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From: jubal@flash.net (Jubal Harshaw)
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories
Subject: "Passages in Life"  (M/F, M/F, First Time) <*>
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 1997 16:53:46 GMT
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Standard disclaimers:  This story is a work of fiction, no character
within is a depiction of any real person, living or dead.  No event
described within exists outside of the writer’s imagination.  It
didn’t happen.  But it could have.
Copyright retained by the author and this post is for private use of
the reader only.  It is not to be published in any form whatsoever,
including being made available on BBSs, without the express prior
consent of author.
If this piece of fiction is indeed considered illegal for you to read
or possess in your jurisdiction, please destroy it immediately.
Passages of Life
Chapter 1
I knew I was driving to fast.  I just didn’t care.  The old Ford was
never designed to slide around the back road curves this way.  I
wasn’t paying attention to where I was going while taking turns at
random.  I’d been driving these roads long before I actually put some
slight stain of legality on the whole thing by getting my license.
Growing up in the ‘country’ had some positive aspects, and learning to
drive at the age of twelve was one of them.  All those years of
practice had left me able to anticipate the corners and turns without
actually thinking about them.  Most of the time, that is.
After nearly turning the car broadside coming around a sharp corner,
my sense of mortality reasserted itself and I stopped my Speed Racer
imitation.  A Ford XL coupe simply isn’t the Mach 5, after all.
Trying to push triple digit speed on these roads was going to cause me
to wind up as a greasy streak on the road.  I didn’t have a clue what
to do about the situation I was in, but I knew that wasn’t a
particularly clever solution.  Eighteen years of life had left me
completely unable to handle what was happening.  What had happened at
the party, to understate the situation, was not what I expected.
After four years of high school, sex was as much a mystery as it ever
was; although, in my defense, spending my adolescent and teenaged
years in a small town outside of Pittsburgh probably had that effect
on most people.  And it wasn’t actually sex per se, but everything
that surrounded it.  Much to my adolescent disappointment high school
never turned out to be the sexual free for all that I had been led to
believe.  I was shocked and dismayed in high school to find out that
there was a complicated series of tribal rituals that preceded any
potential sexual encounter.  Not that I’ve ever found anonymous one
night stands to be an enthralling prospect.  Why sleep with someone I
wouldn’t want to talk to?  OK, so I was a weird teenager who was made
weirder by parents who would answer any serious question I asked,
whether it had to do with religion, sex, or anything in between.  They
never treated me as anything less than an intellectual equal, and
never ever tried the old ploy of "Believe this because I tell you to
believe."  All in all, it added up to a male high school student who,
while interested in sex, wasn’t all that worried about it.  I knew
that it would happen when it happened, and until then, The Widow Thumb
and her four daughters were the cheapest dates in the world.
I knew I had to sort this out, and I couldn’t do it while I was
driving.  But I didn’t feel like going home quite yet.  Passing a
small intersection, I slowed enough to be able to read the signs.  To
my surprise, I realized that I was only a few miles from one of my
favorite spots to sit and think.  I threw a quick left, pulling off
the road I had been driving on for the last 20 minutes.  A few more
miles brought me to an almost invisible turn off.  It wasn’t exactly a
dirt road, there being a good deal of gravel mixed in as well, but it
was deeply rutted and very rough going.  A series of ‘S’ curves
climbed a steep hillside, and as I crested the top, I slowed and
pulled to the side of the road.  The road looked out over a broad
shallow valley, dotted with homes and a few farms.  If it had been
better known and the road a little better maintained, it would have
been the ultimate "Parking Place" for my fellow students.  As it was,
hours would go by without a single car passing; you’d never know you
were less than 30 miles from a metropolitan center.  Pittsburgh might
as well be on the other side of the moon, both from the surroundings
and from the attitudes of most of the residents.  I turned off the
engine, sat back in the corner of the bench seat and driver’s side
door and tried to think my way through everything I knew about sex,
love and all that came between.
Chapter 2
I learned about sex the way I did almost everything, unconventionally
although at first glance it sounded so stereotypical as to be
laughable.  The previous summer, I had been browbeaten into doing a
favor for one of my numerous cousins on my mother’s side of the
family.  This particular cousin, James Lathan, was thirty years older
than me, more an uncle than cousin, and was also the minister at our
church, a situation that complicated my life enormously.  My own
religious beliefs were not profound but my parents and I attended
church services without fail.  It was ‘expected’, and so we were
highly visible members of my cousin’s church.  Since he was my cousin,
James felt quite at ease cornering me after the service one Sunday in
late May.  Our church, along with a number of others, ran a summer
camp about 50 miles away in the Pennsylvania ‘mountains’.  Called the
Rocklands, I had made the expected journey into exile for one week
every summer from the time I was in first grade until the end of
junior high.  It was, I assumed, an average camp, with acres and acres
of old growth forest, streams and steep valleys dotted with huge
boulders dropped when the glaciers retreated eons past.  Rock
climbing, hiking and assorted outdoorsy activities made up the bulk of
the entertainment.  This year, however, there was a problem.  
When James told me the camp was scrambling to find enough counselors,
the warning lights flipped on in my mind and I started to look around
for an avenue of escape.  Unfortunately, he had thought this out quite
well, calling me into the changing room while he got out of his
vestments.  As I listened, I realized it wasn’t quite as bad as I had
initially thought.
The camp wasn’t very large, with perhaps 250 campers and 25 to 30
counselors in residence.  The kids would come for a week, arriving on
Sunday afternoon and staying through Saturday morning, giving the
counselors one night off each week.  The majority of the counselors,
in fact, would be volunteers, staying for two or three weeks before
being replaced by others.  I would be one of ten or fifteen paid staff
members who would be there the entire summer.  And the money was
something I could certainly use.  I didn’t have an after-school job,
and had been unhappily contemplating a daily forty-five minute commute
to the nearest mall in order to work retail during the summer.  The
salary for counselors was three thousand dollars for the summer, more
than I would make working retail for forty hours a week for three
months.  An added benefit would be that there simply weren’t many
places to spend the money I would earn.  The camp was out in the
middle of nowhere resulting in an enforced fiscal responsibility.  All
in all, it sounded like a pretty good deal.  Still, I hesitated.
Although I didn’t have many friends, there were a few people I wanted
to spend time with over the summer, and being exiled to Gaul would
make that virtually impossible, no matter what the financial rewards
were.  And there was one other point to clear up.
"Aren’t you afraid I might lead the poor innocents from the path of
righteousness?"  I asked.  James and I had gone head to head in quite
a few discussions over the past few years.  Sitting around a dinner
table and talking over current events, theology and the like was a
favored past time in my family.  I liked and respected James, even
though I seldom agreed with him.  We usually argued more for sport
than any real attempt to sway the other person.  But since it was a
church related camp, there might be conflicts.
"Not really, Dave" he replied with a smile.  "There are plenty of
others who will be happy to lead the Bible lessons, even if they won’t
be quite as interesting as yours might be."  
I told him I’d think it over and give him my answer within a couple of
days.  Over the next few days, I mulled the possibility over, talking
with those few friends I would truly miss and asking my parents
advice.  Everyone seemed to be in agreement.  It was a good
opportunity to salt away some extra money of my own.  And my parents
thought, in the way of all parents, it would be ‘a good experience’
for me.  That was probably enough to seal my fate.
So after school ended for the summer, I spent a week getting ready for
my adventure.  I packed and gathered together what little outdoor
equipment I had.  I debated with myself about whether or not to take
my car or have my parents drop me at the camp.  I had no idea how many
others were going to have cars, and I wasn’t thrilled with the
possibility of being the camp chauffeur.  Oh well, I could always be a
prick and say "No!"
When I arrived on Saturday morning, I was greeted and directed towards
the dorm.  Since the counselors would be moving from cabin to cabin
throughout the summer, we kept most of our extra belongings in the
dorm.  We were assigned two to a room, and I quickly dropped my things
in my room.  I found my new roommate already unpacked and relaxing in
his bunk.  I made my introductions and found that his name was Paul
Randall and he had just finished his junior year at Ohio State.  We
were pretty well matched, surprising me a little.  His motivations for
working at the camp that summer were an echo of my own.  He needed the
money and he had attended the camp when he was younger as well.  He
was something of an outdoors enthusiast, but I told him I wouldn’t
hold it against him.  Paul was a fair example of the other counselors
as well.  Most of the rest of the staff would be made up of college
students and recent graduates.  College aged, perhaps studying child
psychology or a related field, they enjoyed the outdoors and liked the
idea of spending a summer (or two or three or more) as a counselor.
This was Paul’s second year at the camp, and he warned me that the
volunteer counselors who would be joining for a limited time were
something different.
"Most of us are our here because we enjoy the outdoors and such," he
said as we waited around for everyone to trickle in.  "The fact that
it’s a church camp is basically incidental.  If we weren’t here we’d
probably try to get jobs at some other camp, it’s just not a big deal
to most of us."  I could see where he was leading with this.  If I
really thought about it, I could even remember the difference in some
of the counselors I’d had from year to year.  "The people who do this
part time, though.  They’re much more wrapped up in the religious part
of it.  They can be a royal pain in the ass, you know?"  He paused and
reached into the small night stand that stood by his bunk.  He pulled
out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one.  "We’re not supposed to
smoke in front of the kids.  We’re really not supposed to do it at
all, but nobody bitches if we do it in here."
I shook my head and reached into my duffel bag to draw out my own
pack.  I had been a little worried that I was going to have to spend
my time sneaking away for a cigarette every once in a while. 
He grinned and went on, "Well, it’s good that they’ve put us together
at least.  The thing about the temps," he said, referring to the part
time counselors, "is that as long as you let them do their thing, they
usually stay off your case.  When they get that funny gleam in their
eye, just give them a wide berth." 
We spent the rest of the morning getting to know each other and
greeting people as they arrived.  By late that afternoon, everyone was
there and we all convened in the mess hall for the first of many staff
meetings.  The first week would be spent actually getting the camp
physically ready for the invasion of campers.  Although there was a
small staff, which was responsible for the upkeep of the grounds,
there was still plenty of work left to go around.  It turned out that
there would be a total of 16 full-time counselors, 8 guys and 8 girls.
I quickly realized I was the youngest of the permanent staff and after
a rather formal talk with the camp administrators, that this was the
first time they had ever hired a ‘minor’ for the position.  The
administrators, a painfully earnest middle-aged couple named Sam and
Lydia Brown, made it clear that "Reverend James" as they called him,
had done a great deal of convincing to get me this job.  I realized
the cupboard must truly be bare for him to put this much effort into
circumventing the standards of the camp.  During the interminable
staff meetings, which highlighted each day, the assignments were
hammered out.  Although there was a state law that precluded me from
being a ‘lead counselor’ due to my age, it really didn’t affect our
situation much since there were always two counselors for each
campsite.
The Rocklands was a coed camp, with campers broken into three
groupings by age.  Each sub-group was composed of between ten and
fifteen campsites, with boys and girls grouped together, but sleeping
in separate accommodations.  Glen Rock was composed of campsites with
two Adirondack-style lean-tos, one each for the boys and girls.  The
lean-tos were wooden shacks that had one wall replaced by a heavy
plastic covered canvas curtain and held up to 15 kids each.  Each
campsite was named for a bird, Eagle, Rave, Osprey, etc.  Being the
camp for the elementary school aged kids, it was located closest to
the center of camp, nearest to the nurse’s office, mess hall and pool.

Further out came Castle Rock, the camp for the junior high kids.
Unlike the younger children, these campers slept in actual tents,
albeit semi-permanent ones with wooden floors.  The tents were large,
and included bunks for up to 10 people.  These campsites also included
a picnic table near the enlarged fire pit.  Castle Rock was more
spread out and further away from the main buildings than Glen Rock, in
the case of some campsites, up to a half-mile away.  I was not looking
forward to being assigned to one of the outlying sites, envisioning a
long trek up for breakfast every morning.  Just as Glen Rock had,
there was a naming convention for these campsites, but instead of
birds, they were named after mammals, Wolf, Bear, Antelope, Deer and
others.  
The oldest campers stayed at The Tribes, a group of campsites over a
mile distant.  The campsites were made up of crude, but sturdy log
cabins and, of course, were named for American Indian tribal names.
Since they were so far out, they were largely self-sufficient, cooking
both breakfast and lunch for themselves.  At the center of the Tribes
was a small outbuilding that held a large refrigerator and the cooking
utensils they would need.  It also included a telephone to allow them
to get into contact with the main camp in case of an emergency.  In
addition to the tee-pees, each campsite had a canvas tent that covered
the picnic table, so they wouldn’t become soaked eating lunch; and
also a large sink and faucet so they could clean up the dishes.  Like
Glen and Castle Rocks, The Tribes’ campsites each had their own shower
and bath facilities. 
It was something of a surprise to think that I could actually end up
as a counselor to someone my age.  I seriously doubted the likelihood
of that event though.  Sam and Lydia were far to concerned about the
‘propriety’ of such a situation for it ever to come about.  Almost all
of the counselors were scheduled to work with one age group during the
entire summer, because of either preference or educational background.
Since I was both the newest and youngest counselor, I had been
designated as one of the ‘utility infielder’ of the staff.  There were
four of us, and we would fill in wherever needed, depending on the
demographics of the campers in any given week.  
By the end of the week, the camp was ready.  Physical labor has never
been one of my favorite activities, but at least I’m good at it.  The
fields had been mowed and raked and were ready for the campers
arrival.  Volleyball courts had been reconstructed and the pool had
been cleaned and readied.  It was early June and the sun hadn’t had
much of a chance to heat the water yet.  It was still decidedly
chilly.  Being big, strong and, most importantly, lowest in seniority,
I had been stuck with one of the more distasteful tasks, along with
the grounds staff.  I had spent most of the week riding round in with
them in one of the camp’s dilapidated pick ups, spreading several tons
of bark along the main paths that wound their way between the camp
buildings.  The pine bark smelled much better than what I was used to
shoveling with a pitchfork, but it was still exhausting.  The
groundskeepers were friendly and didn’t laugh when I showed up in the
morning stiff and sore from the previous day’s labor.  Well, they
didn’t laugh much.  By Friday, I was exhausted, thankful that I wasn’t
looking at a whole summer of that type of work.
Saturday was spent finalizing everything in anticipation of the
impending arrival of the first campers.  I’m sure the topics they
covered in the meetings were of vital importance, but I couldn’t
testify to the fact.  The previous week had really tired me out and I
found myself dropping off into sleep throughout the meeting.
Fortunately, I didn’t advertise by snoring, and if I did, Paul was
there to kick me in the leg before it got too loud.  Because I had
spent most of the week with the grounds-staff, I hadn’t had much of an
opportunity to get to know many of the other full-time counselors.  I
had usually finished the day by five o’clock, eaten dinner and gone
directly to the dorm to try to catch up on some sleep.  Paul had tried
his best to make sure I at least was introduced to everyone, going to
the extremes of bringing them all back to our room on some pretext,
simply to introduce me.  Unfortunately I was usually too tired to do
anything but murmur a greeting and collapse back down onto the bunk.
