Chapter 24

Sunday, Sept 10, 2028

The next morning, we got up early. Well, eight o’clock is early on Sunday; packed the ice chest, barbecue grill, chairs, and dry clothes, had a quick bite to eat and by 9:30 we were on our way east to the Sawtooth Mountains. There’s a lake we love, Lower Hanson Lake, that’s perfect for swimming on a hot day.

It may be ‘Lower’ Hanson Lake, but there’s nothing low about it. The elevation is 7,900 feet. It’s small and isolated. The only road is a little-used Jeep road winding through the mountains and almost straight up a steep, rocky hill. Our kids love the trip almost as much as being there. Somehow, climbing that steep trail in 4WD, low-range gets their adrenaline running and they can hardly control their excitement. Well, to be honest, mine, too. I love it almost as much as they do. To Addie, it’s just a means that she’d rather avoid, to an end – getting there. What a spoil-sport!

Down below, the big valley where Boise and the Snake River run is totally dry and brown that time of year. But the higher we got, the greener the grass was. By the time we were climbing that steep hill, it was deep green grass, tall trees and absolutely beautiful. The best thing was, that it was still eighty degrees, just right for swimming in the cold mountain lake.

Kevin and Katie wanted to get in the water as soon as the doors opened. The lake itself has a grassy shore that extends into the lake so it’s relatively shallow quite a ways out and easy to walk in. We had to temper their enthusiasm just a little while we fitted them with life jackets and blew up their floaties. Once that was done, we let them go in just a little way until mom and dad were ready. Rascal and Zusie were bouncing all over, swimming and chasing sticks that the kids were throwing out in the lake.

When Addie started taking her clothes off, I expected to see the one-piece suit she had had for years, certainly not the skimpy, thong bikini she was wearing. Way back when, the day before the fateful reunion, I’d bought her a pretty tiny bikini, the first one she’d owned since we were married. That wasn’t the one she was wearing, though. I don’t know when she bought this one, but it made the other look like an old maid’s swimsuit by comparison. It was solid white, nothing but strings and little triangles, and it didn’t even make an effort to hide the contours of her nipples. It was no more than skimpy, thin underwear. The kids didn’t notice a thing different about their mom, but I sure as hell did!

Then she turned and stepped out into the water. If I’d thought the front was skimpy, crap! From the back, she was completely naked. Nothing but a thin string holding the top and another string around her hips. The string down her butt wasn’t even visible.

It was a damn good thing I’d had those three incredible orgasms two nights earlier or I wouldn’t have been able to control myself. I couldn’t make my hard-on go away as it was. The only thing that did help was the water was C O L D! It must have just melted off a glacier or something, not that there were any glaciers, but it sure as hell felt like it.

Kids and dogs loved the cold water. It took Addie several minutes to get acclimated and me enough so that I could get deeper than my toes. While kids were frolicking under our watchful eyes, splashing each other and floating on their floaties, Addie was down on her knees getting her swimsuit nice and wet. The first thing I noticed was that when it got wet, it became almost totally transparent and disappeared, clinging tight to the skin underneath it. Her pink nipples showed right through it, as did her bald pussy lips. At that point, even the coldness of the water couldn’t dampen down my hard-on.

She splashed back toward shore and took my hand, dragging me deeper. Amidst my shivering, I asked her, “Where did you get that swimsuit?”

She grinned, telling me, “Jonah bought it for me. He thought you might like it.” Then she added with a giggle, “He did!”

By then I was in to my knees. Addie turned abruptly, pushed me and I fell backward, completely submerging myself in the ice crystals. Then she pounced on me so that I couldn’t get back up. Addie’s warm, nearly naked body sprawled over me almost made up for the ice water. But by the time my head popped back up out of the ice, even the sight and feel of her body wasn’t helping my shriveled little man.

Actually, after just a little of her not letting me up, it started to feel kind of good. As I said, it was a warm day, supposed to be up to eighty-five even this high in the mountains. Kids were a few feet away, squealing and laughing bobbing around, floating on their life jackets totally oblivious to the water temperature and I decided if they and Addie could do it, so could I.

We all played in the lake for the next hour when someone said they were getting hungry. I hated to get out because I knew it would be hard to get acclimated to the cold all over again after lunch, but duty calls. So I trudged back ashore and set up the portable barbecue for some hamburgers.

Even as green as it was, there had been fires all around the Pacific Northwest, so bonfires or any flame except a propane grill were prohibited. We’d have loved to have marshmallows on a bonfire, but it wasn’t to be.

After lunch, we were back in the lake. It wasn’t nearly as difficult getting in that time. It’s amazing how much a body can acclimate to different temperatures. Even my shriveled up dick had recovered from the cold and was taking notice of Addie’s thong.

Around four, we were tired and decided it was time to go. Everyone dried off and changed, but I convinced Addie to just put on her cover-up over her bikini. It didn’t hide much, which was kind of the plan. Then we followed the ‘road’ around the lake and about two miles up to Middle Hanson Lake, gaining another five-hundred feet in elevation.

Middle and Upper lakes are pretty, but not nearly as nice for swimming. They’re mostly rocky bottoms and deeper, not good for kids at all. The middle lake has a rocky outcropping that’s really good for diving or jumping off of about twenty feet down into the lake, if you’re brave enough to do that sort of thing, which I am NOT!

As a matter of fact, there was a couple there doing exactly that, probably late teens, early twenties. They’d ridden in on a 4-wheeler ATV. I pulled in beside their 4-wheeler and got out to go talk to them, see if they wanted us to take videos of them jumping or anything. The kids got out and I told them they had to stay way back from the edge, then coaxed Addie to get out with me, too.

