This story has an element of sci-fi to it; if that's not your thing you might want to pass. Also, it includes cheating where the cheater isn't burned at the stake; you've been warned so don't complain if you don't like it (for that reason -- if you don't like it for other reasons, I can't complain).
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In most ways I, Brandon Markham, am a normal 32 year old guy. I'm a little above average in work ethic, earning power, looks, intelligence, size, and athleticism; but I'm not anywhere close to a genius, movie star, Olympian, super-stud, or superman. I have a loving wife of six years and two little kids who I love to the ends of the earth. Perhaps where I'm most different from the average guy is that despite an otherwise great life I have a problem. My problem is either an infatuation or a neurosis; I don't know which and I am afraid to find out. I've never discussed my problem with anyone because of embarrassment and fear that I'll be discovered.
I work as a partner in a consulting engineering firm with a particular emphasis on renewable energy. I have a degree in renewable energy engineering from the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls. My hobbies are primarily related to outdoor activities such as hiking, cross-country and downhill skiing, rafting, and fishing.
My consulting firm has mostly friendly people, with 25 engineering partners, 11 engineering associates, and 39 other employees in finance, human resources, secretarial, etc. We often have social events not just with employees, but with families. About three years ago we hired a new finance director named Joe Preston. That is when I met his wife Gail. Joe and Gail are about my age and are childless.
When I first met Gail I was dumbstruck. I have never been able to figure out why but I consider her the most sultry woman I have ever seen in my life. She doesn't have movie star looks, big tits, or a flirtatious personality, and she's short whereas I normally like tall women. I guess that most guys would rate her looks between eight and nine on a ten point scale, and my wife Jeanie would probably be considered better looking by the majority of men in their thirties. Gail does have a nice ass and legs, a fun -- though no-nonsense -- personality, and a quick mind; but I know of no other men that have the same reaction to her that I do.
You probably have surmised that Gail Preston is the source of my infatuation/neurosis.
I have tried very hard to hide my feelings about Gail from everyone that I come into contact with. I think that I have been successful in that except for possibly Gail herself. While she's never said anything specific about it, I do believe that she senses that I am attracted to her but I haven't seen her doing anything in particular to either encourage or discourage me. For about a year before the meat of this story I realized that my infatuation/neurosis was intruding into my life and I tried to minimize my direct contact with Gail, although I have not deleted the photos I have of her (including one in a bikini) on my phone. I never, ever want to cheat on my wife Jeanie and I hope that my mental and emotional attraction to Gail isn't considered to be real cheating.
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I had a geothermal engineering project that took me from my home and business in the San Francisco area to Boise, Idaho. It was expected to be a full week (seven or eight days with no return on the weekend) project so Jeanie took that opportunity to take the kids with her to visit her folks in Sacramento. I finished the project early and had two plus days to kill before my family returned home so I decided to travel to the River of No Return Wilderness area in central Idaho, the largest federal wilderness in the lower 48 states and about 115 miles from Boise. I rented basic camping gear and drove my rental car to Bighorn Crags Campground. It was the middle of the week at a strange time of year, and the Campground was essentially deserted. I hiked to Cathedral Lake the afternoon of my arrival.
The hike was beautiful. I walked the entire perimeter of the lake, and even though I probably shouldn't have, since I didn't want to return to the campground in the dark I decided to make a sustainability camp at the lake. One of the things that I had purchased for my camping sojourn was a bottle of what I thought was kombucha tea. When I drank it, however, it had a weird taste -- not an unpleasant taste, just a weird one. I drank the whole bottle but shortly after that I belched several times and got really sleepy so I crawled into my sleeping bag and was shortly in dreamland.
I was awakened in the middle of the night/early morning by a whizzing sound, glow, and crash. It looked like a strange object was penetrating the shallow part of the lake only a few hundred meters from me. Since I was already dressed I quickly put on my boots, grabbed my flashlight and hunting knife, and made a bee-line to the crash site.
I couldn't fucking believe it when I got to the crash site but there was what looked like some sort of craft, of a type that I had never seen or heard of before, partially submerged in the water. The beam from my flashlight hit an object in the water that looked like a human form. I immediately shed my clothes down to my skivvies and ran into the cold lake. I quickly reached the form and pulled it to shore; the water wasn't above my head until a few meters before I reached the form, so the task wasn't that difficult.
When I turned the form face-up on the shore it was clearly humanoid, but didn't look like any person I'd ever seen. The humanoid was perhaps closest to a small Chinese man, maybe four feet eight-ten inches tall. I had no idea whether or not CPR would work, but I tried it.
After a couple of minutes of CPR it appeared that the humanoid was breathing just fine. Then he (I assumed it was a he) opened his eyes. He was a little taken aback by my appearance but didn't try to get up or move. I asked him if he was hurt or if there was something that I could do for him, but it was obvious that he didn't understand. After a few minutes he sat up and then with a finger sketched two objects in the dirt then pointed to the craft which appeared to have an opening at the top (as it sat in the lake) with light coming out of the opening.
I dressed -- it was chilly in my wet underwear -- and then shown my light on his sketches. Once I had a good idea what the objects he sketched looked like I climbed into the craft. The craft had a control panel and various "stuff," none of which I recognized, strewn about. It took about five minutes but I found what looked like the two distinctly shaped objects the humanoid had drawn. I climbed back out of the craft and gave the objects to the humanoid, who was now kneeling and seemed to be much better than when I left him, although he still didn't look too good.
The humanoid nodded to me as he accepted the two objects. He opened one up, took out what appeared to be a miniature flashlight with a strange glow and perforations on one end and then pressed the glowing end against his neck and held it there for twenty or thirty seconds. Then he smiled, took the second object, made some noise, and in perfect English the second object "said" "Thank you for helping me. There is one more thing we need to do, however, to stave off a disaster."
I was startled. I replied "What do I need to do?"
"You need to lift me up to the opening in my craft and then follow me in and move an actuator when I tell you to," he responded.
I did as he asked and when I moved what could loosely be described as a lever (although I had never seen its ilk before) he was doing something about three meters away from me. I heard a loud "whirring" sound that got progressively quieter until it stopped completely. "What did you do?" I asked the humanoid.
"I deactivated an anti-matter engine that would have gone critical within 118 seconds before I deactivated it. Had the anti-matter engine gone critical it would have taken out everything within a radius of about 750 miles," was his response.
I gulped hard when he said that -- my family in Sacramento and my business in San Francisco were within that radius. I was light-headed for a few seconds, but then regained my bearings.
It was then that I was sure that the humanoid was not of this planet; I probably looked like a bass that just landed in a boat as my mouth opened and closed with no sound coming out.
As I was crouching (the space inside the craft was too small for me to either stand or sit comfortably) in my stupor the humanoid activated some sort of device on the control panel and made sounds that I assumed was talking, and similar sounds soon emanated from the control panel.