Chapter 5

At the cabin Dan was at work in the back and he showed me the work area. Sometime in the past, someone had built a 10 x 12 metal shed up against the main cabin. Dan had been offended by the look, and over the previous summer, had added a rough cut log facade to the thing, matching the look of the cabin pretty damn well. Inside the generator was running, under a large panel and beside a pile of big batteries. There were four Jerry cans of fuel beside it. That and the weed-whacker were the only high tech things there. When I asked for a chainsaw, he laughed and pointed out a large axe to one side. "We're kind of old fashioned here. Check out the original grinding stone."

He had a treadle powered grindstone, which must have been as old as the cabin. He took a seat at it and gave me a quick lesson at sharpening. He had put some pants on, but I was still naked as a jaybird, and when I went to sit and sharpen my axe, the spinning grindstone, so near to my crotch and the inside of my thighs had me as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He took pity on me after about a minute of near disastrous effort and within a minute had the edge of the axe gleaming.

I took my tool, found my pants and boots in the carport and partially dressed. I headed up the road away from the cabin and within a few hundred yards I knew we were in trouble. The backside of the hill was soaked and the road was thick with mud and puddles. A large branch crossed the road a little ways further, and I got off the bike and carefully walked around it in the dense woods and heavy underbrush. Back on the bike I made it another five minutes before I hit a real doozy. A larger tree had been uprooted, with the entire root ball showing, and was leaning across the trail, the upper part of the tree tangled in another one across the way. The only good news was that ahead I could see the turn in the road, where it met the wider, better tended gravel road.

I had my work cut out for me.

Call me a freak, but I like physical labor. Maybe because my earliest jobs in high school and college were all hard labor. Now that I spent most of my days behind a desk, I liked getting out and getting dirty. Swinging the axe, trying to cut my way through a tree a good two feet in diameter, feeling the intense impact, watching chunks of wood explode away from my precise blows, I loved it all. I enjoyed the feel of the wooden handle in my hands, the flexing of my shoulder muscles, the tension in my back. I worked hard, cutting through the tree, and chopping it up into sections less than three feet long. I got good and filthy, stacking the logs at the side of the road, and even trimming the large branches down and cutting them into more usable pieces. My arms and chest were scraped up from handling the rough bark on the heavy logs, and by the end my hands were starting to feel like hamburger. I don't know how long I was at it, but I was surprised when I saw Jill roll up on her husband's Road King.

"Damn, Alex! You're filthy! What have you been up to for the last few hours?" She asked, stepping off the bike. She was wearing her remarkably tight pants, and someone's t-shirt that was way too big. I wanted to rip it off of her. Instead I nodded toward the stacks of wood on the side of the road.

"There was a tree blocking the road," I explained, leaning my axe to one side and wiping my forehead where the sweat was dripping into my eyes.

She walked to me slowly. "You done yet?"

"Yeah. I think this is good enough. I was about to cut up a few more for fireplace wood, but I think a rest might do me good." Now that I had stopped working, I could feel the ache in my forearms, shoulders and back, and my legs were almost quivering. I'd overdone it, but that was typical for me. Once I got going, I rarely had the good sense to know when to take a break.

Jill walked up to me, and rubbed her hands over my chest and shoulders. "Poor baby, I bet you're completely worn out." She leaned forward and placed a tender kiss on one of the worse scrapes. "And your poor skin! You should have been more careful."

"I just need a break. A short rest, a quick swim, and I can finish that other, smaller branch back there, before sunset." I said, my eyes closed, enjoying the feel of her hands on my skin.

I felt her hands lower to my pants button and her lips traced a patch down my stomach. I opened my eyes to look at her as she unbuttoned me and started to ease my pants down. "You deserve a reward," she told me, her hand rubbing my swelling cock through the thick material.

We were standing in mud, and I suggested we move to the side. She walked past me and sat on one of the wooden pyramids I had created, and beckoned me over. I stepped in front of her, and let her lower my pants and lean forward to give my trouser friend a nice thank you. She had a mischievous look in her eye. "The girls made me promise I would leave your friend here alone," she sighed. "But if you can keep a secret, well, I didn't promise not to let you do what YOU might want to." She leaned forward and opened her mouth just an inch beyond my swollen cock head. "You're not the kind of man to take advantage of a woman, no matter how much she'd been teasing you. I know you wouldn't be as naughty as to stick your cock in my face and use my mouth for your own pleasure, now would you?"

"I hate to break it to you, beautiful, but I am exactly that naughty." I wiped my hands on my pants, removing as much mud and dirt as I could.

"Oh dear," she said plaintively, "such a strong and virile man, how could I ever stop you? Please don't fuck my face, out here in the open, out where anybody passing could see you take advantage of me!" She opened her mouth wide and closed her eyes.