Outdoor Essentials

"No," I said with a shake of my head. I started to say more when Rory interrupted me.

"Let me guess," she said, "no time right now?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I guess that's right. What about you?"

"No." The tone of her voice prevented me from asking anything more. There followed another moment of silence for a few paces.

"Maybe you should make more time for that, too?" she said.

I laughed. "You might be right. I guess we'll see."

"Yeah, maybe," she said thoughtfully.

The gradient of the trail was becoming much steeper. Loose rocks littered the route and casual conversation became harder as we picked our way ever higher. The last 200 yards was a steep scree scramble to the top of the mountain. Rory and I reached the summit first and then turned to offer a hand to June and Vance who were right behind us.

There were back slaps and encouragement all around. The hike was challenging enough that we all felt good about reaching its highest point. While we still had a long way to go, this was a highlight.

June and Vance found a rock overlook just below the summer and sat there to have a snack and a drink of water together. This left Rory and me more or less alone again.

She sat down on a large rock and I came to join her. The water bottle I had brought was long empty. The water that Rory had forced on me was all I had left. An energy bar tasted like mana from heaven at that point as well. Rory didn't say anything about it, but there was a knowing look in her eyes.

"Thanks for giving me good advice earlier," I said.

She waved her hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it. You would have been fine without the stuff probably, but it's always better to be safe than sorry."

"I meant the other advice, too. About happiness. It gave me some things to think about."

"I hope it wasn't preachy," she said. "I don't want you to think some girl you just met is telling you how to live your life. You just sounded unhappy when you were talking about how much you have to work."

"No, I didn't take it that way. And you are right. This mountain air and the mountain view are clearing my head."

"Did you really mean what you said... about liking my company?"

"Yeah," I said, "I sure did." Rory smiled.

"I think I like your company, too." The smile in her eyes turned into something more serious. There was some uncertainty there. Rory started to lean in and tilt her head, but she hesitated. I put an arm around her to bring her face closer to mine and our lips met in a soft kiss. I felt her exhale deeply as if releasing her tension, and we kissed again. Our lips parted and our tongues met. Her feminine scent blended with the smell of the sunscreen on her skin and I could taste the salt of her sweat on her lips.

I didn't hear Vance and June approaching until June loudly cleared her throat. Rory giggle softly, as we turned to find them standing right behind and watching us.

"Are you two ready to head back down? Or do you need a minute?" asked June with a wide grin.

Rory smiled and shook her head as we stood up. "No, I think we're ready to go."

As we tromped down the path, the four of us planned to have a fire in the large firepit behind the Halls' cabin. We reached the Jeep by mid-afternoon and rolled back to the lake. I found my folks on the back deck reading books and enjoying a cocktail.

"Well, hey, Matt!" said Dad. You're just in time for happy hour." He swirled the drink in his glass. "Grab a beverage."

"When you're retired, isn't every hour happy hour?"

"Hm, if I started drinking as soon as I got out of bed every day, I don't think I would have a long retirement, but your point is well taken."

"Did you have fun, Matty?" asked Mom.

I groaned. "Mom, are you ever going to stop calling me Matty?"

"Don't you know anything about mothers?" she asked.

"I know something about this mother."

"Which is?"

"That you're never going to stop calling me Matty."

"That's right, dear," she said. I laughed and walked in to grab a beer from the fridge in the basement.

While we sipped our afternoon drinks, I told them about the hike.

"That sounds pretty spectacular," Dad said.

"It was," I agreed. "I forgot how much I missed getting out in the hills."

Dad gestured around. "Well, we have hills aplenty."

I nodded as I sipped the beer. "You're not wrong."

"It's nice that you're finally meeting the girls, too," said Mom. "I thought you would all get along."

"Yeah, they're great. I think Rory and I are hitting it off. I'd like to see more of her."

My parents exchanged a concerned look.

"What is it?" I asked. "She seems wonderful."

"No, she is," said Dad. "And I don't like to spread her business around. It's just that, Rory is only about a year removed from an ugly divorce."

"She didn't mention that," I said, "but I'm not sure why that matters. This isn't the 1500s. People get divorced."

