Paranormal Research Club Ch. 01

Sarah started to say something that probably would have been sarcastic, but Heather cut her off. "I'm fine. Really, I am. It's just that this stuff sounds a lot more... I don't know. It's creepier talking about this here in the woods in the dark than it was back at the restaurant this morning. And I thought we were just all walking around together looking for ghosts, but this is like your focus isn't on whether or not this stuff is real, but you're actually bringing along stuff to measure it, and acting like you know what you're looking for. That EVP thing really creeps me out, and I don't like the idea of being able to take pictures of stuff that I can't see but it's in the room with me."

"It's OK, Heather." I offered. I walked over and hugged my cousin. She hugged me back fiercely, her warm face brushed my own and her soft, slightly chubby body was pressing against me through her soft pink sweater. She trembled in my arms, and I felt her breath against my neck. I had been feeling guilty about letting her come along. Now, as my erection began to grow in my pants, I began to feel guilty about that as well. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to," I said as soothingly as I could.

"I'll be fine. Promise me you won't let me chicken out" Heather said to me with a nervous, mirthless chuckle.

I didn't reply. I'm not making any promises that I can't keep, and if Heather is scared then I'm not going to try to get her to come along. I love my cousin, and I won't hold her accountable for halfhearted bravery when she's getting a bit drunk and discussing something that she only halfway understands. I also don't want to take someone along on an investigation that might freak out, no matter how much they mean to me. I've seen people that are new to ghost-hunting that go absolutely bananas the first time they see something they weren't expecting, and it's never fun to try to deal with them. One hysterical person can easily accidentally hurt themselves or someone else, or they can ruin an entire investigation. It almost inevitably happens right when you are finding precisely what you came to look for. That's one of the many reasons that I like ghost-hunting with the seasoned crew that I'm used to.

Diana got up and refilled a large tin camping mug, the outside of which had been stained black by the flames of many campfires before this one. I wondered how many cups she had consumed already. She sure did look beautiful in the firelight. As a matter of fact, I think all of my companions did. I could tell that, as usually was the case on matters like this, Diana and I were thinking similarly about Heather. "We'll see how you feel tomorrow. I'm sure Erin still has friends in Vermont that she can call if we need someone to replace you." She glanced at me. "Hey, John, are you ready to help me set up the tent?"

As I walked off to assist Diana with the tent, I heard Erin assure Heather that not only would her elder sister be visiting from out-of-town, but she still had two or three good friends in the area that she could trust to help out without them talking too much about what they found to the rest of the locals.

The van is large enough to comfortably sleep three people on the floor and bench seats, but for a party of this size we usually set up a small tent that can comfortably sleep several more. As usual when we camped, I planned to sleep by myself in a jungle hammock I kept in my rucksack. It's quick and easy to set up if you know how to use it, it has a waterproof roof, mosquito netting on the side, and it keeps you from having to share a tent with other people, since I'm rather easily awakened. Diana and I took the clear storage container that contained the tent out of the van and moved towards a flat piece of ground a bit off of the road and safely away from the fire.

"That was pretty sweet how you were with your cousin. You're a pretty good guy, John." Diana said.

"Thanks." I responded as I began laying out the tent stakes and organizing shock-corded fiberglass poles. "You're pretty amazing yourself."

"John, we've been friends for a pretty long time." Diana's speech was a bit slurred. I loved her dearly, but I really did wish that she would get help with her drinking problem. Considering some of the things she'd been through in her life, I don't suppose that I can blame her.

"Yep. You're probably the closest buddy I've got." I was telling the truth.

"John, I love you. You know that, right?"

Friends always say thing like that, especially when they're drunk. I clapped her cordially on her shoulder in a you're-one-of-the-guys sort of way. "I love you too, buddy." I was feeling a bit uncomfortable, but, again, I was telling the truth. I loved her, definitely as a friend. Perhaps as something more than that if I were being completely honest. She was undoubtedly an extremely attractive woman. And I would be lying if I said that I didn't fantasize about making love to her on a fairly regular basis.

