The Maine Event

(The people and events in this story are fiction. It contains graphic descriptions of non-consensual sex that may not be to all readers' tastes.)

We're driving north on I-95. Smog hangs low over the Big Apple in the rearview mirror. Our rented SUV still has that new car smell. I'm looking forward to clean air.

She's humming to herself in the passenger seat. Smiling.

On the roof, her friend's canoe. Light, sleek, not quite new: scratches on the bottom when we loaded it speak of rocky northern rivers. A pair-and-a-spare of aluminum paddles lashed to the thwarts, their plastic blades chipped with use. The rope she used to lash the canoe is thrumming as we speed up, traffic thinning.

She's haloed in the light of the rising sun, every wisp of her long dark hair outlined in old gold. We left before dawn, determined to beat the weekend traffic out of the city. I took a cab to her place. She had the rental overnight in a friend's parking spot, a rare commodity in New York. She was all smiles, bouncy in all the right places, threw her arms around my neck and reached up for a kiss, her supreme confidence dispelling any possible misgivings about our planned adventure.

By Greenwich we're ahead of the worst traffic. The tires hum at 65, and the canoe makes an eerie whistling. I start to relax.

+++

I'm half dozing as the sun comes up. Too little sleep; like that's something new. He's an okay driver. Tense but careful. Likes to be in control. Fair enough. I'm gonna do everything I can so we have a great time.

I smile to myself. We saw each other online. Clicked. Met for coffee: some attraction. At least he wasn't in his fifties, like so many "thirtysomethings" I've met. Creepy, that, which is why I vet dates in coffee shops now. It can be hard to ditch a boozed-up bozo in a city where a single girl still seems to have a target between her shoulder blades. Whatever happened to the hundred years of feminism I read and wrote about in gender studies classes, anyway?

It was midsummer and the patio was smoggy but he seemed sincere, if nerdy. Tall(ish). Glasses. Hipster stubble, but I forgave him that. Innocent. Too honest, maybe.

He passed the vetting over coffee, got to dating. Nothing more than light petting, though. Busy. Both of us, too damn busy. A couple of Friday nights, a few drinks. A brush of the lips before we whisked away in separate cabs. He works in marketing, apparently. I write code for a firm that may or may not have government contracts; don't ask, don't tell. Neither of us nine-to-five. Weekends? What the hell are they?

+++

Rest stop past Greenwich. She wants a pee break; I find her frankness about human biology a bit disconcerting.

She's undeniably attractive. One of my teammates from work saw her with me in a bar one day and said she had perky tits and a bubble-butt. Cute face, too, he added quickly, when I blushed and stammered something goofy. I hope you're fucking her, buddy, he said, 'cuz if you don't somebody's gonna be. I gasped and coughed the foam off my lunchtime pint.

We pull into the rest area. She's dressed for summer though it's past Labor Day. Crowds'll be thinner, she said, and it's easier to get time off. Bouncy, as I said. A halter top: undeniably perky tits. Daisy Dukes that look like they're sprayed on. Used to stares: truckers swivel on their stools as she bounces toward the washrooms.

I head for the men's. Shit, my dick's half swollen just from watching her. And she didn't even look over her shoulder. I've never even kissed this woman. Well, properly. Bloody economy. Work all the goddamn time. Get to be thirty and no steady.

Hell, last time I got laid was in college. Don't want to admit it, but that was the second time. What's wrong with me? I'm surprised my palms aren't growing hair long enough to braid.

Coffee lineup. Her lopsided grin's like a beacon across the crowded tile floor. I join her.

+++

I dressed for the occasion.

Abandoned my go-to Abercrombie & Fitch and found jeans a size too small in a thrift shop. Ripped the legs off, washed them hot on a weekend and wore them till they dried. Looked in the mirror, ripped off another inch, looked in the mirror again and slashed right to the seam. What a long-ago fuck-buddy called Moses shorts: "You can see the promised land but you can't get into it."

Halter top. Jersey. Straight out of the seventies, also from the thrift shop. My usual sports bras stayed in the drawer. Love the feeling of well-washed fabric teasing my nipples as I head for the toilet. Couple of truckers seem to like the results, too.

Wonder what they'd do if they knew I went commando today.

It's a fine morning. The sun's up and burning a glow into the haze off the Sound. Warm, with the promise of a chill night. Camping. My pussy tingles with the thought of sharing a sleeping bag. I hope I'm not disappointed.

+++

She gets a café latte. Mine's an early pumpkin surprise. Too sweet, as it turns out. I'll drive, she says. You must be tired. I reluctantly admit that the drive out of the city has worn me down. Didn't sleep much last night, either.

