She reaches behind her and tugs at the strings. They come apart and her white bikini top falls around her waist. She gathers her hair and wraps it in a scarf on top of her head. Then she lies back. She reaches for her book. Her breasts settle on her chest. Her nipples, the colour of wrens, face the blue sky.

It’s quiet here. Tourists don’t hike this far up the mountain. She must know it; she doesn’t bother looking around before slipping a hand into her bikini bottom. The motion of her fingers is obvious beneath the fluttering fabric.

Her breathing deepens into a rhythm. Her chest rises and falls, lifting and lowering the book she clutches in her left hand while her right one shudders between her legs. Her belly is tight. Her crimson lips are soft and pouting.

“Oh!” she cries. But her voice is swallowed by the forest.

Her canary yellow picnic blanket is crumpled in a nest around her. Her body is turbulent, swept away by a squall. It whips her until she starts to tremble, her headscarf comes loose and, finally, she drops the book.

“Oh!” she cries again, and arches her back against the rock bed. Her sunglasses topple off her face. Her eyes are hummingbird green and beating their wings in the storm.

And then, she sees me.

Hands fly to cover her naked breasts, but the tempest rages on. She is helpless against it, and I watch. She rolls onto her belly, body still billowing. Her legs curl beneath her, knees to chest, and she buries her face in the blanket.

The gale becomes a breeze and fades into the distance.

She looks at me and sits up. Her body is exposed now, breasts heaving as her breath comes back to her. She keeps her eyes on me while she re-does her hair and rests the sunglasses on her head. She smiles.

“Why didn’t you take a picture?” she asks. “That’s what you came here for, wasn’t it?”

“N… no,” I say. I hold up the camera, fighting the weight of the lens. “I came to watch the birds.”

She sits back and crosses her legs in front of her. She points her toes towards me, then at the sky, then back to me. She licks her lips.

“So…” Her smile deepens. “Watch the birds then.”

I hold my gear above my head and pass between the shrubs. Behind me, a bush shudders and something darts back the way I came, weaving deep into the forest. A rabbit, maybe. Or a hare. I step past her, to the edge of the ravine. She shuffles on the blanket. I thumb the locks on the tripod and let the legs slide to the ground.

She watches. I slip the strap over my head and fix the camera to the stand.

“What do you see?” she asks.

“A scarlet tanager.”

I press the shutter release and the camera clicks.

“A what now?”

“Scarlet tanager. They’re a type of cardinal. I started seeing them around here last month. They’re not normally this far west.”

“Maybe they decided they’d like a change,” she suggests.

“That’s ridiculous,” I tell her. “Animals don’t think that way.”

“Is that so? You seem to know a lot about birds.”

She puts a hand on my arm. It’s the hand that was tucked into her bikini bottom. I catch the scent; no other animal smells quite like it. Her palm is warm. She reaches under my sleeve and wraps her fingers around my bicep. In the viewfinder, the tanager opens its wings. I press the release and the camera clicks.

“You seem strong too,” she continues. “Do you work out?”

“No. But sometimes I help out around the farm. I guess that might count.”

“Oh? You’re a farmer?”

“N… not really. My parents are the farmers—”

“You live with your parents? How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“That’s the same as me! Where did you go to college?”

She doesn’t recognise the name, but she has a lot of questions: what I studied, where I work now, whether I like my job. While she asks them, her hand strokes my arm while her other hand, the one that held the book, runs up my neck until her fingers are in my hair and finds a place I love to be touched.

A noise erupts from across the ravine. The shutter clicks as the tanager takes off. I straighten up and rub my eyes. She holds the underside of the zoom lens and brushes the length of it. It dwarfs her hand.

She looks me in the eye again. I see the whites of her teeth.

“So how big is it?” she asks.

“Two to five hundred milli—”

“No.” There’s laughter in her voice. “Not that.”

“Uh, I’ve…” I don’t need to follow her eyes. “I’ve never checked.”

