Page 12 of The Mountain Man's Virgin
“Where are my clothes?” I asked, and then whispered, “and why am I naked?”
The man sighed. “I don’t want you to feel afraid or scared. You had hypothermia and your clothes were soaked. The best way to get you warm was with body heat and blankets.”
“Why didn’t you take me to the hospital?”
“Take a look outside,” he said, gesturing to the window.
The bottom half of the window was blocked with a snow bank, and the snow was still falling heavily.
“Your clothes are drying by the fire.” He gestured with his mug to the fireplace. “I set out some of mine for you to wear until they’re dry.”
I tiptoed to the bedroom and saw a pile of clothes folded on the end of the big pine bed. I pulled on the wool work socks, sweatpants that were ten times too big for me, and a red-checked flannel shirt. I looked in the mirror and realized that I was also wearing wearing a knit wool hat, just like his, but blue…who exactly is he?
Chapter 10 – Mick
Once Chopper and I excavated the snow from around the woman’s body, I radioed for an evac, but the choppers were still fully grounded, the ambulances weren’t able to get through, and the snowmobile SAR was fully mobilized to an avalanche site.
I had a decision to make. I could ride my sled down the paved roads, but, with the girl on the toboggan, it would have taken me at least three hours to travel to the hospital. I could get back to my cabin within the hour. She had a pulse, but it was slow, and she was still unresponsive.
“I need to get her warm,” I said to Chopper, who tilted his head at me.
If I got her to the cabin, I could start the process of getting her body temperature back up, and then fire up the chopper and take her to the hospital once the skies settled down.
It was a split-second decision and one that completely changed my life.
Once I got her strapped in, we made our way back to the cabin. Chopper snuggled into the sled beside the woman as if he knew that his little body could give her the warmth that she so badly needed.
I didn’t think about it at the time but removing a woman’s clothing should’ve gotten me turned on. But, in that situation, a life and death scenario, all I could think about was getting the patient warm. I peeled off her frozen clothes and zipped her into my warmest sleeping bag. I filled up hot water bottles, wrapped them in towels and packed them around her body. I put as much wood on the fire as the stove could hold, got it raging, and closed the damper - that would get the cabin up into sauna-like temperatures. But, I hesitated with the last part of the first aid protocol for hypothermia. The best way to warm someone up is to use your own body heat. The girl was flitting in and out of consciousness, and it just felt wrong to crawl in naked beside her.
Fuck. What if she dies and I could’ve saved her?
This isn’t sexual, I told myself as a stripped out of my outer layer – but I couldn’t do it. How is she going to feel waking up to the feel of a stranger’s skin against her own?
I felt her face: cold, and her lips were blue. She needs your heat Mick, I said to myself.
But, instead of stripping completely naked I rummaged around in my dresser and found my wool onesie. It would have to do.
Her hair was soaking wet, but short of throwing her in the fire, I had no way to dry it out. I pulled out one of my grandma’s wool hats, the kind with ear flaps, and secured the strings under her chin. I crawled in behind her and zipped up the sleeping bag.
I wrapped her in my arms and held onto her tightly. She smelled slightly floral and felt cold.
We stayed in that cocoon for thirty minutes before she started to come back to me. I felt her body start to twitch and she began murmuring. Either my body was getting colder, or hers was getting warmer because the contrast between the two of us was getting less and less pronounced.
I wasn’t thinking about how good she felt in my arms. I was constantly scanning her body for signs of improvement and warmth. I couldn’t help but think about the irony of the situation: a sex addict, spooning a naked stranger, without getting any semblance of a hard-on. My cock didn’t twitch, not even once. It was as if the protector in me overrode the raw sexual animal in me.
Then the moment I had been dreading happened. She woke up and freaked the fuck out. I mean, I don’t blame her, and I pretty much expected it to happen. She was way stronger than I anticipated and if any of her flailing punches had landed, I would’ve been black and blue for days.
I knew that she would be confused, and as she started to wake up and fully grasp the situation, I tried to soothe her – but it didn’t work. I got her to calm down enough so that I could get out of the mummy bag. If she was warm enough to throw punches, she was warm enough to be in the bag on her own.
I went into the living room to stoke the fire and put on some water for tea.
I heard my bed creak and sensed her at the doorway to my bedroom, watching me.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
I turned. She was wrapped in one of my grandmother’s quilts, the wool hat still tied onto her head. It was only then that I got a good look at her. Her eyes were the same shade of blue as the hat, and now that the warmth had returned to her body, I saw the freckles on her rosy cheeks - she was gorgeous.
“It’s um, it’s Mick,” I said and turned back to the tea.
