Ivy

Chapters

North
Preparing the Cabin
Nightfall
Foundation
Huntress
Woodsman?
Sunday
After Breakfast
The Rock
Departing
Epilogue
Prologue
Squirrel Stew

North

North

I looked back at the store as we idled at a traffic light, wondering if I could spot Mark as he raged out into the parking lot. If I’d just walked off without the radio call, he might not have even noticed I was gone. He might have paged me for hours, might have asked other employees if they’d seen me, maybe even worried if I’d gotten hurt or something.

It was very much ‘or something.’ He wouldn’t give a shit if I was hurt, just that I wasn’t doing his bidding. Anyway, she technically wasn't kidnapping me, since I got in the Jeep of my own volition, lured in not by candy but the flash of a lacy red bra. Ironic that it was red.

A cabin meant isolation, and that meant that there wouldn’t be much for us to do except hang out and fuck. That was the hope, at least. Surely she didn’t mean for us to compete in tests of strength; I doubted I’d stand much of a chance.

Was I being lured into forced labor? She had the cement in the back of the Jeep. Maybe she was building a patio or a really strong mailbox and she wanted someone to do it for her. She didn’t seem the type to idly stand by when someone else was working, though, especially on her own property.

What did I really know about minotaurs, anyway? Besides that they were strong and she was sexy as hell. I’d just quit my job—not that I cared about that, I could find another one easy enough—and I was being driven to heaven knew where without so much as a change of clothing.

I didn’t have much time for thought. The light changed and she made a left turn, then immediately started signaling for the highway entrance. I was committed, there was no turning back now. “Where are we going?”

“North, into the woods. You’ll find out.” She braked and turned onto the on-ramp, then started accelerating. Her Jeep wasn’t exactly a sprinter. It felt fast with the wind rushing by but as we got into the merge area, cars on the highway were passing a good ten or twenty miles an hour faster than we were going.

She checked her mirrors and then merged into the slow lane, and I resisted the urge to look back and see if we were about to be crushed under an eighteen-wheeler. It was better to not know; it was better for that to be a surprise.

I felt like we’d barely gotten up to speed before she had to brake for the next exchange, this one a cloverleaf. She didn’t have the advantage of a straight ramp to build up speed, and we were going even slower as we joined northbound traffic on 131.

Like anyone, I had seen plenty of television and YouTube ads about off-roading in a Jeep, and the appeal of being that much in nature surely sold plenty of Jeeps. They didn’t advertise them driving on the road, and now I knew why. It was dangerous, vulnerable, and exposed. I could see the pavement rushing past, the fog line as it blurred by my door. Every semi truck that passed us looked bigger and closer, ready to crush us at a moment’s notice. Even with the seat belt restraining me, I still felt like I might fall out.

It was almost like riding a motorcycle, but with four wheels instead of two, and more steel around us. But no safety gear, no helmets and riding leathers . . . if she’d had a motorcycle, I would have been riding pillion, my hands gripping around her waist or—

•••

As we got a dozen or so exits out of the city, traffic thinned. There was still plenty of it, but it wasn’t a chaos of cars and trucks all jockeying for position. I’d started to get used to the openness of the Jeep and was able to nearly quell the voice in my mind that insisted I was about to die in a fiery car crash.

I’d almost gotten used to the wind noise, too. We were driving about 60—I’d glanced over at the speedometer once, and that was what it said. It felt right; the cars that passed us weren’t going significantly faster than we were. I suspected the Jeep could go faster but it was extremely unpleasant if it did.

There was a radio, a basic AM/FM with an analog dial in the dashboard. It wasn’t turned on, and there was no reason for it to be. We wouldn’t have been able to hear it. I had an idea that the only way we’d be able to communicate was shouting, or sign language.

Just then, the Jeep weaved in its lane, and the fatalistic voice in my mind reminded me that while I’d imagined semis running us over, I hadn’t considered a mechanical failure on the Jeep. It was old, things broke, and at highway speeds only a very skilled driver could avoid a terrible accident.

Nothing in front of us could have been the cause, and I turned in Ivy’s direction—if she’d been white-knuckling the steering wheel, I might have taken my chances at jumping out. Instead, she was using her knee to hold the steering wheel as she pulled her bra out of her tank top.

“Here, put this in the glove box,” she shouted. Before I could object, she pressed it into my hands and turned her focus back on the road.

I looked down at the bra in my hands and decided I could go bold. “You might as well go topless.”

“You first.” She snickered. “Cart boy.”

I pushed the button for the glove box and opened it cautiously, lest important paperwork get sucked into the slipstream.

Everything stayed in place, so I tucked her bra in and snapped the door back shut, then I tugged at the hem of my shirt, considering. I didn’t think she’d really just take her shirt off if I removed mine; we were still on the highway, and I’d already seen plenty of drivers and passengers studying us as they drove by, either interested in the old Jeep or more likely the minotauress driving it.

Half of them probably hadn’t even noticed I was there. If they had, they wouldn’t have taken note of my less-than-impressive physique. The shirt wouldn’t provide any benefit in a crash, and there was a minute chance that if I took off my shirt, Ivy would take off hers. It was a no-brainer. I pulled the hem out of my waistband and peeled it off, working around the seat belt and keeping a good grip on it. I didn’t want to lose it in the slipstream.

The shirt went into the glove box, crammed in on top of her bra.

Ivy nodded in satisfaction, either at the sight of my bare chest or in approval at me following her instructions. “Isn’t that better? Casting off another corporate shackle, embracing the freedom of the open air.”

“That why you have a Jeep? To embrace the freedom of the open air?”

“Of course it is. That, and the roads leading up to the cabin can get dicey when it’s raining or snowy. The four-wheel-drive’s a real boon, and this truck’s an animal. You’ll see. I don’t like it as much on the highway, it’s not really meant for that. Just wait until we get off the main roads, that’s when things will get interesting.”

•••

Things were plenty interesting. I’d gotten used to the feel of the Jeep, the noises it made, and it wasn’t as weird seeing the pavement rushing by, unless I looked down at it. Then I got vertigo.

For a while, we’d been flanked by what I considered typical Michigan scenery—housing developments, fields, and occasional woodlots. As we’d gone further north, all that had started to give way to just trees, and not all the exits had anything at them, either. Sometimes around towns, there’d be fields and houses, but those spots were less and less frequent.

The southbound lanes didn’t always follow the northbound lanes closely; sometimes they were also separated by a curtain of trees, giving us the illusion of being alone on the road, almost like the entire world existed only for us in the Jeep.

And then a car would come flying up in the passing lane, slow down enough to get a good look at Ivy, and then speed off again, and I’d watch it slowly fade from view and then look back in the rearview mirror to see if there was another car or truck coming up behind us.

There were things to watch besides nature and traffic. I tilted back my seat and focused on Ivy’s jiggling boobs. Every expansion joint, every movement of her hands on the steering wheel was its own reward. Her nipples poked against the thin fabric of her tank top, yearning for freedom, begging to be stroked, squeezed, and suckled.

Maybe she wouldn’t mind if I just reached out and touched them. She had taken off her bra, after all. That was an invitation. Or maybe she would mind, and maybe I’d learn what it felt like to be Leonidas-kicked out of a moving Jeep. She’d have to unsnap my seatbelt, and I thought she’d have to twist further than humanly possible to accomplish it, but then she wasn’t human.

I’d already burned one bridge, best to keep my hands to myself, not in my lap where they might be tempted, but instead on the ‘oh shit’ handle on the dashboard.

Besides the cement, the back of the Jeep held a Yeti cooler, fewer supplies than I would have expected for a weekend up north. Where was a bag of clothes, or at least of toiletries?

Then again, she had said ‘cabin,’ and she might well have supplies there. Extra clothes, maybe even a washing machine . . . I didn’t have any extra clothes, and was going to be grungy by the time we came back. Especially since the stink of drudgery had permanently suffused my clothes, an unfortunate side-effect of working in retail. The wind was going to have a hard time blowing that off.

Every now and then, Ivy took her attention off the road long enough to look at me, and then she turned back to surveying the road.

How old was she? How long had she been on Earth? I didn’t know the answer to either of those questions. Old enough to get a driver’s license, long enough to save up and buy a Jeep; long enough to become comfortable driving it.

Did she specifically want a stick, or did she get one and have to figure it out?

I hadn’t been on a proper road trip in a long time. Too long. Around the city, the highways were crowded with cars and billboards and driving wasn’t fun, driving was a task; out here it was a sky that went on nearly forever, fields slowly giving way to more and more trees, and most importantly, practically no billboards. What would they advertise?

And whenever the passing scenery started to look the same, I looked back to my left, drew my attention to the other thing that mattered: Ivy’s chest.

She turned in my direction as I was leering, and rolled her eyes. “You waiting for an engraved invitation?” Ivy pulled down the neck of her tank top, briefly revealing her boob. “Get busy, our exit’s coming up and if you do a good job, you’re going to get a reward.”

•••

She was lying about how close her exit was. She might also have been lying about me getting a reward, but then I already had a reward. Two of them, in fact. It was awkward to twist my arm to grope her tits, especially since I wasn’t left-handed.

It was totally worth it.

She was no Ava Addams; I would have been lost if she was. Her boobs were the perfect size for her frame, maybe B cup or maybe C—I honestly had no idea how bra sizes worked. Something about letters equalling volume, as confounding as nail sizes. My job required me to know them, but what 8d meant compared to a 10d, and why they were also referred to in pennies was entirely incomprehensible.

I could have gotten out of my seat and moved into the backseat. Sat right behind her, and lived out my fantasy of being a human bra of sorts, almost like if we had been riding a motorcycle together. It would have been easier, and I wouldn’t have given myself tennis elbow in the pursuit of pleasure. I wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, and it was far too long before I realized that I could at least turn in my seat to face her instead of performing weird calisthenics. If that reduced the effectiveness of my seat belt, so be it; if I was going to go in a car crash, let it be while fondling a hot girl.

Even better, turning gave me a view, not only of her boobs but of all of her, from her short hair whipping around in the slipstream over the windshield to the muscles in her arms, to the flapping hem of her tank top, giving me a glimpse of flesh just above her shorts, a promise of what was to come.

I didn’t think she’d object too much if I just pulled her shirt up and maybe even off, but I wasn’t ballsy enough to try it. I could almost see everything with it on anyway; the thin cotton fabric hinted at what was obscured beneath, a dark ring of flesh surrounding her hard nipples.

If her shirt was wet was immediately followed by the realization that I was already turned in my seat. The first kiss was tentative, just on the top curve of her breast, before I moved down, leaning awkwardly across. Why should my elbow be alone in its suffering? My back could join the party, too.

It was totally worth it.

I could cross ‘never felt up a girl while she was driving’ and ‘never licked a nipple through a shirt’ off my list. The fabric dried out my tongue, but I kept on, licking and gently biting at her nipple, not caring at all that we were in an open-top Jeep racing along the highway and anybody who looked would see exactly what was going on. Was it illegal to suckle a girl on the highway? I had no idea, and I didn’t care.

“Mmm.” She bit her lip and tensed, clenching the steering wheel tightly. “I—oh Goddess, I needed that.” She blew out a breath and reached her hand down to my crotch, pressing against my stiff cock. “Whip it out.”

“Here?” We were still on the highway, far enough north that there wasn’t a lot of traffic, but there was still some.

“Suit yourself.” Ivy shrugged and took her hand back, stroking the gearshift lever, clenching her hand around the shifter ball and rubbing her thumb across the worn-down shift pattern. “I’ve got other things to play with.”

I was already reaching for my zipper when she put her hand between her thighs, slipping her fingers between the fabric of her jeans and her flesh.

“Don’t know why I even brought you along.”

Getting my rock-hard dick out of my pants and underwear while sitting was enough of a chore, not helped by the wind that was more than willing to turn my clothes into litter alongside the highway. And there was the mental hurdle making it all the more difficult—I was also watching her finger herself.

“I’m working on it.”

“Mmh, it had better be worth it.” She pulled her soaked fingers free and pushed them against my lips.

I tasted her like I might have tasted a fine wine, if I’d known a goddamn thing about wine. Coppery, earthy, the tiniest hint of concrete—the bags always leaked—and something I couldn’t place, the essence of her. Cloying, heady, demanding, urgent; I hadn’t thought I could get harder but I could, and if she did it again, I might well jizz in my pants.

“For the love of Apis, unbutton your waistband.” She reached her hands down into my open fly and fished around for my cock. “Ought to have lost your underwear, you had plenty of time when we were driving. Surprised you can take a piss without wetting yourself.” She finally got her hand through the fly on my boxers and gripped my cock, aggressively yanking it free, painfully dragging it through the flap and for a second I thought she might break it or rip it off, and then it was out in the air, undamaged and standing proud, her hand clenched mid-shaft.

“You might be dumb, but at least you’re well-hung. How long you think you’re going to last?”

“After spending the last hour with a raging hard-on and my hands and mouth on your boobs? Not long.” It could have been worse; I could have came in my pants already.

“At least you’re honest.” She shrugged. “Lotta guys make claims and then can’t back them up. Whatever, this is just a prelude.” Ivy started stroking up and down my shaft, teasing my head at the end of each stroke.

I couldn’t decide if I should close my eyes and get lost in pleasure, watch her jerk me off, or keep an eye out for cops.

She didn’t go for nail polish, not even gloss. There were a few faint scars on the back of her hand—I didn’t even know what she did for a living, but it was a fair bet that it involved physical labor. I couldn’t imagine her sitting in an office all day. What would she wear? A pantsuit didn’t seem right, and I didn’t figure her for a conservative skirt and blouse, either. Would a skirt have a cutout for her tail, like her shorts did, or would there be a hole it went through beneath the waistband? Why was I even thinking of that when there was a hot girl—minotauress—jerking me off?

“Two miles to the exit. Which is going to cum first, I wonder.”

Odds were it was going to be me. I was already insanely close, and if she touched my head—

She brought her hand up, teasing at my glans again, and then rubbed her thumb across my urethra, spreading pre-cum across my head.

“I’m oh God.”

Ivy squeezed and languidly stroked her way down my shaft, pressing against my boxers at the bottom. “Wind’s gonna make this interesting.”

“Huh?” I was so close, I didn’t have time to think of anything but the impending release, which came a second later.

There was only one way the cumshot was going to go, and that was right against my bare chest. Ivy made sure of that, made sure that I didn’t get any on her Jeep, holding my cock until the last spurt trailed off to a drizzle.

Some of it had gone down her hand. She looked at it, raised her hand to her mouth, licked it off and then went back for seconds, tracing a finger across the rapidly-drying splatter of jizz on my chest.

This time, Ivy popped her finger into her mouth and sucked it clean, then wiped her hand dry on her shorts.

“That’s it?”

“For now.” Ivy put her hand back on the steering wheel. “Rest’s up to you, cart boy. Might want to tuck yourself back into your pants, too; might be some busybody up at the four-way.” She flicked on the turn signal and clutched in, coasting onto the exit ramp and working her way down through the gears.

I could clean myself off with my shirt, but it was my only shirt.

“You got any napkins?”

She shrugged. “Check the glove box, might be some in there.”

There weren’t. There were our clothes, the insurance and registration for the Jeep, and an intimidating weird-shaped dildo. I had it halfway out of the glove box before I realized what I was holding.

“Minotaur cock.” Ivy grinned. “You play your cards right, you might get to stick that in me. Or I might stick it in you.”

“Woah, there, I’m not into that.”

“Ever tried it? Keep an open mind, you never know what you might be into. Or if you’re not feeling adventurous, I can drop you off here. You can hitch your way back to town, and I can go to my cabin alone with just my toys.” She glanced up and down the road for traffic, then pulled her shirt over her head.

The first thing I noticed—once I’d dragged my eyes down from her perfect breasts—was that her leg-fur continued all the way up to her love handles, V-ing down to the waistband of her shorts. Decidedly inhuman, and I could have hopped out of the Jeep, stuck my thumb out, and hoped for the best. Could have decided that we’d had our fun, and that I’d gone far enough; I’d had my interspecies exploration, and it wouldn’t be wimping out, it would be a rational decision.

Rationality was the last thing on my mind because she’d cheated, she’d taken her shirt off and it was everything I’d imagined and more.

I made my choice, touching her fur as she made a left turn, running my fingers through it and onto her smooth chest as she accelerated, feeling the muscles coiled underneath. Ivy had a way better six-pack than I did.

“Smart choice.” We crossed onto the highway bridge, and she gave the finger to highway traffic as we passed overhead.

As we returned to the asphalt and the downgrade on the west side of the highway, I rested my hand on her thigh, just below the hem of her shorts. It was strange to be in somewhat familiar territory, and yet to be feeling fur instead of flesh under my hand.

One look at her bare chest reassured me that I was doing the right thing. I teased around the denim and then slipped my hand down between her legs, feeling the heat there, just out of reach.

We were still out in public and I didn’t want to go too far, although most people would focus on her bare tits and not on what my hand was doing. Just the same, it still felt deliciously wrong, and I could feel my cock stirring in anticipation.

There were a few houses along the road, and then we were back in farmland proper, and then we were beyond even that, with nothing but swampy lowland and stands of trees on either side of the road.

I pressed the flat of my hand against her crotch and she shifted in her seat, spreading her legs to give me better access. All I could feel was the seam of her shorts, but I knew what it was covering. Could I get her off through her Daisy Dukes? Maybe. But it wouldn’t be fun for me—I needed to get inside her, to touch actual flesh.

Two oncoming cars went past us before I moved my hand up to the waistband of her shorts. I got the top button unfastened more quickly than I’d managed on my own jeans, only to discover that it was buttons all the way down. That wasn’t fair at all.

Ivy saw my hesitation and grinned. “It’s not worth it unless you’ve got to work for it.”

“You’re hardly putting any effort in.”

“I’m driving. I’ve got to focus on that.”

“Sure you do.” I crossed my arms. “I bet you could—“

“Listen, you’d better have your hand down my pants before we pass the lake,” she warned. “Or else I’m going to replace you with the dildo on the ride to the cabin.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” She would dare, I was sure of it. Ivy didn’t seem to be one who would issue idle threats. I reached the second button and twisted until it yielded.

I couldn’t tell exactly through the sheer fabric of her panties, but I was beginning to suspect that she had reverse pubes going on; a bare triangle of flesh surrounded by fur.

As I got my hand further down her shorts, I discovered that was not the case. There was unmistakably hair down there. And dampness and heat; I might have enough buttons undone already. Her shorts were tight, but with the fly partially open, there might be just enough room to get my hand down there. Fabric and flesh both would yield, I hoped. Alas, it was not to be.

The third button came loose and I worked my hand down further, grasping at the last. Practice paid off; that one went easily. It was still tight but encouraging; one of my fingers could reach the promised land if I pushed hard enough.

She held my hand steady and scootched her butt on the seat, tugging her shorts down. Not far enough for me to see much beyond the waistband of her panties, which was more than enough inspiration.

My dick was already rising to attention again as I slid my hand down between her legs, resting lightly against the furry flesh, feeling the subtle shift of her thigh as she modulated the accelerator pedal.

I wasn’t the most experienced guy, but feeling her through her panties, she felt like a normal girl, albeit one with a luscious bush.

Up ahead, I saw a glimmer of light off the wavelets on the lake and it was time. I could pull my hand up and go in through the waistband, but I was already here, and I stroked against the silky sheer fabric, back and forth, until we started to round the curve.

Her panties didn’t resist as I pushed them aside, my finger sliding against a slick vulva up to her pubic mound and then back down, exploring the terrain.

Everything felt normal.

“Mmmh.” She clutched in and shifted her foot—hoof—onto the brake pedal, taking the curve on the road. “Deeper.”

I disobeyed, sliding my fingers out and working up her labia, mapping her out. Her clit was an eager, throbbing nub, right where it ought to be.

The road made a sharp turn as it passed the lake. She downshifted and slowed, dropping another gear as we passed a pair of houses on the right. The second one had a guy on a lawnmower out front, wearing noise-canceling headphones with built-in radio and his head snapped around just as we passed. He might not have seen where my hand was, but he’d surely noticed she was topless, just like her Jeep.

I slid my fingers back into her as we rounded the corner onto a side road, trading pavement for gravel.

My confidence built as we bounced down the hardpack and across the washboards, even though half her pleasure was from the roughness of the road and not anything I was doing. She anticipated the bumps better than I did—in terms of her pleasure, she could have replaced me with her dildo. Maybe that was her usual plan, when she had to go up to the cabin on her own.

For an instant my mind went there, imagining her with her shirt off and her shorts unbuttoned, holding the rubber dick in her hand and letting the bumps and ruts in the road pleasure her, and then I remembered that my hand was between her legs, and every time the Jeep bottomed out, she bounced on the seat and her shorts went fractionally further down.

Which was just as well: there was no way I could get her shorts and panties off myself. I pushed eagerly at one side just the same, hoping she might lift her butt off the seat and let me slide them down.

She anticipated what I was thinking and grinned at me. “You first.”

Two hours ago, I never would have been so bold as to get undressed in a moving vehicle out in public where anybody could see. That was a long time ago.

Regrettably, I couldn’t do it one-handed, which meant I was going to have to make a brief sacrifice. Or, I could keep going, get her off, and it might be longer before I got to see her in the altogether.

Unless she lost interest once she was sated. I didn’t think she would.

I’d never bothered to re-button my waistband, which made getting my pants and underwear down easy. Although, in hindsight, I should have taken off my shoes first; I must have looked like a complete fool with a stiffy bumping against my belly and my pants and boxers around my ankles while I did my best to undo the double knot in my shoelaces.

There was no way the rest of my clothes were going to fit in the glove box.

“Just toss them in the back,” she suggested. “They won’t blow away. It only gets slower from here.”

We were coming up on a T-intersection that wasn’t marked with a stop sign—evidence of how remote this road was: there wasn’t enough traffic to justify a sign. Understandable; there was nothing around us but wilderness. Just after I’d gotten my right shoe off, we’d passed a crappy mobile home that looked abandoned, and then there was nothing but forest.

Ivy shifted into neutral as she stopped and unbuckled her seat belt. “Gonna lock the hubs. Don’t get lonely.” She set the parking brake, leaned over and kissed my dick, then grabbed the rollbar and pulled herself out of the Jeep.

By the time she got back around the front of the Jeep, she’d lost the rest of her clothes. Of course, she had the advantage of already being barefoot—barehooved, her shorts already unbuttoned, all she had to do was let them drop and step out of them.

I only had a moment to appreciate her form; she was a girl in motion with no time to pose. One very tiny part of my brain reminded me that she wasn’t human, and the rest of it jumped on that traitor and shoved him out the airlock.

That Ivy had managed to fit in the perfect intersection between strong and sexy was an understatement. She was well-muscled, but with soft edges. She wasn’t fake; in fact she was entirely unornamented. No tattoos, no edgy piercings, nothing. Just her, complete.

She tossed her clothes in the back of the Jeep, opened the glove box and gave her bra and my shirt the same treatment, then slammed it back shut.

“This is freedom. Out in the open, nothing between you and the sun. Why I bought a Jeep.”

“Yeah.”

“About the closest thing you’ve got to being one with nature, here on Earth.”

I hadn’t noticed that there wasn’t a road sign at the upcoming intersection, but I did notice we were rapidly approaching a house, with a vehicle in the driveway, and if anyone was paying any attention at all. . .

Before we got there, she cut off the gravel road and onto a two-track dirt path. “Technically, it’s a road. Out here, there’s two kinds like this, the fire roads and the logging roads.”

“Which one is this?”

“Fire road. Just a clear path through the woods that trucks can get through if it isn’t too wet. Couple of houses a ways off to the side—people who live here value their privacy—and then we’re going to be in the heart of BFE and I’m going to fuck your brains out.”

Preparing the Cabin

Preparing the Cabin

BFE was closer than I’d imagined.

I hadn’t thought that the road there would be smooth, and it wasn’t. We’d hardly left the gravel when the Jeep dropped into a rut on my side, then violently rocked back to level. The grab handle which had been a nice comfort on the highway was now a necessity.

The Jeep bounded confidently across the minimal two-track, far enough into the wilderness that I’d taken a few moments to focus on something other than her naked jiggling breasts or the triangle of skin pointing to her womanhood; I’d gripped on the rollbar and almost focused more on my balance to the exclusion of everything else. Almost, because my dick kept its focus.

We rounded a sharp corner—the Forest Service hadn’t wanted to try and move the boulder the road bent around—and then went down a short hill, the track at the bottom wet and swampy. To either side, I could see marshland. Then we were climbing up again, and I got a panorama view of the wilderness that surrounded us—the perfect backdrop to Ivy.

Just as she reached the top of the low hill, she shifted into neutral and braked, stopping the Jeep at the crest of the hill. I heard the ratchet of the parking brake and then the sudden silence as she shut off the truck.

It was eerily silent, nothing but the metallic pops of the cooling engine and exhaust, and then I started to hear the wind rustling the leaves, the birds singing, frogs croaking, and all the other sounds of nature coming back to fill the void that the Jeep had left.

Ivy unbuckled her seat belt and let it retract, grabbed the top bar of the windshield, and stood up. In hindsight, I should have unfastened my own seat belt, but I was too gobsmacked by the view of minotauress snatch at nose level.

For some stupid reason, I had thought she’d wait until we got to the cabin, or at least pull off the road into a secluded spot. Instead, she used the roll bar like a jungle gym and half-stepped over me while lifting herself up to brace against the top frame of the windshield.

“I hope you’re ready.” She glanced down at my dick.

“Yeah.” I felt like I should say something, but words wouldn’t come. I was eye-level with her crotch, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

Even though I knew what should come next, I was frozen, unsure how to proceed, like a virgin seeing a girl undress in front of him for the first time. Should I finger her again? I’d figured that out already. Or just dive in with my mouth? I knew what she tasted like.

Before I could decide, Ivy took matters into her own hands, grabbing my head and pulling it into her groin. I could feel the heat and smell her arousal and nearly choked on the strap for the seat belt—how had I forgotten to unbuckle it?

I reached for the buckle and got a mouthful of fur before unbelting, and that took my attention. It wasn't like I was going anywhere; I had better things to do.

Some guys had trouble finding the clit but I couldn’t miss it; it was right there, a throbbing nub begging for attention.

She pressed my head in as my tongue teased, and I grabbed her asscheeks to pull myself in tighter.

As I worked around her lips, she let my head go, let me take charge at least for the moment, and then when I’d started to get into a perfect rhythm she pulled back, leaving my tongue high and dry.

I wanted to protest, I wanted to ask her if I wasn’t good enough. My mind flashed back to the minotaur dick in the glove box—was I about to be replaced?

Then she started sliding down my chest, and I could feel the heat of her womanhood as she slowly, teasingly lowered herself towards my dick, pausing as the head of my cock brushed between her legs.

Her boobs pressed against my face, her chin rested on my forehead, and neither of us moved, both savoring the anticipation, and then she reached down and grabbed my cock.

“Don’t fuck this up.”

The anticipation stretched on forever as she slowly slid down the final few inches, as she leaned back and kissed my forehead. Her arm dragged across my ear just as my dick touched wet, inviting flesh. I couldn’t help myself, I thrust up out of the seat as far as I could, and I felt her entire body tense as I entered her.

Ivy relaxed and dropped, impaling herself fully, dropping on my thighs and slamming my balls back down on the seat. Her tail twitched and one of her horns filled my vision.

Instead of lifting herself back off, she wiggled in my lap, a new and not unpleasant sensation. I moaned, scaring off a dragonfly who’d been watching our coitus. He didn’t go far, briefly settling onto the top of the windshield, his multi-faceted eyes reflecting the scene in front of him, and then he darted off in pursuit of prey.

Ivy leaned forward and I met her, not an exploratory or promissory kiss this time: we were committed.

Her biceps flexed and she pulled herself up, using the roll bar as a jungle gym, and then slammed back down on my cock.

Unbidden, my hands went to her furry love handles, grabbing and trying to control our coitus, but it was no good; she was stronger, lifting and dropping off the roll bar, a bizarre workout routine.

I tried to resist, I tried to set the pace, and I failed. She was stronger than I was, and I knew it and should have let her guide us from the beginning. She was on top, she was in control.

She squeezed and pulled, lifted herself on the roll bar and I should have taken some satisfaction from her panting but I wasn’t doing anything more than sitting in my seat and stroking her nipples and doing my best to hold on as long as I could.

Would it be long enough? I hoped so. Time had lost meaning; it was just the two of us alone in the woods, beyond anything human-made.

Ivy clenched and squeezed and rode me and I lost myself in the moment, kissing and nipping at her bouncing breasts, finally looking down at the image of my dick vanishing between her thighs, humanity’s first and most important magic trick.

I held on as long as I could, hoping it was long enough. She pulled herself up, then dropped, milking out my cum.

For a moment, the two of us were frozen, locked together. My climax finished and instinct said it was time to pull out but I couldn’t with her straddling me.

If I keep it hard, I can stay in.

Brain and desire didn’t override physiology, and I was half-soft before she pulled herself off, letting my flaccid dick slap against my chest.

Had I been a good lover, she would have been sated as well. Ivy thrust forward, brushing against my face, and I knew what she wanted, and I also knew that the slickness was a combination of her arousal and my cum and I didn’t even hesitate, kissing her once on the border between skin and fur and then my tongue brushed her clit. She gripped the roll bar and pushed herself forward, offering, needing, and my tongue knew what to do, exploring the hot wet flesh, the taste familiar and new.

My shoulders were a brace of sorts, although I could imagine dozens of ways I could have eaten her out that didn’t require her to hold herself up, and she was obviously smart enough to as well. This was because she wanted to, this was how she wanted it.

I couldn’t play with her tits, not like this, but I realized I could play with her tail. I had no idea if it was erogenous or not, if it was something she’d even enjoy, but I knew I would.

My mind flashed back to thinking how she could crush a melon between her thighs, and if she wanted to try—there was no better way to go.

Mid-tail was the safest place to start, to gauge her reaction.

It was hard to focus on two things at once, hard to focus on both performing with my tongue while also gripping and stroking her tail. Hard to figure out if her twitch was because she was still bracing herself on the rollbar, because I just hit her g-spot with my tongue, or because she didn’t like having me run against her tailfur, wasn’t comfortable with the trajectory my hand was taking.

If she wasn’t so strong, so intense, I might have been more cautious. Oddly, it was comforting knowing that if I annoyed her, she could snap my neck like a twig. Out here, nobody would find the body.

All I had to do was get it right, or not too badly wrong.

Her tail ended in her crack—where else would it have?—and my finger was eager to explore further, but I dared not. Instead, I grabbed her hips and shoved my face against her crotch and managed to hit the right spot at the right time; her muscles tensed and she quivered, slumping against me before regaining her grip. I almost lost it when she put her weight on my shoulders; I hadn’t been expecting that. Luckily, the seatbelt saved both of us, and it was a testament to her impulsiveness that I’d never thought to unbuckle it.

Ivy blew a shaky breath out of her nostrils and gave me one last look at herself before pulling away, our moment together forgotten.

Or not—after she dropped back in the seat, she brushed a finger over my lips, then kissed me.

•••

When she jerked me off, she’d been careful not to get any of my cum on the seat. Apparently she didn’t care if she got her seat wet. Maybe a handjob wasn’t worthy of a stain but sex was.

I wanted to ask her how it had been, if I’d done good, but I was afraid of what she’d say. At least I wasn’t so bad that she’d kicked me out of the Jeep and left me by the side of the road, so that was something.

Did Ivy need time to process? I did, or at least I needed time to recover. It’d never been a problem before, but then I’d never had sex in the front seat of a Jeep out in the open on a two-track in the middle of nowhere. Mostly I’d just snuggled up and fallen asleep and that was that. God, I needed a cigarette and I’d never smoked one in my life.

•••

I’d been up north and seen two-tracks leading off into the wilderness. Most of them weren’t labeled at all, obviously; I imagined that many of them led to hunting properties or logging operations or who knew what.

Occasionally they’d be barricaded off with a gate or at least ‘No Trespassing’ signs, but for the most part they were open—anyone who was bold enough and who had the right vehicle could take them and explore them.

I’d never been down one; I didn’t have the right vehicle. Ivy did. While the Jeep had felt vulnerable and out of place on the highway, here it was in its element, surefooted on the sandy path. Its short wheelbase made it unstable on the highway, but nimble on the dirt track, its knobby tires bit into good earth instead of howling on solid pavement, and the open doors allowed us to lean out and easily check clearances.

“You going to go into four-wheel drive?” Lots of modern trucks had pushbuttons or dials, but her Jeep had a lever on the floor, right next to the shifter. She’d already locked the hubs, so all she had to do was shift the transfer case.

“That’s for getting out of trouble, not getting into it. I get stuck in two-wheel drive, I’ve still got options. Road shouldn’t be that bad, but I’m not taking chances. Cell service around here is about zero, and I don’t have a landline at my cabin. Get it too stuck, and we’re finding which neighbors are home and have a tractor to pull me out, or we walk the eight miles back into town.

“Sometimes in winter it’s really chancy; I’ve left the Jeep short of the cabin and walked there, just to scout it out. One time, I backed up the road, figured it would be easier to have the nose out, that way I could more easily winch myself out if I had to.”

Ivy slowed and eased around a small washout, the left wheels nearly touching tree trunks as she skirted by. It wasn’t hard to picture what some of the scrapes and dents in the Jeep had come from.

I imagined what the road would look like in the wintertime. There weren’t any references for where it was—just an opening in the trees and there might be some taller weeds still sticking through snow . . . guardrails and warning signs simply didn’t exist on this road. If you went down it, you’d better know what you were getting into.

I wondered if she put a top on the Jeep in the wintertime. Or wore clothes—she had more than enough fur from the waist down that she might not wear pants even in the winter; it wasn’t hard to imagine her in just a sweatshirt and coat stomping through the drifts, maybe leaving tracks that some hunter who didn’t know about her would puzzle over if he came across them.

Then my mind went back to the present as a pine bough slapped off the windshield and nearly got me, too.

The Forest Service had done the bare minimum to put a road in—which made sense, it was a fire road. Rocks jutted up through the soil here and there, branches overhung, and as we came around a corner, we had to stop for a small tree down across the road. It wasn’t that big, I thought the Jeep could climb over it. Wasn’t that something they showed off in the commercials? I’d seen off-roaders doing it on TV and YouTube.

Ivy nosed right up to it, then set the parking brake and got out to inspect it. “Hop out, we’ll see if the two of us can shift it or break the top off. If not, we can grab it with the winch and pull it out of the way or break it into smaller pieces. If that doesn’t work, we'll walk up to the cabin and get my chainsaw.”

