She slipped between the curtains and added three more pillows to the floor.
She surveyed what she had made. It was good. And if it was true, as she hoped, it would withstand the tsunami surely to come. Importantly, from one end you could see the moon high above the trees, almost full, and white as the sun.
She flopped on her back, unlaced her sandals and listened to the sounds of silence. The lake rippled but did not break. The air sat heavy on the pine needles. The forest wild slept. And her own wild quietly grew a lagoon in her underwear.
She heard footsteps. Through her eyelashes she watched as a hand holding a lantern moved the curtain aside and all at once illuminated the fortress. Their temporary oasis made from the objects found on the veranda.
A fleece blanket, striped pink and purple, was their vaulted ceiling. One wall was the wicker loveseat they’d shared earlier (where she’d stuck her bare feet under his leg and leaned in close to smell his collar). The white sheet her brother had lent her was their door. And the fourth wall (for the third was their lunar view) was the two wicker chairs they had not used, and the white cotton dress she had worn in the lake yesterday. Now the dress hung between the two chairs, and it wafted into the fortress as he moved the white-sheet-curtain aside.
He lowered himself to his knees, put the lantern down beside him, reached across the tent and lay his hand upon her bare thigh. She could smell his hair was still wet. He had used her shampoo.
She shifted her body from its position to make room for him. And turned off the lantern. The moon would soon shine directly into their fortress, but until that time she wanted to feel her way across his skin.
She knew his feet would stick out of their fortress. He was the size of a giant oak tree. Thankfully, this oak would withstand the storm that was gaining momentum between her thighs.
