Innocent Milf Ch. 25

Chapter 25

Sunshine and evergreen scent filled the air. Cary's warmth filled my arms. Anticipation filled my heart.

I could get used to waking up like this. Cary nuzzled against me, and then murmured something quietly in her sleep. I grinned into her hair. "Good morning, mon amour," I murmured. "What are you talking about in your dreams?"

Cary stirred and took a deep breath, her face scrunching adorably against a sliver of sunlight that had worked its way through a narrow gap in the top of the tent's tied-closed door. She pushed the heels of her hands against her sleepy eyes and stretched outwards. "I have to pee," she mumbled grumpily.

I chuckled and stood up. She growled and pulled the sleeping bag back up over herself. "No. Cold."

I pulled on my shorts--modern clothing to pack up and put things away again. "Which one do you want? Warm or outhouse? Because it's too early to have both."

Gray eyes pinned me in place blearily. "Not fair." She slowly kicked the sleeping bag off herself, revealing nipples hardened by the morning chill and goosebumps along her arms, legs, and belly. Despite her eyes being open, she groped for her clothes as if she were still asleep. I watched her with affectionate amusement until she tried to put her left arm through the head hole of her T-shirt and got stuck.

After helping her into her shirt, I handed her a pair of flip-flops. She grinned sleepily and kissed me. "My hero. Back in a minute."

"Ha. No way. You're not the only one who has to pee. I'm coming, too." I untied the front flaps of my tent and we walked into the lambent blaze of a Colorado sunrise over the nearby mountains. Cary's somnolent shuffle turned into a slightly springier step as we continued down the dirt path near our tent towards the campground restrooms. I had woken up beside Cary before, but this camping trip really helped me to understand that she wasn't exactly a morning person.

Her fingers laced into mine as we walked. "Thanks for coming to rescue me from the 'bear' last night," she said. "Now that I've slept it off, I think maybe we have some things to talk about later. After we get back--I don't want to embarrass Jack by talking about our relationship in the car."

I nodded pensively. I had been doing some thinking. Even just talking to Paul and Joe about my relationship with Cary had underscored the tendency of people to look at our age gap and decide that it was their responsibility to say something. And the assumptions that people made about Cary were beginning to annoy me--our unwanted visitor last night had been a perfect example.

Jack, Cary, and I all had breakfast together. Jack had made deliciously-spiced sausage links and eggs with buttermilk biscuits over his campfire, and we all munched on them together as we waved goodbye to various other campers packing up and leaving the site. I wasn't in any hurry, since we would only be driving another hour away--unbeknownst to Cary.

Cary went to pack up our stuff while I helped Jack break down his tent and jam it into the back of his parents' station wagon. I spotted her talking happily with a few folks who wandered by, but since she was at the other end of the road, I couldn't hear what she was saying. Still, nobody seemed to be wagging an admonishing finger at her or crossing their arms disapprovingly. Maybe the censure of other folks was mostly in my head.

By the time the sun had climbed high enough to be out of our eyes and beating down on our heads, we had everything packed up--with Jack's stuff towards the front of the car and my special surprise duffel bag closer to the door. I grinned, heart rate speeding up. Cary showed no signs of suspicion that I had anything planned.

"I'll drive first," Jack announced as Cary and I waved our last goodbyes to stragglers and to the booshway as she untied the cow skull from the gate to the campground. By this evening, there would be little evidence that this area had been a 19th century trading camp for a weekend and more. It made me feel a little melancholy, just as the end of Rendezvous always did.

Cary slid into the back seat, and I sat next to Jack. Instead of turning towards Durango, Jack spun the wheel and headed west on the road. The three of us chatted excitedly about what we had seen and done at Rendezvous, and plans for next year. Cary was already thinking about ways to update her impression for the next event. Jack and I occasionally exchanged conspiratorial looks.

It wasn't until we had been driving for nearly an hour that Cary sat up straighter in her seat and looked around. "Hey, are we taking a different way back?" she asked. "This doesn't look familiar."

Jack and I burst out in guffaws. "You'll see," I answered. "It's a surprise."

After that, Cary was full of suppressed curiosity and excitement, but tried to keep engaged in our conversation. She would occasionally drift off in the middle of a sentence, distracted as she attempted to work out where we were going and what we were doing.

We arrived at the regional park within another twenty minutes, and paid the entry and camping fee. Cary raised an eyebrow at me, but said nothing. The grin had not left my face since she had figured out we were driving the wrong way, and Cary's answering smile was curious but eager. Once we got to our campsite, Jack put the car in park. "Okay, you two get your stuff and get out. I'll see you in a couple of days."

