The Secret of Lisa

Lisa had been thinking about that during the trip. Luckily it had been enough to turn her body towards the window a little to look out and turn her back on the shouting that the other students were making. Her seat was next to the window, where the city with its buildings and its cars and its buses had disappeared, although he could not say when, and now he only saw some humble houses scattered in an endless soybean field. She did not remember the article with precision, only one sentence had been delayed in her memory - she had so much left to experience that she did not really know what those words were referring to - and by thinking them repeatedly these words had already acquired multiple meanings: "Many women had not experienced one in their entire life. "

The seventeen students from the last year of the college where Lisa attended had gone on a field trip to fulfill one of the final objectives of the botany subject. It was the last week of the school year, the spring weather already made one think of summer vacation, and although some girls took the course very seriously, perhaps because of the heat and humidity, some of them —because of those female hormones that in large quantities ran through the blood, from head to toe — the vast majority of them went through those days as if it were a festive procedure that could not go wrong in any way. The school bus had stopped on an esplanade of crushed white stone. From that point on, all the students and their two teachers had to continue on foot.

The bus door opened with a hum of pressurized air, similar to the sound of a special effect from an old science fiction movie, which of course none of these students had ever seen. They got off the bus immersed in laughter and comments that had nothing to do with botany, and by the noise they were now making all together, the seventeen girls disturbed in an impertinent way the camouflaged silence of the forest that surrounded them. The driver, the only man on the excursion, and therefore an invisible and at the same time strange person, had turned off the engine, and was already preparing in the back seats to take a nap. One of the teachers clapped her palms to get their attention. She was a slender woman with too many slave bracelets on her wrists, which when shaking in the air mixed their colors and collided with each other producing a hollow wood sound similar to that of a rudimentary percussion instrument. When she managed to get some of the students to look at her, raising her voice as much as she could, she said: I don't want anyone to leave the group, you can go away to look for the species we came to look for, but not too much. Each one of them had to look for different types of leaves, lobed, split and serrated, to then classify, store in a bag and photograph them in order to do a digital report. Then they began to walk, the teacher who had spoken led them into the forest, while the other teacher, a little older than her partner, was delayed until she was the last to enter. A wide path through which they walked was illuminated by rays of light that cut into bright sheets the air that descended straight between the frond of the trees, leaving the rest of the forest around them in a thick gloom full of shadows, where the song of hidden birds and the chirping of insects made a pleasant and mysterious symphony. The bus driver got up in the last seat, watched the group of women go away, calculated that it would take them no less than three hours to return, and after thinking about it for a few seconds, he unbuttoned her pants and took off her shoes.

They had all walked together for a long time, in a range of fifty meters between the first and last student. The teacher who accompanied them had hurried her pace to join her colleague there, and when she reached her, she took the opportunity to communicate that she had seen the driver looking in the rear-view mirror many times into the bus where the students were traveling, and because of that she didn´t like this guy nothing at all. Lisa detached herself from her friend's hand, and without realizing it she began to move away from the rest of her companions. She didn't wander too far, but slowed down a bit to let the rest of the group drift away; the voices and laughter that floated above the female students faded through the foliage, as if it were a swarm of bees dissolving in the bright morning air until they could no longer be heard. Unconsciously perhaps — or perhaps not — she looked around, found a small path of overgrown grass, and decided to start walking that way. She let the grass envelop her feet with each step, and was distracted by the crunch of twigs and dry leaves under the soles of her shoes; It was a much narrower path than the previous one, and it seemed to have not been used in a long time, the ivy had begun to grow on the trunks of the trees that surrounded it, then at times the path disappeared, the forest had already begun to erase it.

Without quite knowing why, she suddenly had the immense need to be alone, really alone, so she had only to follow the path she had found, to take one step ahead of the other. Shortly after walking, a mixture of sensations turned her stomach - some vertigo and emotion formed a new strange feeling - and for the first time in her life Lisa felt a different fear, which was born from some remote place in her mind and installed behind the eyes, a fear without words, made of grave sounds, or rather vibrations, that assembled an indecipherable form.

