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      "writing": "Keeping Up With the Joneses - Epilogue 2: Trail and Error \n\nMark Shearer had a busy life. The black-and-white border collie rarely took time off from work, especially once things got complicated with the Jones girls. The only concession he made to himself was a summer camping trip that he would take to an upstate national forest every year. Being outdoors had always had a sort of positive and negative feeling for him. In his youth, it was the time when he felt most at ease but also the most alone. He started and kept the tradition to overwrite the bad memories with good ones the best he could.\n\nThe year that Melissa turned eight, she asked him if she could join him on his trip. The border collie knew he wouldn’t mind the company; however, there was the fact that the kitten continued to consistently urge him to have sex with her. Her fascination with it bordered on obsessive. It wasn’t that she was addicted or compulsive about it; more so, it was like a child had discovered a new interest and wanted nothing but to engage with it. Even after a couple of years, he still didn’t feel right about acquiescing to her precocious desires. This discomfort didn’t stop him from acquiescing, over and over again, but he couldn’t bring himself to initiate anything with her and she usually had to do a lot of convincing.\n\nHis ears angled back as he grasped for some way to avoid the strain of failing to reject her and asked, “Wait, what about your dad?”\n\n“What about him?” she asked with a strange tone the man couldn’t place.\n\n“You spend every other summer with him. You were here with your mama last summer. We went to all those ‘Movies in the Park’ things. So, this is supposed to be your summer with your dad. I shouldn’t be taking you away from him.”\n\nThe emotion that rippled across Melissa’s face was inscrutable to the border collie. It seemed amused on the surface, but something felt off. The little cat shrugged, smile never faltering.\n\n“Not anymore,” she said, as if it were the most natural thing.\n\nHe couldn’t get much more out of her, though he couldn’t bring himself to pry too deep. The decision about her joining him on his trip was left hanging until Valerie got home from a late night at work. In the meantime, he busied himself cleaning up around the Joneses’ apartment. That diversion didn’t last long, considering he leaned on it every time he was alone with the kitten. He had to quickly come up with another. Each time he appeared to be finished with something, the kitten sidled up to him. Wandering paws and murmurs of need threatened to push him over an edge that he was trying with all his will to keep back from.\n\nThe relief was bare on the border collie’s face when Val opened the apartment door and stepped in with a sigh. She gave him an apologetic smile, recognizing that the apartment was, as it had been for months, cleaner than it had any need to be. Dinner was on the stove, and the aroma of something sweet in the oven tickled the grey cat’s nose.\n\n“Cookies?” she asked as she hung her jacket behind the door. “Was it that bad today?”\n\nThe strained laugh that broke from him cut off after barely a second, as he composed himself and said, “I don’t know what you mean. I just thought it would be a nice treat. Right, Missa?”\n\nThe kitten had her mom’s hips wrapped in a hug. \n\nGlancing up at Mama, she said, “That’s what he says, but I think he’s playing hard-to-get.”\n\n“I’m not playing hard-to-anything, Missa.” The exasperated dog flopped into a dining chair and sighed. “There’s a lot to it, kitten. I’m worried about what effect all of this could have on you, and I also don’t want sex every damn second. Sometimes I want to spend time with you without being inside you.”\n\n“We could have played a card game!”\n\n“You wanted to play strip UNO. We all remember how the last game went.”\n\n“We could have watched tv!”\n\nHe rested his elbow on the table, paw dangling limp over the edge.\n\n“You wanted to watch old nature documentaries.”\n\n“I thought it would be educational,” she said with a blush in her ears and her face pressed to Valerie’s waist.\n\n“The ones where they just casually show the animals mating?”\n\nValerie felt a giggle from her daughter.\n\nMelissa’s muffled voice replied, “It would have been educational.”\n\n“Missa,” he sat back and tilted his head up to the ceiling, “kitten, I love ya. You’re a sweet girl. But, look, you have interests and skills that have nothing to do with sex and so do I. Part of knowing and loving someone is getting to know and love all parts of a person, not just the parts you rub together.”\n\nShe looked a little confused and asked, “But I’ve heard people say on tv that men only think about and want sex.”\n\n“I know, hon, but a whole lot of what we see on tv isn’t real or true.”\n\nShe looked a little abashed and said quietly, “…but it’s really fun and feels nice.”\n\nEven pushed to the limits of his fragile resolve, he couldn’t be mad at her. Valerie had his back.\n\n“Honey,” she said to the girl, “think about it like this: candy’s great, right?”\n\nThe calico perked and nodded.\n\n“It tastes really good and makes you feel good,” she continued. “But if you only eat bunches of candy, you’ll get sick. You have to have real food to help your body grow and stay healthy.”\n\nStroking the kitten’s head, Mama concluded, “Sex is like candy for your mind. It feels really good, but that’s all. To help your mind grow and stay healthy, you have to feed it non-sex stuff too. Talking, reading, watching movies, going for walks, drawing, singing, cuddling, laughing…we need all these things too.”\n\n“So…you don’t always want sex?” the calico asked Mark.\n\nHe smiled softly at her, “Babygirl, just like with your mama, I want all of you. What’s between y’all’s legs is fun, but I also want what’s here,” he touched his head, “and here,” he moved his paw to his chest.\n\nMelissa thought for a moment, frowning. It was clear her gears were turning on something she was reading between the lines. She let go of Val’s legs and stepped over to stand before the border collie. Her paws reached out to rest on his knees.\n\nThe calico’s mismatched eyes searched his as she asked, “Is it…bad…to want sex a lot?”\n\nThe girl didn’t say “Is there something wrong with me?”, but her tone dripped with that concern anyway. The border collie’s strong arms scooped her up and tucked her close in to his chest.\n\n“There’s nothing wrong with you, Missa,” he rumbled into her ear. “The problem is that for someone your age to want it at all, much less so often, is strange. Not bad, not wrong, just strange. That’s all. You’re a good girl. Don’t you dare think otherwise.”\n\n“Why is it strange?”\n\nHolding her ice blue and deep green eyes with his brown ones, he smiled softly and gave her a kiss on the nose.\n\n“Our bodies grow in stages, kitten. The stage that begins our sexual growth, our physical ability and the desire to have sex, usually happens when we’re in our early teens. Before that, having sex can cause a lot of damage to our minds and bodies. So, it’s not just strange that you want it but that you’ve been able to do it without getting hurt. I worry sometimes if you are getting hurt somehow, and we all just don’t know it.”\n\nThe kitten shook her head emphatically and stressed, “It doesn’t hurt, Mark. If it hurt, I wouldn’t want to do it.”\n\n“It sure seems that way, Missa. But, until you are grown, I’m still gonna worry.”\n\nThe kitten grumbled, “Ok,” and gave his neck a long tight hug, then hopped down to find something to occupy herself with while the adults talked. Mark stood out of the chair and padded over to where Valerie still stood, his claws clicking on the hard floor. The grey cat had a bemused expression on her face, but she eased into the embrace he offered.\n\nThe woman whispered, “She’ll get bored eventually and find a fascination with some new toy, band, or cartoon.”\n\nHe rested his chin on top of her head and grumbled, “I dunno, Val. All those things have come and gone in the background these last two years, and all it does is change what she babbles about when she’s locked around a captive audience.”\n\nShe laughed and nuzzled his neck.\n\n“Well, if I can get you to myself later, I’ll fill your ears with stuff about the book I’m listening to and my thoughts about an herb garden on the balcony, while you fill my rear. How’s that sound?”\n\nA twitch from inside his pants answered for him, but the tired border collie still sighed and said, “I think I need a vacation.”\n\nThe grey cat laughed and whisked into the kitchen to set about washing her paws, saying, “How is planning going?”\n\n“I’ve got things about ninety percent in order,” he replied as he checked the stove. \n\nThe beef tips had been simmering in gravy long enough that the meat practically dissolved under a serving spoon. He fluffed the rice, stirred the peas, and killed the burners under all the cookware. With the dinner items in order, he pulled the cookies out of the oven.\n\nLaying the cookies out to cool on a folded cheesecloth on the counter, he cleared his throat and added, “The other ten percent just sorta popped up a couple minutes ago.”\n\n“The kiddo ask to go with you?”\n\nHe glanced at her with a cocked eyebrow and ears pinned back.\n\n“Yeah…” he drawled. “You knew?”\n\n“I didn’t know-know. I had a feeling she might, though.”\n\n“That feeling have anything to do with her saying it wasn’t a summer to be at her dad’s ‘anymore’?”\n\nThe grey cat leaned her back against the counter and groaned.\n\n“Do you want the long version full of swearing or the short version full of swearing?”\n\nMark glanced sidelong toward the living room, noting that the kitten was occupying herself with coloring but still had an ear cocked toward the kitchen. He thought about some of the conversations he had either overheard or been involved in, where a divorced or separated person talked about their ex in ways that he found himself hoping their children never had to hear.\n\n“How about the short version, maybe light on swearing?”\n\nShe caught his glance and gleaned the thoughts behind it.\n\n“Miles remarried. He’s living with the new bi—…woman…and her two sons halfway across the country. He says it’s a small house and the boys are too rowdy for him to feel safe about her being there.” Her ears folded back and she leaned closer to whisper, “He was butthurt about having a daughter from the moment they sexed her in the ultrasound. It’s one of two things, I bet: either he finally found an out and wanted to get the custody monkey off his back or his new bitch convinced him to. Either way, he officially renounced custody. Been meaning to talk about it with you, but I kept getting…distracted.”\n\nMark’s lip curled in a reflexive snarl and he growled, “That is fucking infuriating. Missa’s a good kid, and she deserves better than to be cast away like that.”\n\n“Well, to be fair,” Val said, “he was already on thin ice with the court. Half the time he had custody, they didn’t really do anything. She was just there. He was there, sometimes.” His expression coaxed further explanation from her. “Melissa spent a lot of time with his mom instead of him. I don’t think her Grams ever did more than sit around the house and smoke in all the time I’ve known her, so the kiddo pretty much stayed bored the whole time. It got to the point she was begging to skip visits, but we were all stuck with the terms of the agreement.”\n\nThe border collie considered the kitten, who was focusing on trying to look busy and failing.\n\nHe mumbled, “Always wondered why she never talked about the time she spent there. It didn’t feel like she was being private or covering anything up, just….”\n\n“Just wasn’t anything to tell,” the grey cat confirmed.\n\nHe shook his head and decided it was better to let the topic lie. There wasn’t a damned thing he could do, and even if he felt comfortable throwing his two cents in, nothing he could say would help. It was a shitty thing; one more in a world full of ‘em. What he could do, though, was try to be supportive and loving. They both deserved that.\n\nThe trio ate dinner and cleaned up the kitchen together. Melissa handled drying dishes and putting away the ones she could reach, while Mark handled washing and put away whatever she couldn’t manage. Valerie put leftovers away and wiped down the table and counters. It was a system they had perfected over the last few months. When all was finished, they each grabbed a couple cookies and retired to the living room to nibble their dessert and chat.\n\nGlancing at the girl next to him on the couch, Mark finally said, “I really would like it if you came with me, Missa. I just know I’m kinda an outsider and didn’t want to step on any toes. So, if you still want to and your mama doesn’t mind, you can come”\n\nReceiving a nod from Val, the kitten’s expression immediately brightened, but Mark quickly added,  “If I take you, though, I need you to promise me that you won’t spend the whole time trying to get my dick out of my pants. It’s secluded out there, but I see folks out hiking in the same areas as me all the time. We’ve talked about how much trouble what we do could get me in, right?”\n\nThe kitten nodded emphatically and replied, “I promise! I don’t want us to get in trouble.”\n\n“Well,” he said, ruffling the fur of her head, “you wouldn’t be in trouble, really. Just me and your mom. Mostly me.”\n\n“Still! I don’t want to lose you or Mama.”\n\nThey talked for a while about what she would need to pack and explaining what things would be like out in the park. The border collie explained that the nights could get cold, even in summer, so she needed to have some clothes that were appropriate for more than just warm, sunny days. She asked him if they would have a campfire and if they would toast marshmallows. To her disappointment, Mark told her they couldn’t have a campfire because the park was under a burn ban.\n\nToasted marshmallow dreams dashed, the mopey girl asked, “What’s a burn ban?”\n\n“If someone made a fire in the wrong conditions, it could burn the whole forest down. So, the park rangers announce burn bans and tell people not to make campfires when times are very dry.”\n\n“Like Smokey Bear?”\n\n“That’s right!”\n\nSmokey wasn’t as big a character by that point, not as big as he was when either of the adults were Melissa’s age. The mantle had been passed from black bear to black bear for years—ever since the first burn-scarred Smokey had taken the name to spread words of caution—each of whom had donned the guise of a park ranger for tv spots and school assemblies meant to educate children on the the role they could play in protecting their public lands. Even with a less prominent persona, the mascot still found his way into the little girl’s mind. At least that made it a little easier to take the disappointment of missing out on a campfire.\n\n- - - - -\n\nA week later, Mark and Melissa were trundling down a dirt road in densely forested foothills. The border collie’s old blue SUV shuddered over ruts and large rocks that sent the giggling calico bouncing up off the seat several times. Saved from tumbling into the floorboard by her safety belt, she was able to fully enjoy the rollercoaster. At one stop, where they had to wait for a small convoy of logging trucks to pass, she unbuckled her belt and shifted to the center of the bench seat. Once she was belted back in, she looked up at the man behind the wheel.\n\n“Hey, Mark?” she managed during a less rough patch.\n\n“What’s up, Miss Missa?”\n\nShe opened her mouth but remembered her promise and decided against mentioning that she wished she was on his lap for the ride.\n\n“Never mind.”\n\nInstead, she rested her left paw on his thigh and leaned against him for the rest of the drive. He draped his arm around her and gave her a little squeeze against his side. Several miles and enough curves to put the fear of motion sickness in the kitten passed before the SUV lurched to a stop. They had arrived at the vacant parking lot of a trailhead. When they piled out of the vehicle and stretched, they both filled their lungs with clean forest air. Melissa noticed a slightly sweet scent that was a little like grass, but all the understory was ferns and shrubs. She noticed that the smell seemed to come from scattered groups of dark lumps around the lot. The clusters reminded her of something she’d seen during a parade a while back.\n\nShe pointed and asked, “Horse poop?”\n\nAs Mark opened the back hatch and gathered together their packs, he turned to follow her gesture and answered, “Hmm? Oh! Yeppers, that’s what those are.”\n\n“There are horses out here?”\n\n“Probably not right now. Looks several days old. If it was folks who keep four-legged horses for riding, their trailers are gone. It’s mid-week, too, so they’re not likely to be out. Though…there’s also a herd of wild horses that roams down where the valley is wider open, I haven’t seen them up this far before, but there’s nothing stopping them.”\n\nThe kitten’s eyes were huge by the time he finished explaining. For a city kid who only saw them in parades and media, she had the makings of a horse girl, and the prospect of seeing one out in the forest had her beside herself. He laughed and handed her the light pack they had arranged for her things. He threw a few more items into his big internal frame pack and swung it onto his shoulders. Clicking the buckle of the hip belt required a slight relaxing of the strap.\n\n“God, y’all are gonna end up making me fat,” Mark grumbled with a smirk to make sure she knew he wasn’t being serious.\n\nShe walked over and gestured for him to bend down for a whisper. \n\n“More cushion for the pushin’, Mama says,” she breathed into his ear, concluding with a peck on the cheek.\n\nThe man’s bark of laughter startled some birds out of an old oak tree. He patted her head and locked up the SUV. Before they hit the trail, he had her stand still while he dusted the fur of her legs and arms with flea and tick repellent powder. There was no sense either of them picking up hitchhikers along the way. She wriggled as he ran his paws over her arms and lower legs but started making some borderline indecent sounds when the ticklish caress went above her knees and stopped feeling quite so ticklish. When he finished, he called her a goofball and hit his exposed limbs with the powder, too. As prepared as they were going to be, they started hiking.\n\nThe path was broad and mostly flat close to the trailhead. Decades of foot traffic, horses, and off-road vehicles had worn a swath of packed dirt almost wide enough for a car to travel on. In rainier years, there would be deep ruts and divots from tires and hooves, but the pair found it smooth walking for at least half a mile. The trail split at a Y, with the wide horse path veering to the right and a narrower footpath winding away into the trees to the left. A marker post at the split designated the trail as hiking-only, red circle-slash icons prohibited bikes, horses, and all-terrain vehicles. A sign at the top of the post read, “Oak Spring Trail’. They turned up the narrow fork and continued chatting about not much of anything, calling out birds and squirrels as they went.\n\n“What’s an oak spring?” the girl wondered aloud after they’d been walking for twenty minutes or so.\n\n“Less a what and more a where, kitten. If we stayed on this trail the whole way, we’d end up in a little valley packed with old oaks. At the head of the valley there’s a spring where an underground river is real close to the surface, and water pools up and runs down the valley.”\n\n“That sounds cool! Why aren’t we going there?”\n\nMark stopped and said, “It was cool, until some assholes decided to spread a rumor that the water there has healing properties. Place is just churned up mud and trash these days. The water isn’t even fit to drink anymore. Where we’re going is up that way.”\n\nHe pointed up through a gap in the trees. A saddleback ridge rose up, draped with wide swaths of conifers and open gaps of alpine meadow, toward a bald rocky peak.\n\n“This trail heads into the valley below the ridge. We’ll split off in a little bit and follow another trail up along the ridge. Up in the pines there are some clearings. We’ll find one of those that isn’t occupied and set up there.”\n\nThe pause in walking gave the border collie’s body a chance to realize he’d been needing to piss for a while. He glanced down at Melissa and noticed that she was starting to wiggle a bit, too. Well, he figured, no time like the present.\n\n“Thinkin’ I need to take a leak. What about you, Missa?”\n\n“Yeah,” she replied with a glance around. “Is there a restroom nearby?”\n\n“Kinda?”\n\nHe gestured to the forest around them as he unbuckled his pack and slung it down off his shoulders. He produced a roll of toilet paper from the top pouch of his pack and tossed it to her.\n\n“The world is your toilet when you’re out here.”\n\nShe shrugged off her pack and set it off the trail next to his. \n\n“Just…anywhere?”\n\nHe explained that she might want to duck behind a tree, in case another hiker came through, but otherwise anywhere was fine. He almost let her wander off, then had her wait while he looked around for problems. It didn’t take long to spot what he was looking for.\n\n“Yeah, there we go,” he said, pointing at a tangle of leaves. “This is poison ivy. You don’t want to touch that, kitten. It’ll make you itch so bad you won’t want skin anymore.”\n\nHe used a twig to point out the distinguishing features: leaves in groups of three, the way the edges were shaped, the color of the vines, the scent.\n\n“Keep your nose going and watch the ground when you go off trail to do your business.”\n\nShe shuffled uneasily and asked, “Can you go with me? I don’t want to miss it and get itchy.”\n\n“Sure thing, kitten. Won’t be anything I haven’t seen or heard before.” \n\nThe border collie stood watch on one side of a young oak tree while the sounds of shuffling fabric and the scent of kitten wafted around in the dappled shade. He remembered his own need when he heard the patter then rush of urine on old leaves. There wasn’t any sign of other folks out in the woods, so he opened the zip on his hiking shorts to free his sheath, pulled back the fur and skin so that the tip of his cock was free, and let his stream harmonize with hers. She had a head start and faster flow, so she dabbed dry and poked her head around the tree while he was still going.\n\n“Still a peeper, eh?” the man said over a chuckle when he noticed her watching him.\n\nThe kitten’s ears stayed forward but went red, and she nodded with a faint shrug. She licked her lips as if they were dry, though the gesture felt like there was a sort of hunger there, too.\n\n“This is the first time I’ve watched you pee,” she said in a low almost-whisper.\n\nFinished with his task, he squeezed from base to tip a couple times to clear his urethra and let the sheath slip back up. To his chagrin, the tip of his dick still poked out a little. The attention appeared to be having an effect. He tucked his faltering modesty back away and zipped up.\n\nHe smirked and said, “It’s really not all that different than when Pumpkin goes, is it?”\n\nShe didn’t hide her disappointment that the show was over when she responded, “He just pees straight out of his sheath, though.”\n\n“Four-legged critters don’t mind getting some piss on their sheath fur. They can just lick it off or don’t care about it. I’m not that flexible and don’t like the feeling of wet lingering like that. Besides, it’d make my underwear smell like pee.”\n\nThe border collie wrinkled his muzzle to stress his distaste. There was a pause as the kitten weighed whether to say what she was thinking. Prudence lost out.\n\n“Someone could lick it off for you,” she whispered before trotting back to the packs.\n\nHe would have liked to tell her to save exploring kinks at least until she was old enough to vote, but what even was a kink at that point? Wasn’t anything they did, at best, a kink under their circumstances? Certainly none of it was conventional. He opted not to think too deeply about it. A man standing on a slippery slope knows better than to tap dance.\n\nMark fished a water bottle out of his pack before he threw it back on. Missa was already standing with her pack slung and looking up at the aspen leaves quivering in the canopy. He handed his water bottle to her after he had a drink and let her slake her own thirst. They resumed hiking, him just behind her to let her set the pace, and delighting in the living world around them. When a new kind of bird would alight on a branch, he would tell her what kind it was. One of the ways he passed his time in a youth devoid of parental involvement or friends was to take birding books from the town library and sit in the woods, learning the birds and keeping track of what he saw. The best one on their hike was when a huge raven glided to a landing on a broken stump and let out a series of hoarse croaks.\n\n“Whoa!” the kitten gasped.\n\n“Big fellas, aren’t they?”\n\n“They’re huge…and so shiny!”\n\nThe rest of the hike went by in a flash, and they found the camping spaces Mark had mentioned utterly empty. Besooted rings of stones marked each of the backcountry camping spots, each one carefully cleared of vegetation around the outside and filled with old ash. Beside each ring the park rangers had staked signs that declared the burn ban and announced nightly flyovers by drones to detect anyone violating the safety of the forest and its residents and visitors. With open choice, the border collie selected a site that was set back into the privacy of the forest and had a wide open view of the sky above.\n\nTheir first day out ended with setting up camp. Mark had a small tent, which Melissa helped him pitch toward one side of the clearing. He also had a pair of nylon hammocks that fitted nicely in the gaps between a trio of young birch trees. When the kitten asked why the hammocks and the tent, he answered that the tent was a good place to stash their gear and to sleep on cold nights but the hammocks would be nice seats during the day and good sleeping spots if the nights weren’t too cold. \n\nWhen he pulled a single adult-sized sleeping bag out, she grinned and said, “Only one sleeping bag? Isn’t that asking for trouble?”\n\nHe gave her a look, equal parts amused and wry, and asked, “Would you have used a separate one if I’d brought it?”\n\nThe way she wriggled and a blush crept up into her ears was answer enough. Once those arrangements were made, he set up a small camp stove and set about fixing some food. It was simple fare, just ramen with some dried tofu and mushrooms, but the scent of it hit the calico like a freight train to the tummy.\n\nOnce they had eaten and scrubbed out their dishes, Mark sat down next to his little stove and rummaged through his pack. Melissa watched him with her head cocked, as he drew out four little paper packets. Setting them next to the stove, the border collie grabbed his big water bottle and sloshed it around. Wouldn’t be enough. He glanced up at the sky. The light hadn’t fallen entirely, yet.\n\n“Feel up to another short walk tonight, Missa?”\n\nShe still had it in her, so he handed the big bottle to her and grabbed some things from his pack. They set off down the opposite side of the ridge from the ruined spring. Following the series of switchbacks in the growing darkness wasn’t a problem for the pair, but the return would require some light. Fortunately, the man had tossed a headlamp into his pocket before they departed.\n\nIt took about half an hour to reach the place Mark was leading them to, a small pond fed by snowmelt and rain. The water was not the cleanest looking. Still, Mark started laying things out.\n\n“The water looks and smells gross,” the calico said uneasily. “We aren’t going to drink that, are we?”\n\nHe looked up from his gear, then at the pond, then back at her and said, “Oh, heck no. Even the streams out here aren’t safe to just sip straight out of. Between all the animals and people peeing and pooping around the drainage basins…or just in the water directly…there’s all kinds of bacteria and parasites.”\n\nMark held up a canister with a pump handle and a hose in one paw and a heavy plastic bag with a canister and a hose on one end in his other paw. Setting the bag aside, he motioned for her to hand him the water bottle, then removed the cap and threaded it onto the bottom of the pump canister. He held up the end of the hose, showing a sort of basket-shaped thing on the end that was wrapped with sheer fabric.\n\n“So,” the man said, “this thing is a water filter. The canister has a big filter in it that can remove damn near anything. The basket at the end of the hose is a pre-filter and the cloth over it is a kinda pre-pre-filter. They keep the hose and filter from getting clogged up with grit and stuff.”