I sat quietly for a while, letting her drive. The music on the stereo was strange and harsh, unlike anything I'd heard before. It was metallic but rhythmic, and worked well with the growled German lyrics. It was actually pretty cool.
My appreciation of Sandra's musical taste was interrupted as she pulled the car off the road by a wooded area. I threw her a curious look, but she grinned impishly, got out of the car and plunged into the underbrush. I followed behind her as closely as I could to keep from having any of the twigs catch on my clothes.
On the other side of the bushes the forest floor was perfectly clear, save for a mat of soft pine needles. The pines grew in rows, obviously planted by human beings.
"It's a tree farm," she said, and sat with her back to a tree. "Pines grow fast and straight, but they make the soil acidic so nothing else grows well. No one ever comes back here, so I sit here to be alone."
It was only the late afternoon, but here it was already twilight, shaded by a leafy canopy on pillars of wood.
"Wow, this is, like, really cool Sandra," I said and sat beside her against the same tree.
She giggled at me.
I frowned. "I sound like such a ditz, don't I?"
"No!" she said, laughing, "Actually, I think it's kind of cute."
She pulled a flask out of her purse and took a pull off of it, and handed it to me.
"I don't usually, um, drink," I mumbled.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized, "look, I can just put this away."
"No, it's okay," I interrupted, "I should stop being such a geek."
I took a big drink of it. Whatever it was, it burned all the way down my throat. I coughed and Sandra laughed again.
We sat quietly for a while, passing the flask, until Sandra took my hand.
"I've never actually met anyone... like us... before."
"I haven't found anyone either," I said, looking into her eyes, "I didn't realize that the first one I found would be so... beautiful."
There was a moment of hesitation as she searched my eyes. Then she leaned in and kissed me.
Suddenly, I was enveloped in her as her arm wrapped tightly around me, her hand down my shirt, her teeth nipping at my neck. Even the things that should have been painful dulled into pulsing heaven. I moaned, and she moved her lips to my ear.
"It was laced with codeine," she whispered and teased my earlobe between her lips.
As her hand went into my bra, looking for a nipple to play with, she stopped. Pulling out the stone, she gave me a strange look.
"What's this?"
I was warm, floating. "wishing rock," I mumbled grinning and kissing her.
"Oh yeah?" she replied mischievously, playing along with the 'joke', "Well I wish that..."