Hopefully, things would change tonight.  With the arrival of the first
batch of temps, (even I had come into the habit of referring to the
part time counselors in that way) Saturday night was given over to a
social mixer in the mess hall.  Although I thought it was charmingly
anachronistic, who was I to argue?  It wasn’t really, it was nothing
more than an opportunity to gather after dinner to talk and get to
know one another.  Hell, it sounded like a good idea to me, I just
hoped I’d be able to remember everyone’s names.
After the meeting broke up, I headed back to my room to put together
my stuff in order to move it down to my first assignment; Bear Camp in
Castle Rock.  Not one of the camps furthest out, but far enough so I
knew mornings were going to be a pain in the ass.  I put together a
week’s worth of clothes and gathered together everything else I
thought I’d need.  Then, since I didn’t have anything pressing to do,
I decided I could really use another nap.  The chairs in the meeting
really didn’t have enough back support to be comfortable.  And,
besides, who could really sleep with Sam and Lydia going on and on and
on all morning?
I didn’t wake up until Paul came in after dinner, I had been tired
enough to sleep through it.  Oh well, camp food was nutritious but
hardly a gourmand’s delight.  I had enough food squirreled away that I
knew I wouldn’t starve.  I needn’t have worried.  Paul noticed that I
was missing at dinner and had brought a plate back to the dorm for me.
I had about an hour to eat, shower and dress.  Plenty of time.  Paul
had told me previously that it was definitely a ‘come as you are’
event, very low key, so I took him at his word. However, I did make
certain to put on a decent shirt and the best pair of shorts I had
brought.  I checked myself in the mirror.  It wasn’t a terribly
impressive image, but not an embarrassment either, which is about as
good as I could have hoped.  I grabbed a pair of docksiders and we
headed out.  Most of the people had already arrived, but there were a
couple of stragglers walking along the path with us.  Jenny and
Melissa were roomed next door to us, so I had been able to get to know
them just a little better than most of the others.  They were college
friends who had decided to work at the camp together during the summer
break after their sophomore year at Penn State.  Jenny was short, no
taller than five feet.  With night black hair and olive complexion,
she wasn’t fat or heavy, so much as well rounded.  No matter what she
wore, it seemed as though she had been poured into the clothes instead
of pulling them on like us mere mortals.  Melissa was almost a foot
taller, with a slim athletic build and bright blond hair.  Unlike her
companion, Melissa was quiet, seldom saying anything, although her
bright friendly eyes suggested that there was much going on behind her
shy exterior. 
We caught up to them quickly and made our way to the mess hall.
Someone had done a nice job in arranging the lounge area.  There were
several couches in the room, each with accompanying arm chairs so
people could sit and talk.  A table along the wall held refreshments,
a simple selection of chips, dip and soda.  Everyone seemed to have
arrived, including the new temps.  Sam and Lydia introduced the temps
to us, after which people broke up and started the process of getting
to know each other.  The new counselors were older, by and large.
Most of them were in their early thirties, although I saw an older
couple, introduced as "Mr. and Mrs. Weaver" who were probably pushing
fifty.  There were also a few who looked about the same age as most of
us.  I’m not very good at ‘pressing the flesh’ but I did my best,
wandering around, trying to make sure I introduced myself and have a
few words with everyone.  Most of the volunteers knew my cousin and I
was able to use that as a starting point for some social chatting.
While moving from one group to another, I saw Paul standing in the
corner, talking to Jenny.  He seemed to be keeping her entertained,
although I started to get a little curious about just what he was
saying after she burst out laughing.   
After about an hour of this, I was satisfied. Finished making my loop,
I was ready to grab a big glass of coke and find an unused corner
somewhere.  I had done what I had come to do; I could now put names
with each of the faces, and had some rudimentary idea of what each one
was like.  I wasn’t too worried about the temps; they’d be gone in
three weeks in any case.  But knowing the names of my permanent
coworkers was definitely in order.  I realized that it had taken well
over an hour and that I was in dire need of a cigarette.  I looked
around but couldn’t find Paul, who was the only other smoker I knew.
He and Jenny seemed to have disappeared when I wasn’t looking.  It
wasn’t a tremendous surprise.  Even though I had spent most of the
week either busting my ass dumping pine bark or asleep, I was aware
Paul had been after her since 10 minutes after she had arrived.  
I slipped out the door onto the porch.  Darkness had fallen, unnoticed
by most of us as we were occupied inside.  I walked to the railing,
looking out over the paths that wound their way up to the mess hall.
Fumbling in my pocket, I pulled out a cigarette and lit it quickly.
The feeble glow of the matched was enough to light up a huddled shape
a few feet away.  Oh shit.  I held my breath, hoping it wasn’t someone
who would give me problems about smoking in ‘public’.  When the person
turned to look at me, I could make out Melissa’s face in the dim
light.
"You’re not supposed to do that," she said lightly.  She was sitting
on the steps up to the porch with her arms wrapped around her legs.  I
hadn’t noticed before, but it was getting chilly.  
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I responded.  "I know.  But after spending an hour
working the room, I need it.  What are you doing out here?"
She looked back over her shoulder at the doorway, "I just wanted to
get away for a minute.  Too many people in there."  She grinned.  "You
looked like a pro in there.  Going to be a politician when you grow
up?"
"Not hardly, I think I could get used to the lying and corruption,
it’s this part I that I’d have a problem with."  That garnered a deep
rich laugh.  Hey, any time you can make a woman laugh a happy laugh
has to go down as a win, particularly a beautiful woman.  "But
considering my position here, I’ve got play the game.  Sam and Lydia
are less than thrilled about me being hired, even I can tell that
much. 
"How’d you like that introduction?  ‘And this is our newest and
youngest counselor, David Taylor.’  I felt like the newest exhibit at
the zoo!"  I blew out a cloud of smoke.  "I’m going to kill James when
I get back home."
"Who’s James?"
"My ever loving cousin.  He’s the minister at our church and he’s the
one who got me into this mess.  He convinced me to come up here a
couple of weeks ago, and I assumed that there wouldn’t be a problem.
He’s got a nasty habit of leaving out the bad news.  Even in his
sermons," I finished with a laugh.  I field stripped the butt and
stuck it into my pocket.  No sense leaving any evidence.  
"You’ll probably do all right.  This is my third year, and it’s not
all that tough.  The kids are pretty good, for the most part.  Where
are they starting you off?"
"In Castle Rock.  Sam said he thought that would be better than Glen
Rock, less worry about nightmares and homesickness."  I had to agree
with him there.  "And besides, I’d rather deal with snotty seventh
graders than a homesick third grader.  At least I know how to stomp on
them.  Hell, I remember when I was one of them!"
She giggled.  "It’s really not that bad."  She paused for a moment,
and then slid the knife in, "Most of them don’t have your imagination.
Or sense of grandeur, I’d imagine."
"Huh?"  Perhaps if I hadn’t spent the previous week in mind-numbing
physical labor I could have lied my way out of it.  As it was, I
didn’t stand a chance.
"My older brother Kerry used to be a counselor here, before I started.
He was your counselor at least twice that I know of, maybe more.  And
he used to regale the family with his descriptions of your
adventures."
At that point, I started to get a funny feeling.  "Kerry?  Kerry
Blackman?"  Oh god, don’t let it be Kerry Blackman.
"Bingo."
Oh no.  "Please tell me you’re the only one who knows."  Please,
please, please.  As a seventh and eighth grade camper I had been,
well, something of a handful.  A handful my ass, I was a nightmare.
During those two years, the Rocklands had experimented with kids
staying more than just one week.  It varied from camper to camper, and
depended on how much room there was available.  I had spent a month
and a half at the camp each summer during those two years, and after
about the second week, I started to get bored.  I suppose I could
blame it on seeing Meatballs too many times, but I knew better.  I was
just that kind of guy.  The experiment didn’t work out.  For the first
time, I wondered if it was partially my fault.
"Well," she drawled.  "I’m probably the only one who knows that you’re
the same person, but there might be one or two of the temps who were
here that long ago."
I breathed a sigh of relief.  It was over four years ago, and I didn’t
really look much as I did back then.  I was several inches taller and
almost fifty pounds heavier.  It looked as if I might be able to
escape by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.
"But," she added, almost as an afterthought.  "Some of the tricks you
pulled are legendary.  If you hadn’t been sleeping the whole time, you
would have been around to hear us talking about them.  That stunt with
the administrator’s cabin is particularly well respected."
I groaned.  "You’re really enjoying this aren’t you?"  I hadn’t
planned on any of this.  Everyone was pulling stunts like that back
then.  Admittedly, mine were a little more spectacular than most, but
I really hadn’t counted on them being incorporated in the
institutional mythology.
"Hey, I’m just letting you know what’s going on."  She was enjoying
it.  She had a huge smile on her face.  I wasn’t so distracted by my
impending doom that I didn’t notice she had a beautiful smile.  Her
face was one of strong features, all angles and planes.  She missed
being beautiful by less than a whisker.  But when she smiled all those
too strong features softened into something breathtaking.  "I really
want to know how you pulled that one off.  Kerry talked about it for
weeks after he came home that year."
I lit another cigarette to stall for time.
"Got an extra?" she asked.  "I didn’t bring mine.  I was planning on
quitting this summer, since I don’t have a car; it’s pretty far to
pick up another pack.  I thought it would be the perfect time."
"Yeah, sure."  I shook another one out of the battered pack of
Marlboros.  "Let me know if you need a ride somewhere, I did bring my
car.  And let me know if you want to snag a cigarette.  I buy them by
the carton so I don’t have to leave every day."
"Thanks," she said exhaling.  "But you didn’t answer my question."
Damn.  "It wasn’t all that tough.  The administrator, Jim, always left
the camp on Saturday nights.  And since half of the counselors also
got time off, they were spread a little thin.  Six of us slipped away
in the middle of the night and did it in less than four hours.  We
were back in our bunks by six in the morning."
"I know all that.  I want to know how you did it."
"You’ve got a nasty streak of curiosity in you, Melissa, you know
that?"  It wasn’t a big secret, but still.  You’re never supposed to
give away how you did a trick.  And I wasn’t about to reveal my
secrets here.  "All right.  Let’s go for a walk.  I don’t like the
idea of someone overhearing this.  It’s bad enough as it is."
She agreed and we started walking down away from the mess hall, not
really in any direction in particular, just away from everyone
gathered inside.  While we walked, I started my story again, this time
with all the details.  "I had planned this for about two weeks.  Jim
always had a meeting with the counselors who would be staying on the
grounds that weekend on Friday evening, right before Vespers.  Another
guy, Tony, and me cut out of Vespers on the Friday we were going to
pull this.  We headed into the woods from the chapel, and worked our
way back to the camp.  We were from different cabins, and had guys
ready to tell our counselors that we were sitting over with the other
guy’s cabin if they asked.  
"You’re dead-set on getting this whole story, aren’t you?"  I asked.
She nodded and slipped her arm through mine.  "OK, we went back to
Jim’s cabin and went inside.  He never locked it except when he was
going away for the night.  So anyway, we went in and checked the
windows.  They all locked as well, but we found one in the back room
that didn’t look like it had been opened for five years or more.  We
unscrewed the slide lock, but left it in place so it looked as if it
was still locked.  I doubt he even checked it before he took off for
the night.  
"The roving patrols the counselors made after lights out were
stretched a little thin because so many of them had the night off.
After we got back to our cabins, we just waited until everyone was
asleep and then slipped away.  There were six of us who actually did
the work and about ten more who were in on it and acted as lookouts.
If the counselors woke up and started getting suspicious, they were
supposed to distract them.  That part was a little shaky."  I paused
for a minute.  "Hell, it didn’t work, we just got lucky, which is just
as important.  In any case, we got to the cabin and sent the smallest
guy through the window.  It worked as pretty as you please.  He snaked
up through the window and then opened the locked door from the inside.
The furniture wasn’t as hard as it sounds.  It was hardly Chippendale,
was it?  The only hard part was getting the dresser out of the door.
After that, it was easy.  Tied a couple of canoes together to ferry
everything out to the swim platform and then put everything in the
right position.  After that we went back to the cabin, fixed the lock
on the window, locked the door from the inside and we were done.
Everyone got back into their own cabins without getting caught and,
voila!  The perfect locked room mystery."  
I stopped dead, finally realizing something.  "Kerry told you, didn’t
he?  That’s how you know!"  In the morning when our dastardly deed was
discovered there had been absolute pandemonium.  Everyone assumed I
was responsible, because of my previous track record, but no one could
prove it.  No one but one.  During one of the trips from the cabin,
carrying the furniture, I saw a shape standing back off the path in
the woods.  At first, I thought it was one of our lookouts, just
keeping out of the way.  After I looked the second time, I knew we
were toast, unless of course, one of our lookouts had sprouted an
extra foot and grown a beard in the last twenty minutes.  It was Kerry
Blackman, my counselor.  We looked each other in the eye, and I
started to sweat.  Then he just smiled, shook his head and turned
away.  I waited all day for him to say something to Jim.  It never
happened.  I don’t think anyone else saw him standing there that night
and he never mentioned it to me afterwards, but there wasn’t any doubt
that he knew exactly who was responsible for that one.  
"That son of a bitch," I laughed.  "He kept his mouth shut at camp and
then gets home and spills his guts.  Oh lord."  
"I told you, he really admired that one."  She was laughing along with
me as we strolled along the paths.  "He told me about seeing the faces
of the other counselors when they strolled up to the lake that
morning.  It must have been priceless."
"I wouldn’t know," I said catching my breath.  "I was so damned tired
I slept in and missed all the fun.  By the time I got up there,
everyone was just sitting around admiring it.  I just sat down with
everyone else and started asking dumb questions.  Fortunately, none of
the other guys felt like boasting, at least that year.  It didn’t
matter, really.  Everyone knew who had been in on it, they just
couldn’t prove it."  As we walked, I looked around to figure out where
we were.  During the last week, I had gotten reacquainted the main
paths of the grounds and I immediately realized that we had made a
large loop, and were now nearing the dorm again.  
"I just hope I won’t have to deal with anyone quite that…
enthusiastic, especially in my first week."  For the first time, I
became aware that we had been walking for quite a while, and her arm
had remained comfortably in mine the whole time.  
"You won’t," she said with some certainty.  "You’re going to get
mostly sixth graders for the first couple of weeks.  They’re not as
stupid as you might think.  Well, not quite.  Sam and Lydia want to
make sure that you can handle yourself before they throw you to the
wolves, so to speak.  You’re going to have to actually pay attention
to what’s going on, and not bury yourself in a book."
"And just how do you know that?  What the hell is going on around
here?  And how do you know what kind of kids I’m getting?  Sam didn’t
even tell me what cabin I’d be in for this week until this afternoon!"
Things were going very badly for me.  I’m not used to people knowing
more about me than I do about them.
She smiled a knowing smile.  "You really don’t remember me, do you?"
I stopped in my tracks, almost pulling her off balance.  "Sorry about
that," I apologized immediately.  I was wracking my brain, trying to
figure this puzzle out.  I hate puzzles.  I turned to look at her,
"How about a hint?  C’mon, this isn’t fair.  My brain is fried from
this week."
She was definitely enjoying this.  And enjoying it way, way too much
for my comfort.  "A hint?  OK, I’ll give you a hint.  Are you ready?
