The Wilderness 4

(NOTE TO READER: This is not a 'quick-relief' story. Instead, the slow build examines the eroticism of both the body and the mind, exploring the complicated relationships between average people and their sexual desires. It contains themes of extra-marital relationships and multiple partners, with the character's personal reflections on the ecstasy and consequences of their actions. All participants are consenting adults.)

CHAPTER 1 - Prologue

Stepping out through the glass doors of the airport, I wince and squint my eyes, blasted by a wall of heat, dust, and noise. Deafening noise.

Blinded, I grasp my daughter's small hand even tighter as my eyes slowly adjust to the painfully bright sun. Coming into focus is a sea of people and vehicles. In front of me my infant son is being carried by his father, confidently clearing a path through the chaos.

"I can see them coming. Trying to work their way through the traffic queue. It'll just be a few more moments", says he. "Are you OK?". To which I smile wanly at him.

We stand waiting while I nervously try to protect my daughter from being jostled by the river of humanity flowing around us. Looking back, I confirm that our dearest friend in the world, is still right behind me, shielding us from innocent, and not so innocent, strangers. The tiredness and worry must be clear on my face. His reassuring smile and excited eyes comfort me, as I quickly glance down to confirm my purse is still slung against the front of my body. It contains all the legal paperwork that will define my new life.

Despite the exhaustion and stress of our journey, I am OK. Very OK.

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives!

This is the story about how I gave up everything I thought was important to me, to find myself. What I'm about to tell you started almost two years ago. Saying it now, it feels like a different lifetime, but I guess that's the point. That was a different life!

Initially, after what I came to understand as my 'awaking', I was so embarrassed and ashamed. What I did rocked the very foundations of what I believed about myself and my world. But, as time has passed, I've come to look back on those three weeks with fresh eyes, a better understanding of myself and a new view on my life. Writing it down initially helped me see facts through the fog of confusion and denial. Now I share it in the hopes it will help others understand why I've done what I've done.

No matter. It's behind me now.

CHAPTER 2

My name is Taylor. Two years ago, I was 32 and living with my husband, Paul, in a mid-sized city in the American Midwest. We'd been married almost ten years. Unfortunately, despite a couple pregnancies, I'd lost both to miscarriages in the first trimester.

Working as a nurse in an OB/GYN and Maternity medical practice, I had access to experts in the field. After extensive testing, it was determined that the problem wasn't me. Instead, Paul's sperm had a genetic deficiency that made pregnancy to full term unlikely or risked serious birth defects in a complicated full-term baby.

We were both shocked. Paul especially found this personally difficult, as he felt it called into question his already very traditional views of manhood, family, and children. He was deeply humiliated and angry, making it impossible to raise difficult questions about our options. A sperm donor, artificial insemination, or surrogate were all out of the question, and it seemed my dream of children and a family were lost forever.

When Paul and I met, I knew his religious convictions were much deeper than my own. Paul came from a very conservative, rural part of the country, and while not "in your face" about his beliefs, he held strong opinions about traditional roles in the family and society.

I, on the other hand, came from a very secular background. My parents divorced when I was nine and a string of stepdads came and went in my life. While they were all very nice and loving to me, they were not my real father, of whom I saw less and less of over the years.

At first, I appreciated the different worldview that Paul brought to my life, feeling his personal code of conduct bode well for a long-term relationship. When we first started dating, my friends were surprised. Paul and I came from completely different backgrounds.

When we decided to get married, my friends and family were now shocked. At the time, I believed this was more than just Opposites Attract and that I wasn't making an impetuous decision. I believed it was 'Love', despite its many imperfections.

In retrospect I knew I was coming off a string of serious, but failed, relationships. Nothing abusive or dangerous. Just dreams shattered when it was clear we wanted different things. Either I wasn't ready to give, physically and emotionally, what was being asked of me, or vice versa. After that I convinced myself that my romantic girlish dreams were just that. Dreams. Life didn't actually work that way.

Yes, Paul was VERY different, but I liked those differences and found stability in them. Maybe I was the one with the flawed world view?

