by Art Zeeton
Damn the luck! Wouldn't you know it? The dumpster was only about twenty yards from the cabin, and Ron and Clair had collected trash in the car on the trip - mainly paper cups and food wrappers. It would take only a few seconds to make a dash with the trash. Clair went for it in a sprint.
But Mr. Finney whirred around the curve on his little golf cart. Clair dropped in the trash and let the lid on the dumpster fall shut with a bang - and sighed.
"I'm busted, aren't I?" she said.
Mr. Finney chuckled and stopped the cart.
"'Fraid so, Mrs. Lattimer," he said as he stepped out. "You know what the rules say."
"I know, I know. Rule 6. No ladies allowed away from their cabins after five wearing clothes below the waist," Claire said.
"Actually, socks and shoes are okay," Mr. Finney said.
He reached into the basket on the back of a cart and brought out a clear polymer paddle with a double regiment of holes running the length of its business end. Claire examined the weapon for an instant, then looked around. Only a few of the cabins had vehicles parked in front of them, but it was only Wednesday. They would fill up by the weekend. A pickup truck was parked a couple of cabins down and a man in jeans, white tee, and dark shades sat on its little porch nursing a beer. Watching. Thunder rumbled in the east.
"We're gonna get it this evenin'," Mr. Finney said. "Hear Beaver Run is already out of its banks. Gonna come a gully-washer."
"I think I'm going to get it right now, Mr. Finney," Claire replied.
The man chuckled. Somewhere between middle age and death, Mr. Finney, as always, was dressed in pressed khaki. A floppy straw fedora was centered on his head.
"'Spect that's true, Mrs. Lattimer."
Clair unbuttoned her white walking shorts and shimmied them down to her knees. Black panties followed. She bent and grasped her shins.
"Why don't you turn t'other way, Mrs. Lattimer, so Mr. Barker can see."
Clair waddled around so the man on the porch could see her bare bottom.
Sometimes, the whole thing seemed absurd. Clair Lattimer, thirty six years old, looking much like a prim school teacher - which she was (maybe not so much the prim part) - standing bare-bottomed where a man who was not her husband would see her get spanked.
"Ready, Mrs. Lattimer?" Mr. Finney said.
Clair quickly brushed a stray lock of her short chestnut-colored hair out of her eyes, widened her stance a little for stability, and grasped her shins tighter.
"Ready, Mr. Finney."
The paddle crashed into her bottom with such force she almost stumbled forward.
"OH!"
Damn, he hit hard for an old guy! Clair regained her stance quickly and the second swat almost lifted her off her feet.
"OHHH!"
"Two more and we'll call it done, Mrs. Lattimer. Don't want you to get drenched."
Clair nodded and took the third low in the crease between bottom and thighs.
"OH!! Mr. Finney!!"
She looked over her shoulder and saw a red-haired woman had joined the man - Mr. Barker - on the porch. They were getting a show.
"Last one, Mrs. Lattimer."
Her nose was beginning to run and she quickly wiped it away just before the last swat flattened her bottom against her tailbone.
"Oh!! OHHHH!!!"
"Easy to forget the rules between visits, Mrs. Lattimer. Maybe that'll help you remember."
Clair stood erect painfully and rubbed at her battered bottom. A thin strike of lightning struck in the forested hills beyond the camp - then thunder cracked.
"Best get inside, Mrs. Lattimer. Not good to be out in a lightnin' storm," Mr. Finney warned.
"Good idea."
Clair stooped to retrieve her shorts and panties.
"You haven't already forgot, have you, Mrs. Lattimer?"
"Oh, sorry."
She stood on one foot and wrestled the garments off, then stood on the other and did the same. Mr. Finney took a pager from his pocket and looked at it.
"Gotta get back to the gate now. You and Mr. Lattimer have a good evenin'."
"You, too, Mr. Finney."
The man in the shades waved as Clair passed his cabin and the red-headed woman grinned. Clair waggled her fingers at them. Her vacation was off to a hell of a start.
Rhonda Spencer pressed the big red button on the gate pole and dashed back to the car. Rain was coming in heavy, splotchy drops.
"Mmmm! The rain smells fresh!" Darla McIntyre said from the passenger seat.
Rhonda and Darla. Darla and Rhonda. Thelma and Louise. That's what Darla had called them when they'd left the city that morning. Of course, Thelma and Louise hadn't driven a seven-year-old Accord, which Rhonda and Darla did. And they had a gun, which Rhonda and Darla did not. The heavy raindrops splattered on the windshield and Rhonda turned the wipers on low.
"Can you believe we're actually doing this?" Darla said.
She was leaned back in the seat, long tanned legs stretched out from the short denim shorts. Rhonda had gone with jeans and a light cotton sweater.
"It seems - surrealistic," Rhonda said.
"Getting cold feet? Having second thoughts?"
Rhonda shook her head.
"No. I mean, I don't think so."
"Well, if you are, speak now or forever hold your piece. Someone's coming," Darla said.
Through the wipers, Rhonda saw a man in a little golf cart approaching the gate.
"Shit!"
Nancy Bowen grasped the steering wheel tightly and leaned forward to see. The wipers were useless against the downpour.
