If I could offer only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it

Deeper into the forest all the trees began to look the same. One red wood pine looked just like all the others and in every direction, as far as their eyes could make out, all the girls could see were more trees. The dead silence between them, filled only by the wind dancing through the branches, contributed to the sense of being lost and alone, but the redhead leading their duo refused to admit it, least of all to the arrogant blonde walking two steps behind her. She had finally won and gotten the girl to be nicer, even if it was a bet; she couldn’t show weakness now.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?” Amber had no problem stating the obvious.

“Not lost, just…” Her red locks bounced as she turned her head one way then the other, looking for a sign.

“You don’t know where we are, which means we’re lost.”

Amber huffed and folded her arms tight against her medium sized breasts. Streaks of Gavin’s cum still splattered her face, but it was quickly drying and she could feel it shifting and cracking every time her expression wrinkled her skin. She wanted nothing more than to get to the waterfall and wash herself as soon as possible. Besides the discomfort, it was simply embarrassing to be led through the woods with that nerd’s semen marking her.

“I thought you knew where you were going.”

“I did, I do, I mean, it should be close. Just a little bit further, okay?”

Pushing her hair behind her ear, she angled her head and listened for the sound of rushing water, crashing into the pool below, but the sound was frustratingly absent, replaced instead by cracking leaves and birds chirping. Chloe wasn’t terribly worried though. Though the massif itself was dangerous, the boundaries of the main park were fenced off and sign posted. If they didn’t walk into Zaffre Falls soon, she was sure that they’d find the fence. At least, she hoped. With every passing step, she became less and less sure of that contingency.

“Maybe we should just call the others to come get us.”

“We don’t need to do that just yet,” Chloe said hastily, since Amber was already trying to fish her phone from her pocket. “Imagine what all those guys will think of us if we get lost and have to call a man for help. Do you want them to think of you as weak and feeble little girl?”

“I really don’t care,” Amber powered through and searched her phone for an appropriate number to call. She didn’t have Kurt’s number, so that left a choice between Brandon and Trent. “I’d rather be alive than a dead feminist.”

“You’re not going to die,” Chloe insisted, sighing at the over dramatics.

“We so could. Didn’t you hear the story of the guy that went hiking in the park just last winter and wound up dead?” Amber said, lifting her eyes from her phone to press her point. “He came out here, got lost and froze to ****.”

Chloe was impressed. It was rare that Amber actually had facts to back up her fears. Although, on this occasion much like the others, she was still off the mark, having learned the details from idle gossip, Chloe assumed, than any legitimate news article.

“I did hear about that, but he didn’t freeze to ****. They found the corpse frozen, true, but I remember hearing about the autopsy. It transpired that he planned on camping out in the wilderness as some kind of survival training, but didn’t bring enough supplies. He got hungry and **** and ate some poisonous wild potato seeds. That’s what killed him,” Chloe revealed. “So just don’t go eating anything off the ground and you won’t die. And you won’t freeze in the height of Spring.”

Of course, as soon as the blonde teen was told not to eat, she immediately began to feel hungry, like a child that needs to pee five minutes after leaving the rest stop. Grasping her tummy, it rumbled in return, though Chloe only rolled her eyes. Truthfully, all the walking was making Chloe peckish too, but she refused to admit that either. Trudging on, she told herself it didn’t matter anyway; they didn’t have anything to eat.

“There’s still wild animals, and ghosts that will either eat or **** me to ****.” Still stewing, Amber looked back at her phone, and quickly found Brandon’s number. The call cut out almost immediately. “Dammit, no signal. Listen, why don’t we just turn back and go the way we came? If we go straight back, we should run into the trail where we were first working, right?”

“If you can be sure that you can retrace your steps in that forest, go ahead.” Chloe gestured behind her, but Amber didn’t move. “If we had a compass, or we could see the stars, maybe we could navigate our way back. Don’t worry, if we’re anywhere near Zaffre Falls, we’ll should hear the running water soon. So, you see, there’s no need to panic.”

“Okay, but what if we aren’t anywhere near it?”

“Huh?”

“You said that should happen if we’re anywhere near the waterfall, but if aren’t near it, we could just be walking further and further away.”

