Pink Apple Press just published my story, THE TREE HUGGER. It helps to think of the mythical Daphne

THE TREE HUGGER

Allan finds himself getting out of bed at 2:00am again, putting on his jogging sweats, slipping into his no-lace sneakers, and following the spicy aroma into the arboretum at the edge of town. There, he stops at a thin-trunked tree, its leaves growing in a ball shape on top. Stirred, he puts his arms around the trunk in a tight embrace.

“I know you’re in love with someone else,” his fiancée, Daphne, had cried before he left her. “You barely talk to me and you’re wooden in bed.”

It hits him in the loins that Daphne is right. He feels for this tree what he stopped feeling for her. He must give in to this passion, no matter how much it hurts her, no matter that he has taken up six years of Daphne’s life.

He rubs his cheek against the bark, rubs his manhood against it.

Suddenly, the bark fissures and opens to peach-shaped breasts, a gleaming torso, and, joy of joys, the tree has all a woman’s parts. Before his eyes, the branches become arms, graceful as a ballerina’s and the leaves grow into lush russet hair.

“Kiss me,” he pleads, his voice guttural, breathy.

The tree’s roots become delicate feet. The tree-woman lunges at him, knocking him to the grass.

“Did I say you could touch me?” she shouts. Sparrows fly out of her hair.

“I’ve had to live centuries like this because of a man like you who tried to rape me.”

She bites into Allan’s Adam’s apple as if it’s a juicy Honeycrisp.

As he lies there, bleeding out, she puts a laurel wreath on his head.

She loves me, he thinks. Then he feels roots snake around his wrists and ankles, like wooden cuffs.