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VIP-BTC2: Chapter 65
🕑 Added 2023-05-20 19:01:00 +0000 UTC-- CHAPTER 65: Luna --
****
After witnessing the journey Luna’s eyes had taken across my body, it seemed only fair that I’d get to do the same.
More than once, Luna had described herself as a “flat-chested beanpole”, but she still had very feminine curves. Although she didn’t have the biggest rack or a ton of junk in the trunk, the lovely Latina still had expressive eyes and delicate features that easily qualified her as “pretty” by any empirical standards. Her bare breasts were pleasantly shaped with puffy nipples perfect for suckling, and their comparatively “normal” size was something of a pleasant novelty given the ample cleavage I’d always been surrounded by. She was skinny, yes, with bony limbs and subtle ribcage bumps, but there was still a gentle swell to her body that was one hundred percent feminine. And if I hadn’t known she was gay, I would’ve had no trouble finding her eminently bangable.
Hell, I DID know she was a lesbian, and at this moment with her reclining naked on my bed with a decidedly… expectant… expression on her face, I definitely found her eminently bangable.
But before I could open my mouth and say something stupid, Luna rolled her eyes, snapped her fingers, and muttered, “Don’t even think about it.”
I blinked twice, my jaw dropped open, and I stammered like an idiot, “S-s-sorry. I-I just… I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”
“Wasn’t my idea to come in here. But Belle of course brought me here and we got to making out but then when she heard the sounds of you cumming it was like a lightbulb clicked on above her head and--”
“--and Matty’s Little Cumslut immediately scrambled off the bed in search of Matty’s cum,” I finished for her.
Mari let out a loud groan of deep, sexual satisfaction that echoed out from behind the open bathroom door.
“And now she’s actively working to make someone else cum.” Luna smirked and sat upright, drawing her knees to her chest while keeping her feet together in a way that made it impossible for me to see her crotch. “I should probably be annoyed at you for clamjamming me.”
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologize - not your fault. I understand and accept Belle for being exactly the way she is. Same as I understand and accept you for being exactly the way you are: which is a straight male looking at a naked girl waiting in his bed.”
“Well this straight male should still know better than to ogle you like a piece of meat. My apologies.”
“Don’t worry about it. I already said I accept you the way you are, and I know I can trust you,” she said, waving me off. “At this point, I actually consider it something of a compliment that you’ll actually stop to check ME out, given the sheer volume of other hot babes surrounding you under this very roof.”
“Well if you’ll consider it a compliment, I must admit I was just thinking that if I didn’t know you were gay, I would’ve considered you eminently bangable.”
Luna smiled, evidently pleased. “Really?”
“Really. Although again, I’d never actually try to--”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. No es nada.” Luna waved me off again. “In all fairness, you were probably just reacting to me ogling you like a piece of meat.”
I blinked twice again. “You were? I mean, I saw your eyes lingering on my body, but I was starting to think I’d imagined it.”
Luna chuckled and shook her head. “You’re a well-built man, Matty. I’m not sexually attracted to you, but I can appreciate that you’re a well-built man. And the thought did cross my mind that if I ever wanted to try straight sex, you’d be an ideal candidate.”
I blinked twice again. “Um, what?”
Luna laughed and shook her head. “Lo siento. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to tease you, I promise. It was nothing more than an idle thought.”
“Um, okay…”
Luna sighed and shook her head. “You have no idea how many times Isa tried to talk me into having straight sex with one of the guys. Not seriously pressuring me; just… suggesting I try it at least once, you know?”
I waggled my head. “Knowing Izzy… knowing Isa… I’m fairly sure I have a decent idea of how many times.”
Luna chuckled and shook her head. “I do keep using that nickname, don’t I? Not so private anymore.”
“It just means her absence is weighing heavily on you.” I arched an eyebrow. “Does she have a private nickname for you?”
Luna shrugged. “Luna is my nickname, although she would often call me ‘Lunita’ as well, which is just the Spanish diminutive of Luna. I suppose that would be the closest she had to a private nickname.”
