"Anything we could do differently with the set-up this time?" David asked as they laid their packs behind the gabbro block. "Let's stand here for a while and see if we can think of anything to improve on the layout."

The three stood looking for a minute, maybe a little more, then Maria said, "I think you got it pretty well perfect the first time. The only thing I can see is to move it over twenty, twenty-five centimetres so we won't have to hide the corner with bushes."

"That was my only adjustment also," Rachel said. "Other than adding running water, a bathtub, a commode and a bidet, I can think of nothing else to improve its excellent design."

David wedged a line back into the crack in the rock, pulling the canvas about eight or ten inches farther along and wrapped the line from the next corner around the flake again. He moved the two large rocks across the slab a short distance and tied the lower lines to them. As he did this, Maria had set the mirror back into place, popped inside under the canvas to check its alignment and continued working with Rachel to unpack and arrange.

David dribbled linseed oil along the creases in the canvas, adjusted the tension on the roof and stood back to look at it. "We're completely invisible now," he said. "Amazing what eight or ten inches can do."

"Come inside, David, let me check your wounds, I haven't looked at them since yesterday," Maria said softly from the shelter.

"I'd love to come inside," he replied with a chuckle. "I haven't done that since May Day back in '15."

"You're a quick one, aren't you? I love it. Maybe you can show me some more amazing things about moving twenty or twenty-five centimetres," she chuckled back.

"You're both very quick," Rachel said. "I'll go sit on the ledge in the sun and give you two more privacy."

He hugged Rachel when she came out, kissed her cheek and said, "Thank you Mama — I hope you don't mind my calling you that, it just slipped out."

"I love it! Please keep calling me Mama. It's so much more warm and personal for me."

"Stay close to the cliff, behind the bulge, out of sight from the corner in case Fritz comes nosing around."

Maria was nearly undressed as he stooped in under the canvas. "I'm getting into my nursing uniform before I prep the patient." She looked at him and giggled. "Please be patient."

"You are such a beautiful woman, Maria. Beautiful dressed in grubby, baggy men's clothing, beautiful dressed only in your skin. Beautiful as an image in my mind. You have a beautiful mind, such an open mind, you hide nothing. You have a beautiful wit, a beautiful spirit. You're all my images of a beautiful woman."

"I have difficulty absorbing all this. Difficulty understanding it. I've never been close to a boy – to a man before I met you. Well, except for the gangly dimwits I was forced to take a few turns with on the dance floor at the graduation party last year. Other than that and wonderful talks and hugs from my father and some frolicking with my brothers, I don't know men at all." She shrugged.

"Mama told me you're a very special man. Not the normal, not like any she has ever seen. She told me this morning while you were still sleeping that you're a very rare bird and I would go through my entire life finding no one near as fine. Also, she told me not to tell you this, but I guess I already have. You know I can't keep my thoughts inside. I don't want to."

"You're the special one, Maria. I'm just me. Just me being the only me I understand. I don't even know what I am, who I am, what my purpose is. I've pondered these things since I can remember. Sat high on mountain ridges and on many summits thinking, trying to understand why I'm here. Do you know why you're here?"

"I've spent so much time deep in my thoughts, lying awake in bed trying to comprehend my purpose. All my school mates quickly dismissed me, told me to stop being so serious. I had no close friends in school. Really, no friends at all. I was the only one I had to talk with, the only one who could answer my questions."

"I didn't then, and I still don't now know the answers."

"I don't know them either. That's our attraction, why we fit so well together."

"Speaking of fitting together, shouldn't we rearrange ourselves along that line of thought?" He looked down and smiled. "I see I'm up for it."

They lay and coupled. "This is a much more intimate conversation," she said as she slowly rotated and flexed her hips.

They flowed their conversation through a broad range of topics as they continued their gentle movements, Maria interrupting occasionally to enjoy an orgasm. Their intimate conversation lasted well over an hour before they both very audibly finished.

Rachel heard them from across the slabs, across the stream, close beside the pound of the waterfall. She diddled quickly to another series of convulsions, then leaned back against the rocks, smiling.

