Wet Encounters Ch. 02-03

With the regular rain that falls in our part of the world - even our 'dry' season is like the 'wet' season experienced in many other places; including in other parts of TPNG - the house's rainwater tanks would have been full for most of the year. The house would have a reticulated, gravity-fed plumbing system and, if the caretaker had done his job correctly, the header tank would be full. The house should have good water pressure throughout.

In the kitchen, the fuel stove had been cleaned out and the firewood-box had been filled. There were plates and cups and saucers in the cupboards and cutlery in the drawers; none of it matching. The pantry was well stocked with canned foods and things like flour and rice in sealed metal containers. It was doubtful that the perishables would still be viable, but the canned goods should be okay. At least we wouldn't starve. I made a mental note to replace everything we used during our stay.

As was usual in remote parts of this country, where power was either non-existent or intermittent, the kitchen also housed a kerosene-fuelled refrigerator and freezer. Neither of them was operating - no surprise there - but in both cases, the tanks had been filled and the wicks trimmed. Also filled, cleaned and with trimmed wicks were four kerosene hurricane lamps; all of which were neatly lined up on a shelf in the pantry. All in all, it appeared that the house was ready for its next occupant to simply walk in and take up residence.

Before moving on to the rest of the house, I lit a couple of the lamps and set up and lit a fire in the stove. It would not only help to dissipate some of the dampness that was present throughout the house and help take away the musty smell but it would also allow us to dry our clothes. After opening the cold-water faucet over the sink and letting it run for a few minutes, I rinsed out and filled the old cast-iron kettle that had been left sitting on the stovetop. I had seen a glass jar of tea in the pantry. If there were tea leaves, there must also be a teapot somewhere. A nice hot cup of tea would go down well.

The second reason for lighting the stove was that it was the means by which the water for the sink and the bathroom was heated. Pipes ran from the hot water storage tank, down through the firebox and back into the insulated tank; which would be mounted either on the roof or in the ceiling cavity. Assuming that the header tank had been filled, we should be able to take a hot shower within a couple of hours. Up until then, we would have to find other ways to keep ourselves warm.

As we left the kitchen-dining area, I noted that the previous occupant must have had an ant problem. All four legs of the square plain pine dining table were set in wide, shallow tin cans of the Camp Pie variety. They would usually be filled with water to create a barrier to stop the ants from climbing up to get at the things that often permanently resided on the table surface; condiments, bread, sugar, jam, honey and the like.

I also noticed, as we left the kitchen to explore the rest of what would be our home for the next few days, that Juanita and I were holding hands. It was as if that part of our lives that existed on the other side of the creek didn't exist on this side, and we were simply a pair of young lovers looking over what was going to be our love nest for the short time we had together.

The bathroom was not surprising. It contained a bath, with an old-fashioned wide showerhead over the tub; a handbasin set into solid timber cabinet, which looked like it might have been made on site, using timber from the mill; and a proper porcelain toilet bowl with an old, overhead chain-pull cistern. Like the other parts of the house, it looked surprisingly tidy; although the shower curtain looked like it had been shredded by rats or possums. Strangely, though, the house didn't smell of possum piss; something that was surprising. Rat piss, perhaps. But no strong, pungent smell of possum urine.

It was evident from what we had seen so far that the house had been set up to accommodate two men, although typically, the living and dining arrangements were based on seating for four people. There were four unmatched dining chairs and seating for four people in the living area. The bedrooms were slightly different, however. While the left-hand bedroom was set up and furnished for a single person, the larger, right-hand bedroom was set up for a couple. It contained a double bed and was furnished with a woman in mind. It struck me that the cabin had originally been built - or furnished, at least - for a married couple. Rather than housing a male co-worker, the second bedroom may have initially been a child's room.

As we examined the double bed from the doorway, I felt Juanita's finger intertwine with mine in the traditional lover's grip. I let her lead the way into the room. The single bed in the other room was old and sagged in the middle. It was plain that it had been used by someone heavier than it was designed to accommodate over many years. Although it was well past its replacement date, however, it had been adequately constructed. A few slats and a new mattress were all that would be needed to return it to a serviceable condition. In spite of its uninviting appearance, though, it had been made up and had been covered by a light cotton-canvas tarpaulin of the type used by painters as a drop-sheet.

The double bed, while probably of a similar vintage as that of the single bed in the other room, was in better condition. It was made of bulkier timber and looked to be of much stronger construction and more comfortable than its smaller counterpart. It seemed to have a sturdy inner-spring mattress sitting on its frame that appeared to be free of sagging. Like the bed in the other room, it was covered by a cotton-canvas protective sheet.

