The honest truth was that I hated being outdoors. Hated it with a passion. I was beyond high maintenance for crying out loud. I was a woman who would wear three or four different shades of lipstick at the same time, and I had a separate wardrobe for just my heels. What in hell would I be doing out in the middle of nowhere like this? I’d never been to Dogwood Forest before and the longer I was out here, the more I began to think I was crazy for telling Hugo I had. A plucky can-do attitude had served me well in the concrete jungle, and I certainly had faked it for far longer than I had made it. But this was something else.

I’d spent all the previous night researching and studying this area like I was cramming for an exam. I’d splashed out on all kinds of kit, maps and outdoor gear and now here I was, cursing myself, wondering if that extra couple of protein bars I packed would be the literal straw on the camel’s right now…

I took a deep sigh. Arching my back, I shrugged my bag off me and stood again, hearing my spine crack and crunch. The shirt on my back was already limp and wrinkled up with sweat and it was only 10 in the morning. Looking out under the shade of my palm I scanned the landscape one more time. I guess it was kind of beautiful, when you stopped and took it all in. It had a kind of innocence to it. Like what the world must have felt like before humans barged in and wrecked everything.

For a moment I just stared at the horizon and the almost fluffy tops of the trees, packed so tightly it was hard to believe there was a marked trail in there somewhere. The air felt clean and empty, and the sun didn’t burn the eyes so much as make you want to narrow them like a cat in a warm windowsill. I certainly didn’t have to fake anything right now, alone, but maybe I could try a little harder to enjoy myself while I was out here.

I put my hat back on, hoisted my bag back onto my shoulders and carried on. I was going to follow the pink markers first, then at the junction switch to the yellow markers, then follow the signs for Woodman’s Cottage and voila, I’d waltz in just as the bachelorette was getting started. I wasn’t showing off for the sake of my new supervisor, who happened to be an accomplished hunter and hiker. But I wasn’t not showing off, either. Nobody could prove I wasn’t enjoying myself out here, and I had walked more than an hour already and was doing great. As with many things in life, you can often do the thing you thought you never could simply by starting. And that idiot Hugo couldn’t have been more wrong about me getting cold. If anything, I’d dressed too warmly and might as well toss my new jacket.

I pressed on, nothing but sun and sky above, and the crunch of gravel below. It was quiet the way only forests are quiet, by which I mean noisy but calm all at the same time. Little flutters in the branches around me made me spin to look, not quite sure if I’d seen the grey tail of a squirrel or if it was just my imagination. I walked on, letting my legs sink into their own comfortable rhythm and then beginning to explore the levels higher up – the tangled boughs of trees of all kinds, the faint mist that seemed to be caught within the leaves, the dreamy sway of the wind finding its way through.

By the time I’d been hiking for another two hours my state of mind had changed completely. The sun, the wind, the pure elemental beauty of everything around me was like being a dirty stone in a clear stream – and I was being washed. I was now drenched in sweat from the frankly treacherous ascents that peppered the trail, and felt the muscles in my thighs twitch every time I stopped to catch my breath. But, I was doing it. With each step, with each minute I drew a deep lungful of air and pressed through my pleasantly tired muscles, I was getting closer.

Time went hazy and melted away a little, and soon I had no indication of how many hours had passed other than the fact that the sun seemed a few degrees off overhead. I wasn’t hungry, but I stopped when I discovered a flat rock and spread myself out on its cool surface, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment and hearing how deep and heavy my breath had become.

Once my feet had stopped their motion, it was as though my brain had to step in take over their rhythm. Though my mind had seemed squeaky clean and empty when I was walking, now, new thoughts began tumbling in. Very quickly, my mind started chattering louder than the birds above me. I thought about my new job, about the women at work, the bachelorette party, about moving out and starting a new life… everything in that world seemed so much faster, so much more hazardous than this temporary world I’d found out here in the trees. I had expected to secretly loathe being out here with the bugs. But now that I was feeling more free and relaxed than I had in years …I started to wonder which things I loathed after all.

It was that damn boy Hugo. An unwelcome detour down memory lane that I didn’t need right now. Seeing him was like peeking back into the past. Look, you won’t find false modesty in me: I’ve worked hard and I’ve come far. But maybe I didn’t realize quite how far till I met Hugo again and he was like a human fossil, frozen in time. Without all my usual distractions, memories of Hugo came flooding in and I was too tired to stop them.

I indulged in a long, delicious stretch on that rock, decompressing every vertebra in my back, then sat up straight and pricked my ears. A stream? I tried to find the source of the faint bubbling I swear I could hear. Didn’t I used to be wild? I used to be my own woman. I did things my own way and loved it, and I was strong enough to not give a damn about anyone threatened by that. I used to have a clothes closet a drag queen would covet, a hot boyfriend and a future that looked bright and shiny. No wonder I had been so cocky back then.

