"Are you calling me a slut?" she gasped, voice filled with fake outrage.
"Yep," I said casually, squeezing her slender thigh hard, high up where my fingers just brushed the outer edge of her groin. "My slut, tonight."
She squirmed in her seat. "Fuck. I need today to be
over
."
"Me fucking too," I said with feeling.
**
Somehow, we made it through the day. Unusually, Thom had assigned both of us to the low course under Gwen's supervision, and looking back, I don't remember much of what we did. Every time I looked at Emily I felt myself stir, remembering what she looked like naked, and the smell and taste of her, and when she looked at me I felt it on my skin like fire. When we met each other's eyes, I heard in my head her ragged breathing as she'd come on my tongue and her long slow groan as she'd come on her fingers in my car. In our long break after lunch, Kieran asked her to show the group some basic yoga flows, and Emily had led us through a series of poses, walking us through the proper techniques and correcting our mistakes. Apparently, I was very bad at them; she seemed to regularly find mistakes I was making in body positioning that required correction, and she could never seem to find the words to correct me without using her hands to reposition my butt, hips and core. And maybe my ineptitude was because each of her poses seemed to point her tight ass or small tight tits at me, and I couldn't think of anything but fucking her until she screamed out my name. At one point, as we were waiting for our next groups, Gabby gave her a little nudge and whispered something, and Emily, for the first time in our acquaintance, turned bright red. Whatever was going on, I suspected it had to do with me, or us.
Just before the last group of the day arrived, I pulled Emily aside.
"Hey," I whispered to her, "when we're done today, let's not hang around."
"Yeah, duh," she said back. "But let's not just run off, either. Gabby's already asking if we have –" she looked around a little surreptitiously "—plans of the physical sort. A little decorum, you know?"
"I know, I know. I just want to."
"Trust me," she said sympathetically. "I do too."
"I've never seen you blush before. What the heck did she say?"
She opened her mouth to answer, saw the horde of kids approaching, and changed her mind. It was probably for the best.
Afternoon debrief seemed to take forever. In the afternoon, one of the kids at the pond had bashed himself in the nose with a paddle, bloodying it; and Scott, Kieran and Ryan had all had to give their perspectives on what had happened, what steps they'd taken and why. Thom had gotten on all three of them for not calling to report it immediately, then taken the opportunity to use it as a learning experience for the summer staff, walking us through filling out incident reports. When he made his end-of-day call to the office, Ryan and Kieran had been called in to speak with Ruth, then Thom had called Gwen in for a private chat, all of which delayed us further. And when he was
finally
ready to wrap up, he asked Emily and I to stay behind. I was immediately nervous, and we exchanged somber glances as Gabby, Scott and Dave gave us sympathetic looks and filed out of the cabin with the rest of the staff, leaving us alone with Thom.
"Don't worry, you're not in trouble. You two," he said, "have been pretty good so far. Better than the others. Dafydd, I know you're hoping to do the apprentice program in the fall. I'm just going to tell you now, we don't make decisions on it this far out based on summer performance. But you're on the right track. And Emily, I think if you want to stay for the apprenticeship, you've got a good chance right now too." We looked at each other again, more happily this time, but I still felt a twinge of trepidation. Then he dropped two spiral-bound books on the table, each festooned with colorful sticky notes.
"Here's the deal, kids. We have an outside group coming in next week. Short notice. I need at least three staff members for them, preferably four. Arthur gets in tonight, so he'll be one of them. My wife Amber is going to come in as an extra pair of hands. But that still leaves me short. So. Here are your Bibles. Read the introduction until you understand it, then study the pages with the notes until your eyes bleed. Don't just memorize it, internalize it. Be here at 6:45 on Monday. Gwen and I going to test you on everything on those pages, then walk you through it on the course.
I swallowed, and I heard Emily take a deep breath. "Okay," I said. "We can do it."
