KICKIN IT, RIVERSIDE

Saturday they went to their favorite river. They stripped down to swim suits and rubbed on sun screen, cracked a cold beer and were ready to relax. Sun and water, the sound of the river over the rocks. He could not help but look over, the line of the bikini fabric promising everything and nothing all at once. So he reached.

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ADVENTURE TO THE LAKE WITH NO NAME

I had a crush on Lauralee ever since the day I met her. Her slight southern accent is one of the things that got me, but also she was incredibly smart. She was one of the few people I could actually apply the label "intellectual."

I had wanted to date her for years, but she always had a boyfriend, and in the few times she didn't, I'd find have a girlfriend. I was just breaking up with one when this story happened. I'd been dating Patricia for about six months. It had gone from hot to horrid fast. We'd hung on by having sex, but essentially, there was none of the underpinnings to make a relationship work. When I had to go out of town for two weeks, Patricia lay into me with guilt. When she saw that it wasn't going to make me cancel my trip, she gave me the ultimatum: If you go, I won't be here when you get back. So I left.

When I returned, I called Lauralee. She had just broken up with her dumb ass boyfriend of the time. For the first time, we were both single and sad and needing a great day. So we jumped in her car with swim suits, a map of the national forest, and a bottle of whiskey.

We drove deep into the national forest, turning off the main highway to a primary forest road, to a secondary road, to a gravel road. Mile after mile, we wound deeper into the forest. It was August and hot. The gravel road kicked up dust. We had our windows rolled down.

On the map, I'd picked out a small, unnamed lake. I had no idea if we could find it, but I had pointed us in the general direction. The road got rougher. The ruts deeper, and finally, we bottomed out in her old beater car. As we stepped out, we stretched our legs and surveyed the situation. We were stuck pretty deep, up to the axle. Still, I wasn't in the mood to be defeated. It was a perfect day and I'd broken up with a girl that had put me down for months and I was tired of feeling bad for myself.

I found a strong stick and began to dig out the mud behind the tires. I knew going forward would only push us deeper, but potentially, if we could get traction, we could roll back up out of the tracks we had just made. So I dug and then rounded up small sticks. I wedged them under the tires, then I had Lauralee gently rock the accelerator as I pushed. After a few fruitless starts, the car popped backwards, caught the sticks under it, and shimmied back up out of the mud and onto hard ground. I stood, panting, with mud flecked across my face. "Let's go swimming," I said, grinning.

When I'd gone gathering dead wood, I discovered that we had, by sheer luck, gotten stuck less than 100 yards from the unnamed lake. Through a bluff of trees, we pushed to the beach. It was a tiny lake, half marsh reeds, and ringed on one side by a mud beach. When we reached it, we cracked out the whiskey and saluted the perfect blue sky, the blue-green lake, our triumph over the mud and our success at finding the unnamed lake. I pulled another swig of whiskey, feeling better than I had in months. She took another pull. And then I did, and she did. We drank and considered our good fortune.

"Turn around," said Lauralee. I turned as she stripped off her clothes and slipped into her suit. I wanted to peek and she knew. She had to have known that I harbored a crush on her for years. We were best friends. We'd sleep over at each others houses, in the same bed even, but never touch. Never cross the line beyond a plutonic hug. We'd been in pajamas together before, but whenever it came time to change, there was always a bathroom and a locked door.

Now, she changed in the wide open. I wished I could somehow snap a picture without her knowing. I wanted--needed--to save this moment.

When she was done, I stripped down to my boxers. We pulled more whiskey to brace ourselves for the mountain cold water and waded in. We could walk out nearly to the middle of the lake before the water was over our heads. The further we went, the deeper the sediment. It squished between my toes. "Eww," she said.

"Here," I offered. I reached out and invited her to hop up piggyback. As I carried her deeper, my feet sank further under our weight. I thought of her in her swimsuit, her barelegs wrapped around my waist. The deeper we got the more I had to bob, the more it threw her body onto me, the more I lost my balance. She shrieked for me not to drop her. The whiskey was taking effect. We'd polished off a good half of the bottle between us. I was suddenly buzzed and barely able to keep moving forward. The water was cold, but had pockets of warm. It was green and smooth on our skin. The sun reflected off the water. Somehow I knew the timing was perfect. I knew that of all the times I could have kissed Lauralee, I had never made the move. I knew if I never did, she would never. I knew if I'd made it at the wrong time, she would have shot me down. Dating Patricia, I had never had lower self-esteem. I decided now was the time. I could be brave. I could dare.

