The late night forest drifted beneath the flaps like tired woodsmoke on the breeze. Outside, no one stirred the bat night, not even the lonely gravel crunch of a solitary refugee on the unexpected midnight loo expedition.
A giggle drifted from somewhere, washed downhill on the roaring stream, a quiet lamp glowed beneath still canvas and the embers flickered with memories still glowing of conversation, sausages and petangue. In the undergrowth, night things foraged, snuffle danced their way through the dark business hours ahead.
Hidden in the nook of this night a tent caresses the moon kissed grass, nestled softly into the crook of hibiscus hedge. Table, chairs and stove sleeping softly, tidily, beyond the carefully zipped flaps. The tent undulates from the landscape, red, blue, purple, something unknown in the hours without colour. Curving away along the shadow of track scratched between these slumbering plots, dark beetles of temporary refuge squat in slumbering repose. Large. Small. Parent and child beetles. From one snores resonate like those of Grawp, from another a whisper, a rustle. It is the sleeping hours and while books may be read, tranquility tests beneath the drooping leaves and over the fern fronds.
In one hibiscus corner, nesting snug in August heat of the beetles' soft belly, sleep has not yet crept along limbs, eyelids have yet to droop and dreams aren't yet putting their bizarre trade of forgetfulness. There are canvassed whispers of fingertip recollection folding their near silent way across the unzipped sleeping bags, soft mutterings of tomorrows to dapple into the night before silence caresses their souls.
His arm rests across her cotton stomach, his fingers signing thoughts on the skin of her revealed hip. His lips greet her shoulder, make acquaintance with the soft welcome of her neck, the transition tentative in the pitch dark.
With fingers for senses he plies moth soft steps from lips to ribcage to the soft swell of her delicate breast's rise and whiskies of hours passed still to sighs in the night, tickling pathways through the wiry softness of his chest hair, finding the breadth of his shoulders, the dell of his tummy button.
And away, tendril soft, over the low rise of the womanly belly he loved, exploring in gentle swirls towards the thrust of hips, the dip and rise, his fingers soft as her midnight sighs. Fingers to lips, lips to lips, fingers explore the nook of his arm, his elbow, his thigh.
Beyond the fabric ripple, a snuffle on the breeze, a whisper in the tree tops. Clouds, ignored, play with the stars. A gravel scrunch.
She freezes, holds his hand where it explores, but he's insistent, finds her response in the depth of kisses, lifts her top nipple free, and fingertip firm she gasps into his soul, the furtive passing of the nocturnal camper forgotten.
Biting his fingers, his mouth now delighting in the enthusiasm of breasts, encouraging the rippling, the hardening... And she guides his hand, bites his fingers, feels his back in arcs as she feels his length against her thigh.
Softly, with deliberation, he moves across, back, down, kissing, kicking every tiny feather pale hair, until as he meets the resistance of elastic drawn tight from hip to hip he paints a line of intent beneath, drawing as he passes across, further, down, further, in increments, she lifts as he slips, tongue firm, across and back, feeling the soft, feeling the first fleshy rise, the first hardness of pubic bone enticing; then with the passing of thighs he slips slowly in kisses along the length of each soft lip.