Cary's eyebrows pulled down in worry. "Wait a minute. Days? My kids--"

"I already talked to your stepmother," I answered. "She agreed to watch Annie and Patrick for another couple of days. She's planning on it."

"Jennifer is in on this?" Cary's facial expression went from worried to stunned. "How--?"

I laughed. "I've been working on this for a while. Come on, we have some unpacking to do. Don't look in the green duffel bag--that's still a secret."

Cary turned towards Jack. "Obviously you knew about this, then."

"Some of it." Jack shrugged. "Whatever Matt's got planned, he hasn't told me everything. But I'm headed down to Mesa Verde to hang out. I'm going to enjoy a hotel with air conditioning and a shower. And a restaurant where I don't have to cook the food."

"There's showers here," I answered. "Right down the road. It's only a little bit of a walk." I double checked that all of our stuff that we needed was out of the back of Jack's station wagon. "All right, dude. See you in a couple of days! Take it easy."

Jack looked between us--me eager, and Cary timid but excited. He shook his head slightly, and shrugged. "All right. Have fun, you crazy kids." He did an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice. "I'll be back."

I pulled Cary's nylon tent out from under the roll of my canvas tent. "First thing's first: we need to set this up here," I said. Cary tilted her head inquisitively, and I answered, "This campsite needs to look occupied when the rangers come by to check."

Cary's expression became mischievous. "What are you planning?"

"You'll see." I extended a tent pole and slid it through the nylon tubes and loops in her little dome tent. "Come on, let's get this up and staked down. I want to get moving while there's plenty of daylight."

We talked about plans for the rest of the summer as we worked. Cary was excited for me to see her new dress that she had gotten while out shopping with Jenna, but wouldn't tell me anything more about it. She teased me with hints about my graduation present that I had still not received. And of course, every time our hands touched or we passed each other, we stopped to kiss.

It didn't take long to set up her little tent and stake it down. We had been given an orange plastic tag to indicate residency of the campsite when we paid at the gate. I made sure to hang it a hook of the little wooden post near the empty parking space for our campsite. Despite being solidly June and prime camping season, only a few other tents had been pitched up and down the row. I had chosen this site for its remoteness and low traffic; nobody would take much notice of us.

Satisfied with my survey, I picked up two old aluminum-framed trekking packs that Jack had salvaged for me from his former Boy Scout troop's supplies. Already packed inside was food and water in sealed, airtight containers that I fervently hoped would not attract bears or raccoons. There were a couple of other little surprises as well. I lashed my rolled-up canvas tent to the bottom of my pack with the nylon straps, and grimaced at its weight and bulk.

"Where are we going?" Cary asked, eyes shining.

"Adventuring," I answered. "Take this pack, and this duffel bag. No peeking."

After a quick pause to sunscreen up again and to spray ourselves with bug repellant, we were off. I had a map that I hoped I was reading correctly, and took us out of the back of the campsite with Cary following and humming excitedly to herself. A survival knife with a compass in the hilt was sheathed at my side, and I glanced at it periodically to make certain we were on course. As we hit the top of the small rise to which our campsite backed up, a mountain-valley vista opened beneath us, and Cary gasped.

A series of small streams crisscrossed in shining rivulets in the valley. Clumps of dark trees dotted the floor of the basin in little shaded copses here and there. Winding away to the east the valley cut between the feet of small mountains and flat-topped mesas, their feet covered in tough grasses and shrubs. Stony hillocks capped with gnarled, stubborn pines squatted in the valley.

"Oh my God. It's beautiful." Cary leaned against me. "Even if just this view is the surprise, it was worth the drive."

I grinned. "This is just the beginning. Let's go: you'll love the rest of it." We hiked until we found a trail that led down into the valley by a series of switchbacks and turns, taking about an hour. The trail itself was pretty old and disused--parts of it were completely overgrown with scrub and tall grasses. Cary and I each found sticks to poke and prod at any vegetation that we stepped too near: our experience hiking around the parks in town back home had prepared us well for this.

At one point, my stick actually roused a disgruntled snake, but rather than the diamondback I was always looking to avoid, it was some sort of harmless ratsnake. Still, that didn't stop Cary from shrieking a little and grabbing my arm. We both laughed in relief and continued down into the valley. Once we got down into the tall grasses and streams, I turned us towards the end of the valley back in the hills.

"Off trail from here," I said. "Not much of an adventure if we just walk where other people have already been."

Cary's adventurous grin reminded me of all the reasons I loved her, and I pulled her close--pack and all--for a deep kiss. She put her hands against my chest and made a contented sound. Releasing her, I twitched my head towards the end of the valley. "Come on. Not much longer."

