Chapter 5: Start Again l

-- SUNDAY, JULY 8, 2007 --

"Oooh..."

"Ungh..."

"Harder..."

"Oh, right there! Right there!"

"Yesss..."

"Harder! Deeper!"

"You're so good ... So good..."

Chuckling, I released some of my right thumb's pressure digging into the knot on Adrienne's back. Moving the heel of my hand into its place, I resumed the circular massage motions I'd been using earlier while focusing on the flesh beneath my palms in search of another knot to unravel.

My blonde, buxom, bodacious beauty of a supermodel girlfriend sat cross-legged before me, her chin resting on her chest as if unable to maintain the effort of keeping her head upright. I took the opportunity to slide my left hand up to the exposed back of her neck, using all five fingers to rhythmically compress the tissue around her spine while pushing it forward. At the same time, I dragged my right hand up and down the length of her back, also around her spine, stretching it out until she practically bent all the way forward with her forehead on the blanket in front of her. And she groaned in exquisitely agonizing relief as I continued to stroke her body.

Adrienne was plenty flexible enough to remain in her cross-legged sitting position with her face on the blanket, but it wasn't the ideal position for me to continue my backrub. She'd long ago removed her bikini top to provide me unfettered access to her back, so it was an easy decision to wrap my arms around her, palm her breasts, and use them as handholds to pull her upright again. Once she was back in position I released my grip; but immediately after I did, her hands covered mine and glommed my palms right back onto her massive mammaries. And at the same time she twisted her head around while puckering up in search of a kiss.

With a smile, I met her lips with my own. At first, I thought she'd simply give me a short but sweet kiss before facing forward and allowing me to resume the massage. But she kept my hands pressed to her tits and increased her lip pressure. So I settled down and returned the pressure, feeling the slow-burn energy of passion between me and my lover build and build.

I knew the backrub was over when Adrienne moaned into my mouth, the specific crooning note in her throat one of lustful passion instead of mere love. Her clenching fingers directed me to continue my massage, only this time a massage of breast-fondling and nipple-tweaking with my fingers instead of unraveling knots in her back, neck, and shoulders.

Adrienne's tongue parted my lips as she half-turned toward me. I leaned further over so that our faces were at right-angles to each other, the curvature of our lips fitting neatly into the other's corners. Our tongues dueled, Adrienne's moans increased, and after a moment she relaxed her spine and let herself fall backwards toward my belly.

I'd been kneeling behind her on the blanket as I gave her the backrub, but I now shuffled my knees out of the way so that I could gently lay her down across the fuzzy fabric. Our mouths broke apart for a second as I repositioned myself to kneel over her supine body, and I filled my left hand with her bare breast again as I bent to resume our kiss.

By now the slow-burn was building to a raging fire, and by the time Adrienne's arms went around my neck I'd laid down beside her with one bent-knee leg thrown across her hips. Her hands roamed up and down my naked back, pawed at my arms, and finally slid beneath the waistband of my swim trunks to grab hold of my butt cheeks. She wrapped a leg around mine, and all of a sudden her kiss turned nuclear as she abruptly rolled us over so that I was flat on my back with her on top.

"Fuck me, Tiger," my girlfriend breathed, with fire in her golden eyes. Are there any three better words in the universe? Licking her lips, Adrienne slid herself backwards along my legs, dug her fingers into the waistband of my trunks, and yanked them down to free my rapidly-growing erection. But despite her words, instead of mounting me she instead bent forward to inhale my cock right down to the root.

Stars filled my eyes as I absorbed the sensations of Adrienne's throat humming around my shaft. I groaned and slid both my hands into her golden blonde hair before tugging down on her skull to hold her there and keep the feelings going for just a few more seconds. But I let her up well before she ran out of air, and with her hands on my hips Adrienne bobbed her head up and down to pull her suctioning lips right up to the mushroom ridge of my cockhead before pressing her nose right into my crotch once again.

At full depth, she moaned and let her eyes loll about as if savoring the most flavorful meal imaginable. I felt her tongue sneak out to lick my balls while still holding the deep-throat, and I started laughing at the incredible sensations she was able to produce. Content to let my girlfriend pleasure me in whatever way she saw fit, I let my arms flop back and to the sides and surrendered myself to let Adrienne do whatever the fuck she wanted.

What she wanted was apparently to give me a blowjob as good if not better than any she'd ever given me before. Really, after so many years it would be impossible for us to count the number of times Adrienne had sucked my dick into her mouth. It would be like trying to count the stars in our camp's clear rural sky, but still she'd continue trying to make each one be better than the last. Once, just once, I tried to tug on her shoulders to have her come mount me or at least spin around so I could return the favor; but she shook her head and shrugged me off, leaving me to once again let my arms fall back and let her do her thing.

