Brenda
looked around the small cabin curiously. They had taken
care of the horses, and he was starting a fire in a small pot-bellied
stove in the middle of the room. There were two beds, on opposite
sides of the room. The wall opposite the door was lined with
shelves, that were stocked with canned goods, cooking utensils and
plastic containers for things like flour, sugar, salt and the
like. The bedding had been rolled up, tied, and suspended
from the ceiling when they got there. Bob had told her that was
to keep rodents from using it as a nest.
Cans
of beef stew were opened and put to warm on the top of the
stove. Bob whipped up dough for biscuits, that he put on a
griddle, also on top of the stove. There were little
packets of butter with the KFC logo on them, in a plastic
container. They ate with gusto as the sun went down.
"You're not such a bad cook when it's out of a can," Brenda teased him.
"Pretty hard to screw up beef stew," said Bob, mopping up the remaining sauce in his bowl with a crumbly biscuit.
"You did make the biscuits, though," said the girl, as if she was reflecting. "They're not bad either."
"You're too kind," he said dryly. "You look like you're feeling better."
The
memory of why she had looked feverish made her ... look feverish again
as she blushed, and her eyes went a little out of focus.
The tumult in her mind, that having orgasms had caused, came
back. Thankfully, the memories didn't cause that warm spot
to grow in her belly again. She was holding her mostly-eaten bowl
of stew in one hand, and almost unconsciously, she brushed the fingers
of her free hand against the crotch of her jeans, in an attempt to make
sure that the analgesic salve was still working.
It was.
Her eyes cleared as she realized what she was doing, and focused on Bob's eyes, open wide ... staring at her hand.
"Ohhhh,"
she moaned in embarrassment. "I ... the horses ..." she
stammered, trying to explain. "I mean when I was riding
..." Tears suddenly filled her eyes as the embarrassment
overwhelmed her. She held the bowl helplessly and streaks of wet
appeared on her cheeks.
Bob recognized her horror. He didn't know quite what to do either. He opted, like many men, for trying to "fix" it.
"Hey," he said softly. "It's nothing new. It happens to women all the time."
"Not
to meeee," she moaned. Then his comment penetrated.
"Really?" she asked hopefully. Maybe she wasn't as
perverted as she thought.
"All
the time," said Bob, uncomfortably. Now that he had spoken
about it, he wished he hadn't. "It's almost inevitable, I
guess. I mean what with the saddle rubbing ..." Now he was
the one who turned red.
"I couldn't help it," she moaned. "It just happened."
"It's OK," said Bob, for lack of anything else to say.
"Does it happen to men too?" she asked hopefully, wiping at her tear-streaked cheeks.
"Well ... no, I guess not." said Bob.
"Why not?" she asked. She wanted ALL humans to have the same ... problem. "I mean it rubs against them too."
This
was getting worse and worse, as far as Bob was concerned.
Here he was, alone in a cabin with a girl he was attracted to ... had
seen naked ... close up naked, in fact ... and they were talking about
sex. Well ... almost, anyway.
"I guess it's different," he said. "I mean, I guess men don't feel the same thing."
"Oh." She sounded disappointed. "The salve helped," she added.
"Oh," he said. "I guess that's good."
"You have no idea," she sighed. "I was afraid the last part of the ride today would kill me."
Bob
knew Dannie, and lots of other women, enjoyed riding horses, for the
very reason that Brenda was talking about. He had never talked to
a woman about it, though. It wasn't the kind of thing that came
up in conversation between men and women ... at least in his experience.
"It was that bad?" he asked. He was curious, despite his reluctance to be in the discussion.
"It
was horrible!" she said. She blinked. "Well, not
horrible, exactly. I didn't understand what was happening
at first. Then, when I did, it was kind of nice, but then I
couldn't stop it from happening. Nothing like that ever happened
to me before."
"You're kidding," he said. "You're what ... sixteen?"
She looked at him archly. "That doesn't mean I've done anything."