“You can’t just drive over it?”

“If I had to, yeah, and it’d probably be okay. Don’t want a branch poking through my radiator or puncturing a tire—I’ve only got one spare tire and no spare radiators.”

I nodded and unbuckled my seatbelt.

The tree was wet and spongy, and I could see most of the small branches were already broken off. It had obviously been dead for a long time. “How do you want to move it?”

“We’ll have to lift it, if we can, and then pull it away from the Jeep. It should pivot on the ridge alongside the road, doesn’t look like there’s anything it’ll get caught on alongside . . . watch yourself, it’s really rotten and chunks might just break off.”

“Yeah.” I wrapped my hands around the tree—really, more of a big sapling—and waited until she’d bent over and done the same. Some of the bark flaked off, and a few pillbugs spilled out.

“On three.” She shifted her stance. “Up and back, nice and easy.”

“Got it.”

Ivy counted down and we both lifted up, and got the tree partway off the road before it snapped, kicking her end up. The two of us stumbled, I dropped my end and a second later she dropped hers, as well.

“That’ll make it easier, less to move. Let’s just drag it from the bottom, and we can pick up what falls off the top if it’s in the road.” She moved around, crouching across from me, and on three we lifted again. The upper parts stayed together as we dragged it off the road, leaving only a few shed branches to kick clear.

She wiped her hands on her legs, clearing off most of the grit that had stuck to them and to her leg fur. I did the same, although it wasn't as effective, or else the dirt just didn’t show up in her fur. I hadn’t felt any when she had her thighs pressed against my cheeks.

It wasn’t until she got back into the Jeep that I noticed she hadn’t escaped entirely unscathed; a fresh red scrape ran across her right arm.

“Uh, you’re bleeding.”

Ivy glanced down at her arm. “It’s fine. I’ve had worse. I’ll rinse it out when we get to the cabin.”

•••

There wasn’t much difference between her driveway and the road. I thought we were at another intersection as she slowed, and then she made the turn and I was confronted by a steel gate with a big ‘No Trespassing’ sign on it.

She hopped out, opened it—it wasn’t locked—pulled through, and closed it behind her.

“Why have a gate that isn’t locked?”

“Anyone just passing by, they see it and know they can’t go in here, and keep on going. Like if they thought it was another road. Someone who stops and checks is gonna get in anyway if they want to, and hopefully my second sign will make them reconsider.”

She pointed to the right. Just around a bend, where it couldn’t be seen from the main road, was another sign that simply said ‘Fuck around and find out.’

“Do you ever get trespassers?”

“This is far enough away from anything it’s not likely. There aren’t any trails that are near my cabin, and some of my land is swampland, so most people wouldn’t wander in from that way by mistake. Everyone up here likes their privacy and respects everyone else’s too.”

That felt too trusting to me. “It only takes one bad apple, and—”

“It only takes one ‘hunting accident’ and the problem is solved.” Ivy cut the wheel as we came to the top of a ridge, and I got my first view of her cabin.

There were three kinds of cabins up north. There were those that were houses, only called cabins because they weren’t the primary residence. Then there were the more traditional cabins, built cheaply half a century ago, small and functional. And then there were the ones that merged with the hunting cabin class, providing the bare minimum of shelter and amenities and constructed as simply as possible.

Hers fell between two categories. It was small, to be sure, and it wasn’t ostentatious, but it was well-constructed and most importantly, it looked like a home. The exterior sheathing was all rough-hewn, the roof was thatched, and the stone chimney was smooth-worn river stone.

“Did you build this yourself?”

Ivy nodded. “Still working on it, that’s what the cement’s for. I made sure to buy enough land that I could harvest the trees I’d need. I hope you like roughing it.”

As we got closer, I spotted a mossy run-down shed among the trees, with a newly-constructed lean-to filled with firewood bracing it.

“That was there when I bought the property,” she said defensively. “It’s got a truck in it, and a trailer for my Jeep and a snowmobile for the winter. Truck’s a piece of shit, probably beyond saving, but I’m kind of tempted to try. Maybe when I run out of other projects to do.”

That got my curiosity. “What kind of truck is it?”

“Diamond T, probably war surplus.”

“Huh.” I’d never heard of a Diamond T.

“You’ll see it but don’t spend too much time looking at it. It’ll get dark sooner than you think, and we’ve still got things to do tonight. We got to get the Jeep unloaded, and I’ve got to get the cabin ready. Grab that Quickrete out of the back of the Jeep and stack it in the shed, you’ll see a pile of other bags. Last couple of times I was up here it was too rainy to pour cement. Once you’ve got that done, haul the cooler out of the Jeep and through the front door.” She pointed to a narrow path that wound down behind the house. “Outhouse is back there if you need it, it’s set up where it’s usually in the shade.”

“Sounds good.” This wasn’t quite what I’d imagined when I’d agreed to go with her, but I wasn’t complaining. We couldn’t spend all weekend in bed screwing, after all.

•••

The inside of the shed had a familiar old garage smell, coupled with the not entirely unpleasant tinge of must and mildew. The bulk of the shed was taken up with a hulking truck; I’d been imagining an old pickup but this was more like a logging flatbed. It had a very Forties curved look to it, with sweeping fenders and arched side windows, while the flatbed back was simple and utilitarian.

Alongside was a tarp-covered snowmobile, and behind them both was a neat pile of Quickrete bags, set up on a pallet and far enough away from the wall that they wouldn’t suck any moisture out of the wood.

Ivy would have carried all the bags of cement to the shed in one trip, I was sure of that. I didn’t; I took them one at a time and I was sweating by the time I got the third bag off my shoulder and piled on top of the rest.

She didn’t have to warn me to be careful with them, I’d had the misfortune to stock and arrange the Quickrete before and it seemed the bags just loved bursting open at the slightest provocation. They always shed concrete dust, too; I could feel some on my shoulder where I’d set the bag.

I could guess what they were for—I’d looked down the path and located the outhouse, and I’d also seen footings and posts for a deck—presumably she needed to install more posts. That was something I knew how to do with instruction, I’d helped rebuild a deck before. Mostly the grunt work, but I thought I’d learned a thing or two along the way.

For a moment, I wondered if she lured men to her cabin with the promise of sex in order to help her with construction.

Even if she did, I’ve got weekends free for the rest of the summer now . . . and weekdays, too. I imagined Mark storming out to the parking lot, finding my vest and radio . . . I’d heard my phone’s alert go off a couple times while we were driving and hadn’t bothered to answer it.

I instinctively reached down for my pocket but of course there was no phone there. There was no pocket there; my pants were still in the back of the Jeep.

Weirdly, I’d started to get comfortable with just being out here, naked. Now that I was thinking about it, though, I started to feel vulnerable again. For the first time since we’d left the Home Depot parking lot, Ivy wasn’t with me.

When I stepped back outside, my first view was the woods, completely devoid of any human intervention, at least recently. I vaguely remembered from my history classes that this part of Michigan had once been covered in mature forests which had all been clearcut in the 1800s, and all of this was new growth, at least on a geologic scale. Still, nobody much had been here in the last century—the land was wild and untamed, and even if I thought I could survive out there on my own, I doubted I’d have much chance at it with no clothes and no tools.

Then I turned the corner, saw the Jeep and of course her cabin. It was most of the way up the ridge, looking over the land below. Pine trees and deciduous trees were clustered down into a swampy valley which might have also had a lake in it. I thought I could see the sun glinting off open water, but I couldn’t tell for sure.

•••

I paused in front of the door, shifting the cooler in my hands, wondering if I should knock. Surely not; she’d know it was me.

The front door was simple; instead of a fancy doorknob and deadbolt, it had a gate padlock for security and a gate latch instead of a doorknob.

Inside was essentially one room. The kitchen was cordoned off from the rest with a cabinet, and the bedroom was a loft. She had a fireplace and a wood stove, and I also saw a Coleman camp stove on the countertop with a small propane cylinder next to it. Lots of big windows let in plenty of light, and I saw a few gas lamps—both propane and oil—for after dark. A blue five gallon water jug sat on the counter next to the faucetless sink.

She had a beanbag chair next to a bookshelf with a few well-worn novels on it, a gun safe, and that was it for furniture. From what I could see, there was no bed frame in the loft, just box springs and a mattress on the floor.

I couldn’t argue with her decor—simple was best.

“I brought in your clothes.” She motioned to the kitchen counter where they sat, under her bra, and under her dildo. “In case you want to get dressed again.”

She hadn’t bothered to put her clothes on, so I could go without as well.

“That’s everything we need out of the Jeep, now we gotta put the top on. It’s easier with two, if you want to help.”

“Sure.” I followed her back to the shed, then waited alongside the Jeep while she stepped inside.

She came back out with a mundane silver tarp, with bungee cords already fitted to it. An effective solution for being parked in the woods, anyway. They were a popular seller in our store, not the best quality but a cheap, temporary solution.

Ivy handed me a side and we walked it over the Jeep, then started bungeeing it into place. It wasn’t the best fit, and I could see where it had chafed at a couple of sharp corners on the Jeep, but it would stay in place and keep the interior dry if it started to rain.

Once it was in place, the two of us started walking back to her cabin. “Dinner’s going to be simple, hope you don’t mind. Beef stew, just out of a can.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Beef stew. And she was a minotaur . . . did she know what it was made of? If she didn’t, I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

“We’re going to have to forage some tomorrow; I only packed enough fresh food for me in the cooler. Wasn’t expecting to have company.”

“We could have stopped at a grocery store, I would have been happy to buy food.”

“There’s plenty out there.” She motioned at the forest. “Sometimes I don’t bring anything with me, keeps me on edge. Especially if I get up here late and don’t have time to hunt at night, wake up with an empty stomach and know that I don’t have anything that I don’t forage for.”

“Yeah.” I’d seen her gun safe, so I knew she wasn’t so extreme as to try and set snares or catch things with her bare hands.

Did she expect me to join her? I knew how to shoot a gun, but I wasn’t all that great at aiming them. “I suck at hunting.”

“You’ve tried?”

I was almost insulted by the incredulity in her voice. Even though it was true. “Not animals, just fish. Fishing. I’m not good at that.”

“You’ll learn tomorrow,” she promised. “Or we’ll be eating Spam sandwiches.”

“Spam? I thought you said—”

“It’s smart to always have food in the pantry, just in case.” Ivy pushed open the front door and walked into the cabin; I followed her. “Road gets washed out, snowed in, or I’m busy working on the house. Spam keeps forever. I’ve got a bunch of staples, selected more for shelf life than flavor.”

“Yeah.” I looked down, remembering. “I . . . I should have asked, do you want me to take my shoes off?”

Ivy shrugged. “Hooves aren’t great for floors, can’t imagine that the rubber soles on your shoes are worse. However you’re comfortable.”

I’d be comfortable sitting on the beanbag chair with Ivy sitting on my lap, at least until it was time to eat. I was already hungry, although I didn’t think it was dinner time.

I didn’t actually know, and there were no clocks in her cabin. I could have rummaged through the clothes pile and gotten my cell phone; while it surely didn’t have a signal, the clock would still work.

There was a reason she didn’t have a clock; she could have bought one if she wanted one. A cheap analog clock would run for months on a single double-A battery. I didn’t exactly understand how it would be relaxing to not know what time it was, but I could vaguely imagine that it would be freeing. Nothing she did would be based on the clock, nothing would be arbitrary. She’d get up when she wanted to, eat when she wanted to, sleep when she wanted to . . . and I could learn to do the same, couldn’t I?

“Time to get water, before it gets dark out.” Ivy grabbed the blue water container off the counter. “And set up the shower, too, unless you’re okay with cold showers.”

“I’d rather they be warm,” I admitted. “There’s some issues of shrinkage.” I looked around the cabin. “Where is the shower, anyway? Is it downstairs?”

“There’s no plumbing in the cabin except for the sink drain,” she said. “It’s easier that way, I don’t have to worry about pipes freezing. Otherwise I’d either have to winterize the pipes every weekend, or drain them all the way.”

“An outdoor shower must be unpleasant in the wintertime.”

“Don’t use it in the wintertime. If I got dirty enough, I’d heat some water on the stove and take a sponge bath in the kitchen.”

“Wouldn’t that make a mess on the floor?”

“Not if I put down towels.” She pushed open the front door. “Once I get the deck done, I’m gonna have a staircase down the back, so I won’t have to go around the house.”

•••

The well was a traditional pump-handle well, surrounded by four pressure-treated poles set into cement. “In the wintertime, I have plywood panels I put up around it to keep the wind out,” she said. “And a temporary roof as well, but it’s better being open the rest of the year.”

She had built a stand for the jug to rest on while it was being filled, and a funnel hung on one of the posts. Ivy stuck the funnel in the jug and I started pumping the handle.

At first, nothing came out, then a few spurts of water, and then it started to come more freely. I could smell the sulfur in the water, which gave me flashbacks to a few state parks I’d camped at in the past.

It didn’t take too long to fill the jug.

“Carry that back to the cabin,” Ivy said. “I’ll start getting the tubes for the shower.”

“Tubes?”

“You’ll see.”

I imagined that she had some sort of gravity-powered solar shower. We had some in our online catalog, but I didn’t remember the one in the picture having any tubes, except for the one that supported the showerhead itself.

I set the jug on the counter and went back to the well, spotting Ivy on the way. She was carrying two lengths of black painted PVC pipe over her shoulder, clearly the tubes she’d mentioned. Once she got them to the well, she showed me how they could be supported by a notch in the platform. “I made eight of them which is really overkill, but that way I only have to set it up once for a week. You start filling them while I get the rest, then we’ll carry them back and put them in place.”

•••

Her shower arrangement was genius, even if it looked like some mad scientist’s equipment. All eight of the tubes slid into angled supports, leaving the bottoms about seven feet off the ground. A length of hose attached to each, and was ganged together to a removable showerhead. She even had schrader valves and a bicycle pump on them so she could pressurize it if she wanted to.

“I like to get it set up early, as long as it’s not going to be too cold overnight. The groundwater’s about forty, fifty degrees, and even when the sun’s not on it, it’ll warm up some. Doesn’t really get hot, but it’s pleasantly warm most of the year. In the summer it’s plenty warm enough first thing in the morning, otherwise I’m better off waiting until the afternoon.

“Not that morning showers are worth much.”

“Why’s that?” I always took showers in the morning.

“Spend all day getting dirty, I want to take a shower at the end of that and go to bed clean.” She ran her finger down my arm, pausing as she came across one of the streaks of dirt.

I frowned as she looked over at the shower and then back at my arm. Even with just gravity, the water would flow, but it wouldn’t be warm at all.

“Good thing I keep plenty of washcloths in the cabin. Now come on, it’s time to start on dinner.”

Nightfall

Nightfall

By itself, dinner wasn’t anything special—why should it have been? Canned beef stew heated on a camp stove, bottles of beer to drink, and that was it. Standing together at the kitchen counter changed it, made it into something different, something which never would have been acceptable back home into a treat.

Her bowls and silverware weren’t matched, and it would have been odd if they were. In my mind’s eye, I could see her grabbing a sufficient supply from a second-hand store, the same thing I would have done to supply a cabin. The same thing I’d done to supply my apartment.

It somehow made it homier, more intimate—instead of everything being matched and perfect, it was selected for a task and no more.

While she was doing the dishes, I excused myself and made my way to the outhouse.

I’d seen old-fashioned outhouses in movies, and I’d used pit toilets in State Parks before, so I thought I knew what to expect.

I’d heard that one bit of culture shock is the local toilets, and while I would assume that unless Ivy had put some money into custom equipment at home, that bathroom was equipped the same as every other bathroom.

She’d built the outhouse herself, so she could do whatever she wanted to.

Given her penchant for nudity, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had had windows in it, but she hadn’t gone that far. Up top, there were windows to let the light in—well, cutouts with screens. I suppose they’d help with ventilation, too.

There was a shelf inside, which contained a roll of toilet paper in a metal coffee can, undoubtedly to keep rodents from making off with the TP. There was also a covered bucket of white powder with a scoop. I sniffed it and it didn’t really smell like anything. I wasn’t sure what it was for.

The toilet itself had a simple wooden lid covering it, which was straightforward enough. It was also directly on the floor, what I assumed was a traditional squat toilet arrangement. I’d never used one, so I wasn’t sure.

Aiming in the light of the day wasn’t all that difficult, especially since it was a decently large hole. Possibly even large enough to fall into, which was a good reason for the lid. Aiming at night would be considerably more difficult, especially without light . . . surely she had plenty of practice, but I didn’t, and I doubted she’d appreciate it if I peed on her floor.

I was in the forest. There were trees for that.

•••

“You any good at making a fire?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “Like, I’m okay, I can pile wood and with enough lighter fluid it gets going. How much lighter fluid do you have?”

Ivy rolled her eyes. “Back home we rarely even had matches.”

I wanted to bring up how she’d used a Coleman camp stove with a piezo-electric igniter to cook our dinner, but it didn’t seem like the right time to mention it.

“Alright, you saw where the firewood was, bring some in.” She pointed to a wrought-iron wood crib next to the fireplace.

I hesitated for a moment, not because I didn’t know where the firewood was, but because as prepared as she usually seemed, there should have already been wood in the crib. The only thing I could consider was that she thought I might be cold, and wouldn’t admit it.

“I’m fine, I don’t need a fire to keep warm.”

“It’s not for now, it’s for later. Gets cold when the sun goes down, and we’ll want the heat.”

“Got it.” I motioned to the crib. “So you used it all up last time?”

She shook her head. “Bugs. There’s always some in the wood, can’t do anything about that. Especially in the summer—wintertime, they’re usually dead or dormant. If I left wood in here, I’d get an infestation. So it’s smarter to keep it outside and only bring it in when I need it.”

I nodded. “That makes a lot of sense. I’d never thought about that.”

“Over on the left side, there’s smaller sticks and stuff for kindling, bring those in.”

•••

Two trips later, and Ivy was working on getting the fire started.

When I stacked the last load of logs into the crib—logs, like shopping carts, should be in their appointed place and arranged neatly—she took out a small wooden box and opened it. Inside was an oilcloth sack; inside that was a burned wad of cloth.

“Char cloth,” she explained as she tore off a piece. “I could use a match, but why not be traditional?”

What she did next, I’d only seen in movies and always figured was conveniently edited to make it look cool. She took a bundle of dry grass and formed it into a nest, then put the cloth in the center, then she used a striking rod and the backside of her knife to shower it with sparks.

All of the sparks that landed on the cloth immediately became glowing embers, and she folded the nest and started blowing into it. At first, nothing happened, then there was a puff of smoke, then a cloud of it, and then flames were licking at the grass.

Before it could burn her hands, she set it in the middle of the tepee of sticks she’d made, and watched with satisfaction as the flames crept to them.

“No matches,” she said proudly.

“That was impressive,” I admitted. “You really don’t have matches back home?”

“We do,” she said. “I wasn’t being entirely honest about that. But if you want to be able to survive in the wild, you can’t count on matches. Maybe you can’t get them, or maybe they got wet.”

“You need the cloth, though.”

“Don’t need it, it just makes things easier.” Now that the fire was making progress, Ivy grabbed some fatter logs that I’d brought in, stacking them around the fire. “And I didn’t buy that char cloth, I made it myself, and I can make as much as I want. All you need is natural fibers and a sealed tin. It’s a good skill to have; making fire is one of the most important ways to survive in the wild.”

“I guess so.” I’d never really considered the need of surviving in the wild, but then I’d never been anywhere really wild.

“Now go sit on the beanbag chair, and we’ll watch the fire for a while.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have it? I can sit on the floor.”

“I’ll have you to lean against.”

•••

I was sprawled out on the beanbag chair, watching over Ivy’s head as the fire took hold and climbed up the bigger logs

“Something magical about a fire.”

“Mmm-hmm.” There was also something magical about being a body pillow for a minotauress. She was pressed against my crotch, and I could feel every twitch of her tail; no small part of my concentration was wondering if it was impolite to get an erection, or if she was expecting that. Not that I was likely to have a free choice in the matter.

Trying to focus on something else didn’t help, so I instead gave into my baser impulses and reached around her, groping for a breast.

She didn’t stop me.

I traced around her nipple, and she leaned her head back as my fingers explored her flesh, her taut stomach, the fur on her thighs. Those were places I’d been already, places I knew, and even if my dick thought otherwise, now wasn’t the time to revisit previously-explored territory, as much as I wanted to.

Still, I couldn’t help but run my hands over her breasts again, before I ventured up to her head. Her hair smelled nice, and it was short enough there wasn’t much chance of accidentally tangling it, or so I hoped.

Ivy gave off a contented sigh and snuggled against me, softer than she’d ever been. Was her hair a weakness I could exploit?

And then I lost track enough to bump into something hard and unyielding, something that demanded I explore, something no human had—horns.

I could feel how her hair surrounded them, and the rough not quite scaly texture of them. Similar in texture to a fingernail.

“What are you doing?”

“Can you feel that?”

“Sort of.” She leaned back against me, twitching her ears. “It’s more of a pressure, I can’t tell exactly where your hand is. Horns wouldn’t be much good if they were too sensitive.”

“Like your hooves.”

“Yeah. You humans have to wear shoes to protect your feet, I don’t.”

I ran my finger up to the tip of her horn. It was rounded, but as I pushed on it, I could feel it indenting my flesh. Blunt enough to not be accidentally dangerous, but sharp enough to gore if she chose to.

Ivy must have known what I was thinking, because she reached up and gripped my hand. “I could tear your guts out if I wanted to.”

“How romantic.”

She stuck her tongue out and ran her hand down my thigh. “Don’t be sad because you’re stuck with an inferior body. That’s just fate. Besides, I’d rather not disembowel anybody with my horns, it’d take forever to get my hair clean.”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t fool enough to think that the thought of cleaning up after would hold her back if she decided she needed to disembowel somebody. I ran my hand down her horn, touched her scalp and worked through her hair until I reached an ear. “How about your ears, how sensitive are they?”

“Find out.”

“You won’t gore me?”

“Promise.”

I hesitated, then reached forward. I could trust her.

Her ears were soft and velvety, occasionally twitching under my fingers. I traced around the border of each, pausing at a notch in her left ear. I was curious, but didn’t want to ask.

She answered anyway. “Fight with a bull when I was in school, he bit me. Got me with a horn, too, right under my scalp. You can’t see the scar, but it’s there.” She took my hand and pressed it against her skull, just above her bangs, guiding my finger along a stretch of raised, puckered flesh. “We were both teens, high on hormones, typical schoolyard fight. His skull was thick enough to take a punch, but his nose wasn’t . . . in the end, we did wind up fucking anyway.” She sighed. “I don’t know what that says about me.”

“I don’t think what you do when you’re young really counts. We all make mistakes.” I ran my finger down her nose, booping her gently, before gripping her around the chest, caressing her tight abdominal muscles. “So what brought you to Earth?”

“I was one of the top girls in school, but when I got out into the real world, things were different, and when the opportunity came I decided that I’d try something else, and here I am. Lucky for you.” Ivy shifted around and stood. “It’s a clear night, we ought to be outside.”

•••

In the city, dark wasn’t really dark. Streetlights and building lights and billboard lights and headlights washed out the sky, put a constant glow over everything even on a moonless night. Out here, the only manmade light was only the faint glow from the windows of her cabin.

It was just enough to keep her clearly visible as she went around the east side of her cabin, but as she descended into the low ground behind her cabin, she nearly faded from my view. Were her eyes that quick to adapt to the dark, or was she just so familiar with her land and surroundings that she didn’t need to be able to see them?

I knew about where the outhouse was—it hadn’t been that long since I’d visited it—but I couldn’t see it at all, reinforcing my thoughts about trying to use it in the dark. Or even find it. If I tried, there was every chance I’d lose myself in the forest.

“You doing okay?” I only just saw that she’d stopped, and nearly crashed into her. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark, and now I could at least make out her silhouette and the shadow-shapes of trees.

“Just go slow, I can’t see much.”

“Do you want me to go back to the cabin and get a lantern?”

I shook my head. “Not unless—how far are we going?”

“Not far, there’s a nice clearing. Here.” She grabbed my hand. “That way you can’t get lost.”

•••

I thought I’d seen this clearing from the back of her cabin, but at night it was impossible to be certain. Off in the distance behind us, I could see the faint glow of the lamps she’d left on inside, the only sign of civilization anywhere in my sight. Everything else was just darkness, and while I knew that there were other houses around, knew that the highway was only ten miles away, it felt like the two of us were completely alone in a hostile wilderness.

Having things brush against me when I was walking out in nature was normal, at least during the day. At night, everything was unidentifiable, everything was a threat. The ground wasn’t friendly on bare feet; there weren’t any jagged rocks but there were sticks and roots and tough plants that got caught between my toes. All my senses felt heightened, since i couldn’t see much, and couldn’t make much sense of what I could see.

We were in woods, and what little light the stars or the unseen moon had provided was dimmed; shadows and branches looked nearly identical, and if I hadn’t been holding her hand I wouldn’t have dared move, lest I get lost. I reasoned that we must be on a path, and yet I couldn’t see it.

I was aware when the ground changed from mostly dirt and fallen leaves underfoot to short grass and then taller grasses and plants. Now they were constantly brushing up against me, and then we were in a clearing and I could see a little—still not clearly enough to specifically identify anything besides Ivy, but enough to tell that we were in an open clearing.

In the city, I was used to all the noises of traffic and the occasional siren, noises I tuned out and only focused on when they were absent. In the short time I’d spent with Ivy, I must have started to get used to the sounds of nature, because while I hadn’t consciously been listening to the sounds of insects, I noticed as their song quieted. Off in the distance, though, there was still the constant thrum of frogs calling for mates or defending their territory.

Vague shadows occasionally flickered across the sky, half-imagined. Bats. On a moonlit night, surely the sky would be full of them.

Ivy led me into the center of the field, dropped my hand, and sat down. I hesitated—who knew what kind of bugs were in the grass—then decided that once again, Ivy had won.

“I’ve never had sex outside before.” Well, not counting earlier in the Jeep.

“Is that all you can think about?”

“Uh, yes?” I reached over and put my arm around her shoulders; she pushed it off.

“Close your eyes.”

I couldn’t see all that much anyway, so it was hardly a loss.

Ivy didn’t trust that I had; she covered my eyes with her hand and climbed on my crotch. I jerked back as something brushed across my leg, before remembering that it was just her tail.

She pushed against my breastbone. “Lie down,” she commanded, and I obliged, doing my best to gracefully do the easy half of a situp. I didn’t have the abs for it. She could have done it easily.

She crouched over me; I could feel her breath on my face and her breasts brushing against my chest, felt her loins against mine, felt the cool grass against my back.

“Your eyes still closed?”

I nodded.

“Okay.” She dismounted, twisting around yet still keeping her hand over my eyes. For a moment, as she shifted her weight, she pushed my head down, then the pressure was gone. I tried to imagine what she was doing; she’d already mounted me and I was more than willing to be ridden. I could already feel my dick stirring.

Her hand moved as she positioned herself and I could have opened my eyes and gotten a look. She didn’t have her strap-on, did she? If she was carrying it, I would have seen it; both of us had left the cabin without a stitch of clothing.

I felt her rest her head on my stomach, and expected to feel her tongue on my dick, but that never came. She lifted her hand and instructed me to open my eyes.

They went to her first. She was also stretched out on her back, her hands folded over her stomach.

“What—”

“Just look up.”

Reluctantly, I looked away from her, and cast my eyes skyward, gasping as the star-studded sky came into full view.

It was almost like a painting, framed by the trees. And maybe it was for the best that I couldn’t see all of it. Uncountable stars, spread across the sky, more than I could ever remember seeing all at once.

It felt like I was falling, like I was in a void, and then I fixated on a set of navigation lights crawling across the sky, an airplane too high to even hear, and then it was gone, obscured by the trees.

I could pick out a few, familiar stars and constellations—the Big Dipper, the North Star, and I was sure I’d recognize Orion if I saw it, but I didn’t. Maybe the trees were blocking it, or maybe it wasn’t over the horizon.

Closer to us, fireflies made their own light, flickering on and off by the hundreds.

I felt as if I’d gone back into time, when space was a vast unknown, when the constellations were first named. When my ancestors and hers would have gazed up at the sky, trying to make sense of it all.

A shooting star lit up the sky, briefly, skimming and flaring before winking out and I reached out and she took my hand and we watched the vast sky above us, the millions and billions of stars displayed overhead.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yeah.”

“There are so many lights in the city. At first it was so amazing and so new, how you lit up the night with your own artificial stars, painting the streets and parking lots. Corporate logos glowing in the night, McDonald’s golden arches as enticing as a flame is to a moth. If you kept them only for a while . . . when is the last time you saw the night sky like this?”

“I must have, maybe when I was younger? We took trips up north, every family in Michigan does.”

“You get used to your lighted palaces and then you want nothing more.” Ivy ran her finger down my stomach. “You forgot what you lost . . . I come out here every time the night is clear and look up at them.” She raised her finger and pointed to the sky. “That’s the Milky Way.”

“That streaky bit across the sky?”

She nodded. “You’re looking into the center of our galaxy, the origin.”

“Do you have the same stars?” That was something I hadn’t wondered until just now. Never would have if Ivy hadn’t taken me.

“Many are the same, some are not. Constellations are shifted for us—I can’t see any that I know from home, although I can pick out many of the stars that make them. That’s Távros, the Great Bull.” She pointed to a patch of stars. I vaguely remembered that one of the constellations of the Zodiac was also named for a bull. “And that’s Ageláda, the Great Cow. Kind of.” She snorted. “It’s weird, I’ve seen your stars enough that I can’t quite remember what our night sky looks like.

“You can see your planets, too. Most of them are visible some part of the year.” She pointed to a reddish speck. “That’s Mars.”

Mars was the closest hospitable planet . . . well, maybe. Elon Musk thought he could build colonies on it, and I wondered if in the future people on Mars would be pointing to a mote of light on the sky and saying ‘that’s Earth, that’s where we came from.’ “You can’t see your planet, can you?”

I could feel her shaking her head. “It’s too far. You can see our star, though.” She shifted around and got up, then turned and took my hand. “Stand up.”

I did.

“Now, look along my arm and see where I’m pointing.” She aimed for a spot in the sky, and I followed along. An insignificant speck among many, many others.

“Wow.”

“Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? If you were there, that’s all you’d see of your home.”

Ivy lay back down in the grass, and I lay beside her, our view now on the sky. I reached out and she took my hand.

“You can’t imagine all the things I’ve seen out here,” she said, gripping my hand again. “The moon in all her phases, even a partial lunar eclipse once. That was eerie. Or the Northern Lights—imagine the sky all lit up in falling veils of green and red.

“The sky changes with the seasons. The stars are in sharper focus in the wintertime. I don’t always sit as long in the winter, it gets too cold even if I’ve got a thermos of hot chocolate with me.”

•••

I didn’t really know what things were like back where Ivy came from, on an unseen planet orbiting a far-distant star that was just a single pinprick of light against so many others. I had known that we’d spent the last century ruining the night sky, and even out here there were still signs, be they airplane lights crossing high above, or a fast moving speck of light that was a satellite or maybe the ISS. There was nowhere on Earth to get away from it; probably even on a raft in the middle of the ocean there would still be man-made things crossing by overhead.

Just the same, it was cleansing to look into the night sky, to admire the skyscape. And it was intimidating, even more so out in the woods where my insignificance in the grand scheme of things really sunk in. I couldn’t imagine what it would have felt like if I was alone, if I hadn’t had her head resting on me, if I couldn’t feel the rise and fall of her chest every time she breathed.

I had no idea how long we were in the clearing before she finally lifted her head, stood up, and took my hand. I’d been reduced to nothing but the void and the reassuring feel of her head on my stomach, of her hand gripping mine as we both contemplated the infinite in our own way. Everything modern had been shed.

•••

The faint glow of the oil lamps she’d left lit shone through the windows of her cabin, a lighthouse in its own right. A guide to a safe harbor. I didn’t really start shivering until I crossed inside and felt the residual warmth of the fire, now little more than shifting, glowing embers.

Ivy leaned against the beanbag chair and invited me in, spreading her legs around mine, pressing against my back and wrapping her hands around me, pulling me tight. She was still warm, as inviting and mercurial as the coals in the fireplace, dual-natured, strong and soft.

I wanted to touch her and didn’t dare, not yet, I wanted the moment to stretch out, backwards and forwards, but I could lean my head back, I could feel the sharp jut of her chin on my shoulder and the soft flesh of her cheek against mine, the tickle of her hair on my ear and the unyielding press of her horn against the back of my head.

We’d looked up into the universe, and now it was just us. The final glow of the fire, still giving off heat even though the flames were gone.

She ran her fingers through my hair, across my skull where horns weren’t. I reciprocated, twining my fingers through the fur on her leg, reaching all the way down to a hoof. They felt much like her horns.

I was exploring around the bottom—the heel—when I felt her flex her hoof, something I hadn’t known was possible. Curious, I moved toward the cleft of her bifurcated hooves, gently pushing, feeling them move apart and then back together.

Ivy didn’t laugh out loud, but she was pressed tight enough against my back that I could feel her mirth. “They’re just like fingers, or toes. I can move them, get a better grip on things.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Can even grip things between my toes, if I want to.”

“Really?”

She nodded, a horn pressing against my head. “Don’t get ideas, I know girls who have a graceful enough grip, but I’m not one of them.”

“I wasn’t.” That was now a lie; as soon as she’d mentioned it, I had.

“Like, you can do the Vulcan salute, right? It’s like that.”

“Huh.” I pondered this new information. “They’re not . . . delicate, though, right?”

“No, not like your feet. Wouldn’t be much use if they were. Your feet are malformed hands, used to be good at gripping things but now they’re just complicated and delicate, and you have to wear shoes anywhere you go. I don’t.”

“That’s why we invented clothes.”

“Yeah.” She wrapped her arms around me again. “How’s that going for you?”

“Could be better. I’m not as cold as I was.” I hesitated, and then asked anyway. “Did you ever wear clothes before coming to Earth?”

Ivy shrugged. “Sometimes when it was cold, yeah. And for fancy occasions, you can’t go to a dance nude. Having to wear them all the time—well, almost all the time, that’s weird. The only thing I was looking forward to was pockets, and it turns out a lot of girl’s clothes don’t have them.

“You could carry a purse.”

“Or wear men’s clothes. They’re better for work, anyway. Would you have been following me if I’d been wearing my work pants, huh?”