\n\nHe dropped the hose end into the pond with a plip and flipped the pump handle around. Pulling and pushing on the handle caused water to slide up the clear hose into the canister. Soon the water was squirting into the water bottle from the base of the filter. The water looked clean, and in a few minutes the bottle was full.\n\n“You can smell the water in the pond and how it’s kinda nasty. Have a whiff of this.”\n\nHe handed the open bottle to her to sniff. Melissa leaned over with a frown of mistrust but sniffed anyway. Her pretty blue and green eyes went wide.\n\n“What the hell? It smells cleaner than our tap water at home!”\n\nHe laughed and took a drink, saying that it probably was. Once the water bottle was securely closed, Mark asked the kitten to take the filter, which he threaded a big collapsible container onto. He showed her how to hold the filter body and work the handle. While she set about filling the big container, he knelt close to the water’s edge and swept the big bag through the pond. Removing the full, heavy bag of water, he rolled the top and pulled the corners together. Each corner had half a buckle on it and the clicked together to keep the bag top from unrolling. He checked the hose and made sure a clamp that sat below the filter canister was secure.\n\n“This,” he said, patting the filtering bag, “is a little less effective than that one, but it’ll get enough out to cook with. Technically boiling the water kills the germs, but I like my food without grit and pond scum.”\n\nHe took over from her when her arms got tired and finished filling the big container with drinking water. Grabbing a fallen branch, he looped the two bigger containers over each end and hoisted the branch across his shoulders. Melissa carried the good filter and the big water bottle. As it got dark, the border collie suggested that the kitten grab the headlamp out of his pocket. He didn’t catch the look of mischief on her face as he focused on keeping his load balanced.\n\nBlinking and looking down at her, he said, “Um, that’s not the headlamp, kitten.”\n\nMissa, grinning like a doofus, squeezed his sheath through the inner fabric of his pocket and said, “What? A promise is a promise! I’m not trying to get it out…this time.”\n\nStill giggling to herself, she put the headlamp on her head, and he told her how to tighten the strap. With the light on, the trail was easy to traverse. Mark let her go ahead to light the way and stayed close behind. When they arrived back at their camp, he dropped the big containers with a wheeze and plopped down next to the stove. \n\n“Ok,” he grunted, “back to what I was doing.”\n\nHe poured water into the cooking pot and turned the stove on. While he waited, he held the paper packets and flipped them back and forth, like waving a fan. Melissa recognized the motion from when he was cooking the ramen earlier.\n\n“Why do you do that?”\n\nHe paused in his packet flapping and looked at her with his head cocked.\n\n“Do what?”\n\nShe pointed at his hand and said, “Why do you flap packets like that?”\n\nHe gave a self-conscious smirk and answered, looking at the items in his hand, “Huh…I didn’t even notice I was doing it. Used to be I’d do it to shift the powder to one end so less puffed out when I tore it open, but I think I just do it now to have something to do with my hands.”\n\nShe paused for a moment and said, “Mark, is it ok if I say something naughty now?”\n\nReaching over to ruffle the fur of her head, he replied, “It’s night, there’s no one around. You can say what you want, Missa. I know it’s been hard to filter yourself.”\n\n“I can think of something you can do with your hands.”\n\nThe short, snorting laugh that followed led into a laughing jag that echoed in the woods. When he had recovered enough to talk, he caught her faintly miffed expression.\n\n“Sorry, kitten,” he said. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I’m sure you can think of other things I could do with my hands, but if I stop now we don’t have cocoa and…”\n\nIn the faint glow of the camp stove, one chip of blue ice and one forest green pool glittered.\n\n“Really!?”\n\n“And something else. Maybe something even better than a quick fingering.”\n\n“What? What is it?”\n\n“Patience, Missa. You’ll see.”\n\nThe water in the pot was soon bubbling over the blue flame of the stove. Mark turned the heat down to the lowest setting and tore open the four paper packets. When he turned the packets over the pot, they spilled out as a monochromatic rainbow in browns and whites. Two of the packets were obviously cocoa mix, but the other two were a mystery to the calico.\n\n“What’s the white stuff?”\n\n“That, my dear kitten, is powdered milk. It’ll make the cocoa taste a little richer and may help you fall asleep.”\n\nMelissa wiped her chin with the back of a paw. When he said they’d be having cocoa, she knew there was no way they could bring milk along and figured it would just be cocoa and water. Not ideal by any means, but cocoa is cocoa. But! But he figured out how to…\n\nThe muted rustling sound of a plastic bag shook her out of her reverie. She watched as the border collie pulled a small package out of a gear sack and pulled the plastic open. The sugary scent hit the already excited girl and she was immediately on hands and knees, hovering a little too close to the still-hot pot and low-burning stove. Pulling a large marshmallow out of the package, Mark laughed and gently eased her away from the danger zone with a paw on her shoulder.\n\n“Careful, kitten! I don’t want to have to explain to your mama why you’ve got patches of fur missing.”\n\nShe rocked back to sit upright on her knees and wriggled with anticipation. Grinning at her  enthusiasm, he speared the marshmallow on the end of a bamboo skewer that he pulled from the same gear sack and held it over the low flame. It took a moment for the sugary pillow to char, but once the surface started browning, it quickly bubbled and blackened. Mark rotated the marshmallow to give it an even toast on one end. When his was satisfied, he held the skewer out to the kitten and turned off the burner.\n\nAs she carefully grasped the bamboo stick, he said, “Easy now. Don’t just tuck in.”\n\nShe glared at him as if he had just held a glass of water out to a wanderer in the desert and told them not to drink it. He asked her to trust him and started pouring cocoa into a pair of cups. As he handed her one of the cups, they heard a high-pitched whirring sound, like a blender two rooms away. Looking up, they caught the blinking green and red lights of a drone high against the dark sky. Mark told the kitten it was probably one of the fire watch patrols that the signs mentioned. He waved at the buzzing voyeur, and Melissa followed his lead. In a moment it was gone again and quiet returned.\n\n“Now,” the man said, “take that marshmallow and dip it in the cocoa. If you let it sit for a couple seconds, the marshmallow with taste all chocolatey and the cocoa with take in some of that toasty sugar flavor.”\n\nMelissa submerged the blackened puff into the steaming liquid, releasing a burst of mingling scents. She swirled it a little before taking it out and blowing on it. He watched her with a soft smile as she bit in and immediately did a wiggly happy dance where she sat.\n\n“Beats hell out of an idle fingering, doesn’t it?”\n\nHer left eye flicked open, blue iris darker than usual in the low light, and she replied through a mouthful of melty charred sugar, “I dunno…maybe if I had a way to compare…”\n\nSipping on his own cocoa, the border collie frowned. He rested the vessel on his knee, supporting it with the fingers of one paw on the rim. He took a fresh marshmallow from the package with his other paw and rolled it absentmindedly in his fingers.\n\n“Missa,” he said quietly after a few moments, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t understand you and it makes me worry about you a lot.”\n\nShe cocked her head and responded, “What do you mean?”\n\nBlack-and-white furred fingers continued playing with the marshmallow.\n\n“I mentioned before that no one your age should want sex at all. I get why you got curious about it, but I can’t wrap my head around why you are like you are. I worry about whether you have those wants for anyone else and whether you have gone or would go after someone else at this age. And, like I said the other day, I worry about what all of this might be doing to your body and your mind.”\n\nWith her marshmallow finished, she sat sipping from her cup. Both her eyes were locked on him now, and the tip of her tail was twitching, agitated.\n\n“Are you jealous, Mark?”\n\nWincing, he barked, “No! I’m not jealous, kitten. I just know the amount of self-control it takes me to hold back and that there are plenty of guys out there who wouldn’t. There’re folks out there who are perfectly content to hurt little girls like you without giving a damn. The thought of one of ‘em getting their paws on you makes me furious and sick at the same time.”\n\nShe set her cup on the ground beside the cooling stove and stood, brushing off her bottom and legs. Careful to avoid the stove and cooking gear, she walked over and stopped in front of him. Her fingers closed around the cup on his knee, lifting it and setting it on the packed dirt a little ways away from him. Pulling the marshmallow from his fingers, she lowered herself onto his lap.\n\n“Here,”she placed the marshmallow in front of his muzzle and tapped it against his nose, “hush for a second.”\n\nHe accepted the treat with a quizzical expression and chewed slowly as she continued. The phrase felt like one she must have borrowed from Valerie.\n\n“I don’t know why I’m like this,” she said, letting her paws play over his chest. “You and Mama tell me that there are people who would hurt me, but I don’t want other people.” As she went on, her paws slid up his chest to his neck, fingers threading through the thick fur. “I know you. I know Mama. I trust you both. I love both of you and know you love me too.”\n\nThe border collie jolted when one of her paws wandered down to graze his sheath and balls through the fabric of his hiking shorts. Her eyes stayed locked on his.\n\n“Would you worry less, if I told you this is the only one I want?”\n\nHis eyes went a touch sad, as he lifted a paw to stroke her cheek.\n\nHe whispered, “It worries me more, kitten.”\n\nThe paw pads smoothing the fur of Missa’s cheek and jaw elicited a purr from the small cat, and she leaned into the caress.\n\nShe snuggled in close, forehead furrowed, ears back, and asked, “Why?”\n\nThe sigh he let out felt like he was blowing out years worth of tension. He hugged her close and rested his chin on top of her head.\n\n“If a person hatches a wild baby bird, handles it and feeds it, it can’t really be a wild bird anymore—not the way it would be if it were raised by a mama bird. The hatchling thinks the person is their mama and wants to be around them. It’s not because the person is a good parent, it’s because the baby bird thinks the first creature it sees is its mama.\n\n“You—too young to be wanting sex in the first place—want it for reasons I can’t begin to understand. You wanted it from me, because I was the first guy you saw in that way. I let it happen, because I’m a weak piece of shit, and now you say you only want it from me. It feels like I’ve already crippled a baby bird.”\n\nHe felt her stir and added, “I know you aren’t a baby bird, kitten. But the metaphor still works.”\n\n“What’s a metaphor?”\n\nMark pitched over backward, landing with a groan mixed with a wry chuckle. She lay on his chest, carried with him in the fall.\n\n“See, this is what I mean. I shouldn’t be putting my dick in someone who doesn’t know what a metaphor is, yet,” the border collie grumbled. Seeing her lingering look of confusion, he patiently explained,“So, there’s two ways you can compare two things. A simile is when you use words like ‘like’ or ‘as’. If you said ‘I’m as angry as a honey bee on a bear farm’, that’s a simile. A metaphor is when you compare things by just outright saying X is Y. Eating so much you sit back and say, ‘Ugh, I’m a pig!’…metaphor.”\n\nShe propped herself up on straightened arms, paws splayed on his chest, and said, “I didn’t know they had names. What grade do we learn about those?”\n\n“Shit, babybird, I don’t remember. It’s been a long time since I was in school. Why?”\n\n“I wanna know how old I have to be for you to not feel bad about what we do.”\n\nMark ruffled the fur between her ears and planted a kiss on her nose.\n\n“Those are different ages, Missa. Probably won’t be long before metaphors and similes pop up in Language Arts…or whatever the hell they’re calling it now. But you’d have to be at least old enough to drink before I’d feel less bad about fucking you.”\n\nShe squirmed on top of him and asked, “How old is that?”\n\n“Twenty-one.”\n\nThe kitten sat up, searching his eyes for sign of joking. Finding none, she pushed hard against his chest with both paws. Her ears folded back flat against her head and a faint snarl pulled at her lips.\n\n“Fuck off,” she hissed. “I have to be a fucking grownup?” She pushed again and the tips of her claws poked out and caught on his shirt. “I have to live with the want, not feeling all of your love, for that long?” Tears welled in her eyes. “That’s not fair!”\n\n“Whoa,” he said, pulling her down to lay flat on top of him again. “You asked how old you’d have to be for me to feel less guilty, Missa. Clearly, from the way the past few months have gone, you’re still getting me. It’s just difficult for me to feel okay about it.”\n\nWith her face buried in the thick fur of his neck, her voice came out muffled when she said, “It’s not just me, Mark. It’s not fair to you either.”\n\nHugging her close, the border collie kissed her on the head and muttered, “Oh, it’s far from the least fair thing I’ve been through, kitten, and I’d put up with worse to make sure you were safe. It’s just hard to be this cruel to you.”\n\nThey laid in each other’s arms for a few minutes, until Mark rubbed her sides with his paws and said, “C’mon, kitten. Let me add some heat to our cups so we can finish our cocoa before bed.”\n\nThe calico relented and they spent a little while sipping hot chocolate and looking up through the clearing at the stars. Afterward, Mark cleaned up the cups and pot and also raised the food up off the ground to prevent little critters (and big ones) from snooping around overnight. As they prepared for sleep, the kitten shivered.\n\nHer breath was faintly visible when she said, “I don’t think I can sleep in the hammock like this. Is it okay if we sleep in the tent?”\n\nHe ruffled the fur on top of her head and replied, “Sure, kitten. It feels like it’s in the low forties, so that’s a good idea. Don’t want you catching cold.”\n\nThe tent was a low, narrow backpacking tent that required them both to crawl to get in. Billed as a two-person tent, it was comfortable for one adult and you had to be real close with whoever you shared it with. Missa’s small size didn’t take a lot of space, so it was still cozy. Before squirming into the sleeping bag, the kitten changed into a nightshirt that went down to her mid-thighs. When she turned around from changing clothes, she found to her delight that he was getting naked.\n\nSeeing the bright look in her eyes, he gave her a sad smile and said, “Fur-to-fur will be warmer for you, but I’m mainly doing this because you’re a little furnace and I’LL burn up otherwise. I wasn’t coming on to you.”\n\nHer eyes flashed with momentary disappointment but shifted quickly to a happy look of mischief. She pulled off her nightshirt and panties, tossing them to the side in the tent.\n\n“If fur-to-fur is warmer, then I’ll take it,” she said. “Besides, just feeling you next to me will be nice.”\n\nThe sadness of his smile gave way to a warm joy. He slipped into the sleeping bag, then held it open for her to join him. Melissa crawled over and flopped down on her side against him, back pressed against his belly and chest. He chuckled as she wriggled to get comfortable, then zipped the sleeping bag closed and wrapped his arm over her. Hugging Missa tight for a moment, the border collie kissed the top of her head and rested his chin there.\n\n“I do love you, babygirl,” he muttered softly.\n\nPressing back against him, she whispered back, “I love you too.”\n\nThe kitten was one of those restless kids who take a few minutes to get comfortable. She shifted multiple times, changing from back to side, before settling with her back against him again. Once she was settled, she fell asleep quickly. \n\n- - - - -\n\nThe tent was still dark, hours later, when she felt a broad paw slide up the length of her thigh and splay across her tummy. The sensation woke her to find Mark asleep and gently running his paw over her body. The sensation was nice, and a purr quickly built in her throat. At one point, the pads of his fingers tickled the dip where her abdomen met her thigh, and she wriggled. When she did, she felt his hard length pressed against her butt and back.\n\nShe knew he was asleep, but this was the first time he had ever initiated with her. The thrill of it had her as wet as she had ever been. His head bent down so he could nuzzle the back of her neck and lick the backs of her ears. Huffing breath brushed hot over her fur, sending a rush through the skin beneath. Her back arched, grinding her ass against the base of his cock.\n\n“Mmm…” the border collie groaned against her ear. “I’m sorry it took so long, Missa. You’re finally old enough, and I’ve wanted to do this properly for so long.”\n\nIn the dark, the kitten’s eyes went wide. Her panting breath caught in her chest and she swallowed hard. [i]He’s dreaming[/i], she thought to herself. [i]But he’s still thinking about me[/i]. She resolved herself to seeing where this might go.\n\n“I’ve wanted it too,” she managed to whisper.\n\nThe paw roaming her body moved in a slow caress up her belly and chest to her neck, where it took hold of her jaw firmly and turned her head up toward his waiting muzzle. He kissed her the way his kissed Mama, deeply and hungrily. His tongue probed her mouth, and she accepted with a shudder. Her paws wandered behind her, seeking the hot, bare skin of his dick. He was fully erect and burned hot against her paw pads.\n\nBreaking the kiss, he nuzzled her neck and nipped at her ear. His paw released her jaw and trailed dull claws down the front of her body. Pausing only briefly to nudge and pinch at her left nipple, it continued raking parallel furrows down through the soft fur of her belly. She gasped when he reached her crotch and slipped his paw between her legs. Fur and warm pads brushed over her damp lips and tickled her swelling clit. She breathed his name and squeezed his cock in her paw.\n\n“You’re already so wet, kitten,” he huffed against the back of her jaw, licking the fur there and sending shivers down her spine. “Do you want to keep up the foreplay, or are you ready for me to fuck you?”\n\nIf her natural state of high arousal hadn’t already had her ready, even if the hungry paw rubbing her pussy hadn’t already had her soaked, his words alone would have rendered her ready to take him. She leaned her head back against him and nodded.\n\n“God, Mark, please,” she moaned. “That’s all I want right now.”\n\nTeeth grazed her ear, stealing her breath. His whisper was coarse and dark, when he asked, “Do you want me to go slow and gentle, like always.”\n\nHer claws extended slightly, grazing his knot, and she replied in a breathless whisper, “Take me hard. Take me like you take Mama when you mean it. I want to feel how much you want me.”\n\nThe growl that came from him vibrated her chest harder than her purr already was. She felt him pull away from her grasp, as his paw lifted her leg and draped it over his. The throbbing heat of his shaft grazed her slit, as he thrusted forward. The tip appeared in front of her, and he moved his paw to guide it toward her lips. \n\nShe had an expectation of how it would go. She had seen him many times with Valerie. Nothing prepared her for the pause where his tip lingered at her entrance, teasing her. Nothing prepared her for the hungry grip of both of his paws on her waist, as the friends lay spooning on their sides in the sleeping bag, or the way his claws pressed against the skin of her belly. And nothing had or could have prepared her for the sensation of his long jaws wrapping over the base of her neck. His long canine teeth pressed a couple of inches away from her spine in the back and at the top of her sternum in the front. She had a fraction of a second to feel confusion at his actions before his growl rumbled hot against her neck and his jaws closed just short of breaking skin. At that same moment, the border collie thrust his full length inside her.\n\nMelissa had been fucked hard before. Pumpkin had introduced her to the frantic, bestial way of a true animal. This wasn’t that. At no point was there a question that Mark was a man. The pace of his thrusts, though harder and faster than any she had felt from him in the past, weren’t the mindless stabs of a beast. He held her and pumped his length in and out of her in rapid, purposeful strokes. One paw released her waist to slide in front and rub her clit with hard pressure that was nonetheless deliberately careful. \n\nAll the hunger he had denied himself, denied her, flooded the moment. If he had been awake, he would have wondered if she came in the first few strokes of his cock. The truth he would never learn is that she started then and continued to throughout. Wave after wave rushed through her little body, causing her toes to curl and her fingers to grasp at his arm hard enough for claws to prick skin. She shuddered and gasped, squeaked and mewled as he devoured her in a way he never had.\n\nShe was barely conscious of his tongue playing at the fur of her neck. She was hardly aware of their surroundings. All that mattered was the swelling knot within her and the building growl in his throat. His last few thrusts were short and forceful, knot locked in and tip pressed deep into the farthest recesses of her vagina, stretching it in all dimensions. His jaws released her as he ground his pelvis hard against her backside. He nuzzled under her jaw and rasped her name, declaring that he was coming. Dazed, she felt the first hot splashes of semen within and crashed into one last orgasm. The tent faded around her as he filled her.\n\n- - - - -\n\nMark awoke to faint light filtering through the tent fabric. Birds chittered and sang in the trees surrounding their campsite. Groggily, he blinked his eyes and yawned. As he shifted in the sleeping bag, he felt a cool wetness. The first thing that crossed his mind was that the kitten must have had an accident overnight. Every second, though, brought more wakefulness. The scent was very clearly not urine.\n\nHis right paw went to rub his face, as he realized what must have happened. It had to have been a wet dream. All the talk and physical closeness must have triggered a dream that resulted in a nocturnal orgasm. It wasn’t until the kitten stirred, rolling over to reach around him and pull close, that he smelled her own sex scent as well.\n\nLying in the tent with the girl, Mark stared up at the fabric above him. This was worse than giving in when she pleaded. He didn’t know if he had done something to her in his sleep or if she had done something to him, and that left his imagination ample room to wander.\n\nMissa awoke with her arms clutching the border collie. She glanced at his face and found it stony and distant, with fresh tears at the corner of his eye. The scents were strong enough from the recent movements that she guessed he must have figured out what he had done in the night. Her paw caressed his chest softly, the way her Mama’s paw would caress her when she’d had a bad dream.\n\n“Kitten,” he croaked, voice thick with emotion, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did. But I’m sorry.”\n\nShe repositioned so she could kneel by his chest, shivering slightly in the morning cold. Her paws went to his face, taking it by both sides and forcing him to look at her.\n\n“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, eyes piercing his in the dim light. “You were dreaming. I woke up to you petting me so nicely. You said I was finally old enough. I think it was the future in your dream. I…” her voice faltered, “…played along. I wanted to know what it would feel like when you really wanted to do it. Mark, it’s okay. You didn’t hurt me. You didn’t break my heart or my pussy. It’s okay.”\n\nShe leaned over him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her voice was soft and soothing, as if she was trying to chase away a nightmare. He embraced her tightly, claws pressing hard against her.\n\n“I could have, though,” he said. “I could have and I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. Melissa,” the full name made her flinch, “what am I going to do? I can’t keep putting you in danger like this.”\n\nShe pushed back up, fighting against his embrace. When she hover over him, her face was serious, almost furious. Her claws poked into the skin of his chest.\n\n“You love me, Mark. You won’t hurt me. Not like you think you will. Not as much as if you avoided me. Mama and me, we both trust you. She would never have let any of this happen if she didn’t. I wouldn’t want you if I didn’t. You’re a good man. Don’t you dare think otherwise.”\n\nThrough the self-hate, through the shame, some small part of her echoing his words back at him did germinate in his heart. He reached up and cupped her cheek.\n\n“I hope you’re right, hon. I really do.”\n\nThe sleeping bag was useless now and both of them were a complete mess. Mark knew of a hot spring, not far away, where they could bathe. At the very least it might tone down the scent of sex on them. The border collie shuddered to think what might happen if they tried to hike back to the trailhead smelling like they did and ran into people on the way. No passer-by would miss the scent. \n\nThey got dressed in the previous days’s clothes and packed some biodegradable soap and clean clothes into a day pack. The soiled sleeping bag got rolled up and crammed into a stuff sack, where it would stay until he could launder it. In the meantime, they had a quick breakfast of hot tea and granola bars, then headed for the hot spring. It took a while to get there, partly because the calico was walking a little slower than she had the previous day. She caught the look of guilt growing on his face as he watched her walk and told him that it was a good soreness. She even told him that it was the hardest she had come yet.\n\nThe spring was small, steamy, and unpopulated. They took off all their clothes and slipped into the hot water. It had a faint smell of sulfur and other minerals. More importantly, it felt wonderful. The heat of it quickly melted away his anxiety and her soreness. After about half an hour of soaking, they got out and scooped up a collapsible water reservoir worth of hot water to used to wash with. They moved away from the spring and helped each other scrub clean and rinse, before easing back into the spring to soak a little more. After a while, they climbed back out and dried thoroughly, then out on clean clothes and returned to camp.\n\nStanding in the clearing, Mark said, “Well, kitten, I think we need to cut our trip short and head home. Maybe I should have brought a second sleeping bag after all. Then at least we’d have something to sleep in if we stayed out here.”\n\nThey packed the camp back up and slowly hiked back out. The drive home was quiet. Melissa slept through most of it. On the way, Mark swore to himself that he would not let this happen again."
    },
    ".description.json": {
      "description": "It has taken a while to put work in on this, and I would have preferred to massage it some more. However, there are other epilogues to work on and like is a fucking nightmare right now, so…sorry, but this is as polished as it’s gonna be. I want to say again how appreciative I am of all of you reading these stories. Y’all have surprised the hell out of me with your reception of them. I adore every comment and get a thrill every time someone favorites or watches. I figured maybe five people might ever even look at them. Destitute as I am financially right now, I feel rich. Thank you all!\n\nThere is a reference to a cold temperature being “in the low forties”, obviously that’s degrees Fahrenheit, for all you lovely folks who live in places that use reasonable systems of measurement and stop to go “that shit ain’t cold!” In higher elevations, with thin air and more exposure to wind, 41°F (5°C) feels pretty damn cold even if it isn’t very close to freezing."
