When Adelyn walked back to the camp bungalows, still well before dusk, she found a group of angry girlfriends, all three of whom began to scold her for not letting them know where she had been all afternoon. Were it not for Courtney, who had herself left the campgrounds to go into Philly with a new guy, and without any explanation to the administration, they had threatened to go to the authorities and declare Adelyn as "missing in action."

"Come on you guys, I was only gone for what, a few hours?"

"Try four hours, Ads," Julie said in a maternal, matronly voice. "And we know you weren't anywhere on the campgrounds. Because we all searched!"

"So you went to Philly with him, huh tiger?" It was Courtney, beaming that she had been right about Adelyn's absence.

"It's not something I really care to talk about right now, OK? I'm kind of sad about the whole thing."

The girls all waited for further explanations but Adelyn was resolute about not informing them. Either of her amazing sexual experience or the heartache of having to soon say goodbye to Dan.

Realizing that all three girls had each fared for the worse with guys in their stay at Camp Harmony, and the looks on their faces indicated that she had perhaps suffered the same, Adelyn forced a reassuring smile on her face.

"It's no biggie, girls. I just let my heart out this trip a little too much, I guess. It's gonna be tough saying goodbye to someone here. That's all."

"But who, goddammit!" demanded Julie. We never saw you with any of the guys here! What's up with that?"

"Well, personally, I'm think'n she jus gone off and fell in love with some damn ghost," Cheryl said, mater-of-factly. "See, I saw this movie once? It was like that. It happens to people sometimes, you know."

No one commented or smiled.

"Well I wish he was just a ghost, Cheryl." Adelyn said sadly, passing by them to sort through her clothes piled on the floor.

"Well, hey then. At least she's back safe and sound," Courtney announced. "Can we just all get over it now? I for one, am ready to leave this place tomorrow, not even after tomorrow night. I miss so many people back home."

"Oh Lordie, you don't know," agreed Cheryl, holding up her bejeweled smartphone.

"Yeah, I guess it's good we're getting back," Julie finally said. "For you too, Ads?"

Adelyn just shook her head, fearing she might cry if she said any more.

"So look," Courtney explained, to break the tension. "Tomorrow's got all these activities we can do. Dumb-ass games and stuff to get us to all be physical with these creeps here. Tug-a-wars, chicken fights in the pool, a dance contest, and some stupid contest thingy to pick the camp stand-outs . . . you know, like best looking babe in a bathing suit . . . most studly, hunky guy . . . best abs, best legs. . . BS like that. Oh yeah, and a tattoo contest, Julie."

"Go to hell, Courtney." Julie replied.

"Well . . . you best not let'em know where your  tattoo is Court!" Cheryl jabbed excitedly to the comic relief of the others.

"Why not? I love my little humming bird," Courtney chimed in.

"Yeah," Julie snapped back. "But it's the private place where it's hovering on you that you best not reveal to the world."

This time the girls all laughed in earnest, even Adelyn.

Following this, the group all agreed to go to dinner early that evening, and to miss the "Romantic Flix Night" in the theater. They opted to come back to the room to update their Facebook accounts, call home, and gear up for their last full day and night at the camp.

* * *

The next and last day was exactly as Courtney had announced it would be, only there were actually more fun and ridiculous contests which the girls got caught up in. Courtney, of course won both "Best Abs" and "Best Legs" in the female division. And though many of the guys tried to cheer a reluctant Adelyn into the bathing suit contest, she flatly refused.

Cheryl and her male teammate tied for first place with another couple at the pool chicken fights, and all eyes were on Julie by mid-afternoon, who took great delight in nailing her nemesis Felix three times in the face with the pie throw. "It should have been a brick," some heard Julie say to him as she left the venue visibly upset.

By evening, following the dance contests, the girl-boy tug-a-war, and a hearty lunch of foot-long deli sandwiches, everyone just chilled out on the expansive lawn, some collecting phone numbers and displaying hugs of affection.

For the official last night activity there was scheduled a "Goodbye Party" with a more formal dress, a big-name DJ from Philly, and Champagne for those who could prove their age to be over twenty-one. All the girls agreed to go the affair and took great delight in getting dressed up again after a little over a week of casual summer clothes and athletic activities.

Much more suntanned than when they arrived, and all the wiser to the ways of the world, the four young ladies attended the dance party, with a sense of final, explosive fun on their mind. Each knew the next morning their parents would all be there by nine AM to take them back home to the suburbs.