He
held up a hand. "That's not what I meant." She kept
still, and he felt obligated, somehow, to say more. "What I meant
was that most girls your age have ... I mean they know enough ... you
know ..." He stopped, before he could dig himself any
deeper. "Haven't you had boyfriends?" he asked frantically.
"Ricky
Thompson kissed me when I was thirteen," she said. "Since
then I've been too busy with the doctors to pay attention to
boys. I thought I already told you that."
"Wow,"
said Bob. Somehow he had assumed that all sixteen year old
girls were ... experienced. He wouldn't have been able to define
what he meant by "experienced" if he'd have tried, but his overall
impression was that a girl her age would know an orgasm when it
happened. He was mildly astonished that he had obviously been
wrong. In a strange way, that made the conversation less
threatening. He wasn't talking to a savvy, experience young
woman, who knew what she was doing on that horse. He was
talking to a girl who was as confused about things as he
was. It made him feel better.
"I'm sorry I didn't know," he said truthfully. "If I'd have known, maybe I could have helped."
She looked at him oddly. "I don’t think I needed any help. Buttercup seemed to be doing just fine."
He
flushed again. "I didn't mean THAT kind of help!" He tried
to think of something to say, but couldn't. "Doesn't it
make you uncomfortable to talk about this?"
Brenda
thought about that for a minute. While she had been
horribly embarrassed, in the beginning, to admit what had happened, his
reaction to that admission hadn't been what she expected.
She had expected him to disapprove, and call her a bad
girl. Didn't all adults think that any kind of sexual
behavior in a teenager was horrible? But he had only tried
to make her feel better. Again, he treated her like an
equal, rather than an adult, interacting with a youth. She
realized she liked that very much.
"Not
with you, I guess," she said finally. "You're different
than most adults. You don't talk to me like I'm a
kid. My parents would never even think about talking about
sex with me."
"Well, it sure makes me uncomfortable," he said.
"Oh," she said. She sounded sad. "I'll stop, then."
"You
don't have to stop," he said, feeling like he had cut her off at the
knees. "It just seems strange, talking to a sixteen year old girl
about ... things like this."
"You said I looked sexy," she said, maddeningly.
"Yes," he admitted.
"So doesn't that mean you were thinking about sex then?"
He looked at her helplessly. She was so direct. People just didn't discuss sex so directly.
"I'm not supposed to think about sex when I look at you," he said.
She looked at him craftily. "You didn't answer the question."
"What would your father think about me answering that question, if he were here?" Bob countered.
"My father isn't here," she pointed out calmly.
"Look," he said, frustrated. "What difference does it make, anyway?"
"You mean because I'm going to die," she said.
"NO!
That's NOT what I meant," he said almost angrily. "You're
you, and I'm me. I'm ten years older than you. I'm not
supposed to think about sex and you at the same time, and you're not
supposed to be asking these kinds of questions."
This
was what Brenda was more used to. Adults who shifted the subject
... made rules ... shut kids out. She was disappointed in
him.
"Back in the bear den," she reminded him. "You flirted with me ... kind of. And some other times too."
He
wanted to close his eyes. He wished she'd go away. "OK,
I'll admit I was flirting with you a little. I flirt with some of
the guests, sometimes."
"Why?" she asked.
"I don't know. It makes them feel good, I guess."
"How could you possibly know how it makes them feel?" she asked.
She
obviously wasn't going away. But her tone was serious, and Bob
heard that. He was reminded that this girl was doing some of the
last learning ... exploration ... living ... that she was going to get
to do. She was acting more like a woman, and less like a
scatterbrained girl. He felt calmer. If she wanted to
talk serious ... he could talk serious.
"I guess I don't," he said. "People flirt. It's fun ... isn't it? Doesn't it make people feel good?"
"It
made me feel good," she admitted. "But later ... when you
saw me naked, and you got ..." She stopped. He didn't
understand that she was referring to the bulge in his pants.