"Language, Mother," Lilli said, not taking her eyes off her iPhone.
"I can't see anything!"
"It'll be okay, Mom. It's just rain. You weren't very nice to the man back at the bridge."
Nancy took a deep breath.
"You're right, Lil. I shouldn't have taken it out on him. It's not his fault the water is over the bridge. It's just that - well, damn! We're stuck!"
Lilli pulled out the earbuds.
"Sorry, Mom."
"It's not your fault. The trip was my idea."
"Yeah, but it's my photography class."
Nancy managed a smile.
"It's all right, honey. At least you got some good shots of that heron before the rain started."
Lilli scooted herself upright in the passenger seat.
"Are we going to have to, like, sleep in the car?" she said.
"Well, the ranger said there are just two motels on this side of Beaver Creek and both of them are full. Wait!"
Nancy hit the brakes and the SUV fishtailed a little on the wet pavement.
"Mom, what are you doing?"
Nancy looked over her shoulder and eased the vehicle backwards.
"Mom?"
"That sign - can you read it?"
Lilli squinted through her window.
"I think it says Camp Brian - Brianditch. Something like that."
Nancy turned the steering wheel hard.
"It also says 'Private,' Mom."
Overhanging boughs provided a little relief from the sheets of rain along a narrow blacktop road. They came to a closed pole gate and both leaned forward to look through the windshield.
"Looks like little houses back there, Mom."
"Cabins. Maybe it's a tourist court, Lil."
"A what?"
"Kind of like a motel. The sign says 'Push Button for Help' - and we could use a little help here."
Nancy swung open her door, dashed, and leaned on the button for a moment. She was soaked when she climbed back into the SUV.
Anybody could see the two were kin. Both were blonde, though Nancy's hair was worn softly to her shoulders and Lilli's was cut almost boyishly short. Blue eyes were almost identical. Lilli had barely made it to five feet, though, but had made the best of it by competing in gymnastics in high school. She would be a shoo-in for the college team in the fall. She put her earbuds back into place as the two waited.
"Here comes somebody," Nancy finally said.
A yellow figure stood at the gate working the lock. Nancy rolled her window down a few inches as the figure approached.
"Help you folks?" a male voice said.
"We're stranded. The bridges are closed. Do you have a vacancy?"
The figure in the slicker stooped and looked into the SUV.
"Sorry you're stranded, but Camp Briarswitch is private. Reservations only."
"Where can we go? The motels are full!" Nancy said, angst rising in her voice.
"Well, now, I can't rightly say."
"We're only going to be here for the night. Do you have, like, a place where we could at least park out of the rain?"
The man looked across to Lilli, rubbed at his chin.
"Well, the Bartley's cancelled out 'cause of the rain. Reckon I could let you have Number 16 for the night - long as you'll be leavin' in the mornin'."
Nancy broke into a broad smile.
"That would be wonderful! We'll pay extra!"
"No need for that. Glad to help out. You ladies just follow me. My name is Finney."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Finney. I'm Nancy and this is Lil."
Mr. Finney opened the gate wide and climbed into his little cart. Nancy followed him.
"He seems like a nice man," Lilli said.
"Yes. Very nice," her mother replied.
Libbie Janeway was an early riser by nature and did not need an alarm to rouse her from bed before dawn. She started the coffee pot, went to the tiny bathroom and showered while it brewed. She patted herself dry and used the towel to wipe the fog from the mirror. She examined her naked self.
Libbie Janeway was not a beauty and never had been. At thirty eight, she was fourteen pounds heavier than her high school weight. That did not bother her. In fact, she liked it. She never had been a stick figure and never would be. Over the course of twenty years, she had grown two bra sizes, but the droop of her breasts was not too bad and her nipples seemed larger and darker. Her stomach had a roundness to it that made her navel appear larger and deeper. She thought her legs were her best features, even though they were meatier now than in the past. She wore a full bush between those legs. She had tried variations or bikini trims and had even shaved it off for a while. In the end, she decided she liked it better au natural - just trimming away the fronds that got unruly.
She twirled her black hair up, turbaned it in a fresh towel and walked naked to the kitchen - which was nothing more than a kitchenette along one wall. She found her glasses on the countertop where she had left them the night before. Without them, anything beyond about six feet was hopelessly blurry. The coffee was ready so she poured a half cup and sat at the tiny dinette, sipping. The effect was almost instantaneous. Fully alert, she decided to finish her coffee out on the little porch. She would dress first, of course.
Libbie went to the rustic dresser and opened a top drawer. In it were two stacks of identical t-shirts, each a lime green with the words "Camp Briarswitch" emblazoned across it. She un-turbaned her hair and slipped on one of the tees. "Slipped" was not really the right word because her skin was still damp. She "worked" it on. Her large breasts made the words stand out in 3-D. She paused before tugging the shirt all the way down and examined the profile of her bottom in the dresser mirror. It was still pink from the day before. Although she could easily have worn a "large" shirt, Libbie preferred the extra-large because it came down low enough to cover her big muff - but not with a lot to spare.
Libbie gathered her hairbrush from the bathroom and her coffee from the table and stepped onto the cabin's tiny porch.
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