Emily Sanders was happy. In fact, she was very happy. Her vacation was turning out perfectly, by far surpassing her wildest expectations. At first she had been reluctant about going out into the middle of nowhere, alone, but now she thanked herself for being brave.

Normally she was far from the adventurous type. When a friend of her father's offered to loan her his cabin, her first response was, "No way!" He told her to think about it - and she did. It was her pride that finally made her accept.

She mentioned the offer to some colleagues at work. Her friend Sally agreed with her that it really wasn't such a good idea for a city girl to go out into the wild on her own:

"You wouldn't wanna get eaten up by some hungry ol' bear, would ya, Em?"

Emily didn't want to get eaten up by anything. Still, she grew more and more excited with the idea of seeing the forest and the mountains up close, for real.

In the end it was Dennis Larson who tipped the scales in favor of going through with it. He came up to Emily in the coffee room and stated, with a superior smile on his lips, that no woman, even if she had the guts to try it, should be allowed to venture into the wilderness on her own - she would just get lost or hurt herself.

Emily had always had a streak of defiant pride in her, and she really couldn't stand Dennis' attitude towards women. He was a condescending, chauvinistic bastard. This time - Emily decided - she was going to prove to him that women could be both brave and able to take care of themselves. The next day she declared to Sally - making sure that Dennis Larson heard her every word - that she was going to accept the offer and spend her vacation out in the wild.

Emily reveled in the surprised look on Dennis' face. "This is almost as good as giving him the great big kick in the balls he deserves," she thought to herself and smiled broadly.

Later that same day, Dennis entered her little cubicle with a feigned look of worry on his face.

"Emily, a young lady such as yourself shouldn't be going on such a trip all alone," he exclaimed.

"I see," Emily replied, knowing what was coming - Dennis had tried hitting on her before - always with the same charm.

She vividly remembered the day she saw Dennis have an argument with a lady friend on the company grounds, right outside an open window she was near.

She saw Dennis try to hand the woman a dozen roses and receive a slap and a view of her backside as she walked away from him in return. In apparent anger he tossed the roses in a garbage can and started off towards the office building. Then he stopped, turned around and retrieved the flowers from the garbage can.

A few minutes later, back in Emily's cubicle, Dennis entered with a big smile on his face, wielding a dozen roses, and told her that he was taking her to dinner. She declined, of course, and she heard Dennis mutter about "Ungrateful bitches," under his breath.

"Are you sure you really want to do this?" Dennis' question returned her focus to the present.

"Yes, Dennis, I'm sure."

"Well then . . . I had made plans for my own vacation, but I shall change them and come with you instead, just to make sure you get through this vacation alive."

Emily had expected some sort of come on, but this was over the top. He was acting as if it would be very generous of him, and with her safety in mind. Emily suddenly felt like a pressure boiler. She stared angrily at him.

"Yeah, right! You would like that, wouldn't you?" she almost shouted.

"Wha . . . I'm only offering to look after you," Dennis replied, trying to look hurt through the evident surprise on his face.

"Sure, whatever. The answer is no," Emily said, her voice calmer now, and turned back to her work, ignoring the man behind her back.

Dennis stood there for a few seconds, trying to think of something to say, then gave up and angrily stomped out of her cubicle, mumbling something about "Women . . ."

Emily smiled, surprised and delighted with her own boldness and the way she had handled Dennis. She usually didn't have it in her to be so assertive towards men. She wouldn't go so far as to say they intimidated her; she was just a bit uncertain about how to handle their attention.

Emily seemed to get more of that attention than she really wanted. She knew she wasn't a bad looking woman, but she didn't think of herself as extraordinarily pretty, and she most certainly did not flaunt her looks. Her clothes were always conservative, she kept her long, dark brown hair in a tidy bun and she wore very little makeup. She thought her body was nothing special. She was slender, almost skinny, and had a sort of frail look about her. Her hips were a little bony. Her breasts were firm and shapely but quite small. All in all, no centerfold material.