She almost brought me to climax, extracting the pleasure out of me right up to the very edge. If I'd let myself go, I might have given her a mouthful anyway. But we both stopped before bringing a premature end to our fun, and finally Adrienne sat up, wiped her mouth, and gave me a silly grin that told me she'd enjoyed that just as much as I had.

"C'mere, my Tigress," I invited with beckoning hands.

Grinning happily, Adrienne first tugged at the bowties holding up the sides of her ridiculously expensive bikini bottoms. The scrap of fabric fell apart at her hips and she dropped it onto the blanket beside us. Her bare-shaven pussy was soaking wet enough to run a trickle of fluid down her left inner thigh, and she knee-walked herself into position above me while using her right hand to raise my rod for vertical insertion.

After notching my cockhead, she grasped my hands and once again glommed them onto her breasts. Caressing her chest mounds, I grinned and thumbed her nipples while she closed her eyes to focus on inward feelings. With excellent muscle control, Adrienne relaxed her vagina to let me in and sink herself all the way down with a single thrust, and once hitting rock bottom she immediately compressed her tunnel shut to surround me with moist, tight warmth.

"Gawd, I love the way you do that," I groaned, feeling my heart thudding in my chest with lustful excitement.

"And I love everything about you, period," she replied with utmost sincerity. And then she proceeded to fuck the shit out of me.

Quite often, I did the "fucking the shit" out of her. Adrienne loved to let me physically dominate her, to manipulate her body however I wanted and give her pleasure in whatever way I saw fit. Choice of position, choice of hole, choice of whatever I wanted was entirely under my control. But there were plenty of times when she wanted to do the driving, and I was more than happy to go along for the ride.

Today she athletically rode herself to three screaming climaxes without ever changing from her cowgirl position. The one time I let go of her boobs to hold her hips as leverage to thrust myself up into her, she grabbed my wrists and slammed them down on the blanket behind my head while mashing my face into her cleavage, and then she fucked me even harder. When she let go of me and sat upright once more, I reached for her clit to add some extra stimulation, but she grabbed my wrist and slammed it back down on the blanket again. I took the hint and let her ride me, right up until the point that she grabbed my hands and pulled them back onto her boobs. And she did the honors of rubbing her own clit while I squeezed and fondled away.

It was only after Adrienne's third climax that she started to slow down. With her jaw gaping open wide and her head thrown back, she came down from that high and eventually chugged to a stop, settling her bare butt down in my lap and groaning as her convulsing cunt did its final clenching aftershock climaxes around my cock. I continued thumbing her nipples and squeezing her tits, really just because I liked doing so more than any interest in adding to her pleasure. And after lolling backwards for a bit to the point where her bending spine felt like it might break, Adrienne finally straightened up and pitched forward to collapse onto my chest, her heaving lungs causing her body to rise and fall atop me while I gently stroked her back.

"Fuck yeah, Tiger..." she wheezed into my ear, out of breath. "That was awesome."

"It was awesome," I agreed. "But you did all the work."

"Well you can do all the work for this next one; I wanna feel you up my ass."

My dick throbbed within Adrienne's pussy at her request, and feeling it, she gave Big Ben a squeeze in response. But in this quiet moment between rounds, I took a moment to look around before getting back into action.

A group of teenagers, both boys and girls, had also come up to the Garden of Eden this morning. That put the kibosh on any X-rated fooling around amongst me and the girls, although I noticed that the sight of my ladies in their bikinis had gotten the teenage boys revved up while also inspiring the teenage girls to competitively work harder to keep their boys' attentions. That was fine by me, since BJ had managed to stay awake for the entire hike up here, and we'd spent the first hour or so playing with him in the water and exploring the area. But as the day got on toward lunchtime, the teenagers had returned to camp, once again granting my little family all the privacy we wanted. And both Dayna and Brandi had been quick to take advantage, dragging me off into the bushes together while leaving the other girls to unpack the picnic lunch we'd had the foresight to bring up with us.

After the meal, BJ was quick to doze off and Kim napped beside him. Likewise, Dayna and Brandi were content to spread out a blanket nearby and snooze in the shade. But Sasha wanted a backrub, and after her, Adrienne graciously let Dawn go next, insisting she would be fine waiting to go last.

Of course, I now realized Adrienne's ulterior motive, as going last gave her the freedom to turn her back-rub into a pussy-poke. And since we'd already relocated to the other side of the pool to let the nappers sleep, she was free to make all the noise she wanted.

