Turtle Dove: A Lesbian Romance

by Marian Stack

  As she watched Blair continue to walk away screaming and shouting profanities and flaring her arms in the air, she thought she would sit and take a peek in the bag that damn-near killed them both.

  As she unzipped the bag she was instantly over the moon with delight. Even though the action to capture the bag was death defying the reward was outstanding. The bag was filled with supplies. The inventory contained some dried food packets of fruits and vegetables soup mix, containers that would hold water, a sealed bag of basic health products and the best of all it held a survival blanket and two rain tarps, including the ground stakes and securing ropes. She could not believe their luck. Quite frankly she could not believe all the good fortune they were experiencing. Getting out of the gauntlet without major injury was unheard of. And then surviving the water and all and now having these lifesaving gifts. She truly believed her parents were watching out for her from above. Her faith in her skills was strong but her faith in her parents clearly was stronger. After she sent a silent prayer of thanks to her parents she began to take inventory of their bounty.

  So engaged with her task at hand she lost track of time. Now delighted with the supplies that they had acquired, she turned to speak to her unusually silent guest and suddenly realized that there was no one around screaming at her. She nervously stood to look up and turned in the direction her crazed guest had escaped. Taking a big breath she was pleased to observe the woman slowly walking back from her much needed time-out.

  “Are you okay?” Turtle hesitated to ask for fear of a screaming response.

  Without responding to the question Blair immediately noticed the open gear bag and the bounty of items on the ground that Turtle had so meticulously assembled according to need.

  “Is this all the stuff that was in the bag? “She exclaimed as her eyes excitedly scanned the bounty of items.

  “Holy shit do we have food?” She screamed out as she noticed the bags of dried food piled next to the tarps.

  Suddenly and to Turtles’ amusement she rapidly snatched up one of the cellophane packages and with eye blinking speed she pulled open the top of the zip locked top and began to shovel handfuls of dried food into her mouth with unstoppable speed.

  “So how do you like me now?” Blair garbled out.

  “How great is this? I found this bag and now we have food.” She exclaimed with pride, with her mouth full of dry food.

  In her haste to eat, she mistakenly tore open one of the vegetable soup mix packets.

  Turtle waited patiently for the eating disorder to kick in.

  And within seconds, Blair began to show signs of question. She began to choke a little at first and then a lot from the combination of talking while she shovelled food in her mouth and the fact that she was unaware that she had not drank anything in well over three hours and that the dry food was nearly impossible to swallow without any means of moisture.

  “Water…I need water.” She whispered out, motioning with her hands at her throat.

  “This shit is terrible. Was this the shit you were going to feed me at the camping site?” Remaining in the kneeling position that she stopped at when she grabbed the packet of food from the ground, she leaned over and began to spit and choke out the unwanted food remaining in her mouth and what was half swallowed. “What the fuck?”

  Turtle knew there was little she could to do help her choking companion, and stating the obvious was really going to set her off, so instead she decided to remain mute, and allow several moments to pass as she sat and watched Blair spit and vomit the half eaten soup mixture, that was coming out of her mouth in dry clumps.

  In her mind she found this scene both hilarious and sad.

  “Blair, I’m really sorry to inform you but we do not have any water, or anything else that will quench our thirst. But what we do have is a lot of great stuff here that will save our lives. We have tarps and a blanket and…” Turtle was unable to complete her informative talk as Blair stood, and in a not so lady-like fashion, spit out the last remaining piece of soup mix from her mouth towards the ground, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and stormed off again.

  Saddened by the outburst, Turtle knew that she was way out of her element dealing with this out of control person. Taking a big deep breath she stood to watch her guest storm off towards the cliff’s edge. She knew she needed to follow her and convince her that she just needed to remain calm and that hopefully rescue would arrive soon and all this, would just be a horrible experience, however what she really wanted was more silence.

  She was still feeling the effects of the blow to her head and with the tail end of the thunderous headache lingering just below the surface, she selfishly just wanted silence for a little while to think, so she let her guest run away, again. She was not used to all this yelling and anger but she also knew that if this person did not get control of herself she was very worried that this woman she was trying so hard to help was going to do everything possible to self-destruct and possibly get hurt or killed. So after completing her own thought filled turmoil of what to do, Turtle reluctantly pushed her own wants to the back of her mind, stood and walked towards the woman who was now standing at the cliff’s edge that would lead to a very dangerous fall, back into the canyon from which they had just survived.

  “Miss Foster I need you to trust me.” She spoke very softly so not to startle and have her fall back into the gorge. “I need you to trust in yourself. We need to start walking towards the cave…”

  Blair spun around on the spot and inquired as if asking for direction to the theater. “And what cave are you talking about?”

  “Ah… the cave I talked about before we began the climb out of the canyon. I did mention this right?” Her voice indicated questioning her own memory.

  Blair was so embarrassed, again, regarding her out of control temper tantrums that she let Turtle believe that she had not mentioned anything about a cave.

