Deep in the Rockies, Harold and Jodee were asleep in their tent. Sometime earlier, somewhere β perhaps nearby, perhaps not - a butterfly had flapped its wings. Now, far above them, a largish volume of frigid stratosphere responded, abruptly twisted itself into a dense skein of suppressed turbulence, and fell earthward, gaining speed. It hit the near-vertical naked upper slopes, sped unimpeded downwards, still accumulating momentum. It blew through the small, frozen, wide-spaced pines of the tree-line, leaving a fifty-foot wide trail of snapped two- and three-finger branches. Then out into the clearing at nearly two hundred miles per hour. There it shredded the tent, ripstop nylon utterly failing to ripstop. Its job done, the aberrant gust slid across the meadow and dissipated in the dense, mature forest farther downslope.
Jodee came awake screaming as the tent exploded, aluminum poles pretzling and snapping. Harold, notorious for his ability to sleep anywhere and through any disturbance, awoke equally fast, just more quietly.
Jodee's first thought was 'earthquake': Harold's was 'BEAR!' It took only moments for them to fight free of the raggedy nylon and stand up. A couple of seconds' reflection and inspection suggested a much more probable, and correct, cause.
By the full moon, they could see Henry's tent a hundred yards away, apparently unscathed. And already galumphing towards them at full tilt came Henry, wearing only jockey shorts and flopping unlaced boots, flashlight in hand, bellowing "What's up? You two okay?" Harold reassured him, at full volume.
The trio had known one another for above twenty years: these two-tent outings had become a staple, but there had been no comparable disasters. In fact, Harold and Jodee's first date had been a double, with Henry. Jodee and Henry had suffered since day one from an intense lust for one another. But it was well hidden- unexpressed beyond rare covert looks and casual, "accidental" physical contact. Swimming pools and hot-tubs were oases of purest agony. On these camping trips, sometimes, as now, Henry came alone, other times he had brought female company. Jodee wasn't certain which bothered her more.
Standing in the moonlit ruins, they laughed at themselves: Harold in his boxers, displaying a significant and growing belly; Jodee in the oversized man's tee-shirt she always used as a nightie; Henry studly in his jockeys.
Harold was busy examining the tent: "Man, what a mess!"
Taking advantage of Harold's preoccupation, Henry studied Jodee's nipples, standing adrenalin-erect under the thin fabric. They cast dark little elongated moon-shadows. Jodee noticed the scrutiny: her face could pretend to ignore the attention, but her belly couldn't. Her sudden shortness of breath had little to do with either adrenaline or the altitude.
Henry looked up at the sky: clouds were gathering for the daily, heavy, midnight rainstorm. "We can't fix anything here, now, and it's going to rain again. Soon. You both have your clothes in your sleeping bags?" They nodded: dry warm clothes in the morning were a lovely thing.
"Grab your bags, put on your boots, and let's adjourn to my tent. We can squeeze in okay. I'll cover your packs so they won't get wet. We can unfuck everything in the morning when we can see. Come on!"
Three bags and bodies into a two-man tent was going to be tight despite the tent being roomy for a two-man. Contemplating possibilities, Henry announced: "One requirement, folks! I do NOT want to wake up in the middle of the night spooning Harold. Or being spooned by him. So I suggest Jodee gets the center spot, okay?"
Harold, busily getting his and Jodee's bags situated, muttered "Makes sense to me."
Jodee's belly did a humongous flip. She eyed Henry, but in the moonlight couldn't read his expression. Did her opinion even count? Not that she was about to object. Not a bloody chance of that! Her whole body was one gigantic electric tingle, and goose-bumps were on the loose. This could be a real challenge, for there were things about her and Hubby Harold that she'd never told Henry, although he'd intuited a good deal more than she suspected.
She'd married Harold far too quickly, and with too little experience: her lifetime N
(sex)
= two, a singleton pre-Harold liaison, and that one brief and not very happy. Nevertheless, she knew she was intensely sexual: unfortunately, Harold did not number strong sexuality and libido amongst his many sterling qualities. As a lover he was from the start neither proficient, nor prolific, nor even very enthusiastic. Better adjectives were pedestrian and apathetic β at the moment, it had been weeks since any sort of sex. He was erotically un-adventuresome in the extreme β had never even asked for, and she had never delivered, anything so wildly esoteric as a hand- or blow-job.