With a deft flip, I tuned Lauralee around, her legs now wrapped around me and crossed behind me, her arms draped around my neck, her face in front of my face. Without a word, I kissed her. She kissed back. We embraced, locked into each other, kissing passionately. Suddenly everything was perfect. Years of frustration laying beside her as if two slumber party friends was finally released. I had found our lake, saved her car, and was the hero of the moment. I knew it couldn't last. We were already dangerously shivering. We held each other closer, still locked in a kiss.

Slowly I began to wade back toward the shore. I knew that as soon as we reached it, something would have to change. I knew it meant my brief moment could end. Maybe all we'd share was one drunken kiss in a lake. As I turned, surveying the trees and the mountain peak, and our clothes and half-empty whiskey bottle on the shore, I decided that whatever happened afterwards would be just fine. The important thing was that I'd finally raised my courage to the point of making a move.

When we reached the shore, I let her slip from my waist. She teetered over to the bottle and took a quick pull, then handed it to me, shaking, her lips blue. I accepted. We then moved together and resumed our hug, as if seeking each other's vital warmth. We resumed our kiss and soon my hands were rubbing her shoulder blades, warming her, and tugging down her swimsuit.

I'd always wondered what Lauralee looked like topless. She often wore thin t-shirts without a bra. I could often see her nipples pressing the fabric. Now, I was hugging her, kissing her, and she was topless. She stepped back, and I got my first, incredible view.

She staggered a few feet away and then yanked off her suit. She almost fell as she squatted. Holy crap. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. For years Lauralee had always been reserved, almost prude about being around me; now she was buck naked in the middle of the forest, squatting in the sand.

When she returned she took my hand to lead me somewhere. With an instant decision, I yanked down my boxers. Now we were both buck naked beside the lake. We walked further up the beach until the wet mud turned to dry sand. I felt self-conscious yet also liberated, walking, hand in hand, out in plain view of the sky, around the corner of the unnamed lake.

Her knees buckled and she landed with a plop on the sand. I stood over her, naked, looking down at her. For the first time in my life, I could get a look at her as I'd always fantasized about. She was sort of a liberal type, didn't wear a lot of makeup, yet she shaved her legs and under her arms, I knew, so I assumed she probably shaved between her legs as well. As she lay on the ground, she comber her curls with her finger. Her curls were thick and almost reddish in color. She looked totally natural with the lake in the background and the jagged line of the forest. She had her eyes closed and continued to brush out the sand from her curls, and then, right in front of me, her fingers began to stroke.

I stood, naked, dumbstruck, as I watched her slowly begin to touch herself. Is this her gift to me? I wondered Is she saying that we will never be together but that we can be maybe be kissing and watching friends? I was estactic that I was not only seeing Lauralee naked for the first time in one of the most beautiful places I had ever been, but I was watching her masturbate.

She broke my trance be opening her eyes, looking directly at me and asking point blank: "So are you going to fuck me now?" Those were her exact words. I couldn't have made it up. I stood a second more, totally unsure of myself.

Then I lowered myself between her legs. I rubbed the tip of my cold-shruken penis on her now wet and warm vulva. Although I had a lot of whisky in my system, I managed to get hard. Pushing in was perfect. Smooth, warm, embracing, welcoming, drawing me deeper.

The funny thing about having sex outdoors is that as you're pumping away, mosquitoes are landing across your back, arms legs, in your ears. A stick is poking and you just want to move a rock really quick. You want to slap the mosquitoes. I was drunk and distracted and intimidated by Lauralee's sudden acceptance. I was fucking her bareback and didn't know if she was on the pill, if I could shoot or should pull out. All these thoughts swirl through my mind as I tried to focus on the fact that I was actually half-laying on Lauralee beside a lake, penetrating her. I pounded away. She wanted it harder and harder.

I knew I couldn't last. Alreadly I had built up from our prolonged kissing in the lake. I had a huge load of cum bursting. With one final pump, I pulled out and sprayed across her belly and chest. She looked at me, eyes bleary, and blinked.

We got up, brushed off. I itched my new mosquito bites, and we walked, naked, my cum drying salty with the lake water on her breasts, my erection now limp but wagging with each step, still slick with her juices, the light of the afternoon already fading, back to our clothes.

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NUDE V. NUDIST

I've been reading about the history of nudism and come to the conclusion that I am not a nudist. The history is fascinating, actually. It is a largely untold history of a social movement. Nude is a state of nakedness; nudism is a lifestyle. Since the 1930s, Nudists have been gathering at private resorts, where they have shed their clothes to enjoy not only nude recreation, but a naturalist way of life. Often these locations or their memberships had specific rules as to who could belong and who couldn't, and what they could, and couldn't do.

I have all due respect for such folks, and uphold their freedom to join whatever group they so choose, whether it be the local Elks, the VFW, or the AANR (the American Association for Nude Recreation). I guess, though, that I echo the line from Groucho Marx, "I'd never join a club that would have me as a member."

