Write 'Em Cowboy

She gulped and nodded.

"Okay. One. Two. Three — push off!"

She surged out away from the snake and came floating right into my arms. She wrapped her arms tightly around my neck and began sobbing her heart out.

I held her, gently stroking her back. I murmured words of comfort in her ear and kissed her on the temple. I also kept my eye on the snake. It watched us for a moment, then gaped its mouth again and gave me one final hiss, before slithering up onto the bank and off into the brush.

Portia stopped crying but continued her tight hold around my neck. Now that the snake was gone, I began to pay attention to other things, such as the warm, wet, and very female body pressed up against me. I did not sprout an immediate boner but realized that I was rapidly becoming boner-adjacent.

I said, "Portia? What say we get out of this damned river?"

"Oh, hell yes."

She pulled my head down and kissed my cheek, and then released me from her grasp. Was it my imagination, or did she seem somewhat reluctant to let me go?

I retrieved my tube, and we began our walk/float downstream. After a few hundred feet, we headed for a low spot on the left bank and staggered out of the water. I dragged our tubes and our cooler up on the bank — the opposite side from that damned water moccasin. Before sitting down, we did a careful scan all around the ground, because fuck snakes. Then we collapsed side by side on the ground and didn't move for several minutes.

===

PORTIA

I looked around. "Where the hell are we?"

"Beats me. Any minute now I'm going to get up and look around."

It turned out to be about 20 minutes later before either of us moved. It's amazing how exhausted you can get from passively floating in an inner tube — plus a few moments of extreme terror. Betty was right — I needed to get more exercise.

Harry leaned toward me. "Hungry?"

I blinked. "Hmm?"

"We still have some snacks in our cooler."

"Huh. You're right. Yeah, sounds good."

A bag of pretzels had never tasted that good before. I washed down my last bite with a swig of wine and let out a mighty burp.

Harry gave me side-eye. "Your eloquence astonishes me."

"Can't help it — I'm a professional writer."

We both snickered at that.

My snicker morphed into a whimper, and then I was crying again. Harry leaned over and put his arms around me. He didn't say a word — just held me.

After a minute, I stopped crying. I took a deep breath and let it out. "God, Harry. I thought I was going to die!" I sniffled. "You were amazing. You talked me off the ledge back there. Jesus — you even calmed that snake down!"

"It was just responding to you. Once you calmed down, it relaxed too."

"If you say so. Thank you."

"You're very welcome. I'm just glad I could help."

"Well, a lot of guys wouldn't. Every guy I've ever been involved with before would've just kept on paddling and left me to die."

Harry asked gently, "Do you want to talk about it?" I glanced at him, and his eyes were full of sympathy.

I looked down. "No, not really. But... I'll tell you anyway." I grimaced. "My ex. Turns out he was an asshole. And not the lovable kind." I gave him a pointed glance, pausing to collect my thoughts.

"It took me way too long to figure it out, and it took me even longer to finally kick his ass out. That's when it started getting scary. He began stalking me, showing up at my events, and just... standing there. Leaving notes on my car or on my front door. Calling me. I finally had to get a restraining order and change my number. Thank God, so far that seems to have solved the problem — I haven't heard from him since.

"But... not knowing where or when he might just appear? I became a bit of a recluse, and it has really affected my writing."

Harry said, "Wow, that really sucks. I'm sorry you had to go through that." But then he smirked a little, and said, "Maybe you just need to start dating outside of your usual demographic."

I glared. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Seems to me that you have a 'type': Asshole-Americans."

"Would that include you?" I smirked at him.

"Well, partly. But I consider myself more of a situational asshole," he said with feigned haughtiness.

"What the hell does that even mean?"

"I jerk people's chains, but I don't fuck them over."

"So, hanging out with you would involve a certain amount of chain-jerking?"

"Count on it. Probably every day. You hang your pigtails down over my desk and they're going in the inkwell."

"But I could also count on you to save me from the occasional velociraptor?"

"Yep. If one chases you, I'll rope it, skin it, and make it into a pair of boots for you, darlin'."

"Raptor-hide boots? That would be pretty cool." And the best part? I believed that he actually would.

===

HARRY

Now that I had fed her pretzels and plied her with wine, it was time to make my big move. I leaned over, moved my face a few inches from Portia's, and said, "You know what I would really like right now?"

