Title: Curtain Drawn
Author: Alexis Siefert
Summary: She's all alone. Rejected by her husband, she returns to the
lonely cabin that was her father's pride and joy. Enter the mysterious
stranger.
Keywords: MF

~~~~~~~

Curtain Drawn (MF)
By Alexis Siefert (c) 2003

~~~~~~~
This is a work of adult fiction and should be read only by adults. It
is also my work. Although I receive no compensation other than your
comments, it is still my work. Please respect this and do not repost
it somewhere else without talking to me first about it. 

If you are not allowed to read works with sexual content, either due
to your age or by virtue of the laws in the geographical location in
which you reside, please do not continue. 

Enjoy, and if you're so inclined, please let me know what you think.
I can be easily reached at ealexissiefert@yahoo.com.

A special thanks to Ruthie's Club, where this story first appeared,
and to Denny and Nat for their editing and polishing skills -- without
which I end up rough-edged and poorly put together, similar to a
Picasso without the finesse.

~~~~~~


Curtain Drawn

by Alexis Siefert

(MF)
Copyright © 2002, 2003

This is a work of adult fiction and should be read only by adults. It
is also my work. Although I receive no compensation other than your
comments, it is still my work. Please respect this and do not repost
it somewhere else without talking to me first about it.

If you are not allowed to read works with sexual content, either due
to your age or by virtue of the laws in the geographical location in
which you reside, please do not continue.

Enjoy, and if you're so inclined, please let me know what you think.
I can be easily reached at ealexissiefert@yahoo.com.

A special thanks to Ruthie's Club, where this story first appeared,
and to Denny and Nat for their editing and polishing skills --
whithout which I end up rough-edged and poorly put together, similar
to a Picasso without the finesse.

She turned off the car’s headlights and drove by moonlight. The birch
trees stood tall along the nearly abandoned road and the full moon
shone brightly through bare branches. The air was serene. Now she
turned off the radio and listened to the road, hearing her studded
tires break through the thin crust of snow and scrape against the ice
below.

The one-lane road was once a favorite training route for the local dog
teams. Encroaching development had cut the trail in pieces, and even
the strong Iditarod lobby had been unable to protect it from the
builders. It worked well for her, though. Her cabin was far enough
away from the main road to make it unattractive to developers. Too
close to the protected State-owned land. Too expensive to wire for
electricity. Impractical to hook into the plumbing and the virtually
non-existent sewage system of the nearest town. So, she was able to
stay out here on her own as long as she was willing to draw her water
from the well and rent a snowplow to clear the road a few times each
season. A few hardy neighbors lived in the area, but her four-acre lot
generally provided her with enough isolation to satisfy her reclusive
instincts.

Morgan relaxed her foot on the accelerator, let the car slow to a
crawl, and steadied the steering wheel with her knee. Her hand shook
as she fingered the manila envelope on the seat beside her and lifted
it to rest on the steering wheel. She examined the typed address label
on its front. She had read it a dozen times. Her name—Mrs. Richard
Mayfield—and her address, done on a computer printer. No return
address, no postmark. Hand delivered.

She found it this morning, shoved through the mail slot in the front
door. She had argued with Richard when he bought the door the last
time they remodeled. "It’s silly, Richard. No one uses a mail-slot
anymore—the postman drives a jeep and insists on curbside boxes. He
grumbles about even having to come to the door with packages. Besides,
isn’t it a security risk, having an opening in the door like that?"
But Richard had brushed aside her objections with a wave of his hand
and pronounced the door bought and installed. "It fits the
‘look,’ Morgan. And it’s no more a risk than the dog door you
insisted on for the kitchen." And so it was done.

There were eleven pictures inside the envelope—large, grainy, black-
and-white photos apparently taken with a telephoto lens and blown up
to show grotesque detail of the subjects. There was no doubt it was
Richard. The camera was obviously a good one, and the photo clarity
left no questions.

In several pictures she could see the small scar on his cheek, a
reminder of their honeymoon. During an especially active round of
newlywed lovemaking, her ring had caught him near his eye—she was
unaccustomed to the stone—and he had bled all over the pillow. He
often joked that it was his "battle scar." In her more irritated
moments, she often thought it was the one feature that added character
to his face. Richard hadn’t grown well into middle age. Instead of
aging gracefully with his face taking on distinguished lines and
personality, his features had become pudgy and soft. Where she
struggled to maintain her appearance and figure, he scoffed at her
outdoor lifestyle and rigorous pastimes in favor of rich, fancy
dinners and long nights of drinking with business clients at the local
"gentleman’s" club.

Although the scar was not visible in every picture, there were other
ways to tell it was he. The photographer had snapped the picture at
just the right angle to show his mouth, his lips, his fast-talking and
faster-moving tongue hard at work. Yes, he was always good with his
tongue. She could recognize the line of his back, the soft angle of
his jaw, and the weak shelf of his chin. The kneeling curve of his
hips and the soft pocket of flesh above his buttocks were
unmistakable. Even from behind she knew it was Richard. Bile rose in
her throat as she looked at the pictures. She swallowed angry tears
and refocused on the road unwinding under her car tires.

The edges of the pictures bent as she shoved them roughly into the
envelope and tossed it into the back seat. It was too distracting, too
tempting to open it again, too tempting to examine the faces, to see
Richard’s face locked in what looked like a painful grimace. She knew
it was the look she had seen countless times over the years, the
almost near snarl when he came. She could hear in her head the
grunting exhalation that always accompanied that look. She could feel
his weight as he thrust deeper into her, pounding her against the
mattress.

It was always the same when he came. Despite how they started, despite
how many times they rolled and shifted and changed positions, he
always ended up on top, between her legs, when he wanted to come. She
had tried for years to change that. She had tried riding him until her
legs trembled, clenching him tightly between her thighs, matching his
thrusts with her hips. She had wanted to match his intensity, grinding
hard against his groin, rushing her own orgasm, trying just once to
change the routine. She’d tried bringing him to orgasm between her
lips, drawing her tongue across his cock, flicking the ridge under the
tip of his penis like she had seen in the films Richard kept hidden in
his night stand.

She’d tempted him in the kitchen, the living room, crawling on the
floor between his legs as he sat in his office, anything to change the
pace, anything to add spice to a sex life that had become stale and
routine. But he didn’t respond. Sex was for the bedroom, and when she
clung to his hips, pushing him into the bed, he tensed, pushed back.
He always pulled out, flipped her on her back, and pounded into her
until he came between her legs. Always the same. So, yes, she knew
that look.

