Seekers After Lost Things

Chapter 14: Seekers After Lost Things

I woke up alone the next morning. I’d expected that. Kaitlyn had just met me, and I’d put her through a whirlwind of change already. I wasn’t going to push her any harder; I was lucky she hadn’t scampered already.

Dawn’s growing blush forecast a warming of the Earth’s cool countenance, but right now, my toes were downright frigid. I’d folded the blanket’s bottom edge under my feet last night to keep the warm air in, but I must have kicked it open in my sleep. I tucked up into a semi-fetal pose to make some slack, flipped my feet upward, knees on the ground, allowing the end of my blanket to drop down and back towards my butt. The draft washed my legs in coolness, but I dropped my feet down quickly to trap the tail, restoring my Davie burrito’s thermodynamic integrity. I tucked my knees up tighter, and my feet began to warm up.

I had morning wood. The easy manual fix to the problem wasn’t really available to me. My tent was just a few feet from Kaitlyn’s, and two layers of cloth was no barrier to noise. I was trapped in my blanket by my socialization; I was not going to stand up in front of her like this, so I just lay there and tried to zen out, to get my mind off of my little problem.

I was starting to doze back off when I noticed that I’d succeeded in getting my mind clear, so before I could start thinking about my danglies again, I decided to unwrap myself as quick as I could to shock myself awake, then stand up and immediately begin sublimating my feelings in activity and other distractions.

I stood and let my bedclothes slide down my body, then skinned into my cold clothes, shivering with the sensation. I rolled my woolen blanket and cotton sheet up into a cylinder and stowed it in a waterproof sack; there’s nothing worse when camping than cold and wet bedding!

Kaitlyn got up once I’d started stomping around, and we decided to revive the fire for breakfast but to use my food this time. I’d brought along some oatmeal, intending to eat it cold, but warming it up was much better. We sliced in pieces of a fresh apple I brought with me, toasting them slightly on a fork first. Nummy!

We puttered around the campsite a bit, by which time the sun had peeked up over the edge of the canyon wall. I addressed Kaitlyn, “So, my plan today was to start on that canyon cleanup project.” She nodded. “And that means I’m getting naked and going off hiking again.” She just raised her eyebrow. “So, I was wondering if you were staying behind or going with me?”

With two quick peels, she slid off the light sweatshirt and sweatpants she’d brought along as pajamas. She wasn’t wearing any underwear underneath. She was beautifully bare, tresses-to-toes. “What are you waiting for, then? Are you suddenly embarrassed to be seen naked now?” she teased, with a smirk.

I got back out of my just-warmed clothes, jammed them into another waterproof sack, then picked up a large net bag I used for hoisting loose stuff up into trees to keep animals away from it. I’d put my first two batches of litter from yesterday into one of the little trash sacks I put in my backpack to carry out my own trash, but I knew I was going to need a bigger bag today.

“All righty, then. We’re going to turn this into your second lesson, Kaitlyn.”

She smiled, clearly approving this plan.

“You remember yesterday that I had you stretch out to find a big tree. That was an easy task, because it sits out high in a natural field, easy to sense. As you go along, you’ll be able to see smaller and smaller protrusions into the natural field. But today, we’re going to go the other direction. Unnatural objects feel like they’re pushing back the other direction; ‘downward,’ by contrast, if we view the natural objects as ‘upward.’ Dents rather than bumps.”

She nodded, clearly following my point.

“Part of our problem is that we’re carrying along a bag full of the stuff, so it’s going to be a distraction for us as we go along. However, the tallest bumps in the field will be from the things that are most full of life. So, if we find a large smooth rock and drop this down on it, the ‘weight’ of these unnatural objects won’t be pushing down on anything alive, so there won’t be a dent in the field. That’s why I piled up the trash that way yesterday, off to the edge of the canyon, up on those sandstone shelves.”

“Got it,” she said.

