Hello everyone! Thanks for choosing my story. As you can see, this is the third entry in Will and Tomoko's story, and although you'll be able to follow the story just fine without reading the others, if you're interested in the characters or you want more context for their relationship, you might enjoy reading the stories in order.
As always, any feedback is VERY welcome. Help my next piece be even sexier! Enjoy!
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The temperate rainforest of North America is, with the right kind of eyes, a forest of high drama. Stretching from approximately Central Oregon at the southern edge to Juneau, Alaska on the northern edge, the woods here have an ancient, primeval feeling. Hidden below the almost painfully beautiful forest is a land carved by forces both natural and man-made. Glacial errata - gigantic boulders, larger than a semi-truck, deposited by ancient glaciers before the trees took root - sit under a canopy that almost blocks out the sun. Broad, gnarled trunks rise into giant trees that may be hundreds or even thousands of years old. Winter sinks its fingers into the land for eight months out of the year, and the forest is dark, foggy, claustrophobic, and pulsating with a primal energy. We are only visitors in the deep woods, here.
Where the forests meet the sea, dramatic cliffs dominate one's field of vision - if a traveler can brave the icy temperatures. Just inland, steep hills rise before giving way to even more foreboding rocky peaks. Rank upon rank of trees - sitka spruce, douglas fir, western hemlock, red cedar, and more - seem to stoically face to the west, standing at attention to heed the twilight.
Should we begin to zoom in, we find surrounded by these endless forests a handful of cities - Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, and finally Juneau. These cities, once home to the roughest of men and the whores that both served and swindled them, have in modern times evolved into nests of wealth and futuristic technologies.
Our heroes, however, were drawn here from the much more humdrum Midwestern United States to be a part of what would be the last gasp of the Seattle's famous grit and grime. They found a city in conflict with itself - the artists, the writers, the poets, the wild children of the world, were all being slowly pushed out by the puppet-masters of the algorithm. We handed them their lunch and gave them their bill at restaurants we could never afford. We landscaped yards in neighborhoods that would not have us. We stayed in our bike lane, but were still cursed by arrogant voices from expensive imported cars. We watched as our beloved haunts, places of art and community and acceptance, were bought, torn down, and turned into soulless condominiums and predictable chain restaurants.
Their banal, copy-and-paste neighborhoods grew as our unique, one-of-a-kind communities broke under the strain. Zooming in further still, one could have found a certain young man struggling under contradictions and unacknowledged truths of his own. He had found a great love, but one that was doomed to die, and in no uncertain terms - a fact he had known from the start. As his place in the city faded, so too did the time he had left with his beloved. So too, did any reason he have to stay in his adopted home. But, although the writing was etched into every wall he passed, he remained blind to it by some flaw of character. Chiefly, his own stubbornness.
But the back pages of the story he and his love wrote together were to be the finest of them, as if the knowledge that none of this could last made each moment that much sweeter. And so, with the scene now properly set, let us introduce our protagonists.
Tomoko, twenty-five years old, and the child of an Irish-American traveler and a Japanese rebel, was of medium height, slender build, with Japanese eyes and Irish freckles. She was passionately in love with the world, and passionately in love with your humble narrator, yours truly. My name is Will. At the time, I was thirty, brown-haired and blue eyed, just a bit taller than Tomoko, and just as skinny. And I had never loved anyone - up until then, at least - as fully and as unconditionally as I loved Tomoko. I was determined that the last chapter of our romance be unforgettable, worthy of the woman. So, to that end...Won't you please get on the bus with me.
* * *
"Oh, man, what the fuck. It can not be time already," I croaked out in a pre-dawn voice as I swiped away the alarm on my phone. "All I can say is this had better be worth it."
"This was your idea, you big lug. Stiff upper lip. We ride at dawn," Tomoko said in a beleaguered tone. I have never, and will never, be a morning person. "Check the important stuff." She instructed me. I knew exactly what she meant. Two packs of cigarettes. Three-ish grams of fine, Northwestern cannabis. A bottle of whiskey - Evan Williams, to be precise, the best of the bottom shelf. There were also the two tickets for the Bolt Bus, our extra clothes, a blanket, and a few basic tools in case we had bicycle problems. It seemed we'd be prepared for anything. I grunted that it was all there.