Perhaps even more important, he positively disliked cuddling in bed, hence no body-contact once sleep loomed. For Jodee, of course, the result was a level of suppressed need and frustration difficult to fathom. She knew intellectually that Harold's characteristics were not even marginally her fault, but nevertheless felt guilty. Through it all, she remained dutifully faithful. Physically at least β but there was no counting the times she'd mentally made love to various men, high among them Henry.
Now, somehow, she was supposed to retain her sanity through a night βperhaps several nights?- of lying less than a foot away from her long-term lust object - who would, she knew for a certainty, be naked inside his bag!? Could a human actually be any hornier than she at this moment?
It took only a couple of minutes to get things settled: Harold's antipathy to snuggling meant their sleeping bags were always separate, never zipped together. Harold and Henry climbed in: Jodee followed, slithering down between them. Henry courteously turned on his side, back to Jodee, giving her as much room as possible. Harold managed βas usual- to avoid any semblance of snuggling, despite his and Jodee's bodies being only inches apart. And Jodee lay there in a huge quandary, heart pounding, throat dry, trying to figure out what the hell she was supposed to do, meanwhile avoiding any contact in either direction.
Harold apologized in advance for his inevitable snoring β it wasn't really loud, just perpetual β and settled down to do his instant-sleep routine. In thirty seconds his breathing had slowed and settled. In two minutes, he was snoring gently. It would take another disturbance of gust-magnitude to waken him before dawn.
Jodee held herself nearly rigid for ten minutes, completely at sea. Harold was now zonked β the snoring was the signal: it would stop only in the final half-minute before he awakened, this she knew for certain. She took her heart in her hands, made a decision.
Glacially, delicately, she rolled towards Henry, up onto her side. He was much closer than she expected, and her slow-motion roll ended with them in a perfect spoon, separated only by two infinitely compressible down bags. Then, mirabel dictu, Henry waggled himself against her, pressing back solidly.
Her heart thudded. His hand slipped free, went awkwardly up behind her head, pushed her face down until her lips grazed the tiny hairs of his nape. She nearly melted. She nibbled and lipped and tongued: he squirmed, delighting her.
Her heart was truly racing now β thank God for Harold's deep sleeping!
Almost light-headed, astounded at her temerity, she felt for her bag's zipper, slid it down silently, tooth by tooth, to mid-calf, freed her top arm, slid it gently out and then up and over Henry's hip, outside his bag. He writhed slightly beneath its weight. As she held her breath, still mouthing his nape nonstop, his hand found hers and pressed it downwards, solidly against the bulge of his fully developed hardon. Her pulse increased, her breathing shallow, rapid, pits swampy. And down between her legs swirled a glorious, electrified gushing sensation.
She held her hand still for a time, studying by Braille. Then, gently, initiative to her, she slipped her hand from his grip and down between them, found where his arm came free of the bag. Her hand followed his arm under the edge to his side, then down his ribs to his hip. He sighed silently as he rolled slowly onto his back, raised his knees to tent the bag, giving her freedom and permission to do whatever she wished.
She actually held her breath as her fingers settled gently around his cock: she'd been right about the nudity. For half a minute, as she explored, her breathing disappeared. Only when her fingertips found the tip did it resume, but ragged, difficult to control, noises welling up and needing to be choked off. She curled her fingers into a tunnel, ever so slowly cycled them up and down the shaft, feeling his breathing change as he got harder yet β and hotter, too. She instinctively tickled the underside of the helmet with one fingernail: he gasped at the edge of audibility.
As her fingertips caressed the helmet, she felt a distinct, unexpected itching in her palate and tongue: she'd never given a complete blow job, but understood immediately. The desire to inhale his cock, to do some extended scratching of the itchiness, was almost overwhelming. Her fingers didn't slow as she quickly realized the utter hopelessness of trying to satisfy the urge: bodies wouldn't flex that way in this confined space, and major shifts of position were impossible.
This simple-seeming hand-work, equally unfamiliar to her, would have to suffice.