I frowned. “Wait, ‘Luna’ isn’t your full name?”
She smirked and shook her head.
“What is your full name?”
Luna’s eyes twinkled and mimed a zipped lip.
“Oh come on,” I groaned. “Do I have to peek into your purse to take a look at your driver’s license?”
Luna laughed. “The Matty I know and trust would never violate my privacy like that.”
“Of course not,” I grumbled with a sigh and a nod. But then I gave her an evil grin and added, “I’ll just tell Belle that ‘Luna’ isn’t your full name and then she’ll peek into your purse to take a look at your driver’s license.”
Luna laughed again and shrugged. “Fair enough.”
I screwed up my face and narrowed my eyes. “Please tell me it isn’t Bellaluna or Lunabelle or something equally confusing with Belle and Isabela.”
Luna barked another laugh and shook her head. “No, not at all.”
“Okay, at least there’s that.”
Luna smiled, sat back, and silently gave me a curious look. She seemed to be studying my face, and I raised both eyebrows questioningly. And just then, Belle started groaning her deep, sexual satisfaction from behind the open bathroom door.
The sound seemed to break the spell of silence, and Luna leaned back with both arms while extending both legs straight out in front of her. My eyes inevitably yo-yoed down across her exposed nudity before rebounding quickly back to her face, and she crossed her ankles while giving me a curious look.
“We’re not going to have sex, Matty. You ARE an ideal candidate if I were to ever want to try it just once, but…” She took a deep breath and exhaled while shaking her head slowly. “I’m just not built that way. I hope you understand.”
I nodded readily. “I understand. I never thought--”
“I know you never expected me to change my mind about that,” she interrupted, “but I’m sure the thought crossed your mind that I might. Or are you claiming that Belle – or even Isa – has never whispered into your ear that maybe, just maybe, if Luna ever decided to at least try out a dick just once, that you might need to rise to the occasion?”
I waggled my head and admitted, “The thought has occurred. You already know both of them have whispered that sort of thing to me, but I never expected it to happen, and I still don’t. You’re gay, Luna. I understand that about you and accept you exactly as you are.”
“Thank you for that, Matty.”
“You’re very welcome,” I told her sincerely.
“Besides, you wouldn’t want to have sex with a skeletal waif like me. Not when you’ve got much better partners like them.” Luna gestured behind me, and I turned around in surprise to find Belle and Mari coming out of the bathroom together, still towel-drying themselves off.
“Wait, what was that about Matty having sex with a skeletal waif like you?” Belle inquired quite curiously.
“Sorry, B,” Luna drawled in a disapproving tone. “You abandoned me right before I was about to cum. I’m not giving you a Luna/Matty-creampie tonight.”
Belle’s eyebrows went up, and a sly smirk spread across her face. “Does that sentence imply I might be getting a Luna/Matty-creampie some other night?!?”
“Down girl, down,” Mari scolded, miming a spray bottle with her right hand to squirt water at a puppy to get it to stop barking.
Luna first winked at me, and then she laughed and gestured ‘come hither’ towards Belle with both hands. “Make it up to me and find out.”
Belle squealed, dropped her towel, and launched herself onto the bed.
****
Belle did make it up to Luna, and Mari helped out. The pair of BFFs sandwiched the ‘skeletal waif’ between them, one going high and one going low. Variety is the spice of life, and it was quite the erotic sight to see three such distinctly beautiful specimens of femininity writhing together like sinuous creatures of languorous lesbian lust.
Mari was still making out with Luna, the paired Latina ladies scissoring and swapping spit, when Belle crawled out of the pile and over to me. I’d been sitting up against the headboard, just admiring the view, when my petite impish pixie pushed her face down around my rejuvenated rod just to make sure I was rock-hard. She then quickly climbed aboard reverse cowgirl and reclined back against my chest so we could both voyeuristically watch the hottie Hispanic girls continue their horizontal lambada.
