No one would notice her returning, and if they did, no one would question her.
Life in the house, to be honest, was boring. How Sherry could spend day after day, week after week, year after year mindlessly catering to the quirky whims of an old man rapidly going senile was totally beyond her ability to fathom.
Well, maybe that wasn't fair… Lucus was sharp as a razor… something about him just didn't go down quite right, and she couldn't have said what it was… she only knew that as she grew older, the calm complacency of her older sister seemed to be more and more an act worthy of loathing… was it his eyes, the way he would look at her sometimes when she would go to him, stand before him naked, waiting for his wishes to become apparent?
That strange distant stare, flavored at times with… was it hatred? That's how it struck her, so much so at times that when he would reach out his hand to her, start to stroke her breasts, run his fingers over her neck, her shoulders, her face, and she would actually have to beat down an impulse to scream out, to pull away, to run…!
But from what?
She had no idea. She still lacked the distance necessary for true objectivity. Their situation, their isolation were still givens in her life, like the color of the sky, breathing, dawn and dusk…
But the seeds, sown probably at birth or perhaps before, taken root from her earliest years of awareness, were now beginning to sprout, to grow, to bear fruit…
So far, her rebellion expressed itself only in the act which now preoccupied her.
Dancing through the woods, she seemed from a distance to be perhaps a doe, maybe even a fawn, so perfectly did she melt through the trees, the underbrush, the foliage. As she ran, she had no conscious goal. The running was an end in itself.
To be alone!
To be a part of a world so much more vast, so much older and expansive… that was her desire.
Coming to a clearing, she climbed a rock and standing at the top, she stripped. Naked, captured in the first ray of sun cutting a yellow swath across the tops of the trees, she might have been a wood nymph, the very embodiment of whatever spirit ruled the forest.
Her stance was defiant. Arms akimbo, legs spread, long waves of thick hair washing down her shoulders, her back, dipping down to the two rounded cheeks of her tanned buttocks.
Her sister's body had long ago been given to Lucus Simpson. She knew it, knew how Sherry secretly craved the touch of her father's lips on her breasts, the feel of his fingers probing into her, the grinding crush of his cock as it split her…
Carrie's body was her own. She derived no pleasure from what her father did to her. None. She was, again, the actress, the theatrical persona, giving just exactly what her audience paid for, no more, no less.
Only in the isolation of the wilderness could she truly feel her own life's pulse throbbing throughout her veins, rippling beneath the taut surface of her skin.
Here, atop this rock, she felt the heat of arousal, as surely as she felt the heat of the sun, climbing higher now in the sky.
She stroked her long legs, let her fingers glide over the hairless skin. It had always been Lucus' wish that they maintain their bodies in a truly feminine manner. No unshaven legs for his daughters, no hairy armpits. It was something that was very important to him and Carrie could understand. She like the sleek feel of her body, the almost frictionless way her hands glided over her flesh, up the insides of her thighs, higher, higher, all the way to the already dripping lips of her young pussy.
The feeling of her body's juice oozing through her fingers was possibly her greatest pleasure. She never failed to be amazed at the depths of feeling her body was capable of and she never hesitated to drive it as far as she possibly could.
She lay back on the top of the rock, her body sloping downward along the curve of its surface. She spread her legs, pulled them up towards her at the knees, and touching her fingertip to her hot clitoris, began the slow steady manipulations that would propel her through orgasm after violent orgasm.
The crisp air, the crystalline clarity of the sky, the near silence of the breeze slipping through the trees with a whispered SHHHHHH…! All these blended with the glowing nugget of hot coal between her legs, its heat spreading outward taking in more and more of her body until she felt herself to be on fire, felt the entire surface of her skin to be aflame, engulfing her, devouring her, consuming her…
She cried out when she came. From a distance, one would have heard perhaps what might have been the distant cry of a falcon, would have seen, had they even noticed, the inert form of a Goddess. She made almost no movement at all. The torrent was within her, ripping her apart, searing her brain. Outwardly, there was just the simple flickering of her fingertip back and forth relentlessly against her clitoris. Orgasm after orgasm tore through her, cries welled up from her throat, her eyes closed… she was transported, she merged with the wilderness, for a moment felt time as it was experienced by a tree, a rock, a mountain, felt herself changing like a season changes, felt time come crashing to a halt.
But only for a brief instant.
She returned, as she always did, and spent long moments simply lying motionless in the sun, legs splayed across the surface of the massive rock, breasts jutting straight upward like two mountains themselves, hair flowing in every direction, scattered as the wind, brilliant as the sun itself.
She felt at peace. Completely at peace. She was aware of her body, her mind and her soul. She was content with who she was.
But she was restless. She stood up, looked down the long slope of the mountain across the ravine to the next and the next, all splotched with the fiery hues of the dying year, all a tapestry of change, of alteration, of death and renewal.
There were changes building in her, still hovering just past her conscious thoughts. But she felt them the way animals in the forest feel an approaching storm when the sky is still cloudless. She knew something was there. She wished only that she might discern something of its shape, describe its form…
She looked at the sun. It would be nearly seven o'clock. Time was abundant.
She slid down the face of the rock, gathered her clothes, and carrying them in her arms, trotted off in the direction of the stream. Perhaps it was a bit chilly still, especially in the shade; nonetheless, nothing could surpass the shattering jolt of that first plunge into the icy water, that nerve searing blast of heatless energy. Her senses were finely tuned. They needed stimulation.
Carrie's solitude was not quite as complete as she believed.
Others stirred on this early morning, though they moved as strangers through the woods.
Had she gone perhaps a half-mile further, instead of turning down towards the stream for a swim, she would very soon have encountered the spiced wooden scent of coffee wafting through the trees like a scented mist. And she would have heard the sound of metal clanging together, smelled bacon cooking, perhaps even heard the sizzle and sputter as it fried in the pan.
But most alien, she would have heard voices. Strange voices. Voices never before heard in these woods. Male voices.
Belonging to one Johnny Talbert and his companion Rod Barrett. They sat at the camp fire watching their breakfast cook through bleary eyes.
"I'm telling you Rod, I don't think I can take much more of this. I'm getting to fucking old!"
Rod just chuckled to himself as he poured a dark stream of coffee into his cup, sipped it, wincing from the heat, then sipped it some more.
"You say that every year, and you've said it ever since we started coming up here. Now why don't you just drink your coffee and wait till you wake up a little bit before you go making sweeping decisions like that. You'll only regret it later on anyway."
Johnny grumbled and rubbed the stubble on his chin.