My Body is a Cage and Other Stories

I nod. She presses her lips to the top of my head. Over her shoulder, there is a flicker. I
grab her and we tumble off the rock onto the grass.Her forehead knocks into mine and she
curses before I can tell her-
“HEY!” The security guard’s voice booms across theplain.
She scrambles to grab our shirts and pants and Itry to help but she’s too quick. As soon
as she pushes my things into my arms, she pulls meup with a strength I didn’t know she had and
is dragging me behind. We run through the pillars.The guard shouts again and the beam of his
flashlight is on our naked bodies but we’re stillrunning, over the rope fence and into the taller
grass. The whole time I’m chanting oh fuck oh fuckoh fuck and she’s saying something too, I
think. No, she’s laughing. The tosser.
The security guard is beginning to catch up with usand I panic and throw my shoe at
him. It sorely misses but he trips over it. He gruntswhen he hits the ground. We get to the wire
fence and we throw our things over and she gives mea boost up because I’ve never been the
athletic one of us two and I’m shaking the whole time.
We both make it over the fence, loudly and not withoutinjury. But we make it. The
security guard looks to be talking on his phone, staringin our direction. We hide behind pines
and shove our limbs into clothes. The pine needlespoke through the sock on my one shoeless
foot. My lungs are close to bursting.
“I knew we would get caught,” it comes out like ahiss in the silence. We make our way
back through the trees, and I can’t help but constantlypeer behind us to make sure we aren’t
being followed. Every rustling leaf could be footfalls.
“At least we finished first.” Moonlight dapples thehand she extends to me, and I take it.
“Did you not have fun?”