“I might—I wasn’t following you.”

She didn’t dignify that with a reply.

•••

“This is so weird.”

“Why?” Ivy held out her toothbrush, still wet from her mouth.

“Toothbrushes are a thing that shouldn’t be shared.”

“Do you have one?”

“Yes, but not here. You stole me away before I could pack.”

“Don’t act like you regret it.” She grabbed my hand and wrapped it around the handle of her toothbrush. “You’re old enough to not need instructions.”

“It’s been in your mouth.”

“So has your tongue.”

We were in the kitchen, standing in front of the sink, performing our evening ablutions. Or she was; she was the one with a toothbrush and I’d never before watched someone brushing her teeth with such interest.

“It’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.”

Ivy crossed her arms, inadvertently giving herself maximum cleavage, something I couldn’t ignore even with our current circumstance. My current circumstance. “If you’re that worried about it, you’re gonna be keeping your mouth to yourself for the rest of the weekend.”

Suddenly it felt like a silly thing. Illogical. But still weird; the toothbrush was even warm.

Was it any more weird than standing naked in the kitchen of Ivy’s cabin somewhere in the woods. Any more weird than quitting my job and going up north with her within minutes of meeting her for the first time? Any more weird than getting progressively more naked on the road?

Of course it wasn’t, but it felt like it was.

Or maybe it was her watching me as I brushed my teeth—with her toothbrush—and spit and cupped a mouthful of sulphury water, and I was kind of sad when she uncrossed her arms and let her breasts fall.

“I suppose in the morning I’ll be wearing flower-scented deodorant.”

“Only if you’ve got a stick shoved somewhere I haven’t found. Natural scents are better.” She tapped her nose.

“You’re not impressed with the fading scent of Old Spice? Are you telling me that the commercials were a lie?”

Ivy stuck her tongue out at me. “The nose knows, even if you mask it.”

•••

She could have built a staircase to her loft, but she hadn’t. I gripped the ladder’s steps as she put out the lights, blowing across the chimney to silence the flame. Only one was left, hung where it could be reached from the loft.

Having her go first would be advantageous, would fulfill one fantasy, and I hesitated, briefly considering a lame excuse for why she should be the first up the ladder and why I should follow her and then I pulled myself up, nearly at the top before she followed.

Maybe she fantasized about looking up on a ladder and seeing my tackle hanging out.

•••

The loft had a mattress and box springs and a small end table towards the wall, populated by nothing more than an empty Solo cup. I thought about climbing down the ladder, half-asleep, needing to pee, and then she stepped off the ladder and I decided that the future could take care of itself; as long as she left one light on, I could figure it out if I needed to.

Everything was different in the scintillating light of the lamp, painting her with colors and shadows that the sun couldn’t, softening and shading her in a new way, and as I laid back on the bed I knew she’d want to be on top. I gathered the pillows around my head as she leaned over the edge of the loft and turned the wick down to the barest flame.

She straddled me, leaning down to grace me with a kiss before grinding back, sliding along my rapidly hardening cock. Silky fur, warm wet flesh, Aphrodite’s kiss, she slid against me, and I was wondering if I ought to guide myself in just as she shifted her hips, leaned down and slid back, hesitating briefly as my head pushed eagerly forward, then committing, planting herself on my cock, taking me in to the root.

I could feel her muscles clenching, eagerly tugging even as she paused, one hand on the bed and the other guiltily stroking a nipple, and then she shifted, not forward or back, but to the side, centering herself before she tensed, lifted up, dropped back down, and I wanted to thrust into her but also wanted to let her take charge.

I couldn’t just lie on the bed and do nothing; and tempting as it was to focus on her boobs or her crotch, I could take a holistic view, letting my hands explore where they would, from the tense muscles of her stomach to her rope-like tail, guided where curiosity insisted, away from our coupling.

Down her calves, the thicker fur there. Underneath, tense, coiled muscles. I hadn’t really explored her legs, the less-human parts of her.

She twitched as I breached the border between leg and hoof, stroking two hard but yielding nubbins behind her hooves. I didn’t know what those were, but that was a chink in her armor to remember, not for now but for later, when we were both closer. Something that might push her over the edge; for now I was still exploring, weirdly curious even as she rode me.

Her hooves couldn’t be sensitive, not like the soles of my feet were. That was simple logic, and the following realization that she could feel no more than pressure on them. Limiting in one way, and freeing in another, I didn’t know yet what to do with my newfound knowledge as I felt her instinctively pinch down on my finger as I explored the cleft of her hoof, tight enough to be on the border between painful and pleasurable.

Ivy had her own method of retaliation, changing the pace as she rode my cock, hesitating and slowly sliding back down in an attempt to confound me.

I’d never thought I could outlast her, and yet she was planted on my cock, chest heaving, her vaginal muscles clenching and I was close but not there yet as she took a shaky breath and lifted herself off my crotch.

For an instant, I thought I could go on forever, until she leaned down and pressed her lips against mine, her tongue thrusting into my mouth, demanding and curious. My hand trailed down her back, across her ass, the root of her tail, grasping, exploring, and she melted against me, writhing around my cock as I came, holding me in.

I was still in her when she slumped against my chest, nesting her head against my chin, and I stroked the base of her ears, eliciting a soft moan.

Foundation

Foundation

I was normally one to sleep through the night, unconcerned in Morpheus’ grasp, but this time I didn’t.

The initial why wasn’t apparent to me, just that I woke and it was still dark and in the nighttime discombobulation the pieces didn’t fall into place right away. Just the feeling that things were wrong—no, not wrong, but different.

My alarm clock at home was annoyingly bright. On the rare occasions I did wake up in the middle of the night, I considered replacing it, and forgot about it by the morning. But it was gone . . . this wasn’t my bed, and I was hotter than usual for the middle of the night.

It took me longer than it should have to remember that I wasn't home, that I was somewhere up north, and that I was in bed with Ivy.

Except that I wasn’t; she wasn’t there. Could that have been what had woken me?

It must have been, that must have been what woke me. I sat up in bed, as if that would give me a clue where she’d gone. She wasn’t in the loft and I didn’t hear her hooves downstairs; she’d probably gone to the outhouse, unless there was something that needed to be done in the cabin in the middle of the night.

Surely not in the summertime, but I could imagine in the winter having to wake up and climb down the ladder to put more wood in the fire—did she set an alarm for that, or did she just know?

I heard the door of the cabin open then close, and I heard her hooves downstairs as she crossed the wood floor. I laid back down in bed and pulled the covers back kind of how they had been. It wasn’t a considered thought, but I was still muzzy from sleep and didn’t want to wake up for the day just yet.

In the dim light of the single lantern of the loft, I saw her horns poke above the floor, then I closed my eyes. She walked to the bed and climbed in, taking a moment to get comfortable. I could feel her pressing against my back as she settled in.

She yawned and I felt the blanket move as she pulled it up, then she nestled up against me, spooning me, her arm reaching around my chest, resting on my stomach just below my navel.

I could feel her chin pressing between my shoulder blades, her breath on the nape of my neck, I could even feel the covers shift as her tail flicked, and then some time passed and she was asleep again, leaving me alone in the dark with my thoughts.

Until now, I hadn’t really had time to reflect. I’d been reacting in the moment, or at least it felt like that in hindsight. I’d gotten lured in—understandably so—and I followed Ivy’s instructions. What did that mean? What did that make me? I wasn’t sure.

What would the morning bring? Depending on what time it was, I could count how long the two of us had spent together on the fingers of my hands, and yet it felt as if I had always been here. And I knew, deep down, that after the weekend was over it would be over; unless I proved myself exceptionally useful or a better lover than she’d ever had, she’d give me a ride back home and that would be that. Maybe I could call Home Depot and beg for my old job back—I spent longer than I should have trying to remember what the employee manual had said about unexcused absences.

Was having my old job back worth it? I could find another one, one that was better. What if that was ultimately the opportunity that Ivy was giving me?

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I remembered a novel I’d read that had a similar theme. I couldn’t remember what it was, although it had something to do with boats. And a rich, spoiled protagonist who learned his place in life.

It would come to me, or it wouldn’t. I rolled onto my back, carefully so as to not disturb Ivy. She shifted around, nestling up against me again as soon as I settled. Her hand still rested on my stomach and I could see one bare breast in the dim lamplight. As tempting as it was to grope, I instead pulled the covers up over her—I couldn’t deny the pleasure it would bring but was that better than the completeness I felt with her snuggled up against me? The morning would bring what it brought; for now I was happy watching the shadows cast by the oil lamp dance across her body, painting her in sharp relief.

Requiem Aeternam played at my mind—all fell before the bull.

Sometimes in the middle of the night, thoughts were muddled, confused; other times they were preternaturally clear. I hadn’t fallen, I’d won.

Hadn’t I?

The lamplight danced across her somnambulant body, and I was at peace with my choice. Maybe she wasn’t human, but she was where it mattered. For better or worse I could live with that, so I snuggled against her, the two of us melding into one, and it felt right.

•••

Morning came, and with it another momentary disorientation before I remembered that I wasn’t spooning a pillow.

I had morning wood, which I didn’t think that Ivy would mind, and I really had to piss, although I wasn’t ready to get out of bed just yet. My left arm was irretrievable, pinned under her head. It felt numb from the elbow down, which portended lots of pins and needles when I finally did get it back.

My right arm draped across her, my hand touching just along her ribs. I could feel the gentle rise of her chest and she breathed and feel her heartbeat and the underside of a boob pressing against the side of my hand.

I wouldn’t mind waking up with her hand on my cock, or even caressing my nipples, and I was drowsy enough to start moving my hand along the curve of her breast before remembering that she had horns and as close as I was to the back of her head, even an accidental twitch might result in a scar.

Ivy settled it for me; she rolled on her back, grabbed my hand, and planted it on her breast. She whispered into my ear: “You’ve got five minutes to have your fun. I’ve got to piss.”

“So do I.”

There wasn’t a clock in her loft, which meant that the five minutes were what she said they were. If I really got her going, the time might be extended . . . and if my performance was lacking, that time might be shortened.

Yesterday she’d always been leading, directing; now it was my chance to explore where I wanted. Start with her breasts, she’d already put my hand there.

They felt different when she was on her back, or maybe that was my imagination. I gave a gentle squeeze and started moving my finger around, tracing across the soft flesh, circling in to the rougher areola and her nipple, already stiff under my touch. Then down her stomach, gentle and careful not to press. All the way down to the edge of her fur—it was weird how it was a very clear border, like a hairline. Not that I’d ever really thought of it before, but if I had, I would have thought that there was a gradual transition between human half and bovine half, maybe light vellus hair and then thicker body hair before reaching the fur, but Ivy wasn’t like that at all. She had fine body hair on her stomach, and then the fur started almost in line with the ridge of her hip bones.

Today should be a day of gentle exploration, at least if I could get away with it. My curiosity was starting to win out over my horniness, which was strange. It was true that most work days I had at least some morning wood, and of course didn’t act on it, especially not if I had a morning shift. A few times, the temptation had been strong, and I’d had my eye on the clock as I rubbed one out—even if I’d been ballsy enough to admit it, Mark wouldn’t have accepted that I was late because I was jerking off .

With my arm across her crotch, stroking a love handle, with my eyes on breasts dappled in the morning light, she looked exactly human, she looked like a woman I might fantasize waking up next to, and then I moved my hand revealing sleep-clumped fur, and there was a tiny conditioned part of my mind screaming out that this was unnatural, this was a sin, this was barely removed from bestiality, and every other part of my mind dogpiled on it and beat it into submission.

Because who the fuck has a moral crisis while in bed with a partner who’s hot as hell, content to walk around nude, and who might wind up fucking me to death?

So what if she did? It would be an honorable death.

I slid my hand down the inside of her thigh, almost but not quite touching her between the legs. Pissing with a hardon was possible but difficult and I didn’t know how it worked for girls. If I gave her a girlboner, would she not be able to piss until it subsided, and be mad at me as a result?

Who was I kidding, I probably wasn’t good enough to give her a girlboner unless she wanted one. Just the same, I moved back to safer morning territory, teasing along her stomach and around her belly button, wondering if it was arousing or just weird to stick a finger in there.

Maybe when we knew each other better I’d give it a try. Or maybe I’d wimp out and regret it, since it was always in the back of my mind that come Sunday she’d drive me home, drop me off, and I’d never see her again.

Which would be the greater regret, not playing with her navel or not taking every opportunity I had to fondle her breasts?

I could fondle her breasts while I considered that dilemma. Taking turns, because it wasn’t fair that only the right boob was getting any action.

•••

I spent my five minutes wisely, until Ivy pushed my hand off and leaned forward before sitting up. I pulled my other arm back and tried to wiggle my fingers, proving that they at least still worked.

She sat on the edge of the bed and stretched, folding her arms behind her head and arching her back. I reached off to the side and felt around on the floor for my underwear before remembering that my clothes were still downstairs.

And then I also remembered that we’d lost our clothes on the way here, that we’d shed the veneer of normal society on the backroads of northern Michigan.

•••

Looking down from the top, the ladder was more intimidating. I would have to turn and trust that there was a rung below me, that my hands wouldn’t slip—I knew they wouldn’t, not even my left. There was something intimidating about a ladder the first thing in the morning.

“Your hand not awake yet?”

I shook my head.

“I ought to go down the ladder first, then. I can catch you if you lose your grip.”

“Yeah, with your horns.” I put my leg over the edge. “Besides, if I fall, I wouldn’t mind the last thing I see being you coming down the ladder to rescue me.”

“Just an excuse to look up, huh?”

“Yup.” I ducked over the edge and descended, and she followed down a moment later. The view was everything I’d hoped for, especially since she took her time.

•••

I let her go to the outhouse first—I had to put on my shoes. Bending over to slide them on my feet didn’t do my bladder any favors, and I didn’t bother to tie them.

When she wasn’t with me, it took more courage to open the front door and step outside, nude but for my shoes. I half-expected there to be a cop or hidden camera crew or something. Maybe a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses about to proselytize me.

Did she get Jehovah’s Witnesses at her house? And did they run screaming when they saw her? If I didn’t know any better, I could mistake her for a satyr, and those were only a handshake away from Satan himself.

The morning air was chillier than the early morning sun suggested, and I immediately broke out in goosebumps.

That made it no less beautiful. The air was full of birdsong, the hum of early morning insects, and the blessed lack of man-made noise.

As I walked around to the back of the house, I decided that having a cup of hot coffee in my hands would be one of the few things that could improve the moment, but when the outhouse door opened and Ivy emerged, I decided I could do without the coffee and instead watched her walk back to the cabin.

“I thought you’d be waiting at the outhouse door,” she said as she stepped up on the dirt patio.

“I would have been . . . I was admiring the view.”

“Oh yeah?” She cocked her hip.

“The forest—not that I don’t enjoy looking at you.”

Her stance eased. “It’s funny, I doubt I see it the same way you do; to me it looks almost like home but not quite. When I see it at a distance, it’s almost the same, but then I start to see individual details and it’s all different.” She leaned against my shoulder before slapping me on the butt. “Now hurry up and piss; we’ve got a lot to do today.”

I nodded and took a step for the outhouse, then paused. “Hey, this is a dumb question, but what’s the white powder for?”

Ivy frowned, and for a moment I thought it was a girl thing, maybe something I didn’t want to know. “The slaked lime? That’s to keep the smell down.”

“Does it work?” The vault toilets I’d used before didn’t smell bad, but there was a smell.

“Good ventilation makes the biggest difference, but it doesn’t hurt. Using the lime’s not a year-round thing; in the wintertime I usually use wood ash instead—it does the same thing and I get it for free. Not as good at keeping flies away, but then flies aren’t really a problem in the winter.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you asking all these questions so you don’t have to work?”

“It depends. Will I get a reward after work?”

“Work is its own reward.” She pushed me towards the outhouse. “Hurry up or you won’t get breakfast.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

•••

I’d expected her to be back in the cabin making breakfast when I got done in the outhouse, but she wasn’t—she was standing right where I’d left her, watching with a bemused look as I picked my way up the trail. I didn’t mind; it gave me something to look at, a near goal to work towards. Something more enticing than the work she had planned for after breakfast.

When I got next to her, she turned and the two of us started walking back to the front door. “When I get the deck built, I’m going to build a pair of those wooden lounging chairs,” she said.

“Chaise lounges?”

Ivy frowned. “No, not those. They’re something else, there’s a word for them, anacondic?”

“That’s a snake. An anaconda.”

“Adacondic? No, Adirondack. That way I can come up after a hard week at work, eat a simple dinner, and sit out on the deck and watch the sun go down.”

“That would be nice.” It was easy to imagine; any number of advertisements featured a happy couple sitting watching nature in chairs just like that. Or clawfoot bathtubs in the case of one erectile dysfunction medicine.

Thank God I didn’t need that.

“We’ve got a lot of holes to dig and cement to pour in the morning, which means that you’ll need a good breakfast. I’ve got two options: oatmeal or bacon and eggs.”

As I opened my mouth to answer, she held up a finger. “Thing is, I’ve only got enough bacon and eggs for one meal, so if we eat them today, it’ll be oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow.”

“I’ll let you pick,” I decided. “And I’ll help with either.”

“Oatmeal it is.”

•••

Oatmeal was a camping staple, and I expected her to have bags of Quaker flavored oatmeal or maybe a cardboard tube of the plain kind. Instead, she had a metal tin of Irish steel-cut oatmeal. Unlike the oatmeal I was used to, this was ground into much smaller flakes, almost a powder.

Vague memories of having to soak grains for hours percolated through my mind—a lot of rices, I thought, were like that before the instant variety came along. And wasn’t that true of some kinds of porridge? I wasn’t sure; I’d never had anything but Quaker’s.

Ivy unfolded the camp stove, connected the propane cylinder, and lit it off. For a moment, the fart-smell of the propane lingered, reeking in the kitchen.

She dumped a couple spoonfuls of oats in the pan, followed with water, then a generous pinch of salt. Literally a pinch—instead of keeping it in a shaker or in a grinder like all the chefs on YouTube were doing, she had a traditional salt cellar. Traditional in function, anyway; instead of a wooden box or stoneware pot with a lid, she kept her salt in a mini-tin of butter cookies.

I hadn’t even known that there were mini-tins of butter cookies.

“You remember where the bowls are. And I should have already gotten the coffee going . . . get that percolator, would you?”

“Percolator.” My eyes roamed the kitchen counter, first expecting to find a coffee maker and coming up short. There was a kettle-looking thing, so I grabbed that.

“Water goes in the bottom half, coffee grounds in the basket.” She pulled a cupboard open and grabbed another tin out. The coffee was in a tin can with a Thomas Kinkade winter snowscape printed on it.

“Don’t like the plastic cans it comes in?”

“First, I roasted and ground it myself; second, mice. Hard enough to catch them normally, if they’re all hyped-up on coffee. . . .”

I hadn’t thought about that, but mice would be a constant problem in a cabin that was vacant for large parts of the year. “Bugs can get in, too. Maybe not through plastic, I don’t know. Metal’s impervious.”

I nodded as I filled up the percolator and set it on the other burner. Ivy was stirring the porridge with what looked like a minimally-shaped dowel rod. “What’s that?”

“This?” She held up the stick. It’s a theavel, it’s what you stir porridge with.”

“Not a spoon?”

“That just drags the lumps around. Maybe if you didn’t have anything else you could use a spoon. But why do something if you aren’t going to do it right?”

•••

The oatmeal finished long before the coffee, although the latter was progressing. The percolator was making happy burbling noises, and I could occasionally see the coffee splashing up into the clear plastic knob on top.

“Do you take your oatmeal plain, or do you like syrup in it?”

“I’ve never had it plain,” I admitted. “So this will be interesting.”

“We could have picked some berries, put them in. There’s a few thickets around here. Well, we’ll go by them later, we can have them later.”

We ate over the kitchen counter. The oatmeal was nearly flavorless, but smoother than any other oatmeal I’d ever had. It had a texture almost like warm custard, or like grits without the grit.

It sat in my stomach like a brick, which in terms of giving me energy for the upcoming day was probably a good thing, although it certainly wasn’t fast-acting.

Luckily, the coffee made up for it. I hadn’t really felt tired, no doubt because instead of dragging myself out of bed to prepare for another day of retail drudgery, I’d been doing fun things with Ivy, and surely at some point in the not-so-distant future, I would be doing Ivy.

I washed up the breakfast dishes—that was only fair—and stacked them in the drying rack. Ivy folded the camp stove back up and stowed it on the counter.

“Do you want to take a shower first, or—”

“Not before mixing and pouring concrete. Are you nuts?”

“So it’s going to be messy.”

“Can’t help concrete dust going places. By the second bag, it’ll be sticking to sweat and fur. I hope you’re good with a curry comb.”

“What the hell’s a curry comb?”

“You’ll find out.”

•••

I’d seen some holes already dug with cardboard forms in them and assumed that that was all of the holes, but it wasn’t. She’d only been planning on pouring concrete in some of them since she’d expected to be alone for the weekend. My help meant that she could get all the post foundations dug and poured.

That was the theory, at least.

“You’re gonna dig the holes,” Ivy said. “I’ve got them marked, everywhere you see a paving block, a hole goes there.”

“Right.” Years of organizing retail shelves had turned me into a fast counter; there were sixteen paving blocks neatly arranged at the vertices of an imaginary grid.

“I’ll dig some, too, and then once we start to have a surplus of holes, I’ll bring down the concrete and mix it and pour it.”

“How exact do they have to be?”

“The closer the better, but they don’t have to be precise.” She tilted her head towards the shed. “Let’s get our tools. You ever dug post holes before?”

“I’ve dug holes once or twice, it wasn’t fun. Are you sure you want me doing this?”

“You want to sit around and watch, that’s all you’re getting to do for the rest of the weekend.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Work was its own reward . . . so long as that reward was more than the satisfaction of a job well done.

•••

There were three tools to be used in hole-digging: a spade to dig up the topsoil, a post-hole digger for the holes themselves, and a digging bar, which was like a long chisel.

Since she only had one of each, Ivy started out with the spade, digging out the borders of the holes. As soon as she’d finished the first, I set in with the post-hole digger.

At first, the post-hole digger was weird to use, it was like a combination of shovels and chopsticks all in one unit. I’d seen them in use before, in movies or on YouTube, but that didn’t translate into personal understanding of how to operate them—I’d watched Bob Ross, too, and I couldn’t paint for shit.

When it came to instructions, I hadn’t paid as much attention as I should have. I’d almost gotten a handle on the post-hole digger when I hit my first rock, and I ineffectually banged at it before finally remembering that was what the digging bar was for. I worked it around the edges of the rock, getting it out of the compacted dirt, and then reached down in the hole and fished it out.

“Rocks, go there,” Ivy said, pointing to a small pile near the foundation of her cabin. “They’re useful for all sorts of other projects.”

“Good to know it won’t be wasted.” With her, I was quickly figuring out that nothing was wasted. Some things, like the rock, were opportunities that she found, whereas others were carefully selected for their future utility. Why buy cookies in a throwaway plastic package when she could instead get them in a metal tin suitable for storing salt in later?

I put the rock in its prescribed place, then went back to work. The soil changed in nature as I went down; it was loamy and then it got drier, sandier, and lighter in color. Nature’s progress bar. “How deep should these be?”

“Four feet, give or take. That puts it below the frost line.”

“You got a tape measure?”

“That post-hole digger has four foot handles. Stick it upside-down in the hole, if the top of the blade is even with the ground, you’ve gone four feet.”

“Got it.” That meant that I was going to be bending over a lot. It was going to be a long morning.

•••

Once I figured out the post-hole digger, I started to make real progress, and before too long I could focus on things other than just the hole I was digging. It was low-concentration work, the ultimate in repetitive motions.

My first hole hadn’t been great; she’d had to do some cleanup work with her shovel before the cardboard form could fit in. The second was pretty decent, and by the third I was starting to become a pro. I’d even figured out that I could use the post-hole digger to lift out rocks when they were beyond convenient reach, so long as they weren’t too big.

That might have given us time for conversation, if we’d been working side-by-side. Instead, she’d started the process of bringing the Quickrete down and getting buckets of water to mix with it.

I was okay with it. She had threatened me with being forced to watch, and it honestly wasn’t the punishment she thought it was. For one, there was the aspect of watching a professional at work that was always fascinating. TV shows and YouTube careers had been built on that fact.

Then there was her physique. I’d never really been attracted to bodybuilders, but Ivy had the perfect curved to chiseled ratio. She was stronger than she looked—I already knew that—and when she had a bag of concrete over her shoulder or a bucket of water in each hand, I could see her muscles in sharp definition. When she wasn’t carrying anything, she looked softer, curvier.

Her very species was dual in nature. In everything, it seemed.

And of course there was the fact that she was completely nude, which by itself was more than enough. As I started on the fourth hole, I realized that as long as I was working with Ivy, I could stay motivated all day . . . or until I collapsed atop the post-hole digger.

•••

By lunchtime, there were ten holes that were full of concrete, and six more dug. I’d dug four of those and she’d done the other two, with the normal shovel since she didn’t have a second post-hole digger.

I’d gone from pain and exhaustion to just numb fatigue; I was drenched with sweat, at least some of which could be blamed on the sun. Once it got above the trees, it was merciless.

She was also sweating, which gave me a perverse measure of pride. I’d hate to think she was so strong that all that work had been nearly effortless.

The two of us cleaned the worksite together, gathering up all the empty bags. I lost count at two dozen, but that told me she’d carried more than a half ton of concrete down on her shoulders, mixed it, poured it. I thought I’d moved more dirt, but maybe I hadn’t.

We’d earned a break. The two of leaned up against the block foundation of her cabin, still cool, and I resolved to never look at construction workers apparently lazing about in the same way again. I’d gone to my limit and then beyond what I thought I could do.

Maybe the work was its own reward after all. Even if this was only for a weekend, the foundations that we’d made together would last decades or longer, a testament to our labor.

The two of us relaxed together, job well done, until Ivy finally spoke. “You’re tougher than you look.”

“I’m more stubborn than I look,” I corrected. “I feel like a wet noodle right now.”

“You look like one, too.”

Of all the analogies I could have used, that might have been the worst, but I hadn’t thought when I’d said it that she’d reach down and grab my cock.

“Maybe after lunch you’ll have more strength.”

“Don’t count me out too quick.” My libido was already rallying; ten seconds ago my body had been warning me that it was running on reserves, was preparing itself for relaxation. All of that was already being ignored in favor of responding to the hand lightly grasping my member.

“If we want something other than sandwiches, we’ll have to—”

I grabbed her head and pressed her lips against mine, thrusting my tongue into her mouth. She was the dirtiest, sweatiest girl I’d ever kissed; I could taste concrete and I didn’t care.

My hands ran down her back, to the curve of her ass, the root of her tail, I squeezed as she tensed, her hand still loosely wrapped around my dick and then she started stroking. It wasn’t hard yet, but it was quickly rising to the occasion.

I broke the kiss, leaned down and licked her neck. Salty, sweaty, dusty—she moaned and pressed against me. “Fuck it, we’ll have sandwiches.”

•••

Yesterday, Ivy had been in charge and I’d followed her commands. Even this morning, when she’d given me five minutes, it was a five minutes that she decided. The roles had been given, even if they were unspoken, and even when I felt like I was in charge, like I was setting the pace, it was really her, guiding me.

This was different. This was fighting sex, this was a struggle for dominance carried out in the dirt under her partially-completed deck. This was as physical and visceral and actual as sex could get; this was the two of us both trying to get what we wanted, even if in my case it was a nebulous prize. I wanted to win; I needed to win, and I pushed her down into the dirt and mounted her.

She thrust her hips up, and I guided myself in, my mind laser-focusing on the desire for conquest, and as I hilted myself I had my victory. Her arms tightened against my back as I slammed myself home, feeling for a moment as if I’d gone deeper than ever before. My lips pressed against hers, my tongue jamming into her mouth—there was no finesse, no art, just a deep primal need, and for the moment I had my conquest.

She locked her legs around my butt, pulling me in tight. My victory was fleeting: now she had some control as I tried to pull back and she denied me.

I was not ready to capitulate; I groped her breasts, a rough, calloused squeeze, the memory of clenching a post-hole digger fresh in my mind.

She squeezed back, her nails digging into my back, and the fight was on.

•••

After, we lay panting in the dirt. She’d kept her legs locked around my waist after my final spurt; she’d kept me in her until I finally went flaccid and then we’d rolled apart and laid on our backs and looked up at pressure-treated wood and overhanging branches and one bold chickadee who was curious about just what the fuck was going on down on the ground.

I could feel sweat or blood on my back, it didn’t really matter which. Ivy’s breathing was still ragged in the afterglow, and mine was, too.

I reached over and rested my hand on her stomach, feeling as her abs released the final bit of tension. She was slick with sweat and I surely was, too. I could feel the dirt sticking to my back, and I marveled at the thought that it hadn’t been all that long since I was thinking I was dirty and sweaty enough to really need a shower; that I was dirty and sweaty enough to be unattractive, almost offensive.

Yet that had meant nothing to her, nothing to me. We’d both had a need and for now that need was scratched. Now here we were, her head resting on my shoulder, her cheek pressed against mine, her breast heavy on my chest and her horn heavy on my head. I knew deep down that Ivy didn’t tend to go for cuddling and yet here we were, our breathing slowly coming back to normal. Here I was, snuggled up to a minotauress for a time, king of the world.

It was a moment which couldn’t last, but it was also a moment I knew I would remember forever.

•••

Ivy wasn’t kidding about sandwiches for lunch. A proper, low-effort meal, and I didn’t mind the idea of it, although I was somewhat offended by the fact that the only bread she had was hamburger buns that were beyond their prime. They hadn’t gotten moldy, at least, but they were rapidly edging into crouton territory.

That having been said, if I’d had to choose between a five-star Michelin meal but no sex or stale Spamwiches preceded by fantastic sex behind her house, it would have been no contest.

She offered me a foraged leaf in lieu of lettuce. It didn’t have the inoffensive generic taste of Iceberg, and provided an interesting balance to the sandwich. Texturally, it fell somewhere between the bread and the Spam.

I didn’t even think until I was halfway through eating the sandwich that the leaf might have been fine for her but not for me. “So, like, how human is your digestive system?”

“How do you mean?”

I considered, gnawing at the burdock leaf. “I don’t want to sound offensive, but I know that in humans, genetically, skin color is correlated with lactose—milk—tolerance, on account of ancient humans who lived in northern climates couldn’t get as much vitamin D from the sun and had to evolve another way to get it. You’re not from Earth, so things that are okay for you might not be okay for me, and vice-versa.

“To my mind, at least in part, you’re related to cows, which means that your digestive system might be built to handle grasses that mine can’t.”

Ivy crossed her arms. “Do I look like an Earth cow?”

“Mostly, no.” I could feel my face burning. Embarrassment, or a reaction to the leaf?

“Ivy does not ruminate.” She set her sandwich on the counter and looked me in the eye. “We . . . our diets aren’t that far removed from human diets, which made a lot of things easy. Like, there isn’t anything in a human supermarket which would make me really sick, the only thing that was kind of weird was beef, ‘cause you could say that I’m part heifer, I guess. At least from the waist down.”

“And the ears. And horns.”

“Yeah, whatever. You’re just mad ‘cause your ancestors lost their horns.”

“Never had them.” I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I thought it was.

“So we were always kinda nomadic and opportunistic, and maybe our ancient ancestors could survive on a grass-based diet, but we kind of lost that . . . point is, I did a lot of research on what kinds of feral plants were edible for humans, since that was the easiest to find. When I’m up here, when I can, I like to find my own food. If we hadn’t been working on my deck, we could have spend the morning foraging. That’s the right way to do it.”

“We’re out of concrete, right?”

Ivy nodded.

“And we could spend the afternoon digging more holes, or—”

“Or we could make dinner from what we find.”

We’d covered a lot of things in Boy Scouts, but foraging wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t blame the troop leaders; we were young and dumb and thought dropping M-80s down the latrine or pissing on the fire was the height of entertainment.

Eating store-bought food would be simpler, smarter, safer, which meant that Ivy was right, we should make dinner from what we could find.

Huntress

Huntress

I didn’t know much about hunting, although it was a popular enough sport I knew some things. Blaze orange, RealTree camo, scent blockers, deer blinds, bait piles—Home Depot sold some of that, and I picked up on some conversations in the breakroom. Deer were popular to hunt, either for meat or for trophies. There was all sorts of tech and sometimes I wondered if that had taken some of the sport out of the sport.

Ivy didn’t go for anything fancy, which I should have expected. She had a few rifles and shotguns in her gun safe; the one she picked looked for all the world like an overgrown Red Ryder BB gun. It wasn’t decked down with accessories, either—a simple bolt-action rifle with iron sights, small caliber for small prey.

That wasn’t the extent of our hunting gear. She also outfitted herself with a belt-knife, which strapped around her thigh, and a small wicker basket with a shoulder strap.

I didn’t get a gun, which was probably for the best. All I could have contributed with a rifle was air-holes in leaves. As a result, I got two baskets, and—although she didn’t say it—the duty of pack mule.

As long as we were in her backyard, around the new foundations for her deck or on the path towards her outhouse, we were still in civilization, still in the present. When she stepped into the woods and I followed, it was like going back hundreds or maybe thousands of years. Maybe tens of thousands—countless generations of my ancestors and hers too had made that journey from their homes and into the woods in search of prey, in search of sustenance for their next meal. The weapons had changed; Ivy wasn’t such a traditionalist that she wanted a wooden spear with a knapped point, but she also wasn’t willing to go full modern with a semi-automatic laser-aimed carbon fiber shoulder cannon.

I’d seen a muzzle-loader in her collection of firearms. Was for that when she wanted a challenge?

Who was I kidding? I had an idea when she wanted a challenge she went out into the woods with only her knife and whatever she could catch with that.

All that fancy gear that the sporting goods stores sold, and yet here the two of us were, her as naked as the day she was born, and me only wearing shoes.

Unless she was overconfident, that was all she needed. I thought I knew her well enough by now to know she wasn’t bragging; she was going to do what she said she was going to do.

Maybe fancy gear wasn’t what made a good hunter.

“We want to be as quiet as we can,” Ivy instructed. “Can’t do much about scent, we’ll lose some prey that way. If we find a good spot we might want to hunker down and let them come to us . . . you see any squirrels in the trees that are close, say fifty yards, let me know. Otherwise, stay quiet unless I speak to you first.”

“I can be quiet.”