    },
    ".writing.json": {
      "writing": "Keeping Up With the Joneses - Epilogue 2: Trail and Error \n\nMark Shearer had a busy life. The black-and-white border collie rarely took time off from work, especially once things got complicated with the Jones girls. The only concession he made to himself was a summer camping trip that he would take to an upstate national forest every year. Being outdoors had always had a sort of positive and negative feeling for him. In his youth, it was the time when he felt most at ease but also the most alone. He started and kept the tradition to overwrite the bad memories with good ones the best he could.\n\nThe year that Melissa turned eight, she asked him if she could join him on his trip. The border collie knew he wouldn’t mind the company; however, there was the fact that the kitten continued to consistently urge him to have sex with her. Her fascination with it bordered on obsessive. It wasn’t that she was addicted or compulsive about it; more so, it was like a child had discovered a new interest and wanted nothing but to engage with it. Even after a couple of years, he still didn’t feel right about acquiescing to her precocious desires. This discomfort didn’t stop him from acquiescing, over and over again, but he couldn’t bring himself to initiate anything with her and she usually had to do a lot of convincing.\n\nHis ears angled back as he grasped for some way to avoid the strain of failing to reject her and asked, “Wait, what about your dad?”\n\n“What about him?” she asked with a strange tone the man couldn’t place.\n\n“You spend every other summer with him. You were here with your mama last summer. We went to all those ‘Movies in the Park’ things. So, this is supposed to be your summer with your dad. I shouldn’t be taking you away from him.”\n\nThe emotion that rippled across Melissa’s face was inscrutable to the border collie. It seemed amused on the surface, but something felt off. The little cat shrugged, smile never faltering.\n\n“Not anymore,” she said, as if it were the most natural thing.\n\nHe couldn’t get much more out of her, though he couldn’t bring himself to pry too deep. The decision about her joining him on his trip was left hanging until Valerie got home from a late night at work. In the meantime, he busied himself cleaning up around the Joneses’ apartment. That diversion didn’t last long, considering he leaned on it every time he was alone with the kitten. He had to quickly come up with another. Each time he appeared to be finished with something, the kitten sidled up to him. Wandering paws and murmurs of need threatened to push him over an edge that he was trying with all his will to keep back from.\n\nThe relief was bare on the border collie’s face when Val opened the apartment door and stepped in with a sigh. She gave him an apologetic smile, recognizing that the apartment was, as it had been for months, cleaner than it had any need to be. Dinner was on the stove, and the aroma of something sweet in the oven tickled the grey cat’s nose.\n\n“Cookies?” she asked as she hung her jacket behind the door. “Was it that bad today?”\n\nThe strained laugh that broke from him cut off after barely a second, as he composed himself and said, “I don’t know what you mean. I just thought it would be a nice treat. Right, Missa?”\n\nThe kitten had her mom’s hips wrapped in a hug. \n\nGlancing up at Mama, she said, “That’s what he says, but I think he’s playing hard-to-get.”\n\n“I’m not playing hard-to-anything, Missa.” The exasperated dog flopped into a dining chair and sighed. “There’s a lot to it, kitten. I’m worried about what effect all of this could have on you, and I also don’t want sex every damn second. Sometimes I want to spend time with you without being inside you.”\n\n“We could have played a card game!”\n\n“You wanted to play strip UNO. We all remember how the last game went.”\n\n“We could have watched tv!”\n\nHe rested his elbow on the table, paw dangling limp over the edge.\n\n“You wanted to watch old nature documentaries.”\n\n“I thought it would be educational,” she said with a blush in her ears and her face pressed to Valerie’s waist.\n\n“The ones where they just casually show the animals mating?”\n\nValerie felt a giggle from her daughter.\n\nMelissa’s muffled voice replied, “It would have been educational.”\n\n“Missa,” he sat back and tilted his head up to the ceiling, “kitten, I love ya. You’re a sweet girl. But, look, you have interests and skills that have nothing to do with sex and so do I. Part of knowing and loving someone is getting to know and love all parts of a person, not just the parts you rub together.”\n\nShe looked a little confused and asked, “But I’ve heard people say on tv that men only think about and want sex.”\n\n“I know, hon, but a whole lot of what we see on tv isn’t real or true.”\n\nShe looked a little abashed and said quietly, “…but it’s really fun and feels nice.”\n\nEven pushed to the limits of his fragile resolve, he couldn’t be mad at her. Valerie had his back.\n\n“Honey,” she said to the girl, “think about it like this: candy’s great, right?”\n\nThe calico perked and nodded.\n\n“It tastes really good and makes you feel good,” she continued. “But if you only eat bunches of candy, you’ll get sick. You have to have real food to help your body grow and stay healthy.”\n\nStroking the kitten’s head, Mama concluded, “Sex is like candy for your mind. It feels really good, but that’s all. To help your mind grow and stay healthy, you have to feed it non-sex stuff too. Talking, reading, watching movies, going for walks, drawing, singing, cuddling, laughing…we need all these things too.”\n\n“So…you don’t always want sex?” the calico asked Mark.\n\nHe smiled softly at her, “Babygirl, just like with your mama, I want all of you. What’s between y’all’s legs is fun, but I also want what’s here,” he touched his head, “and here,” he moved his paw to his chest.\n\nMelissa thought for a moment, frowning. It was clear her gears were turning on something she was reading between the lines. She let go of Val’s legs and stepped over to stand before the border collie. Her paws reached out to rest on his knees.\n\nThe calico’s mismatched eyes searched his as she asked, “Is it…bad…to want sex a lot?”\n\nThe girl didn’t say “Is there something wrong with me?”, but her tone dripped with that concern anyway. The border collie’s strong arms scooped her up and tucked her close in to his chest.\n\n“There’s nothing wrong with you, Missa,” he rumbled into her ear. “The problem is that for someone your age to want it at all, much less so often, is strange. Not bad, not wrong, just strange. That’s all. You’re a good girl. Don’t you dare think otherwise.”\n\n“Why is it strange?”\n\nHolding her ice blue and deep green eyes with his brown ones, he smiled softly and gave her a kiss on the nose.\n\n“Our bodies grow in stages, kitten. The stage that begins our sexual growth, our physical ability and the desire to have sex, usually happens when we’re in our early teens. Before that, having sex can cause a lot of damage to our minds and bodies. So, it’s not just strange that you want it but that you’ve been able to do it without getting hurt. I worry sometimes if you are getting hurt somehow, and we all just don’t know it.”\n\nThe kitten shook her head emphatically and stressed, “It doesn’t hurt, Mark. If it hurt, I wouldn’t want to do it.”\n\n“It sure seems that way, Missa. But, until you are grown, I’m still gonna worry.”\n\nThe kitten grumbled, “Ok,” and gave his neck a long tight hug, then hopped down to find something to occupy herself with while the adults talked. Mark stood out of the chair and padded over to where Valerie still stood, his claws clicking on the hard floor. The grey cat had a bemused expression on her face, but she eased into the embrace he offered.\n\nThe woman whispered, “She’ll get bored eventually and find a fascination with some new toy, band, or cartoon.”\n\nHe rested his chin on top of her head and grumbled, “I dunno, Val. All those things have come and gone in the background these last two years, and all it does is change what she babbles about when she’s locked around a captive audience.”\n\nShe laughed and nuzzled his neck.\n\n“Well, if I can get you to myself later, I’ll fill your ears with stuff about the book I’m listening to and my thoughts about an herb garden on the balcony, while you fill my rear. How’s that sound?”\n\nA twitch from inside his pants answered for him, but the tired border collie still sighed and said, “I think I need a vacation.”\n\nThe grey cat laughed and whisked into the kitchen to set about washing her paws, saying, “How is planning going?”\n\n“I’ve got things about ninety percent in order,” he replied as he checked the stove. \n\nThe beef tips had been simmering in gravy long enough that the meat practically dissolved under a serving spoon. He fluffed the rice, stirred the peas, and killed the burners under all the cookware. With the dinner items in order, he pulled the cookies out of the oven.\n\nLaying the cookies out to cool on a folded cheesecloth on the counter, he cleared his throat and added, “The other ten percent just sorta popped up a couple minutes ago.”\n\n“The kiddo ask to go with you?”\n\nHe glanced at her with a cocked eyebrow and ears pinned back.\n\n“Yeah…” he drawled. “You knew?”\n\n“I didn’t know-know. I had a feeling she might, though.”\n\n“That feeling have anything to do with her saying it wasn’t a summer to be at her dad’s ‘anymore’?”\n\nThe grey cat leaned her back against the counter and groaned.\n\n“Do you want the long version full of swearing or the short version full of swearing?”\n\nMark glanced sidelong toward the living room, noting that the kitten was occupying herself with coloring but still had an ear cocked toward the kitchen. He thought about some of the conversations he had either overheard or been involved in, where a divorced or separated person talked about their ex in ways that he found himself hoping their children never had to hear.\n\n“How about the short version, maybe light on swearing?”\n\nShe caught his glance and gleaned the thoughts behind it.\n\n“Miles remarried. He’s living with the new bi—…woman…and her two sons halfway across the country. He says it’s a small house and the boys are too rowdy for him to feel safe about her being there.” Her ears folded back and she leaned closer to whisper, “He was butthurt about having a daughter from the moment they sexed her in the ultrasound. It’s one of two things, I bet: either he finally found an out and wanted to get the custody monkey off his back or his new bitch convinced him to. Either way, he officially renounced custody. Been meaning to talk about it with you, but I kept getting…distracted.”\n\nMark’s lip curled in a reflexive snarl and he growled, “That is fucking infuriating. Missa’s a good kid, and she deserves better than to be cast away like that.”\n\n“Well, to be fair,” Val said, “he was already on thin ice with the court. Half the time he had custody, they didn’t really do anything. She was just there. He was there, sometimes.” His expression coaxed further explanation from her. “Melissa spent a lot of time with his mom instead of him. I don’t think her Grams ever did more than sit around the house and smoke in all the time I’ve known her, so the kiddo pretty much stayed bored the whole time. It got to the point she was begging to skip visits, but we were all stuck with the terms of the agreement.”\n\nThe border collie considered the kitten, who was focusing on trying to look busy and failing.\n\nHe mumbled, “Always wondered why she never talked about the time she spent there. It didn’t feel like she was being private or covering anything up, just….”\n\n“Just wasn’t anything to tell,” the grey cat confirmed.\n\nHe shook his head and decided it was better to let the topic lie. There wasn’t a damned thing he could do, and even if he felt comfortable throwing his two cents in, nothing he could say would help. It was a shitty thing; one more in a world full of ‘em. What he could do, though, was try to be supportive and loving. They both deserved that.\n\nThe trio ate dinner and cleaned up the kitchen together. Melissa handled drying dishes and putting away the ones she could reach, while Mark handled washing and put away whatever she couldn’t manage. Valerie put leftovers away and wiped down the table and counters. It was a system they had perfected over the last few months. When all was finished, they each grabbed a couple cookies and retired to the living room to nibble their dessert and chat.\n\nGlancing at the girl next to him on the couch, Mark finally said, “I really would like it if you came with me, Missa. I just know I’m kinda an outsider and didn’t want to step on any toes. So, if you still want to and your mama doesn’t mind, you can come”\n\nReceiving a nod from Val, the kitten’s expression immediately brightened, but Mark quickly added,  “If I take you, though, I need you to promise me that you won’t spend the whole time trying to get my dick out of my pants. It’s secluded out there, but I see folks out hiking in the same areas as me all the time. We’ve talked about how much trouble what we do could get me in, right?”\n\nThe kitten nodded emphatically and replied, “I promise! I don’t want us to get in trouble.”\n\n“Well,” he said, ruffling the fur of her head, “you wouldn’t be in trouble, really. Just me and your mom. Mostly me.”\n\n“Still! I don’t want to lose you or Mama.”\n\nThey talked for a while about what she would need to pack and explaining what things would be like out in the park. The border collie explained that the nights could get cold, even in summer, so she needed to have some clothes that were appropriate for more than just warm, sunny days. She asked him if they would have a campfire and if they would toast marshmallows. To her disappointment, Mark told her they couldn’t have a campfire because the park was under a burn ban.\n\nToasted marshmallow dreams dashed, the mopey girl asked, “What’s a burn ban?”\n\n“If someone made a fire in the wrong conditions, it could burn the whole forest down. So, the park rangers announce burn bans and tell people not to make campfires when times are very dry.”\n\n“Like Smokey Bear?”\n\n“That’s right!”\n\nSmokey wasn’t as big a character by that point, not as big as he was when either of the adults were Melissa’s age. The mantle had been passed from black bear to black bear for years—ever since the first burn-scarred Smokey had taken the name to spread words of caution—each of whom had donned the guise of a park ranger for tv spots and school assemblies meant to educate children on the the role they could play in protecting their public lands. Even with a less prominent persona, the mascot still found his way into the little girl’s mind. At least that made it a little easier to take the disappointment of missing out on a campfire.\n\n- - - - -\n\nA week later, Mark and Melissa were trundling down a dirt road in densely forested foothills. The border collie’s old blue SUV shuddered over ruts and large rocks that sent the giggling calico bouncing up off the seat several times. Saved from tumbling into the floorboard by her safety belt, she was able to fully enjoy the rollercoaster. At one stop, where they had to wait for a small convoy of logging trucks to pass, she unbuckled her belt and shifted to the center of the bench seat. Once she was belted back in, she looked up at the man behind the wheel.\n\n“Hey, Mark?” she managed during a less rough patch.\n\n“What’s up, Miss Missa?”\n\nShe opened her mouth but remembered her promise and decided against mentioning that she wished she was on his lap for the ride.\n\n“Never mind.”\n\nInstead, she rested her left paw on his thigh and leaned against him for the rest of the drive. He draped his arm around her and gave her a little squeeze against his side. Several miles and enough curves to put the fear of motion sickness in the kitten passed before the SUV lurched to a stop. They had arrived at the vacant parking lot of a trailhead. When they piled out of the vehicle and stretched, they both filled their lungs with clean forest air. Melissa noticed a slightly sweet scent that was a little like grass, but all the understory was ferns and shrubs. She noticed that the smell seemed to come from scattered groups of dark lumps around the lot. The clusters reminded her of something she’d seen during a parade a while back.\n\nShe pointed and asked, “Horse poop?”\n\nAs Mark opened the back hatch and gathered together their packs, he turned to follow her gesture and answered, “Hmm? Oh! Yeppers, that’s what those are.”\n\n“There are horses out here?”\n\n“Probably not right now. Looks several days old. If it was folks who keep four-legged horses for riding, their trailers are gone. It’s mid-week, too, so they’re not likely to be out. Though…there’s also a herd of wild horses that roams down where the valley is wider open, I haven’t seen them up this far before, but there’s nothing stopping them.”\n\nThe kitten’s eyes were huge by the time he finished explaining. For a city kid who only saw them in parades and media, she had the makings of a horse girl, and the prospect of seeing one out in the forest had her beside herself. He laughed and handed her the light pack they had arranged for her things. He threw a few more items into his big internal frame pack and swung it onto his shoulders. Clicking the buckle of the hip belt required a slight relaxing of the strap.\n\n“God, y’all are gonna end up making me fat,” Mark grumbled with a smirk to make sure she knew he wasn’t being serious.\n\nShe walked over and gestured for him to bend down for a whisper. \n\n“More cushion for the pushin’, Mama says,” she breathed into his ear, concluding with a peck on the cheek.\n\nThe man’s bark of laughter startled some birds out of an old oak tree. He patted her head and locked up the SUV. Before they hit the trail, he had her stand still while he dusted the fur of her legs and arms with flea and tick repellent powder. There was no sense either of them picking up hitchhikers along the way. She wriggled as he ran his paws over her arms and lower legs but started making some borderline indecent sounds when the ticklish caress went above her knees and stopped feeling quite so ticklish. When he finished, he called her a goofball and hit his exposed limbs with the powder, too. As prepared as they were going to be, they started hiking.\n\nThe path was broad and mostly flat close to the trailhead. Decades of foot traffic, horses, and off-road vehicles had worn a swath of packed dirt almost wide enough for a car to travel on. In rainier years, there would be deep ruts and divots from tires and hooves, but the pair found it smooth walking for at least half a mile. The trail split at a Y, with the wide horse path veering to the right and a narrower footpath winding away into the trees to the left. A marker post at the split designated the trail as hiking-only, red circle-slash icons prohibited bikes, horses, and all-terrain vehicles. A sign at the top of the post read, “Oak Spring Trail’. They turned up the narrow fork and continued chatting about not much of anything, calling out birds and squirrels as they went.\n\n“What’s an oak spring?” the girl wondered aloud after they’d been walking for twenty minutes or so.\n\n“Less a what and more a where, kitten. If we stayed on this trail the whole way, we’d end up in a little valley packed with old oaks. At the head of the valley there’s a spring where an underground river is real close to the surface, and water pools up and runs down the valley.”\n\n“That sounds cool! Why aren’t we going there?”\n\nMark stopped and said, “It was cool, until some assholes decided to spread a rumor that the water there has healing properties. Place is just churned up mud and trash these days. The water isn’t even fit to drink anymore. Where we’re going is up that way.”\n\nHe pointed up through a gap in the trees. A saddleback ridge rose up, draped with wide swaths of conifers and open gaps of alpine meadow, toward a bald rocky peak.\n\n“This trail heads into the valley below the ridge. We’ll split off in a little bit and follow another trail up along the ridge. Up in the pines there are some clearings. We’ll find one of those that isn’t occupied and set up there.”\n\nThe pause in walking gave the border collie’s body a chance to realize he’d been needing to piss for a while. He glanced down at Melissa and noticed that she was starting to wiggle a bit, too. Well, he figured, no time like the present.\n\n“Thinkin’ I need to take a leak. What about you, Missa?”\n\n“Yeah,” she replied with a glance around. “Is there a restroom nearby?”\n\n“Kinda?”\n\nHe gestured to the forest around them as he unbuckled his pack and slung it down off his shoulders. He produced a roll of toilet paper from the top pouch of his pack and tossed it to her.\n\n“The world is your toilet when you’re out here.”\n\nShe shrugged off her pack and set it off the trail next to his. \n\n“Just…anywhere?”\n\nHe explained that she might want to duck behind a tree, in case another hiker came through, but otherwise anywhere was fine. He almost let her wander off, then had her wait while he looked around for problems. It didn’t take long to spot what he was looking for.\n\n“Yeah, there we go,” he said, pointing at a tangle of leaves. “This is poison ivy. You don’t want to touch that, kitten. It’ll make you itch so bad you won’t want skin anymore.”\n\nHe used a twig to point out the distinguishing features: leaves in groups of three, the way the edges were shaped, the color of the vines, the scent.\n\n“Keep your nose going and watch the ground when you go off trail to do your business.”\n\nShe shuffled uneasily and asked, “Can you go with me? I don’t want to miss it and get itchy.”\n\n“Sure thing, kitten. Won’t be anything I haven’t seen or heard before.” \n\nThe border collie stood watch on one side of a young oak tree while the sounds of shuffling fabric and the scent of kitten wafted around in the dappled shade. He remembered his own need when he heard the patter then rush of urine on old leaves. There wasn’t any sign of other folks out in the woods, so he opened the zip on his hiking shorts to free his sheath, pulled back the fur and skin so that the tip of his cock was free, and let his stream harmonize with hers. She had a head start and faster flow, so she dabbed dry and poked her head around the tree while he was still going.\n\n“Still a peeper, eh?” the man said over a chuckle when he noticed her watching him.\n\nThe kitten’s ears stayed forward but went red, and she nodded with a faint shrug. She licked her lips as if they were dry, though the gesture felt like there was a sort of hunger there, too.\n\n“This is the first time I’ve watched you pee,” she said in a low almost-whisper.\n\nFinished with his task, he squeezed from base to tip a couple times to clear his urethra and let the sheath slip back up. To his chagrin, the tip of his dick still poked out a little. The attention appeared to be having an effect. He tucked his faltering modesty back away and zipped up.\n\nHe smirked and said, “It’s really not all that different than when Pumpkin goes, is it?”\n\nShe didn’t hide her disappointment that the show was over when she responded, “He just pees straight out of his sheath, though.”\n\n“Four-legged critters don’t mind getting some piss on their sheath fur. They can just lick it off or don’t care about it. I’m not that flexible and don’t like the feeling of wet lingering like that. Besides, it’d make my underwear smell like pee.”\n\nThe border collie wrinkled his muzzle to stress his distaste. There was a pause as the kitten weighed whether to say what she was thinking. Prudence lost out.\n\n“Someone could lick it off for you,” she whispered before trotting back to the packs.\n\nHe would have liked to tell her to save exploring kinks at least until she was old enough to vote, but what even was a kink at that point? Wasn’t anything they did, at best, a kink under their circumstances? Certainly none of it was conventional. He opted not to think too deeply about it. A man standing on a slippery slope knows better than to tap dance.\n\nMark fished a water bottle out of his pack before he threw it back on. Missa was already standing with her pack slung and looking up at the aspen leaves quivering in the canopy. He handed his water bottle to her after he had a drink and let her slake her own thirst. They resumed hiking, him just behind her to let her set the pace, and delighting in the living world around them. When a new kind of bird would alight on a branch, he would tell her what kind it was. One of the ways he passed his time in a youth devoid of parental involvement or friends was to take birding books from the town library and sit in the woods, learning the birds and keeping track of what he saw. The best one on their hike was when a huge raven glided to a landing on a broken stump and let out a series of hoarse croaks.\n\n“Whoa!” the kitten gasped.\n\n“Big fellas, aren’t they?”\n\n“They’re huge…and so shiny!”\n\nThe rest of the hike went by in a flash, and they found the camping spaces Mark had mentioned utterly empty. Besooted rings of stones marked each of the backcountry camping spots, each one carefully cleared of vegetation around the outside and filled with old ash. Beside each ring the park rangers had staked signs that declared the burn ban and announced nightly flyovers by drones to detect anyone violating the safety of the forest and its residents and visitors. With open choice, the border collie selected a site that was set back into the privacy of the forest and had a wide open view of the sky above.\n\nTheir first day out ended with setting up camp. Mark had a small tent, which Melissa helped him pitch toward one side of the clearing. He also had a pair of nylon hammocks that fitted nicely in the gaps between a trio of young birch trees. When the kitten asked why the hammocks and the tent, he answered that the tent was a good place to stash their gear and to sleep on cold nights but the hammocks would be nice seats during the day and good sleeping spots if the nights weren’t too cold. \n\nWhen he pulled a single adult-sized sleeping bag out, she grinned and said, “Only one sleeping bag? Isn’t that asking for trouble?”\n\nHe gave her a look, equal parts amused and wry, and asked, “Would you have used a separate one if I’d brought it?”\n\nThe way she wriggled and a blush crept up into her ears was answer enough. Once those arrangements were made, he set up a small camp stove and set about fixing some food. It was simple fare, just ramen with some dried tofu and mushrooms, but the scent of it hit the calico like a freight train to the tummy.\n\nOnce they had eaten and scrubbed out their dishes, Mark sat down next to his little stove and rummaged through his pack. Melissa watched him with her head cocked, as he drew out four little paper packets. Setting them next to the stove, the border collie grabbed his big water bottle and sloshed it around. Wouldn’t be enough. He glanced up at the sky. The light hadn’t fallen entirely, yet.\n\n“Feel up to another short walk tonight, Missa?”\n\nShe still had it in her, so he handed the big bottle to her and grabbed some things from his pack. They set off down the opposite side of the ridge from the ruined spring. Following the series of switchbacks in the growing darkness wasn’t a problem for the pair, but the return would require some light. Fortunately, the man had tossed a headlamp into his pocket before they departed.\n\nIt took about half an hour to reach the place Mark was leading them to, a small pond fed by snowmelt and rain. The water was not the cleanest looking. Still, Mark started laying things out.\n\n“The water looks and smells gross,” the calico said uneasily. “We aren’t going to drink that, are we?”\n\nHe looked up from his gear, then at the pond, then back at her and said, “Oh, heck no. Even the streams out here aren’t safe to just sip straight out of. Between all the animals and people peeing and pooping around the drainage basins…or just in the water directly…there’s all kinds of bacteria and parasites.”