Chapter 1
The dusk spread over the countryside with the inviolable sureness of a machine, diffusing the light into a pale, hollow gray and making the forests murmur with the first sounds of night. For a long time Sharon stood at the entrance to her tent, toying idly with the buttons of her blouse and watching as the sun set slowly behind the far ridge. There were only a few things left that she still liked about being a counselor at camp, but watching the sunset was certainly one of them. From where she stood she could see all of the grounds—the baseball field, the ramshackle wooden building housing, the cafeteria and the supply room, the series of pup tents housing perhaps two hundred boys and the larger tents reserved for the adult counselors like herself—and in the solitary half light they looked almost like statues, or like the relics of Stonehenge she had once seen in a picture book as a little girl. It was pretty like a picture, Sharon thought; it was almost as pretty as she'd dreamed it would be when she'd signed on.
Sharon smiled beatifically and stared at the camp a while longer. Then she drew shut the plastic curtain and withdrew into the interior of the tent. Inside, she thought, was never as nice as outside: with the exception of her late husband's framed photograph and her clothing the tent was like an anonymous black hole that could have been occupied by anyone. Its only furnishings were a cot, a washbasin, a mirror and a footlocker that doubled as a chair if anyone happened to be visiting. Sighing, Sharon stood on her tiptoes and flicked on the bare sixty watt bulb that hung forlornly from the tent's ceiling, powered by the antique generator that supplied all the camp's electricity. Then she slowly began to remove her clothes. She finished unbuttoning her blouse, slid it off her shoulders and reached behind her back for the clasp of her brassiere. When she finally got it undone her ribcage seemed to expand outward like a balloon, and Sharon smiled happily as she took her first really deep breath of the day. Her breasts were extremely large and firm for a thirty-five year old woman, and in order not to feel conspicuous around the camp's many teenage boys she had long ago taken to wearing undersized brassieres that minimized the ample swell of her bosom. She had tried going braless on one of the first days of camp, but that had turned out to be very embarrassing. Her breasts had jiggled and swayed provocatively whenever she'd run, and she'd noticed some of the boys staring at her with big erections in their pants. That had been over a month ago, but even now it still made Sharon blush to think about it.
For a moment longer Sharon stood half naked in the tent, breathing deeply and smiling like a prisoner released from confinement for the first time. Then she kicked off her tennis shoes and sat on the cot. Wincing, she undid her belt buckle and slid her blue jeans slowly over her long tapering legs. That afternoon she had gone on a nature hike with her group of boys, and while traversing the side of the Mannatuppe Ridge she had had to lead them through a tough, dense thicket that covered an unused trail. The branches had scraped her legs, and now the inner flesh of her milk white thighs were bruised and cut in several places. In the pale light of the tent the bruises looked worse than they actually were, but Sharon couldn't help patting the damaged skin tenderly and feeling a little sorry for herself. She had only been counseling at the camp for a month or so, but it seemed that every day she came back to the tent with another bruise. They healed in due time, of course, and in outward appearances Sharon knew she looked no less fresh and beautiful than she always had. But keeping up with a group of energetic boys was hard work for a woman, and it was hard to remember a moment when she hadn't been exhausted. The exercise hadn't made her any happier, either; sometimes Sharon couldn't help wondering if it had been a mistake to sign up as a counselor at all.
It had certainly seemed like a good idea at the time. As Sharon remembered her original enthusiasm she shook her head and smiled sadly; it always struck her funny the way things either exceeded or failed to reach her expectations, without ever precisely meeting them. Actually, at the time it had seemed like a veritable godsend. When she had first read the ad in the paper she had never been more miserable in her life. Her husband had died only three months earlier, and after the funeral everything in Sharon's life had come apart all at once. Walter and she had been married for eighteen years, and they had always been as deeply in love as on the day of their wedding. Over the years Sharon had become accustomed to having a man waiting for her in bed at night, a warm, handsome, sensitive man who could talk to her and tell her how beautiful she was and make love to her whenever she wanted it. His death had come suddenly, and now that she did not have that man anymore Sharon had been completely unable to cope with his absence. Her period of mourning had stretched into a month, then a month and a half, then two months. After awhile her friends had begun to worry about her, but when they realized how listless and unresponsive she was to their offers of help even they left her alone. For the first time Sharon went weeks without cleaning the house. She neglected her personal appearance, paid little if any attention to what she ate and didn't care if she stayed inside the house for days at a time. Deep down inside she had known all the time that she had to take stock in herself, but as hard as she tried to turn over a new leaf she couldn't seem to do it. All she could think of was how lonely she was, how desperately she wanted Walter back to give her the physical, mental, connubial companionship she needed.
