Oblivion & Doubt Ch. 10

This series is a companion to my story Truth & Admiration.

I'd like to thank everyone who reached out to me when this chapter of Leethie's story stalled, but especially ButteredCrumpet. Her comments and our dialog were just the encouragement I needed.

My intent is not to offend, but this is a d/s lesbian romance with strong themes of nonconsent and reluctance. If that's not your cup of tea, I understand and hope you will find another story to enjoy.

As always I hope you will enjoy the story, and that if you do you will leave a comment. XOSNS

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Leethie had slept late her first day in the farmhouse. She'd woken up in the little sewing room to find the sun high in a blue sky dotted by little fluffy clouds, the cottage silent and still, Miranda and Thom gone. She lay there for a long time, enjoying the quiet, looking at the stacks of quilts, the happy rows of bright colorful bobbins, the baskets stacked full of cloth scrap squares.

When she got up, it was only because she had to pee. Right outside her door, she found a note on the kitchen counter waiting for her. It was leaned up against a clean mug; a stabby little heart and Miranda's curling script exclaiming "Good Morning!" and explaining that the coffee machine was ready to go. She turned it on and stretched. It was a quarter past one.

Leethie realized she had slept better than she had in weeks. Even at Donald and Bobbie's, she had had trouble getting and staying asleep. She had been plagued by dreams of her father, of harsh thoughts about Linda, even small noises waking her. But here, in the silence and cool of this place she had burrowed in and gone to a deep, dreamless, and uninterrupted sleep. If it hadn't been for the pressure on her bladder she would have slept longer.

While the coffee brewed Leethie made the trip to the outhouse. There were a pair of yellow wellies in the foyer that fit her nicely. She felt silly, wrapped in one of Thom's coats, in her underpants and boots; the rough wool of the work coat scraped her bare nipples. But she wrapped it around her, and looking around to make sure she was as alone, she set out.

The trip was beautiful in the daylight, not spooky at all. The lawn was lush and wet. There were flower beds and bushes planted around the house and an enormous fenced-in garden with raised beds. The ancient-looking apple trees didn't scare her at all in the light of day, she thought with a self-deprecating smile.

"You don't get scared?" she'd ask Miranda the night before, looking out at the dark, the black branches curling at her like claws.

"There's nothing here that wants to hurt you Leethie."

But even remembering Miranda's assurances from the night before, she still felt some trepidation sitting down in the outhouse. She left the door open while she peed, looking across the lawn at the funny little cottage. It was a little crooked, and had once been barn-red, but was faded to a chalky red; almost a pink. The shiplap boards were stained dark and mossy near the ground where rain splashed them. She wondered how old it was.

'Could be fifty years, could be a hundred and fifty," she thought.

Sipping her coffee, still half-naked in just her underpants, Leethie decided to explore the little house. There wasn't really much new to see, but she had been tired and a little drunk and distracted when Miranda had given her "The Tour" the night before. The downstairs was divided into three rooms. The sewing room where she'd slept and an equally small office took up one-half of the house. Both these little workspaces were crowded with wonderful things, but well organized and neat. The other half of the house was a single room that contained the kitchen and living room. This space was relatively spare. All the things looked old and love-worn but carefully chosen. It was a wonderful and well-considered space.

In the outside corner of the living room, opposite the kitchen and wedged between two windows, sat a small cast iron wood stove; newer and less dangerous looking than the one in the sauna. The fire in it had burned down to a bed of glowing coals, but there was a pile of firewood on top of a square of dirty canvas with leather handles, that appeared to be some sort of carrier. Leethie had watched Thom loading the stove with wood the night before, and after a few tentative touches to the stove's handle, making sure it wasn't hot, she opened it and tossed in a couple of logs, flinching back from the sparks as she did.

Facing the little kitchen table, but backed directly against the sofa was a teak credenza that held an expensive-looking vintage Hi-Fi. There were stacks of records next to it Leethie knew were Miranda's. The owners of the cottage - Jean, and Marcus - had a larger collection that lived in the small office. The record on the turntable was called "Death Vessel", which sounded awful, but Leethie remembered Miranda playing something beautiful as she cleaned the night before, so she turned it on.

'Because you never fucking know with Da,' Leethie thought.

