The Chronicles of Mark and Jennifer Ch. 14

Jennifer's story

Meeting Mark's sisters turned out to be kind of neat, but if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, in the Stewart's case, all three apples fell straight down the trunk, plop! and just laid there, not an inch apart, because they're all alike. Both of his sisters are as tough as his mother, and they all look alike: there's absolutely no doubt that they're family. The only difference: Jackie has light blue eyes, while Mark and his sisters all have these dark, dark brown eyes. I guess that they had to get something from their father.

But that brings up something uncomfortable. Mark never talks about his father, other than having told me that he left when Mark was two, too young to remember anything about him. I thought that it might be neat to invite Mark's father to the wedding, and Lisa told me that he doesn't live too far away, but she also told me, in no uncertain terms, not to bring up that idea with Mark. Yet, Mark is a Christian, a Catholic, and Christians forgive the injuries done to them. It's Mark's birthday, and I don't want to hit him with anything he might find unpleasant today, but maybe I can talk to him about it after church tomorrow.

"So, Mark," I asked him, "what do you want to do with the rest of your birthday, now that your family has left us all alone?" I tried to smile as innocently as I could, though my thoughts weren't all that innocent. Good Lord, my attitude has sure changed.

"Well, I had actually thought about hiking in Red River Gorge, but that's an hour away, and my family took up a lot of our day. Do you like hiking through the woods, Jen?"

"I've never really done any of that; I always got plenty of get-back-to-nature time on the farm, at least if you consider mucking out the stables getting back to nature."

"There's a trail and park which leads down to the old Lock #9 on the Kentucky River that's a good place to hike, if you're interested. And I can even think of something else we could do out in the woods . . . ."

"Mark! You are a naughty, naughty boy! But you know we'd get caught, and I'm pretty sure that getting arrested for that would not help us very much."

"How about just hiking, then?"

"That could be fun, but I'll have to stop at the dorm to get some decent shoes; I can't exactly wear Aigner sandals to go climbing over rocks and through the mud. And I think that I'll change into some different jeans."

So, Mark put together a small backpack of picnic stuff to take with us, and then we headed over to Blazer so I could change.

Monica's story

Jennifer finally showed up, wanting to change into some clothes more suitable for hiking in the woods. She grabbed her old Wranglers, and had to put on those old, ugly, black-and-white saddle oxfords for shoes; she really didn't have anything else. I just had to tease her: "Y'all going to make whoopie out in the woods or go skinny dipping in the river?"

"No! I mean, Mark hinted at it, but what if we got caught?"

"So what if you get caught? What's it going to hurt?"

"Monica, don't even! With my luck, we'd get caught by someone with a camera."

"Jennifer Matthews, you have the best luck of anyone I've ever known. There's a whole floor of girls here who'd kill for what you have." I know that I would: Jennifer has a great boyfriend, while all I've met at UK are guys who think that they are cool, when they aren't, and guys who want nothing other than to get into your pants.

"Well, I did get pretty lucky with Mark . . . ." Jennifer let that sentence kind of trail off into nothing.

"It's his birthday, right?"

"Yes, he's nineteen today."

"Ooh, you little cradle-robbing minx, you," I teased her.

"Monica, I'm only three months older than he is."

"Well, you go hiking out in the woods with him, spot a nice downed tree, kneel on it, look back and say, sweetly, of course, 'Fuck me, Mark.'"

"Monica! I can't do that. I tell Mark to make love to me, but I've never used . . . that word. And Mark doesn't use it, either."

"Oh, come on Jennifer, he's a guy, he'd absolutely love that. And you'd get hammered the way he did you that time you told me about, and wouldn't that be fun. I wish that I had a guy like Mark to do that to me."

"Monica, I . . . Mark's waiting for me downstairs, I've got to go."

Mark's story

Jennifer sure is taking a long time upstairs, just to change her jeans and shoes. It's not hard to guess: she's gabbing with Monica or Rachel or one of her other friends upstairs. Heck, Monica once threatened to kill me if I hurt Jennifer! OK, there she is, finally!

Jen ran up to give me a quick kiss, and said, "OK, I'm ready, let's go!"

