Cara inhaled fresh, clean air and sighed.
Ah, this is the life!
Bird song filled the air, trees rustled overhead, and the rush of the river, always constant, always there, flowed in the background.
"Hello little fella," she crooned to a tiny Splendid Wren prettily feathered in purple and blue.
A plaintive whine pierced the idyllic surroundings.
"Don't get jealous Jed."
Her puppy lay panting in the minimal shade of a eucalypt. It was a shame he had to stay chained but this was a National Forrest, she couldn't let him roam free with lizards and endangered marsupials at risk.
Maybe the chain was unfair but camping solo was out of the question.
"Show me your menacing growl puppy," she crooned, chuckling at his dopey grin. Jed rolled on his back, wriggling for a tummy scratch. "Some bodyguard you are!"
Settling back against a tree, she indulged him, watching his leg cycle like a pump. It was like tickling a child – funny at first, quickly disintegrating in to torture. Ending the torment she pulled him on to her lap, absently patting his head.
It had been so long – too long – since she'd been here.
She'd grown up in this Dwellingup forest, spending every school holiday here with her father and brother. Their dad had taught them how to light a campfire, how to fish, and how to respect the bush and the creatures in it.
He'd enjoyed his 'lone time with them, never bothered that her mother opted out claiming it was madness to sleep on the ground with nowhere to plug in a hairdryer.
He'd also forced them to be independent. "Wet clothes?" he'd say. "Next time remember to hang them up."
The lessons that Cara had learned in this forest had been the beginnings of her self-sufficiency. Losing her mother to ovarian cancer at fourteen years of age had sped the process along.
"Mum," she whispered, looking up at the vast Australian sky.
Today was the tenth anniversary of her death.
Cara had escaped to the bush because she couldn't take another year of watching the men in her family drink themselves in to a stupor. There had to be a better way to celebrate her mother's life, a way to find joy instead of reliving the sorrow.
Her father and brother had been nightly drinkers for the last decade. On this particular date they predictably woke up and chased whiskey for breakfast.
Cara hadn't just lost her mother that day; she'd lost her entire family.
The emotional blackmail heaped on her for not attending the yearly wake didn't bear thinking about. She wasn't about to spend her hard earned break feeling guilty.
"C'mon Boy." Transferring Jed from the chain to the lead, she slung a towel over her shoulder and set off for the river. "Swim time buddy."
Jed was a handful, stronger than he looked. The bush made him manic – a thousand different scents overloading him, luring him every which way.
The river was a shock; lots of muddy flats and a minimal water line, ending well below the jetty. Inconsiderate party animals had left cigarette butts and beer bottles lying on the riverbank.
Didn't these lowlifes realise that people came here with children? Bottles inevitably broke, leaving sharp glass to cut little feet. Considering the huge rubbish bins back at camp put a dark frown on Cara's face. Thoughtless
and
lazy.
"We won't be swimming here," she told Jed, thinking of the deepest point only a twenty minute walk up river. Later though, she vowed to come back and pick up the rubbish.
Just not now.
Not when she was yearning to put her body in to cold water.
Her very hot, nubile, young body.
God!
Which brought her to the
real
reason she'd run away to be alone, didn't it?
Because Colin kept pushing her to set a date and Cara kept dragging her heels.
They'd made love the night before she'd left Perth. Or at least, they'd squished bodies together in a semblance of making love. Was 'making love' a euphemism for a premature performance? An act that couldn't compete with the length of a commercial break.
Was 'making love' a term for vainly struggling to stay awake? Like taking a boring pill – guaranteed to send her to sleep. One pill every three months,
if
she was lucky, though 'lucky' was a serious misnomer.
Why would she be in a hurry to rush to the altar when she already felt like a wife?
A wife who'd been thinking of adding river rocks to the bed simply to give her a reason to squirm.
The wife from the joke who lay under her husband thinking, '
Beige, I think I'll paint the ceiling beige
'.
* * *
Colin was perfect for her in other ways; responsible, encouraging, considerate, kind. But lately she'd begun to resent the way he
always
thought of her, checking on her constantly as if she was a wayward child.
An evil twin had been popping in to her head lately. An evil twin that begged to scream at him 'For once in your life, be selfish!'
Except in the bedroom, which seemed to be the only place on earth where Colin only thought of himself.
How many times had she yearned for him to be more inventive? Craving his tongue in more sensitive areas of her body, other than the obligatory sloppy kiss?
Maybe she wasn't being fair. Maybe the fault lay with her. She knew she was pretty, but perhaps she wasn't sexy enough to arouse
that
kind of interest.
After their thoroughly uninteresting, passionless interlude, she'd slid out of bed to the sound of his snoring and stood naked in front of the mirror assessing her body.
The evidence before her eyes was undeniable – she
was
sexy, in the prime of her life. Her lush breasts pointed upwards, her tiny waist curved delicately inwards, her skin was golden, unblemished, her whole package was sizzling hot. She'd been blessed with the goods.
Weighing her breasts in her hands, swinging around and poking her tight bottom in the air, she'd been so turned on she'd almost…
No. She didn't want to be one of
those
women who resorted to seedy sex shops, bragging to friends about their latest weapon of mass destruction. She didn't want to – she outright refused – to be responsible for her own pleasure.
What if she found out once and for all that
she
