She wakes early, uncertain of her location. The bed is warm; and there is a warm body beside her. She remembers and turns to curve around the broad back presented her. She feels safe, protected; and she loves this place that he has found.
He wakes slowly, feeling the comfort of her arm over him, her breasts pressed against his back through the soft flannel of the nightdress she wears. She is always cold here, even with the warming sun of the spring outside the large cabin, and the fire, kept always burning. The mountains are like that, hard and at their top elevations, always white with snow. “I need this Kert” she has said to him. “It is beautiful, and clean, and like the sheets on our bed.”
She rises quietly and goes to the bathroom to clean and wash, to relieve herself, and to scrub. She washes with a course cloth until her skin is pink and almost raw. Then she will spend time drying her hair, and putting the creams she needs on her skin to keep it from drying in the air at this height. “I’m used to it Kert, it is like the desert air” she has told him when he asks if the place is okay. Then, she will perfume herself. She uses a scent, she says, that reminds her of her dreams.
They have sex together randomly, when he has the need; he knows that it is based upon his needs; but she always anticipates them, somehow knowing when to relax and ease him into it. He enjoys it mightily, and she does orgasm with it. She is honest about everything with him. She has told him, through the music she listens to, that making her ‘cum doesn’t make him Jesus’; and he has heard her afterwards, occasionally go to the bathroom to clean herself, and stay longer, and he knows she is in tears, not about him, not hating him for the sexual pleasure, but about Annie, and about others.
He rises and turns sitting on the side of the large bed, loving the feel of the cool air on his skin. ‘She warms her feet between my thighs at times, and I between her breasts. How much closer to love can anything be. Accept what is given man, don’t long for more.’
He stands at the triple glazed window on his side of the bed looking out at the nearby forest, there is still snow falling, but light and dry flakes, and softly, not the hissing thick small hard flakes she seems to love. He’s found her, some nights, walking in her nightdress, barefooted and seemingly in a daze in that sort of snow. In the days, and the early evenings, when she’s fully awake, she loves to play in it; like a small chi'ld. “I didn’t have this when I was a kid Kert; England was just a mess of wet and soggy, and Arizona, well, you know about that desert of dry death.” He’d had to pick her up and carry her back into the cabin, and warm her feet slowly when he’d found her in the dark in the hissing snow.
Around her he had become changed. Still funny enough to keep her laughing, putting on demented speech patterns and flirting incessantly; but, in quiet moments with her he let all of his masks and pretenses slowly fall away. They had hunted together in early spring, before the track to the local village had cleared. She was as quiet as nothingness, and seemed able to stalk, ki'll and clean with no impact from the violence that she’d been exposed to. She was uncanny with a bow, a weapon he clumsily used successfully only once, though he spent hours with her several times improving his skill. She told him she had only once before, held one in her hands.
She and he read and wrote quietly together in the evenings, before the warmth of the fire, or with the wood stove heating the cabin to sweat temperatures. His breath has fogged the inner pane of the window and he thinks of the below zero temperatures outside that would create the conditions for the two vacuum layers to allow that to happen. ‘Not frost though; they’re tough enough to keep us warm and alive.’ Behind him he hears her drain the tub, using the heat of the water until the last moment to warm the bathroom. “Your turn” she says as she opens the door. He writes ‘ma cherie’ on the steamed window pane and turns to bathe.
© Amanda 2011
The cabin in the woods was a stand alone affair, buried in the high forests of the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains. The track leading to it was almost 12 miles long before reaching a gravel road which lead to an unmarked asphalt state road, which lead to the nearest village. The village was mostly a gas station with a small supermarket nearby. The population in this part of the area was miniscule, most of the land in reservation for ‘protected’ status from development or mining interests. There were small streams and brooks in the forests, the run off from snow melt in the mountains, and the frequent rains brought in from the coast. These streams fed larger creeks, which fed the rivers, which reached to the valleys to the south, and to the ocean to the west. Large amounts of the water lead to fields in the deserts of California; a form of thievery the Native Americans and long time residence groused and sued over on a regular basis.
The property had only two structures on its large tract of forest and mountain side, the cabin itself, which was well maintained on the exterior, though ancient in terms that homeowners of the current era thought; and completely modern on its interior mechanics. The exterior log structure had been reinforced and anchored against earth tremors, the wood surfaces and floors all refinished and light colored. The interior walls were plaster with aluminum framing, and painted in a variety of soft greens, whites, and greys. The walls and furnishings were of an older western style, but comfortable to sit upon for long stretches of time. The lighting was effective and could be made subtle and soft when required. The heating was primarily provided by a wood stove that was either fed by lumber stacked and dried and chopped outside, or by the newer pelletized wood, cleaner and more effective the advertisements said; and by a large fireplace in the common living area. The maw of the fireplace was capped and screened to keep the deep winter cold out if the fireplace was not in use. The second structure was a combination of electrical generation plant, workshop, and vehicle storage garage, only slightly smaller than the cabin itself. Fuel for the generator was diesel and had to be brought in during the dryer summer and falls; access during the winter would be impossible even with a Snow Cat. The cabin and the garage were near to invisible in the forest, their coloration and shale roofing matching the forest itself.
Kertus and Manda spent time together chopping the lumber for the cabin; they both preferred real wood rather than the pelletized composition material. Kertus would remove his shirt while chopping, while she, large breasted, would remain covered. “Awww c’mon Manda, drop ya cl’ths will ya?” he would laugh and tease her; and she, in return, would conduct a running commentary about what insipid act might have led to each of the many scars he bore. “I bet that one’s from being buggered by a roo eh?” she would say pointing at the pair of long trailing vertical scars on his back that ran from his right shoulder down to the base of the shoulder blade. She knew where those scars had come from. He had suffered them while in a deadly firefight in Italy, the firefight that had cost him his brother, who died in his arms in the fire and smoke and hellish explosions that night. He had suffered them providing her, and her ex-lover and partner, Elise, an escape. She shook herself back to attention realizing Kertus had said something, had stopped chopping, and was standing looking at her with a sad expression on his face. “It’s alright girl, it’s alright. He had a good death; and it was all worth it.” While she loved the joking pretend ignorant voices he used to tease her with, she was always moved when he used his actual voice with her.
In the evening Kertus sat beside her on the large comfortable leather covered couch in front of the fire. She was reading a book about the ancient Middle East; a current obsession of hers; and he held the touch screen pad computer that all Driver Security staff were issued. He rarely checked in any longer, wanting to separate himself as much from his employer, and concentrate on life with this woman, as she wanted to shut the entire world outside, shut it away, and bury it to be unfound.
© Amanda 2012
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