, sensing a weather change, moving down from the mountain. Cracks in the hinges of the Hothouse windows allowed new air to draught into her senses. Only One was still and fresh like a child. Aside from a slight flicker of the eyelids and a tremble of the thighs, there was no indication to say that he had ever come close to her.