So, what happened to me?

The embarrassing truth was that I had constantly fantasized about him coming back one day. Of him seeing me in my new, fabulous life without him, thriving in spite of him abandoning me, moving up in the world and with an expensive handbag to prove it. And now it was happening. I saw the look he gave me in the store the other day. I knew he was a little intimidated. And yet, it didn’t feel nearly as good as I imagined it would. In fact, I suddenly felt like I had pitched up to a party completely overdressed.

The atmosphere in the forest changed slightly. The sun dipped behind a cloud and the whispering trees around me suddenly seemed to lean in closer, like they too were feeling a sudden draught in the air. I saw it: a thin stream wiggling its way through a clump of knotted roots and boulders. It was beautiful.

I picked my way through the undergrowth and found a spot beside it, then took off my boots and tested the water’s surface with my toes. It was like being caressed by cold silk. Goosebumps washed over me as I sunk my foot in to the ankle. It was deeper than it looked. I rolled up my trousers and stepped in, feet trying to find the bottom. When they made contact with the powdery silt, I took some steps deeper in. Soon I had taken off my pants entirely and was wading in the deeper parts in only my underwear, my shirt rolled up just because it felt blissful to have the breeze play against the skin there.

Soon my shirt and bra came off too. Why not? Isn’t skinny-dipping in the forest something old Becky would have done in a heartbeat? I sunk down and let the water lap slowly over my bare stomach, my breasts, then all the way up to my neck... The icy cold took my breath away, but I watched in silence as the brook folded gracefully around my body and kept on its way. Out here my body didn’t seem like the biggest thing, like it usually does. I didn’t feel heavy like I always do, but like I could float light and ethereal in the water, like a leaf.

When my hand trailed down over my body what I felt was that I was as silky as the water, and my body as smooth and flowing as the stream around me. I was wearing no makeup, no ‘statement’ necklaces, no false lashes or perfume or heels. And yet in this moment I felt beautiful. I felt… sexy. I let my hand trail further down and let my eyes flutter closed as I slipped my fingers into those secret folds. This was new for me: a strange, wonderful mix of deep relaxation and pure thrill. I was ‘in public’ but perfectly alone, naked but cloaked in this stream that felt lovelier to wear than anything I’d ever owned…

I couldn’t stop them. Fresh thoughts of him gushed into my mind and I couldn’t stop them… and didn’t want to. All the separate memories of him came together and condensed into a real person, who was here with me, right now, and it was his fingers teasing gently between my legs, his hands that were playing with my hair and not the breeze, his breath in my ear.

In my little secret pool I forgot about my whole life, about everything. All that mattered was the hot, juicy ache spreading all through me from my clit, and thoughts of him. It was easier to remember him here, in the silence. To remember how hard, how strong his body was when he pressed it against me. To remember that glorious throb he’d leave inside me every time we’d fuck. To let go and feel his tongue on me again, to see his devilish smile whenever he made me come, whispering to me before I’d even stopped twitching how he wasn’t nearly done with me yet.

My fingers moved slick and frictionless over that tight nub, and my mind swirled off on its own, to a different dimension I hadn’t visited for years: one where Hugo had never left. I lapped up close to the smooth edge of an orgasm and could suddenly see his face in my mind’s eye. Burning hot tears stung my eyes but I couldn’t stop. It was hard holding on all the time. Hard being strong. Hard having to fight and pretend and hide… I bubbled like the water around me, took a deep breath and hovered a little in that quiet space for a minute, teasing myself, a juicy tumble just a little ahead of me if only I’d let go and flow with it…

Crunch.

My eyes slammed open. I bolted upright and scanned around me. In an instant I heard a fluster approaching me – many feet hurrying through the undergrowth – and froze in fear. Shit. My thoughts changed track: bears? Other hikers? Shit shit shit. Before I could decide whether to run out of the stream naked or freeze, I saw them. First one bouncing flat back and then another. Black snouts and tails emerged from the sea of grey fur and my mind almost refused to believe what it was seeing.

A pack of wolves.

The bright pink of my backpack caught my eye next. I watched in terror as they toyed with it like dogs with a bone, yelping and grumbling between themselves as the bag went from wolf to wolf, each trying to rip it open further. A handful of them detected me and froze, noses twitching as they watched, yellow eyed. Inside I screamed, but outside it was like my muscles had turned to liquid and drained away.

The fear shared places in my body with a delicate, petrified awe. They were so much bigger than I thought wolves were. Not grey so much as silver. And nimbler on their feet. Their trot was light and bouncing on the forest floor as they fought over what delicious remains were in my bag… but their eyes were serious and hard. Like jewels. They looked at me as though they were the conscious, sentient ones and I was the wild animal. I felt even more naked than I was. The water babbled around me unawares.

