Sunlight peeked through a hole in the canvas above her, and try as she might Alicia couldn’t turn away to avoid it. The strange woman behind her snored loudly, and she finally had to admit that she wasn’t getting back to sleep.

The morning air whistled in through the seams in the tent, and she shivered under her blanket. Her second night here, and she was still shocked by how cold the badlands could be. She’d found herself huddling with Patty for warmth, and in the light of day she was glad that her sister-in-law had probably been too drunk to remember any of it.

She rolled as far upright as the tiny shelter would allow, feeling her stomach groan with the movement. Her third beer the night before had been a mistake. She’d just turned nineteen and it had been the first time she’d been able to drink without sneaking it from her parents or batting her eyelashes at some hunky idiot of a bartender, but she’d overdone it and was paying the price. She blamed Carlo. Handsome, generous to a fault, and he seemed to have a never-ending supply of brewskies hidden in the back of his pickup truck.

Everybody loved Carlo, girls especially. How he’d ended up with her fat and stingy sister Maria of all people, she’d never understand.

Carrying the blanket with her, she carefully stepped over Patty and Luisa and unzipped the tent flap. Not only had the other girls imbibed their share of Carlo’s stash, but they’d also taken some herbal biscuits that Luisa had bought from some burnout in Jasper. They’d taken a bad trip in the night, and Alicia didn’t expect to see them upright before noon.

It was quiet throughout the campsite, the faint smell of smoke still lingering from the previous night’s bonfire. Alicia sniffed. No, the wind had blown that away overnight. The smell was coming from her – clinging to her clothes, her hair and her skin. She briefly considered changing out of her skimpy tube top and shorts, but decided not to bother the girls. She’d warm up once she got her blood moving.

And she remembered how Carlo had looked at her, dressed like that, her newly bleach-blond locks shaken loose and swaying in the wind. She wasn’t his wife’s little sister anymore, no sir. Alicia had been an ugly duckling all through high school, and out here, in the middle of nowhere, she was finally getting to spread her wings.

She turned her attention to the tent opposite the one she’d left. She put her ear against the canopy, but heard nothing other than slow breathing inside. Good – she hadn’t wanted to interrupt the newlyweds in the middle of their morning glory.

“Psst,” she hissed. “Maria?”

There was a shuffling noise from inside the tent. “What?”

Maria didn’t sound pleased. Had she eaten some of the biscuits as well? Alicia couldn’t remember.

“Maria, I’m covered in soot. Does this place have outdoor showers?”

“Outdoor…?” An unladylike snort came from inside. “Yeah, because we sprung for Six Flags. There’s a bucket and shampoo in the truck.”

“You expect me to wash myself from a bucket?”

“You can jump in the river for all I care. Fuck off and let me sleep!”

Alicia heard Maria’s considerable bulk turn over behind the canvas and she knew the conversation was over. What a grouch, she thought. Still, there was a grain of truth to what her older sister had said.

Her headache began to subside as she followed the trail down to the river’s edge. The sun had just made its way over the canyon, lighting up the badlands in shades of red and orange. The water sparkled in the morning glow.

 A beautiful moment, and no one to share it with. Carlo could have at least lent her his camera.

She dipped her toe into the stream. The water was cool but not cold, though she was a little worried about the current. She glanced down the bank in both directions, but there were no fishermen or kayakers about.

Alicia made a decision. She tugged at her top.

“Say cheese, Allie!”

She yanked the fabric back into place, too slow. A light flashed before her, and she threw up a hand to cover her face – just as she recognized Carlo behind the camera.

Spots danced in front of her eyes.

“Whoops,” she heard him mutter, “I forgot I still had the flash on.”

“You ass! I had my fucking tits out!”

She hurriedly adjusted her top and turned back to him, trying to clear her vision enough to glare at him.

Her sister’s husband smiled guiltily. Alicia had always liked his smile, even with his uneven teeth and that ugly mustache he’d grown over the last year. Carlo thought that facial hair made him look more mature, but if it were up to Alicia she’d have shaved it off in his sleep.

“Look, you were standing there admiring the sunrise and it made for a good shot. I didn’t know you were about to strip.”

“You could have said something.”

Carlo shrugged. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. Friends again?”

She hadn’t expected the apology, and it caught her off guard. She nodded reflexively, and Carlo started to wind the film back.

“Do you… want to try again?” she offered.

He glanced back at her. “You don’t mind?”

“You’re right, it’s a beautiful scene. But if you want, I could go wake up Maria and you could try doing it with her…”

Carlo bit his lip. He was silent for a moment, and then he raised the lens.

