Tina Hamilton had thought when she had agreed to share a room with her friend Linda up here at Kenner Cabins (which didn't really have cabins, just hotel rooms, more or less) that they would meet men - which to Tina meant talk to them, eat dinner with them, tramp the woods with them, maybe some kissing and a little more, certainly give out phone numbers for use back in the city.
But Linda - well, Linda met someone on the first day of the two weeks they were scheduled to be in the resort and in 15 or 20 minutes went back to the room with him. Tina knew intellectually that they probably used Roger's unshared room about as much as they did Linda and Tina's shared one, but after a week it did not seem like it.
Every time that Tina stepped in there, Linda seemed to be at or swiftly approaching orgasm. If the room was empty when Tina walked in to get some rest, then she would be awakened by the sounds of passionate sex. Tins knew that they must stop to eat - though in another use of the term she heard plenty of that too - because she saw them at dinner, which they turned into a long session of foreplay.
All of which rather cramped Tina's style. If she felt like any degree of involvement with a man, she was going to imagine what might happen when she got alone with him. Since she wanted to keep some control of the situation (at least until the point where she might want to lose control) she wanted it to be in her room - and she certainly had inhibitions about being alone with a man while those two went at it. So she could not even daydream effectively.
This explains why Tina Hamilton was walking quite alone through the woods on a Saturday afternoon. She was not quite sure where she was, but she knew that the map said there was a road south of the woods, another one west of them, and that the road to the west went to Kenner Cabins, back north of the woods. If she could see the sun, and it was still mid-afternoon, she could not get too lost.
In theory. The way the practice was working out, she could not see the sun right now. Dark clouds had been moving in for a while, and she wondered if it was going to rain.
Tina saw a man maybe a quarter-mile away from her, and after thinking it over twice, decided to ask him for help.
"What's the fastest way to get to state road 23?" she called.
"Five miles and a little that way," he replied, pointing. "It'll take you over an hour; the storm is going to hit in two or three minutes. I know where there's shelter nearby, but I feel dumb not checking the weather forecast before I left my place."
Tina looked him over; blue jeans, bright red jacket - this was hunting season - and decided to follow him as he motioned her on and set a good pace himself.
The storm came in less than two minutes. Tina was drenched in another half-minute, then came ninety seconds of very cold wind before the young man stopped before some brush by a small hill and vanished. Then she saw his hand beckoning and she walked between two bushes and into a cave.
"The bear that used to live here moved out or got shot or something years ago," came a male voice. "My name is John Fallon, by the way."
"Tina H-Hamilton," she said, shivering.
"Looks like you're cold. Things will probably improve in that direction if you can dry out and the wind doesn't shift so it comes in the cave.
"I don't recognize you from around here," he continued. "Where are you staying?"
"K=Kennan Cabins."
"You are about five miles west of that and two south, almost as far as you could get from any auto traffic."
"I just kept walking, with no real plan. I came up for two weeks, sharing a room with a friend of mine, but she's mostly with a man she knows, but I went walking to leave them alone some." That seemed a diplomatic way to put it.
The conversation dropped off then, but the rain kept coming. And soon John's worry came true when the wind changed direction and the icy air came straight in. Tina sat up the ground to get out of it a bit, but that did not help much.
"Look," said John, "I realize you don't know me and this sounds bad coming from a man you don't know, but you would do well to get out of that soaked shirt or blouse or whatever you got. Stay low and the slacks won't be too bad.
"I can take off my jacket and shirt and give you the shirt, then put the jacket back on. I'll face the cave mouth while you strip and put on my dry shirt." And he began; the glimpse or two of his body looked above average, as far as muscles went.
Tina still felt chilly in the shirt, but much less so.
"These summer thunderstorms come up fast, but this one should be over soon," John said. "My place is maybe twenty minutes' walk from here. If you are willing, we can go there and I can drive you back to Kenner Cabins. It's a long walk but not much of a drive."
Tina though for a few seconds and reflected that if he were going to rape or kill her, they were already in the perfect place to have done it. Anything he tried that was much less than that, and she could always walk anyway. So when the storm and the clouds cleared, they walked.
His house was a small one, with an outbuilding, the woods to the west and a farm to the east across a long back road, which led down to state 15, leading in turn to state23. John unlocked the front door and led her in.
"If you don't have any reason to hurry back, I would like to put your blouse and slacks in my little clothes dryer with my jeans and give you a bathrobe to sit around here in. I don't get much female company these days, and I'd like to keep you here for a while if I can. I'll throw in dinner if spaghetti's good enough."
If he thinks he can seduce me with dry clothes and free food, she thought to herself, I've had less tempting offers. She agreed. At least to what was directly offered. Anything else, she could wing it.
She changed to his bathrobe, then he changed to other clothes. While she waited for him to come back from his bedroom, she looked around. A small television, with no cable or TV satellite dish and 5 or 6 broadcast stations. A radio with AM, FM, and weather band. Maybe a hundred books, haf about computers, a couple dozen other references, the rest science fiction or detective. A computer with a wireless setup. Why not cable TV, then? Maybe he didn't use it enough.
She asked about that, as she sat in his kitchen and watched him make dinner.
"I keep thinking I should sign up for dish service, but I don't get to it," he said. "Back when I lived inn the city, I had it."
"You stay here full time, then?"
"Yes. I'm a software engineer and I telecommute, going in for meetings a couple of times a month. It does not do much for my social life - I mentioned not having a woman around as much as I would like, didn't I? - but I avoid some things I don't like, too."
"I could see that," Tina said thoughtfully.
"I can't really say I want that much of a social life," he admitted. "I would rather read or talk to somebody than chase women, at least in the plural. All I would need to be happier is to become a consultant - it pays better too - and marry somebody to do the book-keeping and the billing. Failing that, get somebody to move in out this way."
"Not interested myself at the moment, but I like your priorities. I can't say I'm satisfied with my data-entry job, but I have a line on an accounting firm."
The spaghetti (with a side vegetable) was oddly flavored but pretty good. They headed back to Kennan Cabins after sunset. As they got closer, he turned to her, obviously hesitantly.
"Look, um, are you planning anything for tomorrow? I know this is short notice, but I would like to spend more time with you. You mentioned that you are sharing a room with another woman. You could bring her, and her boyfriend, if that would make you more comfortable."
Tina though of how to say that having them around would make her less comfortable, but decided not to. She wasn't sure how long the two of them could stay off each other's bodies.
"There is a Methodist church near the cabins," she said. She had not planned before this to attend services, but it sounded good now. "I will be out about eleven. Or if that's too early for you, I could call you."
He handed her a business card. "That would be fine. Take this in case there's a problem." And he let her out at the door.
She turned and watched him drive off, and the thought came to her that John Fallon was someone whom she would not mind seeing a lot more of, and it was something of a pity that he lived so far away from where she normally was. It would not be at all difficult to find herself getting involved with a man like that.
On the way back to his cottage, John pondered the chances of anything coming of today's chance meeting. He found Tina interesting and intelligent, and the fact that she walked to woods meant that she was to some degree athletic as well; he wondered if she would also be athletic in bed - he liked that in a woman. Not, he reflected, that he was likely to find out if she was going back to the city fairly soon.
Tina was tired enough from the day to drop right to sleep, even at nine o'clock. But she was awakened later (and again at eight in the morning) by thumps, moans, and cries of "Roger, Roger!"