\n\nMark held up a canister with a pump handle and a hose in one paw and a heavy plastic bag with a canister and a hose on one end in his other paw. Setting the bag aside, he motioned for her to hand him the water bottle, then removed the cap and threaded it onto the bottom of the pump canister. He held up the end of the hose, showing a sort of basket-shaped thing on the end that was wrapped with sheer fabric.\n\n“So,” the man said, “this thing is a water filter. The canister has a big filter in it that can remove damn near anything. The basket at the end of the hose is a pre-filter and the cloth over it is a kinda pre-pre-filter. They keep the hose and filter from getting clogged up with grit and stuff.”\n\nHe dropped the hose end into the pond with a plip and flipped the pump handle around. Pulling and pushing on the handle caused water to slide up the clear hose into the canister. Soon the water was squirting into the water bottle from the base of the filter. The water looked clean, and in a few minutes the bottle was full.\n\n“You can smell the water in the pond and how it’s kinda nasty. Have a whiff of this.”\n\nHe handed the open bottle to her to sniff. Melissa leaned over with a frown of mistrust but sniffed anyway. Her pretty blue and green eyes went wide.\n\n“What the hell? It smells cleaner than our tap water at home!”\n\nHe laughed and took a drink, saying that it probably was. Once the water bottle was securely closed, Mark asked the kitten to take the filter, which he threaded a big collapsible container onto. He showed her how to hold the filter body and work the handle. While she set about filling the big container, he knelt close to the water’s edge and swept the big bag through the pond. Removing the full, heavy bag of water, he rolled the top and pulled the corners together. Each corner had half a buckle on it and the clicked together to keep the bag top from unrolling. He checked the hose and made sure a clamp that sat below the filter canister was secure.\n\n“This,” he said, patting the filtering bag, “is a little less effective than that one, but it’ll get enough out to cook with. Technically boiling the water kills the germs, but I like my food without grit and pond scum.”\n\nHe took over from her when her arms got tired and finished filling the big container with drinking water. Grabbing a fallen branch, he looped the two bigger containers over each end and hoisted the branch across his shoulders. Melissa carried the good filter and the big water bottle. As it got dark, the border collie suggested that the kitten grab the headlamp out of his pocket. He didn’t catch the look of mischief on her face as he focused on keeping his load balanced.\n\nBlinking and looking down at her, he said, “Um, that’s not the headlamp, kitten.”\n\nMissa, grinning like a doofus, squeezed his sheath through the inner fabric of his pocket and said, “What? A promise is a promise! I’m not trying to get it out…this time.”\n\nStill giggling to herself, she put the headlamp on her head, and he told her how to tighten the strap. With the light on, the trail was easy to traverse. Mark let her go ahead to light the way and stayed close behind. When they arrived back at their camp, he dropped the big containers with a wheeze and plopped down next to the stove. \n\n“Ok,” he grunted, “back to what I was doing.”\n\nHe poured water into the cooking pot and turned the stove on. While he waited, he held the paper packets and flipped them back and forth, like waving a fan. Melissa recognized the motion from when he was cooking the ramen earlier.\n\n“Why do you do that?”\n\nHe paused in his packet flapping and looked at her with his head cocked.\n\n“Do what?”\n\nShe pointed at his hand and said, “Why do you flap packets like that?”\n\nHe gave a self-conscious smirk and answered, looking at the items in his hand, “Huh…I didn’t even notice I was doing it. Used to be I’d do it to shift the powder to one end so less puffed out when I tore it open, but I think I just do it now to have something to do with my hands.”\n\nShe paused for a moment and said, “Mark, is it ok if I say something naughty now?”\n\nReaching over to ruffle the fur of her head, he replied, “It’s night, there’s no one around. You can say what you want, Missa. I know it’s been hard to filter yourself.”\n\n“I can think of something you can do with your hands.”\n\nThe short, snorting laugh that followed led into a laughing jag that echoed in the woods. When he had recovered enough to talk, he caught her faintly miffed expression.\n\n“Sorry, kitten,” he said. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I’m sure you can think of other things I could do with my hands, but if I stop now we don’t have cocoa and…”\n\nIn the faint glow of the camp stove, one chip of blue ice and one forest green pool glittered.\n\n“Really!?”\n\n“And something else. Maybe something even better than a quick fingering.”\n\n“What? What is it?”\n\n“Patience, Missa. You’ll see.”\n\nThe water in the pot was soon bubbling over the blue flame of the stove. Mark turned the heat down to the lowest setting and tore open the four paper packets. When he turned the packets over the pot, they spilled out as a monochromatic rainbow in browns and whites. Two of the packets were obviously cocoa mix, but the other two were a mystery to the calico.\n\n“What’s the white stuff?”\n\n“That, my dear kitten, is powdered milk. It’ll make the cocoa taste a little richer and may help you fall asleep.”\n\nMelissa wiped her chin with the back of a paw. When he said they’d be having cocoa, she knew there was no way they could bring milk along and figured it would just be cocoa and water. Not ideal by any means, but cocoa is cocoa. But! But he figured out how to…\n\nThe muted rustling sound of a plastic bag shook her out of her reverie. She watched as the border collie pulled a small package out of a gear sack and pulled the plastic open. The sugary scent hit the already excited girl and she was immediately on hands and knees, hovering a little too close to the still-hot pot and low-burning stove. Pulling a large marshmallow out of the package, Mark laughed and gently eased her away from the danger zone with a paw on her shoulder.\n\n“Careful, kitten! I don’t want to have to explain to your mama why you’ve got patches of fur missing.”\n\nShe rocked back to sit upright on her knees and wriggled with anticipation. Grinning at her  enthusiasm, he speared the marshmallow on the end of a bamboo skewer that he pulled from the same gear sack and held it over the low flame. It took a moment for the sugary pillow to char, but once the surface started browning, it quickly bubbled and blackened. Mark rotated the marshmallow to give it an even toast on one end. When his was satisfied, he held the skewer out to the kitten and turned off the burner.\n\nAs she carefully grasped the bamboo stick, he said, “Easy now. Don’t just tuck in.”\n\nShe glared at him as if he had just held a glass of water out to a wanderer in the desert and told them not to drink it. He asked her to trust him and started pouring cocoa into a pair of cups. As he handed her one of the cups, they heard a high-pitched whirring sound, like a blender two rooms away. Looking up, they caught the blinking green and red lights of a drone high against the dark sky. Mark told the kitten it was probably one of the fire watch patrols that the signs mentioned. He waved at the buzzing voyeur, and Melissa followed his lead. In a moment it was gone again and quiet returned.\n\n“Now,” the man said, “take that marshmallow and dip it in the cocoa. If you let it sit for a couple seconds, the marshmallow with taste all chocolatey and the cocoa with take in some of that toasty sugar flavor.”\n\nMelissa submerged the blackened puff into the steaming liquid, releasing a burst of mingling scents. She swirled it a little before taking it out and blowing on it. He watched her with a soft smile as she bit in and immediately did a wiggly happy dance where she sat.\n\n“Beats hell out of an idle fingering, doesn’t it?”\n\nHer left eye flicked open, blue iris darker than usual in the low light, and she replied through a mouthful of melty charred sugar, “I dunno…maybe if I had a way to compare…”\n\nSipping on his own cocoa, the border collie frowned. He rested the vessel on his knee, supporting it with the fingers of one paw on the rim. He took a fresh marshmallow from the package with his other paw and rolled it absentmindedly in his fingers.\n\n“Missa,” he said quietly after a few moments, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t understand you and it makes me worry about you a lot.”\n\nShe cocked her head and responded, “What do you mean?”\n\nBlack-and-white furred fingers continued playing with the marshmallow.\n\n“I mentioned before that no one your age should want sex at all. I get why you got curious about it, but I can’t wrap my head around why you are like you are. I worry about whether you have those wants for anyone else and whether you have gone or would go after someone else at this age. And, like I said the other day, I worry about what all of this might be doing to your body and your mind.”\n\nWith her marshmallow finished, she sat sipping from her cup. Both her eyes were locked on him now, and the tip of her tail was twitching, agitated.\n\n“Are you jealous, Mark?”\n\nWincing, he barked, “No! I’m not jealous, kitten. I just know the amount of self-control it takes me to hold back and that there are plenty of guys out there who wouldn’t. There’re folks out there who are perfectly content to hurt little girls like you without giving a damn. The thought of one of ‘em getting their paws on you makes me furious and sick at the same time.”\n\nShe set her cup on the ground beside the cooling stove and stood, brushing off her bottom and legs. Careful to avoid the stove and cooking gear, she walked over and stopped in front of him. Her fingers closed around the cup on his knee, lifting it and setting it on the packed dirt a little ways away from him. Pulling the marshmallow from his fingers, she lowered herself onto his lap.\n\n“Here,”she placed the marshmallow in front of his muzzle and tapped it against his nose, “hush for a second.”\n\nHe accepted the treat with a quizzical expression and chewed slowly as she continued. The phrase felt like one she must have borrowed from Valerie.\n\n“I don’t know why I’m like this,” she said, letting her paws play over his chest. “You and Mama tell me that there are people who would hurt me, but I don’t want other people.” As she went on, her paws slid up his chest to his neck, fingers threading through the thick fur. “I know you. I know Mama. I trust you both. I love both of you and know you love me too.”\n\nThe border collie jolted when one of her paws wandered down to graze his sheath and balls through the fabric of his hiking shorts. Her eyes stayed locked on his.\n\n“Would you worry less, if I told you this is the only one I want?”\n\nHis eyes went a touch sad, as he lifted a paw to stroke her cheek.\n\nHe whispered, “It worries me more, kitten.”\n\nThe paw pads smoothing the fur of Missa’s cheek and jaw elicited a purr from the small cat, and she leaned into the caress.\n\nShe snuggled in close, forehead furrowed, ears back, and asked, “Why?”\n\nThe sigh he let out felt like he was blowing out years worth of tension. He hugged her close and rested his chin on top of her head.\n\n“If a person hatches a wild baby bird, handles it and feeds it, it can’t really be a wild bird anymore—not the way it would be if it were raised by a mama bird. The hatchling thinks the person is their mama and wants to be around them. It’s not because the person is a good parent, it’s because the baby bird thinks the first creature it sees is its mama.\n\n“You—too young to be wanting sex in the first place—want it for reasons I can’t begin to understand. You wanted it from me, because I was the first guy you saw in that way. I let it happen, because I’m a weak piece of shit, and now you say you only want it from me. It feels like I’ve already crippled a baby bird.”\n\nHe felt her stir and added, “I know you aren’t a baby bird, kitten. But the metaphor still works.”\n\n“What’s a metaphor?”\n\nMark pitched over backward, landing with a groan mixed with a wry chuckle. She lay on his chest, carried with him in the fall.\n\n“See, this is what I mean. I shouldn’t be putting my dick in someone who doesn’t know what a metaphor is, yet,” the border collie grumbled. Seeing her lingering look of confusion, he patiently explained,“So, there’s two ways you can compare two things. A simile is when you use words like ‘like’ or ‘as’. If you said ‘I’m as angry as a honey bee on a bear farm’, that’s a simile. A metaphor is when you compare things by just outright saying X is Y. Eating so much you sit back and say, ‘Ugh, I’m a pig!’…metaphor.”\n\nShe propped herself up on straightened arms, paws splayed on his chest, and said, “I didn’t know they had names. What grade do we learn about those?”\n\n“Shit, babybird, I don’t remember. It’s been a long time since I was in school. Why?”\n\n“I wanna know how old I have to be for you to not feel bad about what we do.”\n\nMark ruffled the fur between her ears and planted a kiss on her nose.\n\n“Those are different ages, Missa. Probably won’t be long before metaphors and similes pop up in Language Arts…or whatever the hell they’re calling it now. But you’d have to be at least old enough to drink before I’d feel less bad about fucking you.”\n\nShe squirmed on top of him and asked, “How old is that?”\n\n“Twenty-one.”\n\nThe kitten sat up, searching his eyes for sign of joking. Finding none, she pushed hard against his chest with both paws. Her ears folded back flat against her head and a faint snarl pulled at her lips.\n\n“Fuck off,” she hissed. “I have to be a fucking grownup?” She pushed again and the tips of her claws poked out and caught on his shirt. “I have to live with the want, not feeling all of your love, for that long?” Tears welled in her eyes. “That’s not fair!”\n\n“Whoa,” he said, pulling her down to lay flat on top of him again. “You asked how old you’d have to be for me to feel less guilty, Missa. Clearly, from the way the past few months have gone, you’re still getting me. It’s just difficult for me to feel okay about it.”\n\nWith her face buried in the thick fur of his neck, her voice came out muffled when she said, “It’s not just me, Mark. It’s not fair to you either.”\n\nHugging her close, the border collie kissed her on the head and muttered, “Oh, it’s far from the least fair thing I’ve been through, kitten, and I’d put up with worse to make sure you were safe. It’s just hard to be this cruel to you.”\n\nThey laid in each other’s arms for a few minutes, until Mark rubbed her sides with his paws and said, “C’mon, kitten. Let me add some heat to our cups so we can finish our cocoa before bed.”\n\nThe calico relented and they spent a little while sipping hot chocolate and looking up through the clearing at the stars. Afterward, Mark cleaned up the cups and pot and also raised the food up off the ground to prevent little critters (and big ones) from snooping around overnight. As they prepared for sleep, the kitten shivered.\n\nHer breath was faintly visible when she said, “I don’t think I can sleep in the hammock like this. Is it okay if we sleep in the tent?”\n\nHe ruffled the fur on top of her head and replied, “Sure, kitten. It feels like it’s in the low forties, so that’s a good idea. Don’t want you catching cold.”\n\nThe tent was a low, narrow backpacking tent that required them both to crawl to get in. Billed as a two-person tent, it was comfortable for one adult and you had to be real close with whoever you shared it with. Missa’s small size didn’t take a lot of space, so it was still cozy. Before squirming into the sleeping bag, the kitten changed into a nightshirt that went down to her mid-thighs. When she turned around from changing clothes, she found to her delight that he was getting naked.\n\nSeeing the bright look in her eyes, he gave her a sad smile and said, “Fur-to-fur will be warmer for you, but I’m mainly doing this because you’re a little furnace and I’LL burn up otherwise. I wasn’t coming on to you.”\n\nHer eyes flashed with momentary disappointment but shifted quickly to a happy look of mischief. She pulled off her nightshirt and panties, tossing them to the side in the tent.\n\n“If fur-to-fur is warmer, then I’ll take it,” she said. “Besides, just feeling you next to me will be nice.”\n\nThe sadness of his smile gave way to a warm joy. He slipped into the sleeping bag, then held it open for her to join him. Melissa crawled over and flopped down on her side against him, back pressed against his belly and chest. He chuckled as she wriggled to get comfortable, then zipped the sleeping bag closed and wrapped his arm over her. Hugging Missa tight for a moment, the border collie kissed the top of her head and rested his chin there.\n\n“I do love you, babygirl,” he muttered softly.\n\nPressing back against him, she whispered back, “I love you too.”\n\nThe kitten was one of those restless kids who take a few minutes to get comfortable. She shifted multiple times, changing from back to side, before settling with her back against him again. Once she was settled, she fell asleep quickly. \n\n- - - - -\n\nThe tent was still dark, hours later, when she felt a broad paw slide up the length of her thigh and splay across her tummy. The sensation woke her to find Mark asleep and gently running his paw over her body. The sensation was nice, and a purr quickly built in her throat. At one point, the pads of his fingers tickled the dip where her abdomen met her thigh, and she wriggled. When she did, she felt his hard length pressed against her butt and back.\n\nShe knew he was asleep, but this was the first time he had ever initiated with her. The thrill of it had her as wet as she had ever been. His head bent down so he could nuzzle the back of her neck and lick the backs of her ears. Huffing breath brushed hot over her fur, sending a rush through the skin beneath. Her back arched, grinding her ass against the base of his cock.\n\n“Mmm…” the border collie groaned against her ear. “I’m sorry it took so long, Missa. You’re finally old enough, and I’ve wanted to do this properly for so long.”\n\nIn the dark, the kitten’s eyes went wide. Her panting breath caught in her chest and she swallowed hard. [i]He’s dreaming[/i], she thought to herself. [i]But he’s still thinking about me[/i]. She resolved herself to seeing where this might go.\n\n“I’ve wanted it too,” she managed to whisper.\n\nThe paw roaming her body moved in a slow caress up her belly and chest to her neck, where it took hold of her jaw firmly and turned her head up toward his waiting muzzle. He kissed her the way his kissed Mama, deeply and hungrily. His tongue probed her mouth, and she accepted with a shudder. Her paws wandered behind her, seeking the hot, bare skin of his dick. He was fully erect and burned hot against her paw pads.\n\nBreaking the kiss, he nuzzled her neck and nipped at her ear. His paw released her jaw and trailed dull claws down the front of her body. Pausing only briefly to nudge and pinch at her left nipple, it continued raking parallel furrows down through the soft fur of her belly. She gasped when he reached her crotch and slipped his paw between her legs. Fur and warm pads brushed over her damp lips and tickled her swelling clit. She breathed his name and squeezed his cock in her paw.\n\n“You’re already so wet, kitten,” he huffed against the back of her jaw, licking the fur there and sending shivers down her spine. “Do you want to keep up the foreplay, or are you ready for me to fuck you?”\n\nIf her natural state of high arousal hadn’t already had her ready, even if the hungry paw rubbing her pussy hadn’t already had her soaked, his words alone would have rendered her ready to take him. She leaned her head back against him and nodded.\n\n“God, Mark, please,” she moaned. “That’s all I want right now.”\n\nTeeth grazed her ear, stealing her breath. His whisper was coarse and dark, when he asked, “Do you want me to go slow and gentle, like always.”\n\nHer claws extended slightly, grazing his knot, and she replied in a breathless whisper, “Take me hard. Take me like you take Mama when you mean it. I want to feel how much you want me.”\n\nThe growl that came from him vibrated her chest harder than her purr already was. She felt him pull away from her grasp, as his paw lifted her leg and draped it over his. The throbbing heat of his shaft grazed her slit, as he thrusted forward. The tip appeared in front of her, and he moved his paw to guide it toward her lips. \n\nShe had an expectation of how it would go. She had seen him many times with Valerie. Nothing prepared her for the pause where his tip lingered at her entrance, teasing her. Nothing prepared her for the hungry grip of both of his paws on her waist, as the friends lay spooning on their sides in the sleeping bag, or the way his claws pressed against the skin of her belly. And nothing had or could have prepared her for the sensation of his long jaws wrapping over the base of her neck. His long canine teeth pressed a couple of inches away from her spine in the back and at the top of her sternum in the front. She had a fraction of a second to feel confusion at his actions before his growl rumbled hot against her neck and his jaws closed just short of breaking skin. At that same moment, the border collie thrust his full length inside her.\n\nMelissa had been fucked hard before. Pumpkin had introduced her to the frantic, bestial way of a true animal. This wasn’t that. At no point was there a question that Mark was a man. The pace of his thrusts, though harder and faster than any she had felt from him in the past, weren’t the mindless stabs of a beast. He held her and pumped his length in and out of her in rapid, purposeful strokes. One paw released her waist to slide in front and rub her clit with hard pressure that was nonetheless deliberately careful. \n\nAll the hunger he had denied himself, denied her, flooded the moment. If he had been awake, he would have wondered if she came in the first few strokes of his cock. The truth he would never learn is that she started then and continued to throughout. Wave after wave rushed through her little body, causing her toes to curl and her fingers to grasp at his arm hard enough for claws to prick skin. She shuddered and gasped, squeaked and mewled as he devoured her in a way he never had.\n\nShe was barely conscious of his tongue playing at the fur of her neck. She was hardly aware of their surroundings. All that mattered was the swelling knot within her and the building growl in his throat. His last few thrusts were short and forceful, knot locked in and tip pressed deep into the farthest recesses of her vagina, stretching it in all dimensions. His jaws released her as he ground his pelvis hard against her backside. He nuzzled under her jaw and rasped her name, declaring that he was coming. Dazed, she felt the first hot splashes of semen within and crashed into one last orgasm. The tent faded around her as he filled her.\n\n- - - - -\n\nMark awoke to faint light filtering through the tent fabric. Birds chittered and sang in the trees surrounding their campsite. Groggily, he blinked his eyes and yawned. As he shifted in the sleeping bag, he felt a cool wetness. The first thing that crossed his mind was that the kitten must have had an accident overnight. Every second, though, brought more wakefulness. The scent was very clearly not urine.\n\nHis right paw went to rub his face, as he realized what must have happened. It had to have been a wet dream. All the talk and physical closeness must have triggered a dream that resulted in a nocturnal orgasm. It wasn’t until the kitten stirred, rolling over to reach around him and pull close, that he smelled her own sex scent as well.\n\nLying in the tent with the girl, Mark stared up at the fabric above him. This was worse than giving in when she pleaded. He didn’t know if he had done something to her in his sleep or if she had done something to him, and that left his imagination ample room to wander.\n\nMissa awoke with her arms clutching the border collie. She glanced at his face and found it stony and distant, with fresh tears at the corner of his eye. The scents were strong enough from the recent movements that she guessed he must have figured out what he had done in the night. Her paw caressed his chest softly, the way her Mama’s paw would caress her when she’d had a bad dream.\n\n“Kitten,” he croaked, voice thick with emotion, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did. But I’m sorry.”\n\nShe repositioned so she could kneel by his chest, shivering slightly in the morning cold. Her paws went to his face, taking it by both sides and forcing him to look at her.\n\n“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, eyes piercing his in the dim light. “You were dreaming. I woke up to you petting me so nicely. You said I was finally old enough. I think it was the future in your dream. I…” her voice faltered, “…played along. I wanted to know what it would feel like when you really wanted to do it. Mark, it’s okay. You didn’t hurt me. You didn’t break my heart or my pussy. It’s okay.”\n\nShe leaned over him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her voice was soft and soothing, as if she was trying to chase away a nightmare. He embraced her tightly, claws pressing hard against her.\n\n“I could have, though,” he said. “I could have and I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. Melissa,” the full name made her flinch, “what am I going to do? I can’t keep putting you in danger like this.”\n\nShe pushed back up, fighting against his embrace. When she hover over him, her face was serious, almost furious. Her claws poked into the skin of his chest.\n\n“You love me, Mark. You won’t hurt me. Not like you think you will. Not as much as if you avoided me. Mama and me, we both trust you. She would never have let any of this happen if she didn’t. I wouldn’t want you if I didn’t. You’re a good man. Don’t you dare think otherwise.”\n\nThrough the self-hate, through the shame, some small part of her echoing his words back at him did germinate in his heart. He reached up and cupped her cheek.\n\n“I hope you’re right, hon. I really do.”\n\nThe sleeping bag was useless now and both of them were a complete mess. Mark knew of a hot spring, not far away, where they could bathe. At the very least it might tone down the scent of sex on them. The border collie shuddered to think what might happen if they tried to hike back to the trailhead smelling like they did and ran into people on the way. No passer-by would miss the scent. \n\nThey got dressed in the previous days’s clothes and packed some biodegradable soap and clean clothes into a day pack. The soiled sleeping bag got rolled up and crammed into a stuff sack, where it would stay until he could launder it. In the meantime, they had a quick breakfast of hot tea and granola bars, then headed for the hot spring. It took a while to get there, partly because the calico was walking a little slower than she had the previous day. She caught the look of guilt growing on his face as he watched her walk and told him that it was a good soreness. She even told him that it was the hardest she had come yet.\n\nThe spring was small, steamy, and unpopulated. They took off all their clothes and slipped into the hot water. It had a faint smell of sulfur and other minerals. More importantly, it felt wonderful. The heat of it quickly melted away his anxiety and her soreness. After about half an hour of soaking, they got out and scooped up a collapsible water reservoir worth of hot water to used to wash with. They moved away from the spring and helped each other scrub clean and rinse, before easing back into the spring to soak a little more. After a while, they climbed back out and dried thoroughly, then out on clean clothes and returned to camp.\n\nStanding in the clearing, Mark said, “Well, kitten, I think we need to cut our trip short and head home. Maybe I should have brought a second sleeping bag after all. Then at least we’d have something to sleep in if we stayed out here.”\n\nThey packed the camp back up and slowly hiked back out. The drive home was quiet. Melissa slept through most of it. On the way, Mark swore to himself that he would not let this happen again."
