Icewater and Sandwiches

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Icewater and Sandwiches

A story by XXscribbler

She was going to die. Here and now. Literally. And in such a useless, incredibly stupid way! Tumbled violently in roiling, neck-deep icewater from some distant glacier. The forces on her were indescribable. Her nervous system was in shock, incapable of collecting information or providing instructions to muscles. There was a bottom to the stream, and sides, but no chance for a grip, nothing was stable, not even the direction from which she was being pummeled.

She was going to die. The tiny bit of her brain that wasn't overwhelmed with lack-of-air panic was busy composing her answer to Saint Pete's question: "I'm here, Sir, because of thermodynamics, buoyancy, and plate tectonics. Plus Murphy, of course." She could see the Saint's sardonic, disbelieving smirk already.

St. Pete would, of course, be pre-scientific, so she'd have to explain all that. What a bore! Thermodynamics because total immersion in icewater was already stripping her of body-heat. Try as it might, her internal engine couldn't heat this entire stream to 98.6°. A friend had once told her that survival time in freezing water was less than four minutes, if one didn't inhale the stuff from the shock of the immersion, in which case it was zero. She hadn't done that, at least. Not that it seemed likely to matter. Buoyancy because of her big, new, nearly-incompressible sleeping bag in its wonderful, completely-waterproof stuff-sack. That bag was fastened at the bottom of her backpack frame, and was now acting as a float, inconveniently holding her butt at the surface while forcing her head down into the water. A perfect, inverted Mae West lifejacket. Plate tectonics because those chunks of Earth's crust skating about had collided, and the plunging plate's friction caused Mount Rainier where she and her friends were camping. The Mountain had shrugged gently, just as she got to the middle of the log that bridged the stream in which she was now going to drown.

Just a joke by The Mountain. "Ha-Ha-who's-next?" Very funny! Murphy because without him (?her? - Important question! Why was Murphy always assumed to be male?), this concatenation could not have happened.

Surely she hadn't been in the water four minutes yet? She knew she couldn't hold her breath that long, and her lungs weren't filled with water. With that thought, the panic disappeared and she was bathed in a marvelous detachment. She studied her sensations: she was already far beyond cold, beyond really feeling anything at all from epidermal nerves. They were in deep shock.

Which way was up? She'd been chumed to the point her inner ear couldn't help any more. But it couldn't be more than about three or four feet to air, could it? Most likely her butt was exposed: too bad she couldn't breathe through her anus like some invertebrates. "That would be undignified!" passed through her mind.

Then BANG, something caught her squarely across the stomach, and she stopped while the water poured past, trying its damnedest to take her with it again. Her hands grabbed, found roughness, a big branch. She levered her body against the current, managed to raise her head, and broke through to the atmosphere, hauling in air to replace the overused stuff in her lungs. The world was full of great gasping sucking sounds, partly her breathing, partly the rushing waters. She clung there, her ability to think fading, and tried to decide how to proceed. It was very, very hard to think.

Other noises came to her through the roar of the water. She studied them: they had a familiarity. Voices? Yes, indeed. Her companions, shouting. Probably at her. Saying what? Hold on? Great advice! Of course, you silly shits, I'll be happy to oblige, at least until my muscles won't work any more, like say in thirty seconds? She looked about as best she could. There was the log she'd fallen from. God almighty, she'd only traveled about a hundred feet in the stream! From the neck down she was still underwater. Nothing waterproof about her clothes, they were sponges. And by now her pack wasn't just forty pounds, but probably three times that, full of ice-water. She doubted she would be able to stand with it if she were out on terra firma right now, just from the weight much less the cold.

More noises, and something tugging at her, from the side. Noises? More advice. "Let GO! TURN LOOSE!"

Did they think she was that stupid? Let go, indeed. Maybe she'd missed the initial word, surely it was "DON'T"'? She looked towards the voice: it was Matthew, knee-deep in the water, stretching to reach her. His pack was gone, and his parka. She studied his leg, the one in the water. The current made a foaming, gurgling wake downstream from his leg, like a pier piling in a tide. He was almost knee-deep, way over his boot-top. That was dumb, Matthew, she thought in slow motion... it's COLD, you'll fill the boot up and freeze your foot!

