Gates of the Arctic

Shuffling through my gear in the growing darkness, I return with a metal wash basin, my raspberry bath gel, and my favorite sea sponge. I set the basin at my feet near the fire, and pour a full amount of steaming water from the coffee pot into its waiting emptiness. Self-consciously, almost shyly I glance in the direction of the lake. Can you see me...out there in the darkness...can you? No, I decide...your mind is on other things at the moment. I have time...time to make myself fresh and appealing for our evening together.

Down on the beach, a six-pound Dolly Varden in hand, you turn as though bidden by some mute invitation. Have I summoned you...do I want you? Your eyes scan the darkness, coming to rest on my solitary form standing naked in the firelight. You smile...invitation answered... and begin to return toward camp.

It's only then that you realize what has caused me to shed my garments in the flickering light of the campfire. A gentleman would avert his eyes you feel...allow the assumed moment of privacy to continue undeterred.

Respiration quickening, you turn back toward the beach... then pause. That one brief glimpse of innocent simplicity has captured you...mesmerized you...robbed you of your ability to separate yourself from that which is to come. And so you turn once more, your eyes piercing the darkness...your unseen gaze caressing my flesh through the veil of night.

Mutely you stand...transfixed as I spread my legs above the pan, bending low to charge my sponge with the steaming fluid. You watch as I gently squeeze its porous heart over first one shoulder and then the other, the water sluicing down my body...over my breasts, my soft belly...my supple thighs.

I bend again, this time to retrieve a small tube of pinkish gel from the sand near my feet. From this I express a small pool into my hand, rubbing my palms together until a light lather begins to form. You watch...eyes heavy-lidded, as I begin to stroke my body...first one breast, and then the other until tiny flecks of foam adorn each hardened nipple and my body stands slick and glistening before you.

Again you attempt to turn, to restore my privacy...but it's beyond you. Your trout, a prize mere moments before, now goes unnoticed as your body responds to the intimacy which unfolds before you.

Once more you watch as I charge my palms with the aromatic gel, working it until the lather oozes unbidden between my fingers. This time I lift my left foot, bracing it on a piece of driftwood, and began to stroke the length of my leg. Slowly I work my way upward...upward...until I reach the juncture of my thighs, then I pause.

I glance once more toward the lake, as though assessing your proximity, but you remain hidden behind your cloak of darkness.

Satisfied that my privacy remains intact, I close my eyes and softly slip my soap-slicked finger between my thighs...between my blushing curls...unerringly seeking and finding the hard nub of my desire. Is it my hand that I see stroking seductively in my mind's eye, or yours?

Trembling, your hand begins to mimic the motion of my own as I suck my lower lip between my teeth...my guilty pleasure mounting with each stroke.

Suddenly I gasp...my palm flattening...denying myself the release that I reserve for your touch alone. My breasts heave with unrequited desire as again I dip my sponge and rinse the heated lather from my body.

I draw an uneven breath, shivering as I towel dry and pop my sweater once more over my head, feeling its soft folds drop downward to tease the tops of my thighs as I take my place by the fire and await the return of my conquering hunter.

I haven't long to wait, it seems, for I've barely begun to settle down when I feel you beside me, a massive trout hanging from your fingers...supper and then some. I smile at your triumph. We'll eat well tonight...and the fish will be good too.

Prepared in advance, I butter a length of foil and pop your prize in the very center. Then, stuffing it with onion slices, I add salt and pepper, seal it, and lean forward toward the fire to place it among the ashes, allowing it to poach in its own juices for a while.

My motion was not meant to entice...to enflame...but the stretch of my arms causes my hemline to rise. The rounded globes of my bottom become exposed as I kneel on hands and knees before the flickering firelight, placing the heavy package deep among the glowing coals. The heat, so radiant upon my skin, becomes unbearable, and I spread my knees wide as I back away...further and further from the scorching flames...until I come in contact with an immovable object that was not there scant moments before.

"Sarah," you whisper, your now naked flanks warm against my bared flesh..."I watched you...I saw..."

The warmth I feel drifting upward now has nothing to do with the fire before me...but rather the fire within. A rosy glow encapsulates my body...a flush as I remember what took place in your absence.

"Dan..." I rasp, my voice hoarse with the passion I feel rising from the very center of my being. "Dan...?"

"Shhhh...let me help, " you sooth, your voice gentle like the soft caress that now strokes the backs of my thighs...my buttocks. "Let me..."

I feel your left arm encircle my waist, holding me fast, stabilizing my quaking form from behind as your free hand begins to probe between my thighs. I whimper...enflamed with a hunger only you can satisfy...alive with the thrusts of your fingers deep within me.