"Anyway, when I was on Buttercup ... and those feelings started
happening, and I felt really good, but I thought I wasn't supposed to
... that it's wrong."
"Some people say it's wrong," Bob admitted. "I don't think so. Especially now, in your situation."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.
He frowned at her. He remembered he was trying to talk to her like she was an adult.
"You
don't have a lot of time left," he said. "I don't think
experiencing ... things ... while you still can, I mean ... I just
don't think it's a bad thing." He realized he had been too
vague, and went on. "OK, I don't have a daughter, but if I did,
I'd want her to wait to ... do things like that." She started to
say something, but he cut her off. "That's not because it's
a bad thing to do. It's because it starts something that turns
into something else ... something even adults have a hard time
controlling. A young person shouldn't get into that situation,
because they start wanting to do thing they aren't ready for yet ...
emotionally, I mean."
"Like sex," she said.
"Yes,
like sex. Masturbation leads to sex - at least I think so -
and I wouldn't want my daughter to start having sex at your
age. So I'd tell her not to do that." He
frowned. "But with you, the situation is
different. You're not going to get to grow older, and
experience things slower. So that's why I don't think I'd tell
you the same thing. Does that make any sense?"
She
was staring at him, a strange look on her face. Her ears had
heard his words, which in his mind were about masturbation, but
her mind had gone beyond them. She hadn't though about "having
sex", just like she hadn't thought about "masturbation" in any serious
manner. His argument, if taken a little further, suggested
that ... having sex ... was something she might never get to do, and
therefore ...
"Brenda?" His voice broke her out of her reverie.
"I'm thinking," she said, wanting to go back to this whole idea about experiencing ... things ... while she still could.
She
looked at Bob. He had called her sexy. He had meant
it. She knew that because he had ... reacted. He had
flirted with her, and despite what he claimed about flirting just to
make women feel better, she somehow knew that a man wouldn't flirt with
a woman he didn't find attractive. She'd never felt the
urge to flirt with any male ... except him. She liked getting
that response from him. As she thought back on it, she decided
she liked that he had seen her naked. His behavior then ... both
times ... had made her feel very good too. In fact, she felt the
urge to flirt with him now.
"You said we could go to the hot springs," she said.
Bob was thrown by her sudden shift in topic.
"Yes."
"I want to do that."
"OK," he said. "I'll show you where to get in and out, and then come back up here to get the beds ready."
"No," she said. "I want you to stay there. We can both soak together."
Bob felt his nuts tighten.
"I don't think that would be a good idea," he said.
"Why?" she asked, again, maddeningly.
"Didn't we just talk about this?" he asked, exasperated.
"No,
you told me what you'd tell your daughter. I'm not your
daughter. Didn't you just say that it was all right for me to
experience things before it's too late?"
"I wasn't talking about getting in a hot tub naked with a man," he said dryly.
"This is supposed to be my last wish," she said.
"That's not fair, Brenda," he groaned.
"Why
not?" she asked. "I'm not going to rape you or anything. I
just want to feel all warm and still be able to talk to you. I
like talking to you."
"I'm
not worried about you raping me," he said. "But I'm a man,
and, as you already pointed out, I DO find you attractive. That
bothers me."
"It doesn't bother me," she said serenely. "Why should it bother you?"
"If you'd have gotten to go on a few dates, you'd understand," he said miserably.
"You're afraid you'll get an erection," she stated.
He stared at her.
"OK," he admitted. "Yes. I'm afraid I'll get an erection."
"You had one before ... when you saw me naked." She didn't smile.
"You weren't supposed to see that," he groaned.
"I did, and I wasn't upset then," she replied.
"You're the strangest girl I think I ever met," he said.
"No I'm not. I'm just the only girl you ever met who knew she was going to die soon."
In
the end, he negotiated with her, and she agreed that they'd go to the
hot springs dressed in their underwear. She dug a bra and
panty out of her saddle bags and, to his astonishment, took her
clothing off in front of him to put them on.
"What are you doing?" he gasped, as she dropped her jeans. She had already shrugged off her shirt while he wasn't looking.
