Panthera Spelaea

I woke with the morning light, looking at the inside of the tent through my lion’s eyes. The girls hadn’t stirred, their heads using my front leg as a soft pillow.

I spent a few minutes just relaxing, trying to feel my lion in my head. He was content; he shifted his head slightly, scenting Svetlana before settling down again. “Let me take over again,” I thought to myself. I pictured myself in human form, but nothing happened. Then I thought about the boat coming, and that did the trick. I shifted back in a quick moment.

“Ow,” Anna said as her head dropped to the sleeping bag and pad below. My human arm wasn’t long enough, so when I shifted, her pillow went away. She rolled onto her back, rubbing her eyes as I watched her boobs move around.

“Time to get up?” Svetlana was facing me, though no longer touching because my chest is nowhere the size of my lion’s form. Her hot body was on display as she rolled onto her back and stretched.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to disturb you, but my lion gave me back control without a fight this morning.”

“That’s good,” Svetlana said as she rolled up to an elbow. “How much time do we have?”

“I don’t know, maybe an hour?”

“That’s enough. Anna, John’s up. Rochambo for it?”

Anna won, paper to rock, and dove over to engulf my hardening cock into her mouth. Svetlana pulled on her clothes and headed out to get the fire going for breakfast. Anna gulped down her reward a few minutes later, and we pitched in to get breakfast going.

I made two pounds of bacon first, setting them aside to drain. Then I grabbed the two dozen eggs mixed with milk and spices in a container from the Igloo cooler and made up a mess of scrambled eggs. Meanwhile, Svetlana was slicing biscuits and stacking them with bacon. When the cheese melted on the eggs, I cut the eggs into pieces, and we made breakfast sandwiches.

The girls each had three, and I had the other twelve.

It was time to break camp. The girls took the dishes down to the lake to clean them while I put the fire out. I stacked our bags on the blanket, then took the tent down. By the time we heard the sound of the boat, we were waiting on the beach.

Marat pulled the bow onto the sand, then helped the girls board. I handed the gear over, then pushed us back out into the lake before jumping in.

It took about thirty minutes to get to the boat launch, most of that time spent going upriver. The brothers removed two tracking devices from under the car, netting them another ten thousand rubles. I did one last check of the car as we loaded up, and we were on our way. We headed west to the A-119 road running along the eastern side of the massive Lake Onega. Hunger and the gas tank had us stopping in Medvezhyegorsk, a town of about eighteen thousand at the lake’s northern tip.

Lunch was at the Medvezhka Restoran, a log-framed place on the east end of town. Since it was a fishing town, it was no shock that fish figured prominently on the menu, but they also had wild game. We ordered enough food to make the waitress wonder where we put it! After I paid and went outside to see the lake, I wondered why we were in such a hurry to leave. After all, the cops would have an easier time finding us on the road than in a hotel room.

A quick inquiry led us to the nearby Charodei Hotel, another all-log structure built from the pines in the surrounding forest. The expansive grounds on the shores of Lake Onega looked fun, as well as the boats they had parked at the docks. I paid cash and used a false name to rent the only cabin with a King-size bed while the owner called around to see if any fishermen were taking charters.

I parked the car where it wouldn’t be visible from the road or the lake. We took our bags and the camp dishes inside to give them a good washing after our trip. Showers were in order, as we still smelled like fire and lake water. By the time we returned to the Main Office, a weathered man in his sixties was waiting for us. Captain Daniil had fished these waters since he was a boy, and after handing over some cash, he led us down to the dock and onto his charter boat.

Svetlana sat with me and translated as Anna talked to him on the trip out to the first fishing spot. We would be trolling long lines for “pike-perch,” which he said were the best tasting game fish in the lake. Soon we had four lines in the water, the boat chugging along slowly as he followed the depth line.

Anna reeled in the first one, the fish about as long as her forearm. I saw it was closer to a walleye than a northern pike, which was a good thing as walleye was the best-tasting North American freshwater fish. We fished all afternoon, coming back with two dozen fish ranging between sixteen and thirty inches long.

Anna was smart enough to bring a bottle of vodka along, and Daniil was a good friend by the time we returned. He called his wife to tell her about our good luck, and she invited us to their home for a traditional fish fry. When we pulled in, the girls went with Yana while I stayed with Daniil as he expertly filleted our fish and put them in a cooler.

Their home was near the docks, and the oil was already heating up outside the kitchen door. Yana was short and plump, very friendly, and an excellent cook. Anna had gone to the store to buy fresh vegetables and vodka, knowing how much our group would eat and drink my. Yana had a traditional recipe for fried fish, and it was fantastic. We ate and drank the night away, polishing off almost all the fish. The story of my recent life came out over the second bottle of vodka, and the older couple was sympathetic. “The Communist Party may not be in charge, but the State is unchanged,” Anna translated. “You need to get away from them all, not just for a day but for a month or two. Young love needs time.”

“It isn’t that easy to get away from them all,” I responded. “We have to eat, drink, live.”

He waved his hand as Anna told him my answer. “You wait here.” He walked out into the village, returning ten minutes later with an elderly Russian man. “Pavel’s family has a farm on Lake Khizohero, about twenty-five kilometers from here. His son died in Afghanistan, and Pavel is widowed and too old to work it now. He had to move to town because he can’t live alone, but he can’t let the farm go. It is all he has left from his father.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It would be the perfect place to disappear from them all. The three of you with nothing but lake and forest around for tens of kilometers and no trail leading to you.”

He had my interest. “How?”

“You rent the place for cash and stay there as long as you want. You’re doing Pavel a favor.”

“No, we eat a LOT. We’d have to come to town once a week and buy a LOT of food, and every trip is a chance for the police to find us again.”

“You give me your list and money, and I bring you food. Pay in dollars, and no one will say anything.”

I talked it over with the girls, and we figured it was worth a try. Every gas station, hotel, and restaurant we used was another chance to be recognized and tracked. “I don’t mind hiding out with my man and my girlfriend,” Svetlana said.

Daniil and Pavel would meet us outside our hotel at five in the morning. I know, fishermen and retired men and their early wakeups! We’d follow Daniil’s truck to the farm, and they would return later with food if we liked it. We said our goodbyes and headed back to shower and get some sleep before we’d have to get up.

I was glad I had a guide because we were WAY off the beaten path. The last six kilometers were offroad, a trail winding through the trees and over the small hills. In the end, though, it was worth it.

The home was built from logs and sat on a small hill overlooking an undeveloped corner of the lake. It had a living area, dining room, and kitchen downstairs. In the center was a big iron woodstove with a cooktop and a baking oven. “They never ran electricity out here,” Pavel said. “There is a windmill and solar panels, with batteries in the closet here. The diesel-powered generator will kick on if the battery gets too low. It’s enough to run the appliances and well pump. The television works, but you only get three channels. Heat and hot water you get from the woodstove, and there is plenty of wood out back ready to split.”

That’s the joke about heating with wood. It heats you three times; when you cut it, when you split it, and when you burn it.

The main floor was about ten meters square and included the kitchen, living area, and dining room. Upstairs was a sleeping loft with a big brass bed and plenty of blankets and furs.

It was perfect. We made our lists and sent the men off with a handful of bills. I had enough cash in hand to live here for months, and the solitude would be fun, right?

As long as this didn’t end up like The Shining, we were all good.