~~~~~~

Caught up in her own thoughts, Morgan almost missed the turn-off to
her cabin when the narrow road opened to a bell-shaped turnaround
marked with a "Private Property" sign. She shifted the car into park
and sat with the engine idling softly. An unmarked and almost
overgrown path led from behind the sign through the trees. The path
never did get used much. Richard hated the cabin, hated the rustic
"work-for-it" life she sought out during their infrequent vacations,
so she only managed three or four trips a year to the cabin she had
inherited from her father when he finally died.

Daddy had held on for so long. He and Morgan would come out here every
summer, spending weeks fishing on the lake behind the cabin, tromping
through the woods along familiar paths, enjoying each other’s company,
arguing about books and politics and movies.

They had stopped coming about two years before he died, when he could
no longer make the short, quarter-mile hike from the parking lot to
the cabin. Morgan had offered to have the path paved, to bring out a
contractor to widen it and make the trail accessible to him. But Max
Carter was stubborn. "Its perfection is in its natural state, Morgan.
Let it be." So she did, and at his wishes, she continued coming here
every summer. Richard refused to come with her. "If I want to draw
water from a well and chop wood, I’ll move to the Third World," was
his standard argument. "We’ve evolved past that, Morgan." So she came
alone.

She turned off the ignition and opened the door. Her boots crunched on
the old snow. The weather had been in a strange freeze-thaw cycle, and
there was a layer of ice over what would normally be soft powder. Hers
were the only boot tracks in the lot, although she could see evidence
of a moose and several snowshoe rabbits crossing from the trees on one
side of the lot to the trees on the other. She saw a track that didn’t
belong, and in the moonlight she knelt down at the edge of the
clearing to examine it more closely. She fingered the edges, but there
was no doubt as to what it was. "Strange," she muttered. "The bears
should be asleep by now."

There were several caves close to the cabin, and she knew that
occasionally a bear hibernated not far from the stream. This late in
the season it was unusual to see evidence of one still up and around.
Unusual, but not unheard of. Some of the dog mushers on neighboring
lots would occasionally tell stories of early-spring or late-summer
bears surprising them during training runs. She made a mental note to
keep her trash in the locked shelter outside the cabin instead of
hauling it down to the car each day. Car tires were notoriously hard
to resist for a chewing bear.