That turned out to be inaccurate. We slowly picked our way through the grass and streamlets for almost another hour until we reached a likely spot. It was a flat area hidden behind one of the many rocky hills tumbled across the bottom of the plain, with tall grass-covered slopes reaching up on one side, a gurgling river a few hundred feet away, and the other slope of the valley as it narrowed up about a quarter mile after that. A half-circle of dark-needled evergreens partially obscured the entryway to the site.

Nobody would be able to see us here unless they came down into the valley and walked right by us. Or if they had a helicopter. But from here, we could still barely see the distant shoulder of the slope on which our decoy campsite had been set. I grinned and unslung my pack. "Here we go. Home sweet home."

Cary unslung her pack as well and stretched. "Oooh. That feels good to put down. So, are we really camping here?"

I nodded. "Here, have some water." I handed her a bottle I had filled, and she took a long, grateful gulp. I followed suit, and then dug out some flexible tent-poles for a dome tent and deposited them on the ground beside my canvas tent.

"Okay, I'll bite. How are we going to put up your canvas tent without its big wooden poles? As far as I know, you left them with Jack." Cary pointed at the lighter dome-tent poles. "Those? How will that even work?"

"I've been preparing," I answered. "It won't be as roomy as when it's set up as a wall tent, but we'll still have plenty of room to rest."

It was tricky, but between the two of us, we managed to fit the canvas tent over the smaller frame made by three long, arched poles whose ends were jammed into holes I'd dug into the ground and then filled in. Piling some likely rocks around their feet kept them still. Well, still enough. It only had to stay in place for a couple of days.

Inside the draped-and-lashed tent, we rolled out the groundcloth, and I pulled Cary's bearskin out from my duffle bag. She grinned when she saw it. Flaps tied closed, the tent was pretty secure; I knew it might get chilly up here at night, but I had some plans for that, too. "Time for the surprise," I announced.

Cary sat back into a squat on top of the bearskin. The corners of her mouth turned up in a shy, excited smile. "Okay, Mr. Mysterious--you've got me here, all to yourself for a few days. And you've gone to some trouble to make sure that we're pretty isolated out here. So now what? Are you going to finally tell me what else is in that bag?"

I smiled as well. "Welcome to your Stone Age Getaway. For the next two days, we're going to live out some of your sexy cavewoman books. Well, the fun parts from the later ones. Starting with the clothes." I opened the duffel bag and pulled out her costume. She gave me a wild grin in return and snapped them from my hand. She motioned for me to turn around. I did so and started to pull off my own modern clothing. Soon I was wearing a leather-and-rawhide kilt equipped with a few pouches and a leather strap like a bandolier.

I turned around in time to see Cary tying the last leather thong behind her neck; she was now wearing a bikini covered in rabbit fur and a leather-and-rawhide miniskirt--more Raquel Welch a la One Million Years B. C. than Clan of the Cave Bear. Both of us had simple leather sandals--I didn't need to be wandering around in the wilderness barefoot.

Food, soap, and water remained in the packs which I covered over with a blanket. The other surprises I took out. I'd pored over some old National Geographic issues, and looked at several books in the library, making some sketches until I was pretty sure I'd gotten this right. The first surprise was a stone hammer, its head lashed to a split wooden handle with heat-shrunk rawhide. Two "knives" were little more than six-inch-long obsidian chunks whose edges I had painstakingly chipped on either side until they made a nasty, serrated edge. I had carefully wrapped some rawhide bands around the bases and covered them in simple leather sheaths for carrying.

Cary whistled. "Holy cow. You must have worked forever on these! Did you make the clothes, too?"

I nodded. "I had to wear a spray-painting mask and goggles to work with the obsidian. The guy at the rocks and minerals shop thought I was crazy, and I was sweeping and vacuuming up bits for a while. I had to buy a new vacuum bag," I rolled my eyes ruefully, remembering the perforated mess I had inadvertently made as razor-sharp volcanic glass-shards shot into the bag of my parents' vacuum at home.

Cary laughed. "Wow! You really did your homework!"

"Oh, I've got more," I said. "I borrowed a bunch of Sascha's Foxfire books. She thought I was crazy, too. But in a fun, benign way. I wanted to get some time with just the two of us and no distractions." I touched her cheek, and she nuzzled against my hand, smiling happily with her eyes closed. "We've spent so much time trying to either tiptoe around with our relationship, or arrange our time around work or friends. I just wanted us to have a day or two completely on our own."

Cary sighed in complete contentment. "That sounds perfect. You're wonderful. If I'd known that you were planning a vacation within a vacation, I would have brought some more things for relaxing."

I held up her sketchbook and pencils. "I brought my Walkman and some music, and a few books. We can take a break from prehistory when we want. But mostly just us enjoying each other. Why don't we start by making a firepit?"