Coffee and breakfast were quick and simple, preceded with weed and followed with a cigarette. It was just about six o'clock in the morning. Over-sized backpacks strapped on, we hopped on our bicycles - both fixed gear, red for Tomoko, blue for me - and cranked our way downtown through a light drizzle and unforgiving morning commuters.
The "Bolt Bus" was set to depart from downtown Seattle at seven o'clock sharp, and we were suitably early. Better safe than sorry. It was a three-hour trip south to Portland, Oregon, a city which both of us had heard about endlessly but had never visited. "It's like Seattle without all the Amazon employees" was the standard description among Seattle's greatest and grimiest youths, and this actually sounded fairly compelling to us at the time. We had finally made time to go give it a spin, and we planned to really make the most of it - as our packing itinerary might have given away.
We stowed our bicycles in the luggage compartment on the half-full bus before a punctual departure. Both of us immediately curled up under the blanket we'd brought, wrapped ourselves around each other, and drifted peacefully to sleep.
My next memory was waking to see a sign informing us that we were passing the exits to Centralia, Washington, roughly two-thirds of the way to our destination. As I stirred, Tomoko awoke as well, bleary-eyed but smiling. She was always smiling. Her smile was a beautiful, full-face smile. Her mouth, her nose, and her eyes all played their part. I never tired of seeing it.
"Are we there yet?" she joked.
"Maybe another hour."
"Oh... well... I'm going to try to sleep again." I didn't answer. I held the beautiful little creature in my arms, feeling very much in love, but perhaps a little bored with the endless grey sky and highway scenery. I began to move my hands around Tomoko's body, "seeing with my hands" as she called it. I've always been quite tactile, I suppose. My hand traced up and down her back. She wasn't wearing a bra - she rarely did, in fact. How daring was I feeling? Well, perhaps... I mean, we were on vacation, technically, after all...
I slid my hands around to her front, and just inside her shirt. My hands were on her belly now. She didn't move a muscle. I was cautious. The seat in front of me was unoccupied, but what about beside us? I turned my head. No, nobody there either. And behind? There was no one there, either. Ok, I told myself. Shoot your shot. And I began to let my hands creep slowly upwards. Tomoko made no reaction. Slowly, softly, subtly, I planted a kiss on the back of her neck. I heard a her voice, faintly more than an exhale, but the voice of someone who was feeling just as in love as I was. I let my hands creep a little higher. Tomoko adjusted her position slightly so that, to my delight, it might be easier to cup her breasts.
The tops of my hands could feel the soft flesh of her tits now. I kissed her neck again. Tomoko arched her back slightly, and I gently caressed her chest and began to play with her nipples. She put her hands on top of mine. She whispered softly. "You're a bad boy, Will..." I took this as a full endorsement of my dishonorable intentions. I planted several more tender kisses on her neck, still stroking her breasts. Her hands moved away from her chest, and slid down to undo her jeans under the blanket. My hands followed hers and felt the elastic of her underwear. I took my time. It was early in the day. I ran my fingers over her pussy, over her underwear, not putting myself inside of her yet. She moved slowly, chasing my hand with her groin. "Baby..." she whispered. "Please..."
I'm not a hard-hearted man. I could only force her to hold out for so long. I slid my hand underneath her underwear and felt the soft hair above her pussy. I moved more slowly still, and kept one hand on her chest. Slowly, ever so slowly, and ever so gently, I put one finger between her pussy lips. She inhaled sharply. Very deliberately, I slid the finger inside of her. She was very wet, like always, and offered no resistance whatsoever. She let out a soft moan, drowned out by the noise of the bus. I moved my finger inside of her. She began to move in return, slow, rhythmic movements, thrusting subtly to press against my hand. I pressed my finger a little deeper.
