"Rich, what happened to the water?"

I blinked myself awake. Amanda was decorated with something white. It took me a minute to figure out what.

"Amanda!" I said. "You're all covered with soap." I love the girl, but she is less accident-prone than disaster-prone. On the other hand, the suds weren't thick enough to disguise her sexy shape.

"I noticed," she said. "I took a shower while you were napping, and the water petered out as soon as I had lathered up."

"I told you that the water pump was electric. It went out with all the other juice." And she had drained the tank above the rafters completely, of course. We would have a thirsty time until the power came back.

"I can't believe it. The lightning stopped last night. It has been nearly a day since the power went off. They still haven't fixed it. Consolidated Edison would be hung out to dry for something like this."

Now she was blaming the electric company. We couldn't drink or fix food because she had drained the tank, the toilet would start stinking soon, and she was blaming somebody else. "They have a lot of lines to check," I said, "and it is still raining hard." I could hear the drumming on the roof. "This isn't New York, you know."

"And how I know! We can't get water. Why? Because it is raining. And you bitched because you got sweaty on the subway. Well your 'better, simpler life' sucks!" She ran out of the room.

Sleep forgotten, I rolled out of bed and donned the pair of too-tight cutoffs I wore around the place. At least they didn't need a belt. Meanwhile, I was considering options. We could drink pop and beer. Going to the cottage's large kitchen, I checked those supplies -- plenty of beer, six liters of pop. The Murphys were already in their cottage next door. They might spare us a pan or two of water; but I hated to ask, since they had four people in their cottage, and our need was caused by sheer stupidity. I looked out the kitchen window in the direction of the Murphy house.

On our lawn, ankle deep in mud, naked as the day she was born, Amanda was trying to rinse herself off. As luck would have it, the sun had finally sunk below the clouds, giving more light than it had all day.

Tom Murphy is a horny 16 year old, and the family goes to the same church as my mother does. Technically, I was supposed to be at the cottage alone. I ran out to Amanda, splashing across the slippery grass. The fool ran towards the hedge when she saw me coming. The view of bouncing tits and flexing butt hardened me, I could imagine what it was doing to Tom Murphy.

The rinsing hadn't been very successful. When I grabbed her, every inch I touched was lubricated by a sheen of soapy water. Amanda is hard to hold at the best of times -- fun though. This twisting, slithery, kicking, screaming, version was impossible, would have been impossible even with firm ground underfoot. I managed to stagger to a position where the pine trees shielded us from the Murphy house.

I would never have been able to carry her up the three stairs to the kitchen door. And I didn't want to cross that space while she was still yelling.

My mind could hold only fury at Amanda and fear that she had been seen capering about in the nude. But my body was reacting to the super-smooth skin of the girl squirming in my arms. The resulting erection wasn't making it any easier to negotiate the slippery grass, although it probably helped to keep my pants up. They were slipping lower without the occasional hitch that I usually gave them. Walking was bad enough as it was, and we didn't need two nudists on the lawn.

"Put me down!" she screamed, and kicked my knee. The blow wasn't that hard, but with the wriggling, overbalanced load I was carrying, it was enough. We plopped together into a puddle. It was maybe four or five inches deep, a little hard to tell since the bottom was by no means firm. There was no grass right there, nothing to keep the water and the earth apart.

"You asked," I said. Hoping nobody had noticed her in the fading light.

"You bastard!" she said. "What did you think you were doing? Now I'm dirtier than when I started the shower."

"What did I think I was doing? What did you think you were doing? Auditioning for a rape? This is a vacation spot for families, not Fire Island. Your feet are still cleaner than your mind." I pushed her off my lap.

I expected the retaliatory slap, and blocked it. Amanda always leads with her right. What I didn't expect was the mud in her hand; it flew right into my face. While my eyes were still protectively closed, she pushed me onto my back.

I got her arms, though, and pressed her down into the puddle by my side. "My hair," she screamed. Alarmed -- I love those smooth locks -- I let her go.

She, however, was more interested in revenging her hair than in rescuing it. A moment later, I was wearing a cap of mud. With my eyes still closed, I groped for her. I caught an ankle and pulled her towards me, sliding a little toward her in the process. My advantages were upper-body strength and weight; sight is relatively unimportant in wrestling.