She looked deeply into my eyes and moved close enough for me to feel her breath on my face. "What's that?"

I moistened my lips and moved yet closer. "More than anything, I want..."

She licked her lips and breathed, "Yes?"

I pulled my face back, and said, "I want some dry clothes! How about you?"

She sputtered, and said, "You sonovabitch!" This was followed by melodious laughter, and then, "Well played, Casanova! You have an unconventional way of getting a girl all wet and excited, and then doing your damndest to talk her out of her panties. Odd, but effective."

I raised the last of my wine and toasted, "To wet panties coming off!"

She laughed and lifted her cup, "To dry panties coming on."

I grinned. "And maybe some quality time in between."

She blushed.

I downed my wine and stood up. "I'm going to go see a man about a horse, then figure out where the heck we are."

I really did need to pee after all that wine. Eyes still alert for sneaky serpents; I trod warily over to the bushes and did my business. I explored a bit more and found that we were on the edge of a grassy playfield.

I ambled back to Portia and said, "Looks like we landed right next to a city park. Why don't we carry our stuff over there and I'll call for a ride on my Apple watch."

I helped Portia up, and we slogged through the brush to the park. We dropped our gear, and I rang up the ranch. They had been expecting us about a half-mile further downriver but were happy to swing by and pick us up.

Ten minutes later, we were wrapped in towels in the back of a pickup, heading back to the dude ranch. They dropped us off in front of our rooms. As they drove away, Portia gave me a damp hug, and whispered in my ear, "At this point in the story, it's time for the grateful heroine to rip her clothes off..."

She gave me a quick kiss on the lips and added, "...in her room, alone!"

I snickered. "You jerk a pretty good chain yourself, lady. See you in a half-hour for lunch?"

"It's a date!"

===

PORTIA

Getting those wet clothes off and standing under a hot shower were the most sensual things I'd done in six months. Visions of Harry doing the same thing next door added a little extra frisson to my ablutions. If I had had a detachable showerhead and a bit more time, I would have used it to give a little extra attention to a few specific body parts.

I dressed and then went next door to Harry's room. Just as I raised my hand to knock, he opened the door and smiled. "Now that I finally got you to drop your panties, I suppose I should buy you lunch."

You had to admire his confidence. But I rolled my eyes. "Alone in my own room hardly counts, Harry. But yeah, you should. However, it'll have to be some other time — this dude ranch is all-inclusive, cheapskate."

He regarded me for a moment and exaggerated stroking a nonexistent beard. "I'm really looking forward to that 'all' part that you say is included."

I shook my head. "Asshole."

"Hey, it's situational."

I pulled him out the door. "C'mon. Let's go to lunch."

===

HARRY

She pulled me in close as we walked over to the chow hall — close enough to catch the clean scent of her. For the remainder of our walk, I was distracted by thoughts of Portia taking a shower.

We had lunch with Bill and Joe, who gave us a play-by-play of their round of golf. Mercifully, we were joined a few minutes later by Barney and Doris Fleegleman, a fifty-ish couple from Rock Island, IL. They were both short, stout, and pale. They were going to be sitting ducks for the Texas sun.

They wore matching shirts and floppy white sun hats. It didn't take long to see how completely devoted they were to one another. Doris was tutting and fussing over his sunscreen, and he bore it with silent fortitude.

Barney asked Bill, Joe, and me what we did for a living. I said, "Software. How about you?"

With a gleam in his eye, Barney said, "Hardware."

Bill asked, "Do you work with servers?"

Barney looked confused. "Uh... no, the ocean is about a thousand miles away from us."

Doris tittered. "No, silly! Not surfers — servers, like the ones who serve our customers?"

Barney looked relieved. "Oh... you mean like Marge and Ethel up at the front counter. Sure, I work with them, but I'm usually back in the tool department."

Now Bill looked confused. "No, I meant like racks of servers."

Barney turned bright pink at this and looked to Doris for help. She said, "Barney's too bashful to say so, but Marge is pretty well-endowed up top. Ethel? Not so much."

It was all Portia and I could do to keep from cracking up. She got the conversation back on the rails by turning to Doris and asking, "What did y'all do this morning while we were inner tubing?"