She gave them several minutes, then picked up her clothes and walked back across the slab to the shelter. "I heard it was good for you," she said with a chuckle as she ducked to enter. "It's getting chilly over there; the sun is just leaving that corner."

"We're still getting to know each other. Still trying to get to know ourselves, probably more like it. I'm sorry we took so long, Mama."

"Don't let it bother your mind, Sweetheart. Thinking of your energy, sensing it from way over there, made it so enjoyable for me. Thank you, Maria, thank you, David. Thank you so many times."

Maria examined David's wounds, starting with the one on his buttock. She gently lifted the tape, pulling some loose scabs with it and soaking the adhesive off the larger ones with alcohol. "What do you think, Mama? How does this look to you?"

Rachel examined the ragged line of the scar, running a finger along it as she did. "Is this sore?" she asked, prodding gently along the pink line and pressing the remaining scattered scabs.

"More itchy than anything, Mama. Not sore, just a little tender, but mostly itchy."

"And this," she asked with a giggle as she lightly stroked the wrinkled flesh which was draped out on the bedroll between his legs.

"That area is very sensitive. Fortunately, it wasn't wounded, but it still needs care."

"I would love to show Maria some things to pleasure you. Do you mind if I do?"

"I am your obedient servant, Madam," he chuckled. "You've got me by the balls."

"Roll over, then. We have work to do."

"Maria, you remember what I was saying this morning about pleasuring with your mouth. Let me show you what I was explaining."

David was quickly fully rigid again.

"Edom didn't have a skin covering over his head; the rabbi cut it off when he was an infant, so some of this is new to me as well. I've experience only one non-Jewish boy, but he was small even when hard, so there was not much foreskin to explore."

"Why would a rabbi cut off such a useful part?" Maria asked. "That seems like senseless mutilation. That's a huge amount of flesh to remove."

"I didn't realise how much skin is involved until I watched you slide it back and forth over his head that first day." Rachel looked up and blushed. "Sorry, I spied on you at the pool. I wanted to see how you were getting along with each other."

She slid it up and down. "I didn't realise it folds back on itself this way." She peeled it all the way back, watching carefully as she did. "That's his entire length it slides back. That's how much the rabbi cuts off, actually cuts out of the middle and leaves the raw ends in hopes they heal together. Edom had a ragged scar and his skin pulled so tight over his shaft when he was hard."

Rachel pulled the skin farther back down the shaft, to the end of its stretch and said, "That's how Edom's looked when hard. That's how a religious mutilation looks, nowhere near as attractive."

She let the skin relax, and it rolled up behind the head. "Run your tongue around here, under the rim of the head like this, Maria," she said, pausing her action not to mumble. "Edom told me this ridge was his most sensitive part. What do you think, David?"

"Around the bottom side, the wrinkled bits between the head and the shaft, those are exquisitely sensitive for me. Far more than on the other side where you are, but that's also delightful."

"Edom didn't have folds like this. His was plain with some scar tissue. You say that's the most sensitive part? Edom grew up never knowing what or how much had been taken away. We also had it done to our two sons. We went along with the tradition, with the synagogue ceremony without even questioning. Why cut it away from an infant who doesn't even know he has one?"

"Because of religion. That's the way to explain most strange traditions and aberrations." David shook his head. "Stupid, most of it."

Rachel rolled the foreskin back and forth slowly. "What a wondrous thing this is. What did we do to our sons?" She shook her head. "But let's get back to the lessons, Maria. Tongue action, that's what your father loved. I had started by taking him into my mouth, but he explained I had another part that was much better designed for that. Tongue action."

The education continued, student and instructor taking turns to demonstrate and perform lessons. The teaching aid cooperated and complied, sometimes adding experiential aspects to assist all three participants.

"These are some of the things you can do, Maria, on the days you're not safe. There's no need to burden yourselves with annual children as so many seem to do. And from what I saw yesterday, David has a wonderful way with his tongue." Rachel blushed. "Sorry, I couldn't keep myself from looking."

