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| Part 1 by Castgimp |
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| We had been planning our camping trip together for a long time. For years we had talked about spending a week hiking the Northern Presidential Range in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. Our professional lives had become busy, and the fact that we now lived on opposite coasts had made it all the more difficult to find a time when we could get away together. We had committed to the trip when we graduated from college four years ago, and now after several aborted attempts, it looked as if it was finally going to happen. Camping and hiking had always been two of our favorite things. At the University of Vermont we had both been leaders in the UVM Outing Club. As undergraduates, we had spent a lot of time planning and leading hikes and camping trips with the club, taking groups to the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Green Mountains in Vermont. Every fall we led a group of freshman on a wilderness trek as part of the school's orientation program. As much fun as these group trips had been, we had always talked about an extended camping and hiking trip with just the two of us. When Ben got the job with Microsoft in Seattle just before we graduated, our commitment to take this trip together had been our promise that we would not let our friendship die despite the fact that we would be living on opposite coasts. Ben was taking a red-eye from the West Coast, and I was supposed to meet him at Logan Airport in Boston on Thursday morning. Since he was flying and I was local, it was my job to get all of the camping gear and supplies together. He was bringing his own pack, but I was supplying the tent, sleeping bags, cook stove, lantern, fuel, food, and most of the other stuff we would need for five nights of fall camping. Our plan was to drive straight to New Hampshire the day he arrived and stay in a hotel the first night. Friday we would drive to the trailhead at Pinkham Notch, hike our gear up to the base camp we'd chosen, and set up camp. There was an area in National Forest that allowed wilderness camping, and its central location made it a great base from which to hike the surrounding peaks. We hoped to be able to scale a different peak each day, and return to our base camp at night. That way we would only have to schlep our gear in and out once, and could use lighter daypacks for our daily hikes. The plan seemed like a good one, and it looked like the weather was going to cooperate. We'd chosen a week in late October past the peak of leaf season so that we could avoid the crowds. We knew the risk was cold, wet weather, but the forecast, to the extent they could predict weather in New England, was for crisp blue autumn sunshine. It would be cold at night, but compared to the snow camping we had done in Vermont, so long as the rain held off, camping in October in New Hampshire would be mild. Ben's plane arrived on time, and it began to look as if we were indeed going to pull off our camping trip this time around. I was anxious initially about seeing Ben, but he was in a great mood when he landed, and seemed genuinely pleased to see me. It had been nearly two years since we had seen each other, and I was afraid that things might be awkward between us at first, but as soon as we were in the car together we fell easily into the mindless banter that came so naturally when we were together. We talked a little bit about work, and shared what news we could think of from friends we had gone to school with. Sitting in the car together speeding north, however, we mostly talked about the details of our camping trip. Ben and I had lived in the same freshman dormitory, and had struck up a friendship in the fall of our first year. We were both runners, and had found good company running together every morning, and our friendship had grown from there. We were as different as could be, but each of us seemed somehow to find a natural partner in the other. I was blond, raised Protestant, and from Connecticut. In an earlier era my parents had rightly been called WASPs. I had been raised in an affluent suburb, and attended prep school. In college I had declared myself an English major, intent on pursuing a Ph.D. and becoming an English professor. I had played Lacrosse in high school, but had given that up in college, in favor of running and skiing and reading. Ben was as dark as I was fair. His father was Armenian and his mother was Irish, and both were first generation immigrants to America. Ben was the first person to attend college in his family, and his passion was computers. Growing up in a working class neighborhood in Roxborough in Boston, Ben had attended public school, and had attended both the Orthodox Church with his father and the Catholic Church with his mother. Ben had dark hair and dark eyes and a heavy beard growth that left a shadow on his face even immediately after he shaved. He had been a math and science whiz in high school, and was studying computer engineering on an academic scholarship. Perhaps it is true that opposites attract. For whatever reason, Ben and I had bonded in a permanent way freshman year, and although we never lived together, we were not often separated during our four years of school. People thought of us as best friends, as indeed we were, and most often said our names together, as in "what are BenandMike doing tonight?" Prior to picking Ben up at Logan, the last time I had seen him was at his wedding in Seattle. I had flown out to the wedding with mixed emotions. Somehow his pending marriage had made me feel that I was going to finally lose him as a friend. The woman he married, however, turned out to be delightful, and she seemed truly pleased to meet me. It seems she had indeed heard all about me from Ben, and in many ways I felt as natural and comfortable with her as I did with Ben. I was happy for both of them, even as I was sad for myself. As Ben's best man, I felt like I was the one giving someone away. He wasn't my son, and in fact he had never even been my boyfriend. Still I felt the sadness of losing someone