I flicked the drop sheet down to the foot of the bed and saw that it was covered by a proper bedspread, which encompassed the whole of the bed before folding forward to cover the pillows. Like the potted palm tree at the foot of the back stairs, the faded mustard-coloured bedspread had a niggling sense of familiarity about it. I had a feeling that I'd seen it before. Not recently, but...

Unlike the rest of the house, this room had been cleaned quite recently. The floors were clean and free of grit and every surface was free of dust and rodent faeces. I left Juanita to go back and check out the smaller room. It, too, was spotless. It appeared that we - or some other guests - were expected.

I mentioned my observation to Juanita, who nodded her head in agreement.

"I had a look at the pillows," she said. "They and the sheets have been freshly laundered. They still smell of washing soap.

"Here I was thinking that I was going to have to sleep rough. Instead, I find that I will be staying in unexpected luxury. It may not be five-star, but it is considerably better than the no-star cab of a Toyota truck."

"Speaking of your truck," I said. "I'd better try to find somewhere to park it so it is up out of the floodwaters. If I remember correctly, there's an elevated drive-on service ramp over in the workshop. It's high enough to allow a man to stand under a vehicle to carry out repairs, which would mean that it should be high enough to keep it up out of the floodwaters.

"I should only be a few minutes. How about you see if you can rustle us up a cup of tea while I'm away? And while you're about it, you might like to see if there's anything worth eating in that pantry. I'm sure you haven't eaten since lunchtime and I'm the same. We were just sitting down to our usual afternoon sundowners when your lad turned up with your SOS message.

"In my mad rush to rescue my beautiful neighbour from a watery end, I even forgot to don my Superman costume. All I could hear was someone calling, 'Helep! Helep!', as she stood, forlornly, on the banks of the rising crocodile-infested river."

The way she pulled my head down and kissed me, I almost didn't go. By the time we separated, I was prepared to skip that whole part of the plan and move straight on to the next stage of the - what did she call it? - the human thermal experiments. The only thing that drove me to stick to the plan was the sound of increasingly heavy rain on the corrugated iron roof of our temporary shelter. It was a good thing I didn't ignore my instincts as, by the time I stepped down of the bottom step onto the ground, the water was already lapping the Toyota's wheels.

I glanced at my watch as I climbed up into the cab of the truck. It was nine o'clock. Four hours had elapsed from the time I had received Juanita's message.

CHAPTER THREE

Returning to the cabin half-an-hour later, I opened the door to be confronted by a naked derriere. The owner of this beautifully sculpted piece of female architecture was obviously very flexible because she stood with her legs spread slightly apart and was bent over. She presented herself to me in such a way that her round buttocks and hips and narrow waist formed an inverted heart.

She was using a dustpan and hand-broom to collect up the dust and mouse droppings she had just swept into a pile.

Like her backside, her legs were beautifully proportioned. The fact that she had pivoted from her hips without having to bend her legs - combined with the open-footed stance - gave me a full view of both her partially opened vulva and her tight little anal bud.

While my first instinct was to dive right in and kiss her lower lips, I decided to play the game she had started.

"That's just what a man wants to see when he comes home from a hard day cutting down trees," I said with a lustful growl in my voice. "You are certainly full of surprises, Lady Juanita."

Without straightening up, the vision bent over before me in the subdued light turned her head slightly. As she turned, she exposed the tip of her left breasts. The nipple was erect, which told me that she was getting off on this role-playing. With everything in full view, I was also starting to push the front of my shorts out.

"Missus Juanita i no stap, Mister Matthew," she said in the local lingua franca of the islands. Apart from the erotic message she was sending, she was telling me that Juanita was no longer here.

"Missus, i go weh?" I asked, using the same language. I was asking where Juanita (the missus, or the mistress of the house) had gone to.

"Missus I go long hap," she replied, pointing off across the floodwaters with her chin. She was telling me that Juanita was somewhere over on the other side of the creek. I immediately twigged that she wanted to separate our relationship on this side of the flooded watercourse from that which existed on the other side.

"Wanem nem bilong yupella?" I enquired, asking her name.

