The sunset on her left was gorgeous as Jeanette Brennan hiked along the trail with Bob, but she looked to her right more often. The little radio had forecast rain before morning. Now, although the radio was not packed where she could reach it, she could make her own forecast. The rain would start sooner than morning. They wanted a campsite upslope from the trail.

They reached one that had been used before but was empty now. They didn't change their pace as they turned off the trail, but they set up camp with greater care than usual. She pulled the radio out and turned to a local station. She hammered the pegs in a little bit harder than the night before. Bob dug a much deeper trench around the edge of the tent. They hung their pack frames from a tree but got everything that they wanted to keep dry into the tent. It was perfectly waterproof as long as nothing touched the cloth from inside. They very carefully stowed their belongings so that nothing touched the canvas.

She cooked dinner with determined speed. The radio didn't give the weather forecast until they were eating. The rain was predicted to hit a town southwest of them near midnight. She could see Bob relax at the same time she did. They had plenty of time.

She took the spade into the woods a short distance. She handed it to Bob as she came back. Her last task was to get a condom out of the zip pocket of her hanging packframe. They were foil-wrapped; the others wouldn't be bothered by rain.

She took off her boots outside the tent and got undressed the rest of the way in the sleeping bag. She stowed those clothes carefully away from the tent walls. Bob stripped outside and climbed in the bag after her. As he handed her his clothes, she stowed them with the same care. They listened to another weather report and shut off the radio. After a little discussion, Bob closed the flap of the tent. The world was excluded. They talked and petted and talked.

She found herself paying more attention to Bob's hands than to his words. She turned to face him, and they kissed deeply. When his tongue entered her mouth she welcomed both reality and metaphor. Bob abandoned her mouth for her breasts, and she lay back.

Bob's hand ran down her right thigh and then up the inside. She parted her thighs slightly to give it passage and squeezed them together to hug the hand when it reached the junction. "Hello, hand," she said.

Bob lost the nipple when he laughed. She spread her legs to give him room to work, and his mouth returned to her breast. This was the eleventh night of their marriage, the eleventh night of her sexual activity; but a pattern had already been set. He would leave that breast to return to her mouth, he would be on the other breast when she climaxed. The pattern was reassuring. For one thing, she would climax. This tension -- half pleasure, half irritation -- would come to an end, and a lovely end it would be.

She lay on the slightly padded ground. She floated on the sea of sensation. Everything happened as forecast. As her climax began, Bob abandoned the nipple momentarily to say, "I love you." That confirmed the climax as much as it confirmed the love. She tossed on the sea of sensation for a moment, or an eternity. Then she fell back to the ground. The hand and lips went from arousing to intrusive, but they stopped almost immediately. The hand clasped her delta for a moment longer. The lips moved to her forehead in a gentle, very protective, kiss.

"I do love you," Bob said, very emphatically.

"Love you too," she gasped. His attention turned to the Trojan she had set out. It was, as always, at his side of the tent flap.

When her energy returned it was awfully warm in the tent. She threw off the top of the sleeping bag. Bob read the sign and kissed her. He started at her arm and sought her mouth, via her neck, her ear, and her chin. The game was old enough to have stopped being very funny, but the kisses were still sexy. His tongue was in her mouth again, reawakening desire, reminding of love. He acted more directly this time, his hand soon between her legs, his fingers soon between her labia. She welcomed this. Desire bloomed, and she tugged at his arm.

"Oh love," he said as he climbed between her legs.

"Yes, dearest," she said as he placed himself.

To Bob, she knew, what entered her was Junior, wrapped in latex. To her, it was Bob himself. Bob's fingers spread the labia apart, but Bob nudged into the entrance. Bob slid through her and filled her up. When she was absolutely full, it was Bob she hugged with her arms, but it was also Bob she hugged with a muscle that she was just learning to use.

Bob gasped and started to move. Intercourse might not always give her a climax, but it always gave her evidence of Bob's passion for her. She abandoned her hug to caress his back as he rose a little and got into a rhythm. The rhythm took her up, moving her in time with it. Her hands slid down to Bob's butt, where she felt the tautness as he drove into her. Proud to be the athlete of the couple, she often forgot Bob's sheer strength. Beneath her hands, however, he was now pure muscle, hard as rock.

Then sensations banished her thoughts. Sensations of his driving within her, of his chest rubbing across her throbbing nipples, of his hips nudging her legs more open with each thrust, of her own hips rising to meet his, of tension somewhere within her. Then there was only the tension, drawing all her body into one knot, with her spirit bound somewhere within. The knot tightened almost to pain. Then it broke into joy.

She rode the joy. As it pulsed around her she pulsed, too. The joy was pulsing around her, and Bob thrust deep within her and throbbed there.

There was shouting in the tent. It had to be her voice, because Bob was only grunting. Then he fell on her, and the touch was wonderful, even if it was hard to breathe. They rolled to the side.

The next thing she noticed was loud thunder. Bob was now lying apart from her, and they were covered again. She hugged him as the rain began.

Somehow, Bob was cold and damp and shaking her. "Let-up," he said.

"Huh?"

"The rain has let up. If you need to piss, do it now."

She went out in only her boots and poncho. This was not what she considered a let-up. And she wished he would find a better word than 'piss, ' though 'going to the bathroom' didn't quite make sense.

Back at the tent, Bob had one of his undershirts ready for a towel. Soon the downpour resumed. Outside there had been the grayness that hinted that the sun had risen. Inside, she could barely see Bob's shape against the canvas. The radio suggested that the storm would pass the town by 10:00. Certainly it would pass them by noon. They had a morning to spend.

"We could," she suggested, "play twenty questions. We could try to figure out what town we will stop at on Sunday with this delay. We could nerve ourselves up to take advantage of the shower bath out there. I can find the soap."

"I have something else in mind."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Surprise I had not expected. A second for the motion, I had."

"Moi? I am an innocent maiden, well a recent maiden, and I never second such motions."

"Never?"

"Hardly ever!"

Taken with their joint cleverness, they congratulated each other with a kiss. (W. S Gilbert didn't get a kiss; but he wasn't there, after all.) The laughing kiss led to deeper kisses, and those to hugs. Hugs left a lot of skin untouched which called for caresses to restore equity.