Thank you, Andi and Randi. You are both wonderful!
My wife climbed mountains
... but not with me
I knew she loved to climb. I just didn't know how much.
There are mountains around the world that attract climbers like magnets attract some metals. Lori was one of those climbers.
She and I had been dating just a short time when she started talking about mountain climbing. She told me that she and some friends of hers had climbed a couple of them. I asked a couple of basic questions that launched her into a two hour dissertation which took three beers to finish. I learned the A-B-C's of climbing and was never so disinterested in anything in my life. I was, however, interested in her. She wasn't a raving beauty, but she was very attractive and built like the proverbial brick shit house.
I was sufficiently up to speed on her friends and their hobby while she and I were at a bar eating the best cheeseburgers and fries in Southwest Louisiana and washing them down with ice-cold beer. The bar was, coincidentally, where we met, and I was responsible for making those burgers. I worked there as the grillmaster. The name of the bar was "Geaux Joe's" (Pronounced Go Joe's). She and her friends used to come in, sit at two tables and enjoy them. She came in alone a few times, chatted with me and we ended up dating, but I had no idea she was wealthy until we went on our first date in her Ferrari.
We had been together several months and were sitting in the bar enjoying our burgers, beers and fries when Jim and Liz, friends of hers, joined us.
The first thing out of Liz's mouth was to ask Lori if she was ready. "Of course. Are you two? "They were planning a trip to Colorado for another climb.
"You bet your ass we are," Jim answered immediately.
Early in our relationship, when she told me about her passion for climbing mountains, she told me that she and five old friends, including Jim and Liz, had climbed Mt Denali in Alaska, and Mt Elbrus in Russia. Her family was beyond wealthy, had a house in Colorado and she would go there to practice on the 52 Mountains in the Colorado section of the Rocky Mountain Chain that are at least 14,000 feet high. They're called "The Fourteeners".
It became something of an irritation that she wanted to go there twice a month on extended weekends just to climb. Rocks, ice, anything she could climb... even me.
Climbing made her horny as fuck, so that part I didn't mind. It was the constant chatter about climbing that got to me. I likened it to a man who was a fanatic about sports, or any other obsession and wouldn't shut up about it.
Despite my being of tired of hearing about her and her friends and their mountains, and my not showing the slightest interest in joining them, we decided to get married. I felt I could change her. Ha!
Our honeymoon was Africa and Mt. Kilimanjaro, where I went on a safari while she and her friends climbed the mountain. The month before the wedding was spent more on planning the climb than the wedding. I would venture to say that our wedding was different because the groom, which was me, spent more time planning it than the bride, which was her, and I got sooo fucking tired of their chatter about mountains. I seriously considered breaking our engagement more than once because I felt that I was number two in her life; not number one. Actually I was number five after Denali, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, and Aconcagua. Aconcagua is in Argentina, and was to be their next climb after Kilimanjaro.
I had met the whole group and always felt like the odd man out. Whenever they were at our house; which seemed to be daily, it was me who kept them in snacks and drinks while they relived all of their climbs starting with Longs Peak in Colorado when they were teens. I never quite learned how six people from Southwest Louisiana, developed a passion for mountains thousands of feet above sea level when their elevation in Louisiana was approximately 12. One would think their preferences would be more in the arena of bayous and marshland.
The group started in middle school, where they first met as classmates and were assigned to work on a project together. One group had to build The Alamo, another the U.S. Capitol Building. Lori's group got Mt. Everest; and so it began.
Her family has money. Lots of it, so she could afford the equipment, trips for training and the cost, but only one of her team members had that kind of money. The rest were everyday, blue collar workers. It was none of my business, but I did ask her about it a couple of times. She said she had no idea, and left it at that.
We were married, and two days later flew into Nairobi then Arusha, the city from which the climb started. We flew First Class, as we always did, and met her team in Arusha. The climb took eight days, and while they were climbing I rode around in an open truck with other tourists looking at animals. I never told anyone I was on my honeymoon.
When they came down, there was a big celebration, and I, again, felt like the odd man out with nothing in common with those people. They shared the photos they took and passed their phones around while telling stories about what was happening when the photos were taken. I was shown some, but they meant nothing to me. I remember hoping that once we got home, I would, finally be the center of her world.
We settled down in the big, new house her parents gave us, and drove around in the new Ferraris Lori bought for us. It was great for over a year. I was a really spoiled guy who didn't need a job. I tried to keep my job at the bar, but Lori's travel desires superseded that, so I quit.
The initial thought of that jet setting lifestyle may be tempting, but it started getting old after the first year. We talked about it, but she wanted me to not work and just travel. "We need to enjoy life while we're young and are able. Do you know how many people dream of a life like ours?"
"I can only imagine." I answered, not saying what I really thought.
I muddled through that year, schlepping her gear from one fourteener to another or to Mt. Rainier. The group was getting ready for Argentina.
I was waiting for her after her second climb of Rainier that first year we were married. "I can't do this anymore. I'm not asking you to stop doing something you obviously love, but I am asking you to take me into consideration and at the very least, cut down on travel and climbing."
"I'm sorry, Jamie. I promise I'll do better." And she did, until time came to concentrate on training for Aconcagua. Her crew started working toward their climb, which was to be in January. She and I spent Christmas and New Years in Colorado, with her hiking up and down mountains and checking and doublechecking her gear.