"We spent the morning in the blacksmith's shop watching him make stuff. At one point, he took requests on what to make next. I asked him to make a flower. It only took him about 10 minutes, but he made me a pretty nice single-stemmed rose, complete with thorns!"

Portia turned to Barney. "What did you ask him to make?"

Barney beamed. "I asked him to make me a wrench. Darned if he didn't! I told him he could have a job in our hardware store anytime he wanted."

It was pretty clear that if we encouraged Barney at all, he would have talked about hardware all day long. Doris came to the rescue by asking Portia, "How did your morning go on the river?"

Portia looked at me, but I gestured for her to go for it. My version of the story would have been short and boring. "We floated, we saw a snake, we came back. The end."

Her version was much more colorful. It started off like Deliverance, minus the dueling banjos. By the time she got to the snake, we were well into the gruesome river crossing scene from Lonesome Dove. I didn't recognize myself. The guy in her story was a cross between John Wayne and Captain America.

Her audience was on the edge of their seats. She ended the story with, "And then we got back to the ranch — and slipped off our wet clothes... But that's another story."

Wow, what a cliffhanger! Doris gave me a knowing smile. Barney's eyes were bulging. Bill's and Joe's tongues were hanging out. Heck, even I wanted to know what happened next.

I realized that everyone's eyes were now on me, and I had no idea what to say. "Umm... that's... uhh... quite a story. Err... I should point out that there are no actual, reliable reports of water moccasin swarms. That was all Hollywood and not actual herpetology..."

I was hooted down, and Joe threw a roll at me. Clearly, no one believed a word I said.

Doris turned to Portia. "That's an amazing story! I got chills when you told about the attack of all the snakes."

Portia said, "Thanks. But I may have embellished a few details here and there. There was actually just one snake, and he was probably as scared as I was..."

Doris said, "Oh no, dear! The way you told it was a much better story. Listening to you was like watching a novel! What kind of work do you do, anyway?"

Portia said, "You're very sweet. As it turns out, I'm a writer. Mostly romance novels."

"Anything I might have read?"

"My last two books were Torrid Tango in Tempe and Ranch Rodeo Romance."

Doris gasped, one hand going to her ample chest. "You wrote Torrid Tango in Tempe? Oh my! That really got my juices flowing. I barely let Barney out of bed all weekend after reading that."

Barney now resembled a roseate root vegetable, somewhere between a beet and a radish. Bill and Joe were looking at him with expressions of deep respect.

Doris said, "I can hardly wait for your next book, dear. Are you working on anything new?"

Portia nodded. "I took a break after my last book. But I do have an idea for a new one." She leaned in with a conspiratorial look. "The working title is... The Snake Whisperer."

I shuddered.

Doris tittered, "Oooohhh... That makes me shiver just thinking about it." She visibly shivered as she said this. "Any idea when it will be out?"

"Well, it depends on my publisher, but it could be out early next year."

Doris turned a sultry gaze on Barney, whose complexion had just barely dialed back to pasty. "Hear that, honey? When that one comes out, brace yourself for a bumpy ride in the bedroom."

Barney did not faint, but he did wobble a bit.

===

PORTIA

After lunch, I said to Harry, "The other day, you said you'd rope a velociraptor for me. Did you mean it?"

"Sure did."

"Um, you have a lot of experience roping things?"

"Yep. Did a lot of roping on the ranch, when I was growing up."

"Any dinosaurs?"

He chuckled. "Not that I recollect, but lots of sheep, goats, cattle, and the odd little sister."

"You mean you occasionally roped your little sister?"

"Well, yes and no. I occasionally roped her, but she's also odd."

"Odder than you? Please, tell me more."

"Odd as in she's freakishly good with animals. I swear, sometimes it's like she's Dr. Doolittle! She's also super smart and got better grades than me in college. Now, she's a large animal veterinarian, and helps Mom and Dad run the family ranch."

"I'd love to meet her."

He looked pleased, and said, "I think you two would get along well." Then, with a wicked grin, he added, "And some of her patients are snakes."

I shuddered, and said "Can we not talk about snakes? Please? I want to know about roping! I'd like to see some of your skills with a lasso."

"Happy to show you — but better yet, the ranch has a roping workshop this afternoon. Want to go?"

"Me? Learn to rope?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Okaaay. But purely for research purposes, of course." I mused for a moment. "I suppose that it could be handy for writing a bondage scene in one of my books."

