Awakening to the sound of the wind, I opened my eyes and watched nylon rippling above me. The pale light of the coming dawn was just starting to brighten the tent panels.
My full bladder was screaming for attention.
Reaching around inside the sleeping bag, I compressed the little plastic ball and slid it down the drawstring, opening the hood. Catching the zipper outside, I pulled it down, and a flood of cold air rushed into the bag, making me shiver. Sitting up, my head touched the tent, sending piled snow falling down the side. I suppressed a second shiver as best I could. It was dozens of degrees colder in the tent compared to what the inside of my sleeping bag had been.
Hearing a mumbled grumble, I looked down at Jan's face, the only part of her visible, zipped up like a mummy in her bag. Just like I had been seconds before.
My bladder making me quick, I pulled on my boots and stepped through the unzipped tent out into the powdery show. Walking away a few feet from the tents I worked my way through the multiple layers of cloth, then yelped when finally my bare cock was exposed to the air.
"Fuck," I muttered, my teeth chattering.
The yellow stream smoked and cut its way into the white snow like a blowtorch. As terrible thoughts of frostbite were running through my head, I heard the tent open behind me. As my cousin came out in a near sprint, she hurried over to a spot and, with her legs wide for balance, squatted her bare ass just inches from the snow. We had both long ago given up on things like privacy and modesty. Looking up at me, she shook her head.
"Oh, God damn you lucky bastards!" She cussed me and all men in general.
Smiling, I tucked my cock away and headed back into the tent. Opening the flap I turned around and kind of fell into the tent butt first. Taking off my boots outside, I knocked them together to shed the snow then sat them on the old towel we were keeping by the side of the door.
Jan came plowing in ass first, shivering.
"Fuck!" She pulled the zipper back around, closing the tent. "Why the fucking hell couldn't we be climbing a mesa in the Arizona desert? Hell, anywhere warm!" She sat back down on her sleeping bag and wrapped the sides of the bag around herself as she shivered like mad.
"Because you, my beautiful-in-the-morning cousin, wanted to get to the top of this bit of rock." I shifted the water cup on the portable burner away from her bag and cracked the lid on the heating element. Soon the chemical reaction started and we had water heating. As I waited for it to boil, I worked on getting the rest of our breakfast out.
"I'll have kippers on the south portico this morning James," she told me as she worked on dragging her rucksack around from beside her.
"I'll get right to building a portico if you can get the fish." I told her as I dumped oatmeal into the two collapsible bowls. A little instant coffee into our cups and we were ready for the hot water. If it would ever boil at this altitude.
I looked over at her as she pulled her top off and struggled into the other heavier thermal liner. Cousin or not of course I watched her breasts, encased in their bra,with the typical interest of any male seeing that much female skin.
"Want some help?" I asked when I saw her having trouble.
"I think I got it," she said, with the same determination that got us stuck once in the snow for fifteen days.
Reaching over, I pulled the back of the thermal shirt down past her bra strap where it had been caught.
"Why are we climbing this bit of rock again?" she asked when I finally handed her the steaming cup of coffee.
"Because K2 and Everest cost too much to get to." I sipped my coffee and stirred the oatmeal. Damn, I wished I had thought to pack along some butter. It's not like it would have melted or gone bad. I might have had to chip it out the tub with an ice ax.
"Yea, but they might be warmer." She shivered, huddling around her cup of coffee.
Glancing over at the thermometer hung by the door I noticed that the gauge was reading the same thing it had been the last time I looked at it. Reaching over I gave it a tap, and damned if it didn't drop another five degrees.
"I don't know what you're complaining about. It's only minus fifteen outside." Looking at my coffee I grimaced and tossed it back in one long sip. It was already nearly cold. Instant and cold, not a good combination.
"I'm complain cause it's frigging July, James! You remember July? Soaking up the sun on the beaches in south Florida. Not freezing ourselves to death on the side of a mountain in Alaska."
"My god woman, you're bitchy in the morning." I unzipped one corner of the door and stuck my cup outside long enough to wash it in snow. Wiping it dry, I looked back at her. "You're the one that said that nuthin' under twenty thousand feet would be a challenge."
"I don't want to be challenged at five in the morning," she said in a low child like voice.
I shook my head completely devoid of pity.
"Jan, I love you. Eat your food and get your ass in gear." I grabbed up my climbing clothes and started the long process of crawling into them.
She eyed me with a disgusted look and dug into her oatmeal. I tuned out her running complains about the oatmeal already being cold till I was dressed. Leaving the zombie to finish her food and start getting ready, I unzipped the tent and climbed back outside.
Looking up the snow-covered hill, I saw the sunrise just begin to light up the side of Mt. Denali like it was on fire.
"Jan! Hurry up you've got to see this."
There was low grumbling from behind me then the tent door unzipped.
"Wow," she said softly. The snow crunched behind me. Then she leaned into my shoulder. "James?"
"Yeah?" I asked, not looking away from the awesome sight before me.
"Never mind a word I said," she told me in a breathy whisper.
"We're going to stand on the top of that," I told her softly.
Rising to its full double peak height of twenty thousand plus feet the mighty Mt. Denali, or Mt. McKinley...depends who you ask, glowed before us like a pyramid of living, liquid fire. The snow was turned to gold and the rock to a dazzling river of silver. Flames ignited the clouds around its peak in patterns of lacy fire. Ever-so-slowly, the sun rose higher and the effect changed and faded till at last we were looking up at the massive mountain. The snow, the rocks, the fluffy-as-cotton-candy clouds.
Beautiful.
I heard other zippers opening. I felt sorry for my fellow climbers that they missed the show, but it would be the same, or nearly the same tomorrow. As I pulled Jan's hand into mine I saw her look at my face and smile. Suddenly, I was no longer sorry for the others. This had been a moment for just us.
Very slowly the growing bustle of activity tried to break the spell over us. She slid in under my arm and hugged me tight. I held her and looked around at the others.
Our guide told us it would take about two weeks to hit the summit from the drop off point on the glacier. The plane ride down had been a thrill that my stomach still wasn't fully recovered from.
"Thank you for this, James," Jan whispered by my side.
"It's as much your doing as mine. Thank you," I told her, reluctant to turn her loose. When she looked up at me, I saw the tears in her eyes. I smiled and gave her a tighter quick hug. That had been our agreement. Hug away the tears whenever they showed up.
Not all of them were hers.
"Let's break camp," she said after a few minutes comport. I watched with admiration as she walked back to the tent. I wished I had her willpower. Her strength. Jan had watched, for three agonizingly slow months, her husband of a decade plus succumb to cancer just a year ago.
A deep feeling of guilt that I had not been there for her through that hit me as it always did. I wished I could have been there to help... but there had been too many broken bones at the time. I looked down at the glove covering my left hand. I could feel my wedding ring like a cold band of fire around my finger. The climbing guide had told me I should take it off. That the metal would draw the cold to my finger. I can't tell you how close I had come to telling him where he could stick that suggestion.
I shivered as a goose walked over my grave and went to help pack up.
We split the camp between the two of us so that if one pack was, lost the other pack would have enough stuff to help at least. I didn't like to think about just how a pack could be lost. I looked up at Denali,"the High One" the natives call it. I knew from my reading he has claimed more than a few climbers since those first "crazy white men" went up it looking for gold.
