In The Mood For Love

Dear readers, this is a long slow build of a story. I hope you like the effort at a realistic scene setting. As for the realism, perhaps it is a bit idealistic, but I hope credible?

Please comment, and if it does well? I promise to return and finish Unca B off in a slightly more unreal way. Heh heh heh.

This is fiction from beginning to end, no real people are portrayed.

The fire is down to mostly embers and a few small flames as the last of the night's logs fall together. I am sitting on the rug in front of the sofa that faces the fire place, thinking about moods, how right at that moment my mood is tranquil, neither desiring something nor feeling a need to be active. A good end to a day of thinking and writing, which is my job when I am not editing.

My first appreciation of moods came about six years ago.

I was twenty eight and Rozlyn turned twenty two on April 17.

She had a tight curly blonde head of hair, and was kind of big at five eight, but that's OK, I am a big man, just over six two. I am moderately ugly to my way of thinking but she sure wasn't.

Her hips were wide; her legs slim, with a tiny amount of soft swimmer's smoothness to everything. Her breasts were heavy. They hung long and low under her usual sweaters. Her almost invariable costume was some sort of skirt and sweater.

I like the look of breasts low on the rib cage. Humans can have up to six nipples and breasts, and some girls are born with extras which are usually removed to present a normal double breasted appearance. I sometimes wonder what a multiple wood look like, and the bra construction problems. Will that be one quad bra or two doubles, madam? I am sometimes accused of having a wild imagination.

This is my theory of why some girls have breasts higher on their chests than others: it depends on which pair express themselves during the development stages as a fetus.

Back to Roz's low hung breasts.

I looked at them often. Even harnessed in a sturdy bra they moved with an enchanting bob and sway. She hated it when men stared.

Men stared a lot.

At least that's what she told me later, after we met and became closer friends.

Hers were definitely my kind of breasts. I stared too but I am way sneaky and I didn't think she noticed me looking all that often, and I never actually stared. She would say how much she hated it, "when they stare at me." I would reply, "It isn't you it's your udderly magnificent breasts they are staring at. It has nothing to do with you the owner/operator." Pronunciation is important sometimes.

Then she would slug me on the arm.

No actual bruises, but not love taps either.

I was doing my doctorate in Am Lit. and she was a scientific sort of soc. psych major who needed an English credit. She was a little vague about her work on sexual stress in various levels of crowded rat populations for her Master's. Some other stuff like imprinting situations affecting behaviors was part of her work. She was trying to understand how fetishes and aberrant behavior of sex offenders began. Her investigations had to do with imprinting from first experiences however random they might be.

I was NOT her Prof, nor was I her tutor.

The relationship began when we met in the cafeteria and were introduced by her tutor and my faculty friend Bill. It was cool.

She said she needed a tutor, but Bill told me she was plenty bright and just needed someone to guide the readings and help with notes because she wanted to skip the early morning English lectures and do psych lab stuff instead. She could afford it; Bill was tutoring her by supplying notes and study guides. He told me her daddy was rich and could afford it for the whole term. He also told me he was trying to develop eyeballs on stalks. Wasn't gonna work, I said.

She and I ended up talking a lot about social changes and how they were reflected in literature. Her face was square and intelligent; her eyes under her thick blond eyebrows had flecks of green in the blue. The talk sometimes got passionate and lubricated by beer. Roz talked about the same thing – with rat behavior for examples. It seems people are a lot like rats.

I liked her passion and the fact that she was not vainly plucking eyebrows nor concerned with surface appearances. She dressed for comfort, ignoring fashion. For us guys who are not classically handsome those are good signs.

The closest thing we got to intimacy was one night after some sort of Arts faculty film presentation; we had some late night latte on the way back to her residence and did some canoodling under the stars. My hand was sliding up under her sweater as I was nibbling on her neck when she mentioned she was still a virgin in a sort of off handed way. It slowed me right down to a stop. I asked her why.

She replied, "Nobody ever got me in to the mood, and I never thought to go out and seduce some guy just for a test drive of my equipment. It would be unfair."

