We of the Desert

Perched in the doorway between deep sleep and wakefulness, I know that it is dawn. I can see light through my closed eyelids, and the rhythms of nocturnal sounds have stopped. The citizens of daylight—pets, people, sparrows, cattle, are all preparing for their appearance in the day, and do so in quietude. It is silent, building, awaiting activity. The chill of the night has something to do with this. Since most people don't live in deserts, they don't realize that deserts get cold at night.

It's not so cold that we need each other's warmth to survive, and we both have this bad habit of stealing all of the covers. We sleep in the same bed, under our own blankets.

I sense her presence. It's just a little bit more toward wakeful than mine, but she is by no means interested in exploding into the day.

As she puts her blankets aside, I sense the musky aroma of our midnight romp, and realize that we pretty much just collapsed in happy exhaustion after declaring our contest of trying to fuck each other senseless a draw. I sense the coating on my cock of the juices we blended last night. I smile. Is this coating a glaze on a treat? Right now, it wouldn't be as hard as a maple bar, nor as sweet. My blanket is lifted with a hand not mine, I feel her head move underneath, and then my soft penis is ensheathed in her warm and wet mouth.

I understand. I give her that penis so often that she might as well call it hers. She wants to suckle, to feel safe as her head is in my lap, doing whatever she likes, for her own sake. My challenge is to figure out where she wants to go, and what I should be doing to enhance that experience. I massage the back of her neck, play with her short hair. Her spine is a magic highway down the middle of her wonderful back, with a magic transition to bottom and pussy. Two fingers wander down, finding the dimples above her bottom. She wriggles with warm and comfy satisfaction, as I begin playing the dimples like small sexual drums, tapping, fingers moving firmly over the surfaces, more tapping in rhythm.

I know. She cleanses me with her tongue and mouth, and then her head travels the length of my torso, her mouth poised for the first kiss of the day. Infinite eyes, not needing to ask for that kiss, knowing that it is there for her.

I taste us on her lips, and my fingers give her strength as they massage her neck and back. After forever, she gets up and lippety lops her way to the bathroom. Breasts and bottom jiggle just enough to affirm that they aren't artificial, relaxed, they affirm that all's right in her world.

Pulling on shorts on my way to the kitchen, I feel the cold stone tiles under my bare feet. I get the coffee started and realize that the air is still cool enough to really make that first sip of coffee special. I put bagels in the toaster oven, slice some melon, and head toward the bathroom.

She's just finished her shower, and is putting on a white sundress over her bra and bikini panties. I strip off my shorts, jump in the shower, and turn on the water. Within minutes, I am clean and ready to shave. She has left to attend to the rest of breakfast while I do this, cleaning the fog off the mirror so that I can see. Kissing her pussy is best when it's like silk on silk, not sandpaper on a rough board. I'm as smooth as she is, face and "down there". Her adventure goes beyond mine, in that there is no hair below her collarbones, ever, on her slim and supple body. In our history, she's developed.

No hausfrau, she.

I put on chino slacks, a light shirt, socks and boots. Breakfast heralds its arrival through its aroma, and I move toward it.

As I sit down at the kitchen table, I note how tan her legs are, and stiffen a little, remembering how naughty her tan lines are. They emphasize and direct my attention explicitly. The bagels are on a plate, except for the blueberry bagel she's spreading with cream cheese. Coffee is in its carafe, and she's fixed scrambled eggs to add to the melon and orange juice. Voluptuousness is enjoying a simple breakfast with a simply gorgeous lady. "You're going to stain your teeth with those blueberries".

"Hmm. How about I just don't kiss anyone today who would care?"

"Works for me. We're doing this right. We'll be in town to avoid being here during the heat of the day. I like the idea of being in an air-conditioned mall at noon, rather than being out here with 110 degree heat. "

"You just like the idea of being behind me when we ride up the escalator. That's the real reason to go the mall in a short dress"

"That too, for certain."

We are going to the mall because there is a good photographer there. We want portraits. With the blueberry girl, these won't be with teeth exposed. I observe this to her, and she smiles. "Don't worry, my teeth won't be showing in every shot. Besides, we're not there yet."