Jan and I packed quickly. We have had a lot of experience at it in the last seven months. After the...well, after the... Let's just say after the several "it" happened she and I had made a pact together. We would not let the past drive us into empty lives of memories and depression. We would go see the world. We would swim it, climb it, hike it, or plain just jump off it, till old age caught us or death took us. Thinking about some of the things we had done in the last few months, I can't say I'm seeing a rocking chair in my future. A wheel chair maybe, but not a rocking chair.
Shouldering my pack I felt "the rush." That surge of energy that was not adrenaline but wasn't the coffee either. I helped Jan settle her pack, and taking up my walking sticks slash climbing ax, we headed out and up. I hooked my lifeline to her belt before we were too far out of camp.
Some of the other climbers called out to us and waved as we headed past them. They would be following us up. We blazed the trail, they hauled the load. Well most of it. My pack probably weighted about fifty pounds. Jan's, maybe thirty to forty.
The air was bitter cold and cut razor-like pathways into my lungs as we climbed. We stopped after about an hour of steady walking and looked back. The camp looked absurdly close but I knew it wasn't. I could make out some of the other climbers getting started following our trail.
Lifting my head I looked out at the Denali National Park, and at the other white capped mountains that were standing shoulder to shoulder with "the High One."
Jan crunched up beside me.
"How's your leg?" she asked after a second to catch her breath. The air was noticeably thinner here than what we were breathing two days ago when we landed in Anchorage. The one night on the mountain wasn't enough to get us fully adjusted. But it would come, in the days that followed.
"Attached. My leg's fine. I took my pills," I told her before she could ask.
Jan nodded, but the worried look didn't leave her face till I stared at her with bulging eyes. She laughed and moved up to take the lead again.
I followed her higher into the West Buttress Route, what the area where were walking was called. One of the easier climbing paths up the mountain. Jan had bitched about that. I told her if it was too easy we could always come back down after we got to the summit, and take a harder trail back up.
I was glad now we were taking this way. My leg was hurting just a bit. Well, it should be I guess, since it was broken in four places only a little more than a year ago. Some would call it a damn miracle I was walking on it, let alone doing all the things we had been doing.
In truth though only the bungee jumping had been too much for it. Well, that and the landing that time when we went skydiving.
We climbed in beautiful weather all the way till lunch, then the clouds began to roll in over the neighboring mountains. Like waves of white cresting over breakers at the beach.
Unfolding a pole with a orange flag at the top I wedged it into a crack in the black rocks, near the stone overhang where Jan was starting to set up the tent. Looking down the ledges, I could just make out the other climbers down below, then they were lost in clouds.
I followed my guide line back to the tent and began helping Jan get us set up. By the time we got inside and zipped up, the wind was howling around the tent making the thin walls dance.
"I hope the others saw the weather coming and got to a good sheltered place," said Jan, as she stripped off her climbing clothes.
"They should be fine. The guide is with them after all. He knows these mountains far better than I know climbing. He'll get them through the night." I listened to the wind. The bright sunlight we were just climbing in was gone now. We were surrounded by the thickest wind-driven fog you would ever think to see. Spooky, almost silent other than the wind.
I watched, my mind turning over old memories as Jan got an MRE meal put together for us. I chuckled as a stray thought resurfaced. I would have never believed, never in a million years, that once I left the army, I would ever be eating those things again.
I turned my ring on my finger by habit. But then, I guess I never thought about a lot of things.
"You really should take it off James. Wendy wouldn't have wanted you to lose a finger out of sentiment." Jan looked at me with sad eyes as she handed me my food.
I rubbed the little bit of cold gold. It felt the very chill of it with my thumb.
"Where's yours?" I asked looking at her hands.
"Between my breasts, next to my heart. Where I always keep him." she told me after swallowing her first bite of food..
Setting down my chicken dumplings, I reach into my shirt and fished out my old dog tags. I had taken to wearing them again after...well after. The worn ring came off with a lot of reluctance, and I slipped it onto the beaded chain and slid the already cold metal tags back into my shirt.
Jan fixed us a hot cup of mint tea, and we sat on our rolled out sleeping bags. I caught her looking up at the tent walls. A hint of a smile was playing at her lips.
"What?" I asked.
She grinned.
"This kind of reminds me of that camping trip to Yellowstone when we were thirteen."
I chuckled at the old memories that brings back.
"God, I hope this trip works out better than that," I told her laughing.
"What do you mean? I had a great time!" she said with a false surprise on her smiling face.
"Stuck in a tent for four days with you doing everything in your power to annoy the hell out of me! I have never in my life been so happy to see a thunderstorm end." I chuckled. "Though I think by the end, even you were getting bored."
She shrugged. "A little. You had lost interest in most of the things I had been doing. You can only annoy someone when they are paying attention to you."
I sipped my tea, remembering and listening to the wind. The thermometer by the door was in the minus teens still, but between the heat tab we used to cook with and our two bodies the tent was a comfortable twenty, maybe twenty five. After the climb through the snow that was a sauna. The warm food plus the long climb soon had the predictable effect on us both. Our tea was just finished when our eyes both started to droop.
In the thick long underwear and wool socks we slid into our sleeping bags and zipped them up. The howl of the wind outside and the gray light hiding the sun made it very easy to drift off.
I awoke to silence and bright light through the wall panels. Getting out of my sleeping bag, I looked at my watch. It was near five in the afternoon. I unzipped the tent door then quickly pulled my head back in as the white snow was dazzlingly bright. Cussing my stupidity and blinking to get rid of the spots, I put my goggles on and looked out again.
I could easily make out the orange flag above us, on its pole, hanging in the near still air.
"Storm stopped?" I heard from behind me.
Looking back, I saw her struggling to get her bag open. I reached over and took a hold of the outer zipper. Together we got it to finally open.
"Wish we had some oil," she says as she sat up. "I would grease that damn thing."
"You might could try hand lotion." I told her after a second to think about it.
She thought about it for a second. "That might gum it up. Make it worse, not better. When the others catch up I'll see if they have some oil."
She got up and put her feet into her boots. As she started to go through the door, I handed her her goggles.
A few minutes latter I heard her cussing out in the snow.
"Oh, god damn all of you bastards!"
I chuckled and started setting up everything to cook us dinner. If it wasn't so late I might think about breaking camp and going a little higher.
Not much point in it though,. By the time we could get the tent torn down, and packed away, we probably wouldn't make more than thirty minutes climbing time before we would have to start setting back up.
She came back in shivering.
"Problems?" I asked sweetly.
"No. Fuck off."
I chuckled under my breath.
Shedding her boots she all but dived into the sleeping back. I looked up when I hear the near erotic moan from her.
"Oh god, warmth." She wiggled even deeper into the bag as if seeking more heat at the bottom.
"You wouldn't be wanting this cup of very hot coffee now, would you?" I asked her. I mimed like I was going to drink it.
"Oh yes! Mine, mine!" she hold out her hands like a little urchin child. Laughing, I handed her the cup. "Oh yes." She moaned shuddering.
"Would you and the coffee like some privacy?" I asked, grinning.
"Hell no, I want you to watch!" she told me as she brought the cup between her breasts and held it to her chest like a lover's head. "Oh god yes."
I laughed and went back to fixing us dinner. Every once and a bit I would hear a little moan from her as she sipped the warm coffee.
"My god if this coffee had a penis I would marry it," she said after an near orgasmic look passed over her face. I handed her the bowl with her dinner.
"They call those swizzle sticks and for some reason I don't think you would find it all that satisfying in bed." I told her, somewhat more grumpy than I had intended.
Her face shifted to me her eyebrows dropping. "What's the matter?" she asked after a second.
