Two in the Bush Ch. 03

"Julia, I stink," he protested, holding her away from him, "and I've got dirt and blood all over me. I can't imagine that's pleasant for you."

She kissed his chest then nuzzled his underarm. "I like the way you stink."

Ben laughed and picked her up off the ground. "Woman, I have missed you so much," he said, kissing her deeply.

"Not as much as I've missed you."

Julia warmed the wash tub water with boiling water from the stove, and she insisted on washing Ben herself. They stood outside while she splashed warm basins full of water over his tired body. Next she wet his hair and washed it, massaging his scalp with her fingertips. She rinsed his hair before scrubbing his body clean with a soapy washcloth. Finally she rinsed him gently, the basins of cooling water caressing his skin.

"Oh Julia," Ben sighed in contentment, "that's what I call a welcome."

She was drying him with a towel. "That's only a preview," she teased, noticing his cock was sticking straight out despite the cold.

"Come on, help me with this tub," Ben said, "so I can thank you properly."

They lugged the tub away from the cabin and drained it, then quickly rinsed it clean in the river. Shivering, they ran back to the cabin, each holding one end of the tub. Ben was still naked from his bath and although Julia was dressed, her clothing was wet and sticking to her from bathing her lover. Dumping the empty tub on the porch they rushed inside, slamming the door behind them.

They were glowing from the cold and their giddiness of being together again. Immediately Ben started stripping the wet clothing from Julia's skin. He picked her up and carried her to the bed as they kissed along the way. After laying her gently on top of the blankets he kneeled between her legs. He kissed the inside of both thighs, his nerves tingling as his lips caressed her familiar smoothness. God he'd missed her!

Ben breathed deeply of her arousal and groaned. "Julia, you smell so good." He drew her puffy lips gently into his mouth, marveling at their softness, before parting them with his tongue and tasting the slick liquid that squeezed out from between them.

Every cell in her body was aflame, and she jumped at the feel of his touch again. "Oh Ben, I've missed you so much," she cried out, the orgasm blazing through her.

Julia nudged Ben up and over on his back, and she covered his body with tortuous kisses as she inched her way to his groin. He raised his hips in sweet agony as she licked and sucked his shuddering cock, releasing his pent-up semen down her throat.

The immediate crisis over, their lovemaking grew more languorous, and they stroked their hands and fingers, legs and feet all over each other's body. She loved the muscular hardness of him, and he loved the curving softness of her, and they pressed their bodies into each other, trying to merge.

Rolling Julia onto her back, Ben parted her legs and entered her slowly, easing his way into her pussy until she moaned. Once he had filled her, he began grinding his hips into hers.

Reaching down to her clitoris, he asked, "You know how we made love the night before we left?"

"Yes," Julia panted, finding it difficult to hold a conversation with his fingers on her clit and his cock filling her cunt. That was some of the best sex they'd had. The added danger of other people sleeping in the same room fueled the thrill for them both.

"Would it bother you to know that we had an audience?" he revealed, rolling her clitoris gently between fingers wet with her juices.

A shudder rocked through Julia's body. Oh, God, they woke up? She wasn't sure whether she was horrified or aroused.

"They told you?" Julia asked incredulously as he thrust into her slowly but deeply.

"We're men," Ben responded matter-of-factly, pausing to run his tongue from her collarbone to her earlobe. "A bunch of guys out hunting usually means there are only so many topics of discussion." She groaned in response. "Well, Alrek said he awoke from a sex dream with a hard-on and could smell the sex in the room."

"Ohhh!" Julia moaned, grasping his buttocks with both hands and pulling him into her. Ben's strokes became harder and faster, and with his free hand he held her face so that he could look in her eyes.

"They saw you on top of me, fucking me dry. And they all jerked off, wishing they were me," he continued, his eyes dark with lust.

"Oh God, Ben, no," she cried out, both in arousal and embarrassment.

"Oh yes," he confirmed, a nasty smile curling on his lips. "And I think I like that idea, you turning on a room full of men, knowing I'm the only one fucking your hot, tight pussy."

Ben was torturing her, bringing her to the brink of coming over and over, pulling back just before she crested. He was enjoying this; he wanted Julia to scream, loudly, when she came.