It sort of killed any mood I was working up at the time. Afterward, I couldn't think of a smooth way to bring up that mood thing again. But I really liked her a lot, considered her a great friend for stupid, sometimes drunken conversations late into the night.

You might think having a rich daddy would make her more attractive, but to me it was the reverse. I remember telling Bill if we did become serious and actually married, I just knew there would always be that accusation that I had married her for the dough. So I never really tried to get her into the mood. I wanted to have an honest relationship. I figured she would let me know when she thought the time came to get more intimate. She stayed in my friend zone. My really good friend zone of one occupant.

She just never did give off those vibes that she was in any sort of That Mood with me.

Then school ended and she successfully defended her thesis and left town.

I stayed at my office for a few weeks finishing up some research. I took some time off after that at my apartment and decided to go camping for a week in late August.

I packed several days of supplies, my bathing suit and my camping things under the old cap on my pickup, tied the canoe on top. I headed north to the lakes where I had rented a remote spot way off at the end of a dirt road. I use it often. There are only two spaces there, and a mile of lake to swim in. Moose, deer, beaver and loons roam free. It's bucolic by any standard, with a sandy beach for my canoe, trout in the water.

The owner said there might be a couple of women who reserved the other spot, but one of them had said she wasn't in the mood for camping. I had some hopes for solitude to think over my attraction to Roz and her moods.

I had the best site of the two available at the end of the little peninsula picked out. I parked with the pickup making a sort of visual shield to the road in. I put my cooking setup facing west across the lake. I like to sleep in, and watch sunsets over a low fire. West facing is my thing when I am in the mood to camp.

I set up my campsite the way I like, with my small tent on level ground shaded by a tree. I scraped a shallow drainage ditch to lead water from the high land around the tent in case of rain.

There was a small fire pit near the beach where I stacked the mixed hard and softwood I had purchased on the way up.

Things got to the point where it was time to go fishing. I was assembling my rod and reel when I heard a sound that was familiar. I stopped what I was doing and followed the sound as it came from the trees up the road. The fat orange shape of Roz's classic and ancient VW bug came out of the trees and slowed to an almost stop at the end of the road before swinging off to the other side, facing east. Two women got out and turned to see who was in the other site.

I approached from around my pickup and there was Roz and a smaller, thinner slightly older version of her looking back at me.

Roz said, "Oh no, I can't believe it!"

I waved and smiled a little at both of them.

"Alicia, this is the guy I told you about from University."

I walked closer, holding my hand out to the stranger, "I hope it wasn't horror stories."

She was a lot shorter than Roz, maybe five three and she looked to be just a little older than me.

I said, "Hank, Hank Benedict at your service, you must be Cousin Alicia, the artist?"

Alicia turned to Roz, "This is the double H? Hank. . ."

Roz shrieked, "Don't say it!" She covered her face with her palms and turned pink.

Alicia grinned, grabbed my hand, stepping close, "Nice to meet you – long pause - Hank."

Her voice was a lowered phony sultry southern drawl. She curtsied.

I knew I would like Alicia. She had a quick quip and comic timing. She had also stopped the H sentence right away. Savvy and courteous, she was sexy in an offhand way blithely ignoring her obvious appeal in her paint spattered jeans and a shirt just a bit too open. I observed most of a very pert breast as she curtsied and the shirt flared open. (Yes, I am a breast man when I am not being an ass or leg man, opportunism is me.)

I wondered what Roz's other H was. Hunter? Hero?

She knew I was a sort of out doors camping, hunting, fishing guy in my off times. I had also used the theme of the heroic figure in literature pretty often in our discussions.

Alicia said over her shoulder, walking to the Bug, "It's great to meet you, now come and help us set up the stuff."

She went to the front of the Bug and told Roz to pop the lid. Alicia was a bossy one all right. I figured that bossy babe with a very pert bum was going to complicate my relaxation. But I followed orders just to be closer to Roz.

A half hour later the basics were done. Their tent was sited and set, their stuff arranged and cooking arrangements set up.

I told them about how to place any food in tight containers and put them back in the car when they were un supervised.

"They don't have to be bear proof, as long as the bears can't get at them"

"Bears?" Both of them looked at me with big round eyes.

I shrugged, "Black bears. Small black bears. They avoid humans and love peanut butter."