Imagine my surprise, and then frustration, when after almost a year of dating, Paul still refused to have sex before marriage. Sure, we fooled around a bit, but when it became clear that our relationship was long term, I was ready..... in fact anxious..... to take it to the next level. While neither of us were very experienced sexually, nor were we virgins.

As college students our budget allowed for very few 'in town' luxuries. Since the outdoors and Mother Nature was mostly free, we would often go hiking and camping. Paul had grown up back-country hunting, while one of my mom's long-term boyfriends had been a professional river rafting guide, so I spent many summers boating and camping for weeks on end. Based on this extensive experience, camping was a place where Paul begrudgingly admitted I was his equal, even if our styles clashed a bit. Hunter versus Hippy.

And yet, even in the privacy of our secluded campsite many miles from anyone, Paul resisted anything more than some cuddling and mutual caressing. While we'd be able to satisfy each other manually, I made clear that I loved him and I was ready for a more intimate connection. But he explained that it was his very love for me that forced him to respect me and our relationship, as he saw it through his faith.

I admit to disappointment, but eventually came to appreciate this level of devotion that I'd never experienced with other guys. How many women can claim to have a man in their life who is willing to make those types of personal sacrifices based on principal alone? So, while I found it frustrating at times, my sense of worth and security was something I'd never felt before in a relationship. It was hard at times, but I would wait for this man.

Nonetheless, I'm ashamed to admit that I sometimes looked back wistfully at my mother's string of boyfriends over the years, envying her healthy and active sex life. At that time, as a teenager, it seemed gross. Now, as an adult woman, I envied the normality of it.

Eventually Paul and I married and our first night together as Husband and Wife was a physical and emotional explosion of joy. We enjoyed a few months of newlywed bliss and frequent, if traditional, love making. I felt happy and satisfied, even if missionary position in the dark was getting a little old. But, as the fever cooled, it was clear my husband struggled with his views on even married sex. While we both wanted children, I wanted a few years of adventurous carnal fun beforehand and a career, while Paul became increasingly vocal about sex being for the purpose, albeit pleasurable, of creating children.

And so, after a couple years of trying, the sudden string of failed pregnancies created a painful rift between us. I desperately loved my husband and wanted to bear his children. I respected his feelings about faith and family, and genuinely did not resent him for his genetic problem. But I was deeply hurt when he seemed more preoccupied by how his sterility made him look to his family and friends, over our marriage and my desire to create a family of our own, even if not in the way we'd originally expected. I became increasingly resentful at excuses of 'God's Will' and Paul's intransigence blocking any discussion on the matter.

Over this time our sex life dried up to infrequent and uncomfortable encounters. This led to further marital tensions as, despite Paul's assurances to the contrary, I felt ugly, undesirable and a failure as a woman. In moments of anguish and fear, I wept in secret wondering why my husband never wanted to touch me? The depression swept me up into a year of tears and a fuzzy emotional haze.

I didn't understand. Physically, I'd been blessed with a figure that women envied and men desired. As a teenager, I once overheard my mom chatting with her friends about me, saying I was growing up to be a Sex and Baby Making Machine, to my great embarrassment and horror.

I was mortified. But looking into the mirror I realized that my rounded hips and butt, embarrassingly large breasts, long legs, luxurious auburn hair and pretty 'pixie fairy' face, were a plausible explanation for the sudden interest from the boys in my class. About this time, I also learned what power my new physical presence could have.

Once, while attending my first high-school dance, I wore an 'adult' dress and high heels for the first time. I was very self-conscious at how form fitting the dress was on me. My butt and flat tummy tightly encased in purple taffeta, the tops of my breasts visibly bulging over the neckline, my legs looking even longer through a daring slit up to mid-thigh. My mom helped me with my hair and makeup, after which I didn't recognize myself in the mirror as she glowed with pride beside me.

I vividly remember walking into the decorated school gymnasium, where all conversation stopped and everyone's gaze turned my way, only the music throbbing in the background. All my friends were gushing with barely disguised envy, and the boys.... well the boys were speechless. For the first time I my life, I was the center of all the attention.