"Nem bilong mi, Noan," she replied. She was telling me that her name was Noan, which she pronounced, No-one. She then went on to explain to me that Missus Juanita had had to leave but that she has instructed Noan to see to my needs. She had explicitly told her, she said, that she was to comply with all my instructions; even if they seemed strange at the time. She had apparently assured Noan that she was sure that she would enjoy her time with 'Mister Matthew'.

'This is going to be interesting,' I thought.

"Missus Juanita told me that you were instructing her on the art of taking a person's temperature without using a thermometer," Noan said, speaking now in perfect English; albeit with a slight local accent. "She told me to ask you to continue your instruction but using me instead of her.

"Before she left, she was preparing a cup of tea and something for you to eat. Everything is ready. Just let me finish up here and I will serve it up for you. Missus Juanita had a look at the flour that was in the pantry and found that it was reasonably fresh so she made you a damper to go with your cup of tea. She also found some tinned butter, an unopened jar of strawberry jam and a tin of cream. She didn't open them as she didn't know which you would prefer."

"Thank you, Juani... um, Noan," I said, only now taking in the smell of freshly cooked damper coming from the kitchen. In the short time I had been out of the house, it had taken on the feeling of a home. There was love in this building. Whether it was that which was developing between Juanita and me or that emanating from others, I didn't know, but it was undeniable. And I didn't get the feeling that it was the sort of love that comes from mere infatuation or lust. There had been real love in this little cottage at one time.

"But I will accept your kind offer subject to a couple of conditions. The first of those is that you drop the Mister Matthew business; I will not enter into any such arrangement on a master-servant basis. And, the second is that you allow me to treat you as my equal in all respects. Once again, I am not going to eat at the dining room table - such as it is - while you eat in the kitchen. We either eat together or we don't eat.

"The same goes for when we sleep. We either sleep together or we don't sleep at all. I realise that I am going to have to mess up the single bed for appearance's sake, but I certainly don't intend sleeping in it; not when there's a woman with a body like yours sleeping in the next room. Besides, without blankets, we are going to have to share our body heat to keep warm; particularly when that cold wind starts blowing down off the mountains in the early hours of the morning.

"Of course, it would also be impossible for me to continue with my lifesaving lessons if I was in another room. Mind you, as a servant, it would be more appropriate for you to sleep in the saggy old single bed. It would be unseemly for the master to give up his bed for his house girl."

"Oh, Mathew," Noan - or was it Juanita? - cried as she straightened up and threw herself into my arms, "please don't banish me to the saggy single bed."

"Wait," I said. "Who am I talking to? Noan or Juanita?"

"It's me, Juanita," she said. "I thought it might be easier for you to do some of the things I think you want to do - things I want you to do to me - if you were doing them to a lowly servant girl. When I heard you telling Noan that you wanted to treat her as an equal, and not as a pawn to be sacrificed in some sex game, I realised that I no longer had to pretend to be anyone but myself. I know that irrespective of whether you are making love to Noan or to me, you would be the lovely, gentle man that you are. You are not a bully who treats some people differently to others. Just do not be too gentle with me, please, Matthew. I'm really sick and tired of always being treated like some sort of princess; someone who is kept on a shelf or pedestal and treated like some delicate treasure. There are times I want to be treated like a chattel ...a slut. This is one of those times.

"As you might have learned earlier tonight, there are things I have been craving. There are things I want to experience before I become a dried-up old prune. During the few short hours we have been together, you have taught me so much. Now we know we have some extra time, I want you to show me more.

"You might have guessed that I am enjoying our role-playing. I have tried it with James a few times but he lacks imagination. You, however, are different. You picked up on it straight away. You used your imagination to get me to do things I would never have done with anyone but my husband - if only he would. You have the knack of being able to change to suit my changing moods and have the ability to change your role to advance your own agenda. Even just now, when you saw me naked and cleaning up the floor, you immediately picked up on my intentions and jumped into the role.

"You have used your imagination to bring me to levels of sexual satisfaction of which I have only ever dreamt. I am looking forward to learning more from you tonight."

"That's all well and good," I said, as I leaned down to briefly kiss her inviting lips, "but I smell food and I'm starving. I don't care whether you are my slavish servant or my sluttish concubine, I need to eat to keep up my strength.

"If you were my sluttish servant girl, I would have to make sure you were clean by throwing you into a hot bath - filled with copious amounts of Condy's Crystals, I'm told - and scrubbing you down before I bedded you. As a delicate princess, however, I wouldn't presume that you would need such rough treatment. Still, time to worry about that after we have eaten."

"Yes, Mister Matthew," was all she said.

Continues: Chapter Four