The Id From Pemaquid

I'm quite sure I'm doing a disservice to the committed field researchers of the Audubon Project Puffin, who've been working hard on a series of terribly boring rocks off the Muscongus Bay coast every summer since 1973 ensuring that puffins don't go extinct. Their efforts are worthy of our notice and, no doubt, they'd be grateful for whatever donations anyone can spare.

Their volunteers are probably not horny all the time, but this is Literotica. So in my version of their station at Eastern Egg Rock, they certainly do spend most of their time pondering sex. Though I've taken care to present their work accurately and respectfully, there's no such place as Edgar's Ledge, and they do not farm each other out to spend nights off the Rock itself.

Kaylen has made several appearances in my stories, most recently in "Summer Internship." This takes place sometime after that story, but both of them stand very much alone. Enjoy!

* * *

"Hey. You ready?"

I stirred, making one more attempt at a ponytail in the whipping summer wind before, sighing, I gave up and just put my hat back on. Next month, I promised myself a fucking haircut. "Fuck," I muttered as a bird shat on my forearm. "Yes. I'm ready."

"Hop in, then." Maggie was always in a hurry, as well she should be: she'd have to row back here in an hour and crash back into this disgusting rock, so she was understandably concerned about the tides. Kenny stood on the shelf with his booted feet in the sea, holding the boat. "Let's do this."

I was off for an overnight by myself, a cherished opportunity for all of us Research Assistants. Our project put us onto this rock for two or three weeks at a stretch, five at a time, and that meant zero privacy. So the trip to the Ledge every week or so was a cherished opportunity to get away and just be alone out here. This was my second schlep out there. "Fucking birdshit," I growled, chucking my pack into the rubber boat.

Maggie chuckled. "Quit bitching. You're going to get even more on the Ledge, you know." She squinted at my pack as I climbed in. "You remember a tarp?"

"Shit. No. I forgot."

"Well, too bad," she shrugged: now that she had my ass in the boat, she was not about to let me go fetch a tarp. "You'll be fine for one night." She ran her eye over the rest of my supplies: extra bird bands, the walkie-talkie, a couple of cans of spray paint, and some rulers. "Hold on," she added, nodding to Kenny, and suddenly we were off, alone on the trackless Atlantic with nothing but Maggie's oars to get us anywhere. The Rock sank from view behind us. In no time at all, all I could see was the top of the shack with the observation tower poking up into the sky.

Alone in a fucking inflatable boat.

Yet again, I questioned why I'd bothered applying for this gig. Sure, it was prestigious: sure, it would lead to that big State internship in the fall, the one that would probably get me another teaching assistant job so that I could continue my Masters. But why here? Why not one of the other facilities, the ones with actual doors and walls and refrigerators and even trees? Hell, Matinicus had a fucking lighthouse to stay in!

And yet here we were. Tenting. Well, Kenny certainly was, anyway: we were over a week into this shift, and he probably hadn't cum since he'd last gone to Edgar's Ledge. Poor bastard was popping boners every time he looked at my tits.

So naturally, being me, I'd taken every opportunity to tease him a bit. Just yesterday, I'd stared deliberately at him as I'd taken off my bra in the little solar shower stall, purposely letting it fall to the outside of the weathered wood. "Shit. Kenny, sorry, but could you come grab my bra?" I'd asked sweetly, and there he'd stood with nothing between him and my nude body but about half an inch of splintery plywood as he handed my bra over the top of the partition. "Thanks, dude."

"Don't mention it," he'd grumbled, staring yearningly at where the lycra ran through his fingers, and I'd just smiled as he'd turned away. Tenting. There were times I wondered whether I should try to fuck him.

But not tonight, I thought to myself with a little surge of excitement. Tonight I'd be alone at last on my own little ledge a mile over the sweeping blue sea, and I planned to grind my fingers so far into my needy cunt that I'd be able to feel them in my liver. I was already tingling as Maggie fought us over the waves, staring hard at the tower on the Rock behind me, then twisting occasionally to make sure we were still headed for the Ledge. She cleared her throat. "Jeremy's not bad."

I gathered my thoughts out of my pussy and tried to focus on my boss. "Yeah. He's okay." I wondered what she meant. Jeremy was a volunteer, still slightly pimply at twenty, out here because his father had donated a chunk of change to the Project. I decided she had to be thinking of his body. "Kinda cute. Nice legs."