She watched, completely detached, as he strained towards her. That explained the tugging: he had ahold of the top rail of her pack-frame. On the bank behind him stood Mark, one hand around a branch of the tree she was snagged on, the other with a death-grip on Matthew's spare hand. The M&M's, they were known as, at work and socially. Her dulling mind seemed capable of inputting only one datum at a time now: she studied the mountain-rescue grip they were using, wrists overlapping. That was good.

She turned loose, more from declining ability to hold on than from obedience to Matt's command. Then she was ashore, stumbling up the steep bank, her legs almost but not quite collapsing. Matthew and Mark simultaneously dragged and pushed until she stood on the flat little flood-plain above the channel, streaming water from every pore of clothing, every opening in her equipage. She was shivering violently, to the point where she couldn't speak.

Click. Just like that, the danger shifted: drowning was no longer the problem, dying of exposure was. Matthew knew it, yelled at Mark "Get our tent out! Set it up NOW! Over there, under the tree. Fast, man, fast! We've gotta get her warmed up or she'll die!" Mark nodded, launched on the setup.

She watched, far too numb to move, as Matt began to strip her. She was shaking so hard that he had problems with fasteners and zippers. The pack went, then her sodden coat. He muttered "Sorry about this, but Thermodynamics 101 says you'll lose a lot less heat naked than you will with these wet clothes on, so they've got to go." She tried to help, couldn't make her fingers work, and he slapped them down, told her not to get in the way.

One comer of her mind was curious about why he was so proficient at undressing a woman, when he and Mark were an item, and had been for twenty years or so. She'd known them for eight of those years, from work. The two nicest, gentlest men she'd ever met, and the most thoroughly monogamous couple too. She and they had become good friends. Now, occasionally, they did things together - like this weekend camping trip: them in their tent, she in hers, otherwise nearly family. The men had even invited her to join their mostly-gay health club when she complained about being ogled at her own. They had been correct - that wasn't a problem for her at their institution, and with the sexual pressures lifted, she'd gotten good and buff, especially since the other guys were so nice about helping instruct "M&Ms' girlfriend"! M&M were fifty-two and forty-seven, both over six feet, both gay-pride muscled, just short of being body-builders.

Thank god for that strength, she thought dimly, as his fingers undid boot laces, yanked off boots, socks, pants, shirt. She wore no panties or bra. In two minutes he had her stripped naked in the bright sunshine and breeze of the mountain afternoon.

He was right: the below-freezing wind felt infinitely warm by comparison. God, but her mind was DULL! What next? She stared stupidly down at her boobs: their tips were puckered up into tiny gnarled-looking bumps. They ached. She supposed that was a good sign, being aware of the discomfort, and tried to hug herself but failed. She couldn't move, it was not only impossible, but who would want to do so? Was some sort of hypothermic euphoria or lassitude settling over her? That was bad, bad, bad!

Matt picked up his parka, wrapped her in it. It was almost big enough to be a sleeping bag for her. Then he pulled himself inside, too. He had to wrap her arms around his waist, she couldn't do it herself, but even to her slowed-down mind the warmth felt good. And she wasn't exactly numb, it was more like being a walking impacted wisdom tooth, all over. Ugh. She clung to him as best she could.

He shouted at Mark, "Hurry! Get the sleeping bags open and into the tent. NOW!" Mark had already worked magic: their big three-man tent was up, a little lopsided, but up. He yanked their sleeping bags from their sacks, shook them out, shoveled them inside. Matt picked her up in his arms and carried her bodily into the tent in a high-speed knee walk. He stuffed her between the bags, then turned to Mark and said "Strip, dude. We have to use our body heat to warm her up... she's way deep hypothermic and won't be able to do it herself. Once it's that cold, a person's body can't get going again without help!"

Inside the bags now, she was shaking hard. She could hear and understand, but not react: she knew Matt was right about the body and re-heating. Mark shrugged, grinned at his partner, and said "Well, at least she's pretty, and we know she's a nice person! Otherwise, well, I just wouldn't know about this arrangement!" The cuteness was lost on her.

The two men stripped in parallel: in thirty seconds they were naked and in the bag with her, one fore, one aft, hugging themselves to her. "Jeeeezus! She's a fucking icicle!" That was Mark.