The singer's voice was high and girlish, the music lilting and fun. She sang about water and bouncy castles and daring-do; perfect for waking up

The old black oak door they had come in through last night, and that Leethie had used to reach the outhouse, was between the kitchen and the sewing room. Opposite it, between the office and the living room, was a door with a window that looked out over pasture and forest. There were curtains on the windows, but none of them were closed, and while Leethie had felt comfortable walking around the house topless, she again looked around before stepping outside, making sure there was no one to see her.

The black "front" door, at the kitchen, led to a cluttered foyer that opened unceremoniously onto a mud path to the farmyard, garden, outhouse, and the drive. The "back" door opened onto a covered porch that was as wide as the house and about eight or ten feet deep. It had no rails, just four posts holding up its roof. Leethie thought it was a lot more like a front porch, but it didn't face the road or the yard. Instead, it faced a small slope of lawn, a dense bramble, and an ancient-looking barbed wire fence - beyond the fence was pasture.

In the midday sun, the porch was almost as warm as the house, but there was a light breeze that made Leethie shiver. Her nipples were hard and her bare skin goosefleshed. She leaned against a post and squeezed her arms against herself tight, rubbing her bare legs together, taking what little warmth she could by inhaling the steam off her coffee. Looking out, the view was dotted by huge lichen-covered stones that looked like something out of a fairy tale. A lone Holstein stood near the fence line staring mindlessly at Leethie.

"Stupid cow," she said over her coffee, retreating into the warmth of the house.

Leethie guessed the footprint of the house was just under thirty feet square. There were no hallways or closets, but between the two small workrooms was a narrow stairwell, so steep it was almost a ladder.

She had peeked upstairs the night before but climbed up again. The little attic space was nicer in the daylight. It had seemed cramped in the dark, but the four dormers made it feel almost large - like a loft. It looked to Leethie like a cheery space to wake up in. A small library of tattered paperbacks and a rough lumber railing lined the area around the stairwell. There was a queen-sized mattress - unmade - on the floor. Leethie wondered how it had been fit up the tiny stairwell.

There were baskets and hanging rods in the eves for clothes, most of which she assumed were Jean's and Marcus' but on one rod and a low shelf, she recognized some of Miranda's and Thom's things. She stepped over to look at them. There were a pair of black panties on the floor. She picked them up, fingering the silky things, studying the little stained gusset. Pressing them against her lips Leethie drew in the familiar musky scent.

She leaped straight in the air when the phone rang. She almost slid down the stairs in her race to answer it. Realizing at the bottom of the steps she didn't know where the phone was, she froze. But it rang again - from the kitchen wall. A black rotary phone mounted next to the black oak door. She darted towards it and grabbed at the receiver.

"Hello!"

"Heeeeyyyy-Yaaa..." Miranda said wryly. "Run much?"

"I was, I was out-...in the outhouse," Leethie lied, sounding guilty, even to herself, "So yeah."

"Cool, cool. Are you dressed yet? Want to drive in town and pick me up? I'm done at three."

---

"It's a guy."

"The singer?!?"

"The whole thing!" Miranda said, with a childish excitement. "It's a solo project."

"Wow."

"I know right?" Miranda was smiling. She loved when she won Leethie over to something outside her comfort zone. "I saw him live last summer, it was crazy, like a drag queen show, but in reverse. Like, there's this dude in tight denim playing his guitar, but with the voice of a teenage girl."

"He totally sounds like a girl!" Leethie agreed. "But what's with the name? What's 'Death Vessel' got to do with anything?"

"I don't know," Miranda admitted. "Just awesome I guess?"

"I guess," Leethie snorted, earning her a punch on the shoulder. "Am I still going the right way?"

"Yeah," Miranda said absently. She was looking through the jumble of mixed tapes she had sent Leethie. "I'll tell you when."

They were driving through a tunnel of giant trees. Leethie couldn't get over it. When she said something about it Miranda had told her these weren't even the big trees.

"This is all second growth," she told Leethie. "Don't get me wrong, these forests are beautiful and irreplaceable, but the old-growth forests on the coast will blow your mind- right here, at the light."

Leethie followed Miranda's instructions, the turn led up a curving two-lane road along the western edge of a large valley. To one side was rolling pasture land, on the other a forested ridge. They twisted and turned between the two landscapes.

