“Ooooooh.” I picture a pained expression under the mask. “Tough.”
“Anyway.” I straighten my back. “I’m gonna…” I point vaguely in the direction of the tents, though I have no intention of going there. “Thanks, Zed.”
“Anytime, Grace.”
I walk away, slowly at first. The second Zed disappears inside, I change course and veer toward the woods. I can’t explain it, but that’s where I want to be.
15
Liev
There’sno new note at the coffee shop.
I don’t care. I’m not looking for more anyway. I need alone time. Time to think, time to just be, instead ofdoing.
I wind up at the camp store—currently closed for the day—and use my key to get in. I slip a six-pack of beer into a canvas Kink Camp tote and add it to my tab.
Back outside, the trill of crickets and cicadas layers over the thrum of music to lull me.
I root around in the bag and pull out a beer, crack it open and take a long, cool sip. I don’t want to go home, I admit, already heading in the general direction of my woods.
If I can’t be honest with myself at my age, what’s the damn point anyway?
And, in the spirit of painful truths, I really shouldn’t have gone back with my mystery woman a second time. The second time did it.
Although I suspect the damage was already done.
What good are all the goddamn parameters if I don’t stay within them myself?
I swallow more beer, and let myself feel desperate for the woman whose pussy I tasted, whose smell and skin and sounds of pleasure I’ve got imprinted on my insides.
I can’t ask, obviously. First of all, I’m the one who insisted on anonymity. But also rules are rules and if you mess with the basics at a place like Kink Camp, you might as well tear the whole place down.
There’s no security volunteer hanging out around the perimeter, meaning no one’s doing a scene here tonight.
Thank fuck. She’s not out here wrestling around in the dirt with someone else. I blow out air I didn’t realize I was holding.
It’s a relief, but still my stomach twists. She’s probably in the big tent, coming hard on another man’s cock. Or tongue. Maybe two men.
Dammit. I attempt to calm myself with beer. A doomed endeavor.
But, fuck, isn’t everything? We start dying the day we’re born. Some of us faster than others. Helen had no idea she’d be gone before the age of thirty-five. None of us could have guessed. We should have known. Because from the moment we come into this world, we’re doomed. We’re all fucking doomed.
I walk deeper into the forest, around big, familiar trunks, between bushes, avoiding roots and vines, until I get to where I caught her last night. Right here, by a maple that’s seen more days than my mystery woman and me and Helen put together. It feels right to drop to the ground and sink back against this particular trunk, nestling my loot in the hollow beside me.
It’s unclear how much time has passed when I hear something—or someone—moving in the vicinity. Two beers’ worth of minutes. In my current mood, it’s probably only been half an hour, though it feels like more. Like I’ve been here for years, or asleep. I’ve grown roots of my own in this spot.
I cock my head at what is clearly the sound of footsteps, slow and uneven over the ground. Immediately, my heartbeat picks up speed, my senses flash into the hyper-aware, red alert zone that’s got my pulse pounding hard in my cock.
Another few steps closer, the crack of something dead and dry on the ground.
For the first time, I get an inkling of how it feels to be prey instead of predator. My dick goes inexplicably harder, as if the idea appeals, when years of doing this prove otherwise.
I didn’t come here for company, my mind insists, while my body’s already preparing for a fight. The good kind. The kind that ends in a tight cunt clenching around my dick.
A little irritated, I reach down and palm myself, pressing hard in an attempt to stamp out the inappropriate reaction. That’s when she speaks.
“This is stupid.” I suspect the words aren’t meant for me, or anyone else for that matter, but they wrap around me nonetheless, like vines around a tree.
