A weakness of mine is my tendency to develop myopia when engaging in certain aspects. Reading is probably the biggest. Couple that with a naturally panicky disposition and a heart attack before I was able to legally drink means I turn my phone off when I start reading.
As such, when the shrill chime of my phone went off, it nearly gave me another heart attack from shock. I swore at the nothingness and answered it, without bothering to look at the caller ID.
“What?” I spat into the receiver. I heard strange gasping noises on the other side.
“Leon, can I come over?” It was Ray, (short for Rachel, but don’t call her that) my girlfriend.
Obviously taken aback and slightly embarrassed by my aggressive disposition on answering the phone, I stammered a moment. “Of course Ray, always you know that.”
“Thanks, and do you have anything to drink?”
“I can by the time you get here, what’s your craving?”
“Anything.”
“Yeah no problem, see you in a few minutes.” I hurried to a nearby liquor store and picked up something. I was more than half tempted to grab something I knew she would hate, since she did say ‘anything’ but I thought better of it. Something felt off, so I grabbed something.
Picking up the drinks took longer than I anticipated, so I was only waiting for Ray maybe five minutes. I heard keys jangle outside my apartment door and went up to open it but she beat me to it. Ray looked distraught to say the least. Somebody who didn’t know her well might not have noticed, but the slump of her shoulders, way her head hung slightly. I sighed, and brought her in for a hug, “Come here,” I said.
I felt her slightly tremble against my shoulder, and a thousand thoughts raced in my head, too quickly for me to actually parse most of them for rationality or plausibility. I silenced the storm in my head, and acknowledged that the best thing in this case was to wait for her to broach the subject weighing on her.
I broke the hug and walked over to the refrigerator, opening it and grabbing two cans of local beer, and tossed her one. She caught it and thanked me, moving over to my couch. For a moment I wasn’t sure where to sit. I didn’t have a way to face her, and sitting next to her felt a little wrong. Ray could probably see the wheels spinning in my head,
“Just sit next to me, not complicated.”
I nodded and sat next to her. She cracked open the beer and I followed suit, slipping the beer into a koozie.
“I’m glad you grabbed this as opposed to one of your more,” she paused looking for the right word, “colorful alcohol choices.”
“I was tempted to get something like cinnamon whiskey, but then I remembered I would be paying for it, and that felt like throwing money down the drain. Also, they didn’t have Infinite Hatred IPA so no dice there.”
She laughed, “Again, I appreciated it.” She took a long sip from the drink before speaking again. “Aren’t you going to ask me what’s wrong?”
I shook my head, “No, I figured you would talk when you wanted to. No sense in forcing anything. People talk when they want to talk or have something to say. They don’t talk if they don’t want to or have nothing to say. When and if you wanted to talk, I’d be here, but again, no sense in forcing it.”
She sighed, “I lost my job today,” she finally said.
“Jesus fuck-mothering Christ,” I swore and gulped down a hefty amount of beer before returning to the refrigerator to grab two more. I cracked the first one and took another large swallow. “What the hell happened?” I was shocked.
“Well, it wasn’t just me. The whole department got the axe. Somebody upstairs said we weren’t necessary.”
Ray worked in some kind of marketing department. I never understood the work myself, but at the same time will concede that if you tasked an engineer (my profession) to market a product that we might be working on, it wouldn’t sell to anyone who wasn’t an engineer. “Fuck,” I swore shaking my head. “Didn’t your company reach record profits? Something like that?”
“I suppose those record profits game from axing other departments, either that or those record profits fed a nasty cocaine addiction, and now thanks to that addiction, the CEO or whoever-the-fuck needs to make more money, for more cocaine, prostitutes and illegitimate children.”
“Well, as likely a reason as any,” I tossed her the other can, she thanked me for it. “I mean, fuck. I-fuck,” it took me a few moments to gather my thoughts. “I guess, what’s next? Whatever you choose, there’s a statistically high probability I’ll support it, but not everything.”
That elicited a chuckle, “So what won’t you support?”
“Suicide for one, also prostitution, drug use, that kind of thing,” I shrugged.
“Do I really strike you as the type of person who would go for that over a fucking job?”
