Jen's Legacy.

Royce led her away from the small pond and opened up the sleeping bag to provide them with somewhere softer to sit and relax. He seemed disturbed, which was not surprising considering what she wanted him to do for her, as well as his own increasingly obvious problem. He would have had to have been a marble statue not to have responded to that thought of what she needed him to do for her, but he was still afraid of going there, knowing how intensely he felt for her.

“We’ll give dinner a few more minutes.”

“Royce?”

“Yes, Claire.” He responded with a smile, patiently, as he re-arranged the burning wood with a long stick, waiting to see what she would ask.

“I need you to do something for me, please.”

He looked at her and waited with a steadily beating heart, knowing what problem she was referring to, that he hadn’t yet had courage to address for her as he should have.

“I did as you said and sat in the water to cool down, and to deal with that heat rash, and the water did help… but not entirely. I am still sore.”

He knew she was. Her body had looked sore when he’d seen her lying naked in the water, and had seen the blisters across her middle and lower abdomen as he’d breathlessly admired everything about her that he could see. He would not survive much more of this.

With her extreme physical discomfort, she had gone beyond being scared of what he would need to do to help her, but she was still nervous, asking him.

“I think I need your help now with this rash, if you wouldn’t mind taking a look at it. You said you would. I know I should have told you sooner what was happening to me as we walked, but I was shy.”

Someone should take shyness out behind the barn and shoot it. Too many budding relationships were destroyed by shyness and holding back when it was not necessary, but that would soon change now.

She took a deep breath to calm her agitation, which had nothing to do with that rash. “I am still shy, but I suppose the time for shyness between us actually disappeared a while ago didn’t it, considering 'where' we are, and 'how', we are (both relatively naked), at this moment?”

He nodded. “It did. It should have disappeared a lifetime ago for us both.”

A 'lifetime' being the changes in the last few hours to them both. He was saying just the right things. They both knew what was happening between them—they were in love—and that they could avoid speaking directly about it, or doing something about it for not much longer, before something had to 'give'.

He was blushing too, and seemed nervous and even more unsure of himself than she was, but she'd had asked for his help and he could not refuse her.

“You’ll need to lie down here.” He indicated on his sleeping bag as he adjusted it for her.

She laid down, with her hands folded under her breasts where her shirt was tied out of the way, and she closed her eyes to let him do what she needed him to do without having her staring at him... and if more were to happen between them, then… so be it.

This was necessary, so it was not as though she was being too obviously forward with him. She hoped, not too obviously.

He looked down at her. “Where does it hurt you the most?” He wanted to lean over her and kiss her and to do so much more. He really had no need to ask. He already knew where it hurt, but he needed her to tell him.

She indicated generally. “Around my middle where that swimsuit touched my body; on my back, my... breasts… u… u… under my breasts mostly, and… around my waist, and… and… and…” she hesitated closing her eyes… “between my legs.”

He was pleased that she was able to tell him, giving him permission to do what was needed, and he would be able to touch her at last, where he'd ached to touch her for so long and learn more about her.

He'd dressed her in her shorts just a few moments earlier, and now he would need to open them up from her again, as well as to open her shirt to see enough to help her. The hits upon him were coming thick and fast, but he couldn't avoid them, and didn't want to avoid them. He felt breathlessly excited.

He dug into his pack and removed a tube of a hydrocortisone cream from one of the sealed plastic packs in there and put it to one side as he knelt beside her.

She felt his fingers go down into the open front of her shorts again, touching into that hair once more (she tensed up, of course, and he was less careful this time of what he touched) as he pulled the zip down and folded her shorts away from her, revealing only some of what he most ached to see of her body; but enough for his breath to catch in his throat... delicate hair, and the suggestion of where her vulva began.

She was feeling heady, almost ready to laugh in disbelief at what she was letting him do for her; encouraging him to do. Some of her questionable friends at university were all-too-ready to get rid of their panties for any man and she had been critical of their absent morals, but now it was she who was behaving so shockingly. She was beginning to understand how they must have felt.

She flinched at his continuing touch, gasped, then giggled, nervously.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No, Royce; you startled me is all.” She was nervous, but so was he. He’d only ever done anything like this for Jen, before, but that had been part of their love-making, and had soon got out of hand, which couldn't happen here. Not so soon.

He looked away for a few seconds, intoxicated by the way he felt, and knowing what it must have cost her to trust him like this, so soon, and well aware of what she intended for him after this, as she was leading him gently, but inexorably along to his doom.