Wearing the same classic, bouncy summer dress she had on the first formal night, and with her hair pulled back into a neat ponytail, Adelyn looked stunning with her simplicity and economy of make-up. Her face glowed from the warm sun exposure, but perhaps also from the intense pleasure she had discovered there at Camp Harmony under the direct affection and sensual magic of Dan's experienced hands and mouth. Would her last night with him include that critical coming-of-age rite every female both dreads and wishes for?

Finding an opportune moment when Courtney and Cheryl were on the dance floor and Julie had left for the restroom, it was close to midnight before the anticipated chance had permitted itself for Adelyn to move out into the cooling night in the direction of Dan's humble cottage. And as before, reaching the river's edge, she was greeted with candles on both sides of his door. The air was thicker and the moon now slighter than what it had been the last time she had visited at that hour.

Knocking quietly, Dan appeared at the entry, smiling. He kissed her gently on the lips, then led her into the kitchen where at the table were two wine glasses, a bottle of white wine, and a single red rose. He lifted the rose and handed it to her silently.

"You are so sweet," she said. "And I will definitely have some of your wine. I didn't drink any of the Champagne that was flowing over at the dance."

"You remembered my advice this time," he said, smiling.

"Well I don't know. Here I am drinking with you. Shouldn't I be cautious?"

"Very cautious," he said, pouring out their two glasses from the bottle.

"Dan, I have to tell you . . . I'm just very nervous tonight. And so uncertain of where my heart has taken me with you."

"It's OK, Adelyn. I feel it too."

"When I came to you that first night and told you what I had planned for this week at camp, I had no idea I would be leaving this place feeling what I'm feeling now. About you. About us."

Dan just slowly nodded his head, indicating he too was enamored by the person sitting across from him.

"I guess what I'm trying to say, Dan. Is that I . . .I . . ."

"No need to say it. And best you probably shouldn't. I feel that very word too. And it's so troubling that I should be telling you it's best we don't use that word, Adelyn. At least not here and not now."

"But I want to hear that word, Dan. Because I feel it in my heart for you.

"And I for you. It is the right word. . . but just not the best word for either of us right now."

Adelyn stared down at the rose in her hand. Its red pedals looked so lush and ripe with life.

"I want to experience everything with you. All of it, Dan. We have not finished yet."

"But you must know that in only days I'll be flying back to my home in Canada. Preparing for school. As you will be. You'll also be traveling west. Both of us will end up on the Pacific coast. But, Adelyn, we'll be fully one and a half thousand miles apart. In our own worlds. Stuck in our own countries. Love just can't be sustainable for us in that situation. I'm just wise enough to know that. And it pains me a lot that it really can't be."

She could see that his eyes were starting to well-up with tears.

"Yes, but . . ."

"Remember, Adelyn, how I warned you not to get involved with anyone while here at camp? That it could only turn out bad for you? That was my advice."

"I remember well."

"And I'm guilty of bringing you exactly to the opposite of that advice if we continue to the end of what you want tonight. What you feel you need for your body . . . to change it forever . . . should be shared with someone much more meaningful to you. Someone you will truly go on with. Someone beyond just a lost week at camp. A person you can really have and will be there for you day after day. Night after night."

She began to twirl the rose slowly by its stem. And she felt the prick of a thorn.  

"Perhaps one day you and I will have that situation with each other, Adelyn . . . and I'm hopeful for it. . . .But I just know it cannot be now."

Adelyn lifted her wine glass and slowly sipped from it to not show the hurt and disappointment which was welling up inside her.

"That pleasure I gave you earlier today was real, Adelyn. Real for both of us.  As I felt it too. But you experienced a huge amount of pleasure from me without altering your young body in any significant way. And so it shouldn't be altered . . .not until you're ready to commit to someone.  A guy who'll totally appreciate that you let him go there."

Before Adelyn could say another word, or even allow herself to feel worse, Dan reached out his hand to her.

"Come. I want to give you that gift I was talking about."

"What gift?"

"You'll see. It's something I can tell you don't have yet. But you'll appreciate receiving it. Owning it and using it. Especially when we're part after tonight. It's a gift to last your whole life."

Sad and upset as she was, Adelyn let Dan pull her gently from the table and lead her back into his bedroom. There again were the candles in all four corners of the room. They were scented and the aroma reminded her of Dan's body, his actions, and the wonderful experience of laying with him naked for much of the night.