“Distance also helps,” I reminded her. “So, what we’re going to do is move up the canyon one section at a time, set the trash bag aside somewhere that it won’t distract us, lay out, and then start looking for dents in the natural field. Those are probably litter, and we can then go straight to them and retrieve them. Some of it we’ll just see on the surface, but a lot of it is going to be buried in sand and such.”

“That’s how you found my gum wrapper yesterday!” she exclaimed.

“Bingo,” I confirmed.

“This is going to be fun; let’s go!” she said, clearly eager to get started. She wasn’t excited to start picking up trash: she was excited to start being a mage. I know I was when I was piecing this stuff together on my own.

“First things first,” I admonished: “we’ll be away from camp for hours, so we need to butter up before we leave.”

Kaitlyn nodded, spun, and dug in her pack for her sunscreen. I could not help but notice she did so by bending at the waist, straight-legged, giving me quite the flash, so much so that I could tell that she’d shaven her outer labia, clearly exposing her prominent inner labia. She had a full-width but neatly-trimmed bush up front, but with nothing below, I knew the bush was an affectation; she’d made a conscious choice to keep it. Interesting.

Then I saw her peeking, one eye around her leg. By Thompson’s toes, she caught me! Not only caught me, but I was stiffening up at the time! I spun quickly and dug in my own pack for the SPF 10 stuff I use, which is plenty for me, as dark as I am. I stayed facing away, covering myself fast but being careful to stay away from my manhood, because the last thing it needed was to get stroked with smooth, white, creamy… Aaaigh! Focus, Davie!

I finished quickly, put my sunscreen away, and turned back around, only to find that Kaitlyn was taking her time. I thought about turning away to give her a smidge of privacy, but then I realized that she was trying to put on a show, and I’d been ignoring her. I’d been unkind not to watch.

She’d already done her upper half, so for me, the show began with her rubbing the cream into those nicely rounded hips. Then she went around to the valley of Venus, down her inner thighs, over her calves, and down over her feet. Up the ankles, up the calves, up the outer thighs, up the buns. Back down the buns through the crack. Then she squirted more sunscreen into her hand and went over everything again to make sure she didn’t miss anything. Finally, she sat down on a rock and paid more careful attention to her lovely feet.

She didn’t keep her eyes entirely on her work; she glanced at me from time to time, each time with a smile, but also a hint of challenge. Then she surprised me by tilting her head a bit, asking, “You missed a spot, didn’t you? The rest of you is shiny, but Mr. Happy there…” She trailed off, waiting for my response.

“Um…yes. Well, I decided I didn’t need to… Oh, by Ritchie and Turing!” I exclaimed, calling on the spirits of some of the higher powers this world has seen, our lives richer for having lived after they made such large dents in the history of computing.

She got the strangest look on her face, then a thoughtful one. She knew from my exclamation that I was flustered, but I was flaccid, and I knew she was wondering why. The fact is, I’d been calling on all of my considerable powers of meditation to keep Mr. Happy as he was, pointing down.

She set her mouth into an expression of determination, squirted a good dollop of the strong SPF 50 stuff she used on her lightly tanned skin, walked over, and in the most businesslike way possible applied sunscreen to my genitals. “Can’t have your bits getting burned up, no no. That would be a crying shame.”

Through it all, I remained flaccid. I consider it one of my better magical feats. Trust me, it wasn’t easy.

When she was done, she backed up a step and just looked at her handiwork for a few seconds, then got a look of mixed irritation and satisfaction on her face. “Well, good then.”

“Thank you,” I said in a weak voice, just loud enough for her to hear.

She just spun and put her sunscreen back in her bag.

Sigh.

My new student was just plain slow, and I would now be getting bored except that my lack of activity kept allowing my mind to wander to Kaitlyn, who was laying out naked, just feet away. It was a good thing I couldn’t see her without sitting up. I kept having to re-center myself. ‘Ignore the beautiful naked girl laying just feet away! Look up! Study the clouds,’ I kept admonishing myself.

