Jen's Legacy.

She risked opening her eyes again. He was standing, ashen faced, looking down at her, staring at her as though she were a complete stranger to him, which she was, or a ghost.

“Who…? He blushed. “You are not, Jen. Who are you?” He continued to look at her, waiting for an answer. Then it came to him, as he remembered the previous day.

“You are... Claire.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to look at her again. She was still there, and hadn’t changed.

“But how can you be Cl...?”

He was apologizing for having mistaken who she was, while standing in front of her, entirely naked and obviously confused. That other thing of his was obvious too.

“I am sorry. I forgot…. I thought you were someone else… I didn’t mean to confuse you with….” He never said what he was thinking, but struggled to find that other name again… “Claire.”

He said her name as though having difficulty recalling it, and who she was.

He began again. “Yesterday?”… he pointed up to the top of the canyon and then at the river, re-living everything in his mind as if he was just now recalling what had happened? He seemed lost.

“The river. Yes….”

He was still getting her mixed up with that other woman that played some intimate role in his life, and he struggled for something to say as he lifted the pan from beside the fire to set it in the sand beside her where she could reach it without getting burned.

“Last night?” He had a pained look in his eyes. “That was the first reasonable night’s sleep I’ve had for months.”

He recalled why.

“I seem to remember that we were together, holding each other, warm, touching, ki.…” He faltered again. Thinking of what he had been doing didn’t help his condition, which began to change again.

“Sleeping. I didn’t…?” He couldn’t put his thoughts into words, but he was concerned about something… just as she was. “Did I interfere…?” He looked at her, waiting for a response from her. “Last night?” He tried to explain. “I don’t remember.…”

She eventually caught on to what he was asking, wondering if he had taken advantage of her; interfered with her in a truly personal way. Didn’t he remember?

Didn’t he know he was still naked, or that he was becoming more aroused as he’d talked and looked at her? She couldn’t point anything out to tell him or it might get worse for her.

He had interfered with her as they’d been sleeping together, and yet he hadn’t really; just enough to keep her awake and her nerves constantly on edge, but not interfered with her enough to harm her.

She blushed and shook her head, not wanting to speak, not entirely sure what he was asking her, or meant by that word, ‘interfere’.

She wouldn’t tell him how he’d mistaken her for another woman, and had been touching her familiarly, but only in a gentle, exploratory kind of way, as though to make sure she was close to him, and which way she was facing, and that she wasn’t cold, and to be sure that she was a woman, as his hands had explored her body, but only in a non-threatening way, though it had taken her a while to realize what was happening with him.

His hands had drifted over her body in a way that nonetheless made her nervous for a long time. She had not fought him away, though she had been close to it once or twice, except he’d been asleep.

It had taken her a while to convince herself of that--that he was sleeping--so she had captured his hand and held tightly onto it, moving closer into him and putting her arms over him or around him, once she knew why he was doing that, and bringing an end to that exploration. As long as he could feel her body against his, he didn’t do much else. It was only when she drifted away from his touch that he reached out to find her and to bring her back to him.

She wouldn’t remind him of any of that if he didn’t remember it.

She shook her head again, which was what he had been waiting for. He looked relieved.

He pointed back at the river. “That was one of the few times I’ve had chance to wash-out all of my clothes that well, since I started walking, a couple of weeks ago.”

He continued talking, trying to take both of their minds off what had happened and the embarrassment to them both, but he still didn’t seem to know how naked he was, or how shy, she was.

“I made tea, and I hope you don’t mind fish for breakfast. They were biting this morning with the right bait.”

He was still embarrassed about not knowing who she was at first, but did not seem to be concerned about his nakedness, except, he suddenly seemed to become conscious of that too, stooping to pick up his undershorts from by the fire, and pulling them on (she felt relieved for the first time, although they didn’t do much to hide his difficult condition), then he picked up his shirt and shorts, holding them closer to the fire to dry out more quickly before putting them on too, before she could say anything.

They were both tongue-tied at what had happened, still struggling with embarrassment, but for very different reasons.

He avoided looking at her, concerned about her impression of him, and of him possibly having scared her.

He shook the sand out of his sleeping bag and rolled it tightly before tying it to the straps beneath his back-pack. He stood by the fire to get his clothes to dry better, pausing to turn the fish, using his knife and a flat piece of wood, and moved the rock they were on, closer into the hot ashes, robbed for words at that moment, still worrying about what she thought of him, and hoping that he had not scared her, but knowing that he had.

Now that the truly embarrassing moment had passed, she reached for the pan of hot tea, rapidly cooling now, and slurped at it, before passing it to him.

He felt gratified that she felt like sharing with him after all of those gaffes. More explanation was required. “I didn’t mean to shock you like that… I’m sorry, I completely forgot who you were… and where I was.” He tripped over his words.

She’d seen that.

She took the pan from him again in a back-and-forth exchange, as he knelt by her, and that allowed him to see that she had not been so shocked by his nakedness that she couldn’t function, and that she accepted his strange apology. She was learning that he was not a threat to her in the way she had most feared, despite what she had seen of his bodily response to her.

He tried to take both of their minds off what had happened.

“After we’ve eaten, we can head up there. I think we did agree on that last night. Didn’t we…?” He didn’t seem sure of anything, anymore.

Had he already forgotten?

“…that we wouldn’t stay here?” He pointed up the impossible slope to the equally impossible crags above them.

She nodded.

She was not sure if she could climb up there, but as he’d said, she couldn’t stay here and wait for a rescue that could be too late, or he would have to stay with her. She would have to trust him again, but it would be a lot easier now. She could trust him.

She wanted to laugh at how embarrassed he had been, never mind her. It was a relief to know that he could be embarrassed. Too many males couldn’t be.

“We can eat anytime.” He pulled the slab of rock out of the fire with his knife and pushed the cooked flesh off the bones with the back of his knife, to make a complete and satisfying meal for them both. They ate in silence, each with their own disordered thoughts.