Water and Stone

At the bottom we stood dumbly with our towels.

"So, Kevin," she said. "I kind of expect you to stare at me. Maybe that's even the point. I didn't mean it to be a sexual thing but you're a guy. Heck, I like to look at people sometimes."

With that, she took off her shoes, and then pulled her shorts and underwear down together. For a moment I snapped to that fantasy with Lisa. I shook my head, and started pulling off my own clothes awkwardly, peeking at Alexa.

She turned to face me, and I let myself stare for a minute.

She hadn't bothered with a bra. Maybe she never did. Her chest could almost be a guy's chest, but the muscles were wrong. A few slight curves. And the most perfect set of nipples I'd ever seen. Big, solid, with very light pink areolae, atop breasts that nearly weren't there. Covered everywhere in freckles. Of course, lots of time naked. I tore my eyes away from them before I made a fool of myself.

Her legs were as beautiful as I'd thought. Narrow hips, but no doubt they were a woman's. And a light pink pussy completely surrounded by fine blonde hair, just a few shades darker than that on her head.

I looked back at her face. She was turning red.

"You really are a goddess," I said. "I hope you can see that someday."

To my discomfort, I was sporting an erection. A rapidly growing one, and nothing seemed to dissuade it.

"Ugh, I'm sorry, Alexa. That's just reflex."

"Yeah, I know, Kevin. It's fine."

She took a breath and then she frankly looked me over in turn. I hoped my erection would fade but instead it seemed to be solidifying into some kind of geological feature.

"Oh, Kevin, I know you're embarrassed. You look great. I have so little basis to compare, but, well, I like looking at you too. I hear cold water helps ...?" She giggled, putting her hand out, and I gently took it. In a daze I followed her to the creek. What a crazy day. The water did shock and distract me a little. The nearest big pool was no more than waist deep on me, but we managed to dunk ourselves fully. Alexa came up spluttering in front of me. Waist deep for me meant just below her crotch. I stared again at her spectacular bush, dripping water. Suddenly I wanted to lick her so badly. No, No, No. Pure male hormones. I could get past that.

Alexa looked up at the sun angle. Her nipples shone in the sun, fully erect and jutting out from her chest. The cold water wasn't helping me out here one bit. She smiled at me, apparently totally comfortable. Happy.

"I've got to get out of the sun," she said reluctantly. "Dry off and put on sunscreen." I nodded. Her nipples, oh my god. She turned back and I followed, staring at her butt.

"Sorry Alexa," I swallowed, as we got back out. "I'm having more trouble than I expected here. You're, you're kind of beautiful. Stunning. And to be honest my hormones have been going through their periodic defrost cycle this last couple weeks. Please don't take it the wrong way. This has got to be so uncomfortable --"

"Kevin," she said, "No. You're fine. Defrost cycle: I like that. This is all more complicated than I realized for me too. I just don't show it so much."

We collected our clothes and dried our feet to put on shoes. I settled in behind Alexa to head back up the short trail. The air on my naked skin was blissful. Alexa had a really nice ass. Compact muscles, perfect match for her legs. Just a little curve around her hips up to her slim waist. I had to fall behind as she flowed along up the hill without effort. A creature of water as much as earth.

I was nearly dry when we reached the top, and starting to miss the cool water. Alexa pulled out sunscreen and we set about applying it in the shade near our tent. I was definitely getting more comfortable standing naked here with her. Still, I didn't entirely keep my composure as I applied some sunscreen right on my partly hard dick. Never had to do that before, but I imagined a sunburn there would be awful.

Alexa rummaged around in the jeep and emerged with two foam sleeping pads, rolled up and looking well used.

"I collect these," she said. "Out of fashion for backpackers but they're super-versatile. Better than a towel to sit on or sunbathe."

Back to the creek. We put down a pad to sit in the shade next to the hot springs to let the sunscreen sink in.

We sat together watching the water, listening. Our routine. Alexa talked about the rocks now exposed by the creek's slow erosion. I mostly listened and enjoyed her company. I hardly noticed we were naked. Just two friends.

Alexa stood up and stretched, a classical statue towering above me. I scrambled up quickly to join her.

"I want to swim a little, and then sunbathe on those rocks." She pointed upstream to the broad slabs with water pouring across some of them. We dropped the pads and our towels by the water's edge, and in we went.