Confused and intrigued, I came to resent that my looks became the dominant factor in my relationships with people. No one seemed to care about what kind of person I was inside or what I thought. Just how "hot" I was on the outside.

In time this made me increasingly annoyed, until one day I met someone who was to become my first real boyfriend. Mike was gorgeous! His eyes, his smile, broad shoulders, cute butt.....and eventually, touching his erect penis..... had me mesmerized, feeling a fire in my stomach and weak in the knees such that I could barely stand. Looking back, he wasn't a very nice or interesting guy. We didn't have much in common, but he was stunning, and I reveled in the envy of my friends and status that dating the school hunk gave me.

Around this time my mother started to openly talk to me about love and sex. It wasn't the embarrassing one-time 'Talk' that my friends reported with their mothers. Instead, my mom started to engage in normal conversations, injecting surprisingly candid and detailed explanations about biology and womanhood into everyday topics. For me 'The Talk' turned into a yearlong conversation, woman to woman. To this day, I thank and admire her for approaching it that way. She also took me to a doctor early in my puberty, to learn about my body, how it worked and how to protect myself. She didn't start me on the pill, nor was there pressure or permission to become promiscuous, but at least I would have accurate information about my options for whenever that time came. She made clear those decisions should, and would, be mine alone to make.

Moreover, seeing....and hearing through her bedroom door ...... the open and mutually respectful relationships my mother had with her boyfriends, I understood that sex, in a loving and committed environment, could be a wonderful and pleasurable thing for both the man and the women. A foundational component of a strong relationship.

My mother died from ovarian cancer a couple months after Paul and I were married. I miss her every day.

It was from this background that I entered my marriage with Paul. The inability for Paul and I to have children was not my fault. And yet, I felt to be the one blamed, and hopeless that there were no options.

After another year of depression and marital tension, I left nursing. My mental healing wasn't improving being around happy expectant mothers and newborn babies all day long. But I still loved children, and so I went back to college to get my teaching degree.

A year later, I'd found a way to satisfy my personal need to nurture and help raise children by working at an elementary school. While a small piece of my soul remained wounded, I felt some peace and fulfillment for the first time in years.

I know that Paul also struggled and, to his credit, eventually realized the impact his actions were having on our marriage. One night, while watching the news during dinner, he casually mentioned something about maybe adopting one of the children orphaned during a war raging half-way around the world. It's what Jesus would do.

I was so shocked I had to ask him to repeat himself. He did, reaffirming what I thought I had heard. Screaming, I wept with joy and lunged across the kitchen table at him, knocking our dinner onto the floor and collapsing the table under us, much to his surprised terror. We made the most passionate love in years on that spot, and I was overjoyed the next morning to learn he was still serious about the proposition. The following week we contacted an agency and so began our 18-month odyssey along the international adoption road.

Anticipating a new child, we reevaluated our housing situation, neighborhood, and potential schools. As fate would have it, I'd been offered a position teaching at a Ritzy private girl's school in a very affluent area in our city. While the salary wasn't a great improvement, they did provide free tuition to children of staff as well as a housing supplement, since employment required residency in the school district, but few of the teachers could afford to buy a house on that side of town.

With a few lucky breaks, we found ourselves new homeowners in a dreamlike suburb, a block away from a large park and nature preserve. Two days after moving in, we got a call that we'd been approved to adopt a beautiful and healthy little girl who was 2 years old at the time. Government bureaucracy and international visas would take another 4-5 months, but we should plan to receive our daughter in the fall!

My heart burst seeing how happy Paul was at this news. Our life was finally on the right track! While most of our underlying issues remained, we were confident that this new focus would only enrichen our relationship and make our other problems irrelevant.

It was then that fate led to events which would change my life forever.

CHAPTER 3

As summer approached and the End-of-Term only weeks away, I was contacted by the School Board president about an urgent problem they had.