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  "title": "Keeping Up With the Joneses - Epilogue 2: Trail and Error",
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  "writing": "Keeping Up With the Joneses - Epilogue 2: Trail and Error \n\nMark Shearer had a busy life. The black-and-white border collie rarely took time off from work, especially once things got complicated with the Jones girls. The only concession he made to himself was a summer camping trip that he would take to an upstate national forest every year. Being outdoors had always had a sort of positive and negative feeling for him. In his youth, it was the time when he felt most at ease but also the most alone. He started and kept the tradition to overwrite the bad memories with good ones the best he could.\n\nThe year that Melissa turned eight, she asked him if she could join him on his trip. The border collie knew he wouldn’t mind the company; however, there was the fact that the kitten continued to consistently urge him to have sex with her. Her fascination with it bordered on obsessive. It wasn’t that she was addicted or compulsive about it; more so, it was like a child had discovered a new interest and wanted nothing but to engage with it. Even after a couple of years, he still didn’t feel right about acquiescing to her precocious desires. This discomfort didn’t stop him from acquiescing, over and over again, but he couldn’t bring himself to initiate anything with her and she usually had to do a lot of convincing.\n\nHis ears angled back as he grasped for some way to avoid the strain of failing to reject her and asked, “Wait, what about your dad?”\n\n“What about him?” she asked with a strange tone the man couldn’t place.\n\n“You spend every other summer with him. You were here with your mama last summer. We went to all those ‘Movies in the Park’ things. So, this is supposed to be your summer with your dad. I shouldn’t be taking you away from him.”\n\nThe emotion that rippled across Melissa’s face was inscrutable to the border collie. It seemed amused on the surface, but something felt off. The little cat shrugged, smile never faltering.\n\n“Not anymore,” she said, as if it were the most natural thing.\n\nHe couldn’t get much more out of her, though he couldn’t bring himself to pry too deep. The decision about her joining him on his trip was left hanging until Valerie got home from a late night at work. In the meantime, he busied himself cleaning up around the Joneses’ apartment. That diversion didn’t last long, considering he leaned on it every time he was alone with the kitten. He had to quickly come up with another. Each time he appeared to be finished with something, the kitten sidled up to him. Wandering paws and murmurs of need threatened to push him over an edge that he was trying with all his will to keep back from.\n\nThe relief was bare on the border collie’s face when Val opened the apartment door and stepped in with a sigh. She gave him an apologetic smile, recognizing that the apartment was, as it had been for months, cleaner than it had any need to be. Dinner was on the stove, and the aroma of something sweet in the oven tickled the grey cat’s nose.\n\n“Cookies?” she asked as she hung her jacket behind the door. “Was it that bad today?”\n\nThe strained laugh that broke from him cut off after barely a second, as he composed himself and said, “I don’t know what you mean. I just thought it would be a nice treat. Right, Missa?”\n\nThe kitten had her mom’s hips wrapped in a hug. \n\nGlancing up at Mama, she said, “That’s what he says, but I think he’s playing hard-to-get.”\n\n“I’m not playing hard-to-anything, Missa.” The exasperated dog flopped into a dining chair and sighed. “There’s a lot to it, kitten. I’m worried about what effect all of this could have on you, and I also don’t want sex every damn second. Sometimes I want to spend time with you without being inside you.”\n\n“We could have played a card game!”\n\n“You wanted to play strip UNO. We all remember how the last game went.”\n\n“We could have watched tv!”\n\nHe rested his elbow on the table, paw dangling limp over the edge.\n\n“You wanted to watch old nature documentaries.”\n\n“I thought it would be educational,” she said with a blush in her ears and her face pressed to Valerie’s waist.\n\n“The ones where they just casually show the animals mating?”\n\nValerie felt a giggle from her daughter.\n\nMelissa’s muffled voice replied, “It would have been educational.”\n\n“Missa,” he sat back and tilted his head up to the ceiling, “kitten, I love ya. You’re a sweet girl. But, look, you have interests and skills that have nothing to do with sex and so do I. Part of knowing and loving someone is getting to know and love all parts of a person, not just the parts you rub together.”\n\nShe looked a little confused and asked, “But I’ve heard people say on tv that men only think about and want sex.”\n\n“I know, hon, but a whole lot of what we see on tv isn’t real or true.”\n\nShe looked a little abashed and said quietly, “…but it’s really fun and feels nice.”\n\nEven pushed to the limits of his fragile resolve, he couldn’t be mad at her. Valerie had his back.\n\n“Honey,” she said to the girl, “think about it like this: candy’s great, right?”\n\nThe calico perked and nodded.\n\n“It tastes really good and makes you feel good,” she continued. “But if you only eat bunches of candy, you’ll get sick. You have to have real food to help your body grow and stay healthy.”\n\nStroking the kitten’s head, Mama concluded, “Sex is like candy for your mind. It feels really good, but that’s all. To help your mind grow and stay healthy, you have to feed it non-sex stuff too. Talking, reading, watching movies, going for walks, drawing, singing, cuddling, laughing…we need all these things too.”\n\n“So…you don’t always want sex?” the calico asked Mark.\n\nHe smiled softly at her, “Babygirl, just like with your mama, I want all of you. What’s between y’all’s legs is fun, but I also want what’s here,” he touched his head, “and here,” he moved his paw to his chest.\n\nMelissa thought for a moment, frowning. It was clear her gears were turning on something she was reading between the lines. She let go of Val’s legs and stepped over to stand before the border collie. Her paws reached out to rest on his knees.\n\nThe calico’s mismatched eyes searched his as she asked, “Is it…bad…to want sex a lot?”\n\nThe girl didn’t say “Is there something wrong with me?”, but her tone dripped with that concern anyway. The border collie’s strong arms scooped her up and tucked her close in to his chest.\n\n“There’s nothing wrong with you, Missa,” he rumbled into her ear. “The problem is that for someone your age to want it at all, much less so often, is strange. Not bad, not wrong, just strange. That’s all. You’re a good girl. Don’t you dare think otherwise.”\n\n“Why is it strange?”\n\nHolding her ice blue and deep green eyes with his brown ones, he smiled softly and gave her a kiss on the nose.\n\n“Our bodies grow in stages, kitten. The stage that begins our sexual growth, our physical ability and the desire to have sex, usually happens when we’re in our early teens. Before that, having sex can cause a lot of damage to our minds and bodies. So, it’s not just strange that you want it but that you’ve been able to do it without getting hurt. I worry sometimes if you are getting hurt somehow, and we all just don’t know it.”\n\nThe kitten shook her head emphatically and stressed, “It doesn’t hurt, Mark. If it hurt, I wouldn’t want to do it.”\n\n“It sure seems that way, Missa. But, until you are grown, I’m still gonna worry.”\n\nThe kitten grumbled, “Ok,” and gave his neck a long tight hug, then hopped down to find something to occupy herself with while the adults talked. Mark stood out of the chair and padded over to where Valerie still stood, his claws clicking on the hard floor. The grey cat had a bemused expression on her face, but she eased into the embrace he offered.\n\nThe woman whispered, “She’ll get bored eventually and find a fascination with some new toy, band, or cartoon.”\n\nHe rested his chin on top of her head and grumbled, “I dunno, Val. All those things have come and gone in the background these last two years, and all it does is change what she babbles about when she’s locked around a captive audience.”\n\nShe laughed and nuzzled his neck.\n\n“Well, if I can get you to myself later, I’ll fill your ears with stuff about the book I’m listening to and my thoughts about an herb garden on the balcony, while you fill my rear. How’s that sound?”\n\nA twitch from inside his pants answered for him, but the tired border collie still sighed and said, “I think I need a vacation.”\n\nThe grey cat laughed and whisked into the kitchen to set about washing her paws, saying, “How is planning going?”\n\n“I’ve got things about ninety percent in order,” he replied as he checked the stove. \n\nThe beef tips had been simmering in gravy long enough that the meat practically dissolved under a serving spoon. He fluffed the rice, stirred the peas, and killed the burners under all the cookware. With the dinner items in order, he pulled the cookies out of the oven.\n\nLaying the cookies out to cool on a folded cheesecloth on the counter, he cleared his throat and added, “The other ten percent just sorta popped up a couple minutes ago.”\n\n“The kiddo ask to go with you?”\n\nHe glanced at her with a cocked eyebrow and ears pinned back.\n\n“Yeah…” he drawled. “You knew?”\n\n“I didn’t know-know. I had a feeling she might, though.”\n\n“That feeling have anything to do with her saying it wasn’t a summer to be at her dad’s ‘anymore’?”\n\nThe grey cat leaned her back against the counter and groaned.\n\n“Do you want the long version full of swearing or the short version full of swearing?”\n\nMark glanced sidelong toward the living room, noting that the kitten was occupying herself with coloring but still had an ear cocked toward the kitchen. He thought about some of the conversations he had either overheard or been involved in, where a divorced or separated person talked about their ex in ways that he found himself hoping their children never had to hear.\n\n“How about the short version, maybe light on swearing?”\n\nShe caught his glance and gleaned the thoughts behind it.\n\n“Miles remarried. He’s living with the new bi—…woman…and her two sons halfway across the country. He says it’s a small house and the boys are too rowdy for him to feel safe about her being there.” Her ears folded back and she leaned closer to whisper, “He was butthurt about having a daughter from the moment they sexed her in the ultrasound. It’s one of two things, I bet: either he finally found an out and wanted to get the custody monkey off his back or his new bitch convinced him to. Either way, he officially renounced custody. Been meaning to talk about it with you, but I kept getting…distracted.”\n\nMark’s lip curled in a reflexive snarl and he growled, “That is fucking infuriating. Missa’s a good kid, and she deserves better than to be cast away like that.”\n\n“Well, to be fair,” Val said, “he was already on thin ice with the court. Half the time he had custody, they didn’t really do anything. She was just there. He was there, sometimes.” His expression coaxed further explanation from her. “Melissa spent a lot of time with his mom instead of him. I don’t think her Grams ever did more than sit around the house and smoke in all the time I’ve known her, so the kiddo pretty much stayed bored the whole time. It got to the point she was begging to skip visits, but we were all stuck with the terms of the agreement.”\n\nThe border collie considered the kitten, who was focusing on trying to look busy and failing.\n\nHe mumbled, “Always wondered why she never talked about the time she spent there. It didn’t feel like she was being private or covering anything up, just….”\n\n“Just wasn’t anything to tell,” the grey cat confirmed.\n\nHe shook his head and decided it was better to let the topic lie. There wasn’t a damned thing he could do, and even if he felt comfortable throwing his two cents in, nothing he could say would help. It was a shitty thing; one more in a world full of ‘em. What he could do, though, was try to be supportive and loving. They both deserved that.\n\nThe trio ate dinner and cleaned up the kitchen together. Melissa handled drying dishes and putting away the ones she could reach, while Mark handled washing and put away whatever she couldn’t manage. Valerie put leftovers away and wiped down the table and counters. It was a system they had perfected over the last few months. When all was finished, they each grabbed a couple cookies and retired to the living room to nibble their dessert and chat.\n\nGlancing at the girl next to him on the couch, Mark finally said, “I really would like it if you came with me, Missa. I just know I’m kinda an outsider and didn’t want to step on any toes. So, if you still want to and your mama doesn’t mind, you can come”\n\nReceiving a nod from Val, the kitten’s expression immediately brightened, but Mark quickly added,  “If I take you, though, I need you to promise me that you won’t spend the whole time trying to get my dick out of my pants. It’s secluded out there, but I see folks out hiking in the same areas as me all the time. We’ve talked about how much trouble what we do could get me in, right?”\n\nThe kitten nodded emphatically and replied, “I promise! I don’t want us to get in trouble.”\n\n“Well,” he said, ruffling the fur of her head, “you wouldn’t be in trouble, really. Just me and your mom. Mostly me.”\n\n“Still! I don’t want to lose you or Mama.”\n\nThey talked for a while about what she would need to pack and explaining what things would be like out in the park. The border collie explained that the nights could get cold, even in summer, so she needed to have some clothes that were appropriate for more than just warm, sunny days. She asked him if they would have a campfire and if they would toast marshmallows. To her disappointment, Mark told her they couldn’t have a campfire because the park was under a burn ban.\n\nToasted marshmallow dreams dashed, the mopey girl asked, “What’s a burn ban?”\n\n“If someone made a fire in the wrong conditions, it could burn the whole forest down. So, the park rangers announce burn bans and tell people not to make campfires when times are very dry.”\n\n“Like Smokey Bear?”\n\n“That’s right!”\n\nSmokey wasn’t as big a character by that point, not as big as he was when either of the adults were Melissa’s age. The mantle had been passed from black bear to black bear for years—ever since the first burn-scarred Smokey had taken the name to spread words of caution—each of whom had donned the guise of a park ranger for tv spots and school assemblies meant to educate children on the the role they could play in protecting their public lands. Even with a less prominent persona, the mascot still found his way into the little girl’s mind. At least that made it a little easier to take the disappointment of missing out on a campfire.\n\n- - - - -\n\nA week later, Mark and Melissa were trundling down a dirt road in densely forested foothills. The border collie’s old blue SUV shuddered over ruts and large rocks that sent the giggling calico bouncing up off the seat several times. Saved from tumbling into the floorboard by her safety belt, she was able to fully enjoy the rollercoaster. At one stop, where they had to wait for a small convoy of logging trucks to pass, she unbuckled her belt and shifted to the center of the bench seat. Once she was belted back in, she looked up at the man behind the wheel.\n\n“Hey, Mark?” she managed during a less rough patch.\n\n“What’s up, Miss Missa?”\n\nShe opened her mouth but remembered her promise and decided against mentioning that she wished she was on his lap for the ride.\n\n“Never mind.”\n\nInstead, she rested her left paw on his thigh and leaned against him for the rest of the drive. He draped his arm around her and gave her a little squeeze against his side. Several miles and enough curves to put the fear of motion sickness in the kitten passed before the SUV lurched to a stop. They had arrived at the vacant parking lot of a trailhead. When they piled out of the vehicle and stretched, they both filled their lungs with clean forest air. Melissa noticed a slightly sweet scent that was a little like grass, but all the understory was ferns and shrubs. She noticed that the smell seemed to come from scattered groups of dark lumps around the lot. The clusters reminded her of something she’d seen during a parade a while back.\n\nShe pointed and asked, “Horse poop?”\n\nAs Mark opened the back hatch and gathered together their packs, he turned to follow her gesture and answered, “Hmm? Oh! Yeppers, that’s what those are.”\n\n“There are horses out here?”\n\n“Probably not right now. Looks several days old. If it was folks who keep four-legged horses for riding, their trailers are gone. It’s mid-week, too, so they’re not likely to be out. Though…there’s also a herd of wild horses that roams down where the valley is wider open, I haven’t seen them up this far before, but there’s nothing stopping them.”\n\nThe kitten’s eyes were huge by the time he finished explaining. For a city kid who only saw them in parades and media, she had the makings of a horse girl, and the prospect of seeing one out in the forest had her beside herself. He laughed and handed her the light pack they had arranged for her things. He threw a few more items into his big internal frame pack and swung it onto his shoulders. Clicking the buckle of the hip belt required a slight relaxing of the strap.\n\n“God, y’all are gonna end up making me fat,” Mark grumbled with a smirk to make sure she knew he wasn’t being serious.\n\nShe walked over and gestured for him to bend down for a whisper. \n\n“More cushion for the pushin’, Mama says,” she breathed into his ear, concluding with a peck on the cheek.\n\nThe man’s bark of laughter startled some birds out of an old oak tree. He patted her head and locked up the SUV. Before they hit the trail, he had her stand still while he dusted the fur of her legs and arms with flea and tick repellent powder. There was no sense either of them picking up hitchhikers along the way. She wriggled as he ran his paws over her arms and lower legs but started making some borderline indecent sounds when the ticklish caress went above her knees and stopped feeling quite so ticklish. When he finished, he called her a goofball and hit his exposed limbs with the powder, too. As prepared as they were going to be, they started hiking.\n\nThe path was broad and mostly flat close to the trailhead. Decades of foot traffic, horses, and off-road vehicles had worn a swath of packed dirt almost wide enough for a car to travel on. In rainier years, there would be deep ruts and divots from tires and hooves, but the pair found it smooth walking for at least half a mile. The trail split at a Y, with the wide horse path veering to the right and a narrower footpath winding away into the trees to the left. A marker post at the split designated the trail as hiking-only, red circle-slash icons prohibited bikes, horses, and all-terrain vehicles. A sign at the top of the post read, “Oak Spring Trail’. They turned up the narrow fork and continued chatting about not much of anything, calling out birds and squirrels as they went.\n\n“What’s an oak spring?” the girl wondered aloud after they’d been walking for twenty minutes or so.\n\n“Less a what and more a where, kitten. If we stayed on this trail the whole way, we’d end up in a little valley packed with old oaks. At the head of the valley there’s a spring where an underground river is real close to the surface, and water pools up and runs down the valley.”\n\n“That sounds cool! Why aren’t we going there?”\n\nMark stopped and said, “It was cool, until some assholes decided to spread a rumor that the water there has healing properties. Place is just churned up mud and trash these days. The water isn’t even fit to drink anymore. Where we’re going is up that way.”\n\nHe pointed up through a gap in the trees. A saddleback ridge rose up, draped with wide swaths of conifers and open gaps of alpine meadow, toward a bald rocky peak.\n\n“This trail heads into the valley below the ridge. We’ll split off in a little bit and follow another trail up along the ridge. Up in the pines there are some clearings. We’ll find one of those that isn’t occupied and set up there.”\n\nThe pause in walking gave the border collie’s body a chance to realize he’d been needing to piss for a while. He glanced down at Melissa and noticed that she was starting to wiggle a bit, too. Well, he figured, no time like the present.\n\n“Thinkin’ I need to take a leak. What about you, Missa?”\n\n“Yeah,” she replied with a glance around. “Is there a restroom nearby?”\n\n“Kinda?”\n\nHe gestured to the forest around them as he unbuckled his pack and slung it down off his shoulders. He produced a roll of toilet paper from the top pouch of his pack and tossed it to her.\n\n“The world is your toilet when you’re out here.”\n\nShe shrugged off her pack and set it off the trail next to his. \n\n“Just…anywhere?”\n\nHe explained that she might want to duck behind a tree, in case another hiker came through, but otherwise anywhere was fine. He almost let her wander off, then had her wait while he looked around for problems. It didn’t take long to spot what he was looking for.\n\n“Yeah, there we go,” he said, pointing at a tangle of leaves. “This is poison ivy. You don’t want to touch that, kitten. It’ll make you itch so bad you won’t want skin anymore.”\n\nHe used a twig to point out the distinguishing features: leaves in groups of three, the way the edges were shaped, the color of the vines, the scent.\n\n“Keep your nose going and watch the ground when you go off trail to do your business.”\n\nShe shuffled uneasily and asked, “Can you go with me? I don’t want to miss it and get itchy.”\n\n“Sure thing, kitten. Won’t be anything I haven’t seen or heard before.” \n\nThe border collie stood watch on one side of a young oak tree while the sounds of shuffling fabric and the scent of kitten wafted around in the dappled shade. He remembered his own need when he heard the patter then rush of urine on old leaves. There wasn’t any sign of other folks out in the woods, so he opened the zip on his hiking shorts to free his sheath, pulled back the fur and skin so that the tip of his cock was free, and let his stream harmonize with hers. She had a head start and faster flow, so she dabbed dry and poked her head around the tree while he was still going.\n\n“Still a peeper, eh?” the man said over a chuckle when he noticed her watching him.\n\nThe kitten’s ears stayed forward but went red, and she nodded with a faint shrug. She licked her lips as if they were dry, though the gesture felt like there was a sort of hunger there, too.\n\n“This is the first time I’ve watched you pee,” she said in a low almost-whisper.\n\nFinished with his task, he squeezed from base to tip a couple times to clear his urethra and let the sheath slip back up. To his chagrin, the tip of his dick still poked out a little. The attention appeared to be having an effect. He tucked his faltering modesty back away and zipped up.\n\nHe smirked and said, “It’s really not all that different than when Pumpkin goes, is it?”\n\nShe didn’t hide her disappointment that the show was over when she responded, “He just pees straight out of his sheath, though.”\n\n“Four-legged critters don’t mind getting some piss on their sheath fur. They can just lick it off or don’t care about it. I’m not that flexible and don’t like the feeling of wet lingering like that. Besides, it’d make my underwear smell like pee.”\n\nThe border collie wrinkled his muzzle to stress his distaste. There was a pause as the kitten weighed whether to say what she was thinking. Prudence lost out.\n\n“Someone could lick it off for you,” she whispered before trotting back to the packs.\n\nHe would have liked to tell her to save exploring kinks at least until she was old enough to vote, but what even was a kink at that point? Wasn’t anything they did, at best, a kink under their circumstances? Certainly none of it was conventional. He opted not to think too deeply about it. A man standing on a slippery slope knows better than to tap dance.\n\nMark fished a water bottle out of his pack before he threw it back on. Missa was already standing with her pack slung and looking up at the aspen leaves quivering in the canopy. He handed his water bottle to her after he had a drink and let her slake her own thirst. They resumed hiking, him just behind her to let her set the pace, and delighting in the living world around them. When a new kind of bird would alight on a branch, he would tell her what kind it was. One of the ways he passed his time in a youth devoid of parental involvement or friends was to take birding books from the town library and sit in the woods, learning the birds and keeping track of what he saw. The best one on their hike was when a huge raven glided to a landing on a broken stump and let out a series of hoarse croaks.\n\n“Whoa!” the kitten gasped.\n\n“Big fellas, aren’t they?”\n\n“They’re huge…and so shiny!”\n\nThe rest of the hike went by in a flash, and they found the camping spaces Mark had mentioned utterly empty. Besooted rings of stones marked each of the backcountry camping spots, each one carefully cleared of vegetation around the outside and filled with old ash. Beside each ring the park rangers had staked signs that declared the burn ban and announced nightly flyovers by drones to detect anyone violating the safety of the forest and its residents and visitors. With open choice, the border collie selected a site that was set back into the privacy of the forest and had a wide open view of the sky above.\n\nTheir first day out ended with setting up camp. Mark had a small tent, which Melissa helped him pitch toward one side of the clearing. He also had a pair of nylon hammocks that fitted nicely in the gaps between a trio of young birch trees. When the kitten asked why the hammocks and the tent, he answered that the tent was a good place to stash their gear and to sleep on cold nights but the hammocks would be nice seats during the day and good sleeping spots if the nights weren’t too cold. \n\nWhen he pulled a single adult-sized sleeping bag out, she grinned and said, “Only one sleeping bag? Isn’t that asking for trouble?”\n\nHe gave her a look, equal parts amused and wry, and asked, “Would you have used a separate one if I’d brought it?”\n\nThe way she wriggled and a blush crept up into her ears was answer enough. Once those arrangements were made, he set up a small camp stove and set about fixing some food. It was simple fare, just ramen with some dried tofu and mushrooms, but the scent of it hit the calico like a freight train to the tummy.\n\nOnce they had eaten and scrubbed out their dishes, Mark sat down next to his little stove and rummaged through his pack. Melissa watched him with her head cocked, as he drew out four little paper packets. Setting them next to the stove, the border collie grabbed his big water bottle and sloshed it around. Wouldn’t be enough. He glanced up at the sky. The light hadn’t fallen entirely, yet.\n\n“Feel up to another short walk tonight, Missa?”\n\nShe still had it in her, so he handed the big bottle to her and grabbed some things from his pack. They set off down the opposite side of the ridge from the ruined spring. Following the series of switchbacks in the growing darkness wasn’t a problem for the pair, but the return would require some light. Fortunately, the man had tossed a headlamp into his pocket before they departed.\n\nIt took about half an hour to reach the place Mark was leading them to, a small pond fed by snowmelt and rain. The water was not the cleanest looking. Still, Mark started laying things out.\n\n“The water looks and smells gross,” the calico said uneasily. “We aren’t going to drink that, are we?”\n\nHe looked up from his gear, then at the pond, then back at her and said, “Oh, heck no. Even the streams out here aren’t safe to just sip straight out of. Between all the animals and people peeing and pooping around the drainage basins…or just in the water directly…there’s all kinds of bacteria and parasites.”