Diana is my closest friend, and we had made the commitment several years ago not to mess up our friendship with romance. Neither one of us had a good track record for romantic relationships that didn't end in complete disaster. She had been married before her first deployment with the military, and her husband had left her for another woman before she had returned. She had been faithful to him while she was enduring some of the most hellish conditions imaginable, and comfort could have been available to her in the form of any one of hundreds of healthy young men that hadn't had sex in a year and a half. Despite her healthy sex drive, she had remained chaste and loyal to her husband, and only discovered his perfidy after her return to the States. He had taken just about all of the money she had earned while overseas and spent it on himself and his new girlfriend. It was an understatement to say that he had clearly never deserved her.

Four months ago, Diana's most recent boyfriend had been lying in bed beside her one night when she was having nightmares, which isn't uncommon for either Diana or myself. Anyhow, the fool tried to wake her up by grabbing her face and shaking her. She hadn't meant to hurt him, but she was in the midst of a dream in which she had been fighting for her life, and she awoke not knowing at first where she was, who he was, or that he wasn't an enemy trying to kill, capture, or rape her. There was still a hole in the drywall about five feet from the bed where the top of his head had struck it. Luckily he didn't press charges, but he had angrily grabbed his stuff and left after screaming "You need help!" at her. I didn't want to agree with him, but I had been trying to get her to come to counseling at the VA for several years. Their PTSD counseling had helped me more than I ever expected, and I wished that she would give it a try as well. If nothing else, she needed to get her drinking under control. Oh, I'm talking about her demons here but trust me, I've got plenty of issues of my own.

Diana finished arranging the fabric portion of the tent, so that now all we had to do was stake it down and slide the flexible fiberglass poles through some loops in the tent and it would be ready, unless we felt the need to bother with the rain fly, which I didn't think we needed tonight.

I walked over to the tent with a handful of stakes, and Diana met me beside the tent and wrapped me into a warm hug. We were friends, and as such we hugged each other regularly, but this time the energy felt entirely different. She pressed more of her body against mine than usual, and buried her face in my neck. I couldn't tell for certain whether or not I felt light kisses against the side of my neck, but my cock immediately began to strain against the front of my pants. My heart was in my throat. She was pressed so close to me that I knew she could feel my hardness through her blue jeans. I found myself wishing that someone would come over from the fire to help us with the tent, saving me from an awkward situation. And, paradoxically, I found myself wishing that Diana and I would be able to spend the entire night alone together fulfilling dreams that we had both nurtured for far too long.

I told myself that I would definitely have to go into the woods and masturbate later; my penis was painfully erect, and I was so horny that it was physically painful. Diana moved her face from my neck, and began slowly moving her lips towards mine. I wanted to kiss her desperately, but she was drunk and I couldn't allow anything to happen that would jeopardize our friendship. With a herculean exercise of raw willpower, I released my hold on the beautiful woman that I wanted just as badly as she wanted me. If Diana and I were going to go here in our relationship, it would be well-thought-out, discussed rationally, and we would most definitely make the decision together while we were both sober. No drunken make-out session or quick fuck was worth messing up my closest friendship.

I released Diana, but her arms remained wrapped around me as though she were drowning and clinging to me for dear life. I didn't want to, but I had to end the embrace before I kissed her or worse. I'm not the sort of man to take advantage of any drunken woman. And I would rather die myself than hurt Diana. Gently, I applied pressure to her shoulders to guide her away from me.

Without warning, my world spun around me. Wind rushed in my ears, and in far less than a second I found myself flat on my back on the tent fabric. As a martial artist myself, I had instinctively reacted to Diana's artful throw, and I had executed a breakfall. Diana had thrown me and now had me pinned to the fabric of the tent, her sweet body pressing hard against mine. My martial arts experience is predominantly in taekwondo, which is great if you want to kill or injure someone. While, like most modern martial artists, I get a more well-rounded education than some people give us credit for (hence knowing how to take the throw without getting hurt), taekwondo is almost useless against an aikido expert unless you're willing to hurt or kill them. And I would never do anything to harm Diana. I felt her full weight pressing down upon me, her face less than an inch from mine, her warm breath caressing my face. She was heavier than she looked. I was acutely aware of the crotch of her tight blue jeans pressing against my rock-hard dick through my pants.

"Tell me you don't want this and I'll stop," she breathed. "But first, I am going to kiss you. And if I have ever meant anything to you, even as a friend, then please, I need you to kiss me back. Just once. It won't kill us. Then we can go back to the way things have always been. Please do this for me." I felt her warm, soft, slightly moist lips brush mine.

