A River Runs in Vermont

I would like to express immense gratitude to LillaBerndt, Metamorphose and TinyBabeLost (in alphabetical order) for their comments and input to various stages of this manuscript. I adopted some of their advice, and stubbornly ignored others. All flaws are mine.

**********

After a long week shuttling between her office, the seminar room and her biology lab, Joanne finally got a chance to come home and relax for the weekend. Home was not much to speak of. She rented a one room apartment in Burlington. There were no cats or dogs. No goldfish. No birds. No pets of any kind. The place was neatly kept. For a single woman, working almost 60 hours a week, she did not really need much. The only pieces of decorative art were a few reproduction prints of van Gogh and Renoir from her trip to the National Gallery of Art in D.C. two summers ago. There was a fold out futon that doubled as a guest bed if there was anyone visiting from out of town, which rarely happened.

It was almost 8 p.m. She turned on the TV, and took out the baked ziti she bought from the take out place down the street. Weekends were "Forget Calorie Count Days." She went to the fridge, and took out the less-than-half-full bottle of Argentinian Malbec left over from last Sunday. Surveying the remaining portion of the dark purple wine, she was proud of her discipline of alcohol consumption. One third of 750 ml was 250. This seemed right. She didn't need a measuring beaker to check. Her ritualistic pouring was mastered to scientific perfection.

She mindlessly flipped through the channels while she ate. Nothing interesting was on TV. So she switched it off and went to her CD collection. Pandora was installed on the laptop but she felt like picking her own music tonight.

Almost with a whisper, Ravel's Bolero emerged.

On her laptop, the stories on Literotica set her in the right mood. After topping off the wine glass, she went to fill her bath tub. There was something erotic about seeing the bathroom saturated with steam.

Going back to the stories on the screen, she took a few more sips of the Malbec. She traced her index finger absentmindedly around the rim of the glass, letting her imagination run with the characters in the story. She dipped her slender finger into the wine, stirred the liquid, and then lifted and sucked her fingertip. Letting loose her slightly curled shoulder length dark brown hair, she took off her gold rimmed prescription eyeglasses, pulled the woolen sweater over her head and dropped it by her feet. Then she wiggled out of her jeans, kicked them to the other side of the living room. How nice to feel messy.

Her own feminine smell and stale cheese formed an exotic mixture in the air.

She surveyed the flesh all exposed except by her underwear, unhappy with the too pale complexion. How she wished she had a rooftop garden and she could get a full body natural tan.

Then the panties went behind the futon and the bra was dropped next to the wine bottle. The alcohol relaxed her. She kicked her legs in the air, making pedaling motions of riding an air bike. She opened her legs wide, patting herself on the inner thighs. She laughed at her own silliness.

After sitting naked to read for another 15 minutes, her arousal intensified. With hands gently patting her buttocks, she rose and walked slowly and majestically towards the bathroom. Joanne was about to pleasure herself tonight.

She closed the bathroom door three quarters of the way. Forever taking extra caution, she didn't want to pass out in the steam. Once seated inside the tub, she immersed herself to let the soapy water come to chin level. With eyes closed, she cupped her breasts with both hands. They had not lost much of their firmness even at the age of 40. Then her left palm gently rubbed her right nipple, and right thumb and index finger pinching the left one. The erotic sensations cleansed her of all the worldly worries, making her forget the deadlines and pink message slips to handle.

Joanne had no boyfriend. The last time she went on a date was last Thanksgiving. And that one did not end with any sex at all. She just didn't have any chemistry with the guy that her friends set her up with.

She normally masturbated on the weekends, after a bubble bath. Because Mondays to Fridays were busy and she only had time for a shower. It didn't mean she did not have a healthy sex drive. She enjoyed sex, albeit the solitary kind. For Joanne, even erotic self-play happened according to a strict schedule.

She moved her right hand down to her tummy, poking her navel. Then she pulled both knees up, above water, to her chin, stretching her pussy, as if exposing it for an imaginary lover to penetrate. She rocked left and right gently.

A naked masked man with the physique of a weightlifter on steroids appeared in the doorway. Only two eye holes and a mouth hole in a black mask. He was licking his lips, making obscene sloppy noises. A chest full of hair. A big thick cock of surreal proportion swung and bobbled with every step he took towards her. He flexed his biceps. Then he spit into both hands, and grabbed his dick, jerking provocatively, as if challenging Joanne to climb out of the bathtub to join him.

