How to Save the Planet 03

"Let's unload the generator," Lace said, as the fire was starting to die down. "Then we can get started at first light tomorrow."

"First light?" Evan asked.

"Yeah," Lace said. Her voice was soft, even gentle. She wasn't scolding Evan or anything, like she might if he was putting off a paper or leaving a mess on the table. But she sounded utterly serious and entirely sure of herself. "First light."

Evan sighed, but didn't argue. He must have heard the way she had said it.

It took me, Lace and Evan to get the generator out of the trailer, and I was glad we'd gotten the smallest one that could fit the generator. If the bed had been any higher, someone's foot would have been crushed for sure. As it was, I banged my shin and Evan scraped his arm against a corner before we got it safely on the ground.

"Right," Kate said brightly after not helping at all. "Where are those tents?"

"Ours is in the cab." Rosemary, at least, had the decency to close the tailgate for us. It was the thought that counted. "But... it's smaller than I remembered. It'll be a tight fit for two."

Evan shuddered. "Don't tell me I have to cuddle up with Alex."

"You should be so lucky," I said.

"How big is your tent?" Kate asked him.

"Uh... four," Evan said, tilting the label until it caught the firelight. "Supposedly."

"Let's just keep the car groups," Kate suggested. "Alex won't have to curl up on himself in a little two-man tent, and I'll keep the boys from strangling each other."

"You're gonna get cooties," Evan informed her seriously. She didn't dignify that with a response.

"Fine," Lace said. "Let's get them set up."

As it turned out, firelight was not at all equal to the task of setting up two different tents, especially as the one Evan had borrowed was missing a couple fasteners. We got them in the end by the headlights of the truck, though our tent sagged slightly along one side.

"We'd be fucked if it rained tonight," Evan noted.

"Thank God for Wyoming weather," I said. "The next rainstorm's probably coming in, like, September."

"You are both going to jinx it," Rosemary said archly. "And then you'll wish you'd taken the smaller tent."

"Not likely," Evan shot back. "I'll sleep in the truck."

Lace clicked the keyfob, locking the doors.

"Hey," Evan complained. "What if Kate snores?"

"I usually don't," she said, "but for you I'll try and make an exception."

"First light," Lace reminded us. Then she grabbed her sleeping bag and ducked into the tent.

I sighed. It would have been nice to enjoy the camping trip just a little. I still held out hope that we could relax once we got the message out tomorrow. After all, that was the hard part. Once things were underway, all we had to do was wait.

It was hard to believe that our tent had ever been intended to hold four people. We were just about shoulder-to-shoulder with just three, and the sagging portion would be brushing my head if I tried to sit up. It was a warm evening, and the tent was already starting to get stuffy.

There were flaps to unzip that should have been covered by screens, but in this particular tent those screens were partly or entirely missing. If it had been buggy, we would have been in for a deeply uncomfortable night, but most of Wyoming is so dry that flies and mosquitoes are rare. They really only pop up around streams and after unusually rainy periods.

"Turn around," Kate said, as we all started to get our sleeping bags shuffled into place. "I wanna get changed."

"You're already wearing yoga pants," Evan complained. "What the hell's more comfortable to sleep in than that?"

"Just do it," Kate said.

"Oooh, taking them off?" Evan waggled his eyebrows outrageously. "Sleeping in your underwear? Kate, are you trying to seduce me with your naked body?"

"It's hot," she said. "And as if I'd ever try and seduce you."

Weirdly, she was blushing. This was all entirely normal for Evan, and it was a real surprise to see her rise to the bait this way. I knew she was into guys as well as girls, but she couldn't actually have a crush on Evan, right?

Evan must have been surprised too, because he didn't have any witty retort to Kate's last insult. After a moment, he turned around with a shrug. There was an odd little smile on his face.

"Come on, Alex," he said. "Give the woman some privacy, you perv."

I rolled my eyes and turned around. Cloth rustled, and I imagined Kate sliding her pants down, peeling them off her broad hips and --

I shook my head. Where the hell had that come from? Kate was cute and all, but I'd never caught myself fantasizing about her before. We'd met a little later in freshman year, after...

After I'd already started to fall for Justine. Who had left.

Remembering that sort of took the fun out of the fantasy, even as I heard Kate stuffing her pants back into her bag. My body, though, seemed to have missed the memo, and I had to fight not to shuffle in place as my erection started to rise.

