Charlie and Mindy Bk. 01 Ch. 01

After a last long drink of water from the jug we'd brought from home, we locked that jug in the car, hoisted the packs onto our backs, tightened waist belts, and set out for the campsite.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Once there, we pitched our tent. We'd borrowed it, along with a pair of sleeping bags, from Bob and Sally, a young couple who lived down the block from our house.

We'd brought some rolls, some ham and cheese, and a couple of apples for our first supper on the trail. When we had finished and cleaned up, it was still early evening. We were each carrying a couple of sturdy, soft plastic, one-liter water bottles. We'd each about emptied one of them with dinner, so we refilled them from the nearby stream. I showed Mindy how to use tincture of iodine for purification. Twenty minutes later, the water would be drinkable.

There was still an hour or so before sunset, and we sat together on a log, our bodies touching more or less lightly, for most of that time. We alternated between enjoying the peaceful beauty of the woods in mutual silence and chatting quietly about who-knows-what. The evening wore on, and we found ourselves putting on mosquito repellent. We found also that we needed to add a layer of clothing—wool sweaters and wool pants—to stay warm in the growing evening chill. The daylight slowly failed, and we got out our headlamps, Ensolite pads, and sleeping bags.

The sky was clear, without a hint of bad weather. Our campsite was about 8,000 feet above sea level, so it would get even cooler before long. But it was August, and it wouldn't get cold enough to cause us any discomfort in our sleeping bags. We decided we'd sleep outside the tent.

As we laid out our Ensolite pads and borrowed bags, I noticed out loud that the bags were a matching pair that could be zipped together.

Mindy had not known there were such sleeping bags, and she was entranced: "That's great. I'd really like to zip them together and snuggle, Charlie. It's been so long since we've slept that way—nine years."

I, too, missed the sense of physical intimacy we'd shared as kids, so we did zip them together. We discovered that we were tired, both from getting up early and from the drive. The sun was down—though we had not been able to see it set owing to the trees that surrounded us. We knew that it would rise a little after six. And so, even though it wasn't dark yet, we prepared to go to bed.

Before we climbed into the sack, we removed the extra layers we'd put on in the evening coolness; otherwise, we remained fully clothed in cotton shirts, hiking shorts, and knee-length wool socks. And we crawled into the doubled bag, leaving the upper zipper partially open.

We'd arranged ourselves so that Mindy was on my left as I lay on my back. We loosened our belts and undid our hiking shorts' waist buttons. As I lay there, drifting pleasantly between awake and asleep, Mindy's warmth and natural scent had their effect, and I felt some stirring in my groin. So I rolled away from her onto my side—not wanting her to know what effect she was having. We would be spending a week in each other's company, and I didn't want her to begin the trip thinking that I'd brought her here for any reason other than to share the wild country with her.

In the roominess of the doubled bag, I lay there on my side with my lower leg extended and my upper leg folded up a little, so that my thighs formed a "V" that had its corner at my crotch. Fatigue caught up with me and I began to drop off to sleep. I was vaguely, and pleasantly, aware that Mindy had turned toward me, wormed an arm under my neck, draped the other over my waist, and pulled herself up against me—slipping her leg over mine. We had often reposed together like this when we were children.

But this night, there was a difference: I distinctly recall the pressure of her small, firm breasts against me, and of her genital mound against my thigh, as I slipped off into a young man's sound sleep.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Monday

Neither of us had slept on the ground for a while, so both of us flipped and flopped some during the night. I recall getting up to empty my bladder—probably an hour or so after midnight. The moon, a little past first quarter, had already set, and the stars shone brightly in the clear, dark sky. The Milky Way formed a broad highway across the sky. I also recall pulling the top zipper all the way up as I climbed back into the bag. Nevertheless, we slept reasonably well.

When I awoke again, the sky was blue, though the sun had not yet risen. We had rolled so that Mindy had her back to me. She was sleeping on her left side, with her knees together and drawn slightly upward. I was also on my left side, my legs drawn up against the backs of hers, one arm under her pillow (which we'd fashioned from a stuff-sack and sweater), and my other arm draped around her. We were in the classic spoon position. We'd shared this position, too, as children sleeping in the same bed.