He saw the angry rash all around her body, and even a suggestion of it between her legs where it was most severe, but still hidden from him. He saw much more than that too, aching to touch and to explore so tenderly and gently, at first, as he had never hesitated with Jen.

But this was not Jen.

He had to keep reminding himself of that.

She consoled herself that she was not the one that was being too forward if she let him decide how to see to her, and what to do, and to make up his own mind about how far to go with her, or where it would go from here. He may be as reticent to move it in any decisive way between them, just as she would be, in her naive innocence (perhaps not so naive), except he was making a good start on things already as she lay there, silently encouraging him in everything he was doing for her.

She felt him peel her shorts farther away from her and pull them down her legs, seeing the rash extending around her body, even on her hips, into her groin area, and behind her; all of which—and much more—was becoming revealed to him as he saw the extent of that rash. It must have been intensely uncomfortable for her. He castigated himself for not seeing to it before now.

He should have stopped her walking sooner, and asked, and not have relied upon her to tell him. It would have been obvious that she should not have been wearing that swimsuit. He should have insisted that she take it off even then. She might have done that for him, but mostly for herself.

He continued taking her shorts completely off her, adopting a more clinical approach, but feeling his long-dormant emotions prodding at him, bringing him to life yet again. This awakening of sleeping emotions like a growing avalanche, and the revival of deeper feelings, had been happening to him frequently in the last day, since she had come so explosively into his life.

She filled in the silence with nervous talk. “I should have said something earlier, Royce, I know I should, but I was… (she didn’t have to say it; 'shy', of course; that damned issue again)… I began to be irritated last night, sleeping in that swimsuit (armor-plating to keep him at bay), and it just grew worse as it got hotter in the day.”

He could see the angry rash around her middle, much as he had first seen it when they’d stopped, and could see more of it where her shirt was not fully closed on her. He opened it from her, untying it from beneath her breasts, folding it up from her, seeing the same irritating rash beneath her breasts; everywhere her swimsuit had been in contact with her body, trapping the perspiration.

She had a beautiful body.

'Slow down, boy.'

He swore at himself and hesitated, knowing that she should not be trusting him to do this.

She had her eyes closed, knowing by his silence what he was feeling, and what he would be able to see, and what she needed and wanted him to see, as well as to touch. Once he touched her, he would be unable to help himself, and he knew it.

If she stared at him he would be embarrassed and she didn’t want that, so she continued to keep her eyes closed, sensing everything he was thinking and wanting to do to her; electrified at everything he was touching and doing for her, waiting to feel his touch.

She was being either very brave, or very stupid. Or was unbelievably wise about the ways of men and what caught their interest. But this also needed to be done.

“It’s a heat rash, of course; a sweat rash, caused by your swimsuit trapping the perspiration behind it. I should have known this would happen even when we set out this morning.”

But he had said nothing, knowing how she would have responded to his suggestion that she undress and walk only in her inadequate shorts, and with no proper support for her magnificent breasts under that shirt. He would have stumbled, trying to watch her, and them, and could have broken his neck.

Had they climbed together like that, he might well have forgotten what he was doing, and fallen, or would have died a different death each time he had to get under her to lift her with his hand up between her legs and pushing at her backside, raising her to another hand-hold, seeing more of her in the legs of her shorts as they came away from her as she stretched.

He wanted to lean down and kiss her breasts; to kiss all of her that was now open to him, but that was not why he was here. She was trusting him to help her, so he had to submerge those other feelings for a while.

She wouldn’t be wearing that swimsuit after this, even if he had to burn it. Her shirt and shorts, inadequate though they were, were much more than she needed to wear around him as far as he was concerned. If he had his 'druthers', she would need to wear nothing from this moment forward.

He leaned over her and looked into her face, sensing her discomfort.

He sighed heavily and gently chastised her. “Please, do not let something like this go on for as long as you did, Claire, without saying something to me. I would have gladly helped you had you asked me.”

He would very happily have helped her take off everything.

She opened her eyes.

She should have undressed from that swimsuit earlier, even in front of him, and trusted him sooner, and to hell with being embarrassed or shy. After today there would be no shyness and no need of it.

“I know now that I should have done that, Royce, I know, and I am sorry, but I was… I was so…. We barely… I did not know you then. But I think I do now.”

The hell she did!

Behind the concerned and gentle facade of his features, there raged a demon ready to burst forth. She'd seen a hint of that... barely under control... as he'd sat in that pool across from her, earlier.

She seemed ready to break down into tears.