"No, that's not what I mean," he said. "As I told you, we know Rory pretty well. I don't think she is over the hurt. Her husband ran off and left her. The way she talks, I think she has a really hard time trusting potential partners ever since."

I nodded. "Oh. Okay, that's good to know. I'll have to think about how to manage that. It might help to know what's going on with her before any kind of misunderstanding."

I saw my parents exchange another look. "Matt, I'm just saying it doesn't seem like you're very emotionally available right now. With Rory in a vulnerable place. I think that could go poorly for her," said Dad.

"Wait. What?"

"It might be a bad idea, that's all."

"Hang on. You don't think I should pursue her because you think I am going to hurt her? That's a really shitty thing to say. I'm not a bad guy."

"Matt, don't take this the wrong way. I know would never hurt her on purpose."

"Then what's the problem?" I was feeling personally attacked and I was starting to raise my voice a bit.

My mom tried to intervene. She raised a soothing hand at both of us. "Matt, you know we love you and we only want the best for you. All your father is saying is that you have a lot on your plate, she lives hours away, and she's vulnerable. Just think about it, is all."

I sighed. "I'll keep it in mind." Mom adeptly switched the topic of conversation and we let the matter drop. They knew better than to press me too hard on my personal life, even when it involved their friend and neighbor, and I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt that they meant well.

We wandered over to the campfire when it was dark and an orange glow from over the trees told us that the neighbors had gotten started. We carried camp chairs and a few beers around the shore by the path through the woods. When we emerged in the large clearing by the waterside below the Halls' cabin, we could see them sitting around the crackling fire.

The four parents sat in a group facing the lake. I could tell by how comfortably they chatted this was not the first fire this group of neighbors had shared. June and Vance sat together to one side while Rory and I moved to the other. We were all treated to a spectacular view of the moon rising between the cleft of two hills and reflected in the shimmering calm of the lake.

Rory and June's father had a big personality and a sense of humor like my dad's. The two of them got along well and relentlessly teased each other. I noted that my mom was also friendly with their mother and my parents were very comfortable with Rory, June, and Vance. I felt like a newcomer in this circle, but I enjoyed myself. Rory and I were having a quiet chat. After a time, she held up her beer and gave it a little shake to show it was empty.

"I need another drink," she said with a raised eyebrow. "How about you?"

There was still a swig of beer in my bottle, but I tipped it back and drained it. "I guess I do too."

She stood up from her camp chair and I stood to join her.

"We're getting some more beers," said Rory to June as we passed her and moved out of the circle of light to the path.

At the place where the path split to go either straight up to Rory's cabin or right to my cabin, Rory turned right and I followed. When the path entered the clearing of my family's cabin, Rory stopped instead of continuing up to the house. She turned in the dark toward me and I moved in close to her. I brought my hands up to her hips. Our lips met in the darkness. To the sounds of the crickets in the night air and the frogs croaking by the water, we added the soft sounds of our moist lips and Rory's small moan.

I held Rory closer and slipped my hands under her thin cotton tank top to feel her muscular back. Rory giggled as my fingers caressed her skin.

"Do you want to take a dip in the lake?" she suggested. Though it was dark enough by the path that I could not make out her expression, I could hear her smile in the tone of her voice.

"Sure. Do you need to run back for a change?"

"I think you probably know that's not what I had in mind." She was right, but she made her point clear by gripping the hem of her tank top and pulling it over her head in one swift motion. She wore no bra, but I could not appreciate her full beauty in the dark. I ran my hands up her side and cupped her breasts to feel what my eyes were missing. They were smooth and warm in my hand. Because Rory was very lean, her breasts were not very large, but they pleasantly filled my hands. She sighed as I found her nipples with curious fingers. Rory was already unsnapping her short jeans shorts and sliding them down. Her panties went with them. I followed her example and quickly shed my shirt, shorts, and boxers. Rory took a hair tie off her wrist and swept her hair into a ponytail before kneeling on the soft grass.