"I'm
putting on my bra and panties," she said patiently. "You said
that's what you wanted ... right?" She pulled her panties on,
unaware that she was wiggling into them the same way she had when he'd
seen her do this before, and unaware that her breasts were jiggling
around like there were chipmunks inside them, trying to find a way
out. She was also unaware he was already stiff. "Besides,
you already saw me naked twice."
"It isn't the same thing," he moaned.
She picked up the bra and put it on. "I'm ready," she said, standing there.
"OK, wait outside," he said.
"Why?" she asked. "I'm going to walk down there with you, and I'll see you then, won't I?"
Bob
felt the urge to scream, but suppressed it. No wonder people
hated dealing with teenagers. Arguing wasn't going to do
any good, though, so he took off his shirt and sat on the bunk to kick
off his boots.
Brenda
watched with interest as his bare chest came into view. She'd
seen hundreds of males bare-chested, at the swimming pool, but this was
somehow different. Maybe it was the undressing part that
made it seem so much more intimate. She didn't know. She
smiled as he turned away from her to lower his jeans. He
dropped them on the bunk and his hands went to his groin.
"You go ahead," he said over his shoulder, his face red. "I'll follow you."
"I've
heard that men like to be behind a woman and watch her walk," said
Brenda grinning. She couldn't believe how powerful she felt
at that moment. She knew she should be terrified, but she
wasn't. He was acting like a little boy, and she felt older than
him, somehow.
"You're going to get yourself in hot water," he warned.
She laughed. "I certainly hope so! Isn't that what a hot spring is all about?"
Bob
threw up his hands in defeat. He'd just get it over with.
His prick was tenting out his briefs obscenely, but she'd asked for it,
and he was getting mad enough at this whole ridiculous situation to
strike back. He turned to face her.
Her eyes went immediately to the front of his shorts.
"Oh my," she said softly.
"You're not supposed to stare at it," he growled. "It isn't polite."
"Don't even try it," she said back. "Men stare at women's boobs all the time."
"Then you can stare at my boobs," he grunted. "Let's go."
The
walk to the springs wasn't far, because the cabin had been
intentionally placed close to them. Brenda smelled sulpher as
they approached, but it wasn't strong. She heard the burble of
water.
"It sounds like it's boiling," she said.
Bob,
relieved to think of something other than the half naked woman/girl
beside him, told her how the water bubbled up from a crack in the
ground, and sometimes looked like it was boiling, but wasn't that hot.
"You have to get in pretty slowly, or it will be very uncomfortable," he said.
"Hold
on to me, so I don't trip, this time," she said, joking. She was
surprised to feel him take her hand. It felt hard and rough in
hers.
The
pool wasn't as large as she'd expected. It was perhaps six
feet across, and more or less kidney shaped, with the water bubbling up
at one end. It overflowed across a four or five foot shelf
of rock that looked white, yellow and pink in the setting sun, and then
dumped into another smaller pool. There were four or five more
pools further down. She started to step in and his hand pulled
her back.
"This isn't the one for us," he said. "It's a little cooler further down."
They
walked, barefoot, across the rock shelf, and Brenda felt the sharp
crystalline nature of the colored stone. Chemicals in the water
leached out and adhered to the rock. He warned her to be careful,
because the rock was sharp. He took her to the third
pool in the series, and she saw why immediately. The rock
there had worn away in an odd manner, leaving shelves, almost like
seats, a couple of feet under the water. They were perfect for
sitting on, with deeper water in the middle, where one's feet could
float.
"The water saps your strength," he warned. "don't get off the shelf and try to swim."
She
dipped a toe in the water. She'd always liked her showers
hot, and the temperature was, to her mind, perfect. She stepped
down, feeling the delicious heat rise to her knees. Bob got in
more slowly. By the time he was standing on a shelf, she was
already sitting and leaning back with her eyes closed.
"Ohhhh this is just perfect," she sighed.
