Long is the Way

"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.

It took twice as I thought it would long to reach the place I saw, due mostly to the altitude and the lack of air. It felt like we had to take two breaths for every step we took. The tent went up quickly, and I was driving pitons into the side of the rock, to help hold us in place, even as the approaching storm brought with it severely strong winds. Soon I could not even hear myself, let alone Jan.

As the storm fully reached us, I took a few more minutes to cut and pile blocks of snow as a wall against the wind. I built it as quickly as I could, but not quickly enough. Finally, unable to feel my fingers I had to go inside.

"How high are we?" Jan asked as I got out of my frozen gloves.

I checked the altimeter on my belt.

"Seventeen thousand feet. Most climbers set up a high base camp near here somewhere and then make the final push up." I sat down and took the cup from her. When I sipped at the steamy liquid, the taste stopped me.

"Tea?"

"Sorry, were out of coffee." She sipped at her cup.

"That's it abort attempt. We got to head back down." I made like I was starting to pack back up. She threw something at me. "Come on, Jan. We can't possibly make the summit without so vital a piece of equipment.."

"James, you can be such an ass at times," she said, grinning.

"Well, I am what I eat." I told her. It was an old phrase I used to use with Wendy when she would say that to me. I said it before I even thought about who I was saying it to. The look on Jan's face was worth the blush that came to my cheeks.

"Oh, really? Okay, well that's a news flash to your cousin." She looked at me and grinned. "I think the higher up this mountain we get the more I come to find out about you. When we get to the summit you're going to confess to being a drag queen."

"Not likely."

"What? You won't tell me you like to wear women's underwear?" she asked teasingly.

"Maybe on my head if I was drunk enough.

She laughed.

"I would love to see you drunk enough to do something like that. Hell, I don't think I've ever seen you drink."

I smiled sadly and shrugged. "Those meetings where you stand up and say your name kind of put an end to that."

"Really? I never knew that James" She looked at me then gave her head a little shake. "I never even heard that you went to AA."

"Well, who would you have heard it from? Your mom. Who would have heard it from my mom. Mom didn't want that kind of thing getting out."

The full fury of the storm hit the side of the tent at that moment. The nylon flapped and snapped under the force of the wind. I felt the heat from our cooking get pulled away, wicked from the sides of the tent by the wind.

We started two of our heater canisters to going but they were terribly out classed by the cold. That deadly chill began to invade every nook and cranny it could find. Finally, I pulled out the two sleeping bags. We crawled inside and tried to find a comfortable way of lying next to each other. When we finally ended up with me spooned up against her back, holding her. With my hand on her hip, I began to fall asleep.

"I love you, James."

My eyes popped back open. I smiled.

"I love you too Jan. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Just as sleep was about to take me I felt her turn a little.

"James?"

"Yeah?"

"If you want to hold a tit again, now would be a good time, my nipples are cold."

Chuckling, I rubbed her thermal covered hip.

"Goodnight, Jan."

"Damn it, I wasn't joking. My nipples are cold!"

I laughed till she took my hand and put it under her shirt. Her belly felt like hot coals. The warmth of her was so nice.

"Then again, your hands are colder." She kind of wiggled against me. My hand came to rest in the warm pocket of heat under her breast. After a moment she kind of sighed. "Okay, your hand is warmer now. Nipples...remember. Cold nipples."

Laughing, I move my hand till I felt the softness of her breast fill my palm once more, and then a painfully hard nub brushed through my fingers. I felt the soft cone come to rest in the center of my palm. She wiggles back against me.

"That's much better" she said sleepily. "Night, night"

Chuckling, I buried my face in her hair and kiss the back of her head. Happily, I let my hand stay there and drifted to sleep myself.

* * * * * *

Leaning on the ice pick, I looked up the small hill. That's what I would have called it if I had seen it on the side of the highway. Just a hill.

With a smile, I gestured to Jan to go first.

She shook her head.

"Together," she told me, dropping her pack in the snow next to mine. She took my hand and pulled me towards that little hill.

We walked the last few feet across the flat top of the mountain to the snow covered piece of stone that had been our goal for weeks, months even if you count the planning it took to get here. It was topped with a round black ball on a post driven far into the rock of the mountain.

Walking behind her, I put my hand on her ass and gave her a push up the last few feet. Then she reached back and pulled me up next to her.

I couldn't hardly describe what it felt like to stand there.

"Kind of like an orgasm." She whispered.

"What?" I asked then catching her meaning I chuckled. "Yeah, a bit like that."

All that effort to get to do such an incredible thing then just total bliss for a few seconds... then bam! The fact that it all over comes rushing in on you and you suddenly feel...

"Depressed, a bit sleepy and wanting a cigarette," she said softly. I chuckled agreement.

Looking out from the roof of the world. Those silly cliche words from the brochure came to me then. That I was standing twenty thousand feet above the level of the sea hit me at almost the same time.

Hell, planes fly at this altitude!

I looked at Jan. She was looking off towards one of the other mountains in the distance. When she turned to me, she smiled.

"Champagne?" She asked grinning.

I nodded, laughing.

"I think my AA Sponsor would agree that a few drinks... here... doesn't count as a fall back."

She walked back down the little hill to where our packs were. I watched her digging into the side of her bag.

I realized then that I was standing alone on the summit of Denali.

Only the Gods of Olympus had this view!

I looked down the way we had come up. I could just barely make out the camp the others had set up far below. They haven't moved in the whole time we have been climbing today.

I heard the crunching of snow.

Jan walked up to me and handed me the bottle.

"To Wendy and Morgan," she said with a sad smile. "I think they would be proud of us."

I nodded as I undid the wire wrapping on the cork. As I slipped the last twist off, I noticed the cork had started to move. Twisting almost. I just did manage to get it away from Jan's direction when it doubled its twisting spin and exploded out the end of the bottle with a sound like a gun!

The geyser of clear wine was enormous. Like the bottle had been shaken up. I tried to cap the top with my hand but it wouldn't stop pouring out. Laughing, I held out my hand to Jan and she drank foam from the palm of my hand. I tried to stuff my thumb into the top of the bottle but the pressure very quickly pushed it back out the way. I hastily grabbed a mouthful.

Jan was about to laugh herself sick.

"That idiot! This stuff was bottled at sea level or near."

Finally the foam rush came to an end. There was barely a cupful left when it settled down. I handed it to her, and she took a sip then handed it back to me. The taste of alcohol, after so many years without it, was like the kiss of an old lover. The bubbles turned to gas so quickly I felt more like I was breathing the wine than drinking it.

"It was good champagne though," she said when I handed her back the bottle to finish. I watched her take the wet bottle and stick it to the pole at our feet. It adhered quickly to the frozen metal. "There, he can have his bottle back.'

I grinned. I looked at her face for a second then just why I did what I did I don't know. My feet took the two steps to her and my lips met hers.