"Does that turn you on, baby? Do you like that you made four men in one room come at once?"

"Oh GOD yes! That is so fucking hot!" she screamed, pulling his head roughly to her and shoving her tongue in his mouth.

Ben rolled them as they kissed, until Julia was lying on top of him. He broke their kiss and urged, his voice deep with arousal, "Then fuck me, baby. Fuck me. Grind that wet cunt on my cock and show them what you've got!"

"That is so fucking dirty," she cried, "so fucking hot. All those fuckers fucking themselves..." Her cunt was on fire as she rubbed herself furiously against his thick shaft.

"For you, baby," Ben added, squeezing her breasts. "Fucking themselves for you." He felt the eruption rumbling, boiling at the base of his groin.

Julia's pussy began to pulsate with her orgasm, the sensation powerfully radiating out through her body. "Yes! Oh YES!" she screamed, feeling powerful, all woman.

"Fuck!" Ben bellowed as, shuddering, he shot his come deep into her cunt.

Julia remained where she was, grinding herself slowly on his cock until she had another orgasm. Then she bent forward to his face, careful to keep him inside her.

They kissed, their tongues deep in each other's mouth. Ben rolled them over until Julia was on her back again. He stroked her face, moving a strand of hair from her eyes, and gently kissed both eyelids.

"Julia, I love you," he whispered.

"I love you too, Ben," she replied, staring into his dilated eyes. "I love you so much."

When they woke that morning the air was freezing cold. Ben told Julia to stay in bed while he built up the fire. "I better bring more wood in from the lean to," he told her, kissing her on the forehead.

Julia waited for only a few more minutes before slipping out of bed and, shivering, quickly getting dressed. She silently thanked Uncle Ray for the soft woolen long johns and socks she wore.

The woodbox by the stove was heaping now, and a pile of wood stood by the door as well. "Feels like we're going to get snow today," Ben commented, kissing Julia. The cold clung to his clothes like a fog. "It's a good thing we got home when we did."

Julia was pouring the cornmeal batter into the pan. "Yes it is," she agreed, leaning against him for reassurance. She shivered again, this time from the thought of him being out there in the cold rather than the chill of the air in the cabin.

Ben ran his fingers through her hair at the nape of her neck before kissing her shoulder. "I've been in much worse," he said, sensing the source of her worry. "Nevertheless, it's very satisfying to have fresh meat in the cache as well as a beautiful woman in my home."

After breakfast they dressed warmly, and in the fresh cold they gathered green woodchips for the smoker. Then they lifted a large piece of the carcass off its hook, taking it inside to cut the meat into strips and season it before smoking. They talked and joked as they worked, delighting to be in each other's company again.

When the couple had two large pans heaping with strips of meat they strung it on strings and carried it out to the smoker. Returning to the cabin they put a hunk of the moose meat into the cast-iron Dutch oven, added water, seasoned it with spices, and put it in the oven to roast all day. They would add vegetables to the pot after lunch, and by dinner time they would have a delicious tender pot roast.

Julia soaked Ben's hunting clothes in cold water to remove the stains before washing them using her little hand-cranked washing machine. Forced to wash them twice because they were so soiled, they eventually came out fresh and clean. She bundled herself well against the cold to hang his clothes out to dry.

Ben cleaned his guns at the kitchen table while she did the laundry, admiring her washing machine. "That's a lot easier on the hands than a washing board; I think my clothes are cleaner now than they've been in sixteen years."

He admitted once to Julia that laundry was a necessary evil he would typically put off as long as possible. He joked that he would wait until his clothes were stiff enough to walk away from him before he washed them.

Julia enjoyed the clean smell of line-dried laundry, so she happily took over the task, letting him be responsible for chopping wood. Ben enjoyed splitting wood; he found it strangely relaxing, and he was good at it. Since Julia found it to be a personal exercise in frustration, they agreed that he would be the primary woodchopper.

Snow was beginning to fall when Julia went outside to retrieve the clothing, frozen dry and stiff on the line. Ben had finished cutting up the vegetables and was adding them to the Dutch oven when she returned, her cheeks pink from the cold.

"Hmm, let me warm you up, baby," he offered, sliding his arms around her after she had hung up her jacket, hat, and scarf on the hook by the door.

