it by now.
“That's why we’re here,” said Katie, and she
held up her canteen for a group toast. “To the masculine energy of
the wilderness!”
Michelle roared, “To finding our even wilder
sides!"
They all took long sips, reaching the bottom
of the whiskey faster than they’d hoped. Rachel went around to
refill all of their containers with as much as they would hold.
This weekend was about pushing their limits after all.
“What is it about the forests of the west
coast that bring out the wildness in people?” said Emily already
slurring some of her words. “One time when I was a teenager, I came
camping here with my family. We were staying in two tents, the kids
in one and my sister and me in another one. When they thought we
were asleep, I could hear my parents having sex. It was the loudest
and craziest I had ever heard anyone going at it. To this day, I
cannot get those sounds out of my head. They were like animals,
like dogs.”
After that, they took turns telling stories
about the craziest thing they had ever experienced in the outdoors.
Katie told them about her first time at Girl Scout camp. She was
ten years old and they had been sleeping five to a tent, with the
camp leader in her own tent a few feet away.
“Late into the night we heard a rumbling
outside the tent,” said Katie. “We were all scared, and no one
wanted to go outside. We kept really quiet, and turned off all of
our flashlights hoping whatever it was outside would go away, but
it kept coming closer. When our counselor finally went out of her
tent, she let out the loudest scream I’ve ever heard to this day.
It was a bear. A hulking grizzly bear. We saw its shadow from her
lantern on our tents. It was like something out of a cartoon. We
were so terrified, and the other girls and I grabbed each other as
hard as we could. Our scout leader’s scream scared the bear away
and he never came back, but none of us could go to sleep after
that."
Michele told them about the time she and her
college boyfriend had gone canoeing at Yosemite. They had come upon
a pack of wolves heading towards the bank of the river to get
water, and slowed their boat down so they could watch. The wolves
were majestic, she said. Like pets but with almost human facial
expressions. All of a sudden, while they were sitting in the boat,
a rabbit came towards the water to get a drink and the wolves came
to life. Almost telepathically, the wolves all jumped at once in a
group to surround the rabbit while the largest female grabbed the
animal with her majestic jaws.
“It was so amazing, so incredibly arousing,”
said Michele, “that I grabbed my boyfriend right there in the canoe
and told him to take me right there. I couldn’t even wait until we
were back on land. I think deep inside, I somehow wanted those
wolves to be near while we were doing it. He fucked me so hard that
afternoon that our boat almost sank. I still remember how the wood
of the canoe felt on my back as he was going down on me, the oars
bouncing around inside the boat, echoing with his grunts and my
screams. We made so many waves in the water that afternoon. Sending
the heat from our bodies literally splashing onto the shore.”
Moans came from each of the other friends. It
had been too long since any of them were so turned on, and here
they were in a cabin full of only women.
The wind outside the cabin began to blow
harder. The sun had set and they were almost finished with their
first bottle of whiskey. Rachel knew that the best time to climb
was early, before the sun hit its highpoint in the sky, so she said
goodnight and headed to her own room to go to sleep. The other
girls kept talking for a while, but one by one they headed off to
their own rooms to get some rest before the big day.
Once she got to her tiny room and took off
her clothes, Rachel couldn’t stop thinking about their
conversation. The wool of the thick blankets rubbed against her
skin, and she laid spread eagle, eyes
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