who had felt like a partner to me for a very long time. I think Ben sensed my sadness, and probably even understood its origin. At the reception he sought me out, and with his arm around my back led me out onto the terrace of the rented hall. "We will always be friends Mike," he had said, looking me directly in the eye, "no matter what." And then in a weepy half-drunken embrace, Ben and I had recommitted to finding time to take our camping trip together. And now, finally, two years later, it was really happening. We made great time getting up to New Hampshire, and were checked into our hotel by late afternoon. We went for a run together, for old times' sake, and then worked on re-packing our gear and distributing it between our two packs so that we would be mobile in the morning. We went over our checklist to make sure we had everything we would need. The only thing I had forgotten was a first aid kit, which we managed to find at a local drugstore. So far, things seemed to be going without a hitch. We found an early dinner at a Red Lobster off the highway, and then back at the hotel, after flipping through the cable stations without finding anything interesting to watch, decided to call it a night. It was much earlier than I was used to going to bed, but Ben had not slept well on his overnight flight and was exhausted. We had a series of long and strenuous days ahead of us, so it made sense to try to get some extra rest. Ben called his wife and chatted with her for about twenty minutes, and then stepped out of his clothes and fell into the bed across from mine. Despite the three-hour time difference between Seattle and New England, he seemed to fall asleep in almost immediately. I was less tired, and was fired up about seeing Ben and about our trip together, and it took me considerably longer to relax enough to finally fall asleep. Lying there awake listening to Ben's rhythmic breathing, I smiled to myself as I thought back on all the times I had jerked off thinking about Ben. This was like one of my jerk-off fantasies come true, a night alone with Ben in a hotel room in New Hampshire. I had actually fantasized about this very night as I planned for this trip, had pulled my cock until I shot my wad all over my chest as I imagined Ben falling happily naked into bed with me after all these years. Now here we were in the actual hotel room together, in two separate beds, as chaste as brothers. Neither of us was even completely naked. We had both left our shorts on, out of modesty or embarrassment or simple shyness. The disparity between my erotic fantasy about how this evening might play itself out, and this much more sober reality, however, didn't make me sad. My fantasies had never been anything but fantasies, and I had no real expectations that Ben would ever fall naked into bed next to me. I was pretty sure that Ben never knew that I had lusted after him, or for that matter that I still did. Or if he knew, he didn't let it interfere with our friendship. I had long ago reconciled myself to the reality that Ben was straight and I was gay and that any lasting friendship we were going to be able to sustain was going to have to recognize and acknowledge that fundamental difference. There had never been anything in our relationship that had led me to believe Ben was anything other than straight, and now that he was married, that seemed to be confirmed. There had only ever been one moment between us that could be described as anything like sexual and that had been more than eight years ago. Early one Saturday morning freshman year I had walked into the shower room on our floor of the dormitory and was startled to see Ben standing under the hot steaming water slowly soaping and stroking his erect cock, confident that he was alone. My first thought had been to flee, before Ben could see me, but he turned toward me before I could back out of the room. My face immediately burned crimson, and I was afraid that he would think I had been spying on him. But to my surprise he didn't seem embarrassed or self-conscious about having his cock in his hand, and so I tried to act as nonchalant as he was. I walked into the room and turned on the water at a showerhead diagonally across from where he was standing. Ben continued to soap and stroke himself unselfconsciously, and pretty soon I was stroking away on my own hard soapy cock. We stood there facing each other, slowly pulling on our cocks, for ten minutes or more, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for two guys to be doing on a sleepy half hung-over Saturday morning. After a period of slow, languorous pulling, Ben suddenly picked up the speed of his stroking and grabbed his balls, and the next thing I knew we were both shooting sticky gobs of jism up onto our wet bellies. Afterwards, we never spoke about it, and there really was no need to. There was truly nothing remarkable about two guys jerking off together in the shower freshman year of college. And nothing like it had ever happened again. I didn't officially come out on campus until our junior year, and I worried about telling Ben I was gay more than I worried about telling anyone else. I didn't want to lose his friendship, and I didn't want him to think that I was hitting on him, or that I had been hitting on him freshman year when we'd shared the j/o session in the shower. But Ben was totally cool about it, and said it didn't surprise him and it didn't bother him, and in fact he thanked me for telling him. And he told me he valued my friendship more than anybody else he'd met at school. And that was pretty much where we stood, even now, four years after graduation. I smiled to think about it as I held my hard cock under the covers and slowly slipped into a warm happy slumber, knowing that my best friend was sound asleep on the bed next to me. ...It was our second peak in two days. Saturday we had hiked Mount Jefferson, and today we had tackled the scraggly granite peak of Mount Adams. They were both strenuous climbs, but the weather had been spectacular and the views from the top were superb. We were hungry, and hustling, as we made our way back down the mountain toward our base camp. We had