"Mom did what she could. She loved us."
"Is she gone?"
"No," I said. "I don't see her so often. She hasn't come to grips with everything."
"I'm sorry," Sarah said.
We talked for a while. My hands grew increasingly bold. I had my left hand playing with a nipple and my right between her legs. She opened her legs for me but didn't say anything.
"Will you tell me about your friends?" I asked her.
"Well," she said. "My closest friend currently has her fingers inside me, trying to make me squirm." As emphasis, she squirmed. "I want you to tease me like that for a while. That feels really nice."
"Who else?"
"Other friends?" She paused, gasped, then said, "No one."
I didn't know what to say about that.
"Keep doing that," she told me. She squirmed a little. "Oh. Um." She paused again. "My life started over four years ago, Allison. In that time, I've had two lovers, neither of them for more than a night, until you. You are my-" she gasped. "Oh, that's nice. You are my only friend. Scared?"
"Honored," I told her.
"Keep teasing," she said, squirming. "Make this last."
"Yes, Sarah," I said.
"I get fan mail," she said. "People who want to be my friend."
I laughed. "How does that work?"
"People write the authors of the books I do covers for asking about the model. Sometimes I'm recognized. A few times, not very many."
I kept my hand teasing her, playing with her clit, pinching it, then sliding inside her for a while. Slow and gentle, not rushing her. She was very wet and squirming under my hand.
"Jim wants to meet you," I told her.
"I bet Emily wasn't thrilled about that."
"She said something about a twenty-mile distance from you."
Sarah gasped and reached down to press my hand into her.
"Does that mean I need to be twenty miles away at Valentine's Day?"
"No," I said. "It means Emily was teasing him."
"Enough teasing," she said demandingly. "Kiss me. Finish me."
I leaned over and kissed her, holding her lips captive and sliding my tongue between her lips. She moaned as my fingers grew more insistent. Soon she was squirming and moaning, pressing my hand more firmly against her. She began to pant.
"Yes, Allison. Oh yes!" she whispered.
She started going wild under my hand, panting hard and moaning. "Yes, yes," she said. "Oh yes. Oh yes, so close."
"Please come for me, Sarah," I told her. "Let me feel you come."
She started to shudder, her vagina contracting against my fingers.
"Yes! Allison, yes!"
She thrust her hips up in to my hand, forcing my fingers deeper, then she screamed my name, shudders running through her body before she collapsed to the couth. She pressed my hand firm and I felt her continue to shudder.
Finally she lay still, panting quietly. After a minute, she rolled out of my lap and stood up. She took my hands. "Stand," she ordered. Then she led the way to the bedroom. "Stay."
I heard her putter around the cabin for a while before she returned.
"That was a good start to convincing me you're a worthwhile love slave," she said. I could hear her grinning. "Maybe I'll keep you."
I spent the next hour convincing her.
Snow Breeze
I woke to a tongue tickling my ear. "It's morning, Allison."
"Sarah," I said softly. "You weren't a dream."
"No, love." She nipped my ear. "Are you still my love slave?"
"Yes," I told her breathily.
I felt her fumbling at my head. "Hold still," she ordered. There was a snick, then she unbuckled the blindfold harness I'd worn since arriving last night. She pulled it from my head and I blinked in the morning light.
Sarah was on her side next to me in bed. It didn't look like she was wearing any clothes, but I suspect she had on a pair of panties. Probably mine. I couldn't quite remember from last night. I reached down to check, but she slapped my hand away playfully. She pressed me back into my pillow, then smoothed my face.
"You have marks from the harness," she said. "Maybe this isn't a toy we'll use when we have guests."
I giggled nervously.
"Go do the morning bathroom rituals," she ordered. "Then come back to me. You can talk to me during my backrub."
"Backrub is it?"
"All good love slaves give fabulous back rubs," she said. "I wonder if you're a good love slave."
"Only the best for you," I told her, grinning.
I took off for the bathroom, doing the normal things. I freshened up as well, brushing my teeth and so on. I also was going to need a shower, but that could wait. When I returned to the bedroom, Sarah had kicked off all the covers. She wasn't wearing panties.
