Crossing the Lae

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***WARNING - ADULT READING*** The following story includes explicit language and graphically describes heterosexual love between consenting partners. If you dislike or are offended by such content or if you are a minor or live in an area where possession of such material is prohibited, then please DO NOT download or read the following story. The contents of this story and its characters are fictitious. The story itself is based partially on actual experience and partially on my imagination; I'll leave it up to you to decide which is which.

The author can be contacted, by email, at the link below

*****

"So different in the winter," he thought, as he descended the lake bank and shoed out onto the drifted snow. In the summer, there'd be the gulls overhead and the sound of calling loons, and a cooling breeze coming off the water.

"Well there's a 'cooling' breeze today, too," he chuckled to himself. "Gets much cooler, it's gonna to be a pretty uncomfortable walk across."

At what would in warmer weather have been the water's edge, he stopped and looked out toward the far shore, maybe five miles away. He could just make out the cabin and the bush that surrounded it, well above the lake. The poplar trees stood like skeletons against the deep blue sky and the occasional spruce added a little colour to the otherwise drab winter world.

The slant of the sunlight emphasised the wind-sculpted snowdrifts with shadows and the reflected light to the west and northwest was blinding. All around him was a winter wonderland, the glitter of snow particles carried by the wind. The shoreline to his right was still in bright sunlight, that to the left almost a silhouette in the lengthening shadows of the trees, behind which the sun would soon set.

"Don't stay up long, this time of year," he mused.

Out on the lake the brisk wind swirled the snow into tornado-like twisters that danced along toward him, breaking up and reforming in constant motion, some reaching what looked to be 20 or 30 feet into the air above the snow covered ice. The wind was picking up.

"A blow comin'," he thought to himself. "Wonder if there's snow with it?" He could see dark clouds just above the tree-line on the opposite shore, and he could have sworn those clouds weren't there as he came down the trail only minutes earlier.

Feeling a sense of urgency to get underway, he realized that the wind and clouds had him spooked a bit. However, there was nothing to do but go on; it was too late to turn back even if he had wanted to.

Putting his head down into the wind (had it picked up even more?) he set out across the frozen lake, his snowshoes whispering as they slid forward through the grainy snow.

Only a few minutes later he realized that the wind was getting to his face and neck through his parka, and he stopped to adjust it. He brought the zipper up from under his chin and out along the tube of his hood, until the world shrank to a four-inch, fur-trimmed hole that extended about six inches from the tip of his nose. Fumbling with his heavy mitts, he closed the flap at his neck and tested it, making sure the snap caught.

Already he could feel the difference on his face. His trapped breath warmed the air inside the tube and the cold he'd felt on his neck was now blocked by the closed zipper and the flap. Feeling more comfortable, he started up again; the sound of the snowshoes was gone now and the vapour from his breath swirled upward past the fur at the end of his sight tube.

"Not much view with the hood out like this," he thought. Then he laughed out loud, remembering the day he'd bought the parka at the Bay store. He'd seen it on sale early on in the Fall and tried it on. The temperature in that old store must have been 75 plus and nothing would do in his mind but to pull the zipper all the way up like he had it now. He'd wanted to see what vision area he'd have, so he pulled that damned zipper all the way to the end.

Satisfied that it would give him enough to get by on, he began to open it up again. It was hot inside the store, and a down-filled parka, in a place that was already too warm for comfort, wasn't something to keep on any longer than you had to. That's when the bloody zipper had stuck!!

He'd kept working at it but it didn't want to open. So there he was, all bundled up in a parka built for 50 below, in a room that was 75 above and it was getting hot as hell in there. Mind you, his contortions trying to get that zipper to work and a bit of a sense of panic sure as hell didn't do much to cool things down either. He remembered seeing the store shelves out the end of the tube and having to adjust his head up and down, left and right, if he wanted to see where he was going. The old store was just chocker block full of all kinds of goods and the aisles narrow and crooked. He heard a voice somewhere on his left, asking if he needed some help, but it took a lot longer than he'd expected to locate the body the voice was coming from.