I wasn't much of a swimmer, but none of the pools was deep, and it was easy to avoid any water moving too fast. Alexa seemed at home in the water, floating, splashing me, ecstatic. I asked her how long she'd been swimming.

"Hah!" She laughed. "I could barely swim that night I had my ecstatic revelation. I did all that I could do: float a while on my back. It was unbelievably dumb in the state I was in. Maybe there's some threshold where if you combine enough really dumb things together, the universe takes pity and turns it into something smart."

"No," she continued. "I'm self-taught. I probably look comfortable in here because now I never pass up jumping into water, unless it has waves or too much ice. Or anyone else around. Of all the things I do out by myself, being in the water is far and away the most dangerous. But I think you understand why I could never give it up."

She sighed. "Pretty much everyone who knows me enough thinks I'm afraid of the water, can't swim, whatever. Better than having them realize I was too scared to wear a swimsuit. I've gotten used to hiding this piece of me. Too used to it. Isn't it wonderful, though? The feel of water against your skin? Stretch your fingers and you can almost feel the snowmelt, the tiny underground streams, the clouds the water came from, the ocean it's all heading towards. All those wonderful droplets touching all the nerve endings in your body." She gave me a conspiratorial smile. "I can't remember well enough what it's like to swim with a suit, but you have to admit it feels good on all those sensitive spots, right?"

"I won't deny it," I said with a smile. "Glad to hear it doesn't lose its novelty."

A while later Alexa decided she was ready to sunbathe. I followed her to retrieve my pad. Before she got there, she bent over at something in the shallow water. She reached in and came up with a handful of sand.

"See that?" She was grinning hugely. "Look at the sparkles. What does it look like?"

"Is that -- is that actually gold?" Surely it was some lookalike mineral.

"Hah! Got it in one. Plenty still scattered in the mountains above us, though all the good veins were mined long ago. You could sluice or pan in this creek and get a steady amount of these little flakes. Nowhere near enough to be worth it, of course. But isn't it wonderful?"

Not just a paradise, but with gold lining the creek? A piece of me was starting to suspect Alexa had some real magical power.

There. Thoughts like that. I was obviously falling for her, wasn't I? The first friend I'd gotten close to. It stood to reason, I guess. It had taken five years but parts of me seemed to be finally trying on the idea of moving on. Was this my brain's unhelpful version of a rebound relationship? I brooded as we headed back out with our pads.

Alexa had wisely brought along the sunscreen, and set it on a rock with her pad while she clambered along looking for the perfect spot. Upon success she retrieved them and set herself up, lying down on her front. A thin layer of water poured along, and she could dunk her feet in a big pool.

"See?" She laughed and shimmied a bit, unintentionally flexing her ass at me. "Perfect temperature control. This is the best."

I poked around and eventually found a spot that was, well, almost as good as the ideal one she'd snagged.

We lay there blissfully, sustaining a slow, disconnected conversation. Half thoughts and idle observations. Like an even more relaxed version of our slower lunch days on the bench. I noticed a portion of the rock upstream had a reddish tinge to it, and asked her what it meant, but got no reply. A glance showed she had fallen asleep on her back, arm partly over her face. She'd tilted her head away from the sun and towards me. Maybe she'd been watching me for a while before she drifted off.

She had a small scar on the hip facing me. Freckles everywhere, totally cute. Big ears. That was one of the odd things about her face, wasn't it? I vaguely remembered that figuring into cruel remarks in school. Kids can be horrible.

Her areolae puffed out slightly. More prominent really than her breasts. The left one was a little bigger. They were perfect. Her legs were parted, relaxed. She really felt so comfortable with me. Pussy on fine display, lips inviting. Water trickled around her and from the hair between her legs. It made for a disconcerting illusion that she was peeing endlessly, like one of those questionable-taste classical fountains.

Her face -- oh, damn, she was awake again. And I'd been staring quite a while, erect once again, obscenely displaying myself on my back.

"Hey," she said quietly.

"Hey," I nervously replied. "I'm so sorry again, just can't seem to --"

She shook her head. "No, Kevin, I can't have you apologizing for something that I'm enjoying. I swear, having you so obviously appreciate my body is doing more good for me than years of my one-with-nature routine by myself. It feels like I'm cheating, and I definitely feel like I'm taking advantage of you."