I looked down at my food and shrugged. I didn't want to answer.
She reached over and took my fork from my fingers.
"What... is... the... matter?" she asked, giving me a poke with the fork at each word.
I snatched the silverware back from her and tried to frown at her. I quickly had to look away from her face.
"I'm quite capable of asking this question for the whole time we are on this mountain. What's the matter?" she said stubbornly.
I sighed.
"Your moaning." I looked up at her shame-faced. I shrugged. "It's just... been awhile since I heard a woman making those type of sounds."
I saw her face fall. Two large tears fell slowly from her eyes.
"James, I am so sorry. I didn't think about that. I was just trying to tease you." She put down her bowl of food and reached over to take my hand.
"Well, you succeeded but not in the way you were trying." I gave her fingers a squeeze then began to try and eat my dinner. It was tasteless ashes in my mouth, but at least it was hot.
She watched me for a bit then picked up her food. We ate our dinner in a silence that somehow felt colder than the mountain
"I am sorry, James."
I looked over at her, and I saw her lips twitching.
"What?"
I watched her face as she tried to keep from smiling.
"What?" I asked again, patience slipping a notch..
Finally she chuckled a little. "Were you getting hard?" she asked impishly.
I just stared a hole in her.
"You were! Oh, my god!" She started to laugh at the look on my face.
I looked away from her in disgust. Then I heard the moan. Looking back at her I saw her caressing one of her breasts slowly. The look on her face was pure "fake" lust.
"Oh, James. Oh, you have me so wet, cousin. Oh, yes, yes, YES YES!" Jan threw her head back with a deep-throated moan they must have heard halfway down the mountain. Then she looked down, peeking through one half-closed eye.I reached over, setting down my empty bowl, and unzipped the tent. Leaning out the door I grabbed up a handful of snow and compacted it, and brought it back inside.
"Oh no! No not snow, no, no... NO!"
Tackling my cousin onto her sleeping bag I managed to get the handful of snow down the front of her pants. I felt the warm cotton of her panties as I pushed the super-cold snow into her crotch.
"Here this ought to cool that off!" I let go the snowball and pulled out my cold, wet hand. Ignoring her squealing, I slid it under her top and started tickling her ribs.
"NO! Stop it! Quit!" She squirmed under me as I ran my hands over her ribs, my chilly fingertips working furiously against her warm skin. "You bastard! Stop it, I can't breathe!"
"If you couldn't breathe you wouldn't be talking!" I continued tickling even harder. Finally she managed to turn under me till I was astride her back, trying to reach under her to tickle.
I shifted my weight and I felt her ass press back into my crotch. Two pairs of thermal underwear and little else was hardly anything between us. I noticed then that I was rock hard!
It was a grunting moan under me that caused me to pause. Jan lay beneath me, panting for breath and shivering a little. Her ass rose a bit and pressed back against my crotch, held there for a moment, then retreated.
"James. Please get off me," she said softly.
I climbed off her and sat down on my sleeping bag. The position I was sitting hid the bulge in my thermals. Why I wanted to hide it I don't know, there was no way she couldn't know it was there.
She sat up very slowly.
"I'm sorry, Jan," I told her after a second. "I got a little carried away."
She looked up at me. After a moment she got this strange half-smile.
"It's okay James." She looked down at her long underwear and reaching over to her pack pulled a cloth from a pocket. I looked away as she tried to dry her crotch. Finally she shook her head and dug back into her bag. I saw a fresh pair of white panties come out when I looked over my shoulder at her hearing the sound. I turned back away giving her some privacy as she stripped down and changed her panties.
"You can look," she told me softly.
When I turned around, I noticed a musky, perfumed smell starting to fill the tent. I watched her zip her wet underwear into a plastic baggy. I realized the smell seemed to be coming from them, even as I understood what it was. She noticed my gaze and blushed a little.
"Let's just say you're not the only one for whom it's been awhile." She told me, red faced.
"I'm sorry, Jan."
She shook her head. "Not your fault. I was teasing you in a way I shouldn't have been." She shrugged. "Lets just let it ..." She shrugged again.
"Okay." I agreed.
We soon turned to other topics to fill the time till sleep started to weigh heavier on us. As we zipped ourselves into our bags and lay down next to each other, the silence began to grow. I could feel sleep just at the edge of my thoughts but I couldn't get there.
Evidently she couldn't either
"James?"
"Yeah, Jan?" I turned to her a little. She started to say something but then shook her head.
"Goodnight, James."
"Goodnight." I looked at her for a second, then she turned her face away from me.
Ever-so-slowly I drifted off to sleep, only to awaken slowly hearing a strange sound. It took my tired mind a second or two till I began to sort out the sound. My mind ran through dozens of old memories till it found a similar sound and pulled up that reference file.
A woman masturbating. Trying to be quiet about it.
I gave no sign that I was awake. I just lay there, breathing evenly and listening to Jan as she breathed deep, slow breaths. Through my half-open eyes I saw the little clouds of heat fog rolling up from her lips to the roof of the tent.
I listened to the rustle of the sleeping bag, the soft panting breaths. I felt my cock growing and standing at attention, but I didn't dare to move for fear she would stop. I heard a gasp from her then her hand went still. There was a long slow exhale of breath, followed by a second low half-hidden moan. I listened, smiling, to her catching her breath. Then I heard her breathing settle into a more even pace as, needs sated, she drifted off to sleep. I took me a long time to finally get back to sleep myself.
The next day both of us were a little subdued. We packed up and started climbing more in a side ways fashion than upwards. We walked through the easily recognized trails around the mountain, going more or less, in a big circle around the side of Denali. Most people who don't climb don't understand that circling. You just can't go straight up a twenty thousand foot pile, of rock and snow, in one long climb. Your body has to get used to the changes in air density.
We made it to a good spot for the night, with it still in the early afternoon. I could see the others coming up hard in our direction so we stopped and started getting set up. By the time the other climbers caught up Jan and I were rested, had our breath back and could help them set up.
Just in time for the blizzard.
Well, it would have been called a blizzard where we are from but here, it was just a heavy snow storm.
We did the only thing we could.
Zipped up the tents and rode it out.
Jan and I sat on our sleeping bags, playing cards and listening to the wind. At first neither of us felt talkative.
"Jan?"
She looked up from her cards at me.
"You've been very quiet today. Do I need to apologize again?" I asked tentatively
She looked a little surprised.
"No. You're fine James. That was as much me as you. We're square. I've been just thinking about some things," she said after a bit.
"Like what?" I asked, laying my cards face down.
She sat quiet for several seconds then looked up at my face.
"The trip to the beach when we were fourteen." She gave me a shaky smile. "You saving my life the way you did."
"I remember." I gave a shrug. "I think you would have been fine. You were doing the right thing, you were just scared."
"James, I was a mile off the beach when that rip tide stopped pulling me. I've never been that good of a swimmer. Not a lot of places to do daily ocean swimming in Arizona."
I nodded at the truth of that.
"Then I nearly drowned you when you popped up beside me. Do you remember what you did to stop me from panicking?" She asked, softly looking at my face.
"I remember everything about that day, Jan. Yeah, I remember...I kissed you." I looked down at my cards for a second. The memory was a powerful one to me. It had been my first kiss.
"What made you think that would make me stop panicking?" she asked, fiddling with her cards a bit.
I sat quietly for a second trying to think back to that moment. It came to me with a amazing clarity given how long ago it had been since that day.
