Chapter 1: The Engineer's Longing
The desk lamp hummed, a low, persistent buzz that had become the soundtrack to Mark’s evenings. Its light carved a yellow pool out of the surrounding gloom, illuminating a landscape of defeat: a half-eaten sandwich gone stiff at the edges, three mugs each holding a quarter-inch of cold, slate-grey coffee, and a forest of virtual sticky notes blooming across the desk in chaotic clusters. Possible Venues? My excuses? Her excuses? And the impossible list that seemed to regenerate every time he looked away.
1. A business trip to Paris you don't have. 2. A consulting gig in Montreal I don't have. 3. A weekend in Amsterdam or Brussels. Neutral ground. 4. A missed flight anywhere or a 24-hour layover poorly planned. 5. A sick relative neither of us have. 6. A conference. Any conference. Anywhere. 7. An inheritance from a distant uncle. A lie. 8. A sudden, urgent "family emergency." 9. A pilgrimage. To nowhere. Just to get on a plane because we need space. 10. We ask for a hall pass. 11. Threesome.
Last time they crossed two to make it possible.
His eyes drifted to the whiteboard on the digital wall. Scribbled timelines, some aggressively crossed out, others circled in frantic neon highlighter, all led to a single outcome: they had no workable option.
The laptop screen was split. On the left, a spreadsheet titled “Climbing Budget (2026)” mocked him with its neat columns. On the right, his secret digital cheater planning.
He cracked his knuckles, a dry, popping sound in the quiet room. Just find a solution. That's what you do for a living. He could engineer a financial products, data strategies, back end infrastructure loads, but the language of human connection, with the specifics of cheating across distances and time zones, had him cracked his skull open.
A memory surfaced, unbidden. The last gathering. Him and Julie, squished into the back of his rental's car. As he stared at the screen, his hand started to drift in his pants, it came as a revelation. The solution he hadnt seen. Too obvious, too big.
He hadn’t thought of that.
MarkD: Julie. What are your hobbies?
She replied, straightaways. She almost always did.
JulieMar: Not much at the moment. Mostly planning how you could fuck me next lately.
MarkD: Seriously. What are you into doing?
JulieMar: What's happening? Are you trying to get to know me? We never talk like that.
MarkD: I think I cracked 9. I think I have an idea but I need to know what you like to escape doing.
JulieMar: I like garderning, crochet. I play badminton and I hike.
His heart did a slow, heavy roll against his ribs. It was a stupid idea. The dumbest. Even more insane than the 22 hours layover.
MarkD: Who do you hike with? Family?
JulieMar: No they hate it. Alone or with girls friends. That's probably one of my alone me time. Mark what s going on?
That was it. The side by side documents just filled themselves. He began to type, the keys clicking like stones dropped into a still pond.
MarkD: I'm turning 40 this year. I had that plan for years. Climbing Kilimanjaro when I'm 40. I'm preparing for a trip to Tanzania to this year with friends. Join me.
Mark watched the three pulsing dots appear and disappear on the screen. He imagined her on the other side of the ocean, in her bathroom, her phone’s glow lighting her face. He saw the hesitation. He felt it in his own gut. For minutes, the only text was his own. He waited, his breath shallow, the hum of the lamp the only sound.
Julie knew maps. Knew landscapes. She knew a two-hour loop in the local woods, the dog-walkers, the soft dirt paths. She did not know sub-zero wind chill, altitude sickness, or the brutal, relentless switchbacks of a mountain that scraped the sky. A real, fucking mountain. This wasn't an escape. It was an expedition.
Her silence wasn't about logistics. It was about the story. The massive, intricate lie they’d have to build and maintain. Ten days. Two weeks. It was an alibi of staggering proportion. Her husband, her kids, her routine—they’d ask about training, about gear, about the trip details. She’d have to learn a new vocabulary, drop real names, Kibo, Lemosho, Machame. She’d have to pretend. But then, that’s what she’d been doing for more than a year now. This just had a summit at the end of it.
And then she saw it. Not the mountain, but the spaces between. The cold nights in a shared tent, a sleeping bag zipped against the world. Letting the group walk faster ahead, finding a secluded overlook, his hands under her jacket, her back against sun-warmed rock. Sneaking from his tent before dawn, her skin smelling like him and cold air. Ten days of us, he’d said. Ten days of stolen moments built into the framework of a grand, respectable adventure. No one would question a woman finding herself on a mountain. They’d applaud it.
JulieMar: Fuck.
JulieMar: Fuck you.
JulieMar: Kili. Are you serious.
Mark let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His fingers trembled slightly over the keys.
MarkD: Dead serious. It’s 10 days on the mountain. We can stretch it to two weeks with travel or a safari. It’s…plausible. I'm doing it anyway.
