Snowmelt

All characters engaged in sex acts are eighteen or older.

If there's anything I've learned, and I hope I've learned a thing or two, it's that plans change and the past haunts you. Passion is hiding everywhere, and sometimes you're powerless against it. Sometimes passion is a delicate doe in the heart of the wood and sometimes a cougar ready to eat you alive.

All this really started with just that. "Hey Dom, so there's a small change in plans about the trip." Ian, direct as always, told me, "Minnie's friend canceled. It looks like she came down with that nasty flu going around."

"I'm not crazy about you telling me that at the last minute."

"Oh no, we're still going forward with it. It's just going to be you and Minnie. Easy."

I couldn't respond for a couple of heartbeats. "Just me and Minnie?" I repeated dumbly.

"Yeah, she's on winter break now and it's the perfect time. Snow's really nice this time of year." He said, oblivious to my discomfort.

"But are you sure? She'll... umm get bored."

"When was the last time you saw Minnie?"

"It was the summer, I think. Umm, a couple of years ago." A writer who can barely communicate. That's me.

"It was seven years ago. She's in grad school now and she can keep herself busy. You won't even know she's there. Get some reading and writing done and let her do her own thing. She likes the quiet anyway."

I had done what I had always scoffed at the old folks in my life for. In my mind Minnie was the small girl, all elbows and long hair that always had her face in a book. Farsighted so her glasses made her eyes look big. Nice kid but I barely even noticed her. And I had been like when my drunk aunt had given me the set of shaped blocks for Christmas when I was nine. She wasn't a kid anymore. I guess this would make things a little easier.

"So you'll pick her up here at ten and you guys can head out. She can take care of herself."

—

The drive to the cabin was quiet and awkward. She was small, and I could definitely see the girl she used to be in the woman. Thin face, dark eyes made larger by her glasses, nose upturned and just slightly too big for her face. But with the shy, sincere expression I remembered. She hardly said anything when I picked her up and even less on the trip out. On her phone with headphones, presumably listening to music or whatever kids her age did.

It was a majestic drive, all gravel roads, snowy evergreens, and sheer mountainsides. It was another world away from the two-star town I had grown up in and found myself trapped in. I would have had my face in a book or my phone too, so the long drive was an unexpected blessing. This certainly brought back memories. God, how long had it been?

A couple of hours away from the cabin she let out a frustrated sigh. "No reception?" I asked.

She jumped as if I had poked her, "Umm, yeah. I can't get Spotify."

"Yeah I figured the reception would cut out somewhere up here." She didn't respond, "You brought other things to do, right?"

"Well, doesn't the cabin have wifi?" Her eyes flicked to me, her glasses exaggerating her dismay.

"Minnie. The cabin doesn't have electricity."

—

We crested the hill around two in the afternoon and there was the cabin. Small, simple, and rustic, just as I remembered. The snow was thick on the ground here, and still coming down. "Well this is it. Is it what you expected?"

She silently shrugged her shoulders, though I could tell by the stubborn set of her mouth that her expectations had been snuffed like the oil lamps lining the cabin walls. We got out, our shoes crunching and uncertain in the snow. Her coat and sweatpants covered her like a shroud, and her short pixie cut made her look almost boyish. The snow hit our warm faces and hands like pinpricks. The inside of the cabin wasn't much warmer than the outside and our vital puffs of breath were visible.

The wood stove, the mounted buck's head on the wall, the crooked little windows, the loft where the magic had happened. I was enthralled, lost in the past. Minnie was not quite as enchanted by the place as I was. She was trying to be polite, but I could tell. "Don't worry it gets pretty warm in here, at least by the stove. There should be plenty of firewood. There are pretty heavy blankets on the beds." I felt like I was making excuses for the place and something inside me was desperate for her to like it, for her to understand the magic of this place. The cabin was like going back in time, especially in a personal sense.

—

It was here we had all come. Twenty or so years ago. It had been a bit of a post-college celebration for Ian, and a celebration of chemical bliss for me. There had been five of us I think. Ian, a couple of his friends, who try as I might, I couldn't summon their faces in my mind, myself and Nat. I remembered her reaction too, not that different from Minnie's. Her long brown hair nearly covered her face, save for her sharp aquiline nose. "What a dump! Ian, this is where you brought us?" Ian had sputtered a response, but I knew. She was mad at me. Like I had known. She had been like that. Pretending to be independent and strong, but leaning on me when I was there. Strong but brittle.