"I expect a half hour of adoration," she said.
"Yes, Princess Sarah," I told her.
She rolled over and looked at me as I sat down. "Was that sarcasm? Am I pushing you too hard?"
"No, it was teasing," I told her. "I'd love to give you a back rub."
She eyed me suspiciously but then nodded and rolled back onto her stomach. "Thank you, Allison," she said.
I looked at her lovely body for a moment. Her long red hair was being particularly unruly. I used my fingers to brush it up out of the way. She had a slight but very feminine figure. I had more curves, but I loved her body. She had freckles across her shoulders that I loved to touch.
My hands behaved for a while. Sarah was a marvel. She had strong shoulders and well defined arms. All her muscles were toned, and she had a marvelous ass I stared at while massaging her back. This scared, confused, confusing woman had chosen my bed, and I felt amazingly lucky.
Moreover, she was allowing herself to be vulnerable to me.
I tried to decide if this was just a backrub, or something else. She'd kept me blindfolded since arriving; this was my first opportunity to look at her, and look at her I did. But was she telling me something else? Did accepting a backrub from me require more trust than she normally gave?
"You have such a nice touch, Allison," she said while I was working on the muscles of her lower back.
Was this backrub an opportunity to show her more of the advantages of sharing my bed?
My thoughts ran around in circles while my fingers traced circles on her skin. I bent over and kissed the back of her neck. She made an appreciative noise.
I don't know how long I rubbed Sarah's back. I lost myself in the hypnotic sensuality. It wasn't until both our stomachs made their desires known, almost in stereo, that I was broken out of my own trance.
She giggled and rolled onto her side, wrapping herself around me for a moment.
"Thank you, Allison," she said. "That felt amazing." She hugged me for a moment before rolling out of bed. I watched as she headed straight for my undies drawer. "Which ones do I want to wear today?" she asked. She looked over at me and grinned.
She dug through my undies. She pulled out a pink pair and set them on the top of the dresser. Then she pulled out a black pair. She stepped into them, wriggling her ass at me while she pulled them on. I watched the entire time.
Sarah turned to me. "Hungry," she said.
I smiled. "What may I feed you?"
"I brought a few things." She paused. "I'm not that good a cook. Other than here with you, I haven't ever really cooked over a real stove. Just a camp stove or a camp fire."
"I brought supplies for crepes," I told her.
"I changed my mind," she told me.
"About breakfast?"
"There's a sporting goods store in town. I won't let you buy me a pair of cross country skis, but I'll let you buy your cabin two pair, and if it happens that one of the pairs of boots fit my feet, I'd happily use them."
I laughed. "Breakfast, shower, shopping, then we learn to ski?"
"There might be a step between breakfast and the shower," she said impishly. "If the crepes are really good, it might be during breakfast."
She grinned again before walking to the closet. She pulled one of my bathrobes on then held another one for me. "Those are your undies this morning," she said, nodding to the pink ones.
"Pink?" She nodded. "Seriously?"
"Why do you have them if you don't wear them."
"I wear them," I told her. "I just wouldn't normally admit to it."
She laughed. "Pink. You'll look cute."
* * *
While I made breakfast, she pulled out her computer. She clicked away at it for a while before turning it to face me. Staring at me was a wolf.
"Did you take that?"
"Wednesday. Here's the original shot." She clicked and a shot from much further away appeared. "The close up is grainy. She was on the other side of the lake. She stepped out onto the snow and we stared at each other across the lake. I'm just happy I had my longest lens handy."
Then she clicked back to the first shot.
"She is gorgeous," I told her.
"I was hoping to see the whole pack. I did, once, but they were two miles away. I didn't even try to get photos."
While the crepes themselves were cooking, I set out the various choices for things to roll up inside. Sarah looked at them. "How do you stay skinny eating like this?"
"I don't eat like this very often."
* * *
An hour later found us at the outfitter store in town. They were well equipped to provide us with anything we would want for outdoor winter fun. Sarah gravitated first to the camping gear.