I pondered that. "Well," I said. "I never imagined getting thanks for ogling someone. I don't see how you could be taking advantage of me though."

Alexa sighed. "That's because you're too sweet and think everything must be your responsibility. You told me you're still heartbroken. This is your first vacation in years and it's all about what I like, and to top it off I'm teasing you tremendously. No, no, of course that's not what I set out to do, but as I said, I'm getting a major benefit from it."

Huh. "Alexa, I couldn't have come up with a better vacation in a million years. At my rate I wasn't even going to have a vacation for at least that long, so from my perspective it seems like a giant favor you've done me. As for you feeling like you're teasing me -- well, obviously I'm having some trouble handling things with whatever the fuck is wrong with me. There's a kind of a bright side though, which is the part where I look at a really hot naked woman with her complete blessing. Can we call it a draw?"

I would never get tired of her odd, throaty laugh. "OK, I accept that provisionally," she said. "But promise me. If something is making you particularly confused, uncomfortable, whatever, please tell me right away. No need to explain. If it's some passing thing you are welcome to then say 'OK Alexa, I am fine with you taking off your clothes again'. I promise, somehow it won't be weird."

We looked at each other a while. "We are the weirdest friends ever," I said.

She laughed wholeheartedly. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

Alexa said she'd need more sunscreen if we were out any longer, and I was feeling the need for a snack, so we made our way back out. We dried off by the water and finally got back into our clothes. To my surprise, it was watching her pull on panties and throw a shirt over her head that suddenly seemed erotic. Getting dressed is what it is, I thought. That's what all of this is for her, just her ordinary time with her body. You're the one confusing nakedness with sex.

We scrounged up some snacks and then decided backgammon in the tent was a great idea after all. Or rather card games, since that's what Alexa had. It turned out we were both veteran solitaire players, something which Alexa seemed to find a lot funnier than I did. She remembered one cooperative solitaire game, and then it was on to every mean-spirited card competitive game we could remember. It was a fantastic end to the afternoon.

Dinner approached, and Alexa went to pull out a silver package that looked like an MRE. A closer inspection showed it to be freeze-dried backpacking food.

"I cheated," she said. "Or rather, I have a bunch of these around all the time since I keep getting suckered by sales. Kind of expensive, not as good as making it yourself if you're a competent cook. But so convenient."

She showed me how to set up her ingenious little backpacking stove, and then we "cooked" together, insofar as heating some water and mixing in the food counted. The indeterminate chicken dish was actually OK, and we had plenty of snacks and veggies to fill it out. She even had a little collapsing water basin for cleanup. Her complete comfort in the routine made me imagine the hundreds of nights she'd probably done exactly the same thing, in every possible landscape. Almost always alone. I couldn't wrap my head around it. For a minute her life seemed alien, just so much bigger than my circumscribed routine of home and work.

By the time everything was squared away, the sky was turning pink with sunset, and the valley was darkening in shadow. It looked like a clear night, and I couldn't wait for the stars to come out.

"I think this is the time to go soak in the hot springs," I said. It was cooling quickly and the water sounded enticing.

"I was hoping you'd say that," said Alexa. She produced a bottle of wine and some plastic cups. In fact, the bottle was also plastic. Apparently Alexa had gotten the bottle as a novelty and it turned out to be great for trips like this.

Alexa dropped the wine, her towel, two headlamps, and an extra layer into her small pack.

"You'd have made a great Boy Scout," I said, and she promptly punched me.

"See? You'd definitely have fit right in," I said, rubbing my shoulder.

* * *

We picked our way carefully to the edge of the hot pool and arranged our things. Then, off came the clothes. I could get used to this.

The water was heavenly, and this time I was able to immerse myself up to my chin comfortably. The pool wasn't enormous, and I kept bumping feet with Alexa on the opposite side. The light was quickly fading, and the darkness gave the experience a weight of intimacy that was making me vaguely nervous. I tried to relax, sipping wine steadily. It seemed to help.

Alexa didn't seem to have much tolerance for the alcohol, and was starting to lose some coherence as she tried to recount a story of hiding from an evil-eyed wild pig. It was cute, a totally different Alexa. After a while the rambling story petered out, and we watched the stars coming out. We could only see part of the sky, and my side had a better view. After a while Alexa unexpectedly slid around next to me, our arms just touching. The contact was comfortable, more than comfortable -- and at the same time hard to tolerate. I was shaking slightly. What the fuck was wrong with me?