“Just as you were before. Same pose. Think the same thoughts, if you can remember them.”

Alicia giggled, but complied. She stepped in the water again, watching the wake form around her foot. Carlo squatted on the sand behind her, raising a hand above his eyes.

“We haven’t had much time together since the wedding,” he continued. “You’re going to school out east, right?”

“Business studies. It’s boring, but once I’ve got my degree I can get a job anywhere. Toronto. Montreal. You’re never going to see me again.” She glanced back at Carlo.

“Don’t look at the camera,” he reminded her. She heard a click. “And good for you. You’re as smart as you are beautiful. You’ll do great out there.”

An entire swarm of butterflies took flight in her stomach. “You really think I’m beautiful?”

“Yeah, well, it snuck up on me. Don’t tell my wife, okay?”

She turned back to the sunrise. There was another click, and a grunt. Alicia wondered if she should hold her pose, but then felt Carlo’s body behind her. His hands were rough, but his touch was soft as he carefully moved her elbow up and away from her body. Apparently satisfied, he stepped away.

Alicia hadn’t even realized that she was holding her breath.

Carlo picked up his camera again. “Honestly, I’m jealous of you. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. For me, it’s all downhill from here.”

“You’re what, twenty-six?”

“And married. And the oil company pays great, but if I ever leave it, your sister’s never going to be able to raise a family on a waitress’ salary. You ever think of having them? Kids, I mean.”

Alicia had to laugh. “Can you imagine me with a kid? I’d probably ruin his life.”

Carlo didn’t seem to register her answer. “But hey, maybe I can make a career out of taking pictures. Maria’s got to love that idea, right?”

The thought of her sister happily married to a photographer got another chuckle out of Alicia, but Carlo continued to frown.

“Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure. It’s not the light. It’s not you. What else has changed since—“

He looked Alicia up and down. He snapped his fingers with a sudden epiphany.

“It’s your shirt, uh, thing. It’s gotten wrinked since the first shot. Maybe you can smooth it out or iron it or…”

He was right – she’d tangled up the bandeau in her hurry to get redressed. Those wrinkles wouldn’t come out until she could wash and air-dry it. “Or…?”

Carlo smiled weakly. “Or… we could shoot without it?”

“I…” Alicia’s breath caught. “I don’t think we can put that in the family album.”

“For my portfolio, then. You could be my own Dayle Haddon.”

She couldn’t help blushing. She’d heard those kinds of compliments from the skirt-chasers at school, of course, but those boys were like a dog with a car – they wouldn’t know what to do with her if they caught her. Carlo… Carlo was a man.

She pulled her top off, slowly, using her elbows to keep Carlo from getting another eyeful. To his credit, he took up his position again only to kneel patiently with the camera, waiting for the shot.

“…And pose.”

She turned back into the sun, the light warming her face and breasts. Her hair was a mess and she still reeked of smoke, but this man – this man that she’d known for years and who was just starting to see her as a woman – this man had said she was beautiful.

“That’s a million-dollar smile there, Allie. Hold it.”

There was a click. Then silence. Somewhere downstream a grebe cackled.

“Carlo?”

She felt her hair on her shoulder part at his touch. He pulled it back softly, his warm breath at her neck. His smell overwhelmed her – old beer and tobacco and something else, something musky. Masculine. She held back a moan.

“Is that in the shot as well?” she managed.

“No. It just looks better this way.”

His other hand circled her waist and started moving down, fingers pointed with intent. He’d laid down his camera in the scrub some ten paces away. It was just the two of them.

“I’m going to miss you,” he murmured.

And Alicia realized, she was going to miss him, too.

She wasn’t some kid. She’d played the game, under the bleachers, in the backseat of a station wagon. She’d never given it away, always left them wanting. She would wait until she was ready, she told them.

He reached under the loose waistband of her shorts, his fingers trailing through the rough jungle between her legs. She couldn’t see him smirk, but the line of his jaw tightened as he pressed on through the brier patch and found his way to the oasis below.

He paused. She felt the weight of his ring against her short hairs.

Had he changed his mind? Or was he waiting for her to make the next move before he took it all the way?

Alicia reached behind her, blindly grasping for his crotch. A crease in the front of his shorts grew stiffer at her touch, and Carlo groaned.

His lips parted. “We shouldn’t—“

“Don’t,” she whispered back, her fingernails tracing the outline of his dick. God, he was big, but she supposed he’d have to be if he was trying to stick in Maria.