  “Oh my God… Miss Foster, no wonder you are so scared. Yes… there is a cave around here and if we can get to it, well it’s a sulphur fed cave, and trust me it will heal us both and give us great shelter. If you just give me a few more moments I will try to get a read on our location. You see my father and I have travelled to this cave for years but unfortunately never from this direction so it may be a little harder to locate but I know it’s on this side of the river. So at least we have that in our favour.” Turtle spilled out the information believing that her guest would be happy, but sadly she just stood in the same spot with a vacant look on her face.

  “Okay… well I believe that we need to head off in this direction.” Turtle pointed with her hand, gesturing to Blair to start walking.

  In complete silence she accepted the decision to begin their march to the cave and began walking without her guide.

  Turtle rapidly accepted the silent agreement and quickly walked over to the gear bag and hastily repacked the precious bounty, then threw the pack over her shoulders to carry like a back pack, leaving her hands free.

  After about two hours of walking in the early summer sun heat both woman had begun to notice that their skin was hurting. The sun had begun to dry the wet suit fabric. Turtle knew that wet suits were only to be worn for short periods of time and should always remain semi wet when not completely submerged in water. The longer they remain in the suits the more damage would occur to their pruning skin.

  Then suddenly and on cue Blair screamed out, “What the fuck, my skin is hurting. I need to get out of this wet suit. I don’t imagine you have any proper clothing in that bag of shit you are carrying?”

  “Yes, I agree. My skin is beginning to hurt and itch as well. If you can just hang on for a few more moments and if we can just get to that grouping of trees we can…”But once again Turtle was not able to complete her sentence as Blair interrupted her.

  “That will take too long. I’m hurting now.” She began another of her tantrums, however this time Turtle did not allow it.

  “Enough… Would you plea
se just stop yelling? You are not the only one out here. You are not alone. So would you please just stop wanting.” Turtle was surprised by her own small outburst.

  Blair was so surprised by her guide’s command that she did as she was told.

  Both women stood staring at each other in complete silence.

  Turtle found her courage to continue. “I knew wearing a wet suit for this long would begin to create problems and what I suggest is that you slowly begin to take off the suit from the top down. First just unzip the zipper to the end and allow air to enter, while we continue to walk towards the trees.” Turtle took off the gear bag from her back and set it on the ground. She unzipped first exposing her skin to the air. She did not and never wore a bra or suit top of any kind but indicated zero embarrassment about exposing her breast to a complete stranger. “Now you do the same.” She spoke as she walked over to Blair with outstretched hands to help her unzip.

  Quite expectantly, Blair slapped Turtle’s hand from taking the zipper which stunned her to the point she stepped backwards nearly falling to the ground as she stumbled over an exposed tree root.

  “Who do you think you are? And just what do you think you are doing. Just because we are alone doesn’t give you the right to attack me?”

  Turtle was absolutely shaken by Blair’s response. “Oh my…I’m sorry I was just trying to help.”

  “Well don’t.” Blair snapped back, as she unzipped the wet suit, and then immediately began to struggle to pull the suit from her shoulders.

  Against her better judgement Turtle spoke in a whisper, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you!”

  “Oh… my God, this really hurts.” Blair cried out.

  Again in a whisper Turtle informed her guest, “That’s why I said just unzip for now and let the air start to dry out the inside of the suit. If you keep pulling and struggling all you are going to do is pull skin with the suit.” It was very hard for Turtle to keep her tone of voice from sounding righteous.

  Blair immediately turned around to expose her back to Turtle and expressed her anger. “Okay, I get it. But don’t look. This isn’t a peep show.”

  Blair started walking again without offering any conversation regarding Turtles’ help or knowledge if the direction she was heading was correct or not. She seemed to continue to accept her guide as her saviour and regardless of her mood or her belligerence she firmly believed safety was on her side.

  Meanwhile Turtle hustled over and grabbed the heavy lifesaving gear bag, however before she secured the bag on her back she pulled the sealed bag of nuts and cranberries from one of the side pouches. She then threw the bag over her head and secured the handles in each hand. She felt the weight of the bag pull her shoulder back and knew she should be asking her guest to carry some of the precious load but settled on the idea that the weight was easier to handle than another go-round of anger.

  As they continued to walk deeper into the forest Turtle’s mind went back to the incident when Blair was so tender when caring for her head injury, leaving her struggling to get a handle regarding this woman’s personality. One minute she was very nice and tender and the next a raging lunatic.

  “Miss Foster, hold up a minute. I have something for you.” Turtle thought that offering a gift of food would sweeten her guest’s mood.

  However Blair decided to ignore her guide’s request and continue to forge ahead.

  Turtle tried again to get her attention. “Excuse me, Miss Foster. I have something for you.” She purposely chose to use a motherly tone of voice.

  Completely insulted by the pretend voice Blair turned to scream at the annoying voice, but to her absolute surprise she saw Turtle dangling at arm’s length a plastic bag in the air.

  “No fucking way! Is that real food?” Blair raced to grab the bag.

  “Yes, this is good delicious food. And you can eat it all if you wish, but with one condition.” Turtle spoke and then with a teasing gesture she pushed the bag of food into her open wet suit.