"I don't know exactly. You had me around the neck, you pulled me towards you. Your face was there in front of me. I was starting to panic myself. I don't know." I shrugged, reluctant, not wanting to tell her the truth.
"You said you remember everything about that day. What were you thinking?" she asked, looking at my face.
I sat quiet. Then sighed when she reached over and poked me.
"James?"
"I was scared you were about to drown us both and if I was going to die I didn't want to die without ever having kissed a girl." I smiled and shrugged.
After a second she chuckled.
"I can't say that was what was going through my mind at the time but you were the first boy I kissed. That's one of the few times I could say a kiss may have saved two people. I was so shocked to feel your mouth on mine, I stopped trying to drown us." She laughed softly.
We sat together quietly for a few minutes, each lost back in time. As I saw her hands start to go back to her cards though I spoke up.
"What else have you been thinking about?"
She looked down and softly tapped her cards with a finger. A slow grin appeared on her face.
"The time we went horseback riding."
I chuckled.
"You're full of old memories today, huh? Yeah, that was memorable!"
We both dissolved into laughter. Finally I had to ask.
"Just how long had you been planning to play Lady Godiva?"
"I was not completely nude! I just wanted to ride topless!" She looked at me, blushing a little.
"In front of me." I countered.
"Well...I wanted it to be in front of someone, and I figured you wouldn't tell anyone." She shrugged.
"I never did." I grinned. "Never forgot it though."
She blushed then looked up with a mysterious smile. I knew without her saying a word what she was thinking about. We said it together softly.
"Yellowstone."
Nodding, we both dissolved back into laughter. After several minutes I looked at her grinning.
"Still afraid of thunderstorms?"
She shook her head.
"Not since that night. In fact if anything, they make me horny as hell!"
I thought back to her shaking in fear and crawling into my sleeping bag next to me. The thunder rolling across the park had scared her witless. I remembered holding her shivering body next to mine. Her crying had stopped when my body began to respond to the close pressure of her against me. Her curiosity had known no bounds.
"If we had known what to do, I might have lost my virginity to you that night," she told me smiling. I nodded in agreement. "You know Mom found out?"
"No!" My jaw hit the floor.
Jan nodded. "It's was a while after it happen but she was cleaning my room and found my cigarettes and diary in the back of my cabinet speakers. I got grounded for the cigarettes and a long talking to about the diary. It's one of the reasons we never went camping together after that."
"I thought that was because your Mom got sick? Her legs hurting her?"
Jan shook her head. "That's what she told your mom. It was because of us." She shrugged sadly. "She was afraid if we got together after that, we might do something 'inappropriate' for two cousins."
The way she says it was a perfect mimicry of her mom. Several minutes later, I had to wipe the tears from my eyes when we finally stopped laughing. My sides were hurting.
"Have you ever regretted that we didn't?" I finally got the courage to ask her.
She looked surprised, then thoughtful. Slowly she shook her head.
"I loved Morgan. I was always glad it was him that made me a woman. He was gentle. I don't think that, with the way we were fumbling together, it would have been."
I shook my head, laughing quietly and clutched at my side.
"How about you?" she asked me.
I thought back to the youth that I had been. I do remember a strong sense of disappointment, that I didn't see her after I learned what went where and how. Slowly, I shook my head.
"I had a couple of women...well, girls my own age...before I met Wendy. I guess it's a little different with a boy maybe. My regrets have to do more with the loss of opportunity than anything."
"Well, that does my ego a world of good," she said with a quirky grin. "Your only regret was that I was not a notch on your bedpost?"
I shook my head.
"That's not how I mean it. The women I've been with...they will always be with me. In my memories. I've never forgotten a single moment of my first time, with any one of them." I smiled at her softly. "Same as I'll never forget the first time I ever kissed a girl."
She gave me a slow grin back.
After dinner when the sky darkened and sleep started to weigh heavily on us we got settled down for the night, Jan struggling with her sleeping bag's zipper again. She had forgotten about going to ask for oil before the storm blew in.
Just as I heard her breathing start to get even I felt a sly smile coming to my lips.
"Jan?"
"Hum?" came the sleepy reply.
"Let me know if there is a thunderstorm tonight. I want to wake up and listen to... it." It felt like my grin was going to split my face.
After a moment I heard her suck in a breath.
"Oh my fucking god." I heard her softly whisper.
"Goodnight, Jan, sweet dreams," I said chuckling.
"You...fucking prick! Goodnight!" She finally chuckled. "Pervert!"
Laughing, I slowly drifted off to sleep.
We spent the next day in the camp with the other climbers, on the advice of the guide. He swore there was going to be another storm roll in at any moment. I disagreed after watching the sky for a few hours, but then he "knew this mountain better than I," of course.
We had bright blue skies all day.
One of our fellow climbers, a fellow named Wilson, was carrying a folding table up the mountain with him. It was made with a cloth top, and the whole thing folded up. He said he wanted to sit on the summit and have a meal. He had with him a table cloth and full set of dishes and a set of silverware. In his pack he had a steak MRE and a glass-lined, metal bottle of champagne.
Anyway, when it became apparent we weren't going any higher that day, we broke out that table and five of us sat around it and started playing cards. We were betting of course.
Jan was winning. Twelve years married to a casino dealer kind of leaves that sort of mark on you. I knew when, nine times out of ten, to fold against her though. So, I was at least coming out ahead. Well, I wasn't completely broke anyway.
We started to pack it in when the sky began to darken.
"One more hand," called Wilson as I was gathering up the cards.
"I thought you said you didn't have anymore money?" asked Jan lifting an eyebrow.
"Oh, I don't. I'm broke, you've tapped me there. I do, however, have something of value."
Jan looked over at me, and I kind of shrugged.
"What?" she asked taking the cards from me. I watched her hands as she shuffled slowly. I saw the fumble mistakes she was making. To me they looked so obvious.
"A four hundred dollar bottle of champagne," he said pointing towards his tent.
The other players mostly had stood up, but they turned to look back at him. He had been bragging on the plane about drinking that on the summit, all the way from the airport to the glacier.
Jan fumbled the cards and caught them before they dropped. I had to hide my grin.
"Against what?" she asked sweetly. "What you've lost?'
"Oh no, no. I don't care that much about the money." He grinned at her. "When I'm sitting on the summit with my table laid out and my food fixed. I want to drink a toast with my champagne With a naked woman holding the glass I clink!"
I saw Jan's eyebrows lift. She was the only woman in our group.
"You want me to stand naked on the top of Mount Denali and drink a glass of champagne with you?" She chuckled. "And you think I'll freeze my tits off up there for a bottle of four hundred dollar champagne?"
"No. I think you'll do it because you can't stand the idea of losing at cards. I've watched you play, you're good. You don't have all our money by accident." Wilson sat back in his fancy folding chair. It was much bigger than the folding stools most of us were sitting on. "One more hand. Black jack, straight deal. That way no fancy card trading can help you win. Just one hand, pure luck...or be revealed as the card sharp you are."
He kind of looked down his nose with a sneering grin.
I saw the look in Jan's eyes. My own blood was starting to heat up a bit.
Hers was already at a boil.
I watched her hands as she shuffled the cards some more. The clumsiness was gone now. I watched her deal out the cards, two each, one up one down.
Wilson got a black ten showing.
Jan had a red six.
I watched Wilson's face looking for any sign as he glanced at his cards. His face was steady as a rock.
Jan didn't even look at her hole card.
"I'll stand," he said with no expression.
"I'll raise," she said, her fingers on top of the cards.
"What?" he asked, looking at her sharply.