We met after I dropped out. That wasn't strictly true. I had seen her in high school. Long straight hair, narrow shoulders, big heavy butt. I would watch its entrancing shake as she walked away. I had felt an attraction, but our paths never seemed to cross. I would run into her in the hallway and say hi, but I didn't even know if she knew who I was.

My failed accounting class was the last straw for mom and dad and I came back home. That afternoon I wandered the tacky little strip mall in town, half-stoned to escape the tears and the bitter sentiment behind them. I wasn't going anywhere, I was just escaping.

And there she was, in the coffee shop. A freaking barista with a tired, plastic smile. I felt so awkward and empty as I waited in line. I had decided to mention old times and then decided not to several times. Would it bring back the tears? No use mortifying myself in front of her.

But it was she who had remembered. Nothing could have surprised me more than her playful voice saying, "Dom, right? Norman Rockwell high?" Her face looked so serious, but her voice always seemed just on the edge of mirth. Her smile this time was shining and real. That face and that voice would dominate my heart for a decade after.

I found myself in her studio apartment that night under the pretense of getting high. A pauper's home. Cheap metal cot, tiny TV, crap insulation. And then the familiar flick of flame, soft bubbling, and pleasant tingling in the lungs. She had put a plastic bag over the smoke alarm. Strange how you remember those kinds of details. She had gone straight to work out of high school, since she had made only mediocre grades and her mom could barely keep the electricity on. I would learn later that she was sharp as hell, and quick with a quip or even a subtle barb.

Then in the heavy haze and aroma, we felt our hot, desperate lips pressing together. I felt her soft body and the subtle smell of her mouth and skin. The fine, almost invisible hair on her cheek. We had kissed and kissed, and at that moment we were the only ones in the world and we were truly alive. Two broken souls who by fate had run into each other. My kisses lowered. First to her neck, then her full breasts, then her pink erect nipples, then on her belly, sensual and soft as she looked down at the top of my head. Tiny brown hairs formed a trail from her navel to her most secret of places. And I felt warmth even through her jeans as I pressed my cheek into that place. Then I felt her hand on the back of my hand.

"No. Not yet." I was high. Both from the weed and from her body. I looked up and she shook her head. There was something melancholy and pleading there. So I retraced my steps, stopping at her nipples with their large pink areolas. She moaned, as my lips and tongue worked, grinding her tender body into me. I writhed against her, my cock so hard and so desperate to be out. I felt as if I would explode. My youthful zeal, my grief and relief, and kismet formed a simmering stew inside me and I did explode. I groaned and it felt as if my heart were in my cock. And then I was gasping like a beached fish with my head between her soft breasts. And all she did was smile, understanding.

That night I had slept like that, her tits as my pillows, feeling safer than I had since... well since ever. The next morning I woke her up with kisses, licks, and gentle nibbles. She looked down at me, biting her lip, her face flushed with pleasure. And we tumbled back into the world of heat and moisture and breath. Our bodies pressing together, both lustful and chaste. I had never been this close to a woman before. My departure was full of more kisses, groping, and the exuberance of new love. I walked home, incandescent and throbbing.

Mom met me at the door, her eyes filled with vindictive tears. I mumbled non-answers to her questions and locked my bedroom door. I expected to hear my father's oafish, blunt rage, but it didn't come. He must have been out drunk, or golfing, or golfing drunk. It would come later, but even that couldn't ruin my mood. I had found my doe in the woods.

—

Minnie helped me bring in firewood, and I desperately tried to make conversation. My words were all nervous laughs and pauses. Then I saw the briefest flash of something in her face. For a second her defenses had come down and I saw something. Was it embarrassment, fear? And it dawned on me that she felt just as awkward as I did. She was so quiet because she was also afraid of fumbling her words. We made eye contact and for just a second I felt a kindred spirit. But as suddenly as the moment came it was gone.

As I lit the fire she disappeared into the loft. There was a spark, then a blaze and the exquisite near-pain of warming my white, cold hands. I wanted to show Minnie around the cabin, such as it was, but there was something about the quiet of the cabin. There were no cars, no TV, no phone, and not even the soft whoosh of ventilation. There was something holy about a silence this complete.

