It had taken me nearly three days of sleeping and eating fresh food to get the feel of the desert out of my system and off my skin. Now I was heading for the open moors of the Northern Counties. I had been debriefed by my unit and I had, in my turn, debriefed a couple of the divorced ladies of the town to ease an itch that sleep and good food couldn't ease.
Money was no problem. I hadn't been anywhere that I could spend any for eight months and that had been my third similar tour in three years. I could live like a prince during my leave, but I had other plans. It was mid-September and I had twenty eight days of leave in which to re-acquaint myself with my home environment and I wasn't wasting a moment of that time.
I was having a hiking and camping holiday such as those I used have as a youth, which was why I was now carefully picking my way alongside a river which was rapidly rising because of the storm and cloudburst conditions that had begun two hours earlier.
This had not been mentioned when I'd checked the weather reports for this area prior to setting out this morning.
I'd spent years hiking and camping around this area as a teenager so I was now hurriedly making my way to a cave which I knew would provide shelter from any storm conditions.
There is a rock wall blocking this valley with a waterfall down the face and a steep, slippery, pathway to the top of the cliff, which in places was actually an almost vertical climb. I found a soaked and shivering woman at the foot of the climb.
"What happened?"
"I slipped and went under the waterfall."
This was no place or time for introductions. I hoisted her to her feet, shoved her up the path and started up the climb which meant that, at times, my head was firmly wedged between her thighs and against her soft underside.
In other circumstances we both might have enjoyed this, but she needed to get dry and warm before hypothermia set in. I was already carrying a large backpack of my own and the one she had was not much smaller so, even though she was small and light, I had a struggle to get us to the top before my strength went.
Once at the top she tried to lie down, but I dragged her across the heather to a large rock, behind which was a narrow ledge. This lead to a cave which was as weather proof as any cave I'd ever seen. The entrance was a narrow slot which was the start of a sinuous passage, five metres long and sloping upwards.
She obviously knew about the cave because she eased her way along the ledge without hesitation.
Before I did the same I took a LED light from my pack, switched it on, and then entered to begin the task of getting her warm and dry before she became a medical problem.
I opened my pack, pulled a tube from the centre of my pack which was in fact a sleeping bag wrapped in a ground sheet which I spread on the floor. Pulling a towel out for her, I told her get her boots off before standing on the ground sheet, and then take the rest of her clothes off.
"What?"
"Get your kit off and start drying yourself while I sort some warm stuff for you to put on. I take it all your gear is soaked?"
"Some stuff is in plastic 'Ziploc' bags but nothing warm. Even so, I'm not stripping in here with you around."
I did my imitation of a conjurer and pulled out a large mug and a self-heating tin of broth. I pulled the tab on the tin and a minute later poured the hot broth into the mug and turned to give it to her.
"Get that inside you and get your clothes off or I'll do it for you. I'm not after your body; I just don't fancy having to get you to a hospital if you don't do it now. You're shivering and shaking, soon you'll turn blue and it won't suit you, so be sensible."
As I spoke I began to strip my own wet outer clothing off so that I could get dry and into something warm.
"Turn round; I'm not stripping with you staring at me."
"I said be sensible, I'm also wet and cold and in no mood to prat around with your modesty issues."
"It's not modesty; I'm embarrassed because I've never undressed in front of a man."
"Well I suggest you use this opportunity to get that problem out of the way because the outcome will be nothing like what will happen when you do it in more normal circumstances. I'm not standing here with baited breath, but I am getting colder and angrier, so move it."
She turned away from me and started removing her clothing as I found some stuff for her to wear. She had a towel so now I found a warm shirt, a sweater, and some thick socks for her. I told her to take them and as she turned to reach for them she revealed two things.
The first was that although she wasn't flat chested; she possessed lovely nipples, pink and erect, but on top of small breasts. I was surprised at how erotic that was.
The second thing she revealed was that, despite her never having undressed in front of a man before, she was extremely interested in what I looked like in the genital department. I know this because she never took her eyes of that area of my body.
I do admit to carrying out a quick inspection of her body. She was slim, and despite her small breasts she was very definitely female. Her waist, hips, thighs and buttocks were all any man could wish to see.
Once she'd donned my offerings, she opened her soaking rucksack and pulled out a plastic bag which held her underwear and was, naturally enough, a lot happier. Unfortunately she was still without dry trousers and I provided my spare trousers, which were far too large, but at least they covered the areas that were making me sweat. .
I gave her a LED lamp of her own, showed her to the 'liquids only' toilet hole, at the rear of the cave. When she returned, I told her to get in the sleeping bag, which she did. Her mood rapidly changed when I slid in beside her and zipped the bag closed. It took some force to stop her struggling so that I could explain that she needed warmth and I was the only source of that.
She was shivering violently and finally allowed me to hold her tightly, from behind, so that she got some warmth from my body. Then we drifted off to sleep.
I do believe that if there had been any room for manoeuvre in the bag, I would have been pulped. I awoke to the experience of being battered in the face from the pounding that the back of her head was giving it. She was struggling to turn, but was unable to do so and had resorted to yelling at me to 'get my filthy paws off her'.
That was when I realized that my hands had taken up the position that any man's hands would take up if he was holding a woman, from behind, in bed. I had not gone beneath any clothing, I had not in fact, touched any flesh, but my hands were over her chest and she'd panicked.
It took time to calm her and get her to realize that I had been asleep and had not attempted to grope her. She ceased struggling, but asked me to open the sleeping bag as she needed to get up. I did as she asked, but as she struggled to a sitting position her hands went onto my groin which at that moment was sporting a 'stiffy'.
She probably had no idea that this was caused because I also needed to use the 'facility', no matter how basic it was. I tried to move myself to lessen the contact, but she'd already grasped the situation, and I think she enjoyed it, I know I did.
She gasped, but instead of leaping up, she hung on.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"That depends on what you think it is. It is me, but it is caused by a need to pass water so please let go of it and hurry up with your toilet so that I can revert to a more relaxed mode."
We spent the next hour packing everything away and exiting the cave to find that although the rain had long since stopped, there was still a wind to contend with.
As we hiked across the moor I found that she had been intending to go into the next village and put up there for the night, but the storm had progressed so quickly she knew she'd never make it. Instead she'd headed for the cave which she knew of but had never been to, which is where I came in.
"My name is Lisa; I'm a computer systems security analyst. I'm from Bristol, and if you make any joke about that then I shall hit you and hate you. Where are we going? I need to eat and bathe and dry my kit out."
"We're going to the village you were heading for, there's a café there that does all day breakfasts and then we're going a little further to a hiker's base camp-site which is run by a...friend, and at this time of the year she'll have vacancies.
You'll have a bed, a bathroom and access to laundry facilities. I'm Max; I was born and raised in the village we're going to. My family used to farm around here, but dad had had enough and mother wanted sun and sea so they sold up and now live in Spain."
"I'm sorry for being so rude and thankless last night. I've never experienced being spoken to so forthrightly before, and you were doing your best to help me. I'm not going to apologise for this morning though, you were stroking me."
"For that, I apologise. Even though I was unaware of my action I realize that it can't have been pleasant knowing that you were trapped with a sex crazed monster and couldn't escape his clutches."