Presently, as I withdrew my still hard cock from Adrienne's snatch and moved myself behind her, I looked across the water from our elevated vantage point to see that indeed BJ, Kim, Dayna, and Brandi were all still dozing. And Dawn and Sasha had returned to the pool to soak in the cool water as relief from the mid-day July heat.

After three spectacular orgasms, Adrienne was totally relaxed and content as she laid face-down across the blanket. I first nudged her legs apart, and she drew her knees up into a frog position to give me better access to enter her from behind. I reached around to grip her pelvis and tugged her body toward me while sinking inch after inch of Big Ben into her pretty pussy. She arched her back to thrust her ass at me, crooning at my re-entrance. But once I was at full depth, she relaxed and lay acquiescent to let me fuck her at my own pace, knowing that this was merely a warm-up before I fulfilled her request.

We had no lube with us – the Astroglide would be in a backpack over by the sleeping girls – but this wouldn't be the first time I'd entered her dry. Still, I carved my cock around the inner walls of Adrienne's saturated snatch, picking up as much lubrication as I could. Withdrawing slowly, I brought her legs back together so that her body was in a straight pencil line beneath me, and kneeling astride her I reached down, pulled her asscheeks apart with my hands, and spit on her winking rosebud.

The gorgeous supermodel shivered as I nudged my cockhead against her anal entrance. I pushed a little, and she tensed up for just a moment. But just like when she relaxed her pussy to let me in, I felt her exhale and go limp beneath me, loosening her butt muscles as I dropped my weight and slowly filled her colon with meat.

"Ahhh ... shhhiiiitttt..." Adrienne breathed beneath me, unable to keep herself from clamping up twice on the way in, arresting my descent each time until she could force herself to relax again. The way was much slower, a little rougher, without the lube. But she bunched up the blanket in her hands and set her cheek down to clench her teeth and absorb my gradual penetration.

At last, I fully covered her body beneath my own. We were cheek-to-cheek, both staring off to the right with my chest resting on her naked back and my dick balls deep in Adrienne's ass. We lay together like that for a couple of minutes, neither of us moving nor saying a thing. But eventually I placed my palms on the backs of her hands and intertwined our fingers together, drew my knees up to be fulcrums beneath me, and leaned back to slowly withdraw my dick a few inches before pushing my way into her body once again.

"Oh, fuuuck..." Adrienne whimpered quietly, feeling my thick cock filling her anal cavity.

I squeezed her hands from behind, withdrew, and pushed forward once again.

"Oh, fuuuuuck..." she groaned a little deeper.

Back out ... and back in, this time a little faster.

"Oh, fuck!" Adrienne grunted, also a little faster.

Out ... IN.

"Fuck, fuck!" she spat.

OUT-IN!

"Fuck-FUCK!"

OUT-IN!

"Fuck-FUCK!"

OUT-IN!

"Fuck. ME!"

OUT-IN! OUT-IN! OUT-IN!

"Fuck-ME!"

OUT-IN!-OUT-IN!-OUT-IN!

"Fuck-ME-Fuck-ME-Fuck-ME!"

OUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTIN

"FUCKME-FUCKME-FUCKME!"

OUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTIN

"Fuck! My! Ass! Fuck! My! Ass! Fuck! My! Ass!"

OUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTIN-breathe-OUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTINOUTIN

"FUCK! MY! AAAAASSSS!"

"Ungh-ungh-ungh-ungh-ungh!" I grunted from the exertion, sweat dripping off my brow as I kept up my unrelenting assault on Adrienne's rectum. She remained in a pencil-straight line beneath me, helpless to resist as I reached down to hold her asscheeks in my hands to keep them spread apart while my pelvis bounced repeatedly off their fleshy mounds. Over and over again I cornholed the hell out of her, right up to the moment that she suddenly clenched up with every anal muscle and SCREAMED holy murder as her latest climax came to a crescendo.

"FUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKK!!!" Adrienne howled. It was a good thing we were on the other side of the pool from the nappers, with the waterfall between us and them, otherwise the volume of her scream would have woken them up for sure. Even from here, I was sure the sound carried well across the water, and I thought I saw someone begin to stir.

Adrienne's anal canal clamped shut around my shaft, stopping me dead in my tracks. Had she been Astroglide lubricated, I might have been able to keep thrusting; but she hadn't, so all I could do was remain right where I was, pinning my girlfriend's climax-spasming, ass-skewered body to the ground. Her orgasm kept going, and after the first thirty seconds or so I started to laugh at my predicament. But then her anal muscles began to spasm, a rippling, uncontrolled clench and release pattern that milked my shaft. Mid-laugh, I felt my pleasure suddenly peak and my balls compress, and suddenly I was filling the blonde's colon with cock cream.

