Taking Flight (9 page)

The glow of arousal and complete exposure had left Deborah in a whirlwind of emotions. To be left there, abandoned, trussed up, and vulnerable was just about the most exquisitely frightening thing she had experienced. Tugging at her straps to test their strength, she couldn’t decide if she was reassured or not by their total security.

She stopped fidgeting and began to take in her surroundings. It was a stunningly beautiful place. The streaming arrows of sunlight glanced off floating motes and particles, giving the air around her the feeling of being a living, breathing thing. Birdsong echoed in that odd, ricocheting way around smooth and rough bark, bouncing back and forth. The river bubbled in the distance and she had to strain hard to hear it. Relaxing her ears and bringing herself back to the closest sounds, she began to hear the swoosh and boom of her own heart forcing blood through her body and mind. Suddenly acutely aware of her own biochemistry, Deborah braced herself for the adrenalin that was about to crash through her as the reality of her situation sank in.

Anyone could find her here—bandits, guards… She tried to rationalize her fear but her physiology took over, flooding her senses with fight-or-flight cortisones. The sensation started in her chest and swelled, radiating to every cell, making her soar above herself and stare down at the sight of a naked, disheveled forest nymph, bound and hanging. The imagined sight made her part her legs and bear down, catching her arousal in her abdomen and forcing it into her pussy, where she tried to focus all the energy that was threatening to send her out of control. It took all her concentration to keep everything centered there—all her fear, desire, lust, euphoria—but she knew it was essential somehow.

A sharp crack snapped her back to the reality of her situation again; someone was close. She tensed every sinew. Alert and staring, Deborah scoured her surroundings. Something moved in the shrubbery. It darted like an animal, low and erratic, as if cornered, but it didn’t add up. She strained her senses in its direction and tried to catch the scent on the barely breathing breeze. Human.

Shuddering, she could feel her body expand to a vast canvass of nakedness. The nasal breathing of someone staring hard at the object of their intent filled her ears. Deborah gripped the strapping on each wrist tight and tensed her muscles in a way that she hoped would alert the watcher to her strength in this situation, not her vulnerability. Her skin flushed with warmth under the scrutiny of the shadowy, hidden figure. They stared at each other; she completely exposed and he—she could smell it was a he—completely obscured. There was a strange control conundrum going on in Deborah’s head: as long as he kept himself hidden and meek, she felt like she was holding the power. She let this thought roll around in her psyche and was amazed to feel her body relax and melt into this newfound confidence. Letting the ropes take her weight, she hung a little, shifting her feet apart and opening her legs to share her wet treasure with the voyeur.

A rustle in the leaves signaled approval and Deborah ventured a twist of the shoulders that carried down through her chest, hips, and knees, and ended with a flourish on her pointed toes. Her body needed to move and sway now, and she carried on her slow, snake-like dance, throwing her head back as she dangled on her bindings. They took her weight easily as she lifted her outstretched legs and brought them up in a V shape to display her splayed, ripe pussy to the stranger. If Deborah could have found the will inside her to stop, she would have, but something had crept in while she was experiencing the beauty of the forest—something feral had awakened. Maybe the forest itself had her under a spell, mimicking its unashamed joy at being alive. She wanted to celebrate the day, the moment, the life, her sex. She wanted to fuck and be fucked, not just physically but spiritually. And she felt like she was on the brink of both.

Her exposed pussy welled and pouted, and the muscles inside fluttered and beckoned the watcher close. Lactic acid built in her arms and legs as she tried to hold herself in the tortuous pose. It was sharp and exhausting, but she kept her limbs in the air, shaking as she tired, but determined to keep up the view of her wanton sex. She was so open now, and so wet. Desire poured from her, streaming from her juicy cunt down onto the rosebud of her ass, then her thighs. She was so lost in the sensations of her pussy, she felt she
was
her pussy. She left the physical restraint of her own flesh and traveled to the peaking center of her body. All her emotion and feeling focused at the one point she knew so well. Her clit swelled and throbbed and she rode it hard with her virtual body, thrashing and humping, getting soaked in her own desire. Her pussy gaped with arousal and she filled it, stretching and fucking herself until there was only this point. Everything stilled and ceased to exist. She hung in the void for what could have been an eternity—or a flash—then she crashed out, coming and climaxing and spasming. Her orgasm was so huge that she snapped back into her body and flapped between the trees like a fish on a line.