It was just hormones, I reminded myself. A week since Justine left, a week without sex or even jerking myself off. I hadn't been in the mood. And now, my cute friend was taking her pants off behind me, and it was totally normal for my body to react. It didn't mean anything.

"You're good," Kate said, a little muffled. I looked over my shoulder to see the sleeping bag pulled up to her chin.

"Cozy," Evan noted. She glared.

"Okay," Evan said, rising to a crouch to get at the little battery-powered lantern we'd hung in the tent. "See you guys in the morning."

"See us when?" I asked blankly.

"It's a lovely night," Evan said, "and you two are making this tent crowded, damp, and frankly pretty smelly."

"You can't sleep on the ground," Kate said, alarmed.

"Of course not," Evan scoffed. "I don't want to get devoured by prairie dogs. There's plenty of room in the bed of the truck."

"No harder than the ground is," I noted.

He nodded. "So, enjoy your smelly little sauna, and I'll see you when Lace tips us out of our sleeping bags at the crack of dawn."

I felt like I should say something. It really was a lovely night, and I almost suggested we just open the whole tent up, but before I could say it he'd switched off the light and ducked out into the night.

Kate muttered something.

"Hmmm?" I asked eloquently.

"Nothing." I heard her sleeping bag rustle as she turned over. After the glare of the light, the blackness of the tent was impenetrable. I could see stars through the open flap, but not even the silhouette of Kate beside me. "Just Evan being Evan."

I snorted, and lay back on my own sleeping bag. Somewhere in the distance I heard dull thumps and the squeaking of an old suspension as Evan climbed into the truck. Rosemary and Lace had their light out already, off on the other side of the nearly-dead fire. If they were talking, they were too far for me to hear it.

"When has Evan done anything else?"

Kate laughed, softly. "True."

My eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness. Kate was on her side, shifting every now and then. The night was deepening, the sky darkening to full black, and after a little while I was treated to a field of stars like I've rarely seen. I wasn't ready to sleep yet, despite the long and hectic day. And I couldn't stop thinking about Kate taking off her pants while I sat less than two feet away.

I edged slowly towards sleep like that, my thoughts drifting from the stars to Kate's pale legs as I lay in a battered tent. Then Kate rolled over and pressed right up against my back.

It didn't startle me. I'd been hearing her breathe while I lay there, and it wasn't a shock to brush up against her in the dark. But she rested her cheek against my back, and slipped a hand lightly onto my waist, and there was no mistaking that we had just crossed a divide from 'sleeping together as tentmates' to a much more intimate form.

"Kate," I murmured. She shifted, and there was no mistaking the feeling of her soft breasts squashing against me. Invisible in the darkness, they felt very large.

"Yes, Alex?" She spoke softly, lips very nearly against my ear. It sent goosebumps all down my back, and dispelled any ideas I'd had of Kate cuddling up to me in her dreams. She was very much awake.

"Are you... is this..." I trailed off. I was still struggling up out of a light sleep, and I couldn't find the words. Are you coming on to me flitted through my head, but what if I was wrong? What if she was only being drowsily affectionate, cuddling up against a friend, and I came blundering in to make it awkward?

And I was hard enough to prop up the sagging side of the tent.

"Mmmm." Kate's hand roved away from my waist, towards my chest, towards my hip. Tracing out the shape I made in the darkness. My skin sparked and tingled from the intimacy of it. "Is this... what?"

"Kate," I said, a little louder than I meant to. My voice sounded vaguely frantic. A moment later, I realized that I felt vaguely frantic.

Her hand stopped moving. Her breasts remained where they were.

"I... this is..." I rubbed my hand against my face, sounding a rough scritchscratch against the stubble on my chin. "It's way too soon since Justine. I barely even know which way is up right now, and we're out here trying to save the damn world, and --"

"Okay," she said.

"It's just so much," I said.

"Okay," Kate said again.

I caught her hand before she rolled away from me. "I'm not mad," I said.

"Good." There was a smile in her voice.

"I... that felt really nice."

She squeezed my hand, once, and then she turned over and went back to her side of the tent.