---

"Do you want to see something?" Miranda asked. They had pulled into the farmyard and the chickens were pecking at the ground with a wary eye on Leethie's Volvo. The chickens had scattered when they had pulled in but had largely collected themselves now that the car was shut off.

"Sure," Leethie said, wondering what Miranda was up to.

"Come on!" Miranda said, leading Leethie to the house, but stopping in the crowded little entranceway. She grabbed the pair of yellow Wellingtons and handed them to Leethie. "These should fit you."

"Yeah they do, but where are we-"

"Here," Miranda was handing her a black-green men's slicker. "You might need it."

"OK..." the afternoon air was warm, but Leethie did as instructed, slipping on the jacket and kicking off her sneakers, pushing her feet into the wellies.

Once they were kitted out Miranda led Leethie around the side of the house. The two of them marched across the lawn to the back of the house, past the porch and flowerbeds, and followed a narrow mud path through the overgrown grass, down the slope, and into the bramble - which was as big as a cargo van.

"These are all blackberry bushes," Miranda said, gesturing to the woody mass of thorn bushes arching above them. "Jean and I collected buckets full this summer."

On the far side of the bramble, there was an old gate in the barbed wire fence. The fence posts were capped with little plugs of thick moss. Miranda started to open the gate but stopped, looking around.

"The bull can be aggressive," she explained, looking around. "But I don't see him."

"OK?" was all Leethie could muster. The field was a long deep bowl dotted by house-sized boulders, some of them with bushes and small trees on top of them. Down at the far end, Leethie could see a couple dozen cattle grazing, or chewing their cud...

'...or whatever the fuck cows do,' Leethie thought.

Miranda marched across the field, kicking at weeds and weaving through thick tufts of long grass. Her jacket was short and her jeans tight. Her ass stood out above lean rounded thighs.

"The Boom!" Leethie called out, using Thom's nickname for Miranda's ass.

"I never should have fucking told you that," Miranda complained dryly, but she was looking back and smiling broadly. There was an extra swish in her gait as they hiked out of the pasture.

With the boulder-pocked field at their backs, the woods were surprisingly dark and thickly overgrown, but the trees weren't as big or tall as the ones they'd driven through earlier.

"These aren't 'second growth'?" Leethie asked doubtfully. Miranda was pushing through a small break in the dense underbrush, only big enough for one person at a time.

"No," Miranda told her without looking back. "Second growth is a lot older. Jean says this was all clear-cut only about thirty years ago."

There was another small gate hidden deep in the bushes. Closing it behind her, Leethie followed Miranda into the gloom, looking around her as her eyes adjusted. The woods were five or ten degrees cooler than the pasture. The underbrush had largely given way and they were walking between tall trunks under a thick canopy. The ground was muddy and uneven and cluttered with dead branches and whole rotting trees.

Thorny bushes and other small woody plants that grabbed at Leethie's jeans and tripped her up dotted the moldering chaos of deadwood and litterfall. Miranda wasn't following any path that Leethie could discern, but she seemed sure-footed and confident and she climbed over logs and around upturned root balls, stooped under leaning trunks, and pushed past bending branches.

For twenty minutes they walked in silence. Just the sounds of their passing; breaking twigs, the huff of their breath, and occasional "here" or "careful". Leethie was aware that the ground was rising, at times steeply. At one point they were stopped by a barbed-wire fence cutting through the woods. There was no gate but Miranda stepped down on the bottom two strands and pulled up on the top strand of black wire, making a large diamond slit and motioning Leethie through.

Leethie bent over and stepped into the breach, sliding her body through the horizontal gap Miranda had made, taking care to keep her back low enough. Still, she felt the flat of Miranda's hand on her back, pressing her lower, and then she was clear. Standing again she put her boot next to Miranda's, took hold of the fencing, careful to avoid the wicked-looking twists of sharp wire braided into the thick black strand every few inches. It looked primitive; uneven and pocked like iron. She pulled up, allowing Miranda to let go.

Miranda bent her knees then hinged forward, slipping easily between the fencing and stepping past Leethie. The trees seemed wider spaced on this side of the fencing, the trunks larger, the ground less cluttered. The forest on this side of the fence even seemed to smell different; cleaner. The canopy above filtered a shadowy blue-green light. She thought of Tours, of the two of them standing in the cathedral and looking up; of Miranda next to her reaching out and taking her hand.