\n\nMark held up a canister with a pump handle and a hose in one paw and a heavy plastic bag with a canister and a hose on one end in his other paw. Setting the bag aside, he motioned for her to hand him the water bottle, then removed the cap and threaded it onto the bottom of the pump canister. He held up the end of the hose, showing a sort of basket-shaped thing on the end that was wrapped with sheer fabric.\n\n“So,” the man said, “this thing is a water filter. The canister has a big filter in it that can remove damn near anything. The basket at the end of the hose is a pre-filter and the cloth over it is a kinda pre-pre-filter. They keep the hose and filter from getting clogged up with grit and stuff.”\n\nHe dropped the hose end into the pond with a plip and flipped the pump handle around. Pulling and pushing on the handle caused water to slide up the clear hose into the canister. Soon the water was squirting into the water bottle from the base of the filter. The water looked clean, and in a few minutes the bottle was full.\n\n“You can smell the water in the pond and how it’s kinda nasty. Have a whiff of this.”\n\nHe handed the open bottle to her to sniff. Melissa leaned over with a frown of mistrust but sniffed anyway. Her pretty blue and green eyes went wide.\n\n“What the hell? It smells cleaner than our tap water at home!”\n\nHe laughed and took a drink, saying that it probably was. Once the water bottle was securely closed, Mark asked the kitten to take the filter, which he threaded a big collapsible container onto. He showed her how to hold the filter body and work the handle. While she set about filling the big container, he knelt close to the water’s edge and swept the big bag through the pond. Removing the full, heavy bag of water, he rolled the top and pulled the corners together. Each corner had half a buckle on it and the clicked together to keep the bag top from unrolling. He checked the hose and made sure a clamp that sat below the filter canister was secure.\n\n“This,” he said, patting the filtering bag, “is a little less effective than that one, but it’ll get enough out to cook with. Technically boiling the water kills the germs, but I like my food without grit and pond scum.”\n\nHe took over from her when her arms got tired and finished filling the big container with drinking water. Grabbing a fallen branch, he looped the two bigger containers over each end and hoisted the branch across his shoulders. Melissa carried the good filter and the big water bottle. As it got dark, the border collie suggested that the kitten grab the headlamp out of his pocket. He didn’t catch the look of mischief on her face as he focused on keeping his load balanced.\n\nBlinking and looking down at her, he said, “Um, that’s not the headlamp, kitten.”\n\nMissa, grinning like a doofus, squeezed his sheath through the inner fabric of his pocket and said, “What? A promise is a promise! I’m not trying to get it out…this time.”\n\nStill giggling to herself, she put the headlamp on her head, and he told her how to tighten the strap. With the light on, the trail was easy to traverse. Mark let her go ahead to light the way and stayed close behind. When they arrived back at their camp, he dropped the big containers with a wheeze and plopped down next to the stove. \n\n“Ok,” he grunted, “back to what I was doing.”\n\nHe poured water into the cooking pot and turned the stove on. While he waited, he held the paper packets and flipped them back and forth, like waving a fan. Melissa recognized the motion from when he was cooking the ramen earlier.\n\n“Why do you do that?”\n\nHe paused in his packet flapping and looked at her with his head cocked.\n\n“Do what?”\n\nShe pointed at his hand and said, “Why do you flap packets like that?”\n\nHe gave a self-conscious smirk and answered, looking at the items in his hand, “Huh…I didn’t even notice I was doing it. Used to be I’d do it to shift the powder to one end so less puffed out when I tore it open, but I think I just do it now to have something to do with my hands.”\n\nShe paused for a moment and said, “Mark, is it ok if I say something naughty now?”\n\nReaching over to ruffle the fur of her head, he replied, “It’s night, there’s no one around. You can say what you want, Missa. I know it’s been hard to filter yourself.”\n\n“I can think of something you can do with your hands.”\n\nThe short, snorting laugh that followed led into a laughing jag that echoed in the woods. When he had recovered enough to talk, he caught her faintly miffed expression.\n\n“Sorry, kitten,” he said. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I’m sure you can think of other things I could do with my hands, but if I stop now we don’t have cocoa and…”\n\nIn the faint glow of the camp stove, one chip of blue ice and one forest green pool glittered.\n\n“Really!?”\n\n“And something else. Maybe something even better than a quick fingering.”\n\n“What? What is it?”\n\n“Patience, Missa. You’ll see.”\n\nThe water in the pot was soon bubbling over the blue flame of the stove. Mark turned the heat down to the lowest setting and tore open the four paper packets. When he turned the packets over the pot, they spilled out as a monochromatic rainbow in browns and whites. Two of the packets were obviously cocoa mix, but the other two were a mystery to the calico.\n\n“What’s the white stuff?”\n\n“That, my dear kitten, is powdered milk. It’ll make the cocoa taste a little richer and may help you fall asleep.”\n\nMelissa wiped her chin with the back of a paw. When he said they’d be having cocoa, she knew there was no way they could bring milk along and figured it would just be cocoa and water. Not ideal by any means, but cocoa is cocoa. But! But he figured out how to…\n\nThe muted rustling sound of a plastic bag shook her out of her reverie. She watched as the border collie pulled a small package out of a gear sack and pulled the plastic open. The sugary scent hit the already excited girl and she was immediately on hands and knees, hovering a little too close to the still-hot pot and low-burning stove. Pulling a large marshmallow out of the package, Mark laughed and gently eased her away from the danger zone with a paw on her shoulder.\n\n“Careful, kitten! I don’t want to have to explain to your mama why you’ve got patches of fur missing.”\n\nShe rocked back to sit upright on her knees and wriggled with anticipation. Grinning at her  enthusiasm, he speared the marshmallow on the end of a bamboo skewer that he pulled from the same gear sack and held it over the low flame. It took a moment for the sugary pillow to char, but once the surface started browning, it quickly bubbled and blackened. Mark rotated the marshmallow to give it an even toast on one end. When his was satisfied, he held the skewer out to the kitten and turned off the burner.\n\nAs she carefully grasped the bamboo stick, he said, “Easy now. Don’t just tuck in.”\n\nShe glared at him as if he had just held a glass of water out to a wanderer in the desert and told them not to drink it. He asked her to trust him and started pouring cocoa into a pair of cups. As he handed her one of the cups, they heard a high-pitched whirring sound, like a blender two rooms away. Looking up, they caught the blinking green and red lights of a drone high against the dark sky. Mark told the kitten it was probably one of the fire watch patrols that the signs mentioned. He waved at the buzzing voyeur, and Melissa followed his lead. In a moment it was gone again and quiet returned.\n\n“Now,” the man said, “take that marshmallow and dip it in the cocoa. If you let it sit for a couple seconds, the marshmallow with taste all chocolatey and the cocoa with take in some of that toasty sugar flavor.”\n\nMelissa submerged the blackened puff into the steaming liquid, releasing a burst of mingling scents. She swirled it a little before taking it out and blowing on it. He watched her with a soft smile as she bit in and immediately did a wiggly happy dance where she sat.\n\n“Beats hell out of an idle fingering, doesn’t it?”\n\nHer left eye flicked open, blue iris darker than usual in the low light, and she replied through a mouthful of melty charred sugar, “I dunno…maybe if I had a way to compare…”\n\nSipping on his own cocoa, the border collie frowned. He rested the vessel on his knee, supporting it with the fingers of one paw on the rim. He took a fresh marshmallow from the package with his other paw and rolled it absentmindedly in his fingers.\n\n“Missa,” he said quietly after a few moments, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t understand you and it makes me worry about you a lot.”\n\nShe cocked her head and responded, “What do you mean?”\n\nBlack-and-white furred fingers continued playing with the marshmallow.\n\n“I mentioned before that no one your age should want sex at all. I get why you got curious about it, but I can’t wrap my head around why you are like you are. I worry about whether you have those wants for anyone else and whether you have gone or would go after someone else at this age. And, like I said the other day, I worry about what all of this might be doing to your body and your mind.”\n\nWith her marshmallow finished, she sat sipping from her cup. Both her eyes were locked on him now, and the tip of her tail was twitching, agitated.\n\n“Are you jealous, Mark?”\n\nWincing, he barked, “No! I’m not jealous, kitten. I just know the amount of self-control it takes me to hold back and that there are plenty of guys out there who wouldn’t. There’re folks out there who are perfectly content to hurt little girls like you without giving a damn. The thought of one of ‘em getting their paws on you makes me furious and sick at the same time.”\n\nShe set her cup on the ground beside the cooling stove and stood, brushing off her bottom and legs. Careful to avoid the stove and cooking gear, she walked over and stopped in front of him. Her fingers closed around the cup on his knee, lifting it and setting it on the packed dirt a little ways away from him. Pulling the marshmallow from his fingers, she lowered herself onto his lap.\n\n“Here,”she placed the marshmallow in front of his muzzle and tapped it against his nose, “hush for a second.”\n\nHe accepted the treat with a quizzical expression and chewed slowly as she continued. The phrase felt like one she must have borrowed from Valerie.\n\n“I don’t know why I’m like this,” she said, letting her paws play over his chest. “You and Mama tell me that there are people who would hurt me, but I don’t want other people.” As she went on, her paws slid up his chest to his neck, fingers threading through the thick fur. “I know you. I know Mama. I trust you both. I love both of you and know you love me too.”\n\nThe border collie jolted when one of her paws wandered down to graze his sheath and balls through the fabric of his hiking shorts. Her eyes stayed locked on his.\n\n“Would you worry less, if I told you this is the only one I want?”\n\nHis eyes went a touch sad, as he lifted a paw to stroke her cheek.\n\nHe whispered, “It worries me more, kitten.”\n\nThe paw pads smoothing the fur of Missa’s cheek and jaw elicited a purr from the small cat, and she leaned into the caress.\n\nShe snuggled in close, forehead furrowed, ears back, and asked, “Why?”\n\nThe sigh he let out felt like he was blowing out years worth of tension. He hugged her close and rested his chin on top of her head.\n\n“If a person hatches a wild baby bird, handles it and feeds it, it can’t really be a wild bird anymore—not the way it would be if it were raised by a mama bird. The hatchling thinks the person is their mama and wants to be around them. It’s not because the person is a good parent, it’s because the baby bird thinks the first creature it sees is its mama.\n\n“You—too young to be wanting sex in the first place—want it for reasons I can’t begin to understand. You wanted it from me, because I was the first guy you saw in that way. I let it happen, because I’m a weak piece of shit, and now you say you only want it from me. It feels like I’ve already crippled a baby bird.”\n\nHe felt her stir and added, “I know you aren’t a baby bird, kitten. But the metaphor still works.”\n\n“What’s a metaphor?”\n\nMark pitched over backward, landing with a groan mixed with a wry chuckle. She lay on his chest, carried with him in the fall.\n\n“See, this is what I mean. I shouldn’t be putting my dick in someone who doesn’t know what a metaphor is, yet,” the border collie grumbled. Seeing her lingering look of confusion, he patiently explained,“So, there’s two ways you can compare two things. A simile is when you use words like ‘like’ or ‘as’. If you said ‘I’m as angry as a honey bee on a bear farm’, that’s a simile. A metaphor is when you compare things by just outright saying X is Y. Eating so much you sit back and say, ‘Ugh, I’m a pig!’…metaphor.”\n\nShe propped herself up on straightened arms, paws splayed on his chest, and said, “I didn’t know they had names. What grade do we learn about those?”\n\n“Shit, babybird, I don’t remember. It’s been a long time since I was in school. Why?”\n\n“I wanna know how old I have to be for you to not feel bad about what we do.”\n\nMark ruffled the fur between her ears and planted a kiss on her nose.\n\n“Those are different ages, Missa. Probably won’t be long before metaphors and similes pop up in Language Arts…or whatever the hell they’re calling it now. But you’d have to be at least old enough to drink before I’d feel less bad about fucking you.”\n\nShe squirmed on top of him and asked, “How old is that?”\n\n“Twenty-one.”\n\nThe kitten sat up, searching his eyes for sign of joking. Finding none, she pushed hard against his chest with both paws. Her ears folded back flat against her head and a faint snarl pulled at her lips.\n\n“Fuck off,” she hissed. “I have to be a fucking grownup?” She pushed again and the tips of her claws poked out and caught on his shirt. “I have to live with the want, not feeling all of your love, for that long?” Tears welled in her eyes. “That’s not fair!”\n\n“Whoa,” he said, pulling her down to lay flat on top of him again. “You asked how old you’d have to be for me to feel less guilty, Missa. Clearly, from the way the past few months have gone, you’re still getting me. It’s just difficult for me to feel okay about it.”\n\nWith her face buried in the thick fur of his neck, her voice came out muffled when she said, “It’s not just me, Mark. It’s not fair to you either.”\n\nHugging her close, the border collie kissed her on the head and muttered, “Oh, it’s far from the least fair thing I’ve been through, kitten, and I’d put up with worse to make sure you were safe. It’s just hard to be this cruel to you.”\n\nThey laid in each other’s arms for a few minutes, until Mark rubbed her sides with his paws and said, “C’mon, kitten. Let me add some heat to our cups so we can finish our cocoa before bed.”\n\nThe calico relented and they spent a little while sipping hot chocolate and looking up through the clearing at the stars. Afterward, Mark cleaned up the cups and pot and also raised the food up off the ground to prevent little critters (and big ones) from snooping around overnight. As they prepared for sleep, the kitten shivered.\n\nHer breath was faintly visible when she said, “I don’t think I can sleep in the hammock like this. Is it okay if we sleep in the tent?”\n\nHe ruffled the fur on top of her head and replied, “Sure, kitten. It feels like it’s in the low forties, so that’s a good idea. Don’t want you catching cold.”\n\nThe tent was a low, narrow backpacking tent that required them both to crawl to get in. Billed as a two-person tent, it was comfortable for one adult and you had to be real close with whoever you shared it with. Missa’s small size didn’t take a lot of space, so it was still cozy. Before squirming into the sleeping bag, the kitten changed into a nightshirt that went down to her mid-thighs. When she turned around from changing clothes, she found to her delight that he was getting naked.\n\nSeeing the bright look in her eyes, he gave her a sad smile and said, “Fur-to-fur will be warmer for you, but I’m mainly doing this because you’re a little furnace and I’LL burn up otherwise. I wasn’t coming on to you.”\n\nHer eyes flashed with momentary disappointment but shifted quickly to a happy look of mischief. She pulled off her nightshirt and panties, tossing them to the side in the tent.\n\n“If fur-to-fur is warmer, then I’ll take it,” she said. “Besides, just feeling you next to me will be nice.”\n\nThe sadness of his smile gave way to a warm joy. He slipped into the sleeping bag, then held it open for her to join him. Melissa crawled over and flopped down on her side against him, back pressed against his belly and chest. He chuckled as she wriggled to get comfortable, then zipped the sleeping bag closed and wrapped his arm over her. Hugging Missa tight for a moment, the border collie kissed the top of her head and rested his chin there.\n\n“I do love you, babygirl,” he muttered softly.\n\nPressing back against him, she whispered back, “I love you too.”\n\nThe kitten was one of those restless kids who take a few minutes to get comfortable. She shifted multiple times, changing from back to side, before settling with her back against him again. Once she was settled, she fell asleep quickly. \n\n- - - - -\n\nThe tent was still dark, hours later, when she felt a broad paw slide up the length of her thigh and splay across her tummy. The sensation woke her to find Mark asleep and gently running his paw over her body. The sensation was nice, and a purr quickly built in her throat. At one point, the pads of his fingers tickled the dip where her abdomen met her thigh, and she wriggled. When she did, she felt his hard length pressed against her butt and back.\n\nShe knew he was asleep, but this was the first time he had ever initiated with her. The thrill of it had her as wet as she had ever been. His head bent down so he could nuzzle the back of her neck and lick the backs of her ears. Huffing breath brushed hot over her fur, sending a rush through the skin beneath. Her back arched, grinding her ass against the base of his cock.\n\n“Mmm…” the border collie groaned against her ear. “I’m sorry it took so long, Missa. You’re finally old enough, and I’ve wanted to do this properly for so long.”\n\nIn the dark, the kitten’s eyes went wide. Her panting breath caught in her chest and she swallowed hard. [i]He’s dreaming[/i], she thought to herself. [i]But he’s still thinking about me[/i]. She resolved herself to seeing where this might go.\n\n“I’ve wanted it too,” she managed to whisper.\n\nThe paw roaming her body moved in a slow caress up her belly and chest to her neck, where it took hold of her jaw firmly and turned her head up toward his waiting muzzle. He kissed her the way his kissed Mama, deeply and hungrily. His tongue probed her mouth, and she accepted with a shudder. Her paws wandered behind her, seeking the hot, bare skin of his dick. He was fully erect and burned hot against her paw pads.\n\nBreaking the kiss, he nuzzled her neck and nipped at her ear. His paw released her jaw and trailed dull claws down the front of her body. Pausing only briefly to nudge and pinch at her left nipple, it continued raking parallel furrows down through the soft fur of her belly. She gasped when he reached her crotch and slipped his paw between her legs. Fur and warm pads brushed over her damp lips and tickled her swelling clit. She breathed his name and squeezed his cock in her paw.\n\n“You’re already so wet, kitten,” he huffed against the back of her jaw, licking the fur there and sending shivers down her spine. “Do you want to keep up the foreplay, or are you ready for me to fuck you?”\n\nIf her natural state of high arousal hadn’t already had her ready, even if the hungry paw rubbing her pussy hadn’t already had her soaked, his words alone would have rendered her ready to take him. She leaned her head back against him and nodded.\n\n“God, Mark, please,” she moaned. “That’s all I want right now.”\n\nTeeth grazed her ear, stealing her breath. His whisper was coarse and dark, when he asked, “Do you want me to go slow and gentle, like always.”\n\nHer claws extended slightly, grazing his knot, and she replied in a breathless whisper, “Take me hard. Take me like you take Mama when you mean it. I want to feel how much you want me.”\n\nThe growl that came from him vibrated her chest harder than her purr already was. She felt him pull away from her grasp, as his paw lifted her leg and draped it over his. The throbbing heat of his shaft grazed her slit, as he thrusted forward. The tip appeared in front of her, and he moved his paw to guide it toward her lips. \n\nShe had an expectation of how it would go. She had seen him many times with Valerie. Nothing prepared her for the pause where his tip lingered at her entrance, teasing her. Nothing prepared her for the hungry grip of both of his paws on her waist, as the friends lay spooning on their sides in the sleeping bag, or the way his claws pressed against the skin of her belly. And nothing had or could have prepared her for the sensation of his long jaws wrapping over the base of her neck. His long canine teeth pressed a couple of inches away from her spine in the back and at the top of her sternum in the front. She had a fraction of a second to feel confusion at his actions before his growl rumbled hot against her neck and his jaws closed just short of breaking skin. At that same moment, the border collie thrust his full length inside her.\n\nMelissa had been fucked hard before. Pumpkin had introduced her to the frantic, bestial way of a true animal. This wasn’t that. At no point was there a question that Mark was a man. The pace of his thrusts, though harder and faster than any she had felt from him in the past, weren’t the mindless stabs of a beast. He held her and pumped his length in and out of her in rapid, purposeful strokes. One paw released her waist to slide in front and rub her clit with hard pressure that was nonetheless deliberately careful. \n\nAll the hunger he had denied himself, denied her, flooded the moment. If he had been awake, he would have wondered if she came in the first few strokes of his cock. The truth he would never learn is that she started then and continued to throughout. Wave after wave rushed through her little body, causing her toes to curl and her fingers to grasp at his arm hard enough for claws to prick skin. She shuddered and gasped, squeaked and mewled as he devoured her in a way he never had.\n\nShe was barely conscious of his tongue playing at the fur of her neck. She was hardly aware of their surroundings. All that mattered was the swelling knot within her and the building growl in his throat. His last few thrusts were short and forceful, knot locked in and tip pressed deep into the farthest recesses of her vagina, stretching it in all dimensions. His jaws released her as he ground his pelvis hard against her backside. He nuzzled under her jaw and rasped her name, declaring that he was coming. Dazed, she felt the first hot splashes of semen within and crashed into one last orgasm. The tent faded around her as he filled her.\n\n- - - - -\n\nMark awoke to faint light filtering through the tent fabric. Birds chittered and sang in the trees surrounding their campsite. Groggily, he blinked his eyes and yawned. As he shifted in the sleeping bag, he felt a cool wetness. The first thing that crossed his mind was that the kitten must have had an accident overnight. Every second, though, brought more wakefulness. The scent was very clearly not urine.\n\nHis right paw went to rub his face, as he realized what must have happened. It had to have been a wet dream. All the talk and physical closeness must have triggered a dream that resulted in a nocturnal orgasm. It wasn’t until the kitten stirred, rolling over to reach around him and pull close, that he smelled her own sex scent as well.\n\nLying in the tent with the girl, Mark stared up at the fabric above him. This was worse than giving in when she pleaded. He didn’t know if he had done something to her in his sleep or if she had done something to him, and that left his imagination ample room to wander.\n\nMissa awoke with her arms clutching the border collie. She glanced at his face and found it stony and distant, with fresh tears at the corner of his eye. The scents were strong enough from the recent movements that she guessed he must have figured out what he had done in the night. Her paw caressed his chest softly, the way her Mama’s paw would caress her when she’d had a bad dream.\n\n“Kitten,” he croaked, voice thick with emotion, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did. But I’m sorry.”\n\nShe repositioned so she could kneel by his chest, shivering slightly in the morning cold. Her paws went to his face, taking it by both sides and forcing him to look at her.\n\n“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, eyes piercing his in the dim light. “You were dreaming. I woke up to you petting me so nicely. You said I was finally old enough. I think it was the future in your dream. I…” her voice faltered, “…played along. I wanted to know what it would feel like when you really wanted to do it. Mark, it’s okay. You didn’t hurt me. You didn’t break my heart or my pussy. It’s okay.”\n\nShe leaned over him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her voice was soft and soothing, as if she was trying to chase away a nightmare. He embraced her tightly, claws pressing hard against her.\n\n“I could have, though,” he said. “I could have and I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. Melissa,” the full name made her flinch, “what am I going to do? I can’t keep putting you in danger like this.”\n\nShe pushed back up, fighting against his embrace. When she hover over him, her face was serious, almost furious. Her claws poked into the skin of his chest.\n\n“You love me, Mark. You won’t hurt me. Not like you think you will. Not as much as if you avoided me. Mama and me, we both trust you. She would never have let any of this happen if she didn’t. I wouldn’t want you if I didn’t. You’re a good man. Don’t you dare think otherwise.”\n\nThrough the self-hate, through the shame, some small part of her echoing his words back at him did germinate in his heart. He reached up and cupped her cheek.\n\n“I hope you’re right, hon. I really do.”\n\nThe sleeping bag was useless now and both of them were a complete mess. Mark knew of a hot spring, not far away, where they could bathe. At the very least it might tone down the scent of sex on them. The border collie shuddered to think what might happen if they tried to hike back to the trailhead smelling like they did and ran into people on the way. No passer-by would miss the scent. \n\nThey got dressed in the previous days’s clothes and packed some biodegradable soap and clean clothes into a day pack. The soiled sleeping bag got rolled up and crammed into a stuff sack, where it would stay until he could launder it. In the meantime, they had a quick breakfast of hot tea and granola bars, then headed for the hot spring. It took a while to get there, partly because the calico was walking a little slower than she had the previous day. She caught the look of guilt growing on his face as he watched her walk and told him that it was a good soreness. She even told him that it was the hardest she had come yet.\n\nThe spring was small, steamy, and unpopulated. They took off all their clothes and slipped into the hot water. It had a faint smell of sulfur and other minerals. More importantly, it felt wonderful. The heat of it quickly melted away his anxiety and her soreness. After about half an hour of soaking, they got out and scooped up a collapsible water reservoir worth of hot water to used to wash with. They moved away from the spring and helped each other scrub clean and rinse, before easing back into the spring to soak a little more. After a while, they climbed back out and dried thoroughly, then out on clean clothes and returned to camp.\n\nStanding in the clearing, Mark said, “Well, kitten, I think we need to cut our trip short and head home. Maybe I should have brought a second sleeping bag after all. Then at least we’d have something to sleep in if we stayed out here.”\n\nThey packed the camp back up and slowly hiked back out. The drive home was quiet. Melissa slept through most of it. On the way, Mark swore to himself that he would not let this happen again."