It's several miles down through some back roads, including a gravel road, to get to the old locks. One we got there, we had to park by this old, abandoned barn, and then hike down through the woods. The sun was out, and the day was getting fairly warm for late April -- and my birthday just so happens to be Earth Day! -- but it was cooler once we got in the shade of the woods. The trees were in full leaf, and as brilliantly green as spring ever gets, while shade-tolerant wildflowers were in full bloom. The path went steadily downhill, since we were headed toward the river. Jen stopped us at this downed tree, with a kind of strange look on her face, and then we sat down because she wanted a drink from my canteen. I don't know, maybe her legs were getting tired, since her shoes aren't really made for hiking. At any rate, we were just sitting there, holding hands and kissing a bit, before Jen said, "OK, let's head on down!" Something seemed strange, but I didn't know what.

It took almost a half hour to get to the locks, but it's not like we were trying to make good time or anything. It was just slow hiking, with a lot of stops for kissing.

The locks on the Kentucky River have been shut down and abandoned for years. They were originally built to aid barges coming down river from the Appalachian coal fields, but the railroads pretty much took over that work. Lock #9, where we were, consists of big concrete pilings in the middle of the river, with gates which used to be opened and closed for river traffic. You can walk across the top of the rusty steel gates, which are about 2½ feet wide, to get out to the pilings, which I have done several times, but Jennifer was not thrilled about walking those gates, which were a couple dozen feet above the water, with no handrail at all, so, after just a few feet, we turned back.

"How do you ever walk out there?" she asked me.

"One foot in front of the other, Jen, but heights have never bothered me. I had to help a buddy reroof his parents' house, and it was three stories tall on the back side. That's how I know I can redo the roof on the cabin."

"Do you really think that you can do all of that work? That cabin needs a lot of work, not just the roof."

"It needs a lot of work, true, and I'm not sure that I can get it all done before our wedding night -- Jen kind of blushed at that -- but I can get it livable. I'm just a bit worried about the cost of materials, is all, but I'll manage that somehow." I didn't say anything about the money I had in the bank from my grandmother's estate. It's not a lot, but I know that Jennifer would be worried if she knew I'd have to put some of that into fixing up the cabin. "Your father told me how he and your mom would wander down to that creek on hot summer evenings, and how just walking barefooted in the creek made even the August heat go away. I can see us, right now, sitting there on the bank, having a picnic dinner, with no one around but the two of us."

"And that's what you want?" Jen asked me.

"I can't imagine anything better in life."

We were sitting on the bank of the river, not too steeply sloped, and softly grassy, and Jen's response to that was to get on my lap, facing me, and start kissing. I was sort of leaning back, using my arms to support both of us, when Jen started tugging at my t-shirt, pulling it off of me. That meant sitting up a bit more, and this looked like it was going to be a very fun trip to the river. It was a bit difficult to get my shirt off, with her kissing me constantly, but finally it was off, and she made no move to stop me when I started pulling off her shirt as well. She raised her arms up into the air, and off came her t-shirt. Since Jen had started leaving her bra at home, she was naked from the waist up, and looked as sexy as could be. Then she pulled a trick I'd never even thought of. She grabbed her long ponytail, put it around the back of my neck, and used it to pull me into more kisses. Oh, my Lord, this woman was just so great!

And then we heard voices. Jen scrambled back into her shirt, getting it on just before the hikers appeared around the bend. She was still sitting on my lap, and fell into a fit of uncontrollable giggling. "I guess that we'll just have to wait for later," she told me.

Jennifer's story

I'm usually pretty good with directions, but Mark made so many twists and turns finding our way down to the woods that I was completely lost. Finally, we wound up on this old gravel road, where we had to stop and let this huge flock of puppies finish crossing the road. I felt sorry for the mother: I didn't think that dogs could have litters that large!

Finally we came to this huge, old barn. It hadn't been either painted or creosoted, and the old wood had a grey patina. There was a decent-sized gravel parking lot, so I suppose that this barn was used by the Parks Department, or whomever maintained this area. We went through a gate in the barbed wire fence, down a bit of a hill, and then the trail went into the woods.

These woods were just alive with noises: there were birds chirping, and I spotted a pair of cardinals building a nest. The rest of the birds I could hear, but not actually see. There were bees buzzing around the spring flowers, orange daylilies at the entrance to the woods, and then some other kinds I couldn't identify once we got under the cover of the trees. The path was slowly meandering downward, and if the woods were alive with birds and bees, there were no people sounds at all.