The hint is: Linda."
"Linda?  Oh God," I groaned.  Linda Lathan was James’ oldest daughter.
All of a sudden, it clicked.  Last Thanksgiving.  One of our family
traditions was to have a huge get-together for both Christmas and
Thanksgiving.  On this occasion, Linda happened to bring home her
roommate from school.  Guess who.  Back then she had been a brunette
with her hair cut very short.  She had also been wearing glasses
which, in combination with everything else, served to change her
appearance markedly.  
"Well… shit."  I shuddered when I thought of what she must have been
told.  
The look on my face must have been a winner, because Melissa once more
dissolved into gales of laughter.  She tried to say something but it
was a lost cause.  We must have made a helluva picture, the two of us
standing there in a pool of light, me with a look of dumbfounded
horror on my face and Melissa in overcome with hysterical laughter.  
"Oh God," she moaned after another moment or two.  "I’ve been wanting
to do that for the last week, and hadn’t had a chance.  I knew that
you didn’t recognize me right away, but I thought you’d catch on
before this."  She was still giggling in fits.  "Once you told Rev.
Lathan that you would be working here this summer, he called me
directly to tell me.  When I got here, I talked to Sam and Lydia right
away, suggesting I be paired with you for at least the first few
weeks, just to ‘show you the ropes’ and all.  They’ve been watching
you pretty closely the last week, just to satisfy themselves that
you’d be able to handle yourself.  Today they told me that we were
going to be paired until further notice," she finished proudly.  
Well, that sounded good… and bad.  Tonight had proven, at least to me
that we could get along.  For all the laughter and tricks that she had
played on me; she hadn’t been malicious at all.  It was ‘all in good
fun’, except that this time, it really was.  But I was just a little
nervous about what else she might be holding up her sleeve.  By the
time we started on our way again and actually made it back to the
dorm, we found that the ‘meet and greet’ at the mess hall had broken
up and most of the people had trickled back to the dorm.  
Everyone, at least all those who had made it back seemed to be
gathered in the common room, sitting around and having a general BS
session.  The topic of the evening was the new temps that had arrived.
We had spotted some possible problems in the group this evening.
There were a few who seemed to be determined to turn what we, and most
of the kids, thought of as a simple week of summer camp into an old
fashioned spiritual revival meeting.  For those who had been here
before it was expected, but I was still surprised, even with the
warnings from Paul.  We spent a while talking about the best way to
deal with it.  The general consensus was to cross your fingers and
hope you weren’t assigned with one of them.  Not terribly helpful, but
it was the best we had.  From across the room Melissa caught my eye
and gave me a wink.  I was more thankful than ever that she had pulled
that rotten, underhanded and sneaky trick to get Sam and Lydia to put
me under her wing.  After that, the discussion moved on to the latest
trends on the various college campuses they all attended.  Since I
wasn’t going to have to worry about that for at least a year, by which
time the information would be hopelessly out of date, I didn’t pay
much attention.  After a few moments, I made my way quietly back down
the hall to my room.  
It didn’t look like Paul had made it back at all.  I hadn’t seen him
in the common room and our room seemed undisturbed.  I shrugged and
hoped he wasn’t lying on some patch of poison ivy somewhere.  I knew
that love was supposed to hurt, but I didn’t think it was supposed to
itch.  I shook my head and got ready for bed.  The afternoon nap I had
taken had gotten me through the mixer, but I was fading fast.  Morning
would come soon enough, and with it would come my first experience as
a counselor.  
Chapter 3
When I woke, it was to Paul’s rather abrasive voice.  Well, at least
he had made it back at some point during the night, which was nice to
know.  I changed my mind about the thought I had the night before, I
hoped he had spent at least some of the time in a poison ivy patch.  I
don’t wake up particularly gracefully in the best of circumstances,
and this definitely wasn’t the best of circumstances.  Muttering a few
vile imprecations in Paul’s general direction under my breath, I
dragged myself up out of bed and went in search of caffeine and
nicotine.  The latter was easy to find while the former required a
short walk to the nearest soda machine.  I never developed a taste for
coffee and Coke served as my morning wake up call.  After a cigarette
and a Coke, I decided that I might want to live after all, and hauled
myself into the shower.  That improved things to the point that I was
feeling vaguely human again.  Paul looked about as bad as I felt,
although I assume he had more cause.  On our way out we stopped and
picked up Jenny who couldn’t seem to yawning.  Melissa met us on the
porch and we trouped towards our awaiting breakfast.  Unlike the three
of us, Melissa seemed absolutely full of energy and enthusiasm.  And
much less reserved than she did yesterday.  I made a mental note to
ask her if she had been so quiet just to make it more difficult for me
to recognize her.  From what I knew of her, it seemed likely.  
After breakfast, we broke up into the groups we’d be working in for
the next week.  We got a list of the campers we’d be responsible for
in the next week, along with an itinerary for group activities that
would, with minor modifications, be in place for the rest of the
summer.  The next few hours were spent by having the permanent staff
move our gear down to the individual campsites, a quick planning
session with Castle Rock’s Head Counselor, Raymond Boyd, and getting
ready to greet and sort the kids.  The first cars pulled in right
around noon and after that, it was a steady effort simply to keep
track of all the new faces.  The grounds crew had the responsibility
of directing parking, but each of the counselors took their turn,
while their partner pulled double duty of not only gathering the new
arrivals, but also keeping track of those they had already managed to
round up.  Melissa and I were fortunate in that all of our kids were
there by three in the afternoon, which left us several hours to have
all the kids settled in by dinner.  Some other counselors weren’t so
lucky.  One pair was just hustling their kids into their campsite when
we passed them on the way to dinner.  Those are the breaks.  
Dinner was a revelation.  I never realized as a camper how little a
counselor actually got to eat.  We were far too busy trying to make
sure that the salt stayed in the shakers and not in someone’s drink
and that the food stayed on the plates and didn’t end up flying
through the air to become an interesting, if temporary piece of
abstract art.  If this was an indication of what was to come, it was
obvious that I would be losing a lot of weight.  My own camping
experience was recent enough to remember all the nasty little tricks
that people had played on each other, although I had never been one to
go in for the low level terrorism that passes for practical jokes
among adolescents.  I was always after bigger game.  But perhaps I was
just a special talent.
We managed to get through dinner without any major mishaps, and even
back to the campsite in relatively good order.  Watching Melissa
interacting with the kids throughout dinner and afterwards was
impressive.  Our styles in dealing with kids were very different.  She
had the gift of being able to convince them to do almost anything she
wanted.  She had them eating out of her hand within an hour.  I think
her physical attractiveness was a definite asset when it came to
dealing with adolescent boys in particular.  After about an hour of
getting to know each other and basically goofing around it was time
for evening services.  Generally, they lasted between a half hour and
forty-five minutes consisting of a few songs and a ‘sermon’.  Very
informal, it was mostly just a gentle reminder to the kids that this
was, in fact, a church camp.  
After Vespers, we returned to the campsite, making sure that everyone
could find their way, even in the dark.  Unusually, the majority of
our campers were making their first trip to the Rocklands and they
weren’t familiar with the layout of the camp.  From my own experience
a few years ago, most of the kids were veterans and knew the camp
better than the counselors.  It was a minor additional headache with
which we had to contend.  The kids had been surprisingly well behaved,
considering how worked up they all were.  We had a couple of hours
left till lights out, and to occupy the time we fell back on the old
camping standards: a roaring campfire and songs.  There was some
rowdiness to be worked off, but that was to be expected.  By 10:00,
everyone was pretty much ready for bed.  The camp rules were that
campers had to be in their cabins or tents and in bed by 10:00.  They
didn’t say they had to be asleep by then, and it would have been
laughable to try to enforce it in any case.  The campfire itself was
within earshot of both tents, so Melissa and I sat on the logs
surrounding the fire, talking quietly and listening for either too
much noise, or too much quiet from the tents.  Either one could be a
sign of something going on.   
The first week passed in a blur for me.  The morning schedule for the
Bear campers included summer camp standby of arts and crafts, swimming
and sports, where the kids had their choice of volleyball, archery and
canoeing, among others, depending on what interested them on that day.
The sports period also served to give the any counselors who weren’t
acting as instructors time away from the kids each day, which I found
was more important than I had realized.  After breaking for lunch, the
afternoon was usually taken up with long hikes along the extensive
trails that looped through the hundreds of acres of forests.  The
trails were clearly marked, but since many of the kids were unfamiliar
with The Rocklands, keeping track of everyone required our attention.
At some point in the afternoon, we were supposed to have a Bible
lesson of some kind.  For us, it usually consisted of ten minutes of
reading a particular passage and then asking them "Does anyone have
anything to say about this?"  Since the kids were even less
interested, there were seldom any takers.
After dinner, there were usually activities of some kind.  More sports
or even a huge game of Capture the Flag that incorporated most of the
Camp.  With all the land at our disposal and the number of
participants, the game could continue for hours.  The counselors were
normally drafted as umpires, making sure the players didn’t stray too
far down the valley in their attempt to sneak past the enemy lines.
Melissa and I usually volunteered to take the position furthest down.
We spent the time talking and listening for the crash of kids moving
through the underbrush.  As long as they weren’t heading too far down
the hill, we left them alone.  If, on the other hand, they were making
a beeline for the river, we gently mentioned that they might be far
enough down already, although very few of the kids ever made it to our
position.
Our conversations had grown increasingly personal as the days went on.
Although she already knew a great deal about me, she, in turn, opened
up and told me about herself.  At 22, she was a year older than most
juniors were, having taken a year off following high school.  Her
college major was psychology with minor in child development, which
helped to explain both why she was here, and why she was so damned
good at it.  Her senior year was coming up in the fall, and she wasn’t
sure what she wanted to do afterwards.  She was torn between the urge
to get out of the academic setting and get to work, returning at some
point for her masters, or continuing straight through without a break.
I was at a loss.  She actually seemed to want my opinion on the
matter, much to my surprise.  
"What the hell would I know about it," I asked in amazement.  "You
seem to forget that I’m still in high school!"  It was Friday night,
and the kids were already in the tents.  We had talked about this
before, but that was the first time she had come right out and asked
me my opinion.  
"No, I haven’t forgotten that," she said quietly.  "Well, not in the
last fifteen minutes at least.  And that has nothing to do with it
anyway.  Linda is one of the smartest people I’ve met, and after
rooming with her for three years, I should know.  And she’s told me
time and time again that you’re about three times smarter than she is.
That means something."
"Shit.  Linda talks too much."  It was embarrassing.  I knew I was
intelligent, but this was different.  I was used to the strange looks
I got at school and I could even absorb the half-insulting,
half-admiring label of ‘geek’ I tended to hear as I passed people in
the halls.  Even though I could more than hold my own in almost any
conversation with ‘adults’, I couldn’t imagine one asking me for
advice about their personal lives.  It was as if my cousin James had
asked me if he should take the new job with a larger congregation.
What the hell did I know about it?
We were sitting together on the ground in front of the fire, using the
log benches as back rests.  I wasn’t exactly uncomfortable sitting so
close, but I wished I had a better idea of what the hell was going on.
When she reached over to take my hand, I got even more confused.  Of
course, I was aware of exactly how attractive and sexy she was, but it
hadn’t overwhelmed me.  I was more confused about where the
conversation was going than anything else was. 
"Dave, the fact that you’re in high school doesn’t have anything to do
with it.  You’re not exactly the average high school kid, anyway, are
you?"  I had to agree with that.  So far, three years of high school
had done little but demonstrate just how weird I was in comparison to
everyone else.  "And even if I didn’t already know from what Kerry had
told me, the little details Linda provided, once we figured out that
you were the same person, convinced me," she giggled.  
I wanted to take the time when I got home and have a nice long talk
with Linda about this entire situation, preferably one that involved
some measure of revenge for her good-intentioned indiscretions. 
"When Linda invited me home for Thanksgiving, I wasn’t planning on
coming, until she mentioned that it would be a full family gathering
and that you would be there.  How could I resist the opportunity to
actually meet you in the flesh," she asked coyly.  "And you didn’t
exactly disappoint."
I thought back to what had happened during the dinner.  By our
family’s standards, it had been comparatively uneventful.  But the
after-dinner discussion had been more in keeping with the family
traditions.  As I recalled, James had made an offhand remark about his
disagreement with a newspaper article that dealt with the possibility
of a genetic cause for homosexuality.  Once the gauntlet was thrown, I
could hardly restrain myself.  He and I had gone head to head once
again on the causes, effects and morality of homosexuality.  Not the
average discussion for a holiday, but we weren’t an average family.
James and I had gone back and forth, with most of the other adults
sitting back and tossing in leading questions whenever it seemed as
though the conversation was slowing.  
"Well," I said slowly, "that wasn’t exactly a typical example.  He got
on my nerves that night.  He does that fairly often," I said with a
snort.  As I thought about it, it actually was a typical example.  I
liked James, he was intelligent, well read and well spoken; but he had
a tendency to be lazy in his thinking, and that drove me nuts.  He was
too willing to accept the teaching of the church without considering
the ramifications for my tastes.  
"Hey, you would have convinced me," she laughed, "if I hadn’t already
agreed with you!  I won’t say that I had a crush on you, but I did
seriously wonder about what might have happened if you were a couple
of years older."  She said that very quietly, almost as if she was the
one who should be embarrassed.  Turning towards me, I saw the light
from the dying fire dancing on her face.  "And this week hasn’t done
anything to change that."  With that she leaned over and brushed her
lips across mine.
I simply sat back and enjoyed.  I didn’t have a clue what was going on
and for once, I didn’t try to act as if I did.  I allowed her to take
the lead, since I wasn’t sure what I was even supposed to do.  No
matter what the childhood memories might tell you, a few times playing
Truth or Dare and Spin the Bottle does not prepare you for what to do
when the kiss actually becomes meaningful.  And I was quite aware that
this was, in fact, a ‘meaningful’ kiss.  Even though I didn’t quite
know just what it did mean, it didn’t stop me from enjoying it.
We kissed more deeply, her mouth opening slightly to take my lower lip
between hers.  Following her lead, I started to kiss back, instead of
just receiving.  I was simply trying to duplicate what she had been
doing to me while my mind was racing to catch up.  Our tongues began a
gentle exploration of each other’s mouths, moving and drifting to our
own rhythms.  Unfortunately, I was making it up as I went along, not
having any previous experience at it.  Things seemed to be proceeding
fine, although I didn’t really have anything with which to compare it.
I raised my free hand and reached across to stroke my fingertips along
her face as we kissed.  My other hand was pinned between us, tightly
gripped by hers.  I was rewarded by a small moan that escaped her lips
while my fingers moved along cheek and down her jaw.  Her arm snaked
back around my neck, pulling us tightly together while her mouth began
moving with more urgency.  Since my first attempt at trying something
new went so well, I decided to continue.  My hand drifted back along
her cheek, slowly dragging my fingertips along her skin.  I slid it
down along her neck, just brushing the collar of her heavy sweatshirt
and then back to the nape of her neck.  Her long blond hair was pulled
back into a ponytail, exposing a soft crescent of skin.  It was one of
the few areas on my body that was ticklish and I hope that she was
just as sensitive. 