She opened the back door of the car and turned her focus to the
envelope now sitting on top of her warm winter coat. Morgan again
fingered the flap, opening it enough to see the now-crinkled edges of
the plain photograph paper. They were apparently home-developed, for
there was no watermark or other identifier on the back or edges of the
prints, only the single line note taped to the back of the first one:

"Thought you should know. From, A Friend."

Nothing else to help her track down the person who took the pictures
and dropped them into her life, unasked. Nothing to help her figure
out who had troubled to expose Richard’s ugly little secret. It wasn’t
surprising that her "friend" would want to remain anonymous, given the
nature of the pictures. She could only assume that her "friend" was
the other person’s lover or spouse. Nor was it surprising that the
pictures were amateur, developed in a workshop dark room, probably in
someone’s garage. Most professional places frowned on developing
pictures of people engaging in oral sex. She closed the envelope and
put it carefully in the front pocket of her backpack. She shouldered
her pack, took her walking stick from the trunk, and started the hike
to her cabin.

It was a short trail, just long enough to discourage the occasional
curious wanderer, and she reached the familiar comfort of the cabin in
easy time. She dropped her pack on the front step and did a quick
check around the outside for evidence of tampering or intrusion. Last
summer a wolverine surprised her. It had apparently decided that her
cabin would make a nice den. Lesson learned the hard way. It had taken
her weeks to get the pungent musk smell from the furnishings.

Everything appeared undisturbed, so she unlocked the door and started
the now-familiar routine of making the cabin her home. Within an hour
she had the wood stove crackling, which banished the worst of the
winter chill. She put a large pan of water on the stove to heat, and
the steam rose from her boots as they thawed next to the stove. She
unpacked her weekend’s worth of clothing and hung her spare shirt and
jeans in the small cupboard Max had built for her one summer.

"You need your own space, Morgan," he had insisted when she was
entering her teens. "You’re growing up, and you won’t be Daddy’s
little girl much longer." That was the same summer he knocked out a
portion of the wall and added a small alcove near the stove. It closed
with a thick curtain and was a place for Morgan to feel alone,
private. It had remained her "room" throughout the remainder of her
father’s life. After he was gone she had trouble moving from the
alcove to the big bed where her father and mother had slept, where her
father had slept alone after Mother grew tired of "roughing it."
Morgan used to think that Richard and Mother would have gotten along
well, and she often wished that Mother had been alive long enough to
keep Richard company while she and her father enjoyed their annual
cabin vacations.

She made one more trip to the car for the small cooler filled with
weekend provisions, then started the coffee percolating on the stove.
She changed from her wet jeans and flannel shirt into the comfortable
fleece nightgown and again turned her attention to the pictures. In
the yellow glow of the battery-powered lamp, she could think them
through with a more dispassionate, more rational mind.

Sitting in front of the wood stove, she examined them again for any
clue, any hint as to who Richard’s fair-haired, handsome partner might
be. She turned them over one at a time, forcing herself to look
closely at the man’s face, his hands. She saw how his fingers buried
themselves in Richard’s thinning hair and seemed to press her
husband’s mouth harder over the cock between his lips. She could see
the indentations in the cushion under Richard’s knees, and she could
see the shine of Richard’s manicured fingernails as his fingertips dug
into his partner’s meaty thigh for balance.

The man wore a wedding ring. Was it his wife who had caught them
together? Had she suspected something? Morgan had resigned herself to
the fact that Richard was probably having an affair, but she had
written it off to a mid-life crisis and assumed he was screwing one of
the young office workers who were too often bursting from their
sweaters and thrusting their tits in his face as they brought coffee
and deliveries to his desk. She had never dreamed that Richard’s
infidelities would be with another man.

One by one, Morgan fed the pictures into the fire and watched them
curl and turn to ash. With each one, she could feel the last of her
marital obligations burn with the paper. Eight, nine, ten. It didn’t
take long. She held the last picture in her hand an extra moment
before feeding it into the flickering light of the flames. Eleven
photographs lay in ashes in the stove. She had left the twelfth
photograph–Richard on his knees behind his partner, fingers pressed
hard into the narrow hips of the man beneath him, his face knotted
into his "I’m coming" look–sitting on the kitchen table, under
Richard’s "Working late, don’t wait up" note.