Today there are nude cruises, nude resorts, nude conventions. That's fine. But actually organizing nudity takes some of the fun out of it. To be always nude is as impractical as being always clothed. There is a time, place, and purpose for both. No one wears clothes in the shower and I'm pretty sure there are few nudist bee-keepers. I love nudity. I love the human body. Do I really want my bus driver to be buck ass naked? Not so sure.

However, just as it would be ridiculous to walk into your morning shower in pajamas, it seems absurd that every beach, river, creek, stream, lake and pond on this planet is not "clothing optional."

Part of the inherent joy of being out in nature is getting away from the constructs of urban life. If I hike 15 miles to a remote lake and find another swimmer, I sure hope they are naked: male, female, young or old...it doesn't matter because we are both out in nature, no longer who we are in the city. We are simple outdoors, in the sun, beside water, and will logically strip down. Maybe we hike a little farther apart for the privacy of noise, or just to relax alone. I hope it is never in shame of our bodies, natural as the trees and shrubs, rocks and dirt.

I am not a nudist, I have decided. I do not seek a naked lifestyle. But I do want the god-given freedom to be naked in nature. Frankly, keeping shopping areas and public city places restricted makes flashing all the more daring, fun, and erotic. But forcing someone to wear a swimsuit in a hot spring or mountain creek or sandy shoreline is just unacceptable. Even if I spend my day in the city, here beside my laptop, I want to know that far out somewhere, in a river or lake, someone has stripped down, just as humans have forever, and stepping into the water to enjoy a refreshing swim and then the felling of sun warming the drops of water on bare skin as it dries.

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GREEN RIVER, WYOMING

When people go to Wyoming, they go to the upper NW corner of the state: Yellowstone Nation Park, the Tetons, Jackson Hole, and Cody. A much smaller percentage may check out Cheyenne's Frontier Days, Devils Tower, or hunt Elk and Moose in the Big Horn Mountains outside of Sheridan--but no one goes to the lower SW corner. The main Interstate passes through, and so do the trucks--fueled up in Cheyenne, they push at 75 miles an hour to make time across a barren, alkali wasteland of bluffs, and arroyos, and oil fields.

There was a mining boom here once, and a railroad, and the historic markers note different camps of Chinese laborers who were masacured. It is a rugged and haunted past of vigilante justice, racism, and greed. The towns have almost dried up and tumbled off these wind-swept hills. There are bars for the oil men to spend their paychecks.

I know this because one summer I was hired to update the GO USA! series of travel books. I was fresh out of college, and lowest on the pecking order, so while the senior staff got all-expense trips to Hawaii, California, New York, I was stuck driving the open ranges of Wyoming, updating listings for tumbleweed motels and highway diners. SW Wyoming was my least favorite corner of the state, until I turned down a two-lane road off the interstate and drove south. The small road wound its way through the red hills for miles. As I neared the Utah border, the road began climbing into a mountain range. The sage turned to ponderosa pine. The bare red dirt became grass. I drove at least 20 miles into the mountains, climbing the twisting road, and then dropping to an open valley, with a river running through. After climbing out of the red desert, into this lush green valley, it was one of the prettiest sights I'd seen in the West.

The state park department had paved a parking lot, and built a boat ramp and rest room facility, as if expecting 100s of RV campers, tourists, fishermen, and river rafters. But that day, the middle of the summer season, I had the entire valley to myself. I was at least 50 miles from the interstate. It was just me and a warm sun, a slight breeze off the water, and nice shade under the cottonwood trees. It was past noon and the sun was high above. It was, I decided, a good time for a dip.

So I stripped and set my clothes on a park department picnic table. I waded into the cool, green water, and then dove. It was delicious.

Afterwards, as I sun-dried, I strolled over to a historic marker. (I always read ever marker because they provided instant material for the travel guide.) I was surprised. Unlike al the the others, this plaque did not speak of racial violence, or a great flood, or fire. Rather, it commemorated the first river expedition of this head waters. It wasn't Lewis & Clark, or some grizzly mountain man. It was three couples from France. It seemed so out of place--but then, I was so out of place...such a remote pocket where the vast mountains of northern Utah rise up from the high desert. I had found this place by chance. Had this first group?

They had packed their boats for an adventure, and navigated down river, headwaters to confluence, and south, until they reached the mighty Colorado. They were the first to white water this section of river, and for that the park department left a sign.

Standing naked, warming the river drops on my skin, I thought of this group. I pictured them all young, lean from outdoor activities, tanned, and smiling.