She slides into the driver's seat. Lowers the wheel and adjusts the mirrors. Long, long legs check the gas and brake. I want to slide my hand over her skin but grab my coffee from the cupholder instead.

Steady acceleration. Confident driver. Golden sunshine lights the planes of her face, pert nose, the drape of fabric over her breasts. Hint of down on the inch of taught belly showing above her cutoffs.

Rhythm of tires on pavement. Fatigue kicks in. Drowsy.

Sleep.

+++

He's cute when he sleeps. A half smile crosses his face like a shaft of sunlight on fall-tinged trees. Regular features, the dark down of his three-day stubble, fashionable sunglasses. Safari jacket, new but carefully washed to get the sizing out, over a long-sleeve T-shirt.

Tight low-rider jeans, with just enough bulge at the crotch to keep me interested but not enough to distract my driving. Which is a good thing. In some ways.

I've been having a bit of a drought lately. How long is lately, anyways? Must be more than a year.

Well, except for one tipsy quickie. A hunky guy pushed me up against the wall in a shadowy corridor leading to the emergency exit of a Greenpoint speakeasy. Nibbled my ear and licked my neck until I groaned, then lifted my skirt. Touched me, finding me soaked.

Without so much as a bye-your-bye, he pulls my thong aside and slides his rigid tool into me. My pussy clenches around his shaft. He pulls out. The bulbous head, slippery with my juices, throbs against my clit. A couple of heartbeats.

Now, I breathe. Now! He thrusts up, lifts my thighs as my knees clasp his waist. Rhythmic motion. My clit's on fire, fingernails dig into the muscles of his back, mashing my breasts against his chest. Our T-shirts soaked. I smell the pungent urgency of our fucking.

God yes! Now-now-now-now.

Yessssss!

I bite his neck, vampire-like, to keep from screaming as my pussy grasps his length, a searing hot vise. My vaginal muscles spasm, milking the cum that's boiling up into me in waves. I exhale. Relax. A fragrance of mixed juices floods down my inner thighs.

He softens, slips out. Nice, he murmurs. Yeah, I whisper, g'night.

I never did learn his name.

A honk warns me I've strayed from my lane. I-95, almost lunchtime. Driving slower, attentive again. I slip a finger into my cutoffs. Stroke my bush. I'm soaked.

+++

Car slowing. Deceleration lane. Waking up.

Lunch in Gloucester, she asks? First chance for a real lobster roll.

Fine by me. We cruise into the picturesque port, park. She tosses me the keys.

Wharfside table or takeout?

Need a couple of hours of daylight to set up camp. Takeout it is.

I drive. She feeds me bits of lobster slathered in mayo. Some good. I lick her fingers and she laughs. Throaty, sensual. Mind your driving, she says, mock stern.

We finish eating, mop our fingers with napkins, satiated for now.

Back on the Interstate heading north. She tilts the seat, leans back, crosses her ankles on the dash, folds her arms under her head. Jesus. Long, long tanned legs, Daisy Dukes leaving little to the imagination, taught belly, soft curves beneath the well-washed halter top, little mounds hinting at nipples, loose hair caressing her long, elegant neck, kissable lips, patrician nose.

I drink in her beauty and my mind ratchets forward, anticipating tonight.

The canoe lashings sing louder. Careful! Twenty miles above the speed limit. I ease off, but can hardly wait to get there.

Where? Good question. She has an idea, she says, but couldn't bring up a spot on Google Earth when I handed her my tablet. Close to the ocean but nobody around, she said. We'll know when we get there.

Very zen, she can be. Apparently.

I'll know her better at the end of this trip, I think. In the biblical sense, at least. My dick swells at the thought. Then deflates with sudden insecurity. What if I can't get it up with a real woman? Am I big enough to satisfy her? What if I cum too soon? Porn stars seem to be able to go on forever. Will she make fun of me?

+++

Sleepily, I turn towards him. My half-closed eyes watch as moods pass across his face like clouds. His jaw clenches with worry. I want him to relax. Reach over and touch his thigh gently, sigh softly, smile that I'm having a good time. Good to be out of the city, I whisper. With you.

Belly full of lobster, sunny afternoon, hint of salt air.

The hum of the tires is soporific. I relax. Sleep. Dream.

I'm at the bar with Greenpoint guy. Still don't know his name. A buddy, also nameless, is with him. Good-looking in a high school quarterback kinda way.