David smiled as he said, "I need to do much more practice with that, I'm just a beginner — I don't know if I understand the fertility cycle properly, though. When are the safe times, when are the risky?"

"It's a wondrous cycle, we went through it this week in school," Maria looked up and smiled. "I was fascinated by the complexity of it all. It begins with laying an egg. Women have a pod full of eggs and one is released, occasionally more than one. The egg descends toward the womb looking for seeds. If there aren't any, it waits a bit. The inside of the womb had prepared itself for the meeting, it had thickened its lining and added blood.

"Even if there is a delivery of seed, they might not get together with the egg. If they do get together, a new nine-month development of a baby begins. If the egg and seed don't get together, after only one day, the egg dies. Then the preparations, the extra blood, the thickened womb lining slowly break down. Later this is all flushed out of the body."

"My cycle is regular and predictable," Rachel said, "It follows the moon's phases. New moon is my dangerous time; from a day or two after new moon until just after the first quarter. You seem to follow the same timing, Maria — I've noticed for a long while you're always into the cupboard of clean cottons at the same times I am."

Maria nodded. "Yes, I use the full moon to remind myself I have a week before I need to step into underwear again and start folding cotton,"

"So the risky time is only when the egg is there?" David asked.

"No, much longer than that. The instructor explained that the seeds will survive for three to five days in the womb, waiting for an egg to arrive. The risk is from five days before the egg arrives, to be safer, six."

"How long does the risk continue?"

"The egg survives for only one day. To be safe we need to stop planting seeds six days before eisprung, the laying of the egg, I don't know what the English word is.

"Ovulation," Rachel offered.

"The problem is figuring out when eisprung, ovulation happens. Cycles can be three to five weeks long, but more usually around thirty days. The cycles can be regular and predictable like Mama's and mine, or they can be irregular and difficult to guess.

"Normally the egg arrives in the womb around the middle of the cycle, around day fourteen or fifteen in the typical, regular cycle. Day one is the beginning of the bleeding..."

"I'm amazed at how well you know all this, Maria," Rachel said. "I told you only a little of it."

"Theory from books, Mama. I looked up some things in the school library, but I became so fascinated with it when we started looking at the mechanics of it this week in class. Now I've started practising, converting theory into reality, I'm even more fascinated."

They continued with the anatomy lessons, the women turning to focus their attention fully again on the seed implanting system. Together they quietly worked on it until they got it to operate.

"Such a strong force. So many seeds. The instructor told us that in healthy men, tens of millions of seeds are delivered each time, but only one of them is needed to fertilise the egg. Was that pleasing for you, David?"

"I'm still trying to catch my breath." His body was still randomly twitching. "I feel as if I've turned inside-out, out through there."

"I think you have the idea, Maria," Rachel said. "It's really quite simple. Just watch the response, watch the little signs, the twitches, the involuntary movements. Listen to the sounds coming from his throat, sense the ones coming from his soul."

"You two are amazing. You're so open, so full of wonder and curiosity, so eager to learn, to explore, to share. I was in awe lying here watching teacher and student so deeply involved in giving and receiving instruction. I was so fascinated by the scene that I forgot it was me you were working on until I erupted. It caught me completely by surprise. I've not had that happen before. I'm still trying to recover."

"So it was pleasing for you." Maria giggled, kissing his deflating head as she towelled off his chest. "Let me examine your cheek and your lip."

She moved up, brushing her breasts across his chest as she looked at the scar on his cheek through the week-old stubble. "It looks good. The scar will be clean-edged and narrow. There's no hint of infection. The only swelling is the one I have under my belly. You surely aren't rising all the way up again, are you?"

"The feel of your breasts brushing across my chest, the look of you, your wonderful aroma, your loving attention, I have no other choice but to swell in appreciation."

She tenderly kissed his cheek scar, moved across and licked the scar on his chin, then on his lip. She sent her tongue inside and examined up and down the scar there. As she explored slowly inside his mouth, she humped her back, shifted her hips and settled onto him to slowly explore inside elsewhere.

He shuddered at the sensation of her surrounding him. "I love the nursing care in this spa. I love the examining methods. I love you."