“Well, it looks impressive from here. You know…” She pushes me and I step back. “You really startled me. It’s rude to watch someone when they think they’re alone.”

She emphasises the last syllables with a finger into my chest. Her breasts shake with each stab. I swallow.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t mean to. But you did. And now…” Her attention shifts to my belt. “…It seems only fair that I get to watch you. Don’t you think?”

I don’t stop her. I’m lost in her eyes and the thumping pressure from the vein in my neck. Her skin looks soft in the late afternoon light. I imagine it would be soft under any light, against my own skin. The belt buckle goes. The button is next, then the fly.

She shoves me and I fall onto the blanket. The heels of my palms land on folded fabric. It hurts, but I’m distracted by her urging off my shoes and socks with her toes. She pulls my shorts and briefs down, together, over the bulge at my crotch, then tosses them aside.

She kneels over me and sits on my stomach. The insides of her knees rest under my arms. Her laughter sounds like chirping as she rocks gently from side to side, inching my shirt up from under her. I shift to let her free me from the last of my clothes.

“My…” She sighs. “Just look at you. Maybe I should take a picture.”

I was right. Her skin is soft. Her inner thighs brush my torso, hot where they touch and cold where they’ve been. I watch her eyes move from my face to my chest, to my shoulders, as she shuffles backwards. The cleft of her butt crashes where I feel the most full.

I breathe deeply. It’s an effort.

“You can if you want to,” I say. “The camera’s just—”

“Maybe later,” she chuckles. “Hmm, you are very hard.”

“I… I guess I am.”

“Have you been with a girl before?”

I nod. I have.

“How many?”

I don’t want to answer, and she runs her fingers through my hair again.

“I’m sure they were all quite beautiful.”

She lifts my hands to her waist, then slowly pushes them down her hips. It’s an exquisite sensation, sliding down the arc of that curve; it’s a place I love to touch. Behind her, I twitch. She tilts her hips and undulates against me. I picture her cheeks under her bikini bottom.

“Do you think I’m beautiful?” she asks.

“Yes… I think you’re very beautiful.”

“Describe it to me.”

“Your eyes shine when they catch the light. Your lips look like candy when you lick them.”

“What about these?” She moves my hands up her body. “Do you think they’re beautiful?”

“I do. They’re breathtaking.”

She presses my open palms into her breasts and squeezes my fingers into her flesh. Her nipples press back into me. She leads me in slow circles while she pushes against me, almost caressing my prick with the valley of her ass. She breathes deeply. I breathe too, with her.

“It’s your turn now,” she whispers. “While I watch you. Would you do that?”

I nod. I would.

“Good.” She unties her headscarf. It lands beside my head and I catch a hint of berries. “Now, touch yourself,” she says. “Make yourself come.”

“I… I can’t reach.”

“Oh!” she cries, and removes herself from me. She comes to rest again, kneeling on the blanket, with the tips of her knees nudging my shoulders and my head between her legs. Her smile is upside-down above me. My ears burn by her thighs. She leans forward and guides my hand to my dick. “How about now?”

Her breasts fall over my face. I cup one with my free hand. It’s supple and inviting. Softly, I bite it and take the nipple in my mouth. It’s like a pebble across my tongue. A small cry escapes her. I close my eyes, close a fist around my shaft, and begin to stroke.

The smell of her body is phenomenal. Fruity shampoo, lingering traces of the perfume she dabbed on her wrists that morning, the fresh scent of laundry powder mingled with her own musk and sun-warmed skin. With my free arm, I reach around her torso and pull her closer, inhaling deeper.

She tries to pull away, but I hold her tighter. I suck the skin at her sternum. Her air is my air. It fills me and my heels press into the floor. Something tiny and hard hits me in the face. She pushes my shoulders into the ground.

I was wrong. She wasn’t trying to pull away. She was pulling apart the strings that held her bikini to her hips. She sits up. Again, that intoxicating smile. She dangles her last piece of clothing where I can see it. The crotch glistens in the daylight.