It's two hours into town, and I'd rather be driving in the cooler part of the morning. When temperatures rise over 110, the heat really punishes cars, and even an oversized radiator might not prevent a breakdown. I don't want to put us in a position where blueberry girl has something to deal with that was unnecessary.

The car's in good shape, and substantial. The doors of an old Mercedes close like those on a bank vault, the leather seats are assertively firm, the ride doesn't insulate the road totally. Superb. We'll leave at ten, get there at noon. There will be an hour before the photos.

Back in the bedroom blueberry girl, my one true love, has removed everything from her wardrobe in search of the seven thousand or so most likely combinations for her to pose in. This being inevitable, I remind myself to press the time issue an hour from now, gently, and begin to help her move toward the door around forty five minutes later.

This portraiture was an idea she developed. It's so compelling that I don't want to disturb her energy. You see, we're going to take photos of us together, enjoying very naughty activities. We never got married, so we never took wedding pictures. She wants something to commemorate our truly memorable pleasures, some put in frames for the bedroom, some in a photo portfolio, for us alone. DVD's, too. I will do nothing to diminish this experience for her, and therefore us. I will not comment on the fact that she is packing at least 4 garter belts, and I can't count the shoes.

All of this from a lass I literally rescued from a dimensionally horrible experience.

Like most young marrieds, they lacked the insight to figure out how to put a good relationship together. Chad's main interest was Chad, and had never considered the notion of mutual satisfaction. Dana wanted a relationship, knew that in theory sex would be good, but had no idea of what she ought to explore that would be fun for her, and then for Chad. She was more than a little timid about discussing the subject with him.

This relationship was going to end up nowhere. Chad's work environment was nothing but liars perpetrating frauds. I sort of knew him, because sometimes I do things in finance, and he worked for a company who originated bad mortgages. It was run by a bully, and one of the job requirements was to suck up to the boss.

You match a fundamentally decent girl with a frustrated wimp. You can figure it out.

Sex was a predictable and mediocre item on the calendar, never really spontaneous.

Finally, Chad did what so many "men" of his generation do. He started cheating, blaming his "frigid" wife for the whole thing. She caught him, and asked for them to see a counselor. His first response was to deny what she had seen. Second was to call her frigid. Third was to tell her that what she needed was a good old-fashioned gang bang, and his buddies were just the guys to help.

One fine day, he finally blew up, and during a long and loud discussion which involved both of them yelling past each other, he somehow slammed her into the back seat of their car, and started to drive. Desert gang bang, the destination.

It was all sort of predictable, when you think it out a little. Most people want to feel better about themselves. Chad's choice was classic white trash. Degrading someone else was probably the only option he would ever have come to. Actually growing was beyond him. Dana had been trained by her parents to take direction, to follow the lead of her husband.

This all converges at the general store nearest my ranch. I had committed a cardinal sin—running out of toilet paper—and had headed over to buy some. It was an unwelcome choice between driving two miles and paying too much, or driving 20 miles over bad roads for a better price. We all screw up. Sometimes.

There they were in the parking lot. You couldn't ignore them. Even if they were soundless, the bad energy would have announced them. She was crying, he was yelling.

I went into the store and paid for one roll of toilet paper. I paid a lot, but I was going to town tomorrow anyway. One should have gotten me through the night.

By that time, he had pulled her out of the car and was holding her by the hair, slapping her. I didn't like that. At all. When he squared away to punch her, I said something.

I've hogged this narrative, and I'm surprised Dana hasn't said anything yet, although she doesn't much like to talk about this part of the story, and you can see why.

Her story of the event—

The whole thing-- being told I was going to be gang-raped by a bunch of drunks out in the desert, the car ride gave me a real vision of my own personal hell. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, there was this scritch, scritch, scritch. That was his boots on the gravel of the parking lot of this store in the middle of nowhere. Actually, as he would put it, the store was four feet to the left of the middle of nowhere.

And I looked up, and there he was. Cowboy hat, high cheekbones, thick neck, tshirt over a tapered torso, strong brown arms, faded Levis, and the cowboy boots. I never realized that there were still people who drawled. He did, then.

You could feel the heat of the sun radiating off the gravel. You couldn't hear much of anything else except his voice, although he didn't speak loudly.