"I was talking about how he does with the birds," she snapped, and I had to try hard not to roll my eyes. Dealing with nesting puffins is not hard, even for untrained volunteers. You watch them fly in, figure out what kind of fish they have in their beak, write down which burrow they bring the fish to, and then wait for the next one. Sip some coffee. Head back to your tent after three hours. Hardly rocket science. "I'd like you to teach him how to tag when you get back tomorrow, if you can."

Tag that ass,

I thought to myself, daydreaming about how long his dick probably was. He had that gangly build that made me think he could probably fuck pretty well. "Okay," I shrugged, not even having to yell: the sea was cooperating. Maggie just looked at me a little narrowly. I'd done my best to make sure she thought I was clumsy as fuck, so that she wouldn't ever ask me to row this thing. I leaned out to the side, finally seeing my little Ledge pop into sight. "There it is."

"Yep." Maggie was local, meaning her ability to carry on a pleasant conversation was not one of her strengths. I'd never been to Maine before May, and so far there wasn't much I felt the need to come back for. Certainly not this gig, next summer... unless they assigned me to a better site.

Fucking Professor Ronson's recommendation letter had probably requested the worst site for me. Jealous bitch: Alicia and I had done so much for her last summer, but then I'd gone and fucked her boyfriend. I hadn't meant anything by it, and he hadn't really been much of a lay anyway, but for some reason she'd gotten her knickers in a wad and now? Here I was, stuck in a fucking tent, getting birdshit all over me.

The sea swept us sideways a bit, up a short little wave, and I felt an abrupt clenching in my belly. All around us was the wildness of the deep ocean, with nothing but the shrinking Rock behind us and the growing Ledge ahead, with the low-shadowed bulk of Allen Island way, way off to the east.

I gulped hard.

Edgar's Ledge was a short, savage chisel-tip of rock poking out of the ocean with a wooden tent platform up top amidst a scraggly little clump of grass. The Project had chained a sturdy metal footlocker to an old flagpole down by the landing, full of all the science-y shit I'd be using this afternoon and into tomorrow morning to do the census of the black guillemots. The hard part was telling the boys from the girls, but most of that I could half-ass tomorrow.

Like it really mattered, anyway. Guillemots weren't even endangered.

Maggie swept us around to the slimy little shelf on the south side, her head cranked all the way around now as she pulled hard toward the rock. I crouched up on the edge of the bow, the rubber queasy under my butt, ready to scramble off: landing on these little shards was never easy. The birds eyed me curiously as I grabbed my backpack and got ready to heave it off as far as I could onto the abandoned little pissant bit of rock, but I wasn't worried about those little winged vermin yet: by this time, Maggie had turned us around and was churning me toward my new hangout, her teeth gritted in the wind.

I really, really hoped I wouldn't fall in as I hopped off. If I did, I knew she and the others would be laughing about me all night. I knew, because that's what we'd done on Monday, after Kenny had dunked himself at this same spot.

But? I was not Kenny. The cracked grey rock inched toward me, foam-fringed, and I picked my moment to grunt my pack out of the boat and onto the shore. It landed in a puddle, obviously, but I'd bagged everything inside so it should be fine. Then I was gathering myself, feeling the motion of the sea, adjusting to it the way I adjusted to a man heaving upward as I straddled him, until with a nimble leap I drove myself off the rubber boat and onto the ankle-deep shelf. "Fuck yeah!" I grunted, stumbling up the little slope toward the grass, my smile huge and triumphant as I whirled around to wave at Maggie.

"See you tomorrow!" she shouted, matching my smile as she thrashed the rowboat straight back out onto the water, then around to skim back to Eastern Egg Rock and her dirty coffeemaker in the weathered shack there. She thought of it as home, I knew, which staggered me. Poor bitch would be here almost the entire summer.

The bulky orange life vest uncaged my tits as I released the buckles and drew a deep, salty breath, delighted to be alone at last. I scooped up my pack and started for the platform. Setting up the tent: that was the first step.

I could always masturbate out here in the open, but somehow it would feel weird with the birds shitting on me.

* * *

Nobody had ever bothered building a blind out here on the Ledge, probably because rowing the materials over would be a pain in the ass. Hell, my tent platform was barely fastened down to the rock. It didn't really matter, though, since the birds didn't seem to care about the tent, and you could see the whole place from the platform.