Cary stood and wiggled her hips suggestively. "Sure you don't want to visit the 'Valley of the Horses' first?" she smirked.

Even though I thought that the Jondalar character in Valley of the Horses was a horny dumbass whose only redeeming feature was his giant dong, I appreciated how much sex played into the plot. And the fact that Cary had all four books told me she appreciated it in some measure as well. I grunted in mock-caveman style and grabbed Cary's wrists, pulling her towards me. She shrieked and laughed, falling into my arms.

Flipping her miniskirt up and pulling her panties down took no time at all. She found the drawstring on my kilt and yanked it free. I knelt behind her and pushed her onto her hands and knees. Cary chuckled. "Oooh. Cave-Matt takes charge."

We'd had sex from behind before, but this time felt much more visceral. Maybe it was the spontaneity of it, but within just a couple of thrusts, Cary was groaning and pushing her wonderful, round bottom back against me as I plunged deeper. Her breathing came sharp, in time with her rocking back and forth.

I let go from her hips with one hand and reached underneath to squeeze one of her swaying breasts, rolling the nipple back and forth a little between my fingers. She had goosebumps, and I wondered if she was picturing a scene from the novels. I braced with one leg and bent forward, nibbling at her ear. Cary squeaked and then instinctively clapped a hand over her mouth.

A breathless laugh escaped me. "It's okay. There's nobody around us for literal miles. You can be as loud as you want."

"You just--uuuhhh--you just like hearing me make noises," Cary moaned.

"Of course," I replied, speeding up the pace just a little. The slippery heat around my dick was increasing, and Cary's pumps back into me were getting shorter and sharper. She had fallen forward onto her forearms, and rocked back and forth on them.

It was only a few minutes before she started to shudder. "Oh, God. Matt! Matt!"

It wasn't quite simultaneous: Cary came first, in spasms that made her arms shake. I reached forward and cupped under her shoulders to keep her upright so that she didn't collapse face-first into the bearskin rug. As she tightened around me, I could feel myself lose control. Successive spurts inside her made Cary howl helplessly and jerk in my arms. Her sounds of primitive pleasure echoed from the stony peaks a hundred feet or more above our tent peak.

Content, I pulled out and helped her to stand on wobbly legs, like a fawn finding its gait for the first time. Cary grabbed my shoulders and leaned into me. The loose waves of her auburn hair drifted over her face and against my shoulder. Her breath had evened out, and she was still trembling a little. From time to time, I could feel a faint twitch from her, and realized that she was still getting "aftershocks."

"Well," she said with a breathless little chuckle. "I guess I can check that off of my sexual fantasy list."

I grinned. "I'm glad 'getting pounded by a caveman' was something I could help with."

Cary blushed. "All right, 'Jondalar.' Let's rinse off in the stream and get a firepit started. I bet you have ideas about how to keep warm tonight, but fire would also be nice. Then you can show me what else you have planned for our getaway."

We spent a few hours setting up our little home-away-from-home. After we had dug out the firepit with a rudimentary shovel and put rocks in a ring around it, we did some exploring. As the stream twisted and turned, it made little ponds populated by some sort of frog that we could hear but not see. Hawks soared overhead occasionally, in search of prey. And always, a light breeze.

Wearing nothing but a kilt and sandals certainly gave me an appreciation for the texture of things as we walked. Cary's eyes were huge and delighted as we rounded each new corner or discovered some new little treasure of nature. She glowed as if discovering every stone, sapling, or colorful flower for the first time, and constantly trailed her fingertips over the waving tops of tall grasses.

I found a big yellow flower and picked it, working it into her hair as she smiled adoringly at me. Both of us had found likely fallen branches, and now used them as primitive walking sticks after stripping off a little bark in the handle area with our "knives." With only leather sandals between me and the ground, I found myself paying much closer attention to the terrain.

"Magic," Cary breathed. "This is just magic. Thank you so much."

Enraptured by watching her lithe barely-dressed form and the muscles moving under her skin, I was content to just keep wandering until we got tired. I had to remind myself that this was still a higher altitude than home, and we needed to keep hydrated. Once we arrived back at camp, Cary went for her sketchbook. I left her alone for half an hour to get the images down on paper while I went whistling around to gather deadfall for a fire. I hoped that the stony hillock that sat in front of our camp would keep people from up on the ridge from noticing our fire; I didn't want to get told off by angry rangers.

