Crop Circle

Short Story. A man’s visceral, late-night encounter with the paranormal is not all that it seems.

Photo by Branimir Balogović on Unsplash

The air smells different here. Wading deep into the tall grass and unruly weeds, an acrid stench of earth, pollen, and wildflowers fills my nose. Crickets screech in the distance. The chill of night chases away the last light of day. Nevertheless, my skin remains warm.

The brick walls and perfectly manicured lawn of my parent’s home is somewhere far behind me, but in my head I can still see my mother’s frowning face. I can still hear the way she bade me goodnight and sauntered off, right on schedule, to tuck herself into bed. My heart hasn’t stopped racing since. Her hooded lids passed over me without suspicion, and yet despite my dizzying thoughts, I felt emboldened. Despite my immense hesitation, I followed through on my intentions an hour later and bolted straight out of the creaky back door into the empty field beyond.

At the time, clouds smeared the amber and crimson sky. The sun hadn’t yet disappeared behind the trees on the horizon, but the moon was already halfway to its apex. It looked as out of place as I did; like it, too, was going somewhere it should not. Now, I’m marching into the open expanse with an almost hypnotic determination, the world around me slowly fading into darkness.

Originally, I worried whether the plain white t-shirt and light blue jeans I’d carefully selected earlier in the day would be casual or alluring enough. Now, I wonder if I should’ve picked something warmer. The night is chilly, but my palms are sweaty. I know this heat will only last so long.

The neighborhood, the field, and even the forest surrounding it is quiet and still, yet my heart rate refuses to slow. I am too excited, too nervous, and too conflicted about what I am about to do, not to mention who I am about to meet.

No one is following me, but the hairs on the back of my damp neck stand on end. My stride is quick. My breath shaky. I’ve wanted this for so long, but now that it’s actually happening I’m on the brink of coming undone.

Part of me wants to turn around, to abandon this reckless quest of fascination, but knowing what’s ahead makes me press on. Something more powerful than reason or sense is driving me tonight. A part of me that I try to keep buried is clawing for attention. For now, I am powerless to stop myself from wanting to be taken. For now, I ache to remember what it’s like, so I follow my heart closer and closer to my destination despite my head, my resolve strengthening with the night.

I’m getting closer.

I’m almost there.

It’s gotten difficult to see, but I look around anyways, willing my eyes to hurry up and adjust. The sun is gone, the moon has claimed dominance over the sky, and although I am swallowed by a sea of foliage that makes the world beyond appear to not even exist, I know exactly where I am.

My heart thumps in my neck. My hands have gone numb, but I don't know if that’s because of the nerves or the cold.

What if “they” don’t show?

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself all day.

What if “they” decide against it?

Part of me hopes that “they” do, if not only to spare me from what comes after.

I come to a standstill and hug myself against the night, the frigid air seeping through my shirt into my skin. I wait for the sign, and after a few moments that feel like hours, it comes. About a quarter mile ahead, a beam of light pierces without warning through the dark. It flashes once, twice, and then it’s gone.

In the absence of light I am consumed by darkness, rendered totally blind and completely disoriented. My other senses, however, are suddenly heightened to an almost overwhelming degree. Blood rushes in my ears, sounding like a siren. My skin is on fire. The smell of the field is replaced by something affronting — Sulfur? Gasoline? Coal? — and my mouth goes completely dry. It’s impossible to process what’s happening, but my body reacts anyway, acquiescing for me and allowing all control to be seized by something or someone else entirely.

Through the smear of my reeling vision, the shadowy shape of a vehicle comes into view — “their” vehicle — somewhere deeper into the night. I am walking towards it automatically, fear and anticipation gripping my chest but doing nothing to stop me. I hear a door open and then close. Then, something takes me by the hand.

The sensation is disarming.

No longer walking but being physically pulled forward, I am steered toward the back of the vehicle and then pressed up against its metal surface. Fingers pull at my clothing — first at my neck, then at my waist — and I realize that it’s actually me who’s removing them.

“Can I kiss you?” a deep voice whispers softly into my ear. The sound is as excruciating as it is familiar. It sends shivers running up and down my spine.

I nod, but this is not enough.

“I need to hear you say it.”

I realize that I don’t feel afraid. I want this; I’m desperate for it.

