Facts of Life

Why is it that outdoor types and fitness fanatics believe that everyone should be an outdoor type and fitness fanatic? I don't mind going for a gentle stroll in the woods but hiking all day just doesn't cut it with me. Camping is a similar deal. You make your camp and pitch your tent and light your fire and cook your dinner and go to bed with the mosquitoes, fire-ants, scorpions and spiders. Not to mention snakes. I'd rather go and pitch my tent into the nearest river and hie myself off to the nearest motel, the more luxurious the better.

At least, that's what I'd do if I had any choice in the matter. I explained to my parents that at eighteen I was quite capable of looking after myself for a fortnight and I was really too busy to get away for a couple of weeks camping, but they wouldn't hear of it. If necessary they were prepared to ring up any appointments I might have had and request they be deferred. My mother would have done it, too.

Resignedly I prepared for the annual fortnight of hell. We hit the old campgrounds in the middle of the day. This is so my father has time to explore and pick the furthest possible camping site. I was quite willing to camp just inside the main entrance, preferably right outside the trading post and restaurant.

In place of that convenient spot we had to hike five miles through thick forest to find a tiny clear spot with barely enough room to pitch a tent. I may have exaggerated a little there, but it certainly felt like five miles and those woods might just as well have been a forest. As far as I'm concerned any place with a lot of trees and wild animals is a forest.

We pitched our camp. Surprisingly the little spot we found was big enough for both my parent's tent and mine, with a little bit of space left over. Dad set about building a little camp-fire, eager to get on with cooking some dinner. It was almost a pity that I had to remind him that it was a day of total fire ban. He was almost ready to light a match when I broke the news. He gave me a doubtful look but I assured him it was true. Hadn't he seen the notice at the main gate?

No fire meant that we had to trek back to the main entrance and the restaurant to get dinner. I didn't miss noticing that dad sneaked a peak at the fire rating board, looking rather chagrined when he found out I was right. Score one for me.

Back to the camp and by that time I was tired enough to sleep, even if it was in a sleeping bag. I zipped up my tent and sprayed it liberally for flying pests, lay down, and zonked off.

A good thing I did go to sleep so fast. I awoke early the next morning. The sun was shining, too damn early, the birds were singing, too damn loudly, and my parents were calling me, also too damn loudly.

As we had no fire it was off to the restaurant for breakfast. After that we'd be going for a hike. A long hike. My parents were firm believers in exercise being good for you. I had already laid down my plans.

Leaving the restaurant I accidentally tripped going down the steps, twisting my ankle. I told my mother that the forest rangers knew first aid. It's one of their basic requirements. She helped me as I limped over to the ranger station. Once there I told her that she'd better go and tell dad and I'd wait right here after seeing about some first aid.

She trotted off and I limped into the ranger station. There was a nice young man sitting behind the desk and I limped over to him.

"Hurt yourself, ma'am?" he asked.

"Why, yes," I agreed. "I tripped coming down the restaurant steps and twisted my ankle. It's just strained, not sprained, and all I really need to do is keep off it as much as possible for the next two days."

"Um, yes. Perhaps I'd better have a proper look at it. We are trained in first aid, you know."

"I know," I said, smiling sweetly, "and you have just made an amazing diagnosis that totally agrees with mine."

Another requirement of the rangers is intelligence. This guy passed. He looked at me thoughtfully and slowly nodded.

I sat on the steps outside the ranger station, waiting for my parents to come. As soon as they arrived the ranger popped his head out the door and gave them my diagnosis, word for word.

"You might like to borrow one of those walking staffs," he added, pointing to a number of stout sticks leaning against the wall. "Hikers find them and use them but we discourage them from taking them away so we always have a few available. Your daughter can use it to get back to your camp and then put her foot up."

"Pity," grumbled my father. "We were going for a long hike today. I guess we'll have to put that off for a while."

"Oh, really, dad," I protested. "You can still go. I'll be OK at the camp by myself. It's not as though I'm going to be eaten by a bear or anything."

