The Trail
If Kendra had been told, say, a year ago, that she would get caught masturbating in public, she would have laughed. She would have found it a ridiculous idea. But there she was, on a bench in the woods with her shorts around her ankles. In full view of the person down the trail.
How did I get here? she thought afterward.
One of the reasons she and her husband bought the house was its proximity to the wooded hills on the edge of town. There was a hiking trail at the end of the cul-de-sac. She had gained weight after their first child, and she wanted to exercise every day. They had bought a puppy, and she was determined that the dog would be healthy and get lots of fresh air.
Soon after they moved in, life got complicated. Her husband was injured at work. He fell two stories off some scaffolding and shattered six bones in his leg and foot. He was home all the time and started to get heavier. Despite having a good union job, he decided he was going to become a professional gamer, a streamer. He didn’t talk this decision out with her at all. To make things worse, the game he played all day was a war-based shooter. It gave her the creeps.
Thoughts of leaving him came to her often. They had made love maybe ten times since the pregnancy, and hadn’t touched each other for more than a year. She wasn’t sure if she even still wanted to. With him. His hygiene had fallen apart; he showered at random intervals and he’d stopped shaving. He would only brush his teeth if he was leaving the house, which was less and less often. He alternated between two pairs of sweat pants, both of which had an odour to them.
But he was a good father to their daughter. Their four-year old Alessia adored him, and he was very good with her. He sang to her, cooked her favourite foods, and had little dance parties with her. They had their own little language of nonsense words. Maybe she was jealous of that. At least the dog liked her better, probably because she was the only one who would walk him.
It was the porn that really set things off. She knew that he wasn’t only gaming when he shut himself off for long stretches in his “office”. Why she went in there and looked at his browser history, she didn’t know. She just found herself in there while he was out at a physiotherapy appointment. The amount was the first surprise - dozens of videos a day.
What really hurt were the details. Everything was the opposite of her. She was short and dark-haired, the porn stars were blonde and leggy. She was Chinese, they were all white women. Her breasts were small, theirs were gigantic. They wore makeup, she hadn’t used any in years besides a bit of coverup and some eyeliner. And many of the things they were doing were things she had never done with him.
She had to take a shower after seeing it. After she got out, she looked at herself naked in the bathroom mirror. Her pubic hair could use a trim. Her breasts were small, but they were well-shaped. She thought she had nice nipples, big and brown in her large areola. Her ass could be more toned, but it wasn’t terrible. It had a nice roundness to it. She was maybe still a bit overweight, but not by much. Shapely, she thought.
She knew it was petty, but she felt ripped off. Why should he be getting off several times a day when she had almost forgotten what an orgasm felt like? She rubbed herself absent-mindedly, parting her labia gently. She was surprised to find herself a bit wet. Her finger slipped into her vagina.
She heard her husband and Alessia come through the door, closed her eyes and exhaled, then started towelling off.
At least she had the trail. And the dog. She walked for an hour and a half every day and loved the feeling of her body getting stronger again. There were new muscles in her legs. The belly fat was disappearing. She would go whatever the weather was. Zeke the dog was so happy out there. She could let him off-leash, and he raced after squirrels and dug in the dirt. No matter how bad a day it had been at work, she always felt better after her hike.
The trail itself was part of that. It started along the edge of a field, shaded by big maples and willows. It crossed a little brook over a rough wooden footbridge. It then followed the little valley that the stream flowed in, winding among huge cottonwood trees. Her favourite part was where it climbed out of the valley up a dry hillside into a pine and fir forest. Here, it felt like a park, with well-spaced trees and grass between them. There were wildflowers in the spring and summer.
The trail went on, connecting to other trails. But she would always take the little side trail to the lookout. It was a steep climb. At the top was a lovely rough-hewn bench, made from raw logs but varnished and sanded into a comfortable sitting place. It was at the edge of shade and sun and looked out over the valley to the hills beyond. Here, she could barely see any signs of civilization and it was quiet. She would sit there for long stretches, watching clouds drift by and being soothed by the motion of the leaves of the trembling aspens below her in the valley.
The trail was little used. On nice days, she might see a few people. But most of the time it was just her and Zeke, and maybe Shirley, the little old lady from down the street and her Pomeranian. And then there was the tall neighbour, she didn’t know his name. He also hiked every day, but always went up the trail beyond the fork for the lookout. The bench seemed to be hers, and hers alone.
The browser history should have made her mad at Mark, but it made her mad at herself. That she had wasted time. And the nagging doubt, even though she knew it wasn’t true, that she was unattractive. So she signed up for yoga and started swimming laps at the pool before her shifts. She felt strong. She could now stride up the steep parts of the hiking trail with ease.