"I'll raise the stakes of the bet. I deal one more card to each of us." She reached over and tapped the deck with a finger. "You were the one wanting to wanted to trust to luck."
Wilson leaned forward in his chair.
"Why would I want to do that? I'm happy with the cards I have." He looked hard at her face.
Jan smiled.
"I win, I get your bottle of champagne. Plus a case of it when we get down off the mountain." She tapped the deck again. "You win...and after I clink your glass naked, I'll give you a blow job while you eat your steak dinner."
I saw jaws dropping all around.
As for myself, I think my eyebrows just got to the top of Denali before I did.
Wilson looked at her. I saw a growing lust start to affect his judgment.
"A blow job? For one more card?"
Jan nodded.
He lifted his hole card, like it may have somehow changed since he looked at it last. I could see his greed and lust warring in him. He looked across at the red six she had showing. She still had made no move to look at its partner.
"Done!" he said in a near-snarl.
Jan hands moved quickly laying two more cards on the table.
A second red six sat beside her first.
Wilson got a black two. I see his face split into a grin.
"I like my cock sucked softly, little lady," he told her, flipping over the hole card. A red five.
Seventeen.
Jan just sat looking at him. For a second I was worried for her then I saw that twinkling in her eye.
"Then you better work on your flexibility." She flipped over her hole card.
A black six.
He looked up at her with shock making his face laughable.
Jan smiled nicely. Her fingers tapped the three sixes in front of her.
"Don't ever bet the Devil's Widow... when sex is on the line. Not even God can win on those odds." She gathered up the cards and got up. I heard the snickers from the others around the table. "Good night, boys. It's been giggles."
I watched Jan walk off towards our tent.
When I looked back to Wilson, I saw him looking daggers at her back.
"Pay up... if you please." I told him with a cold chill coming to my voice.
When he looked at me I saw the shocked look come to his face. I knew what he was seeing. Not the friendly mountain climber he had known for the last few days..
I could almost feel the ex-army ranger showing.
I watched him walk back to his tent and come back slowly carrying the thermos like bottle. He handed it to me reluctantly... then gave a shrug. His slightly oily grin came back.
"I hated having to hold on fifteen, but figured I would bust if I drew another card. I tried to bluff to make her draw another. Your girlfriend's a hell of a card player," he said, as he folded up his chair.
I grabbed our stools from by his table.
"She's my cousin," I told him as I walked away.
We struck out early the next morning. A blustery July tenth. Jan and I were cutting a trail again for the others. Several of the others had come by to see us as we packed up to congratulate Jan.
The mountain was beautiful, and at the same time, humbling as we started up its bright face. I got the feeling then that if it was alive, it wouldn't even have noticed us climbing around on it.
We pushed higher today than we had been before. Climbing till the air started to feel like we couldn't draw enough of it into our lungs. We ate our lunch, panting for breath.
At my nod we headed back down.
Between the brightness of the snow, blinding, even through my goggles, and the lack of air, I had a pounding headache when we set up camp. I tried to help Jan as much as I could, but in the end, she made me sit down.
She finished setting up the camp with business like efficacy.
I laid down on my sleeping bag and shivered when I felt her place a very cold rag across my forehead. It was filled with snow.
"How you feeling?" she asked me after about an hour. I had been able to do nothing but turn the rag over.
"Like I want to puke," I told her as softly as I could.
"So, it's one of those." She said, in as soft a whisper as she could. She took a second rag and gently covered my eyes. It helped a little but even through my closed eyes the light was painful.Finally the night came on and the dark gave me some relief from the pain. I sat up and took a bowl of food from her. The smell of it cooking had been nauseating but after the first taste, I managed to keep it down.
"Feeling a little better?" she asked softly.
"Yeah." I whispered.
"You've told your doctor about these right? You never had these before the wreck." I glanced to her silhouette. We were eating without turning on our lantern to help me not hurt.
"Yeah. They did an MRI when I started having them in the hospital during recovery. They said they didn't see any sign of trauma." I took the last bite of my food.
"Well clearly they need a new MRI machine. Your head is always been screwed up."
I chuckled then winced.
"Oh, don't make me laugh... that hurts." I rubbed at my temple.
"Sorry."
I felt her hand brush mine as she took my bowl from me. Her fingers then pressed against my chest, and I leaned back till I was lying down. I saw her settle herself down next to me in the very last of the light.
I felt her fingertips start to gently massage my temples.
"Oh, Jan, thank you," I whispered when the pain began to ease a little..
"Shuuu." Her fingers worked in gentle circles across my forehead. I felt those fingers trace the sides of my nose, across my eyebrows, over to my hairline. Touching, but not lingering, on the old and not-so-old scars. I got totally relaxed under her hands. I even drifted to sleep a little, feeling her fingers lightly running through my hair. I lost track of time under her touch.
I must have snored, cause she tapped me on the nose.
"James? Here cousin, let me get you into your sleeping bag. You're falling asleep," she whispered.
With her help I climb inside the soft bag. "Thank you Jan," I mumbled, as sleep started to take me.
I heard her move next to me. I felt her breath on my face.
"You're welcome, James." Her lips lightly brushed mine. "For memory's sake," she whispered to me. "Sweet dreams."
For the next three days we did the mountain climber's two-step. Up and back, up and back. I could feel my body and lungs adjusting to the air faster every day.
We camped now on the spot where we had sat panting for breath four days before.
The others were camped lower down the slopes. The guide was being conservative with his group of fat businessmen. Rich, fat businessmen. All with rich, fat, good lawyers no doubt. Can't say I blamed him.
I was sitting on a large rock outcrop looking out across the park to the setting sun, watching the neighboring mountains as they began catching fire. I heard her walking towards me through the snow.
"Wow," she said in a near whisper.
"Yea. It never gets old, does it?"
Reaching over, I pulled her over till she was standing in front of me. I wrapped her in my arms, resting my chin on her shoulder. I felt her hands press against my arms holding me to her.
Jan leaned back into me as we watched the sun sink by inches.
"I love it up here," she told me softly. "It must be horrible in winter, but right now it's like having a continual sunset."
"It's beautiful." I looked across at a line of dark clouds plowing towards us over a line of ridges to the south east. "Doubt we will make any higher tomorrow. That will be on us in an hour or so." I gave her a tighter hug and started to let go, but she clutched at my arms. Not ready to turn loose.
"That's fine. I could use a rest anyway." She yawned. "This is taking more out of me than I thought it would. How is your leg doing?"
"I won't lie and say it's not hurting, but then it always does. The pain is manageable and not about to stop me anytime soon. Yeah, a rest would be nice." I looked at the approaching storm. "Not that we really have much say in it."
She nodded. She looked up the mountain, towards the summit still far above us.
"We will be leaving the snow shoes behind soon." She told me with a little trepidation.
"Yep. It's going to get rougher in a hurry. Soon it will be all crampons and ice axes." I hugged her tighter. "Don't worry Jan. It won't be any different than what we did on Mount Rainier. Just more of it."
She nodded. I looked over at the storm. It was rolling towards us like a black ocean wave cresting over the white caps of the mountains
"Come on let's go get the flags set up."
We took a few steps towards our tent then I grabbed her arm.
"Wait."
She turned to look at me.
I was gazing up at the sky. Her eyes followed mine.
"Oh my god..." she said in a low, awed whisper. "My god that's beautiful."
I took her hand and held it in mine as we watched the northern lights playing above us in the last rays of the vanished sun.