She had scrawled a note of her own. "Richard—left for the weekend.
Please be gone when I come home." He wouldn’t miss her. For years
their marriage had been no more than a convenience. She was good for
his career, he was good for hers. Employers expected certain things
from their ad executives, and marriage represented stability. But she
was established now, and she could do without him. She had her own
name. He would, of course, have to find someone else to play hostess
for his parties, but that was no longer her concern.

She brushed the ash from her hands and stood, unfastening the buttons
of her winter nightgown as she moved to the small, hand crafted table
that took up the center space in the cabin. She dropped the gown to
the floor and stepped out of it, feeling the fire-warmed air of the
cabin wrap around her skin. She spread a towel over the polished
surface of the table, and moved the washbasin of hot water from the
stovetop to the table.

With quick, smooth movements, Morgan began washing the city from her
skin. She lathered her hair and bent over the basin, letting the hot
water flow over her neck and shoulders as she rinsed the hairspray
from her professionally styled hair. The scent of her shampoo
surrounded her, and she clenched her eyes tightly as small rivulets of
suds slipped from her temples to her eyelids and off the edge of her
nose.

She massaged her temples and the back of her neck, working her
fingertips through the ends of her hair, twisting it into a thick rope
and sighing as the warm water flowed over her wrists and palms. She
wrapped her hair in a clean towel and dabbed the last of the suds from
her cheeks and eyelids with the terry-cloth corner. She dipped a
washcloth in the warm suds and wiped the dirt and grime of the city
from her face and throat, dipping into the hollow of her collar and
the cleft between her breasts.

She stroked from her shoulders to her breasts, letting her fingers
lingers over her nipples. She remembered the breasts she had when she
married Richard. High and firm, taut and responsive to Richard’s
slightest touch. Over the years she had struggled with diet and
exercise to maintain her figure. Her breasts were still firm although
perhaps a bit lower than they had been. Age and gravity had taken
their inevitable toll, but she had resisted the urge to have them
lifted by a surgeon. Richard had never complained. "Of course not,"
she said aloud, wryly. "He was never a breast man."

She let the lather drip down over her breasts to her belly and hips.
She sat beside the table and raised one leg to rest her foot on the
other wooden chair. With the rough cotton washcloth she stroked the
soap up the inside of her thigh, remembering the first time Richard
had touched her. She mimicked the memory of his fingers between her
legs, stroking her opening folds, coaxing a moan from her lips. She
leaned back against the chair, spreading her legs further, opening
herself to the warmth of the fire, letting its heat warm her sex. It
was easy to give herself over to the fire, and her own moisture
mingled with the water on the cloth. Her fingers slipped over her clit
and dipped inside, dragging the rough cloth over her sensitive button.
Thrust and scrape, matching the pace of her fingers to the rapidly
increasing, shuddering breaths drawn through her clenched teeth. With
quick, sure strokes, she brought herself to a single, hard orgasm,
shuddering through the solo act.

She heard her father’s voice echo in her memory as she sat, letting
her breath calm. "Never forget, Morgan, that you are strong. Never let
a man convince you otherwise. Any man who doesn’t want a strong woman,
isn’t a man worth your time or energy."