"You'd better," he said. "Gwen vouched for you. Both of you. Don't let her down." Then he frowned, seemingly at himself more than us. "If you have doubts about it, talk to each other over the weekend, then call me. We have options, okay? If you don't think you can lead groups safely yet, we can pull one of the full-time people, or we can get Ruth to come out. It'll be tight for her on time." He smiled unexpectedly, full of sarcastic cheer. "And none of us want the owner here, right? But we're only doing this if both of you, and Gwen and I, are convinced you can do it safely."
"We'll get it done," said Emily. Her voice was strong and confident; whatever nerves she'd had were gone, or hidden far away.
"Good. I hope you're right. Two more things." I felt my nerves return. "First, I just said we don't make decisions on summer performance. We wouldn't normally have summer staff lead groups until at least the fourth week." Camp was broken into three sessions of three weeks each, so he meant the beginning of the second session. "And we wouldn't have you work without a full-time staff, period. But we're understaffed right now and things are tight. Give me what I need from you next week, and as long as you keep your noses clean the rest of the summer, you'll have earned your offer for the fall, and maybe we can arrange some work between the end of camp and the start of the apprenticeship. Understand?"
I nodded, and Emily said she did.
"Second," he said, sneering again, "I don't know if you two are dating. If you are, fine. I don't give a damn. Keep it work-appropriate and remember where you are. Don't make your teammates uncomfortable. Your relationship is not my business and you'd better not make it my business. Am I clear? And whatever was going on with you two today, get it worked out. I need both of you on your A-games next week. Do not let it affect your work. Got it? Now get out of here."
We grabbed our bags and escaped, hearing his voice float after us – "And no copies or photos! Of the book! It's all under copyright!"
She took my hand as we fled, and turned to me, eyes wide. "Holy shit," she said.
"Holy shit," I agreed. "I can't believe they're letting us work independently this soon. And what's this?" I asked, raising our hands. "I thought we were staying away from PDA on campus. And didn't Thom just give us a warning?"
"Who cares?" she said, shrugging. "He also said he didn't care, it was fine as long as we don't make people uncomfortable. It's not like it's against policy, and it's after work hours. Kieran and Thom both met their wives here, did you know that?" I hadn't. "And, come on. They all think we're dating, or at least fucking, already anyway. I was surprised they let us work together."
"It was a tryout, I guess. I think we make a good team."
"So do I. You did really good today. Gwen was impressed."
"Can I confess something? I couldn't focus at all. I barely remember anything that happened."
She laughed, tossing her head back. "Oh, believe me, I know. I couldn't either. I had to, like, lock in this afternoon."
"What did Gabby say to you after lunch? I've never seen you turn red like that before."
"Oh! Oh. Uh, she said that, after the week you and I have had, we must be doing something special tonight because she could smell my pussy from across the lawn."
I stopped in my tracks, staring at her. "She didn't."
Emily laughed again. "Oh, she did. She absolutely did. She's got a dirty brain, that girl."
"
You
think she has a dirty mind?"
"I do, and that's, like, practically an expert opinion. Come on, let's go." She tugged my hand, pulling me along after her. "We have plans, remember?"
"As if I could forget. God damn. I thought she was all sweetness and innocence."
"Well, you are very wrong. She's not that sweet, trust me. And besides, you can be sweet and innocent and still very dirty." She fluttered her eyelashes at me, as if offering herself as evidence of the case, and it was, I had to admit, compelling evidence. Still, I had to fight back a little.
"Yeah, okay. You're not that innocent."
"Yes I am! I've never, like, handcuffed or blindfolded someone, unlike the
other
person in this conversation."
She had me there, and I told her so, adding, "But you like the idea."
"Maybe. Maybe not. I'll never tell."
"Yes you will. Emily, do you like the idea of being cuffed and-or blindfolded during sex?"
She sighed theatrically. "When I said I'd never tell, I didn't realize you could just, like, ask me. That feels like cheating. Um. I mean, yeah, I think it'd be hot. Or maybe the other way? That could be fun too."
I cleared my throat, and she shot me an amused look. "Yeah. Maybe it could."