The room warmed, and soon Minnie was down sitting on the sofa as far from me as she could. Nothing could keep her cold desperate body away from the heat. She grinned weakly at me, "The heat is nice. So dad said you had been here before with him, like a long time ago."

Her voice had been just above a whisper, but it animated me as if she had spoken an incantation. "It was. Exactly how old do you think I am?" her cold cheeks and lips lit up red. "I'm kidding, yes it was something like twenty five years ago. Your dad and his friends and my ex-wife. We stayed here a couple of nights."

She looked around the room. "What did you do here?"

What could I have said? We drank and got high and fucked. What else was there to do here? "We kept ourselves busy. Umm.. There's a nice lake through the woods. Want to come see it? The cabin will be nice and warm when we get back." She agreed, rather enthusiastically.

—

The woods were bright, white, and treacherous. Neither of us were much used to snow, and after she fell the second time, I suggested we hold hands. And when our hands touched, there was a spark, and a little jump in my gut. She looked like a little bird puffed up in her heavy coat. Her hand was soft and delicate and quite cold.

Our feet crunched in the snow, and soon there were evergreens all around. She looked around, wonder in her eyes. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" I gave her hand a soft squeeze. She nodded, her eyes joyful. Had she felt it? "Aren't you studying biology?"

"Yes, wildlife biology. This is my kind of place. Think of it, even with the snow, think of how many living things we are surrounded by. Birds, insects, rodents. And that's just the animals. Last year we went out to the coast but it was nothing like this."

"So field work is what you're into?" I don't know why but I wanted to keep her talking.

"Mostly. It also helps that taiga mammals are what I'm specializing in. You know, bears, deer, mountain lions. It's like a whole secret world going on all around us. I've never seen a cougar in the wild. Maybe we'll get lucky." She glanced at me, "Oh don't worry they won't attack if there's two of us together. They're looking for easy prey, not a fight. You know, that's what you should do. If a cougar attacks you a lot of people think you have to play dead, but you have to fight back."

"If we see one you can protect us," I detected a slight grin on her face.

It took us about thirty minutes to get through. The trees parted and the lake stood before us still and cold and serene. Hand in hand, we walked down the gentle slope. "It was frozen when we came here too, so I've never actually seen it thawed. Should be frozen several feet deep."

"Any fish in there will either be frozen solid or very deep. Nothing can get to them." She remarked.

We walked closer. A lone bird circled overhead, too distant to identify. It felt supernaturally still here, as if even walking was so loud as to be an act of blasphemy. I found myself tiptoeing, as if I could mitigate the sacrilege.

But Minnine kept going. "It's fine, the ice will hold me, even if I fall." She curled up one toned, shapely leg, revealing the bottom of her shoe. My eyes couldn't help but linger on her butt. It was small and round and shook slightly as she brought her leg back down. "See, cleats. Come on out here with me. I'll hold your hand." Was her tone teasing there? I don't know why it surprised me that she had prepared.

I complied, and we walked out several feet. My legs were uncertain and stiff on the slippery ice, but Minnie helped stabilize me. We walked about forty feet out, still a long way from the middle of the lake. I was about to ask her why we were even out here, when the answer came thundering into my ears. At first it startled me so much that I nearly fell, and Minnie was barely able to stabilize me. I heard her laugh for the first time, barking and unafraid. "It's called ice singing. It just means that the pressure of our weight is causing small cracks in the ice."

The noise was otherworldly. I expected cracking ice to sound like breaking wood or glass, but it was nothing like this. It was disorienting in its sublime strangeness. I heard distant whale sounds, or the sound of snapping cables, or something comically like a sci fi laser sound. It was as if some ancient spirit was rising up from the depths of the lake and this was the only way our mortal ears could comprehend it.

She stared, absorbing my reaction. There was a smile, like she had finally got through to this weird old man. And truthfully she had. I had never heard anything like this or expected it on our trip. It was one of those rare moments of surprise so authentic and profound that it felt like I was exploring another world. I took a few steps to test the ice and a whole new sublime chorus began. It echoed through the lake and surrounded me. I heard Minnie also stepping and making music of her own. The bizarre beauty filled me and I felt tears welling in my eyes, which left cold trails down my cheeks. I quickly wiped my cheeks and composed myself, a skill I had learned from a father who ruthlessly attacked anything he perceived as weakness.