"Oh, Daddy," she cried quietly, letting the tears flow for the first
time. They stung her eyes, and left trails down her cheeks as she
lowered herself to the floor and cried, steam rising from her wet
skin.

~~~~~~

She cried herself quietly into a restless sleep, sitting naked in
front of the stove, her legs tucked under her bare bottom and her head
resting on her arms against the hand-hewn chair. Her hair had dried in
the comforting heat of the stove, and it had taken on the familiar
earthy smell of the wood smoke. She was confused for a moment when she
opened her eyes and stretched. Her body was stiff from the unnatural
position in which she had fallen asleep. Confusing images lingered
from a dream, something about her father. He was talking, but she
couldn’t hear his words. She could see his lips move, knew he was
being reassuring. Something about sending someone or something to help
her, but she didn’t know who, or to help her with what. The pictures
faded quickly as her eyes adjusted to the shadows cast by the
flickering fire.

Faint red lines and marks dotted the pale skin of her thigh and hip
where her body had pressed against the wooden plank floor. As her mind
cleared the day came back to her in a rush, images of Richard and his
lover bombarding her thoughts. She rubbed the palms of her hand
against her eyes, as though to push the pictures from her brain.

That’s when she heard it—a soft rustling outside the cabin, near the
door. Her instincts told her it was too big to be a squirrel, or a
rabbit, or a wolverine, but not big enough to be a bear or a moose. At
this time of year, that left only one real option. She slithered
quickly back into the crumpled nightgown on the floor beside her,
slipped her arms through the sleeves of her coat, and grabbed the
shotgun from its rack on the wall. Quickly breaking the barrel and
dropping in two shells scooped from the jar hanging next to the gun,
she cracked the window next to the door and put the stock to her
shoulder, resting the barrel on the windowsill.

"Who’s there?" Morgan shouted from relative safety of the cabin. She
knew full well that if the intruder was malicious, there was no way
the cabin would offer much physical protection. Her father had
schooled her early on about the dangers of loving isolation. "Know
your weapon, Morgan," his voice rumbled in her memory. "Know your
weapon, and rely on your instincts. Trust your gut. It usually knows
danger before your brain does."

This wasn’t the city, and most strangers weren’t ill wishers or
violent. Morgan knew the odds were in her favor that the stranger
outside was a lost hiker. They often had lost hikers in the summer
passing by needing a meal and coffee, maybe a place to stay the night.
It was an unspoken rule out here that people helped each other. After
all, you never knew when you were going to be the next one lost and
needing help.

On more than one occasion, Morgan had come to the cabin to find that
it had been used as an overnight shelter for just such a passerby.
Each time he or she had left a note thanking the cabin owner for the
hospitality. Once a hiker had returned later with provisions to
replace the dry cereal and instant coffee Morgan always kept stocked
in the cabin’s pantry. However, it was rare to find people "just
passing by" during the dark winter months. There was a wet chill in
the air, and with temperatures hovering around zero all week, whoever
was outside was going to be in need of some serious warming up. She’d
figure it out as soon as she got a good look at him.

A figure stood at the bottom of the porch steps. When her light shone
out the window, spotlighting him against the snow, she knew the
moonlight would reflect off the barrel of the shotgun, giving him
adequate warning to step back. It did, and he did, putting his hands
out to his sides in a gesture of innocence, showing her he was
unarmed. He wiggled his fingers in the air to show that his hands were
empty and called out to her. His voice was gruff, gravelly, and
sounded as though it would cut through the forest stillness with
little effort if he wanted it to.

"Whoa! Sorry, ma’am. I was hoping that perhaps…"

"That perhaps the cabin was empty and you could find shelter for the
night?" Morgan finished for him. She could see his lips part into a
smile, his teeth gleaming against his dark skin.

He didn’t answer, but his smile warmed, and his posture relaxed
subtly.

"You can put your arms down. What are you doing out here this late in
the season?" Morgan relaxed her grip on the weapon but didn’t pull it
from the window. She moved her finger from the trigger. No point
shooting him accidentally. She had come here to relax, and dealing
with the sheriff would definitely put a damper on the weekend. He
didn’t seem threatening, only a bit city-silly. It happened a lot.
People assumed that since the woods were near a main road, they
weren’t really dangerous. Every year, someone went ill prepared into
the trees, got turned around and lost, and was found in the spring
when the snow thawed and uncovered his body.

She remembered her father’s words, checked her gut, and made a
decision. "Okay, you’d better come in before you freeze." She clicked
back the latch on the door and let it swing in. As he mounted the
porch steps, she unloaded the gun and placed it back on the wall-rack.
She turned to face him.

The stranger stood in the doorway, big white snowflakes dotting his
hair. She resisted the sudden urge to wipe the snow from his hair and
run her fingers through it at the same time. He took off his jacket,