“No, but I felt like I needed to clear. People say shit like ‘I’ll support anything you choose’ never consider the possibility of insanity. So, what are you thinking? Also, if you are thinking setting up a crowd-funding scheme for editing romantic movies where the lead actor and actress combo have no chemistry to replace one of the actors with a chunk of wood and muting all the dialogue is a good idea which I will support, hell I’d even shell out for the editing software. Also, if you wanted to make film parodies where all the characters are puppets, except for one person who was the star of the original movie, that also sounds like a good idea.”
“Where do you come up with these ideas?”
“My head, same place all my other ideas come from,” I snarked, “So, what’s next?”
“Hell if I know,” Ray opened the next can; “First, I think I just want to get away from the world for a bit, clear my head you know. Sometimes I can’t think with the city air.”
“I can make that happen,” I said matter of factly. “If you want to get away from the city and the world for a bit, I can make it happen. We can go this weekend; I’d just need to make a five minute phone call.”
“What?” Ray was a little shocked. “I mean, yes of course please do, but how.”
I winked, “Let me handle that. Mind if I make that phone call?”
“Please do,” curiosity in her voice. I made the phone call and cleared everything up.
“And we’re golden. We leave Friday. Pack for warmth and comfort, as well as some entertainment. No internet, piss poor cell reception and no cable either. “
“How?” Ray was still a bit shocked.
“Y’know how some people have a vacation house or time share or something in a region outside the middle of nowhere? Well, my folks have something like that, except it’s a cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I got the okay to use it this weekend.”
“Fantastic!” Ray beamed, “I’ll run over to my place tomorrow to pack, it cool if I let myself in and pack entertainment and stuff? Also food? And booze? How are we taking care of that?”
I shrugged, “of course, I mean, I’ll be working tomorrow and Friday, but you’re 100% welcome to hang out. We can get groceries and stuff tomorrow; I’ve had a bit too much to go drive to the grocery tonight.”
I was barely there at work, struggling to concentrate. Going to the middle of nowhere with my girlfriend seemed like a great weekend, and my mind was already in that icy cabin in the middle of nowhere.
It felt good to sleep in the same bed as her, we didn’t live together at this time, our work locations were too prohibitive for one of us to move in with the other at the moment, but I dared to hope that the silver lining might be us moving in together.
Eventually, Friday arrived. I opened the door to my apartment and Ray practically tackled me, giving me a kiss on the cheek.
“Ready?”
“Easy! Let me change out of my work clothes, and down some coffee. You might not have to drive three hours, but I do. Did you burn CD’s? Also, what did you pack for entertainment? I’m not watching Evil Dead 2 again, swear to God I regret showing you that one.”
“But we’re going to a cabin in the woods! We need a horror movie that is thematically relevant. Also Evil Dead 2 is awesome.”
“Idiot teenagers murdered in a cabin in the woods is the plot to literally every fucking horror movie ever. Some of which we haven’t seen sixty fucking times.”
She blew a raspberry at me, “Fine, it’s the backpack.”
I walked over to the backpack and fished out the movie, and saw there were a dozen other ones crammed in. I smiled and looked over to my movie shelf, and guessed what had been grabbed. I also fished out an old video game, “Really this? Why this?”
“Because I’ve been practicing, you won’t win with on hand behind your back this time.”
I groaned.
The drive took a good four hours, but I didn’t mind. Ray had burned a fair twelve hours of music, she’s pretty much how I found out about all music, it was just something I didn’t know much about. The drive should have only taken about three hours, but a snowfall made the trip take longer. Eventually, we made arrived at the cabin.
“You’re not menstruating right now are you?” I asked as we walked from the driveway towards the front door, snow cracking under our feet.
“Why-“
“There’s a lot of bears in the woods,” I gestured to a rock, “One likes to hang out on that rock pretty frequently, and I don’t want your menstrual blood prompting a bear attack.” That got me a snowball across the face, which I certainly earned. I could hear her giggling, “You’re so dead,” I announced charging at her for a tackle. Her eyes went wide, but she broke into a smile after impact, when she realized that quite deliberately, I had contorted mid-tackle so that I would be landing on my back with her on top of me. The split second of her smile made the impact on the cold hard ground worth it. “What?” I asked, emphasizing fake innocence.
She climbed off me, “Unlock the door so we can get the gear inside, and you weren’t kidding, this really is the middle of nowhere. I have exactly zero bars of cell service here.”
I obliged, unlocking the door and carrying the overwhelming majority of the bags into the cabin, where it was absolutely freezing.
