Close Call
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The Wanderer couldn’t believe his luck when he found the pool.
After exploring the woods for weeks, he thought it must be his imagination when he glimpsed steam floating into the rays of morning light.
The Wanderer sniffed the air.
The odor of spoiled eggs was faint but distinctive, drifting from the eastern woods where he seldom went. He found a stream running downhill to the south, and dipped his hand.
The water was still warm, proving this came from a hot spring.
He rushed back to camp, savoring the thought of a bath while collecting his soiled clothes, and bottles of soap and oil.
As he followed the creek uphill, the pungent aroma grew stronger and the drafts of steam left a film on his skin.
He hadn’t reached the top when he found it, recognizing the intervention of man in nature. In the center was the origin where the springs heated in thermal depths of the earth came through.
The pool was dark in the middle, bubbles breaking along the surface to a small cave, from which clouds billowed. Only a violent disturbance of the earth could have opened such a fissure.
But there was a lower shelf built round the center, the water so clear he could make out the fine mineral grains at the bottom. Just above the shelf, flat stones were arranged to form a ledge over the pool.
Another stream poured in from the northwest where the water numbed his fingers in less than a minute.
Any doubt he had that this was the work of fellow travelers was gone, when he followed that stream to the dry beds where it had once flowed before being rerouted.
The Wanderer undressed and lowered himself where the warm creek left the pool.
There, the water was perfect, stopping below his hips.
Then he dove into the black depths and the heat grew intense. The temperature was more than he could bear along the fissure and he didn’t dare go towards the cave.
Instead, he swam against the incoming stream, reveling in the fluid caress of hot and cold.
It wasn’t long before dreaminess overtook him, the sensation unique to mineral springs.
Before he melted into perpetual laze, he dove under and swam through varying degrees of heat to the other side of the pool and back again.
When he came up for air, the woods were spinning.
Already, he’d been in the water too long.
But the girl had come.
He knew she was there from the thrill along his flesh and the tension in his limbs before he even saw her.
She must have approached from the north.
Her arms were folded casually and she leaned against a tree to the right of the incoming stream. Their eyes met for an instant before her gaze swept over him, her mouth parting in a near smile.
The unabashed roguishness startled the Wanderer.
He even had to resist the urge to dive back in the water, holding her look for a moment before he got out and stretched along the ledge.
Reaching for his canteen, he sipped slowly until the flask was empty and he was steady again.
Then he glanced to the tree.
The girl still hadn’t moved, her eyes fixed on him.
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t do with a wash,” he said, dropping into the pool. “So are you getting in, or are you just going to watch?”
The girl smiled, then kicked off her boots and unbuckled her holster.
Her oversized blouse fell just below her hips when her breeches dropped to the ground.
The Wanderer admired the long muscles gripping her thighs, the meat of her calves tapering to shapely ankles.
The girl hesitated, but he floated on his back and kept watching.
She cocked one brow at him before taking hold of her shirt.
His breath caught in his throat when she pulled her blouse over her head.
Before the garment fluttered to the ground, the Wanderer ducked underwater, propelling himself against the icy current flowing into the pool. His heart pounded from the image etched in his mind.
He usually preferred lush womanly curves, but he couldn’t deny the girl was lovely.
Her body was a marriage of muscle and flesh, creating a harmony of softness and strength. Her modest breasts stood high, ropy sinews carved her waist and held her belly flat, then swelled into the subtle round hips that guarded her pubis.
The Wanderer didn’t come up for air until his arousal tapered off.
He was embarrassed when the girl smirked at him, but he didn’t look away.
Her skin was golden in the beams of light filtering through the trees, that star-shaped pendant she always wore resting between her breasts.
She stepped to the pool and the sun hit the facets of the crystal.
Suddenly the Wanderer was dizzy, and blinded by a swirl of colors surrounding him.
His pulse roared, his heart pounding in his ears, and sharpness burst inside his chest. It happened so fast and the unexpected pain sunk him underwater.
The Wanderer choked and kicked hard to push his head above the surface, and lunged for the shelf. His knees scraped against the grains at the bottom and he leaned over the ledge, wracked with coughing until he expunged the water he swallowed.
As soon as he was calm, the Wanderer looked towards the girl
She was more agitated than he.
Collapsed against the tree, she heaved for air through her nose, biting her lower lip. Her face was white and her eyes had gone black, while tears streamed down her cheeks.
One hand gnarled and trembled between her breasts, where she held the pendant tight in her fist. Then she pulled the necklace over her head, her fingers unfolding slowly and dropping the crystal into the heap of clothes.
The Wanderer had the sense he’d been released somehow.
His breath came easier and he got out of the pool, lying prone on the ledge with his head resting on his arms. His heartbeat slowed gradually and the quivering in his limbs settled down.
The girl also needed a few minutes to steady herself. She sat at the edge of the pool with her legs dangling in the water.
Then she dropped in to her shoulders, her hair waving on the surface.