"Oh god... James. I wish Morgan could be here to see this with me."
I watched a tear roll down her cheek.
"He is," I said. I reached over and tapped her chest between her breast. I slowly brought my hand to my own chest and pushed till I felt the circle of metal against my skin.
Jan's hand came to rest on top of mine.
"Wendy is here too," she said softly.
I chuckled and shook my head.
"Wendy, would be down at the lodge. With her feet propped up in front of the fire, laughing her ass off, at us freezing our asses off up here."
Jan laughed.
"True." She chuckled. "But then, she always was the smart one of the two of you."
I dropped Jan's hand and shook my head.
"Come on, smart ass."
"Uhh! I cannot help it that my ass went for higher education while yours rode the short bus." She trailed along behind me.
I ignored the remark. I knew it was a friendly, veiled dig about my career choice after high school. Jan had gone to Arizona State where she had met Morgan. He was studying business and finance in the hopes of one day running his own casino.
My education choice was Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia.
"Well, I guess green bus would be more accurate," she teased from behind.
"No, to be accurate, it would be a tan bus." I unzipped the tent flap and, reaching inside, pulled out the orange bag with the collapsible poles.
With Jan's help, in the growing wind, I got the rescue poles set up in a sturdy place. By the time we had them set up only our guide-line let us find the tent easily.
Almost as soon as we had the tent zipped shut the wind picked up to dangerous levels outside.
"Damn! I wonder what the wind speed is out there?" she asked me as she dug into our bags.
"Probably forty, fifty mile an hour. Not bad for this mountain. I read they have clocked wind speed in the hundred plus up here."
"Hurricane force? Lovely. Will the tent hold up to that?" she asked looking at the dancing nylon walls around us.
"Well, they were wind tunnel tested to survive two hundred plus so yea it should. Whether the anchors will hold down the tent, now that's another matter," I told her as I started pulling out our dinner packs.
"So, that's the reason for the rope and pinyon you set up. I was kind of wondering about that."
"Yeah." I handed her her dinner. "I don't want to get back down to base camp in such a hurry."
I shivered a little. Looking over at the thermometer I saw it had dropped about five degrees since we got inside. That was with us moving around and using two heating tabs to cook. The temperature outside was falling at an alarming rate.
"Soon as it gets dark, the temperature is going to fall like a hammer," she told me, looking at the thermometer
"Yep. Let's finish our coffee and get into the bags. Try to save as much body heat as we can."
Sipping the dark bean juice as quick as we could we stripped down to our thermals and slipped into our bags.
"SHIT!"
I looked over to Jan. She was holding her zipper in her hand.
I crawled back out my bag and went over to try to help her out, but it was a lost cause. The thing had tore out several teeth from one side of the zipper strip. It was slowly opening back up, all down the side.
"James?" she asked me a touch of fear in her voice.
My training from long ago kicked in. I assessed the situation and made a snap decision. They told us, in the army training school, it was better to make a semi-wrong decision quickly, than the right one too late.
"Open it all the way up. Slide the foot over the end of mine. You crawl in with me and we will use yours as a kind of blanket over the top of us," I told her.
"We won't be able to close the top of your bag," she said, worried. "We'll lose a lot of heat."
"With body heat from two of us we may not need to have the top closed, but let's see how it goes. If it's a problem, we'll come up with something else." We worked together to get my bag stuffed into the foot of hers. Then like two worms we wiggled our way into the same sleeping back.
"This is cozy." she said complained, then snuggling up to my chest. I felt her chuckle. "Like Yellowstone."
"That sleeping bag was bigger and we were a lot smaller." I tried to get a little more comfortable but only succeed in elbowing her in the breast.
"Ow! Are you saying I'm fat?" she asked bringing her face up till she was nose to nose with me. "I'll have you know, I'm the skinniest I've been since high school!"
I slipped my arm around her waist.
"Yeah, but you were fat in high school. I've seen the pictures." I teased.
"That damn camera added ten pounds!" She kind of kneeded my knee with hers.
"No, that was the Haagen Dazs ice cream."
"Well don't go sounding to high and mighty. I've seen your high school photos. You had more pimples than the rest of the school combined." She stopped wiggling and, after a second, looked at my face. "This is a lot warmer."
"No shit, really? Who rode the short bus?" I tried to find a comfortable place for my arm and failed.
"Yeah, well I may have ridden the short bus, but you rode the bus ,wore a helmet, and licked the glass all the way to school!" She moved enough to try and poke me in the ribs, but got my armpit.
I rolled my eyes heaven ward for strength.
"Jan shut up and go to sleep for god's sake."
"I would love to, but you keep talking to me." She some how wiggled herself around till she was faced away from me. I spooned up against her back and finally found a place for my arm that was moderately comfortable.
She wiggled her ass back against my crotch.
"Goodnight, James."
I chuckled a little.
"Goodnight Jan."
I awoke at the first low rumble. I listened for it to grow. The fear of an avalanche sent a huge surge of adrenaline through me. Then I saw the night sky light up through the fabric of the tent. I could see the lightning's path across the sky almost like the nylon wasn't there.
The second rumble shook the whole side of the mountain
Jan woke with a panicked gasp and tried to get free of the bag.
"Easy Jan," I told her, getting a hold of her and making her stop. After a moment she settled down.
"What was..."
Lightning again split the sky. The thunder rumbled, echoing from rock to rock, continuing for what seems like ages. It was almost deafeningly loud.
Jan some how spun in my arms like a top, despite the fact there wasn't an inch to spare in the bag. I felt her pressing her face into my chest and heard her whimper as the next bolt cut through the air above us. She pressed her hands to her head as the thunder shook us.
"It's okay, Baby, I got you," I whispered in the silence between. I pulled Jan into my arms and held the back of her head to my chest. Memories came rushing back, like deja vu. The years and maturity rolled away, and I again felt like the young boy, holding his frightened cousin as she cried. Afraid of the storm.
I heard a low rumble nearby that I knew wasn't thunder, but the rush of falling snow down the side of the mountain At this point though, there wasn't anything I could do, so I put that fear out my mind and just held her.
Maybe the rush of panic took the strength out of her, I don't know, but in awhile I felt her relax against me, and I knew almost to the second that she had fallen back asleep. I listened to the thunder and the "not thunder" rumble the night around us for many hours. I drifting in and out of a light "combat" sleep myself. Finally it seemed to slack off, and I let myself fall off into deeper, normal sleep myself.
"James. James, wake up."
My eyes popped open, and I looked down at Jan. I had her curled into my side, held tight to me.
"Good morning," I told her softly as I let her loose a bit.
"Good morning to you as well. That was a hell of a night," she said, looking up at me as I got my elbow under me and lifted up to make a little room..
I nodded.
"Sounds like it's still going outside," she then whispered, softly. Almost as if to make a sound that the storm might not like.
I listened to the sound of snow and wind coming down hard against the sides of the tent. Both in equal measure
"Yeah. It may last all day."
"I hate to do it, but I got to go out and play in the snow for a few seconds." She started to wiggle around to get at the zipper to the sleeping bag. "And, judging by what's poking me in the hip, you need to as well."
As she zipped down the bag the rush of cold air into our warm cocoon was brutal. As I grabbed my boots, suddenly as if her words were all that was needed to make me aware of my urgent need to piss, I looked at the thermometer. It was minus thirty outside and not much above that in here.
But that difference didn't include the wind chill. Oh, God it was cold.
As I started to pee, I heard her normal complaints about male anatomy.
