The sky starts to lighten but there's no sun. I was right, there's cloud cover and the temperature doesn't rise. It'll snow for sure. I search for that electric feeling in the air. It's there and it's makes me even more itchy the moment I realize it. Shep seems focused on the sky and the tops of the trees so I take Titus on a little walk across the clearing. I realize my mistake when I turn around. The clearing is bigger than it looks and Shep is really far away. I go back. He smiles as I come closer.
“Got a great shot of you and the beast here.” He holds out the body of his camera and shows me the little digital monitor. I blink a few times and look at the dot of a woman on the monitor.
“You should take nudes of me,” I hear myself say.
“You want me to?” he asks.
“Don't you want to?”
“Yes. But later and indoors. It's cold out here.”
“But not cold enough to stop you from fucking me up against that tree over there is it?”
“You want me to fuck you?” My pussy throbs at the words. He needs to stop looking at me like that or I might hurt him.
“If you're done, yeah.”
“I’m done.”
He tucks his camera away and takes Titus’s leash from my hand, then leads us both over to the end of the clearing. He loops Titus’s leash around a skinny tree then turns on me. I watch the predatory look in his eyes as he carefully pulls his shotgun over his shoulder and sets it on the ground. His camera bag follows and then he’s unzipping his jeans and pulling out his erection. I want to suck him, but I keep glancing at the gun. I'm waiting for it to go off. I can hear the sound of it, that ear splitting bang. I can hear it.
Shep’s in front of me all of a sudden. I glance down at my new best friend and see he’s already slipped a condom on. He's rough when he grips my breast through my jacket. Air rushes out of my mouth.
“I want it,” I say. I didn't know I could sound so needy and pathetic but here we are. He unbuttons my jeans and almost snaps my fly with how hard he pulls it down. He spins me around and I steady myself with both my gloved hands on the nearest tree.
He's inside me. I squeeze my eyes shut and bite back a moan. When I open my eyes I look over and see the gun resting on the ground. I can’t look away from it. It shouldn’t be on the ground. Shep’s hand slips around my neck, firm but gentle and he tilts my head up. He’s going to kiss me, but I can’t take my eyes off the gun. I can feel the air gathering in my lungs but it won’t come out. More and more goes in, but it’s not coming out. I can’t breathe. I shake my head. “Shep. Shep. Wait.” He lets me go and I turn around and pull up my pants before he can stop me.
“You okay?”
“No. I can’t—I can’t do this out here.”
“Okay, okay. That’s okay. We don’t have to.” He pulls off the condom and stuffs himself back in his pants.
“Pick up the gun.”
He stops moving and fixes me with the weirdest look, like I’m crazy. Like I asked him to shoot me.
“Pick it up.”
“Okay.” He looks away from me long enough to safely retrieve it from the ground, but his eyes are back on my face the moment he slings it back over his body. “Better?”
“Yes. Thank you. Is sex outdoors a part of your thing?”
“No. I just really wanted you and there was no one around.”
“You don’t know that,” I say before I realize what I’m saying. He looks at me, trying to sort it out.
“We’re off any of the public trails. No one comes up here.”
“I don’t want to do it, okay.”
“We don’t have to. I would never make you. I just—we’re alone up here.”
“Can we go back? You’re done taking pictures right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I said I was.” He head cocks a bit to the side and I realize I’m scaring him. I scrub my hands over my face and instantly regret closing my eyes. I drop my hands and stare back at him.
“Can we go please? I want to be inside.”