Brinkhurst.com

“Matt, I’m cold,” Jessica said.

“I’m freezing,” I said.

“What do we do?” Jessica asked.

“We should find our way back to the street. We just need to follow the sound of the cars.”

“So, you could have got us out of the forest all along?” Jessica asked.

“I didn’t really think of it earlier. I was distracted by how you kept kissing my neck and grabbing my inner thigh.”

“That was you doing that. You did that to me,” Jessica said, giggling a bit.

“That wouldn’t make me any less distracted.”

We slowly follow the sound of cars back to the path, back toward the beach. Jessica is no longer holding my hand like a young naive girlfriend. She holds my arm with her arm, with confidence. She stared at me a bit, a bit too much, but it was with a huge sexy smile, and it was more of a turn-on than awkward.

“The cop car is still in the parking lot,” Jessica pointed out.

“Weird. We must have been gone for hours, so why . . .”

Jessica interrupted me.

“Why would he still be here?” Jessica finished my question.

“You wanna have some fun?” I ask.

“What, we haven’t been having fun so far?” Jessica asks.

“He’s not in his car. He’s here for some reason. I’ve never seen an all night patrol at this beach before. Let’s go see what he’s up to.”

“Really, you haven’t had enough of that guy yet?” Jessica asked.

“Once I get stuck on a person, I want to be around them all the time,” I said.

“So, you want that cop around all the time?” Jessica asked.

“No.”

I once went rock climbing with a friend, and this moment with Jessica feels so much like that moment. Jessica and I ripped each others clothes off, ready for the ‘climb,’ hungry for it. We move up that mountain together, completely exhilarated with every moment, not able to see everything ahead, feeling our way, getting higher and higher, hotter and hotter, as we continue to climb. We get higher together, make each movement together; we can’t get higher without each other.

The rush continues. We can see the top. We can both see the top. We’re almost there.

“I’m almost there,” Jessica is barely able to say, as she gasps from near exhaustion.

“We’re almost there,” I say, barely audible.

With one hand at the top, I help Jessica get there first. I look into her face; she is happy, glowing, prettier than ever, and I climb that last little bit to get all the way to the top. We lie down at the top of the mountain, exhausted, and it seems like we’re able to see the entire world. We are so happy; we got there together.

“Thank you,” Jessica says.

“That was so good,” I said.

“It really really was,” Jessica said.

I run my hands through her hair, as I feel the air growing colder and colder around us, in the pitch black forest.

I grasp Jessica’s waist, under her clothes.

“Cold hands,” Jessica says, in a shivering voice.

I pick Jessica up, lean her back into a nearby tree, and she wraps her legs tightly around me. We hear each other breathe; the darkness blinds us completely. I run my hand from just above her knee to the very top of her inner thigh, and I squeeze, firmly.

“Matt, don’t stop there,” Jessica softly says.

Jessica gently runs her fingers up my abdomen. Her hands shake, as she fiddles with my belt, desperately trying to get it off.

“Matt. I need you. Help me,” she says, with complete frustration in her voice.

I won’t help her though; I’m enjoying the moment, enjoying the frustration, enjoying that we are dancing on the edge of pleasure. I run my hands up Jessica’s back around her side and up her chest. I can feel and hear Jessica’s frustration grow as she roughly rips my belt open and throws it to the ground.

“Take your pants off, now,” Jessica demands.

I set Jessica down, turning her around so that she’s facing away from me. Jessica feels me firmly pressed against her back. I kiss and gently suck Jessica’s neck, while my hands, under her clothes, run up her chest and down her pants. I reach around the back of her thigh, tightly grasping her leg in my hand, moving my other hand up the front of her inner thigh. I can feel my fingers touching her panties.

“I need you Matt,” Jessica begs.

“Let’s go off the path,” Jessica said.

“You want to go into a forested area in the middle of the night without any lights?” I ask.

“Didn’t you survive wilderness for a year, day and night?” she asked.

“Yeah, but I didn’t care if I got lost. I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be ever again.”

“So, get lost with me. We’ll find our way back in the morning,” Jessica said.

“It’s very dangerous trying to navigate through the forest at night, even with flashlights, which we don’t have.”

My hand is firmly grasping her’s, as she firmly grasps mine. We slowly walk into the forest, and it becomes darker and darker.

“Put your hand out in front of you so you don’t run into anything,” I urge.

We walk so far into the forest that there is no trace of light at all.

“Now what?” Jessica asks.

“It’s too dark to move on, and it’s too dark to find our way back. We’ll have to stay here in the forest, until the sun begins to rise.”

“OK,” Jessica says.