"Diana, I'm sure that would be awesome, but you're drunk and I'm not-" I started to reply before her soft lips touched mine again, this time planting an airy, chaste kiss that sent electricity through my whole body and caused my heart to skip a beat. Then, my capacity for rational thought was obliterated as her lips crushed hard against mine. I felt her crotch grind hard against my own, and a sudden, overpowering flood of testosterone in my bloodstream washed away my ability to think like a flash flood carrying away a pile of twigs. Madly, I reached behind her, my hand feeling her soft dark hair as I pulled her sweet, precious face to mine.

Diana's hot, wet tongue and mine mingled together, and I savored everything about how the kiss tasted and felt. Every drop of her saliva that she shared with me was a gift more precious than diamonds. With my left hand, I pulled her face closer to mine, wanting this kiss to be as deep as possible, to last as long as it possibly could. Our teeth clicked together painlessly. My other hand went lower, and cupped the delicious curve of an ample butt cheek. If this was the only kiss I was ever going to get from her, and it was too late to avoid it, then I may as well make sure that it would be worth remembering and count on the strength of our friendship to avoid letting things get awkward tomorrow. She now ground herself rhythmically against me, her soft, sensual, feminine curves driving me wild with desire. Any pretense that this was not sexual was long gone. If she kept this up I was pretty sure that we were both going to climax, even if the clothing between us remained in place. And our clothing remaining on for much longer seemed highly unlikely.

I flipped her onto her back and pinned her to the tent fabric without breaking the kiss, and she voiced her approval with an appreciative hum. I felt her soft hands press under my shirt and roam my back. Her legs wrapped around my waist. Our tongues ravaged each others' mouth as my hand lifted the hem of her t-shirt, caressing the smooth milky softness of her belly. Beneath her shirt, my hand went higher. My heart pounded in my chest as I felt the satin softness of a bra-clad breast. Her hand caressed my turgid bulge through the cloth of my cargo pants. My heart was in my throat as my hand slipped under the wire that supported the bottom of her bra, and I ran my calloused fingers across her exquisitely soft breast and rubbery nipple. She gasped sweetly, and I kissed her gently on the neck. It is anyone's guess where this would have led had we not been interrupted.

"Hey, horndogs!" I heard my cousin Sarah's voice. "If that's how you're trying to get the tent set up, then I think you read the directions wrong." I have always loved my cousin, and while I would never literally throw her into a wood-chipper, there are times when joking about it isn't out of the question. Although I was as sexually frustrated as I had ever been in my life, I knew that Sarah was probably saving Diana and I both from making a very significant mistake. I would never want to be something that Diana regretted the next morning. Diana and I looked over and saw Sarah and Heather standing there together.

"Uh... do you need some help putting the tent together?" Heather asked in an unusually husky-sounding voice. Was she turned on by watching us?

Diana smiled at me ruefully as we struggled to our feet, dusted ourselves off, and rearranged our clothing.

"We would love some help putting the tent together," I offered with a voice that came out in something like a croak. I was pretty worked up.

With four people working at it, the tent was set up rapidly. For good measure, since we had extra help, we even attached the rain fly.

"Where do you guys have the sleeping bags?" asked Sarah. She had been in the bathroom when we were talking about that. Hadn't anyone gotten the word to her?

"We were supposed to bring our own. I just brought some sheets, a pillow, and some blankets," Heather responded.

"Well, that's crap!" Sarah said with annoyance. "I thought that there were some extra sleeping bags that belonged to the club! I just brought my own pillow for sleeping in the van."

"There are extra sleeping bags," I offered, "but we needed to know that you needed to borrow one before we left, so that we would know to pack one for you." I still felt lightheaded from the encounter with Diana, and I didn't think my voice sounded quite right yet. My erection still hadn't entirely subsided.

It wasn't too cold outside, but a sleeping bag would probably help Sarah to sleep more comfortably. Yes, I'm closer to my sister and Heather, but I still love Sarah dearly and she'll always be my cousin. The weather wasn't particularly bad for upstate New York. I had an insulated vest and a jacket, and I supposed that if worst comes to worst I could use the hammock as a blanket. "Here, just use my sleeping bag for tonight. I'm sure that when we get to Erin's parents' place they'll have all the sheets and blankets we need."