"UNNNNGGGGHHH!" I grunted, clenching my eyes shut as the pressure suddenly released by spewing sperm down where the sun would never shine. My hands still planted onto Adrienne's asscheeks, my forearms were shaking as I tried to yank my pelvis down and plant my penis even deeper into her bowels. And over and over again I fired sticky jizz-wads down my lover's anal chute.

And then I collapsed.

Pinned beneath me, Adrienne's entire body heaved for oxygen, causing her back to rise and fall with each labored breath. With my chest resting on top of her, I went along for the ride, similarly heaving for air. But as we both caught our breath, I found myself cheek-to-cheek with her once again, this time both of us chuckling at the intensity of our assfuck.

That's when I noticed the two girls at the water's edge watching us.

I mentioned that Adrienne and I had moved to the far side of the pool, away from the nappers but also pretty far away from the waterfall. At this end, the beach sloped into the water gradually, shallow enough for Dawn and Sasha to lie on their stomachs while propped up on their elbows, surrounded by water only a few inches deep. Their legs and lower backs were submerged while their bikini-clad butts rose above the waterline like perky islands of flesh. The two of them stared at me intently, obvious heat in both their eyes. And as I stared back at them, I realized from their disheveled hair and dislodged bikini cups that the pair of them had not been idle.

Sasha giggled when she noticed me looking back at them. She leaned over to Dawn and whispered something in the blonde's ear, causing my childhood friend to blush. But Dawn nodded and rolled onto her side while Sasha leaned over to seal their lips together, going straight back into passionate French kissing and pawing at each other's beautiful body.

Adrienne's orgasm had subsided and her ass muscles loosened. But instead of removing my dick from her ass, I simply left myself inside her nether cavity and kept my attention on the Sapphic coupling only twenty feet away. Sasha slid her hand into Dawn's already-loosened bikini top, cupping a breast and massaging it while deepening their kiss. Continuing to push, the brunette rolled the blonde onto her back in the soft sand, Dawn's upper body out of the water on the sandy beach while the rest of her body from navel-down remained submerged. Propping herself up on her left elbow, Sasha released Dawn's breast and instead slid her hand into the water. And from the way Dawn suddenly stiffened, my guess was that Sasha was attempting to see how many fingers she could fit inside the blonde's pussy.

"Are you still hard?" Adrienne asked quietly beneath me, drawing my attention back to her.

Flexing my kegels, I tested my cock and felt that while it wasn't fully rigid, it hadn't gone completely soft either. "Half-hard," I admitted.

"Keep fucking me," Adrienne whispered, concentrating inward and flexing her anal muscles around my shaft once again. Her movements had their desired effect, arresting the slow deflation of my penis and massaging my cockflesh into calling for a renewed flow of blood. She repeated, "Keep fucking me."

The base of my cock felt stiffer than the tip, so at first I merely rolled my pelvis counterclockwise while keeping myself buried. Her sphincter had loosened up after repeated penetration, but it was still tight enough to snap around my shaft like an elastic band as I stretched it out to the sides, up, and down with my circular motions. Gradually, I felt Li'l Ben stiffening back into Big Ben. And after a few more minutes I felt hard enough to retract a couple of inches before thrusting back in.

"Oh, yeah..." Adrienne sighed, bunching up the blanket in her hands once again. She glanced back at me with a silly grin, and then brought her gaze back forward as she crossed her arms beneath her chin.

By now Dawn had wrapped an arm around Sasha's neck, pulling their heads together until Sasha's wet, dark locks intermingled with her own blonde hair. She rolled them onto their sides, grains of wet sand clinging to their bodies as hands continued to pull bikinis aside in search of bare skin beneath their fingertips.

"She always had a thing for fresh pussy," Adrienne breathed, still staring at the girls. "She's even more of a pussy hound than me."

I chuckled and bent to nuzzle the back of Adrienne's neck. She was right, of course. Free to explore her sexuality while comfortable with the stability of our relationship, Sasha was never one to turn down a little strange, so long as it was always female. Her penis-fidelity to me she maintained as something sacred, knowing my penchant for jealousy and also following Adrienne's lead. A couple of times I had tried to offer my willingness to let her explore other men, expressing my interest in her happiness and reminding her of my conversations with John Kwong. Both times Sasha had turned me down, and I didn't even bother to ask her anymore. But when it came to other girls, my approach was the same as hers for me: Advance Permission not required. She could hook up with whomever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and she wanted fairly often. Even the current awkwardness between me and Dawn as we tentatively tried to figure out how to "start again" hadn't slowed Sasha down one bit as she went after the hot new blonde body just waiting to be explored.