}

{
  "description": "It has taken a while to put work in on this, and I would have preferred to massage it some more. However, there are other epilogues to work on and like is a fucking nightmare right now, so…sorry, but this is as polished as it’s gonna be. I want to say again how appreciative I am of all of you reading these stories. Y’all have surprised the hell out of me with your reception of them. I adore every comment and get a thrill every time someone favorites or watches. I figured maybe five people might ever even look at them. Destitute as I am financially right now, I feel rich. Thank you all!\n\nThere is a reference to a cold temperature being “in the low forties”, obviously that’s degrees Fahrenheit, for all you lovely folks who live in places that use reasonable systems of measurement and stop to go “that shit ain’t cold!” In higher elevations, with thin air and more exposure to wind, 41°F (5°C) feels pretty damn cold even if it isn’t very close to freezing."
}

{
  "writing": "Keeping Up With the Joneses - Epilogue 2: Trail and Error \n\nMark Shearer had a busy life. The black-and-white border collie rarely took time off from work, especially once things got complicated with the Jones girls. The only concession he made to himself was a summer camping trip that he would take to an upstate national forest every year. Being outdoors had always had a sort of positive and negative feeling for him. In his youth, it was the time when he felt most at ease but also the most alone. He started and kept the tradition to overwrite the bad memories with good ones the best he could.\n\nThe year that Melissa turned eight, she asked him if she could join him on his trip. The border collie knew he wouldn’t mind the company; however, there was the fact that the kitten continued to consistently urge him to have sex with her. Her fascination with it bordered on obsessive. It wasn’t that she was addicted or compulsive about it; more so, it was like a child had discovered a new interest and wanted nothing but to engage with it. Even after a couple of years, he still didn’t feel right about acquiescing to her precocious desires. This discomfort didn’t stop him from acquiescing, over and over again, but he couldn’t bring himself to initiate anything with her and she usually had to do a lot of convincing.\n\nHis ears angled back as he grasped for some way to avoid the strain of failing to reject her and asked, “Wait, what about your dad?”\n\n“What about him?” she asked with a strange tone the man couldn’t place.\n\n“You spend every other summer with him. You were here with your mama last summer. We went to all those ‘Movies in the Park’ things. So, this is supposed to be your summer with your dad. I shouldn’t be taking you away from him.”\n\nThe emotion that rippled across Melissa’s face was inscrutable to the border collie. It seemed amused on the surface, but something felt off. The little cat shrugged, smile never faltering.\n\n“Not anymore,” she said, as if it were the most natural thing.\n\nHe couldn’t get much more out of her, though he couldn’t bring himself to pry too deep. The decision about her joining him on his trip was left hanging until Valerie got home from a late night at work. In the meantime, he busied himself cleaning up around the Joneses’ apartment. That diversion didn’t last long, considering he leaned on it every time he was alone with the kitten. He had to quickly come up with another. Each time he appeared to be finished with something, the kitten sidled up to him. Wandering paws and murmurs of need threatened to push him over an edge that he was trying with all his will to keep back from.\n\nThe relief was bare on the border collie’s face when Val opened the apartment door and stepped in with a sigh. She gave him an apologetic smile, recognizing that the apartment was, as it had been for months, cleaner than it had any need to be. Dinner was on the stove, and the aroma of something sweet in the oven tickled the grey cat’s nose.\n\n“Cookies?” she asked as she hung her jacket behind the door. “Was it that bad today?”\n\nThe strained laugh that broke from him cut off after barely a second, as he composed himself and said, “I don’t know what you mean. I just thought it would be a nice treat. Right, Missa?”\n\nThe kitten had her mom’s hips wrapped in a hug. \n\nGlancing up at Mama, she said, “That’s what he says, but I think he’s playing hard-to-get.”\n\n“I’m not playing hard-to-anything, Missa.” The exasperated dog flopped into a dining chair and sighed. “There’s a lot to it, kitten. I’m worried about what effect all of this could have on you, and I also don’t want sex every damn second. Sometimes I want to spend time with you without being inside you.”\n\n“We could have played a card game!”\n\n“You wanted to play strip UNO. We all remember how the last game went.”\n\n“We could have watched tv!”\n\nHe rested his elbow on the table, paw dangling limp over the edge.\n\n“You wanted to watch old nature documentaries.”\n\n“I thought it would be educational,” she said with a blush in her ears and her face pressed to Valerie’s waist.\n\n“The ones where they just casually show the animals mating?”\n\nValerie felt a giggle from her daughter.\n\nMelissa’s muffled voice replied, “It would have been educational.”\n\n“Missa,” he sat back and tilted his head up to the ceiling, “kitten, I love ya. You’re a sweet girl. But, look, you have interests and skills that have nothing to do with sex and so do I. Part of knowing and loving someone is getting to know and love all parts of a person, not just the parts you rub together.”\n\nShe looked a little confused and asked, “But I’ve heard people say on tv that men only think about and want sex.”\n\n“I know, hon, but a whole lot of what we see on tv isn’t real or true.”\n\nShe looked a little abashed and said quietly, “…but it’s really fun and feels nice.”\n\nEven pushed to the limits of his fragile resolve, he couldn’t be mad at her. Valerie had his back.\n\n“Honey,” she said to the girl, “think about it like this: candy’s great, right?”\n\nThe calico perked and nodded.\n\n“It tastes really good and makes you feel good,” she continued. “But if you only eat bunches of candy, you’ll get sick. You have to have real food to help your body grow and stay healthy.”\n\nStroking the kitten’s head, Mama concluded, “Sex is like candy for your mind. It feels really good, but that’s all. To help your mind grow and stay healthy, you have to feed it non-sex stuff too. Talking, reading, watching movies, going for walks, drawing, singing, cuddling, laughing…we need all these things too.”\n\n“So…you don’t always want sex?” the calico asked Mark.\n\nHe smiled softly at her, “Babygirl, just like with your mama, I want all of you. What’s between y’all’s legs is fun, but I also want what’s here,” he touched his head, “and here,” he moved his paw to his chest.\n\nMelissa thought for a moment, frowning. It was clear her gears were turning on something she was reading between the lines. She let go of Val’s legs and stepped over to stand before the border collie. Her paws reached out to rest on his knees.\n\nThe calico’s mismatched eyes searched his as she asked, “Is it…bad…to want sex a lot?”\n\nThe girl didn’t say “Is there something wrong with me?”, but her tone dripped with that concern anyway. The border collie’s strong arms scooped her up and tucked her close in to his chest.\n\n“There’s nothing wrong with you, Missa,” he rumbled into her ear. “The problem is that for someone your age to want it at all, much less so often, is strange. Not bad, not wrong, just strange. That’s all. You’re a good girl. Don’t you dare think otherwise.”\n\n“Why is it strange?”\n\nHolding her ice blue and deep green eyes with his brown ones, he smiled softly and gave her a kiss on the nose.\n\n“Our bodies grow in stages, kitten. The stage that begins our sexual growth, our physical ability and the desire to have sex, usually happens when we’re in our early teens. Before that, having sex can cause a lot of damage to our minds and bodies. So, it’s not just strange that you want it but that you’ve been able to do it without getting hurt. I worry sometimes if you are getting hurt somehow, and we all just don’t know it.”\n\nThe kitten shook her head emphatically and stressed, “It doesn’t hurt, Mark. If it hurt, I wouldn’t want to do it.”\n\n“It sure seems that way, Missa. But, until you are grown, I’m still gonna worry.”\n\nThe kitten grumbled, “Ok,” and gave his neck a long tight hug, then hopped down to find something to occupy herself with while the adults talked. Mark stood out of the chair and padded over to where Valerie still stood, his claws clicking on the hard floor. The grey cat had a bemused expression on her face, but she eased into the embrace he offered.\n\nThe woman whispered, “She’ll get bored eventually and find a fascination with some new toy, band, or cartoon.”\n\nHe rested his chin on top of her head and grumbled, “I dunno, Val. All those things have come and gone in the background these last two years, and all it does is change what she babbles about when she’s locked around a captive audience.”\n\nShe laughed and nuzzled his neck.\n\n“Well, if I can get you to myself later, I’ll fill your ears with stuff about the book I’m listening to and my thoughts about an herb garden on the balcony, while you fill my rear. How’s that sound?”\n\nA twitch from inside his pants answered for him, but the tired border collie still sighed and said, “I think I need a vacation.”\n\nThe grey cat laughed and whisked into the kitchen to set about washing her paws, saying, “How is planning going?”\n\n“I’ve got things about ninety percent in order,” he replied as he checked the stove. \n\nThe beef tips had been simmering in gravy long enough that the meat practically dissolved under a serving spoon. He fluffed the rice, stirred the peas, and killed the burners under all the cookware. With the dinner items in order, he pulled the cookies out of the oven.\n\nLaying the cookies out to cool on a folded cheesecloth on the counter, he cleared his throat and added, “The other ten percent just sorta popped up a couple minutes ago.”\n\n“The kiddo ask to go with you?”\n\nHe glanced at her with a cocked eyebrow and ears pinned back.\n\n“Yeah…” he drawled. “You knew?”\n\n“I didn’t know-know. I had a feeling she might, though.”\n\n“That feeling have anything to do with her saying it wasn’t a summer to be at her dad’s ‘anymore’?”\n\nThe grey cat leaned her back against the counter and groaned.\n\n“Do you want the long version full of swearing or the short version full of swearing?”\n\nMark glanced sidelong toward the living room, noting that the kitten was occupying herself with coloring but still had an ear cocked toward the kitchen. He thought about some of the conversations he had either overheard or been involved in, where a divorced or separated person talked about their ex in ways that he found himself hoping their children never had to hear.\n\n“How about the short version, maybe light on swearing?”\n\nShe caught his glance and gleaned the thoughts behind it.\n\n“Miles remarried. He’s living with the new bi—…woman…and her two sons halfway across the country. He says it’s a small house and the boys are too rowdy for him to feel safe about her being there.” Her ears folded back and she leaned closer to whisper, “He was butthurt about having a daughter from the moment they sexed her in the ultrasound. It’s one of two things, I bet: either he finally found an out and wanted to get the custody monkey off his back or his new bitch convinced him to. Either way, he officially renounced custody. Been meaning to talk about it with you, but I kept getting…distracted.”\n\nMark’s lip curled in a reflexive snarl and he growled, “That is fucking infuriating. Missa’s a good kid, and she deserves better than to be cast away like that.”\n\n“Well, to be fair,” Val said, “he was already on thin ice with the court. Half the time he had custody, they didn’t really do anything. She was just there. He was there, sometimes.” His expression coaxed further explanation from her. “Melissa spent a lot of time with his mom instead of him. I don’t think her Grams ever did more than sit around the house and smoke in all the time I’ve known her, so the kiddo pretty much stayed bored the whole time. It got to the point she was begging to skip visits, but we were all stuck with the terms of the agreement.”\n\nThe border collie considered the kitten, who was focusing on trying to look busy and failing.\n\nHe mumbled, “Always wondered why she never talked about the time she spent there. It didn’t feel like she was being private or covering anything up, just….”\n\n“Just wasn’t anything to tell,” the grey cat confirmed.\n\nHe shook his head and decided it was better to let the topic lie. There wasn’t a damned thing he could do, and even if he felt comfortable throwing his two cents in, nothing he could say would help. It was a shitty thing; one more in a world full of ‘em. What he could do, though, was try to be supportive and loving. They both deserved that.\n\nThe trio ate dinner and cleaned up the kitchen together. Melissa handled drying dishes and putting away the ones she could reach, while Mark handled washing and put away whatever she couldn’t manage. Valerie put leftovers away and wiped down the table and counters. It was a system they had perfected over the last few months. When all was finished, they each grabbed a couple cookies and retired to the living room to nibble their dessert and chat.\n\nGlancing at the girl next to him on the couch, Mark finally said, “I really would like it if you came with me, Missa. I just know I’m kinda an outsider and didn’t want to step on any toes. So, if you still want to and your mama doesn’t mind, you can come”\n\nReceiving a nod from Val, the kitten’s expression immediately brightened, but Mark quickly added,  “If I take you, though, I need you to promise me that you won’t spend the whole time trying to get my dick out of my pants. It’s secluded out there, but I see folks out hiking in the same areas as me all the time. We’ve talked about how much trouble what we do could get me in, right?”\n\nThe kitten nodded emphatically and replied, “I promise! I don’t want us to get in trouble.”\n\n“Well,” he said, ruffling the fur of her head, “you wouldn’t be in trouble, really. Just me and your mom. Mostly me.”\n\n“Still! I don’t want to lose you or Mama.”\n\nThey talked for a while about what she would need to pack and explaining what things would be like out in the park. The border collie explained that the nights could get cold, even in summer, so she needed to have some clothes that were appropriate for more than just warm, sunny days. She asked him if they would have a campfire and if they would toast marshmallows. To her disappointment, Mark told her they couldn’t have a campfire because the park was under a burn ban.\n\nToasted marshmallow dreams dashed, the mopey girl asked, “What’s a burn ban?”\n\n“If someone made a fire in the wrong conditions, it could burn the whole forest down. So, the park rangers announce burn bans and tell people not to make campfires when times are very dry.”\n\n“Like Smokey Bear?”\n\n“That’s right!”\n\nSmokey wasn’t as big a character by that point, not as big as he was when either of the adults were Melissa’s age. The mantle had been passed from black bear to black bear for years—ever since the first burn-scarred Smokey had taken the name to spread words of caution—each of whom had donned the guise of a park ranger for tv spots and school assemblies meant to educate children on the the role they could play in protecting their public lands. Even with a less prominent persona, the mascot still found his way into the little girl’s mind. At least that made it a little easier to take the disappointment of missing out on a campfire.\n\n- - - - -\n\nA week later, Mark and Melissa were trundling down a dirt road in densely forested foothills. The border collie’s old blue SUV shuddered over ruts and large rocks that sent the giggling calico bouncing up off the seat several times. Saved from tumbling into the floorboard by her safety belt, she was able to fully enjoy the rollercoaster. At one stop, where they had to wait for a small convoy of logging trucks to pass, she unbuckled her belt and shifted to the center of the bench seat. Once she was belted back in, she looked up at the man behind the wheel.\n\n“Hey, Mark?” she managed during a less rough patch.\n\n“What’s up, Miss Missa?”\n\nShe opened her mouth but remembered her promise and decided against mentioning that she wished she was on his lap for the ride.\n\n“Never mind.”\n\nInstead, she rested her left paw on his thigh and leaned against him for the rest of the drive. He draped his arm around her and gave her a little squeeze against his side. Several miles and enough curves to put the fear of motion sickness in the kitten passed before the SUV lurched to a stop. They had arrived at the vacant parking lot of a trailhead. When they piled out of the vehicle and stretched, they both filled their lungs with clean forest air. Melissa noticed a slightly sweet scent that was a little like grass, but all the understory was ferns and shrubs. She noticed that the smell seemed to come from scattered groups of dark lumps around the lot. The clusters reminded her of something she’d seen during a parade a while back.\n\nShe pointed and asked, “Horse poop?”\n\nAs Mark opened the back hatch and gathered together their packs, he turned to follow her gesture and answered, “Hmm? Oh! Yeppers, that’s what those are.”\n\n“There are horses out here?”\n\n“Probably not right now. Looks several days old. If it was folks who keep four-legged horses for riding, their trailers are gone. It’s mid-week, too, so they’re not likely to be out. Though…there’s also a herd of wild horses that roams down where the valley is wider open, I haven’t seen them up this far before, but there’s nothing stopping them.”\n\nThe kitten’s eyes were huge by the time he finished explaining. For a city kid who only saw them in parades and media, she had the makings of a horse girl, and the prospect of seeing one out in the forest had her beside herself. He laughed and handed her the light pack they had arranged for her things. He threw a few more items into his big internal frame pack and swung it onto his shoulders. Clicking the buckle of the hip belt required a slight relaxing of the strap.\n\n“God, y’all are gonna end up making me fat,” Mark grumbled with a smirk to make sure she knew he wasn’t being serious.\n\nShe walked over and gestured for him to bend down for a whisper. \n\n“More cushion for the pushin’, Mama says,” she breathed into his ear, concluding with a peck on the cheek.\n\nThe man’s bark of laughter startled some birds out of an old oak tree. He patted her head and locked up the SUV. Before they hit the trail, he had her stand still while he dusted the fur of her legs and arms with flea and tick repellent powder. There was no sense either of them picking up hitchhikers along the way. She wriggled as he ran his paws over her arms and lower legs but started making some borderline indecent sounds when the ticklish caress went above her knees and stopped feeling quite so ticklish. When he finished, he called her a goofball and hit his exposed limbs with the powder, too. As prepared as they were going to be, they started hiking.\n\nThe path was broad and mostly flat close to the trailhead. Decades of foot traffic, horses, and off-road vehicles had worn a swath of packed dirt almost wide enough for a car to travel on. In rainier years, there would be deep ruts and divots from tires and hooves, but the pair found it smooth walking for at least half a mile. The trail split at a Y, with the wide horse path veering to the right and a narrower footpath winding away into the trees to the left. A marker post at the split designated the trail as hiking-only, red circle-slash icons prohibited bikes, horses, and all-terrain vehicles. A sign at the top of the post read, “Oak Spring Trail’. They turned up the narrow fork and continued chatting about not much of anything, calling out birds and squirrels as they went.\n\n“What’s an oak spring?” the girl wondered aloud after they’d been walking for twenty minutes or so.\n\n“Less a what and more a where, kitten. If we stayed on this trail the whole way, we’d end up in a little valley packed with old oaks. At the head of the valley there’s a spring where an underground river is real close to the surface, and water pools up and runs down the valley.”\n\n“That sounds cool! Why aren’t we going there?”\n\nMark stopped and said, “It was cool, until some assholes decided to spread a rumor that the water there has healing properties. Place is just churned up mud and trash these days. The water isn’t even fit to drink anymore. Where we’re going is up that way.”\n\nHe pointed up through a gap in the trees. A saddleback ridge rose up, draped with wide swaths of conifers and open gaps of alpine meadow, toward a bald rocky peak.\n\n“This trail heads into the valley below the ridge. We’ll split off in a little bit and follow another trail up along the ridge. Up in the pines there are some clearings. We’ll find one of those that isn’t occupied and set up there.”\n\nThe pause in walking gave the border collie’s body a chance to realize he’d been needing to piss for a while. He glanced down at Melissa and noticed that she was starting to wiggle a bit, too. Well, he figured, no time like the present.\n\n“Thinkin’ I need to take a leak. What about you, Missa?”\n\n“Yeah,” she replied with a glance around. “Is there a restroom nearby?”\n\n“Kinda?”\n\nHe gestured to the forest around them as he unbuckled his pack and slung it down off his shoulders. He produced a roll of toilet paper from the top pouch of his pack and tossed it to her.\n\n“The world is your toilet when you’re out here.”\n\nShe shrugged off her pack and set it off the trail next to his. \n\n“Just…anywhere?”\n\nHe explained that she might want to duck behind a tree, in case another hiker came through, but otherwise anywhere was fine. He almost let her wander off, then had her wait while he looked around for problems. It didn’t take long to spot what he was looking for.\n\n“Yeah, there we go,” he said, pointing at a tangle of leaves. “This is poison ivy. You don’t want to touch that, kitten. It’ll make you itch so bad you won’t want skin anymore.”\n\nHe used a twig to point out the distinguishing features: leaves in groups of three, the way the edges were shaped, the color of the vines, the scent.\n\n“Keep your nose going and watch the ground when you go off trail to do your business.”\n\nShe shuffled uneasily and asked, “Can you go with me? I don’t want to miss it and get itchy.”\n\n“Sure thing, kitten. Won’t be anything I haven’t seen or heard before.” \n\nThe border collie stood watch on one side of a young oak tree while the sounds of shuffling fabric and the scent of kitten wafted around in the dappled shade. He remembered his own need when he heard the patter then rush of urine on old leaves. There wasn’t any sign of other folks out in the woods, so he opened the zip on his hiking shorts to free his sheath, pulled back the fur and skin so that the tip of his cock was free, and let his stream harmonize with hers. She had a head start and faster flow, so she dabbed dry and poked her head around the tree while he was still going.\n\n“Still a peeper, eh?” the man said over a chuckle when he noticed her watching him.\n\nThe kitten’s ears stayed forward but went red, and she nodded with a faint shrug. She licked her lips as if they were dry, though the gesture felt like there was a sort of hunger there, too.\n\n“This is the first time I’ve watched you pee,” she said in a low almost-whisper.\n\nFinished with his task, he squeezed from base to tip a couple times to clear his urethra and let the sheath slip back up. To his chagrin, the tip of his dick still poked out a little. The attention appeared to be having an effect. He tucked his faltering modesty back away and zipped up.\n\nHe smirked and said, “It’s really not all that different than when Pumpkin goes, is it?”\n\nShe didn’t hide her disappointment that the show was over when she responded, “He just pees straight out of his sheath, though.”\n\n“Four-legged critters don’t mind getting some piss on their sheath fur. They can just lick it off or don’t care about it. I’m not that flexible and don’t like the feeling of wet lingering like that. Besides, it’d make my underwear smell like pee.”\n\nThe border collie wrinkled his muzzle to stress his distaste. There was a pause as the kitten weighed whether to say what she was thinking. Prudence lost out.\n\n“Someone could lick it off for you,” she whispered before trotting back to the packs.\n\nHe would have liked to tell her to save exploring kinks at least until she was old enough to vote, but what even was a kink at that point? Wasn’t anything they did, at best, a kink under their circumstances? Certainly none of it was conventional. He opted not to think too deeply about it. A man standing on a slippery slope knows better than to tap dance.\n\nMark fished a water bottle out of his pack before he threw it back on. Missa was already standing with her pack slung and looking up at the aspen leaves quivering in the canopy. He handed his water bottle to her after he had a drink and let her slake her own thirst. They resumed hiking, him just behind her to let her set the pace, and delighting in the living world around them. When a new kind of bird would alight on a branch, he would tell her what kind it was. One of the ways he passed his time in a youth devoid of parental involvement or friends was to take birding books from the town library and sit in the woods, learning the birds and keeping track of what he saw. The best one on their hike was when a huge raven glided to a landing on a broken stump and let out a series of hoarse croaks.\n\n“Whoa!” the kitten gasped.\n\n“Big fellas, aren’t they?”\n\n“They’re huge…and so shiny!”\n\nThe rest of the hike went by in a flash, and they found the camping spaces Mark had mentioned utterly empty. Besooted rings of stones marked each of the backcountry camping spots, each one carefully cleared of vegetation around the outside and filled with old ash. Beside each ring the park rangers had staked signs that declared the burn ban and announced nightly flyovers by drones to detect anyone violating the safety of the forest and its residents and visitors. With open choice, the border collie selected a site that was set back into the privacy of the forest and had a wide open view of the sky above.\n\nTheir first day out ended with setting up camp. Mark had a small tent, which Melissa helped him pitch toward one side of the clearing. He also had a pair of nylon hammocks that fitted nicely in the gaps between a trio of young birch trees. When the kitten asked why the hammocks and the tent, he answered that the tent was a good place to stash their gear and to sleep on cold nights but the hammocks would be nice seats during the day and good sleeping spots if the nights weren’t too cold. \n\nWhen he pulled a single adult-sized sleeping bag out, she grinned and said, “Only one sleeping bag? Isn’t that asking for trouble?”\n\nHe gave her a look, equal parts amused and wry, and asked, “Would you have used a separate one if I’d brought it?”\n\nThe way she wriggled and a blush crept up into her ears was answer enough. Once those arrangements were made, he set up a small camp stove and set about fixing some food. It was simple fare, just ramen with some dried tofu and mushrooms, but the scent of it hit the calico like a freight train to the tummy.\n\nOnce they had eaten and scrubbed out their dishes, Mark sat down next to his little stove and rummaged through his pack. Melissa watched him with her head cocked, as he drew out four little paper packets. Setting them next to the stove, the border collie grabbed his big water bottle and sloshed it around. Wouldn’t be enough. He glanced up at the sky. The light hadn’t fallen entirely, yet.\n\n“Feel up to another short walk tonight, Missa?”\n\nShe still had it in her, so he handed the big bottle to her and grabbed some things from his pack. They set off down the opposite side of the ridge from the ruined spring. Following the series of switchbacks in the growing darkness wasn’t a problem for the pair, but the return would require some light. Fortunately, the man had tossed a headlamp into his pocket before they departed.\n\nIt took about half an hour to reach the place Mark was leading them to, a small pond fed by snowmelt and rain. The water was not the cleanest looking. Still, Mark started laying things out.\n\n“The water looks and smells gross,” the calico said uneasily. “We aren’t going to drink that, are we?”