Canoe Interlude

Canoe Interlude

"Come fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring

Your winter garment of Repentence fling.

The Bird of Time has but a little way to

flutter --

And the Bird is on the wing."

(Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)

Laura Morgan put down the novel by Disraeli and sighed. She tried to read at least a few pages of a serious book every day, but Disraeli might be a bridge too far. Either that or she was just not in the mood.

After high school in suburban Maryland, Laura had taken an undergraduate degree at Georgetown University and then decided to earn a MS there in foreign service. Upon graduation, she had decided not to pursue a diplomatic career and decided instead to join the staff of one of the District's best known think tanks. There, she helped produce papers on international development issues, some of which were interesting and some of which were tedious.

Although she felt that everybody should be aware of the legacy of Hans Morgenthau and other students of Realpolitik, she sometimes grew weary of reading tomes such as Politics Among Nations. Thus, she attempted every day to peruse some serious work and also a bit of something frivolous.

Although Laura was a diligent student, and had lived her life within every boundary and dictate of conventional society, she also had a little streak of rebellion in her DNA. She had always liked to read, and the range of topics which interested her was wide. Foreign policy for sure, but she had also grown up appreciating erotic literature. A copy of The Pearl, a collection of Victorian erotica, reposed on her bookshelf. She found that reading such material helped fire her loins (as they might have said back then) and furnished her a wealth of fantasy material to supplement her own natural desires.

At least for the moment, Laura thought that she wanted to read about the sights and sounds of sex. She enjoyed watching a man's tongue make its first contact with her engorged nipple. She liked hearing the gasps of unbearable pleasure, the moans that accompanied release. There just wasn't enough sex in Disraeli's books, she decided.

Laura's house was surrounded by trees. Just 45 minutes away was the traffic and noise and crime of Washington, DC, but Laura's property was lush and secluded. The hill behind (several thousand acres) was owned by the power company for some unknown future use, and its main residents were black bears and wild turkeys. She liked the view from her study window, the green lawn stretching to the treeline, with nothing visible built by the hand of man. Cardinals and chickadees and chipmunks were daily visitors.

Yes, every morning Laura read some substantive book, but she did not merely want to improve her mind. She she also exercised to keep her svelte body in peak condition. She did yoga poses and abdominal crunches before showering. Mens sana in corpore sano, as her old teacher used to say.

After performing the preliminary exercises for the day, Laura typically turned to her toy collection for inspiration. As some romance writer had joked, "An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away!" Humor aside, Laura believed that orgasms were good in cardiopulmonary terms and also for stress relief in times where every media report conveyed news of war and pandemic. Even pornography, for all its occasional crudeness, was positive in the sense that it preached pleasure. Even porn genres which contained a soupcon of pain tended to culminate in orgasmic pleasure.

Laura had a wooden chest containing toys, the standard Hitachi, dildos of various sizes, a few slender strands of anal beads, some colorful anal jewels, and oils. Despite all the problems with OPEC, Keystone XL, and all the rest, she loved the way light made oil shimmer on her skin, and it made her think of large strong male hands caressing her hips.

Laura thought of her latest boyfriend Edward, with whom she had started to develop a good relationship before he was deployed to the Horn of Africa on some arguably quixotic mission. They liked to walk around D.C. on weekends in good weather. She would wear short skirts, and seek an opportunity to safely and discreetly tease the tourists with little doses of exhibitionism on the Mall or at the Smithsonian. For the male tourists (and some of the women too), it was better than merely glancing at dinosaur bones in a museum.

Laura had consulted with beauty shop personnel and opted for lasering to attain the smoothness she liked. She liked the feel of smoothness as she masturbated, and it made her feel even more exposed when she vacationed at clothing-optional resorts and chose to sunbathe on the nude beach. Her boyfriend often remarked that he preferred licking a shaven girl, and she delighted in receiving oral attention so that was also a plus.

This particular morning, however, Laura had no time for her usual morning orgasm. A drive of several hours was in store for a weekend camping trip, so her usual pleasure would have to be deferred for a bit. Nevertheless, she did toss a vibrator, the deep green jewel, and a bottle of oil into her backpack. She found such planning erotic because she knew that food and water and exercise were crucial, but every day should also contain some naughty pleasure.