I drop to my elbows, my head resting on my forearms as you begin to massage the one place that will send me spiraling into oblivion. Your fingers part my melting crevasse...probing...guiding...and in an instant I feel your rigid shaft plunge full stroke into my quivering belly.

"AHHH!" I cry, your possession massive and unexpected. You pause...allowing me to adjust to your rapid intrusion...then begin to move in ways that defy words... emotions. I bite my lip as I feel your fingers...your hardened flesh consume me...drive me to the very edge. My control flees, and just as your touch tips the balance between sanity and total abandon, you withdraw.

I cry out once again...this time in frustration as your maddening fingers cast my reserve into the abyss. Why did you...why did you...and then I know. Shuddering uncontrollably as my climax becomes all-consummate, I feel your steely shaft pressing now against my narrower passage.

"Do you want this, Sarah...do you?" you rumble heavily. "Tell me...I want to hear it...say it now," you plead.

My nails drag the sand before me. "Ohhhh, Dan, ohhhh. Please...please...I want..." and then my voice, my words are lost in mindless babble...the senseless utterings of a woman whose civilized veneer has been stripped to the core.

Once more you thrust...filling me with your presence... sending flames of passion throughout my body. If not for the arm that still holds me tight, I would now be quivering on the sand, writhing before you in total abandon.

Again you plunge...and again until my cries fill the wilderness, my metamorphosis complete. No longer am I the prim and proper school teacher who accompanied you to this place of tortuous passion...I have been replaced. In my stead lies a wanton creature for whom desire holds no secrets...primal need no mysteries. Everything in my world has ceased to exist...for me there is only you...and I...and the intimate coupling which joins us.

Finally...with one massive plunge, I feel your seed fill my hungering void...hot...burning...and I allow myself one last desperate act of completion. Stripped of strength and reason, I drop to the sand before you...my body still shuddering in the aftermath of passionate surrender.

Gently you lift me in your arms...enfolding me...protecting me from my inner beast as you sooth the aftershocks that quake my trembling form. My vulnerable side...my primal persona slips quietly into the velvet darkness of the night, and I am once again your Sarah...resurrected from the ashes...whole and clinging in your embrace.

You brush your lips against my sweat-soaked forehead, like a parent checking for the signs of fever, and smile. You feel close, protective, but not at all surprised at the turn of events. You knew that this fiery doppelganger existed all along, lying hidden deep within me...awaiting the dawn of your touch alone. It was I who had failed to recognize my seething core...but no more...no more.

The meal we've prepared tastes so much better now...the textures and flavors almost vibrant against my tongue as though a part of me that was dormant has suddenly come to life. My senses reel. Is this the same world I awoke to just this morning? Could it be?

Quietly, we put the camp to rest, then curl up again in our cozy nest amid the down. You start to speak...perhaps to whisper my name here in the solemn sanctity of the wilderness once more, but a touch of my finger against your lips silences you. I roll my eyes skyward, and hear the soft intake of your breath...for above us swirl the "euwakee", the Northern lights, filling the night with undulating curtains of color.

"The Inupiat believe that if you whistle at the "euwaukee" they'll swoop down and cut your head off," I tease, stroking my index finger softly against your throat.

You chuckle...a throaty sound that I've come to cherish. "Then lets not whistle," you laugh, capturing my hand between your own. "I wouldn't want you to lose your head."

Gently you hold me in your arms, chasing the world away, sharing the warmth of your body...your essence...with me alone. I snuggle into your embrace...no questions...no answers...just a pristine sense of here and now that fills our souls. The spirit of this place enfolds us in mystic solitude. We close our eyes, the sigh of the breeze and the crackling of the flames singing a lullaby that only we...in all of the universe, can hear...and drift away.

Dawn comes long before we are ready. Once again we share our bodies in tender exchange, knowing that our time here is at an end. As all things must pass, so too has our escape into the wilderness. Far beyond these glacial peaks...beyond the muskeg riddled tundra, lies a place that calls even now for accountability.

We pack your Stearman, and once more head into the wind, gazing poignantly as our sheltered vale drops away below us...ours no longer. But was it ever ours, I wonder...or did it hold claim to us instead? Will it preserve our footprints as we bear our memories...forever fresh...forever vital? Have we taken a part...the most important part with us on our return to the "real world"?

Gently we rise, the rumble of the engine filling us as we bank weightlessly to the north...waggling our wings in fond farewell. I turn my head...my heartbeat slows. My eyelids close, capturing an image within...a memory...a living photograph. For a brief instant, Paradise was ours. You felt it too...I know without ever asking...a memory shared, forever young...invincible against the ravages of time.

Time drifts slowly onward...life passes beneath our wings...but some things are eternal.

- The End -