After a brief pause — she knew well that it was the last chance she had to retrace her steps and return with the excursion — she quickened her pace and walked along that path for several more minutes. She felt a little crazed, blind, in a wayward way, until a moment later she knew she was lost. She knew it suddenly, as if someone had been accompanying her all this time and now he had disappeared to leave her alone. Lisa stopped, looked back, she hoped that she had walked in circles and could find the distant shadows of her companions, but she could not even hear the murmur of their voices in the air. She was silent, waiting for fear, that fear that had invaded her before, and that did not come, because it was no longer fear but something else, something that she could not fully understand but that in a certain way she wanted to feel. She thought of retracing her steps, retracing the path, but after a moment's hesitation, she continued on her way, and knew that little by little she was shedding an invisible layer that enveloped her - a kind of childish skin that had been cracking for a long time.

A golden light, rather an ocher color, satin by the particles of dust and pollen that floated in the air, fell through the branches of the trees and splashed the dry and hard mud where Lisa walked. At one point something made her think of one of those forest photos that she used as a screen saver on her own computer, only this time she was the one in that image. It seemed funny to her to imagine the surprise it would cause in someone who saw a human figure begin to move in that static image of a landscape just like that, on a computer monitor in some remote part of the world. She waved her hand up, as if greeting someone, that person who would be watching her stunned go through that forest captured on a screen. And she laughed aloud, sure that no one was listening: fear - which was no longer fear - was left behind, lost with the rest of her schoolmates, and now a new sensation was born from the bottom of her guts. It formed in her stomach, rose to her chest, and filled her throat, as if a velvet rabbit would had been born inside her and transformed her old laugh into a new laugh, different from all before — a senseless, crazy and happy one: a woman's laugh, made not only of velvet but also purple color, bright and dark at the same time, far away from her former and childish laugh.

He had walked for almost an hour, the path turned right, then left, left again, and he no longer had any idea where he was, so he stopped again. He looked up at the sunlight through the thick, misty canopy of trees, as if it let him know where he was. If there was something that frightened her, it was not hearing any voice, just the sounds of the forest, a branch that fell to the ground, a bird that was lightly stepping on a dry leaf. He thought that perhaps he had lost track of time, he imagined the bus that had transported them starting its engine, shaking slightly on the wheels, heading back to school; being alone, really alone in that forest, did not really frighten her, but the idea that the teachers understood that a student was missing, and sent the driver to look for her, was too terrifying. Then he heard a noise, a footstep behind some trees. Her breath hitched, her heart stopped beating, her blood froze where it was, fixed within its cavities, and her mind went blank. After a few seconds he understood what was happening. A branch had fallen to the ground, nothing more than that. She did a full turn, a ballerina's pirouette, and laughed again, at the pirouette and the forest, and herself. If she wasn't scared, then she wondered what that sensation was that put her on alert. She heard the echo of her laughter in the air, then silent again, and felt, through the soles of her shoes, the dust dry and cold from the trail.

The sensations passed through her, vertically, from head to toe, or vice versa, and everything seemed clearer now, her eyes had become accustomed to the chiaroscuro of the forest, and suddenly she discovered a huge rock next to her that caught her eye. She stared at this for a moment when she knew the entire forest was alive and surrounded her, though part of her was still on alert. The stone was almost a meter high, and two meters in diameter, and it was strange to see it there, unique, so immense among the trees. She hesitated to get closer, she wondered how that stone had gotten there, she imagined it rolling from the top of some already disappeared mountain, falling from the immensity of the sky, like a meteorite that broke the air and set fire to the forest, in remote times. The threat of an insect stinging distracted her from herself, but it also protected her from certain other thoughts. Now she was touching that rock, running her palm across the porous surface to feel the shape of it, without actually seeing it, because she had closed her eyes; the stone was formed in her mind, in a black and empty space, a layer of fine dust was detached and allowed the hand to move easily, until she felt that it ran into a sharp edge, and her hand seemed stop; then he continued, although more slowly, and the stone was drawn again behind the eyelids, on the black and the empty, where before there was nothing, as if that space had been waiting for the contact of her hand with that stone forever. She could not know how much time had passed, if a few seconds or whole minutes, and in that moment she understood that something was breaking inside her, something that she had been intact before entering the forest. She knew it in a confused and distant way, and yet she had no doubts, although she certainly did not know what it was that opened up inside her, with a certain character, and was filled with light, a warm and resplendent light that made her smile, in a new way. That which was opening now seemed to stop, to have found its shape, now, its color, its smell, its time, and stay like that, sublime, perfect, imperceptible forever. She changed, something inside her changed, it became new. It was her — she still was — and she was no more.

