Marked for Love 1 by Jamie Lake Page A

this the Hallowed Forest, and it still terrified me. You couldn’t see more than two trees deep into the expanse, but it felt like there was a presence following you; its form trembling with pleasure that you were back, alone, and all for the taking. I shook my shoulders, trying to dispel that idea. I was just creeping myself out.
    “Nathan, God damn it, will you please put some bass in your voice?” I could almost hear my father telling me. I’d had a shallow voice my whole life. Not like a girl’s high-pitched waiver; just softer than what most men have developed. It was because of him I was always so self-conscious about my voice.
    Bringing us out here was his way of turning us into men. He figured that if we learned to light a match and skin a hare on those trips, it might make up for the long hours he worked. I rubbed my wrist, right where the scar was etched in my skin. It gnawed at me as if it was a reminder of that day: the day I had gotten separated from Dad and Jerry and had wandered around lost for hours. Suddenly, the memory made me want to walk even faster and get the hell out of here.
    Now, any forest gave me the creeps. Anytime I drove past a dense patch of trees, I felt like there were eyes on me, watching my every move. I felt like they could sense my fear and they relished it. This feeling had clung to me, ever since that day I was lost in the forest. It was a feeling I hadn’t been able to shake since I was 16. It stayed with me, omnipresent, even after I stopped going on the camping trips.  And it even haunts me now as an adult who no longer lives in the suburbs with my parents. But even more so, since my father kicked me out of the house when he caught me giving my best friend, Jay, a blow job. He hadn’t planned on raising a gay son. He certainly didn’t want to have that on his reputation. His realization that I was never going to be the kind of man that he was drove him to push me away.
    Since then it’d been couch-to-couch, odd jobs here and there, looking for money, and looking for love in all the wrong places.
    I had all but given up hope I’d ever get to the nearest town by anything but foot when the dark pickup truck cruised up behind me and rumbled to a stop a few feet in front of me, off onto the highway’s shoulder. I could see nothing but its red tail lights and the silhouette of a man with long, dark hair sitting behind the wheel. He didn’t step out of his truck or even look over his shoulder to see me walking up on the passenger side of the door. Instead, he waited for me to come to him with a steely patience that prickled the skin on the back of my neck.
    When I got to the passenger’s side door, he reached across the cab and rolled down the window. Suddenly, a long stab of lightning illuminated his harsh silhouette. I hoped that he hadn’t noticed the way the lightning made me jump, just slightly. With a deep gravelly voice, he said, “Want a ride?”
    The back of my neck tingled as I hesitated for a second, thinking about how maybe I’d be better off after all to make the walk by myself. Reason told me not to, but something drew me inside: a magnetism that I couldn’t explain. The rain was coming down like a thunderous stampede, and I felt a beckoning that drew me to open the door. Before I could talk myself out of it, my hand opened the door and I let myself inside.
    “Sure,” I said, a slight quiver in my voice giving away the anxiety I had hoped to hide. I’m not sure, but I think I saw a sliver of a wicked smile across his lips. By the time another strike of lightning gave me enough light to see, the sliver was gone.
    Rain pounded the old truck’s windshield, putting up a mighty fight against the windshield wipers, and I pulled the heavy door shut, cutting off the onslaught of pouring rain. I put my hoodie down. There was a small carved wooden swing hanging by a leather string from the review mirror. The wood was carved into a wolf’s head, its mouth pulled back