“Sure you can.” She wrinkled her nose. “There’s quiet, and then there’s woods quiet.” With that, she turned tail and headed into the trees.

I could be quiet, I was sure of it. Not speaking, that was easy enough. Watching where I stepped—avoid branches or things that might rustle underfoot. I’d seen movies, I knew how it was done. And that was a skill that did translate, surely. Simple things to avoid, as long as I kept my head down and didn’t get distracted by the huntress in search of prey.

•••

It turned out some leaves were crunchier than I thought. Pebbles and small rocks could also be noisy. Ivy didn’t shout at me when I made noise; she didn’t have to. I saw her ears twitch, and I could imagine the disapproving frown. Maybe an eye-roll when I stepped into a particularly noisy batch of dry leaves that she’d completely avoided. If I was smart, I’d walk where she walked.

It seemed like my shoes were louder than her hooves, which struck me as odd. Hooves were hard and unyielding, and they were plenty loud in the house and in the home improvement store, yet here in the woods, on dirt and underbrush . . . was it her skill as a huntress that let it move quietly, or was it something else?

I’d given her hooves a casual look and I’d touched them; she’d explained how much dexterity they had, but I hadn’t really paid attention to how they worked when she was just walking—every time I focused on a part of her I made new discoveries, and Ivy had all sorts of interesting anatomy to discover. Fun parts and interesting parts.

How much experience did she have with human partners? I couldn’t have been the first. As much as I wanted to fantasize that I was the one that she chose to show her how much better a human could be than a minotaur bull, I’d touched her dildo and looked at it and knew that I couldn’t measure up in terms of length or girth, not if that was a realistic representation anyway.

A cow farmer or a veterinarian would know, but I didn’t. How accurate was that thing, at least as it related to a real cow cock? If that was even comparable; maybe it was more a point of academic interest.

Did she know? Had she checked out a bull just to find out?

Were there cockologists and cuntologists who studied reproductive organs in various animal species? How did they deal with minotaurs? In my limited experience—one—it was the same enough. Not that I was the expert I wanted to be.

Thinking too much about her pussy was a good way to wind up crashing into a tree, so I focused back on her hooves. From behind, they were hard to see; the feathering on her legs largely obscured them, but I could see as she stepped on a root that the two sides would flex in relation to each other. Not as much movement as a human foot got, since there were only two parts, but it was more than other hooved creatures had.

Feet flexed, too, that was one advantage of being a primate. Were they better than hooves?

What if shoes hadn’t been invented? I tried to imagine following the trail barefoot, how it would feel to me. The soft parts might not be so bad, but all the roots and other obstacles in the trail would be a real test.

In time, I supposed that I’d learn where it was okay to step and where it wasn’t, and I’d also learn what hurt my feet and what didn’t. Maybe I’d wind up as quiet as she was. The movies made it look easy, but every single leaf or twig was an opportunity for noise, and a smart squirrel would be paying attention to that, would dash back into his tree to hide lest he be found by a predator, by a minotaur with a gun.

And a clumsy city boy with baskets.

•••

Cliched though it was, as we made our way through the woods, time lost meaning. We’d been following a vague path for any amount of time, and might continue to do so forever. While I intellectually knew that we’d be back at the cabin by nightfall—or at least hoped that was the case; Ivy might have an unfounded expectation of human night vision—I wasn’t wearing a watch and she wasn’t either.

Time was a human construct anyway.

I’d at least grown used to the pace and started to learn to be less clumsy about where my feet fell, and I’d also started to wonder just how far out prime hunting ground was, when Ivy suddenly stopped by a thicket bursting with raspberries. “We ought to pick some, if you like raspberries.”

“We can talk now?”

Ivy nodded. “Best that we do, just in case there’s a bear snuffling around in search of food.”

“A . . . bear?”

“Could be, I’ve seen them. If there is one and he hears us, he’ll want to avoid us. If he doesn’t, we might surprise him and he might want to fight and I doubt I could take a bear.”

I leaned down and started picking berries, half-expecting a bear snout to poke through the underbrush. Surely she was joking; bears didn’t live this far south, did they? “If it comes to that, you can run faster than I can, right?”

She paused from berry-picking to eye me up and down. “Probably.”

“Then you haven’t got a thing to worry about.”

“You’re right.” Ivy grinned. “I would come back to avenge you, with a bigger gun.”

“I appreciate that.” I grabbed some more raspberries off the bush and then jerked my arm back—I hadn’t been paying the thorns as much attention as I should have.

“We should only take as many as we’re going to eat. Leave the rest for the animals. Humans are really wasteful with food.”

“You have no idea. Look in the dumpster behind a grocery store, sometime.”

“Why don’t they just give away the food they can’t sell? If it’s not spoiled?”

“A lot of people ask that question, and I don’t have an answer.” My basket was about a third of the way full. “That enough, do you think?”

“Yeah, whatever we don’t eat for dessert we can eat for breakfast tomorrow. Or lunch.” She plucked one last raspberry off the vine and popped it in her mouth. “Can you be quieter as we continue?”

I crossed my arms. “Look, in the woods, you’re in your element. You should try going into a china shop sometime, see what happens.”

“Don’t think I haven’t heard that joke before.”

My face instantly started burning. “I’m sorry, it was funnier in my head. I didn’t mean to imply that you were clumsy.”

“Made it all the way through your store without knocking anything down, although there was this one dude there a couple weeks ago, I wanted to knock him down. Started saying the most offensive shit you could imagine, couldn’t even follow what he was going on about. Wish he’d had the balls to follow me outside. I’d even let him have the first couple punches so I wouldn't feel bad for what happened next.”

“I—”

I didn’t even get to finish my thought before she whipped the rifle off her shoulder and for a heart-stopping instant I thought she was actually going to shoot me for making a joke in poor taste, but she spun away a quarter turn, tracking something above. I didn’t need her to tell me that now was a good time to stop talking and stand perfectly still and I hardly even flinched as the gun barked. Even through the ringing in my ears, I heard something plummet through branches and drop on the ground.

One thing was for sure, I was never going to even consider a thought of her being clumsy; drawing, aiming, and shooting had been as smooth as a ballet.

“Just improved the gene pool for squirrels. By Buchis, he was dumb. He was even downwind of us, he should have known better.”

“I want you to know that I just about shit myself there. I thought you were going to shoot me.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because I’m an idiot who said something I shouldn’t have?”

Ivy shrugged. “I’ve got other ways to punish you for that.”

“Do any of them involve that dildo?”

“They might. You’ll have to wait and find out. Maybe I’ll forget by the time we get back to the cabin. Especially if you find that squirrel before I do.”

That might have been more of a threat than she’d intended—I’d seen Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and knew full well what a dildo that size could do to a man.

I certainly wasn’t going to ask her if she knew of any pig farms.

•••

I didn’t find it before she did, but I came close. Given that I was handicapped by my inexperience and hadn’t even seen where it had fallen, I thought I’d done reasonably well; I was only one bush away from the carcass when she found it.

The squirrel might not have been smart, but it had provided one bit of comedy at the end of its life; it had landed in a burdock bush that was just bristling with burrs.

Ivy wasn’t willing to let her prize go. She reached in, but it was just out of arm’s length.

“Well.” She looked over at me. “You any good at gutting a squirrel?”

“Nope.” I had longer arms and maybe I could have grabbed it—I was moving towards the bush when she stepped into the plant and fetched the squirrel out, holding it by its tail.

“Got an idea that blood isn’t really something you’re comfortable with.”

“Seeing it won’t make me faint, if that’s what you’re asking. But I’m not overly interested in how the sausage is made.”

Ivy nodded. “Fair enough. You can distract yourself with de-burring while I clean the squirrel.”

•••

I’d picked burrs off my clothes a time or two and foolishly thought it would be the same to get them out of her fur.

In hindsight, burrs were designed to stick to fur, and to stick well. The first one I plucked off her leg came off easily enough, lulling me into a false sense of security. The second got more stuck as I tugged at it, sinking even deeper into her coat.

I didn’t want to do anything drastic while she had a knife in her hand, so I contemplated my next move until she set the knife down. Unfortunately, that meant I saw as she stuck her fingers under the skin and started pulling it off the flesh.

I focused back on the burr, which clearly needed to come out the way it had gone in. I was smarter than a plant, and after one more false start, managed to get it loose.

Burrs stuck to animals and people so they’d get carried somewhere else and not compete with the mother plant . . . I got my revenge by tossing the burr back in the bush it had come from, like a jobless college student returning home.

She’d worked the skin off the back half of the squirrel by the time I moved to the next burr, this one well up her thigh. One leg, then the other, back then front, that was the best approach. I’d learned from the last, and examined where it was sticking before attempting removal. Twist it up, towards her butt, and it came out, move on to the next one.

By the time I’d gotten to her other leg, she’d beheaded the squirrel. This one went quicker, and I nearly moved around front before I remembered her tail, which had also picked up a few burrs at the end.

Her tail.

The words were easy enough to think but the very concept set gears grinding in my mind. It was there, it was a thing that she had, and it flitted ind and out of my awareness—depending on where I was focused.

Plenty of her wasn’t human, even if I only focused on things above the waist. Ears and horns, those had warranted some close scrutiny, but her tail hadn’t, not yet.

I’d thought about it, wondered about it, considered how I’d approach it, and now here it was, whether I was ready or not.

Surely she could pull the burrs out of her own tail if she wanted to, but then she could have pulled the burrs from everywhere else, too. I wasn’t needed, and was this a punishment for being a bad hunter or a reward for being a better hunter than I could have been?

Did it matter?

Most of her tail was rope-like, covered in short fur and as I grasped it in my hands I could feel the bones inside, just barely covered in flesh. I could feel her heartbeat, pulsing down—it was faint, but unmistakable.

Midway, a burr, it hadn’t managed to grab on all that well. A pinch, and then it was gone; I fed her tail through my hands like a rope even if it was nothing like a rope, and then I was at the tufts of hair at the end, coarser and thicker than anything else.

For a moment, I wondered about minotauress beauty standards—was a coarse tail tuft good or bad? Could it be conditioned? And that opened a whole Pandora’s box of other thoughts, not the least of which was whether she’d be considered attractive as minotaurs went.

I wasn’t a minotaur, so it was nothing more than an intellectual exercise. Sure, I could ask, and maybe she’d tell me . . . or maybe she’d gore me and leave me for dead out here in the woods.

Attractive or not, her tail-tuft was a burr magnet, containing three in a space which could be grasped in one hand. One had just caught her and was removed easily enough; the other two had gotten a chance to burrow in and get tangled, making them more of a challenge.

Added with the fact that her tail was highly mobile and clearly didn’t like being restrained. There was no doubt in my mind if I touched or squeezed somewhere I shouldn’t I’d know right away.

Were there de-burring combs?

How much fur-grooming did minotauresses do anyway?

I dug my fingers in, feeling around the edge of the burr, not unlike a bomb squad technician carefully defusing an IED. The more I touched it, the more it dug in, and I had to work at it to get it free, finally chucking it into the undergrowth before moving on to the second. That one was almost at the tip, seemingly defying logic with its apparently tenuous grasp, but once I got my hands on it, I found out just how well it was holding on.

Working it down the hair was the way to go, and it finally released its grasp and was gone, and I held her tail for a moment longer, wondering at the feel, before I finally released it.

•••

I was still working on de-burring when she finished cleaning the squirrel, when she dumped the good meat in her basket and left the rest on the rock she’d used to clean it, a gift for some scavenger who came along with a taste for organ meat or at least a free meal.

There was something almost primal, maybe a species-memory of picking parasites off a partner. Not the sexiest of thoughts, but it was at least satisfying as I got the last one on her thigh and then brushed my hand between her legs while groping for the last.

“Might as well ignore the rest, I’ll pick up a few more anyway.” She stood up, and the ones on her lower legs were ground in, well and truly stuck. “You can get them later.”

I nodded. “Quiet time again?”

“Can’t expect the next squirrel to be as dumb as this one was.”

•••

Going through the woods was one thing. I was getting decent at it; I could go dozens of steps before I saw her ears twitch. Crossing water was unexpected, and I was so focused on following her that I took one step in before I stopped. It was already too late for that shoe; I could already feel the water gushing in as I pulled my foot back and set it on dryer ground.

I did manage to remember that I was supposed to be silent, and contemplated the obstacle as she forged ahead, only stopping when she didn’t hear me floundering along behind her.

De-burring might have gotten me back in her good graces, and I wasn’t willing to risk it by speaking. I pointed to my shoes instead, lifting the one that was soaked and dripping.

Ivy frowned, and I was struck with an epiphany: this difficulty had never occurred to her. Which meant that she’d never taken anyone out hunting with her before; I was her first in that regard.

Or, a moment later, I realized that maybe she had, but they were better-prepared for a trek through the woods than I was.

What I did next might influence everything, an everything that was beyond my imagination, a future I could not know. She’d understand if I took my shoes off or if I refused to wade through a swamp, surely she would.

Anybody would.

Civilization was dry shoes.

No sane person would get their shoes wet because they would take hours or days to dry, to say nothing of the unpleasant feeling of wet socks and cold feet, this was a bridge too far, this was—

It felt like I was at a gateway as I took a tentative step forward, my foot squelching into the mud. I’d thought that my shoe was already soaked but it turned out it could still take on water. I wasn’t meant for this, I wasn’t prepared for this, but I realized that I’d already jumped in the rabbit hole when I quit my job in favor of her and maybe instead of having second thoughts I might as well find out just how deep it went. Wet feet were a minimal price to pay.

•••

As we got deeper into the woods, the trail got . . . less.

Back when I was in Boy Scouts, I’d done my share of hikes at camps and national forests, always on trails that were made for people. Some of them were well-groomed and easy; others were rougher. Bare dirt instead of gravel, for example.

These weren’t trails made for humans, nor were they human-made trails. We were following actual game trails as we got deeper into the woods. Deer, I figured—my tracking abilities were almost non-existent. I knew that deer had cloven hooves, but then so did Ivy.

I’d never seen a deer up close that wasn’t in motion, so I didn’t have a good size reference for them. They were smaller than horses, I knew that, and I suspected that the hood of my car was low enough that if I hit one, it might slide up the hood and go through the windshield—a theory that hadn’t yet been tested.

They weren’t as tall or as wide as humans, or else they didn’t care about things brushing against them as they made their trail. Most of the time, that didn’t matter, but every now and then we’d get to overhanging branches that the deer could have just walked under, while of course we couldn’t.

It was also an interesting object lesson in how horns could be a detriment. I knew that bucks had antlers, and I hadn’t really considered how they might get in the way as they were making their way through the woods. Not until I’d seen Ivy cock her head a time or two as she squeezed through a tight spot.

Laughing at her if she got stuck wouldn’t be wise, even though it was tempting when she did snag her horns on a branch. Was it thicker or stronger than she’d expected? Or did she misjudge how far her horns stuck up?

Not that I had any room to talk; I’d caught a branch or two.

Sometimes there would be vines across the trail, and some of them were more anchored than they seemed. A couple of times, Ivy got caught on one and had to tug it loose.

I had the advantage following her; she was breaking the trail for me. I wasn’t the clumsy one who was constantly crashing into trees and vines.

No—I was thinking about it wrong. Breaking the trail was more work; the fact that there were overhanging branches and plants crowding in had nothing to do with her abilities, and gave me an advantage as she pushed something aside or gave me warning by ducking under a low branch.

It wasn’t fair to call her clumsy; that’s just how the woods were. And being off a traveled trail—traveled by bipeds, anyway—gave me a different perspective of the woods. There were places where enough plants crowded together that I honestly couldn’t see where the trail went next, especially since the deer or whatever had made it hadn’t walked in a straight line.

Why would it?

Roots and downed trees were constant obstacles, some of them obscured by undergrowth. I’d tripped twice before I learned to pay attention to how she was stepping; if she went high over something I watched for it.

She’d also slow down and point when there was a thorny plant across the path. I’d seen the raspberry bush and knew to avoid that, but that wasn’t the only thing that grew in the woods and had thorns.

I even found out that some of the trees did when I went to push aside a branch that was in my way. She’d ducked under it, and I’d been too dumb to wonder why.

Silence was important for hunting, and so I didn’t shout out in pain when the tree got me, nor when I picked out the few thorns that had stuck in my palm and forearm. I glanced down at my legs—they’d been hit a time or two as well, and I just hadn’t noticed.

That was also when I really started to reflect on the importance of wearing proper clothes when out in the woods. Good sturdy hiking boots, long pants to protect the legs, even a long-sleeved shirt to protect the arms. A wide-brimmed hat, too, to keep the sun off.

My shoes were good for Home Depot and the Home Depot parking lot. My shoes were suitable for cart-wrangling duties. My shoes were not made for traipsing through the woods. And the rest of my outfit . . . deer trails were not nudist friendly.

Ivy, at least, had some protection for her legs. Surely the fur would keep things away from her skin. And her hooves were solid, better suited to the forest floor than my shoes or God forbid my bare feet.

•••

There was something primal about the hunt, something deep down in my brain that either had been awakened or had always been there and just come to the fore. The idea that our meal tonight would be whatever we could catch and kill . . . that had been something that I had learned from books and natural history museums, the concept of a group of cavemen taking their spears to stalk prey, and while that brought to mind the idea of mammoth hunts, now that I was out her it was obvious that they would have taken whatever food they could find. Hunting and gathering—we had a supply of raspberries we’d gathered, and the squirrel we’d hunted.

She’d hunted . . .I was a liability in more ways than one. I knew fuck all about hunting, I was as subtle as a bull in a china shop in the woods . . . I’d made the joke and the longer we were out here the more I realized that I was the bull in the china shop, blundering into things that she avoided. I’d knocked some leaves and seeds loose as I passed and that was all that I’d done because plants were smart enough to flex when they were crashed into, unlike the endcaps at Home Depot. If I was being honest, I was probably scaring away prey more than I was helping to find. Ivy would have done better to leave me behind at her cabin; if I hadn’t been with her there was every chance that her basket would already be full of squirrels and berries.

Then again, whatever noise I made didn’t scare off the berries, so I had that going for me.

She wasn’t like a ghost in the woods, or at least not how I imagined that would be described. I’d heard her make noise as a branch slapped against her or she pushed something aside, but now that I was thinking about it, none of it sounded unnatural There were no sharp cracks of breaking wood or loud rustles of leaves; nothing was louder than what a wind gust might cause.

When it came time to eat, if I got half of the berries and none of the squirrel, I couldn’t complain. Maybe I could protest that I might have gotten something if I’d had a gun, too, but she wouldn’t believe that. I didn’t believe that. The only chance I would have at shooting a squirrel would be if it jumped on the gun, thinking it was a branch, and then looked down the barrel. And then only if I also pulled the trigger in blind panic.

Ivy held up her hand and I froze in place. Her eyes were locked on a distant tree, and she kept her focus as she unslung her rifle and brought it to bear on the distant target, something I hadn’t even seen.

And then I did see it; a fat squirrel hopping along a branch. Ivy took a careful step forward, tracking it with her gun, waiting for a good shot.

•••

Somewhere on the internet, there were surely pictures of nude women with guns. Some of them might have actually had an idea how to use a gun, some of them might have been avid target shooters or hunters.

Heck, Playboy sometimes did photoshoots of Olympic athletes.

All of them would have been in a nice open spot, all of them would have been wearing makeup and posed just so. None of them would have a light film of sweat, or a speckling of grass seed sticking to their arms and bare torso. None of them would have a broken-off branch stuck in their hair.

None of them would have had the intense focus that Ivy did: for the moment, her world was nothing more than the squirrel as seen across her iron sights and the gentle caress of the trigger when the time was right.

The squirrel moved along the branch, she let out a breath, and the gun roared.

I watched it drop off the branch, and then I was breaking a trail to where it had fallen. This time I was going to find it—I might be a useless hunter but I could be a retriever.

Squirrels were small and the forest was vast. Had she even hit it? Did she graze it, enough to knock it off the branch, and then it scampered off? The tree branch was seared in my mind, and it would have gone straight down, or nearly so . . .

A leaf with some blood on it, then another—it had fallen here. I pushed the foliage aside until I found it. The bullet had nearly taken off its head, but the body was still twitching.

Did it matter how I picked it up? Would I ruin it if I picked it up wrong? I grabbed the tail, hoping that was safe, and held it up proudly. I’d accomplished what a well-trained dog could do in twice the time, and yet I was still proud of myself for it.

•••

I didn’t notice right away that the plants had changed, but I did notice that the soil was more mooshy underfoot, and then we were in a section of tall plants that crowded in on either side. I didn’t know what they were, but they liked the wet soil.

And it kept getting wetter, to the point that it started soaking through my shoes again, to the point that I realized that her hoofprints had standing water in them, and when I looked back, so did my shoeprints.

Given the lack of trees, and the fact that the bamboo-like plants we were pushing through were several feet taller than I was and effectively cut our vision to nothing, I figured that we wouldn’t spook any prey if I spoke.

“Where are we going?”

Ivy stopped and turned to face me. “It gets a bit marshy and swampy here, but on the other side it firms up again.”

“It gets worse?”

“It’s been raining, the water’s up . . . we’ll be wading for some of it. You don’t mind, do you?”

To my surprise, I didn’t. My shoes and socks were already wet, so there was nothing to be lost there. More to the point, there was the thrill of the hunt, which had awakened something deep inside me, and there was being with Ivy when she was fully in her element.

I didn’t know how to put it into words; it was something that my brain was still struggling with the implications of. I’d left my job with the promise of an adventure and now I was having that adventure and I needed to know how it turned out, I needed to take that journey with her. Maybe the other side was filled with fat squirrels on trees just waiting to be shot or maybe the other side was more of the same, but I couldn’t be satisfied if I didn’t know.

That wasn’t it, that wasn’t all of it, but that was all my mind could wrestle with. It was still coming to terms with the idea that I could be deep in the woods up north where nobody knew I was, without any of my clothes, with a minotauress who had a gun and a sign by her front gate that said ‘Fuck around and find out.’

Did I have to impress her? I doubted it; there was little I could do in this situation that would impress her. Not back down, not fuck up too much.

Did I have to impress me?

Maybe.

Woodsman?

Woodsman?

On the beaches and lakeshores I’d been to, there was a clear delineation between land and water. Here in the forest, not so much. We were making our way through the tall plants and the soil was softer and softer and then there was standing water even before we left a print, a thin film that barely covered the dirt. And then it was more water than dirt, and then it was almost impossible to see just where I was putting my foot.

The tall plants had thinned out—they apparently liked water but not too much water—and there were some open sections of standing water with hummocks of greens and browns above it. Cattails and plenty of other plants I didn’t recognize. Ivy pulled some cattails loose, cut off the roots, and put them in my basket. She tossed the rest into the swamp where they floated away.

I wondered if humans could eat them or if that was just a minotaur thing. I wanted to ask, but I also wanted to be silent. I was deep in a world I’d only seen from the window of a car as I passed, one where I’d occasionally wondered what might live there, and now I had my chance to learn. Were there fish? Might she shoot one? Birds? Bird nests? Snakes? Were snakes edible?

Ivy surely knew the swamp. Even I could make my way through the woods by following deer trails—I couldn’t always see where they went, but I knew where they were. Especially through the thicker foliage. Deer might go through the swamp as well, I wasn’t sure how deer felt about water, but any tracks they might have left were unseeable.

As we got out of the plants growing on the water’s edge, I could see further; I could see the other side, and it was obvious that Ivy wasn’t taking a straight path. She would know where the shallower spots were and where it was deep, she would have learned from trial and error.

I hoped that the water wasn’t much deeper than my knees. I’d never liked wading in water deeper than that; to my mind that was the transition between wading and almost swimming. If it was transitional; if I was going into a lake or even a swimming pool with the intention of swimming, that was one thing.

At least I didn’t have to worry about getting my pants wet, no matter how deep it got.

She was keeping her tail up and out of the water, and then she started picking her way into deeper water and let it fall in. I wondered why she hadn’t held it—she had one hand for the gun, but could have used the other on her tail if she’d wanted it to stay dry.

Maybe it felt weird to have her tail in the water, maybe it was the same kind of feeling as my balls dipped into cold water—an experience I might be re-living soon enough. Were we going to have to swim partway across? Surely not; the gun couldn’t get wet, and there was the risk of things in the basket floating away.

My shoes and socks were already wet, and once I’d gotten used to that unpleasantness, as the water covered more of my legs it wasn’t a big deal. It wouldn’t be until it was deep enough for my dick and balls to touch the water that I’d have another moment of shock to work through. As long as I kept my eyes on her. She’d gotten her tail wet and not been bothered.

She was the kind of girl who would do what needed to be done and not complain about it, and I should too. The other side could be seen; I knew where we were going and how far away it was, and there were only some marshy wet bits between here and there. She was rising up out of the water and angling towards what might have been dry land, but was more likely just waterlogged soil that I’d be mucking my way through.

•••

Her path did avoid anything higher than my knees, or mid-thigh on her. As we neared the shore, she once again held up her hand to signal me to stop, and I did. What did she see? She hadn’t unslung her gun.

It might have been something or it might have been nothing—after a minute of standing in the water, she shook her head and started to walk again, my cue to follow.

Watching her butt and the rest of her when she turned was a nice reward for crossing the swamp, and once we got through the cluster of cattails and other plants that lived at the edge, she stopped in a small clearing and glanced around at the trees.

Any squirrels there might have been were hiding; I didn’t see anything that was a worthy target in the trees, so I looked back at her instead. More than half the fur on her legs was waterlogged, clumped and drooping down instead of being fluffy. I had enough body hair that a towel didn’t get me completely dry on its own, but I knew from past trips to the beach that I’d dry off quick enough in the sun. She wouldn’t; it would take a while for all the water to come out of her coat. An advantage on a hot day, surely, she could get her legs wet and have built-in air conditioning for a while. Not so much today in the woods; I was already feeling a slight chill from my wet legs.

I was paying too much attention to her and didn’t notice that she’d also given up at looking for squirrels and had instead turned her focus back to me until she spoke. “Looks like you made a new friend.”

“Huh?”

Ivy pointed to my leg, and I looked down.

I’d seen it out of the corner of my eye as I came up out of a deep spot and figured that it was a bit of floating debris, but when I went to brush it off, it didn’t feel woody or leafy, and it didn’t brush off, either.

“That’s a swamp leech. It’s not going to come off just by brushing at it, you need to pluck it off.”

“Just grab it and pull?” I reached down and put my fingers around its mucusy body, trying not to think about the fact that it was currently sucking out my blood.

She shook her head. “Not like that—haven’t you ever removed a leech before?”

“No.”

“Come over here, I’ll get it off.”

Just as I started walking, Ivy unslung the rifle from her shoulder, and I hesitated—was she going to shoot it off? I was sure that would be effective, but I didn’t trust her aim that much.

Instead, she set the rifle on the ground, followed by her basket.

When I was right next to her, she crouched down and leaned in to examine it. “This is going to feel a little weird, you’ve just got to trust me.”

Her head was just below crotch level, and a horn was pointing dangerously close to my balls. If she twitched at all I was going to have a very bad time. Would it be cowardly to cup them with my hand, just to make sure I stayed safe?

The answer was obviously yes, but I almost did anyway.

She pinched my leg and I braced myself for potential pain. I suppose it could have been worse; what if the leech had landed somewhere else? A good reason to not go wading nude through a swamp, they probably couldn’t bite through underwear . . . could they? I’d never gotten a leech before, and I’d never waded through a swamp nude before, so it stood to reason.

There was a brief jolt of pain as she pulled it off, and there was some blood. We hadn’t brought any water with us, and even I knew that swamp water was a bad idea for cleaning a wound. It would just have to bleed until it stopped; There wasn’t anything that could be used to cover it.

What would happen if one of us—me, most likely—got hurt out here in the woods? She’d have to go back to the cabin, leaving me behind, call for help, lead them back to me. I doubt she’d bother with bringing my pants.

Or she could just carry me back to the cabin, she was strong enough.

As we went along, I did my best to look for squirrels, but the thought kept nagging at my mind that nature was a cruel bitch and maybe we thought we were special, but we weren’t. If one of us got hurt out here, the other would have to go for help—not just to her cabin, but far enough beyond to either find a landline or cellphone reception, and I had an idea that even when called, an ambulance wouldn’t show up all that quickly. And even if we avoided all of that, there were parasites and bacteria that could invade, possibly unseen, and cause problems later.

Being out here without clothes, without most of the trappings of modernity helped drive that lesson home.

•••

Another copse of trees was prime squirrel hunting territory, although I rarely spotted them before she did. I was accustomed to the fat, oblivious city squirrels that were used to humans and few real threats, whereas the forest squirrels had plenty of predators to thin down their numbers and were far more wary.

When the birds started singing again, that was a good sign that we’d stayed still and quiet long enough to not be considered a threat any more. Or at least it seemed that way; I’d never seen a squirrel when I wasn’t also hearing birdsong.

It was interesting to just sit and look at the woods. Even if I was shit at spotting squirrels, watching the boughs of the trees dance around in the gentle breeze that never made it to the floor of the forest, or the few brave chickadees who would fly close enough to check us out before heading off to do whatever it was that they did. Every now and then I’d think I saw a flash of movement over the forest floor, which could have been anything. A gust catching some plants, a moving shadow, or maybe a small critter.

When the doe came into view, I froze completely. We must have been downwind of her, although I could see her nostrils flaring and her ears moving as she tried to figure out what was in the woods and if it was a threat to her.

Whether a gust of wind carried our scent to her, or she saw something that she didn’t like, she suddenly froze for an instant, and then bounded back the way she’d come, her white tail flashing like a flag.

I wanted to ask if Ivy’s gun could take down a deer, but now wasn’t the time. It’d be plenty of meat, way more than we needed. I was fairly sure that you couldn’t hunt them year-round, either. It wasn’t until fall, but there were a lot of hunting seasons and I never paid that much attention to them.

For better or worse, it was legal to hit them with a car year-round.

Did she hunt deer? Probably, there’d be no reason not to. I’d seen some TV shows and plenty of pictures of hunters all kitted out, wearing their camo and scent blockers and with a tree-stand. I was sure she’d climb a tree rather than use a stand, but would she wear camo? Or any clothes at all? It was cold in the fall, and even if the fur on her legs kept her warm, it wouldn’t do anything for her torso.

Maybe that was something she was used to; she had said that back home she rarely wore clothes, and they must have had seasons back home.

That was something I was curious about. Maybe she grew a whole-body coat for the wintertime.

What would that be like? Would it be thick like the fur on her legs, or would it be thinner and smoother? How different would she feel with a coat of fur? Was that something that I could find out in time? Was that something I wanted to find out?

Was this weekend just a one-time thing, a chance for her to work out whatever sexual frustrations she had? Surely she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend—I didn’t want to think that, but I had to be realistic. There was almost no shot that this could turn into a long-term relationship, although it was possible that I might get carried along for weekend adventures. I was more useful than her dildo when it came to digging and pouring cement footings.

Less useful when it came to hunting, though.

•••

When she’d bagged her fourth squirrel, she decided she had enough. Whether that was due to time pressures or four squirrels made a full meal, I didn’t know. She hadn’t fully prepared them, so I didn’t know how much good meat would come off of them and how much was waste.

I had a decent supply of plants in my baskets. Raspberries, the cattail roots, and a few others she’d picked up—nettle leaves and lamb’s quarters.

There weren’t as many raspberries as when we’d started; it turned out that those were a good snack for the hunt. Not only for the sugar, but the water as well. Ditto for the cattail roots—we’d shared one. It tasted almost like cucumber.

I wasn’t to the point where I would have been comfortable in the woods by myself, or able to forage by myself, or find my way back to her cabin by myself. I did know that this part of Michigan wasn’t as remote as some; if I got lost I could pick a compass direction and keep walking that way and eventually find a road or some sign of civilization, probably within a day. The odds of me finding my way back to her cabin were basically nil.

I did recognize as we were approaching the swamp again.

I hadn’t complained the first time we’d gone through the swamp, but this time I was going to object before I got my shoes wet again. Before I acquired another leech.

“We could go around.” I motioned to the high ground on either side. “I mean, it’s further, but my feet are just starting to get warm again.”

“That’s private land,” Ivy explained. “And . . . I’m sure they wouldn’t mind, but it’s important to keep boundaries. Like, I’m here on my own land and I do my own thing and nobody bothers me, and they can do the same.”

“Give an inch and they’ll take a mile?”

“Yeah, exactly. The rules up here are different than in the city. It’s complicated. Well, if you don’t want to wade I can carry you across.”

“What?”

“Surprised you didn’t ask last time.”

“I’m not being carried across a swamp by a girl.”

“Then don’t complain that your feet get wet.”

“Or that I get leeches.”

Ivy crossed her arms. “Everyone gets leeches, and I picked it off. Ticks, too. Surprised you haven’t picked any of them up, honestly. Must be taking the day off.”

“Ticks?” I glanced down at my legs, wondering if there might be one lurking. “They can carry diseases.”

She nodded. “Yeah, like redwater . . . if you humans have that.”

“I honestly don’t know. We’ve got Lyme disease and something that makes you allergic to meat. I think it comes from Texas, ironically enough.”

“Check that off the list of states I want to visit, then. Not worth the risk.”

I started to crouch down to untie my shoes, and then remembered that ticks could jump and the last thing I wanted was a tick grabbing onto my junk. Even if Ivy was willing to remove it—and I figured she would be—the very thought of some insect burrowing into that sensitive flesh, sinking its proboscis into my manhood. . . .

“Can I lean on you for a moment?”

Before she could answer, I braced myself on her shoulder and brought my leg up, awkwardly untying my shoe and tugging it off.

“Really, I could carry you.”

I peeled off my sock. “I’m sure you could. Probably two of me.”

She shook her head. “Two of you is pushing it. I think. I’m not great at estimating human weight, hold still for a second.”

“You—”

Ivy wrapped her arms around me, clenched around my waist, and lifted. “Weight-wise, yeah, I could do two of you. But that’s assuming you’re hanging off a bar and not moving, otherwise there’s balance issues. And walking would be a bit much. Over flat ground I can see, manageable. Through a swamp, iffy.”

“You can put me down, we don’t have to do this.”

She eyed the stretch of bogwater in front of us. “Not the best carry. Easier if you ride on my shoulders, or my back if you can manage it. You could hold on to my horns, that might help you keep your balance.”

“We’re not doing this. I won’t let you carry me.”

“Fine.” Ivy set me back down. “But you can’t say I didn’t offer.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I leaned against her for balance again and lifted my other foot. “Just a point of advice, most guys don’t like girls who are stronger than them.”