Behind him, a young male Russian ballet dancer followed. Pale face, longing eyes, trembling lips. Her CD player suddenly blared the climactic notes of Swan Lake. The masked man faded away, and the dancer stepped forward on tiptoes. He executed a perfect pirouette and dropped to one knee by the bathtub. He dipped his fingers in the sudsy water. His hand sank deeper, searching, and found her right thigh. His palm followed the smooth, soft contour and arrived at the edge of her cunt. He brushed against her neatly trimmed pubic hair, finger tips dancing around her pussy lips ...

"Um, yeah." She made more nasal noises.

She alternated opening her legs wide and pulling them closed. Tonight, she felt extra horny. She even allowed her right index finger to touch her butthole. Just outside, circling the outline of her anus. She wasn't a big fan of anal sex, but there was something nasty about it.

The temperature of the bath water had dropped by a few degrees now. She stood up, turned on the hot shower, rinsed off quickly, wrapped herself in a plush bath towel and went to the bedroom, where her vibrator was waiting under her pillow.

**********

Monday morning, after attending Prof. Joanne Lexington's seminar on acid rain and river water quality, Debra Jones and Chad Bradley, two of her research assistants, grabbed their textbooks and notes and headed to the college cafeteria.

"Shit. Joanne's work is good, but does she have to be so nasty? 'Chad, get this ready. Make sure you bring that tomorrow.'" Chad complained. Always the goofball, he squirted ketchup on a piece of napkin and drew a smiley face.

"You know this project is a big deal for her," Debra commented.

"If you ask me, I think this bitch is a lesbian and she's not getting fucked enough." He poked a fork in the smiley, as if it were Joanne's face. The napkin was ripped. "I'm gonna stick this fork in her pussy till she bleeds."

"You're gross. Why are you people always so sexist? A guy not married at that age is lucky, but a woman without a partner is a lesbian?" The little red head was exasperated.

Chad, with his John Lennon round glasses and long hair, had as much good looks a science nerd could get. "I'm glad I'm defending my dissertation next year, man. You have a ways to go." He wadded up the napkin, threw it at the trash can 5 feet away, and missed. "Damn!"

"I know, but she's always reasonable and not as harsh on me. Maybe I don't disagree and argue with her that much," Debra said timidly. Her 5'2" small build added to her meek personality.

"I can't wait to get out of here and find a real fucking job. Working 100 hours a week here for that stipend. Tired of kissing her ass," Chad complained.

"Even with jobs elsewhere, you have to learn to get along with others." Debra, forever the conformist, shrugged her shoulders.

**********

On Tuesday, Debra and Chad were busy packing test tubes, pH test strips and various lab apparatus into large plastic crates, and loading them into the trunk of Prof. Lexington's SUV. It was only a two-day trip up the White River, but they needed tons of containers to collect water and soil samples. As part of Vermont State College's team to study the impact of pollution and acid rain on the water quality of the White River, the two graduate students went on field trips regularly all over Vermont. Yes, it was called the Green Mountain State, but in this day and age, no place was immune to human contamination and destruction.

They were enrolled in the eco-biology program, and Prof. Lexington was one of the more active and prolific faculty members in the department. Her $500,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant was in the second of the three-year period, but she had not produced enough data to write any papers yet. Her tenure pretty much depended on the success of this grant. Publish or perish. She knew the rule well.

It was early April, about three weeks before Earth Day. Snow had started to melt. But spring was nowhere to be found in the air. Chad and Debra were happy to go on the excursion. Eco-biology was their passion too. Even though the trip was less than 100 miles, Prof. Lexington planned on doing extensive data collection. They would be wading into muddy waters to collect samples to examine oxygen content and bacteria growth. But Debra was not looking forward to camping in a state park overnight. Chad, on the other hand, was the more outdoorsy type. He loved camping in the wilderness, even in the cold temperatures of April.

"So, Deb," Chad whispered to Debra when they were ferrying the plastic crates to the SUV, "should we bring one tent or two?"

"Of course I'll bring my own tent! I'm not going to sleep with you with Joanne 10 feet away," Debra said with mock horror.