and she made a quick appraisal. Tall, taller than her by several
inches. And big, but not imposing. He wasn’t scary or muscle bound,
and he didn’t look like he spent hours in the gym and a fortune on
fitness supplements. They were real muscles, working muscles. He
looked strong, as though he could chop wood all day long and still
carry his woman from the trail to the bed without breaking a sweat.

He rolled the sleeves of his shirt up in response to the warmth of the
small cabin. Morgan felt something in her center respond to the casual
movement of his arms. He was solid, but not threatening. Comfortable.
She could almost see the muscles under the bare skin of his arms, but
not quite. He moved easily, at ease with himself and with his
surroundings. As he crossed to the stove, holding his gloveless hands
out to its inviting warmth, she could feel the room change around him.
Accepting him. "Stop it, Morgan," she mentally chided herself. "You’re
being silly. Stop being such a girl."

He turned and met her eyes. She could hear the sparks crackling in the
fire, and she could feel the sparks crackling between them. She had to
force her eyes to break contact with his. "I… there’s coffee on the
stove, a mug’s on the wall behind the stove. They’re all clean. Help
yourself. Creamer and sugar in the canisters on the counter. I was
just about to make soup." She stammered. "I was just about to thaw
soup, actually. You’re welcome to join me. You should have something
hot."

He raised an eyebrow, and she felt herself blush. Her hands went to
her throat, and fumbled at the buttons of her fleece gown. Opening and
closing nervously. Enough, she told herself. Fix him the damn soup,
find him a place to sleep for the night, and quit fucking around with
him, Morgan.

They moved together easily in the kitchen. She pulled a frozen block
of chicken soup from the outside cooler, and he pulled a pan from the
hook in the ceiling. He reached it with ease. She always had to stand
on a chair to get it. She watched him, noting how the glow of the fire
sent sparks of red through his deep brown hair. She watched his
muscles move, smoothly, with a rhythm that only he heard.

As the soup thawed, bubbling over the wood stove, they started
talking. "So, stranger. You got a name?"

"Of course." His voice was a rumble. "You?" He laughed. "I’m kidding.
I’m Boyd."

"Morgan. Pleased to meetcha. You’ll excuse me, but what the hell were
you doing out here?"

"Just what I told you. I set out on a hike this afternoon. I went too
far into the woods, and when the sun went down, I didn’t recognize
this part of the woods. I spend a lot of time here in the summer, but
not so much in the winter. Then I saw your light. Thank you, by the
way. If you hadn’t let me in, I would have had to find some sort of
shelter, I’m not sure I would have made it through the night."

"You’re welcome, and you were stupid. You know that, right?"

"Yep." He watched her, and she could feel his eyes tracing over her.
"Speaking of not being careful, what are you doing out here alone?"

Tears filled the corners of her eyes, and she debated telling him the
entire story. That’s what strangers are for, right? Tell them your
problems, get them off your chest, and then never have to face that
person again.

But her father’s voice echoed in her thoughts again, "Play your cards
close to your chest, Morgan. Don’t let them see inside until you know
what they’re offering also. It’s how you stay strong."

So she let the moment pass and together they set the table to eat.

They ate their soup that way, conversing in fits and spurts, stops and
starts. Slowly getting to know each other. Through the soup, through
cleaning the dishes, and tidying up the table, they talked. And
eventually Morgan found herself relaxing with him. He had a way of
listening. It was as though she were talking to herself. She told him
about her father, about his building the cabin, securing the land
around it from the encroaching builders and neighbors. About his dream
to keep this part as wild as possible. She told him about her
marriage, leaving no doubt that she wasn’t looking for romance, but
she didn’t tell him about Richard’s infidelity. She held that deep
inside, and she could feel it start to burn.

She yawned, and he smiled. "I’ve kept you up, I’m sorry. I honestly
didn’t mean to ruin your retreat out here."

She shook her head. "Please don’t apologize. You’re fine, but I do
think it’s time to turn in. Help me lock up the cold box outside and
secure the trash, and then I’ll show you where you can sleep tonight.
I saw fresh bear tracks when I pulled in tonight. I can’t imagine why
a bear would be awake this late in the season, but I don’t want to
take any chances."

Boyd nodded. "You never know with bears out here. They sense things,
even in their hibernation. Maybe something calls them. The natives say
it’s a good sign when a bear wakes mid-winter. It means he’s been out
protecting his people."

Morgan smiled. "My father used to say much the same thing. Not
exactly, but close enough."

Boyd’s eyes met hers, and she knew he could see the pain in her heart.
But he only nodded, slowly, then turned to the window. "The lights are
out tonight. Maybe that’s what woke your bear. If you listen just
right, you can hear them sing."

They stood that way for silent, eternal minutes. And she could hear
the blue and green ribbons of the Aurora sing, a discordant, but
beautiful song. It spoke to her soul, and it reassured her. Her father
had told her about the music, but she hadn’t been able to hear it in
years.