"She's right," the ranger chipped in. "She'll be perfectly safe. We haven't had the bears eat a camper for days now. I'll even drop by your camp when I do my rounds to make sure she's OK."

I limped my way back to our camp and I dragged my sleeping bag out of my tent and settled down on it. Checking my phone I found I had a signal which reassured my parents. I also had a small solar charger which would keep the phone going. To help pass the time I also had an ereader with a decent stock of books on it.

After ensuring that I was fine with some snacks and drinks available for my lunch they left, heading on their nice long hike. I very nearly jumped to my feet and did a victory dance, restraining myself with the knowledge that my mother would be bound to look back and catch me doing it.

I spent an interesting morning chatting on the phone and reading, occasionally giving thanks to the person who invented solar chargers. Even out in the wilds you could keep in touch. I had my lunch and idly considered hiking down to the trading post for a look around. I decided against this for two reasons. First I was too lazy and second if I did go some gossip might mention it to my parents. I settled in for an afternoon of doing nothing.

Just after lunch the ranger I'd spoken to came wandering past. "Just checking to see that you're OK," he said. We chatted for a short while, me explaining how I really hadn't wanted to do a full day's hike up the mountains. He sympathized but I don't think he really understood, being an outdoors type himself. He probably enjoyed galloping up and down mountains and chasing after bears and things.

He went on his way, more camp sites to check out and trails to stroll down looking for lost sheep. I settled down to relax some more.

I'd just got off the phone from talking to a friend and was about to settle down with my ereader for a while when this guy strolled into the camp. I politely rose to my feet to say hello and see what he wanted.

He was a husky young man, older than me by several years, wearing a good-natured grin. He had this amazing shock of red hair, really thick and sticking out in all directions. I heard someone refer to a mutual friend as having combed his hair with a hand grenade. That was the exact impression that Red gave.

"How you going?" he said cheerfully, looking casually around.

"Doing OK," I said. "How can I help you, Red?"

"Eh? Do I know you? No, can't be. No way I'd forget knowing someone as pretty as you. How'd you know my name? Someone mention me?"

Oddly enough he did look familiar but I was sure we hadn't met before. I shook my head.

"Ah, no, we haven't met. I just took a guess at what they'd call you."

I mean, really, with that hair what else would they call him?

"Oh. Good guess. The hair gave it away, eh?"

I nodded, smiling.

"Are you here for a reason or just being sociable?"

"Being sociable is a reason, isn't it?" he said, laughing at me, and I had to concede that it was.

While we were talking Red had been wandering around the camp just looking about generally. He'd noted the two tents but hadn't tried to look into them. He suddenly turned and looked straight at me.

"I know who you are. I was chatting to a ranger this morning and he was laughing about a young woman who, ah, sprained her ankle rather than go on a long hike. What's your name?"

"I'm Patricia and I didn't sprain my ankle. I just twisted it. I couldn't help it."

"Yeah, and I believe you. Thousands wouldn't, but I'm gullible."

I glared at him but he was laughing and it was hard to take offence.

Red had finished wandering around and was now standing next to me. To my surprise (and there's an understatement) he bent down, grabbed the bottom of my dress and lifted it straight up and over my head, peeling it right off me and leaving me standing there in bra and panties. When I found myself not going on the hike I'd got rid of my hiking clothes, preferring to wear a light dress, as the day was quite warm. Now I wanted my jeans back on.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing," I screeched at him.

"Taking your clothes off," he said, as though it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

"Well don't," I snarled, trying to snatch my dress out of his hand.

"If I don't take your clothes of, how am I supposed to make love to you?" he asked.

"You're not going to," I told him.

"Precisely," he said happily. "So your clothes have to come off."

"No. I mean you're not going to. Full stop. Clothes on or off, it makes no difference. You are not making love to me. I don't even know you."

"Yes, you do. I'm Red and you're Patricia, although I think I'll call you Pat. Easier to say. And we are going to make love because I want to."

"We're not because I don't want to and if you try to force me it'll be rape."

"And your point is?" he asked, looking curious.

"What do you mean, my point is. I'm saying you can't make love to me. If you try it will be rape. Do you understand?"