Julia sighed against his strong chest, her heart full of contentment. They snuggled together on the floor in front of the stove, sharing a blanket and sitting on soft cushions. Ben read a book while Julia practiced her knitting.

Emily had given her a few quick lessons, and when she and Ben left Eagle Eye she had knitting needles and several skeins of wool yarn among her things. She was trying to knit a scarf for Ben, but she unraveled more than she knit. Oh well; if necessary, she had the whole winter to practice.

Dinner came, and they feasted on the tender roast and mealy vegetables. They did the dishes and curled up together in front of the stove again, smoking a joint and listening to the wind howl.

"Ben, I am so lucky I met you," Julia confessed, breaking the silence, her head against his chest. "I was just imagining myself in my uncle's cabin, listening to that wind, alone."

He put his arms around her protectively. "I'm the one who's lucky."

She sat up suddenly, facing him. "While you were gone, I tried to work on my book."

Ben balked a little because talk of her book reminded him that she was leaving in the spring, but he said nothing and waited for her to continue.

"But the whole time, I kept thinking about you." Julia paused for a moment before continuing. "I started to realize how naïve and foolish I was to think I could spend a winter alone in the middle of Alaska, fourteen miles from the nearest road, just because I'd stayed here for the summer twenty years ago and had done some backpacking along the Pacific Crest Trail."

"Julia..." Ben started to say, but she wasn't finished yet.

"I feel like the whole premise of my book is a sham. I've met you, and your friends, and all those people in Eagle Eye," she said, tears of shame stinging her eyes. "And you're all the real deal, everyday people who sometimes have to do extraordinary things to live your everyday lives. You're not some naïve, arrogant upstart from the Lower Forty-Eight who breezes in here fancying remaking herself into a modern-day female Thoreau. And he didn't exactly have a rich uncle leave behind a cabin and a year's supply of firewood for him at Walden, either."

Ben sat in stunned silence, incredulous at the disparity between the way he looked at her and the way she was describing herself.

"I will admit," he began at last, as he shifted to hold her more closely to him, "I had some doubts about your plan when I first met you. I thought you had an overly romantic vision of what it would be like to live in a remote area. But after I got to know you, I realized I had underestimated you.

"You say I'm 'the real deal'? Julia, don't forget, I came from the 'Lower Forty-Eight' just as much as you did, and so did a good many of the people living in Eagle Eye. We all came here with our own dreams, much like you. Don't mistake experience for authenticity.

"I'm glad you decided to stay here, with me, instead of your uncle's cabin, but not because I think you couldn't handle it on your own. Oh, I told myself at the time that I needed to protect you. But the truth is, Julia, it had more to do with me wanting to be in the presence of your company than it did you needing to be looked after.

"I remember when we first met you telling me about all of the things you had done to prepare yourself for this year. And I've seen you applying those skills every single day since then. You've tackled every new challenge with unwavering enthusiasm. So what you see as naïve, arrogant, and foolish, I see as brave, determined, and resourceful. You're the most extraordinary woman I've ever known."

With that first snowfall came the beginning of winter, the little cabin a refuge from the growing cold. Julia got a nosebleed one particularly frigid morning when she went outside and took a deep breath with her nose uncovered, wanting to inhale the clean crispness of the air.

"How embarrassing," Julia mourned in misery, pinching her nose with a handkerchief until the bleeding stopped. "I seem bound and determined to prove myself to be a genuine greenhorn."

Ben's eyes twinkled at her. "It's the only true path to becoming a sourdough," he comforted her. "As they say, 'the only way out is the way through'."

With Ben's guidance, Julia learned from those early mistakes. Soon she felt confident enough to spend entire days outside. On milder days they went cross-country skiing, and Julia was awed at how brightly the full moon illuminated the snow-covered land. One of her favorite pleasures was sitting with Ben in the steaming hot spring with the snow drifted up all around them.

Time elapsed quickly as the little cabin became banked with climbing drifts of snow. As December passed the days grew increasingly shorter till the sun hung in the sky for only a few brief hours before sinking again.