“Yes.”

Lips press into mine, and something explodes within me. All of my senses react. My thoughts are silenced; hesitation eradicated; reason dampened.

It feels so good to be touched that it almost hurts. Naked and wrapped in arms that are warm, strong, and covered in hair my body buzzes with electricity. No longer standing in the open field, it seems I have separated from both my body and the ground, rising slowly up into the air, away from the world.

Am I hallucinating?

Is this real?

I can’t think straight enough to ask the questions, let alone find the answers. All I know is that the barriers of my skin have come unglued. I am no longer just me, but a part of everything around me: the air, the sky, the stars, the moon, and even “them” — the man I don’t want to believe is real.

His hands are everywhere. His lips are, too. His breathing is heavy, just like mine, and our limbs are intertwined. He’s floating upwards with me, side by side, only I can’t quite tell where he begins and I end. We are one and the same, in this moment, each of us making strange, guttural sounds: smacks, moans, and nonsensical whispers that I will later dismiss as some otherworldly, divine, and alien language.

The air is so thin this high above the ground that I am dizzy, but I feel only pure, unfettered elation. There’s no negativity left in my body, it seems: it has no place here. Not while I’m with him. All of my fears, anxieties, and worries have melted and combined into one agonizingly blissful sensation.

It’s… ecstasy.

But it’s… only temporary.

The good feelings reach a critical peak. As they subside, I crest and begin falling back down to solid ground, my hands reaching out for the sky as I return to myself, not wanting to leave so soon. All of my senses seem to come back to me at once, and so, too, does the negativity I thought had been abolished.

I shouldn’t have done that.

I shouldn’t have come.

We were never in the sky, only the bed of his truck, but as I make to untangle myself from him he tries to stop me. The bearded man props himself up on the blanket he laid out for us and tries to pull me in closer, back into his arms, but I recoil.

I shouldn’t have done that.

I shouldn’t have come.

I have no reason to lament these actions. I am alone, I am uncommitted, and I am free to do as I please, but something inside me insists that I am not this person. I am not someone who sneaks out in the middle of the night to lie with a man in his truck. So I climb down, I stand tall, and I turn away from the source of my shame.

“Where are you going?” he asks, his deep voice making my chest constrict.

But all I can hear is my mother asking: “where have you been?”

This is not the first time we’ve done this, it pains me to admit. His sadness and disappointment do not usually phase me, but I feel a pang in my stomach as I pull my clothes back over my sticky skin. Maybe it’s the glint in his eyes, maybe it’s the frown I can see even in the darkness, but I don’t just have guilt about what we’ve done; I have guilt about him, too. He wants me. Even after what we’ve done, he yearns for me. I feel it emanating off of him like the heat of his body, but I cannot bring myself to want the same.

I shouldn’t have done that.

I shouldn’t have come.

“I’m sorry,” is all that I manage to say. Dressed and ready to make the trek back home, ready to walk away from this and get back to figuring out how to stop wanting him so badly, I think about leaving right then and there.

But something makes me hesitate.

Maybe it’s the truth — that I will never stop wanting this — or maybe it’s my own stubbornness — that I will never stop trying — but I’m not ready to go back just yet. He senses this, I think, because he climbs down, too. He stands behind me and, not caring in the slightest that he is still naked, wraps his arms around me in an intimate embrace. I expect him to say something, to try and convince me not to go, but he just nuzzles his stubble into my neck. He just exhales into my ear, something that makes me wonder how anything this good could really be so bad, and kisses me softly on the cheek.

Then, he lets me go.

I hesitate a few paces away. I think about going back, about telling him that I love him even though we are both men. I want to tell him that he is the only real thing I have ever known. I want so badly for him to know that he makes me feel alive, that these have been the happiest nights of my life.

But then I remember that if I simply do not allow myself to feel them, then these feelings do not actually exist.

Instead, I tell myself that this was a mistake; something I wanted but do not need. This was not a passionate love that’s mine for the taking, but something more akin to an abduction of the senses in the middle of an open field; a lapse of judgment; an accident; something that happened to me rather than for.

Instead, I take a deep breath. I force my eyes away from his truck and his naked backside toward the direction of home, and I march away to try and forget that wanting him is a part of me that exists at all.

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