“I...I...yeah. I guess so....” Chastity stuttered in answer to the implicit question of whether she agreed with Jeremy. His directness twisted her into a tangle of thoughts inconsistent with his earlier behavior. Was he sincere, or had he found his own way to gain advantage? Honesty or ploy? She should have responded in kind, but she did not know how to be direct and truthful at the same time. She could shock others with her declarations, but she usually used the tactic to surprise and confuse other people, to elevate her personal advantage. What was Jeremy doing? And why? What had happened during the gathering to shape this change?
It did not matter that she did not know the answer to her question. Jeremy’s experience had changed him in ways she would understand over time. As would he. For the moment, both viewed the other through a lens of competitive equality, a recognition that each offered the other as much as the other reciprocated. It was a kind of kinetic equality that neither fully understood but both felt in inexpressible ways. Jeremy leaned his face into Chastity’s and kissed her softly. Surprised inititally, she accepted the kiss and returned to him a similarly affectionate kiss of her own. Neither had indulged in a deeply passionate expression, but both felt a reciprocal emotion from the other. Whereas Jeremy had been passive the previous night, he now pulled Chastity’s body to his own in a complete merging of what he believed that she felt. Oblivious to the rest of the gathering, the songs and music surrounding the campfire, the two disappeared under their blanket, hidden by the night and the shadows, ignored by the other lovers scattered around the ring of flames. They vanished into themselves, into their intermingled emotions and physical ecstasy. Their world became entirely invisible, the sights, sound and movements of the people near them completely unnoticed as they dived deeply into the others’ passion.
Exhausted in delirium, they slept.
When the rising sun lit the gray fog laying lightly over the field and forest, both were surprised that they had been asleep for hours without knowing that night had hovered with a cloud of stars and ended with the onset of morning, that during the night Mary had curled up behind Jeremy’s knees while Chastity cuddled with contentment in Jeremy’s embrace. Their eyes fluttered with curiosity as they looked at each other’s faces and wondered whether to wake, hearing the sounds of some of the group reigniting the fire and filling a couple of pots for coffee. Both revealed hesitant smiles, hopeful but uncertain about the importance of the previous night to the other. It was still too early to talk but much could be communicated voicelessly with the position of limbs, the gestures of hands, the pressure of knees, the tension of where legs connected below the spine.
Both imagined the day to be a good one.
Covered by the floating mist of the cool morning, Chastity and Jeremy lounged under their blanket beside Mary. Mary snuggled against Jeremy’s back while he and Chastity listened to the waking chatter of the group gathered beside the fire pit. The aroma of smoke, coffee, and bacon drifted across the field and stimulated their salivary glands.
“Want me to get us some coffee?” Jeremy offered.
“Not yet.” Chastity smiled and hugged him closer then rubbed Mary’s neck. “In a bit.”
Jeremy’s head sank into Chastity’s shoulder while he hugged her with his left arm wrapped around her shoulders and rubbed Mary’s back with his right hand as she stretched on the ground behind him. “I think I like this part of the gathering. Maybe I’ll become a prepper.”
“You’re not?” Chasity lifted her head in surprise.
“Nope. I just showed up. It’s something I have been curious about.”
“Shit. I thought you were one of the proven survivalists.”
“Not hardly. Yet, measured against the majority of this group, I am world class. At least I listened and learned. What about you?”
“I’m...well...I think I have a few skills.”
“You told me yesterday that you can start a fire.”
“Probably. Maybe. I think so.”
“In other words, you can’t, or you haven’t yet.”
“OK, I admit that my skills need some work.”
“Hell, you need some skills. Period.” They laughed together, partly with humor and partly with discomfort. But both laughed.
“Coffee now?”
“Sure. Cream and sugar.”
“You know the cream is that fake powder shit that pours out of a container like the sugar does, right? There’s no dairy in it.”
Chastity gazed into his eyes and said with a sassy tone, “Of course, but it’s what I want right now. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am. One shitty cream and sugar coffee comin’ up.” And Jeremy climbed out from under the blanket and stood up in his boxers, stretched his arms, rolled his neck and bent side to side to wake his body and begin the basic circulation that he needed to start his day. Then he leaned down to Mary and scratched her head, “Ready girl?” As he pulled on his pants, slipped into a shirt and stuffed his feet into his unlaced boots, he and Mary hustled off toward the campfire. On the table to the left of the fire pit, Jeremy looked around for a couple of cups, plastic, styrofoam, ceramic, whatever, then poured two cups of coffee, both with sugar and artificial cream so that he would not confuse whose was whose. Most of the crowd around the fire pit were somnambulent zombies still paralyzed by the previous night’s alcohol and drugs. Jeremy shook his head as he wandered back to where Chastity waited under the blanket beyond the last of those who spent the night on the ground outside the tents.
Jeremy bent at the waist to present Chastity’s coffee as she sat up on one elbow. “Madam,” he recited with irony and attitude, a dramatic persona that she did not expect of him.
In an imitative voice, she responded, “Why, thank you kind sir.” But she wondered what kind of game or humor Jeremy intended.
Jeremy sank into a sitting posture with crossed knees, and Mary curled beside him. He sipped the coffee still nearly boiling hot. “Damn, that’s good.” Mary concurred with a smile and a coquettish squint of her eyes, the kind of expression that suggested she would like to repeat the comfort of the night. But the sun was clearing the tree tops and sweeping away the morning mist. In the warming air, most of the group wanted to wake and rise, freeing themselves from the covers they adopted in the cool night air. The sound of commingled conversation arose as a cacophony of voices without clear meaning, sounds without distinguishable words. A confusion of waking bodies collided along the table of breakfast foods, coffee, and hot tea. Condiments were scattered among the drinks and breads and cereals. A few industrious participants mixed their own batters and oiled their personal skillets for pancakes, biscuits and pan-fried mixes of sausage, bacon, eggs, onions and potatoes.
Chastity and Jeremy sipped their coffees sitting on the ground outside the main group hovering around the fire pit. Mary listened to their casual banter, her nose lifted into the aromas floating off the hot meals cooking on the fire. When Mary began to quietly whine, both Chastity and Jeremy noticed that they had ignored the smells of breakfast drifting past them. As one, they each proposed to the other, “Time to eat?”
Jeremy replied eagerly, “You bet. I’m starving.”
Chastity pulled a shirt over her shoulders and slipped into pants before she thought anyone would notice that she was dressing in the open. “Let’s go see what’s cooking. What’s on the table?” Neither she nor Jeremy considered whether they should be contributing to the food or the effort to prepare the morning meal. In their own minds, they knew they would have been content to assist if they wanted more than coffee; with a full cup of coffee in hand, neither thought they should be doing more for the community. Others were, and there seemed to the two of them enough helpers making the meal that they could hover on the sidelines and wait for the food to be ready to eat. The “mutual assistance” part of a MAG had yet to register fully in either’s consciousness. They were stuck in the perception that the group was just a collection of people with an interest in camping out for the weekend and maybe learning some outdoor skills. The survival aspect seemed more hyperbole than real, a concept suggesting purpose for an otherwise casual weekend getaway.