For S.R.J.

Ryeji - Tent Sex

Converted

G!P

I heard the rustling of footsteps on the long grass outside my tent and lift my head up from my inflatable pillow. I listen. The woods are alive with a million insects and animals, but this was different, bigger.

It's the second day of a college trip into the woods a few hours out of the city, where me and a few other teachers had been chosen to chaperone environmental awareness and activity award none of us gave a shit about.

The park we had chosen was nice, it was a big enough place that you could wild camp where ever you wanted but still close enough to the city that you could do an overnight and still have plenty of Sunday afternoon left to get ready for the coming week.

As I waited in the darkness, I thought about the trip. I had been upset when my name had been randomly pulled from a lost and found hat in the teacher's lounge. The woods were not my usual grind, but it had been a nice change from the usual loneliness of my life.

Being a part of a trip like this, surrounded by teachers and students was a lot better than leaving school at the end of the day, going home to an empty apartment, grading papers, watching television, playing on my laptop and going to bed.

The noise outside of the tent again. A step, then another. They were getting closer, walking toward my tent.

I waited. My heart was pounding in my chest. Someone had gotten up in the middle of the night, but who? And why were they coming toward my tent?

When we had arrived at the camp a couple days before, my tent had been around the main group. That's where I had started, where all the other teachers had decided to pitch.

But I'm a light sleeper and both Yeonjun and Soobin snored. They sounded like lawnmowers in the middle of a dark forest. The worst was when, somehow, they found a rhythm to their snoring, when they synced up and it became a cacophony.

And I didn't mind moving my tent away. I had been having a hard time lying still and the sound of a sleeping back in the middle of a quiet night is not quiet. So, tossing and turning, lying there surrounded by tents filled with different people - it was really too much anyway. I had been happy to move.

The sound of crunching leaves and breaking twigs grew louder. Someone walked to the door of my tent. "Knock-knock?"

Shin Ryujin. Of all the people that were taking part in the field trip, she was perhaps the most timid. I bet I hadn't heard her say more than ten words the entire two days we had been gone. I barely recognized her voice in the darkness. She was bookish, with long dark hair and black-rimmed glasses. She had a round face but thick lips. She was cute, a tiny frame with an impressive rack, although she wasn't the kind of girl to show it off. She never wore anything provocative. And she didn't run with the popular crowd.

"Ryujin?" I asked, lying in my sleeping bag and hoping she'd go back to bed soon enough so I could get some rest. I was already running dangerously low after last night and it was late. Almost everyone else had been asleep for over an hour, even the late ones who had stayed up around the campfire sneaking a few drinks now and then had gone to bed.

"I can't sleep." She whispered. "Can... can I come in?" she asked.

I laid there and stared up at the top of my tent for a moment. I had to gather my patience. What the fuck was she doing? And why me? I turned on the small light I have, which Ryujin must have taken as me admitting entry, because she unzipped the outer door to my tent and then the inner one.