Chapter Five All Together In The All Together
"That story makes me tingly all over, you know."
"As in nervous tingly or horny tingly?"
"Both, I suppose. It does make me very turned on, although I'm not sure I can be quite as wanton as your fantasy suggests."
"I bet you could. I've seen your exhibitionist side a few times so I'm pretty sure you would play this part exactly the way I've scripted it."
"Hmmmm, I don't know but I'm always willing to try, sweetie," you say, smiling broadly. "There's always the washroom."
"Yes, but not yet. What I wonder is whether you would do it if you knew, absolutely, someone was watching, say like on a stage or a movie set or something."
"Oh gawd, no. Not a chance. I don't see sex as a performance. I see it as an act of love between you and me. If someone accidentally – or even a little bit on purpose – sees us, well I don't have a problem with that and, truth to tell, maybe I rather enjoy it. But to just blatantly make love in public for someone else's enjoyment, no I'm not interested."
"Not even a little bit?"
"No, I don't think so. A little erotic exhibitionism is one thing – and, okay, I admit that does turn me on. But deliberately seeking it out. No, that's not me."
"Okay, we'll put you down as undecided on that question. How about sex outdoors?"
"Well, you know I love that, sweetie. Where did you have in mind."
"Well I've told you about this fantasy before and we've actually done it more or less but it still ranks up there with my best."
"Let me guess," you say, taking my hand. "The banks of the Salmon River."
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There is something both very innocent and very sensuous about making love outdoors in broad daylight. Maybe because, on the one hand, it's sort of like little kids discovering each other's bodies on the playground – "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" – and maybe, on the other hand, because it's so liberating to be naked in the sunshine.
Today we've decided to play hokey from work since it is your birthday. It's a warm, clear, bright late morning in mid-July as we pack a light picnic lunch and a bottle of chilled Chardonnay in the cooler, stuff a tartan blanket in a bag and head for the great outdoors.
We are not going far, at least in terms of distance. But a discovery I made while shooting a little movie along the river a few years ago revealed some picturesque locations that feel hundreds of miles from civilization.
Of course there's always the chance we could get caught since if I discovered this place so could others. But my experience has been the spot we're heading to now is secluded and very private despite being almost in the centre of a city. And that's what we want – seclusion and privacy and outdoors and semi-public, if that's not all a ridiculous contradiction. It's really not.
We park the four-by-four on a residential side street and walk about 10 minutes along a pathway near the river. Where the path climbs a hill, however, we take the low road, a narrow weedy trail that leads to a broad grassy field and then down a bank to a small patch of grass surrounded mostly by trees. In front of us is a backwater of the river. And although I filmed in this located for several days the only person I ever saw was a fly fisherman. He's not with us today.
Because it's a warm day we're dressed in summer gear – Bermuda shorts, T-shirts and sandals. You're not wearing a bra (you racy little devil) and I rather doubt you've got underpants on either. Well, neither have I.
We spread the blanket on the grass and I open the wine as you check out our surroundings, just to make sure we haven't wandered into a police trap. But there's no one around but the birds and the bees; in fact we can hardly even hear the sounds of the city around us.
"I would like to take your clothes off," I say as we kiss standing beside the water. "I want to see you absolutely naked and then I want to kiss every inch of your lovely skin."