Chloe frowned, a little annoyed that Amber of all people found the hole in her logic. “It’s still better to keep going straight ahead. If we turn back or go in a different direction, we might just end up going in circles.”

“I should never have let you guys talk me into doing work.”

The stuffed her phone back into her pocket and folded her arms tightly over her chest again in the only act of protest that she was capable of. Yet, she still followed Chloe. The red-headed girl might have been a loser compared to the cheerleader but she was a smart loser, so Amber chose to trust her, not knowing what else to do.

In the silence that followed the intermission of Amber’s complaints, Chloe once again pushed her hair from her ears and cocked her head to listen. The sound of the waterfall remained elusive, and yet there was a new sound that caught her attention. A rustling unlike the wind, crinkling and cracking the forest floor in a rhythmic thud thud thud. It was close but not approaching, almost parallel to their position.

“Come on, this way,” Chloe announced suddenly, turning 90 degress and running off.

“But you said…” Amber wailed as she tried to keep up with the quickness of the soccer player.

“Nevermind that now. I heard footsteps.”

A burst of energy charged Amber’s legs as she heard the news, and it was that hope that allowed her to keep up with the faster redhead. The blonde followed as Chloe charged through the trees in the direction she’d first heard the footsteps. As the sound grew louder, Chloe became confident they were heading the right way but the forest brush was so dense this deep that neither girl saw anything until they stumbled out, directly in front of the two figures.

The man and woman, in matching greenish grey uniforms, came to a stop immediately when the teens cut across their path. They were both in their twenties, Chloe estimated, though the man, with short dark hair and grey eyes appeared slightly older. The younger of the two was a woman with brown hair tied back in a ponytail and wide, brown eyes, though she seemed completely unfazed by their intrusion except that she reached down and put her hand on the gun at her hip. Her expression never changed, a mixture of curious and bored, but she kept her weapon at hand, possibly only refraining from drawing because the man hadn’t drawn his.

Despite the possibility of being shot, both girls were relieved to see the uniformed strangers, the label ‘SILVER LAKE PARK RANGER’ stitched onto both shirts.

“Whoa there,” the male said with his hands out in front of him. “What’s going on here girls?”

“Sorry. We were trying to find Zaffre Falls and we seem to have wandered too far into the forest,” Chloe did the talking since Amber was bent over, trying to catch her breath now that all her adrenaline had drained away. “When we heard footsteps, we rushed over here looking for help, and thank god, we found you two.”

“That was very silly. Why didn’t you follow the trail?” He reprimanded them, with a glance to the girl at his side. Seeing her hand on her holster, he waved at her to stand down. Her hand remained on her weapon until he told her, “Jennifer wouldn’t want you to shoot a couple of innocent teens.” Then she dutifully straightened up. “These forests aren’t safe if you don’t know where you’re going. People have died wandering around these parts.”

“See?” Amber puffed. “I told you so.”

“You could trip and break your neck,” the girl added factually. “It doesn’t even have to be fatal. If you fall and snap an ankle, it could be days before you’re found.”

“That’s right,” the man agreed. “You’re lucky we were out here today anyway.”

“Running towards footsteps is a good way to get yourself killed too,” the girl noted without a hint of scolding, instead simply listing the possible ways to die with a kind of morbid honesty.

“We know it was stupid,” Chloe admitted, frowning as Amber straightened up behind her. “Can you please help us find our way to Zaffre Falls?”

“Of course,” he said, extending a hand. “But first let me do the introductions. I’m Colin Matheson, I’ve been with the rangers for a few years now. This is Audra St. James, a newer recruit.”

“Chloe,” she said, taking the ranger’s firm, manly hand. “And this is Amber.”

Colin shook one hand, then the other, and Audra hurriedly followed suit. She never got to shake Amber’s hand though, as Colin paused and squinted at her face.

“What are you staring at?” she pouted. “I know I’m pretty but that’s rude.”

“No, sorry, it’s just,” He touched his own cheeks, mirroring the mess on hers. “There’s something on your face.”

In the panic to find the source of the footsteps, Amber had completely forgotten about Gavin’s cum still adhering itself to her skin. Embarrassed at having it pointed out to her, she blushed, her entire face becoming a deep shade of red that only contrasted with the white smears and made the cum streaks all the more noticeable. In an instant, she pulled her hand from Colin’s grasp and turned away, hiding her shame.