He could feel the heat inside that parka building up, the sweat forming under his hair, and the more he tugged and pulled at that motherin' zipper, the hotter and more frustrated and he got. Several times he had to take a deep breath and try to calm himself down. Being inside that parka, with the limited view of the world around him, was sort of like being caught in an underground pipe; what little he could see looked far away, and there seemed no way out of it.

It had taken a good fifteen minutes, with the help of a couple of sales clerks, to finally get the zipper undone and get out of that parka. He remembered being wet with sweat by the time he was out of it, greying hair plastered to his skull, beads of sweat dripping off his nose and running down his flushed face.

The sales clerk had been astounded when he'd bought the damned parka anyway, but it was a good bargain and he knew that a little wax on the zipper would fix it up fine.

Lost in his thoughts as he was, he was still aware of his progress, the blast of the wind against his body, and the fact that visibility was dropping quickly in the swirling snow. Aiming his sight tube up a bit, he tried to make out the opposite shore and was shocked to find that he couldn't see it, except as momentary glimpses through the wind-driven snow. Then he realized that the cloud bank he'd noticed just above the skyline fifteen minutes ago was now taking up fully half of the sky ahead.

"Looks bad...that's a blizzard comin' down," he said out loud. "Better get a move on. Still got a long way to go."

Bearing down into the wind (he could hear it now, even from inside the tube), he pushed on, willing his feet to move more quickly. He knew that speed was important, but if he tripped up now he'd just lose more time than he had gained... and he knew that he had to avoid working up a sweat; that could be deadly if he was forced to stop out here in the open wind.

The chill of the wind was beginning to get to him. He could feel the cold penetrating the parka sleeves and his arms were feeling it in the joints.

"Damned wind must be hittin' 40 mile 'n hour, maybe even 50," he thought to himself. Pulling his arms in toward his body, he hunched over more, head down into the wind. His vision was now a 4 inch sighting of his snowshoes gliding through the swirling snow beneath him, and even they were hidden in the wind whipped snow more often than not.

Glancing back up, he could see that the cloud was moving in even faster now; the bright sunlight all but gone, as the cloud moved out over the lake. As he looked up, tiny flakes of snow fell on his face, like hundreds of icy needles on his skin. He quickly looked ahead and down again, checking his direction at the same time.

Life became a moving picture of snowshoes sliding through his view area--a monotonous left, right, left, right... over and over again. Now and then he'd look up a bit to check direction, but as long as he kept the light (what was left of it) on his left and the wind pretty much in his face, he wouldn't go too far wrong. He kept a constant pace, at a constant speed, as well as he could with that God-damned wind buffeting him.

As his limbs continued the mindless work of moving ahead on auto-pilot, his mind wandered back to three days ago, when he'd left the cabin. It was cold that day but the sun was shining and -25 was no big thing, with the air still and calm. Janey had stood in the doorway, just his old parka over her shoulders, and watched him leave. They'd just finished breakfast, as the sun pushed above the southeast horizon; that was just 8:30 in the morning these days.

Janey. Now there was a woman. So young and full of life, even tryin' to talk him into havin' kids. Well, by her, he sure as hell wouldn't mind; the makin' of them, that would be more than okay with him. God, she had a beautiful body. Slim but soft, strong but curvy in all the right places and, when she had him in her, that body just moved and squirmed and trembled, and her hands... oh God, those hands would make that old bear-fur rug stand up. And when she put them on him, well....

He imagined that it was her body pressing into him and not that damned cold wind, and he tried to remember the heat of her and how it felt....

"Come on boy," he said out loud, "She's close by now. Just keep movin' those feet, we'll be there in no time."

The light was going fast. The cloud, black and rolling, was above him now and passing over the shore he'd left behind a while back. The sun was hidden and soon would be setting, and there would be no sight of the moon he'd hoped to have overhead in another hour.

The wind was gusting. Every now and then it would catch him a bit off centre and he'd stagger, trying to brace against it. Then it would change course a bit and he'd have to change his stance to brace again. Meanwhile, he had to keep those feet moving, at a good steady pace--left, right, left, right, keep them sliding, brace the wind, angle now on that drift, up the steep, down the gradual. On and on and on it went; monotonous but necessary if he was to get across this windswept plain that he could just barely see in the fading light.