To my surprise, Luna not only permitted my ardent stares, but seemingly encouraged them. Well, in all fairness, her come-hither looks and coy smiles were almost certainly just for Belle, with my face coincidentally on the same line of sight. But she certainly never shot me any ‘back off, fucker’ glares despite my obvious ogling, and I wanted to believe that she’d reached a new level of comfortability being around me now that we’d agreed we would never cross that physical line.
Luna had a different style of lovemaking from the others. She had a slender figure, dark hair, and could be soft and graceful like Zofi from time-to-time, but the similarities to the only other lesbian I’d ever known stopped there. Luna didn’t have sex with feral intensity like some of the more aggressive girls in the group, but nor was she passively accepting either. Her kisses were gentle, but not too gentle. Her touches were firm, but not too firm. She moved at her own pace, found harmony with Mari’s and Belle’s rhythms, and put herself in the driver’s seat as often as she receptively accepted their direction.
She was an adaptive lover, all things considered, able to go with the flow when the situation called for it, and able to take charge and lead when the situation called for that.
She was a skilled lover too, and I very much appreciated her help in satisfying Mari and Belle without asking me to do anything for her in return.
The four of us traded partners back and forth, sometimes two separate pairs and sometimes interconnected threesomes or moresomes. Luna and I never had direct physical contact, at least not on purpose. But there were a few incidental brushes that sent little shivers up my spine for their rarity.
Belle gave me a blowjob while Luna cuddled up behind her and leaned over to nibble on Belle’s ear and kiss Belle’s cheek, and the soft brush of Luna’s hair on my thighs gave me a little tingle.
I spooned myself behind Mari, fucking her on our sides while Luna was in front of my Angel, and our hands accidentally touched while we both were playing with Mari’s massive tits (fortunately, there was plenty of room for both of us).
And then there was a time when Mari sat on my face staring down at me while Belle rode me reverse cowgirl with Luna licking Belle’s clit. Every now and again I was certain that Luna’s tongue made contact with my dick, sending a surge of crackling electricity throughout my entire body.
There are few things sexier than the sight of a girl’s face while in the throes of orgasmic release. I found myself staring at Luna’s face in such a moment when she slid her fingers through Mari’s hair and pinned the busty brunette’s head to her crotch, gaping her mouth open and crying out her pleasure. I’d been banging Belle from behind doggy-style and turned to look at the sound of Luna’s cry. The skinny beanpole’s eyes were open, and when she turned her head to the side, by chance she locked her gaze with me.
And she didn’t look away.
Beautiful.
But still remote.
I’d seen the look of longing in the eyes of eleven different orgasming girls by now, a carnal hunger that called for me, even if I wasn’t the one giving them that particular orgasm. There was no such look in Luna’s eyes, no undercurrent of desire for me to claim her body and send her into new orbital heights of pleasure. Luna stared at me as if I were her appreciative audience, and I was. But there was no invitation for me to come join her on-stage, as it were.
But that was okay. I’d always known from the beginning that Luna was a lesbian, and I harbored no illusions that her sexuality would somehow magically change, especially after her declaration as such earlier tonight. And although an outsider might take a look at my life and assume I was a manslut out to nail as many hot babes as I could, I was still “Safe Matty”: the man who would always respect whatever boundaries the girls set.
Besides, if I’d said it once, I said it a thousand times: I had more than enough pussy for any one man to handle at the same time. A willingness to sit down on my dick was not a requirement for BTC membership, and it was actually something of a relief to know I would never need to satisfy Luna’s sexual urges in addition to the girls I already had.
But she still made for nice eye candy, you know? And if she was getting comfortable enough with my presence to not really mind my appreciative view… well… I was gonna enjoy the view.
So I watched Luna orgasming in a scissor position with Mari while my Angel nibbled on her neck.
I watched Luna orgasming on top of a sixty-nine with Belle.
And at the very end, I watched Luna climaxing right in front of me.
We both reclined flat on our backs, side-by-side. Belle had been riding me, but she dismounted at the last moment to scoot down and wrap her lips around my throbbing cock. I held my impish pixie’s head in my hands, groaning my ecstatic release as I thrust my hips upwards, erupting my last load straight to Matty’s Little Cumslut’s sucking mouth.
