Rough & Ready

by Pratt, Lulu

  “How’s this?” I asked, selecting a free space at random.

  She shrugged. “Not very private.”

  “You mean—”

  “But that’s okay,” she laughed, immediately picking up on my worry. “I think I wanna be around other people right now including you, don’t panic.”

  “How are you so calm?” I whispered, looking around to ensure that no one in the vicinity could hear me. “After everything that just happened?”

  Phoebe’s brow furrowed for a moment before clearing. “I guess… I know the worst is behind us. I’ve just weathered something terrible, awful, that nobody else my age, from my background, could ever imagine. And I lived. I might feel a little weak right now, but inside… inside, I am stronger. I’ve grown up.”

  I looked into her bright brown eyes. They’d been perceptive before, but also darting with the anxiety and freneticism of a college student. Now, those eyes didn’t look so young. Their flickering had slowed. I felt a pang of guilt at this until I realized that it wasn’t a loss of youth, but a gaining of maturity.

  There was some activity around us — a few families moving in and out of their tents, sitting in lawn chairs and chatting quietly. I suppose they’d carved a special path for the RVs to drive down and camp in the woods. It was quaint and endearing. I expected to see someone roll out fake grass and a fence in front of their trailer.

  Silently, I mourned the loss of my Airstream. That thing was a beaut, and it’d taken me ages to refurbish it. Of course, I’d saved what was most important from the trailer — Phoebe. Now, I supposed, I would just have the chance to start fresh — rehab something else, begin a new project. It was daunting, yes, but also a little thrilling. A new project, a new city, a new life.

  “This is a good spot,” she said.

  I pointed to the ground. “You mean to set up the tent?”

  “Yeah, that too.” She paused and kicked up some dirt with her blackened shoe. “But I meant a good spot in my life. To start fresh. To try to be me all over again.”

  “How did I get so lucky?” I asked, baffled by my own good fortune.

  She rolled her eyes and blushed. “Maybe it’s all that Texan charm.”

  “Naw. I think it’s cuz I’m so damn handsome.”

  She looped her arms around my shoulder, and, into my ear, murmured, “Well, that doesn’t hurt, either. The faster you set up that tent, the faster I can show you my particular East Coast charms, if you catch my drift.”

  Suddenly, all the loop and knobs fell into place, as if by magic. Guess I just needed a little push, eh?

  I stepped back, surveying the pop-up palace.

  “Your chariot,” I said to Phoebe, waving my hand at the tent which had sprung up within a minute flat.

  She grinned, and climbed inside.

  CHAPTER 30

  Phoebe

  THE TENT was small but cozy, gray nylon walls, a navy bottom, with a little net zip closure as an entryway. If I closed my eyes, I could picture it covered in rose petals, heaps of blankets, pillows. If I closed my eyes, I could see a whole home.

  “Come on in,” I said to Carter, who was still stationed outside the tent.

  “Can we both fit?” he asked, a little nervous.

  A fair enough question. Carter was well over six feet and muscular. If he flexed too hard, the tent might rip apart.

  “We’ll just have to snuggle real close.”

  A leg appeared, then an arm, and then his whole body was slipping inside with a surprising grace. He immediately went to his knees, as the ceiling was about half his height.

  “We don’t have any sleeping bags,” he said apologetically, as though it were his fault.

  I tilted forward, rising to my knees to meet him. “I don’t care.”

  “Or pillows.”

  “Who needs pillows?”

  “Or—”

  I put a finger over his mouth. “We don’t need anything. We have each other.”

  He looked around, still hesitant. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get anything nicer, or more, y’know, romantic.”

  “Carter.”

  “What?”

  I shook my head. “Stop apologizing. You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

  My hand went to his shoulder. At some point, his shirt had been seared open by the flames, and I could see his tanned skin through a hole in the sleeve.

  “I got you into this mess,” he said at last, looking miserable.

  “And I’m glad you did,” I replied. “You trusted me enough to bring me in. That’s all I’ve ever wanted — trust. Faith.”

  “You’re just being nice.”

  “I promise, I’m not. I spent a lot of my time in Rough and Ready trying not to be with you, trying to resist your pull. Now that I’ve given in… well, now I feel at peace. And nothing’s going to disturb that.” I added with a laugh, “Not even your fretting.”

  Carter took this in, his large hands splayed across his thighs. “And you really love me?” he murmured, brown eyes finding mine.

  “I love you,” I repeated. “I love you, I love you, I love you. And I don’t understand how love works this fast, but I also know that it’s real, it’s happening, and I have the grace to accept even that which I can’t analyze. I might be a psych major, but sometimes, the workings of the heart can and should be a mystery.”

  “And you don’t care that I’m just a lowly mechanic?” he asked.

  “You work hard, Carter. You provide for your son, and hell, you’re a single father. Nothing about you is ‘low.’”

  “I love you too,” he said in a soft voice.

  We hesitated, staring into one another’s eyes, knowing that this moment would count in the long run, that we had to get it absolutely right.

  “Do you know,” he said absently, breaking the reverie, “that tents are an integral part of marriage ceremonies in a variety of cultures?”