"I can't believe people camp in the winter," I told her.
"The Inuit people deal with weather a lot worse than ours," she pointed out. "If we're still together next winter, I'll teach you to enjoy winter camping."
I didn't say anything to that but followed her up and down the aisles. She stopped in the camp stove selection and spent quite a bit of time looking at a couple of stoves. She looked at the prices of both of them and frowned, then sighed and turned away.
"Sarah?"
She turned to me.
"Why are you looking at stoves?"
"I have one small stove. It's very lightweight and great for backpacking trips when I have to carry everything, but it's small and only allows me to cook one meal at a time. I do a lot of my camping close enough to my car I could take something heavier."
"But-"
She raised an eyebrow.
"I thought-"
I wanted to tell her, I thought we were together now. She wouldn't be living in a tent anymore. She stepped up to me and put two fingers over my lips.
"You and I have a lot to work through," she said. "It isn't all going to happen in one or two weekends. I'm not moving to the city. I might visit. But didn't you listen when I read my book to you?" She looked at the stoves. "I don't need one, and I'm not willing to pay this much for something I don't need. They aren't overpriced, but they're more than I want to pay."
"I would-"
She put her hand over my mouth again.
"No. I'll let you buy the skis because we're going to do it together. But I won't be your kept woman. Okay?"
I looked into her eyes and nodded.
"My birthday is in November," she said. "By then we'll know what our patterns are."
She kissed me on the cheek, then took my hand and pulled me to the ski department.
It wasn't a big store, but there were several other customers shopping and only two clerks. Eventually a young man of about twenty came over. "My name is Mark. Thinking about skis?" he asked.
Sarah turned away from him, leaving me to answer.
"Hello, Mark," I said. "Yes. We thought we'd give it a try."
Mark then asked a few questions. Sarah let me answer for both of us. I thought it was odd she wasn't taking charge. Mark gave us an education. I wasn't sure whether Sarah was paying attention until he asked she size and she immediately answered. Mark selected everything for us and had it all piled together when Sarah said, "Give us a minute, Mark."
He stepped away and she turned to me. "You might hate it. We could just go walking instead."
I studied her face. "Are you getting weirded out letting me buy this?"
She nodded. "This is modest equipment, but it's still going to be several hundred dollars." She paused. "If you're buying this only because you think I want you to, I'd rather you didn't."
I looked into her eyes. "Will you let me buy them?"
She smiled.
* * *
We got the skis back to the cabin. We bundled up more thoroughly, put the funny boots on, then carried the skis and poles down to the lake. Sarah helped me into my skis and I immediately fell on my side, laughing. When Sarah tried to help me stand back up, I intentionally pulled her down on top of me.
"Hey!" she said. "Stop screwing around."
I kissed her. She broke the kiss almost immediately, but the look she gave me was filled with hunger. "Allison," she said throatily. "If we start this, we'll never get to skiing." Then she climbed off me, and this time I let her pull me to my feet.
Sarah put her skis on, then the two of us started moving slowly through the snow.
"I thought this was supposed to be easier than walking," I complained after twenty steps.
"The powder is deep here," she said. "But the snowmobilers have packed things down out there." She pointed. "We'll ski on their tracks for a while."
I was breathing hard by the time we found some packed down snow. Sarah turned to the right and began following the snowmobile tracks. I followed behind her. She would step, glide, step, glide, and it was very graceful.
I tried it and fell over with a yelp.
She stopped and looked over her shoulder at me, then slowly turned around.
"You make this look so easy," I told her, struggling to get up. "You were barely paying attention to Mark." I gave her a sharp look. "You've done this before!"
"I was just listening more closely than you realized, plus I have my youth and vigor on my side."
"Don't start measuring me for a granny's rocking chair yet," I told her.
I finally leveraged my way back onto my feet. "Show me what you were doing."
She skied back to me. "It's easy. It's just like sliding on the ice. Step and glide. Step and glide. Just control your balance and use your poles."