“FFFFUUUUCCCCKKKK!!!” I groaned, letting my head flop to the right.
“AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!” Luna howled, letting her head flop to the left.
Luna’s eyes were open and a little bit glassy, so at first I don’t think she realized she was staring right at me. Mari’s face was in her crotch, and she held the brunette’s head in her hands in much the same way I was doing to Belle. But as the force of her orgasm washed through her entire body from head to toe, her eyes cleared…
… and she smiled at me.
“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” I grunted in unison with my final three thrusts into Belle’s greedily gulping mouth.
“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” Luna yelped immediately after, grinning a silly grin of supreme satisfaction as she luxuriated in her own orgasmic ecstasy.
We stared at each other from inches away, our faces close enough to kiss if I merely leaned over just a bit on the pillow we happened to share. Not that I felt tempted in the slightest to actually kiss her.
We were friends.
Not lovers.
And that was perfectly cool with me.
****
We all went to bed fairly early to get a good night’s sleep, and I woke up the next morning sandwiched between a pair of busty BFFs: Belle on my right side and Mari on my left. I was the first one awake, and my morning wood deflated by the time the other two girls started to stir. I kissed them both and then slipped out of bed to get dressed and head downstairs.
Sam and Zofi were up early and making brekkie for everyone. I went to kiss both girls and rub their asses. I also offered to help with breakfast, but Sam pointed with her spatula, saying, “You can best help out by waking up everyone else. Most all of them will be happier to see your face first thing in the morning instead of mine.”
I chuckled, gave Sam one more quick kiss, and then headed back up the stairs. Belle and Mari were both up and going through their morning routine. In the twin-beds room, Alice was half-awake and staring at the ceiling with unfocused eyes. Eva was still slumbering, but after I gently kissed her, she took hold of my arm and clutched it to her chest like it was her personal teddy bear before finally opening her eyes and giving me a sleepy smile.
Luna had gone back last night to the triple room, and I found her spooned up in bed with Naimh cuddling her close while Skylar slept on the Murphy bed.
I went to the elder blonde first, who was curled on one side with a gap in front of her midsection wide enough for me to sit on the edge of the mattress. I soothingly stroked her shoulder, upper arm, and back. Skylar’s eyes remained closed, but she started to smile in her sleep at my gentle touch. After about a minute, she took several deep breaths and then eventually opened her eyes. Only then did I lean over to kiss her lips, and when I sat back upright, she gave me a serene smile.
Then I moved over to Naimh’s side of the queen bed and spooned myself behind my Squeakers, who herself remained spooned behind Luna. My Irish redhead hummed happily as soon as she felt my body’s warmth surrounding her, and she reached back with one arm around my lower back to hold me close.
“Dia duit, Matty,” she murmured quietly.
“Maidin mhaith, Neevie,” I replied warmly.
“It’s too fucking early,” groaned Luna.
Naimh and I both laughed, and my redhead opened her eyes to look back at me and then puckered up for a sweet kiss. I happily gave her one, goosed her ass, and then rolled off the bed and left the room.
Alice emerged from her room at the same time, gave me a sleepy fist-bump, and then went into the hallway bathroom.
Eva then whined “Matty…” through the open doorway, so I went inside. She extended her arm to me, I took her hand, and then chuckled as she tugged me down onto the bed beside her and rolled over the other way. It was a tight squeeze on the twin bed, but we made it work, and I cuddled Eva in my arms for several minutes, to the point where she started to fall back asleep. But then all of a sudden, a sharp pain against my ass made me jerk and turn around.
Alice stood next to the bed, smirking down at us and waving her hand as if ready to deliver another healthy spank. “Rise and shine, dude and dudette. You’re putting us behind schedule.”