She gave consideration to her lingerie selection. Should she go retro with the lavender lacy orchid-striped tap pants and demi-bra? Or with the streamlined satin black v-string and sleek halter bra? Perhaps even a 1940s film star look with a white bustier and garter belt? A g-string to show off her firm, tan hips which that surely a man would want to kiss? No, with gritty camping on the schedule for the weeken, today's attire had to be more pragmatic.

At work, Laura was the consummate professional -- cool, calm, objective, almost distant. Outside work, Laura liked to dress scantily and provocatively. Partly it was to attract the hungry gaze of strange men. Partly it was self-seduction. If a girl did not feel sensous herself, how could she be attractive to others? If she didn't feel any desire to kiss a man's nipples or run her fingernails gently over his testicles, how could she expect others to be swept away?

Laura tried to stay in a constructive frame of mind, and that was no easy task in a world filled with turmoil. Perhaps there was truth in Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach," but she was young and sought optimism. And what was more optimistic than sexual pleasure?

She loved to kneel over her boyfriend's face, and slowly lower her lasered smoothness onto his lips. Sometimes he would give her a slender oiled anal plug first, tease her shaven lips, and then have her kneel over his face so he could slowly lick her clit until she had a shuddering orgasm.

The little plug enhanced her orgasms, so she didn't like it for her first orgasm of the day. But, if she happened to be playing a lot, it was ideal for her third or fourth orgasm of the day. Combined with her boyfriend licking her, she liked to come (or was it "cum" in porn parlance?) with it. Sometimes she liked to twist the little plug just as she surrendered to orgasm.

As she drove, such pleasant thoughts helped divert Laura's attention from the usual harsh news the car radio wanted to impose. She turned the radio off. Her flaxen hair was blown by little puffs of wind through the partly open car window as she made her way down the old gravel road to River Outfitters, where her rental canoe was waiting. Laura looked like a tan, fit version of the Grace Kelly character in the old movie "High Noon."

She was 5'7' and about 110 pounds, with semper-trendy aviator sunglasses hiding her green eyes. Sadly, her eyes were not quite as bright as those of the former movie star Gene Tierney (who once dated John F. Kennedy), but many men had complimented Laura's eyes.

There was very little light at 5 am, and a heavy fog still cloaked the river. Laura parked, paid the sleepy rental clerk in cash, and in short order was paddling a red Mad River canoe to a tiny island she liked to think of as her private possession.

Grasping an overhead limb, she tied the canoe up. She took a bagel out of a freezer bag, opened the thermos, and poured a hot cup of coffee. In utter silence, she sipped, the canoe invisible in the mist.

Lost in almost a zen-like state, Laura watched the sun slowly burn the fog away. As sufficient light became available, she untied the rope and began to paddle. With the exertion, her cares and concerns melted away.

Soon, the day got warmer and she removed her shirt, revealing the skimpy pink bikini top she would wear. The pink bikini top went well with her black denim cutoffs. Pink and black, Elvis would approve.

She reached into her backpack, looked at the essential gear, moved past the flashlight, the waterproof matches, the bug juice, and found the suntan oil. Slowly and sensually, Laura rubbed the suntan oil on her slender, muscled arms. And oiled her firm stomach. With exquisite care, Laura massaged the suntan oil on the upper portion of her swelling breasts. She turned her attention next to her firm, tan legs.

The rubbing motion, and the building heat of the day, made her remember that her pre-dawn drive had made it impossible for her to keep her usual morning date with her array of sex toys. But Laura was not concerned. She would have orgasms today, but just a bit later in the day. Like a true sensualist, she looked forward to them.

Laura spotted a small, level beach in an inlet and paddled into the dappled shade. It would be the perfect place to watch the Perseids tonight, not too far from the take-out where she'd left her Subaru. She jumped out of the canoe, grateful for the Tevas that protected her feet from the rocky surface of the riverbed. She pulled the canoe up onto the sand and tied it to a small tree.