“It’s just sunblock,” Chloe was quick to reason. “It’s a very sunny day, and we didn’t want to burn. Amber just forgot to rub it in, didn’t you?”

She put a hand on the blonde’s back and received a ****, muffled agreement. Colin seemed satisfied with that answer, and besides hadn’t gotten a good look since she turned away as soon as he mentioned it.

“Looks like cum,” Audra said tactlessly. There wasn’t the slightest inclination of judgement or condemnation in her tone. To Audra it was nothing more than what it was, cum on another girl’s face.

No words were spoken in the few moments proceeding Audra’s observation, and the longer they went without denying it, the truer the statement became. Colin cleared his throat as if to speak, but couldn’t find his voice. This was one situation that no one had trained him for at orientation. Chloe laughed nervously, trying to think of a solution, but the only solution she had was terrible.

“It’s definitely sunblock, I saw her put it on myself. It just needs rubbed in,” she turned to Amber with a pitying expression. “Go ahead, rub it in and show them.”

Inside her head, Amber cursed Chloe, thinking that this was just another game to her, another way to humiliate the cheerleader, taking no notice of Chloe’s sad expression, or if she did, assumed it was just an act for their audience. But, unfortunately the blonde saw no other course of action. Not rubbing the cum into her face would only prove what it was. Only an actual pervert would talk around with semen plastered on their skin and massage it in when caught, and it would be much easier to believe they’d made a mistake than the teen cheerleader was that much of a deviant.

Jittering, Amber brought both hands up to her face and immediately shuddered as she felt the now cold, thick fluid squelch beneath her fingertips. She moved her hands in circles, the way she did with moisturizing cream every night before bed. Except this substance was stickier and clumpy and got struck between her fingers in yellowish white threads. Her hands continued to work on though, smearing and spreading the cum to every inch of her face and then massaging the skin, working Gavin’s cum into her pores and creases. She’d heard, as every teen did, the myth that semen was good for the skin and hoped to god that it was true. At least then it might be worth it, a healthy trade-off for the humiliation she was currently enduring.

“See? It’s fine,” Colin coughed and turned away, choosing not to watch the spectacle. Audra watched though, showing neither enjoyment nor disgust. “We have no reason to doubt their story.”

“You mean why would two stranger girls lie about having a male’s ejaculative substance on one of their faces when the forest rules clearly prohibit any sexual activity in the park?” Audra asked, her voice so dry it was difficult to tell if she was being sarcastic or serious.

“Even if they were, although I’m not saying you did, it’s not a big deal,” his eyes bounced from Audra to Chloe and Amber. “They’re just a couple of horny teens, and we didn’t catch them in the act, so no harm, no foul.”

“No harm, no foul, okay, got it,” Audra accepted.

Amber finished rubbing the semen into her skin, her face soft and shining. Impressively, not a single drop of cum remained on her face. Every last ounce had been successfully kneaded in, leaving her beaming despite her miserable expression. Her hand even shone too, moisturized by Amber rubbing the strands that clung to her fingers into her palms. But even if no one else could see it, she could feel it, like a mask upon her face, the musk constantly pervading the air around her nostrils so she couldn’t help but breath it in.

“If there’s nothing else, why don’t we get going?” He reached for his compass in his breast pocket. “We can lead you – oh, damn. I must have left my compass back at the ranger station again.”

“Use mine,” Audra offered, whipping out her own compass from her top pocket.

“Thanks,” he said, as he consulted the instrument. “It’s a bit further south from here, so we need to go this way.”

While Colin led the way, Audra and the girls fell in behind him, the dark brunette by herself in single file, while Chloe and Amber followed, side by side, at the rear. Though she couldn’t be entirely certain that Audra wasn’t listening, since the woman’s ears seem to prickle at every strange sound around, Chloe dropped her voice to a whisper and leaned in close to Amber.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized sincerely. “I was just trying to-”

“Save it. Let’s just get to the waterfall so I can wash this damn stuff off. And not a word to anyone. Ever. You hear me? No one.”