Yeah, you might have guessed the real reason I stopped. My gorgeous wife was a sight to behold. I think the sheer ‘cover-up’ only made her sexier. We walked over to the other couple and I complimented them both on being able to make that jump. I crawled up to the edge and peeked over the rock down into the water and no way in hell would a sane person actually jump. It scared the hell out of me to just look down. Not only was it twenty feet down to the surface, but the water was so crystal clear that what you saw was the bottom, another ten or fifteen feet down.

The guy’s eyes went exactly where I anticipated they would, straight to my sexy wife. Just to cover for myself and hide the fact that that was the real reason I’d stopped, I suggested that if they wanted to jump together, I’d get a video on their phone for them. The guy said his name was Bruce and they’d love to. She, “Dorothy,” she said, got her phone out of her backpack and showed me how to take a video. Then they both stood back about ten feet from the edge, held hands and ran for the edge, jumping far out and screaming on the way down.

Coming back out of the water, scrambling back up the bank looked like it was probably the hardest part if you had the courage to jump in the first place. We all looked at the video after they were back on the outcropping and they were both thrilled with how it had turned out.

Then, I got the surprise of my life; well, if you don’t count all the other ‘surprises’ of my life over the last three months. Addie said she was going to jump. My mouth must have dropped open in shock. She’d never done anything like that before and we’d been at this lake several other times. I guess what she’d been doing sexually had opened her up to all sorts of new things, including trying to kill herself.

Anyway, she pulled the cover-up off over her head and I was sure Bruce was going to break his neck looking. His girlfriend (she wasn’t wearing a ring) was just wearing a fairly modest one-piece and he likely wasn’t quite used to seeing a woman dressed like Addie was.

I went and retrieved my Fuji out of the Jeep and started videoing with Addie just walking up to the edge and peeking over. “I don’t know if I can do it,” she said.

Bruce suggested, “Just get back and run like we did. It’s easier that way.” I know he wanted to see her make the jump because he wanted to see that swimsuit wet. So did I ... want him to see her wet swimsuit.

She walked back from the drop-off and glanced up to where Kevin and Katie were building a little fort back on the bank, I guess so she would have one last memory before she died. Then she turned and ran, still picking up speed when she went flying out into the air.

God, she looked good, that body slicing into the water feet first like she’d done this a thousand times before. I would have expected it of Tanya, who was nearly a world-class swimmer, but my wife? She’d never done anything like this, since we got married anyway.

She came back to the surface and swam to the bank and climbed out. Yeah, that suit! As close to naked as you can get and still be legal. I guess it’d be legal, anyway, not so sure in a public pool. Parts of me, one in particular, swelled in pride that she was married to me! Both Bruce and Dorothy watched intently as my wife climbed up the bank showing every crevice of her body. And I mean EVERY crevice! I wondered if that might be why she took the plunge in the first place. She has definitely turned into an exhibitionist. I loved it!

She was excited and bubbly when she climbed those last couple feet onto the outcropping where the rest of us were. I kept the video going. I wanted to get that climb up the bank to show her later what it had looked like when she’d spread her legs apart to get footing for that next step ... all the way up the bank. After she was on top with the rest of us, I moved around behind so I could get the good shot of Bruce and Dorothy’s reaction to Addie’s bathing suit. It was worth the extra megapixels! I’m sure I caught the drool down Bruce’s chin.

“Wow, that was fun!” she babbled. Then she turned to me, “You need to do it, hon, just like I did. Just don’t look down first.”

“I already looked down and it ain’t gonna happen!” I told her.

She got a pouty look on her face, “But you did the swing for Tanya,” she said.

“Yeah, but that didn’t involve jumping to my death, either. No. Not. Gonna. Happen!” She wanted me to do it so bad, I asked her, “You going again?”

“No, I think once was enough.” Too bad, I enjoyed that climb up the bank with those people watching.

She slipped her cover-up back over her head. “Are we going on up to the upper lake?” she asked me.

We decided that yes, we would, so we loaded the kids and dogs. On this road, we didn’t make them fasten their car seats since it’s fairly level and the top speed is about three or four mph. Unfortunately, just a quarter mile or so up the road, there was a big tree fallen across the road in a heavily timbered area. I have a chainsaw but didn’t bring it on this trip, so we had to turn around. Upper Hanson Lake would have to wait for another time.

I thought it was funny. Addie could jump off that cliff, but creeping down the steep part of the road in low range terrified her. We’d seat belted the kids in because the road is a little hazardous, from how steep it is and the loose, shale-rock. Addie closed her eyes and her knuckles were white from gripping the overhead grab bar. This from a woman who had just jumped off a twenty-foot cliff into ice water then was going to fly 600 miles alone for a weekend trip with a man she’d barely met with the sole purpose of sex. Go figure!

It didn’t scare the kids, though. They loved going down just as much as up. After we got on the highway, we stopped at Addie’s new store in Mountain Home, the first time I’d seen it. We parked in the back and went in the back door. She and Nicki had set it up beautifully; imitation flower arrangements scattered around the store, all for sale; Daryl’s leather goods; antiques; several types of the Rhythm clocks and on and on. The two restrooms were clean and polished and the computer guy’s area was just as tastefully done. Addie was proud of that, his business had nearly doubled since her store opened.

“I’d like to invite Nicki and her daughter to dinner next Saturday. That okay with you?” she asked me.

“Sounds like a great idea,” I told her. Adriana likes a personal relationship with her employees, especially her managers. After Addie told me about Nicki, I’ve been anxious to meet her.

We stopped at McDonalds for dinner. Theirs is one of the few stores that still has a play area and our two kids loved it. They were still full of adrenaline from the swimming and coming down the fun road. The play area was perfect for them.

It was after eight o’clock when we finally got home. We unloaded the Jeep, cleaned out the ice chest and tucked our kids in bed. They were asleep in minutes.