Chapter 7

I moved a little closer to Rich. “Hey, when I swim, it’s generally in 80-85 degree water.” He just shrugged his shoulders and started to put on his life jacket.

The first few hours were easy. We had about a three or four-mile-an-hour current, so paddling was a piece of cake. The water was a beautiful aquamarine, the sunshine was finally making its way into the depths of the canyon; it was idyllic.

And then the shoe dropped.

“Rapids coming up around this next bend,” called out Katie. I noticed that she was digging the front sections of her feet into what looked almost like stirrups in the bottom of the raft.

“Guys,” she said, a little quieter than normal, “you’ll want to wedge your outside foot in under the side of the raft. Yep,” she said, looking at Rich, “just like that. Now, these are supposed to be Class III minus rapids, which means we can handle them fairly easily, but water has been rising lately beyond the normal rise, so they could be a little stronger. Just listen carefully to my commands.”

I looked over at Rich. “Well, this is what you asked for, pal.” He smiled and nodded.

As we rounded the bend, all of us could see the whitewater ahead. It looked, well, intense.

Jake started barking out orders to his charges, ordering them to pick up speed. Now, you’d think you’d wanna take it easy and slow down, but it’s just the opposite. The faster you go, under control of course, the quicker you get through the rapids. I remember that you wanted to do that for about 90% of the rapids that you came across.

“Right HOLD” came the order from Katie. Her voice had taken on that tone you generally associate with a drill sergeant. Immediately I jammed my paddle into the water and held on.

The paddle almost got ripped from my hands. “Shit!” and I gripped it with everything I had.

“RIGHT! Use your body, not just your arms. Lean into it.”

I knew what she meant, I just wasn’t expecting such a strong kick so early. The volume of water was much greater than the Poconos and the paddles a little larger. I started to get a little nervous about this group’s relative inexperience.

“LEFT, double-time it!” came the shout, audible over the din of the rapids. I saw Rich starting to paddle his ass off, grinning. I smiled too. What the hell, I thought, we’d be fine.

The first real sign of trouble was when we hit a particularly nasty eddy followed by a large, mostly hidden big ass rock, and that jarring impact knocked the teen back into the middle of the raft.

Her mom immediately stopped paddling and reached for her. I heard a “crap” from Katie at the imbalance, and I saw Jake move to the dead front of the raft, trying to paddle us away from impending trouble.

We had made it about three-quarters of the way through without further issues until the left side paddled forward when they were told to paddle back. That miscue slammed us up against Thor, at least that’s what was painted on this big bitch of a boulder right in our path. We slid up Thor, not really in danger of tipping over, but scary nonetheless.

What made it interesting was when Katie got tossed free from her footholds and landed on me. One hand of hers belted me right in the face, and the other landed right on my crotch. Just a half minute earlier I’d noticed her hardened nipples poking through her top, just to the side of her life vest. I too had hardened, but not my nipples. Katie looked up at me. I thought she was gonna apologize for cold-cocking me with that right hook.

“Excited, are we?” and with that she gave my cock a squeeze, then pushed herself off of me and once again got situated in her command position as we finally exited the rapids and settled into a stretch of calm water.

“Those were Class III-minus rapids?” exclaimed Rich, soaked and shivering a bit.

Katie looked preoccupied with the antics in the front of the raft but then focused on Rich and his question.

“No, those were Class III plus rapids. The water is high today. Gonna’ make this interesting.”

“Exactly what kinda’ rapids are we expected to hit on this trip?” That was my inquiry.

When Katie looked my way, I saw her glance at my crotch and then at my eyes. She smiled a little. “The max we were supposed to hit was baby fours, but I think we’re gonna hit high fours, and hopefully that’s it.”

We broke for lunch, resting on a sandbar, drying out a bit, then got back into the mix. The afternoon wasn’t that bad, though we did hit another set of big rapids. This time we were better prepared. I think Thor gave us enough of a scare that we all took the rapids, and the guide’s commands, more seriously.