I feel around for her head, and I run my fingers through her straight, black hair, brushing it aside to kiss her on the cheek, which I miss, clumsily kissing her on the neck.

“Ah,” Jessica softly whispers.

I move to the other side of Jessica’s neck, kissing firmly, intently, right where the base of her neck meets her shoulder.

“You smell so good,” Jessica whispers to me, even though I’m not wearing any cologne.

I run my hand gently up the back of her head, again through her hair, kissing her neck just below her ear. I brush my lips against her lips, very softly.

“Matt,” she says gently.

I move to her cheek and kiss once more.

“Matt, kiss me,” she says.

I hold the back of her head in my hand and firmly press my big lips against her’s.

Walking away from the beach, there was a nature path that went off into a lightly forested area. It’s close proximity to the street meant that it was still fairly well lit, even though it was getting late at night. I was trying to lead us down that path, but I kept worrying that Jessica was going to ask me to take her home. She’s probably tired, not use to a day like this. She has four days of work ahead of her as well, but I just want to keep spending time with her.

“Matt?”

I don’t say anything. I’m afraid to answer back. She’s going to say that she wants to go home. She’s going to say enough’s enough.

“Are you getting tired, Matt?”

“No,” I quickly say.

I doubt there is any chance that saying no will stop Jessica from wanting to head home.

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m tired?” Jessica asked.

I was really trying to avoid this, but it almost seems that Jessica is trying to end the night but make me think it’s my idea.

“I wasn’t going to ask you.”

“Oh. OK. Well, I am a bit tired,” Jessica said.

Jessica looked very intently into my eyes, forcing the next question that I just couldn’t get out of.

“Did you want me to take you home?”

“No. I never want tonight to end,” Jessica said.

We continued down the path. What time is it?

The cop and I had a real Mexican standoff situation going on. Jessica had a lets get the hell out of here look on her face. The beach time was pretty much over. All of the wine and pizza is gone and the brainless pig is going to stay here until we move, so no matter what, the situation is dead. I really want to punch this guy right in the face. It’s not cool though to be fighting for the sake of fighting. The beach moment is dead, and I’m getting cold anyway.

I take Jessica’s hand into mine and walk away, without a word, a nod of recognition, or even a glance at the cop.

“A wise choice,” the cop shouted out.

That really got my back up, and it took all of my strength to keep moving, be cool, and not put that cop in his place. I can’t believe Jessica is so calm and cool. She doesn’t even look a bit phased, not at all. The cop just stands on the beach, not moving, as though he has won territory in a gang war. He stands so proudly and arrogantly.

Jessica is leading us toward the parking lot where she very intently walks right over to the empty police car. She reaches into her pocket. Is she going to write down some information about the car? Maybe she will report this to one of her justice friends and something will happen. Maybe Jessica is the cool girl that carries big grudges.

I hear a sharp scratching sound as I look down at Jessica’s right hand. She’s keying the cop car. She is way too cool.

“I’m going to have to take you two in, and we can sort this out at the station,” the cop said.

Jessica started to eat two slices of pizza, as fast as she could.

“You’ll have to arrest us if you want to bring us anywhere,” Jessica said.

“Fine. You’re under arrest then. Come with me,” the cop said.

“I’m not going anywhere with you half wit,” I returned.

The cop was about to call for backup, but Jessica pushed his hand gently downwards before he could utter the words into his radio.

“If we’re under arrest, what’s the charge?” Jessica asked, as she grabbed another two slices of pizza.

“Drinking in public and public drunkenness,” the cop said.

“You’ll be forced to prove both. How confident are you that you can do that?” Jessica asked.

“A breathalyzer test will be all the proof I need,” the cop confidently responded.

“I don’t have any confidence in the accuracy of the breathalyzer test, so we won’t be taking it,” Jessica said.

“That’s an admission of guilt,” the cop responded.

“No. It’s only an admission of guilt when operating a motor vehicle, and in that instance, it only counts as an admission of guilt until the point a blood test can be taken,” Jessica responded.

“I can still bring you in for public drunkenness. If I see rowdy behavior and suspect alcohol, I have every right to bring you in. I saw you drink wine, right in front of me,” the cop said.

“It’s your word against ours, and we will demand a blood test as soon as we get to the station. Our word will win over yours, since the test will show that we have no significant alcohol in our blood streams,” Jessica said.

“I just saw you down half a bottle of wine. Alcohol is going to show up in the blood test, plus you were drinking before that,” the cop said.

Jessica grabbed another two slices of pizza and started talking with her mouth full.

“I have had the equivalent of about 3 glasses of wine. The fact is that my alcohol level, especially with all of this pizza in my stomach, is going to come in too low to look like you arrested us for being drunk. Then our story of a corrupt cop on the take is really going to stick,” Jessica said.