Stopping for a second, he took a good look around. The light was all but gone now and the world around him was a wall of swirling snow. Every few seconds he'd catch a glimpse of the dark shoreline, as the wind slacked and let the snow settle lake-ward, but then it would be gone again.

There was no sound other than the howling wind; everything else, even the sound of his breathing inside the tube, became lost in thathowl.

"Jimmy, m'friend, I think we got a problem," he muttered--not that he could really hear it, but he did feel his lips move.

Looking around him again, he decided that although he couldn't see much, there was no point in just standing there being buffeted by the wind. He started out again, head down, into the gale; left, right, left, right, keep them sliding, brace the wind, angle now on that drift, up the steep, down the gradual. Although it was hard work against that mother fuckin' wind, he could feel the chill working into his body. His thighs and upper arms felt numb and he knew that, in a few minutes, he'd have to stop, turn his back to the wind, and let them warm up a little.

In the monotony of it, his mind began to wander again. What would little Janey be doing right about now? Probably making a lamb stew, he imagined; he could almost smell the aroma of it, cooking slowly in that big pot on the back of the wood stove.

"Man, that girl can cook!" he marvelled out loud.

She'd be expecting him sometime soon and this sudden blizzard would have her a bit worried. Had she been looking out the window earlier? Had she seen him coming out onto the lake? They kept a pair of good binoculars on the sill; maybe she'd seen him, knew he was on the way.

He could see little of the world around him but he knew that the wind-carried snow was swirling all around him in the almost semi-dark. The sun was setting now and the great black clouds he imagined overhead were blocking most of the remaining daylight. The drifts were getting harder and harder under his snowshoes, as the wind compressed the snow into compact ridges. He didn't bother to look at his four-inch world any longer; there was nothing left to see other than snow. He concentrated on direction, pointing himself to where the cabin was and correcting instinctively each time the wind buffeted him off course.

His mind took him to the cabin; one large room, an enclosed porch and two good sized windows all facing south, overlooking the lake. On the back wall, he could see the fieldstone fireplace, with some laundry hanging from the racks to either side of it, and the fire, not large, mostly glowing embers, because with the wood stove going it would get too hot in there. The old bearskin rug covered the plank floor in front of the hearth and the long hairs reflected the light of the fire.

Many, many times they'd made love on that rug; he chuckled at the thought of Janey's insistence that she have a towel under her beautiful butt so the old bear wouldn't get crusty. He had no doubt that there was more than one crusty patch on that old rug, the way they rolled and thrashed around with one another.

ooooooooooooooo

He'd known her only a short time really, but Janey had become a large part of his life in the past several months. She'd wandered in, late one afternoon in the early Fall; just a haversack on her back, dark red hair piled up under her broad-brimmed hat, looking very young and very beautiful. She didn't look a day over fourteen, with her small build and the old sloppy clothes she was wearing, but, he'd discovered later, she'd seen her eighteenth birthday late in August, before she'd decided she'd had enough of her step-dad hitting on her all the time.

Having lived in the bush most of her life, she'd decided to "get on out and see the world." She'd travelled over 100 miles, following logging roads, staying with people here and there, before arriving at his place, hot and sweaty, that afternoon. He remembered the day she came by. It was one of those hot Indian Summer days, the kind that make you think that, just maybe, Winter's not coming. There was no wind at all and the cabin was too warm to be inside.

Having finished all his chores, he was sitting on the stoop, just looking out over the flat lake, a cold beer at his side. He remembered thinking how beautiful the changing trees looked, reflected in the lake: a riot of reds, oranges, yellows, and browns against the deep blue of the water. Suddenly, he heard a crackle of breaking sticks as something moved off to his right. He immediately thought "Bear" and wondered whether he could get to his rifle if he needed to.