My life began anew when he said "I'm really sure I don't like this at all. Be a good idea if you stop right now." If I had just seen my own Hell, I now found my angel. It's funny. I had never thought about angels wearing boots, jeans and cowboy hats.

Chad started his punch. He yelled that he would punch this bitch if he wanted. Before it landed, He hit Chad on the jaw with the heel of his right hand against the left side of Chad's jaw, almost dislocating it. As Chad reeled from the blow, the cowboy stomped him on the left knee, bringing Chad to the ground.

The cowboy looked down at Chad and said- "I didn't break your jaw. Your knee is in bad shape, but I was careful to get the left one so you could still drive. I won't call the cops if the lady doesn't want me to. Your choice, ma'am."

No one ever gave me a choice before. My parents and Chad had made all of the decisions. I looked into his blue eyes. "What's your name?" "Robert." "Are you really a cowboy? " "Amongst other things, yeah. What do you want to do? And, what's your name?"

I hesitated.

"If you need time to sort things out, I have a guest house. The doors lock from the inside."

That sounded better than going back into LA. "I'm Dana, and if it won't be a bother...."

"Wouldn't offer if it wasn't right that I did. Do you need anything for right now? We could make the run into town."

"Chad might follow us."

Robert went over to our car. He pulled the keys out of the ignition. Chad was still on the ground. He gently kicked Chad in the side to get his attention. "The lady isn't going to call the cops. With a pretty strong toss, he flung the keys into the weeds beyond the far end of the parking lot." That's so you won't follow us."

He then pulled out his cell phone. "Do you want to call anyone?"

"No, my parents are thousands of miles away, and I'm afraid that if I tell our friends what I am up to, they'll help Chad find me."

We went into the store and bought another roll of toilet paper.

I was right to trust him. The doors to the guest house locked from the inside, there were good rugs on the floor and clean sheets and blankets on the bed. There was a library, with an amazing range of books. Botany, Physics, Math, History. Poetry, Viking Sagas. The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh. . There was an upright piano with very yellowed ivory keys, and real ebony keys. There were a couple of bullet holes in the top, and I had to wonder how they got there, and when. The next morning, there was a knock on the front door. When I got there, he was gone, but there was a tray with coffee and toast and butter and jam. And a tiny vase with a tiny wild flower.

He started to show me his world. Nature is powerful in the desert. You have to come to terms with Her, on Her terms. When you do, when you find the pond in the middle of summer, and drink deeply, or strip down in the heat of day and dive in, you have earned the right to joy. You work at times and in places where you can finesse the heat in stead of confronting it, and just before sundown, you grab a bottle of beer or a soda out of the ice-filled washtub. It's so cold your hand hurts. The cold of the first gulp is like the cavalry coming to the rescue against heat and parched body. You pay for your pleasures with honest effort, honest endurance of the heat. No other coin is accepted.

The secret of the heat of the desert is that once you learn to deal with it, that fact changes you. You recognize it as an absolute, just as the stars in the clear night sky show more absolutely and differently than they do in the city. You become a larger version of yourself. The city insulates you from the requirement to confront yourself. Beaches, forests are usually mild. You are not required to grow in a mild environment.

Every day, we face the sun. I became more myself.

I had never been nude before, proud to display myself to both myself and someone else—Now, him. I earned the right. Sometime around then, I moved into the main house, the main bedroom. I earned it in the heat of summer days.

He made me so much more aware. There is no mandatory sequence. He'll kiss my pussy to orgasm because it's a good idea at the time, no "and then?" We can snuggle. We make love, we fuck. We do what we choose, we keep fit for each other, stay groomed. We've done this for a few years now, and we'll do this for years to come.

We both like naughty, because it stretches the imagination. That's why when my friend Brenda told me about the photographer in town who took erotic pictures, I decided we should do that. We have pictures that we took of ourselves, but the camera angles are awkward, many of the pictures are kind of unfocused. I want something of us together, with neither of us running a camera. I want a pro to take the pictures as my triumph of exhibitionism over being modest because I am afraid.

Of course, it's going to be a little scary, but Robert will be there.