We all get youth once. I felt humbled that they had made theirs so full. Even if their legacy was now only an interpretive sign, in my mind it was the essence of an adventure with friends. I felt happy for them, and fortunate to be at the same place where they may have launched their boats.

The trip took them three months. I could only imagine setting off like that. I looked wistfully downriver as the the green water slide silently south, into deep mountains and eventually down narrow canyons. I tried to picture the group as they posed for a photo to commemorate the beginning of things. Then I turned back to my car where miles away semi-trucks barreled along the interstate.

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SHE LOSES HER VIRGINITY BY THE RIVER TO HER BEST FRIEND

Summer. I was home again, so I called Laura. She picked me up in her old beat up volvo station wagon. In high school we spent our free time together. Best friends, each having stupid high school summer jobs, and lots of free time. She was old and had the car. She went to college first, a girls college in california called Mills. Summers she'd return and we'd pick up where we'd left off, two high school friends packing towels to the river.

To sit on the river back, to soak up the sun, our skin glimmering and warm. Bring a bag of chips, sun screen, and a flask she'd brought back from college. These were slow honey golden afternoons, with dragon flies hanging in the air, sweat salty on our upper lips. Wear cut-offs and bikini tops. Boys with coolers of beer willing to share. And always, always cheap sunglasses from whatever gas station along the way.



We loved to lay out in the buff. Sometimes boys would drift past on rafts holding beers aloft, and cheer and hoot. Or sometimes it was two hippie boys in a canoe with a guitar, puffing reefer, and giving us a slow nod. This was the late 70s, and people spent a lot more time nude, and no one seemed to care.



When we'd get hot, we'd scramble to the rock outcropping and dive into the swimming hole. The current spun a slow back turn eddie here, but if you swam out into the middle of the river, the current would pull you downstream and then spit you back out on the sandy beach where our towels awaited.

The first summer back from college, I called her, and so we returned to the river. Everything happened as usual, and we worked up a good buzz from her flask of gin. But this afternoon seemed sexually charged. I thought I caught her staring at my breasts, or making a point to bed over and linger as she unstrapped her sandals. She talked of a new love in her life, a girlfriend she'd met at school and how she was technically a virgin still, because she'd never been with a man. But I'm not a virgin in my heart, she said.

We were pretty drunk by the time we scampered up the rocks to jump. She climbed in front of me, seemingly offering a good view of her thatch of dark curls.

We jumped and treaded water in the swimming hole. We moved, circling around each other, closer and closer. And then, touching, naked in the water, bumping knees and elbows as we slowly churned our arms and kicked. We kissed. I long, wet, passionate kiss. All the years of high school we had developed a friendship, all the care we had for each other, but no way to express it. It all happened, suddenly, and even though unexpectedly, it was completely unavoidable. It had to happen. we kissed and the river current pulled us downstream, and when we broke our lip embrace, we were back at the towels.

We climbed out, dripping, shivering, and weak in the knees. I looked at Laura with eyes that asked, is it over? She looked back with a sparkle in her eyes that said, do you want it to be over?

I nodded. She took my hand and we sang onto the towels. Our lips met again, and then her hands began to move over my body, and without thinking, my hands began to explore her body. Her lips caressed my neck, my breasts, and gentle blew her warm breath on my river-pinched nipples. Then I felt her finger wiggle into me. I gasped, shocked. My breath escaped me. I looked around nervously, what if boys came in a raft, or a fisherman? She pushed deeper. I was wet and reeling from her touch. I didn't want her to stop. Then her lips moved down my belly. And down. More nervous, I tensed. "Wait..." I said, "not here..."

"Relax," she said. "Let me."

So I did. And her mouth moved to my curls, parted them with her fingers, and her warm wet tongue touched my skin. It was the softest sensation I'd ever felt. I melted. I closed my eyes, and the sun on my eyelids made everything orange. I could her the river lapping at the bank, and her low grunts and she licked and slurped my juices from my inner folds. And then it began, the low, slow orgasm. Lifting like water, making me weightless and buoyant. And I came. And came and came.

When it was over, Laura looked at me and winked as she wiped her mouth. "Yummy, you taste like a river."

Afterwards, I tried on her. I don't know what I was doing, and I don't think I gave her an orgasm. But she told me it felt wonderful, and that it gets better with practice and time. "You still have three years of college," she said.

At school, I met boys, and had boyfriends, some serious, some not. It's been decades now, and I'm married. I never got together with Laura again. She got a summer job, or internship, or something the next year and didn't come back home. We didn't have email or facebook then, and it was easy to just fall out of touch. I think Laura wanted it that way. She just stopped calling, stopped answering letters. I don't know why. I was my first broken heart. And my first sexual experience. I know what she meant by losing her virginity in her heart.

That afternoon was when I lost mine.

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