Ivy snorted. “Worked on you.”

•••

On the one hand, the first sight of her cabin was a relief. Civilization again, something human made—human adjacent made, and that was close enough. Sure it didn’t have internet or running water or electricity but it had four strong walls and a roof, and that alone was infinitely better than being naked in the woods.

And yet, I couldn’t help but feel that our hunt had ended too soon. Not because we could have or should have taken more, but because we were in the wild, and I was experiencing it in a way I never had before. Maybe if our journey had ended at a new place, I would have felt different.

It wasn’t just being there with Ivy, or I didn’t think it was. There was more to it, something it had awoken deep inside me, something I didn’t even know had been slumbering. Whenever I tried to think on it, it darted away; it was the kind of feeling I couldn’t quite put into words, but I knew it was there.

In so many ways, my view of our trip into the woods had been informed by movies and tv shows and books that generally romanticized it, showed its good side. Removing leeches and ticks didn’t come up at all, or the need for alertness and silence to have a good hunt.

It didn’t properly cover wading through a swamp, all the different feelings, how cold the water was, how uneven the bottom was, the plants that tangled around my legs and tried to trip me—it was a miracle I hadn’t gone face-first into the water. Ivy had walked slowly, and I’d followed her pace. Even when she wasn’t instructing me directly, she was teaching me.

And the wildlife was truly neutral, almost uncaring. If we were perceived as a threat, they fled. If we appeared to be a source of food, they’d approach. We only got attacked by blood-sucking parasites, but it wasn’t much of a leap to consider that a larger predator might have a go as well.

If we were seen as neither? Nature ignored us, it simply didn’t care. We were no more special than anything else in the woods, naked but for Ivy’s gun and my shoes.

My soaking wet shoes.

•••

I paused at the doorway to remove my shoes. I didn’t want to track dirt through the house. Ivy went into the kitchen to put away the fruits of our hunt, the squirrel carcasses and the plants, then she put the gun back in the safe.

Once those tasks were done, she motioned me to go back outside, onto her rudimentary front porch. “Okay, first we’ve got to check for parasites and then it’s time for a shower.”

“Yeah.”

“Better to do it out here, that way they don’t get into the house.”

“Makes sense.”

“You’re going to have to really get into my fur,” she said. “Easier for me, you haven’t got much.”

“Compared to you, but I’m hairy for a guy.”

“Some bulls, it’s up to here.” She drew a line on her chest, just under her ribs. “And the feathering on the legs, a girl could get lost. Turn around.”

I complied, presenting my backside to her inspection.

“Looks clean. Check me. Use your fingers, really get in there.”

I did. I worked my fingers through her fur, down to the flesh. I felt for any parasite who might be lurking, working from her ankles up. At first, it was a necessary chore, but as I climbed up her legs, it started to change into something else. A doctor might have been able to keep a professional dispassionate air, but I couldn’t; I caught a glimpse of her womanhood out of the corner of my eye and then I was higher and it was right in front of my nose, and I struggled to keep my attention focused on the actual task.

If I’d come up dry, I might have thought it was something she just said, a weird way to get me interested in her feminine attributes, as if she’d need an excuse.

Instead, I was almost on autopilot, when I bumped against something that didn’t belong, a stowaway. I’d already moved on, my mind set on finding nothing and appreciating the current view; I was wondering what she might look like if she shaved all her fur off. I’d explored enough of her legs so far to know that she didn’t feel quite human, but would her appearance pass?

Were I in her position, I might try. Granted, that wouldn’t negate the horns or ears . . . she could wear a toque for the former, but the latter were a more intractable problem.

That was the coward’s way out. She was who she was, and I didn’t want her to be anything else.

My mind was elsewhere as my fingers touched the invader, and I had to move back to realize for sure what I’d found: a tick, high up on her inner thigh.

“I found one,” I said proudly.

“Get him off.”

“How?” I had vague, nonspecific memories of this being mentioned in the Boy Scout handbook, and there being things that shouldn’t be done. I couldn’t remember what was the right way and what wasn’t.

“Grab him with your fingernails and pull him off.”

I looked down at my stumpy fingernails. “Really?”

“Or tweezers.” Ivy sighed. “Which I really ought to have . . . remember how out in the woods I was your support? When you took your shoes off.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s your turn.” Before I could protest, she hiked her leg up on my shoulder. “Don’t squirm around too much.”

I had no intention of squirming.

My mind sent me mixed messages; there was no question that I had a very pleasing vulva just in front of my face, and there was also no question that I was helping her perform an important task. Which was more important, which deserved more focus sent my mind spinning and grinding its gears. And for better or worse, inaction on my part was the right answer. Ivy got the tick with her fingernails, pried it out of her flesh, dropped it on the floor, and crushed it underfoot—underhoof—with extreme prejudice.

“That’s dealt with,” she said. “Now it’s time to shower.”

“Yeah.” I smelled like a yak, and my feet were cold. Hot water would take care of both of those issues. “Who goes first?”

“Really? I mean, if you’re shy now, I’ll go first.”

“We could both shower at the same time.”

Ivy nodded.

“Save water, and help each other clean.”

“Exactly.”

“People tell me that I’m a pro at shampooing.”

“Do they.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You do it right, you might get a reputation for being good with a curry comb.”

What the hell was a curry comb? “Trust me, I know.”

Ivy narrowed her eyes. “Really.”

“It’s like . . . like carts. Arranged in order, pushed back to the door.”

She snorted. “Carts. Well, I can’t argue your cart-wrangling enthusiasm, right up until the end you were sorting carts and nothing else.”

“Very true.”

“And you’d approach a new task with equal enthusiasm.”

“Of course I would.”

“Fuck it up and you’re gonna spend the night in the shed, alone with nothing but what could have been.”

I crossed my arms. “Challenge accepted.”

•••

The intellectual part of my mind reminded me that there was more to Ivy than her breasts, that I could soap and lather and wash more parts of her body and I tried to go afield, but my traitorous hands kept returning to what was comfortable.

Not that she minded; nearly half a bottle of Old Spice body wash got squirted on her boobs for me to rub around. She could have gotten a bottle of oil instead, that might have been more honest, and I certainly wouldn’t have minded spreading it around.

I couldn’t focus on her boobs forever, much as I wanted to. There was lots more of her to wash. Some of it I might leave to her, as I finally regretfully moved my hands south, I started to wonder if it was okay to get soap between her legs. Surely it was, but I wasn’t certain how sensitive her nether flesh was.

I’d made it down to the border of skin and fur, and pondered if she’d use shampoo or body wash . . . did body wash work on hair? Best to cup her breasts again, that was safe.

Ivy squirted a dollop of shampoo in her hand and rubbed it into her scalp. Somehow that was tempting, that was a new thing to focus on. I’d never really gotten my hands into a girl’s hair before, I was always afraid of messing things up or causing tangles. She didn’t really have long hair, it was more or less shoulder length and not exactly styled. Like whenever it got long enough somewhere to annoy her, she hacked it back. She wasn’t the kind of girl who took great pride in her hair.

Plus, while I was unsure how to approach some of her body when it came to washing, I did know how to shampoo. Aside from her horns and ears, her head was the same as mine.

Getting the shampoo against the scalp was the most important thing. Some people thought that it was the hair that needed washing, but it was really the scalp, and the hair was secondary.

Shampooing was a ready-made excuse to work my fingers around the base of her horns, to stroke the back of her ears, to run my hand along the ragged edge of her left ear, to feel the scar tissue there.

She rinsed out her hair and squirted on conditioner, letting me work it in, this time focusing on her hair instead of her scalp, a different, slipperier feel this time around. And then it was my turn; she turned and globbed some cold shampoo on my hair, pressing against me as she worked, her well-soaped breasts sliding against my chest. I tried to focus on her fingers as she lathered, even as my nascent erection pressed against her belly.

I didn’t rate conditioner; she stepped out of the way long enough to let me wash the shampoo out of my hair and then she was ready with the body wash, working down from my neck. My dick lamented the loss of touch, while eagerly anticipating the moment her hands got down there, soap-slick, and finally the moment of glory as she got between my legs, her hand caressing my balls and sliding across my shaft, too soon moving further down, as far as she could reach.

And then she crouched down, to better access my legs, putting her head right at crotch level. My dick brushed against her cheek as she continued working, seemingly unaware of that distraction.

I started to worry that I’d done something wrong, and started second-guessing my every action as her hands moved down my legs, soaping and scrubbing. Had I displeased her in some way? Was she a vengeful goddess, ignoring the plea of her acolyte? All she had to do was turn her head, open her mouth, and the blowjob would practically do itself. I could grab her horns, guide her head, maybe she wanted me to take the lead here.

I still hadn’t decided which was the right choice when she stood back up, and then it was too late. If there had been an opportunity, I’d missed it.

Then she handed me the soap and pointed down to her furry legs. I couldn’t reach all the way to her hooves while I was standing, so it was time to kneel down, just as she had. I had a moment of clarity, a moment of understanding at what the game was, and I washed her legs while keeping my eyes focused ahead—she didn’t have an erection to poke against my cheek and demand attention, but her arousal was no less obvious and I took my time, making sure that I got every inch of her legs, making sure that I did a thorough job, faultless, as good as she might have done if she were in the shower alone, and as the shower rinsed the last of the bubbles off, I leaned in, pressing my nose against her pubic mound, inhaling the scent of her arousal, something the scent of the soap couldn’t completely mask.

My first touch was tentative, exploratory, my lips brushing against sensitive flesh, questing for the eager nub, a promise of where I might explore with my tongue. A hidden treasure, cloaked in velvety fur, my tongue came up short but I meant for it to. She’d been teasing my since the moment we started showering, and I wanted to return the favor, wanted to explore at my pace. Hand around her ass promised commitment, and gave me a chance to feel around the root of her tail, to study how it was anchored.

In my mind, I could have teased her for hours, but I lacked the fortitude. Ivy could play the long game, could run her hand along my cock to clean it and then move on, but I couldn’t. I had a hand around the base of her tail and the other gripping her cheek; I was pressed up against her, my tongue almost but not quite on her, my nose full of the heady scent of her arousal and she—

—her lips opened, inviting, and I could not resist, I buried my face between her legs and my whole being was contained in my tongue, lapping around her periphery and then into the center of her, the faint taste of soap until I got deeper, closer to her center, closer to the metallic arousal dripping off her lips. Thrusting in, narrowing my focus; I was only vaguely aware of her pinching a nipple with one hand while the other pressed my head in, forward, demanding and eager. I slipped my tongue between her lips, questing against the walls of her vagina, then back out, dancing around her clit.

Ivy moaned, and pressed my head against her crotch, and I redoubled my efforts, trying to reconcile the tonguefeel to what I’d seen when she’d sat on the roll bar, identifying the right spots to put pressure on or to lick or to suckle. Exploring her with my tongue was different than with my eyes, and yet I thought I had a good idea from what I’d observed, thought I knew where I was visiting, even if she wasn’t quite human. I was experienced, but this was new territory, almost but not quite a human vagina. My eyes had seen and my tongue confirmed.

Even with differences, I could focus on what worked, what made her clench a fist in my hair. Her clit was sensitive, wanted attention, and I was more than willing to provide. And inside, as deep as my tongue could reach, there was another spot, one that tasted saltier, one that got her to push me further in, as far as I could reach. A bit of tender flesh, quivering beneath my tongue, likely her g-spot.

I lost myself inside her, forgetting the world around me, forgetting even myself as I hunted for what would give her the most pleasure. I felt as she tensed and came and I didn’t back off. She gripped my head tighter, but she didn’t pull my head off as I went in again, even as my tongue started to feel sluggish and numb in my mouth.

My neck was sore, my arms tense from clenching her fur and I pressed on with dogged determination, determined to get her to yield to me at whatever cost.

And yield she did, not pulling my head away, but pressing me into her crotch in a hug after what must have been an earth-shattering orgasm. I’d felt her leg muscles tense, felt her abs flex against my forehead, her fingers painfully tearing at my hair, and then she was trembling, relaxing her grip, a shaky exhale and she actually leaned on me for support.

•••

It didn’t take her long to recover—she tugged at my shoulders to get me to stand, and I complied, feeling a momentary headrush from crouching too long—not to mention that a lot of my blood must have still been throbbing in my dick.

Ivy wrapped her arms around me and pressed against me for a kiss, my erection hard between us.

There was a twinkle of mirth in her eyes as she started grinding her belly against it, masturbating me between us. Between that and her boobs, I didn’t know how long I would last.

“You keep that up and we’ll have to wash off again.”

“Mmh.” Ivy nibbled on my earlobe. “If you do go off early, I can lick you clean.”

I tensed, I was close, but I didn’t want to cum, not like this . . . or did I?

Ivy grabbed my asscheeks and pulled herself tight against my erection, holding for ten seconds before letting go and looking down. “See, not even a spot on you.” She pressed back up against me. “If I’m going to wind up licking you clean, it’ll be easier if your dick’s in my mouth, won’t it?”

Without waiting for a reply, she dropped to her knees and gripped my dick, kissing and licking around my head before taking it into her mouth, first exploring my glans before diving deeper, pressing my tip against the back of her mouth.

She pulled back, letting my cock pop out, still lightly holding it with one hand. “Been a while since I’ve done this, let’s see if I’ve still got it.”

“Got it? You do.”

“Just you wait.” She licked her lips and pushed her head up against my rod, grabbed my ass cheeks with both hands, and slammed her head all the way down, taking my whole length in one fell swoop.

“Jesus.”

I wrapped my hands in her hair and let her bob on my knob, the sensation nearly indescribable. I held her against me, giving her the opportunity to lick my balls before she moved back.

Her hair gave me a decent handhold, and her horns were better. I didn’t have to worry about getting too enthusiastic and pulling hair out.

She’d taken charge of practically everything so far, and now it was my turn. I had a good grip, and I started to exert control. At first she didn’t want to let me, pushing and pulling against me, then her hands relaxed and she let me drive.

I slid her up and down my cock, holding her when I wanted to, pressing her head against my groin and back in short, deep thrusts, urgently demanding release as pressure built, an ejaculation too long denied, one she’d tried to force but I was going to cum on my terms.

Each thrust gave more pleasure than the last one did, reaching unbelievable new heights, and as I approached closer and closer to the precipice, I started to wonder if it was actually possible to die from an orgasm. It felt like I might.

I wasn’t going to stop.

Ivy cupped my buttcheek and slid her hand into the crack, teasing against my asshole before fondling the backside of my balls, pressing them into her chin as I slammed her head down again, urgent, demanding.

Her finger pressed against my taint, and then again ran around my pucker, exciting more sensitive nerves and driving me to a new height. I was close, very close, everything was blurring into one continuous plateau, and I could see the peak but not get there.

She pressed against my butthole, momentarily drawing my focus away as she demanded entry and it was wrong but I didn’t protest, I didn’t try to push her away. I didn’t know what to make of the new sensations, I could feel each knuckle as it pressed forward, her finger questing and then she hit the magic button I didn’t know I had, and I pressed her head down against my crotch and emptied her balls deep in her throat.

I could feel her swallowing around my cock and I let go of her horns—I couldn’t concentrate on anything else, could barely remember to keep standing. She moved her head back and took control again, milking the final spurts out on her boobs.

If she didn’t have a finger up my butt, I would have just collapsed to the ground. Every bit of energy I had available had gone into that cumshot.

She wasn’t ready to let me rest; she pulled her finger back out which felt weird, grabbed a boob and licked it off while I watched in amazement.

“I said I’d lick it off.”

“I . . . oh God, I think you almost killed me.”

“Is there a better way to go?”

“No.”

“You want to lick the other one off, or should I get it?”

“Give me a minute.”

•••

There was nothing sexy about drying off. I was completely spent, and if I’d had my way, I would have just laid down on the ground and gone to sleep. She, on the other hand, seemed to be bursting with energy. I’d heard that female athletes got a performance boost by having sex and that was completely unfair.

She was practically glowing as we went back to the cabin, a cocky swish to her hips and tail. I trailed along, wondering if there was a reverse viagra that would perk the rest of me up, when I noticed that she was actually limping.

“Are you okay?” Had I been too aggressive with her head?

Ivy nodded. “Just a fading leg cramp . . . I orgasmed that last time so hard, my leg cramped.”

“Really?”

“Honest. Your tongue’s that good.”

“Well, you turned my legs into wet noodles. When I came, I feared for my life.”

Sunday

Sunday

I didn’t know what woke me. It was still dark outside, and I could feel a gentle breeze through the open window.

I was used to hearing traffic noises all the time, so much that I tuned them out. The woods were different. I could hear leaves rustling but no insects, no birdsong.

Ivy didn’t keep a clock in her loft—why should she?—and I had no idea what time it was. It didn’t matter, it was completely unimportant. Out here the clock meant nothing.

She was snuggled up against my side, her head resting against my shoulder, her horn dangerously close to my cheek. One false move . . . it didn’t matter, I’d be okay with an eyepatch or a jagged scar.

I was used to the harsh orangish or bluish illumination of streetlights and parking lot lights; the woods had their own night color. I thought it was dimmer outside than it had been last night, but I couldn’t be sure. I could see her, I could see the room, and I was content. The covers were pushed down and I thought about reaching down and pulling them up, but that might disturb her.

One side of me—the side not covered by Ivy—was cold, and I considered how much better a second Ivy would be. That was a crazy thought: one Ivy was enough, I could barely keep up with her. Two of them would destroy me.

I could have reached out and touched her, but that might have broken the moment. Might have woken her. Instead, I was content to study her sleeping figure, what I could see anyway. The dim light softened her edges, made her appear more delicate than she was. Made her skin paler and her fur darker, highlighted her areolas—I could feel a faint stirring in my groin as I focused on her bare breast, and I was sure she wouldn’t be mad if I woke her in the middle of the night for sex.

No, it was better to just enjoy the moment, better to savor it.

I felt her tail thump against the mattress and I thought she was awake, but she wasn’t. Her breathing was still slow and steady, washing across my chest. An ear twitched, and then fell still again. Was she dreaming? What did she dream of, anyway? Home? Or had she been here long enough that she dreamed of Earth?

What was her home like? I didn’t really know. What if I was wrong, what if this was more than a weekend that would never be repeated? Would she take me home to meet my parents? Hell, would I take her home to meet my parents? What would they think?

It was beyond my imagination. It was better to focus on the simple things. What happened in time would happen, and there was no sense in dwelling on it. The woods weren’t the place for the long future, the woods were the place for the short future. Like food tomorrow: what did she have, and what would we have to forage? She’d promised eggs and bacon, and I didn’t think that we’d be going out into the woods to find either. It was too late in the year for birds to have eggs in their nests anyway, wasn’t it? Birds hatched in the early summer, didn’t they?

She would know. Ivy was a proper woodsman.

How many things had she been used to back at home, and had to re-learn here on Earth? She was adaptable, she would have learned quickly. I could imagine her with either a guidebook or a grizzled prospector touring her patch of land, learning what she could eat and what she couldn’t. And the animals? Maybe they were mostly the same, or maybe she found a clearing and just sat there, Zen-like, observing.

I thought it might be the latter.

Had she ever spent a night away from her cabin? I thought she must have. Before she built it, I didn’t see her renting a RV and parking it on her land. Maybe a tent—probably a tent, some shelter against rain and biting insects.

What would I have done if she hadn’t had a cabin? If it had just been a tent? Maybe a hole in the ground for a toilet, or maybe not even that. Find a tree, don’t go in that patch of poison ivy.

She was in her element and I wasn’t but maybe I could be. Maybe I could cast off the chains of modern, civilized society and live up in the woods. At least on the weekends.

I suppressed a snicker at the idea of her spending the week working as an accountant in a cubicle farm and living in a townhouse. Who knew how she earned her money?

Did it even matter? I closed my eyes and drifted back off to sleep.

•••

Ivy was up the next time I woke, and all of me was cold. She hadn’t pulled the covers up.

She was on her knees, looking out the window. When she was kneeling her tail covered almost everything, which was a shame—it would have been a great view otherwise.

I jerked at a flash of light. Distant lightning. I started counting the seconds, and I never heard any thunder: the storm was far away.

Was it going to come here? I didn’t know what Ivy had planned, or if she’d be disappointed. If she was looking out the window, judging the storm, she might be.

I had my cell phone and it had a weather app—which did me no good; it had no signal. Another trapping of modern life that was lost in the wilderness.

I was still logy; I’d barely woken up. I wanted to pull the covers over myself; instead, I grabbed them and climbed out of bed and sat beside her. I wrapped us both up in a blanket-cocoon, and watched with her out in the woods.

Was this the false dawn? Or was it the real dawn, muted by the oncoming storm? I could faintly see the tops of the trees swaying in the breeze and then falling still again.

“Rain’s about to start,” Ivy said. “You can always tell.”

I nodded. I could smell it in the air. How much would her plans change if it rained?

Memories of wading through water and picking off leeches flashed back into my mind, and I didn’t think she’d alter her plans in the slightest. Whatever those plans were.

I was feeling bold and took a chance—my arm was around her shoulder, and I let my hand slide down her chest, reaching for a boob, resting my hand on the swell, my fingers almost touching a nipple. Yesterday morning, she’d given me a time limit. Today she might not.

•••

I’d never watched a storm roll in while snuggled up with a girl of any sort, let alone a minotauress. Not that that was surprising; the entire weekend had been full of new experiences and while I was disappointed that today was the last day, we could make the best of it.

By the time the storm hit, I had my hand between her legs, and she’d respond by wrapping her hand around my cock, giving me slow, languid strokes. We weren’t so engrossed that we missed the early light of dawn, the trees whipping into a frenzy, the first splatters of rain almost immediately followed by a downpour. The lightning increasing in frequency, the nearby booming of thunder—and then the rain slowed down to a steady drumbeat, and the thunder and lightning moved on as well.

We could have moved back to the bed, but we were already here. The floor was warmed up where we’d been sitting, I’d brought a blanket . . . I turned and kissed her, our tongues intertwining, and then I broke the kiss and bent down to kiss her breasts, to lick her nipples, and for a time that gave me happiness, especially as she continued to stroke my dick.

“Lie down.” I gave up the blanket—I was going to get chilly, but it was worth it.

She nodded and let go of my dick. Regrettable, but it would be worth it in the end.

As soon as she was on her back, I straddled her, resting my groin against hers, my dick a hot iron pinned between us. Our lips met again, then I started moving down her body, passing between her breasts on my way to the promised land.

I felt her tense as I reached her navel, as I kissed across her stomach and onto her pubic mound. My ass was facing the window and occasionally caught some rain spray through the screen, a small price to pay.

I slowed as I reached her coat, building the tension. I saw her move her hand, first in my direction, and then she changed her mind and started fondling her own breast, a victory.

My tongue knew what to do as it touched her clit, and I buried my face between her thighs and went to work, exploring and teasing her tender flesh. I kept my hands wrapped around her waist, her furry love-handles, pulling myself into her sex as far as I could.

It wasn’t long before she was writing under me, and I thought that the slow build-up had been worth it, that all the fondling as we watched the storm come had put her right on the edge—I’d intended to tease her with my tongue and then mount her, but now I had every intention of giving her an orgasm first.

“Hold on.” Ivy pushed my head back.

“Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got to piss. You keep it up down there and you might get more than you bargained for.”

Disappointing, but I had to piss, too. Which was going to be interesting, since my dick had only gotten harder once I’d started eating Ivy out. The chill air and stray raindrops hadn’t done anything to dampen my enthusiasm.

She slid back and sat up. “I’ll be right back, promise.”

“I might as well follow you,” I said. “I’m not going to hold out much longer, either.”

Of all the ways Ivy could have built the house, having an ensuite bathroom would have been great. Of course that meant more plumbing and a drain field and septic tank—there were some advantages of keeping it simple with a hole in the ground.

Just then, as if to mock us, the rain picked up in intensity again.

“Bet it’s times like this you wish you had indoor plumbing. No real disadvantage on my part, I can just stand in the doorway.”

Ivy rolled her eyes. “So can I, but it’s not civilized.”

“How?”

“Practice.” She swung her legs over the edge of the loft and was down the ladder before I could think of a witty comeback.

•••

Whether she could or was just bragging was unanswered; she was out the door by the time I’d descended the ladder. I hesitated—I really didn’t want to go out in the rain. On the plus side, my clothes wouldn’t get wet.

Going out in the rain and then waiting in the rain for her to finish was stupid, I decided. When she came back in, then I’d take my turn. So I instead stood in the open doorway, far enough back that I wasn’t directly rained on, my hard-on starting to fade.

It really was tempting to just let it fly; the water would wash it away right away, and the sound of the rain on the leaves and the ground just intensified the need. By the time she was back, I was starting to worry that my bladder might explode.

Surely she wouldn’t mind if I didn’t go all the way to her outhouse, just stopped on the way. I’d marked a couple trees while we’d been hunting and I assumed she had, too.

But she might be watching from the loft. I looked up, I didn’t see her face at the window, but then I couldn’t see anything inside the house. And since I was already in her backyard, I continued the rest of the way to the outhouse which was not only dry, but warmer than outside.

•••

When I came back into the cabin, she was leaning over the loft railing, watching me as I crossed the living room to the foot of the ladder. Like a captain looking over the bridge of her ship.

“Permission to board, captain?”

Ivy snickered, then extended her arm out in invitation. “Permission granted, cart boy.”

I hooked my hands around the ladder and climbed up. It was insulting that she was still calling me that, but there was a warmness in her voice instead of contempt. I still had the better part of a day to prove myself . . . or to completely fuck up.

She stayed leaning over the railing until I got all the way to the top and had my feet firmly on the loft, then she reached down and stroked my now-flaccid dick. That felt weird; I wasn’t used to anybody touching it when it wasn’t hard.

It must not have liked that, either—I could feel stirrings of arousal already. It might not be quick, since I’d just had a boner, but maybe the recovery time was faster if I hadn’t actually come. Either way, I could eat her out until the little soldier stood at attention again.

“Lie down,” she ordered, pointing to the bed. “Get comfortable.”

What did she have planned? I trusted her to not break me, although if she started getting out ropes and handcuffs we’d have to renegotiate.

“Since you like looking up on the ladder so much, and I took that opportunity from you this last time.” She straddled me and lowered herself down, her tail slapping against my belly as she got into position.

Ivy wiggled her hips on the way down which provided a nice jiggle from her chest and a weird flash of pink from her vagina, something I wanted to focus on but my traitorous brain instead decided it needed to pay attention to the tuft of fur on the end of her tail as it slid across my stomach, tickling me.

I couldn’t resist twitching, and I could see the bemused glint in her eyes as she asked me if I was ticklish.

“No?” That was true, more or less—it was more the surprise of it than any ticklishness, or at least that was what I told myself.

It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been firmer in my denial; Ivy thought she had something, and she was going to take advantage of it.

Which was fine by me. Now I knew it was coming, now I was prepared, and now I was more focused on her jiggling boobs and her inviting pussy just out of reach. I could grab her hips, I could pull her down on my face, or I could just enjoy the view while it lasted.

•••

When she realized she wasn’t getting the reaction she wanted, Ivy finally sat on my face, first keeping her weight on her hooves and then shifting into a kneeling position. There wasn’t anywhere I could go as she leaned forward, sliding her sex against my mouth and nose. Not that I would have wanted to move away.

Even though I’d get no control by doing it, I wrapped my hands around her thighs, clenching her fur, and went back to work, picking up where I’d left off.

I might not have had the same control I did when I was on top, but I had enough to get what I wanted, and I was willing to accept the challenge—made all the harder as she teased my dick with her tail. That was a strange sensation.

I put that to the back of my mind and turned my attention to her sex, hot on my lips. And the view, looking up her torso at the bottom of her breasts.

She could have been looking down at me, but she wasn’t; she had her chin up, one hand planted beside my head for balance while the other was playing with a breast, then it slid down her stomach and I started to wonder if she was going to finger herself while I was eating her out, but instead she ran her hand through my hair.

I’d completely focused on her, on every movement, and it caught me by surprise as she suddenly spoke. “Are you hard yet?”

I actually had to pay attention to something else—there must have been other times in my life where I wasn’t aware that I had an erection, but I couldn’t recall one.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s see.” She twisted around, more or less pivoting on my tongue. I could feel her thigh muscles in my temples and my clenched hands, and my mind flashed back to a YouTube video of a girl crushing watermelons between her legs. Could Ivy do that? Probably. How much harder was a skull than a watermelon? Unknown. Would I be upset if that was the way I went? No.

“You stay there,” she instructed, then lifted herself off my face. I could feel drool and her girlcum all over my face and chin, dribbling down to my neck. Would it be gauche to take the opportunity to wipe some of it off with the sheet or a pillow?

I didn’t have a chance to decide; she turned herself around and then pressed back into my face. Now my nose was sitting against her taint, practically against her butthole. Her tail was draped across my forehead, giving me the clearest view ever of the weird triangle of hairless flesh where her tail and ass crack intersected.

That position didn’t last long; she crouched down to my waist and ran her tongue up the length of my cock, slowing as she reached my head.

I was ready for her to wrap her lips around it and start giving me a blowjob, but she didn’t. She licked her way down the underside and across my balls, then returned to the topside to lick at the very base of my cock, her cheek pressing up against my dick.

Ivy let me have a few moments to enjoy what she was doing to me before wiggling her hips as a reminder that I had a job to do, too. One I was only too willing to perform.

Finding a good position for my hands was a challenge. I could reach down enough to tweak her nipples, but it felt more natural to grab her love handles and give me the illusion that I was in control, even though I knew full well that I wasn’t.

I hadn’t noticed before that she tensed her tail when she orgasmed. I’d been on the wrong side or she’d been on her back—with it right against my forehead I couldn’t miss the tensing and the quiver in her tail, the clutch of her thighs, or the way she paused on my dick long enough to take a couple deep breaths before continuing with her blowjob.

Was she frustrated that I’d made her cum before I had? Or had she loosened up her throat enough that she was finally ready to swallow my sword all the way?

Did it matter? Whatever her reasoning, her lips were now wrapped around the very base of my cock, her breasts pressed against my stomach, and my tongue was deep inside her.

She had an unfair advantage: with practice she could deepthroat, but no matter how much I practiced my tongue wouldn’t get any longer. That just meant I needed more skill, and the determination to hold on long enough I got her to orgasm again before she managed to make me cum.

In truth, that was a race I was almost certain to lose. I already knew how intense her blowjobs could be and I didn’t know if she was going to hold back and keep me on the edge or if she was going to go for speed.

•••

After, neither of us had any interest in getting up, or moving, or doing much of anything. The fur on her thighs was matted and soaked with cum, we were both glistening with sweat, and I was certain I’d reached Nirvana and confident that she had, too.

There was no way that I could have been considered pent up, not after how the weekend had gone so far, and yet it felt like I’d come so hard that my balls had probably shriveled down to the size of raisins. She’d only let my dick out of her mouth once it started to go flaccid and then just stayed where she was, her head rested on my thigh, her breathing slowly returning to normal.

I really wanted a cigarette, and I’d never smoked one in my life.

•••

Yesterday when we’d finished, we’d gotten up and she’d made breakfast—what I would have expected in a morning. This time, after we got out of bed, she started taking the sheets off.

“What are you doing?”

“Sheets smell like sex,” Ivy said. “Gonna take them home and wash them.”

“Don’t you want them to? So you can remember the fun times we had?”

Ivy shook her head. “I’d rather keep that memory in my head instead of in my nose.” She bundled them up into a sack, including the pillowcases and duvet cover, then reached over the loft railing and let them fall. “Easier than getting them down the ladder.”

“Too bad you can’t get them up the same way.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you seriously thinking I can’t throw a bundle of sheets up to the loft, or are you just sex-addled enough that you can’t think straight?”

I took a moment to reflect on the fact that she could at the very least Leonidas-kick me off the loft. Nobody knew where I’d gone, and I bet that Ivy had ways of disposing of a body.

“Sex-addled,” I said. “Or maybe sleep-deprived. I’m never my best first thing in the morning.”

“That’s because all the blood’s in your dick.” She poked it with a finger. “Down the ladder, cart boy, and I’ll make us breakfast.”

•••

Only once she had all her ingredients in place did she turn on the stove. “It’s better to cook eggs and bacon over an actual fire,” she said, “but it’s not worth having a fire just for breakfast. Not now. In the wintertime, though. . .

“Christmas vacation is the best when there’s a good snow. Sitting in the living room, watching the flakes drift down, or the wind whipping snow against the windows, seeing the frost creeping on the glass. The little gusts that come in and make the flames dance. I like spending the whole week up here, just enjoying the solitude.”

“Don’t you have a family?”

Ivy shrugged. “We’re not all that close. My dad was against me ever coming to Earth, said it would make me soft.”

“Really.” I thought about her lifting sacks of cement, digging holes, hunting; I thought about the feel of her muscles—even when she was relaxed, there was a constant quiver like an overwound spring. “Did it?”

“Who knows? Not a lot of people can keep up with me, for what that’s worth. You’re doing better than I expected.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“You’ve got stamina where it matters.” She turned her head and gave me a quick peck on the cheek before returning her attention to the porridge. “And you’re bold, willing to try new things. Not everyone is. Had to have an abscess in my claw fixed a while back, and the hoof doctor was so flustered about it, even after I told him that it was just like a regular bovine hoof.”

You sure he wasn’t just taken by you being you? That was something I knew I shouldn’t say aloud, even if I was sure that had been a factor. Did she wear clothes at home?

“Did a good enough job, though.”

“So your hooves aren’t impervious after all.”

She shook her head. “They’re a lot tougher than feet, but I can step on something that goes through them, and if I can’t dig it out or if it gets infected—that’s rare, the one time I had to call a hoof doctor was the only time I wasn’t able to fix it myself.”

“I never thought about how you might have trouble with human medicine. You’re not exactly the same as other girls.”

“I don’t know any other girls that would be entertaining you in their cabin.”

“Whatever.” I could ignore the barb. “I don’t know many other guys who are good at picking burrs out of fur.”

“Stick around and I’ll make a woodsman out of you.”

Is that an invitation for this to become something more serious, or is she just talking? A few days ago, my imagination hadn’t extended much further than arranging shelves or pushing carts and wishing I was doing something else, although that something else was vague and nebulous. Digging foundations and planting posts and pouring concrete hadn’t been on my radar screen, nor had wandering through the woods naked, hunting and gathering.