"Hey, listen... if it gets any colder I'm going to be having to squat as well." I told her. "My cock is going to retreat inside for the rest of the trip. I think my testicles already have."
Standing there, trying to hold my dick at a downward angle even though was wanting to point up, I looked around and wished I would hurry up.
"I don't want to fucking hear it! I think my pussy lips just froze together!" She came back past me, towards the tent, at a slog through the fresh snow.
I looked past her then. I caught her arm. She looked where I was looking and frozen, speechless.
The orange flags we set up were gone. The whole area just a few dozen feet away from our tent was scraped to the bare rock.
"Avalanche," I said in a soft whisper awed by how close to the tent it came.
She gave a shiver and headed into the tent.
When I got inside she was sitting in the bag shivering. I couldn't tell if it was from the cold or from the fear. Probably both.
I know it was for me.
I started to grab up my clothes.
"Were you going?" she asked me seeing me getting dressed
"I want to see if I can find our flags before it snows any harder." I told her as I zipped the inner zippers closed.
She got up and started getting dressed as well.
"You don't have to go," I told her as I grabbed up my jacket.
"No one goes anywhere alone. Remember who said that?" She looked at me as she buttoned her pants.
"Yeah. Okay." I headed out and looked up the mountain as I waited for her. I couldn't see the summit due to the storm clouds still swirling snow around us.
Hooking a lifeline together we headed over to where the flags had been. I followed the path of the snow down the side of the hill for about three hundred yards till I saw a bit of orange sticking out the white.
The flag was half tattered and the telescopic pole was bent like a pretzel.
We found the second pole and its flag, standing upright, just like it had been planted there.
"God, if the others had climbed up here and seen this they would have been digging around here trying to find us. Figuring we got buried by the snow." She looked down the hill at the large drifts of disturbed powder.
"Yep. That's why I wanted to find the flags. Come on, let's get back before we get frostbite."
As we climbed, the snow started coming down harder. Almost as soon as we started back, it seemed to double. In the end only my compass and training got us back to the tent. It was a total white-out by the time we were zipping the door up.
I started breakfast and coffee while she tidied up our sleep area. We ate the meal in silence, trying to not let the other one see how afraid we both felt. The heavy rumble of thunder returned with the stronger winds a little while later.
I saw her flinch at the noise.
"I thought you said you weren't afraid of thunderstorms anymore?" I asked
"I've never exactly been in the middle of one before," she told me in the silence between rumbles. I saw the growing sound finally get the better of her. She dug out her MP3 player and stuffed her ears with little, white speaker buds. She soon had it loud enough that I could hear it.
Bored, I fished out the deck of cards and started to play solitaire. As I finished my second hand, I noticed she had taken an interest in the cards. Scooping them up I dealt out a hand of Texas hold-em.
She reached over to the food bag and pulled out a bag of animal crackers. She counted out twenty to each of us. I quickly lost two giraffes and a lion to her.
I watched her deal.
"How did you do that thing with the three sixes?" I asked, watching her hands move.
Looking up she smiled, then looked puzzled and with a roll of her eyes pulled out one of the ear buds.
"What?"
"How did you do that thing with the three sixes?" I asked again.
"Oh, that. I loaded the deck while he was talking," she confessed without shame.
I smiled.
"I seem to remember you promised no cheating." I grinned at her wickedly
"I wasn't cheating in the least. While we played."
I laughed and settled in to watch her hands. Even knowing what to look for she can still slip something past me about every three out of five deals.
Some people play cards to get better at playing. I was learning to cheat at cards. What can I say? She was a good teacher.
We got snow trapped twice more as that third week in July went on. Only once did the other climbers catch up to us. The mountain guide advised us to fall back and walk with the group but I disagreed with him. She and I had been finding very safe and easy paths compared to the ones he was following from memory.
The morning of our fifteenth day on the mountain dawned with Jan and I several hundred feet above where the others had camped for the night.
"Two more days?" I heard her ask behind me. I turned from looking up at the mountain to see Jan standing behind me.
"Barring weather...yeah." I pulled in a deep breath. God, the air is so thin. "Climb today and tomorrow. Camp tomorrow night, then we will summit the next morning. Come back to that camp, rest and start down the next day."
She looked down at the others.
"They won't summit before us," she said shaking her head. "They may even be a day behind."
I nodded. I smiled seeing my cousin start to grin.
"What?" I asked.
"Oh, I think I'll leave that bottle of champagne there. Empty."
"God, you're vindictive." I grinned. "I love it, so long as it's not aimed at me."
She grinned at me and headed back into the tent.
We packed up as quickly as the thin air would let us. I felt like I had run a dozen miles, and we were just starting. My leg was a cold dull ache of pain that I was now trying to hide from her. I could feel the metal screws in the bones. They were like cold, but at the same time, hot points of fire. I swallowed a small pill with a sip of the melted snow from my canteen.
"James?" she asked. I could hear the concern.
"I'm fine. Lets go."
My ice crampons sinking into the frozen ground and, my ice ax acting like a cane for me, I started upwards.
We walked in silence for the next couple of hours, trying to save our air for the climb. A thick cloud covered us for a bit, and we walked in the drifting fog. As it blew away, I felt the ground drop downward in front of me. The sky cleared around me I saw that I was standing on the ridge-top looking up at the summit"Oh my god."
I turned to see Jan looking with wonder at the surrounding lands. Other than a few small valleys still covered by the fog we could see all the way to the edge of the earth.
My cousin stepped up beside me and I hugged her to my chest. My chin rested on her shoulder as we stood looking out at the whole of the mountain laid out below us. Only the very top, looking like just a short stroll away, was above us.
I rubbed at my knee. She caught the half-hidden motion.
"James? We probably need to camp and let you rest for the night."
I lifted my ice ax and pointed to a slightly flatter point up ahead.
"That's where I was headed when the fog blew in. I can make it to there, and it's a good place to make our next to last camp." Turning her loose I started to make my way back up the hill. She caught my shoulder
"I'll lead."
I nodded and let her pass me.
I found it funny that, with all of Denali park laid out below me and the summit up ahead, the only thing I seemed to find myself looking at was Jan's ass. With that as my focus I followed and in a few hours, that felt like years, we reached the flat spot where I had said we should camp. I could see from some of the mountaineering trash here that other climbers have had the same idea before.
Jan did more of the work than I liked to get the camp set up, but the lack of air and my leg together had me sapped for strength. She set the camp up with her normal efficiency and soon we were crawling into the tent together.
As I climbed out of my clothes, she worked on making us a warm drink and a small meal.
"Would you and your coffee like some privacy?" she asked me as I moaned after a sip. Then she took a sip of her own and made a similar sound. "Never mind, just make it a foursome."
I laughed.
"That would be a first for me." I told her smiling.
"Really?" she grinned. "I guess I can see it. Wendy really didn't seem to be the type who would go for something like that. Morgan and I did it a couple of times."
"A foursome?" I asked grinning a little.
She nodded.
"We got access to one of the big private suites at the cassino where he worked. Us and another couple we knew partied up there all night. It was pretty wild."
"I can imagine," I said, smiling.
"How can you imagine it if you never had one?" she asked, grinning at me.
"I have a good imagination."
We laughed then sat down to eat, each of us suddenly quiet with our own memories. After dinner I settled back on my sleeping bag and watched her. At first I thought she was putting up the cooking gear, but then I noticed she was more like setting it up again.
"What are you doing?" I finally asked.
"Seeing if I can dry heat a towel. Thought it might help if we could get a bit of warmth back into that leg of yours."
