Chapter 4: Day 3: The things that happen at Dawn
The cold was a knife in the tent seams. Julie woke before dawn, her body humming with a restless energy that had nothing to do with the altitude. Claire was a still, resentful mound beside her, breathing with forced, shallow control. The space between Julie’s thighs ached with a hollow, specific hunger. Mark's dick.
She shifted, the sleeping bag rustling. Her hand drifted down, under the waistband of her thermal leggings, beneath her underwear. The flesh was already warm, already wet. She closed her eyes, not against the dark, but against the image her mind insisted on supplying: Mark, on his back, his face contorted, her finger pushing into him. The memory of his taste, the shock in his muscles.
Her own fingers worked in tight, practiced circles. She bit down on her lip, trapping the sound. Her hips moved in tiny, desperate lifts against her own hand. It was fast and functional, a pressure valve release. She thought of his whispered curses, the way he’d said you filthy angel. The orgasm ripped through her, sharp and silencing, a series of tight convulsions that left her thighs trembling. She swallowed the gasp, turning it into a choked sigh. In the utter quiet, her own whisper was a ghost in the frozen air. “Mark.”
The proximity was torture. The distance, feet of nylon and propriety, was worse.
By the time grey light seeped into the tent, Claire was already packing with violent efficiency. She said nothing, her silence a louder condemnation than any rant. At breakfast, Claire marched directly to Eli, her chin high.
“I need a new tent. I cannot spend another night with this… this nocturnal walrus. I will pay extra. I do not care.”
Eli, stirring a massive pot of porridge, frowned. “It is not about pay. It is about logistics and safety. No solo sleepers. Tents are assigned. Same sex unless couples”
“Then calculate me into another tent! With the British women. I will sleep with the porters!”
“The porters sleep differently. And all the other pairs are settled.” Eli’s voice was calm, weathered by hundreds of such dramas. “Unless another party volunteers to switch, the arrangement stays. It is the rule. For safety and harmony.”
Claire turned her fierce gaze on the group. The two couples, Val and David and the German looked away, Margaret and Joan, the two British women shook their heads almost in unison.
“Ladies,” Claire said, her voice straining for sweetness. “Would one of you consider swapping? You are such sound sleepers. I am desperate.”
Margaret blinked slowly. “Oh, my dear. Joan talks in her sleep. Recites gardening catalogues. Entire genus and species. It’s rather disconcerting.”
“And Margaret has night terrors,” Joan added cheerfully. “Lets out the occasional blood-curdling scream. We’re quite used to each other’s quirks.”
Claire deflated. The rules were a wall. She was trapped. She shot a look of pure, unadulterated hatred at Julie, who gave a small, apologetic shrug that didn’t reach her eyes.
The trail that day was a brute. They left the plateau for a steep, relentless scree slope that led towards the Lava Tower. Every step upwards was a negotiation with gravity. The air grew thinner, pinching at temples. Conversation died, replaced by the rhythmic stab of trekking poles and ragged breath.
Julie watched Mark’s back ahead of her. He walked with Tim, but their conversation had dried up. Tim was focused on Claire, who was climbing with a grim, furious determination, accepting his steadying hand with a tight nod each time. Mark kept glancing back, his eyes finding Julie’s for a fractured second before facing front again. The space between them crackled with unsaid things.
At a narrow switchback, he fell back to adjust a bootlace. She caught up.
“No crack today,” he muttered, the word barely audible.
“I need you in me” she breathed, not stopping.
“I’ll find a way. I’ll get us space.”
“Claire will be watching me like a hawk.”
“Then we’ll give her something else to watch.” He straightened up, his face flushed from more than the exertion. “Trust me.”
They reached the Lava Tower, a monstrous, crumbling obelisk of black rock at 4,600 meters. Lunch was a quiet, energy-bar affair in its frigid shadow. Headaches were universal. Nausea lingered. The group had fractured into silent pods of misery.