Her sister had never deserved him. She’d spent this entire trip complaining how it was so unfair that her honeymoon and Alicia and Luisa’s graduation had been rolled into the one road trip. As if their family could afford both. As if it might not be the last chance they’d have to see each other before they went their separate ways.

Fuck Maria, then.

“I lied, you know,” he whispered in her ear. Her anger and resentment faded at the sound of his soft voice. “You’ve always been beautiful to me.”

Carlo started to thrust from behind, his restrained cock joining in rhythm with his fingers. Alicia let out a ragged gasp, her legs trembling beneath her. She was sure she was going to fall, to sprawl out on the rocks, but Carlo’s strong arms kept her aloft, never stopping. He nibbled at the nape of her neck, the air from his lungs hotter than the sun above them.

Something was welling up in Alicia’s core, something that she’d never felt with another person - only by herself, under the covers late at night with the lights off and the blinds drawn.

It rose within her like steam from a kettle, burning her skin from the inside, her hairs standing on end. This was—

“Oh!”

The feeling washed over her, ebbed, and then washed again. She fell back against Carlo, who lowered her carefully to the ground with a beatific smile and a hard-on that she could have seen from a mile away.

“Far out, right? Now do me.”

How could she not? She unzipped his shorts hungrily, only to find her own had fallen halfway down her hips while Carlo had his hand down there. She bit her lip and rose back to her feet, unbuckling her pants as she went. She rolled her waist in a mock hula, letting the denim slide tantalizingly down her legs as Carlo feasted his eyes on her breasts and her lush beaver.

Just before the shorts would have hit the rock at her feet, she kicked her leg upward. Distracted by the sight of her body, Carlo never had a chance. He reacted too slow, the cloth missile catching him square in the face. He snatched it up before it hit the ground, dropped it, and then caught it again. 

Ecstasy still pounding in her veins, Alicia laughed. Taking a step back to catch her breath, she slipped on a wet stone.

The river swallowed her before she knew what had happened. Carlo disappeared, and it was only the current, the splashing of waves and a flash of jagged stone rushing past her.

She reached for the surface, but the current had turned her around, There was no sky anymore, no birdsong, only the relentless pounding of water.

The riverbed struck her back like a freight train, driving the last breath from her body.

Ave Maria, cheia de graça, she thought, remembering her grandmother’s words.

I’m going to die a whore.

And just then, the sky returned. Air flooded burning back into her, and she sucked it in deeply. Water continued to wash over her, but she had stopped moving. Gravel scraped at her back. She was maybe sixty feet from where she’d fallen in. The river was wild… but not deep.

She could see Carlo approaching her, his steps quickening as he saw her head rise. He was holding Alicia’s discarded clothes in either hand.

His voice faded in and out as her hearing returned. “Thank God!” she heard, and “Are you alright, Allie?”

As the stream lapped at her ears, it struck her that he never called her by her name. Like she was no more a woman in his eyes than she was a month, a year, five years ago. Still Maria’s little sister. Her silly, gullible little sister.

He reached her side, hauling her to her feet with hands that felt far less gentle than before. She took in the cuts and bruises that scarred her naked body, and spat a last mouthful of the river back to its source. Reluctantly, she let Carlo carry her back to the shore.

They both redressed without a word, the silence only occasionally broken with a cough from Alicia. When they reemerged at the campsite, it was to Maria humming over a billy pot steaming over a new and more subdued campfire.

“I thought someone should make some coffee after last night,” she grumbled as they approached. “The other girls are still asleep, but…” she trailed off. “Allie, you’re soaking wet. You didn’t—?”

Maria’s mouth dropped, and she ran over and wrapped her sister in a meaty hug.

“Please tell me you weren’t so stupid that you actually tried to jump in the river!”

“It wasn’t like that, Maria. I got too close to the edge and I fell in. I was just lucky that Carlo was around to pull me out.” She gestured to the man behind her.

He offered a weak wave.

The expression on Maria’s face shifted. She looked to her sister, to her husband, and then back to Alicia. Her lip wobbled, and she loosened her grip.

“Coffee will still be warm for another few minutes,” she stammered. “You should change out of those wet clothes.”

Alicia shrugged. Maria had been like that all throughout the trip – switching back and forth between protecting her and hating her. It had gotten to be too much to handle, but this time – this one time – it was kind of heartwarming.

She’d gotten as far as the entrance to her tent when she remembered that her clothes were still dry. She hadn’t been wearing them when she’d fallen.

She looked back to see Maria lifting the pot out from the fire. Carlo leaned forward, offering to help, but Maria swatted him away. There were tears in her eyes.

She cried for the rest of the trip, and it would be years before Alicia found out why. But by then the damage had already been done.