That was just the way Sasha worked: lust conquered social awkwardness every time. That DJ was my ex-girlfriend? Not phased in the slightest. My little sister Brooke? The incest factor made sex even kinkier. Big sister Brandi? Natch. And even Dawn, my self-proclaimed ex-soulmate who meant so much to me and had such a great effect on me that my entire world had been turned upside-down by our breakup? Please. Dawn was exactly the kind of buxom blonde gorgeois type that got Sasha's motor running the hottest. In that regard she and I were much alike.

I often thought back to Sasha's first couple of meetings with Adrienne, starting with the day Adrienne told me she wanted to make a sex tape. Forget all the reasons why it was a bad idea, forget the fact that she would be filmed, and forget that Sasha barely knew the girl. Sasha saw a chance to bag the incredible Adrienne Dennis and she volunteered to join us straight away, as if a second girl was even necessary. Even more of a pussy hound than Adrienne, indeed.

But then Adrienne had come back to visit in March, and instead of picking up right where they'd left off, Sasha had remained quite aloof from Adrienne. For a long time, I'd thought her behavior had something to do with her burgeoning romantic feelings for me, and that the closeness Adrienne and I shared made Sasha feel uncomfortable. I figured Sasha wanted me all to herself but got awkward when the competition arrived. It wasn't until just recently when I brought it up that Sasha and Adrienne both laughed and set me straight on the matter. In my self-centered way, I'd assumed Sasha's reticent behavior was all about ME, when in fact it was entirely about HER.

Like I said: Sasha and I had the same taste in girls, and her celebrity idolization of famous model Adrienne had only blossomed into a full on CRUSH after the three of us made the sex tape. And when Adrienne returned weeks later, a still-working-out-her-own-sexuality Sasha had gone out of her way to avoid the famous supermodel for fear of saying or doing something stupid because of her infatuation with Adrienne, not because of anything to do with me.

Reticent no more, and bolstered by the knowledge that Adrienne and I would always be there for her, Sasha no longer feared rejection and instead went after her desires whenever they came up. Oh, she was still discreet about it in public, the quintessential lady in the street. But damn that woman could be a freak in the sheets.

Sasha's uninhibited pursuit of Dawn had turned out to be quite the icebreaker, a welcome reprieve from the interpersonal tension that could perhaps have split our little family into two camps the way we slept in two separate cabins. That first orgy here at the Garden last Sunday had just sort of happened, with everybody excited to be on vacation, skinny-dipping leading from one thing to another, and Dawn and I naked within the vicinity of each other before we even thought about becoming awkward. But ever since then, following my resolution for me and Dawn to "start again", the awkward glances and nervous looks between us frequently killed sexual moods before they could even get started. I had my hookups with my ladies in the comfort of the cabins, so long as Dawn wasn't around. And Dawn was more than happy to partner up with Dayna, Brandi, and even once with Kim, to satisfy her urges as well. But for the first two days it seemed impossible for anything remotely sexual to happen if ever Dawn and I were within fifty feet of each other, the elephant in the room casting dark shadows over all, even up here in the relative privacy of the Garden.

Then Sasha said to hell with the awkwardness as she sidled up to Dawn Wednesday night on The Ridge as we all watched the sunset. I don't know how she did it or what she said, but the next thing I knew Sasha was leading Dawn into the other cabin and I didn't see either of them again until Thursday's breakfast.

Thursday afternoon after lunch, the group of us hiked out to a lesser known, less picturesque part of the river that nevertheless afforded us a great deal of privacy. BJ went down for his afternoon nap, and Dayna looked like she wanted to get something started, but the awkward glances between Dawn and me threatened to once again derail anyone's plans for getting jiggy. That's when Sasha made a comment about Dawn looking tense, started giving the girl a shoulder massage while proclaiming I'd taught her everything she knew, and nudged Brandi with one foot while saying, "Go on, you told me it had been way too long since your brother last came in your mouth."

Brandi's hesitation turned into Dayna's comment, "Well if you don't want to do it, -I- will." That led to the two older girls playfully fighting over who got to take my shorts off, which led to the two older girls playfully fighting over whose mouth got to surround my cockhead while the other licked the shaft, and the next thing I knew I was flat on my back with Dayna sitting on my face, Brandi sitting on my dick, and Sasha between Dawn's legs eating her out. And while Dawn and I still hadn't done so much as touch each other, at least I could have sex in front of her without feeling overly awkward about it, and she could have sex in front of me.