I think I caught him by surprise with that one, but he recovered quickly. "That's the spirit. More grist for your mill."

We ambled over to the corral and waited for the rope-o-rama to begin.

===

A cute young wrangler named Doug was our roping instructor. He passed out lariats to all of us and then demonstrated how to toss a loop over a set of cow horns attached to a hay bale. He let us practice for a while and wandered around giving advice. He offered to show Harry how to hold a lariat, but Harry just grunted, "I'm good."

Doug came over and decided that I needed some special attention. His idea of a hands-on workshop was a bit too literal for my taste. It involved him standing behind me, putting his hands over mine, and showing me how to toss the rope. His pedagogical technique seemed to center on making sure his groin didn't get too far from my butt. Harry didn't seem to appreciate Doug's proximity to the student body and was twisting the rope in his hands as if it were Doug's neck. Harry was jealous! I smiled to myself, thanked Doug for his help, and he moved on to 'help' some other woman.

While I practiced roping the faux steer, Harry's hands fiddled with his lariat. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him twirling a ring of rope in the air and doing other tricks. Damn. The rope in my hands was just a limp loop of linguini. In his... it was alive.

Then came our graduation exercise — getting to lasso a live target. Wrangler Doug let a small herd of nanny goats and their kids into our corral. I tossed my loop at one of the kids several times but missed. On my final toss, I got the loop over one of the kids but wrapped it around its legs in an awkward way. It stumbled and bleated. I walked over and stooped to untangle it. As I worked, I said, "Easy, baby. Easy. I'll get you free."

The baby goat continued to emit piteous bleats, which made me feel like a complete asshole. As I was bent over, I heard Harry shout, "Portia, look out!"

I looked up to see the kid's mom heading toward me at flank speed, blood in its eye, and its horns aimed at my rear. Before I or Wrangler Doug could react, a loop dropped around its head, and it jerked suddenly to a halt. At the other end of the rope was Harry, who had made a great toss from twenty feet away.

I finished freeing the kid and then stepped widely around its still-angry mother. Harry handed his rope full of goat over to Wrangler Doug and quietly said to him, "You're welcome." He did not actually add 'mother fucker', but it was clearly implied. He then walked back to me and suggested that we had had enough roping for one day. I agreed.

As we walked back to our rooms, I said, "Thanks, Harry. You literally saved my butt."

"Just part of the service, ma'am. Besides, it was definitely worth saving." He touched the brim of his imaginary hat and grinned.

"Looks like you'd have no trouble roping that velociraptor for me."

"Nope, but hog-tying it afterward might be a challenge."

"Looked like there were a few times there where you wanted to feed Wrangler Doug to a velociraptor."

He frowned. "I'd like him a lot better if he'd keep his hands off the guests and his eyes on his animals."

"Feeling a little jealousy there?"

He smiled. "No doubt about it."

"You've got nothing to worry about, cowboy." I pulled him over to me and kissed his cheek.

===

HARRY

I was starting to really like Portia. As I said before, she had a quick wit, and was sometimes irreverent; but I think that just made her even more attractive.

But she seemed genuinely interested in my writing, and I was running out of ways to dodge her questions without actually upsetting her. I got it; it was her profession, so naturally, she'd be curious. I was just embarrassed to admit that I wrote dirty stories! It's easy to post while hiding behind a pseudonym. Not so much without the smokescreen.

I mean, it wasn't straight-up smut — I did try to include at least the semblance of a plot. However, I was still 'honing my craft' (damn, that sounds pretentious) and had lots and lots to learn.

Portia said, "Look, I really am interested, and I promise that I won't judge..."

I said, "I'm just kinda embarrassed for anyone to see what I've written — especially when there's sex involved."

She thought for a minute, then grabbed her computer and started tapping at the keyboard.

She turned her laptop to face me. "Harry, start reading," and she pointed at a spot on the screen.

I complied, and as my eyes traversed the words, they began to widen. After a few minutes, I looked up at her.

"God damn, Portia, that's freakin' hawt!"

She smirked. "Harry, remember our talk back on the river? I think I know now why you were asking me about the fine line between romance and erotica. And I meant what I said: just a few minor changes and your stories would appeal to a much larger audience. But my main point is, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Honest."