“Do that again and it’s your ass that’ll be red.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” Alice smirked but lowered her palm before turning and sauntering to the door, shaking her tight little tush in a way that made me appreciate that those nude in high heels boot camp sessions hadn’t gone to waste. Then my good and proper sex kitten best buddy stopped at the door to use the frame for support as she leaned just enough to stick her booty out and shake it in my direction. I swear I could practically hear bells in the background with each shake.
I promptly leapt up, tackled Alice onto her bed, and gave her ass the promised spank, much to her cackling delight.
Eventually we all got food, got dressed, and got out the door. We parked in The Village, took the Village Gondola to the Canyon Lodge, and collected our lift tickets and rental equipment. Most of our group rented skis again, but four of us got snowboards. After Eva and I told everyone last night that we were doing a snowboarding lesson with two more slots available, Alice and then Naimh had been quick to join up. Alice said she’d wanted to learn how to snowboard for a while now, and Naimh just wanted to spend more time with me after spending most of the previous day away.
After spending years having trouble walking around in clunky, stiff ski boots, I was pleasantly surprised by the flexible comfort of snowboarding boots. Right then and there, I declared I would never return to skiing again. It was also nice being able to carry a single snowboard rather than deal with two skis and two poles that never wanted to stay closed together.
Eva, Alice, Naimh and I said goodbye to the other six, with an agreement to meet up at the Canyon Lodge cafeteria for lunch. The four of us took our gear over to the flagged Ski School area to meet our instructor, Slade, who turned out to be a college-aged dude with shaggy, shoulder-length blonde hair and bright eyes who finished every other sentence with the word “bro”. He seemed delighted to meet the girls and gave me a rather envious look while offering up a gloved fist-bump. And if my eyes didn’t deceive me, Alice seemed rather delighted to meet Slade as well.
We spent a few minutes getting oriented with our boards and the unique way of stepping into our bindings, with two small metal bars to the sides of our boots that latched into the board mountings. Then, we all took turns walking a little way up the gentle slope and then slowly skating back down. Next, we learned how to dig in one of the edges – either toe side or heel side – to create drag like the famous skier’s snowplow to slowly move downhill in a straight line.
Learning how to carve on my toe side was easy, but the heel-side carving was a complete disaster, at least at first. The whole position felt completely foreign to me. Skiers bend their knees and lean forward to move and turn, but the move required me to squat and lean back, something my body did NOT want to do. Several times I failed to dig in my heel edge, my board went flat, and when I instinctively knelt forward, I wound up falling flat on my face.
Alice thought it was hilarious, and she got Slade laughing at me too.
In fairness, I probably deserved their derisive laughter. I’d performed every previous lesson with aplomb, taking to snowboarding like a duck takes to water, and my ego had been puffing up a bit. Humbled by my failures, after the third fall I didn’t get back up right away, instead remaining down on all fours for an extra few seconds to collect myself.
“You alright?” Eva asked, down on one knee without her board next to my head.
I glanced up at her with a sheepish smile. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
Eva laughed and shook her head. “A wise man once said, ‘Success is not determined by how often you fall. It’s determined by how often you get back up.’”
I snorted at her quoting me. “Does that make me a wise man?”
“It makes the fortune cookie you stole it from a wise man. C’mon. Get up.” Eva offered me her hand. I took it and let her help me up. And once we were both standing, Eva grabbed her board and gestured up the hill. “C’mon. Let’s go again.”
“Easy for you to say: you’re already a pro at this,” I told her. And she was. For all of Eva’s difficulty learning how to ski yesterday, she’d turned out to be the most natural snowboarder by far, much to her relief. She apparently surfed and skated in goofy stance and had gotten her snowboard likewise configured. She’d picked up all the basics quickly and was already carving in S-turns while I was struggling to swing back and forth on a single edge like a falling leaf.
Eva canted her head to the side and gave me a serious look. “Do you remember encouraging me yesterday after watching me struggle on skis?”
I nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“Did you want me to remain angry and frustrated, or accept your encouragement that I’d get there eventually?”
“Accept my encouragement, obviously.”
Eva tapped her nose twice and smiled. Then she pointed me up the hill.
I felt better.
And I got better at snowboarding, too.