Alicia turned to Roz, "You never told me about bears."

I smiled wider as the two shocked women turned on me, "Hank take those words back. Tell Allie there aren't any bears."

"Allie, it's not true about the bears but is still is a good idea to know about bears. It's not a good idea to feed them, or to argue with them if they do have your food. More problems come from smaller critters. Raccoons for instance. Bears around here are endangered, almost hunted out of existence.

"Of course there still might be a brown bear not a black bear in the woods."

Allie bit, and asked the usual question, "What's the difference between the black and brown bears – aside from color?"

I laughed, and said seriously, "If a bear starts chasing you, climb a tree. If it's a black bear it can climb trees and will follow you up the tree. But brown bears are too big to climb trees. So they just shake the tree till you fall out."

I started to chuckle at the shocked faces until they got the joke.

My words calmed them down, and we started having fun again as they finished arranging things to their satisfaction, trying to decide if a swim would be a good idea before supper. Alicia had no bra as I noticed a couple of times looking down her gaping shirt. She also had a pile of painting gear in the back seat and even a folding easel.

She said, "I want to swim and wash my hair after all that dusty driving with the window open."

She turned to me, "Don't peek. And go back to your side. Let us wimminfolk have a little privacy."

I said, "I hear and obey."

I gave them both a courtly medieval bow, scraping my imaginary hat along the ground in front of them as I made my leg.

"I shall go and fish for my dinner."

I went back to my canoe and slid it mostly in to the water before turning back to the van for the rest of the fishing gear.

Roz was there beside the van.

She was wearing short shorts and a loose top with a broad brimmed hat.

When I got up to her she said, "Is there room for two in that canoe? I don't want to sketch with Allie right now."

I asked her, "Can you swim well?"

She said, "Swim team in my sophomore year."

I said, "Want to paddle? I have a spare."

She laughed, "I prefer a life of luxury, passenger class, please."

I snagged a flotation cushion from the van and said, "Here is your personal flotation device, Ms. Cargo."

She carried it down to the canoe asking where she would sit. I told her, up front, facing back and not on the seat, "Sit on the cushion leaning back against the seat. It is safer lower down in the canoe, more comfortable, and I can see your eyes when we talk."

I eased the canoe out a bit further and held it steady as she wobbled out to the front, crouched over holding the gunwales. Her shorts were quite well filled out and her legs were taut under the skin, no flab. I liked the dark gap at her inner thighs.

"Nicer than we suspected, hmmm?" said my tiny head.

I slid the spare paddle, the net and the fishing rod under the thwarts, plunked the tackle box in, lashing it to the thwart and shoved off, placing my paddle across the gunwales.

I headed to the far side where the sun was sinking to the hills behind the lake. I wanted to troll a lure in the sunlit water towards the darker water where I hoped the bigger trout would lurk. Reading fish minds is tough but I imagined some old trout hoping for a well lit prey to wander along and pounce on it from the gloom. I would if I were the big fish in that pond.

I paddled fairly hard to make some time and Roz asked me, "How come you can paddle on only one side of the boat and we go straight? In the movies all I see are people paddling first on one side then the other to go straight."

I answered, "I learned this years ago in summer camp. You turn the paddle at the end of each stroke and use it to correct the course. There is more to it than that but that is the essential part."

"Oh. Is it easy to learn? Could I learn it for instance? Do I have to be strong like an ox?"

I laughed. "If you were in the swim team, you are plenty strong. It's just a matter of knowing the movements and practice. It's just like swimming or riding a bicycle"

We arrived at where I thought we should be for fishing and stopped paddling. I reached under the thwarts and slid the rod out.

"Ok crew, you do the rod holding and I will do the paddling. We are now trolling for trout."

I unhooked the lure and showed her how to hold the rod and which way the reel went, then had her run out an amount of line so the lure could sink to the right depth, which is pretty deep if you want the big fish in the colder water near the bottom. I had no great expectations, and was enjoying the ending day and the sight of Roz's mild excitement waiting for the big fish as I paddled us slowly parallel to the shore.