She’d lured me in with sex, and I’d been an easy target. Most guys would have been, I thought. Maybe the lower half would have thrown them for a loop, or the ears or the horns. I could easily imagine one of her weekend conquests—surely I wasn’t the first—being unwilling to work, complaining that they didn’t get a cell signal or that she didn’t have a TV in her cabin. I could imagine them recoiling at the idea that they had to hunt for their dinner, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there had been ones she’d sent marching down the road to hitch a ride.

Or maybe they’d done what I’d done in the hopes of impressing her and it hadn’t been good enough for one reason or another.

What she needed was a proper woodsman who would be up at the ass crack of dawn to hunt in a blind with her, or a proper carpenter who would be of more use when it came to setting posts. Someone more outdoorsy or more handy than I was.

Maybe she’d thought of that, too. Maybe she’d even found ones who had been too full of themselves, too condescending . . . Michelle was the paint manager back at Home Depot, and she constantly complained in the break room about guys who didn’t think she’d know anything about painting since she sported a pair of tits.

Maybe she was looking for someone that looked like a person she could mold into what she wanted, and maybe I fit the bill.

Or maybe it was just an impulse, and after she dropped me off tonight she’d forget I ever existed. Maybe look down at me the next time she came to Home Depot—or not, since I didn’t have a job there any more.

Did it matter? For now, it was better to live in the moment, to watch Ivy cooking our breakfast.

Outside, the light rain splattered off the leaves and fell lightly on the forest floor. Trees were decent shelter from rain, at least, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this breakfast would have been more appealing if it had been cooked outside on an open fire, drops of rain sizzling in the pan.

I’d never been one for roughing it. I’d always preferred the comforts in life. Now I was reconsidering.

Bold of Ivy to fry bacon with her shirt off—with everything off. Stew and porridge hadn’t risked burns, but bacon did. Yet another reason to leave it alone until it was ready, let it simmer and sputter and stay well back, the smell was almost as filling as the meal itself.

She twitched every time hot oil spattered her, and I offered to move in, although that was risky. Hot bacon grease could land on my dick.

“I’ve got this.” She twitched as a bubble popped in the pan, and I could see the arc of the hot fat as it landed on her arm and her stomach. She lifted the pan off the burner and spatulaed the bacon onto the plate, leaving behind a pan of burbling grease.

It would not go to waste; she turned off the burner and dropped in two slices of bread.

I’d read once about high-calorie diets of the Mennonites. It wasn’t a lazy Western diet, full of hollow calories; it was dense and prepared a person for a day’s work. Or helped them recover from a day’s work . . . I’d spent a lot of energy yesterday digging post holes, and then hunting for dinner and there was also the sex. How many calories did sex burn, anyway?

Did guys burn more calories during sex, or did girls? Which of us had sweated more, or breathed harder at the end?

And why was I thinking about that when Ivy was still naked and also there was fresh-cooked bacon, still bubbling on the plate as it cooled?

•••

By the time we were done with breakfast, the rain had intensified again. Now it was sluicing down from the trees; now it was an obstacle. The kind of rain where I might have run to my car, or worn a poncho, or at least ducked my head and been miserable.

The kind of rain where it made no sense to be nude, and yet we were, both of us standing at the front door looking out at it.

Ivy probably wasn’t reconsidering, but I was. The garage—shed—wasn’t that far from her house, but today would have been a good day to stay in bed and sleep late.

“How much do you know about trucks?”

“Not shit,” I admitted. “Or cars. If you’ve been here long enough to get the impression that all guys are car guys, I buck that trend. I don’t even change my own oil, Wal-Mart does that.”

“It’s not hard.” She crossed her arms and glanced back at me. “Drainplug and filter, grease everything, it’s not complicated. You humans don’t know how to take care of your own stuff.”

“I do know how to take care of my own stuff, I take it to a professional.” My Honda was overdue for an oil change, and it was smart enough to remind me every time I started it. I’d been meaning to schedule that. ‘Besides, you—”

You built your own house. That was something I couldn’t do. How had she learned that? If I’d had a father who was more handy in the garage, I might know something about cars; if I’d had a father who was more handy around the house, I might know more about building things. Sometimes it bothered me that I wasn’t as alpha as some other guys.

None of those other guys were up north banging a minotaur, though.

“I what?”

“Nothing, you’ve just got life skills I don’t.”

She crossed her arms under her breasts, briefly giving herself cleavage to die for. “Oh, do I?”

“I might not know much, but I can learn.” Tempting though it was to bury my face in her boobs and motorboat my way to happy oblivion, I resisted the urge. “And I am curious about that truck.”

After Breakfast

After Breakfast

Up north where roofs might leak—or did leak, in the case of her shed—tarps were mandatory. The one for her topless Jeep made total sense, and so did the one for her Diamond T. She hadn’t covered the whole truck, just the top of the cab, down to the door handles. Instead of being tied down, it was weighted with rocks tied to the grommets and a few bungee cords for security. Just enough to prevent rain and snow leaks from drenching the interior, and secure enough that what wind came through the cracks in the shed wouldn’t blow it off.

The tarp wasn’t custom-made, it was an off-the-shelf generic silver Chinese tarp from a big box store, probably mine.

Formerly mine; I’d missed enough shifts by now I was effectively fired. As if my final message on the radio hadn’t made that clear. Whatever, there were lots of companies willing to underpay unskilled workers. I could have a new job by Monday afternoon, or whenever Ivy decided to drive me back.

She undid a couple of bungees and flopped it over the roof, giving me the first look inside. There was something about the cab of an old truck—a proper truck—that was lacking in more modern ones. There was no thought given to comforts, you got gauges that told you what you needed to know and that was it. The dashboard was stamped steel, painted body color, with a thin pad on the very top, cracked from years in the sun. Her Jeep was the logical extension of this truck, something small and nimble and capable and also lacking in features.

The engine was simple, and even in the small engine compartment it didn’t look crowded. I knew my Honda had a tiny four cylinder, and it was surrounded with all sorts of sundry parts, antilock brakes and cruise control and lots of other stuff. This was a machine from a bygone era, elegant in its simplicity, one step removed from a steam engine with a giant flywheel.

I could see why it would appeal to Ivy. It was the missing link between her Jeep and a steam tractor.

Some paint still clung to the truck, but it was mostly a combination of rust and moss and neglect. I didn’t think it was beyond help, though; more like it was in a long slumber just waiting for the moment it was needed again. Everything was well-aged, but nothing looked like it was missing or broken.

The shed was more than old enough, it could have been built with this truck in mind. Had the former owner bought it new, or had he gotten a great deal on it used?

From what I could see, the bodywork was good enough it could be restored to its former glory, maybe be driven in parades and on nice days, but that didn’t feel right to me. It was meant to be used as a workhorse. Restoring it to a showroom condition would only cheapen it.

“I can get it to crank over, but it won’t stay running,” Ivy said. “Figure the fuel system’s filled with varnish or rust.”

“Or both. You got any tools with you? Pretty sure that’s the carburetor.” I’d picked up lots of vocabulary at the home improvement store, and the knowledge that gas went bad if it was left unused for too long. “I’m not much for repairing engines, but there’s got to be YouTube tutorials, it doesn’t look complicated.”

“Project for later.” Ivy slammed the hood shut. “Not like it can get very far in the woods, and I’ve got my Jeep for hauling, maybe when my deck’s built. Although, this thing would be convenient for hauling lumber.”

I nodded. “They’d turn their heads if you showed up in an antique, that’s for sure. Although they probably do anyway.”

“I’m enough of a regular at my local hardware store that nobody bats an eye when I arrive.”

“Or else they’re all fantasizing getting in your pants.”

“Worked out well for you, didn’t it? Cart boy.” She ran her finger up my thigh, almost but not quite touching my dick.

•••

She had a small lean-to behind her shed as well. This one contained a small pile of felled trees, set out on scrap pallets so that they could dry. I’d assumed that they were there to eventually be turned into firewood, but I was wrong.

“They’ll be the frame for the back porch,” Ivy explained. “Once they’re cut to length and hewn, anyway. Probably won’t square them all the way off, that’s a lot of work and there’s no real benefit. I’ll just de-bark the posts, and only flatten one side of the support joists.” She eyed me up and down. “How good are you with an adz?”

I started mentally cycling through all the woodworking tools the home improvement store had. I didn’t think we carried adzes; I certainly couldn’t picture one in my head. “I’m going to assume I’m not at all good with them, since I don’t even know what one is.”

“Figures. Because if we wanted a fun morning activity, we could start shaping one of them. Or split wood, that’s always a good way to spend some of the morning energy.”

“You have any ideas that don’t involve back-breaking labor?”

“Could try our luck at hunting again, but a lot of animals are going to want to stay home since it’s raining.” Ivy sighed. “Shame it wasn’t later in the year, could get some big game and be set for a while. You think you could split wood without losing any of your fingers?”

“God, I hope so.” That was something I vaguely knew how to do. Set the wood on end, whack it with an ax or a wedge, and it’d split in half. “It looks like you have plenty.”

“Sure, it looks like it, until it’s the middle of the winter and you’re drifted in—that pile goes a lot faster than you’d think. The first year I was here, I had to run my Ford up here with a bed full of wood I’d split back at home, just so I had enough to get through.”

It seemed to me like a vacation home—as this clearly was—should be more for enjoyment and less for work, but maybe that was what made the relaxing times better.

What did I do in my time off? Watch too much TV, eat too much, clean my apartment, and that was about it. There certainly wasn’t any satisfaction to be had in a day’s work; even if I was dog-tired, I didn’t feel like I’d accomplished anything at the end of a shift. Maybe the carts were all inside, maybe the cards of drill bits were all where they belonged on the shelf, but it wouldn’t be long before some weekend warrior would mess it all up and the cycle would begin anew.

Here, everything we did meant something. Hunting provided dinner—the squirrel stew was better than the canned beef stew, not just in flavor, but in the effort that had gone to catching the squirrel. I was never going to remember a trip to the grocery store when I cracked open a can of Dinty-Moore beef stew, but with every small morsel of squirrel on the fork, my mind went back to hunting for it.

The porch footings—they weren’t anything special yet, but in time they’d be useful, and if I ever got invited back, I’d remember putting them in, remember our weekend together. It was something I could be proud of, something I’d helped build, something I’d helped create.

In the moment I stepped into her Jeep, I’d dimly hoped in the back of my mind that she was intending to take me up north to fuck my brains out; the reality had been far better than I’d been anticipating. We’d been more intimate than I’d ever been with a partner before, and I didn’t think that would have come if I hadn’t been willing to work, to do what needed to be done.

In the simplest sense, if I did a task, I got rewarded. I wasn’t sure any more if the sex was the reward.

“Well, if wood needs to be split, let’s do it.” I thought about adding ‘how hard can it be?’ but I was sure I was going to find out, and didn’t need to curse myself before I started.

•••

Her chopping block was the stump of a felled tree, out in the open, slick with rain. I’d imagined that it would at least be under cover—the wood was.

For some reason, I’d imagined that she’d do the wood splitting under some kind of a shelter, then I reasoned that the rain wasn’t that bad, and it would wash off the sweat. To a point, strenuous physical activity negated the need for clothes, didn’t it?

“You ever split wood before?”

“Back in Boy Scouts . . . with a hatchet. Usually gave up after a while and just tossed the logs on the fire, let it do the work.”

“It’s not hard once you get in a rhythm.” She pointed over to the wood cribs. “Start grabbing some of the logs and bring them over, I’ll get the tools.”

•••

The bark was rough on my skin. Some of it flaked off, and sometimes when it did, bugs would come crawling out, usually on me. I couldn’t really brush them off with an armful of logs, but when I stopped thinking about them, I stopped noticing them. It might have been all the stimulation of rain on my bare skin, or the rain might have been washing them off—I didn’t look.

Once I’d made a couple trips and provided a decent pile, Ivy placed a log down on the chopping block. “Now, there’s a couple of ways to do it, I’ve got a splitting wedge, or you can just use an ax. In terms of keeping all your fingers, it might be safer to use the wedge.”

She set the wedge in the top of the log and picked up a sledgehammer, holding it near the head with her right hand as she tapped it into place, sticking it in the wood. “Once you’re set—”

I didn’t have my eyes on the wedge. I didn’t have to; I knew what was going to happen. Instead, I watched the fluid motion as she brought the sledgehammer back, sliding her hands on the shaft into the optimal position, and then it slammed down on the log, rending it asunder in one fell swoop.

She made it look easy. Which was going to make my try all the more embarrassing.

I took the hammer and the wedge, tapped it into place like she had, and then took an almighty swing, Thor with his hammer . . . and I missed the wedge entirely, instead launching a barrage of wood chips at my bare chest.

“Maybe a little less enthusiasm, cart boy. It’s about aim and finesse.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I picked up the fallen log and tried again, this time hitting the wedge on its corner, which did manage to split the log partway and also knock the wedge loose. “Maybe I should just carry logs back and forth, that’s harder to fuck up.”

“You just need practice, and then it’ll come naturally.”

Ivy gave me a couple more tries, and I got better, but I wasn’t great. “What about the ax?”

“You’ve got the swing for it, just make sure you don’t lose control, if it bounces it might take a leg off—or your dick.”

“I’ll be careful,” I promised, and she handed it over.

I hefted it in my hands and picked up another log, balancing it on the chopping block. This time I made a more controlled strike, since I had no interest in bouncing the ax off and hitting my dick, or any other part of my anatomy.

That was only one thing to aim, and I didn’t have to hit perfectly. Close was good enough. I didn’t split it through on my first try, but I was close, close enough that I might be able to rip the log in half with my bare arms.

Since it was stuck on the ax, I just lifted it off the chopping block and brought it down again, nodding in satisfaction as the two halves fell away. “Yeah, this is better.”

“It’s not good for a whole log, that’s why I’ve got the wedge.” Ivy looked around at the pile of wood, at me, and then at the wedge. “Okay, here’s the plan. I’ll use the wedge to halve the logs, then you can split them from there with the ax. Stump’s big enough we can both work and not get in each other’s way, especially if we take turns.”

•••

The Boy Scouts had been adamant about proper safety gear when chopping wood. Sturdy, closed-toe boots, long pants—all I had was my bare flesh. And a distraction across from me, as well, and I knew that if I paid too much attention to her I was going to fuck up, and I’d probably bite myself with the ax, or bounce a log into one of us.

Several days ago, I’d have been reminding myself at every turn to focus on what I was doing, but I wasn’t the same person I’d been several days ago. I wasn't entirely sure what had changed or exactly how it had changed, but it had.

The rain made the ax handle slick, something else I had to be careful of.

I kept my focus to my log, and watched her out of the corner of my eye to make sure that we weren’t both striking at the same time. At first we had a ragged rhythm going, the satisfying thwack of my ax out of time with the more sure clang of her maul hitting the wedge, and then we slowly got in time with each other.

I didn’t have to be told to take split logs to the wood crib when I went to fetch more, that was the smartest way to do it. Take one trip.

The logs got stacked neatly, and I grabbed another pile of wood to split. Would have been more efficient with a cart, I could have hauled more at once.

She’d taken my ax and started to catch up on my side, then handed it back when I dumped the fresh logs beside her, and I went back to work.

Walking the logs to the chopping block was a nice reprieve, and a chance to admire the wilderness, if only for a few moments. Some birds didn’t mind the rain, flying around through the trees and occasionally out where it was more open. I remembered hearing on some TV documentary that hummingbirds could starve to death in hours if they didn’t eat, and there might have been other birds who always needed to be eating food, too.

Some squirrels came out as well, darting around under the cover of trees, looking for food.

We worked in silence. This was an unskilled task, I’d learned what I needed to do, and we could have had a conversation but I actually enjoyed the peace. I might have been a useless hunter, an unwanted appendage she dragged through the woods who was barely skilled enough to fetch, but here I could hold my own, I could focus on my task.

There was no reason to talk. We didn’t need to fill the air with conversation; in fact, it felt more appropriate to not. It sounded cliched, but we were alone together, both complete in and of ourselves as we worked at a common task.

•••

The rain was refreshing, cooling, and it provided a different forest noise, punctuated by our strikes. I got grazed by chips of wood and scraped by bark and small branches but that didn’t bother me a bit. I was in the zone.

With every armload of wood carried, the stack of logs got smaller, and the crib got fuller. I hadn’t had the skills to estimate how many split logs could fit in the crib, but now I was, and even though my arms were starting to ache, I’d been eyeing the crib with the goal of filling it to the top. It looked like there were enough logs left to split—even though the pile had dwindled significantly since we’d started.

I was already anticipating the feeling of satisfaction when the last round log got set on the chopping block, but that was not to be. An ominous rumble of thunder split the sky, and then the rain started to intensify.

Ivy jerked her head up and looked at the sky. “We should probably—”

A brilliant flash of lightning momentarily blinded me, and I even heard the sizzle as it hit, right before the nearly instantaneous roar of thunder rattled my bones and temporarily deafened me.

“Jesus Christ!” And here I was holding a metal tool above my head, out in the open. “What the fuck did that hit?”

“Tree, probably. Come on, let’s get to the cabin.”

I set down the ax and reached for the freshly-split wood, and she grabbed my hand before I could even pick up a piece. “Leave it, grab the ax, and let’s go.”

I nodded and the two of us sprinted back to the cabin, lest the next lightning bolt have our name on it.

As she threw open the door and ducked inside, I realized that I’d finally discovered something she was actually afraid of. Understandably so; no matter how strong she was, lightning would kill her, too.

Another thought crossed my mind, one that was probably stupid, but as I pushed the door shut I couldn’t help but ask. “Are your horns lightning rods?”

“What?” She leaned the sledgehammer up against the wall and set the splitting wedge next to it. “How do you mean?’

“Well, isn’t lightning attracted to pointy things that are up high? And your horns are pointy and on the top of your head.”

“Huh.” She ran her hands down her legs, squeegeeing some of the water off. “You mean, if there were a bunch of people and one minotaur in a field, the lightning would want to hit the minotaur?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know, maybe. I’d rather not find out. Some cows have horns and others have them cut off; do you think the horned cows get hit more often?”

“That’s a good question. Maybe somebody’s studied that.”

Another flash lit up the inside of the cabin, and a few seconds later, the rumble of thunder, still close enough to rattle the windows. “I was hoping that the sun would come out while we were chopping wood.”

“After this passes, it might. Or else it’ll be rainy all day.”

“Maybe.” She frowned. “Might as well get a fire going, that’ll warm things up and help dry off the floor.”

•••

Ivy was building up the fire when I remembered that her Jeep didn’t have a top. “What do you do if it keeps raining like this? You can’t drive your Jeep back home in this kind of weather.” I didn’t have to worry about losing my job if I didn’t get back by Monday, but she might.

“There’s an old canvas top for it I keep in the shed, just in case,” she said. “Canvas doors, too. The top doesn’t do much, honestly. It’s old and leaks and the mice have chewed a few holes in it, and it’s an absolute bastard to set up. I wouldn’t worry, rain this intense doesn’t usually last. It’ll taper off in a little while.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Ivy shrugged and scratched a match against the fireplace. “Then it won’t be a pleasant ride home, I guess. Can’t be helped.” She settled back on her haunches in front of the fireplace, watching the fire as it slowly got established. “Nothing in the Jeep really cares if it gets wet.”

“I care if I get wet, a long drive and you might be risking hypothermia.”

“Worst comes to worst, I’ll stay an extra day, not the end of the world. Besides, after a good rain everything’s different, just wait and see.”

I got up off the beanbag chair and moved up closer to her, watching the flames as they devoured the kindling and started to work on the larger logs.

There was something mesmerizing about watching the flames lick at the bark and dig their way into the wood. Something beautiful and chaotic and destructive and inviting all at the same time.

She put her arm around me and pulled me close to her as another crash of thunder rocked the house.

•••

The blankets were still downstairs, which was convenient, even though I would have liked to watch Ivy climb the ladder to get them.

Ivy spread the comforter across the floor in front of the fireplace and laid down on her stomach, her hooves towards the fire. I sat beside her, resting my back on the beanbag chair, shivering as I settled in—keeping active had kept the cold at bay. Now that I wasn’t moving any more, I was still soaked and the fire hadn’t started to produce much heat yet.

I could see goose bumps on Ivy’s arms, too. She wasn’t immune to the cold, either.

Without her asking, I got up and picked up the blanket and spread it across her back, then returned to my previous position, covering my legs with it as well, tucking the rest in around her. I didn’t like covering her up, that gave me less to look at.

But not less to touch. Her back had a lot to offer, from the tense muscles to the soft jut of shoulder and spine, down to her tail and the firm curve of her butt, furry and forbidden. It felt different under a cover; it wasn’t just the plush pile of the blanket.

She didn’t take off the trappings of civilization when she came up to her cabin, she put them on when she went down to Grand Rapids.

“Too bad hot tubs are a pain in the ass to maintain,” I said. “Right about now, sitting in a hot tub and watching the storm would be about perfect.”

“I’d be fishing leaves and dead animals out of it all the time,” Ivy muttered. “And the amount of firewood it would take to keep it hot. . . “

“Yeah.” I rubbed her back, right between her shoulder blades. “Like I said, a pain in the ass.”

“This is just as good.”

It was honestly better, when I thought about it. A nice bookend to the weekend, a break from chopping wood—although I was still disappointed that the wood crib hadn’t gotten filled. That wasn’t the biggest accomplishment, and it wouldn’t be the kind of thing that I could look at if I ever got back up here; the wood would be used over the winter. Or maybe another rainy day like this.

Had Ivy split the logs that were currently crackling in the fireplace, or had some other guy?

Did it matter? I was here now.

I looked away from the fire, watching the rain splatter on the windows. They weren’t as sealed as they would be in a modern house; and now that I thought about it, they weren’t modern vinyl windows, either. I didn’t know all that much about windows, that wasn’t my department, but of course I’d passed through the window section a time or two.

I hadn’t really paid attention to them before; they fit with the vibe of the cabin. They looked too old for Ivy to have made them herself.

There were stores that sold architectural salvage, and that felt like a more Ivy solution. Find a window she liked, and build the wall to fit it.

A lot of the lakefronts had small cabins, weekend retreats for factory workers. Usually small and simple, since they weren’t meant as main homes. But then rich people had started to buy lakefront land and build mini McMansions in their place—some of the inland lakes still had janky old cabins around them. Usually personalized for whoever had built it.

What were the rules about cabins? Had she submitted a plan to the township, had there been an inspection when it was done? Or was this a grey area, a place where it was still your land and you could do what you wanted on it, at least within reason?

Whatever the case, like her it fit the land, inside and out. It wasn’t some shining edifice of glossy plastic plunked down on a terraformed landscape; it was a proper house that belonged, built out of as many natural materials as possible. Much like many of the State Parks I’d visited, strong and durable and simple. Fitting in, rather than calling attention to themselves.

•••

Between the blanket and the fire, I was dried most of the way off. I could still feel dampness on my back where I leaned against the beanbag.

Ivy’s leg fur was still wet, although it felt warmer than it had before.

She reached back and pulled off the cover, then shoved it in my direction.

I didn’t need it either, so I tossed it off to the side and turned my attention back to her, complete, from the tips of her horns to her hooves, her ears and her messy hair—if a barber or salon cut that, I’d eat the hat I wasn’t wearing. Her back, bronzed by the sun, crossed with a few faint scars; her furry legs and her tail.

Without thinking, I turned and straddled her, shifting around until I was in a comfortable position—I felt her tense and then relax as I got into position.

She flicked her tail. I was practically sitting on it, and now I had an idea what it would feel like if I’d had a tail.

I put my hands on her shoulders, squeezed them, and then started working in towards her neck.

I’d never given a back massage, nor had I ever received one. I was winging it, hoping that a mediocre back massage was good enough—and if I fucked up, or missed a spot, I knew she’d tell me.

She wouldn’t hold back. She wasn’t the kind of girl to lie to make me feel better.

I kneaded her shoulders, feeling for tension as I worked my way down her back. I figured she’d be sore and stiff in the same places I was.

“Mmh, lower,” she said, and I obliged, finding that spot, and then the next—I didn’t notice right away when she stopped giving me directions, as I began to pick up on her subtle reactions. I didn’t need to be instructed any more, and I lost myself in the massage.

•••

I’d thought that splitting wood would make me sore—and it had—but a good massage was a new kind of soreness. It was all in the forearms and the wrists, and I wasn’t going to stop until they fell off. I was in too deep, I was committed, and I was going to see this to the end. I might not have been able to fill up the crib with wood, but I could do this.

As I started to feel coarser hair and then fur under my hands, I asked myself where a back massage stopped. It depended on comfort, on trust, didn’t it? There was tension in her butt, and I discovered when I hit just the right spots I could make her tail move. I could feel muscles moving under my hands, muscles I didn’t have—or did I? I still had a coccyx, the sad remnant of a tail; maybe there were some vestigial muscles that had once controlled it.

There was no worry about privacy or proximity; we’d moved well beyond that point. Maybe she was expecting that once I got to her butt, I’d start feeling her out, and it was tempting. My hands were right there, she was already soft as putty—or maybe I should continue down her legs.

That felt like the right approach.

I was in a place where I was straddling a naked minotaur who would have no objection to anything I did, and I wanted to massage her legs. Life was strange sometimes.

Had she broken me, like she threatened to do?

I didn’t think so. If anything I felt like I was stronger now than I had been. Even if my arms and my back ached, even if my stomach was grumbling because I’d used up every bit of our breakfast.

The fire was nothing but embers, the rain had stopped, and I started working on Ivy’s thighs, kneading those muscles, working through her fur—still damp against her skin.

I’d reached what was inarguably the end of a back massage—her hooves. They couldn’t be massaged, although I tried to work a little around her dewclaws, watching her carefully since I had no idea how sensitive they might be. I hadn’t triggered any kicks or tailslaps when I’d been low on her legs before, but this could be different, since I was putting on more pressure.

And I was in prime tail-slapping range. I always kept it in the corner of my eye, although it mostly stayed limp between her legs. A good sign, I hoped; a sign of relaxation rather than a sign of tension.

I hadn’t massaged it. Her tail was mostly bony, though; I didn’t think there was anything in there to massage.

•••

I hadn’t expected her to reciprocate. When I’d finally finished, she’d rolled over and sat up, leaned in and kissed me; we’d embraced and then she told me to lie down.

Having her straddle my back was weird; the fur on her legs was tickling me and I could feel the heat at her center, I could feel her tail stretched along my back, draping over my buttcrack, the bristly end of it occasionally flicking against my balls—that felt weird.

I tensed up as her hands gripped my shoulders—maybe it was ancient species-memory. This was not a good position to be in; I couldn’t defend myself at all when I was prone.

Who was I kidding, I couldn’t defend myself if she decided to come at me. She wouldn’t even need one of her guns.

I told myself to relax, demanded it, and it eventually worked.

Her touch was soft when it needed to be and hard when it had to be, and as she worked down to my lower back I hoped that I’d massaged her half as well. This was better than sex, a different kind of pleasure.

I tensed again as she reached my ass, and she poked a finger against my butthole in response. Whether that was to get me to relax or just for fun, I wasn't sure, but she was soon back to business, working my gluteus maximus, reaching further in than I’d dared, and then she started her way down my legs.

I’d known how tense and sore most of my muscles were, but I’d completely forgotten about my calves—as she started squeezing there was a twitch that was almost a charlie horse and then the instant relief as it vanished.

She didn’t have to stop when I did; I still had the soles of my feet.

I tried to pull back; on the best of days my feet weren’t much to look at and after a weekend without shoes or socks? They must have been filthy.

That was no deterrent; she took each in turn, holding them in her hands and pressing her thumbs in the sole, and it was one of the weirdest, most amazing sensations I’d ever felt.

When she finally finished, I didn’t want to move. I wasn’t sure I could. Besides, it would be a shame to undo all that work she’d just put into me.

I knew sooner or later I was going to have to. We might have lunch or we might not—my stomach wanted it, but was currently being outvoted by everything else. But we would have to pack up and leave at some point.

Ivy must have felt the same as I did; she laid down beside me. I reached out and she took my hand and that was enough to make everything complete.

We didn’t speak, for there was no need. Nature provided the gentle dripping of rainwater off the roof, the last vestiges of the storm. Birdsong had picked up again, I could see the light through the windows was getting brighter. In time we’d move, but for now we didn’t have to, for now we could lie beside each other in silence.

The Rock

The Rock

Our silent contemplation of nature couldn’t last forever. I felt Ivy shift on the covers and then she got up; she was already over at the fireplace before I sat up. I still didn’t entirely trust my muscles to work properly.

She had a rake in the fire and was spreading the ashes out. “To help them cool faster,” she explained. “I need to make sure that the fire’s all the way out before I leave, I don’t want it flaring up and burning down the cabin or the forest.”

“I suppose that’s one advantage to a more modern furnace, you can just turn it off.”

“Sure, and then a chipmunk gnaws a hole in the gas supply hose, and then next time you come to the house, boom.”

“That can happen?”

“It’s unlikely, but it could. More to the point, unless I just had those unvented wall stoves, I’d need to have some electrical supply to run the house. This is much simple, as long as I take precautions.” She held her hand over the coals. “Still plenty warm, I’ll check again after we eat lunch—if you’re hungry.”

By way of an answer, my stomach growled.

Ivy walked back over and held out her hand. I grabbed it and she pulled me up. “So, is it Spamwiches again?”

“Leftovers,” she said. “What’s left of the squirrel stew, the berries and greens we foraged yesterday, bread.”

“That your usual Sunday fare?”

“Depends on what I find,” she said. “I got enough squirrels to last me a couple of days, and if you’re still hungry we can forage more, maybe eat on the go. I do that sometimes. If it hadn’t been raining this morning—”

“That’s why you keep staples.”

She nodded and opened the cooler, getting out the squirrel stew.

I reached into the basket where the rest of the greens and berries were and started setting them on a plate. “When you’re not luring nearly minimum-wage workers to your cabin for a weekend of fun, you go up alone, yeah?”

Ivy shrugged. “It’s a nice change from my normal work. Nicer if I have a partner, but I can keep myself company with my own thoughts. And sometimes I choose poorly and wind up with some useless slag who thinks too much of himself, someone’s who’s too good to do work or get dirty.”

I had an image of those poor unfortunates being led off her land by gunpoint and doing the walk of shame back to civilization—a long walk, to be sure.

She set out two plates and spooned half the remaining squirrel stew on each. She could have reheated it on the stove, but that would have been another pot to clean.

The stew wasn’t as good cold, especially since I was chilly. I thought about getting the blanket and wearing it like a cape, although it felt like it would be wimpy.

I could put my clothes back on—nothing was stopping me.

As I watched her eat, it flashed across my mind that she could try a female partner.

Why not? This was the modern age; I saw plenty of female contractors and carpenters and hobbyists at the store, and I wasn’t so ignorant to think that only a man could please a woman. Or it might have just been lesbian fantasies suddenly making themselves known. Either way, I wasn’t going to bring it up.

Instead: “The rain’s stopped.” I tilted my head to the outside. “Maybe we can split some more wood?”

She paused, the fork halfway to her mouth.

“It’s honest work.”

“Doesn’t get you in my pants.”

“You’re not wearing pants.”

“If I was.”

“You’d be just as sexy.” That wasn’t flattery, that was true.

Ivy snorted. “You think you’re gonna earn an extra day by helping me split more firewood for the winter?”

“Not like I have a job anymore.”

“Fair point.” Ivy leaned over and ran a finger across my chin. “If I was to offer you a chance to stay here and split wood or dig more post-holes, let you live here doing things for me and I only come up on weekends ‘cause I still have a job, would you do it?”

“I might. It’s different up here.”

“I don’t know if it would be the same for you if it was all the time.”

“Maybe not, but a weekend isn’t long enough.”

Not just a weekend with her, although that was important. But here, out in the woods, in the solitude, away from the city, surrounded by the beauty of nature. I tried to imagine what her cabin would look like through the year, during autumn as the trees changed colors or later on when it was chilly, when the wood smoke lingered; the winter with everything under a blanket of snow, all the vibrant songs of the forest stilled at least temporarily. Then the spring, with the smell of newness in the air, flowers and buds, all the animals that had gone for the winter coming back, bringing the forest back to life.

I looked back down at my food, at the little bit of stew remaining, the greens and the shiny berries. It was the memories of the weekend on a couple of plates. It was hard to think that we’d be leaving soon—I didn’t want to think that. I wanted every last moment at her cabin to last forever, even though I knew it couldn’t.

•••

Ivy had her kettle on, so there’d be some hot water to wash the plates. There was a different kind of thinking and planning that went into a cabin like this. She had all the modern conveniences of home that she wanted—heat, water, lights, a shower—they just took longer to get going.

She didn’t have to ask me to do the dishes; once I’d cleaned my plate I walked over to the sink and poured in some boiling water, then added cold water until it was a comfortable temperature.

I’d never consciously thought about the fact that the countertop was at crotch level, nor that I had a habit of leaning against the counter as I washed dishes. Not until my dick brushed up against it, anyway—the dishwater was hot, the counter was not.

Ivy chuckled when I jerked back. “Bet you wish you didn’t have your dick sticking out, huh?”

“It gets too cold, and I’ll just have to put it somewhere warm.”

“Don’t think about that too much,” she warned me. “You get hard, you’re gonna have a lot more trouble with the dishes.”

Then, to prove she didn’t care about my wellbeing at all, she came up behind me, pressed her breasts against my back, and rubbed her hand down my butt, clenching a cheek and squeezing, her fingertip just tickling my gooch.

“You’re going to have to try harder if you want to get a rise out of me.” Not much harder, I could already feel the first stirrings of arousal.

“If I distract you too much, you might drop a dish and I don’t want that,” she said. “Once you’re done maybe I’ll see if I can seduce you one more time.”

“You won’t have to work very hard at it.” I set the last dish in the drying rack and started scrubbing the stew container.

“I saw that look in your eyes.” She looked out the window. “If I told you right now that we could have sex one more time, or we could walk together in the woods one more time, which would you choose?”

“That’s not a fair choice and you know it.” I could feel her grinning behind me. “It’s not raining anymore.”

“Nope.”

I pulled the plug on the sink and started drying the dishes as the water ran out. Each time I finished one, I passed it to Ivy to put away.

•••

She didn’t warn me that water collected on the top of the door, and I got an unexpected cold shower as I stepped out.

It was still gloomy overhead, although everything smelled fresh. There was a word for that, for the after-rain smell. I could see clear sky off in the distance, but it was impossible to judge how far away it was.

The birds had already come back out, and as the two of us stood together just outside her cabin, I thought about our ancient ancestors huddling in their huts during a storm and then coming outside once it was done to see what the landscape was like.