By the end of our session, I felt reasonably confident I could navigate any beginner or even intermediate runs without looking like a complete idiot. Worst case, I could face uphill, lean forward and dig in with my toe edge, and just sort of snowplow my way down the mountain in a straight line. On the gentler sections beneath the Schoolyard Express chairlift, I could do both a toe-side and heel-side falling leaf with ease. And while I could still sometimes lose my balance and crash doing an S-turn, I still completed more turns than I failed.
Eva’s natural ability and my rapid development meant that the two of us spent most of the lesson on our own. While the four BTC students and our instructor would take the chairlift up and then assemble together, Slade could usually just send me and Eva off while he paid more attention to Alice and Naimh. Then Eva and I would meet at the bottom with a few extra minutes to hang out and chat.
Naimh wanted to spend more time with me, and she always sat next to me on the chairlift ride up. But she was clearly the worst snowboarder of the bunch, and as such needed more instructional attention, not that Slade minded in the least. She had a positive attitude and was quite receptive to taking direction. Plus, she was a stone-cold babe in braided red pigtails with a pretty, freckled face. But while she smiled and listened to Slade’s instructions, she showed absolutely zero interest in flirting with our instructor. And she went out of her way to make absolutely clear that she was taken, even calling me “boyfriend” two or three (dozen) times.
Alice, on the other hand, was probably a better snowboarder than she let on. But rather than chase me and Eva down the mountain, she preferred to hang back with Slade and Naimh, make flirty comments, and even laugh while smacking our ski instructor’s upper arm.
I didn’t think Alice was angling to go home with the guy at the end of the day. But if she did, I wouldn’t have been that surprised.
Ultimately, Alice never did anything more than light flirting, for practice if nothing else, and she didn’t exchange phone numbers or anything like that. The four of us said goodbye to Slade and then headed for the lodge to meet up with the others in the cafeteria.
We found that Belle, Zofi, Skylar, and Luna had commandeered a large table while Mari and Sam had gotten in line to go order food. I left Naimh, Eva, and Alice with the group and then went to go join the other two.
Mari exclaimed a happy “Matty!” when I arrived and wrapped her arms around my neck for a hug and a sweet kiss.
Then, when I turned to Sam for a hug and then another sweet kiss, a guy further back in line audibly exclaimed, “Duuuuude! Did you see that?!?”
His buddy promptly slapped him.
Sam and I chuckled, used to that kind of reaction by now. Sam and Mari then asked me about the snowboarding lesson, I asked her about their morning ski runs, and we chatted amiably until it was time to bring our food back to the table.
We sat five on one side and five on the other at the table: Naimh, me, Luna, Belle, and Mari on my side. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I still heard Luna lean into Belle and ask, “Do we split up the check later or something?”
Belle whispered back, “I told you not to worry about it.”
“I can’t NOT worry about it.”
“Seriously: don’t worry about it.”
Luna sighed, and she must’ve felt me looking at her, because she shot me a glance. I gave her a reassuring smile and gestured forward towards the pile of overpriced burgers, pizza, chicken tenders, fries, chili, and Gatorade bottles in front of us. Sam cut a cheeseburger in half with a knife, took one half, and then passed the plate with the other half to Naimh. I grabbed myself a slice of pepperoni pizza, a small bowl of chili, and then shoved a bunch of French fries into the chili. And Luna took a slice of cheese pizza and nothing else, at least until Belle cut another cheeseburger in half and slid the second half in front of the “skeletal waif”.
“Eat up. You need the calories,” Belle insisted.
After lunch, the ten of us collected our gear and rode up the Canyon Express. But once we hit the top, we split into two groups based on ability. After babysitting the slower girls all morning, Sam was itching to try some harder runs. So she took Zofi, Belle, and Mari on an intermediate Comeback trail route while the rest of us would take the Easy Rider beginner slope all the way down to The Mill. And from that point on, our two groups would do our own separate things until we each decided to go home. Sam would drive her girls home in her Escalade while I’d bring the others back in my minivan.