As much as it pains me to admit it, that night I was so exhausted from work and driving that Ray’s best attempts at getting me going did absolutely nothing for me. Instead of sex, we ended up watching a handful of movies and sleeping in each other’s arms, sharing warmth against the cold wintery air.
I woke up with the sunrise, stood up and looked out the window, untangling myself from Ray’s arms. It was snowing again, and as beautiful as the sight of snow gently falling was, I was not looking forward to shoveling out the car, and hoping that the temperature would warm up so I wouldn’t have to. Also if it did warm up, hopefully it wouldn’t cool back down, because then ice.
“G’morning,” Ray slurred, “how long have you been awake?”
“Not long, just looking at the snow, it’s very pretty, but I doubt I’ll feel that way tomorrow when I have to shovel it.”
“We could always try to wait it out,” she argued.
“I’ll wait until you’ve had some coffee in you before I explain why that’s a horrible idea, and if you hold to after being sufficiently caffeinated you will be digging out the entire area with your bare hands and no gloves.”
“You’re no fun,” Ray climbed out of bed and immediately pulled on a sweater, “It's fucking freezing,” I was already wearing a sweater.
“Snow does that. The water for the shower won’t be heated for at least two hours. I vote bathe in the evening. That way at least we’ll be ducking under blankets quickly afterwards, so we’re less likely to have the water freeze on our skin.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.” I made coffee and put a bit of powdered ginger in my mug before filling it with coffee. Ray never understood why I did that, and to be fair, I didn’t quite understand it either. She took a sniff of the coffee and made a face I don’t quite have the words for.
“Please tell me there’s sugar or milk or something?” She practically begged.
“I think there’s sugar. I make it too strong again?” Ray nodded. I started searching cabinets for sugar, hoping my parents left some. Fortunately for Ray, they did, she scooped a heavy amount into her mug.
“Cheers, to the middle of fucking nowhere, clean air and clear minds.”
I tapped my mug against hers, “Cheers,” and took a sip.
We killed time making mundane conversation about the remainder of the day’s plans, which I hadn’t given much thought to. I was beginning to get concerned. At some point we would have to discuss the elephant in the room, lack of employment, and I was working on how to ask her to move in with me and look for work where I was, but I struggled with phrasing. After a few moments of silence Ray spoke up.
“Well, I know what I want to do today,”
“Let me guess? Sex followed by movies, followed by sex, followed by movies then question mark.”
“Not quite,” she walked towards where we had left some of the luggage and fished around, pulling out one of the video game cartridges. “You won’t beat me so easily this time. While you were at work, I practiced.”
I smirked, “You’ll need about twenty years of practice before you’re at my level toots. That’s how long I’ve had that thing. To be honest, I’ve gotten bored of stomping you at it, something else please?”
“How about this, for each point you get, I’ll take a piece of clothing off, and for every point I get, you do the same,” she tried to sweeten the deal for me, but I never liked taking candy from babies.
“I need two points, and I’ll only use one hand,” I retorted, hoping that at least this way the score wouldn’t quite be what it was if I focused.
“Fine,” ray fired up the console and I put one hand behind my back. The familiar sound of game brought back fond memories of my youth. Ray looked all business.
She had been practicing, I’ll give her that. Instead of barely getting one point for every nine I had, she ended up with one by the time I had four. She had taken off her sweater, revealing a loose t-shirt and her socks. I took off my sweater.
Six to one, she took off her shirt, revealing her leisure bra underneath. Ray never dressed in a typically ‘sexy’ way, emphasizing comfort and practicality above all else, to the point of often buying men’s pants so that she could have pockets.
Seven to two, I took off my shirt. I’m not particularly muscular, but am well built and toned, years of biking to work and swimming had left me in pretty good shape, toned without being bulky. I was naturally hairless on my chest, face arms and legs. This was a point of jealousy amongst some of my ex’s, who shaved their legs and still regularly had more hair than I did. Ray mocked me mercilessly for it, a point of lacking masculinity, as though hair equaled masculinity. I let her have her fun, but the fact that I could not (and still cannot) grow any facial hair irks me. I’ve wanted to have a beard as long as I can remember.
“You have improved,” I said as the score reached eight to two, and Ray took off her pants. Her legs and arms were similarly toned without being muscular. She was wearing boy shorts that hugged the curvature of her upper thighs and ass beautifully. Her ass was gently rounded and firm, tight enough that I asked if I could try to bounce a quarter off it. She agreed when drunk and the test proved inconclusive, “Your ass also looks ass-tounding,” I joked. The bad pun earned me a playful punch in the shoulder. I deserved it.