Roz relaxed, and tightened me up all in the same motion. She threw one knee wide to the gunwale as she settled carefully farther down in the canoe. Most slim and fit women have a slight hollow formed in the muscles between their thighs close to their crotch where the tendons stand out. Roz certainly did.

As I stroked the paddle slowly to maintain our forward progress, my eyes kept coming back to that sweet curve of flesh and the dark inner hollow that disappeared under the edge of those very short shorts.

I changed course a bit so the lowering sun shone directly in and looked more frequently at the crotch so nicely viewable. A few wisps of blond hair curling down the inner thighs hinted at an un-trimmed jungle to explore less than a finger's length from the little hollow. I am an out doors type, jungle exploration is one of my favorite things. My tiny head agrees with this attitude every time.

Another thing that I liked about the view was the width of the space between those thighs at their juncture, a nice friendly gap with air space is tempting for the hand. Lastly, the curve of her mons was high, rising slightly above the plain of her belly. It would be a nice plump handful. I tried to keep my glances short but they became more lingering and I had to consciously look away or my growing boner would become even more visible.

Then the fish saved me.

Roz let out a little shriek as the tip of the rod jerked sharply. The fish struck so hard it almost took the rod out of her hands. I swung the canoe so she could play the fish and she started reeling it in. Her face was alive with delight as she cranked the reel, and the tip lowered left and right as the fish drove this way and that.

Roz knew intuitively to keep the rod tip at an angle to the fishing line so the whippy rod soaked up some of the stress from the fighting fish.

After several minutes of struggle, I had the canoe broadside to the spot where the line disappeared into the water and Roz reeled it to the surface. The fish was tired and I slid the wide net from under the thwarts as Roz guided it inexpertly to the opening.

Slipping to my knees, I dropped my paddle into the canoe and lifted the fish clear, into the middle of the canoe.

"Are we going to eat him?"

"No, I am going to hook and release. I brought up something with me for tonight's supper that would be spoiled if it was kept for tomorrow."

I took my pliers and a pair of side cutters from the tackle box and cut the hook from the fish's mouth then slid it into the water, still in the net. I maneuvered the net so the fish swam free and disappeared deep with a flash of its tail.

When I looked up, Roz was looking at me with a funny twist to her lips and a smile in her eyes.

She said, "For a rootin' tootin' hunter fisherman you are some tender hearted dude, cowboy." She tipped her broad brimmed sun had back on her head, made a finger pistol, shot me and blew smoke from the tip of her index finger.

"Now that you done throwed my dinner into the lake, what are you going to feed me?"

"Your dinner?" I asked. "My rod, my canoe, my hook, my line and my lure!"

She looked down her finger pistol at me, "And my luck. It's my fish - podnah."

I had to laugh.

"Steak, mushrooms and baked potato coming up, but if I gotta feed three I need more ingredients or it will be pretty scanty."

"Take us back to shore. Give me and Allie an hour to clean up and prepare. We'll come over with something."

After landing the canoe, I watched Roz's bewitching ass walk her over the little rise then turned to my fire pit. I quickly assembled a fire among some carefully selected rocks. I lit it before stripping off and jumping into the lake with some soap for a quick wash.

Back out of the water and dressed in an old pair of sweatpants and a loose tee, I pierced the skin, wrapped three potatoes in foil and set them at the edge of the flames.

With the quick burning wood out of the way, a nice bed of coals glowed ready for cooking and the potatoes were pretty well done. I took my cast iron pan and put it on the triangle of rocks, turning the potatoes again. I backed them a little farther from the fire. In the intervening time I had used my chopping board to dice a couple onions and put them in the pan along with a generous amount of butter. I diced the steak into small bits. I pulled the cork on my bottle of decent red.

When the onions were translucent I put the mushrooms and steak bits in the pan and gave the whole thing a stir. I dipped a cup of water from the lake and scooped a spoonful of flour from my supplies into the pan. Stirring gently, I sloshed in some wine from the bottle. The mix began to smell pretty good. As the mess in the pan thickened I used a tiny amount of water to adjust the thickness. More wine flowed to the pan as the mood and scent urged me. I tossed a generous amount of pepper and a bit of salt into the pan as the girls came over the rise to the fire.