She was.  I started kiss more softly, jumping from one part of her
mouth to another, brushing my lips along one corner, then nibbling at
her bottom lip.  Her breath began to come in short gasps and her
tongue flicked out, trying to anticipate where my mouth would be next.
It was that night that I developed a habit I doubt I’ll ever break.
With very few exceptions, I always kiss with my eyes open, watching
how my partner reacts to what I’m doing.  How else can I know whether
or not I’m doing it right?  From what I could see, I was.  Her eyes
were tightly closed, and when I pulled away slightly in order to move
from place to place, her lips stayed slightly parted, waiting for the
next touch of my mouth.
We broke our clinch for a moment and I drew in a ragged breath.  I
knew that, traditionally, one is supposed to speak eloquently about
how wonderful the first kiss was, but I was in no condition to form
coherent words, much less a full sentence.
"Mmmmm," she replied.  "I’ve been wanting to do that for two weeks."
"You’re kidding!  I couldn’t believe that.  I was painfully aware of
exactly how charming I was, or more accurately, wasn’t.  I had some
difficulty imagining why someone as impressive as Melissa would get
this interested in me.  
"Well, maybe a week and a half.  It was hard to know just what you
were like when you were sleeping fourteen hours a day."  She flashed a
quick grin and gave me short kiss.  "And it was worth it, sport."
"But why –" Before I could finish the obvious question, we heard a
loud thump and a muffled groan floating out from my tent.  We
scrambled up and hurried to investigate. Tommy had tried to get up to
go to the bathroom and hadn’t bothered with a flashlight.  The result
was one skinned knee and a few tears.  It wasn’t anything serious but
it did serve to bring Melissa and I back to the real world.
While we were getting the kids settled back down, our eyes met.  In
unspoken agreement, we knew that things had gone far enough for one
night.  Maybe if we hadn’t had 25 kids to worry about, things might
have been different.  But, to be completely truthful, I was just as
happy that they weren’t.  Being a virgin wasn’t exactly like carrying
around the Mark of Cain, and I wanted to be much more certain about
things than I was before things went too much further.  
Climbing into my cot, I tried to sort out my feelings.  Melissa was
everything I had ever thought I would want in someone.  I should have
been head over heels in love with her.  But I wasn’t.  That confused
me more than everything else did.  I liked her, a lot.  Of that, there
was no question.  I loved spending time with her, both working with
the kids and also any time we could snatch away from our camp duties.
I had been attracted to her from the first time I saw her and I lusted
after her.  That, however, wasn’t anything new.  Nor was it a big
deal, at least to me.  I had learned to live with unrequited lust.  It
helped keep me warm on all those cold teenaged nights.  
The age difference could have been part of the problem, but I doubted
it.  The realization that we were in two different places in our lives
was a rationalization, not a reason.  Besides, I was a sucker for
futile causes, and the idea of pining away while she went back to
college really wouldn’t have given me much of a pause.  These thoughts
tumbled through my mind for most of the night.  I finally dropped into
a fitful sleep a few hours before dawn.  
Chapter 4
The morning itself brought a hectic rush to make sure everyone was
packed.  The kids were supposed to be picked up during the morning
leaving the counselors to our first free day in two weeks.  There were
a number of tearful good-byes among the kids when the parents began
arriving.  I remembered going through the same thing myself.  The week
had passed in a flash for me, but when you’re twelve years old, a week
of summer camp can seem to last as long as a month.  The little knots
of campers continued to dwindle as parents returned to pick up their
children until by 1:00 we waved as the last car passed down the gravel
driveway on its way home.  Sam and Lydia called us together for an
impromptu meeting.  They congratulated everyone how well the first
week had gone and reminded those of us who weren’t going to be
spending our first night off in the dorm to be back by 10:30 the next
morning.  They dismissed us with a smile and everyone seemed to
scatter.  Because I had been a little rushed that morning, I hadn’t
had time to gather my gear together, it was still sitting in the tent,
spread out all over hell and gone.  By the time I got back from the
dorm after the long detour to the Bear campsite, almost everyone had
already left.  
Paul was on his way out as I walked into the room and dumped my gear
at the foot of the bed.  He called a quick goodbye and virtually ran
out the door.  I smiled to myself and shook my head.  Melissa had
related to me that he and Jenny had some rather significant plans for
that night.  I doubted I’d see any more of him for quite some time.
And he’d probably look just as ragged greeting the new campers the
next morning as he had the week before.  It seemed as thought I was
going to be spending a quiet night alone.  The closest town was about
20 miles away, and I knew I was going to have to make a quick run to
the supermarket there to pick up some supplies.  Getting away for the
occasional cigarette had proven as difficult as I had feared, so I
still had plenty of smokes, but unless I got some laundry detergent, I
was going to be a rather fragrant counselor next week.  Home was only
a couple of hours away, but it would have meant getting up at an
ungodly hour the next morning in order to drive back.  After a week of
being woken by adolescent boys who were entirely too enthusiastic to
GET UP and attack the day, the thought of being able to sleep in won
out over the temptation of a home cooked meal.  
I was still as confused as ever about last night.  Obviously, we
hadn’t had time to talk about what had happened, the morning had been
far to busy for that.  I realized with some surprise that I didn’t
even know where she was going to be that night.  We had talked about a
great deal that week, but the subject of Saturday night hadn’t come
up.  Then again, it hadn’t seemed terribly important to me, prior to
the night before.  I gathered up my wallet and headed outside.  As I
stepped off the porch, I saw her walking up the path from the mess
hall.  She waved and hurried her pace, breaking into a trot.  
"Where are you off to?" she inquired as she drew closer.  
"I thought I’d run into town.  I need to pick up a few things."
"Great," Melissa exclaimed.  "Can you give me a ride?  Remember you
promised!  I need to run a few errands."
"Sure, no problem," I agreed.  
She hurried inside to get her purse while I waited on the porch.  I
lit a cigarette and thought about the situation.  I hadn’t come up
with any answers by the time she returned.  She had taken a moment to
change, donning a casual short skirt and blouse combination in place
of the ragged work shirt and shorts she had been wearing.  My eyes
must have revealed my appreciation of the outfit and she broke into a
smile as she came outside.  She grabbed my hand as we walked up the
hill to the parking lot.  To be completely accurate, it was just a
section of the front field that had been set aside for cars, but we
all played along and referred to it as a parking lot.   The car
started right up, much to my amazement.  It didn’t look like much, but
it was good basic transportation for a high school student. 
We were driving down the main street of the small town within a
half-hour.  We stopped in at the supermarket, picking up the few
things we needed.  At one point we got separated and I spent five
minutes wandering the aisles before I found Melissa heading for the
checkout line.  A stop in at one of the gas stations that clustered
around the interstate exit ramps completed our mission.   We grabbed
some dinner at the McDonalds across the road.  After two weeks of camp
food, we were both ready for a junk food splurge.  
The conversation had remained light, not touching on what had happened
the night before.  I knew, at some point, we’d have to talk about it,
but for that moment, I was just as happy to leave it alone.  I was too
much fun just being with her to risk screwing it up with that
discussion.  She seemed very relaxed, talking about what was currently
going on in the world, jumping from one topic to another as we ate.
She wanted to know which colleges I planned to apply to in the fall
and what I wanted to study.  I told her the truth; I simply didn’t
have any idea what I wanted to major in.  Far too many things
interested me at that point.  I simply hadn’t given the matter much
thought.   The conversation soon moved on to high school in general.
By the time we dumped our trays, we were deep into comparing the
expectations of college life with the realities.   
On the way home, she slid across the long bench seat to lean against
me.  I snaked my arm around her shoulders to the startled realization
that the afternoon had been the closest thing to a date that I had
ever experienced.  It knew that it wasn’t exactly the same, but it was
close enough for me.  Feeling her long slim body up against mine was
wonderfully comfortable.  We rode in silence, her head resting on my
shoulder as we drove the winding back roads to the camp.  All too
soon, at least from my point of view, the camp came into view, and I
turned into the dusty driveway.  I parked the car, and we carried our
light loads down to the dorm.  Figuring that it wasn’t going to be any
more fun if I did it later, I picked up my clothes and headed towards
the laundry room.  Fortunately, there weren’t all that many and I was
able to use all three of the machines at once.  
Melissa wandered in as I was switching the sodden clothes from the
washers to the dryers.   "Here you are!" She exclaimed when she saw
me.  "I went into my room to drop of my stuff and when I came back out
you had disappeared.  I thought you had gone back to the car for
something."
"Sorry," I apologized.  
"You should be," she retorted with a smile.  "I walked the whole way
up there on bare feet!"
"Poor baby."  It was hard to sympathize.  The bottoms of my feet were
like leather, a legacy of my mother who never wore shoes when she
could get away with it.  She passed the tradition on to me.  I had
spent most of the previous week without shoes, putting them on only to
come to dinner or to take some of the longer hikes through the rocky
paths.
"Smart ass," she accused.  She walked over to me as I stood and
wrapped her arms around me.  Pulling me tight, her lips hungrily
sought out mine.  Her hands moved up and down my back, then I felt one
move to my head and she intertwined her fingers in my hair.  I moved
my hands low on her sides, resting them in the hollow where her hips
started to flare out into her gorgeous legs.  Staying with a proven
winner, I fell back on the tricks I had learned the night before,
teasing her mouth with mine, drawing her tongue deep into my mouth and
then nipping back along her bottom lip.  Within seconds I could feel
breath coming in quick gasps and hear the quiet little moans escaping
her throat.  As this went on, we were both growing more and more
excited.  I could feel myself getting hard, my cock pinned between our
bodies as she ground her hips against me.  Her nipples were hard
buttons, pushing through the thin cloth of our shirts into my chest. 
And as incredible as it felt, I knew I was going to have to stop it.
I had to know what was going on.  It was better that I ruin things
before they go too far than screwing them up later.  But, now or
later, I was afraid ruining things was something I couldn’t avoid.  I
slowed the tempo of our kisses, brushing my lips over hers one last
time before pulling my head back.  
"Melissa," I began.
"Yes, baby," she breathed against my cheek, "what is it?"
"There are a few things we’ve got to—" She interrupted me before I
could even start screwing things up.
"Don’t worry, baby, there’s no one in the dorm, I checked already."
She paused and planted another deep kiss on me.  Her kisses were
almost enough to make me forget my worries and just enjoy myself.  
Almost.  "That’s not what I meant," pulling my mind back to the
matters at hand.  "I don’t have a clue—"
Again she interrupted me, saying, "I already took care of that.  Where
do you think I was hiding at the market?   I’ve got them back in my
room.  Don’t worry about it."
My eyes bulged at this news.  I hadn’t realized that she had been
planning things to that extent.  The idea sort of frightened me.  It’s
one thing to have one’s good sense overcome in the heat of the moment,
but to actually plan this… I didn’t even know how to refer to it in my
mind.  A tryst?  An encounter?  A one night stand, with all that it
entails?  I was fairly certain that the last was simply my own mind
running in gibbering circles.  I’d gotten to know Melissa well enough
over the last week to realize she didn’t do things like this casually.
But it was now even more important to find out just what this was.  
I blew out an explosive breath, trying to get a grip on things.  She
wasn’t making it easier for me to gather my thoughts, her head resting
on my shoulder and nibbling at my neck.   I had to get a little
distance between us, or I was never going to get through this.  I
tightened my grip on her sides and lifted her up to sit on the dryer.
She gasped at the unexpected movement.
"Melissa, listen to me.  As wonderful as this is, I still have some
questions that I need answered before anything else happens."
A somewhat confused look came over her face.  "What’s wrong, don’t you
like this?"  She asked in a surprised voice.  Her face fell and she
lowered her head.  "But I thought.  I mean after last night…"
I took her chin in my hand and raised her face so I could look her in
the eye.  "Melissa, I don’t like this.  I love what’s happening.  But
I still need to know what in the hell is going on!"
"I’m trying to get into your pants," she snapped angrily with her eyes
flashing in unexpected heat.  "Without much success so far."  She
shifted her weight to slide off the dryer.  I kept my hands on her
hips, effectively pinning her in her seat.  
"Thanks awfully, but I was able to figure that much out," I said
dryly.  "That’s not what I meant, what I meant was ‘Why?’"
"Because I like you, you dipshit!"  She had moved passed being
embarrassed and was on heating up to serious anger.  Being the coward
that I am, I leaned forward to place one of those thorough kisses she
had taught me about on her lips.  I wanted to stop her from working up
to the cussing out I probably deserved.  "Don’t do that," she said
when we parted after a few moments.  Her soft voice belied her angry
words.  "That’s cheating." 
"And I like you too, Melissa.  Very, very much.  But you have to
understand.  I wasn’t expecting this, any of this to happen."  I
looked around and drew in a deep ragged breath.  "I’m not used to
this," I finished quietly.
"Well, I’m not used to this either," she snapped.  She paused for a
moment, seeming to gather her thoughts together.  "I’ve told you about
Roger, right?"  I nodded.  Roger had been an upperclassman when she
was a freshman and she had fallen desperately in love with him in her
first weeks at school.  They had spent a wonderful winter and spring
together, but when it came time to talk about visits during the
summer, he had become strangely reticent.  Within a couple of weeks
they had broken up, not all together amicably, I gathered from the way
she referred to him.  We had talked about it earlier in the week, in
one of our late night fireside conversations.  "What I didn’t tell
you," she continued, "was what it did to me.  I didn’t sleep, I didn’t
eat and I certainly didn’t study.  I almost failed my finals because
of what a mess I was.  During the last two years I’ve made sure, that
I didn’t end up in that situation again.  I haven’t been out on a date
in two years, because I tried to stay as far away from a relationship,
any relationship, as I could." Her face twisted into a grimace as she
continued, "And anyway, I’m not into the one night stand scene, which
is all most of those morons are looking for.
"And then, in the last week and a half, I’ve gotten to know you.
You’re good, intelligent, sweet…  ‘Finally,’ I thought, ‘someone I
could spend some time with, someone who was worth spending time with,
someone who would actually talk to me, not just try getting me into
bed.’  And after last night, I realized that I wanted to do more than
spend time with you.  Last night felt so good.  It’s been two damned
years, after all!  So last night I lay in bed and figure out a plan to
seduce you."  She jerked her head back and her eyes focused in on
mine.  "And now that it’s been shot completely to hell, I’m going to
go back to my room."
"Like hell," I muttered as I pulled her in close.  Everything she had
taught me about kissing went into the kiss I gave her at that moment.
Every ounce of feeling and energy I had was wrapped up in it.   Once
her breath started coming in those familiar little gasps, I knew
everything was going to be all right.  She spread her legs and wrapped
them around my back, pulling me into her while her hands slipped up
around my neck.  I learned then just how easy it was to lose track of
time in a kiss like that.  When we finally broke free of each other’s
mouths, I whispered in her ear, "You’re not going anywhere without me.
Not unless you can convince me that’s what you truly want." I paused
for a few seconds.  "And it will take a lot of convincing after a kiss
like that!"
She pulled her head back to look at me again.  "But I thought…  You
said…" The confused look was back on her face, her eyes questioning
me. 
