I felt something wet and warm on my forehead, a small amount of pressure, as I regained consciousness. I tried to open my eyes, but felt something liquid and heavy coating them, so I blinked a few more times before they gradually opened. A pair of dark eyes stared back at me and it took a moment to focus, the scenario so unexpected that it took me a moment to regain my senses. As I continued to stare into the eyes, I could feel something wet running from the top of my head down my forehead, across my nose and mouth, and down my chin. I reached my tongue out, touching the liquid, and tasted blood.
Refocusing on the mysterious eyes, I saw pink sparkles dancing in their depths as I slowly pulled my focus back, realizing that the eyes were connected to a stunningly beautiful woman. She appeared to be in her mid-40s and was leaning over me, providing an amazing view down the v-neck top of an almost sheer white tank-top covering a fantastic pair of breasts. As she saw me begin to regain consciousness, she leaned back and I realized she was perched on my lap, straddling me like I was her favorite pony. Her hair, black as the night with a bold pink streak running through it, cascaded down around her shoulders and she grinned as my eyes widened at her appearance.
Bright pink lipstick, matching the streak in her hair, highlighted lush lips that curved into a smile. As my eyes ran back up and down, I saw she was wearing a short black skirt that cascaded around our conjoined hips and that she clearly had no bra, judging from the thick nipples poking through the tank top. "I didn't know there were cougars in this part of the forest," I joked weakly from my position on the ground and was rewarded by a laugh. And what a laugh it was, a throaty chuckle that built into a crescendo of amusement, her breasts shaking as she did. I couldn't help but admire them as she laughed, not even bothering to be circumspect about the ogling, although an alarm bell was starting to sound in the back of my head. Something was wrong about this situation.
"You are such a flatterer, Tim. I'm so glad I found you," she said with a warm smile and a jolt of fear ran through my mind. How did she know my name? Also, I couldn't feel her sitting on me - in fact, I couldn't feel anything, just a vague pins-and-needles sense from my body. Right as my mind latched on to that fact, she pressed a finger to my lips, "Just breathe, Tim," the woman said, leaning forward again, my eyes drawn once more to that enormous chest, the cavern of cleavage on full display, unable to escape the gravity of those gigantic gourds pulling my eyes away from hers.
"Are you happy with your life?," I heard her ask in a serious tone and I blinked in confusion, slowly dragging my eyes up to meet her dark ones, the pink sparkles continuing to swirl in the deep purple orbs as she gazed down at me. Those sparkles almost looked like hearts, but that would be weird.
"Uh," I began intelligently, "I do okay for myself. I've got about fifteen million in savings between my inheritance and coding income." She shook her head, black hair swirling around, as she cut me off.
"Not that. Are you happy?" I stared blankly at her, my mind trying to figure out what she meant. What else could she mean? I was good at mountain biking, regularly tackling some of the most challenging trails in the United States. I was a very well paid software consultant. How could I not be happy? "You know there isn't a single person alive who would have mourned your death? Not one, Tim. And that makes me sad."
I blinked, confused by the conversation we were having and distracted by the lack of feeling from everything below my neck. "I haven't found the right relationship," I tried lamely as she shook her head. I tried a different approach, "I was working on me instead." Another shake of the head and a disapproving frown. Okay, I'd try honesty and see where that got me. "I can't find a way to like people. I think I'm broken."
She smiled comfortingly, pleased by my answer and rewarding my openness, "What if I gave you another chance at that? It would be something completely different, something that tips your world upside down, shakes the foundations of who and what you are, but provides you the opportunity to be truly happy. To find people who love you for you, who want the best for you, and you for them. Would you take it? Even if I can't tell you the specifics of the deal, will you take that leap of faith? Or are you good, laying here, knowing this is how your story ends."
I stared at her, stunned by the words. I've always been a loner, even before my parents died. I wasn't particularly close to them, and I'm sure that hurt them. I think I mourned when they died, but I was mostly concerned about finishing high school and getting out on my own as quickly as possible, and the money from the inheritance and insurance only helped me on my way. After that, it was commissioning a custom camper van to get away from everyone, then the very mercenary and personality-less grind of solo contract software development. Even my hobby, mountain biking, was something I preferred to do alone, picking the least traveled roads, the most isolated trails, shunning people every chance I got.
And those least traveled roads ended here, with me laying on the ground in the woods of Oregon, a mysterious woman perched on my lap as I couldn't feel my body, telling me that nobody was going to mourn my death. On one hand, maybe that was okay - it's not like I enriched anyone else's lives by my presence. Deleting me from the world was, at best, a neutral. Sure, some shareholders might lose value by the hedge fund using a lesser software engineer whose algorithm wasn't as efficient as mine, but was that really the sum total of my contribution to the world? A 0.3% increase in shareholder value? Hardly a life worth praising.
On the other hand, I was the main character of my story, and I wasn't ready for it to end. And while this mysterious woman's offer was as vague as it could possibly be, wouldn't literally anything be better than dying? Immediately, my mind begin to helpfully conjure scenarios that were worse than death as if to prove "No, literally anything is not better than dying" and I blew out a sigh, trying to ignore the stray thoughts. "Okay, I'm interested. But who are you? What are you offering?"
She squealed with delight, grinding her body into mine as she wriggled with joy. It was the weirdest thing to watch, but be unable to feel, as she pressed her body into my crotch and laughed excitedly. "You can call me Fiona," she said as she leaned forward, lips brushing mine, "And I can promise you that it'll be like nothing you've experienced before. Just enjoy the ride." She kissed me and I felt myself responding, tongue extending greedily as she sucked it into her own mouth, her hands grasping the back of my head and pulling me close. She tasted like strawberries and bad decisions, and it's the first gentle thing anyone's done for me in years. My eyes rolled back in my head and I felt her lower me back down as the world went black once more, pink swirls chasing me into darkness.
---
Some time later, I regained consciousness, the sun having traveled further along the sky and the forest growing dim around me as I heard the faint song of birds and gentle noises of a quiet forest. I pulled myself to my feet, surprised at the relative lack of aches, and took stock of the situation. My bike was destroyed, the frame snapped in multiple places, the front wheel bent in half, and debris spread in an arc around me on the forest floor. My helmet was shattered as well, laying in blood-covered pieces on the forest floor, and my clothing was ripped, covered in blood and dirt in multiple spots. I glanced up, noting the hillside that I'd apparently fallen off. Fuck, I thought to myself. That was definitely a hundred-foot fall, if not more. How in the world did I survive that? And to be able to walk away from it with just a few bruises?
As I bent over to pick up the handlebars of my bike, I saw my bike computer blinking helpfully: "Crash Detected - Call For Help? Yes / No." With a wry chuckle, I reached out a gloved hand and tapped "No" and continued picking up the wreckage. I found the GoPro about a dozen feet away, the mount having snapped in the impact, and tucked that into a pants pocket. After a few minutes, I was satisfied that I had picked up most of my mess and started the walk back to my van. From what I could recall, it was probably going to be about four miles, and I wasn't going very quick while carrying everything.
A little over an hour and a half later, I finally reached the forest service road, following it back a half mile until I reached the cutoff where I had parked my van. It wasn't as private of a spot as I preferred, easily visible from the road, but it had good satellite reception which is what I had been aiming for at that point. In the lengthening shadows of dusk, I set the bike scraps on the hood of the van and stripped naked using my van's external hose to rinse myself relatively clean before climbing into the van. Despite the unusual lack of injuries, I had a pounding headache so I swallowed a handful of Motrin and climbed into my bed, the sheets soft and welcoming as I let the exhaustion and confusion of the day drag me into sleep.