The cop paused with a look of frustration on his face.

“I’ll let you go this time with a warning, but you’ll have to leave the beach right away,” the cop said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

“You’d rather be arrested than leave?” the cop asked.

“I’d rather be shackled for life than let some idiot fascist try to tell me where I can and can’t go,” I said.

Someone came by flashing his flash light all around like he was some sort of cop. He’s the kind of guy who you just want to punch.

“You’ll have to show me your ID,” he said while flashing his light in our faces.

Jessica looked a bit frightened.

“I’ll tell you what, you see how far up yourself you can shove that flashlight, and I’ll show you my ID,” I said.

“You two are drinking in public. I’ll need to see some ID.”

“What, are you going to give us a fine? Get lost,” I said.

“I’m an officer of the law sir, and if you don’t show me your ID, I’ll have to bring you in,” he said.

“I’m an officer of the law, and I dress up in women’s clothes,” I said mockingly.

Jessica grabs the bottle and swallows it down, as quickly as she can.

“Wow. That was half a bottle, impressive,” I said.

She holds the bottle by the neck and throws it as hard as she can into the water.

“Now I have you for drinking in public and littering,” he said.

“Prove it.” Jessica said

I laughed. Jessica sure is smart. The burden of proof is on the cop. As long as Jessica and I tell the same story, than it is just our word against his.

“This is good pizza.”

“You’re not going to try to justify your point?” Jessica asked.

“Think about the person that you are closest to. Now imagine that person suddenly dies.”

“My Mom,” Jessica said swallowing the lump in her throat.

“Picture a weird scenario now where your Mom is happy, she wishes she could see you, and you wish you could see her, but you know that there is zero possibility of the two of you ever seeing each other or talking to each other again, and for whatever reason, in this scenario, you never even hear news about her. Basically, it’s like she’s dead, except she’s not dead.”

“That would be an impossible scenario, but it wouldn’t be as difficult as if she were dead,” Jessica said.

“The only reason that it’s not as difficult is because there is still hope that you will be able to see your Mom before she dies. Death is finality; it takes away all hope.”

“I think people are still upset about death,” Jessica firmly stated.

“I respectfully disagree. If I hear about an old man in a far away place who dies, I don’t care about it, especially if he has no significance to me in anyway. People die all the time. Someone is taking their last breath at this very moment, and here you and I are drinking wine, eating pizza, and not giving a damn.”

“Huh,” Jessica said.

“Something to at least think about?”

“Something to think about.” Jessica agreed.

“When I was out, walking through forests, farms, and cities, I didn’t ever figure out the solution to the problem that kept going through the mind.”

“So you didn’t figure it out?” Jessica asked me.

We sat down on the sandy beach, and I passed the bottle of wine to Jessica. We took turns drinking right out of the bottle.

“I kept asking myself ‘how do I get over this’ and ‘how will I ever get past this.’ After months and month of suffering over this. I found a homeless woman. She was lonely, poor, and extremely paranoid, but I was able to get a glimpse into her psyche. She blamed everyone else for every problem in her life. Every feeling she had was a result of her own interpretation of events. I started to think about that and apply it to my own life.”

“I’m not sure that makes sense. She was a crazy woman, and you are not insane,” Jessica said.

“That’s likely true, but if you had a family that died. Would you do what I did and run away from the world?”

“No,” Jessica said with great confidence.

“Right, so we all have different emotions, different responses, and different interpretations. If we would all have different interpretations of the exact same event, it makes us all wrong.”

“Not everybody is wrong about everything,” Jessica said back.

“No, but nobody is ever completely correct about anything when emotion or interpretation is involved. Having my entire family die was very painful at that time in my life, but after meeting the homeless lady, I realized that I was trying to solve a problem that wasn’t a problem.”

“Having your whole world torn apart to the point where you couldn’t even work and you became a wandering vagrant, that’s not a problem?”

“No. It’s simple math. It was all right there in front of me. I kept looking at the emotional pain as the problem. I sat down that same night after meeting the homeless lady. I crossed my legs and closed my eyes. I didn’t really hope to achieve anything from it, but I just started thinking. My family died; that was the equation; that was the problem. The end result was my unhappiness or vagrancy if you prefer. Think of it this way: 1 dead wife + 2 dead children = a very unhappy me. That was the entire equation. There was no problem to solve. Being upset about your entire family being killed is a response that makes sense; most people would have it. Once I stopped trying to solve it, I figured out that, like everyone else, I wasn’t upset that my family was actually dead; I was upset that they were no longer in my life.”

“I’m not sure I agree with that,” Jessica challenged.