Canoe Trip

Their paddles swung in perfect rhythm as the women stroked their canoe across the lake. The shore ahead presented a solid dense wall of green bushes backed by the spruce and pine forest of the vast northern Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Both women knew from their maps that somewhere probably directly ahead a marked portage awaited.

Simple signs and a well-worn path would lead them to the next lake in their planned trip. They just had to get closer to the distant shore.

It was still early on a beautiful cloudless summer morning and the air was cool. But the sun now well above the trees was already raising the temperature. Susan Merlot, seated in the bow, rested her paddle across the canoe's gunwales and took a long pull of cool water from her bottle. She raised both arms overhead in a muscle-easing stretch, rotating her wrists at the sky. The action raised her bra-less breasts under her loose, long-sleeved tee shirt. Her nipples responded to the shifting fabric.

She glanced around, feeling the rhythmic sensual surge of Tiffany's paddle thrusts from the rear of the canoe. They were alone on the lake. Susan grasped the hem of the shirt and in one fluid motion stripped off the shirt. The movement of the cotton across her nipples brought a shiver and a sudden hardening of the points.

"Here we go again," muttered her companion. "For someone who grew up in what she insists was a horribly repressive home, this gal sure is breaking out all of a sudden."

"Well, there's no one except you to see me here. And you saw even more last night." Susan grinned, remembering stripping entirely out of her clothes after inexpertly dumping the canoe in the tiny bay in front of their camp. Tiffany laughed a lot while Susan struggled to shore, streaming icy lake water, hurling imprecations at the law of gravity. Tiffany, ever generous of spirit, quickly helped Susan out of her clothes and then stripped down as well.

Together the two naked friends experienced a long languorous interlude exploring the mutual pleasure of their flesh. It had been all the more delicious because of its unexpected nature.

Tiffany looked at her companion's smooth almost unblemished back. Only a few freckles and faint lines from bikini bra straps that were nowhere in evidence. When Susan twisted to grin back at her, Tiffany caught a glance of one tender nipple, calling back the memory of the sweet taste of her friend's body. She sighed and shook her head, never interrupting the regular rhythm of her stroke. She sent the canoe easily and steadily through the water.

Susan returned to her duties feeling her shoulder muscles stretching and pulling under the warming sun, reveling in the freedom of uncovered skin. An hour passed and the women drew steadily closer to the shore. Now they could see the narrow brown strip of trail between two huge boulders at the edge of the water. As they grounded the canoe and pulled onto the gravel, voices, came through the surrounding trees.

"Company coming," said Tiffany, offloading her big backpack from the bottom of the canoe.

"Yeah, guess I better cover up," grunted Susan. She slipped the tee over her head and let the hem fall to her hips just as a teen-aged boy, bare-chested in shorts and hiking boots, appeared on the trail. He was carrying two well-filled packs over his shoulders. He smirked at the two attractive women. But it was clear he considered them too much older to be of real interest, although both women noted the way his gaze lazered in on Susan's chest and her erect nipples.

Damn, she thought. He's just a kid. Someday I'll meet a man and not have this reaction. Maybe when I'm ninety.

"If you need help getting over the portage, just holler," the boy grinned. I bet our leader will jump at the chance."

Tiffany smiled her thanks, expertly rotated the dripping canoe bow high against a nearby sapling and hoisted the craft onto her shoulders. Smooth tan muscles in her arms and shoulders of her muscle tee shirt attracted the boy's attention.

A canoe, carted by two more teen-agers appeared on the trail. Behind them, a tall lean bearded man, obviously one of the pack's adult members, smiled and greeted the two women.

"The rest of our gang is strung out along the trail. You won't have any trouble getting by. Right here is the narrowest section. Have a good trek."

"Thank you," Susan said. Her frank gaze swept over his trim form, even as his appreciative glance took in her hips and breasts and her smiling face.

She hoisted her pack and the paddles and started up the narrow dirt portage toward the next lake. Several hours later, the two women were once again paddling steadily across the third lake in their planned itinerary. The last portage, less used, had been a struggle and even though it had been expected, both women were scratched, sweaty and a bit out of sorts.

