Wrestling under the covers while playing a game of naked grab-ass kicked our biological heat engines into overdrive. The internal temperature of our sleeping bag was well beyond the comfort zone as our cozy sleeping space became a sauna without steam.

"I'm tired of anatomy by Braille, I wanna see what I'm doing." Alice tossed the sleeping bag cover back and rose to her knees.

Her nude body glistened with perspiration in the lantern's harsh light. Alice's cheeks, neck, and breasts glowed blush-red with sexual arousal, and her voice resonated with the husky accent of desire.

"Let's see what you've got there, Partner."

I took Alice's extended hand as she helped me rise to my knees, and we become perfect mirror images of each other.

"Very nice."

Alice gently circled her fingers around my shaft and slowly stroked me from the head of my prick to my balls. She was teasing me into a state of hypersexual arousal. The faster I wanted her to go, the slower she moved.

"Oh, you wanna play a slow game? I'll tease you so slowly that you'll think time is moving backward."

I slid my right hand between her legs and cupped her neatly trimmed pussy in the palm of my hand.

Spreading my fingers as wide apart as I could, I use my thumb and little finger to caress her inner thighs as I slid my remaining fingers in and out her pussy. We gazed intently into each other's eyes as we teased each other's desire to higher levels.

The intensity of Alice's stare was penetrating, and I stared back at her with equal concentration as we waged a battle for sexual control. I slid my fingertips along the slippery, slick lips of her vagina. Her eyes widened and her pupils dilated as I teased the tip of her clit with my fingertip. She hissed out a long "yee-esss" and gulped in a few gulps of fresh air. She had been holding her breath while my fingers explored near her clit.

Alice stopped stroking my cock and gripped my penis just under my circumcised mushroom cap. Her hand squeezed me like a tube of toothpaste as the tip of a finger from her free hand smeared a drop of emerging precum over the head of my cock. I shuddered and my knees trembled as waves of delight radiated outward from where she’d touched me.

Alice's intense gaze melted into a smile of victory. She knew she had me under control as she relaxed her grip on my shaft and slowly squeezed it again. And again. She was going to bring me to the edge and keep me there as long as she could.

I moaned and fought to sustain eye contact as I parlayed her touch into an all-out assault on her clit. She was so wet and slippery that my fingers easily slid over her inner and outer pussy lips. I used a finger from my free hand to tease and softly caress the tip of her clitoris.

I relaxed. I also had her under my control. We had surrendered to each other. I touched my lips to her mouth and kissed her like a lover.

=^.^=

"Oh! My! God! Please stop. Enough!" Alice's hands pushed my face away from between her legs.

"Did you cum?" I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Stupid question, but I wanted to hear what she had to say. There is always room for improvement.

"I lost count. I started to come again every time I came. I got to the mountaintop and kept on climbing." Alice brushed sweat from her eyebrows.

We were drenched in sweat like two marathon runners crossing the finish line. I lay down next to Alice, cuddled her close to my body, and caressed her face with my hand while my other hand cupped her breast and held her tight to me. Her words of satisfaction gave me a thrill. Egos love to be stroked.

“Beautiful afterglow,” Alice muttered as she snuggled into me.

"Never better," I replied as I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a long, warm hug. A woman loves to be held after lovemaking is done. Truth be told, I love to be held, too.

Alice shifted her position, rested her chin on my chest, and stared at my face and into my eyes.

"Do you think fate is responsible for putting us in this place together?" Her eyes sparkled in the flashlight’s beam, curiosity tinted with something like warmth.

I start looking around for an exit when someone starts talking about fate. I’m not superstitious, and I put no stock in fate. Like Shakespeare wrote, "The future lies not in our stars, but within ourselves."

Something about her question moved my mind in a different direction. Something about that woman connected with me on many different levels since I first laid eyes on Alice at my show-and-tell naked introduction before the Society of Sisters, and I’m not talking about sexual feelings. Nudity is more scenic than erotic when everyone is undressed.

