Alone

it's not a new sensation for her. Lately her husband has been working every possible hour nights to earn more money. To get ahead. What this means to her is that he is gone off to work by the time she gets home with only a curt text message saying he let the dogs out.

But lately, this being alone has turned into a jagged stone in her belly, a sandbag in her head. Too heavy to bear. Since moving to the country she has no one familiar with whom to visit, commiserate, only her dogs. She has taken to traveling the country roads for hours on end. Mindlessly searching for something, anything that would give that feeling of connection, belonging, and love.

In her travels she discovered a little used fishing area in a forest preserve running along a river. Every now and then there will be fisherman there, but they go to the river for fish, not to visit with a woman alone with her thoughts. For the last three nights, since discovering it, she has been drawn there, to the solitude of the suspension bridge over the farm culvert that leads to the trail to the river.

On her second visit she invited her husband to join her when he sent a text on his night off. But he was off on his motorcycle and enjoying himself. Alone again, she sat in the middle of the bridge and sipped her beer. Enjoying the swing and sway as the fisherman came and went, but wishing for arms around her, lips to brush her neck.

On her third visit, a very dark evening with the promise of heavy storms, she sat as usual on the bridge, drank her beer and smoked her cigarettes, a new habit to deaden the weight of loneliness. As the storm built, she was alone, no fisherman ventured out to this secluded place. She thought of the building pressure in herself, the emptiness of not having someone to hold her, scold her for being morose, love her. She placed her hands above her head on the cable and felt the yearning for the stretch of her muscles, a sudden desire to be tied to the cable. Possessed by a lover who would fill this need. When the beer was gone and the storm breaking both around her and in her, she lay back on the bridge and ran her hands over her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. Feeling the rain falling down on her trying, wishing it would wash away the need. But the tension in the air only added to the tension in her body. Each crash of thunder, only made her body quicken, desiring now the contact of any type, she slipped off her shorts and began to caress herself. Knowing, and not caring, that no one would venture out and find her. Feeling the warmth of her lips, the wetness of her need. She fantasized about a lover who would tie her to this very bridge and take her. Stretch her desire and take what he wanted. She rubbed furiously at her clit and lips, every now and then plunging her fingers into her empty, waiting vagina for more moisture, to quench her need. The orgasm, when it came was a relief of some of her tension, but was empty. There was no lover to hold her, caressing her body whispering his pleasure in her ear.

On her fourth trip to the river she gave into the pull of the water and stripped away her clothes, her inhibitions, waded into the moonlit water and floated in the arms of her imaginary lover. Her breasts floated on the water like two white orbs, to match the moon in the sky. She reached up and played with her nipples, imagining once again that the emptiness could be filled, that the hands on her breasts were that of the man she loved. Rolling over and diving into the depths, she felt engulfed by the warm water, completely in tune with the needs of her body.

Floating free on the river, her mind given over to need and desire, again she began to stroke herself, floating weightless she attempted to bring that harmony, that weightless release of sweet orgasm as she rubbed and fondled herself. The tension built, and ebbed like the gentle waves of the river. A lover teasing her to distraction. Finally in one last explosive push she burst with ecstasy into that realm of peace, floating above herself. Her need, for now, assuaged.

She climbed back out of the river, collected her clothes and stood naked, drip drying on the bridge. Still alone, but with her secret lover, the river, no longer quite so lonely, knowing it would be there to fill and surround her again, when the emptiness became to unbearable.