\n\nHe looked up from his gear, then at the pond, then back at her and said, “Oh, heck no. Even the streams out here aren’t safe to just sip straight out of. Between all the animals and people peeing and pooping around the drainage basins…or just in the water directly…there’s all kinds of bacteria and parasites.”\n\nMark held up a canister with a pump handle and a hose in one paw and a heavy plastic bag with a canister and a hose on one end in his other paw. Setting the bag aside, he motioned for her to hand him the water bottle, then removed the cap and threaded it onto the bottom of the pump canister. He held up the end of the hose, showing a sort of basket-shaped thing on the end that was wrapped with sheer fabric.\n\n“So,” the man said, “this thing is a water filter. The canister has a big filter in it that can remove damn near anything. The basket at the end of the hose is a pre-filter and the cloth over it is a kinda pre-pre-filter. They keep the hose and filter from getting clogged up with grit and stuff.”\n\nHe dropped the hose end into the pond with a plip and flipped the pump handle around. Pulling and pushing on the handle caused water to slide up the clear hose into the canister. Soon the water was squirting into the water bottle from the base of the filter. The water looked clean, and in a few minutes the bottle was full.\n\n“You can smell the water in the pond and how it’s kinda nasty. Have a whiff of this.”\n\nHe handed the open bottle to her to sniff. Melissa leaned over with a frown of mistrust but sniffed anyway. Her pretty blue and green eyes went wide.\n\n“What the hell? It smells cleaner than our tap water at home!”\n\nHe laughed and took a drink, saying that it probably was. Once the water bottle was securely closed, Mark asked the kitten to take the filter, which he threaded a big collapsible container onto. He showed her how to hold the filter body and work the handle. While she set about filling the big container, he knelt close to the water’s edge and swept the big bag through the pond. Removing the full, heavy bag of water, he rolled the top and pulled the corners together. Each corner had half a buckle on it and the clicked together to keep the bag top from unrolling. He checked the hose and made sure a clamp that sat below the filter canister was secure.\n\n“This,” he said, patting the filtering bag, “is a little less effective than that one, but it’ll get enough out to cook with. Technically boiling the water kills the germs, but I like my food without grit and pond scum.”\n\nHe took over from her when her arms got tired and finished filling the big container with drinking water. Grabbing a fallen branch, he looped the two bigger containers over each end and hoisted the branch across his shoulders. Melissa carried the good filter and the big water bottle. As it got dark, the border collie suggested that the kitten grab the headlamp out of his pocket. He didn’t catch the look of mischief on her face as he focused on keeping his load balanced.\n\nBlinking and looking down at her, he said, “Um, that’s not the headlamp, kitten.”\n\nMissa, grinning like a doofus, squeezed his sheath through the inner fabric of his pocket and said, “What? A promise is a promise! I’m not trying to get it out…this time.”\n\nStill giggling to herself, she put the headlamp on her head, and he told her how to tighten the strap. With the light on, the trail was easy to traverse. Mark let her go ahead to light the way and stayed close behind. When they arrived back at their camp, he dropped the big containers with a wheeze and plopped down next to the stove. \n\n“Ok,” he grunted, “back to what I was doing.”\n\nHe poured water into the cooking pot and turned the stove on. While he waited, he held the paper packets and flipped them back and forth, like waving a fan. Melissa recognized the motion from when he was cooking the ramen earlier.\n\n“Why do you do that?”\n\nHe paused in his packet flapping and looked at her with his head cocked.\n\n“Do what?”\n\nShe pointed at his hand and said, “Why do you flap packets like that?”\n\nHe gave a self-conscious smirk and answered, looking at the items in his hand, “Huh…I didn’t even notice I was doing it. Used to be I’d do it to shift the powder to one end so less puffed out when I tore it open, but I think I just do it now to have something to do with my hands.”\n\nShe paused for a moment and said, “Mark, is it ok if I say something naughty now?”\n\nReaching over to ruffle the fur of her head, he replied, “It’s night, there’s no one around. You can say what you want, Missa. I know it’s been hard to filter yourself.”\n\n“I can think of something you can do with your hands.”\n\nThe short, snorting laugh that followed led into a laughing jag that echoed in the woods. When he had recovered enough to talk, he caught her faintly miffed expression.\n\n“Sorry, kitten,” he said. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I’m sure you can think of other things I could do with my hands, but if I stop now we don’t have cocoa and…”\n\nIn the faint glow of the camp stove, one chip of blue ice and one forest green pool glittered.\n\n“Really!?”\n\n“And something else. Maybe something even better than a quick fingering.”\n\n“What? What is it?”\n\n“Patience, Missa. You’ll see.”\n\nThe water in the pot was soon bubbling over the blue flame of the stove. Mark turned the heat down to the lowest setting and tore open the four paper packets. When he turned the packets over the pot, they spilled out as a monochromatic rainbow in browns and whites. Two of the packets were obviously cocoa mix, but the other two were a mystery to the calico.\n\n“What’s the white stuff?”\n\n“That, my dear kitten, is powdered milk. It’ll make the cocoa taste a little richer and may help you fall asleep.”\n\nMelissa wiped her chin with the back of a paw. When he said they’d be having cocoa, she knew there was no way they could bring milk along and figured it would just be cocoa and water. Not ideal by any means, but cocoa is cocoa. But! But he figured out how to…\n\nThe muted rustling sound of a plastic bag shook her out of her reverie. She watched as the border collie pulled a small package out of a gear sack and pulled the plastic open. The sugary scent hit the already excited girl and she was immediately on hands and knees, hovering a little too close to the still-hot pot and low-burning stove. Pulling a large marshmallow out of the package, Mark laughed and gently eased her away from the danger zone with a paw on her shoulder.\n\n“Careful, kitten! I don’t want to have to explain to your mama why you’ve got patches of fur missing.”\n\nShe rocked back to sit upright on her knees and wriggled with anticipation. Grinning at her  enthusiasm, he speared the marshmallow on the end of a bamboo skewer that he pulled from the same gear sack and held it over the low flame. It took a moment for the sugary pillow to char, but once the surface started browning, it quickly bubbled and blackened. Mark rotated the marshmallow to give it an even toast on one end. When his was satisfied, he held the skewer out to the kitten and turned off the burner.\n\nAs she carefully grasped the bamboo stick, he said, “Easy now. Don’t just tuck in.”\n\nShe glared at him as if he had just held a glass of water out to a wanderer in the desert and told them not to drink it. He asked her to trust him and started pouring cocoa into a pair of cups. As he handed her one of the cups, they heard a high-pitched whirring sound, like a blender two rooms away. Looking up, they caught the blinking green and red lights of a drone high against the dark sky. Mark told the kitten it was probably one of the fire watch patrols that the signs mentioned. He waved at the buzzing voyeur, and Melissa followed his lead. In a moment it was gone again and quiet returned.\n\n“Now,” the man said, “take that marshmallow and dip it in the cocoa. If you let it sit for a couple seconds, the marshmallow with taste all chocolatey and the cocoa with take in some of that toasty sugar flavor.”\n\nMelissa submerged the blackened puff into the steaming liquid, releasing a burst of mingling scents. She swirled it a little before taking it out and blowing on it. He watched her with a soft smile as she bit in and immediately did a wiggly happy dance where she sat.\n\n“Beats hell out of an idle fingering, doesn’t it?”\n\nHer left eye flicked open, blue iris darker than usual in the low light, and she replied through a mouthful of melty charred sugar, “I dunno…maybe if I had a way to compare…”\n\nSipping on his own cocoa, the border collie frowned. He rested the vessel on his knee, supporting it with the fingers of one paw on the rim. He took a fresh marshmallow from the package with his other paw and rolled it absentmindedly in his fingers.\n\n“Missa,” he said quietly after a few moments, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t understand you and it makes me worry about you a lot.”\n\nShe cocked her head and responded, “What do you mean?”\n\nBlack-and-white furred fingers continued playing with the marshmallow.\n\n“I mentioned before that no one your age should want sex at all. I get why you got curious about it, but I can’t wrap my head around why you are like you are. I worry about whether you have those wants for anyone else and whether you have gone or would go after someone else at this age. And, like I said the other day, I worry about what all of this might be doing to your body and your mind.”\n\nWith her marshmallow finished, she sat sipping from her cup. Both her eyes were locked on him now, and the tip of her tail was twitching, agitated.\n\n“Are you jealous, Mark?”\n\nWincing, he barked, “No! I’m not jealous, kitten. I just know the amount of self-control it takes me to hold back and that there are plenty of guys out there who wouldn’t. There’re folks out there who are perfectly content to hurt little girls like you without giving a damn. The thought of one of ‘em getting their paws on you makes me furious and sick at the same time.”\n\nShe set her cup on the ground beside the cooling stove and stood, brushing off her bottom and legs. Careful to avoid the stove and cooking gear, she walked over and stopped in front of him. Her fingers closed around the cup on his knee, lifting it and setting it on the packed dirt a little ways away from him. Pulling the marshmallow from his fingers, she lowered herself onto his lap.\n\n“Here,”she placed the marshmallow in front of his muzzle and tapped it against his nose, “hush for a second.”\n\nHe accepted the treat with a quizzical expression and chewed slowly as she continued. The phrase felt like one she must have borrowed from Valerie.\n\n“I don’t know why I’m like this,” she said, letting her paws play over his chest. “You and Mama tell me that there are people who would hurt me, but I don’t want other people.” As she went on, her paws slid up his chest to his neck, fingers threading through the thick fur. “I know you. I know Mama. I trust you both. I love both of you and know you love me too.”\n\nThe border collie jolted when one of her paws wandered down to graze his sheath and balls through the fabric of his hiking shorts. Her eyes stayed locked on his.\n\n“Would you worry less, if I told you this is the only one I want?”\n\nHis eyes went a touch sad, as he lifted a paw to stroke her cheek.\n\nHe whispered, “It worries me more, kitten.”\n\nThe paw pads smoothing the fur of Missa’s cheek and jaw elicited a purr from the small cat, and she leaned into the caress.\n\nShe snuggled in close, forehead furrowed, ears back, and asked, “Why?”\n\nThe sigh he let out felt like he was blowing out years worth of tension. He hugged her close and rested his chin on top of her head.\n\n“If a person hatches a wild baby bird, handles it and feeds it, it can’t really be a wild bird anymore—not the way it would be if it were raised by a mama bird. The hatchling thinks the person is their mama and wants to be around them. It’s not because the person is a good parent, it’s because the baby bird thinks the first creature it sees is its mama.\n\n“You—too young to be wanting sex in the first place—want it for reasons I can’t begin to understand. You wanted it from me, because I was the first guy you saw in that way. I let it happen, because I’m a weak piece of shit, and now you say you only want it from me. It feels like I’ve already crippled a baby bird.”\n\nHe felt her stir and added, “I know you aren’t a baby bird, kitten. But the metaphor still works.”\n\n“What’s a metaphor?”\n\nMark pitched over backward, landing with a groan mixed with a wry chuckle. She lay on his chest, carried with him in the fall.\n\n“See, this is what I mean. I shouldn’t be putting my dick in someone who doesn’t know what a metaphor is, yet,” the border collie grumbled. Seeing her lingering look of confusion, he patiently explained,“So, there’s two ways you can compare two things. A simile is when you use words like ‘like’ or ‘as’. If you said ‘I’m as angry as a honey bee on a bear farm’, that’s a simile. A metaphor is when you compare things by just outright saying X is Y. Eating so much you sit back and say, ‘Ugh, I’m a pig!’…metaphor.”\n\nShe propped herself up on straightened arms, paws splayed on his chest, and said, “I didn’t know they had names. What grade do we learn about those?”\n\n“Shit, babybird, I don’t remember. It’s been a long time since I was in school. Why?”\n\n“I wanna know how old I have to be for you to not feel bad about what we do.”\n\nMark ruffled the fur between her ears and planted a kiss on her nose.\n\n“Those are different ages, Missa. Probably won’t be long before metaphors and similes pop up in Language Arts…or whatever the hell they’re calling it now. But you’d have to be at least old enough to drink before I’d feel less bad about fucking you.”\n\nShe squirmed on top of him and asked, “How old is that?”\n\n“Twenty-one.”\n\nThe kitten sat up, searching his eyes for sign of joking. Finding none, she pushed hard against his chest with both paws. Her ears folded back flat against her head and a faint snarl pulled at her lips.\n\n“Fuck off,” she hissed. “I have to be a fucking grownup?” She pushed again and the tips of her claws poked out and caught on his shirt. “I have to live with the want, not feeling all of your love, for that long?” Tears welled in her eyes. “That’s not fair!”\n\n“Whoa,” he said, pulling her down to lay flat on top of him again. “You asked how old you’d have to be for me to feel less guilty, Missa. Clearly, from the way the past few months have gone, you’re still getting me. It’s just difficult for me to feel okay about it.”\n\nWith her face buried in the thick fur of his neck, her voice came out muffled when she said, “It’s not just me, Mark. It’s not fair to you either.”\n\nHugging her close, the border collie kissed her on the head and muttered, “Oh, it’s far from the least fair thing I’ve been through, kitten, and I’d put up with worse to make sure you were safe. It’s just hard to be this cruel to you.”\n\nThey laid in each other’s arms for a few minutes, until Mark rubbed her sides with his paws and said, “C’mon, kitten. Let me add some heat to our cups so we can finish our cocoa before bed.”\n\nThe calico relented and they spent a little while sipping hot chocolate and looking up through the clearing at the stars. Afterward, Mark cleaned up the cups and pot and also raised the food up off the ground to prevent little critters (and big ones) from snooping around overnight. As they prepared for sleep, the kitten shivered.\n\nHer breath was faintly visible when she said, “I don’t think I can sleep in the hammock like this. Is it okay if we sleep in the tent?”\n\nHe ruffled the fur on top of her head and replied, “Sure, kitten. It feels like it’s in the low forties, so that’s a good idea. Don’t want you catching cold.”\n\nThe tent was a low, narrow backpacking tent that required them both to crawl to get in. Billed as a two-person tent, it was comfortable for one adult and you had to be real close with whoever you shared it with. Missa’s small size didn’t take a lot of space, so it was still cozy. Before squirming into the sleeping bag, the kitten changed into a nightshirt that went down to her mid-thighs. When she turned around from changing clothes, she found to her delight that he was getting naked.\n\nSeeing the bright look in her eyes, he gave her a sad smile and said, “Fur-to-fur will be warmer for you, but I’m mainly doing this because you’re a little furnace and I’LL burn up otherwise. I wasn’t coming on to you.”\n\nHer eyes flashed with momentary disappointment but shifted quickly to a happy look of mischief. She pulled off her nightshirt and panties, tossing them to the side in the tent.\n\n“If fur-to-fur is warmer, then I’ll take it,” she said. “Besides, just feeling you next to me will be nice.”\n\nThe sadness of his smile gave way to a warm joy. He slipped into the sleeping bag, then held it open for her to join him. Melissa crawled over and flopped down on her side against him, back pressed against his belly and chest. He chuckled as she wriggled to get comfortable, then zipped the sleeping bag closed and wrapped his arm over her. Hugging Missa tight for a moment, the border collie kissed the top of her head and rested his chin there.\n\n“I do love you, babygirl,” he muttered softly.\n\nPressing back against him, she whispered back, “I love you too.”\n\nThe kitten was one of those restless kids who take a few minutes to get comfortable. She shifted multiple times, changing from back to side, before settling with her back against him again. Once she was settled, she fell asleep quickly. \n\n- - - - -\n\nThe tent was still dark, hours later, when she felt a broad paw slide up the length of her thigh and splay across her tummy. The sensation woke her to find Mark asleep and gently running his paw over her body. The sensation was nice, and a purr quickly built in her throat. At one point, the pads of his fingers tickled the dip where her abdomen met her thigh, and she wriggled. When she did, she felt his hard length pressed against her butt and back.\n\nShe knew he was asleep, but this was the first time he had ever initiated with her. The thrill of it had her as wet as she had ever been. His head bent down so he could nuzzle the back of her neck and lick the backs of her ears. Huffing breath brushed hot over her fur, sending a rush through the skin beneath. Her back arched, grinding her ass against the base of his cock.\n\n“Mmm…” the border collie groaned against her ear. “I’m sorry it took so long, Missa. You’re finally old enough, and I’ve wanted to do this properly for so long.”\n\nIn the dark, the kitten’s eyes went wide. Her panting breath caught in her chest and she swallowed hard. [i]He’s dreaming[/i], she thought to herself. [i]But he’s still thinking about me[/i]. She resolved herself to seeing where this might go.\n\n“I’ve wanted it too,” she managed to whisper.\n\nThe paw roaming her body moved in a slow caress up her belly and chest to her neck, where it took hold of her jaw firmly and turned her head up toward his waiting muzzle. He kissed her the way his kissed Mama, deeply and hungrily. His tongue probed her mouth, and she accepted with a shudder. Her paws wandered behind her, seeking the hot, bare skin of his dick. He was fully erect and burned hot against her paw pads.\n\nBreaking the kiss, he nuzzled her neck and nipped at her ear. His paw released her jaw and trailed dull claws down the front of her body. Pausing only briefly to nudge and pinch at her left nipple, it continued raking parallel furrows down through the soft fur of her belly. She gasped when he reached her crotch and slipped his paw between her legs. Fur and warm pads brushed over her damp lips and tickled her swelling clit. She breathed his name and squeezed his cock in her paw.\n\n“You’re already so wet, kitten,” he huffed against the back of her jaw, licking the fur there and sending shivers down her spine. “Do you want to keep up the foreplay, or are you ready for me to fuck you?”\n\nIf her natural state of high arousal hadn’t already had her ready, even if the hungry paw rubbing her pussy hadn’t already had her soaked, his words alone would have rendered her ready to take him. She leaned her head back against him and nodded.\n\n“God, Mark, please,” she moaned. “That’s all I want right now.”\n\nTeeth grazed her ear, stealing her breath. His whisper was coarse and dark, when he asked, “Do you want me to go slow and gentle, like always.”\n\nHer claws extended slightly, grazing his knot, and she replied in a breathless whisper, “Take me hard. Take me like you take Mama when you mean it. I want to feel how much you want me.”\n\nThe growl that came from him vibrated her chest harder than her purr already was. She felt him pull away from her grasp, as his paw lifted her leg and draped it over his. The throbbing heat of his shaft grazed her slit, as he thrusted forward. The tip appeared in front of her, and he moved his paw to guide it toward her lips. \n\nShe had an expectation of how it would go. She had seen him many times with Valerie. Nothing prepared her for the pause where his tip lingered at her entrance, teasing her. Nothing prepared her for the hungry grip of both of his paws on her waist, as the friends lay spooning on their sides in the sleeping bag, or the way his claws pressed against the skin of her belly. And nothing had or could have prepared her for the sensation of his long jaws wrapping over the base of her neck. His long canine teeth pressed a couple of inches away from her spine in the back and at the top of her sternum in the front. She had a fraction of a second to feel confusion at his actions before his growl rumbled hot against her neck and his jaws closed just short of breaking skin. At that same moment, the border collie thrust his full length inside her.\n\nMelissa had been fucked hard before. Pumpkin had introduced her to the frantic, bestial way of a true animal. This wasn’t that. At no point was there a question that Mark was a man. The pace of his thrusts, though harder and faster than any she had felt from him in the past, weren’t the mindless stabs of a beast. He held her and pumped his length in and out of her in rapid, purposeful strokes. One paw released her waist to slide in front and rub her clit with hard pressure that was nonetheless deliberately careful. \n\nAll the hunger he had denied himself, denied her, flooded the moment. If he had been awake, he would have wondered if she came in the first few strokes of his cock. The truth he would never learn is that she started then and continued to throughout. Wave after wave rushed through her little body, causing her toes to curl and her fingers to grasp at his arm hard enough for claws to prick skin. She shuddered and gasped, squeaked and mewled as he devoured her in a way he never had.\n\nShe was barely conscious of his tongue playing at the fur of her neck. She was hardly aware of their surroundings. All that mattered was the swelling knot within her and the building growl in his throat. His last few thrusts were short and forceful, knot locked in and tip pressed deep into the farthest recesses of her vagina, stretching it in all dimensions. His jaws released her as he ground his pelvis hard against her backside. He nuzzled under her jaw and rasped her name, declaring that he was coming. Dazed, she felt the first hot splashes of semen within and crashed into one last orgasm. The tent faded around her as he filled her.\n\n- - - - -\n\nMark awoke to faint light filtering through the tent fabric. Birds chittered and sang in the trees surrounding their campsite. Groggily, he blinked his eyes and yawned. As he shifted in the sleeping bag, he felt a cool wetness. The first thing that crossed his mind was that the kitten must have had an accident overnight. Every second, though, brought more wakefulness. The scent was very clearly not urine.\n\nHis right paw went to rub his face, as he realized what must have happened. It had to have been a wet dream. All the talk and physical closeness must have triggered a dream that resulted in a nocturnal orgasm. It wasn’t until the kitten stirred, rolling over to reach around him and pull close, that he smelled her own sex scent as well.\n\nLying in the tent with the girl, Mark stared up at the fabric above him. This was worse than giving in when she pleaded. He didn’t know if he had done something to her in his sleep or if she had done something to him, and that left his imagination ample room to wander.\n\nMissa awoke with her arms clutching the border collie. She glanced at his face and found it stony and distant, with fresh tears at the corner of his eye. The scents were strong enough from the recent movements that she guessed he must have figured out what he had done in the night. Her paw caressed his chest softly, the way her Mama’s paw would caress her when she’d had a bad dream.\n\n“Kitten,” he croaked, voice thick with emotion, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did. But I’m sorry.”\n\nShe repositioned so she could kneel by his chest, shivering slightly in the morning cold. Her paws went to his face, taking it by both sides and forcing him to look at her.\n\n“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, eyes piercing his in the dim light. “You were dreaming. I woke up to you petting me so nicely. You said I was finally old enough. I think it was the future in your dream. I…” her voice faltered, “…played along. I wanted to know what it would feel like when you really wanted to do it. Mark, it’s okay. You didn’t hurt me. You didn’t break my heart or my pussy. It’s okay.”\n\nShe leaned over him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her voice was soft and soothing, as if she was trying to chase away a nightmare. He embraced her tightly, claws pressing hard against her.\n\n“I could have, though,” he said. “I could have and I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. Melissa,” the full name made her flinch, “what am I going to do? I can’t keep putting you in danger like this.”\n\nShe pushed back up, fighting against his embrace. When she hover over him, her face was serious, almost furious. Her claws poked into the skin of his chest.\n\n“You love me, Mark. You won’t hurt me. Not like you think you will. Not as much as if you avoided me. Mama and me, we both trust you. She would never have let any of this happen if she didn’t. I wouldn’t want you if I didn’t. You’re a good man. Don’t you dare think otherwise.”\n\nThrough the self-hate, through the shame, some small part of her echoing his words back at him did germinate in his heart. He reached up and cupped her cheek.\n\n“I hope you’re right, hon. I really do.”\n\nThe sleeping bag was useless now and both of them were a complete mess. Mark knew of a hot spring, not far away, where they could bathe. At the very least it might tone down the scent of sex on them. The border collie shuddered to think what might happen if they tried to hike back to the trailhead smelling like they did and ran into people on the way. No passer-by would miss the scent. \n\nThey got dressed in the previous days’s clothes and packed some biodegradable soap and clean clothes into a day pack. The soiled sleeping bag got rolled up and crammed into a stuff sack, where it would stay until he could launder it. In the meantime, they had a quick breakfast of hot tea and granola bars, then headed for the hot spring. It took a while to get there, partly because the calico was walking a little slower than she had the previous day. She caught the look of guilt growing on his face as he watched her walk and told him that it was a good soreness. She even told him that it was the hardest she had come yet.\n\nThe spring was small, steamy, and unpopulated. They took off all their clothes and slipped into the hot water. It had a faint smell of sulfur and other minerals. More importantly, it felt wonderful. The heat of it quickly melted away his anxiety and her soreness. After about half an hour of soaking, they got out and scooped up a collapsible water reservoir worth of hot water to used to wash with. They moved away from the spring and helped each other scrub clean and rinse, before easing back into the spring to soak a little more. After a while, they climbed back out and dried thoroughly, then out on clean clothes and returned to camp.\n\nStanding in the clearing, Mark said, “Well, kitten, I think we need to cut our trip short and head home. Maybe I should have brought a second sleeping bag after all. Then at least we’d have something to sleep in if we stayed out here.”\n\nThey packed the camp back up and slowly hiked back out. The drive home was quiet. Melissa slept through most of it. On the way, Mark swore to himself that he would not let this happen again."
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