Another long pause. He could almost hear her thinking, the gears turning, the risk assessment underway.
MarkD: So what do you think?
JulieMar: 10 days of me waking up with your cock already hard against my ass.
JulieMar: 10 days of you fucking me breathless when everyone else thinks we’re just struggling with the thin air.
JulieMar: Having to be quiet. Jesus. Trying to be quiet in a fucking tent.
MarkD: Yes.
JulieMar: Having your smell on me all day while we hike. Knowing what we did. Knowing what we’ll do.
MarkD: Yes.
The tone had shifted. The logistical terror was melting, burned away by a pure, raw current of want. The mountain was just a set now, the most elaborate backdrop they’d ever commissioned.
JulieMar: I’d ride you under the stars. No light pollution. Just the moon and your hands on my hips.
Mark’s own body was responding, a heavy, urgent throb settling in his groin. He adjusted himself in his chair, the fabric of his jeans suddenly tight and rough.
JulieMar: I want you to come inside me up there. At the summit. Where the air is so thin it feels like dying. I want to feel you pulsing in me at 19,000 feet.
MarkD: Christ, Julie.
JulieMar: Wait.
A video call request flashed on his screen, startling him. He hit accept, and her face filled his monitor. She was in her bedroom, the headboard of her marital bed visible behind her. Her hair was down, messy, and she wore a soft, worn-looking grey t-shirt. No makeup. She looked real. She looked like his.
“Hey,” she said, her voice a low, intimate scratch through his speakers.
“Hey.. It's been a while.. We don't do calls usually.”
“You made me wet,” she said bluntly, her eyes holding his through the camera. “Talking about the mountain. About the tent.”
He just stared, taking her in. The slight lines at the corners of her eyes, the curve of her lips. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. So I got to thinking.” Her gaze dropped for a second, a sly smile playing on her mouth. She reached to the side, out of frame. When her hand came back, she was holding something. A sex toy. It was larger than average, a deep purple silicone, prominently veined, with a thick, bulbous head.
Mark’s mouth went dry.
“I bought this,” she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Last week. I was thinking about you. Last time was too fast. I have been thinking about how you stretch me open. It's been too long.”
She ran her fingers over the shaft, her touch deliberate, slow. “I wanted something that felt like that. Something that made me feel full. The way you do.”
“Julie…”
“Let me show you,” she murmured. She shifted on the bed, leaning back against the pillows. She kept the camera on her face, but he could see the movement of her arm, the focus in her eyes turning inward. She bit her lower lip. Her breath hitched, a soft, sharp intake.
“I’m thinking about you,” she breathed, her eyes fluttering closed for a second. “Thinking about you behind me on that trail. Pulling me off into the bushes. Pushing my hiking pants down. Your hand over my mouth.” Her words were coming faster, dirtier. “You’d be so rough. So fucking desperate. You’d shove into me dry, almost, wouldn’t you? Just ‘cause you couldn’t wait.”
“I would,” Mark rasped, his hand moving to himself, palming his erection through his jeans. “I’d fuck you raw right there.”
On screen, Julie’s hips gave a small, jerky roll. A moan escaped her, thick and unedited. “I’m using it now,” she confessed, her voice shaking. “I’m fucking myself with this stupid thing, pretending it’s you. Wishing it was your real cock splitting me open.”
He unzipped his jeans, freeing himself, his hand moving in a rough, tight rhythm. The sight of her face, the raw admission of her voice, the imagined slide of that toy inside her—it was overwhelming. The clutter of his office, the hum of the lamp, it all dissolved into the pixels of her image.
“Come for me,” he growled, the command guttural. “Make yourself come thinking about my cock in you on that mountain.”
Her eyes flew open, locking onto his through the camera. Her movements became frantic, her jaw tight. A high, choked sound broke from her throat, and her body arched, rigid for a long moment before collapsing back into the pillows. Her face was flushed, her lips parted, her eyes glazed and satisfied.
For a few seconds, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing, crossing the continent through a digital link.
She looked at the camera again, a post-coital softness in her eyes, but a fierce determination too. “I’m in,” she said, simple and final. “Let's plan the trip. I’ll make it work.”
He finished himself with a few hard, rough strokes, his own release hitting him with a silent intensity, his body tensing then slumping in his chair. “Okay,” he breathed. “Okay.”
She gave him a small, wicked smile. “Start training, Mark. You’ll need your stamina to handle me and the mountain.” The call disconnected.
The screen went dark, reflecting his own spent expression back at him. The spreadsheet glowed beside the blank document. He minimized the budget. In the blank document, he typed a single new line, the title now obsolete.
Kilimanjaro – 2 weeks. Let's start planning.