As the adrenalin and fever-like shuddering slowed, Deborah filled her lungs with the hot, sweet day. She was dazed and her body felt bruised and torn, her pussy stretched beyond anything she’d felt with Marcus. She looked around for the voyeur but there was nothing there. As she slumped in exhaustion, the restraints slid easily from her wrists and she collapsed to the forest floor. Had she been able to get free all along? She looked around to see Marcus leaning against one of the trees that had held her.

“Marcus?” she asked, bewildered and exhausted. “What the hell just happened?”

Marcus smiled and crouched down alongside her, embracing her and lifting her onto his knees. He kissed her deeply, exploring her mouth with new questions, new connections.

Deborah was confused. Had he given her that orgasm, or was it as she had experienced? Had she been having a massive sexual hallucination? She was exhausted, and goose bumps rose on her skin where air thermals danced about, making her acutely aware of their existence. Marcus wrapped a blanket around her and placed her in the sunniest part of the clearing.

“Shh,” he whispered gently, smoothing her sweat-damp hair from her face. “Rest now.”

And Deborah could do nothing but take his advice.

Chapter 10

Deborah woke back in their shelter at the camp. It was late afternoon, and her body ached in that satisfying way as if she’d been working out at the gym. Then she remembered just how worked out she had been. The shroud of sleep began to lift and she blinked her eyes open to see Marcus smiling down at her with a self-satisfied air.

“Was it you back there?” Deborah perched up on one elbow and picked a piece of apple from the plate he offered. As the sticky-sweet flesh rolled over her tongue she was suddenly ravenous. “Was it, Marcus?” she pleaded, trying her best not to let guilt or paranoia spoil the incredible thing that had just happened to her. “Were you watching me from the bushes?”

He dropped his head and couldn’t look her directly in the eye.

“It was someone else, wasn’t it?” She gasped, reality sinking in. “Was it Birch?”

Marcus finally looked at her through his hair, his mouth curling into a small smile despite what looked like his efforts to stop it. He nodded.

Deborah began to tremble in a way she thought was shock or anger. They’d never shared each other before, ever, not even a kiss. But then, as he drew her into the most secure, comforting embrace, she realized it was excitement. It was the same feeling she’d had that morning while being fondled and caressed by Hazel before being lead to the clearing.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

He lowered her back onto the bed and lay beside her, running his fingers over her body, massaging her breasts then stroking her shoulders, neck, arms. She felt like a cat, purring on a sunny ledge, and just let herself fall into that sweet oblivion of sensation.

“I want us to have what they have,” he said slowly and quietly, but not gently enough to disguise the lust that flirted at the edges of his words. “I want to own you in the way he owns her, and I want you to own me in the way she owns him.”

“What do you mean? We do belong to each other.” She reached up and cupped his jaw.

“Yes, I know,” he said, bringing her even closer in to him. “But I want a bond that transcends all else. I want to know that no matter where we are, who we’re with, or what we’re doing, the bond between us will be unbreakable.”

“You’re not making sense, Marcus, and I’m tired.” She tugged herself free and rolled to face away from him, suddenly offended at what he had said. “It’s like you’re dismissing what we already have. And I think we’ve got something pretty special.” She was angry, but again she’d confused her own state of mind and realized what she felt was fear. What Marcus was saying scared her. He’d been making plans for when they were captured and separated. She started to cry.

He reached out for her, holding her, soothing her. “Birch and Hazel have been preparing their bond for months, years even.” He pulled her around to face him once more. “They want to know that, no matter what happens to their physical selves, they will always be together spiritually. They are striving to reach an emotional unity so intense that when they come, they are each other.”

“You know I’m a scientist, right?” Deborah smiled and poked him, trying to get him to see how crazy he sounded.

“Yes, and I’m a skeptical agnostic, but you can’t deny they are amazing.”