My mind was whirling. Of all the things I hadn't expected tonight, I'd probably expected this the least. I had never thought Kate was into me. I'd never really thought about if I was into Kate before, either, but now my skin was on fire where she'd touched me and my erection throbbed every time I heard her breathe. Was it just proximity, and tension, and the rebound from Justine? I felt a sudden wave of guilt. Justine and I hadn't broken up, at least not in any kind of official way. Sure, there was a certain implication when she left a note saying so sorry, abandoning you forever, but we hadn't actually said it was over. It suddenly seemed very important that we hadn't.

Kate's breath hitched. For a moment, I was sure she was crying, frustrated or upset about being rejected, and I tried desperately to think of a way to comfort her that wouldn't seem like I was reconsidering. And part of me wanted desperately to comfort her in a way that would seem exactly like I was reconsidering.

Then Kate let the breath out, heavy enough that it was almost a sigh. Underneath, I thought I heard something else, something faint. I couldn't pick out what it was.

Then Kate's breath caught again, and in the moment of silence I heard a wet little squishing sound, leisurely and rhythmic.

I refused to believe it. I turned my head, looked over at Kate. She was lying on her back, still, but I could just make out her outline against the lighter dark of the tent's thin walls. I watched her generous chest rise and fall with her breath, heavy and uneven, as the faint wet sounds continued. For a moment, I still wasn't sure, but then Kate shifted slightly, into the faint light coming through the open flap. And I saw the regular motion in the sleeping bag where she had her hand between her legs.

Somehow I must have given myself away, drawn my breath in sharply or made some small sound of surprise. "Sorry," Kate said, sounding not sorry at all. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

She was masturbating, there beside me in the crappy little tent, and I had no idea what to do. I wanted to kick out of my sleeping bag and slip into hers. I wanted to cover my ears and wait for it to be over. I wanted to ask her to stop, and I wanted her to refuse.

Instead, I lay there listening. I watched her shadowed shape in the little light we had, watched her run a hand up her chest and play with a nipple. I watched her head roll back, her hips buck, her chest heave. If the light had been better, I never could have kept watching. It would have felt too intimate, too much like an intrusion no matter what Kate had wanted earlier. But her silhouette was just vague enough that I could watch while pretending there was nothing for me to see.

Kate let out a tiny, breathy sigh, and I bucked my hips a little against the sleeping bag. I slid my hand down, almost reaching into my boxers before remembering that Kate would probably know exactly what I was doing. I snatched my hand back to my chest with a sudden stab of guilt.

"Don't stop on my account," Kate whispered. Her voice was low, husky with desire, smoky and lustful and very, very hot.

"I wasn't --"

"Oh yes you were," she whispered. The tempo of her hand increased, just a little, the wet noises coming quicker and louder. "Go on, Alex. Please?"

It felt vaguely wrong, though I knew there was no reason for it. I was single, more or less. Kate was too. And we weren't even touching each other. Maybe I felt guilty about masturbating in front of someone else. It was something you mostly heard about in connection with flashers and perverts.

But Kate had started already, and even if it was hard to admit to myself, I was enjoying it. And she'd asked me to.

I gasped a little as I took hold of my stiff cock. This was unlike anything I'd ever done, and apparently it was working for me. I started stroking, much more slowly than I normally would. I was already close anyway.

"Oh fuck," Kate whispered. I looked up from where her hand was working at her crotch, and saw the starlight reflected in her eyes just a foot away from mine. She was watching me, and as I heard her hand speed up again, I thought she liked what she saw.

"You're gonna make a mess of that sleeping bag," she murmured. I thought I saw her lick her lips, but it was too dark to be sure.

"Shit," I said. She was right. I didn't want to get my cum all over a borrowed sleeping bag. With a mighty effort, I stopped stroking myself, but couldn't quite bring myself to let go.

"What?" Kate half sat up. "Don't stop."

"But --"

She reached over, hand brushing against my chest and setting my skin abuzz with tension. She grabbed the side of the sleeping bag, and tugged down at it.

Oh.

She pulled it to my waist, then stopped. I realized I hadn't said anything. It was dark in the tent, but there was a little light. I didn't know how much Kate would see for sure, but it still felt like a big step to fully expose myself to her. Did I want that?

"You're gonna make a mess of that one, too," I whispered.

She giggled. "I'm not gonna spray jizz everywhere," she teased.

My heart was pounding. Kate was talking about my cum, about how I was about to shoot with her right there next to me.

"No," I breathed, "but you're getting messy already. I can hear how wet you are."