She tried to apologize through her shaking body and chattering teeth, but couldn't get going. Part of her brain compared this to an epileptic's grand-mal seizure: was that a good parallel? Matt shushed her, reached around her and Mark both, and bear-hugged for maximum contact. Mark echoed the move. She was much smaller than they, only five-three and about 105 pounds to their 200-plus each. She nearly disappeared between them, like the meat in a dime hamburger. Mark freed a hand, made certain they were covered well by the sleeping bags, and together he and Matt tried to will heat into her.

It worked, but slowly. After ten minutes, her teeth had slowed their chattering to an intermittent dull roar, like pebbles shaken in a can, and her body was beginning to relax and soften. It almost felt like she was melting. Her outer nerves began to function once again. Now at least she could fully sense and appreciate the warmth. Abruptly, her mind snapped back into gear and she realized how close she had come to dying: the thought set her to shaking in a very different way. That tailed off into heavy sobbing as the near-death tension melted out of her. All the while, the two men were cuddling her, plastered against her full-length, stroking, breathing on her as a team, as if they were a single four-handed, two-chested organism taking care of its idiot child. She was safe, in a warm place. That was good.

When the sobbing ended, her mind began to actually function. Warmed skin was now picking up details of the local environment. That environment was almost completely composed of male bodies. Nicely constructed male bodies. She liked male bodies, so that was good. It was warm in the bags, humid, saturated with unsubtle sweaty-but-clean male scents, and that, too, was good.

Abruptly she realized that behind her, pressed against the backs of her thighs, was a most interesting bit of male anatomy, and in a most interesting state. It crossed her mind that this was odd, given the orientation of its owner. Even though she wasn't shaking any more, the pair of hands belonging to that anatomy were cupping her chest - more precisely, her boobs! - in a most heat-conductive, and extremely sensual, way. Was she being taken advantage of? By mister screaming-gay Mark? That seemed unlikely: surely he had the purest of motives for his hands' locations atop her tits? More input: in front of her, something very similar. She wiggled in her warm space, just to be sure. Another hardon! Quite different in size, too, the difference instantly detectable even without using her hands.

Good god! Just exactly WHAT in the name of heaven, in this situation, was there to be feeling erotic about? She felt Matt's hands. They were moving steadily, and spending as much time on Mark's back as they were on her ribs and thighs. That explained things, didn't it? The two were doing some sort of mild sex-play with one another, going right around her, as if she were a traffic island or something! MEN! Sex sex sex, even during life-threatening emergencies. How the hell did they do that?

Jesus Keerist!

In its second go-around, the realization hit her fully, right between the eyes: she really, truly had very nearly died, and these two had prevented it. Her entire future existence was due to their actions. Nearly died! The consequences? Well, for starters, it was a whole new life, wasn't it? What the hell, anyhow. And what a great way to start it! Two beautiful men, in bed (well, sort of) with her, together. For whatever reason. More interested, of course, in one another than in her, but hey! Things certainly could be a lot worse. Like being dead, for example. Was Murphy working on Murphy here? Murphy as a self-referential law, an interesting problem.

It was time to say something intelligent, wasn't it? She snuggled her front against Matt, waggled her butt against Mark, and whispered "Thank you guys!"

Neither said anything for a while, until Matt finally volunteered "You`re welcome. Ummmm ... this here is not the usual arrangement for the M&Ms, but personally, I have no problem with it ... even though it's been about thirty years since I was in bed with a woman!"

Behind her Mark giggled slightly and muttered "Damn good thing it's been that long, too, or I'd be pissed as hell! As for me, there were a couple of semi-okay times as a teenager, but the man-into-woman-thing really never did work. Not for me. Sorry, dear, no offense, there are lots of very nice women in the world, but I just never did figure out what men see in women, sexually." He paused. "I will admit that it's a bit different with the three of us here. Lots of extra skin and some interesting accessories. Rawther nice, actually." A very poor British imitation. He squeezed her tits gently, lovingly, and rubbed his cock against her butt-crack. Hot, hard, smooth: very sensual, and with no sense of urgency. Nuzzling. Then wistfully, "You know, for years and years I have wished I had breasts. Yours are very pretty. I hope you don't mind that I was touching them a little for my own purposes. I would die to have a pair like yours. I hope you appreciate how lovely they are."

