Ivy

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.”