They
didn't talk for ten minutes. Both half floated in the
water, thinking about things in general. Brenda opened her eyes
and looked to see Bob looking at her. His eyes darted away, and
again, she felt the power of being a woman.
"Tell me about naming your horse 'Ranger'," she said. Then she changed the subject. "Where's Dammit, anyway?"
"She's out finding supper, I imagine," said Bob. "You might notice I didn't pack any dog food."
"Oh, sure. OK, now tell me about why Ranger is Ranger."
Brenda
reached behind her and unhooked her bra. She watched it float
away from her chest, collected it into a sodden mass, and reached
behind her to lay it on the rock behind her.
"What are you doing?" asked Bob, nervously.
"It's uncomfortable," she said. "Tell me about Ranger."
Bob
was about halfway through describing how, when the colt was born, he
was reading Lord of the Rings, and his favorite characters were the
rangers.
About then Brenda brought her panties up out of the water, squeezed them as dry as possible, and added them to the bra.
"I thought we agreed to do this in our underwear," he said.
"We
agreed to come here in our underwear," she said. "You didn't say
anything about what would happen when we were in the pool. Now
... Go on."
Bob
could see her breasts through the water. It wasn't
completely dark yet. Her nipples seemed to waver and move
as the water above them lapped around her upper chest.
"Well,
he was coal black, and he had spirit, even as a colt, and he just
looked like a horse a ranger would ride. So I named him Ranger."
"That's cool," she said, playing in the water with her hands. "Where's the soap?"
Bob blinked. In the uproar about all this, he'd completely forgotten about soap and towels.
"In the cabin," he said meekly. "With the towels."
"Oh, I see," said Brenda, as if it made perfect sense. "Where, in the cabin?" she asked.
"On the shelf, beside the Dutch oven," he said automatically.
"Be right back," she said.
With
a surge of water that washed over Bob and splashed in his face, she
heaved herself up and jumped up to the rim of the pool. Her
buttocks flashed at him as she took off running toward the cabin.
He heard her yelp once, when she stepped on something sharp, but she
never broke stride.
Her
return was more sedate ... and much slower. She walked
carefully across the thick grass, the towels held in one hand, and the
soap in the other. She used neither of them to cover her
body. She made it even worse when she stopped right above
him.
"Where should I put these?" she asked innocently.
Bob tore his eyes away from the tight slit that was her sex, and looked back down, ashamed that he'd gawked like a school boy.
"Someplace dry," he croaked.
"OK," she said, amiably.
When she got back into the water, she sat right next to him.
"This is so wonderful," she moaned, waving her arms in the water. They bumped into Bob's.
"Aren't you sitting a little close?" asked Bob.
"No," she said.
"I think you're sitting a little close." His voice sounded raspy.
"OK,"
she said. She didn't move away. "I saw the carving above
the door when I went to get the soap," she said softly.
Bob
closed his eyes. One of the ranch hands, in a moment of
idle mirth, had carved "The love nest" above the door in one inch
letters.
"Slim thought he was being cute," he croaked. He cleared his voice. "That's not why I brought you here."
"I know," she said, her voice casual.
"Now who's flirting with who?" he asked, trying to make her think seriously.
"I'm flirting with you," she said.
"Why?" he asked. He suddenly remembered her asking "why?" several times, and felt silly.
"Because it's fun. Like you said, it makes people feel good ... doesn't it?"
"I'm not sure what I'm feeling would be called 'good'," he said sternly.
"I
thought about what you said," she said. "About how, if things
were different, I'd grow up, and go on dates, and get ready for
things." She turned her head towards his. "But things
aren't different. I'm not going to grow up. I'll never meet
a man, and fall in love with him, and do ... things."
"I'm
sorry about that," he said. "Really." He turned, and her
face was right in front of his. "I wish things were different."
"They're not, though," she said softly. "I never thought about that kind of thing, until today."
"I'm
sorry I brought it up," he said. He was sorry too. He
had the feeling he had opened Pandora's box, and this young woman had
been enveloped by what came out.
