C.

His breath rattled into his throat and chest, the air stinging his lungs.  He struggled to open his eyes and eventually was able to see it was just barely sunrise and wondered why his entire body ached.  Slowly, he lifted himself onto his elbows and saw the large, maroon-coloured spot left by his head.  There was sand and grit all over his naked body:  under his nails, in his hair, up his nose, stuck to his greasy face, and in between his toes.

“Fuck,” he…

We'd been working quietly for several minutes, him pounding down boards on the other side of the deck, and myself starting the job of repainting from the opposite corner.  Early feedback indicated he really had never liked the colour that the deck had been, and the new, fresh shade was definitely a marked improvement.  I leaned down to lay long, broad strokes onto the board in front of me, when the cheeky bitch that I am smirked with a thought.

"So much for your ex-wife's…

A.

She inhaled the cool, dawn air deeply into her lungs and felt a shiver tickle its way from her nose, to her fingertips and the soles of her feet.  It was her turn to go fishing for the camp, and she had spent half the night awake in the anxious anticipation of setting out at sunrise.

She shivered a second time, this time from the chill of the morning, and slipped into a sweater as her nipples began to harden uncomfortably.  Movement in the tent behind her…

I stood there, in his tiny bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror and heavily debating whether to stay or go, and “go” meant walk 45 minutes home.  The time was after 3 AM, and we’d spent the last hour or so talking about – what else – us.  Our situation wasn’t like others I had come to be comfortably familiar with during my life, having only recently met via profiles on a dating site and made a surprisingly amazing connection, and…well, I sorta liked him.

He told me all…