"Now just relax and just let us be our caring selves for this, Adelyn."

She was not certain how to react to all this when then, as if nothing he had said previously was ever expressed, he took her in his arms and kissed her softly and slowly on the lips once more. The feeling was so anticipated that Adelyn let him have her mouth freely and caressed his back and shoulders as their kiss morphed into a more energetic union as once before, earlier at the museum. Soon she had let herself forget all he had said and gave herself to his hands as they undressed both her and him amid kissing and passionate embraces.

When they were down to her panties and his boxers, both of them breathing audibly from their skin to skin closeness, Dan laid her back on the bed and in the dim candle light slipped off his shorts completely, standing and exposing her to a full view of his erect manhood.

"This is what I want you to think of right now," he told her in a breathy voice. "Imagine it when you are using the gift I will teach you."

Adelyn was now totally aroused, as evidenced by the wetness which made her panties cling to her while Dan spread her legs on the bed. He then reached down with his hand and began to slowly stoke himself up and down, jerking his body slightly from the sensitivity of how his hand affected the swollen end of his manhood.

"Do you like what you see? Me doing this while I imagine I'm inside you, Adelyn?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Take off your panties now. And let me look at you."

Adelyn did as Dan said, dropping them to the side of the bed and spreading her thighs further apart so he could take into his vision, and imagination, her body's most private area coupled to his.

She could see when she had done this that his stroking increased in rhythm and his breathing was more pronounced, interspersed with a slight moan at times.

"Do you remember how my mouth and tongue felt on you down there today?" He was still standing at the foot of the bed, his magnificent body in plain and arousing view.

"Yes," she whispered again. The erotic tingling and pulsing going on around her thighs and between them had now grown into an upward and downward slow, rhythmic movement. It was simulating the full-on sex act she had so wished for, only without the fearful pain or the trauma.

"I want you to wet your fingers and reach down and touch yourself there where I am looking and where I take my own joy, Adelyn. Rub exactly where I put my lips and tongue on you today, bringing us to that full climax.

"Adelyn followed Dan's commands precisely, though she had the sensation her body was doing it all involuntarily.

"That's it," he encouraged, as she placed her moistened fingers on herself and began to caress there in little circles. "Now close your eyes and imagine it is not your own hand but me touching you. First my mouth and then as you feel it stronger, imagine it is here. . . where I am stroking. That is what is rubbing and teasing you there, Adelyn. Can you picture this rubbing you there? I want you to touch yourself stronger and faster until we both finish in a shower of pleasure."

Having never masturbated before, simply out of her conservative upbringing and out of shame or self-embarrassment, Adelyn now strangely felt it was nothing of the sort, but rather a virtual simulation of having Dan sexually pleasing her. As Dan's own movements increased with her own rubbing, they both could only hear the sound of their breathing and uncontrolled moans while speeding up the intense stimulation.

Soon they both gasped and moaned loudly as the orgasm somewhere in the air they were building and sharing manifested itself deep inside each of them, complete with Dan's ejaculation onto the bed and the aftershocks and jerks of Adelyn's naked body, all so authentic of an actual sexual union.

The whole experience of bringing herself to an orgasm was so powerful and validating that Adelyn arose off the bed and pulled Dan down next to her, hugging and kissing him in celebration of what he had just taught her she could always do for herself.

"I see now the gift you have given me," she whispered into his ear.

"It is yours to keep forever," he said, his breathing slowly calming to normal. "To be used whenever you feel the urge, and with still no intrusive changes to your young body, Adelyn. The other will all come in good time for you, and I must insist with only the right man for you, someone to build a healthy and lasting relationship with."

As the two ended their special night with a warm refreshing shower and soulful hugs while dressing, Dan eventually walked Adelyn out into the cool, early morning air. They both knew that in only a few hours both of their lives would change forever.

With a last kiss and an intense hug Dan spoke up before she walked away.

"Just be sure you look something up on the Net when you move to San Diego to start school," he said.

"What's that," she asked, trying to keep a brave face and not break into tears.

"The cost and flying time from Vancouver to San Diego during the holidays.

Adelyn's eyes lit up.

"You never know when our studies . . . or breaks from them, might just put us on that plane," he said."

She smiled at him broadly. "I'll always keep that invitation alive . . . my love."

"And me as well," Dan said. "Until then, use your gift freely . . . and use it to think of me.

* * *

________________________

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