A Winter's Tale

Author's preamble

This is a fictional tale about a mother and her son brought together by a near-fatal accident. The characters are entirely fictitious, their names bear no relationship to anybody, living or dead. Both participants are over 18 years of age.

Please respect my copyright.

Now, Enjoy.

~o0o~

They had always been a close family, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries together, plus all the other little occasions a family commemorates.

Charles and Sophie Smith had an idyllic marriage with few of the spats and arguments which seem to plague other marriages. Charles had started work as an apprentice in a manual trade in the steel works. He had learned his trade well, attending the local college to get his trade certificates. Eventually he was promoted to Foreman of the plant in which he worked.

Sophie was a little old-fashioned and considered that her place was in the home, cleaning, cooking and shopping: all the usual little tasks to make the home a warm and comfortable place for her man to come back to.

Three years after they were married, Sophie gave birth to a healthy boy whom they called Samuel which was always shortened to Sam. Both of his parents doted upon Sam and raised him to be a fine strapping lad who was loved by all his neighbours because he was a 'good boy' who seldom got into all the troubles and mischief of his peers. He was mainly a stay-at-home boy, preferring a good book by the fire to roaming the streets. Sam did well in school and eventually moved away to university where he achieved a 1st in business studies. His skills and knowledge were recognised by the firm for which he worked and he rose in the ranks of the company to a comfortable position by the time he was 30.

During his stay at Uni, Sam had had a few girlfriends but nothing serious enough to form a lifetime's partnership so, on coming down with his degree, he returned to the family home and settled down. He continued in his adult life as he had as a growing boy: little social life, preferring a book or board game at home with his parents.

As a family the Smiths had liked to go out together on hikes for the weekend or for their holidays, sleeping in their tents at night, the rougher the trail, the better. They were always careful with their preparations, having all the right gear, planning their routes and letting people know where they were going.

The cosy family group was shattered one afternoon by the doorbell. Sophie, her hands covered in flour as her baking session was interrupted, opened the door to see a policewoman with a sombre look on her face. "Mrs Smith? May I come in please? You'd better sit down, I have some bad news."

Charles had been on the plant floor, giving instructions to one of his charge hands, when several tons of mild steel plate slipped from the overhead crane and, quite literally, chopped him in two pieces. After relaying her news, the policewoman made Sophie a cup of tea and then phoned Sam at his office, telling him the sad news. Sam, of course, rushed home to offer what comfort he could to his mother.

Mother and son were both hit hard by their loss, Sophie more so than Sam so it was he who took charge of all the paperwork and arrangements for the funeral and held her close, supporting her during the final rites.

The days grew into weeks and months. Sophie, now in her mid-50s, grieved over her husband for a long time, the pain of loss only slowly dissipated and a year later she was still prone to weeping sessions now and then but Sam stood by and offered a shoulder to cry on when she needed it. About a year after the family had lost its head, Sam realised that his mother and he both needed a change so he started making arrangements for them to take another hike along one of their favourite trails. Sophie needed some pushing but she eventually agreed that a weekend out in the wilds would be good.

Sam looked over their gear, replacing what needed replacing and made all the necessary preparations. Friday morning came: Sam piled all their equipment in the car and they set off in relatively gay spirits. They reached their destination, immediately distributed their heavy packs between them and set off along their chosen trail. They had a couple of hours before the late winter gloom closed in so they tramped on the familiar track, aiming for a beach on the river they knew was a good place to set up camp.

The old routine brought back memories of earlier trips and they quickly fell into the pattern of Sam leading with Sophie right behind him. Sam, at 33, was still very fit so he kept up a stiff pace for his mother to follow. Braced by the cold and the hard exercise, she found herself getting back into the swing of things and they chatted happily through their panted breathing as they negotiated their way along the overgrown trail, clambering and slithering over the moss-covered rocks and roots, helping each other over frozen patches of ground.

