Escape to the River

I'm escaping Arizona, the oppressive heat, and the rampant virus spiking to go whitewater rafting in northern Colorado. Everyone going on the trip lives in a state with almost no cases of COVID and I know all but two of them well. It should be a safe respite from the madness of life we have all been experiencing.

A boyfriend at university introduced me to whitewater rafting when I was twenty. He was a river guide and invited me to "swamp' for him on a commercial trip. A "swamper" helped run the trip, but it mostly consisted of heavy lifting, kitchen duty, and cleaning up the "groover," or shit can, each morning. I didn't mind. I got to go on trips that passengers were paying thousands of dollars for and paid nothing. Well, I had to fuck my boyfriend, but I would have done that anyway.

I swamped for several trips over three years. The boatmen, and boatwomen (sometimes called female boatmen) got to know me as a hard worker who was good with passengers and wore a fresh new bikini or sarong or "river dress" each day of the trip. I sexed up the trip. The exhibitionist in me flourished. Sometimes, when our groups could swim, I'd just get naked to see how many of them would join it. Many, many did.

I got to go on several different rivers in the west in Arizona, Utah and Colorado through the deep and wondrous canyons they carved. I enjoyed sun and stars, whitewater, and serene flat stretches of river quiet except for the call of a canyon wren. I learned to cook gourmet meals in Dutch ovens and lead hikes to secret pools and waterfalls in side canyons.

The nights with boatmen, male and female, after the passengers were in their sleeping bags were intense personal times of river stories, poetry, stargazing, and passing around a bottle of whatever alcohol we had. And, for me, more often than not, loving and sexing my crew. I had an intense affair with a lesbian boatman on one trip. On another, I let two boatmen share me each night doing all the things men imagine might happen in a ménage à trois. I worried for a while I'd become known as a river tramp or slut swamper, but the river community is an accepting one, of mostly kind men and women who have little interest in judging others. I was accepted on all of my crews with warmth and respect.

So, I'm off to the river for escape, release, excitement, wonder, and, well, you know. Yes, I will have a fresh, tiny bikini for each day and something cool and revealing for camp each night. I have to keep up my traditions, right?