He squeezed again, ever so delicately. His touch was supremely sensual, utterly unlike the touches she had gotten from any other man. Too bad, again, him being gay. The little squeeze ratcheted her consciousness up another notch. There was the most amazing rush of internal heat down in her belly. It came on just like a light-bulb, going from nothing to full in some tiny fraction of a second. She was ALIVE, and deep in the throes of what she called her "screaming hornies". How about THAT? Maybe coming close to extinction set off the same reaction in both men and women?

A whole new life. She could do anything with it that she might want. And ever so briefly she wondered just what might that be? How might she begin?

Instead of either thinking or talking, she slid one hand slowly down her belly, the other over her hip and behind her, down between her thighs. Both men actually stopped breathing as she moved. That gave her the most incredible sense of power! Her fingers found both cocks, circled them gently. Warmer than warm, almost hot. They should be warm, she thought: after all, it was blood that made the hardness, wasn't it? As her fingers explored slightly, it was "Ahh, um ... Oh!" from behind her, and similar noises from Matt, out front. While they sorted through their feelings, she studied her handfuls: quite the difference in size, texture, shape. She'd never had such an opportunity before, not two at once. Now THIS was parallel processing! Or at least multitasking!

She giggled and said "Hope I'm not embarrassing you two boys. But I've never been in a situation like this. I nearly died, dammit, and obviously the two of you find something erotic in it. I don't really get it!" She squeezed the evidence, got a pair of satisfying grunts. Power! "I don't understand that, or myself for that matter, since I've got a sudden case of the incredible screaming hornies. Is nearly dying supposed to do that to me? If so, well shit, folks, that's a dumb way of getting all hot and bothered! But you two are gay, and monogamous, so I really don't understand why you are both so AROUSED!" She squeezed gently with both hands and got matching fore-and-aft groans.

Matt took a long, slow breath that almost whistled: "Dear, the M&Ms were functionally bisexual for a long time before we met and discovered our true natures. Me, well, I had several girlfriends, even made love a lot of times with them, but was never satisfied or comfortable."

Mark chimed in: "He's right, love. I tried and tried to get interested in women, and managed to get it up, and even in, a few times, but it never worked right psychologically. I just wasn't brain-wired as a hetero. It took finding Matt here to prove that to me. It was a struggle to give in to the gay-reality, since society was so down on the whole idea, but I managed. Didn't I, Matt?"

She squeezed again, and both men quit talking. "Well, gents, you two are my personal heroes now. It's nice to know you have both at least TRIED my gender, even if it was all wrong for you. Now then, clearly I'm a fifth-wheel here by every standard, so what are we going to do about it? I can't just get dressed and leave, you know, even if you'd like the privacy to do whatever it is you do. Everything I own is soaked!"

Mark hemmed and said "You know, Matt, the lady does have a point there. I suppose we should develop a plan!" As he finished, a spasm of shivering overtook her: she shuddered and shook violently between them for half a minute.

Behind her, Mark said "You know, Mr M, I don't believe she's full warmed up yet. We're gonna be here for the night, I suspect, since it's already late and we do have to figure out what to do about your wet clothes, love. So how about my getting up and going outside and neatening things up, since we just sort of threw everything about pretty much at random. Then I'll make some nice hot tea or cocoa, to get some warmth back INSIDE the lady, instead of just trying to do it from the outside!" He giggled, squeezed gently at her chest again, and whispered sotto voce, "Not that I'd have any disagreement about doing it from the outside TOO, you understand!"

Mark reluctantly arose, his cock sliding through her equally reluctant fingertips. She was startled by its length and by the long twist of uncircumcised foreskin that covered the entire head: she'd never encountered an uncut one before. Her nails gave the head a little goodbye nip and a gentle tug on his foreskin, which Mark seemed to appreciate. In some instances, apparently, touch was just touch. A good attitude. It was a superb cock, she thought. Too damned bad! She looked up at him as he gathered his clothes. Nice muscles, shifting in the blue light filtering through the thin nylon tent fabric. A truly attractive man. Both of them. Her eyes showed her what her fingers had only hinted at: the cock she'd just released was genuinely heroic, and cantilevered out from a completely shaved crotch. She hadn't even noticed the extra fillip of nudity that that gave! She whistled slightly, and he grinned down at her, said "Why thank you, my dear."