eaten everything we had brought up the mountain with us for lunch, and the thought of a hearty dinner around the campfire was a strong motivator. We were a good forty-five minutes to an hour away from our base camp and our supplies, even at the fast pace with which we were moving. Ben had led on the way up, but I was in front on the way down. I liked to come down a mountain fast, letting gravity carry me as I picked my way, placing my feet carefully and quickly to absorb my weight as I bounced down the slope. The trail surface we were coming down was a combination of loose rocks and dirt, and larger, heavier rocks set firmly in the ground. We were back down into a hardwood grove with lots of underbrush, but the trail was pretty clear. Leaves covered the ground, but it was dry, and the footing was good. As I picked my way over a particularly large boulder in the path ahead of me, I heard Ben's feet slip behind me. I could tell by the way that his shoes ground against the loose gravel that he had lost his footing even before I heard him come down hard on the ground with a muted "shit!" I spun around as soon as I could stop my forward momentum and saw him sitting in the middle of the path with his legs twisted out to his side. "You OK man?" I had already started back up the incline to where he was sitting. "Yeah, I'm fine." He was breathing hard. "I just lost my footing and landed on my butt. Pretty stupid." "Your legs must be getting tired. I know mine are. Maybe we should slow up." "Yeah, I guess." He was looking at his hands. "Did you hurt yourself?" "Nah. I caught myself with my hands. They sting like a motherfucker but the skin isn't broken." "Here, let me give you a hand." I reached my hand out. "Let me sit a minute. That really knocked the wind out of me." "You sure you're OK?" I sat down on the ground next to him, concerned. "Yeah. I'm fine. I just sat down hard. My feet went right out from under me." "Have some water." I handed him my bottle. "Thanks man." He took a long pull on the bottle, swallowing deeply. "Looks like it's clouding up," I offered. "Getting kind of chilly." "Looks like it might even rain." "I hope not. We've had great weather so far." Ben was still sitting on the ground where he had landed, with his legs twisted around to his side. I didn't want to rush him, but the weather did look like it was about to change. "You ready dude?" "Yeah. Give me a hand." I stood up and reached out my hand to him again. He reached his hand out to meet mine and I grabbed his outstretched arm and pulled him to his feet. "Ow! Shit!" He was standing up, and then all of the sudden, he sat down hard on the ground. "What's wrong?" "I don't know. Nothing. My ankle. Shit." "You OK Ben?" "I don't know man. I think so. I just...when I stood up...my ankle. There was a sharp pain." "Shit." "I'm all right. I must have twisted it when I went down. I'll be all right. Let me just sit for a minute. Fuck that hurt." He was leaning forward, trying to cradle his ankle. "You sure you're OK?" "Yeah, I'm fine. Look." He was rotating his ankle in a circle. "I'm fine. Here, help me up." I reached out my hand again and pulled him up on one foot. Slowly he lowered the other foot to the ground. "How's that feel?" "Not good," he said, picking his foot back up off the ground. He rotated his foot three hundred and sixty degrees again. "It doesn't hurt to move it. It's just when I put weight on it." "What do you think?" "Fuck it!" He stepped forward deliberately onto his injured ankle. I could see the pain in his face as his weight landed on it. I was still standing next to him and grabbed him as he slumped forward. I eased him back down onto the ground. "Ben man what's wrong?" I was starting to get a little panicky. We were still pretty far from camp, and it was starting to get dark. "Shit Mike, I think I really hurt myself. Fuck." "Do you...do you think it's sprained?" "I dunno. It doesn't hurt when I rotate it. It just hurts like hell when I try to put any weight on it." "Which means?" "I don't know. I just don't know." "Do you...do you think it's broken?" "I guess itt might be." "You broke your ankle?" "I don't know Mike! I'm not a fucking doctor! I just know I can't walk on it!" It was the first time he'd ever raised his voice to me in anger. "I'm sorry Ben. Jesus. What should we do?" "I don't know. Shit. I'm sorry I yelled." "It's OK. Let's not panic. We're both getting kind of stressed here." My heart was pounding in my chest, and my breath was shaky. I suddenly felt like I was on the verge of tears. "I don't think I can walk on it Mike." "Maybe if we rest for a little bit." "I think...I think maybe you should go for help." "Go for help? Ben it would take me two-and-a-half, maybe three hours to get to the car, even if I flew. It's getting dark. It's getting cold. I'm not leaving you here." "We can't just stay here Mike." "Maybe someone will come by." "Mike we haven't seen anybody on the mountain all day!" "Shit." "I'm sorry. Fuck! I can't fucking believe this. I can't believe I fucked up our trip like this." "Relax man. It's gonna be all right. Listen, I think...I think we should try to make it back to the camp." "Back to the camp? How? I can't Mike." "I don't know. I'll help you. You can lean on me. We'll go slowly. We'll try to keep your weight off your ankle as much as we can." "You're serious?" "What else are we going to do Ben? We've got food there, and we can build a fire. It's getting dark and it looks like it might storm. We can't stay here on the side of the mountain." "I don't know if we can...I mean, it really hurts." "It's not going to be easy Ben, but we've gotta try it. I don't know what else to do. It won't be easy. And it's gonna hurt." "Yeah. I guess we don't have a choice." "If we can just get back to the tent I think we'll be OK. We'll be able to stay warm, and we've got food and water. I think there's even an ace bandage in that first aid kit we bought. I can wrap your ankle up tight. We'll elevate it. Maybe in the morning it'll feel better. If not, tomorrow, when it gets light, I can go for help." "OK." "Here. Let's get you up. Easy does it." |
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