"I said, I needed to know why.  And now I know."  I smiled at her and
leaned in for another kiss.  It wasn’t quite so passionate as the last
one, but it would do in a pinch.  "And right now, I can’t think of
anything I’d rather be doing."
"Then what was all that about?"  She really didn’t understand.  
"I told you I wasn’t used to this.  I’ve never done this before," I
said quietly.  
"Well, I’ve never done this before.  I’ve always gone out with guys
before I ended up in bed with them.  It’s not as if—"  
"That’s not exactly what I meant."
"Oh my God.  You mean…?" She trailed off as I nodded my head.
"Surprise," I said with sardonic amusement.  "I’ve never even had a
girlfriend," I added ruefully.  "Now do you understand why I was so
confused?  What in God’s name would you, of all people, want with a
high school virgin?"
"And you still stopped me to make sure about what was going on?"  She
was absolutely stunned. 
"We’re going to be working together, rather closely for the next few
weeks at a minimum.  I figured it was better to ruin the chance to be
with you this way, than to go ahead and take the risk of ruining
that."
"Jesus, you’re something else.  If you were only a couple of years
older," she said wistfully, "I could really fall for you, you know
that?"  
"Trust me, I know the feeling," I muttered as I moved in for another
kiss.  The grip of her legs around my waist hadn’t loosened
appreciably while we talked, but now it grew even tighter.  As our
mouths danced together, she pulled herself to me tightly, grinding her
hips into me.  The tumbling of the dryer added an interesting
vibration to the exercise, one I could definitely appreciate.  
I felt much better about the whole situation.  Maybe it was the age
difference that was holding me back from flinging myself headfirst
into falling in love.  But, by now, I was far beyond the point of
caring.  Glancing out the window, I was almost surprised to see that
it was still light out.  We had gotten back around six, and it had
been less than an hour since I had walked in here ostensibly to take
care of my laundry.  If I had known that it was going to turn out this
way, I probably would have done laundry every day for the last week.
Looking at the sky, I realized that we would probably have a couple of
hours alone, anyone came back for the night.  Besides, I wasn’t all
that sure I cared if they showed up early or not.  
I kissed my way down her chin and along the side of her neck.  Her
skin was smooth and silky as I brushed my lips down to the hollow in
her throat.  Her legs relaxed slightly and my hands slid down over her
things.  The skirt she was wearing had ridden up, and looking down I
saw a thin strip of white covering her mound.  I slowly slid my body
down through her legs, mouthing her nipples through the thin covering
of her blouse on my way.  Kneeling between her legs, I dragged my
lightly tongue up and down each leg in turn, eliciting a shiver that I
could feel run through her body.  I may not have ever been here
before, but I did have some idea of what I was supposed to do.  
My heart was bounding in my chest and my head seemed to want to
abandon my body and float away on its own.  Leaning forward slightly I
licked quickly at the thin band of silk in front of me.  She had
already soaked through her panties and I savored my first taste of
her.  A deep guttural moan from above told me that I wasn’t doing to
badly so far.  My tongue moved more insistently against the soft flesh
behind the silk covering.  I could feel her clit, hard and inflamed,
standing out from the yielding lips surrounding it. Rolling her hips
toward me, Melissa arched her back, forcing her clit against my mouth
in the process.  Using my own lips, I traced the folds and curves of
her pussy through the thin fabric that was rapidly becoming
translucent from a combination of what I was doing and the effect of
what I was doing.
‘So this was what it was all about,’ I thought to myself.  Being able
to do something so enjoyable and to get responses like this had
definitely modified the ideas I had about sex.  I was sure the
physical sensations would live up to their reputation, but this was
completely unexpected.  I was enough of a control freak to admit to
myself that holding this power was a huge turn on.  Burying my face
into her pussy with abandon, I wondered distantly what other surprises
there were in store for me.  I couldn’t wait to find out.  
I felt one of her hands at the back of my head, pushing me against
with great insistence.  Raising eyes to look at her I saw her head
thrown back, with her eyes closed.  She was mumbling something under
her breath, but with her legs locked around me I couldn’t make out
what she was saying.  I was pretty sure it wasn’t anything
intelligible in any case.  My mouth was locked around her, all traces
of subtlety thrown to the wayside.  My hands spreading her legs
further apart, I ground my face into her, trying to force my tongue
through the thin barrier that separated us.  
Slowly, the rhythmic movement of her hips ground to a halt, she pushed
her body forward, balancing on her hands and lifting herself up off
the dryer.  I looked up, worried that something was wrong.    Her legs
were thrust straight out behind me and it seemed as though every
muscle in her body was contracting at once.  Her voice grew louder,
but I still I couldn’t understand what she was saying.  Somehow, I
doubted that it really mattered.  
A tremor ran through her body as she hung suspended on my shoulders
and her arms.  Her voice dissolved into moans, growing louder as her
body began to jerk and twist in what I hoped was an orgasm.
Everything was new to me.  It was one thing to watch porn actresses on
a tape, it was quite another to experience it in real life, knowing
that you were causing it.  I redoubled my efforts, burrowing my tongue
even deeper into her pussy, trying to draw out and extend her
reactions.  
"Yes, god… Yes.  Oh please, keep going, just like that.  Just like
that, just like that, just like that…" For the first time I could
actually hear something coherent.  Her voice was vague and unfocused,
but the desire was obvious.  Her pleading trailed off into another
series of moans that again grew louder as I continued.  Eventually the
moans reached a frenzy as she pushed and forced her body into my
mouth, trying to extract the last traces of sensation.  A huge shudder
ran through the length of her body and she collapsed back onto the
dryer.  
Her breath came in quick little gasps, trying to recover.  As she
gathered herself and basked in the glow, I kept my mouth busy,
covering her silk clad pussy with long light strokes of my tongue.  
"Mmmmmm," she groaned, seeming quite pleased.  "You lied," she
accused, looking down and me.
I quirked my brows quizzically, since I didn’t particularly feel like
stopping to ask what she was talking about.  
"You said you’d never done this before, you had to!"
I shook my head, which must have caused a rather interesting
sensation, judging by her reaction.  
"Ohhhh…  God…" Sighing deeply, she continued, "If you’re telling the
truth, where in the hell did you learn how to do that?"
I shrugged.  Tearing my mouth away, I rested my head on her mons and
answered.  "Just because I’m a virgin, doesn’t mean that I don’t have
some clue of what’s supposed to happen.  I’ve seen enough bad porn
movies and read enough bad stories to at least figure that much out.
I’m not completely stupid, you know," I finished virtuously.  
"I’ve noticed that, from time to time," she said laughing.  "Come up
here." She reached down to pull me up again.  She pulled herself
upright, flowing into my arms as I stood up.  She wasted no time,
bringing her face close and driving her mouth against mine.  Our
tongues danced and fenced with each other’s, playing at the entrance
of our mouths and then driving deep.  
"Now what?"  I asked her.
She looked at me in amazement, "I thought that would have been
obvious!"  She broke into giggles for a moment.  "There’s no way
you’re getting away without finishing what you started."
"Um, that’s not exactly what I meant.  Let me try again; where, when,
and most importantly how long?"
"Hmm, wherever, soon, and all night, if we can manage.  Does that
clear things up for you, sport?"
"Not particularly, no," I said dryly.  She was looking at me, her eyes
dancing with amusement.  She was starting to enjoy my discomfort just
a little too much.  I leaned forward to kiss her, hard.  It took her
mind off my confused ramblings.  At least for a moment or two.  She
moaned in disappointment when I pulled away, but first things first.
"I meant, are we going to stay in the dorm tonight?  I don’t know
about you, but I’m not thrilled with the idea of people starting to
wander in while we’re in the middle of something."
"What’s the matter, ashamed of me?"  She teased.
"Hardly.  But how do you think Sam or Lydia or one of the temps would
react?  We are supposed to be working together, not sleeping
together," I reminded her.
"I know, I know.  I’ve been thinking about it, because I do want to
stay with you tonight." She paused and then continued on hesitantly.
"I don’t want to just fuck and then go on our merry way.  I told you,
I’m not into one-night stands."
"How about a three month stand?"  I asked quietly.
"What?"  I think I finally managed to surprise her.  "What are you
talking about?"
"Well, I’m going to be here the rest of the summer, and I couldn’t
help but notice that you are going to be here for the rest of the
summer.  And it does look like we’re going to be working together for
the foreseeable future.  At least the next three weeks, that is.  And,
well, it just seemed like a good idea."
She peered into my face, rather intently and her face took on a
strange expression.  "Dave," she asked, "are you in love with me?"
I knew that the answer was very important and I had to be completely
truthful, and very careful.  "No, I don’t think so actually.  I think
I could fall in love with you, very easily, but I’m not.  I was
thinking about it last night, actually."  I paused for a moment,
trying to find the right words to express what I was feeling.  "It’s
not the age difference, believe it or not.  Four years isn’t that
much.  It’s…" I was grasping for something.  "It’s the fact that, no
matter how I might feel, it’s not the right time, for either of us, to
have this kind of relationship.  I knew that even before you told me.
And there are other reasons…" I trailed off.
"There’s someone else, isn’t there?"
"Yes and no.  Not exactly.  There might be someone, but it’s a very
weird situation."  I thought it over, and decided that Melissa
deserved to know the truth of the matter.  "She’s just someone at
school.  It’s one of those ‘worship from afar’ things.  And to make
things even more fun, she’s in love with my best friend."  I laughed
an unhappy laugh.  "If we threw in a few blind old women, we’d have
the perfect Greek tragedy.
"But none of that really matters, and I know it.  I’m not in love with
you, at least at the moment.  If you’re still single after next year,
I’ll probably have to rethink things, though," I added slyly.
She smiled and kissed me thoroughly.  Apparently I had passed the
test, thankfully.  The kiss quickly became serious with Melissa trying
to wrap herself around my body.  I snaked my arms around her and
squeezed her tight.  I may not, in fact, be in love with her, but I
knew that having her in my arms was a feeling I could easily become
used to.  
"We’re getting off the subject again," she murmured after a little
more time had passed rather pleasantly.  "How are we going to do
this?"
"Well," I started, thinking quickly, "There’s one option we might want
to look at.  We could spend the night down at the campsite."  It was
remote, and without any kids in the camp, it was doubtful that anyone
would be roaming around late at night.  More importantly, to me at
least, we would have the opportunity to spend the night together
without any worries about having about being interrupted.  
She thought it over, and a smile spread across her face.  "Do you
think we could fit two of those bunks side by side in those tents?"
She asked with a twinkle in her eyes.  
"Oh, I’m pretty sure that we could figure something out," I laughed in
return.  
She turned, cast a glance at the dryers, and then looked at me with a
speculative look in her eye.  "Do you want to wait for your clothes,
we can take them down with us."
"It would save a trip tomorrow morning," I admitted.  "And I think I
know of a way to pass the time."  Kissing seemed to be the traditional
way to start things off, and who was I to argue with traditions?  Her
lips were soft and sensuous, yielding and active against my mouth.
Emboldened by what had gone before, my hands ranged over her body,
cupping her small firm breasts and using my fingertips to tease her
nipples through her blouse and thin bra.  I busied myself, undoing
each button down the front of her blouse, following my hand with my
lips, brushing across the skin of her chest and kissing the top of
each breast as it swelled over her small lace bra.  
I had some trouble with the bra.  It was the first one I’d ever been
confronted with and the front snap stymied me for a few seconds.  I
eventually got it figured out, slipping the clasp open to reveal two
small but perfect tits.  They were absolutely beautiful, sitting high
on her ribcage and topped by hard, rose colored nipples.  I cupped
them again, this time without coming between us.  I used my thumbs to
rub against those nipples, feeling them crinkle up and grow even more
erect under my touch.  Her hands dropped down from my shoulder to
cover mine, squeezing them closed.  A small moan escaped her mouth as
I gripped her tits more firmly.  Her hands slid up my arms and around
my neck, guiding my mouth to each nipple in turn.  I sucked and licked
each of them and discovered that if I dragged my teeth over them
gently, I could produce a shiver and moan of satisfaction each time.
She pressed my face against her tit, trying, it seemed, to force as
much of her into my mouth as she possibly could.  I opened my mouth as
wide as possible, circling her nipple and flicking my tongue over it
in feather touches.  She arched her back even further, moaning in
frustration, trying to force me to suck it up into my mouth.  Instead,
I moved to her other breast and gave it the same treatment.  
After several minutes, she was literally whimpering, "Please, David.
Please suck it.  Oh God, baby, please, use your mouth."  I finally
relented, sucking in as much as I possibly could up into my mouth and
using my tongue on her nipple at the same time.  "Oh, yes, yes, Oh God
yes.  Oh, that’s better.  Mmmm, thank you, baby, thank you."  
After repeating on her other nipple, I moved lower, licking the
underside of her tits, moving back and forth from one to another
trying to cover every square inch I could, without allowing my
movements to fall into a predictable rhythm.  I moved my hand between
our bodies and slid it down, covering her mound with it.  Pushing and
rubbing back and forth, I could feel the warm wetness that we had
produced earlier, making her panties a sodden mess.  
Dropping down to my knees once again, I reached up to slip my hands
through the waistband of her underwear, pulling them down her long
slim legs.  She quickly raised her ass up off the dryer, helping me to
get rid of them as quickly as possible.  I dropped the soaking panties
into the open duffel bag sitting beside me, not wanting to forget them
and leave any evidence behind.  Her skirt was pushed up over her hips,
and she spread her legs as I leaned forward.  For the first time, I
was able actually to see what I had tasted.  Her pubic hair was as
light as the hair on her head.  It was closely trimmed, a narrow blond
‘v’ that started from just above her clit.  My mouth closed over her
bare mound drawing her up into my mouth.  The lips of her pussy were
very full-fleshed and pouty, but incredibly soft.  As soon as my lips
touched her, it felt as if an electric current had shot through my
body.  She moaned and thrashed about above me sliding forward until
she was seated on the very edge of the dryer.  I looked up to watch
her, while my mouth continued its exploration.  Her bra kept getting
in her way and she was getting more exasperated by the moment.
Eventually, she let loose a curse under her breath and slipped the
blouse of her shoulders and quickly removed the offending item. It
soon joined her panties, wadded up and dropped in the duffel bag.  She
slipped the blouse back over her shoulder, just in case.   
I pulled my mouth back an inch, allowing the tip just my tongue to
slide over the supple lips of her pussy.  Melissa raised her legs,
which had been draped over my shoulders, and placed her feet astride
my neck.  Spreading them even wider, she leaned forward, balanced
precariously upright.  By contorting my neck just so, I could raise my
eyebrows and catch glimpses of her as I licked and sucked her soft
tender pussy.  Her head was bowed, looking down at me with unfocused
eyes while her hands cupped her tits, rolling the nipples between her
fingers.  Her change in position made it easier to pay attention to
her clit than anywhere else, so I did.  Far smaller than anything I’d
ever seen on the grainy and poorly lit porn movies I’d seen so far, it
was tiny.  But it also seemed to be exquisitely sensitive.  The
lightest touch of my tongue or lips seemed to send jolts of pleasure
through her body, causing her to jerk her body in shock each time my
tongue moved.  Each spasm was accompanied by an abortive moan that
seemed to be ripped out of her from somewhere deep inside.  