During the afternoon descent into the Barranco Valley, the landscape transformed into a surreal, fog-wreathed garden of giant senecios. The path wound through these ancient, twisted trees, their strange forms offering fleeting moments of privacy. Once, in a thicket of moss-covered branches, Mark grabbed her wrist as she passed. He yanked her to him, his mouth crushing hers. The kiss was bruising, a claim staked in the damp, cold air. He tasted of salt and stale peanuts. His hand groped her ass through her hiking pants, squeezing hard.
“I need to be inside you,” he growled into her mouth. “Not a quick fuck in the dirt. I need to wreck you.”
She shuddered, her knees going weak. “Then do it.”
He pushed her away as footsteps approached. It was the Germans, nodding politely as they trudged past.
By the time they stumbled into Barranco Camp, the collective mood was somber. The infamous Barranco Wall loomed above them, a sheer scramble they’d face at dawn. Claire went straight to Eli again, her request for a tent change now a trembling, tearful plea. The answer remained the same. Rules. Safety. Harmony.
Julie kept to herself, pitching her tent with Claire in a silence so thick it felt soundproofed. As dusk settled, a bizarre camaraderie emerged around the mess tent. Tim produced his flask again. Val shared strong painkillers. Margaret passed around boiled sweets. It felt like the last night of something. But Eli interrupted them.
"Everyone off to sleep, no messing around the fire tonight. Tomorrow will be hard. Clean up the dinner and off to bed".
Claire protested "We're okay. Let us stay by an hour or two"
"No especially you. You keep complaining about not sleeping enough. I mean it, I'm in charge of safety and I see a couple of face too tired to walk. Julie, Claire, take your chores turn and clean up the dishes. Everybody else 20 minutes to bed".
Tim tried again with his style. "Come on mate, we re feeling good. Don't worry."
Mark put his hand on his shoulder and said :" It's okay buddy, I got you."
"Claire. I'll take your round of chore. Take mine next."
Claire was thrilled to stay alone with Tim by the fire and Mark and Julie had 20 minutes alone. They gathered the dirty plastic bowls and mugs, the clatter mundane and loud in the quieting camp. Without a word, Mark led her away from the fire’s orange glow, past the last tent, to a small, makeshift washing station set over a drainage ditch. A single solar lamp buzzed weakly above a basin of greasy, lukewarm water.
The view was of the darkening valley, a vast void. Their backs were to the entire camp, to the fire, to Tim and Claire’s silhouettes. Julie plunged her hands into the soapy water, scrubbing a bowl. Mark stood close behind her, his body a solid wall of heat against the creeping cold. His wet, soap-slicked hands slid around her waist, under her down jacket, under her thermal shirt. His palms were rough and warm on her stomach.
“They can’t see a thing,” he murmured into her ear, his voice a low vibration. His fingers popped the button of her hiking pants, dragged the zipper down. He shoved his hand inside her leggings, inside her underwear, finding her soaked and ready. “Jesus, you’re dripping.”
"I don't want your hands"
But her body was saying something else. She braced on the cold metal table, her head dropping forward. He didn’t tease. Two fingers pushed up into her, curling, stroking a spot that made her vision blur. His thumb mashed her clit in rough, demanding circles. The rhythm was immediate and ruthless, a focused assault. She bit down on her own knuckle to stop the cry, the soapy water sloshing over the edge of the basin.
“That's all we have now. Come for me,” he growled, his other arm wrapped around her ribs, holding her upright. “Come right now, Julie. Do it.”
Her orgasm was a short, sharp seizure, a silent scream that locked her muscles and drained the strength from her legs. He held her through it, fingers working, milking the last pulses. When she sagged, he slowly withdrew his hand. He brought his wet fingers to her lips. She tasted herself, salty and stark, as she sucked them clean.
“It’s not enough,” she gasped, turning her head to look at him. Her whole body felt like a live wire, buzzing and incomplete. “That was just a snack.”