As I returned with an armful of uncomfortably rough and pointy firewood, I could hear Cary humming happily to herself in our tent as she sketched. It took me a moment to recognize it as Someday My Prince Will Come from the old Disney Snow White. I smiled, happy at her happiness. I let the firewood fall to the ground, and started to arrange it into an easy-grabbed stack. I had already taken some of the omnipresent dry evergreen needles that carpeted the area underneath the pines and spruces combining with scrub oak to further screen our campsite from outside observers.

Now would come the hard part. I had built the bow-drill style fire-starter based on a couple of the books I'd read and nearly blistered my palms practicing it in the backyard. I had brought matches just in case, but that felt like cheating. It took nearly half an hour of fiddling with it to get some of the dry pine needles to catch a spark enough to start smoldering. Cary came out to watch me and murmured her approval and admiration as I worked.

"Wow. You weren't kidding about doing this caveman-style. How long have you been working on this?" The note of approval in her voice made me want to succeed all the more.

I shrugged. "Since our walk in the park the day after Ty's party." I grunted as the pine needles smoked, and I cupped them in my hands, as if protecting them from predators. I slowly moved the growing heat into the middle of the firepit and stacked some tinder on top of it, holding my breath. To distract myself from potential disappointment if I had to start over again, I looked at Cary, flecked golden with the light of the late afternoon sun. "So, tell me about your name. Why Caryatis?"

Cary's nose crinkled. "It always feels like I'm a little girl in trouble when somebody uses my full name." She sighed. "My mom loved Greek mythology. I think it was part of her major in college. She always used to show me pictures of the statues and architecture, and read me stories out of D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. Caryatis was another name for the goddess Artemis. Mom used to tell me that my name had almost been either Cassandra or Calliope."

I grinned. "I guess I could have fallen in love with a 'Cassie' or a 'Callie,' but the goddess of the hunt is a way better name for my wildcat. I'm glad you weren't named after a circus organ."

Cary looked wistful, and I wondered if I had said anything wrong. She caught my gaze, and shook her head. "It's okay. I just... it's been a while since I thought about my mom and being that age. Let's enjoy tonight." She jutted her chin forward. "Looks like the fire is starting to get going."

I looked back at the fire with satisfaction as it consumed the tinder, and I started to carefully pile some kindling around it. I had tried to get the driest wood that I could so that there would be comparatively little telltale smoke. As the fire grew, I laid some of the other pieces of wood around the outside of the ring of stones, so that it would dry thoroughly.

"All right," I said. "Time to go hunting." Cary's jaw dropped, and I laughed. "Just kidding. Do you feel like pheasant, elk, or trout tonight?"

"Pheasant?" Cary replied tentatively.

I retrieved two frozen pheasants from my sealed icebox, silently relieved that this was less weight to carry back with us when the time came to leave. Of course, since we had been at Rendezvous for days, even in a sealed box with cooling packs and regular renewal of ice, the pheasants had thawed. I handed Cary a long, straight stick.

We used our obsidian knives to whittle the ends of the sticks to points, and let them darken in the fire long enough to hopefully kill off anything living on them. I handed her a cool, floppy, headless pheasant. Cary made a face, but laughed. We both skewered our little birds and placed our sticks over the fire, propped by some makeshift bolsters. Cary leaned against me and sighed happily as we watched our dinner slowly cook.

"I can't tell you how amazing this is," Cary murmured, pulling my arm to wrap around her. "Nobody has ever done anything like this for me. Ever. Not in my entire life."

"Cripes." I shook my head. "That just makes me sad. You deserve to have fun and magic in your life." I gave her a little squeeze on the shoulder. "And raunchy caveman sex."

She snorted a laugh. "Ha. Well that I can say for certain is a new experience. And don't be sad. Except for my kids, you're the best thing that has happened to me. I love that we can do new things together and have adventures."

Noticing that she was starting to chafe her arms, I disentangled myself and stood. "Just a second. I'll be right back." I went to the green duffel bag and pulled out a sheepskin blanket. Not exactly prehistoric, but it was warm and looked the part. I settled it around Cary's shoulders as I returned, and she squirmed happily into the warmth. Dusk was starting to darken the eastern skyline.

By the time our pheasants had finished cooking over the fire, we'd had time to wash our hands in the stream. I got a few radishes and some handfuls of mixed nuts, and together we munched on our roasted fowl right off the spit, making dumb Flintstones jokes and talking about whatever came into our minds. Cary snuggled closer to me under the sheepskin blanket and wiggled her toes close to the fire.

"Here," I grunted. "I got you something." A couple of small sealed jars of finger-paint had been easy enough to carry, and I put them in her hands.

Cary gave me a wondering gaze. "Paint?"

"Yeah." I scratched the back of my head. "For cave-paintings. Or in this case, rock-paintings. I figured you'd like to try a stone age version of your creative outlet." I gestured to the mostly-flat back of the stony hillock at the edge of our site, dimly lit by our flickering fire.