  Blair slid to a stop and screamed out, “What the fuck? What kind of crazy person are you? I’m starving to death and this is how you treat your guest?”

  With as much kindness in her voice that Turtle could muster she spoke in a whisper, “First of all, we are not starving to death, a little hungry, perhaps, but certainly not starving. Now Miss Foster, I have promised you that you will be fine and I will get us both out of here unharmed and I never go back on my promises. But you will need to stop screaming and using the continued profanity that spills from your mouth. You can have the nuts and berries if you only promise to begin to enjoy the unbelievable beauty that is all around you.” She gestured with both her arms to the surrounding beauty. And then began again, “Are you hurt in any way? No.” Turtle decided to answer this simple but important question. She then continued staring straight at her guest stunned face, “So please do yourself a favour, enjoy this adventure and stop all of this.” Turtle put her hands in the air indicating all the drama.

  Seconds passed before Blair could find words to respond to Turtles’ righteous tongue lashing.

  And then without warning and completely out of character, or at least Turtle believed it was out of character, Blair stepped forward until her body was inches away from her teachers’ and with her right hand, she reached into the open unzipped portion of Turtle’s wet suit, slowly manoeuvred her hand in search of the bounty of food, and then surprisingly remained very still as she gazed into Turtle’s eyes. And then with precision she purposely moved her hand upwards so that the skin of her hand gently slithered across Turtle’s beast.

  “Thanks for the talk. And thanks for the food.” Blair removed her hand, turned her entire body in one easy elegant movement and walked away.

  “Good talk.” Turtle whispered out as she slid her hand, palm side down over her hardened breast nipple, over the wet suit.

  All the while, as they hiked through the various terrains of the landscape from small hills to meadows to walking through denser brush, Turtle constantly searched for signs and land marks that would indicate they were on the right path to the cave. She and her father had travelled thru much of this mountainous region but it seemed never to this point. Nothing was familiar. She was not worried for herself but she knew with such an unstable person in her care she needed to find shelter and soon. She had noticed the cumulus clouds building to the north and that always meant oncoming heavy rain fall and at this time of the year a little mixture of hail was often part of the storm.

  “Miss Foster.” Turtle called out. “Could you please wait where you are? I want to take a fast look around this area, I think I know where we are, but I would like to take a run up this small hill.”

  Blair stopped walking and turned to notice Turtle putting the gear bag on the ground to take off up the hill on another path, from the very narrow path they had been on for several hours. “Wait where you are for just a minute.” Turtle’s orders were clear.

  “Fine, I could use the rest, my feet are killing me.” Blair proceeded to sit on a moss laden rock to investigate her hurting feet. Her personal foot wear usually consisted of very expensive shoes with high heels. Not flat rubber enclosed water shoes.

  As Turtle investigated the path up the hill, Blair began to investigate her hurting feet.

  As Turtle crested the top of the hill she stood to survey the landscape and to her delight she knew exactly where they were.

  As Blair began to pull her left rubber booty from her foot she discovered the mess of blisters and blood accompanied by extremely wet and peeling skin.

  Satisfied, Turtle immediately turned to descend the hill to relay the exciting news that the cave was just a few hours or so to the east of where they were. As she approached Blair she yelled out to her that she knew their exact location.

  “Miss Foster, the cave should be in sight in a couple of hours. We will be…”as Turtle approached she noticed the boot on the ground and then as she walked around she noticed the horrible condition of the expos
ed foot, “Oh my.” Turtle’s voice expressed real concern.

  Not wanting to show weakness Blair stated with unconvincing strength, “I’ll be fine. You have made your point very clear. I’m too much of a burden for you. I will…”

  “You are so aggravating. How long have your feet been hurting?” She immediately changed her pitch of voice when she noticed the tears spilling down Blair’s cheeks.

  She then gently placed her hand on Blair’s shoulder offering unspoken affection regarding her pain and stated, “Never mind. Stay where you are, I know what to do.” Turtle stated as she turned to fetch the gear bag that was set down a few yards from where Blair sat.

  She quickly returned with the gear bag and proceeded to search in the bag for what she believed would help doctor the exposed foot with some medicated powder that her father instructed her to use many years prior during another rafting trip that went a little south.

  Turtle knew that continuing on was now out of the question. Her guest’s injury was now the only priority.

  “Miss Foster getting to the cave is very important but drying out your feet is now our top concern. Truthfully I’m amazed you were able to get to this point. You must have been in horrible pain. Please forgive my past behaviour, and please remain here and I will find us a flatter piece of land to rest and then set us up a camping spot. Please do not try to get up.” Turtle looked into Blair’s frighten eyes, grabbed both her hands and stated, “Trust me.”

  Turtle was only gone for about thirty minutes when she heard a giant scream for help. She ran with all her speed down the hill to the spot that she was positive her guest was located. Turtle yelled out, “What’s wrong, why are you screaming for help.” Her entire body was noticeably shaking as she approached Miss Foster who was now standing in a defensive posture, holding onto a large tree limb.

  “What the fuck, are there bears and wolves and shit out here?” Blair innocently questioned.