I buried my mouth over her mound sucking in as much as I could.  The
clitoral hood surrounding that hard little button was fleshy and as
soft as foam.  I rolled the delectable morsel in my mouth, sliding my
tongue back and forth across the tender surfaces.  When it slid back
out, my teeth accidentally brushed against her erect clit, causing a
startled exclamation from Melissa.  I looked up, questioning.  I was
afraid I had done something wrong.
"Oh God," she gasped.  "Do that again!"
As if I would ever refuse such a plaintive request from a lady.
Keeping my jaws slightly separated; I inhaled her clit into my mouth,
causing my teeth to drag along both top and bottom.  Apparently, it
was close enough, causing her to go wild.  Her hips started to buck in
fits and starts, trying to mash her pussy against my face.  She threw
her head back and moaned, a long rising note that climbed into the
upper registers. I noticed her fingers were not simply rolling her
nipples any longer.  She was actually pinching and twisting them, her
fingers pulling on them until they looked distended.  
She came with very little warning.  Suddenly her hands were at the
back of my head once again forcing my mouth forward against her.  The
movement of her hips shifted into high gear, moving faster and faster
which made it difficult to keep my mouth on her clit.  I took it in
between my teeth, not biting but simply holding it still.  I flicked
over it with my tongue, alternating quick light touches with long slow
strokes that pressed it against my teeth.  
Her moans changed pitch and became actual shrieks of incoherent
pleasure while her body moved faster and faster, finally reaching a
crescendo together.  She suddenly became very still, the muscles of
her body tight with concentration.  Her moans had trailed off into
silence broken only by the quick gasps of her breath.  She held
absolutely still while I continued to draw her clit in and out of my
mouth, through my teeth each time.  After only a few seconds her voice
seemed to reassert itself and she uttered a series of high pitched
noises with each sharp intake of breath.  Her body softened suddenly
and a low moan escaped her lips. 
"That’s enough," she said weakly, her hands on my shoulders for
support.  I could feel her legs shaking where they rested on my
shoulders next to her hands.  She was leaning forward, barely able to
support herself for the moment.  I lavished a few long, soft strokes
of my tongue over her engorged pussy, savoring the subtle changes in
her flavor after her orgasm.  After all, isn’t a cool-down period
advised after exercise?  Each stroke seemed to cause a small shiver to
run through her.  I didn’t want to push my luck, so I slowed to a stop
and looked up at her with an incredibly self-satisfied smile splitting
my face from ear to ear.  The dryers had finished spinning at some
point while we had been distracted and I was suddenly aware of how
quiet the room was. 
"So, how’d I do for my first time, coach?"  I asked a little
impudently.  
She opened her eyes and looked down at me with a wan little smile.
"Well, sport, it certainly looks as thought you’ve got some native
talent there."
I slipped her legs off my shoulders and stood up for another one of
those stellar kisses.  After the kiss she slipped down off the dryer
and ran her fingers through her hair, which was in complete disarray.
I picked up the duffel bag and went down the line of dryers, tossing
the warm clothes in.  I probably should have asked if she wanted her
panties and bra, but I didn’t really care at that point and the idea
of her walking through the camp in that condition excited me even
more.  I was still new to everything that was going on, and the little
things can be quite interesting at that point.  By the time the duffel
bag was slung over my shoulder, she had already made herself
‘presentable’ and was ready to go.  We embraced for a quick kiss
before showing ourselves to the outside world.
Chapter 5
We stopped briefly in our rooms to make sure we had everything we
would need, not only for our night together but also for the week’s
work together.  Satisfied, we walked out the dorm on our way to the
tents.  It was the gloaming, after the sun had set and while there is
still enough light from the sky to see the colors start to blend
together, ending up as a muted monochrome.  The camp still seemed to
be deserted as we made our way down the path past the mess hall.  The
Camp Administrator’s cabin was situated just off the path, and I could
see from the lights on the front porch that Sam and Lydia, at least,
were probably still around.  As we walked, Melissa slipped her arm
around my waist, almost knocking the back from my shoulder.
Readjusting the weight, I wrapped her in my free arm, my hand resting
on her hip as we walked. I could feel the smooth flexing of her
muscles under my palm with each step she took.  Although I knew I
probably shouldn’t but there was no way I could resist and we were
screened from any prying eyes by the lush undergrowth. I decided to
hell with it, and dropped my hand down under the hem of her skirt,
caressing the smooth skin of her ass.  
My touch startled her and she let out a little gasp of surprise and
almost lost her step.  She adjusted quickly though.  "Mmmmm," she
murmured, tilting her hips and pressing back against my hand.  Her ass
was firm and supple, barely yielding as my hands ranged over it.
After walking for several minutes, I cast a quick look over my
shoulder.  Even if there was someone wandering around, the path had a
number of twists and turns and we were well past the buildings of the
camp.  I took a breath, trusted my luck and slipped my hand lower,
sliding my finger between her thighs to tickle her still wet pussy.  
"Uungh," she moaned deeply and leaned against me, off balance.  "Oh,
god.  You’re cheating again."  We stuttered to a halt, standing in the
middle of the path.  She didn’t really seem to mind that much.  Her
hand dug into my side as fingers continued to trace the folds of her
slit lightly.  Her hand closed in reaction where it rested on my side.
She had surprisingly strong hands, and the extra flesh I tended to
accumulate there served as an excellent handle.  I pushed my fingers
between her lips, touching lightly on the entrance to her cunt with my
middle finger.  She moaned again, then pulled away from me with a
jerk.  I was terrified.  I thought that perhaps I had overstepped some
unspoken boundary and look at her with more than a little trepidation
in my eyes.
I shouldn’t have worried.  Grabbing my hand, she pulled me towards the
woods the side of the path.  In the hustle, I dropped the bag from my
shoulder.  When I slowed to pick it up, she yanked on my hand, urging
me along.  "It’s not going to go anywhere, Dave.  It will be there
when were done," she said breathlessly, dropping her small bundle on
top.  I shrugged to myself.  If she wasn’t going to worry about it,
neither was I.  She led me along, seeming to be looking for something
as we walked, until, several yards off the trail she found what she
wanted.  
Want she wanted, apparently was a large tree, almost a foot and a half
in diameter.  She leaned back against it and drew me to her.  It was
very dark underneath the canopy of leaves, but I could make out a
feverish gleam in her eyes.  Crushing her lips to mine, she drove her
tongue deep into my mouth.  When I responded similarly, it seemed as
though she was trying to rip mine out by the root.  
I lowered my hand between her leg to resume my explorations.  Pulling
her mouth away she said, "No, not like that baby.  Like before."  With
that she drifted her lips across mine again, and with a mysterious
smile, turned to face the tree.  She put her arms out to steady her
and bent over at the waist.  I stood next to her, one hand reaching
under her shirt to cup her tits.  My other hand slid down the curve of
her ass, sliding slowly across to slip between her legs.  I slid my
finger between her lips, drawing a deep furrow in her flesh.  
"Oh, yes," she almost whispered.  "Just like that, put it in me, baby…
I need it in me."  She seemed to be making an effort to be a little
quieter now.  It rapidly growing dark, even out on the path, and the
underbrush completely blocked anyone from possibly catching an
accidental glimpse from walking by, but a shriek of pleasure could
definitely give us away in the unlikely event that someone was out and
about.  
Using my other fingers, I slowly spread her lips, pushing them back to
expose the actual opening of her pussy to my searching finger.  I
eased my middle finger inside, slowly pressing into the warm wet
entrance.  She was having none of it.  She arched her back, thrusting
her hips into my hand and forcing my finger deep inside.  As the palm
of my hand pressed into her ass, she actually purred in satisfaction.

The feeling was incredible.  It was hot and wet and engulfed my
finger, pressing in upon it on all sides.  The walls of her cunt were
smooth and slick as I slid it in and out.  Instead of the deep
throated moaning I had become used to, Melissa pursed her lips
together and whimpered in pleasure as I thrust deeply in and out with
my finger.  I could feel her wetness running down my finger, slowly
spreading out and moistening the back of my hand.  I was jerked from
my reverie by her hand, coming down off the trunk of the tree and
grabbing a hold of mine.  She took it and placed it over her breast,
pressing up strongly and grinding it into her body through her blouse.
I may be new at this, but I can take a hint as well as the next guy.
Probably better, in fact.  I remembered how she had worked over her
nipples when I had gone down on her in the laundry room, and did what
I could to emulate what I had seen.  I played my fingers over her
nipple, rubbing with my thumb, then taking it between two fingers,
squeezing and twisting gently.  I moved my hand back and forth between
each of her tits, playing with one for a few minutes before turning my
attention back to the other.  With her arms raised over her head to
help support her against the tree, her breasts were pulled taunt,
smooth firm mounds of flesh pressing out through the silky fabric.  
My other hand was still busy between her legs.  I slid my finger out
until only the very tip remained inside her, holding it there for a
few seconds before slowly pushing it back in, repeating it again and
again, moving faster each time.  Soon my hand was actually making
‘slapping’ noises and I pumped in and out of her slit.  Within a few
moments, it was obvious, even to me, that she was quickly approaching
another orgasm.  It didn’t seem quite as intense as her previous
examples, but when her hips started to buck in that almost familiar
rhythmic motion, pushing back to meet my hand on each thrust, even I
knew it happening.  I looked towards her face and saw she had sucked
her lower lip into her mouth, gripping it with her teeth in an effort
to keep herself quiet even at the height of orgasm.  
Her trembling slowly eased as I slipped my finger out of her, cupping
her mound gently with my hand.  As she pushed herself up from the
tree, she stretched languorously, raising her hands high over her head
and working the tightness out of the muscles in her back.  Standing,
she turned so that we stood back to front, and reached back with both
hands she caught my head and pulled me tight up against her.  I
reached around to her front, running my hands up and down, flat
against the curves of her body.  She turned her head to kiss me, a
slow gentle kiss without demands.  
"Thank you, baby," she said with our lips on an inch apart.  "I really
needed that."
"Glad I could lend a hand."  She rolled her eyes at this incredibly
obvious pun.  "I told you I was new at this.  I can’t be good at
everything."
She broke up laughing.  It felt very good, very comfortable, standing
there.  I was incredibly turned on, looking forward to the rest of our
night together, but at the same time I was also strangely content.  If
nothing else happened tonight, I’d be satisfied.  At that point, I
learned what sex was all about.  At least to me.  I knew that actually
having sex would be incredible, far outstripping masturbation.  But at
the same time, I had had orgasms before.  They would probably be
better, stronger and more intense, but they would still be orgasms.
But this, this was something completely different.  To be with
someone, and feel her orgasm and knowing that I was the one who was
causing it.  That was mind-shattering, if only for the fact that I had
never suspected it.  Orgasms were fun, they were nice and they were
enjoyable.  But this was heady wine, indeed.  The feelings of power,
the ability to affect someone on a level this deep, combined with the
enjoyment I felt from being with Melissa were threatening to overwhelm
me.
"I’m sorry, honey, what did you say?"  I had completely missed what
she had said to me, lost in the new discovery.
She giggled.  "I’m the one that just came, you shouldn’t be floating
out in la-la land, it should be me!"
I grinned and kissed her again.  "My apologies.  I’ll try to be more
attentive from now on."
"Oh no!  If you get any more ‘attentive’ I’m going to pass out!"
"You say that as if it’s a bad thing."  I slid my hands low and began
to lightly tease her pussy in response to the idea.
"Mmmm," she answered, grinding her ass back against me.  My cock,
which had been hard for most of the night, answered the call once more
and sprang to attention.  Nestled it in the hollow between her cheeks
and started moving to the same rhythm.  After only a few seconds,
however, she gave a little toss of her head and pulled away.  "C’mon,
if we don’t get moving we’re never going to get to there."  Grabbing
my hand once more, she led me back through the darkness to the path.  
We hadn’t spent more than 15 minutes in our little wilderness tryst,
but the transition from dusk to dark is quick, particularly deep in
the forest.  I grabbed the bag we had left at the edge of the woods,
and we made our way down the path in good order.  We had walked the
path several times a day, and night, for the last week, so we didn’t
fumble around much, and since we didn’t have to ride herd on a group
of sixth graders, we made it in five minutes, instead of the normal
15.  
There was a moment of confusion when we arrived at the campsite.  We
had decided to spend the night in ‘the tent’ and each of us naturally
assumed that we would be sleeping in the same tent we had been for the
past week.  We laughed and I dumped my bag in ‘my’ tent, exchanging it
for my sleeping bag.  I hurried across to join her in the girls’ tent.
She already had the lantern lit and had begun arranging the beds.
Another five minutes and we had two bunks pushed together near the
front of the tent, but we found to our disappointment that the wire
springs and steel frames didn’t leave a very comfortable surface.  We
dithered for a moment, and then Melissa came up with the idea of
overlapping the extra mattresses on top of the frame.  It wasn’t
perfect, but it was infinitely better than what we had.  We quickly
spread the sleeping bags open and everything seemed ready.
All of a sudden, I was nervous.  Fortunately for me, Melissa wasn’t,
or at least she didn’t show it.   She pushed me down to sit on the
edge of the bed, then climbed on top of me, straddling my legs.
Leaning forward, she took my face in her hands and kissed me soundly.
A kiss like that can do wonderful things and it managed to banish any
nervousness without a backward glance.  My hands slid along her legs,
moving back to hold the globes of her ass.  I gently squeezed, pushing
her soft mound into me.  She quickly unbuttoned her shirt, shrugging
it off without her lips ever leaving mine.  Reaching down, the side
buttons on her skirt were quickly unfastened and it joined her shirt,
lying empty on the floor.  For the first time I could actually see
her, all of her; and the view was absolutely magnificent.  I’d seen
the various parts already, but the simple fact that she was actually
naked made all the difference.  Her fingers didn’t rest, after
disposing of her clothes she quickly went to work on mine, almost
ripping my shirt over my head.  Climbing off me, she pulled me up to
stand with her, her hands working feverishly to open my shorts slide
them down my legs.  I kicked them off my feet, quickly followed by my
underwear.  As soon as they were gone, Melissa slid up against me
again, pressing her body to mine from forehead to feet, or as close as
we could get.  And it was wonderful.  All that exposed skin against
all my exposed skin; my body felt as if it was on fire where we
touched.  I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down with me
onto the heavily cushioned bed.  We scrambled around a little, getting
comfortable until we were lying, side by side on the bed facing each
other.  Propping my head up with one hand, I looked at her in the glow
of the lantern.  She was incredible.  Her bright lively eyes were
gleaming in the light, and the warm glow lit up her skin like a halo.
I reached out and trailed my fingers along her body from just under
her arm down as far as I could reach.  I could feel the shiver follow
my fingers down. 
In turn, she reached down and wrapped her fingers around my cock,
causing me to jump from the shock of the contact.  She pulled herself
closer which trapped both her hand and my cock between our bodies.
Moving my hand across her back, I slid it down between her legs and
began to massage the warm wet folds of her pussy.  After a few
moments, our hands growing more and more insistent, she sat up with a
start.  Leaning across me, she reached over the side of the bed.  I
could feel the firm bulges of her breasts pressing into my stomach.  I
ran my hands over her back while she busied herself rummaging through
something on the floor.  