With everyone except me, of course.

And except Adrienne.

Not that Adrienne had rejected Dawn or anything. Dawn didn't really initiate anything with anyone, instead letting them come to her if and when they each felt comfortable. All of the other girls did, had, and would do again, even Kim. All except Adrienne, despite Sasha's repeated teasing about knowing exactly how badly Adrienne wanted to tap that ass.

I did too, that much was obvious. I got hard in two seconds flat every time I saw Dawn naked, and from the heat in her eyes it was clear she wanted me too. Nobody gave me any flak about it; everyone knew the situation was difficult enough for us as it was. Not even Adrienne seemed to mind my physical attraction to Dawn's perfect body, seeing as how she wasn't much better herself, blushing to her cheeks each time the opportunity arose. Certainly, Adrienne and I both seemed to get off on watching Dawn have sex, and likewise Dawn enjoyed watching me in action as well. But while everyone knew that Dawn and I wouldn't be doing anything like that ourselves anytime soon, we all figured it was just a matter of time before Adrienne gave in to her urges.

"Sure you don't want to get in on that?" I asked, continuing to pump in and out of my girlfriend's butthole and breathing hard from my exertions. It wasn't the first time in the past several days that one of us teased Adrienne about her obvious lust. I knew -I- wanted in on that, as the idea of a threesome with Sasha and Dawn very much appealed to my sexual creature. By now I was rock hard again inside Adrienne's ass, so dropping my elbows onto the blanket and digging in with my toes, I straightened my legs and raised my knees to retract my cock before relaxing and letting gravity do the work of bringing me back in. With my previous spermload coating her colon and the long reaming having stretched her wide, it was much easier for me to fuck in and out of her. Adrienne groaned but didn't otherwise verbalize a response. And she continued to watch the two girls on the beach while I did it again and again.

"C'mon," I urged. "Watching two such sweet-looking babes getting all wet and sandy? Tell me the horny nympho inside you doesn't want to get in the middle of that."

Breathing shallowly beneath me, Adrienne sighed and said, "I already told you: I'm not ready for that kind of relationship with her. Just like you're not ready."

"Dawn and I are different. There are romantic complications. Past history. Don't tell me you were ever in love with her. And except for that first week getting competitive about me your first time here at camp, your past history was never acrimonious."

Panting in rhythm with my thrusts up her asshole, Adrienne shook her head before setting her chin back down on her forearms. "Not about romance. And like I said before, I've got nothing against her personally. She was a friend, and a lover, and maybe one day she will be again. But I just don't think I can ever be close to her again without thinking about the status of her relationship with you, and if you're not ready, I don't think I can be, either. It's not about what's between her and me, but it's all about what's between her and you."

I stopped thrusting and set my pelvis down on Adrienne's ass. "Between her and me? What do you mean by that?"

"You know exactly what I mean. This ... thing between you two. You're starting again, but you're not settled yet."

"And what, you're waiting for Dawn and me to settle things? Since when?"

"Since always."

"You didn't say anything when you and Sasha came back from your little walk, the day Dawn and I had our first big fight about it."

Looking back at me, Adrienne shrugged and replied, "Yeah, well it took me a few days to figure this out myself."

"To figure out that no matter how much you're hot for Dawn's body, you're not going to make a move on her until I get my relationship with her sorted out?"

"Something like that."

"Sasha doesn't appear to have that kind of problem."

"I'm not Sasha. She wasn't around for most of your past history with Dawn, but I was. And until you get your issues with her sorted, I can't get my issues with her sorted."

"You still have issues with her?"

"No, not 'issues'. I'm saying this wrong." Adrienne sighed and set her chin down on her forearms. "It's more complicated than 'just sex' for me and Dawn. You and I are linked together. The status of MY relationship with Dawn hinges on the status of YOUR relationship with her."

"So what are you saying? That you and I are a package deal, and you'll only have sex with her when I'm ready to have sex with her?"

"No, actually. Quite the opposite." Exhaling slowly, Adrienne let her head bow forward. She went utterly still beneath me, relaxed her anal muscles, and stopped actively fucking me back. For a long few seconds she remained like that, unmoving and lost in her thoughts. And then she began to turn around, dislodging my dick from her ass as she rolled onto her back and let me slide off to the other side.

I frowned, recognizing the seriousness of the situation. The number of times Adrienne had stopped having sex with me pre-ejaculation could be counted on one hand.