Had Minnie seen? She surely wouldn't have said anything if she had. I was still trying to impress her. But it was her turn to show me this place's magic.

—

We stayed on the ice for some time, walking carefully and sometimes falling. We were so absorbed in the ice singing that we lost track of time. The ice was so thick that there was nothing we could do to break it, but my body was not quite as lucky and felt bruised and jostled by the time we were heading back. Minnie had slipped and fell a few times too, but it seemed as if her youth and light frame had saved her. Even so, she moved with a certain grace which seemed more than just the cleats she was wearing.

We somehow silently agreed on when to leave and walked hand and hand back into the forest. This time she turned and smiled as she touched my hand, and it was my turn to blush. We stepped uncertainty into the maze of evergreens. Minnie was quiet again. But back there something special had happened to her. The joy of the natural world had possessed her and beamed out through her.

We continued through the forest, our cheeks now numb to the soft, falling flakes of snow. There was nothing but the crunching of our feet, the puffs of our breath, and the wind whistling through the trees. I felt afraid to even breathe in this serene place.

There was a blur of motion at the edge of my vision, and I turned to see a doe with its head down in the snow, foraging for any still living grass. A little fawn tagged along behind her. Not wanting to break the forest's holy silence, I tugged on Minnie's hand. Though I was staring at the doe, I knew the moment she looked because a little gasp escaped her throat. The animal held us in rapt shock for more than a few seconds, lifting its head now and again to scan for predators. Predators like us. The creature's snorts were visible in the air as vital puffs of mist, defying the deathly cold. Somewhere in this one of us attempted to get a better look. There was a misplaced foot and we both went tumbling down.

I was fortunate enough to land in a way that spared my back. But my arm jerked Minnie and she came crashing down on top of me. My wind was knocked out of me and suddenly we were face to face, her lying on top of me. Her cheeks and lips were bright red, framed in an icy white face. Her dark eyes and thin face suddenly gave her an uncanny resemblance to the doe, delicate and beautiful. Her face was a jumble of shock, amusement, and embarrassment. And in that moment she was a stunning, warm, and vibrant creature. My blood pumped in my ears and I prayed to the god I never believed in to not let me get hard. God was silent and I felt that old familiar feeling.

A second or two went by in silence. She could see me in all my glory too. My two day stubble, my glasses not quite as thick as hers, my prematurely gray hair, too long for someone as old as me. I felt like an old troll next to this youthful dryad. I would have done anything she told me to do at that moment, anything to please her. An electric jolt of excitement ripped through me when I felt her begin to move her hips, but it was only her getting to her feet.

We dusted the snow off and exchanged another wordless glance. She had seen what was there in my eyes, there was no doubt about it. And she had to have felt my hard cock when she turned to get up. There she stood, like a doe. Eyes bright, body slender and warm. We turned and the doe was long gone, having heard our fall.

—

When we returned the cabin was warm and inviting. I felt prickles on my skin and Minnie's face was even more red and beautiful. "I'm gonna go change," she said. I hadn't been thinking clearly since the lake. This girl, this young woman, who I had seen grow up, was my friend's daughter. And yet her spark had lit a fire in me. Passion had ambushed me in the woods and pounced. And I was at the mercy of its red, open mouth.

I sat on the couch next to the wood stove. With an old stove like this, heat was a binary, not a continuum. You were either freezing cold or burning up. So I took my hat and jacket off, enjoying the warmth after so much cold. I heard Minnie come down from the loft and sit on the couch next to me. "Feels great, huh?" I said, "The best part about the cold is warming back up."

I looked back and felt my heart jump. She was sitting on the couch with her long legs folded under her. She had on plaid pajama pants, with fluffy socks. There was a thin strip of her belly visible above the lines of her pants. She had on a tank top with, I gulped, obviously nothing underneath. The shapes of her small breasts and nipples were quite visible. There were no mirrors in the cabin except for the small one in the bathroom. Had she worn this not knowing what it looked like, or had it been deliberate? It was impossible she didn't notice my gaze lingering on her nipples, like little gumdrops. They were still hard from the cold. Her arms were slender and smooth, and she had something I couldn't quite make out tattooed on her inner upper arm. There was the same face as ever. Red lips and cheeks, nose and eyes just a little too big. Short boyish haircut that somehow made her look more feminine. I felt as if I had left the cabin with an ice queen and returned with a dryad.