"Got it," she muttered.  Rolling back over top of me, she kissed me
again in passing.  In her hand was the glistening form of a condom.
She quickly unrolled it over my erection, with only minor fumbling
around.  The lube covering the rubber was a little cold, but it didn’t
last long.  Hastily she gave it a few quick strokes with her hand,
making sure it wasn’t going to go soft without any warning.  Not
bloody likely.  She clambered atop me, and while looking down into my
face, slowly lowered herself over top of my cock.  At that point, I
became very grateful for the rubber.  Without it, I would have cum in
a matter of seconds from the feeling that engulfed me.  I had come
close enough to spontaneous combustion earlier, but was able to hold
off because I was too fascinated with what I was doing to her.  This
was completely different.  Without that little sheath protecting me,
our lovemaking would have turned into one of the more painful clichés
about first encounters.  And I would have been absolutely mortified.  
As it was, I was worried.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to last very long
at all.  The sensations, both physical and emotional, were contriving
to make my first actual experience a short one.  I just hoped I’d be
able to hold on long enough to keep from disappointing her. 
At that point, however, she certainly didn’t seem to be disappointed.
She had her legs spread wide and was rhythmically rolling her pelvis
back and forth, not only forcing me deep up inside her but also
grinding her clit against my crotch at each apex.  As she was sitting
upright, I was able to reach up and pull her nipples between thumb and
forefinger, pinching and rolling them around as she continued her
gyrations.  
"Oh, yes…" She wasn’t moaning anymore.  Her noises could only be
described as quite screams.  Sharp and piercing, they weren’t all that
loud, at least not yet they weren’t.  I started to rock my hips along
with hers, timing it so I pushed up each time she rolled forward.  Her
slow thrusts quickly increased pace, they moved faster and faster,
grinding against me with greater abandon than the one before.  
Suddenly I realized that I was going to cum, and it was going to
happen soon.  The familiar feeling started, by balls feeling as if
they were contracting and trying to draw themselves up into my
stomach.  I grunted a warning as my hands flew from her nipples to her
hips and I began pumping in and out of my own volition.  I seemed to
be lifting her almost completely off me with each thrust, then pulling
her back down with my hands.  It seemed just the trick to push her
over the edge as well.  With shuddering groans we moved against each
other, completely lost in the sensations we were causing.  Within
seconds I could feel myself exploding, and it seemed to go on much
longer than anything I had ever experienced by myself.
I fell back on the bed, completely spent.  My legs were trembling,
along with most of the rest of my body.  With a rippling moan, Melissa
collapsed down atop me, limp.  I couldn’t speak quite yet, so I
contented myself with wrapping her up in my weak embrace.  
After a few moments of recuperating, I finally gathered enough
strength to whisper into her ear.  "Sorry about that, love.  I hoped
to last a little longer."  I paused for a few seconds, hoping for a
response, but she remained silent.  "And thank you, very, very much."
I kissed the top of her head affectionately.  It was the only place I
could reach without moving, and I wasn’t nearly ready to move.  
After several more seconds of silence, she finally began to stir.
With a long-suffering groan, she lifted her head to look at me.
"Sorry?  Thank you?  Sport, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Well," I began uncertainly, "the thank you should be fairly obvious,
shouldn’t it?  And the ‘sorry’ was for… Well, I just thought that
maybe it was over a little umm, quick.  I didn’t want you to be too
disappointed."
Her eyes widened and she dropped her head, burying her face in my
shoulder.  Her body started to shake, but I had no idea if she was
laughing or crying.  When she raised her face, it seemed like a little
of both.  "You idiot," she said with a smile.  "What the hell were you
expecting?  Were you going to just go and go and go and go until you
decided that we’d had enough?"
"Well…."
"Oh god, you did, didn’t you?"  She buried her head in my chest and
dissolved into laughter.
Apparently my ideas about sex had been a little too influenced by
those bad porn movies and cheap ‘Dear Penthouse, I never thought this
could happen to me’ letters and not enough by reality. .  It’s not
that I thought of them as realistic depiction’s, I somehow doubted
that most would react to finding her husband in bed with her best
friend by saying ‘Move over, dear, I’ve always wanted a piece of
Mary’s ass myself.’ If they could seem to stay hard for as long as
needed and cum on command, why couldn’t I?  Now that she mentioned it,
it did seem just a tad naïve.  I suppose it’s one of my failings, if I
can visualize it, I figure I should simply be able to do it.  There’s
an annoying tendency to overlook the niggling details of reality.  
"So I didn’t do too badly, then?" I asked hesitantly.  
"You putz," she said softly.  She could tell that it was important to
me.  Not that she tell me that I was the best lover she’d ever had,
but simply that I had managed to give back a small portion of the
pleasure she had given me.  "This is one of the best nights I’ve ever
had.  Is that good enough for you?"
"Just fine," I said, immensely relieved.  I had slowly grown soft as
we talked and with her shifting around, I slid out of her with an
audible ‘plop.’  We got up long enough to clean ourselves up a little
and to turn out the lantern and thankfully, Melissa remembered to set
her little travel alarm clock, just in case.  The reaction, if someone
was forced to come hunting for us the next morning, wasn’t worth
contemplating.  With everything that had gone on, we were both
exhausted and were soon asleep in each other’s arms.  
Chapter 6
That night changed everything, and nothing, between us.  We grew
closer together, both as friends and lovers.  We learned about each
other’s bodies and reactions, each Saturday night a new voyage of
discovery about what worked and what didn’t.  In spite of her
aggressive pursuit of me, something I still could not fathom, Melissa
didn’t have a great deal more experience than I did.  There had been
her relationship with Roger, of course, and a guy in high school, but
she didn’t offer many details about him, and I didn’t press.  From
what she did say, however, I could figure out for myself that it
hadn’t been a pleasant way to lose her virginity.  
The summer went on, and we went with it.  Although we didn’t always
work together at the same camp, there were always a few opportunities
to be together for a few stolen moments during the week.
Unfortunately, there was never enough time to do anything in those few
moments.  Those weeks, our Saturday night rendezvous tended to be a
little more intense than usual, both of us desperately needing the
physical and emotional release of the tensions the built up over the
week.  There were a few questions from the other counselors about the
fact that we seemed to disappear each Saturday, and didn’t reappear
until the following morning.  We ignored them.  After that first
night, we never stayed in the tent or cabin in which we had been
working that week.  We picked one, virtually at random, the only
caveat being that it must be isolated.  All in all it worked out quite
well and I was deliriously happy with the situation, over all. 
We both knew the summer wasn’t going to last forever, and as we neared
the end we both grew a little somber.  I don’t think either of us
expected the bonds between us to grow as strong as they did that
summer.  Although we still weren’t in love with each other, I knew for
my part that it was going to tear me apart to be separated from her.
Our last week together was very quiet between the two of us.  We were
working in two different sections of the camp, not just different
campsites, and it severely interfered with our interaction.  Even when
we did manage to talk to each other face to face, she was strangely
reticent, deflecting my attempts to talk about our last night
together.  
Smiling a sad, mysterious little smile, she’d shake her head and say,
"We’ll see, sport, we’ll see."  
After the fifth time, I simply shrugged my shoulders and resolved to
wait until Saturday, when we’d have more time together.  She might not
feel the need to talk about our situation, but I certainly did.  
The last Saturday finally arrived, and after getting through the
circus of the parent’s arrival, pick up and departure, I went in
search of her.  Unfortunately, I had been forced to spend two hours
waiting on a parent whose car had broken down.  Kara, the little girl
was in the third grade, was sitting there all alone after all her
friends had left.  I did what I could to help pass the time.  I had
just about exhausted my repertoire of funny voices, games and songs
when the station wagon finally pulled in.  Her father apologized
profusely and thanked me warmly for looking after his daughter before
throwing her bag in the car for the return trip.  When I finally was
able to try and catch up to Melissa, I couldn’t find hide or hair of
her.  I spent several hours wandering through the camp, trying to
track her down.  Finally returning to the dorm around five, I found an
envelope sitting on my bunk.   It was addressed to me, and I
recognized her handwriting.  
Picking it up, I suddenly got a very cold feeling in the pit of my
stomach.  It couldn’t be what I thought it was.  Most of the
counselors were planning on staying the night and attending the end of
year party planned for tonight, but I knew of at least two who had
already packed and left.  One of them, Kevin, had been heading for
Melissa’s hometown.  If she had gotten a ride from him, and left me
with this note as a way of saying goodbye I was going to have a
tantrum.  My tantrums, unfortunately, had a tendency to be very
spectacular.  And very destructive.  I thought that perhaps it might
be a better idea if I left the room before reading it.  There were far
too many breakable things in the room.  The windows, the mirror…  the
door.  I stalked outside and off the porch.  If I was about to be
given the ‘kiss off’, I was damned if I would happen in where anyone
could see.  A brief walk past the parking lot and I found the swimming
pool area completely deserted.  It was close enough.  With trembling
hands I peeled open the envelope and read.  It was short and to the
point:
‘Meet me at exactly 8:00 in the snake room.  Don’t come early, or
you’ll regret it."
It was written in block letters, but I knew.  I had worked myself up
into a froth for nothing.  I laughed when I re-read the directions.
‘The snake room’ meant the cabin at the Sioux campsite out in the
Tribes.  She had worked the campsite a couple of weeks before, and had
told me about one of her campers.  He had informed the rest of the
campers that the word ‘Sioux’ actually meant snake.  Whether or not it
was true, I had no idea.  And I really didn’t care.  It was simply a
safe way to tell me where to meet her, just in case someone was
snooping through the room before I arrived. 
Well, there was certainly no way I was going to miss this, whatever
‘this’ was.  But I might not do it quite the way she expected.
Thrusting the note into my pocket, I hurried back to my room.  I had
spent most of the morning in the sun and spending the afternoon
running all over the camp hadn’t done much to improve my fragrance.  I
grabbed a quick shower, whatever she had planned, I didn’t think that
showing up smelling like a polecat would improve the mood.  
I grabbed my keys and ran up to the car.  A half an hour later I was
wolfing down a Big Mac and fries on my way back to the camp.  Instead
of pulling into the main driveway, however, I continued down the
narrow road for another mile.  I pulled off the blacktop onto a rutted
dirt road that led back down through the forest to the Tribes.  It was
slow going.  The Ford, after all, was not built with off-roading in
mind.  After about a half mile, I realized that my car was never going
to make it the whole way without running the risk of punching a hole
in the oil pan or some other equally vulnerable part on the underside.
I was able to make it to a small clearing, where I was able to pull
off and would at least have room to turn the beast around.  The
thought of trying to back the car out of the road gave me the shivers.
I had to reorient myself to the geography since I wasn’t used to
coming in this way.  I hurried down the trail, trying not to break an
ankle in the deep furrows.  When I was within a few hundred feet, I
broke off the trail, circling around to the right through the woods.
I wanted to come up on the cabin from the rear.  I figured she would
automatically chose the girls cabin, just as she had the first night.
It took me a little longer than I had expected and I didn’t near the
cabin until almost 7:00.  It was cutting it tight, but I hoped I’d be
all right.  I moved very slowly once the cabin came into view through
the scrub underbrush.  Walking carefully, I found a small thicket that
would conceal me, while at the same time giving me a good view of the
trail and the front door of the cabin.  
So it was a sneaky, dirty and underhanded thing to do, I’m like that
sometimes.  Besides, I owed her.  And I really wanted to know what the
hell was going on before I stumbled into it, I’m like that sometimes
too.  I settled down into my little spot and relaxed, trying not to
think about what she had in mind.  I didn’t have long to wait.  I saw
her come into view down the trial from the camp.  She was carrying a
rather large bag over her shoulder and seemed to be distracted as she
hurried down the path to the cabin.  She stopped and gave the area a
quick look.  I laughed to myself, nice to see she trusted me.  Well, I
was proving her right.  I waited and watched.  She went into the cabin
and I didn’t see her again for almost ten minutes.  I could hear her
moving things around and assumed she was arranging the beds.  After a
few moments of silence, I saw her walk back out of the cabin.  She was
dressed in a robe and had a towel slung over her neck.  The showers
were only a short distance away, but the sound of the water would
definitely cover the noise of my retreat.  Once I heard the water
start, I left the little thicket and moved back the way I had come.  
Another fifteen minutes and I was standing next to my car, wondering
what the hell the night had in store for me.  I probably smoked half a
pack of cigarettes over the next half-hour, waiting for the appointed
time to roll around.  When my watch finally read five to eight, I
squared my shoulders and, like any good soldier following orders,
marched down the road to my fate. 
I timed it rather well, even if I do say so.  At precisely 8:00, I
knocked on the door of the cabin.  
Chapter 7
"Come in," she called.  She sounded almost as nervous as I felt.  I
took a deep breath, exhaled and walked in.
"Oh my…" I tailed off.  Candles, dozens of them, lit the room.  Spread
over every available surface, they cast a warm even glow throughout
the room.  I saw something out of the corner of my eye and turned to
look.  She stood in the corner of the room, wearing a white negligée
that seemed to glow in the candlelight.  It was long in the back, but
seemed to come together in front, just below the tops of her thighs.
The top seemed to be made out of lace, held up by two thin straps over
her shoulders.  
Yes, it was a little staged, and a little contrived; even I could
recognize that.  But it didn’t matter.  All the effort that she went
through only served to demonstrate, extremely vividly, just how much
meaning she put on what happened tonight.  
She stood there, uncertainly, shifting her weight from one foot to
another, searching my face for my reaction.  "Do you like it?"  
My face wasn’t showing much of anything at that moment, I was too
stunned.  "Yes, Melissa, I love it."  I crossed over to her quickly
and wrapped her up in my arms. Standing there in ratty shorts and a
polo shirt, I felt completely out of place, like a man who arrives at
a cocktail party dressed as a pirate.  I kissed her tenderly, not
quite believing what was going on.
"I wanted it to be special.  Since we don’t know when…" she paused for
a second, a brief pang of pain passing over her face, "or if we’ll be
together again.  I just wanted it to be special."
"It is special.  Very special.  Any time with you is special, this
just makes it more so."  My heart was in my throat.  It’s a stupid
cliché but it fits how I felt.  I was having trouble forcing up the
words.  
After standing there for a moment, we walked together, over to the
bed.  She had been busy.  The mattresses were stacked up on the bed in
what had become our trademark, with the sleeping bags spread out over
top.  As we reached the bed, she stopped and turned to face me.
Without saying anything, she slowly pulled my shirt up over my head
and removed my shorts.  There didn’t seem to be any rush to things
tonight.  Everything important would happen in its own time.  After
removing my clothes, she climbed onto the bed, and motioned me to join
her.  Once we quickly settled into the bed, we lay there together
quietly.  We continued to kiss, enjoying simply being together.  
After a few moments passed in this pleasant fashion, Melissa seemed to
make a decision, gently pushing me to roll onto my back.  She reached
down to wrap her fingers around my cock.  Leaning over, she kissed me
one last time, and slowly trailed her lips down my body.  She lay
there, slowly stroking me with her hand, her head resting on my
stomach.