After she hoisted her backpack and small cooler out, she quickly put up the tent, gathered some firewood, and spread her sleeping bag on the beach to watch the turtles on a fallen log by the river. Noticing the sun coming in through the shade, she unhooked her swimsuit top to let the warm rays lightly tan her skin, but first she slathered sunscreen on her ears and nipples. After a while, the warmth and the rigorous paddling overcame her and she fell asleep.

As she slept on the beach, a different scene was unfolding in a log house a few miles upriver. Clint Sanders had arisen shortly after dawn, as usual. He made the bed, went downstairs, and drank a glass of orange juice for energy. He made a pot of Gevalia coffee, went back upstairs, and did 100 situps. Then he did arm exercises with a series of barbells, moving from small to large, then did another 100 situps.

He then fetched a big mug of coffee, went back upstairs to an office overlooking a pond on his 40-acre property adjacent to a national forest. His cabin was a mile off the two-lane road, but 10 miles down the road was a fire department office and he had availed himself of high-speed cable Internet when they ran a line to them, He turned on his computer to check stock futures, the Asian markets, and other matters.

Clint was from Charlottesville, and had attended the University of Virginia (Jefferson's "academical village"). Then he went into the Army, where he served in the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan. It was a famous air assault unit and he had a t-shirt which read "Hell from Heaven" on the front.

But, ever since high school, where students were given a chance to theoretically "buy" stocks and follow them, Clint had been gripped by the drama of investing. When he realized he could own a tiny sliver of many business enterprises, he was hooked. Later, he read somewhere that "Money is Freedom." In America's Civil War, people could buy their way out of being drafted. In the modern world, wasn't it somewhat true that a person had to assemble enough money to control his own destiny to some extent?

Upon leaving the military, Clint got into the old debate about law school versus business school. What was best? Then he stumbled upon a 4-year course where you could combine the two and earn MBA and JD degrees. A wide array of schools offered ways to get such training, and he opted to obtain the MBA part from the Darden School at the University of Virginia and the JD from the Georgetown Law Center (Hoya Saxa!).

The law segment was predictably dull, but in B School Clint met a friend who worked with him to develop a better way to trap information about consumer preferences and sell that to companies involved in customer acquisition. After the startup, Clint found himself with sufficient affluence at age 38 to start diversifying his stock portfolio out of that startup stock and into a global allocation portfolio with the risk-adjusted return potential he wanted.

As a kid, Clint had read The Millionaire Next Door and realized that a person with a high net worth might not be wearing a Savile Row suit or driving a Mercedes. And Clint had always been more comfortable in faded jeans than a three-piece suit. He did still have a couple of bespoke suits from past visits to Hong Kong, but rarely wore them.

Having always wanted the peace of a log house, Clint found one at 2000 feet elevation near a national forest. Except for the rifle deer season (when the hills were alive not with the sound of music but of gunfire), it was very quiet. The hustle and bustle of the DC Metro area was just a few hours away if the need arose, but increasingly it did not.

With time to think back, Clint pondered all that had happened in his life. In some sense, soldiers are drifters by nature or become them. Even soldiers who are married are rarely home and generally move every few years not just to a different city, but often to a different continent. For those reasons, Clint remained single. There were girlfriends, of course, but not like a sailor with a girl in every port.

Near every military base, various business endeavors spring up. Some are legitimate like laundry and dry cleaning services, and some are shady. M any cater to male lust. Clint avoided prostitutes, but did patronize massage parlors, which offered visual and tactile stimulation while sidestepping most disease risk. He did not smoke or drink or use illegal drugs. But he did have a "vice" and it wasn't gambling. Perhaps "vice" was the wrong word. But he had always felt a weakness around attractive women.

About 11 am, Clint repeated the procedure with situps and weights. Every afternoon, he did 200 slow pushups in sets of 50 each, and either hiked or jogged about 3 miles. At least once a day -- and more typically twice -- he searched the Internet for good erotic literature or videos.

The covid lockdowns increased the sense of isolation for many people. Interpersonal matters were discouraged, 6 feet of distance was maintained, masks were worn, and society was in some ways placed on hold for 2 years. Did lockdowns delay herd immunity, and were non-N95 masks efficacious? Was 6 feet necessary, or would 3 feet have sufficed as a later study suggested? Clint had no idea, but during the pandemic his Internet access became valuable not only for investing but also for chatting online.