She looked at the rock, and had an irrepressible desire to make that rock her own, if only for a moment, to climb it and stay on it, sitting with her head thrown back, towards the sun that only existed beyond the trees. . she wanted to feel that cold, rigid rock against the skin of her thighs, and to feel herself soft and vital on that rock; that was what her wishes were, to have that rock, to stay naked on it, and then abandon it. She raised one foot, supported her knee, careful not to scratch her skin, and helped herself with her hands to be able to climb without falling, because there were still some childish traces in her gestures that no longer belonged to her. And when he was on that rock he knew, without any doubt, that the girl who moments ago had gotten off the bus that morning would stay there, in that forest - that girl had not even climbed that rock anymore - and the one who would meet again with her classmates, when she returned to the bus, would no longer be the same student that her friends knew. She lowered her gaze, just to see herself, and felt ridiculous, then touched her body with her hands to check that she continued to exist in the same way as before. And, standing on that rock, she wondered what would happen if she really started to undress.

The danger of being there, away from her classmates and the two teachers who commanded the excursion, had suddenly disappeared, and the retaliation that she feared to suffer for having separated from the group ceased to be a threat. She balanced, and slowly slid the zipper of her skirt until it fell under its own weight, circling her feet. She stayed that way for a few seconds, then brought the hands to her waist, put some fingers between her panty and her skin, and let it also fall around her ankles. She felt her heart pound harder. One by one, she unbuttoned her white shirt, beginning at the top. But she didn't take it off, the shirt was moving loosely now, it was a ghost that covered her torso and part of her butt. She laughed with her eyes, and felt safe and beautiful, in a way she had never felt before. A few seconds later, she barely raised one foot and then the other, stretched her arms, taking care not to lose balance, and completely detached herself from the panty around her ankles. With the other hand, with only two fingers, she ran over the leg that had been slightly bent, from the ankles to the hips, as if this had never had that shape, and now it was her fingers that invented it. Thus, from the ankles to the waist, very slowly, Lisa drew that leg with her fingers until it stopped, her hand turned slightly towards the center of her belly, and even more slowly, as if she were groping through a dark fog, began to descend towards the tickles that those curly little hairs of sex provoked. Her hand cupped, like a soft clay spoon, and her fingers were hidden between her legs. She barely opened her mouth, where a warm, sweet air was coming and going, and her face became serious. The tips of those two fingers, which had traveled from her ankles to the roundness of her hips, to the white plain of her belly, sliding through the shadow that preceded her sex, began to make circular movements, delicate at first, and firm afterwards, for a few long velvet seconds, in a time without lights or colors, in a place where she had never been, where that new and dangerous pleasure existed. Soon, a tingle shivered deep inside her, her breathing quickened, her head arched back even more, as if someone were pulling her hair, and her mouth opened and was filled with a low, muffled moan, like the music of a hidden animal. She wanted to put a hand on her breasts, but she knew that by doing so she could fall from that rock, so she wished that someone else would squeeze them, tightly, still hidden behind that white shirt, when her fingers moved with a will that seemed their own. Suddenly they doubled over, already wet, and penetrated her. Blind, her fingers were looking for something that eluded them, that was hidden between her legs, inside her body, something tiny and electric that did not allow itself to be found, and which was no longer alone there, but was expanding throughout her body, splashing her breasts and shoulders, her neck and arms, her butt and legs, and that came down to her feet, with a hot, golden light that gave her a beautiful sensation of warmth.

