Author's Note: This story as a whole hits up several categories, primarily First Time (of course), but also Interracial Love, and Anal (amongst others). Read on if that is to your liking and if you don't mind a slower build.
*****
When my father was 27 years old, he inherited the company his own father founded. They sold baking supplies. My father turned the business from a local enterprise to a regional, and then a national one.
I inherited the company after I turned 24. I sold it when I was 27—I didn't want it to kill me.
My grandfather had his first of three heart attacks at 42. The last one killed him at 51. My father had his first and only heart attack at 47. I expected to live past forty. I hoped to make it to fifty, but I knew I would never see sixty because of congenital heart disease.
I got very lucky with my sale of the company. I developed a line of organic and "green" products, and my CMO and I closed the deal on a huge contract with a major organic foods chain. A year later, I offered them the company.
I walked away with close to $83 million.
My wife and I had no kids, and I didn't need her encouragement to sell and get away from the stress. She wanted a family, but my heart terrified her.
She was a city girl. Even so, when I told her I wanted to get away from urban life, she loved the idea. She helped me pick the land in rural Idaho. She almost single-handedly designed our home.
She left me about two months after we moved in. She was a city kid.
I don't blame her. She had no idea what being so far away from civilization really meant. She was one of those folks who, if they have to get away from the city for any length of time, when they come back and see the skyscrapers, they sigh in relief.
So, she left me and filed for divorce. She knew that I was never going back to the city. She walked away with a lot of money. I don't resent her for it.
I was alone in the foothills of Idaho mountain country, adjacent to an enormous national forest. I made a weekly supply trip to town and a monthly trip to the "big city," McCall—population 3,004. I was 28 years old, rich beyond my grandfather's wildest dreams, and alone in a vast remote wilderness.
I had a couple of people I knew well enough that I could call and one friend—the old fella who was my doctor, Charles. He'd met my wife on my first visit to his office in McCall, and by my second visit, he knew I was getting a divorce. He must have felt bad for me; he invited me to his house to chat. We connected. Soon, I visited him and played cribbage every time I went to the big city. I liked the old guy.
A lot of people might think I hated the loneliness, but I loved it. I learned to hunt, trap, and fish. Outside of the sounds of my house and my machines, I never heard anything but the sound of the wilderness. The lone exception, perhaps, being the occasional airplane crossing over my land at thirty thousand feet. It was definitely lonely, but I found peace in my new skills and in the immersion into nature.
As I said before, my property, about 18 square miles, abutted an enormous swath of federal land. The adjacent property had actually been a Shoshone Reservation a long time ago.
I knew how to read maps, but no one ever bothered to make one accurate enough to show me precisely where my property ended and the government's began. I had a sense of things—if I hit this big creek, then I know I'm on government turf—that sort of thing. But in terms of, hey, the valley between these two hills is the property line—no, I had no such thing.
But, I loved hiking and exploring the terrain, so I took up orienteering—land navigation with a map and compass. I learned terrain association, dead reckoning, and pace counting. I loved it. I loved walking away from my house, going miles and miles—not on trails or roads—and finding my path back with a map and compass. Or, once I got pretty good at it, simply by recognizing terrain features on the map. To hell with GPS.
***
On the first warm spring day of the year, I went for a long hike. I kept my map and compass in my pocket and just went.
I thought about my ex-wife and how she sounded when we made love. Three hours later, lost in thoughts of sex, I stumbled upon a small lake in the foothills. I didn't remember it from any maps I'd studied, and I knew it wasn't on the one I carried.
I walked down to it, and the water on it was perfectly still. It was like those pictures one sometimes sees where the water is a mirror reflection of the tall hills behind it. The sun presided above me. The temperature was around seventy degrees, and I was lonely and horny.
I dropped my backpack. I unbuckled my pants and pulled them down. Smelling the wilderness, hearing birds, looking at the lake and thinking about my ex-wife's body, I started masturbating.
I had never done this before—jerked off in nature. There was something exhibitionist about it a little, but something perfectly natural, too. I grew really hard, really fast.
When I felt the great build-up begin, I walked to a nearby tree. One of its branches extended over the water. I grasped it with one hand and leaned over the clear water.
The build-up was stronger than I expected, and I grunted several times as I peaked. Then, I came into the lake, thinking of my ex-wife and seeing the little floating white globs take shape in the cold water and drift down and away.
I pushed myself from the branch. I laughed, the release was so strong. My hard cock jutted out from me into the spring air when my eyes caught movement.