And you didn't come to Edgar's to watch birds, anyway. You came to be alone.

I raced through my initial survey of the guillemots after setting up my solar charger: it was a nice sunny day, and I was hoping to gather enough power that I could charge my phone overnight. I had a bigger charger back on the Egg, but you packed light when you came over to the Ledge.

My earbuds were rolling a steady stream of Adele into my mind as I marked the census diagram, trying (not too hard, I have to say) to sex the three chicks I found in the nesting sites. I did shoo away the gull I found, making note of it: Maggie would hopefully bring the shotgun over tomorrow, because I was pretty sure it was the same fucking gull Kenny had seen earlier. Seagulls got two strikes on this project, and after that you blew them out of the sky.

I sang along as I worked, thinking of my stuff on the platform and dodging the guillemots' little white flavor bombs, scratching the numbers on the census sheet with the grease pencil I'd found in the box by the flagpole. I paused a moment to raise my binoculars and stare across the sea at Egg Rock, making out the faint motions there as my friends moved around, in and out of the blinds. Maggie was in view, still rowing doggedly, now almost all the way back home. I yawned; I'd had the early morning shift in the Southie blind, and now I was contemplating the nap I figured I might just take.

After I came, of course.

I crawled into my tent, the orange rainfly stretching high above. It was already spotted with birdshit, both new and old, and I reflected that Maggie had been right to suggest the tarp. You could always tell a tent that had been out here more than two summers, the urea in the birdshit conspiring with the UV to degrade the fabric. I had the sides wide open, screening the breeze through the mosquito netting, and I settled back onto my air pad and sighed to the screech of the birds.

I peeled my shirt off and arched back in my sports bra while I pushed my jeans down. I loved being nude, as a rule, and you could never do it out here with Kenny and Jeremy hanging around. I also did not need birdshit on my nipples, thank you, but now I lay back and felt the breeze kiss my skin and smiled behind my sunglasses. Nothing around me was human: there was nothing but the guillemots and the mutter of the sea as I let my hands slide through the sweat on my belly, down toward my panties.

You didn't dress sexy out here, that was for sure. When your ability to shower depends on how much rain you can collect, and there are no people around to impress, you go with basic briefs and sports bras, at least when your chest is as big as mine is. I pushed my fingers into my underwear, feeling my skin under the unusually thick bush I'd left down there in preparation for the island's weird sanitation availability.

"Mmm." My eyelids fluttered. Fuck, I loved being teased. Even when I was doing it myself, it was wonderful to know what was coming, but to savor the anticipation, building my own tension. I rested my hand on my mound, pushing on my body, feeling a stab of warmth all through my body before I shucked my panties impatiently. The air pad was hot on my nude ass when I settled back down, my hand still cupping my pubes, my fingertips just barely grazing the hood of my clit.

My head buzzed.

Suddenly a thought drifted into my head, a thrilling one involving Kevin. I'd never found him all that attractive, but when you're camping on an island with just two males, they start looking better and better by the day. He'd been here on this very platform, what, four nights ago? I'd seen his marks in the census book right above mine, and now I was lying on the same tent platform he'd used that night.

Masturbating, just like he had.

He'd been lying here just like me, on his back with his cock in his hand, pulling seriously at it: I was sure of it. Maybe he'd been using his spit to get himself off. Probably he'd been thinking of me. Or Paula, perhaps. Not Maggie. He'd been right here, sighing, naked, just like me, and that's the thought that made me wet my finger along the sides of my lips and then slip it slowly inside, feeling my own heat and wetness, my body sucking me in.

"Ohhh, my god," I moaned, squeezing my eyes shut. I felt my legs kick out in a little spasm that, I'm sure, would have made me laugh if I'd been paying attention. But instead I was lost, two of my fingers sliding knuckle-deep into my sodden cunt with an embarrassing soupy noise. In and out I drove my hand, in well-practiced motions I'd done for years, bringing myself steadily higher and higher up the mountain. And in a few more moments, I'd ease my thumb up under my hood, twiddling my clit, just like Kenny had probably cupped his balls in the instant before he came...

The horn blast sliced through the air, drowning out even the birds.

