by Krista Wolf
I grabbed at the ski pole. Maybe I could use it to probe my way out. The problem was, I didn’t know which way was up! I could be upside down for all I knew. Or on my side. Or on my—
A flash of insight brought tears to my eyes, as something suddenly came to me from a show I’d watched. It had been one of those survival shows. The ones you always scoffed at from your couch, but never thought you’d actually need.
I spat.
It was that easy. That simple. My spit traveled upward, sliding over my nose, disappearing somewhere past my forehead. That was the direction of down. The direction of gravity. Which meant that ‘up’ was somewhere beneath me.
Thank God!
I grabbed the pole and started jabbing it downward. It was slow going, but somehow I managed to push it through, until the entire length of the shaft had disappeared and only the handle remained.
Did that last part just break the surface?
I thought it might’ve. Quickly I pocketed the phone again, plunging my little void back into darkness.
The tiniest pinprick of light seemed to be coming from my ski pole’s end.
“HELLLLLLP!” I screamed, as much as my constricted lungs would allow. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”
It was a longshot, especially with the storm raging above me. Or rather, below me. Or rather…
“HELP, PLEASE!” I cried. With my free hand I pumped the ski pole up and down, imagining the tip poking out from the snow. “HELLLLLLP!”
A sound reached my ears, muffled by several feet of snow. A cry? A shout?
“HEY!” I screamed, until my throat went raw and voice cracked. “HEEEYYYYY! I’M DOWN HEEEEERE!”
I shoved hard, wriggling the pole all around, thrusting it up and down wildly. I could hear something for sure now. A voice, calling out over the storm.
Suddenly the pole was yanked out of my hand! I heard the sound of scratching, louder and more pronounced, until I realized it was the sound of someone digging… digging their way down to me.
“OH MY GOD!”
The snow broke away in giant chunks, falling on top me. I spit it out, coughing and sputtering as light flooded my eyes. The sudden brightness obliterated my vision. I couldn’t see a single thing! The wind was a savage force, roaring loudly in my ears.
I was blind. Practically deaf. Then I felt the most beautiful thing in the world: a strong hand closing tightly over mine.
“Gotcha!”
Four
SHANE
She looked astonishingly beautiful — like an angel, emerging from the snow. Or like some kind of screwed up reverse phoenix, one that rises from the ice instead of the ashes.
“ARE YOU OKAY?”
I had to practically scream to be heard. Between the driving storm, and the howling wind? All my little angel could do was nod back at me.
“COME ON!” I said, extending my hand. “WE HAVE TO GET DOWN THE MOUNTAIN!”
She nodded again, this time while shivering. As the wind whipped her long hair all around her pretty face, I realized something:
She wasn’t wearing a jacket.
“WAIT… HERE!”
I shrugged out of my own coat and wrapped it around her. I did it without thinking, without hesitation.
Then the wind hit me, and I knew we were in serious trouble.
“C’MON!” I pulled her along. “HURRY!”
The snow was so deep all we could do was slosh our way through. It was slow going. Exhausting. Even powering my way forward, swinging my arms, I could barely cut enough of a path through to continue moving.
All of a sudden, the ski run was wide open despite the trail being steep and narrow. All at once, I could see forever in every direction. And then, with growing horror, I suddenly realized why:
Everything had been buried.
The trees, the hills, everything was just gone. So much snow had roared down from the upper peak it had buried 50-foot fir trees all the way up, until not even the tops were showing.
And it was getting dark, too. Darker and colder. The paths were long gone, leaving nothing but a long stretch of pure unblemished white.
Shit, I wasn’t even sure I was going in the right direction.
Follow her!
I’d been following her since Ponte di Legno, when I saw her riding the lift in her cute little fur-lined parka. Following her with my eyes, at least. She was one of those rare girls who didn’t know she was pretty — not yet, anyway — and I wanted to be the one to tell her.
She hadn’t shown for the after-party that night though. That part was sorely disappointing, but we still had one more day, one last trip. One final chance for me to approach her before we were all whisked back to campus, where she’d mingle in with the thousands of other students and the magic of something familiar halfway around the world would be gone.
It had been a stupid idea, jumping down the old double-black diamond trail. Following this girl during the last run of the day, trying to catch up with her in time to—
“WAIT!” Her eyes went wide with sudden recognition. “MY FRIEND!”
I leaned in, putting my ear against her mouth. I could barely hear what she was saying.
“WE HAVE TO FIND MY FRIEND!”
I shook my head. As cute as this girl was, if she had a friend with her things were looking pretty grim right now. As it was, we might not make it ourselves.
“BUT—”
“NO!” I shouted back. “WE HAVE TO KEEP MOVING!” I pulled on her wrist. “WE HAVE TO GET DOWN BEFORE THE STORM—”
CRACK!
As if proving my point, another section of the upper mountain broke away. We couldn’t see it, but we could definitely hear it as it went rumbling downward, somewhere off in the distance.
We winced, waiting for the inevitable. Luckily though, this particular aftershock wasn’t moving in our direction. The relief wore off quickly. I used it as motivation.
“COME ON!”