“Don’t stop,” she says. My thumb and forefinger flick at my ridge. She leans down and kisses me, feeding me her lower lip while sucking on mine. “Can you do two things at once?” she asks.

I nod. I can.

“Good.”

She rises to her knees and re-adjusts. I take a deep breath as she lowers herself onto my face. My nose nestles in the crack between her cheeks and my lips meet her lips. I spear her once to say hello, then introduce myself to the folds between her legs.

I don’t even know her name, but I have many questions. So, I ask them in wet whispers and write the answers with the tip of my tongue in spirals on her clit. All the while pumping my dick with my working hand as a breeze rises from the ravine.

There is a trickle on my finger. I loosen my grip and glaze my head and shaft. Hardness in my hand, suffocating softness on my face, and scattered warbling from her throat mingling with the music of the forest.

The pressure mounts and I’m on the brink of a sheer and sudden drop. The next time my hips rise from the floor, a sound escapes me, but my voice is swallowed by her tight, voluptuous cunt.

“Wait!” she cries, and wrenches my hand away. I pulse, abandoned in the void. She grinds into my mouth one last time and spins around.

Her ass is on my dick again. I’m nestled in the cleft this time, straddled by her firm, smooth cheeks. She takes my hands in hers, one apiece, clasping them tightly in her fingers. Then she rises and tilts her hips. Her pussy meets the tip of my cock and she hovers over me. I’ve barely entered, but her heat is overwhelming, inviting. I push upwards to meet her, but she lifts again and escapes me.

“Not yet,” she whispers. “Let me see you.”

She watches me and waits. We wait. My balls are ready to burst, but I can wait. I pull back from the edge. Anything for her.

“All right. Now.”

She sits, lower, lower, and my body tenses, wanting to drive into her. But she’s in control, leaning her weight onto our hands and slowly enveloping me within. She beams at me and lifts, sliding away from me, all the way to the tip but never leaving me. She pushes down once more, warm and wet and soft and divine.

Then she goes again. And again. Faster. She rises and falls and finds an urgent rhythm while I reach for breath, short and sharp, and she lowers her face for a kiss. The taste of her tongue mingles with the lingering flavour of her cunt in my mouth. Her throat trills. The air she draws tickles my skin.

She lets go of my hands and presses her palms into my chest. Her face contorts like she’s in pain.

But she’s not in pain.

She rides me hard and I’m drunk on the sight of her eyebrows peaking towards each other, her eyes squeezed shut and her teeth sinking into her lower lip.

Her fingernails dig in. I grab her hips and pull her into me. We crash together like a storm into trees, like an albatross beating its wings, our two naked bodies under a late summer sky, while the world beyond the forest continues unaware.

The moment seizes her. She convulses and I hold her, while between her legs, she holds me, squeezing, tugging, demanding my release. I’m on the precipice and fight to stay on purpose, to wait until she’s had enough. The storm possesses her, wracking her shivering body in my grasp. It wrings a shriek that echoes off the mountains.

Her cunt divulges its hot secrets, and throbs a helpless plea. In spite of herself, her eyes shoot open. And, falling into them, I lose control.

My body takes over. Of its own accord, it rolls us over and pushes her into the blanket, thrusting, thrusting into her, filling her with my appetite and adoration. I take her and I’m taken by her. Around us, birds take flight and carry our voices to the heavens.

The throb becomes a flutter. The storm becomes a breeze. She looks up at me and I collapse beside her. My heart slows. She curls a leg around me and rests a warm hand on my chest.

“You do know a lot about birds,” she sighs into my neck.

The afternoon turns to evening and a scarlet tanager lands on the lens of my camera. It watches us while I play with her hair and name the birds that return to the ravine.

“I’m glad we met,” she declares.

“What’s your name?” I ask her.

“Ava,” she replies. “What about yours?”

“Robin.”

She chuckles quietly. “Of course it is.”