So it was that, after many consecutive days of afternoon jogging or hiking, Clint decided to shake up the routine and take his kayak out for a spin that afternoon. As he passed the hall mirror, he saw that his hair was getting quite long and looked more hippie-esque than ex-military. He hadn't shaved since his last weekly trip to the grocery store, and would have to get around to that sometime. He could run a comb through the shaggy mass of black hair, but elected to defer that. It was only a little kayaking, and he probably wouldn't see another soul.

Meanwhile, down the river, Laura began to dream. Exhausted from a difficult week at work and minimal sleep the night before, she saw in her dream a guy who looked remarkably like the actor Daniel Day-Lewis in the 1992 movie "The Last of the Mohicans" who was admiring her delicate ankles. And he was kissing the aforementioned ankles, moving to her calves. Laura's dream lover was beginning to kiss her dance-hardened thighs when suddenly Laura opened her eyes, not sure what woke her, but the lengthening shadows of the trees on the water made it chillier.

After a few miles, Clint spotted a little beach area and decided to stop, pull in, and have a sandwich. The kayak made contact, with a little scratchy sound on the sand, and Clint got the sandwich and took a swig of water from the bottle he had brought along. Then, as his eyes scanned to the left, he suddenly saw a topless girl dozing on an open sleeping bad under a tree.

With a jolt of lust, he wondered if her nipple was the puffy kind which swelled when kissed. As he looked at her skin gleaming with suntan oil, he wondered if her skin would taste salty from sweat if he licked her tan tummy. He felt himself harden, but felt guilty staring and realized that courtesy dictated that he make his presence known.

When Laura heard someone loudly clear his throat, she almost leapt out of her skin. Pulling her top back on, she tried to retain some modicum of savoir-faire, but her poise was shaken when she saw the man standing beside a kayak.

Walking slowly toward her, he said: "Nice to see you." Then, as the realization of the inadvertent double-entendre hit him, a red flush emerged beneath the bronze of his face. Then they both laughed, which helped to dissipate the awkwardness of the encounter.

As he climbed up from the water level, and they both stood, she saw that he was tall. "Basketball player in high school?" she asked. He smiled and replied, "Well, the jumpshot might be a little rusty now, but I bet you were head cheerleader?" She laughed and said "Guilty as charged." He said "You still look fit enough to pull it off." She said "Thank you, kind sir" and the banter continued. He said he couldn't help but notice that Laura seemed remarkably fit. She said the same, and the conversation turned to physical fitness.

As the talk went from cordial to amiable, and a little sexual tension seemed to build, twilight began to arrive and Laura invited him to stay for "cocktails" on the beach, which consisted of bottles of fruit juice. Clint offered the remaining half of his sandwich, with fresh tomato slices from his small garden (fenced to keep the deer away), and she accepted.

Then, as the air cooled, Laura mentioned her desire to wash some of the sweat of the day from her skin. For his part, Clint felt the same way. The air was humid and he was in need of a shower. They agreed that common sense dictated a swim, especially inasmuch as she had a swimsuit on under her clothing and he wore khaki cargo shorts.

So there they were, total strangers in one sense, but their conversation -- though brief -- had revealed many things they had in common. They were adults, and could do as they pleased. Given all the problems in the world -- and this was a point made in the old movie "Casablanca" -- what did it matter if two people went for a dip in a river?

From the corner of her eye, Laura watched as he unbuttoned his green shirt. That color set off his hazel eyes, and Laura mentioned it. Her eyes were a deeper green, and he mentioned that as, attempting to appear casual, as he watched Laura slowly remove her denim cutoffs.

As the tiny bikini bottom came to view, Clint sighed in visual pleasure, but paused to wonder if it it might be thong-esqe in design. He had to laugh at himself thinking "Please let me see if her hips look as delicious in a thong as they do in denim cutoffs".

This delightful suspicion was confirmed as Laura turned, exposing firm, tan hips as she stepped toward the water. Clint gazed, transfixed, and then hastened toward the water. He wanted to kneel down and kiss her firm tan hips. He was concerned that she might turn around before he could get waist-deep in the water and conceal the erection which he was now unable to prevent.