Beast

For the campers, glampers, and Bigfoot enthusiasts

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Edited by Oleander Plume

❤️

Everything had to be perfect, and it was.

Gemma smoothed out the wrinkles in her sleeping bag and adjusted her pillowcase one more time. The seams where the two objects met were perfectly parallel and flat atop the thin foam mattress underneath. All the clothing and accessories from her backpack were carefully laid out under the small tent’s single window. Crisp and pristine, they smelled of laundered care and attention to detail. A cooler, hiking boots, a battery-operated lamp, and a sack of firewood sat in an orderly row to the left of the zippered door flap. She’d even swept the surrounding area clean of brush and debris. The only thing missing would have been the outdoorsman magazine sitting atop the gleaming folding table and matching chairs outside, opened to the exact picture of the American camping ideal she’d seen on a bookstore shelf.

And it had only taken five hours. Five hours of preparation to impress Brian.

Gemma walked out of her tent into the crisp forest air and glanced at the time on her phone before using the built-in camera to gaze at her blemish-free reflection. A light wind tousled her springy, golden locks, and the sunshine shifting through the forest canopy played with the sparkles of her radiant, rose-colored eye shadow. The gleam of her nail polish followed similar suit. Even her lips matched.

Outlined. Puckered. Plump. Kissable.

Doable.

That was half the...