  “Oh yeah?” My heart raced at the mention of marriage.

  “Don’t worry,” he snorted. “I’m not getting down on one knee… yet.”

  Joy coursed through me. Obviously, I was twenty-one. Marriage wasn’t right around the corner. And, given Carter’s colorful past with women, I wouldn’t blame him for taking years to make up his mind. But just to know that he was thinking about it, and so soon, was enough. He was serious about me.

  “Now,” I said, pulling away from the tension. “Can we get out of these disgusting clothes?”

  He chuckled, his smile cracking lines in his smooth cheeks. “I’m so sore, I don’t know how I’ll pull this T-shirt off.”

  “Luckily, you know someone who’s willing to help.”

  “That woman outside, watering the plants?” he joked.

  I slapped him lightly across the forearm. “You wish.”

  “No,” he replied, his tone serious. “I wish for nothing else right now except to be with you. Absolutely nothing.”

  My body grew calm, as if centering on the truth that was Carter’s love for me. My racing blood slowed, my brain went still. Our first romantic encounters had been desperate, hungry, needy. This, I knew, would be different. It would be love-making.

  I reached for the hem of Carter’s shirt and slowly dragged it up, over his chiseled torso. He winced, lifting his arms up, and with great care, I navigated the shirt away from his skin.

  The skin revealed was a deep reddish-pink, which was a stark contrast to the light brown. The shirt caught his now-mussed curls up as I pulled, setting a couple of them loose from their slicked-back gel molding.

  “How do I look?” he asked, the words joking but his tone earnest.

  I kissed his shoulder. “Like a man who’s been through hell.”

  In a deep voice, he added, “And who has found heaven. My turn.”

  He shifted forward so that he could copy my actions, helping me carefully take the shirt off. The pain was subsiding by then, receding into a distant memory of my body, an album of scars that maybe I would open someday. But f
or now, the book was shut — there was something far better to revisit.

  He stripped me down to my bra, then leaning in, reached behind me to unclasp that as well. It slid down my arms, exposing my breasts.

  Carter’s eyes ran over me, examining and somehow also caressing me.

  “You’re pink,” he observed distantly. “Everywhere.”

  “Just well done,” I kidded.

  “Your neck,” he said, his brow furrowing. “It’s…”

  “Kiss it better,” I told him, my voice stirring with emotion.

  “I’m at your service.”

  He surged up to me, lips landing on my neck, the softest of kisses, like a butterfly alighting on a brilliantly colored flower.

  “How’s this feel?” he asked as his lips followed the circle.

  “Like medicine.”

  He stopped, breathing warm air onto my neck, little puffs of healing. I was home. I was safe.

  “The rest of me aches, too,” I said pointedly.

  “Well then, let’s just see what we can do about that.”

  His lips journeyed from my lips to my collarbone, which he ran over with his mouth and fingers, caressing me gently, tapping himself into my skin. Carter, apparently satisfied with his doctoring, then went to my breastbone, laying a full hand across it.

  “This is strong,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Your heart.”

  I took his hand and pressed it more firmly on my heart, as if to leave an imprint.

  “And it’s all yours,” I told him.

  Carter bit his lip, holding back a smile, before moving his mouth back to my chest and finally mounting the hill of my breast, descending to the peak of my nipple. He took it between his lips, his touch feather-light.

  I breathed deeply, feeling better already. It was like he awakened the healing systems of my body, directing my cells to every piece of flesh he passed.

  His head ducked and moved laterally to the other breast, where he tenderly took in my other nipple, suckling at it so lightly. It occurred to me that there was an inherent irony in his movements. Though his face at my breast suggested I was nursing him, it was in fact he who was nursing me.

  The thought propelled my own hands to his torso, dragging him closer so that I could run fingers across his perfect abs, the little curls of brown hair that led into his pants.

  In one smooth motion, I laid down, pulling Carter atop me. His body hovered over mine. He was carefully maneuvering his weight such that none of it landed on me. I looked to the left, and saw his fist pressed into the ground, balancing him in thin air.

  “You can lay on me,” I told him with a smile. “I won’t break.”

  “I can’t take that chance.”

  He spread his legs out on either side of mine, creating a base so that he could crouch up, just enough to undo my jeans and pull them down my legs. He tucked them in the far corner of the tent, knowing full well that we had to conserve space. In the same motion, he unzipped his own jeans and shimmied them off.

  We were all but naked, alone in a tent in the middle of the woods. Who knew that Rough and Ready could lead me to paradise?

  His fingers dangled above my white underwear, which had escaped Meghan’s scorching, his fingertips brushing up against the cotton. Somehow, despite everything that had happened today, I was soaking wet. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was just Carter.

  Through the fabric of his boxer briefs, I could see that the sentiment was reciprocated. His boner was hefty, and his underwear was straining to hold it in, as if the mere weight could rip them asunder.

  We didn’t need words this time around. We understood how each other’s bodies worked, understood what they wanted. There was no forceful direction, no careful instructions. It was intuitive and sweet, a communion of mind as well as flesh.