Shaking her head slowly, Adrienne pursed her lips and gave me a mournful look. "I'm sorry, Tiger. I know you're trying to make things work between you two, trying to find a way to be friends again. And I've never been jealous of you sleeping with anyone before, but all I can think right now is this: There's no way I can ever have sex with Dawn until I know she's nothing more than a friend to you, until I can be sure she's not going to destroy this relationship I love so much."

"She's not going to destroy--"

"You don't know that," she cut me off. "Not yet. What you and she mean to each other, and will mean to each other, has yet to be decided. Right now you two are just barely starting again, and only time is going to tell where this is all gonna end. Dawn is gorgeous and sexy and if there was an exact doppelgänger of her without the emotional history you two shared, I'd want to nail her in a heartbeat. But the girl right there with her face in Sasha's crotch HAS that emotional history with you, and I can't bring myself to even look at her without wondering if she's gonna ultimately take you away from me. I can't 'just have sex' with her any more than YOU can 'just have sex' with her. And the reality is: If you EVER find yourself ready to resume a physical relationship with her again, that's the day that I go back to being just your adoptive sister again."

"Adoptive sister?" I frowned, furrowing my eyebrows as I stared at Adrienne in confusion. "Wait, what are you saying?"

Covering her eyes with one hand, Adrienne rubbed her temples with thumb and forefinger before dropping her arm to the side and staring in anguish at the clouds above. "I'm saying..." She took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. "I'm saying that if you ever fuck Dawn again, that's the day you lose me."

Hand-in-hand, Adrienne and I walked in silence along the dirt road that led to the paired cabins. We'd been silent for the last several minutes, having run out of things to say. But I still squeezed her hands three times in a silent "I love you" and without the slightest hesitation, she squeezed my hands three times in return.

Opening the front door, I led Adrienne inside not really expecting to find anyone. Once it became clear up at the Garden that Adrienne and I had some things to talk about in private, everyone else had packed up and returned to the main areas of camp to leave us alone. That had been more than two hours ago, and it only made sense for the others to enjoy themselves around camp instead of be cooped up in the cabin waiting around for our return.

But the cabin wasn't empty. Sasha had curled up on the couch with a book, and she looked up at our entrance. Setting the book down, she quickly got to her feet and came straight to us, opening her arms and launching herself into Adrienne for a big hug.

"Hey ... you guys okay?" she asked before stepping back from Adrienne and giving me a big hug as well.

"We're fine," I replied, patting Sasha on the back before releasing her. Adrienne and I looked at each other as if to confirm with each other that we were indeed 'fine'. But despite all the things we'd said to each other over the past two hours, all the reassurances that our love would endure and that we both wanted our relationship to last forever, there were some things that even a two-hour conversation couldn't completely settle. There were concerns that could not be fully assuaged without the passage of time.

Sasha recognized the lack of enthusiasm in both our faces. "This word, 'fine'," she began warily. "You said yourself that it's a word to cover up all manner of resentments."

I smirked and shook my head. "It means that Adrienne and I still love each other and want things to work out. But it also means that no matter what promises we make to each other, neither of us can be 100% certain what's going to happen in the future, and that uncertainty can't help but leave both of us a little ... well ... uncertain."

"But I trust you, Tiger," Adrienne stated firmly while giving me a sympathetic look. "I know this situation with Dawn isn't easy for you, and I'm not making it any easier by being a little ... unsupportive about it ... But I DO trust you."

I smiled at her hesitation over the word 'unsupportive'. It was the term I'd accused her of two hours ago, a term she didn't much like at the time, but she'd come around to accept it eventually. She didn't apologize for it, but she owned it.

"And I'll communicate with you everything that's going on," I assured her. "That's what our relationships are based on: trust and communication, right?"

"Right," Adrienne replied with a touch of resignation in her nod.

"Right," Sasha agreed, grabbing both of us by the hand and giving each hand a squeeze.

We all smiled at each other for a moment or two, and I began to wonder about the others. "Do you know where the others went?"

Sasha shrugged. "No idea. They said they were going out, and I don't think Kim's going to take BJ away from the main areas, but I don't know where anyone went specifically. Certainly, no one's come back to the cabin since."

I nodded and gestured toward the door. "Want to go find them?"

"Actually..." Adrienne began before giving me an apologetic look. "Maybe you should go on your own. Sasha and I have some girl-talk to do."

I chuckled. "You mean recapping word-for-word our entire two-hour conversation and then dissecting it piece by piece."

Both ladies grinned at me.

I shook my head, muttering, "Maybe you shoulda just stuck around and listened in. Would have been faster that way."

Sasha mused on that. "Maybe I should have..."