In a way, Sharon thought wistfully, it would have been better if her husband hadn't left behind an insurance policy. At least then she would have been forced to go outside, if only to find a job and provide for her material needs. As it was there was no such compunction, and for three months she did little more than eat TV dinners and watch every show that came onto the television. During that time she had hated her life and herself, but she had seemingly been unable to change, and in retrospect Sharon knew that she might have continued wallowing that way indefinitely if she had not happened to buy a copy of The Chronicle at the supermarket. It had been there that she had seen the ad.
The ad. Sharon smiled and giggled wryly as she delicately spread cold cream over her upper legs, massaging the thick white liquid into the small bruises along her inner thighs. There had really been nothing exceptional about it, just another minuscule item in the help wanted section of the classifieds. The Enston Boys Camp needed adult counselors to live-in at the summer camp for the months of June, July and August; responsibilities would include supervising boys ages 10 through 17 in athletic activities and arts and crafts; no experience required, minimum wage plus food and board; that was all. When Sharon had first seen the ad she had passed it over without giving it a second thought. But later that day she had picked up the paper again between soap operas. Her attention had wandered eventually to the ad, and soon she had found herself studying it carefully. A summer camp. Throughout her life Sharon had always cherished the memories of her girlhood summers at camp, and in the midst of her torturous depression over her husband's death the resurgence of that memory was the first bright light she had seen in months. Slowly but surely she had begun to picture herself working as a counselor. She could imagine herself guiding crews of happy young boys through games of softball and capture-the-flag, and the picture was an entrancing one. She would live in the middle of the woods, surrounded by nature. Boys and other counselors would be around her all the time; she wouldn't even have a chance to get lonely. Her days would be spent exercising and taking care of children; for the first time since Walter's death her life would be simple and wholesome and satisfying, as life was intended to be.
In a sense that had been the end of her depression right there. Sharon had spent the rest of that day with the television turned off, studying the advertisement and dreaming of her life in the forest. The next morning she had awakened earlier than she had in months. She showered, put on her best clothes and her happiest smile and drove the station wagon bravely to the address given for the job interview. The interview had gone well, but they had postponed their decision, and while waiting for it Sharon had spent four days in virtual agony, wondering whether she would spend a happy summer in the forests or a miserable one in front of the television. Then they had called in their acceptance. Sharon had practically jumped with joy, and two weeks later she had driven ecstatically to the Manatuppe Range upstate, en route to her new job.
And now here she was. Sharon chuckled and rubbed the cold cream soothingly into a nick on her right breast, smiling luxuriously as her nipples distended stiffly with the sensation. She did not have to remind herself how miserably counseling had failed to live up to her expectations. It was true enough that she lived in the middle of the woods, that she was surrounded by nature and that she had more exercise daily than ever before in her life. It was also true that she was heartily sick of it. The shepherding of gangs of rowdy boys was just more than a woman could hope to accomplish, and sometimes Sharon caught herself hoping never to see another tree or blade of grass or, especially, the interior of a tent. Really, the only reason she'd stayed on as long as she had was that Enston management had shrewdly contracted her for the duration of the summer. If it hadn't been for her name on that piece of paper she would have left weeks ago. And it wouldn't have been just for her own sake, either. It would have been for her daughter, Julie.
