Some people will do anything to get on reality TV. Not me; but I'm also not adverse to it. A friend of mine, who really, really wanted to get on a particular show, talked me into applying with her.
Let me back up a little. I'm John, 55, happily married, two grown kids. Our next door neighbors when our kids were growing up had two kids, Chip and Gail, almost the same age as our kids. I knew both of them since they were born and took them, my kids, and all the other kids on the block, to the park, to museums, and on excursions into the local woods (I was a tracker in the Special Forces so we never got lost). Our neighbors had no siblings so I was like an uncle to Chip and Gail.
Gail was always the most rambunctious of the kids on the block, a real handful, but always fun. She was always up for anything, insisted on being the one to ride next to me in the front seat of our van when we went on outings, and was always upbeat and vivacious when she was around me. Of course as part of life all the neighborhood kids eventually went off to college, enlisted in the armed forces, or just moved away, and I lost touch with them. The one I seemed to miss most was Gail.
Gail is now 30 and happily married with two little kids of her own. We reconnected when in the last 18 months or so she and her family moved back into the area where my wife and I still live, only a few miles from her childhood home. Gail has become a beautiful young woman -- blond, blue eyes, about 5' 7", button nose, very athletic build -- but I have never had any sexual feelings whatsoever toward her. I was proud as punch, however, when she gave me credit for helping her development into the great person she had become.
Another fact -- despite weighing only about 130 pounds, Gail is very strong (she can actually lift me in her arms and I'm 6'3", 210 pounds), and can run like the wind, faster than any boy I knew when they were growing up, and was the star of the girl's track team in high school.
About a year after Gail moved back to our area she first approached me about getting on her favorite reality TV show. It's a cable show called "Wilderness Challenge" where ten teams of two trek through various wilderness areas in North and South America. They're given a certain amount of money at the start and are responsible for getting from one wilderness area to the next the best way that they can. In each area they perform various tasks, both individual ones and those which require teamwork. Teams are awarded points for how quickly they get from one area to the next, and for various aspects of the tasks they perform within the wilderness areas. The actual time frame for filming the show is a little more than three weeks (of course the show on TV is twelve hour long episodes, one shown each week), and after two weeks the five lowest scoring teams are sent home and the scoring re-started. Each member of the winning team gets $300,000.
Like most reality TV shows you need some kind of "hook" or public appeal to get selected. Gail thought she had the perfect scenario for that. Since her parents both have brown hair and brown eyes, I knew her mother before she got pregnant with Gail, and many times she was mistaken for my daughter when I would take the kids on excursions (my hair and eye color are almost identical to hers and our noses and ears are very similar in shape), she "jokingly" asked me to take a DNA test to see if I was her biological father. While I knew damn well I never had sex with her mother I played along and didn't deny I was her father but said I wouldn't take a DNA test unless we made it through the first two weeks of Wilderness Challenge.
I don't know if it was that "hook" that got us on the show -- I think it was more that she was so good looking and effervescent, and we were an odd couple -- but we made it. Our spouses thought we were crazy, but were happy to have us compete for the money.
Gail and I trained intensely the entire month before we were to report for the show, 5-6 hours a day, 6 days a week. When we saw the competition the first day, we were encouraged. While looks and first impressions can be deceiving we thought we could beat them all.
There was one problem, though. One team was a pair sisters -- Tami and Ginger -- in their twenties that were Las Vegas showgirls, and off-the-charts sexy. God were they distracting. My 55 year old dick felt like I was 25 again every time I looked (actually it was more "ogled" than "looked") at them. Gail thought it was funny, but playfully slapped me every time she noticed me glaring at them and said "concentrate."
Through the first four days we were doing great in the Challenge despite my "distraction" with Tami and Ginger and even though I actually sacrificed a few of our points to help them out. Fortunately Gail even took those "lapses" with good humor, although after the third time she threatened to push me off a cliff if I did it again. On the sixth day, there was almost a disaster.
As usual, Gail and I were in the lead that day since using my tracking skills I located all the challenge areas long before any other team, and Gail had done a couple of individual challenges with lightning speed. We were on the last task of the day -- simultaneously repelling down a forty meter high cliff and swinging to the side every few meters to pick up "tokens" that we needed to collect before we got to the bottom -- when Gail's line snagged on a sharp rock prominence and started to unravel. Fortunately I had just swung sideways toward her, and grabbed her just as her line completely severed. I was essentially holding her by her legs twenty meters above rocky terrain as she spun upside down, and hit her head on the cliff. I held her as tightly as I could -- I knew by the look on her face that she was hurting and scared shitless -- until two of the "technical advisors" repelled down the cliff to grab her, and hook her up with a new line.
When we got to the base of the cliff I was livid, screaming at the producer, crew, and technical advisors. I probably would have killed someone if I didn't know that we were on TV. Gail was shell-shocked as they took her to the doctor at the campsite where we would be spending the night. As I waited alone outside the medical tent for the doctor to treat her, my head in my hands, and tears in my eyes, I went from livid to distraught. My stomach turned itself inside out.
Gail finally came out of the medical tent with the doctor and a nurse. As they told me that she just had some bumps and bruises, one of the most unusual feelings of my life came over me. It was relief, joy, and deliverance -- but it was something more. It was a feeling that may have been unique in my experience since I couldn't identify it.
"We gave her a muscle relaxant and she needs some rest but she should be OK by tomorrow morning," the doctor told me as he and the nurse departed.
After they left us alone Gail and I embraced; just standing there, squeezing each other, with her head on my shoulder, for a good five minutes. I looked around to be sure there weren't any cameras -- there weren't supposed to be -- and found not only no cameras but nobody at all within sight. Then we stared into each other's eyes. I noticed a very subtle smile on her face, but didn't know why it was there. Then I felt her hand on my cock.
"Tami and Ginger aren't here, so why is this guy at attention and twitching?" Gail asked.
Instantly my brain recognized the feeling I had been unable to identify -- a combination of lust and love. Instead of being embarrassed and pulling away as Gail kept her hand on my continuously twitching cock and her smile grew a little wider, I smashed my lips against hers.
As we passionately kissed my brain was in turmoil. "How in the fuck can you never have any conscious sexual feelings for someone their whole life and suddenly be overwhelmed by them? She's married, moron -- with two little kids. By the way you've been married more than thirty years, jackass. What in the fuck does a sexy young woman like her want with your 55 year old ass?" My brain wasn't being easy on me, but my brain was not in control. My libido was. Apparently -- I don't know why -- she had the same problem because we both continued to try and lick each other's tonsils.
When we finally broke our kiss I looked down at her alluring jumbo azure eyes and said, "The doctor says you need some rest." I picked her up, and carried her to our tent -- fortunately at the edge of the camp away from the rest of the tents.