Cary flung her arms around me and gave me a deep kiss, pressing herself into me. I could feel myself responding, but she pulled away before I could decide whether or not it would be safe to roll her into the grass beside the fire and pull her skimpy fur clothes off. Instead, she half-skipped over to the rock wall. I heard her make a pensive grunt. "I think I need more light."

I threw some of the dry sticks on the fire to keep it going, and gingerly took one of the already-burning branches by its unburnt end. Stepping carefully and trying to shield the flame at the end of it, I carried the flaming brand as a primitive torch, and stood by Cary's shoulder. "How about this?"

"Perfect." Cary dipped her fingers into the jar of red paint and started to slide them back and forth over the surface of the rock. At first, it seemed like she was just making random shapes, but as I watched, I realized that each stroke of her fingers was creating a pattern that eventually resolved into a monochrome, simple version of the day's events. Two human figures, one with wide shoulders and one with wide hips and the swell of breasts, walked down a hillside. Then they stood beside a large rock or mountain, arms in the air. Then a domed tent with twisted figures inside.

It took me moment to realize that it was me holding Cary by the hips and taking her from behind. I chuckled, and Cary squirmed a little. "Well, it's an important moment of the day," she said. "And this is probably going to wash away next time it rains, anyway."

The rest of the story showed us hiking with sticks in our hands, and then sitting beside a fire with lumps on spits. Cary stood back, hands on her hips, as she surveyed her handiwork critically. I shook my head in wonder. I couldn't have done this if I had been given hours, and Cary had done it in under twenty minutes as my simple torch flickered down into a blackened stump.

"You're really impressive," I said quietly.

Cary beamed and flapped her hands in an embarrassed way. "It's nothing much. Just some fun." I could tell she was pleased, though. She probably wasn't used to men complimenting her on anything except her looks. I wondered--not for the first time--what her earlier life had been like to make her so self-effacing and shy. Every time I considered asking, I bit my tongue, confident it would come out in its own time.

My reverie was broken as I noticed that she was streaked with finger paint that had gone unnoticed in the deepening gloom. I chuckled. "You're all splotched with paint."

Cary looked at herself and sighed. "I get so into it--the paint just gets everywhere. It doesn't matter if I'm using a brush or my fingers or knives--"

"Knives?" I sputtered. "How do you paint with knives?"

Cary smiled. "I'll show you some time. Want to come with me to the streamlet to wash this off before bed?"

Our clothes except for our sandals were duly deposited in the little domed tent, which you could almost imagine in the darkness was made of leather or hide instead of buff canvas. Naked, we walked to stream, arm-in-arm. We both hesitated before stepping in, certain that it would be freezing. Then we broke out in laughter as each of us realized that the other was waiting.

I took a bracing breath and waded in. It felt like getting smacked with an icy hammer--the breath left my lungs for a moment. I quickly scrubbed my hands over myself to try to dislodge any grime. Cary bounced up and down nervously on the shore. "Is it that bad?"

"It's pretty cold," I shivered. "Better hurry up and get in before you lose your nerve."

Cary gritted her teeth stubbornly. "Who are you talking to? 'Lose my nerve?'" With that, she rushed into the stream. By the light of the still nearly-full moon I could see her hardening nipples and goosebumps. Her shivering I could have seen with just a sliver of moonlight. I took a step towards her and started vigorously rubbing the paint off of her hands, her belly, her hips, her face. Cary followed my example, and within less than a minute, we were climbing back out of the mountain-cold freshet and jogging hand-in-hand back towards the comfort of the fire.

I wrapped us in the sheepskin blanket and we sat naked beneath it, pressed against each other for warmth as the fire slowly staved off exposure hypothermia. We kissed and cuddled and kept close until the fire died down. Then, dried and cleaner than we had been an hour ago, we clambered into the tent, tied the flaps closed, and got into the double-wide sleeping bag under the sheepskin blanket.

The sound of crickets and a mountain breeze lulled us to sleep.

* * * * *

The next morning we decided on trout for breakfast, so I cooked that while Cary sketched some more.

"What did you want to talk about that you didn't want Jack to hear?" I asked.

Cary sighed. "Oh, that. I guess now is as good a time as any. What sort of impression did you get from people at the Rendezvous about us?"

I grimaced. "A few different things. Judgment. Some of the women gave me a kind of 'shame on you' look or attitude. Instructor Joe tried to give me a similar talk to the one he gave you, but I politely shut him down. I already told you that Paul just assumed that you, me, and Jack were just trading back and forth. And of course, there was that asshole who thought he could just climb into our sleeping back with you and go to town."