Julie. As Sharon thought of her sixteen year old daughter her brow knitted with concern, and she wondered for the umpteenth time why she hadn't seen the light go on yet in her tent. There was no telling where she was, Sharon thought miserably. Here at camp there was never any telling where she was, or what she was doing, what little stunt she was planning to surprise her mother with next; that was the worst problem right there. Julie had always been a little bit wild. As a pre-adolescent she had been in and out of tom-boyish mischief, and even when Walter had still been alive it had been everything the two of them could do to control her. When Julie reached puberty their problems with her worsened. Before it had mostly been a matter of forbidding childish pranks, things that Sharon remembered from her own girlhood and knew how to cope with. But nothing in her own past prepared her for the transformation that overcame her daughter following her first menstrual period. Suddenly her thirteen year old girl fancied herself a Cleopatra, with all the attendant niceties. Julie wanted to wear make-up. Julie wanted a brassiere. Julie wanted a mini-skirt, and a see through blouse, and even a pair of black lace panties! Sharon tried to explain to her that those kind of clothes would make her look like the junior high school's only prostitute, but Julie seemed to like that idea just fine. Because more than anything else she wanted boys. Boys, boys, boys, as many of them as she could get her hands on.
Well, Sharon thought wistfully, it had certainly been a difficult task to restrain her. With Walter's help she had succeeded, however, and until shortly after her sixteenth birthday Julie behaved with at least as much decorum as the average teenager. Then he had died, and all the control Sharon had exerted over her only daughter flew out the window. Two days after the funeral Julie stayed out all night for the first time. During the course of Sharon's three month depression that happened again and again, and just before she saw the ad it had gotten to the point where she hardly recognized her own daughter. Julie indeed looked like a prostitute. Between the ages of thirteen and sixteen her body had ripened into maturity, and Julie certainly seemed to be proud of it; she couldn't have shown more of it if she'd wanted to. Boys called the house constantly, and most of them gave Sharon the impression that the only thing on their minds was sex. She mentioned that to Julie, but Julie only laughed; as far as Sharon could tell that was the only thing on her daughter's mind too.
In a way, Sharon thought, that was one of the most important reasons she'd wanted the counseling job. At the time she'd told herself that it was all for herself, that if she didn't get out of the house and do something about her depression she'd wither and die. In retrospect she knew that that wasn't entirely true. As much as anything else she'd wanted to get Julie out of their neighborhood and into a new environment. Her feeling then had been that Julie's lascivious behavior was in some part due to a poor inter-family relationship; perhaps she didn't feel close enough to her mother, in which case three months in the wilds with her mother as the only familiar face around would surely do some good. They'd simply have to get close, Sharon had reasoned. And when they did get close she'd find out what made Julie behave the way she did.
Unfortunately, Sharon knew now that that reasoning couldn't have been farther off base; in retrospect she couldn't understand why she'd thought that being one of the few girls in a camp full of eager boys would cure Julie's salacious behavior. Just the opposite; Julie had taken to the unfamiliar environment like a duck to water. On the first day Bill Mitchell, the director of the camp, had had to threaten Julie with expulsion if she didn't clothe herself more decently. Since then her behavior had been worse than it had ever been at home. Sharon hardly ever saw her, and when she did Julie was invariably arm in arm with one or more of the older boys. Fortunately, there had not yet been any rumors of Julie going to bed with any of them; for that matter, Sharon had never had any concrete reason to suspect her daughter's virginity. But that final step was more than likely, and the danger of it made Sharon hope that much harder that the summer would soon be over. In a way she could hardly believe Julie would want to act the way she did. As a girl Sharon had never considered going to bed with a boy, even though she had been considerably more attractive than her by-all-accounts-beautiful daughter. Her first taste of sex had been on the night of her wedding, and she had never regretted saving herself since.
Though she did regret having to save herself now. Sighing, Sharon replaced the cold cream on the footlocker and again stood on her tiptoes to turn off the light, enveloping the tent in darkness. Then she pushed her fingers under the hem of her bikini panties and slid them slowly down her long tapering legs, leaving herself completely naked. As much as it embarrassed her she knew that thinking about her daughter's sexual wantonness had excited her; there was no mistaking the pulsing warmth in her pussy, and she knew that she would have to masturbate. Sharon pulled aside the sheets and slid into the cot, already anticipating, eagerly and shamefully, the excitement her finger would give her as it stroked rhythmically through the dampening slit of her vagina. These days it seemed that she masturbated more and more; sometimes she even hurried back to her tent at break, giving herself orgasmic release as often as five times a day. She didn't want to, it humiliated her to think of herself behaving this way as an adult, but she just couldn't help herself. Sometimes she was sure she couldn't help anything she did.