After a few minutes she came over to me with a towel that steamed.
I grabbed the zipper at the bottom of my thermals and zipped them up to mid calf. Pulling them up past the scarring I heard her hiss at the way my leg looked.
"Damn, every time I see that it looks worse." She shudderd. Laying the towel down on me for a second it felt like she had left the heating element wrapped in, and it was laid bare against my skin! I flinched back from the heat. Her strong hands held me steady till I got used to the heat.
I leaned back in the soft cushion of my mummy bag and just let it seep through me. Then I felt her fingers start to work at the skin. A gentle massaging of the old scars.
"I wish I had been there for you when this happened," she said softly.
"You had other things on your plate at that time."
Her fingers ran up over my knee, caressing the deep, indented points where the external pins had once held together my bones.
"Still wish I had been there."
I leaned back and finally just relaxed. The feeling of her hands, coupled with the lessening pain from my leg was a slice of bliss. I looked up when she moved the hot towel a bit up my knee.
She was smiling.
"What?" I asked.
She looked from my crotch to my eyes and back. Then kind of grinned and blushed a little at the same time.
"What is it?" I asked propping up on my elbows
"Was just kind of wondering if you might have changed any since I saw you last. Up close." She asked with a quick glance down at my crotch.
I chuckle a bit.
"Well, I imagine so. It's been a few years since then." I sat all the way up till I was just inches from her face. "Why the curiosity?"
"Rubbing your leg I guess. That's the first time I've really touched a man in awhile." She moved back away from me after a second. For just a moment there I thought she had been about to lean in and kiss me. I know for sure that, for a moment there, I was about to lean in and kiss her.
"Jan..."
She shook her head. I saw the silent tear run down her cheek. I sat up onto my knees despite the flair of pain and tried to pull her into my arms. I felt her hand on my chest blocking the hug.
"Don't, James. These tears aren't for Morgan," she told me softly.
I rested my hand on hers.
"Who are they for them?" I asked
"For me."
I moved her hand out from in front of me and pulled her to me in a hard embrace. I felt the shudders of her crying.
"I've been so lonely, James," she whispered to me by my ear. "I miss, being with him, as much as I miss him... sometimes."
I brushed her hair with my hands.
"I know what you mean." She leaned back and looked at my face. "I feel the same. I miss Wendy more every day, but there are times when just I miss how wonderful she could make me feel."
I brushed a tear from Jan's face. She leaned her cheek into my hand.
After a moment being on my knees started to get to be a bit much and I had to sit back down. I clung to her hand and made her sit next to me.
"You know your real lucky I didn't lose that bet." she said out of nowhere.
I looked up from my thoughts, blinking. "What?'
"The bet with Wilson. To give him a blow job while naked in the snow at the summit"
I chuckled. "There was never any chance of that. Was there?"
"Well, not much, but what if I had gotten one card wrong? I would have been buck naked on the top of this mountain! You and all the others standing there watching me?" I saw a twinkle had come to her eyes. "I would have clinked those glasses of champagne together. Then when I leaned down as he starts to eat his steak.. my tongue would have touched him and bam! I would have been stuck to him like that kid in A Christmas Story was stuck to the flagpole."
She stuck her tongue out at me.
I gave a snort that slowly turned into a chuckling belly laugh as the image slowly filled my head.
"You are so not right." I told her after catching my breath. This high up a good laugh was almost enough to put you out cold.
"Well, I ain't 'left' either." She told me with a grin. Which of course started me chuckling again.
After a moment or two, the laughter died away leaving me looking at her beautiful face. She looked back at me for a second, then looked away.
As the night came on and the temp dropped like a stone off the side of the mountain we curled up together. Me, against her back, in my sleeping bag again. Hers across the top of us. The exhausting of the days and days of climbing took us quickly to sleep.
A muscle twitch woke me with that sensation of falling. Given where I was, that was a horrible thing to wake up to. I slowed my breathing as quickly as I could and, shivering violently, tucked back into the warm heat of Jan's back. As she snuggled down I felt her hand come to where mine rested on her hip. She took my hand and moved it up till she placed it on her breast. I tried to pull it away, but she held it in place and snuggled down into my chest.
After several tense minutes I finally relaxed and begin to enjoy the feeling of a woman's breast in my hand again. I leaned in and filled my nose with the scent of her hair. After the week up here on the hill, with only waterless shampoo to wash with, she would probably smell bad to another person. To me she smelled wonderfully feminine. A scent that my far off caveman ancestor would have no doubt known far better than Chanel Number Five.
"Your breath is tickling my neck," she said sleepily."
"Sorry."
I moved my head a little and pulled her tighter to me as sleep slowly took my thoughts to strange places. Places where the woman in my arms wasn't my cousin but just a lover I wanted and needed.
I awoke with the rising sun coming through the side of the tent. Jan's breast bare under my fingers. At some point in the night I must have slipped my hand up under her thermals. As I went to move, I also realized something else. My thermals were down off my hips and my cock was resting between the naked cheeks of her ass.
Jan woke as I shifted a little. I felt her press back against me.
"Well, I haven't been woken up this way in a while." She glanced over her shoulder at me. "And good morning to you...cousin." She gave me a grin.
"Sorry, Jan." I tried to pull my hand from under her shirt. She placed hers on top of it.
"I'm not. Brings back a few memories. Nice ones at that." She wiggled her ass back against me. "Oh fuck, if I didn't have to go pee so badly, I might be tempted to do something with that."
I groaned as she trust back against me, and then groaned again as she zipped down the side of the bag and frigid cold air poured in. I felt her nipple brush past my fingers as she got up. I watched her settle her thermals and put on her boots. When she opened the tent up I found whole new meanings to the word cold. Struggling out of the bag I started grabbing up my climbing gear. She came back in looking a bit blue around her lips, shivering like mad.
"Jesus fucking Cristina!"
I looked at the thermometer as she closed the door. It was at minus forty. That's where this one stopped at. Odds were good it was even colder outside.
As she sipped at the coffee I made and got into her climbing gear she didn't say anything to me. Didn't even look at me for quite a bit.
"I'm sorry, James." she said.
"For what?" I asked, lowering my cup from under my nose with reluctance.
"I kind of got you all hot and bothered and didn't back it up." She gave a shrug. "It was a nice way to wake up though."
"It's okay Jan, believe me the moment you opened up that sleeping bag any thoughts of that nature went away real quickly." I shrugged and just as I was about to take the final sip of my coffee I smiled. "It was a very nice way to wake up."
We both looked up and grinned at each other. We slowly got together our gear.
The climb was almost easy now compared to what we had been doing. We walked a ridge line all day, gaining in height slowly. I felt my lungs protesting the thin stuff I was calling air. Just after midday I looked back and see a bright green flag far down below. I point it out to Jan.
"Green?"
"They've run into some sort of trouble." I shook my head. Not much I could do for them. From the look they were at least a days hike behind us. Taking out my binoculars, I tried to focus in on the others. "They're setting up camp. Someone may have turned an ankle"
"James..."
I turned to see Jan looking off into the distance.
It looked like a wall of black and white storm clouds, moving terribly fast, blanketing valley after valley behind it.
"Oh, sweet Jesus. Move!"
I started looking ahead of us up the ridge line. There was very little all the way to the summit that looked like it could give any shelter. Then she saw a tight cluster of rock.
"There." She pointed.
I took a compass heading and started towards it as hard as I could go, which we very quickly learned was not much faster than we had been climbing.