"Second growth?" she asked.

"Yeah," Miranda answered, turning to smile back at her approvingly.

They climbed higher. The underbrush had almost entirely given way, the forest floor seemed cleaner here - as if it had been swept and maintained. Leethie was sweating. She saw that Miranda had taken off her jacket and tied it around her waist and did the same.

She watched Miranda's back as they walked; her long pale neck and narrow shoulders, the sway of her girlish hips. Even in the big rubber wellies, Miranda had an easy grace, her movements fluid and economical. She was strong for her size.

Leethie, who was almost a head taller than Miranda, was thin but had a more womanly figure. Large heavy breasts, that she was careful not to let hunch her shoulders, and a narrow waist with not-to-wide hips and a round ass "you could bounce a quarter off of" - or so she had been told. Leethie had been a teen beauty queen, had enjoyed it, mostly, and still carried herself like one. She remembered how hard it had been when the family had moved from San Francisco to Austin; how sad she had been to leave her friends, but how happy her mother had been to be back in Texas. It had been then that her mother had started grooming her for the pageants.

"You're going to make so many lovely friends!" Her mother had gushed.

She had been so thin, had felt gawky and awkward, and remembered how scary and hard those first pageants had been.

Now Leethie pictured herself as assured and cool. She knew others saw her as cold and even stuck up, couldn't help it; told herself she didn't care. She knew that Miranda didn't.

'Such a pretty girl,' thought Leethie.

The ground seemed more even now, which was a relief. Leethie realized she had been anxiously dodging the ankle-twisting tangles of dead branches and mud sucks. But here giant ferns carpeted the forest floor that was even and firm. They weaved easily between them, their paths separating and intersecting again, but always with Miranda in the lead. Leethie lost herself in the meandering until she heard Miranda make a little sound of approval.

Looking up, Leethie could see bright clear sunlight reflecting off the ground ahead; there was a clearing. Miranda had turned back to smile at Leethie, her eyes glittering with excitement. She stopped and extended a hand back; Leethie took it and Miranda gave her a squeeze before leading her forward. Leethie tried to understand what she was looking at.

The clearing was a spongy mat of thick emerald green moss, but on its far side, where she'd expected to see more trees or a field, there was nothing. Miranda pulled her by the hand, their boots sinking into the soft bouncy ground cover, until Leethie could see the edge, and stopped hard. They were at the top of a high stone drop-off.

Her heart seized with fear and she instinctively tried to draw back but again Miranda squeezed her hand. Girlish fingers soft and cool pulled her gently forward until they were standing at the edge. Below them was a small black lake surrounded by towering trees and giant rocks. Leethie felt small, like a miniature of herself. She looked at Miranda, understanding her excitement, sharing it.

"Da..."

"Right?"

"Fuck," Leethie gushed. "How'd you find this?"

"Jean told me about it, and pointed me in the right direction; told me what to look for," Miranda was whispering, and Leethie realized they both were, had been from the start; like they were in church. Again she thought of holding hands and whispering in the Tours Cathedral, just like they were now, except now they were looking down instead of up; into the vertiginous depths instead of up at the dizzying heights.

"Still, it took me a few tries to find it..." Miranda explained. Leethie realized she was clenching Miranda's hand, forcing herself to relax. Her heart felt full, seemed to flutter and catch with excitement.

"...wasn't really sure I was going to find it today," Miranda admitted.

"Can you... can you dive?" Leethie asked, looking down into the black waters, her heart seizing at the image.

"Don't know," Miranda told her, "But I think so?"

Miranda let go of Leethie's hand and untied the sleeves of her jacket from around her waist and, turning, laid it on the ground behind her, settling down onto it. Leethie, again following her lead, did the same. For a long time, they sat, shoulder to shoulder. Leethie thought of Miranda staring up at the distant stone vaults and ribbing in Tours, the look of wonder and joy on her face; of her godmother, asking "Isn't that love?"

The sky was still cloudy after last night's storm, but the clouds were fast moving islands in a sea of bright blue. The sun was warm on Leethie's skin, the air in the little clearing at the top of the cliff was still and smelled loamy, and almost heated in the direct sunlight. In the distance, she could faintly hear the buzz of a chainsaw, or maybe a motorcycle.