Still, men would sometimes turn their heads as she walked by. Emily couldn't figure out why. She didn't understand men. Sometimes they could be sweet, kind, charming and just wonderful. Sometimes they were quite the opposite - self-centered, uncaring, tactless brutes, only after one thing. Emily had come to think that the good side was often just a clever disguise a shrewd man would use to get that one thing from a woman. She hoped that theory would be proven wrong.

Emily had nothing against sex; she just wanted something more from a man. Actually she liked sex, and she masturbated quite frequently, taking great joy in the wonders of sexual climax. Sex with men had never been that great for her, though.

When she was 14 she got really drunk for the first time - and lost her virginity. She didn't remember much of the act itself besides the sudden pain and - moments later - the guy collapsing on top of her, already half-asleep. What she did remember was the shame she felt afterwards. The worst part was that she didn't even remember who the guy was, and that made her feel like a slut.

But she had gotten over that first episode. She knew she was not to blame, that she was no slut, and that she wasn't the only woman to have a less than perfect first time. Sadly, her subsequent sexual encounters hadn't proven much better. Many times it had felt just like a repeat performance of that first time. The pain wasn't there, but neither was the satisfaction she craved. Most men simply didn't posses the skill or the capacity to push her to the heights of ecstasy. She was 28, and the best lover she had ever had was still her own hand.

The shortcomings of her sex life were the last thing on her mind now, though. It was the beginning of her third day in what she had come to think of as heaven on earth, and she felt better than she ever had before.

The cabin was simply adorable. It certainly wasn't big, and not overly luxurious, but its cute little windows, its open fireplace and the comfortable old furniture made her feel perfectly at home. It looked nice both from the in- and outside. It was the location that made it perfect, though.

Emily was a city girl. Up until two days ago her impression of nature had been limited to parks, beaches, and the occasional, distant glimpse of the real thing - besides pictures and film, of course. Now she could hardly believe what she'd been missing. The scenery outside the cabin was . . . breathtaking. She could not remember ever seeing anything as beautiful.

The sun shone from a clear, blue - really blue, not smoggy gray - sky, creating patterns of light and shadow on the ground below the crowns of the huge, magnificent trees. Everything seemed to go in a wonderfully warm hue of green and brown, even the moss-covered rocks. And in the distance were the mountains . . .

The mountains had made a profound impact on her. When she first laid eyes on them she had been awestruck. Looking at, and thinking about, them almost brought tears to her eyes. They seemed so close in some way, like she would be able to reach the foot of the nearest one if she walked towards them for an hour or two, but she realized it would probably take days in reality.

It wasn't only the things she saw that amazed her though. There were smells, too. The smell of fresh, unpolluted air, and the scent of warm forest. And sounds. The whisper of the gentle breeze through the trees, the soft murmur of the little brook she had stumbled upon, not far from the cabin. Oh, and the feeling of the soft ground under her newly bought hiking boots. She was mesmerized by all of this - spellbound.

Emily had spent most of the first day sitting on the wooden bench in front of the house, just watching, listening, smelling and feeling. There was a feeling of serenity she had never experienced before, and it soothed her, effectively dispatching of her anxiety about being alone, far away from civilization.

She had taken a short course on meditation technique once, but never quite gotten the hang of it. She didn't seem able to really relax and let her mind go. Now she didn't even have to try. She could close the floodgates of her brain on that boiling torrent of thoughts, leaving the riverbed of her mind empty and exposed to the sensations of shining sun, fragrant forest and whispering wind, just as easy as shutting her eyes.

After her first day of revelation she had gone to bed with a big, silly grin on her face and slept more soundly than she could remember ever having slept before. She woke up feeling like a new person.

She felt totally refreshed and eager to greet the new day, not at all tired like she usually felt in the mornings. She enjoyed the cool feeling under her feet as she put them down on the floor. She stretched like a kitten, then set out for the little kitchen. After getting bread, butter, cheese and some other groceries she sat down at the table to have breakfast.

