Cronix Read Online Free PDF

defend herself.
    “That’s okay, that’s okay,” he cooed. “I’m not going to touch you.” He opened the neck of the bag. “You go in here. Warm.” He turned his back on her and made as if to sleep, listening as she slipped into the sleeping bag, fully clothed. He turned and snuffed the lantern. A little while later, he could hear her awkwardly pulling off her sweater in the dark, clearly too hot. Then he drifted off to sleep.
    He thought he was dreaming at first, an adolescent fancy of fumbled arousal. A soft hand infiltrating his blanket and creeping like an erotic spider, warm and menacing, across his belly. He smiled in his sleep and the spider pressed southwards on its padded feet. He felt himself stiffen. In his mind, he sighed at the sweet adolescent association of camping and sex. But there was something else, something tickling at his mind like a teasing feather: he had never been an adolescent.
    He opened his eyes a crack, just as the scold was pulling back his blanket. She did not notice at first that he was awake. She was naked too. He lay still in the darkness to avoid scaring her off. Because this was too pleasant, he thought, being groped by this woman who was no doubt responding to some inner animal call. She pushed herself down on him roughly and he let out a gasp, almost of pain. Clearly this was her first sexual experience, or at least her first voluntary one. She straddled him, one knee propping her upright, the other crooked into a crouch so she could work herself against him. She started gently rocking backwards and forth, letting out a little gasp every now and then. He lifted his hands slowly to stroke her arms, which were smooth and marbled with muscle. She didn’t seem to care whether he was awake now, so he slid his hands over her shoulders and breasts. She let out a long breath and moved her hands down on his chest. She pressed down so hard he started to worry she might suffocate him, but the sensation pleased him nonetheless.
    She was perched on the balls of both feet by now, grinding frantically. The aggression of her mating tantalized him, igniting forgotten fantasies he had imagined long since laid to rest. The disturbing thought again occurred to him that perhaps they weren’t fantasies, but memories of long ago, things buried deep under the hill of time. No thought could trouble him for more than a second now, though, as she writhed atop him. He let out a strangled howl as his back arched and collapsed, his mind and body spent. One of the dogs outside got to its feet and started sniffing at the flap of the tent. But she kept moving on top of him, perhaps unaware that he had finished. The pleasure started to turn to discomfort, then pain, so he put his hands up to her shoulders and pushed her gently back.
    “Okay, that’s enough now. It’s finished.”
    He realized how selfish the words would sound to any other woman, but she simply retreated to her side of the tent, apparently satisfied. He decided to take his life in his hands, and lent across the canvas floor to where he could just make out her head in the dark. He tried to kiss her on the cheek but missed and ended up planting his lips on her ear. She didn’t try to stab him, which he took as a good sign. Ten minutes later he was asleep again, as contented as he been in a long, long time.
     
    The woman was already up and dressed when he awoke. She had resurrected the fire and was stirring cornmeal in a metal pot. The dogs lay next to her, soaking up the weak sun. He smiled, squinting in the bright morning light. She stared back at him blankly.
    “I was that good, huh?” he said. She ignored him.
    “Do you have a name?” he asked. She spooned slop into her mouth, but did not look up. “Not even a name? Well, we’ll have to get you a name then. Let me think about it.”
    After breakfast, they set off again. Occasionally the old man would shout out a possible moniker. “Cathy?” “Lorna?” Each time she would glance