We're in a corner of the parking lot. Dark. Greenpoint guy's sitting on the tailgate of his buddy's pickup. Jeans unbuttoned. My top's gone and I'm bent over slobbering all over the big bulbous head in my mouth. Buddy has thrown my skirt up over my bare back, big hands cradling my swaying breasts, thick shaft rogering me royally from behind.

+++

Christ, she's dreaming. Eyelids flickering. Little whimpers and a quick smile.

Breathing faster. Her knees quiver. Her ankles uncross on the dash and her legs spread.

Fuck! She's having a sex dream.

Her fingertips stray across her belly and her nipples suddenly pop. Her thigh muscles tighten, relax, tighten, relax.

I rub my swollen dick through my chinos.

A horn blares twice. The trucker we just passed got an eyeful. She smiles up at him, rolls towards me, pulls at the crotch of her shorts. A few auburn hairs escape.

+++

In my dream, I'm just about to cum when a double honk from a deep horn sets my heart pounding: has someone spied our threesome in the parking lot? I wake up halfway. It's the truck we're passing. I smile drowsily, touch my moist pussy and slip gently back into a dreamless sleep ...

Stay on 95 or take 295 to Portland? He's asking directions.

'Long the coast, I murmur. Hear myself hoarse with the best sleep I've had in months. No binary zeros and ones, no coding dreams, no sense of time passing, just the rolling cradle of the rented SUV lulling me to sweet oblivion.

Gradually I wake. Bridges. Flashes of water. Pines and rocks. God's country.

So far from Manhattan's frenzy.

We slow enough to roll the windows down and feel the crisp, almost-fall air. Colors in the trees. Old grey barns and outbuildings. A few hardscrabble farms still hanging on, centuries after the rest of America was settled and then despoiled by mother-frackers profiting from our petroleum addiction. Better not think on that, not while riding in a rented SUV with a lightweight laminate canoe on the roof.

He wants detailed directions now. Oh well.

+++

Zen isn't my thing. The sun's getting lower, the air cooler, the woods denser. I thought she had a campsite in mind, one with showers and toilets and concrete pads to keep the snakes away and the tent from flooding if it rains.

Apparently not.

I'm out of my element here. Born and bred in an urban metropolis. One time I seem to recall she mentioned something about being sent to summer camp when her parents were splitting up, and loving it in spite of the bugs and leeches and noises in the night.

I fight doubts flitting like bats just outside my vision. She's hot, she's sexy, she seems from another world. Just gotta relax and trust, as my therapist says.

Trust. Right.

Take that sideroad, she orders. I grit my teeth. She laughs, a peal of treble bells: SUVs are built for dirt roads, silly. Her lopsided grin dispels my irritation.

We bump along a road that soon becomes a track. Here's a cabin, green sides fading into grey. Another, dark logs. Further on, one with its moss-covered roof caved in.

I drive really slow, plant thingies scratching at the sides of the vehicle. Just underbrush, she says. Means hardly anyone comes here. Oh great, I think.

There! Pull over there, she says. We lurch through drifts of dry leaves, the vehicle swaying side to side and bumping over humps of rock.

Stop now. I do as I'm told. Engine off. Silence. I try the radio; only static. She frowns, like I'm desecrating a church or something.

She jumps down, walks, circling. Tall trees block the already-low sun. The air's cool, damp. Musty smell. Decaying leaves, I guess. Try to remember we're having fun.

+++

This'll do. Nice spot, I tell him. He looks unhappy. Too far from mommy? I hope he's not missing the city.

I had my share of homesick campers when I was eighteen and counsellor-in-training at the camp mom had sent me to several years earlier, after I caught her leaning over the sink with her skirt around her waist, being done by the neighbor's twenty-year-old son.

'Course I realized babysitting tearful eight-year-olds was all worth it when a counsellor from the boys' camp across the lake taught me to jerk him off in the moonlight. I'd pretty well earned a merit badge for that by the end of the summer, and had nearly a dozen guys sharing cock shots with me on MySpace.

C'mon, let's unload, I tell sad sack. He can hear the creek and starts untying the canoe. Jeesh, gotta tell this guy everything: Light's going fast, let's get the groundsheet down, tent up and a rain fly set. He looks puzzled, so I explain.

He's all thumbs, but I've gotta admit, he cute when he's flustered. A curl of hair over his sweaty forehead, muscled arms, tight jeans. All thumbs, though, trying to set up the tent.

Settle down, bud. Patience. Here, have a Red Bull. I take a swig of mine, top it up with vodka. His eyebrows shoot up. Hand him the can: try it, you'll like it. He makes a face. Okay, here's a fresh one. Try the bourbon you brought. He winces, but knocks it back in a couple of gulps. I bust out two more and we load 'em up.