I waved her off before leaning in for a goodbye peck. Likewise, Adrienne and I exchanged a quick kiss, and I headed for the door. "See you two at dinner."

"See you..." Adrienne called after me.

I glanced back just as I left the cabin, and found that the two had already settled onto the couch facing each other, feeling comforted by the fact that they had each other for support at a time like this. It spoke volumes of the trust and intimacy the pair had built in such a short time, and knowing that Sasha was always good for level-headed, thoughtful advice, I sincerely hoped she could find a way to succeed in reassuring Adrienne where I hadn't.

Of course that left one answered question: To whom was -I- supposed to talk to now?

The obvious answer to my question was Kim. When it came to level-headed, thoughtful advice, she had rapidly become my go-to confidante, even above and beyond Adrienne and Sasha. Adrienne simply wasn't very good at divorcing her emotions from her advice, although I always knew she had my best interests at heart. Sasha was pretty good at it, but her romantic feelings for me coupled with a personal desire to maintain a balance between her career and her relationships always colored her advice with shades of her own self-interest when it came to matters of the heart. And while Kim obviously had her own self-motivations that often drastically conflicted with what I might think was best for her, she had a way of cutting through my mental blocks and getting right to the core of the issue that had really helped me find clarity on more than one occasion.

Thing was: I couldn't find Kim. I couldn't find anyone. And at a big, spread-open camp in the woods with a multitude of diverting activities and zero cell phone coverage, it could be really frustrating to try and find someone. They weren't down by the lake. They weren't in the air-conditioned comfort of the Main Lodge. They weren't by the one small playground, and they weren't anywhere else I could think of to look. By then, I figured that Kim must've taken BJ back to the cabin for a nap or something, but just as I started up the trail for home, someone called my name.

"Hey, Ben..."

I recognized the voice immediately, of course. Glancing over, I smiled and replied, "Hey, Dawn."

"You guys are back," she commented as she approached.

Spreading my hands out, I shrugged and said, "Evidently." I also kept walking toward the cabins.

"Where's Adrienne?" she asked as she came alongside me.

I gestured forward. "In the cabin with Sasha. Girl-talk breakdown of our conversation."

Dawn nodded knowingly.

I glanced around. "Where's everyone else?"

"Uh, well, I don't know." She glanced back toward the woods. "After we got back, Brandi and Kim headed down to the lake to keep BJ entertained. Dayna took me aside to have a little girl-talk of our own. But we just got back and she headed off to go find Brandi."

I nodded my understanding.

"Are you..." Dawn began hesitantly, reading my expression. "Is everything okay between you and Adrienne?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, yeah. Everything's fine."

"Everything's 'fine'?" Dawn arched an eyebrow and gave me a smirk.

"Sure, fine," I replied flippantly, my eyes already scanning the path back to the cabins.

But Dawn wasn't having it. Stopping dead in her tracks and crossing her arms over her chest, her eyebrow arch went a little higher as she looked at me skeptically. "Lovely word: 'fine'. C'mon, Ben; it's me. I know you too well and the expression on your face is a dead giveaway."

I sighed and stopped a few paces ahead of her. Up until a week ago, every conversation Dawn and I had over the past year had been completely superficial. We caught up on the little events that occurred in each other's lives and said our polite pleasantries, but never talked about anything deep or meaningful. Even now I felt myself raising the emotional walls to keep her at bay, felt dismissive comments on the tip of my tongue, and felt the urge to keep walking and leave her behind.

But I didn't. Taking a deep breath, I reminded myself NOT to raise the walls and NOT dismiss her. I'd spent the last week reminding myself of my promise to 'start again' and let Dawn back into my life. And while our conversations over the last several days hadn't been particularly deep or meaningful, at least I wasn't outright avoiding such topics.

Besides, after everything I'd just talked about with Adrienne, I really did want to talk to SOMEONE. And after all, it had always felt quite ... natural ... for me to talk about these things with Dawn. Although things had been quite awkward for us lately, she did used to be my constant.

After exhaling slowly and gathering my bearings, I fixed Dawn with a serious look and explained, "We'll BE fine. She just needs to be reassured that I value my relationship with her and believe it will last forever. When you stop to think about it, they're the same concerns every committed couple has from time to time."

"Sure," Dawn agreed. "But what brought this on? Most girlfriends only need to be reassured of something like that when presented with a threat to the security of their relationship."

I sighed, "Yeah, well Adrienne thinks she's found such a threat, even though I'm trying very hard to reassure her that it's not."

"A threat like what?" Just then, the light bulb went on above Dawn's head. "Oh ... you mean a threat like me..."