One late morning Julia and Ben were surprised by the arrival of a line of sturdy huskies pulling a sled. To their amazement it was Alrek and his new girlfriend Katy. She was familiarizing him with the finer points of mushing and they decided to test out his new skills by taking a little road trip of sorts. Ben and Julia admired the dogs while the visitors got them fed and situated for a rest. Julia laughed aloud at the large canines with thick coats and plush tails yipping playfully like puppies for their dinner.

The couples tromped through the snow to the cabin, stomping the snow from their boots before entering the cozy home.

Ben poured everyone mugs of strong black coffee and then they settled around the kitchen table, their hands cupping their mugs for warmth.

Julia and Katy studied each other in silence. Both of them had heard so much about the other they wanted to take a moment to size up her counterpart.

Katy was taller and bustier than Julia, but their figures were similarly hourglass shaped. Katy's skin was paler than Julia's, and her face a bit narrower, her nose sprinkled with a light dusting of freckles. Her fine straight hair, cut in a pixie style, was shinier than a raven's feather in the sunlight.

Julia knew that the woman was making a similar appraisal of her. Finally she smiled at her and said, "It's so nice to meet you, Katy. I've heard so much about you."

"Probably not nearly as much as I've heard about you," Katy replied, smiling back. "One of the advantages of living outside of town is that you're less likely to hear stories about how much you remind people of someone else every time you meet someone new."

"I'm sure that if you had moved to Eagle Eye before I did, that the same would be happening to me," Julia assured her. "Besides, one of the advantages of living in town is that you'll get to know everyone far better than I will, and then you'll be the person people keep comparing me to."

They laughed together.

Alrek had a full, albeit somewhat sparse, blond beard now, and Julia was a little surprised at first by the difference in his appearance. Though he was only a couple years younger than Ben, Alrek had a boyish face which made him seem younger than his years when he was clean shaven. His beard made him look older, more mature. Ben had a beard now, too, but Julia hadn't noticed the difference in him so much because she saw him every day as his facial hair grew in gradually.

Alrek and Katy stayed for lunch, and the two couples spoke rapidly, eagerly catching up on events in each other's lives. In March, Katy and her team would be competing in the Iditarod and Alrek was going to one of the checkpoint towns to cheer them on.

The visitors couldn't stay for dinner as they needed to get the dogs home and settled for the night. Julia and Ben were disappointed. They hadn't seen anyone else in more than two months and had been doing fine on their own, but seeing Alrek and meeting his new friend reminded them of how much they missed their friends from town.

As the two made ready to leave, Alrek reached into the pocket of his parka and pulled out a small package wrapped in red and green striped tissue paper.

"Merry Christmas, Ben and Julia; it's just a little token of my friendship," he said, his bright blue eyes flashing mischievously for giving away the contents of the package Julia held in her hand.

Smiling widely, Julia thanked him for his unfailing generosity. After a moment Alrek asked, "Can't you thank me better than that?" and then he lifted a layer of his muffler to uncover his smiling lips. Julia kissed him quickly while Katy rolled her eyes.

"You see what I have to put up with? The smoothest guy in fifty miles."

"Excuse me," Alrek protested through his muffler. "More like a hundred fifty."

And so they were all laughing when their friends slid off as quickly as they came, the runners kicking up snow like dust in their wake.

It was nearing the end of February and the couple was starting to feel the strain of their prolonged isolation. The wind seemed to grow crueler with each passing day, the snow striking the walls of the shivering cabin like coarse sandpaper.

They hadn't bathed in over three weeks. The air was far too cold to sit for even a few minutes in the hot spring, and it was such hard work hauling ice from the frozen river to melt for drinking that they couldn't spare what water they did have for washing.

Julia sat at the kitchen table trying with little success to work on her book. Listening to the wind howl, she tried to in vain to focus her thoughts on what life had been like for the past few months.

Sleeping and eating and fucking. Sleeping and eating and fucking. The tip of her pen drew meaningless scrawls along the right margin of the otherwise empty page. Her blunt assessment wasn't exactly true, but she was finding it difficult to think beyond the previous few weeks.

It was great fun at first, actually, hunkering down in the tiny cabin, the friction of their body heat contributing to its warmth. They wrapped themselves thickly in their warmest clothing and braved the clear cold several times a week, skiing across the glittering landscape or just playing in the snow.