Now we're making progress: the tent's up, sheltered by the olive-green plastic tarp we've rigged slantwise in case of rain. Firewood next, I tell him.

+++

She's damn efficient at this, I gotta admit. Sends me to collect firewood while there's still light. She inflating the air mattress with a little gizmo that plugs into somewhere in the rental. When I get back she looks at my collection with a quizzical eye. More like this, she says, picking out a dry stick thick as my arm. Leave the rotten stuff behind, it'll be all smoke, no heat.

She gives me a miniature axe. Careful, it's sharp. Slightly chagrined, I head into the woods again. Not far away I find a trove: a fallen tree. I whale away with the axe and soon have a pile. Good, she says. Throws her arms around my neck and gives me a quick kiss. Now go get that much again.

I don't think she means to be bossy, so I try not to take it that way. And the way she glances back as she bends over to drag two zipped-together sleeping bags into the holds all kinds of promise.

Bourbon and Red Bull — not half bad, at least the second can. When I get back with the wood I fix a third round. We clink cans as she shows me how to build the fire.

I strike a match, hold it to the fatwood she put on the bottom and watch the flames lick upwards. We drag a big log out of the gloom and sit side-by-side facing the fire. It throws a circle of light on the tall trees. Pretty well night now. Don't know that I've ever been any place so dark.

+++

I open the chest, plugged into the vehicle to keep stuff cool. Artisanal bratwurst, buns, condiments. A tray to fix them on. Extendable forks — we're eating camp-style tonight.

Sizzling. Yummy smell. We sit, hips touching, as the dripping fat makes the fire sputter and flare. Stuff hot sausages in the buns with sauerkraut, slather on mayo and top with Katz's mustard. Wash 'em down with tall, cold cans of Rolling Rock. An urban feast in the north woods.

To tease him, I pull the end of my half-eaten brat out of the bun. Make my mouth an O and mime sucking it, like the head of an uncut cock. He looks shocked, then laughs. Takes my wrist, pulls out the sausage and dips the end in mayo. I grin. It looks for all the world like the jizz in the pictures those camp boys used to send me.

Firelight throws dancing shadows on the tent. He gets up and fusses with the guy wires. City boy, hasn't pitched many tents. Has he ever taken a girl camping, I wonder.

+++

I don't think I ever tasted anything as good as those sausages we cooked over the fire. I pull out my phone and snap a photo. They'll rate a full Facebook post when we get somewhere with data reception.

She breaks into a seductive smile when I dab the end of her sausage with mayo, and I snap a selfie of the two of us with it between us, her mouth open in a pouting O, ready to suck it. Gotta be careful with that one, it's so hot it's x-rated. Get it off my phone soon as I get home.

Hot damn she's photogenic, as well as sexy. Top draped softly around tits that sway when she leans toward the fire with her fork. Long throat, specially when she tips the beer can back to sip. Legs to die for, shown off by those Daisy Dukes that leave just enough to the imagination. Swear I saw reddish hair in the car, when she smiled sleepily at the trucker and made me all jealous.

My swelling dick reminds me I've got to urinate. I get up and make as if I'm adjusting those ropes that hold the tent tight. Wander back into the dark.

+++

I hear the splashing as he pees. Now I feel the Red Bull and Rolling Rock. I'm going for a whiz too, I yell. And laugh: he flinches every time I mention my biological needs. I wonder, when we get in the tent, how he'll react to my urges?

I step outside the circle of firelight and stop to let my eyes adjust. Tall, majestic trees, black against the blacker forest. The sky a paler black, but it'll be a moonless night. I breathe in the stillness as the earth exhales the day's heat.

I pull down my shorts and squat, luxuriating as the cool air caresses my bare legs, belly, anus, vagina with woodsy scent. My warmth streams into the leaf mould, almost silently.

Crack! Branch breaking. I hold my breath, every sense a-tingle.

Animal? Footstep? All I hear is my heart pounding. Wait.

Nothing.

The tiniest of breezes off the ocean stirs the treetops.

I pull the moist wipe from the package I brought. It sounds thunderous. Hold my breath again.

Silence.

Exhale, wipe myself. Stand up.

Reach down to pull up the cutoffs.

A callused hand clamps hard over my mouth, another over my bare belly. I can't breathe, much less scream.

The hand on my belly moves in gentle circles. Widening circles. A thumb grazes the bottom of my breasts. Slowly circling fingers caress the top of my pubic hair.

Kindling fires. I can't help it.

+++

I come to. Rough, scratchy bark against my back.

She? Where is she?

Shoulders ache. Arms twisted behind me. Bound at the wrist.