"I understand but I don't see why calling it rape should stop me. Rape's just a fact of life. You've probably been raped several times and it hasn't hurt you. Another time is just an interesting experience."

"I have never been raped and I have no intention of starting now."

"Says you. Hasn't your boyfriend ever wanted sex when you didn't?"

"Sometimes," I admitted. Frequently, truth be known. He had sex on the brain.

"And have you ever let him even though you didn't really want to?"

"Sometimes," I admitted uncomfortably.

"Then that can be classified as rape. He made you have sex when you didn't want to. Just close your eyes and pretend that I'm your boyfriend pressuring you when you don't want to."

"It wasn't rape," I protested. "I let him because I love him."

"Bullshit. You let him because he was horny and pressured you. Poor you. Another victim of man's brutality towards women. Relax. You'll find rape is simpler if you just relax and go with the flow."

"Simpler for you, you mean," I said, almost snarling the words at him.

"That too," he agreed.

Then he tossed my dress to one side and was yanking my panties down before I could stop him. He demonstrated that he knew what he was doing. He didn't try to take my panties right off, just leaving them around my ankles. I instinctively tried to move away from him only to find my feet tangled in my panties and tripping me.

He'd been waiting for that. He caught me as I was falling, guiding me down to land on my sleeping bag, with him settling down next to me. Grabbing my bra he pushed it up, popping my breasts free. I tried to hit him and he caught my wrists pushing them up above my head and holding them there.

"Take it easy," he said, holding my wrists in one hand while he continued to push my bra up, dragging it over my head and along my arms. Letting go my wrists he whipped it off and tossed it aside, leaving me naked. My panties had come right off while I was falling.

He began touching me, starting off by stroking my breasts. I promptly tried to scratch him only to find myself with my wrists pinned above my head again while he calmly caressed my breasts. He didn't stop at playing with my breasts, his hand moving down to start rubbing my mons and then my mound. He was stoking me, deliberately trying to get me worked up (and succeeding), and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

I was squirming about and protesting and he just laughed at me, continuing to work on my body, apparently determined to bring me to a climax with just his fingers. For a while there I thought he'd do just that.

He finally stopped touching me, letting me go while he pushed down his trousers. I was going to try to scramble away but I hesitated, shocked at what he was revealing. His erection looked enormous. I couldn't believe that it was that large. I'd only ever had a close up view of one erection before this, my boyfriend's, and I'd thought that was large. Now I was having second thoughts.

I was having other thoughts, too. Notably, one that said I should get the hell out of there. I finally tried to scramble away but I'd left it far too late. Red rolled over on top of me, pinning me to the ground. He also caught my wrists again. That man could move fast.

"This is the way it's going to go," he told me. "I am now going to make love to you. If you want to struggle feel free to do so, but it just means you'll be wriggling around like a bug that's been pinned. On the other hand, if you relax you can close your eyes and pretend I'm your boyfriend. Or Leonardo DiCaprio, if you're feeling adventurous. So are you going to struggle or can I release your hands?"

I was breathing hard and glaring at him but I didn't really have much choice. Struggling wouldn't help and might actually hurt. All I could really do was cooperate and hope it was over quickly. I'd just close my eyes and let it happen.

He must have sensed my temporary surrender as he let me go and I closed my eyes. Then he started stoking along my lips with his erection. Feeling it rubbing against my inner lips I was shocked. They must be all puffed up and protruding, which I hadn't really expected.

I didn't even blink when his fingers gently parted my lips but my eyes popped open of their own accord when I felt his cock pressing against me, starting to enter. I couldn't help it. I just had to see that thing going in, making sure he didn't kill me with it.

I was surprised at how smoothly Red managed to insert himself. Larger than expected or just my imagination, he slipped it into me, taking his time and gradually filling my passage, which yielded quite happily to him. Truth is, he was so smooth and gentle I could almost imagine it was my boyfriend making love to me.

With that thought in mind I closed my eyes, letting myself drift to where my boyfriend was making gentle love to me, slowly taking me along to where he had his climax, leaving me feeling a vast contentment at pleasing him so. Red took another long leisurely stroke, letting me feel the length of him sliding along my passage, gently rubbing against me.

