Apple-y Ever After - Chapter 14

May’s Maize Maze was the biggest in the Northeast, re-envisioned every year with a thematic design and funny little dead-end tableaux Saskia had gone since she was little, usually with Raven, but this was the first time she was going there on a date.

She arrived at Milo’s apartment with a little gift in a re-used shopping bag (a newly bought gift bag would defeat the purpose). She offered him the bag as soon as he opened the door.

“You made an ecobrick for me?” he asked, pulling Saskia’s stuffed Gatorade bottle out of the bag.

“And your dads!”

It was definitely the first time she’d made someone’s face light up by handing them a dense chunk of garbage. He set the gift down gently, lest the brick put a dent in the floor, and wrapped her in a hug. She held him back tightly.

“I love how I can hear your jewelry jingling when I’m close to you. It sounds exactly like it feels to hold you,” he whispered.

Saskia choked up at those words. For someone so otherwise rigid, his freedom in expressing his own feelings surprised her. He was a grandfather clock who whispered love poetry instead of chiming the hour. She could learn to anticipate that constancy.

Being a beautiful October Saturday, May’s Maize Maze was packed with visitors. In addition to the maze, people could enjoy hayrides, a pumpkin patch, fresh cider and doughnuts, and hourly demonstrations of a pumpkin trebuchet. It was cold enough to wear hats and scarves, but still pleasant to be outside. It was also the perfect temperature to cozy up to Milo.

Saskia bought the passes to the maze while Milo went to the restroom. She scanned the map of the maze that came with the passes, appreciating how it resembled a jaunty dancing skeleton when viewed from the air. Then she tossed the map in the trash. No need for it when she had a sharp mind like Milo’s to rely on. They’d probably finish the whole thing in ten minutes.

Once Milo had returned, he offered his arm and they gave their passes to the ticket taker at the maze’s entrance. Despite the big crowd at May’s, they were quickly on their own in the maze. Before long, they came to their first dead-end chamber, when the narrow passageway in the maze opened to a larger space with a stack of hay bales covered in blankets. A prop skeleton sat atop one of the bales with a sign that read Dead End! Rest your weary bones!

“Whoops,” said Milo.

Saskia sat down on one of the bales. She crooked a finger to invite Milo over, and he joined her.

“We’re in no rush to finish,” Saskia said. Milo’s eyebrows raised.

He definitely took her meaning, because he leaned in for a kiss. She met him with eagerness, and the kiss quickly deepened. He kissed like he ate pussy. Hungrily, rhythmically, enthusiastically. Although his tongue was in her mouth, she could feel it everywhere.

In a moment of self-consciousness, he pulled back. “We shouldn’t be doing this where anyone could find us.”

So prim, she thought. She moved a hay bale over to the narrow entry to the dead end, and then hoisted a few more on top of it until it was only them, a surrounding wall of corn and hay, and a plastic skeleton.

“We won’t let anyone find us, then,” Saskia said, and no one did.