To which I say, "sweetie, we'll never get there unless we move it up a little. Should I load up the car?"

"Good thing I shaved last evening, isn't it?"

"Not that anyone would mistake you for a yeti, anyhow"

It's not so hot that we need the air conditioning in the car. The seats don't need towels just so you can sit on them without grilling your thighs, but it's a little too warm for Dana to wear stockings. No problem. We ride in quiet, the hum of the engine and the faint noise of the tires the musical score to the panorama that unfolds as we cruise down the road. Hawks soaring above, a roadrunner testing his speed against the car for a few feet before he finds business offroad. Oak trees, sometimes shading the road, more often on a hillside affirming life in the brown, apparently lifeless desolation of the land at large.

We can do this horseback, we can do it in a jeep. We have earned the right to ride this Mercedes into civilization. Dana's here, stark white sundress hinting at breasts and hips, her tan just a bit lighter than the tan of the upholstery. High heeled sandals look good against the thick carpet. Styling in the desert.

Noon, and we are in town. It's already hot. I take Dana's valises out of the trunk, and hear her sort of gasp as she gets out of the car. Very Hot. The hot air off the blacktop lifts the hem of her dress a little. Does the show begin here? Nope. Not yet. We go into the mall, and over to the food court. We order a little Chinese food, and Dana orders both of us lemonades.

I'm sitting there enjoying fried shrimp, and her cleavage, as she sips her drink. After a minute, she grins a real Teddy Roosevelt grin. "See? No stain. Lemon juice takes it out!"

"Do you plan on having a lot of scenes with you grinning? I'd figure there were going to be some scenes with my penis in your mouth, too."

"I want at least one scene with me riding you front-cowgirl, with you playing with my anus, and me looking over my shoulder with a huge grin! If you please, sir."

"Be my pleasure, little lady."

When we got to the studio, the place was pretty good, and the settings in the back room were what we wanted as backdrop. An oriental rug almost as good as the one in the study at the ranch was on the floor, the wainscoting on the walls looked like walnut and would photograph that way. The furniture options included a leather chaise lounge, and a black leather wingback chair that reminded Dana of Dracula's cape. There were places to hook up restraints if we chose, and the room smelled both of some sort of alcohol used to clean everything, and some potpourri to mask that a little.

The still photographer and the camcorder men came in. They presented themselves fairly well, but we were more focused on what was ahead than we were on them.

Dana's organized. She gave both of them the sequence that she wanted, with where things should pause as she moved through themes and costumes. She then asked where she could change and do her makeup, and took her valises with her. I went into the room next to hers, and changed from chinos and t shirt into one of my gray pinstripe suits, bootcut pants to accommodate highly polished black ropers, vest, white shirt, red tie knotted with a double Windsor.

I went out, and sat in the wingback chair. Music began to play, Pachibel. Out glided Dana, jewelbox perfect, diamond necklace over an empire cut black dress. Atop her head was a velvet hat with a huge brim and a lavender head band. Black opera gloves trimmed in the same lavender satin were on her hands, stockings on her legs, and patent leather black pumps finished that phase of the presentation.

She found her own rhythm, and almost by magic, her dress moved sensuously down her body, draping itself elegantly at her feet. Underneath it, she wore a black demi-bra, presenting her breasts as the treasures they were. Her nipples were pointing with an elegant urgency, and I guessed that she had rouged her nipples a little, because they were just a bit darker than they usually were. Maybe she didn't, because when she played with her nipples, her dark gloves didn't show any signs of rouge. Nor, later, did they taste like makeup.

There was a garter belt, lace. It held up black stockings with a broad band of the same lace, and the whole arrangement was the perfect frame for first her bare and shaved pussy, twinkling with a very faint touch of lotion, and then her bottom as she turned her back to me. She stepped outside of the ring created by her dress on the floor. She bent down to pick it up, giving me a glorious view of her pussy and anus as framed by garter belt and stockings.

Slowly, she turned around and with one hand, raised the top of the dress to the level of my shoulder. She looked me in the eye, and asked if I would find a place to hang it up. I sensed her hand in the glove as she gave me the dress, and she gave my hand a little squeeze. A faint little smile was on her face as she looked at me from under her hat.