Cary shivered a little, despite the warming morning sun. "Yeah. I got some similar comments or treatment. More than a few of the other wives there were giving me a sort of 'shame on you' attitude."

I laughed. "Other wives?"

Cary blushed. "Oh my God. Sorry. I didn't mean--I'm not trying to suggest--you just make me feel comfortable and safe, and it just slipped out."

The giant grin on my face must have allayed some of her embarrassment. "That's the sort of slipping out that I'm okay with."

A nervous laugh told me that Cary was still a little uncertain. "Well, anyway, some of the other women my age there accused me in a roundabout way of either robbing the cradle or of just getting some cheap kicks with you. And one or two of the guys made some... overtures. I guess more than one person there thought like our unwanted guest the other night: if I was sleeping with you, then maybe I was just easy."

My grin faded. "Yeah. I guess it's hard for people to think I have anything else to offer at this age."

Cary made a fist, fiercely indignant. "That's their problem, not ours. But I know Jack was talking to a few folks as well and trying to protect us. I guess I just wanted to make sure that you're still okay with this. Us being a couple could make things socially awkward for you. And I think we should let Jack know that he doesn't need to try to protect us anymore. It must be so hard for him."

I nodded. "No doubt. And you don't have to worry about me. With you, I'm happier than I've ever been. I love you, and I want to be with you for as long as you'll have me."

Cary nodded, smiling. Was that a glimmer of hesitation in her eye? I could have been imagining it. I wondered what specifically people had said to her to make her so concerned. A week ago, she had been really confident about our relationship. Maybe the judgment of peers whose opinions she respected was having an effect.

"We have a full day still before we need to pack up and head back. I brought us some prehistoric tools to play with." I stood and stretched. Out of the green duffel bag I removed a pair of leather slings, an atlatl, and an axe. "In the books, Ayla seemed like she was just sort of naturally good at everything. You probably won't be taming any cave lions or horses, but I thought we could take a walk and try out some of these stone-age hunting weapons."

Whatever sign of conflict I thought I had seen on Cary's face cleared instantly. We spent the morning trying to knock stones off logs with the slings, throwing my stone "axe" like a tomahawk and trying to make it stick into dead trees, and trying to hit targets with sharp stick "spears" flung from the atlatl. Cary was surprisingly good at using the sling. I was good at using the atlatl. Neither of us was good with the stone axe.

"This makes me want to try shooting things with a primitive bow," Cary remarked after she succeeded in finally using her sling to explode a small pile of twigs we had stacked up on top of a rock. "Did you read anything about that?"

I nodded. "Yeah, it sounded more complicated than I had time or experience to do. But I'd be happy to try some time in the future."

The highlight of our day was discovering ancient petroglyphs on the high side of a red-rocked mesa a couple of miles up the valley from our camp. Pale and worn with wind and rain, they were still visible beneath the shelter of overhanging rock. A few handprints, geometric patterns, and a figure with wings had painted here long ago. Cary and I stood in awe, arms around each others' waists as we realized that people had been walking these valleys for millennia.

I guessed the sounds of our lovemaking were not the first to echo from the tall hills.

We surprised several squirrels, chipmunks, scurrying rock lizards, and even a sleepy raccoon in our wanderings. My eyes constantly roved back and forth in front of us, on alert for snakes, red ants, or scorpions. Our sticks tapped in front of us like Dickensian blind beggars as we warned any snakes of our presence. I saw a few diamondbacks well off the trail, sunning themselves on the rocks.

Clouds began to gather on the horizon as the sun hit its peak, so we headed back to camp. We cheated and ate some granola bars and buffalo jerky that I had picked up at one of the stores on the way up. It had cost a little extra, but it was packaged in wide, flat strips so that it looked less processed and more primitive. Water purified with some tabs I had brought along and cooled with some of the remaining ice chips in was better than anything I could remember drinking. I again reminded myself and Cary to drink extra water at this altitude.

The sky grew grayer, and I suddenly realized that I should get the firewood under something to keep it dry if it rained. Cary and I scrambled to move it all into my green duffel bag in the tent. I hoped that no hidden bugs would decide to take up permanent residence in my bag, but that seemed like a problem for another day. We had just finished protecting the firewood when the first raindrops fell.

We sat in the tent and watched the rain for a bit. Cary's eyes shone, and with a sudden inspiration, she pulled at the strings of her fur-covered bikini. She gave me a secretive grin.

"What's up?" I asked, not at all displeased.

"Come make love to me in the rain," she said. "I've always wanted to. One more thing to knock off the list."

As Cary shimmied out of her fur-covered miniskirt, I undid the closures for my kilt as well. "Do you have an actual list?" I joked.