"I
don't think I am," she said seriously. "This trip has been
wonderful already. I've gotten to see things I thought I'd
never see, and do things I thought I'd never do."
"I'm glad about that," he said.
"There are other things I never thought I'd get to do ..." she said.
"Brenda," he pleaded, "Please don't do this."
"Do what?" she asked. "I'm just talking."
"You're not just talking," he said. "You're sitting beside me, stark naked, hinting that you want to have sex."
"I think I do want to have sex," she said.
"Not with me," he said weakly.
"I don't see anybody else around here I could have sex with," she said.
"This
isn't what you came here for," he argued. "Your parents would
kill me if they just saw us sitting here, much less if we did what
you're talking about."
"My
parents aren't here. I'm here. You're here.
This trip is about fulfilling my last wish. My last wish has
changed a little bit. That's all."
"That's not a little bit, Brenda," he gasped.
"Are you still hard?" she asked.
Bob, thankful that the hot water had robbed him of his manhood, shook his head.
"Oh,"
she said. There was devastation in her voice ... the devastation
of a young woman who thought she was desirable, and just found out she
wasn't.
It cut into Bob like a knife.
"It's not what you think," said Bob impulsively. "It's the hot water."
He
wondered immediately if he should have just kept his mouth shut and let
her be in pain. He couldn't do this with her. It just
wasn't right. She'd be in pain, sooner or later anyway,
when he refused to grant her request.
"Oh," she said, sounding relieved.
He
turned to face her and, again, her face was only inches from his.
The only reason he couldn't smell her breath was because the fumes from
the water had deadened his nose somewhat. He had an errant
thought that it was a good thing, since he hadn't brushed his teeth
since breakfast.
"I know that you think you want to ... experiment," he said. "But I don't think you understand how involved that is."
She looked puzzled. "How involved could it be? People do it all the time."
"That's
not what I mean," he explained. "It's a very personal
thing, and if people try to do it without being in love ... well, it
just doesn't work very well. You could be very
disappointed. There's pain involved ... the first
time. It's not all roses and honey. Sometimes
there's even some blood." He meant to convince her that it
would be too uncomfortable to contemplate.
"I like you," she said. "Maybe even a lot."
"And when did this happen?" he asked. "You've known me a whole two days now, right?"
"I
know when I like somebody," she said, sounding injured. "You're
nice, and gentle. You tell the best lies I ever heard.
You're fun to be with and talk to. You don't treat me like
I'm a poor, sad, sick little girl. All of those things make
me like you." She took a breath and went on. "You're
obviously a gentleman. I wouldn't have imagined I'd have to
beg to do something like this. I thought men were horny all the
time."
"We ARE horny all the time," he grunted. "That doesn't mean we should act on it."
"Not even if it's my last wish?" she whined.
"You don't know what you're asking for," he insisted.
"Will
you at least kiss me?" She tried to put an obvious melancholy
look on her face. "Nobody besides Ricky Thompson has ever kissed
me ... not on the lips ... not like I'm a girl."
"That's
part of my problem," moaned Bob. "You ARE a girl. If the
law had been around today I'd have probably been arrested five or six
times just for my thoughts!" He blinked. Maybe he
shouldn't have said that.
"So you do think I'm sexy," she purred, pressing a naked breast into his arm.
"Of course I do," he groaned. "But you're a girl!"
"That's only because I don't get to grow up and be a real woman," she pouted. "It's not fair."
"What's
not fair is what you're doing to me." He pouted a little,
himself. "You want to take your breast off my arm?" he added.
"No," she said. "I want you to touch them."
"Brenda!" he croaked.
"Well?
I can't help it. I learned how to be horny today. Your
stupid horse TAUGHT me!" she said, pulling away. She sulked
for a few seconds. "Come on, Bob ... just a few kisses?"
"I'm
trying to explain that just a few kisses will get me going," he said,
exasperatedly. "I'll want to do more than that."