Winter's pale bright sun was almost setting as they reached their immediate destination. They naturally reverted to accustomed routines: he erected the tent while she gathered the makings of a camp fire and started some water boiling for a warming cup of tea. When the tent was ready he went off to find heavier fuel which would keep their fire going all night to ward off the icy chill which was making itself felt once their heavy exertions were done. Sophie warmed a couple of cans of soup and buttered the crusty bread so soon they were resting with their backs up against a convenient fallen tree, enjoying their simple meal in quiet companionship.

With gloved hands wrapped around hot cups, they talked about old times. Sophie found the pain of her loss a little easier to bear and was not distressed by their bout of 'Remember when ...' even when it brought back memories of Charles, for they were happy memories. Eventually they snuggled down into their respective sleeping bags and fell into a deep sleep undisturbed by the creatures of the forest which passed by the tent silently.

Next morning Sam was first awake. He emerged from their tent to see a fresh sprinkling of snow around the camp site. He livened up the fire and set a pan of water boiling as he walked across the small beach at the river's edge and splashed his face in the icy cold water, breaking through the film of ice to get to it.

He returned to the camp fire and made a cup of tea for each of them, just in time to see his mother coming out of the tent, stretching and yawning. She, too, splashed her face down at the river's edge and returned to the welcome cuppa. She quickly finished the warming brew and set about making them both a breakfast of bacon and beans to set them up for the day. Meanwhile Sam dismantled the tent and packed as much as he could into their backpacks before rejoining his mother for breakfast.

Soon they finished packing and, toting their large packs, they once more set off on their trek, tracing up the bank of the river they had decided to follow. This part of the river skirted around the bottom of a steep hill. There was an easier 'beginners' path which zigzagged over the brow of the hill to rejoin the river bank some 2 miles upstream but Sam decided that they would take the more tricky route along the river bank. The nature of the terrain dictated that there was a steep drop, varying from about six feet to 20 feet, from the trail to the river, this sheer slope was matted with thick undergrowth and exposed roots.

The breath emerging from their panting lungs condensed into a fine mist as they occasionally made some comment or advice on the path. The odd twinges from yesterday's exertions had worn off and they were enjoying the tough challenges of the trek. They had been walking for about half an hour when they came to an awkward patch. There was a big old tree in the way: they couldn't get above the tree because of the dense brambles so they had to negotiate their way over the exposed roots.

Sam, in the lead as usual, carefully trying to get some grip around the gnarled tree trunk, started his pass over the roots when his boot slipped on the icy moss. With a short cry of alarm, Sam found himself scrabbling at the tangle of roots to no avail as he slid inexorably down. He was momentarily airborne as he dropped the ten feet into the river, then the waters closed over his head.

Sophie watched in horror as her son quickly fell away. She tried to grab at him but couldn't get near enough and was in danger of following him. She saw him drop with surprisingly little splash, submerge, then surface again, shaking the water out of his eyes.

The near freezing water soaked straight through his clothes and Sam felt the icy grip of the intense cold strike first through his testicles and quickly spreading to the rest of his body. He had to get out of that water fast so he swam with difficulty, still weighed down by his back pack, to the overhanging river bank but there was no way up.

Quickly realising his predicament, Sophie saw that there was no way up the bank anywhere. Retracing their route quickly in her mind, she couldn't think of any chance of regaining dry land nearer than the beach where they had camped last night. Pointing downstream, she yelled at her son, "The beach, Sam. Make for the beach."

Sam heard his mother shout and saw her pointing back the way they had come. He dimly heard the words, "the beach ..." and very soon came to realise what she was saying. It would be a long and enervating, in that excruciatingly cold water, swim so he decided to ditch his backpack - it would only weigh him down - and struck out swimming with the current. Meanwhile Sophie turned and ran as quickly as she could back along their trail. Her own heavy backpack was ungainly but she managed to stay on her feet as she rushed on. She saw the current sweep her son before her so she needed to get to that beach as quickly as possible.

The intense cold was taking its toll on Sam as he struggled on. His swimming movements became more and more sluggish, his thoughts became incoherent and it was more by luck that his legs felt the coarse gravel beneath him. He tried to pull himself out of the water and up the beach but his strength gave out so he laid there still half in and half out of the water as the world faded away. Later - minutes? hours? - he was vaguely aware of somebody manhandling his unresisting body then of the blessed warmth. His mind drifted away as the heat slowly permeated into him: he fell into a deep slumber.