Relationships born of lust and desire are often so intense that they burn themselves into emotional ash within hours, days, or weeks. Affairs built on lust and desire are like that; there is nothing left for tomorrow once lust is satisfied and desire fulfilled. The tomorrows then stop happening.

I used an old trick a rabbi taught me. Answer with a question of your own when hit with a question you aren’t ready to discuss.

"Why do you ask? Do you think fate brought us together?" I brushed a strand of hair from Alice’s eyes.

"It must be fate. Look at all the improbable things that had to happen for us to be as we are now: naked and alone in each other’s arms with no one for miles around," Alice said as she rolled on her back, rested her head on my shoulder, made a fist, and ticked off her points on her fingers.

"First, you hook up with Darlene who’s never been interested in older men." Alice pointed to her thumb. "Second, you come here as the result of a fluke accident with autocorrect," she taps her little finger.

“Third, Darlene gets my hunting partner stinking drunk and creates a vacancy in the expedition," she taps another finger.

"Next, you volunteer, and Sheila allows you to ride shotgun," she taps her fourth finger.

"And finally, an unexpected blizzard traps us here in this shelter," Alice paints a capital F in the air with her index finger.

She smiled, leaned forward, and kissed my lips. “Gotta be fate. What else could it be?”

Every instant of our lives is a moment of impossible connections if you look at it that way. My mother would have never met my father if she hadn't missed the bus one day. A different sperm cell would've fertilized the egg that became me if my dad sneezed as he ejaculated. Darlene would never have become an item if she had found a willing bed partner in the tavern that night. The list is endless.

“Our lives are the result of billions of random events. Change one ingredient in the recipe of life and we become something different. Some folks call it fate. I don't. It is what it is, and it's all the luck of the draw."

"What's your secret name?" Alice whispered in my ear. Her strange question was intriguing.

"What's a secret name? I'm not sure that I understand your question." I shifted position and looked into Alice's eyes as we spoke.

"A secret name is a name that we wish we had been born with." The tips of her fingers played with my mustache. "My secret name is Seraina; my grandmother used to call me Seraina. It means 'bringer of serenity' or 'peace'."

"Sounds like you're talking about Spirit names, you know, the names our soul had before we were born. I don't know what mine is. I never bothered to go through the ritual," I sighed.

"A Native American tribal ritual?" Alice asked.

"No, nothing Native American about it. It was a hippy thing involving massive quantities of peyote back in my crunchy granola days when I lived on a commune," I laughed. "I was assigned the radio call sign of Sky-Wolf when I was in the Army Reserve, D Troop, 5th Armored Cavalry. Sky because I was prior service, Air Force, and Wolf because my favorite band was Steppenwolf." I smiled at the memory.

"I like it. Sky-Wolf sounds much more exotic than Dennis does. I christen thee SkyWolf!" Alice splashed me with a few drops of sweat she’d wiped from her forehead.

"Thank you. I love it."

I was astonished at how touched I was by what I'm sure was a casual gesture. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and flicked several drops on Alice.

"By the power of the pack, I christen thee Seraina, Lady of Peace." I hugged my hunting partner and gave her a long, slow kiss. A newly born Seraina kissed me back moments later, her eyes as misty as my own.

Our perspiration-naming ceremony that began as a joke evoked a powerful and primal truth. We christen babies, name the ships we sail the oceans upon, and the places we live because we want each to love us as much as we love them.

What's in a name? That's a philosopher's question, and I don't have the answer. Dennis was my birth name, and it’d served me well in my previous life. That life ended the day I’d arrived at Liberty Mountain.

Tomorrow belonged to SkyWolf.

"Good night, Seraina. We have a long day ahead of us if we're going to add Bambi burgers to our menu." I flicked the light off, and we snuggled together like two spoons in the kitchen drawer.

If you want God to laugh, tell him your plans...

When we looked outside the next morning snow was falling in near-whiteout conditions. It kept snowing for the next three days. Who says fate doesn't have a sense of humor?