She moaned, and her back arched again. "You can't just say things like that," she whispered needily.

I grabbed my sleeping bag. "If you will," I said.

Kate didn't hesitate. She kicked and squirmed for a second or two, and then she was out beneath the stars. It looked like she'd lost her underwear at some point in the process, and as soon as she was free of the bag I could smell her arousal, musky and strong.

I grabbed my shorts and my boxers, shoving them down and taking the covers with me. My cock caught on the waistband for a moment, then fell back to my stomach with a meaty thwack.

"Oh fuck," Kate groaned. Then she giggled again. "Shhh!"

It had been a little loud, but I didn't care. If our friends heard, they heard. But I thought the sounds of the Wyoming night had just about covered for us. I grabbed my throbbing, desperate erection and started to stroke.

Kate went wild. She grabbed her breast -- had she lost her shirt too? I couldn't quite tell -- and drew up her knees as she stared at my shape in the darkness. She shifted her hand a little, changing some angle or direction, and moaned almost silently as her whole body tensed up.

It was incredible. I'd never have imagined Kate, my short, nerdy friend, going this absolutely wild in bed. She was so vocal, so horny and needy, that it was driving me straight up to the edge after just a couple of strokes. I wanted to roll over, to climb on top and shove her hand aside so I could sink balls-deep into her dripping pussy, to wrap my arms around her and press her big tits hard against my chest. I knew it wasn't too late, knew she had planned or hoped for that when she came over to my side of the tent. But I didn't.

"Point it up for me?" Kate panted, barely able to get the words out.

"What?" I was lost in a fog of lust, struggling my way to understanding.

"Your cock," she moaned, and I almost came right there. "Hold it up -- I want to see it..."

Then I understood. I was jerking off like I usually did, dick pointing up along my body. Kate could see the motion, but I doubted she could make out any details. If I pushed it away, so that it was standing straight up into the air, Kate could see the shape against the faint light from outside.

I pressed it down, and I was so hard that it was almost uncomfortable to do. I didn't stop stroking. There was no way I could have ever stopped there.

"Oh ffffuck," Kate whispered, and she strummed her fingers against her clit and came.

She wasn't loud, but she was certainly vocal. She gasped and sighed and whimpered, whispered wordlessly and even grunted once or twice. It seemed like her orgasm lasted forever, but when it was over I was still rubbing my way towards mine.

"Mmmm," Kate said, stretching a little in place. "Oh, yum." She giggled again.

"Wow."

She turned towards me, sleeping bag rustling. Her wide hips made the curve of her waist look impossibly thin in comparison. "Did you..."

"Not yet," I said, and started to slow. It felt strange to keep going alone, but I couldn't imagine stopping now.

"No no no," Kate breathed. "No, Alex, please."

God, her voice was sexy. Desire in every syllable, pure sensuality in every word. The way she said my name alone would have made it impossible to stop.

So I didn't stop.

I jerked myself with my cock still pointing up towards the tent ceiling, and Kate murmured her approval. I spat into my hand, hoping some lubrication would speed things along.

"You could have borrowed some of mine," Kate said, dipping a finger back between her legs.

I bit my lip, tempted to ask for it. But I'd set some invisible line in the tent earlier, where we were talking and masturbating but not quite reaching across and touching, and somehow I didn't know how to cross that line now.

Then Kate put her finger in her mouth, tasting her own juices, and at the sight of that dirty little naughtiness I came. I don't know if I was as quiet as Kate was. The pleasure was so intense that I couldn't tell at all.

The cum shot up out of my cock so hard, I thought it might have hit the ceiling of the tent. It rained down on me, splatting on my bare stomach and on the shirt pulled up high on my chest. I bucked my hips, imagining that Kate had climbed atop me and was riding me while I came, and that thought made my head rush and the last shot of cum leap out from my dick to fall just above my navel.

Kate laughed, delighted, and I smiled. Fatigue rolled up on me in the aftermath of the orgasm, and I felt my eyes drifting closed.

"You got a little on my cheek," Kate said softly.

"Oh, shit," I said. "Sorry."

I heard a little popping sound, and opened my eyes just in time to see Kate's finger leave her mouth, scrape along her cheek, and dip back between her lips. It popped free again with the same sound. "Don't be sorry," Kate told me, pleased as a cat with cream.