THREE MORE VODKAS and we call it a day. Rain rolls in pelting the deck with drops the size of jawbreakers. The wind whips the lake into a frenzy, shaves off the wave-tops, turns them into a frothy mist that spatters against the hard rocks on the shoreline making them slick. Lightning flashes like fireworks. The mountain-tops pop from the dark like a brush-stroke off a painter’s canvass. Thunder rumbles through the valleys like a runaway freight train. Inside Otter Lodge, The Uke has stoked a blazing fire in the hearth that will warm us till dawn.
After a light dinner of fish with boiled potatoes, we retire to a guest room with bunk-beds.
“Yay, slumber party,” Gabby says.
I take the top bunk, Gabby the lower. All through the night the wind whistles between cracks in the window frame, cracks in the doors. The rain lashes at the pane beating down hard on the rooftop, keeping me awake. I shiver beneath a flimsy duvet.
About three in the morning, Gabby joins me. “So cold,” she whispers.
Laying on her side, she spoons, cuddles in close. Despite myself, the warmth of her body on mine excites me. Turning to face her, I am fully aroused. Our lips meet.
“Not hung like a hamster after all,” she says, taking me in her hand.
For the next hour, we make love. Quick and frenzied at first, like the wind and the rain, then a second time more slowly as the force of the passing storm subsides.