I agreed immediately. I had hiked those trails as a little kid, but it had been years. I must admit, the thought of walking with her and simply holding hands was strangely exciteing to me – which was odd when you considered all the fucking and sucking we had done. In some way a walk sounded even more intimate, though.

We arrived at the trailhead with at least three hours of daylight left, which was plenty considering the entire loop was less than two miles long. Ann grabbed a blanket from the trunk of her car – a rough looking thing that looked like it was used mostly as a car cover. "In case we want to sit," she said, then added as she closed the trunk door, "or something."

Or something did not take long. Ann started like a bat our of hell down the trail, slightly ahead of me, and I got to watch her fine ass move under the folds of her green courderoy skirt for several strides before she stopped, turned, and her out her hand for me to take. We walked down the nature trail hand in hand.

We had walked perhaps a half mile when she led me off the trail. I had noticed that she was gazing at me with a strange look on her face for most of the walk, and now she led me up a grassy slope to a stand of trees that crested the hill we had been circling. The trees were growing in a circle, which is common for spruces, and there was a flat spot in the middle. She spread the blanket out there and sat down, folding her legs gracfully beneath her.

I stood for a moment, watching her face, then said "What's the plan, Ann? You have something in mind, do you?" I was still taking that sort of masterful, I-am-in-control-here tone with her, but in point of fact I was delighted.

"Oh, of course," she said, smiling prettily, "but first I wanted to explain something to you, and to ask a favor. Please, sit." She patted the blanket with her open hand.

Intrigued, I sat. I could not think of a thing to say, so I waited until she was ready to talk – she was obviously nervous, but there was also a nice sort of ease between us that I wanted to bask in. After a while, she began to speak.