Cary colored. "Maybe. Shush. You just come out here." She made her voice comically deeper. "Ayla want Jondalar."

It was like nothing else I'd experienced. Being naked in the rain was strange enough, but the hypersensitivity that came with arousal as Cary and I embraced each other made every raindrop feel unusual and exquisite. The contours of Cary's body were even more bewitching to me as rivulets of water ran down her shoulders, in between her breasts, across her belly, and to her legs. She squashed against me, and the wind and water around and between us heightened every sensation.

Unfortunately, that included the tickling of grass under my back and butt as I pulled Cary down on top of me. She knelt and gave the tip of my penis a few quick flicks of the tongue, but then settled on top of me and started slowly grinding. My hands wandered from her hips to her breasts to the back of her head. Cary raised her arms above her head as she rocked back and forth, feeling the rain. Then she shifted her hips and leaned forward over me, placing her hands on my shoulders.

Her body blocked the rain from getting in my eyes at this angle, and gave me a great look at her glorious body. Her breathing was deep and slow, as if she was trying to pace herself. I grinned and helped position her hips, looking for that spongy spot I'd found when we were in the back of my car. It took some twisting, turning, and thrusting, but I found it after a minute, and it was as if an electric shock went through Cary.

Both of us were soaked now, and Cary frantically rode me. Her moans and shrieks were deadened by the falling rain and the occasional distant rumble of thunder. I couldn't help but think of my night with Sascha months ago, when the relationship between Cary and I had just started its first tentative steps towards something more than friendship. Even at the time, I had been wishing it was Cary.

Her orgasm made her shake, droplets shivering off the darkened points of her auburn hair onto my chest. Her smile was brighter than any lightning. As she caught her breath, I clamped onto her and rolled her down under me. Her eyes went wide, but her smile remained in-place and radiant. With a little adjustment, I was now kneeling in between her legs, in a great position to pin her arms--just the way she said she had liked.

Starting slow--she was still probably really sensitive from her orgasm--I pulled her hips into me as I thrust, and she groaned appreciatively. The rain was falling harder, and I was pretty sure the thunder was getting closer. It was hard to care about any of that, given the situation. A low, continuous moan rose from deep in Cary's throat, and I bent down to kiss her, hard. I took her lower lip between my teeth and pulled--just a little, without truly biting.

Cary's hands went to my back and butt, and I could feel her pulling me towards her so tightly that the nails bit. The intensity of things and the sense of mild danger as I saw a flash of lighting in the distance made me speed up and thrust harder. Just as I felt myself building to release, I grabbed Cary's hands and pushed them down into the wet grass above her head. She bucked beneath me.

Her eyes were huge, trusting, and pleading. I kissed her. "Do it," I managed above the sound of the rain and thunder. "Cum for me again. Do it."

"Ffff--ooooh. Matt! Matt, take me! I want you, all of you." She wasn't bothering to keep her voice down, and the urgency of her voice in the rain drove me into a passionate frenzy. She screamed in ecstasy as I spurted inside her, her hips writhing. I slowly released the pressure on her arms and trailed my hands down to cup her cheek. She made a hungry, happy mewling sound and pushed her hips back up into me as another orgasm shook her.

I stroked her hair. "Good. My Cary. Good girl."

She squeezed harder as I said that, and pushed herself into me. "Oh, God. It just keeps getting better," she sighed. We remained in bliss for a long moment. Then she giggled as water splashed in her face. "I'm getting blinded by the rain. And if we're not careful, we'll get stricken by lightning."

More concerned about heat loss, I stood slowly and helped her to her feet. We supported each other back into the tent and then collapsed on top of the bearskin. A thought struck me, and I pulled out some small towels I had packed in with our regular clothing. I had been planning to use them tomorrow after a real shower up at the campsite, but maybe they'd be dry by then again.

We knelt on the balding bearskin and toweled each other more or less dry while the sound of a torrent continued outside, accompanied increasingly frequent rumbles of thunder. I had camped during a thunderstorm before, but now that I was no longer in the throes of passion, I found it more disquieting. Once we were dry, we snuggled naked into the sleeping bag and held each other for warmth.

"I know this sounds corny," Cary murmured. "But I really do feel like I belong to you. All of me. Like we belong to each other. I've never felt like this before. I hope you know that, and know how special you are to me." She let her hand idly wander down to my groin. "And not own. I don't mean that. More like... like we're two pieces of a puzzle that fit together."

I thought about it. I had no interest in 'owning.' That sounded suspiciously like Eric's attitude. I agreed; it really did feel like we each fit the other perfectly, in more ways than one. I stretched happily. "I love you," I answered simply. It was true. In this moment, it was all I needed.