We shoved on, pushing through the ice and snow. Every step was exhausting. Every ten or twelve feet we had to stop and rest.
I was sweating… sweating profusely despite my lack of a winter jacket. I knew the minute I stopped moving my sweat would turn to ice. My joints would lock up. The lactic acid would settle into my muscles, immobilizing me, rendering me totally useless.
Twenty minutes later things were even bleaker. There seemed to be no end to the snow-sheet the avalanche had dropped on the mountain. And now it was so dark, I could barely even see.
I pulled my snow-angel close. Set my lips right up against her ear.
“WE HAVE TO STOP.”
She shook her head. “NO! NO, WE NEED TO FIND HELP! WE NEED TO—”
I dropped, and immediately began digging frantically into the snow. My fingers were frozen. My lungs burned. But I had just enough energy left for one last feat: to make an emergency shelter.
Maybe.
And somehow… it would have to be big enough for the both of us.
Five
MORGAN
At first I thought he was crazy, digging in the snow. That the cute guy who’d rescued me from certain death had reached his physical and emotional limits, and was literally digging his own grave rather than go on.
I was wrong though. And thank God.
Darkness descended, and I held my phone’s flashlight out as my would-be rescuer clawed frantically into the snow. A small space began to form, then a larger space, then a cavity with room enough to call it an igloo or something. And then it hit me:
He wants to stay the night here!
The idea shattered me. That somehow we’d be left on the mountain overnight. That they’d find us frozen to death, clutching each other in the morning… like Jack Nicholson, in that terrifying scene from the end of The Shining.
No, the whole idea seemed ludicrous. We should’ve already been rescued. Or we should’ve at least made it down the mountain. There should be entire teams of people looking for us — and for Faith too! Searching for us quickly, to f
ind us before night fell…
And yet in all these hours I hadn’t seen a single soul. No rescue sleds, no St. Bernards with casks of rum, no helicopters.
Nothing.
I turned my attention back to my furiously digging hero. His stamina was incredible. So were his arms! In giving up his jacket I could see the strength and power of his thick biceps and triceps, churning beneath his long-sleeved thermal. His shoulders were magnificent, tapering down to his well-muscled back in a big, sexy ‘V’. I couldn’t believe I was staring. I should’ve been searching the horizon, or looking into the sky.
Only there was no horizon. There was no sky. There was only the icy wind, the blowing snow. And now that darkness had fallen? Sleet too.
Already I was shivering my ass off.
“GET IN!”
It was the last thing I wanted to do. The cavity was dark. It looked cold and uninviting. And yet the second I ducked my head inside, not having the wind ripping at my face made me appreciate it a lot more.
I crawled in, and the noise of the growing storm died off. It was almost quiet in the little igloo. And it wasn’t half as cold as being exposed to the wind.
“Its not the best snow shelter, but it will have to do.”
I turned and he was beside me, my frozen hero, already pulling armfuls of snow around the entrance to cover us up. Claustrophobia hit, and I was seized by a wave of panic. But then he left enough of an opening that we could still breathe, still get oxygen. Still look upward and outward to see a dark, churning swath of the nighttime sky.
“T—They won’t see us in here,” I said, the thought just coming to me.
“We won’t freeze to death either,” he replied. “It’s dark now anyway, and the storm’s getting worse. The mountain is still shifting too.”
I swallowed hard, but I couldn’t get past the lump in my throat.
“They’re not even looking,” he said. “Not now. Not yet. It’s too dangerous for them. Our best bet is to hunker down in here. Ride it out until morning.”
For the first time I got a good look at him. My hero was handsome, with reddish-blonde hair almost like mine. He had a short-cropped beard, all covered in snow. He had ice crystals on his eyebrows too.
“Thank you,” I said. Taking my gloves off, I reached out to brush the melting snow from his eyelashes. “You dug me out. You saved my life!”
The touch was somehow intimate, despite our predicament. Or rather, maybe because of it.
“You saved yourself,” he said simply. “I saw your pole, wriggling up through the snow. That was smart, you know.”
I blushed in the semi-darkness. We were huddled together in the tiny space. Practically lying against one another, in the low-slung little snow-cave.
“Besides,” he went on, “we’re both UMASS. We undergrads gotta stick together.” He hesitated, then grinned. “And if I’m being honest, you were too cute not to save.”
“Oh yeah?” I was beyond blushing now. “You could tell I was cute under three feet of snow?”
He shrugged. “I could tell you were cute a week ago, when we started this whole trip.” I could see he regretted the words immediately. Like he’d said too much. “Of course, you were standing across from me on the gondola.”
Now it was my turn to be embarrassed. “I was?”
“Yup. All the way up.”
“Shit, sorry. I’m oblivious.”
He laughed, and the conversation paused, awkwardly. Our eyes met, and in the dim glow of my phone’s screen I could see just how incredibly handsome he really was. Handsome and masculine and… shivering.
“Oh my God! You’re cold!”
I began wriggling out of my jacket. Or rather, his jacket. The one he’d given me.
“No no,” he said, stopping me. “You keep it. You lost half your clothes on the mountain!”