"Would you let me? Do you trust me enough?"
I thought about it for a second. I'd known her all of two weeks. We weren't dating, kind of; we hadn't had sex. But my instincts about people were good, usually, and she was a good person. She'd shown me some of her pain, and some of her heart. I was touched by the way she'd offered herself in friendship the first time we met, and the way she kept deepening, widening what our friendship encompassed. It was still friendship, but it wasn't only that anymore, if it ever really had been. I could see that in her eyes when she looked at me, the way they sparkled when she was happy and their tender-fierce smolder during passion, and the softness when she thought I wasn't looking.
She'd told me at the bar a week ago that she was running from her decisions, that she felt like she'd given up her future. She didn't feel that way anymore, I suspected. If she looked to the future, was I there? She wanted me to be.
I want someone who wants me for who I am, not as a trophy, and I think that could be you
. That's what she'd said, and that's what I wanted to be – if I could.
"Yes. Yeah, I would, and yeah I do."
She smiled wickedly. "Good. I trust you too. Don't get your hopes up though, buddy. Not gonna happen this weekend."
"Oh no," I said, my voice as full of sarcasm as I could make it. "Whatever will I do. Oh well. What about you? Do you think you'll survive?"
"I don't know," she said. "I'm pretty horny. Dangerously so. I might have some requests."
"I'll do my best to satisfy," I said, and she shook her head.
"Not this time. I need you to pinky-promise me. Whatever I say, we're just having sex tonight, okay?"
"If you insist," I said.
"I'm serious, Ducky. I like you a lot, okay? And I've been so turned on this week that I'm practically fucking feral. I don't think you'd ever hurt me, but..."
"But let's keep it vanilla," I agreed. "At least for our first time. OK. Pinky promise." We shook fingers.
"But later," she said, deep and sultry, a tone that brought to mind lace, velvet and leather, "later, maybe we can experiment a bit?"
With what
, I wanted to ask, but as we approached the parking lot, Gwen stepped out of her car and waved us over. "Later," I promised Emily.
"Hey Gwen," Emily called out, dropping my hand. "What's up?"
"Thom give you th' news?" When Emily and I answered in the affirmative, she continued, "And did he say anythin else?"
"That he was considering extending offers for the fall," I said.
"Right, good," she said, nodding. "He don't often do that, but I think y' two deserve the chance. I've been here six years and, since me, it's only Kieran's wife Caitlin got an offer 'for mid-July."
"She's the one who's a yogi?" Emily asked.
"Right. They met here, in fact. They were apprentices together. Kieran came from up New York way. Caitlin was in the last summer camp Ruth ran herself, 'for she retired and moved to the office side full-time. That was five years ago now, or will be this fall. Which brings me to what I wanted t' talk to you about."
I asked what she meant.
"Saw y'all holdin hands on the way up. You're cute together, and you're smart and work hard. Don't let Thom scare you off tryin. Won't be a problem, so long as you're not stupid or annoyin about it. He met his wife here too. Amber. Guess you'll be meetin her next week."
I opened my mouth, but Emily spoke first. "Thanks for the advice, Gwen." She paused, then asked, "Were we that bad today?"
"You were givin each other looks all day and tryin not to let us see. Thom says to me this mornin after mornin brief, 'I hope those two fuck-bunnies can concentrate enough to do their jobs.' 'Course, he was smiling when he said it. But he's nervous as hell about lettin you take groups next week."
"Thank you for vouching for us," Emily said. "We won't embarrass you."
"He gave us the manuals," I said. "And told us to memorize everything. What in particular should we be focusing on?"
Gwen laughed without much humor. "Everythin. But especially the safety rules, okay?" She looked around, then lowered her voice conspiratorially, though there was no one nearby. "When we test you on Monday, count on Thom breaking as many rules as he can get away with. He's gonna want you to be assertive 'nough to stop him. And he ain't gonna let you pick and choose who does what. Both of y' need to be prepared for all of it."