Deborah brought the past few days—could it be weeks?—to mind. The discussions the four of them had around the fire each night were philosophical, theological, sexual, scientific—never personal. Neither couple had inquired about the other’s situation or reasons for being there, exiled in the wood, or ventured their own story. It was like the code of the forest. It actually freed up a lot of space for getting right into the debates on life, existence, and all the good stuff. Deborah had found it scintillating and refreshing and had relished the talks. Marcus, though, seemed to have gleaned a lot more about the sexual spiritual side than she had. While she’d been thinking about the existence of God, he’d been wondering about fucking. She smiled to herself; she could only think after the best, most intense orgasm of her life that one of them had been the fool all this time, and it wasn’t him.

“So how do we do it?” She racked her brains and could only conclude that he must have been having private talks with Birch while they’d been out together hunting. She had to ask him. “Are you and Birch fucking?”

“Are you and Hazel?” His response was lightning fast, and she had not been expecting a counter-attack.

She blushed to the very roots of her hair. “No!”

“But you want to, right?” he asked, boring into her with his stare.

“No!” She was shocked. They’d never had an exchange like this before. It felt like it was rocking their foundations. “Well, yes— God, I don’t know. Maybe?” She dropped her head into her armpit in horror at her admission.

He lifted her face so gently it made her weep. “Me too. I wanted Birch.” He paused to correct himself. “I want Birch.”

She sobbed.

“But only with my body. I’ve never felt like this. It feels like a freedom.” As he spoke his eyes lit up and she could feel his heart quicken beneath his shirt. “This is what our society is, a polyamorous one. I’ve never thought it made sense before until I met these two. Birch has taught me the beauty of it. It doesn’t diminish our love, it makes it stronger.”

“I still don’t understand.” She was sobbing, but their fingers were laced through each other’s as they spoke.

“Well, here’s the theory...” He sat up cross-legged and Deborah did the same. “If we manage to make the unity bond—that is, come together so hard our spirits could slip past physicality and into each other’s, even just for a second—it means that it will happen again with every orgasm we have. Even by ourselves, or with different people, a part of our spirit will always meet at that point. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Deborah did her very best to suspend her disbelief long enough to agree that, in theory, it actually
was
a beautiful thing.

“So what happened today then? Was that part of this unity bonding?”

“Yes,” Marcus admitted, looking a little sheepish.

“Were they both in on it?” Deborah was battling with herself again, wanting to be angry, wanting to feel betrayed, but in truth, she was excited. Three people working on a plan for her sexual nirvana...she couldn’t help but feel honored. “I wish you’d told me, I’m your lover, your life partner.” She was trying hard to conjure up the anger she knew really ought to be there but just couldn’t.

“Yes, I know. But if I’d talked to you about it and you didn’t want to try, or were appalled, it might have changed something between us. And I never wanted that to happen.”

“So you got Hazel to seduce me?”

“No.” He looked embarrassed. “Well, yes. If you’d told her to stop, or hadn’t responded to her advances, it would have ended there.”

Now Deborah felt guilty and blushed once more.

“No, don’t, don’t feel bad,” he said, beaming at her. “I’m glad, and proud. And anyway, I knew you would respond.”

“How?” Deborah frowned. “How could you have known I would?” She didn’t like to be so predictable.

“Well—” He leaned in to her ear, sending the tiny hairs vibrating as he spoke. “That night I was fucking you, when I mentioned her sexy little hand going up inside you, you got so wet…” As if to push the point, he reached down and grabbed her whole mound, slipping a finger in between the still moist lips and rotating it in her depths. Deborah shifted her ass to allow him easier entry and spread her legs wide. Her own damp fragrance wafted up to her and he kissed her hard.

“Dinner’s ready,” Hazel called, and Marcus paused, his fingers still inside Deborah.

“Speak of the devil…” He smiled wickedly and eased out of her, kissing her on the forehead. “Come on, you must be hungry.”

Deborah smiled back, knowing all was perfect between them. “Yes, I’m hungry, but I really can’t eat another bloody squirrel.”