Did they ever fear that a big storm might wash everything away? Weather phenomena wouldn’t have been as well understood back then, and certainly they couldn’t have predicted anything more than a few hours in the future. Meanwhile I had my cell phone and got weather updates whenever I wanted.

My hand went down to my thigh where there was no cellphone. There hadn’t been one since Friday, and I realized that I hadn’t checked it at all since I’d quit work. Normally, that would have made me anxious, but right now I was glad it was gone.

Ivy gave me a gentle prod, and the two of us began walking, first down along the path towards her outhouse, and then into the woods. Raindrops still dripped off the leaves of the trees.

I thought we were going to revisit the hunting trail, but we didn’t. There was a different side-trail, another animal path. It twisted along the edge of a ridgeline, the same hill that her house was built on.

•••

The forest looked different after the rain. Even in the muted, overcast light, leaves were glossy and glistening, and yet I could also see places where the rain hadn’t landed—dry bark on some of the trees, clear areas of the path.

I didn’t know if I needed to be silent. Ivy hadn’t said that I should be, since we weren’t hunting.

But I was silent. I heard the near-constant dripping of water, the memory of rain. I heard birds chirping and distant frogs croaking and the rattle of leaves as the gusts that followed the storm shook the trees.

I looked around in the woods. Now that we weren’t hunting for food, I didn’t have to keep my eyes peeled in the canopy above, I could watch the forest floor.

I never really thought of flowers in forests but there were plenty, white and yellow mostly. Already, bees were darting around them, hunting for nectar.

Chipmunks ran with their tails raised, darting across the deadfall or the forest floor. Branches and trees lay where they’d fallen, covered in lichen and fungus, rotting back into the soil to begin the cycle anew.

I watched Ivy. It was easy to watch her butt and her tail or her breasts when she twisted around my way; it was more rewarding to study the complete package. The way her muscles moved as she walked, her deliberate stride. She wasn’t looking around in the woods like I was. For her, it was all familiar territory. Even though she wasn't of Earth, I was the stranger here. And yet, I was starting to understand it, to become one with it, to learn what I needed to look at and what I didn’t, to feel with all my senses.

Ivy might not have been looking around like I was, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t paying attention. She stopped abruptly in the middle of the path and held her hand out, a clear signal.

She didn’t point, so I followed her eyes. There on the trail in front of us was a fox, its head down amongst the forest grass.

Either it hadn’t spotted us yet, or it didn’t consider us a threat.

As I watched, it brought its head up and focused its ears in our direction; I saw a glint of light reflecting off a drop of water on its chin.

It was sniffing the air, searching for our scent before it ran. We were downwind of it, so it wasn't going to get an answer that way.

How good was fox eyesight, anyway? I didn't know and now was not the time to ask Ivy. Did we blend in better because we were nude? Would clothes have seemed out of place, and therefore a thing to be feared?

Or maybe it just didn’t see that many humans and didn’t consider us a threat. There were places where humans were rare enough that the animals hadn’t learned to be wary.

And then the thought occurred to me that a fox was a predator, and maybe I was the fool for standing there. Maybe it was thinking of attacking us, maybe it would have if we'd gotten closer. I wasn't sure if a fox could kill a human—or a minotauress.

How fast could a fox run? I had to assume it was faster than me. We didn't have any weapons, so if the fox was aggressive, we might be in trouble.

There were plenty of sturdy trees we could climb—if Ivy could climb. It’d been a long time since I climbed a tree, and I remembered feet being important in the process, although as I reflected on it, I’d been wearing shoes when I’d climbed trees, which would have put me on par with hooves.

Also, could foxes climb trees? I knew that bears could, that climbing a tree wasn't a good way to get away from them.

It was a moot point; the fox turned its tail and bounded away across the grass and then into the woods.

“Usually don't see them that close,” Ivy said. “Foxes don't like being seen.”

“They're not dangerous, are they? It wasn't going to attack us, was it?”

Ivy shook her head. “Maybe if it was desparate, if we cornered a mom with her kits, but otherwise they'd rather just avoid the two-leggers.

•••

As the land rose, the deciduous forest started to thin out, giving way to pines. The soil under my feet felt different, drier and sandier—something I never would have noticed while wearing shoes.

It was rocker, too. I could see dark rocks poking up in clear spots, or sometimes just sitting there between the trees—the pine trees shaded the floor and covered it in a carpet of needles where nothing grew, both shading the sun and yet giving me a better view of the forest floor.

Up ahead, I could see where the trees stopped. I couldn’t tell what was beyond them. A swamp? A pond? A sheer cliff?

At this point, nothing would have surprised me.

The trees gave way to an open meadow which was nearly circular. At first, I almost could imagine it as an ancient meteor crater, the small rocks littered around maybe being ejecta.

There was no way it could be; I wasn’t an expert on Michigan geology, but I knew that glaciers had scraped everything off the top of Michigan down to pre-dinosaur times. Therefore, this couldn’t be an ancient meteor crater, and I felt as if it had been more recent than the last Ice Age, I would have known about it.

Probably, the sandy rocky soil was a bad place for trees to grow. Or else it was a leftover relic from the logging days. maybe a foundation or something. None of the rocks looked worked, though, and who would have scattered rocks around after tearing down an old building?

Did it matter why it had come to be? It was here now, and it was pretty.

The trail continued, but it was more subtle than any of the game trails through the woods. I didn’t notice it at first, just followed Ivy along as she made her way through the wild grasses.

The path led to a big black rock, an improbable boulder just jutting out of the sandy soil. It was smooth, almost like a river rock, although I couldn't imagine what kind of flood might have carried it here.

“That’s my sunning rock,” Ivy said. “The sun heats it up, and it stays warm a long time, well into the night. I’m not the only one who likes it: I’ve seen a fox dozing on it a couple times, maybe that same one that we just saw.”

“Did you bring it here?” That was a dumb question. As unlikely as it was that it had appeared here naturally, it was even less likely that she’d helicoptered it in or somehow gotten it between the trees.

“It was here when I got the land.” She hopped up onto the rock, and then started sliding her way across it. “Go ahead, it’s big enough for two.”

I sat down on it. It was still cool to the touch, damp with rain, but I could imagine it would have felt amazing after a day of full sun.

“I’m not a geologist,” she said as I settled in next to her. “But I think this place is a covered-over kame, and I think this rock was carried here from Canada. None of the big rocks here are like any of the other rocks I’ve seen around, and it looks like ones I’ve seen in pictures.”

“Did you know it was here?”

“I didn’t at first. After I bought the land, before I started working on the cabin, I walked the property, camped out in the woods, just so I could find the right place to build and to see what I had to work with.”

“And you found this?”

“Not right away, there wasn’t anything useful I was expecting to find in the pines, and I wasn’t going to build anything here, on account of it being too close to the neighbor’s property.”

“How close?”

She pointed to the trees to the east. “Three, four trees in, or thereabouts. There’s an old fence, plus a lot of no trespassing signs—it’s not hard to find.”

“He hasn’t been spying on you, has he? While you’re sunning on your rock?”

“Would it matter if he was?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“As long as he stays on his side,” she said. “Depending on where they set up and where I do, sometimes I’ll see hunters in the fall. I’m sure they see me, too.”

“And as you’ve already demonstrated, this is your normal hunting attire?”

“If it’s real cold, I’ll put on a hoodie or a jacket. I’ve got enough fur on my legs to keep me warm in almost anything.”

“If nothing else, they might get so distracted admiring you, they’ll let a deer slip by and then you can get it.”

Ivy snorted. “As if they need more distractions. It’s not as bad up here as some places, but a lot of hunters are looking for bucks, so they’ll have a nice trophy for their wall. You can’t eat antlers, there’s no sense in letting a good deer go by in the hopes of getting a shot at a big buck later on. Hobbyists who don’t appreciate actual hunting, who won’t take a squirrel for food.”

“There is the cost of ammo and gear,” I reminded her. “Maybe less so in your case, but you still need a gun.”

“Fifty cents a round for my squirrel gun, works out to about a dollar a pound with a little work.”

“And if you’re a good shot.”

“True. It took a while to get used to shooting a gun, I wasn’t always all that accurate.” She hopped on the rock and slid up it, getting herself into a comfortable spot.

“We can’t stay here long enough to watch the sun set and the stars come out. I should have brought you here Friday night but I didn’t know how you’d do in the woods.”

I still didn’t know . . . I had an idea she wouldn’t have bothered with a flashlight or a lantern, and we would have been making our way back to the cabin in the dark. Not a problem for her, but I wasn’t sure I could make it on anything less than a clear sky and a full moon.

I wanted to tell her that we could do it next time, but I was already almost certain that there would be no next time, that this was all I was going to get, and to speak it aloud would put the nail in the coffin.

There was little point in worrying about an unknowable future, I could do that on Monday. For now, I’d stay in the present. I sat down on the rock and started scooting up next to her.

The stone was smooth, still damp from the rain, and it felt weird under my bare ass as I scooted up it. Just when I thought I’d gotten used to new sensations, another one came along.

•••

Once I’d settled in, I scanned the pine trees, and didn’t see anything. No flash of light off a pair of binoculars, or—

“Just lie back and let the sky take your worries,” Ivy said. “Focus in on yourself, let the world slip away. Be one with the rock.”

I settled down on the rock as she folded her arms across her stomach. For some reason I felt more vulnerable than I had all weekend. Maybe it was the fact that I was lying naked on an ancient rock, with no cover for hundreds of feet in any direction.

Never mind humans; what if a bear decided that a snack had offered itself up?

Ivy wasn’t worried at all. She’d closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, although I didn’t think she was asleep, just meditating.

She’d be pissed if I interrupted her.

What was there to be scared of, anyway? We were far away from everything, and it was unlikely that her neighbor would just happen by. Most animals really didn’t want anything to do with people; if there was a bear it wouldn’t want to enter the clearing.

I felt more exposed than I had all weekend. Was it just because we were so far away from cover? Or that there wasn’t anything overhead? Even in her clearing, when we’d been looking up at the stars, I could also see the shadows of all the trees that surrounded us.

Why did overhead cover matter? What was I worried about? Dragons? A big bird? God? He wasn’t going to come and smite me.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I could hear my breath and hear my heart pounding in my ears. It was stupid, but after a minute or two I felt like I was alone, like she’d crept off the rock and left me alone.

I opened my eyes and turned my head and she was still there.

I wasn’t used to being out in nature like this. Intellectually, the parking lot was way more dangerous. I was surrounded by idiots in cars and the high-viz vest would do little to deter an idiot. The nothing I was wearing right now was just as much protection; the fact that I was in terrain that no car could cross was more protection.

I closed my eyes again and tried to let everything go. Tried to open my other senses to the world, tried to take deep breaths and exhale slowly—I thought that was something you were supposed to do when you were meditating.

My mind just wouldn’t shut up, didn’t know how to turn itself off; I shifted around on the rock and opened my eyes again just to be sure Ivy was still there, and of course she was.

She took pity on me and reached out her hand and I took it. Now I was not alone, now I could relax. On the surface, it was a child’s logic: this was her land and nothing could happen on it that she didn’t allow. Below that was the assurance that she was there, that I would not take this journey on my own.

I couldn’t entirely rationalize why that was important, but it was. I squeezed her hand and closed my eyes and willed my mind to cast itself adrift.

•••

It didn’t work until it did. My worries seemed to fade away—maybe the sky took them like Ivy had said it would.

Everything around me got louder. I could hear the hum of insects, the chirping of birds, the gentle whisper of the wind in the pines. I could hear Ivy breathing beside me and then I felt like I was rising up to a different level, like the rock under me was no longer necessary for support. I felt a warmth suffusing me, occasionally replaced by a gentle gust of wind.

And I could smell more than I had before. The forest had its own smell, but it was complex, mostly masked by the soil. Now I could smell the pines and the perfume of the flowers through it, and another scent that I suddenly realized was Ivy.

Two days had stripped most of the artificial scents away from her, the stink of the city and the highway, and they’d been replaced with the smells of nature. Everything we’d touched was in there, far too complex for me to sort out. Was her nose more sensitive than mine? What did she smell on me?

I could feel as the clouds cleared and the sun came down on me, warming my skin, warming the rock around me as it had for millions of years and would for millions of years more.

•••

I don’t know how long we stayed on the rock. I’d been in another place, maybe connecting myself back to nature through an ancient boulder. It was the kind of thing that sounded stupid to stay aloud, it was the kind of thing a person had to experience in order to understand.

She didn’t lean over me or shake me or even say anything, she just squeezed my hand, and as I came back to awareness I still felt like my senses were preternaturally sharp, and then my hearing and sense of smell returned almost to normal as I carefully lifted my head and took in something other than sunlight on my eyelids or blue sky.

If both of us had been old and wrinkled, modern day Rip Van Winkles, I wouldn’t have actually been surprised. We were, however, just the same as we had been when we’d sat on the rock. Physically, anyway. My mind felt like it had been restarted, like all the worldly concerns outside of the meadow were gone.

I slid off the rock, marveling that it was so smooth, almost like a slide. It took me a moment to find my balance, and then I stretched out, my joints cracking.

Ivy snickered, then she got off the rock and twisted her back and damned if it didn’t crack, too. Like Rice Krispies, one joint after another.

A dragonfly, curious about us, flew over and hovered between us, before landing on the tip of her horn. He stayed there as we started walking, until we got almost to the pine trees, then he flew off, back towards the center of the clearing.

Ivy swished her tail as she pushed into the trees, their fronds brushing against our legs and bellies as we made our way through. The idea of sleeping on a bed of pine needles felt more and more enticing as each tree touched me. Were the dry needles under them just as nice?

I must have stopped as I considered it, because when I looked forward again, Ivy had turned to face me, a look of amusement on her face. “They are as soft as they look. Fresh is best, but I hate cutting fresh branches off the trees for my comfort. You can pile up the dead needles and lie on them, if you want. It’s really messy and sometimes you get poked, but they’ll keep you warm in a pinch.”

I never would have considered actually trying it, but now I was determined to. I pushed my way into a tree that looked like it had enough room for me to stretch out without any of its branches resting on me, did a quick check for insects, and then sat down.

Pine needles on my bare legs and butt felt weird but nice. A couple of them did poke me, but it didn’t bother me.

They were completely dry—the rain earlier hadn’t made its way through the tree. And I did feel warmer among them; whether that was the effect of the needles or it was just psychological, I wasn’t sure.

“Huh.” I vaguely remembered that you could survive in one of these trees in the wintertime, especially if there was snow built up in the branches to block the wind.

“Comfy?”

“Yeah, actually. You wanna join me?”

“As long as you’re willing to pick needles out of my coat afterwards.”

“Of course I am. They won’t stick like the burrs did, will they?”

“Nope, you’ll be able to brush most of them off, and then just get the stragglers that get tangled up.” Ivy pushed her way in, crouching down before deciding that it was easier to crawl, like I had. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

“I wish we’d had trees like this when I was a kid, I would have made a fort out of it.”

“You . . . didn’t have trees?”

“Not in the city, not like this.” I motioned to the world outside. “You think anyone can see in?”

“If someone was looking for us, maybe, but I don’t think anyone would spot us otherwise. Well, you maybe, you’re still awfully pale.”

“At least I have some of a tan.” The largely shaded area of the woods had prevented me from having a nasty sunburn, but now that I was thinking about it, I could feel that I almost certainly had some sunburn on my back and shoulders from pouring cement and digging holes.

I’d had other things to think about most of the weekend.

•••

She’d offered sex or one more trip into the woods and I’d made a conscious choice. As the two of us lay on a carpet of pine needles, I thought that my choice didn’t necessarily preclude one last time, a capstone to the weekend.

It felt like the right thing, here in the woods rather than in her cabin: outside of anything man or minotaur had created. Something as natural and as old as the woods that surrounded us—I leaned over and kissed her, rested my hand on her stomach and slid it up to a breast, still sweaty and damp from the sun’s own kiss.

Her nipple was hard under my fingers, and she didn’t resist as I pushed her down into the needles. She let me lead.

I took my time, running my hands over her body, feeling the familiar places anew, her smooth skin and her fur, her ears and her horns, her soft curves and hard muscles and I followed along with kisses, worshiping her like she was a goddess of the forest.

Nothing escaped my attention, I needed to feel every part of her one last time.

As I kissed my way down her belly, my hands stroking her breasts, I hesitated, my lips brushing her vellus hair, and I looked at her.

Ivy’s eyes were closed, her arms at her side, her ears relaxed, her chest rising and falling with every breath. She lay in a carpet of pine needles, the sunlight through the tree painting her like a stained glass window, dappling and highlighting her skin, her hair, her fur.

All around me, I could hear the sounds of the forest, the sounds of nature, unconcerned with us and yet a symphony for us.

I wanted to hold this moment in for as long as I could, the moment of possibility, of calm, of perfection. A moment of anticipation and conclusion; the confluence of the past and the unknowable future in this moment.

Departing

Departing

I wanted to hold this moment in for as long as I could, the moment of possibility, of calm, of perfection. The moment of anticipation and of conclusion; the confluence of the past and the unknowable future in this moment, and the feeling of power knowing that I was fully in charge.

A few short days ago I’d been awkwardly trying to get in her pants—literally—and now I was a different person.

I pressed against her. I needed no guidance.

I balanced myself with one hand and guided myself in, fully intending to go slowly—the pine needles were slippery, and I slid forward, entering her as I caught my balance.

Ivy’s hands pressed up against my chest, keeping me from falling any further. There was a look of bemusement in her eyes. “Forest will get you, cart boy.”

The forest had gotten me; I could feel a needle stabbed into my palm. I wasn’t going to stop and remove it, though. “I can work through adversity.”

“I know.” She relaxed her press against my chest, still holding up her hands in case I hadn’t gotten my footing back.

I pushed forward again, this time managing the slow pace I’d intended, one steady stroke until I bottomed out inside her, then pulled back out. My dick felt colder against the outside air—not that I intended to leave it outside for any longer than I had to.

Shifting around and arching my back let me kiss her, and we locked our lips as I began to thrust again, this time working into a steady rhythm, something I could keep up for the duration.

The fur on her legs caressed my thighs and tickled my stomach every time I pulled back. She ran a hand down my back, down to my butt, then traced along my spine, her nails a feather-touch against my skin.

It wasn’t a good position for extra contact—I couldn’t play with her breasts or any other part of her—but that was better for concentration, better for intimacy.

She ran her hand up my neck, around the back of an ear, and then combed her fingers through my hair as I shifted around on the pine needles, trying and failing to find a position where there wasn’t at least one trying to stab my legs.

And she was on the bottom, she was on a whole carpet of them, while I only had a few points of contact.

I didn’t want to stop, but I had to; I knew she was tough but I didn’t want to hurt her. “The needles aren’t a problem, are they?”

“I’ll have a few scrapes on my back, but that’s nothing new.”

“Are you sure?”

As a response, she wrapped her legs around mine and pulled herself back onto my cock.

That was all the encouragement I needed. I leaned down and kissed her nipples, ran my hand across her breasts—leaving a streaks of dirt and a couple pine needles behind.

Those were little things, things to be unconcerned about. As I got back in position, she released her legs, slowly sliding herself off her pole, letting me push forward again.

She grabbed on to my back and pulled me down against her. I hesitated, not wanting to have her support my weight, even though I knew she could. It felt wrong, and yet as we made full contact it was worth it.

I kept my pace, and she thrust her hips up every time I bottomed, forcing me in as deep as possible while also clenching her muscles around my dick. I could feel her breasts pressing against my chest, and I could feel all her abdominal muscles flex every time.

•••

Earlier, when she’d given me the option between sex and the woods she must have expected I’d pick sex, or else I was doing a really good job—I felt her tense under me, felt her breathing quicken, and I slowed my pace, taking long, languid strokes, driving deep inside her with each thrust.

Her hands clenched on my back, her fingernails digging into my skin. I held myself in as she squeezed around me, as her muscles went slack, and I gave her a moment to recover before starting anew.

This was the last time, and I was going to make it last as long as I could.

•••

When I’d finished, I didn’t pull out; I kept myself inside her and rested on her chest. We were both slick with sweat, and she was breathing almost as hard as I was. She’d had at least three orgasms, maybe more—towards the end I lost count.

I didn’t want to break contact, but we couldn’t just lie here forever, and it would be undignified for her to have to push me off. Still, I could feel the last twitches of her vaginal muscles around my cock. If I somehow rallied, I could just pick up where I’d left off.

But it was not to be; I felt my dick slip out of her and drop to the carpet of pine needles.

That was enough of a hint that it was time to dismount her. I rolled off to the side, noticed that I’d gathered a few pine needles on my dick, and then I rested my hand on her stomach and the two of us lay there, watching the sky through the branches of the tree.

“You know,” I began.

“Yeah?” Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

“I almost hope your neighbor was watching.”

Ivy smacked my temple with her hand and rolled on her side to face me. “Would have been a good show.” She traced her finger along my stomach, then down to my cock and started picking off pine needles.

•••

For once, Ivy was almost chatty as we walked back to the cabin. Maybe that was because I was right behind her, picking needles out of her hair. Or maybe it was because she had orders to pass on and not much time left to do it.

“I’ll set the stuff I’m taking back by the door, and you can carry it to the Jeep. Start by taking the tarp off. Use the bungees to hang it from the rafters next to the Diamond T so it can dry off. If you think you’re going to be hungry on the ride back, I might be able to find something you can snack on in the Jeep. Spam, maybe.”

“By itself?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d rather go hungry.”

“We won’t pass by any raspberry thickets on our way back to the house, or else you could grab a handful of berries to tide you over.” She sighed as I scratched at her scalp. “Maybe we’ll have time to stop at a gas station or something, depends on traffic. All the weekenders are gonna be headed back south, sometimes it’s really bad. Rain might have scared some of them off.”

“Well, if you need to, you can just ditch me at a truck stop, rather than drive me home. Not like I have to get to work in the morning.”

“I do that, and lot lizards would get you.”

“I wouldn’t—” I began, and Ivy snorted.

“Go on, tell me how you wouldn’t get in a truck with a girl who lures you with the promise of sex?”

I sighed. “Okay, yeah I would.”

•••

Removing the top from the Jeep was easy enough, even if I did manage to drench myself in rainwater. I should have realized that it would pool between the rollbar and windshield. Not that it mattered, I’d dry off soon enough..

I wadded it up and grabbed as many bungee cords as I could, then went into the shed. One last look at the Diamond T as I hung the tarp up—I ran a hand over the faded fender and the rust-pitted headlight housing, then I went back for the rest of the bungees. Ivy hadn’t told me what to do with the ones I didn’t use to hang up the tarp, so I hooked them in the grommets on the bottom. Then I closed the shed door for the final time and walked back outside.

It irked me that the wood bunker wasn’t completely full, but there was nothing to be done about that. Not unless she left me behind up here.

A weekend wasn’t long enough. But the weekend was all we had.

She might have trusted me enough to leave me up here alone, but I had no illusions about surviving that week. There would be whatever food she had in the cabin, and that would be it. The odds of me managing to shoot a squirrel were low, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to butcher it. I could recognize raspberries and blackberries and cattails and that was all the wild-growing food I knew I could eat.

What might I have learned in a week? A month? I hadn’t come up here to learn to be a woodsman, to learn how to live off the land, and yet I’d started down that path.

Ivy had left the door of the cabin open, and I walked in. She said she was going to set the stuff she was taking back by the door, and I’d imagined piles of things, but there weren’t. There was the cooler, and there was an Army surplus duffel bag.

And there were our clothes.

That was one trip of carrying if I was creative. I’d expected more, I’d been conditioned by other trips as a Boy Scout where we took what felt like tons of gear. Why would she have lots of gear with her? Her cabin was equipped, after all, and she didn’t have to pack a change of clothes.

I stacked our clothes on top of the duffle bag, put it on the cooler, and picked it up. Ivy had left her bra on top of the clothes pile, no doubt to tease me. On Friday, it might have worked; now I knew that the bra was for a different Ivy, the Ivy who had to fit into our civilization.

At some point we were going to have to get dressed again, and just thinking of it felt weird.

How much more would she bring for a week-long stay? Not much; there might be more food in the cooler, she might bring some extra ammo as well. A few items she’d have to stock every now and then: extra propane cylinders, toothpaste, a new toothbrush every year. Occasional repair parts, some laundry going back and forth . . . once everything got set up, she’d hardly need anything at all.

Was her city home as spartan? Or was it crammed with the usual knick-knacks that most people had? I didn’t see her taking comfort in stuff, but who knew?

How simply could I live? Did I really need all my things?

•••

The two of us walked through the cabin together as she shut down and secured everything for the week.

“It’s easier since I don’t have many amenities,” Ivy said. “Don’t have to worry about a storm bringing down a power line or a mouse chewing through wires and burning the place down. No pipes to freeze in the winter or propane to leak.”

‘What about animals getting in? Or people—they could break a window.”

“Most burglars aren’t gonna drive or walk down a fire access road to get to a cabin,” she said. “They’d have to be locals to even know it’s here, and if they were locals, they’d know not to fuck with me.” She ushered me out the front door and closed it behind her. Instead of a normal lock or deadbolt, she just used a hasp and padlock.

It felt like a tomb slamming shut. An official sign that the weekend was over.

•••

We still weren’t wearing clothes as we got into her Jeep. I knew it would still be a while before we got to a real road, and as much as I didn’t want to get arrested for indecent exposure, I also wasn’t going to suggest that we put on our clothes any sooner than we had to. When it was time, it was time. Until then, we could hold on to the last vestiges of the weekend, of the freedom that it offered.

As she reached for the ignition key, I had a moment’s hope that the Jeep wouldn't start, that we could extend our weekend until it was fixed. Instead, it happily rumbled to life—it was old, but of course Ivy would make sure it was reliable.

She let it warm up for a minute before releasing the parking brake and shifting it into gear.

As much fun as it was to watch Ivy drive–especially on rough roads–I instead watched her cabin fading in the rearview mirror. Would I ever see it again? Would I ever see her again?

I hoped the answer was yes, but even if it wasn't, this was a weekend I'd remember for the rest of my life.

Her drive curved around just before reaching the fire access road and when she made the turn her cabin vanished from sight.

I heard her sigh–Ivy obviously wanted to stay at her cabin, too.

•••

I had the honor of manning the gate. She stopped just past it and shifted into neutral, and I hopped out before she asked. I slipped the unlocked padlock off—upon close inspection, there was no chance it could have worked; while the body of the lock still looked clean, the lock cylinder was filled with rust.

She’d said that most people wouldn’t investigate an apparently-locked access gate, but I wondered if a practical consideration had also been at play. If the lock seized shut, she couldn't get her Jeep on the property, either; being exposed to the weather, there was a good chance if it didn’t rust shut, it would freeze shut in the wintertime.

Ivy pulled past as soon as I’d pushed the gate open, and then waited until I swung it shut. I hooked the lock back in position and twisted it so it would look secure, then walked to the Jeep and got back in my seat. I was still fastening my seatbelt as she let out the clutch.

She didn’t stop at the end of her drive, since there was almost no chance of cross traffic.

“Gonna keep it slow,” Ivy said. “Rain sometimes washes out sections of the road, leaves deep puddles. Could be trees or branches we have to deal with, too, just like on the way in.’

Her driveway wasn’t much better than the fire road, at least at initial appearance. There’d been some puddles and some soft spots, but nothing I wouldn’t have taken my car across. Still, while I would have dismissed her concerns before heading up north, now I knew better. Trees across the road hadn’t ever been something I’d worried about or seen before, and now I had.

Just the same, the puddles didn’t seem that bad until we caught the first one on my side. Some of the muddy water got past the fender and splashed me, soaking my arm and some of my chest.

“That’s more of being one with nature than I prefer.”

“The price of topless freedom is that sometimes you get wet. Be glad leeches don’t live in puddles.”

“I wouldn’t think that much does, not unless it’s a puddle that stays around for awhile.” I focused on Ivy’s jiggling boobs as the Jeep bounced across a small washout. “I wonder how leeches get from one lake to another one, anyway?”

“Might be carried by a host they’ve bitten,” she said. “Or their eggs might get carried. Maybe on the legs of a wading bird, like a heron. Or else they can swim to new lakes during a flood. That swamp behind my cabin? Some springs after the snow melts it’s a lot bigger and a lot deeper. The cabin is high enough it probably won’t ever flood the main floor, but I could see the basement and outhouse getting a few inches of standing water if it was a really snowy winter and a rainy spring. If that happens, I’ll haul a boat up here. Tour my property in a different way.”

•••

Besides the puddles, the road was littered with leaves and small branches, but nothing large enough that we had to stop and haul it away. Ivy tried to keep clear of both the branches and puddles when she could.

In hindsight, it was unsurprising that some animals also used the road. I saw a cluster of deer which ran off into the woods as we got close. And—to my amusement—a hawk bathing in a puddle. We were almost on top of him before he grudgingly took flight, his wingspan seemingly as wide as the Jeep.

“I had no idea.” I craned my neck up to watch as he flew overheat. “‘I’ve never seen one up close. Those are huge.”

“Wait until you see a bald eagle up close,” Ivy said. “There’s one who sometimes takes prey behind my cabin—it’s easier for her to find prey where there aren’t a whole bunch of trees around.

“You’ll see turkeys and turkey buzzards, those are big, too. Been turkey hunting up here a couple of times when they’re in season. Good eating.”

“Buzzards?” Westerns had put an image in my head, and they didn’t look attractive or edible.

“Normal turkeys. I suppose you could eat a turkey buzzard, but I bet they taste awful. Lots of animals do, sometimes no matter how you prepare them. Like, skunks aren’t all that hard to shoot if you see one—they’re not very fast—but even if you’re careful cleaning them, they taste . . . skunky. I’d take one if I had to in a survival situation, but not if I could find anything else to eat.”

“But you do know what they taste like.”

“Sure, it’s smart to know what you’re capable of when you’re not in a situation where you have to.”

•••

To an extent, I’d already prepared myself for the end of the road. Unless she was feeling really ballsy, we’d get dressed before we got back to main roads—especially since it was a lot easier to get undressed while driving than to get dressed. I was sure she could pull on a shirt while in motion, maybe even a bra, but there was no way she’d be able to get into her shorts or panties.

So when Ivy clutched in and shifted into neutral on a short uphill, I wasn’t surprised. I’d known it was coming.

The Jeep coasted to a stop almost at the crest of the hill, and she set the parking brake. “Gonna unlock the hubs and then we’ve got to put our clothes back on."

“I don’t want to.”

Ivy turned and looked at me, a bemused grin on her face. “Can’t get enough of my tits?”

Her left hand rested on the steering wheel, her right lightly gripped the shifter. She was relaxed in her seat, at home in the Jeep as she was in the woods—at home in the Jeep because she was in the woods, the sun dappling her bare skin, highlighting her fur, contrasting her with the forest beyond. If she’d been a photograph in a Playboy or a MetArt gallery, I would have enjoyed it, admired it, but I wouldn’t have appreciated it in the way I now did.

This was her element, this was her place, something I fully understood now. By putting her clothes back on, it felt like she was hiding her true self, and I didn’t want her to have to. She deserved to be her, rather than wearing a disguise.

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to go back,” I said. “Putting my clothes back on means that the weekend’s really over, and we have to put, uh—”

“The shackles of society.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re learning, cart boy.” Ivy grabbed the roll bar and pivoted out of her seat. “Hop off, stretch your legs, get one last moment of enjoyment before we have to begin our return to civilization.”

I couldn’t pivot out of my seat as gracefully as she did, but it didn’t matter. Ivy was right. We could enjoy the last moments of proper freedom we had.

We stood in the road and looked around at the woods and both of us thought our own thoughts until Ivy stretched, walked around to the front of the Jeep, bent down, and unlocked the hubs.

The two of us got dressed, both forgoing our underwear. We didn’t need all of the trappings of civilization, after all.

Ivy got back in the Jeep and with one last rueful look at the woods, I did, too.

•••

The fire road didn’t have a stop sign where it teed into the dirt road—why would it?

Ivy kept her speed down; this road wasn’t much better than the fire road to her cabin. Wider, but only marginally smoother.

It also still had puddles in the low spots, so she kept the Jeep in the center of the road except when a car coming the other way wanted to pass.

There was a stop sign when we finally reached the pavement, along with muddy tire tracks. Most people leaving this dirt road headed east, as did we.

Memories came back as we neared the lake, how I’d been fumbling in her shorts. It felt like so long ago, I felt like I’d been a different person.

Fields and farms flashed by, barely even registering. I wanted to ask Ivy if I could come back again, but thought that if I asked now it would sound desperate. Then I started to think that if I couldn’t at least make some conversation, that would be a sign I’d just been interested in the sex and wanted more.

That second part was true; I would love to hook up with Ivy again. We’d long since moved beyond simple tomfoolery; another highway handy wouldn’t satisfy me or her.

I couldn’t explain what the woods meant, though. I didn’t know how to explain what they’d awoken inside me, nor could I fully separate that with my feelings for Ivy. Both were complicated, and it was too easy to take the obvious route, that I was horny and she was hot, and I would have done everything I did just to please her, just to get in her nonexistent pants.

That had been undeniably true in the beginning, but at some point during the weekend it had changed and I hadn’t realized it, not until later. I’d started to enjoy the other things, I’d started to want them just as much or—dare I say—even more.

If she asked me if I wanted to go see a movie or dig post holes, I think I would have chosen post holes. If she asked me if I wanted to go out to Outback for a steak dinner and a bloomin’ onion, or go into the forest and see what we could forage, I’d have picked the latter, and I didn’t think it was just because it was what I thought she would want, but it was what I would want, too.

I reached over and rested my hand on her thigh, just below her shorts.

There was a lot I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t have the vocabulary.

She took a hand off the wheel and put it on mine, squeezed it—I think she knew.

•••

Even if I’d finally found the words, I couldn’t have spoken them—as soon as we merged onto 131, that was effectively it for meaningful conversation. The wind noise ensured it. There was nothing to do but look at the scenery and quell my fears about being crushed by a semi or some weekend warrior in a giant SUV or motorhome.

Strangely enough, the thought of it didn’t bother me any more. Nature would do the same if she had the chance.

Even though I’d only been up this way once, and I’d been distracted by her, I could still broadly replay the route in reverse. It would be forests with occasional signs of human habitation, a few billboards, sparse exit signs, and then as we got more south, there’d be more fields than trees, more houses and billboards and fast-food restaurants, and sooner than I wanted to, we’d be coming up on Grand Rapids.