And it just wasn't fair. Sharon pulled the covers tight over her bosom and bit her lip, making a last effort to restrain the ravenous passion that raged through her loins. It just wasn't fair that a woman who looked as good as she did should have to go to bed so horny and frustrated. There was no doubt that she was attractive. When she had married Walter she had been one of the most beautiful women in the city, and eighteen years of marriage had done nothing to detract from her appearance. Her lovely wide-eyed, soft-cheeked face was unblemished by a single line or wrinkle; her hair was as long and thick and blonde as it had ever been. And her body, particularly her body ... at the age of thirty-five Sharon still retained a mouthwateringly voluptuous figure that the vast majority of women would never get close to in their lives. Her breasts were large and firm and exquisitely shaped, highlighted by a slim, trim waist that had not thickened appreciatively since her girlhood; she could still fit comfortably into her wedding dress. Her hips were solid and lithe, the cheeks of her buttocks plump and delicately rounded; when she wore shorts the sight of her long, tapering, milk white thighs still made men's eyes bulge on the street. Men had always wanted to go to bed with her, ever since she was a teenager. Sharon could still remember how aroused Walter had been on the night of their wedding. He had stayed aroused, too; after five, ten, fifteen years of marriage they had both remained as perpetually horny as newlyweds, sometimes having sex two and three times in a single night. And over the years Sharon had become accustomed to those pleasures. Shortly after her marriage she had discovered how strong her sex drive really was, and the sexual bliss a husband could give her. Sometimes she had thought that she couldn't get enough of his body: his leanly muscled nakedness, the erect shaft of his tumescent organ, the indescribable filled-up sensation it gave her as he slid his throbbing cock into her eagerly splayed cunt. And now Sharon knew she might never have that delicious pleasure again. She certainly could not have Walter, and if she didn't get lucky soon she wouldn't have any man, either; she would spend the rest of her life as a beautiful but lonely, desirable but frustrated widow.
And that, Sharon thought, was the only good thing about being a counselor: Bill Mitchell. Bill Mitchell was the permanent director of the boy's camp. He was unmarried (another widow, actually), 40 years old, and unlike Sharon did show some signs of aging; his once lean body had gone slightly flabby around the middle, and his short black hair showed how rapidly he was balding. Still, he was an extremely handsome man. More important, he was a decent and eligible bachelor. Sharon was sure she had seen some interest in Bill's eyes, particularly when she had deliberately worn her tightest pair of shorts and most provocative blouse to dinner one night, and if she had anything to do with it that interest would shortly be brought to fruition. One thing was for sure; she wouldn't save herself until marriage this time.
No; she'd go to bed with Bill just as soon as he wanted to. Sharon whimpered with desire and rolled onto her side in the cot. Without her conscious approval her hand strayed over the firmness of her belly to her pubic triangle. A moment later she felt her clitoris erecting against her finger and then, almost before she knew it, Sharon was masturbating as hard as she could. Her naked body stiffened from head to toe, and she wantonly began to gyrate her lithe hips against the thin mattress, shamefully thrusting the pouting, hair fringed lips of her pussy into the stabbing impalement of her finger. Already she could feel the walls of her cunt clinging wetly to it, and the delicious sensations that raged through her loins told her that she would cum very soon. Sharon whimpered more loudly and began to masturbate even harder. There was no helping it, she thought miserably. Walter had introduced her to sex, and now that she knew its pleasures it was impossible not to think about it, to want it more badly than she wanted anything else in life. She couldn't let herself sleep with just anyone, but if something didn't happen with Bill Mitchell very soon she might find herself doing just that, if only to have the meaty thickness of a male organ again buried inside her loins. There were just some things that a person couldn't control.