During our sleep, she had clasped my hand to herself, so that it cupped one of her breasts through her shirt.

The firm rounded flesh felt wonderful.

And, as happens almost every morning with a young man, I had a raging erection. My hiking shorts confined it, but it pressed nonetheless into the cleft between her buttocks.

Groggily, I considered: If I moved, she would wake and catch me feeling her up; if I didn't move, she would soon wake naturally and catch me feeling her up.

I had just about decided to remain in place, sleepily enjoying her body, when she did wake up.

"Are you awake, Big Brother?" she whispered.

Still half asleep, I mumbled assent. In response, she clasped my hand more tightly to her breast, causing me to give it a little squeeze. That caused a throb in my pants—which in its turn caused her to wiggle her rear end against me. I felt her nipple stiffen in my hand; almost automatically, my thumb brushed it. She wiggled again; I throbbed again.

Embarrassed at my seeming forwardness, I started to mumble something—anything—in an effort to excuse it. Even as I began, I realized that my bladder was full—really full; it was a ready-made escape from my predicament. I turned my incoherent mumbles into a fuzzy "I really have to pee," rolled away from Mindy, unzipped the bag, and stumbled 10 or 15 yards into the woods.

But upon unzipping my pants and pulling my penis out, I encountered another difficulty: It isn't possible to urinate through an erection. But this difficulty usually resolves itself; once you recognize the urgent need and concentrate on satisfying it, your erection softens quickly and flow begins. Thus, after 45 seconds or so, I urinated merrily away.

As my flow ended, I belatedly saw that Mindy had stumbled into the woods a little behind me and was several feet off to my left, facing back the way we had come. She had dropped her britches and, having gathered them at her knees and squatted, was finishing her chore as I finished mine. I had never seen a woman urinate in the woods before, and I'd wondered how they did it without getting their clothes wet. I'd just found out.

She looked at me as we buckled our belts. "Is something wrong, Charlie?" she asked. "It took you quite a while to start peeing."

I hemmed and hawed for a moment and finally blurted out, "Well, Mindy, men can't urinate through an erection."

There was a significant pause.

"Who can't what through which?" she asked, giving me a look I knew and dreaded. "You big jerk! Who do you think you're talking to? This is me! Mindy! Your little sister! The only person in the world who knows your body almost as well as you do. The only person in the world whose body you know almost as well as she does. Do you mean that you can't pee through a hard-on? Then say so, dammit!"

I mumbled something, trying not to shrivel up and die of shame, while shriveling up and dying of shame—not just because she might've thought my body had reacted to hers in the sleeping bag, but also because I'd tried to pretend nothing had happened.

As I suffered, I saw a light bulb turning on in her head. She looked me in the eyes and said: "I get it! You're embarrassed!" She'd always been more perceptive about feelings than I, and she'd busted me, fair and square. I shriveled even more. Death seemed close—and desirable.

She rubbed it in: "Charlie, you really are a dope. Maybe even an asshole."

"Asshole" was the worst thing we ever called each other, and it does sound harsh. But it was just how we said that we thought the other had done something really dumb. Sometimes we used the word in fun, but this wasn't one of those times.

There was more coming: "A hard-on is nothing to be worried about. Guys get them all the time, and a girl kind of likes knowing that she can make a guy get hard. And I've seen lots of your boners. Do you really think I didn't know you had one when we woke up? I probably shouldn't have put your hand on my boob. But I woke up a while ago when we turned over onto our sides, and I knew it would feel good. So I put it there, and it did feel good, and I went back to sleep with it there."

I was thunderstruck. This wasn't the reaction I had expected. And the hand-on-the-boob business hadn't been an accident. She'd arranged that herself, on purpose. So she couldn't possibly have been thinking that I had slyly copped a feel while she was asleep.

Still processing this information, I said something brilliant, like: "Uhhh… You…put…"

"Yes, Charlie, I put your hand on my tit. And I'm glad I did, even if it gave you a boner. I should've known it would, but I didn't think. I hope it didn't make you angry."