I was used to being a leader of the group, but on a snowboard I felt far less sure of myself. Skylar, on the other hand, was a better skier than she’d given herself credit for. The English blonde wasn’t a black-diamond expert, perhaps, but she was still pretty decent, especially after getting schooled in the fundamentals during yesterday’s ski school lesson. Eva was fast enough (and now confident enough) to keep up with her at the front of the pack, although the two of them would frequently stop to look back and make sure the rest of us were together. Alice was indeed a better snowboarder than she’d initially let on, and she would frequently be the first to catch up to the two of them. So that just left me with Luna and Naimh.
Luna wasn’t a bad skier by any means. She was just… slow.
Well, a better descriptor would perhaps be “careful”. Luna was a careful skier. Her skis were rarely pointed downhill, and she liked making slow, shallow S-turns. So while she didn’t fall much, if ever, she never raced ahead of us, either.
Naimh, on the other hand, should probably have stuck to skis. She kept falling. And she kept apologizing. And she kept falling even more.
If I hadn’t just seen her struggle through the snowboard lesson, I might’ve thought she was falling on purpose just to get more attention from me.
Not that I minded. I rather enjoyed feeling like a big, strong man always helping my girlfriend get up. Rather than be upset that she was slowing me down or anything like that, I relished the opportunity to frequently hug her, steal little kisses, and even grab her ass a time or two in the name of “helping” her maintain her balance. And I liked teaching her what I had learned about snowboarding: how to maintain my balance, how to switch from one edge to the other, how to lean over like I wanted to grab the front of my board in order to get it to turn in that direction.
“I didn’t think I could love you any more!” my vivacious redhead gleefully cheered after she’d successfully navigated a series of S-turns. She then promptly tackled me into the snow, grabbed my head, and gave me a very fierce, very passionate kiss. And when she pulled her head back up to gasp for air, she beamed a pearly white grin at me, finishing, “But I do.”
I had a brief vision of raising a white gossamer veil over my Neevie’s face, tucking it back, and hearing her repeat, ‘I do.’ And despite my well-known aversion to getting married just yet, it was a very pleasant vision indeed.
Our little group took run after run after run. It was quite rewarding to watch Naimh improve before my very eyes. A basic tenet of education is that true mastery of a subject comes when you’re able to teach it, and I found my own snowboarding improving as well. And soon, both Naimh and I were leaving Luna in our metaphorical dust.
Not that we’d actually abandon Luna or anything. For one thing, our group of six had split into two groups of three by now. Skylar, Eva, and Alice were clearly faster than Naimh and Luna, and even though I could certainly keep up with them, I’d volunteered to stay with the “slowpoke” group and keep teaching Naimh.
We’d made an agreement to continue taking the Gold Rush Express chair and then ski or board down the now-familiar Solitude-to-Easy Rider trails back down. I figured the faster group would go ahead and catch up to us slowpokes within two or three runs, and once we’d regrouped we could decide how to continue.
Now that it was just the three of us, Luna would typically start skiing first, navigating her slow-and-steady S-turns with care. I’d head downhill next, facing uphill and doing falling leaves so I could monitor Naimh’s progress above me and watch her technique. If I caught up to Luna, I’d stop and let Naimh pass me by. And then I’d switch to riding heel side and watch both of them from above, ready to catch up and lend assistance if one of them crashed.
I say “one of them” as if Naimh wasn’t the one doing all the crashing. But as the afternoon went on, she crashed less and less. Given that she was also moving faster than Luna, there were times that Naimh and I had to pull over to the side and wait for our friend to catch up.
One time, we completely missed Luna going by. We’d been a little preoccupied sucking each other’s faces.
But usually, we’d easily spot Luna in her borrowed dark blue jacket with light blue panels over Belle’s white snow pants as she cruised by, giving us a sunny wave with one hand as she did so. Sometimes Luna would stop with us to catch her breath and we’d chat for a minute or two before continuing. Sometimes Luna would just keep going, Naimh would peel out after her, and then me. Naimh and I would catch up and pass Luna again. And we’d repeat the whole cycle again.