Sophie had to fight off the feelings of panic as she saw her son disappear around a bend in the river but she fought it down and redoubled her efforts to catch up with him. It took her twenty minutes to get back to the tiny beach. Her relief at seeing her son's body when she reached the scene was soon overtaken by a feeling of despair when she saw no signs of life. She shrugged off her heavy pack and grabbed at Sam's clothes to drag him out of the water. Oh glory be, he was still breathing, albeit shallowly, but shivering violently.

She took quick stock of the situation and tipped the contents of her pack onto the ground. Fortunately she had been carrying their tent so she erected it as quickly as possible and threw her sleeping bag inside. Returning to her son, she forced her cold, wet hands to strip off all his soaking clothes. She half carried, half dragged, his violently shivering body to the tent and into the sleeping bag.

She had the presence of mind to realize that hypothermia was the real danger: she had to get some warmth into his frozen flesh. Quickly she stripped off her own damp clothes and squeezed into the sleeping bag, closing the zip right round them as she hugged her son's clammy body to her own. Eventually she noticed some improvement in the shivering and his shallow breathing was stronger. Sophie was exhausted from the run back to the beach and the physical exertions to get her son into the sleeping bag so she drifted off to sleep still clutching Sam closely.

****

Sam was warm and cosy in the arms of his former girlfriend. Jenny with the lush body and soft, pillowy breasts. He was rubbing his erection against her deliciously, approaching climax. "Jenny, oh Jenny," he murmured as his seed pumped out. As is sometimes the case with wet dreams, he came awake just after climaxing in the warm afterglow of coitus: came awake and was confused by the constricting, stuffy, environment of the sleeping bag when suddenly it dawned on him that it was his mother holding him close then suddenly pushing him away as far as possible in the enclosed space..

Sophie, for her part, had slowly surfaced from the depths of her sleep, awoken, perhaps, by her son's rhythmic dry humping of her thigh. She froze for a few seconds until she realised what was happening then suddenly she heard Sam moaning the name 'Jenny' and felt something warm and sticky pumping onto her thigh. In the dim light inside the sleeping bag, she saw Sam's eyes open and hastily pushed him away from her body.

"Sam, what the hell are you doing?"

"Oh jeez, Mum, I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry."

Sophie struggled to open the zip and they both rolled away from each other, equally embarrassed. Too late they realised they were both naked; Sam's eyes were drawn immediately to his mother's voluptuous body, her generous breasts heaving with each breath, her slightly rounded belly and her thick bush hiding the treasure within. He noticed the creamy deposit on her thigh, how it was oozing down her leg. She, too, found her gaze drawn to his slim, wiry body and the man-sized penis now growing anew as his lusting eyes looked her over.

Mentally shaking herself, Sophie tried to regain some control of the situation. "We'd better get dressed," she said, rummaging in her pack. "I have a spare pair of jeans you can wear, panties will have to do as underwear, and I have a spare shirt. You can have my jumper and I'll manage with the anorak. You're going to have cold feet in those wet boots. You can start dry anyway." She threw a roll of socks onto his pile then they both dressed quickly, both of them sneaking glimpses at each other as they did so.

"Do we make a hot drink, Mum?"

"No, let's press on back to the car. This weekend's gone pear-shaped: we'll buy you some new kit and do this trip again next weekend, but we'll take the easier path, get us back into shape. Maybe we're a bit rusty."

They quickly packed their gear and his wet clothes away, sharing the burden as much as possible, and set off back to the car. They walked mostly in silence as Sam set a brisk pace to try to keep them warm so there was little opportunity to talk easily but part of their path cut across a meadow and they could walk side by side on the easier terrain for about two miles.

"In a way, Sam, I'm glad you persuaded me to come, even though it ended in near disaster. Before you fell, I was enjoying myself for the first time since we lost your Dad."