~~~~~~

She gave him her father’s bed. She had kept her alcove even after her
father had died. Not out of any sense of duty, but it was hers and it
was comfortable. And she didn’t think he’d mind Boyd using his old
bed.

They settled quickly, and in minutes she could hear a soft snoring
from the other side of her curtained alcove. But she wasn’t ready to
sleep. She imagined Richard, and she could see him coming home,
finding the picture. What would he think? Would he be relieved, or
disappointed he could no longer have both worlds? And she wondered
what led him to another man. And she began to doubt. To doubt her own
sexuality. After all, what was wrong with her that would drive him
away from women? Logic didn’t play a part in betrayal. She knew,
somehow, that she had failed. And she wondered what she could have
done differently.

She sat against the wooden wall of her alcove, listening to Boyd sleep
and the fire in the stove crackle, protecting them from the cold
seeping through the inevitable cracks in the wooden walls. She drew
her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs,
surrounding her pain, and she cried, deep, painful, silent tears. And
soon she, too, slept.

When she woke, a quick check of the window told her it was still
night, but the deepest part of night-into-morning. She had always
loved the early hours before the sun came up. It was a frozen-in-time
moment for her, and growing up she had always imagined it was magic.

She pushed aside her blankets and slipped her feet into the slippers
by her bed. Drawing the curtain aside, she could see the cabin lit
softly by the fire glowing behind the glass door of the wood stove.
Shadows cast by the fire gave the room an otherworldly feel, and her
eyes were drawn to the soft rise and fall of the figure on her
father’s bed. Quietly, not wanting to break the silent spell filling
the room, she drew back the thick quilt that covered him, and when he
stirred she put her finger to his lip, softly silencing his questions.

Morgan crawled into the bed next to him and let her fingers speak for
her. His eyes locked with hers, and she answered his unspoken
questions with a quiet nod. He had taken off his shirt and jeans and
was sleeping in soft warm pants left over from her father’s things.
She easily undid the drawstring at his waist and pulled them down past
his hips and thighs. She rose to her knees and straddled his thighs,
feeling his muscles bunch and tense between her legs. She tightened
her grip around his legs, holding him still beneath her. She could
feel him growing hard against her thigh, pressing against her sex.

She wrapped her fingers around him, stroking his length and brushing
the back of her fingers against her swelling button. Long, slow
caresses. Butterfly-soft tickling kisses with manicured fingertips.
Fast, harder strokes, pulling a rumbling-groan from his throat. He
bucked his hip under her, arching to meet her.

She stopped, pushing him back to the bed with one hand on his chest.
His heart beat fast under her palm, and the warmth of his skin matched
the heat growing between her thighs. Rising to her knees, she shifted
her weight forward, centered him under her with one hand, and lowered
herself slowly, agonizingly slowly, over him, surrounding him. A long,
gravity-assisted slide until she was nestled firmly against him. And
she began to rock, grinding with her hips, scraping her swollen clit
against the wiry hair of his groin. Grinding her heat into his,
faster, harder, until her muscles clenched, gripping his shaft, taking
him the way Richard would never allow himself to be taken.

He thrust, harder. Forcing her to her knees above him. Wrapping his
fingers around her hips, holding her steady, he began to match her
rhythm. Pulling out, holding himself at her opening, letting her moans
fill the room. Neither of them spoke, the only sound the creak of the
bed beneath them and the near-frantic panting of their breath.

His fingers tightened, digging into her hips, her hands braced against
his chest. In the last seconds her eyes closed, but the image of his
face burned behind her lids. He didn’t grimace, he didn’t flinch, and
he didn’t flip her over and finish between her legs. He held her
steady, he matched her strokes, and he came with her, into her, the
way she wanted.

~~~~~~

The cabin was empty when she woke. Sunlight streamed through the
window, casting a warm glow over the interior. Morgan stretched, and
she felt her body respond to the memory of last night. She felt
schoolgirl flutters deep in her belly, and she felt the ghost-traces
of his hands stroke her sides.

She sat up in bed, and understood that he had moved on. Rising
quickly, she wrapped the quilt around her bare shoulders and stepped
out onto the front porch. Maybe she could see which way he had gone.
It hadn’t snowed fresh this morning, so his tracks should still be
clear in the snow.

The light was so sharp and clear it almost had a cutting edge. The
cold, still beauty of her surroundings took her breath away.

She didn’t look for the tracks. She didn’t need that man any more.
He’d given her what she’d wanted, and she had found her center again.

She had recovered the strength to go home.