They knew the last portage would be even tougher. They'd planned it that way to help isolate them to a private lake with only two small camp sites. Most canoeists opted for the more easterly track, so it was more crowded. Tiffany had pushed for this more difficult portage. When Susan Merlot, Tiffany's next-cubical-neighbor at the big insurance firm in Eden Prairie had agreed that she too loved camping and canoeing, it hadn't taken Tiffany long to persuade her attractive and frequent lunch companion to make a trip up north to the big wild canoe area on the Canadian border.

So here they were on a hot August day, two comely unattached women on a canoeing adventure into the woods and weeds of Northern Minnesota. The lake they traversed was unnamed on their map. It was too small, Tiffany supposed. In less than half-an-hour they reached their final portage, a narrow overgrown path through bushes and a few small trees.

Puffing and sweating, they used two trips to haul their packs the tent and the canoe over the hump. But now as they rested before setting off to their preferred camp site, the one on a tiny island partway down the long lake, they agreed the effort to get there had been worth it. No canoe or single individual troubled the cool blue waters. No campfire smoke rose to spoil the clear expanse of sky overhead. They were well and truly alone.

The island campsite was tiny and perfect for their needs. Tiffany expertly scooped out a shallow fire pit after they'd pitched their tent. Then she sat back on her heels. Susan crawled back out of the tent where she'd been laying out the sleeping bags and packs.

"I'm for a little fishing," said Susan. "But first I think a bath is in order."

"Way ahead of you," said Tiffany. She slipped off her shorts and panties, worked them down long lean legs and shucked her shoes. Clad only in a thin tee, she rose and stretched, arching her back. The move brought her nipples into sharp relief against the fabric. From her position on the ground, Susan could see the other's bald pussy in the shadow of the shirt.

"The drop-off looks to be about ten feet offshore," she said.

Tiffany turned and went off the ten yards to the island shore. She flipped off her tee and shoes, turning to waggle her generous bottom at Susan. Then she walked into the water.

"Umm, nice," she said as the cooling water rose to her hips, her waist and then cupped her breasts like the soothing gentle hands of an experienced lover. She leaned back until her head rested in the water and her scalp began to tingle with the rhythm of the lake. Almost unconsciously her hand slid down her torso, reaching that mid-point just between her navel and the rising mound of her sex. Arching her back, Tiffany laid out, her breasts rising just above the surface of the water like two small white islands.

She turned, rolling until her ass rose, glistening in the fading afternoon sunlight, while tiny streams of water meandered down between her cheeks. Once more floating on her back, one hand slid lower still until her fingers cupped her mound, pressing, sliding in the cool moisture that surrounded her lithe form. She breathed through her mouth, lips swelling and a tremor went through her. Then another. Her fingers probed deeper and she felt the swelling pulse of her orgasm rising and then the tremors came again, more strongly and the blue sky above her turned, for just a moment, to a golden rose.

Smiling at nothing she rolled again and began a steady, sliding crawl through the water. Tiffany swam fifty yards up the shore of the island and then flipped, raising her strokes until she was cruising through the water.

Opposite the landing where the canoe rested, she stopped and stood, the water level now just at shoulder height. She stared all around at the quiet lake. Birds twittered nearby.

Seventy-five yards away in the underbrush of the lakeshore, light flashed the tiniest spark off the lens of high-powered binoculars. The man watching was squatting in thick brush that had sprung up beneath the tall spruce and pine trees. His dark olive tent was farther back in a small clearing he'd created, deliberately avoiding designated campsites.

The gaunt bearded man sighed and licked his lips. He watched the naked woman walking slowly out of the water, water streaming down her back. It glistened as it disappeared between the cheeks of her toned ass.

"I'd like to be there," he thought. Holding the glasses steady in one hand he reached down and touched himself.

With eyes glued to the glasses, the man watched as Tiffany paused on a flat rock shelf at the edge of the water. When she bent over to pick up her towel, she presented a perfect view of her sex framed between her thighs. Then she rose, wiping her body dry and walked slowly back up the narrow strip of sand and pine needles to their campfire. The man whistled tunelessly and turned back to his own cold campsite deep in the shadows of the pine forest.