I put my foot outside on the running board and grabbed on to the rollbar and watched nature zip by at 60 miles an hour.

The Jeep didn’t like expansion joints or hot-patch; unlike a modern car that would smooth out irregularities in the road, the Jeep kind of hurtled across them.

Just like the Jeep, Ivy wasn’t made for the road, for all the trappings of modernity. It was necessary, though.

Wasn’t it?

What did my job provide? Low wages, no respect, enough pay to afford food, a shared apartment, and a crappy car. Assuming Mark hadn’t had that towed when I quit.

I figured he probably hadn’t: his laziness would have overcome his pettiness. Besides, he didn’t know what I drove, and he would have assumed that I’d have driven it home after I quit.

On the one hand, I did have the assurance that I could easily get a similar job, and that my jobs couldn’t be outsourced, not unless someone invented a robot to hang up drill bits and wrangle carts—but I didn’t want to be a cart boy forever.

•••

By the time Ivy turned into the parking lot, the store was closed. It was always weird seeing it empty: a purposeless field of asphalt, big lights on big bases illuminating nothing. Just like the lighting display inside—hundreds of fixtures meant to impress in their shiny emptiness.

My car was right where I’d left it. Ivy pulled up right alongside, set the parking brake, then turned back to get my underwear out of the duffle bag.

It would have been funny if she’d wanted to keep them for a trophy.

I’d had time to think of what I was going to say when the moment came. I hadn’t been expecting to be holding my underwear in my hand, but so be it.

“You want my number? For the next time you need post holes dug?”

She tapped her fingers on the gearshift, then nodded, slid her phone out of her pocket, and punched in the number as I gave it to her.

She hadn’t asked my name. I was certain that my contact name was ‘cart boy.’

I was also certain that she would never call me.

Epilogue

Epilogue

I had zero regrets about quitting my job. It was a shitty job anyway. It wouldn’t be difficult to find another one just like it. I might not want to tell them the reason for abruptly quitting my employment at the home improvement store, even though going up north to spend the weekend with a hot and horny minotauress was a perfectly cromulent reason.

I could claim a family emergency came up, the manager wouldn’t let me go deal with it . . . or a car accident, or I could not mention why I’d quit; it wasn’t like most of the places I was going to apply would care anyway. Minimum-wage jobs demanded a steady stream of warm bodies to grind down.

Applebees needed a busboy, and by Tuesday morning, I was clean-shaven, given a crash course in the intricacies of bussing tables, and by Tuesday evening I understood why the previous busboy had decided to quit.

I took it with all the aplomb I could manage. I still had memories of the weekend to keep my spirits up.

I also had lots of time for internal reflection, because while I needed to keep a placid smile on my face as I cleared tables, customers hardly ever interacted with me. Why would they? I was beneath them.

By Friday, I was hoping against hope that my phone would ring, that I could tell my new manager to bus his own damn tables, but it didn’t. Ivy didn’t save me.

Throughout the lunch rush on Saturday, I wondered if she’d found a new cart boy to dig post holes and mix cement, if she was teaching a new cart boy to hunt.

Had they laid together in the clearing and looked at the stars?

•••

I could fantasize getting in my car and heading up to her cabin. I still remembered the way—almost remembered; I’d had to check Google Maps because I was distracted when she took the exit. After that it was easy, a couple of turns and I didn’t think I’d been so distracted that I’d miss them.

My car wasn’t built for a fire access road, but as long as it hadn’t rained I thought it would make it. And she kept her gate unlocked . . . and she had a sign that said ‘Fuck Around and Find Out.’

Ivy wasn't going to call me again.

I started my second week of bussing and I thought about the woods and solitude.

I thought about the wilderness, the fact that nature didn’t care, the fine line of survival. In Applebees it was clean plates and prompt service and an appropriate amount of obsequiousness; in the woods that didn’t matter at all. The burdock stuck its burrs to whatever it could, leeches attached themselves to anything with blood, and maybe that thing with blood would decide to eat the leech.

I thought that Ivy had tried to save me, and I’d refused to grab the line she’d offered. I’d been given an opportunity to do something different, and I’d fallen back into the same old ways.

What could I do? I didn’t have a cabin, I didn’t have land up North.

•••

Bussing wasn’t a job for me, but there were lots of other jobs available if I was willing to sacrifice some of my dignity to The Man. I was making enough to keep my head above water, and I had mornings free to pursue other job opportunities as they came up. Meijer was hiring associates and I put in an application and a few weeks later I had a new job unloading semi trailers.

Not only was it a wage improvement, but I didn’t have to deal with self-important Karens any more.

I wondered how long any of them would last in the wilderness, especially stripped of their clothes and any veneer of civil society. How many of them would be willing to deal with a leech without complaining to the swamp manager?

Ivy didn’t call, and deep down I hadn’t expected her to. She had entered my number into her cell phone, although there was every chance she’d deleted it as soon as she got home.

I could still hope that she’d kept it for the next time she needed someone to dig post-holes for her.

And I would have.

Even without the promise of sex, I would have. To be in the woods again, naked and free—that would be ideal, that was a dream to keep, a hope for the future, even if my paychecks and bank balance said the best I could hope for was a couple days at a state park.

•••

I didn’t have camping gear, and even with an employee discount I would have bankrupted myself buying all I needed at Meijer.

No, all I’d once thought I needed. I’d learned that I could leave all the trappings of civilization behind, that I didn’t need a Coleman lantern and a dining fly and a Thermarest and a fancy sleeping bag.

How much did I really need?

Some food—including a can of beef stew for old time’s sake—and some blankets. I got a recreation passport, paid a few dollars for a campsite, and slept in the back seat of my car. It wasn’t the same without Ivy; it was cold and I had to keep my clothes on.

I hiked the trails, wider and tamer than the game trails on her property. There were no swamps to cross, no tall growths to push through, but it brought me back. I saw the forest with new eyes, and I took off my shoes and socks and walked the trail barefoot and studied the flora and the fauna.

My car didn’t make for a comfortable tent, and as I drove back Sunday night my neck and back hurt, I reeked of sweat and woodsmoke and I regretted knowing that I would have to shower in the morning before my next shift, that I’d have to lose that connection with nature, at least for a time.

•••

That night, before going to bed, I applied for a job as a park ranger.

Prologue

Prologue

My job at Home Depot was as entry-level as jobs got. For eight hours a day, I was a cart wrangler, car-loader, direction-giver, and mess picker-upper. It sucked, but it was still better than working fast food. I might not get discounted meals, but at least I didn’t go home reeking of fry oil.

Besides, I got to learn all sorts of things about hardware and tools. Those were the kinds of things a guy ought to know, and my knowledge in those fields was sadly lacking.

I still didn’t know how to apply most of that knowledge, but even knowing that there were different kinds of screws for different purposes was valuable information. And that they were in aisles 26 and 27, depending on type.

I was on a roving patrol in the store, constantly vigilant for a spill someone might slip on, shelves in catastrophic disarray, or rogue carts that needed to be herded back to their corral when I saw her around the end of an aisle. Younger, curvy, wearing a white tank-top.

She was cartless, and examining bags of Quickrete. Most people weren’t interested in cement unless they needed it for something—and if she needed cement for something she would have brought a flatbed cart.

Or not. She grabbed a bag and hefted it up on her shoulder, then leaned down and picked up a second, then a third. Two bags on one shoulder, one on the other.

That girl’s built like an ox. Each bag was fifty pounds, and I remembered elementary school math well enough to multiply fifty by three.

“I can get you a cart,” I blurted out, and she turned to face me.

I’d been so gobsmacked by her nearly effortless bag-lifting that I somehow hadn’t noticed immediately that she wasn’t human. The tail should have been a giveaway, or barring that the ears, or the horns, or the furry legs.

An Equestrian minotaur . . . minotauress.

“Don’t need one.”

Lots of guys tried to show off carrying lumber over their shoulders and they risked hurting themselves or other customers. Usually trying to impress their girlfriends or wives. If I’d been interested in any of my co-workers, I might have tried to do the same, but I was being paid minimum wage and that bought minimum work.

“Well, if you’re sure,” I finished lamely as she walked off. Her footsteps had a stiletto-like clip on the industrial tile floor, which I realized as she rounded the end of the aisle was on account of her having hooves.

I stood there mentally processing what I’d just seen. Plenty of contractors, built like proverbial brick shithouses, piled the cement bags on a flatbed cart like any sensible person would.

Minotaurs were strong, I knew that. I’d seen one male minotaur before and he made me really understand the phrase ‘barrel-chested.’ He’d obviously skipped leg day a time or two; he’d put all his skill points in upper body strength.

She had a more conventional, pleasing chest. I’d only gotten a glimpse as she turned to face me. Very human breasts filling out her tank top, a coying reveal of cleavage, Daisy Duke cutoff shorts . . . very short, now that I thought about it. And tight—I could see the outline of her cell phone in one back pocket, and her wallet in the other.

I couldn’t imagine her doing more shopping with a hundred fifty pounds of concrete on her shoulders. No matter how strong she was, unless she was an idiot she’d have picked up the small stuff before she got the heavy stuff.

That meant the checkouts, a wait in line—it was a Friday afternoon, and the weekend warriors were stocking up for their home improvement projects. And it was about time to get back out to the parking lot and check for shopping carts.

•••

I timed it perfectly; she was two back in the queue for checkout 6. Even better, there was a nearby endcap that needed attention, so I started putting things back on the pegboard like a good worker drone while keeping an eye on her. Even when she wasn’t walking, the weight of the concrete knocked her off-balance, giving her a sexy cock to her hips. I wasn’t the only one who noticed; an older gray-haired man was laser-focused on her ass, also suddenly aware that quality crossed the species barrier.

Look up, you fool. She’s got most of your weight in Quickrete on her shoulders . . . she could crush you between her thighs like a watermelon.

Somebody on next shift was going to be pissed. As the customer in front of her fumbled with a credit card, I started stuffing items back on the pegs with no care where they belonged. I had to make it look natural, an employee doing his duty, had to time it just right—

—and I did, finishing with the last discount drill bit as she slipped her wallet out of her back pocket, keeping the concrete balanced through the whole process.

“Checking carts,” I muttered into my radio before turning the radio off. I didn’t know if they could check that or not, but if my vein-popping supervisor came out to lay a tirade on me for not responding to a call, that would be at least some cover. Accidents happened.

•••

The automatic door hadn’t even started closing as I followed her through, subtle as a train wreck in my company-issued hi-viz vest. I was following too close, so I paused to scan the parking lot and identify all the errant carts, as a good employee would. That it gave me another good look at her butt as she walked by an abandoned cart in the handicap parking was just a bonus. She flicked her tail: maybe she didn’t like lazy customers, either.

She headed in the direction of a cart corral, and I followed. The excuse was making itself; I could get a nice look at her as she loaded the bags of cement into the back of whatever it was she drove and spend the rest of the shift thinking about her.

I hadn’t expected her to be parked right next to the cart corral, nor had I expected there to be a couple flatbeds in it—ones she easily could have grabbed if she’d wanted to.

She had an old Jeep CJ-7, topless like I wished she was. It wasn’t built into an extreme rock-crawler, nor was it a pavement princess—it had rust and scratches and faded paint, a proper working vehicle. She slid one bag off her shoulder onto her waiting forearms and dropped it behind the rudimentary backseat, then she looked over at me and frowned. I’m just a worker drone; I don’t have thoughts or motivations. More than one customer thought that.

I was looking away, fumbling with a cart, as the second bag dropped, but I got to see the third one go. She leaned down and slid it off her shoulder, easily catching it and stacking it on top of its sisters, the Jeep settling on its springs as the last bag was placed.

“Hey.” Her voice was not what I expected, more lilting and feminine than her strength would suggest, tinged with an exotic accent I’d never heard before. “Why are you following me?”

I wasn’t expecting to even be noticed. Unless people wanted something, roving workers usually faded into the background. At least I had my lie ready. “Following? I’m not following you, I’m doing my job. Gathering carts.” I motioned to the flatbeds in the corral.

She looked me up and down, and I realized I might have made a minor miscalculation. She wasn’t the type to complain to a manager or try to get me fired; instead she was the ‘beat the shit out of me and leave me for dead’ type. “I can leave, if I’m bothering you.”

“Hmm.” She studied me thoughtfully and then nodded. “Should I call you cart boy?”

“That’s my job.”

“Cart boy.” Amusing contempt. “Are you a cart boy, or a cart man? Because I’m going up to my cabin all weekend and it’s lonely up there.”

I crossed my arms. “What are you saying?”

“You think you’re man enough?” She tugged the collar of her shirt down, revealing a lacy red bra.

“Try me.”

“Get in.” She grabbed onto the roll bar and slid into the driver’s seat.

“Uh . . .” I glanced back at the store.

“You got ten seconds.”

I twisted the knob on my radio. “Hey, Mark, it’s employee number 1319901. Just want to let you know that I quit effective immediately, my vest and radio will be in the cart corral by the garden center, and you can send my last check to 69 Fuck You Avenue care of Your Mom.” I stripped off my company hi-viz vest, apron, and radio, tossed them into a shopping cart, and kicked it all the way into the corral—I wasn’t a monster. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll break you.”

“Risk I’m willing to take.” I grabbed the rollbar and pulled myself into her Jeep with less grace than she’d demonstrated.

“I’m Ivy.” She tapped a thumb to her chest.

“I’m—”

“You’re cart boy until you earn your name.” She pumped the accelerator pedal to prime the carb, twisted the key in the ignition and the Jeep roared to life.

“Yeah.”

Her eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror, and she let off the parking brake, shifted into reverse and backed out. Always liked a girl who knew how to drive a stick. No hesitation or shuddering as she went into first, or upshifted on her way through the parking lot, clutching in and coasting as a battered pickup cut her off.

I had a moment for reflection as she slowed at the intersection. She’d loaded a hundred fifty pounds of cement into the back of the Jeep and that was more than enough to give me a proper set of cement overshoes if that was her ultimate goal. The light ahead was red, I could jump out—easy in a Jeep with the doors and the top off.

I could, but I wanted to see how this would play out. She thought she was going to break me?

I welcomed the attempt.

Squirrel Stew

Squirrel Stew

Her squirrel stew wasn’t entirely forage; she added ingredients from her pantry to round it out into a proper stew. Corn and chickpeas from a can, Worcestershire sauce, a bottle of beer, spices, along with some foraged acorns and plants.

“If I felt like frying, I could have fried up some leeches, too,” she said. “If you’d had more on you we could have been eating good. . . .”

“One was enough,” I said. “Fried leeches?”

“They’re not for everybody. It’s an acquired taste. Good to know how, though; they’re generally easy to catch.”

“Tell me there are leech traps.”

Ivy shrugged. “If you’ve got offal, they’ll eat that. Coffee can with rocks on the bottom and meat inside for bait. If you haven’t got that, just wade around for a while and they’ll find you. The ones you pluck off yourself always taste the best.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” I glanced over at the camping stove. “How long does it take to cook?”

“You hungry now?”

“Kind of, but I can wait.”

Ivy nodded. “The longer you let it simmer, the better it is. It’ll need occasional stirring to keep it from sticking to the pot, but can mostly be left alone. Which is why now is the perfect time to use the curry brush. You might have forgotten about those burrs, but I didn’t.”

I held up my hand. “I didn’t forget, I was soaping your legs and I saw them, tried to pick one out but got distracted by, uh, your assets.”

“Now’s your chance to redeem yourself.” Ivy grinned. “See if you can get everything groomed and slicked without getting distracted. You do a good job, and you can brush my hair, too.”

What’s in it for me almost crossed my lips, but I knew what would be in it for me. Currying—whatever that was—and closeness. What more could I ask for? Was this Ivy’s soft side?

“Fuck it up, and you’re getting the dildo.”

That answered one question. Now all that was left to learn was what a curry comb was.

•••

The curry comb was a rubbery disc with a hand-loop on one side and bristles on the other. Ivy demonstrated its use on one thigh, brushing down along the grain of her fur. “Might not get all the burrs out,” she said as she slipped it off her hand and offered it to me. “I’ve got a regular comb and a brush as well, if it comes to that, you’ll really have to work them out. Curry comb ought to get whatever little tendrils get left after the seed pod’s out.”

“We doing this in the kitchen?” Not that her cabin really had a lot of other rooms to offer.

“Unless it’s really uncomfortable for you. I figured I could keep an eye on the stew while you worked.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.” I slipped the brush over my hand and studied her legs, considering the best way to work. Top to bottom was surely the best way, although that meant that I’d start with the fun part and end up with the boring parts.

Who was I kidding; no part of her was boring.

I rubbed the comb across my arm, just to get an idea of how it felt on flesh, in case I had to be careful at the juncture of fur and skin. It was surprisingly pleasant, and I wondered how it would feel on the itchy spots on my back. I would have tried, but she was watching and waiting.

Starting out, I was nervous, and my first strokes were hesitant. Her coat offered more resistance than my arm had, and I wasn’t sure how much was enough. How often an area should be gone over until it was done.

Then I started to get the hang of it, started to see the difference between groomed and ungroomed hair.

I worked around her left side, down to her crotch, then went around to the right to keep things symmetrical. Her legs would have to be tackled separately, but that was okay.

Ivy’s butt was something I hadn’t been paying as much attention to as I ought to have. Curvaceous, firm, pleasant to the touch, and dead-center, her tail, occasionally flicking and swishing as I worked the comb through her coat.

I’d already touched her just about everywhere, but the root of her tail felt special and secret, so I worked around it until both her cheeks were slick and shiny, and I could have come back to it but it was right there in front of my face, impossible to ignore.

Even though I knew she could move it, even though I’d seen her moving it, I wasn’t expecting the twitch as the brush touched, and I jerked back before moving in again, focused on my task. She flicked it, slapping me in the chest with the brushy tuft at the end, and I instinctively grabbed it to keep it still and started working the comb. Feeling her muscles move in her butt as she shifted her weight was one thing; it was more pronounced in her tail.

I didn’t let that stop me, and I was halfway down before I remembered I’d forgotten a spot, the underside where it tucked into her cheeks.

I kept on working towards the end, but my eye kept going back there, considering how I’d approach it. Should I ask her to lift her tail, or just get in there? She’d expect me to, wouldn’t she? If she didn’t, how much would it hurt to take a hoof to the face?

Fortune favors the bold, and when I had finished brushing out the tuft of her tail, I returned to the very root, reaching my hand up underneath slowly, giving her ample time to tell me to stop. The back of my hand was deep in the crack of her ass, and I could feel her tense as the brush ran against the grain of her hair: there was no other way to approach.

Her tail clenched and relaxed as I started the downward stroke, and the second time I moved up and started my downstroke, I pushed my middle knuckle out, dragging against her butthole as I worked through her coat.

I heard her suck a breath as the spoon slapped against the side of the stewpot, and for a second I was seized by the urge to shed the comb and stick a finger up there, like she’d done to me. But I didn’t.

•••

By the time I got to her knees, I was on autopilot, doing a job and doing it well. I’d gone from kneeling to sitting, and I was good enough that I didn’t have to move around and see what I’d gotten and what I hadn’t; I could feel the difference in her coat. Not to mention I was now intimately familiar with the contours of her legs.

The feathering around her hooves was its own challenge; the longer hair fought the curry comb and I had to change my technique, moving in shorter strokes and pulling out to get all the hair to comply.

I thought she didn’t have surprises left, but I was wrong. As I was brushing the back of her hooves, I suddenly encountered something unexpected, and at first I thought it was a burr that had lodged deep and when it couldn’t be dug out with the curry comb, I reached in with my other hand to explore.

“They’re dewclaws,” Ivy explained. “Brush the hair up if you want a better look.”

I did. They were almost like they wanted to be fingers, although they were high enough up that they wouldn’t have done any good.

I vaguely remembered that cats had something like that on their paws, something left over from evolution or else in the process of evolving, and that got me to wondering as I moved on to her other leg what sort of an ancestral tree minotaurs might have occupied, partially human and partially bovine as they were. Coincidence, or something else? I was sure that in Greek myth, minotaurs had arisen because Zeus fucked something he shouldn’t have.

Maybe it was better that I didn’t have any cellphone reception, that I couldn’t get my phone out and check. A mental reboot was as simple as looking up and focusing on her assets, considering how smooth I knew her coat was and how good it would feel to rub my cheek up against her and those pleasant thoughts lasted until I got down to her hooves, really focused on how they spread and flexed as she shifted her weight, as I traced a finger down them.

Hooves were weird.

Whether they were weirder than her tail, that I didn’t know.

•••

“You did good.” Ivy set the spoon down in the pot and ran her hand down her leg, checking my work. Smooth, sleek, burr-free. “You got what it takes to do hair?”

“What do you think?” I motioned to my hair, the best haircut money could provide . . . at Supercuts.

“Good thing I’m not vain.” She handed me the brush.

“Before I start, that thing you said earlier, about the, eh, dildo, we’re not still playing by those rules, are we?”

“You did do a good job,” she admitted. “So . . . tell you what, you do a really good job on my hair, and you can decide if it goes in me. Do a great job, and you can decide where.”

“Oh, really?” I couldn’t help myself, I ran my hand across her butt and slid a finger in her crack, almost touching her asshole.

Her answer was to push the brush into my hand. “Good luck.”

•••

The brush, at least, was a familiar implement although it turned out that using it on somebody else was a different skill than using it on myself. Still, the basics were the same even if the hand motions weren’t, and it was hard to fuck up.

Or would have been, if I hadn’t gotten distracted by both her horns and her ears, parts of her I hadn’t focused on nearly enough. The soft, velvety hair on her ears which was too short for a conventional comb to do any good, although I tried anyway before getting smart and using the curry comb again. A gentle touch, I wasn’t sure how sensitive they were, especially around the scarred notches.

Points would be docked for styling. In my head, when I first touched brush to hair, I imagined videos I’d seen with clickbaity titles like “You Won’t Believe the Transformation.” Getting tangles out and letting it do what it wanted to do on its own was a better default; if she’d wanted a stylist she’d’ve gone to Supercuts and picked up a barber.

Go with the grain, work around horns and ears. Brush back on the forehead and give her a pompadour before it flops forward again back into messy bangs which were honestly more her style.

It was still worth a second attempt, this time holding her hair back with my hand to keep it in place, just so I could get a second look.

“What are you doing?”

I let her hair drop back. “Nothing.”

“Used to have hair down to here.” She held her hand against her back. “Too much work, and bulls would grab it sometimes. Cows, too, it’s better short. Out of the way, easier to clean, easier to brush, don’t you agree?”

“Yeah.” It was easy to brush, and while I was hardly an impartial judge, I thought I was doing a good job of it.

•••

She might have reached a verdict on grooming or she might not have. She didn’t tell me; instead she took the brush and gave me the spoon. “My turn, you stir.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Don’t let the stew burn.” Ivy cautioned, before touching the brush to my head.

I jerked back, even though I knew the touch was coming, it somehow felt weird to have her comb my hair, and I wasn’t sure why. We’d showered together, we’d shared a bed, we’d hunted together, we’d had sex, we’d checked each other for parasites and how was this more personal, how was this an invasion of space?

Was it just a human thing, that we were taught that we should groom ourselves when we were big enough, and once we were old enough we didn’t want anybody else’s help? There were barbers who also shaved faces, and I’d never once considered having a barber run a razor over my face, I could do it just fine on my own.

Ivy, of course, wasn’t willing to give up just because I’d recoiled from her first approach. She moved behind me, wrapped an arm around my waist so I couldn’t get away, and got up in my personal space, her breasts pressing against my back and her freshly-curried legs against mine.

As she moved, I could feel her fur tickling my butt, and I was still focused on that as the brush touched my hair again.

The weirdness didn’t last; it was replaced with contentment. Nobody ever touched my hair except myself, that was how it had been as long as I could remember. Maybe a lover had run her hand through my hair before, but certainly not a comb. I paused in my stew-stirring to enjoy the moment, how it was evoking feelings I didn’t realize I had.

I barely noticed as she relaxed her grip on my waist and instead used her now-free hand to play with my hair and with my ears, then my neck and chin.

“You keep that up, the stew might get an extra ingredient.”

She snorted. “Keep yourself under control, or you’ll burn your dick on the stove.”

I couldn’t help it, I imagined accidentally getting too close to the stove and singeing off my pubic hair. What was more manly than manscaping with fire? Then a more sober thought crossed my mind. “Like, sometimes when I light the barbecue grill, I burn the hair off my knuckles. You could, uh—”

“It’s always smart to be careful around fire,” she admitted. “I can comb over small bare patches, though, and in certain circles some kinds of scars are a badge of honor.” Her finger traced over the top of my ear. “Like, well, depending on what kind of ear tear it is, I don’t know how to describe it but any minotaur would know. And I never got how much value humans, especially human women, put on smooth skin. Just proof that they never worked a day in their life.”

“Or that they’re rich enough that they don’t have to.” Sudden facts I’d learned in community college coming back while I was standing over a camp stove in a rustic cabin somewhere in northern Michigan in the company of a naked minotauress while also naked were not what I’d expected. “I can’t remember exactly, there’s a near-Eastern culture where it’s considered beautiful to have light skin, as if they’ve never worked outside a day in their life, whereas here having a tan, especially in the winter, implies money for leisure time on a southern beach.”

“You’re pretty smart for a cart boy,” Ivy muttered, then stuck her tongue out.

“Smart enough to quit that job and go live in the wild as nature intended.”

“Fair point.” Ivy slid her hand down my chest and teased my belly button. “You want to live dangerously?”

“Aren’t I already?”

“Maybe.”

•••

‘Dangerously’ was currying my pubes, which was a new level of weird. Not exactly pleasant, either; the curry comb didn’t work all that well around dangling bits. Nor did it make any measurable improvement.

On the plus side, I didn’t accidentally bump into the stove and burn myself.

•••

We could have eaten standing around in the kitchen, like we had for our other meals, but it felt too confined, it felt like a wild squirrel stew with foraged plants wasn’t an inside food.

She didn’t have the back deck built yet, she didn’t have her Adirondack chairs yet, but we walked around the house just the same.

The foundation posts would have been a good place to sit, if the concrete had cured. I doubted that it had, and I didn’t want to leave a butt-print in a new post, or find out what wet cement on my balls and taint felt like.

So we sat leaned up against the side of the house, overlooking not only our morning’s work, but also the forest. I could see a squirrel dart across a branch and then pause, studying us, no idea what we were eating for dinner. If he’d been out a few hours ago, he might have been in the stew, too.

Did squirrels eat carrion? If I left some of my stew where he could get it, would he?

Ivy had had beef stew, what did that mean?

Realistically, was that different than eating a monkey?

And why was I thinking about it? I took a spoonful of stew, blew on it, and popped it in my mouth. It was good, and the meat was more tender and less gamey than I’d expected. I’d never eaten much in the way of wild game, a venison burger back when Arby’s offered them, and one of my former co-workers had gifted me some meat-strips from a deer that were decent enough fried up.

I hadn’t understood hunting, but as I supped and watched the wind ruffle the leaves, as I listened to the constant birdsong and hum of insects, as I remembered her sweeping the rifle off her shoulder and bringing down her prey, I thought I understood it better than I had before. It certainly wasn’t necessary for survival, but maybe it was important for survival.

“Do you ever go up to the cabin with nothing but the clothes on your back, and rely on what you catch for food?”

Ivy nodded. “Keeps me sharp.”

“Have you ever caught nothing?”

“There’s always something, if you’re willing . . . mosses, bugs, and I can eat more plants than humans. It’s tougher in the winter, especially if there’s a lot of snow, you have to know where you might find things you can eat. I usually spend one week a year really roughing it, the only thing I bring is water because I don’t want to mess around with that. Depending on what it is, you don’t get sick right away, then a couple weeks later you’re back at the job with raging diarrhea and everybody else is making fun of you.”

•••

We went back inside to clean up the dishes, then back outside. Ivy dragged out the beanbag, and we vied for position. She wanted me to sit on it because I was the guest; I wanted her to sit on it because it was hers and it was her cabin and she ought to be comfortable. Both of us didn’t fit side-by-side, it was deceptive enough to let us think it would work before someone shifted and then I or she would unceremoniously slide off.

Leaning against it and letting her lean against me had worked last night, and it worked again. Old tricks were the best tricks.

Morning felt like it had been forever ago; the day had unfolded into a century in my mind, and it was hard to imagine that sometime tomorrow, we’d have to leave. I didn’t have a job any more, but she did.

“Is this all paid for?”

“Not yet,” she admitted. “Are you thinking what I think you are?”

“That you could live here year-round.”

“Yeah, that’s going to be the day that I tell my boss where to shove it. Sometimes I do think about that, and I have thought about how long I could hide at a state park, evading the park rangers and the tourists. . . .”

“There’d be a few blurry photos that everyone would say was a sasquatch.”

“And they’d have to blur out the nipples.” She held her hands to her chest. “You think that Sasquatch is a guy or a girl? Figure if he’s a guy, he’d have at least balls swinging around, maybe a dick too, which ought to show up in pictures. Hell, even a sheath ought to show on a blurry photo. Suppose those are okay since your money has a buffalo sheath on it.”

“Wait, really?”

Ivy nodded. “I know all about those.”

“Buffalo sheaths? Dicks?”

“Not all that different than a minotaur bull, really.” She shifted around, then leaned her head up against my chin. “I did tell you that you could decide where it went.”

“Yeah.” I ran my hand through her hair, then along a horn. “Now’s not the time.”

•••

As quiet as we’d been in the woods, we’d still been moving, and that had been something that many animals had noticed. Here, we were sitting almost as still as statues, and we’d both fallen silent, contemplating in our own way. Animals, some of whom were used to the minotaur-smells from her cabin, went about their business in the woods. A curious grey and white bird landed on one of the new-poured foundations, unbothered by the wet concrete.

He regarded us with his dark eyes before hopping down and picking at the ground, coming within a few yards of us before something startled him and he flew off, chirping out a warning.

“If we get lucky, we might see another deer,” Ivy whispered. “Sometimes they come up right to the edge of the woods.”

It was the first words that either of us had spoken in I don’t know how long. It felt longer than when we’d been hunting, although it probably wasn’t. It felt loud in the natural noise of the woods.

I didn’t answer her with words, I just nodded, knowing she’d feel the motion and know what it meant.

As the sun descended, the nature of the forest changed. When it was near the distant horizon, everything took on a new light. The golden hour, as photographers called it. Everything seemed to have a new vitality as the colors changed.

That wasn’t the only change; the birds disappeared and their calls faded until they were gone. Meanwhile crickets and frogs and who knew what else started to take up their chorus—the woods were never really silent.

Already, I could feel a chill in the air. So much of me was covered by Ivy, it wasn’t too bothersome: her back and her fur kept me warm.

As the night arose, we didn’t see a deer. Was that bad luck, or Mother Nature’s capricious nature?

The sky turned from reds and oranges to a deep violet, and I watched the first stars of the night appear, or maybe they were planets. I didn’t know and I didn’t want to ask, I didn’t want to break the silence. There was a value in it that I hadn’t properly appreciated before.

I saw bats start to swoop around, in search of tasty insects, and I saw fireflies—they kept close to the ground, and blinked out their message under the spread of stars. In the darkness, it felt like my other senses were heightened—Ivy’s weight pressing against me, the strange feel of fur as she moved her legs, the scent of her hair. The scent of her, not quite covered by the body wash and shampoo.

In the forest, there were other noises besides the crickets and frogs; the trees creaked and sighed as the temperature dropped, and I could hear creatures moving about as well.

This wasn’t a place to sleep, and yet it was lulling. I’d never meditated before, and I wondered if this was what it felt like? I didn’t have any great unanswered questions, at least not any that were currently on my mind, and yet I felt content, at peace with the world, with everything.

I was half-asleep, satisfied with the feel of her pressing against me, from her hair brushing against my chin to my arm wrapped around her stomach, rising and falling with each slow breath she took.

I was sore everywhere—cart wrangling and shelf stocking hadn’t prepared me for hard labor at the deck foundations or a hunting expedition through the woods; nor had I been prepared for the whiplash experiences of sex in the shower or the mutual pest removal that had bookended the day. And I still hadn’t decided which was more intimate.

For the moment, I was the king of the world. I had never been more comfortable in my life than I was right now, and I wanted to make it last for as long as it could. It was the little things in life that really mattered. Sex was fun and then it was over, but this—this could stretch on as long as we wanted it to, as long as we needed it to. There was no urgency, no goal, just the two of us together for the here and now.

Tomorrow it would end, tomorrow we would go back to our real lives. Tomorrow I would start on a job hunt but I didn’t think I would have any trouble finding one; Lowe’s had a ‘Now Hiring’ sign on their building and I was experienced in the world of hardware and home improvement.

And it wasn’t something to think about, not now. The future would take care of itself.

Was she asleep? Or was she lost in her own thoughts?

Did it matter?

•••

Nothing could last forever; no perfect moment could stretch out into hours or days or weeks or months. They were moments, and then they were gone. She shifted around and stretched, and my hand slipped down to her thigh, resting lightly in the fur there.

Ivy’s voice was low, quiet, almost a whisper. “You still awake enough to make it to the loft?”

I squeezed her thigh then ran my hand down to her knee. “You’ll have to carry me.” My voice was husky, almost as if I’d forgotten how to speak.

“Maybe I’ll just throw you a blanket.”

“Is it a hero’s death if I fall off the ladder and impale myself on your horns?”

“No.”

“Pity.” I ruffled her hair, which still felt almost freshly-brushed. Not an unbiased observation, but still . . . I’d done a good job, I thought. “You ever sleep out here?”

“I have, yeah.” She leaned into me. “Before I got the cabin built, and sometimes after. It’s not like you might be thinking, it takes a special kind of . . . stubbornness. You won’t wake up refreshed. Some of it’s physical and some of it’s psychological. You don’t think I hoisted a mattress all the way up into the loft just because it was fun.”

“I figured you considered it a challenge.”

She pulled away from me, just enough to turn around and face me. I didn’t think that my night vision was good enough to pick up on a facial expression, but maybe hers was.

“Surprised you didn’t stock the bags of concrete up there, too.”

“I was going to build a throne this weekend,” she said. “But then you arrived and I had to use them.”

Without her body against mine, the night air was far less comfortable, and I pressed my palm into the ground, wondering if I’d still be able to stand gracefully or if my legs had gone to sleep.

Ivy must have wondered the same, or else she was feeling benevolent; she reached out a hand and I took hold, let her pull me to my feet.

•••

This time, sharing a toothbrush wasn’t even weird.