It was no secret to other graduate students, and to Prof. Lexington as well, that Chad and Debra were seeing one another. But with their pursuit of their Ph.D.'s as the main goal in life at the moment, they were not committed as boyfriend and girlfriend yet. Debra was 24 and Chad was 28.

"Come on," Chad was playing the sad puppy. "It's not like Joanne is there to act as a chaperone. We are in grad school, not junior high, for Christ's sake. So I'll be sure to pack the condoms," Chad smiled wickedly.

"You know how much a hygiene freak I am. Sex in the woods? Unsanitary. I like to wash up after ... you know. In the camp, it's so icky," Debra was shaking her head and talking in a squeaky little voice.

"I'll bring some bottled water for you to clean your royal highness."

"You're desperate, and pathetic," Debra smacked Chad on the back of his head.

"So it is a go, right? YEAH!" He did a stupid fist pump.

************

Joanne had a hand written checklist -- laptop, GPS, digital camera, test chemicals, test tubes, containers, the Vernier sensors, ... The list went on. Standing in the middle of her office, she turned this way and that way to fetch all the items that she needed. She was in the prime of her academic career. After finishing her doctorate in Oregon, her home state, she did a few post-doctoral research stints at various institutions, and five years ago, landed this faculty position in Vermont. She loved the environment; she had always had a love of nature, and she really wanted to make a difference by finding ways to reduce the damage that the earth was being subjected to.

It was about noon time outside of the biology building. "Debra, Chad, all set?" Joanne did another visual check of the inventory of items in the trunk of the SUV.

"Yes, good to go," Chad replied.

So they started on their trip to Skylight Pond, situated on the top of Bread Loaf Mountain. It was only about 100 miles to the south east. But they would be making numerous stops along White River. And they planned to go all the way up to the headwaters of the stream. Part of Joanne's research involved measuring levels of contamination at 5-mile intervals of the water path.

**********

The ratio of male to female professors in science disciplines was probably 2 to 1. And the men in these fields? Either they were Einstein lookalikes, or they were balding, overweight, humorless and downright ugly.

Joanne was a good looking woman, if only she would literally let her dark brunette hair down, perhaps change her pair of gold rimmed glasses for something fashionable or add some color to her wardrobe. At about 5'4" or 5'5", she kept herself in reasonably good shape. Women professors were supposed to dress conservatively in the classroom and in the office so there was no chance to show off her cleavage, something that she was still proud of.

If only she did not need to wear that white lab coat half of the time on campus.

**********

The research team had reserved a camping spot on the top of the mountain ahead of time. Joanne brought along a sleeping bag, and she intended to clear out part of the cargo space of her vehicle and sleep in there. Saving herself from having to pitch a tent.

Debra and Chad decided to bring one tent. Chad's explanation to Joanne was, "To save some space for the research equipment!" Debra blushed a little in front of Joanne when Chad said that.

"OK. If that works for you," Joanne calmly remarked. She was thinking to herself, "You lovebirds just keep the noise level down if you plan to get excited in the tent tonight."

The drive along the river was uneventful. Everything worked according to schedule. They made stops according to pre-selected points on the map and in the GPS. They took all kinds of readings on the spot and collected water and soil samples for later analysis in the lab. They labelled the containers. They took pictures of the locations, sometimes taking turns to pose in the pictures as well. They made entries in their research log.

On one of the stops, when Joanne was back in the SUV writing notes, Chad had the urge to release his full bladder. Being the prankster that he was, he told Debra that he was going to pee into the stream.

"That is sick," Debra exclaimed under her breath, but she could not help but giggle.

"Yea, the pee will elevate the ammonia level a little bit. But we collected samples here already. So no harm no foul." With that, he pulled Debra behind some bushes, unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock and directed his urine stream into the river. "Oh, the fire brigade is here!"

Debra laughed and was somewhat excited by Chad's silliness. After he shook off the last few drops, he looked over his shoulder to make sure that the bushes served as a good barrier and Joanne was still busy with her notes. "Come on, Deb. Give me a quickie."

"No. Get out of here."

With his right hand still holding his exposed cock out of his jeans, he used his left hand to pull Debra to him. He planted his lips on hers, while stroking himself to a semi-erect state. He kissed her cheeks, nibbled her earlobes and whispered, "Oh baby, you smell good."