In the school's 80-year history, every summer a group of students, parents and staff took a three-week canoe trip deep into the remote Northern lakes of Minnesota. This traditional 'coming of age' experience was reserved for the highest performing senior students, many of whom went on to become the school's most successful graduates.

Not just a giggly girl's camping trip, this event incorporated aspects of personal development, survival, sisterhood, and self-reliance. A sorority of sorts for high achievers, forming personal and professional relationships what would last a lifetime. Organized and funded by the school's Parents Association, as it was a sanctioned school event it required at least one member of the school staff to attend for liability and insurance reasons.

As fate would have it, while there was usually a waiting list of volunteer parents to chaperone (mostly mothers who were school alumni themselves), this year an accident, a sudden job relocation, and an illness, meant the designated trip doctor, camp cook and school 'representative' were all unable to attend. For the first time in its history, this year's trip was at serious risk of being canceled.

Word had gotten around that I had extensive camping experience (and presumably could cook in the wilderness) and was still a Registered Nurse and certified Wilderness Paramedic. Being a member of staff was the icing on the cake, as I ticked all three boxes. Would I be willing to go?

While I didn't relish being away from home during this critical period of readying our home for our new daughter, we couldn't ignore the money, having been able to negotiate a sizable fee normally paid for these three positions. This windfall would come in handy with all the expenses we had, and would continue to incur, because of the adoption. In two weeks, I was leaving on a canoe trip!

I should have known what was to come when two nights later I pulled my rusting ten-year-old Japanese car into a parking lot full of new gleaming luxury vehicles, to attend the next-to-last trip planning meeting at the high school. My fears were confirmed as I entered a conference room packed with women adorned in designer outfits and shoes that cost more than my monthly salary. Hushed suspicion followed me as I approached the only person I recognized, the Vice Principal. She welcomed me with forced and loud adulation, announcing to those assembled that the person who was "saving the trip" had arrived. Despite my heroic status, it was clear I was a stranger amongst the assembled elite of our community.

As my role was to be maid, cook, and "just in case" medical staff (no acknowledgement of my being a teacher of their children), I was largely an afterthought of their servant class. I sat politely through the three-hour meeting, not finding a single topic on the agenda relevant to my duties. As the meeting ended, I hitched up my courage to interrupt and ask for details on my role and responsibilities, where I was curtly referred to the outfitting company who was handling trip logistics and supplies. I drove home that night hesitant and not a little offended.

The next day I called the owner of the outfitting company to introduce myself. Clearly an elderly man, Dave Thompson exuded such warmth and friendliness over the phone that I was immediately at ease as he reassured me my decision wasn't the disaster-in-the-making that I had begun to fear. Without realizing it, our easy conversation had lasted over an hour.

He expressed great pleasure and relief when he'd learned of my last-minute addition to the team but explained that he had already set into place a Plan B, just in case. He'd lined up his grandson, who was a wilderness EMT and had been raised leading canoe trips such as this. Additionally, a friend of his was coming along, who was prepared to act as "cook" and general helper. Both boys were in their final year of school and looking forward to their last summer of fun, before the 'real world' and careers loomed on the horizon. It was suggested that I come up to the basecamp a couple days before the school group, to get acquainted and run through the plan.

So, over the next ten days, I packed.....and then repacked.....and then repacked again, finding myself quickly getting back into the mindset of an extended camping trip. Typically, the huge pile of stuff I started with, covering just about every travel and weather possibility, got slashed by 75% down to one medium water-proof duffle bag and a small personal backpack. Having been on many rafting trips in my youth, I knew you ended up living in a couple bathing suits, sandals, wide-brimmed hats, woolly socks, a sweatshirt and yoga pants for cool evenings, and a set of rain gear. Along with toothbrush, toothpaste, sunscreen and razor, a hairbrush and bottle of shampoo were some of the few "girly" luxuries I would bring. Normal fashion and grooming standards didn't apply out in the great outdoors. In the end, all of us would emerge from the woods, hopefully healthy and happy, but looking and smelling like something the dog dragged in.