It was… routine.
Until suddenly, it wasn’t.
Things started off pretty well. Naimh and I had cruised ahead and then pulled over to the side to wait for Luna to catch up. It was our third time down this same run, so everybody knew where to go. Our route continued straight along a gentle slope that meandered back and forth across the mountain in a wide S-curve of its own. We stayed away from the far-right side of the trail, which dropped down an intermediate/advanced trail called Lower Dry Creek.
At least, that was what we usually did.
As I said: Luna was careful. She skied slowly but safely, took wide, shallow turns, and rarely ever pointed her skis downhill. She tried apologizing for being the slow one holding us up a few times, but Naimh and I had repeatedly reassured her that we were in no rush. Naimh added that she was more than happy to get extra snogging time with me, after all. So in short: Luna continued to ski slowly, never seemed in any rush, and almost never fell down.
But then she accidentally went the wrong way.
Luna wasn’t trying to ski down Lower Dry Creek. From my vantage point behind both her and Naimh, it looked like Luna was simply taking another one of her long, wide turns. But then she didn’t turn away from the far-right side of the trail as quickly as she needed to. When the slope suddenly steepened, she didn’t veer back to the Easy Rider route as hard as was necessary to avoid going over the edge. Luna’s instinct when she felt like she was going too fast was to simply hold her line traversing the mountain laterally, and maybe even point a little bit uphill like my snowboard falling leaf technique. The problem was, in order to stay on course, she really needed to turn instead.
But she didn’t turn. And she started going down the wrong way.
“Luna! Left! Left! Left!” Naimh called when she realized what was going on.
Belatedly, Luna tried to turn. But then her skis got pointed downhill – down a very steep section of snow – and all of a sudden Luna was moving faster than she’d ever skied in her entire life.
“Shit,” I muttered as I pointed my board downhill and started moving faster than I’d ever snowboarded in my life to try and catch up to her. But at least I’d skied much faster than this before, so I didn’t panic when the cold wind started whipping past my face.
Naimh came to a stop near the tree line at the fork in the road where Easy Rider continued to the left while Lower Dry Creek dropped off to the right. I shot right past her and caught a little air as I went over the edge of the cornice, and my skiing experience trained me well to tilt my board down so that I wouldn’t slap my tail on landing and would instead hit with both feet at the same time. Luna was just ahead of me, and I hollered her name, “Luna! You’ve got to turn!”
I had no idea if she could hear me, and as the wind rushed past, I had to assume she couldn’t. She was frozen in fear, standing up straight with her skis pointed straight ahead of her. At least she wasn’t pointing straight downhill anymore, but rather at a diagonal cut across the trail. But she was still picking up speed and running out of real estate, heading straight for the trees.
“LUNA! TURN! TURN! TURN!!!”
I was picking up too much speed myself, so I had to start carving left and right, otherwise I’d probably end up crashing as well, which wouldn’t help anybody. Thankfully, Luna seemed to have snapped out of her momentary panic, and she started to slowly turn her skis towards the side of the trail and level out. I thought it a minor miracle she hadn’t fallen over sideways already, although as she got closer and closer to the trees, the more I wished she’d simply spin out right there in the snow. Better to crash here than to blast straight into an unyielding tree trunk.
“LUNA!!! SIT DOWN!!!” I hollered one more time.
And then she ran out of room.
Miracle of miracles, Luna did not crash straight into a tree at high speed.
She went directly to the left of a tree at high speed.
Sorta.
Almost.
The front tips of Luna’s skis went directly to the left of the tree. The back tips did not. Those smacked right into the tree as she didn’t quite turn out of the way in time, her ski bindings immediately releasing the skis from her boots as they were violently wrenched in an awkward direction. Her right-hand pole also hit the trunk, and since the strap was looped around her wrist, her right arm got yanked back and sent her body spinning. I watched her pop up into the air and twist around like a figure skater doing a triple axel. She even had her left arm up above her head as she spun.
And then she hit the ground.