Startled out of my wits, I sat bolt upright and swiveled my head frantically. I'd never been so confused, my brain suddenly dragged out of its sexual fog even as my pussy still twitched, begging for more from my dripping fingers. I drew myself into a crouch and scanned the sea, wary as a sub captain in World War Two, my thighs still glistening with my juices.

Most days, the Project brought tourists out to take a look at the sites. They circled the Egg Rock, gawking, watching the puffins fly and, occasionally, spotting a whale or two on the trip out. For us, it was just an interesting timestamp in the middle of the identical summer days, and other than that I'd never seen a single boat nearby that didn't belong to the Project.

Well? So much for that streak.

It was an old, patchy lobster boat, the kind that are styled like 1950s comic-strip illustrations, painted a faded shade of red with a tiny white cabin. "What the fuck!" I spluttered to myself, still wearing nothing but my bra, gazing through the tent screens. It wasn't moving much, just drifting about twenty feet from the Ledge. I squinted, looking for whoever had blown the horn, but I'd left the fucking binoculars down near the flagpole.

The boat didn't look like it had any power, wallowing in the swell as I scrambled to pull my panties back up. I could see someone now, a guy with his shirt off, climbing out of the cabin and around to the bow with the easy grace of a monkey in a tree, moving fast. I was still worming into my jeans, staring wide-eyed as he threw a square hatch open and flung an anchor over the side, staring hard into the water as if to make sure it would catch.

Already keyed up, I was now beside myself. Nothing like this had ever happened, as far as I knew. The orientation in May hadn't come close to covering what to do when someone arbitrarily anchored right next to Edgar's Ledge, and here I was panting as I struggled with my jeans, my tent bobbing all around me in the ripply breeze. Out on the water, the guy squatted motionless on his bow, studying the anchor chain where it stretched into the water, paying no attention to what I was doing.

And thank God for that!

I burst from my tent and stepped into my Vans, then bounded down the little rocky shelf toward the flagpole to grab my binoculars. He was nowhere near the little sloping shelf where we hopped out of the rowboat, and I'd never really gotten close to the water at any other point; this was only my second time here. Panting, I snatched the glasses from on top of the storage box and leaned against the rusty flagpole, peering out toward the lobster boat.

The guy was young, I could see now as the lenses brought him sharply closer in that cartoony two-dimensional way they had. He kept squatting, swaying with the motion of the boat, staring down into the water with his chest on his knees. His hair was long-ish in that Maine way I'd seen on hockey players and other assorted jocks, and underneath that puff of hair his tanned back shone in the sun. He nodded to himself, then took his shades off carefully and placed them on the roof of the cabin.

And then, abruptly, he straightened up, glanced at the Ledge, and curved cleanly into the water in a beautiful dive that sucked him into the sea with barely a splash.

"What the fuck?" I breathed to myself, lowering the binoculars. Unable to think of anything else to do, I stepped up to the top of the metal storage chest and held onto the pole, shading my eyes from the high summer sun as I scanned the water beside his boat. The whole thing almost seemed like a dream, like I'd fallen asleep in mid-cum, except that the old boat was still swinging calmly in the little swells when I glanced over toward it. I was staring hard at the water, wondering where the guy had gone, when suddenly he surfaced in a shatter of crystal water.

He swam well, with a grace and power that I knew I'd never be able to manage, his arms milling the sea as he drove with steady strokes toward the little overhang on the far side of the Ledge. I hopped down off the box and moved that way, striding as fast as I could while I shouted breathlessly out at the kid. "Hey! Watch out!" I called, waving my arms. "Nobody comes ashore there!"

He pulled himself another two or three more strokes and then cruised to a stop, treading water about five feet off the rock. He tossed the water out of his hair, and then shaded his eyes with a dripping hand as he smiled up at me. "Why not?" His voice had that lazy down-east lilt to it, like an actor doing a bad Boston accent. "Is this some secret fucking government island, or something?"

I stepped to the very edge of the rock and leaned out, my hands on my knees. "No," I replied, though it sort of was; the State owned all the Project's sites, but they were hardly secret. "It's just, like, that's not where we usually come ashore."

"Yeah?" I could see his legs kicking under the water, keeping him afloat even with one hand still at his forehead. He wasn't winded at all, despite his fast swim. "Well, I think I might just go ahead and climb out right here, anyway." He eased closer, eyeing the swell, staring hard at the rock. "Yeah," he nodded finally, flashing a white-toothed grin up to where I leaned over, "this'll do."