"Yes, it felt good to get away. And you're right, maybe we do need to take easier paths for a while. Tell you what, we can get lots of practice in between, then in September, we can do Wainwright's coast to coast walk. We used to talk about it with Dad, now we can do it, do it for him."

"What a lovely idea, Sam. Yes, let's do just that. For your Dad."

With that happy thought they continued again in silence. As they walked, they were both almost on autopilot as their minds went over the accident. Sam remembered little of his ordeal, just a blur of the enervating cold and utter exhaustion and near oblivion. His mother relived the terror of her mad dash along the riverbank, her backpack swinging and almost unbalancing her and the roller coaster of emotions from despair to relief to concern and finally peace.

With Sam driving and the car heater going full blast, Sophie drifted off to sleep, still thinking about how she almost lost her precious son that morning. Her dreams were chaotic and vaguely menacing at first but subconsciously they drifted to her son's body as she had seen it first when she stripped him and then of his erection when they rolled away from each other in horror at what had happened in the sleeping bag. Sophie and Charles had always had a lusty relationship in the privacy of their bed but she had been celibate for more than a year. Now her dream became erotic but Charles somehow morphed into Sam. She woke up with a start when Sam pulled up outside their home and shook her shoulder. "We're home, Mum."

Sophie, still a little groggy from her sleep and wisps of the dream, fast fading from her mind, brought her suddenly to her senses. Shaking her head to clear away the memories of that dream, she watched her son open the boot and take out what remained of their luggage. She sprang out of the car to open the front door for him and, while he lugged their baggage into the house, she returned and locked the car then made her way back. Sam was busy starting up the central heating, turning it high to get the place warmed through quickly.

Sophie brewed a pot of tea and the sat sipping at their cups as they relaxed for the first time since Sam had fallen into the river. They talked through the whole ordeal: Sam told her how fortunate it was that the river current had been swift enough to sweep him down to the beach, but that he didn't remember much of the harrowing swim after about ten minutes. She told of her panicked run back along the riverbank and how the heavy bag almost had her off balance at times, then how she found him and her struggle to get him into the sleeping bag. Neither of them mentioned the sleeping bag incident although they both remembered it.

After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, when they had finished their tea, Sophie said, "I think we both need a shower, Sam. You have the first one to get rid of that river mud. Meanwhile I'll throw a casserole together and get it cooking then I'll shower after you. Go on, scoot. Get cleaned up."

Sam made his way to the bathroom and stripped off his clothes, chuckling to himself at the sight of the panties he had 'borrowed' from his mother and the shame he felt after his wet dream. With that thought in his mind, he stepped under the hot stream and, as he cleaned his cock, he had the vision of his mother's body as his erection grew. How he would love to be cushioned in those lovely full breasts, to suckle on the dark nipples, to run his hand over her belly to the secrets hidden behind her pubic bush. Before he knew it, his sperm was swirling down the shower drain, leaving behind a few twinges of guilt in his mind. If only ..."

Sam dried his body, wrapped the damp towel around his waist, picked up his clothes and went to his room to get dressed. He heard his Mum enter the bathroom and shortly thereafter, the sound of the shower splashing down. What is wrong with me, Sam thought as he had a mental picture of his mother naked under the shower, soaping over her magnificent breasts. He shouldn't be thinking of her with such lustful thoughts.

Sophie quickly put a casserole together and put in the oven to cook slowly and, hearing her son leave the bathroom, she went upstairs and walked into the steamy room. Stripping off, she noticed a crust of dried sperm on her thigh: she had not cleaned the area thoroughly after the 'accident' in her haste to get dressed. That led her thoughts to the aftermath as she stepped into the stream of the hot shower. She had seen how he had looked at her body, just as surely as she had looked at his. He was very much like his father, she thought as she remembered the sight of his erection. Yes, very much like Charles. As Sam had imagined, she was indeed soaping her breasts and she became aware of her nipples peaking under hands. The soaping became a sensuous massage and she tweaked at the nipples, thinking back to her Charles and his passionate loving, becoming more and more aroused as her hand slid down to her pussy and pushed a finger against her sensitive clitoris.