Then it was time for her to leave to meet the crew in Mendoza, Argentina. She would fly into Santiago, Chile, then to Mendoza, meeting the crew and their guides before starting the climb. It would take them two weeks to get to the top.
We were in Colorado when she left. We took her gear to the airport, checked it and she got on her plane. She was to fly to Miami, change planes, then on to Argentina. That was on Saturday. The climb was to begin on Tuesday.
I was on my way back to her parents' house in Estes Park. I was scheduled to fly home the next day. On my way, I received a call from her phone. "What's wrong?"
"Uh...Is this Mr. Fontenot?"
"Yes."
"We found this phone in the boarding area of Denver Airport. It has you listed as an emergency contact."
"How did you call me? Wasn't it locked?"
"Yes, sir, it is, but when you push the 'home' button the word Emergency is at the bottom, and even though we couldn't open it, we could press the Medical ID button and your name and number showed up as an emergency contact, so we were able to call. Anyway, apparently she left it in the boarding area."
"Well, could you hold on to it? I'll come back and get it." I had no idea they could do that. I looked at my phone, and they were right.
"Of course. It will be at our ticket counter in Terminal B."
I turned around, retrieved her phone, then went home, planning on calling her hotel in Mendoza the next day, but she beat me to it.
On Sunday, after she arrived in Santiago, she called to tell me she lost her phone, her gear never made it and the airline didn't know where it was. "Find my gear and get it here. FedEx, UPS, overnight... just get it here. Other than telling me she had lost her phone, it wasn't mentioned and she never gave me time to tell her I had it. Her main concern was for the gear. I started tracing it and discovered it had never left Denver.
After three hours on the phone and talking to everyone but the President of the airline, they located her gear. I was told that there was no way they could guarantee it would get to Mendoza before Tuesday, which would be the same day the climb was to start and would be too late.
I made more calls and discovered that no shipping company like FedEx, UPS, or the USPS, like the airline, which she mentioned, could guarantee getting it to Mendoza before Wednesday.
I decided to take it to her. IF the plane was on time so that I could make my connecting flight to Mendoza, once I got to Santiago, I could be there mid-afternoon Monday. I was going to surprise her by hand delivering it.
I booked a seat.
The flight to Santiago was the worst flight of my life. I had six hours in which I could sleep, or do nothing. I remembered having her phone, so I took it out and looked at it. I knew she had pictures of other climbs I hadn't seen, so I decided to look at them. I thought I might better understand her passion for climbing.
The phone was locked, so I tried to open it. I knew I only had a few tries before it would not allow me to try any more, so I thought carefully about what password she might use. I knew her well enough to know it wouldn't be her birthday, name, or anything prosaic, so I wrote down some possibilities. Since she loved climbing, I concentrated on that idea. I tried 'climbr' and 'everst', neither worked; but 'mounts' did.
Her phone opened and I went to her photos. They were all arranged by date. The first one I looked at was Denali. She climbed it before we were married. The photos were pretty standard, showing the staging area and various aspects of the climb. Two photos stuck out, however. They showed all six of her crew standing in front of a tent, in the snow... naked. Four men and two women. Each of the two women, Lori and Liz, were standing between two men and they had their hands on the cocks of the men they were standing between. One of the cocks Lori was holding was Jim's, Liz's husband. The other belonged to Tony.
The other photo that stuck out showed the women bent over at the waist with a cock clearly in their mouths and the second man standing close behind them, as if fucking them from behind, but you couldn't tell for sure.
They must have been pretty cold to be standing in the snow.
The next set of photos must have been in Russia on Mt. Elbrus. There was no snow, but you could see the flags sticking out, which indicated relatively strong winds. This set of photos had three like Denali. The third was just the six of them standing around naked with other people I assumed were their guides and bearers, looking at them.
I had no feeling as I looked at them. They had been taken before we were married, so I couldn't say much, but I was in a hurry to see the photos from Kilimanjaro, because that was our honeymoon and I COULD say something about those if there were similar ones.
Sure enough, the same poses were there. Plus, there were an additional two showing cocks obviously in Julie's mouth and ass. There was also a crude sign with the words, "Suppose you had a honeymoon and your husband never came?" plainly visible leaning against Lori's legs. The next photo showed her with a face full of what appeared to be cum, and another sign, "But everyone else did."
It was almost like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I knew the marriage was over and I didn't really mind at all. I did mind the cheating part, but that was all.
In Santiago, I sent copies of the incriminating photos on Kilimanjaro to my phone.
I was a robot when we landed. I claimed her gear, got in a cab and transferred to the other airport, where I had a short wait for my flight to Mendoza. Once there, I again claimed her gear, took another cab to her hotel, where, after showing my identification, I was given a key to her room.
The room had one bed, and it was apparent by the scattered clothing, two occupants. I put her gear next to the other set of gear, presumably belonging to her roommate, and wrote a short note on hotel stationary. "Have a nice climb" and signed it. I put it on her gear bag and put her phone on top of the note.
I reversed my trip, and five hours later I was in Santiago in the boarding area for my flight back to Houston. Just as we were boarding, my phone rang. It was Lori. I ignored it until I landed in Houston.
"Hi, sweetie. Thanks for sending my gear. It was delivered while we were out being tourists. Thanks for the note, and my phone, too. Where was it? I'll see you when I get home. I love you." That was the message she left on my phone.
She was so excited to get her gear that she apparently didn't notice that my note was written on hotel stationary.