The stars were getting brighter as twilight deepened, and I watched them, calming myself.

"They're glorious, aren't they?" Alexa's voice was closer than I expected.

"Yeah," I said. "Is that the Milky Way?"

"Yup! It's only going to get better. Maybe another hour before it's really dark. Takes forever in summer."

And then I felt her arm around my shoulder, her head leaning companionably against me. I couldn't think. Every one of my muscles seemed to be tensing.

"Alexa? I need space, please." My voice sounded oddly flat, unnatural, heard only from a distance.

Instantly she was away from me, sliding to the other side of the pool.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Kevin. Am I OK over here?"

"Yeah, you're OK. I ..." and then I fell silent. I had no idea exactly what had happened.

But the Alexa I was used to was back. Quiet, warm silence. We watched the stars. The water was perfect, and I slouched lower as the air temperature dropped.

"Alexa," I finally started. "Today has been one after another case of me getting horny for the one person I don't want to think about that way. You're just trying to feel good about your own body, and I'm absolutely stuck on my own sexual urges. Now all that is getting mixed in with ordinary friendly touches. Do you know when you first held my hand, those first couple days at the park, that was the first real human contact I'd had since I moved here? I can't stand the idea that my hormones are trying to veto that too."

"Kevin," Alexa said slowly. "What exactly is so awful about you fantasizing about me? I even told you how much I appreciated the way you looked at me. Fantasies are normal enough, right?"

"But, Alexa," I said. "Surely it's got to be uncomfortable for you. Maybe even unpleasant. You already told me that's not how you, um, you know, that sex isn't for you."

There was a long silence from Alexa, followed by a heavy sigh.

"Oh, god, Kevin, this is all my fault. I'm too embarrassed about my own shit, and I only managed to tell you enough to get us both totally confused. Give me a minute here to get my thoughts straight."

We watched the stars some more.

"I've never had an orgasm," she said. "There, I said it. That's what I meant about my wiring. I have fantasies, I think about what it would be like, I even try to masturbate sometimes. I just can't get anywhere close to a release. Sometimes is better than others, but generally the best I hope for is coming out the other end a little more hot and bothered, and hope the endorphins beat out the frustration."

She sighed. "I didn't properly piece this together for a long time. After that awful relationship, I really did just assume that sex wasn't for me in a fundamental way, that the drive was missing from my brain. But no, it's maybe worse than that. I want it just fine, but thinking about it too much drives me to distraction because I know it can't be what I want it to be."

We sat with our thoughts a while.

"So when you told me you weren't interested in that kind of relationship," I started.

"Sex," she said. "I should have just said it straight out. And I guess I lumped in any kind of romance because I wasn't thinking about them separately and I didn't want you getting the wrong idea, which I managed anyway. Because it turns out I really like whatever it is we have. Wherever this is going."

"Me too," I said. "That's why I'm so nervous about every goddamn thing. I feel like my body or my brain might suddenly balk any random thing and I'll never see it coming. Any time we're someplace new, or doing something out of my routine, I might have a total freak-out. You're really OK with that?"

She reached for my hand gently, and I took it. "Every week I'm off to find some new piece of the world, or at least I'm thinking of it. The ecstasy of being enveloped by the unknown, and finding I'm already connected to it. How could I not be OK with the excitement of whatever strange, beautiful world we might make together?"

I had no reply to that. Hands gently clasped, we let the night enfold us. Frogs called out, water burbled, and the stars slowly whirled in their timeless dance. With a nearly physical shock, the half moon appeared over the ridge and quickly lit the valley with dappled silver.

"I've got to pee," said Alexa.

I started to giggle, and shortly neither of us could stop laughing.

"Time to get ready for bed, you think?" I was getting comfortably sleepy.

"Yeah, good as any," said Alexa. "Though part of me wants to prune up forever in here."

We pulled ourselves out of the water, quickly grabbing our towels in the cool air. Alexa's light skin shone in the moonlight, her hard nipples arresting my gaze. The tension had drained from me, and even the erotic vision wasn't uncomfortable. Why shouldn't I think about putting my mouth on those nipples? It wasn't as though I was in danger of doing it in real life. I was used to managing fantasies.