Eventually the score was 9-3, and I called it off, having grown tired of the game.
“I really thought at least this time you wouldn’t double my score at the minimum,” Ray complained.
“I bought that game close to twenty years ago. For years it was the only one I owned, I played it non-fucking-stop. The only people who can beat me are my brother and my high school guidance counselor.”
“Yeah, I get it. But this one’s new,” Ray fished around in the luggage, I wondered if she was shaking her ass at me to entice me but I thought better of it. This time she brought out two mats and another title.
“White boy got no rhythm!” I shouted seeing what she brought out, my eyes wide in terror. “White boy a klutz!” It was some dancing game, and I can’t dance.
That is to say, if I make even the slightest attempt at something remotely resembling dance, I’ll trip over my own damn feet. I once got concussed at a high-school dance when I tripped over myself. So quite literally, this white boy cannot dance.
“You keep saying that but never shown me, time for you to put your money where your mouth is! I want to see this.”
I groaned as the console was reconfigured with the mats. Within thirty seconds of the first song I had fallen, and on my way down nearly pulled Ray down with me. She just laughed.
“Damn, you were not kidding!”
I stood up slowly, “Okay, okay we had our good laugh at me what’s next?”
Ray shrugged, she was in her underwear, I was without a shirt, and I could see where her mind was going.
“Well, we could take a shower together, and then see where things go?” She grinned mischievously. I had turned the water heater off, so it was likely to be a cold shower.
“It’ll be cold,” I said.
“We can keep each other warm.”
In a few moments I had turned the shower as warm as it would go, which still felt like it would cause hypothermia, Ray had taken off her bra, revealing her gently rounded teardrop shaped b-cup breasts, and I could feel blood rushing to my groin, something I would have been happy about, but if blood was going to my dick, it might not be going elsewhere, hence hypothermia. I stripped off my pants and underwear at once, and Ray chuckled seeing my partial erection.
“Happiness to see me must be conflicting with the cold there buddy,” she joked.
I grabbed her, pulling her in close, my member pressed against her waist, before pushing her into the frigid shower, her boy shorts sill on. She gasped at the cold and pulled me in. We kissed each other as the cold water rained over our flesh. We were rubbing against each other, whether for warmth, pleasure or some combination I’m not entirely sure. I felt her nails against my back as she lathered it, and I did the same, though an attempt at digging my nails in did nothing, as I kept them shorter than was probably smart.
It took a while, but the close proximity and friction started to warm things up, but that was nearly 20 minutes in, and I was started to prune up. Turning off the water and stepping out, I almost immediately started shivering, wrapping a towel around myself for hopefully warmth, but it did little against the frigid air. Ray did the same, but quickly gave up and sprinted into the bedroom, leaving wet footprints on the wooden floors and the towel in a messy heap. I called after her “You’re going to get the bed soaked, and we don’t have a dryer here!”
“Then they’ll air dry. Get in here!”
I sighed, hung up the towel on a drying rack and walked over. I wanted to sprint and get under the covers, and regretted not doing so. I looked at her under the covers, completely hidden from me. “I wonder where my significant other has gone?” I said as I sat on the lump of blankets and possibly a person. She grunted in pain at that. “Well, it seems I cannot find her. I suppose I shall have to continue looking. I got up and stomped away before sneaking my way back into the bedroom, resisting shivering against the cold.
Eventually, Ray got confused and looked out from under the blanket; I shouted ‘boo’ at her and stuck my tongue out. She grabbed my arm and pulled me down kissing me firmly on the mouth and tossed the blanket over us both.
From here I needed no instruction. I kissed down her neck, sucked on her nipples before kissing down her stomach. She pushed my head away in almost terror, but the smirk on my face made her realize I had been screwing with her. I moved back up and slid my hand into her, middle and ring finger into her pussy, wet from the shower and love.
I moved my fingers rapidly, without keeping them together as though I was typing, which was driving Ray crazy. She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her forehead into my shoulder, panting heavily.
“Shit, oh fuck,” she moaned as I continued to work my hands, thinking I had found her g-spot, “I think I’m gonna cum oh fuck!” at that I withdrew my hand sharply, grinning ear to ear.
"I am an insufferable tease aren’t I?” I asked. Ray shook her head, eye almost involuntarily twitching.