Two wolves took cautious steps towards me, the fur on their backs coming up in sharp hackles. I did the same, invisibly, under the water. A secret thread of communication ran through the pack and they abandoned their mission with the bag and one by one came to regard me in the water, noses twitching. It was the most electrifying moment of my life.

Too petrified to move an inch, my fingers still held me tottering on the brink of an orgasm, now tinged with almost unbearable fear. Thoughts sprinted through my mind until I couldn’t think of anything, and my world went grey and blurred and I could do nothing but stare back at them, powerless.

The forest, the water, the wolves, and I.

This was the moment of my life.

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it was happening with such intensity that I think I forgot to breathe. A beast three times the size of a German shepherd took one tentative step towards me as the pack flanked him from behind, each piercing me with a set of amber yellow eyes. Like me, every atom of the wolf was quivering and alive. Every hair, every whisker, every blood vessel under the skin was pumping with energy. The forest seemed to retreat and we were on a stage. Woman and beast. Covered with fur and completely naked.

Unbelievably, I was still turned on. Deeply. The moment pulsed around me. The wolf took another step forward, holding my gaze. Its flanks heaved gently with each breath into its long, silver body. I could smell their fur. Could smell how wild they were, not in the forest but of the forest, like the spirits of the wind had condensed into beings of bone and fur and amber. The wolf was a mere two feet from me. It leaned forward, placing one paw into the water. I gasped.

He lowered his muzzle down to the surface of the water and touched it there, sending a single ripple into the black stream. I watched as the ripple broke on the skin around my naked shoulders. I swallowed and squeezed my eyes shut as I could hold on no longer and came, hard, secretly. My shaking body sent its own ripples back out to the edge of the pool. I bobbed there in the water in my own silent, secret torment, unable to reign in the implosion.

The wolf’s lips pulled back quickly and the entire pack, as one, began to snarl and growl at me. The biggest wolf gracefully retracted his foot from the water, and, again as a unit, they retreated, still snarling. With whisper-quiet feet, they dissolved into the forest as quickly as they had appeared out of it. Like ghosts.

I broke down into tears of relief as they disappeared.

Straining, I stepped my shivering body from the pool and stood helpless, unsure what the hell to do with myself. They had destroyed my backpack completely. Every edible thing in my bag had been demolished, and their teeth had torn clean through every other item. My bag itself hung nearly in two, linked only by a single mangled zip. Naked, I searched around in vain for my compass, for my map. When I could no longer stand the cold I dried myself with some shreds of what was once my clothing and put on the only intact pair of trousers and shirt I still had. Everything was covered in mud and leaves. The cold, damp ends of my ponytail flicked against my back and sent shivers through me. This could have been me. Each of these shreds could have been my skin, my hair. The wolves could have killed me easily. But they didn’t.

My head spun.

It had felt like a warning. Like a lesson. A mercy I had been shown. In their cold amber eyes, I felt like a fraud. I suddenly felt unwelcome in this forest, like I had been given a glimpse of its real, hidden mechanisms. I was in their territory. The guidebooks had spoken about bears, about mosquitoes, about various tricky climbs and stinging plants and slippery rocks… but none had mentioned the wolves. Was I going crazy and I hallucinated the whole thing?

I gathered up what remained of my belongings and tried to put myself back together again. I was still pulsing from the strangest orgasm I’d ever had. I wasn’t sure if I had just endured the best or the worst thing of my life. Or both. The wolves had seen me. They’d seen into my heart, past all the bullshit. It sounded stupid, even to me as I tried to think as I walked on. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something deeply supernatural had happened to me, beyond all belief.

It would be a few hours till nightfall still. I had planned to be at the Woodman’s Cottage right at sunset, when the other women would be arriving at the cabin. However, I knew well before I could admit it to myself. Some part of me knew how screwed I was long before I paused and began to panic for real. I had lost the pink markers, and had gotten turned around somehow when I detoured to take a dip in the stream. And worse, every method of navigation was now gone. I had recovered my phone only to discover the gods were toying with me and it suddenly showed nothing but a black screen. I was getting hungry, and tired. It was a slow panic, but once it developed, I couldn’t resist it.

By the time the light in the forest changed again and dusk seemed imminent, I was almost hysterical. I had lost my way and there were fewer and fewer things to be optimistic about. I had started this day as super confident, larger than life Becky Morris: fearless, fun and in charge of her exciting life. And now I was ending it with torn clothes, a shredded backpack and a thought I had valiantly resisted for the last five years: I wanted Hugo. I wanted him badly.