When he looked in that direction, however, he caught sight of pant legs and boots rounding the corner of the path to the road, the rest of whoever it was shielded from view by the deep red of the bush. Several more flashes of boots and pants later, she came into view. Of course he didn't know it was a 'she' right then, but whoever it was was quite short and slim-ish, as far as he could see.

"Hey there," said a higher voice than he'd expected. "I was just headed to the lake for a drink. Didn't see the cabin in here."

"No problem," he'd said "Go ahead. That path goes right to the shore."

ooooooooooooooo

He stopped now and turned his back to the howling wind. His upper thighs and arms felt leaden and badly needed to be out of the wind for a bit. The cold had penetrated him to the bone, even through his thermal underwear.

"God damn it!" he thought. "Can't stop for long here but got to get some warmth back into the old legs, before they stop movin' completely."

The wind and the snow it carried pressed his back, making it hard to stand; the direction kept switching so that he had to keep adjusting his weight to it. He hunkered down, knees bent, until his butt was just above the snowshoes, his large haversack and bedding roll bearing the brunt of the wind. He lowered his head and tried to relax. Looking down, he could watch the snow pile up on his heels and make weird, moving patterns as it swept around them, his snowshoes barely visible beneath.

"Don't think of the cold!" he told himself. "Think of warm cabins, hot summer days, anything... but don't think of the cold out here."

ooooooooooooooo

His mind took him back again, to that fall day when Janey had arrived in his life. After the stranger had gone off down the trail, to the lake, he'd sat dozing in the shade of the lilac bush at his front door. He must have actually fallen asleep for a bit and only came to when his elbow slid off his thigh. Righting himself, he sat there half awake, eyelids at half-mast, enjoying the heat of the day, and unconsciously listening to the mud hens out on the still lake and the song-birds in the bush all around him.

"Best get the boat tied proper," he thought.

He'd left it earlier, with a rope just wound around the dock post a couple of times. No need to tie it right then, with the air so still like this. Besides, he'd had to pee and was anxious to get to the outhouse, back of the cabin. Feller didn't want to be pissin' all over the place; wasn't sanitary.

He mulled that over in his mind leisurely, smiling a little at the sight he must have made practically running up the steep path to the cabin, slapping the fish down on the cleaning table as he passed it, making a beeline for the outhouse. Finally, with a sigh, he hauled himself to his feet and, hitching his pants, started toward the lake.

His feet knew the way down that trail to the lake. No need to think, just let himself follow that well known path. He didn't pause as he came to the gentler slope to the lake. He just walked on out toward the dock, his eyes and mind on the ropes he wanted to tie. He'd forgotten the visitor and didn't see her until he was already at the foot of the dock.

Now there was no doubt about it at all. 'It' was a 'her'....Couldn't be otherwise, not with those pert little breasts hanging down there in front of her as, bending, side-on to him, she twisted the water out of her hair. No doubt of it either when presented with the sight of those lovely rounded hips and buttocks, clad only in wet white cotton panties.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her there, and his jaw dropped open in surprise. That must have presented quite a picture to her when she suddenly realized he was there, not more than 10 feet away.

For a moment her eyes widened, in shock, as she saw him there but then she relaxed, straightened up, and laughed out loud. The shock on his face must have been comical. She sensed he was harmless and, still laughing softly, simply turned her back on him, her smiling face watching him over her shoulder.

When his brain started working again, he closed his mouth, turned his back and retraced his steps across the beach and up the path, back to the cabin. He sat back down on the stoop again and, when the realization of what had happened hit him, he laughed out loud. From the beach, down the trail, came an echo of that laughter in a very girlish timbre.

He sat there for maybe half an hour, chuckling to himself and shaking his head, as he relived their encounter.

"My God," he thought over and over. "On my own beach... mermaids!"

"An awful pretty mermaid, too!" he'd added, as his mind painted a picture of what he'd seen.

Later, when she came up from the lake, she was smiling (and dressed again, in her baggy clothes), as she came into view.

"Sorry," she said. "Guess I forgot to lock the bathroom door."

He laughed and apologized and they went on talking for about an hour, as the sun gradually got lower in the sky.