Chapter 3
The star-strewn sky twinkled like the hand of a wealthy woman, the diamond chips growing brighter with the deepness of night. Cindy stirred restlessly in her sleeping bag as wafts of icy air stole in through the gaping drawstring mouth where the top of her curly head peeked out meekly. No sleep for her tonight.. .
Down in the furry nest between her legs Jed's gentle touch lingered still, and her pussy lips throbbed, ached, begged for something to end this frustrated yearning. Fleetingly, she considered tapping him on the shoulder and waking him up to finish what he'd started. But.. . oh, darn it! She had to go to the bathroom. Mama was right; everything in this world was made for man's convenience, including the 'organs' between his legs.
The thought of slipping out of this warm cocoon and donning those clumsy heavy clothes to squat primitively behind a tree in these nippy temperatures was utterly revolting and one hundred percent unfeminine. Ten toes poked around in the dark depths of the sleeping bag until they touched the stiff denim that was her Levi's. Jed had instructed her to keep her clothes in the bag, warming them for morning. Arching her back, she slipped into them, the cold metal zipper making her shiver as she sucked in her breath and pulled the tab up over the smooth bowl of her belly. Beside her Jed slept peacefully, his warm flesh radiating waves of heat. Strangely, being dressed made her colder and with chattering teeth, she worked at the bag's heavy plastic zipper.
Brrrrr.. . the mountain air felt like witch's breath biting through her heavy sweater straight through to the bone, and she struggled with the stiff hiking boots hardened from cold dew. Cindy's pearly teeth chattered like castanets as she hugged herself with crossed arms and headed off to find a tree. Her boots crunched softly in the pine needle bed and then her heels dug in as she stopped in mid-step and spun around. The flashlight. . . The smoldering campfire reflected the object next to Jed's sleeping body and she plucked it up, turning it on only when the pine boughs hid her shadow. How unromantic, shamefully embarrassing to have Jed wake up to see her squatting like an Indian squaw behind a tree.
Each footstep made her tight Levi's rub against the pouting pussy mound where devilish pin-pricks of desire swelled her cuntal lips. She had felt safe in his arms, protected from lurking creatures, his naked body hovering above hers creating a protective shell from the world. That darned bear . . . she would have let him take her and make a woman out of her. Yes, she'd wanted it despite Mama's gory stories. Deep in her subconscious mind the fear lurked that she, like her mama, would hate sex, find it revolting and painful.
The forest ground still spongy from melting mountain snow made dark rings on Cindy's gray suede hiking boots whose hard rubber vibran soles sank easily into the earth. Cautiously, she swung the flashlight from right to left and satisfied, she chose a tree at random and unzipped her skin-tight Levi's, drawing the stiff denim down over her slender thighs and goose-bumped buttocks. Hooking her thumbs in the elastic of her panties, she worked them down, blushing to discover that her copious female juices had glued them in the tight hair-lined crevice. The icy air nibbled at her swollen clitoris and wafting breezes brushed against her cuntal lips like the hungry touch of an incipient lover. Cindy's black eyelashes fluttered and her right hand instinctively cupped her pubic mound when . . .
Something . . . a lumbering, hulky dark shadow appeared through the trees. Moving, its shape becoming more distinct with each twig snapping footstep until its headlight eyes beamed straight at her!
Fear, like a cornered rat, gnawed at her brain and her heart thumped in her temples. The nape of her neck went cold and tense as if someone were pounding a frozen ram rod down her spine. Squatting close to the tree she stared into the none too friendly eyes of a black nose bear! If it was a Grizzly, she was good as dead.
Oh dear God! Her fingernails, like claws of a dying bird, bit into the tree bark and slowly, so as not to startle the animal, she pulled up her Levi's and fastened them, watching dry-mouthed as the bear swung his burly head around in the air, nose sniffing, smelling, feeling for her. Cindy wanted to die. Climb a tree. . . Her brown eyes scanned the pine tree for low hanging branches but, no, bears could climb. . .
One step closer, its thickly muscled neck craning from side to side, nose high in the air. God, she could hear him smelling, almost feel the hot moisture flaring from his nostrils.
"Jed, oh God," she mumbled, closing her eyes and peering over her shoulder at the campsite not more than twenty yards away where dying orange flickers of smoldering pine boughs outlined the sleeping bag where Jed . . . Cindy swallowed, though her mouth was so dry her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth . . . A baby bear cub scampered and romped on the sleeping bag, pushing and nudging Jed's body, playfully clawing at his face.
Nose waving in the air, the cautious mother bear sniffed the night winds and advanced a few crunching steps until Cindy could see her pupils dilate darkly in anger as the wretching scent of human enemies stung her nostrils. Man had separated her from her baby cub! A throaty growl rumbled from her awesome hairy throat and following the scent, the mammoth animal reared up on brown tree-trunk sized legs and came at Cindy with open jaws that dripped saliva from ice-pick teeth. The animal's upper lip curled in contempt.
"Aaaahhhh!" Cindy's tiny hand flew to her mouth in a stifled scream, eyes wild with fear. Her hiking boots dug into the ground in a wild spring through the woods, clawing her way through underbrush and zigzagging around trees that seemed to materialize like dark omens of doom, blocking her path, confusing her. Tree branches like invisible menacing spirits grabbed at her sweater, ensnaring her. She fought back, tearing herself away despite the searing pain in her upper arm where the slow warm ooze started dripping to her elbow. Behind her the woods came alive with thundering footsteps crashing painlessly through undergrowth and side-winding trees. The instinctual inspiration to run downhill . . . (hadn't she heard somewhere that bears couldn't run downhill as fast as humans . . . ? ) made the footsteps fade in safe distance behind her in the night, but still she ran, her lungs feeling as if they would explode from the dry, burning pain for want of oxygen.
Her hiking boots chopped into the mountain earth, gnashing it under her heels, spitting dirt into the air. She picked up speed, momentum growing until she tripped over a log. A sharp pain cut through the tender flesh on her shin and that horrible image of her mother's mangled leg cleaved through her mind. She raised her head, smelling the moist dirt caked on her cheeks and she reached up to wipe away the sweet smelling gush of blood spurting from her flaring nostrils. Coughing and sputtering, Cindy felt the trickling blood clog her throat. She spit, the saliva driveling from her mouth in pink threads from the bruise on her lip. The crash of animal footsteps kicking up rocks under clawed feet and smashing through bushes with its hairy girth was no more. Cindy lay in a heaving mass on the ground, arms spread out above her head, tears scalding from her eyes to cool on the earth's floor. "Jed . . . oh, God, Jed . . . "