Emily surprised herself by spreading a thick layer of jam on her first sandwich. She usually took care to prepare and eat meals suiting for a proper and mature woman - that meant not putting a ton of jam on your sandwich, like some little kid. Today she didn't care. After hungrily eyeing her jam with sandwich for a couple of seconds she stuffed it in her mouth and chewed. It was wonderfully sweet. Once the whole thing was gone she gingerly licked her lips and the jam that had stuck to the corners of her mouth.

After finishing her breakfast Emily decided she was going out to explore the surroundings, but first she was going to take a shower. She went into the little bathroom, let her robe slip off of her petite body, reached into the shower stall and turned the faucet. There was a loud *KLONK* and nothing more. No water. "Damnit, I knew this was too good to be true," Emily sneered. Then she smiled - she had an idea.

About a hundred meters from the cabin was a pond - she had seen it the day before. Emily slipped her robe back on, stuffed her feet in her boots, went outside and trotted off towards it.

As she reached the pond she hesitated for a moment. The water was perfectly still, the surface like a black mirror. There was a thin, milky mist drifting just over the dark water. It was beautiful, but there was something about it that made her feel ill at ease. She wondered if anything could live in a pond like this one. Fish perhaps? Or . . . Emily frowned at herself. "There are no such things as monsters," she thought and smiled at her own silliness. Still, she couldn't blame herself; there was something mysteriously dark and foreboding about this place. It felt like it would be a crime to break the perfect stillness of the surface.

Emily shrugged. Again she let the robe slip from her shoulders, leaving her naked except for her untied boots. She had never gone skinny dipping before, and a couple of days ago she wouldn't even have given the idea a second thought. Now she felt a little excited about it. She stepped out of her boots, tiptoed over to the edge of the pond and dipped a foot into the water. The temperature didn't seem too bad.

Emily took a deep breath and jumped right in, causing a big splash. The water hadn't felt so cold when she dipped her toes in it, but now it felt freezing. She surfaced and gasped, just barely stifling a shriek. Then she thought, "What the hell, I'm all alone out here, none's gonna hear me," and yelled at the top of her lungs. When her scream died out she had a little giggling fit, which was unusual for her. She swam around for a couple of minutes, getting used to the cold.

After a little while it wasn't at all unpleasant. She started to enjoy the water's cool caress against her nude body. The pond was quite deep, so she had to tread water to keep her head above the surface. Soon she realized that the combination of the chilly water, the rhythmic flexing of her legs and the thought of being buck naked out in the open was getting to her. She was getting horny.

Mental images started popping up in her brain . . .

Emily felt something grab her wrist and started pulling her down. It was the monster from the black lagoon! She screamed. Just as she was about to be pulled down into the depths, a brave and handsome hero appeared in the water. He dove down with his knife, killing the monster and saving her from certain death. When he reappeared, asking if she was okay, she threw herself in his arms, kissing him. Together they swam for the shore, ending up on a sunny beach. They kissed again . . .

From that point Emily's fantasy evolved into some very steamy sex on the beach.

Emily put her hand on her breast. Her nipple was rock hard, probably more due to the cold water than her hot feelings. She pinched it lightly and grinned at the delicious jolt that shot through her body, down towards her lower regions.

After massaging her breast for a while she let her hand slip across her body, down between her legs. She cupped her sex in her hand, squeezed gently and began to rub herself. It felt nice, but it didn't take long for her to realize that it was going to be quite a challenge getting off like this. Masturbating while treading water was awkward to say the least, and the cold was starting to make her numb and insensitive. But she kept at it. After several long minutes she could feel her body starting to react in earnest to her ministrations. She shuddered and began rubbing faster. She let out a moan, which sounded louder than she had intended, but that didn't matter.

Suddenly she yanked her hand from her crotch and froze. She was being watched, she was certain of it. She looked around nervously. There was a rustle from the tree line and she panicked. She threw herself towards the edge of the pond, heaved herself up and started running towards the house, nude and barefoot.