She was floating, now, Lisa, on that rock. She felt that she was floating. And everything in her body became a gentle curve, her neck, her back, her wrists, her thighs, her legs. Her hand pressed against her belly, until she gasped for air a little as she stirred. With her eyes closed, she entered that cottony darkness, where those brightly lines were formed in an instant, and took a few seconds to fade, and in that interval of time those lines drew the unconnected parts of other bodies, of men and women, without much sense, and approached to her as these noticed her presence, and stretched to want to touch her body before disappearing completely. Then her fingers moved nervously, faster, circling in little circles, as if they had suddenly found what they were looking for. With the frenzy of a rite, she began to tremble, and she felt fear, and then excitement, and also pleasure; then she felt all that at the same time; It was a new and different sensation, that carried within that overflowing and delicate happiness, the sum of all those other pleasures that he had already experienced before, but never all together and at the same time: a cold wind in the face, a sweet drop on the tip of the tongue, the touch of a delicate fabric on the back, a warm water under the butt, the sound of a laugh, and her name in the air within that laugh, a smell of grass, of mountain flowers, and that new dangerous taste now, that brought all the above, a taste of hot skin and saliva.

That pleasure was built up little by little, as if her body were an ocean, and a small wave began to form there, which with each movement of her hand became bigger and bigger, to completely destroy her, until she lost that little notion of reality. She was that fear, and that emotion, and that pleasure, in that moment, in that precise moment while she was dancing, because it was as if she were dancing an ancient and unknown dance, sitting on that rock, under that golden mantle by which she allowed herself to be embraced. Until all that had been a gentle curve in her body suddenly tensed. A luminous exhaustion invaded her slowly, with its narcotic effect, and made her smile, barely, with a certain incipient evil, and a sigh came from her open mouth, like a lament, a groan, a sob, for about twelve seconds where she was not really anywhere, not in that forest, not on that rock, not in the world.

She then removed the hand that had been hidden between her legs, because no longer had anything to do there. And a moment later, she opened her eyes; a tear ran down her cheek. She didn't quite understand what had happened, but understood that she had somehow transformed herself. Took a deep breath, and was motionless for a few minutes, and felt that she had to make an effort not to fall asleep. Voices reached her from a far. With her head thrown back, she felt a light turn on inside her, between her hips and breasts, and if all was not in darkness was because that light was penetrating her, illuminating her body from the inside out, making the rock appear where she sat, the dry grasses on the ground around her, the rough trunks of the trees: the scene was set on the stage of a crowded theater, the actress gleaming and naked, the audience plunged into the darkest, only present in the rumors that reach the stage, when the final explosion of applause somehow broke the spell. The voices became clearer, and began to put together some words of astonishment. She sat up on the rock, and saw them. There were her schoolmates. All of them. They were watching her, the two teachers too, meters from where she was sitting, on that makeshift stage, that rock. She heard them laugh, yell things at each other. They were hysterical, disturbed by the spectacle they had seen. And fascinated. One of the teacher, who wear the colorful slave bracelets, had been left with her mouth a little open, halfway between admiration and scandal; the other teacher was waving her hands as if she wanted to clear the air in front of her face.

Lisa barely moved her legs, and her arms, which were articulated again to her body, and she searched with her gaze for her clothes that had been thrown to one side on the dry grass. Her schoolmates moved away from her a little when they saw her come down from that rock to take her clothes. The bus driver appeared suddenly, alarmed by the impromptu meeting so far from the main trail. He was late to the show, and perhaps because of that, for the rest of his days, he imagined the scene a thousand times. Not caring about the proximity of her classmates, Lisa began to dress, surrounded by them, who did not move from where they were, despite the orders given by the two teachers who had recovered something of voice, and repeated like automatons that the students had to return immediately to the bus because the excursion had ended.

Lisa dressed slowly, with her gaze up and lost in nothingness, as if she were not in that forest naked but in front of a mirror, in a kind of hotel room, alone. She pulled her underwear up to her hips, then pulled on her skirt, buttoned her shirt buttons one at a time from bottom to top, and straightened her disheveled hair. When she was ready, she allowed a few seconds to pass where she remained motionless standing on the grass - the rest of her schoolmates observed with attention and silence that ritual - and secretly Lisa said goodbye to the little girl who had been. Then, in front of all those gazes, she began to walk down the narrow path that she had come from; she took one step and then the other, and she felt firm and beautiful, with that new way of walking through the world, that would accompany her from now on for the rest of her life.

If you enjoyed reading my work, please "LIKE" this short story, and "SUBSCRIBE".

Your comments are also very important to me.

Thanks for your support.