“I know.” He zipped her pants back up, his movements calm while his breath came fast. “Dawn. Meet me at my tent at dawn. Tim’s system is like clockwork. He always goes to the latrine around five. He’ll be gone for 30 minutes.” He glanced over her shoulder toward the fire. “Looks like they’re keeping each other warm.”
She followed his gaze. By the fire, Tim and Claire were a single shadow. They were kissing, a slow, deep entanglement that looked nothing like the frantic groping in the rocks. It was all lazy exploration, the soft, confident preamble to something more.
Back at the tent, Claire smelled of wood smoke and whisky. She didn’t speak, but her silence had lost its razor edge, softened into something drowsy and smug. Julie lay in the dark, listening to Claire’s breathing deepen, and waited for the best moment to wake her up with her fake snoring.
Dawn was a pale, milky smear behind the towering Barranco Wall. The camp was silent, frozen in the pre-stir stillness. At five o’clock exactly, Julie heard the zipper of the neighboring tent, the crunch of Tim’s boots on gravel receding toward the latrine line.
She moved like a ghost, without shoes. The cold air bit through her, as she slipped from her tent without layers, darted three steps, and lifted the fly of Mark’s. He was already awake, already waiting, hard. He pulled her in, the tent dark and close and smelling of him—sweat, sleeping bag, anticipation.
“Now,” she breathed, already pulling at her pants.
He turned her, pushed her down so her hands were planted on his bunched sleeping bag. He yanked her underwear down. His cock, thick and hard, slapped against her thigh. He didn’t guide it. He just positioned himself and drove into her with one brutal, complete thrust.
The force punched the air from her lungs. He was so deep, so impossibly full. She gasped, a sound too loud for the fragile tent walls. Instantly, his hand was over her mouth. He pulled out and slammed back in, setting a pace that was pure, punishing possession.
“Quiet,” he hissed. He fumbled beside the sleeping pad, grabbed the balled-up fabric he’d ready. It was her own panties, faintly musky. He stuffed them into her open mouth. The taste of herself, stale and intimate, flooded her senses.
He fucked her like he was trying to reach her spine. Each thrust jarred her teeth, made the tent poles shiver. The wet, rhythmic slap of his hips against her ass was obscenely loud in the small space. The panties muffled her screams into choked, animal grunts. Tears of raw sensation leaked from her eyes.
“Take it,” he grunted, one hand gripping her hipbone hard enough to bruise, the other fisting in her hair. “This is what you needed, isn’t it? This is what you’ve been thinking about while you pretended to snore.”
She couldn’t speak. She could only push back against him, meeting each drive, her need coiling into a frantic, unbearable knot. The pressure built, a seismic wave from her core. It broke without warning, a violent, convulsing eruption that clamped her around him like a vise. Her scream was absorbed by the cotton in her mouth, becoming a strangled, desperate hum. Her body shook uncontrollably as he kept pounding through her climax, extending it into a realm of breathless, overwhelming sensation.
His thrusts turned jagged and he pulled away. She quickly turned and as he pulled the damp panties from her mouth and came with a harsh gasp, pouring himself into her mouth with a final, deep shudder, holding her face. He collapsed , his weight pinning her to the sleeping bag, both of them slick with sweat and panting into the silence.
They untangled quickly, wordlessly.
She dressed, her fingers clumsy. She was at her own tent flap in seconds, slipping inside just as the first porter began rattling a breakfast pot.
Claire stirred, mumbling in her sleep. Julie lay down, her body singing, every muscle loose and spent. She listened to the camp beginning to wake. She felt him, dripping insider her panties. Then, she took a long, deep breath.
She let it out in a ragged, chainsaw snore that vibrated through the tent fabric.
Claire jolted upright. “Non!” she whispered, a cry of utter betrayal. “It is morning! You cannot be doing this now!”
Julie snorted wetly, smacked her lips, and launched into another even louder, more grotesque performance. She rolled onto her back, amplifying the sound, her elbow hitting claire's stomach.
Claire began to cry, quiet, furious tears of exhaustion and defeat. Julie kept snoring, a vicious, private smile etched onto her face in the dark.