“Seriously? Fucking seriously? I was like two seconds from orgasming and you pull away?” She panted. “That’s gotta be against the fucking Geneva Convention or something; cruel and unusual fucking behavior Leon.”
At this point my dick felt like it was ready to burst, “Wouldn’t you rather finish with me instead of my hand?” I asked, teasing her entrance with my glans.
“Fucking anything just fucking go!” She practically shouted, at ‘go’ I thrusted in as hard as I could and held it there for a second, staring into her eyes from missionary position. Ray sighed heavily, “God I’m so grateful you had a vasectomy. Raw is so much fucking better than with a rubber.”
“Aww, and here I thought you wanted kids?” I joked.
“Not with a loon like you,” she joked back.
I began moving my hips. She was so wet that at first I slipped out by accident a couple times, eliciting annoyed groans as a result, “I swear to god this never happens,” I joked.
Ray wrapped her legs around my waist, “That’s what they all say,” she retorted. With the added pressure on my back, I managed to get a better sense of where everything was. The warmth of her pussy felt like it completely surrounded my body, sucking me into her. She came quickly after initial insertion, she wasn’t kidding about how close she was from my hand.
I stared into her eyes, a major turn on for us both, with each of us panting and groaning for release. I continued to thrust, my mind going consumed with only two things, a desire for pleasure and the repeating thought, screaming like a broken record within my consciousness, ‘I think I love you.’ With each pant and thrust I struggled with it. It felt like a huge leap to go from thinking something like that and actually saying it, but as I continued staring into her beautiful bright blue eyes, I felt the thought edging towards my mouth.
I had to pull out, not just because I felt like I was about to climax, but for fear that if I continued, I might utter something. It didn’t feel like the time, she was in an awkward mindset, losing her job this felt wrong, “fuck I’m about to cum,” I ground, “and with this weather, god knows if I’ll be able to muster the energy again quickly.”
Ray pouted, but I think she understood, having a borderline encyclopedic knowledge of human sexuality. “Well, if we’re changing things up, can I get on top? The wet patch is starting to get uncomfortable.”
I nodded, but walked towards a closet to grab another blanket and sheet. I asked Ray to get up, and laid the initial blanket over the wet patch, having something a bit dryer to lie on. Then I lay down and handed her the blanket I had retrieved from the closet. My cock was standing like a flagpole up from my waist. I could feel it started to swell back down, so I wrapped my hand around it for warmth and gently pumped to maintain an erection.
“Should I be offended that you’re masturbating while you’ve got a hot chick ready to jump your bone?”
“I’d stop if went from ‘ready’ to ‘actively jumping’,” I barely had time to move my hand away before she was on top of me again. We kissed again, and she reached between us, taking hold of my cock, and pumped it slightly before guiding it into her.
With her on top and me having edged back from orgasm, I was in heaven again. Ray bent down to keep her face close to mine, mumbling things like ‘don’t you fucking dare stop’ and ‘I can’t wait to look at your face when you cum. Gonna be so fucking funny,’ Along with a more mundane ‘oh shit,’ and ‘oh yes, fuck yes.’
With her riding me, I reached around and grabbed her firm ass and squeezed it. She grinned as she continued to ride me. I pulled her closer, feeling her breasts against my chest and her breath against my neck.
The pleasurable sensation radiating from my dick as well as the warmth across my chest intoxicated me was driving me insane, the thoughts ‘I love you’ becoming harder and harder to keep silent. ‘Shit, I’m about to come,” I groaned.
Ray pulled away, bringing her face close to mine again, she did say she wanted to see my ‘o’ face. After a couple quick thrusts I finished deep inside her.
“You made a funny face,” she said, smiling and poked my nose.
I was trying to catch my breath, “I will make all the funny faces you want, if each time it’s even half as good as this.”
“Hmm, it was better than usual today. Maybe the cold does it? Or are you into taking advantage of people when they find themselves at a major crossroads in their life?”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to put my fist through a wall. I had no idea what the hell I wanted to say. I bit my tongue so hard I started to taste blood.
“Something wrong?” She asked pain might have been visible on my face.
“Maybe, I don’t know,” she climbed off me. “I just. I fuck. I guess you’ve left me speechless.”
“I can live with that.” She kissed me on the cheek.
I didn’t muster up the strength to say those three little words, but by the end of the weekend, it was the only thought I was having.