  Carter, still kneeling, took his underwear off, leaving his enormous cock exposed. Though I was tired, injured, and all around a mess, the sight of that glorious cock revitalized me, as if it had special healing powers that modern medicine had yet to crack.

  He was a statue of a man. Had I noticed that before, in the fit of our passion? I didn’t think so. I didn’t think my eyes had gone over every inch of his body, inspecting it and finding it beyond suitable. He was what my mother would call “strapping,” a man built in the image of nature — thick thighs, a slim torso that narrowed into a sharp V, large shoulders that created the topmost edge of the triangle. I could reduce him down to shapes — parallel lines, pyramids, the cylindrical curve of his cock. He was sacred geometry.

  “You doin’ a li’l window shopping?” he joked.

  “I’m not shopping,” I replied. “I think I already own the goods. Isn’t that right?”

  He nodded solemnly. “You do indeed, Phoebe.”

  With his help, I shimmied out of my underwear. He brought them to his nose, and I laughed.

  “Ew!”

  He shook his head. “Smells like you.”

  “Burnt?”

  “Delicious.”

  Carter nestled the underwear in the corner alongside the rest of our clothes. There was now just enough space in the tent for our bodies and nothing else. It was like a cocoon of nylon, ensnaring us, allowing us to grow inside and become our better selves.

  While in the corner, he delved into his pocket and whipped out a condom packet. I watched as he rolled it on, admiring the view it gave me of him.

  His body was over me again, as though it had never left, his cock inches from my moistness.

  “Phoebe?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  And with that, Carter pressed inside me.

  His cock felt like the answer to a prayer. Is it possible for a mere appendage to fulfill a soul’s deepest longing? It made me over anew, rewrote my story.

  We were in simple missionary, the plainest of positions, the one people shy away from because it’s ‘too bland.’ But with Carter it was spectacular, intricate, a movement of hips and thighs and arched backs and angled chins. He made everything brighter.

  His fingers found my clit and began to massage it, urging me to let go of my tension, to find peace.

  “That’s my girl,” he said as my face melted into bliss. “Relax.”

  I felt my weight sink deeper into the floor, the way it did when I meditated. I was grounded in nature’s carpet, only the thin layer of the tent separating me from Mother Earth.

  He thrust inside me with long, deep strokes, his cock moving like the bow of a violin, thrumming across my strings and causing me to produce deep notes of joy.

  I curled my fingers in his hair, pulling his mouth to mine. Our lips met and we kissed passionately.

  His hand remained on my pussy, coaxing me to release, while his cock plunged in and out of me, moved by the strength of his hips and thighs.

  “You’re magnificent,” he said.

  There was no space between us. It felt like one body, united in shared pleasure. At both our centers there was a surging of warmth, of union. He ended at my beginning, but that was the only one I could distinguish between us. Is this what it was, to exist in two bodies at once? To transfer yourself from one form to another? His lean hips felt like my own, and when his bones pressed into mine, I could’ve sworn that they melted into a single framework.

  His face reddened and my breathing grew shallow. I arched my hips up with what energy I had left, my body needing more of his healing.

  “Carter, I’m going to come.”

  Somehow, he managed to press more deeply into me, his fingers burrowing down into my clit.

  “So am I,” he admitted, his breath ragged.

  “Together?”

  “Together,” he agreed.

  With that, he gave a few more long, deep strokes.

  I felt the thread between us snap as relief poured out of us, blood hot in our veins, muscles sparking and sending a dizzying variety of signals to our br
ains and hearts. Brain. Heart. There were no more plurals.

  Our breathing united around several half-gasps, our eyes closing together.

  We were orgasming in perfect unison, in fantastical synchronicity. I loved this man. The words had been true before, but now, they felt seared into my heart. Beneath the burns and the bruises, there was this new love which nothing could hurt.

  The thread that had snapped seem to rewind itself, this time thicker and sturdier. Even as we split apart, Carter pulling himself out of my entrance and hoisting himself down onto the ground, I felt the thread. Physical manifestation was superficial. These ties would always bind.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied truthfully.

  “Neither do I.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  I didn’t attempt to meet his eyes. I had no energy left, no ability to roll over and stare into his soul. We lay shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, no space possible between us.

  “It means,” he said slowly, “that this is something greater than I can understand. It terrifies and thrills me. I’m okay not understanding it any further than that. Are you?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  And then, I found the last piece of strength I needed to turn onto my side and tuck into his armpit, resting my head on his shoulder.

  “What now?”

  The vibrations of his voice shivered in my cheek. “Now, we start our life together.”

  EPILOGUE

  Carter

  A Year Later

  HENRY LOOKED like a little vision in his tiny suit, checkered bowtie a bit askew but only in the cutest way possible.

  “Is she coming?” Henry asked eagerly. “Will Phoebe like my suit?”

  I laughed, “She’s gonna love it, champ.”

  “Your suit looks good too, Daddy.”

  “Why, thank you, Henry. I appreciate that.”

  He wasn’t wrong — this suit was doing good things for me. I’d gone with a classic navy – simple, discreet and cut to perfection. Already a few other girls in the audience had eyeballed me hungrily. If only they knew, I thought with amusement, that they don’t stand a damn chance.