It took Kaitlyn a few minutes at each site to get into a trance before she could start to reach out and find the unnatural bits around her. Then she’d find a piece of trash, retrieve it, then take another few minutes to get back into trance and lay back down to find the next piece. She started getting a bit faster, but I had a huge advantage: a lifetime of growing up in a culture that valued meditation. My facility with the practice also kept me from doing anything embarrassing.

In the time I sat there waiting for her to get into trance each time, I began to think there had to be a better way. At the next section, I said, “Kaitlyn, I want to try something here. Get into trance, then just lay back and watch mentally. See if you can feel what I’m attempting.”

I lay down, head-to-head with Kaitlyn as we’d been doing since yesterday, and this time instead of trying to sense the ‘dents’ that the unnatural litter objects were pushing into the natural field, I started to push up against them, to lift them to the surface. I couldn’t touch the unnatural trash with my magic, but I could push the sand the trash was embedded into.

Imagine a rectangular swimming pool that’s had a bucket full of Wiffle balls dumped into it; they’re lightweight but denser than water, so they sink quickly to the bottom. Further imagine that you’ve got four people, one in each corner of the pool, each holding onto a net, and they all start lifting the net. Pretty soon, the balls start poking up from the surface of the water. That’s what I was trying to do with the trash, with my will. Shortly, it started working!

Once I could see that all the trash was at the surface, I let the spell go, sat up, and looked around: a bunch of little cones of sand, each with a piece of trash sitting teed up on top, easy to see and pick up! Awesome!

“Did you see that, Kaitlyn?”

“Yes, I did! I’m not sure I could do it myself, but I definitely saw it!”

“All I did was push on the sand below each of the dents at once. With this method, we should be able to move along much faster, doing a whole area in a single operation. Tell you what: how about I leave you at the next section to work on that one while I go pop the next several sections and come back to see how you’re getting on?”

Kaitlyn didn’t look happy at being left behind, but she agreed it’d be good practice. Besides, the alternative was that I’d pop the trash up, and she’d have to just run around and collect it. At least this way, she’d still be trying to do magic.

I’d used my new technique that way on four more sections of canyon when I heard Kaitlyn calling from back down-canyon, “I got it, Devindra! I got it!”

I jogged back down to her, watching her jump around in glee. She was terribly cute. And bouncy, too! Between that sight, her high spirits, and my meat and two veg flopping about as I jogged up, I began to get a semi-erection. I’d been intending on giving her a congratulatory hug, but I pulled up short in front of her instead now, trying to get myself back under control.

“That’s great, Kaitlyn! I figured this technique out just hours ago, and you’ve already duplicated it!”

She’d settled down and was clearly holding herself in some kind of restraint as well. “Now I know what it takes to get your attention,” she said with a quirk of her mouth.

“You’ve had my attention since you levitated me with fright yesterday, Kaitlyn,” I replied, with as much jocularity as I could manage.

“So, a little girl frightens the big ol’ nature mage?” she teased.

“A bit, yeah, actually. I don’t know how much it shows, but I’m not very good with people. Especially girls,” I admitted.

“I know how it is,” she said with feeling.

Then she walked up to me, grabbed me in a hug, pulled my face down to hers, and kissed me cross-eyed. I grabbed up sand with my toes. My semi filled out long and hard, and my hand slid down her back and grabbed a handful of firm buttock. My other hand went up, stroking her shoulder blade, her shoulder, her smooth neck. Then my hands slowly exchanged places, one going down her side to the other buttock, the other coming up to her upper back.

And we kissed. Long, hard, and passionately.

Then I just looked down into her pale green eyes with wonder. And kissed her again.

“Your move again, shishya. Though I think I have to warn you, I’m not sure we can have a guru-shishya relationship if this goes any farther,” I warned.

She thought a bit, then said, “I think I like what we’ve done so far.” Then she stepped back and ran up the canyon. “Next section is mine!”