Debra was wearing a purple hoodie with "Vermont State College" printed across the front. Chad reached over, grabbed her right breast and rubbed at the correct spot to locate her nipple. It hardened immediately.

"See? I know your tits so well that I can find your nipple even through all these layers."

Debra only made a half-hearted attempt to swat away his left hand. When she looked down, she saw that Chad's dick was standing at full attention. Under the cloudless blue sky, river water flickering behind them and the bushes serving as a natural barrier, Debra also grew frisky and adventurous. "How about I show you my tits and you jerk yourself off?"

She pulled up her sweater, unhooked the front clasps of her pink bra and exposed her white mounds of flesh. She kept one eye on his growing penis, another on her professor sitting in the SUV 50 feet away. Her fingers pinched her own pinkish nipples to an erect state. She felt naughty. Then she cupped her boobs, stepped closer to Chad and offered them to him.

With a 5'9" frame, he had to bend his knees to lean down to suck on one nipple while grabbing the other breast, kneading the sensitive tip. He rubbed his nose on her nipples, sniffing between her breasts, taking a toothless bite of her tits. Low moans escaped through her throat. The spring chill and the arousal gave her shivers.

Chad quickened his jerking motion. When his hand reached the base of his cock, he held back for a second or two, enjoying the arousal. He shook his stiff cock proudly for Debra to see. She smiled wickedly at the angry phallus, the veins so visible between his fingers. The mushroom shaped head was thick and red, fully engorged. Debra felt a tingling down in her crotch. The pinching of the nipples, her boyfriend's lips and tongue working on them, and the sight of the big cock growing excited her. Her right hand travelled down to her purple sweat pants, reached under her panties and rubbed on her own wetness.

Debra didn't know she had such an exhibitionist side of her. Granted, this was not the Waikiki Beach, with dozens of people around. But this was outdoor sex nonetheless. Joanne could walk towards them at any minute.

She used her right thumb and the index finger to pinch her clitoris, then let it go. The same two fingers traced the outline of her pussy lips. She transferred her pussy juice from the opening of her cunt to the outside of the lips, giving herself a natural lubricant. As Chad's hand jerking tempo increased, so did her own pinching rhythm. She looked him in his eyes, both nodding slightly, signaling to one another that their orgasms were near.

Chad's left hand deserted Debra's nipples and reached for her pussy. He wanted to finger fuck her while he ejaculated. But Debra would not yield an inch. This was her territory. She knew her pussy better than anyone else. She would not surrender control. This was her play. She intentionally did all the rubbing and pinching outside. She knew when she dug her fingers inside her vagina, she would come. She would explode.

"Come for me, Chad. Go ahead. Do it now," Debra was getting aroused both physically and verbally. "Pull on it and squeeze your cum out of that cock. I wanna see you make a mess here. How long can you hold out, baby? I'll let you fuck me in the tent tonight. OK? But I want you to cum now." She even reached out to grab Chad's hand over his dick, helping him jerk.

Chad loved it when Debra talked dirty. "Oh fuck."

His body shook as the man juice escaped his cock. Debra was so happy and excited. She caught his semen in her left palm. Hot and sticky. She won. She made this guy lose control. Then she allowed herself the same pleasure. She knew she needed two fingers. Her index finger and middle finger together, stroking inside the soft walls of her pussy. Usually 8 to 10 strokes. Then the orgasm hit. She gasped. She almost let out a scream right there behind the bushes.

**********

Joanne finished recording the details of the sample for this location. Her vehicle was parked facing away from the river. Still seated inside, she looked around for her young assistants. They were nowhere to be seen. From the rear view mirror on the left side of the SUV, she saw two heads moving behind a five-foot-tall bush about 50 feet away. She shook her head. She felt annoyed, angry and jealous. Was it because they were delaying the trip? Or they had such blatant disregard for decency? They were acting like teenagers? Deep down ... Joanne was angry and jealous that some people could let go of their inhibitions so easily, and enjoyed sex so readily at the drop of a hat.

Her cheeks grew hot. She fidgeted in her seat, squeezing her thighs together. She took a few deep breaths, telling herself, "When I get home tomorrow."