I guess that we had been along the path for twenty minutes or so, when I spotted it: a downed tree. Oh, my gosh, images of what Monica had suggested were running through my head, and I both wanted to do it and was terrified of doing it. It wasn't just the thought of getting caught, but just what she told me to say to Mark; I just couldn't do that! But, my feet were a bit tired -- saddle oxfords are sturdy enough shoes, but they really aren't made for hiking through the woods -- so I sat down on the old log, telling Mark I needed a drink from the canteen. It was fun, sitting there and kissing, but those thoughts kept roiling through my mind: I really wanted to try this, but I didn't know if I could go through with it. Still, I bet that Mark would love it! Then I thought, maybe on the way back up to the car. "OK, let's head on down," I told my boyfriend.

About ten or fifteen minutes later, we made it down to the locks. There was an old concrete walkway leading up to them, and a dilapidated lock-tender's cabin. There are some big concrete pilings out in the river that Mark wanted to go out to, but once we started walking along the steel gates, I went "Whoa!" These things aren't even three feet wide, and while they had a two inch raised lip, there wasn't any handrail or cable at all, and walking these things was just way too nerve wracking for me. I asked Mark how he ever walked on something like this, and he told me that heights had never bothered him. I didn't think that heights bothered me, either, and I had spent plenty of time climbing around the old barn, but this was completely different. We started out about ten feet up, and once we got over the water, it would be a lot further than that, and I just couldn't do it.

Mark never pushed me into trying to go further; once he saw that I just couldn't do it, he turned around and helped me off.

We wound up sitting on the river bank, which wasn't too steeply sloped by the locks, with a nice grassy area; the trees had been cleared and it was warm and sunny. I took off my shoes and socks, to feel the cool grass on my toes, and Mark and I were just sitting there, talking, and holding hands and occasionally kissing. We were talking about the old cabin that Mark wanted to fix up for us, and he told me that he could do the work himself, but I could see that he's worried about affording the materials. Mark's family is poor, and while we have the farm, and it supports our family, my folks still don't have a lot of spare cash. I had a lot of scholarship money, and that's the only way I could ever have afforded UK. Even then, that only covers undergraduate school: I still have no idea how I'm going to afford medical school.

Mark was sitting there, with his legs stretched out, leaning back with his arms supporting him. This was just south of the Valley View Ferry, and we were facing west. The sun was in his face, and he looked just so calm and peaceful there. Maybe it was time to disturb his peace, I thought, and I got on his lap, facing him, started kissing him, and tugging to get his t-shirt off. He liked that, and sat forward a bit and put up his arms, so I could get his shirt off, which still took some effort, because I kept kissing him.

Oh, my gosh, I had started this, and now Mark was tugging on my t-shirt! Well, I guess that, if I started it, I couldn't back out now, so I raised my hands above my head, and Mark pulled my shirt off. I hadn't worn a bra, so that left me completely topless, outside, in the sun, and I was just loving this feeling, and it was pretty obvious that Mark was, too. I kept hugging him close and kissing him, and then a strange idea came to me: I grabbed my ponytail, pulled it over my shoulder, then over Mark's shoulder and around his neck, and used it to pull him closer to me. It surprised him, and, heck, it surprised me, too, but he was trapped and he loved it. I was kissing him more, and he couldn't escape me now!

Mark's hands were on my bare back, pulling me even closer, and I knew it: we'd be making love in this soft, warm grass in just a few minutes. I was just so completely turned on . . .

. . . and then I heard voices approaching. Crap! I had to scramble for my shirt, and while I just got it on in time, when this couple came around the bend I just knew that they could tell what we were doing. I should have been embarrassed, but instead I found it funny, and I just started giggling uncontrollably. At that point, if they had come around the bend a few minutes later, and had caught us making love, I'm not sure I would have cared, or even known. It just seems like, when we're making love, that there's nobody else in the whole world but us. Still, I told Mark, "I guess that we'll just have to wait for later." I think he thought that I meant when we got back to the apartment, but I was thinking of that downed tree, and what Monica had told me to do.