Taste & Hold

The next day, the weather cleared and we were able to enjoy the park as planned. Louise and I held hands when we hiked, and just having her there--just feeling her skin on mine--made the whole world so much easier.

That evening we made a fire outside, toasted marshmallows, and watched the stars. Vivian, ever the partier among us, was once more five fireballs in when she could resist no longer and broached the topic of me and Louise.

"So are you guys together now?" she asked. "Officially?"

"Yes," I said, squeezing Louise's hand.

"Damn," Vivian said, not unhappily. "I was hoping to get another go with you now that I know how fucking good you taste."

"Right?" asked Rachel. "Damn, Shirby, you're--and I don't say this lightly, I've had a lot of pussy--you're tasty."

I chuckled at this, because I knew they were joking, but Louise got a serious expression on her face.

"Actually," she said, after a moment's contemplation, "if either of you'd be willing to eat her out sometime while I hold her down, I'm pretty sure that would do it for me."

My pussy tingled at the thought. I was pretty sure it would do it for me, too.

"Sweet," said Vivian.

"Sign me up," said Rachel.

"You're such sluts," Fumine teased.

"And such good ones," Vivian chortled.

"Evenly-matched," said Rachel.

"Yeah, but I beat both of you," Louise said, squeezing my hand and smiling at me. "I got the girl."

Everyone laughed at that, an easy, comfortable laugh. Then we settled down and watched the stars in a silence broken only by the fire's crackle and the occasional calling of nightjars.

It had only been twenty-four hours since I'd run off into the storm like an idiot, and I knew that Louise and I had so much growing still to do together, but the weight was gone: a weight I'd carried for three years of college, unsure how to relate to my sexually active peers, unsure how to react to Rachel's boisterous promiscuity, unsure how to handle or understand my own evanescent attractions.

I had no idea where things were going to go from here, but I was pretty sure of one thing: the six of us had an uncommonly intimate friendship, forged slowly over years at college and tempered abruptly this one weekend in Grizzly National Park. Whatever happened between us romantically or sexually here on out, we had the strength and elasticity to weather it.