Two things happened simultaneously: I yanked my pants up and my eyes found the source. I got the briefest of glances before it vanished in the trees.
Watching me from a good 70 yards or so across the little lake, a female form in tan leather rags turned and dashed into the tree line. She moved like a deer; there were energy and strength in her legs. She had incredibly long black hair that sailed behind her like a windsock before vanishing in the brush.
Supremely humiliated, I hastily zipped and buckled up. Then, I picked up my pack and turned for home.
The farther I walked toward home, the more curious it seemed. Upon first seeing her, I almost instantly concluded she was Native American.
But, the land was no longer a reservation.
Did the government let some remain on the land? It seemed possible; it might even make sense. If the native population was small and the land expansive, I could see the government removing the official "reservation" designation while still allowing a group to stay. I must have wandered into their territory.
I decided to check the satellite maps when I got home to find that lake.
Yet, what I had seen still didn't make sense to me, and I quit walking.
This young woman was like some wrecked thing out of the past—centuries ago—like the destitute survivor of some Indian battle. Prosperity was not a word that occurred to me, even given my short glance.
Was that traditional garb? If so, I didn't think it would have won the heart of any young warrior.
Had there been a powwow or something? Wouldn't I have heard something?
Remembering the embarrassment of getting caught, I started walking again.
She was probably back amongst her companions, I concluded, laughing and telling about the white guy jerking off at the pond.
After a half hour, I realized that nothing seemed familiar on my route. Still, I continued, thinking at some point I'd come upon my path.
Another half hour passed, and I stopped, cursing at myself for being a dumbass. Why hadn't I stayed on the fucking map? I half reached for my phone, which, in ten seconds, would tell me exactly where I was, but I stopped.
No phone. I'll go back to the lake.
I turned around and headed back.
Again, nothing seemed familiar—not just unfamiliar to my route home, but also unfamiliar with my route from that damn lake.
Shit.
Plus, I had been doubly stupid by not using my compass either time.
I had no earthly idea where I was. My phone pressed against my leg, and I closed my eyes and thought, No phone. I can do this without any help.
I looked for the biggest nearby hill I could see, and I climbed it to give myself a good view for several miles around me. At the top, I broke out the map and compared it to what I was seeing. I scanned the distant hills, checking against my map. I placed the map on the ground to orient it to the direction I felt like I was facing. Comparing the map to my view on the hilltop, there were some recognizable features.
I broke out my compass and shot an azimuth to a distant hilltop I thought I recognized on the map. I shot another azimuth to a second feature. I knelt down, pulled out my map pen and drew two lines on the map—my back azimuths. They intersected at a point, not surprisingly, on the dirt next to the map.
I had my approximate position, and I was a good four kilometers off my map. I figured out my approximate compass heading to reach home. My estimated distance was about 18 kilometers.
Shit. I checked my watch—2:05pm. I needed to knock out an 11 or so mile hike over rough, wooded, and hilly terrain. I had about four hours until sunset. Actually, I thought, this was quite doable—a challenge, but doable. Even if I didn't quite make it, I'd be close enough to be safe—or at least back on much more familiar terrain.
I folded up my map and put away everything except my compass. I shot my heading and saw a good, recognizable feature, and then I started walking. Every time I reached my new spot, I sighted through my compass, again, to find my next destination, and walked to it.
An hour later, to my surprise and relief, I could see the little lake, again. I skirted past it, not wanting to be seen by the woman or any of her companions.
By 4:00, I felt like I was on familiar ground. When I stopped to shoot my heading, I heard something behind me.
I spun to look and saw nothing. I waited and listened. Nothing. I finished my work and continued.
For the next quarter hour, I kept thinking I heard something or someone behind me.
So, the woman wanted to show her friends the jerk off guy, huh? I thought. Laugh at me some more? I got angry.
An idea occurred to me.
I took out my phone, opened the video app, hit record, and moved on. I held the phone as I walked and recorded the ground for about ten minutes. For the last minute, I ran hard.
I stopped recording. Bent over and breathing heavily, I played the video from the start, turning up the volume as loud as I could. I put the phone in the crook of a tree, the speaker facing where I had come from. I did my best to camouflage it in leaves. Then, I looked for a good hiding spot, shot its heading with my compass, and moved silently towards it.
I faintly heard my recording as I nestled in between a boulder and the trunk of a fallen spruce. I laid on the ground, took out my monocular, and watched through the woods.
For at least five minutes, I didn't see or hear a thing.
I still couldn't see anything when I heard something approach. Whatever it was, it was alone, and it moved with expertise through these woods.