I still had to think about things, but I knew that giving me a boner wasn't something that made me angry. And I said so. (It did occur to me that, in fact, neither her closeness nor her boob had caused my boner at all—that it had been simply an ordinary garden-variety morning hard-on. But she seemed happy thinking she'd caused it, and who wants to argue with someone whose forgiveness he's seeking?)

Learning that I wasn't angry mollified her somewhat, and I knew she'd forgiven me—though I could tell that she still thought I'd been a dope, or even an asshole. And I had been—though I didn't see quite how.

She gave me another front-to-front-full-contact hug. I know that I hadn't yet digested what she'd said, because I wasn't sorry when we broke that hug before I got another hard-on—which wasn't just a simple morning boner. I was sure, though, that I would never again use the word "erection" in a one-on-one conversation with her.

It was early; we could see by the light on a few high, scattered clouds that the sun had risen—though we couldn't see the sun itself because of the mountain range to the east. My scolding over, we turned to more important business: staying warm (the chill of the night still persisted), and eating. Like teenagers always and everywhere, we were hungry.

We fired up my little stove and fixed an enormous breakfast: Two courses, oatmeal and pancakes, both enhanced by butter and brown sugar.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After breakfast, we refilled our water bottles and went through the purification ritual. Setting the treated water bottles aside while the iodine acted, we broke camp. When we were packed, the water was ready, so started off on the day's hike. We wanted to take the Timico Lake Trail, which ascends a valley somewhat west of the one where we were camped. So we had to backtrack a little, and tramp rightward around the ridge that separates the two. A quarter-hour later, we reached the trail, and we turned to the right—toward the high country.

The well-established trail climbed steeply through pine forest, so we had little breath for talk as we walked. But navigation took little thought, so I had plenty of opportunity to think about what Mindy had said when she'd scolded me. I decided that she'd been right to be pissed at me, because I had tried to lie to her.

After about an hour, and a little more than a mile, we stopped for a rest. The morning chill was gone, and we'd worked up pretty good sweats. I reckoned we'd climbed a few hundred feet. We took off our packs, removed the wool shirts we'd worn against the early chill, put them in our daypacks, and dug out food and water.

As we sat on a convenient log munching and drinking, I dove headfirst into a real apology. "Little Sister," I began, "you were right."

She said, "Hunh? Right about what?" She'd been enjoying the walk through the woods, instead of rehearsing my misdeeds.

"You were right to give me grief about how I acted this morning. I was afraid that you'd think I was trying to seduce you. But if I'm sure of anything, it's that you know I'd never do anything to hurt you. I forgot that." I paused for a minute before I went on. "And I forgot The Code; I was trying to lie to you because I didn't trust you to believe me if I told the truth. I should've known better, and I'm really sorry I acted the way I did."

I had reached the end of my act of contrition. She smiled at me, and I knew that things were going to be fine between us—indeed, had been fine all along, in spite of my doubts.

"Charlie, you've always been my big brother and my best friend. I think it's awesome that you figured out what pissed me off. And you did it before I did it myself. You're smarter and quicker than I thought."

This latter came with an impish smile. The word "quicker" was a reference to a gibe she'd made at me a year or two earlier, when she'd said that I didn't think very well about feelings, so I did it slowly and carefully in order not to have to do it twice. I'd been thinking, that morning, that she'd been right.

She finished: "I'm not pissed any more, and you don't need to be sorry for anything. But I understand how you feel, and I accept your apology. Remember?" And she chanted, "Big Brother and Little Sister!"

It was our childhood ritual. We hadn't recited our litany for several years. Joyfully, I chanted the response: "Best friends!"

And then, in unison, broad smiles on our faces, "Now and always!"

She sealed it by pulling me to my feet, and giving me another front-to-front full-contact hug. I figured that two of those in a single morning meant I was doing pretty well.

That was when she unwound an arm from our hug, pulled my face down to hers, and kissed me—full on the lips and open-mouthed. I responded without thinking, and as Nature suggested: I clasped her firm little body tightly, and my tongue entered her mouth.

Never before had we been so explicitly sexual with each other. And I didn't even think about stepping away from her when my cock began to rise against her as she strained against me. She felt the commotion in my pants, and when we broke from each other's arms, she reached down and stroked my bulge. With an evil giggle, she ducked quickly out of my arms as they tried to encircle her again.