To say that I was shocked would be an understatement.  I was
dumbfounded.  In the last three months, she had shown absolutely no
interest in going down on me.  I had eaten, licked and sucked her
until I was giddy with power, and we had brought each other to
simultaneous orgasms with our hands on any number of occasions, but
she had never come close to performing oral sex on me.  And I hadn’t
pushed.  Hell, I had barely given the matter much thought at all.  I
was too busy exploring her body and what I could do with it to worry
about anything that trivial.  It was an understandable mistake, the
kind of mistake someone without a great deal of experience would make.

We stayed like that for quite a while.  Every few minutes she would
make a small abortive move towards the tip of my cock then lay her
head back down on my stomach.  After this happened three times, even I
knew that something wasn’t quite right.  
"Melissa, what’s wrong," I asked, laying my hand on her shoulder.
"Nothing, baby, nothing."  She answered in a husky voice so quiet I
could barely hear her.  "Nothing," she repeated in a broken voice.
That was enough of that.  I gently pulled her back up to lay next to
me.  When I looked at her, I was stunned to see that she was crying.
"What’s wrong?"
She just shook her head and continued crying, not trusting herself to
speak.  
"Melissa, damn it, what’s wrong?"  I was starting to get a little
scared.  This didn’t seem like simply an overflow of sadness because
we would be leaving each other tomorrow.  "Talk to me, Melissa, honey,
please talk to me."
"I’m sorry, David, I’m so sorry."
"Sorry about what?  Melissa, what’s going on?"  Unfortunately, all
this accomplished was to cause her to burst into sobs.  ‘Well,
asshole,’ I thought to myself, ‘you’re handling this really well.’  I
was at a loss.  I pulled her into my arms, holding her tight.  She
buried her head against my neck, repeating over and over that she was
sorry.  Hell, I still didn’t know why she was so sorry.  I did the
best I could.
"It’s okay, honey.  Everything’s going to be okay.  Shhhh.
Everything’s going to be okay."  Yeah, I knew it sounded ridiculous,
and was probably the next best thing to useless.  But it’s all I could
come up with on short notice.  I just kept repeating that, and
variations of it, over and over again, drowning out her repeated
apologies. Eventually it actually seemed to do some good.  Her sobbing
quieted, and although I was already soaking wet from all the tears she
had shed, I thought I could feel it start to slow.  I reached down to
put my fingers under her chin and lifted, forcing her head up gently.
Looking her in the eye, I slowly leaned my head forward and kissed her
softly.  
"Melissa, honey, what’s wrong?"  I asked again.  
"I tried, David, I really tried.  But I just can’t."  The tears had
slowed to a trickle, but she was still sniffling, the crying not
really over, just on hold.
"I don’t understand Melissa, what are you talking about?"
She drew in a deep shuddering breath, "I’m talking about going down on
you, about sucking your cock.  I just can’t."
"Is that all?" I asked in amazement.  "Melissa, if you don’t want to,
there’s no reason for you to do it.  It doesn’t matter to me!"  I
couldn’t believe she was getting so upset over such a small thing.
"No!  You don’t understand," she almost shouted.  "I do want to!  I
can’t!"
She’s right, I didn’t, couldn’t understand what she meant.  So she
explained it to me.  She used words of one syllable, so I would be
sure to understand.
"I told you that I’d been with two guys, right?  Roger and Tony, the
guy in high school."  She hadn’t mentioned his name before, but I
nodded for her to go on.  "That’s not quite all the truth.  There was
another guy in between the other two.  He was a friend of a friend.
He was older, about 20 and I was a junior, 17.  He hung around after
school with some people.  He looked, and acted about as cool as you
could get, the whole ‘bad boy’ cliché, but at that point I was really
impressed by him.  I thought I was in love."  She stopped and I gave
her another gentle kiss.  I could see that this was very difficult for
her.  The tears had started to flow again, although she was keeping
her voice very calm and controlled; I knew what it was costing her.  
"Just take your time," I said quietly.  "We have all night."
She smiled a sad smile.  "Our last night, you mean."  Taking another
deep breath she continued, "Anyway, one day, right out of the blue, he
asked me if I wanted to go to a party on Friday night.  He called it
the ‘ultimate blow-out’, and I thought he should know.  I said yes,
and thought about it the whole week.  He had completely overwhelmed
me.  He was handsome and older than I, everything that I thought I
wanted a guy to be.  On Friday, he picked me up and we went to the
party.  We hung out for a while, just having fun.  There was beer, but
I wasn’t paying much attention, since I knew I had to go home
afterwards.  He didn’t.  Anyway, after a couple of hours, we left, and
on the way, he asked if I wanted to stop and park for a while.  I
thought we were just going to, you know, make out and have a little
fun.  But after we had done that for a while, he told me he wanted
something else…"
"I think I get the picture."  My stomach had started doing flip-flops
halfway into her story.  By this point, I was worked into such a rage
that I had trouble seeing clearly.  It wasn’t a new story, even to me.
It had happened to a friend of mine earlier that year, although I
don’t think it went quite as far with her.  That time, I had been able
to do something about it.  This time, I could only sit and grow
angrier and angrier.  
I let out a long slow breath, trying to keep control of myself.  I
didn’t think a personal demonstration of my temper would help things.
I got a grip on myself and looked at her again.  
"Melissa," I began, "you have absolutely nothing to be sorry about.
Nothing at all."  I paused, trying to think of something, anything to
say.  "Why do you think you should feel sorry?"
"Because I can’t.  And I want to.  I want it so bad it hurts.  I love
you so much and I…" She trailed off, her eyes growing wide as she
realized what she had said.  Looking scared, she continued on in a
rush, "I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean that.  I remember what we said."  She
looked embarrassed, as if she had let a state secret slip.
"Melissa," I tried to interrupt.
"I mean, neither of us need this.  It’s not right.  I didn’t mean it,
Dave."  She wasn’t paying any attention to what I was trying to say.
She couldn’t even look at me directly.  
"Melissa," I said, a little louder than necessary perhaps, but it got
her attention.  She turned her head back to face me, looking worried
about what I was going to say next.  "Melissa, I love you too."
Whatever she was expecting, that wasn’t it.  The tears that had almost
stopped flowing started up yet again.  But there was a difference this
time.  Her face split into a smile and she flung her arms around me,
squeezing me tight.  It was ridiculous.  We both knew that a
relationship would be impossible.  My parents probably wouldn’t have a
large problem with it, but through our talks, I knew hers would throw
a fit.  But more importantly, I didn’t think either one of us were
ready for one.  Not at that point.  A long distance relationship is
possible, at least in theory, particularly if they are both seniors;
but not when one of us is in college and the other in high school.
That was pretty much impossible.  And we both knew it.  We talked
about those things and more as we lay there, resting together.  We
concluded that while there was no doubt we loved each other, we
weren’t in love or at least, not that much.  
As we talked, our caresses became less abstracted and more intimate,
and our kisses grew steadily more passionate.  Before long, the
worries about the future fell away and the only thing concerning us
was the present.  Her negligee was slowly removed by common consent,
and soon our hands were ranging over each other’s bodies.
After one particularly good kiss, she asked, "Ready?"
It was my turn to give her the ‘Look’ I’d been receiving for most of
the last three months.  The look that said, "You IDIOT, of COURSE!"
I’d been waiting quite some time for that to happen, and I took great
satisfaction in it.  I’d honed that look for weeks, hoping against
hope that I’d be able to use it, and finally I was.  
She laughed a little sheepishly, recognizing it immediately for what
it was.  "Payback’s a bitch," I whispered into her ear.  "Where are
the rubbers?"
She just shook her head, threw her leg over mine and with a shift of
her hips, I was inside of her.  I gasped in shock, not only at the
feeling, but also at her decision.  I knew she was on the pill.  I had
seen her ‘Dial-a-Candy’ dispenser often enough, but that had never
been the sole reason for using a condom.  
Then I remembered one of the late night, fireside chats we had.  Being
a virgin, I hadn’t had the opportunity to pick up any of the
embarrassing social conditions about which one normally worries.  And
as for AIDS, I had gone through a stomach operation some years before,
one that required a small transfusion.  As a result, first at my
parents insistence, and then mine, every physical included a blood
test, just in case.  Melissa’s physicals included one as well.  I
relaxed.  It was as safe as it would ever be, and there was no sense
worrying about it.
That left me only one thing to worry about, whether or not I was going
to reach orgasm in the next 60 seconds.  Fortunately, she realized
what a change it would be, and we simply lay there, not moving, giving
me a few moments to adjust to it.  There was a mischievous little
twinkle in her eye, and just as she started to move, she leaned
forward and whispered, "Surprise."  
She had no idea.  The absence of that thin barrier changed everything.
It was incredible.  We slowly started to move together, our bodies
sliding back and forth in counterpoint to each other.  With an effort,
she lifted herself and slid over top of me so that she was perched
above me, lowering herself down over top of me.  Our eyes were locked
to each other.  What was happening to our bodies had become secondary.
It was still there, of course; the feeling of surging deep into her
could hardly be ignored.  But it wasn’t as important as what was going
on between us.  We built up slowly, trying to make the night last as
long as possible.  During the summer there had been several Saturday
nights that consisted of nothing but trying to bring each other off
again and again and again.  This, in turn, had caused some very sore
Sunday mornings.  We both knew, however, that this night was
different.  It wasn’t a night to keep score, the number of orgasms
were completely irrelevant
We exchanged positions several times, staying in one for a few moments
then easily shifting back.  This was our goodbye.  Tomorrow morning,
we would cry and hug, but this night, this endless moment would be
where the hurting started, and the healing began.  
Chapter 8
Opening my eyes, I found myself sitting in my car, perched on top of
hill.  The memories had seemed so real, so immediate that it took me a
moment to realize where I was.  
"Shit," I said with some disgust.  This wasn’t solving anything.  The
dashboard clock told me I’d been sitting here for over an hour, lost
in the mists of the not too distant past.  If anything, I was even
more confused now.  In the last 9 months, I’d been able to, then at
least contain the feelings that had I had developed for Melissa.  But
they had been contained, not conquered.  And the confusion I felt over
what happened tonight was simply added to the turmoil.  
Melissa and I had parted on that Sunday morning with fewer tears than
I had expected.  There were some, of course, for both of us.  We had
promised to call and write, and unlike most of those promises made at
camp, we had actually kept them.  In fact, she had returned with Linda
for Thanksgiving last November.  I had a sneaking suspicion that
Melissa had not only taken Linda into her confidence but also enlisted
her aid at some point.  We were able to find entirely too many
opportunities to spend time together for it to be a coincidence.
Melissa simply gave a mysterious little smile and changed the subject
whenever I asked.
We had talked about being counselors again this summer, but that idea
had died a fairly early death a few months ago.  She had a chance to
work with one of the doctoral candidates on her dissertation, and
although it would be a great opportunity for her, it would also mean
that she would have to work through the summer.  So much for camp.
And I wasn’t so in love with the place that I wanted to work there
without her.  
I had planned to spend the summer as a bum.  I had plenty of cash
saved up, enough for both the summer of indulgence and for ‘beer
money’ at school.  The fact that I couldn’t choke down a beer if my
life depended on it was immaterial.  It was the principle of the
thing.  And besides, calling it ‘tequila money’ didn’t have the same
ring to it.  After three months of R&R came the joys of higher
education.  I had already received my acceptance letter from Penn
State.  And a combination of my SAT scores and my stated desire to
take Japanese to satisfy my foreign language requirement had been
sufficient to make me one of the few freshmen at College Park.  Lucky
me.  Lucky hell.  I sat up more than a few nights trying to figure out
the best way to ensure that I would be able to attend the main campus
as a freshman, the administration was notoriously reluctant to allow
them on campus.  Fortunately, this had done it.  The next year was to
be the time where Melissa and I discovered whether or not we could
actually work as a couple, day in and day out.  At least, that had
been the plan until tonight.
Chapter 9
I hadn’t even planned on going to the party, although it had been
widely circulated in school over the past couple of days.  It was
basically a "come as you will party" with everyone reputed to be
invited.  A couple of my ‘buddies’ had dragged me there, threatening
prolonged physical violence if I didn’t, and I quote "get up off my
fat ass and enjoy the last moments of the best days of my life."
Considering the fact that Jerry was 5’ 4" tall and weighed 120 pounds
immediately following a full meal and being dunked with all his
clothes on, I wasn’t terribly worried about his threats of bodily
harm.  Allen just stood there and giggled.  He wasn’t a great deal of
help, to either of us.
The three of us held a somewhat unique position in the school.  We
fell so far outside everyone’s expectations that we could move
relatively freely throughout the stratified levels of high school
society.  We weren’t exactly accepted, but it did give us the
opportunity to interact with just about everyone, as long as we
remembered the unwritten rules.  By and large, we didn’t have any
interest in overstepping the bounds in any case, so it wasn’t terribly
restrictive.  We could be out back smoking a joint with the burnouts
one moment, then get asked to help cram with one of the preps the
next, or anything in between.  It was a comfortable little arrangement
that allowed us to do what we felt like, without the low-level
terrorism with which most of the population was force to undergo.
Even taking our strange social position into account, the idea of
spending an evening crammed into a house with a couple of hundred
drunken teenagers didn’t exactly fill me with anticipation.
There was a grain of truth to what he said though.  I hadn’t been much
of a social animal during the 4 years of high school.  The student
body was pretty well divided into two distinct groups: those few that
I actually hung out with after the school day ended, and, with two
notable exceptions, everyone else.  The group I spent most of my time
with could be termed the "Brilliant Underachievers".  Jerry and Allen
and myself made up the core trio, although there were a few others
that floated in and out.  High school bored us to tears.  We knew we
were smarter than most of the teachers.  Unfortunately, we had a nasty
habit of acting that way as well.  We did the minimum, mostly.
Whatever it took to keep them off our backs.  I don’t think any of us
had a G.P.A. higher than a 2.5 or so, but when we got together to
compare notes when our SAT scores came in, we found out that we had
all scored over 1500.  We simply weren’t interested in what the high
school teachers had to say.  
Unlike the other two, I didn’t have a single interest that absorbed
all my waking moments.  I was a lazy man’s jack of all trades.  I
could kibitz with Jerry about computers, although when he started
thinking in binary he left me far behind.  I could also stay with
Allen long enough to get the general gist of whatever chemistry
hobbyhorse he was riding at that particular moment.  However, I did
have a nice little sideline of my own in those days.  In any school,
there are always those who would rather have the grade than the
knowledge.  For those poor souls, I had a ‘Writing on Demand’ service.
Given a week’s lead-time, I could produce a paper on whatever topic
they wished.  All the service, for a nominal fee, of course.  I
actually enjoyed it, for the most part.  It gave me the excuse to
spend most of my time reading or doing research, and put enough cash
in my pocket that my simple needs were met without having to resort to
anything as distasteful as getting a ‘real job’.  By the time senior
year rolled around, I could bang out a 5 page paper on almost any
topic inside of two hours, and charge between $25 and $30 for my
effort.  Term papers, depending on how long and involved could garner
up to $100.  It wasn’t too strenuous.  First come, first served, and I
kept the amount of 

  
Passages of Life - Jubal Harshaw - mf first