It was true. The avalanche had stripped me of my own jacket. My scarf too. My ski pants were shredded nearly to tatters, and my feet — still in my ski boots — were soaked and freezing.
“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s just—”
I grabbed his hands. It was like holding two ice packs.
“OH MY GOD!”
I pulled his hands to me, pressing them under the jacket and against my body. I did it without even thinking. He slid them to my sides, settling them somewhere near my hips. A warning bell sounded someplace in my brain — the flash of an intimacy alarm or something — but considering the circumstances, I completely ignored it.
“If you won’t let me give you the jacket,” I said, “at least let me cover you with it.”
His teeth were chattering. His hands were icicles. I felt horrible.
“It’s too small for us both,” he shivered.
I pushed him back, stretching his lithe body across the length of our little ice cave. Before he could say anything else, I lay down on top of him.
“Then I’m covering you with myself.”
I left the jacket open, so our bodies touched. Immediately I could feel my heat being transferred to his cold, hard torso. It sucked, but only for a minute or two. With the jacket over us, we began actually generating some heat of our own.
“Better?” I asked.
He smiled. “Much.”
We were hip to hip, chest against chest. Our faces were just inches apart.
God, he’s beautiful.
He really was. High cheekbones. A strong nose. I loved the thickness of his hair, the bushiness of his brow. The strong, masculine curve of his jaw…
His arms went around me, shifting me a little tighter against his body. Somehow I fit perfectly against him, like we were two halves of the same mold.
“We’re gonna make it,” I whispered abruptly. “Right?”
Every exhale was a little puff of white smoke. His breath. Mine. They mingled together as we talked, as we breathed, our lips practically brushing in the confined space.
“Yes.”
He reached out and began stroking my hair. Softly. Slowly. Pinning it back behind my ear in a way that always soothed and calmed me.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” he smiled, squeezing me reassuringly around the waist.
We shifted again and his lips touched mine. Actually touched! I could feel the moisture of his hot breath. The heat of his face, the tickle of his beard…
“Good,” I smiled back.
Then, on a whim… without even knowing how, or why…
I leaned in and kissed him.
Six
MORGAN
It was extremely hot, kissing in the dark. Making out with some total stranger, my body pressed up against his, while mortal danger raged just outside.
What the hell are you doing Morgan?
I completely ignored the stern voice in my head as our lips pressed wonderfully together. They churned insistently, rotating with a slow sensuality that grew more intense as we began nibbling, biting and kissing in earnest.
I felt his tongue, probing its way past my lips. Normally I might’ve shrunk back from the boldness of it all, but for some reason I parted my teeth and accepted him. This guy… this strange, beautiful guy. He was a fellow skier. A fellow student, all the way from home. We’d traversed the ocean and climbed mountains together, only to burrow into some dark hole in the snow and make out like crazy.
But I didn’t care. Not about my safety, or about the cold, or about the storm that raged outside. All I cared about at the moment was the hardness of his warm, gorgeous body. The feel of his chest, his arms, his legs…
All of it, pressed up against me. Out of necessity, yes. But also out of desire.
And in truth, why not? He’d saved my life! And he was beautiful too; much more handsome than any of the small handful of people I’d dated. The tiny subset of guys who I’d let kiss me like this, only not until after they’d taken me out and dated me of course.
Morgan!
The voice screamed again, and my body screamed right back. This man was my hero. My sexy savior. H
e’d pulled me from what was sure to be an icy grave. Dug with his hands until he practically had frostbite, just to shelter us from the wind and the cold.
My inhibitions lowered, and my hands roamed his body. My fingers found their way up his shirt, dancing across the rippled surface of his washboard abs. His body was amazing! The strongest and leanest I’d ever seen… much less touched like this.
I moaned into his mouth as we kissed some more. Every breath I took was his. It was like we were devouring each other, face to face. Melding together. Churning and writhing in our secure little shelter, unable to get enough.
“Oh!”
I gasped as he flipped me over. Suddenly I was on my back, the thick, comfortable down of the UMASS jacket being pressed down into the snow. My hero was on top of me now. Kissing me harder and with more urgency, on my lips… my neck…
On my shoulder…
Morgan, stop!
I didn’t want to stop. It was the one time in my whole life I wanted to think about nothing else but continuing! Everything with me had always been about stopping short and weighing my options. About calculation and consequences. About being pragmatic, to a fault.
But not here. Not now.
A hand worked its way up my shirt. I welcomed that too. While down below…
Down below, he was pushing my thighs gently apart with one knee. Crushing his body against mine. Working his way between my legs…
Oh my God.
I could feel him now as a growing pressure, all swollen and excited and hard. He was crushing against me still, but now he’d begun this delicious grinding too. A slow thrust of his hips, jabbing forward and into me, as he continued kissing and licking and touching.
Our eyes locked, and he stared at me wordlessly, questioningly. Our connection was drawn out in the silence of one long, beautiful moment.
Then I nodded.
Oh Morgan…
A second later he shifted and I could feel his bare legs, warm against my skin. Flesh against flesh. The bulge trapped between us now hard and unyielding and achingly free.