"You're awesome, cousin!" Sarah beamed at me cheerfully.

"What about John? What's he going to do tonight?" Heather asked her sister reproachfully.

"I'm tough, don't worry about me. And it's not too cold out, considering," I said. I glanced around. Where had Diana gone? I headed for the van to get my sleeping bag for Sarah, and I caught up with Diana. She was busy hauling her own gear out of the back of the van.

"Hey, Diana"

Diana smiled at me. Reaching out, she sweetly patted me on the side of the face. "Sorry about that. I know it's confusing. Thanks for everything: both telling me no because I'm drunk and for letting me kiss you. I needed both."

"Well, my main concern is that you're my best friend, and I can't risk anything screwing that up. And, if we do get physical, I want us to both be sober when we do it."

"You're my best friend, too." she whispered. "And I don't want anything to screw up our friendship, either. If we're just friends from here on out, then that's just fine and I'm glad that we both got to share the kiss. I don't regret it and I don't think I would have ever regretted what we were about to do if we hadn't been interrupted, either." She winked at me. "But you're right. At least for now, until I get myself sorted out, can we go back to the way things were?"

"So you want to be just friends for now, and maybe talk it over later?"

"Sounds great." she sounded relieved. "You're not mad at me for how I acted? First I damned near raped you, and now I'm leaving you with a killer boner and no relief! You know that I didn't plan any of that."

"If you couldn't tell, I didn't exactly mind." I said, feeling as though a great weight had been lifted. Apparently any threat to our friendship had passed.

"You'll always be my buddy, John."

"And I'll always be yours."

"So do you think your boner is going to kill you?"

I laughed. "I'll live. And you've given me some memories to help me take care of it myself in the woods later."

She laughed, but I suspected that she was thinking similarly. She hugged me, this time just a friendly hug. "Good night, John. We'll talk about this some time later, when we're both sober and well-rested."

"Good night, Diana."

That night I shared the tent with Sarah and Kim, both of whom looked snug and warm beneath their ample bedding. It usually gets a little chilly at night in upstate New York in the spring, but there was something unnatural in the air that night. As soon as we were all lying down to go to sleep, the temperature seemed to perceptibly plummet at a rate that defied any rational explanation. Within a few minutes of lying down, I could clearly see my breath. Within an hour, I felt very certain that the temperature was well below freezing. Soon the thick night air had become bitterly, unnaturally cold. Through the windows of the tent, I could see a dense, foggy miasma that had rolled in off of the lake, and it glowed eerily in the dim moonlight.

I was wishing that I had asked to sleep in the van, but I didn't wish to disturb Diane, Heather, and Erin. The temperature had suddenly dropped to such an extreme low that I was genuinely worried about frostbite, and the frigid air that flowed in from the lake made certain that the icy, biting fangs of razor-sharp cold easily penetrated my futile attempts to insulate myself. And how the hell was a breeze blowing inside of a tent, when there were no apparent winds outside? Despite my jacket and vest, and having covered myself with a thin Army poncho and the jungle hammock, I was huddled into a fetal position and shivering uncontrollably. Worse yet, the waterproof nylon fabric that made up the poncho and the roof of the hammock rustled with the slightest movement when it wasn't being suspended from a tree, and I was afraid of disturbing my companions.

I didn't know what time it was when I heard Kim moving in her sleeping bag. I was about to head to the van to see if I could find a warmer place to sleep, when Kim spoke. "Screw this, guys. I have never seen the temperature drop so much so quickly before in my life, and I'm headed to the van to get warm. John, you're tougher than turtle tits for taking this damned cold without a sleeping bag! I'm freezing my ass off, even with one! I don't know why the hell you gave yours to Sarah. She's the one who didn't pack a sleeping bag." Kim was normally much kinder than that, but people sometimes say things they normally wouldn't when they're exhausted and uncomfortable. With that, she dragged her sleeping bag over to the door and I felt a severely bitter rush of even more brutally frigid air as she unzipped the door to the tent. Her numb fingers had difficulty grasping the zipper, and it took her several tries to get it open. She never did succeed in getting it entirely shut before she shuffled off on stiff, frozen legs for the van.