In the afternoon Claire straddled her ten-speed Peugeot and bicycled fourteen miles in a couple of hours to her evening job at the lodge, where she worked as hostess in the restaurant. Henry would meet her at the end of her shift, spend half her tips on drinks at the bar with buddies from the fire crew and their girlfriends. Half tipsy then they loaded her bike in his pickup—their bike, their pickup—and motored easily, idly through the woods and past the open meadows where deer grazed in the moonlight and up the dirt lane under the aspens to their cabin and tower on the highest point of the entire Kaibab Plateau. The air would be chill by then but a fire was set in the stove: Henry lit the fire and by its light undressed her (tired poor working girl) inch by inch and rolled her on her belly and putting his large hairy hands to practical use massaged her neck and ears, her shoulders, her shoulder blades and back, the small of the back above the twin dimples at the base of her spine, her rounded, full and lightly suntanned rump, her thighs calves ankles feet toes—and then, and then he made the return journey up her legs but always hesitated, paused near the midpoint of his pilgrimage to bite each plump buttock once, not too gently, and to roll her over again or perhaps to simply slide upon her as she was, belly down, and spread her legs with his knees, take the nape of her neck in his teeth, grasp her breasts in each hand, whisper sweet vile proposals in her ear before inserting himself to perform his duly obligated lawfully approved formally licensed divinely consecrated conjugal duty. She murmured in reaction, half asleep, then less asleep began to whimper like a child, like a girl, like a roused and dangerous woman until she had squeezed from that curious inner-space probe of his the last full measure of devotion. After which, sprawled and tangled limb on limb, they slept and snored innocent as babes in the wood. This sort of thing went on and on for weeks, months, years, shocking the great horned owls of the forest, the star-nosed moles beneath the cabin floor, the giant fur-winged Luna moths that gathered outside the window screens.

On rainy days he came down from his tower. If the air was cold and she wanted to continue practice he built a fire for her. This often led to the usual collusion:

Come on. I can’t. Come on; two more times; you can do it. Henry, I can’t. We’ll set a new world’s record. Most multiple multiple-orgasm by WASP wench in lookout cabin in southwest USA since Frieda Von Richthofen Lawrence diddled Mabel Dodge Luhan in the men’s room in the Taos Inn. I’m tired; you’re disgusting. Think about what we’re doing; feel that? I feel it. Then come again. I can’t. You can.

She could. Afterward, in the rain, they wandered through the spruce and fir picking morels, puffballs, chanterelles, wild onions, wild currants and strawberries, lamb’s quarter, pokeweed greens. She believed in a diet of fresh and raw vegetables. He preferred pigmeat, poached venison, potatoes, gravy and beer. They compromised by trying everything, culinary and sexual, that seemed mutually appealing.