I grinned back at her, sure now that we'd never been other than big brother and little sister, best friends, now and always.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was about mid-morning, and we still had more than three miles to go that day, along with nearly a thousand feet of elevation to gain. So we put things back into our daypacks, secured our loads, and saddled up to walk some more.

We took turns leading, and in the early afternoon, after two more breaks, Mindy brought us around a bend and down a small incline. There on our right, just off the trail, was the ruin of Black's Cabin, which marks the southern end of Belford Lake. On our left, partially hidden in the pine forest, was the lake itself. Deeper in the woods, well out of sight from the trail, our first backcountry campsite awaited us. We hadn't seen a soul since we'd left the highway the day before.

The campsite was unoccupied, but someone had used it earlier in the summer: I found a 1987 nickel on one of the rocks of the old fire ring.

I looked toward the lake, which is easily visible from the campsite, and said, "Gosh, things are going to be so much easier now than they were when I was here two years ago."

She asked the natural question: "Why's that?"

"Well," I said, "we had a lot of trouble finding water then. The lake wasn't discovered until last summer."

A brief pause, a pained expression, and: "Aaarrrggh!"

WHAM! She had punched my upper arm.

"Owww!" I yelled, though it didn't hurt very much. Like most girls, she didn't know how to punch effectively. And as her main punchee, I hadn't had good reason to coach her. "Only one?" I asked.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

"I thought it was more than a one-punch joke!"

"You are terrible, Charlie! Just terrible!"

"That's one of the things I really liked about being away at college. My bruises got to heal."

"We'll see about bruises, you big oaf! I'll give you bruises!"

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

These on the other arm.

"Well, at least now both sides will match," I remarked—with a sly smile. She flounced off in fury, but returned in a minute or so—still harrumphing weakly.

The weather had remained good: Sunny, with a few high fluffy clouds that never seemed to pass in front of the sun when you were working hard without shade. We drank what little remained of the water we'd each started out with, and refilled our water bottles from the lake. Thirsty as we were, the hard part was waiting for 20 minutes while the iodine acted.

While we waited, we got to work making camp. We were in no hurry—especially once we had the tent up for shelter if we needed it. It was still early afternoon when we were through, and we relaxed on the lakeshore for a while, lounging, reading, and working on the journals we were keeping. The lake was clear and lovely, and there was a fisherman's trail along the bank. We explored it some distance in both directions from our camp. There was little of interest—not even another good campsite.

By then it was suppertime. "Hungry?" I asked.

"You bet!" came the reply. "What's for supper?"

"How about macaroni and cheese?" It was one of her childhood favorites, and very easy to fix.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After supper and the chores, I heated water for hot chocolate. As I did so, I looked over at my little sister, who was reading a book she'd brought. She was half-lying, half-sitting, relaxed against a tree trunk, her Ensolite sleeping pad between her back and the rough bark. I found that I wanted to see her naked body again and have her look at mine, to share a real body check with her.

But in spite of my morning's resolution to be forthright with her, I was afraid to tell her what I wanted. So I invented something sneaky. When the chocolate was ready, I carried the cups over to her and handed hers to her. Mine, I set down not far away.

Sunset was over an hour away, and the sun was still well above the hills that rise west of the lake. So it was warm enough. But we were at about 9,600 feet, and the thin mountain air doesn't hold much heat. I needed to make my move, because the temperature would drop quickly after the sun dipped below those hills.

"Mindy?" I said, as I returned to the stove and picked up the sleeping pad I'd knelt on while I was cooking.

"Yeah, Charlie?" she responded, around a slurp from her cup. I returned to her, picked up my cup, and took a slurp of my own. "We forgot something important last night, and I want to be sure we don't forget it tonight. We should check each other for ticks."

At the mention of ticks, she shuddered and screwed up her face. "I couldn't stand it if you found a tick on me. I'd just die! But we'd better look."

We laid the pads together. Standing on them, we removed our camp shoes and our socks. She helped with my shirt, and then I helped with hers. I began inspecting her from behind. I ran my hands through her short, dark hair. As I did, she undid her belt buckle. As I finished, she let her pants and boxers drop, and stepped out of them.