"Hey, girl," Red snapped. "Hump your hips. You are part of this you know."

What was he on about? I didn't have to do anything. I'd ignore him and his crudities and concentrate on other things.

Oh. My. God. That decision didn't last long. Instead of those long slow strokes I was expecting he came driving in like an express train. His cock came charging in so hard and so fast I was expecting to get burns from the friction. I'm like, "Argh! What the hell?" and he was already charging in again.

"Come on, girl. Get with the action. You'll never enjoy it properly if you don't stir yourself."

Why should I have to do anything? He was the one who wanted this, not me. When I found him banging in yet again I found myself responding, pushing against him in sheer self-defense.

And he appeared to love it, didn't he. "Good girl," he was saying. "And again."

Like I had a choice. He was banging in non-stop now and I had to move with him or get beaten to death by his runaway erection. I could just imagine the autopsy – 'beaten to death by a giant cock – she should have moved with him'.

I moved with him, or I certainly tried to. Any thoughts of calm contentment had vanished. I was faced with a wild excitement that was growing by the stroke, and I was getting a lot of strokes. Red's hands were mauling my breasts. There's no other word for it – mauling. For some reason even this rough treatment was adding to my excitement. My nipples were tighter than I'd ever known them and my breasts seemed to be alive with sensation.

Quite frankly I had no idea what was happening to me. If this was love-making, what had my boyfriend been doing all this time? Maybe it was like learning to drive and he was still on his learners. If it was, Red was a New York taxi driver. He knew where he was going and he knew all the shortcuts, and ignored them so he could jack up the fare – or his pleasure in this case.

I was yapping and yowling and carrying on, clinging to Red with arms and legs wrapped around him, desperate to hang onto him. Red's tank must have been freshly charged before he started on me because he showed no signs of stopping, banging into me time after time. If left to myself I suspect that my tank would have run dry, leaving me stalled, but Red managed to keep me charged and going, pushing up to meet him as he hammered away.

That wild excitement he'd created was still building, filling me with a desperate longing, fire burning inside me. I didn't understand what was going on and I didn't understand what it meant when he changed his rhythm.

I found out pretty quickly what the change in rhythm meant. Red was coming in faster and the excitement was exploding and then it really exploded, ripping through me again and again, leaving me a gasping wreck, flat on my back and unable to move.

I had had, it slowly came to me, an absolute wow of a climax. I was really going to have to have a talk with a certain boyfriend.

After I'd recovered a little from the shock of what happened I abruptly sat up. Red was strolling of, whistling, and I was suddenly furious. How dare he do that to me? Whether I enjoyed it or not wasn't the issue. He had had no damn right. Propped up against my tent was the stout walking stick that the ranger had given me. Why the hell hadn't I seen that before?

I grabbed the stick and gave a yell and charged at Red, swinging madly. He turned, giving me a startled look, and frantically ducked. The stick hit him anyway, and his head fell off. I dropped the stick with a scream and Red was running for dear life with his head lying on the ground in front of me.

Talk about a what-the-hell moment. I snatched up the stick again and poked at what seemed to be the top of Red's head. It was, I realized, too small to be his whole head but had I scalped him? No. There didn't seem to be any blood. I poked harder and what looked like the top of his head just dented, flattening to the ground.

I bent down and picked up a bright red wig and glared at it. So if I report the man, how do I describe him? I could see myself reporting it to the ranger.

"Ah, well he had red hair but it fell off. Maybe he's bald."

And maybe not.

"Anything else you can tell us about him?"

"Um, well he was a little taller than you but that might have been that silly wig. Apart from that he was about your size."

"A lot of men are about my size. Anything else?"

Not without blushing, and nothing that they could use to identify him. I sighed and went back to the camp to get dressed. It's a fact of life that sometimes you just can't do anything. Come to think about it, he was a lot like the ranger, apart from the height. And he'd known where to find me and that I'd made up that silly excuse to get out of the hike. I shook my head. I was being silly.