As I used my hands to explore her breasts in the dark, she reached up to discover my cock. I was hard and ready and I gasped and shivered as she palmed it. I heard her make a small sound that told me she liked what she had found. Her other hand cupped my balls lightly.

Rory was not content only to feel. She wanted to taste. I felt her tongue flitting over the head of my cock before she slipped the tip into her lips. I groaned as she slid her lips down my shaft. She lightly bobbed her head and her wet lips worked up and down. She sucked my cock until she elicited another little groan from me before she stood up.

"Come one," she said. "Let's take that dip." I sighed as she stepped lightly over the grass to the lakeshore and then tiptoed into the water with barely a ripple. My hard cock bounced slightly as I followed her.

I had expected the water to be chilly at this time of night. Although it did feel a little cool on first contact, I found it was warm enough. We waded out until we couldn't touch and then swam as noiselessly as we could out to the swim platform. The platform was anchored within view of my parent's house, but the campfire and the others were hidden behind a stand of trees. Although we could see the glow and a few sparks in the sky, we were out of sight.

Rory pressed up on the platform and turned to sit on the edge. I was swimming up as she was seating herself and dangling her legs in the water. Rather than join her on the platform, I swam until my head was just before her knees. I grabbed the side of the platform just beneath her and pulled myself to her. She made a surprised little noise and spread her knees to admit my head between her thighs. It was some effort to hold my upper body up about a foot out of the water, but she scooted to the very edge of the platform and my mouth found her pussy. Rory gasped with excitement as I began to lick her lips. A tiny moan escaped her mouth, but she suppressed any further noises. Instead, she breathed sharply with each flick of my tongue.

Rory reached with one hand to support some of my weight so that I could focus on her pleasure. The fingers of her other hand slipped into my hair and she lightly pressed my face into her sex. Rory was wet from the lake, but the water on the flesh of her pussy was soon replaced by a slick and slippery mixture of my saliva and her arousal.

Rory's legs wrapped behind my back to pull me closer. She sucked in lungfuls of air with each further stroke of my tongue on her lips or her clit. I felt her body tensing and her breaths were coming faster and even harder. My tongue sloshed against her folds and her clit. A strangled little moan reached my ear as she struggled to remain quiet as the pleasure grew. My arms were aching from holding myself up in the water, but I did not stop.

Her hard breaths became more and more rapid. She was breathing so quickly that she could not breathe deeply and she gasped. She moaned again and I felt her body shiver. She pressed me even tighter to her with her legs and her thighs were pressing on the side of my head. She shuddered again and I heard her try and fail to suppress another little moan. Now she was rocking her body slowly as the waves of her climax rose and fell. As she was catching her breath, she let out a satisfied sigh. I gave her a last flick of the tongue across her clit which caused her to shiver. She giggled and pushed my head away. I let go of the platform and sloshed back into the water.

Rory leaned back and rested on her hands for a moment while she continued to catch her breath. I treaded water and watched her stretch her back on the platform. My arms were sore and the air temperature was continuing to drop.

"Should we go inside to warm up?" I suggested. I kept my voice low lest we draw any attention from the others at the fire just a few hundred feet away.

"Yeah, it is feeling chilly out now," she said as she slipped off the platform into the water with hardly a splash.

We swam back to the shore and found our clothes. Rory giggled again as we dashed naked across the yard to the basement door. Once we were inside the finished basement, I put on the gas fire and grabbed some towels from the bathroom. I was feeling self-conscious about the effect of the chill on my body. Before I emerged from the bathroom, I massaged some life back into my cock. Not enough that I was hard again, but enough that I didn't feel embarrassed. I knew it was silly, especially since Rory had already felt my cock at its hardest outside in the dark, but first impressions are lasting impressions.

In the light, we finally had the opportunity to see each other's naked bodies which had only been felt in the dark. Rory was very fit from an active lifestyle, but not overly skinny. Her body was strong, but not sculpted. Her skin was very tan on the legs, arms, face, and shoulders. She had the defined tan lines of someone who works outside. Her torso and thighs were pale.

I was personally glad that I had not been skipping my workouts. Despite my tendency to spend long hours in the office, workouts were an important part of my stress relief. I didn't feel like I had anything to be ashamed of. Judging by Rory's appreciative glances, she agreed.

After we toweled off, we snuggled under a blanket on the couch in front of the fire to warm up further. The feel of her naked body against mine under the blanket was thrilling and I was soon growing hard again. Rory smiled as I took the opportunity to run my hands over her body. She slid a hand down my stomach and found my swelling cock. She giggled and wrapped her fingers around me. In just a few pumps of her wrist, I was fully erect.

I hoped that Rory would finish what she had started before we went into the water. I was not disappointed. She smiled and kissed me before slipping the blanket off of my lap and slithering down onto her knees in front of me. As she flicked her tongue around the head of my cock, I exhaled slowly and anticipated the warm feel of her mouth. Rory licked my cock from the base to the tip, swirled her tongue around the head one more time, and finally parted her lips and took me in.

I felt a flood of emotions as Rory looked up at me with a smile in her eyes and her lips wrapped around my cock. I'd been on plenty of first dates in the last few years and had sexual encounters, but I could not recall when I had ever felt this level of connection with a romantic partner. She was smart and funny, not to mention cute, fit, and fun to fool around with.

As she moved her head and slid her lips up and down my shaft, I could feel her tongue swirling around me. She made a small moan with each bob and stroked the base of my cock with her hand. Her other hand was lightly fondling my balls. My sexual tension had been building all day with Rory. The teasing taste she had given me by the lake and the excitement of eating her out on the platform had only increased the anticipation.

Her talented tongue was having its desired effect. I was already feeling the electric tingling in my balls and along my shaft that signaled my approaching orgasm. I grunted as she continued the pump and suck on my cock. That feeling in my groin was growing and I sensed the tension reaching a breaking point. I was involuntarily pushing up my hips to push more of my cock into her mouth.

"Rory, I'm gonna come," I groaned.

"Mm, hm," she moaned around my cock. She bobbed harder and moaned again. The vibration of her moans reverberated around my shaft and I felt the tension snap. My groin throbbed with the first pulse of a powerful climax and a blast of cum spurted in her mouth. Rory made another excited moan and kept bobbing her head as she swallowed it. Rory stroked and sucked as throbs of pleasure continued and I grunted loudly.

'Fuck, that felt good," I said, as Rory finally released my cock.

"Yeah? Well, you curled my toes out on the lake." She snuggled up to me on the couch again. We sat under the blanket for a moment before Rory suggested we head back before we were missed.

We got dressed and I got beers from the fridge. We held hands as we walked down the trail, but we dropped them before we walked back into the light of the fire.

Nobody said anything to us as we took our seats again by the fire, but I thought that June gave Rory a knowing look.

On Monday of that long holiday weekend, the morning dawned wet and gray. I had breakfast with my folks again, but later in the day, Rory came over to join us. June and Vance had decided to head home early, as did Rory's parents, because of the gloomy weather. Rory decided to stay until the evening, and I assumed it was to spend more time with me. The four of us played cards together for a time, but late in the afternoon Rory and I snuggled on the couch in the basement to watch a movie.

We had both seen the movie before, so we took the opportunity to chat again. Rory opened up to me about her divorce. It was plain that she was still deeply affected by the way her ex-husband had abandoned her. She avoided talking too much about any relationships since then and I didn't press her about it. She indirectly let on that she was having a hard time developing trust for a meaningful relationship, much as my parents had suggested. I didn't have anything nearly so personal to share, but I talked a bit more about the pressure I felt at work. Rory was sympathetic, and it was the first time I admitted to myself that there was a personal cost for what my firm demanded.

I think we both left that weekend feeling like we had found something special. Rory and I kissed and shared a long embrace as we said goodbye in the driveway of her cabin. A steady drizzle fell and there was fog again on the lake. Even on a rainy day, it was a beautiful scene, with the trees looming out of the rain to frame the view of the rippling surface of the lake. The far shore was obliterated by the gray. I resolved to myself that I would make the time necessary to keep this budding relationship going. As she allowed me to hold her close, I felt like she might be letting herself start to trust me.