Chapter 1

... to live life balanced on the edge of a razor.

Can one seek a greater meaning to life than spending it walking a thin line that separates one disaster from another?

He knows what all people of action know. Most of life is lived following a routine: waking in the morning, eating, working, eating, playing, and sleeping through the night. The common fluctuations in daily routine do little to make one day different from the next. Then, in the midst of great boredom, the call to action sounds, and the excitement begins. At that moment, the important things in life become as clear and valuable as a royal jewel. The heart pounds, the body sweats, and the brain races. In the heady rush that follows, you know you are alive.

The story about a person of action is not told in a simple narrative. Their diary is blank for page after page, and then ‘one day’ will fill ten pages. Their story is told from adventure to adventure; for those are the only times they are alive. The adventure can be dangerous or playful, but it has to be different from all everyday experiences. He knows the beginning is often subtle and the middle fast paced. It’s the ending, when exhaustion threatens to overwhelm them, that they are most alive. It’s only after everything is over, that the fear registers, and the desire for sexual release is the strongest.

In the heat of battle, thoughts are not selfish. Instead, one acts on behalf of those around one. All people of action know there is a circumstance where they would make the ultimate sacrifice to protect those around them. The soldier that says in the heat of battle, when things are at their ugliest, that he fights for his fellows; is honest. Abstractions like freedom and country mean less than the real, live person fighting next to him.

John shivered in the early morning cold as snow fell around him in near blizzard conditions. After years of living in the desert, he had lost some of his skill in dealing with cold weather. Some things were the same when dealing with the desert and dealing with the cold. You didn’t rush things. Rushing things led to accidents and accidents killed. If you had a problem, you fixed it right then.

His tent had been buried in the snow that fell overnight. It took him ages to break camp. He replaced items in his backpack, making careful note that all his possessions were accounted for. He closed the top of the pack and placed it on his shoulders. He put his cloak on and felt much warmer. The cloak kept the chill of the wind from penetrating to his bones. The walking stick felt warm in his glove-covered hand.

The snow came to his waist. It fought with passive determination while he struggled to make progress through it. His efforts were complicated by boots heavy with snow. The wind whipped his cloak around him. Worse, the wind blew the snow up and around him. He struggled to the base of a pine where he would be out of the weather. He cut small branches from the base of the tree and wove them into temporary snowshoes. They weren’t great, but they would last an hour or two.

He left the protection afforded by the base of the tree. His progress was still difficult, but nowhere near as hard as earlier. The snowshoes left pine needles in the snow behind him. They were soon buried by fresh fallen snow. He approached the spot where he remembered things changing. He took a step forward and the surroundings changed from winter to summer. His coat, cloak, and snowshoes became uncomfortable and unnecessary. He removed the snowshoes, but kept the coat and cloak.

He looked up and saw a naked woman. He was surprised by her appearance. Expecting to encounter the fat man or fat woman, the fact that this woman was naked and slender was very nice. His body reacted to her extraordinary presence with a painful erection. He followed her, as if in a trance, to a clearing. Much to his surprise, she motioned him to strip. He knew that sex was a significant part of the bestowal of magic upon the visitant, but he was relieved to discover that he wouldn’t have the force of rape this time. He undressed, impatient at his own fingers as they fumbled with buttons. Finally, he was naked.

She spread her arms as if to welcome him in an embrace. He moved to step forward. He screamed when he felt arms grab him from behind. His scream rose in volume when a huge cock was shoved up his ass. He kicked and thrashed his arms around in an attempt to hurt the man holding him. The naked woman lay on the ground and spread her legs. John was shoved roughly between her legs. She grabbed his cock with an iron tight grip and pulled it into her cunt.

He was sandwiched between the woman and man, both taking their pleasure at his expense. He didn’t thrust into her. He was thrust into her, by the man hammering his ass with a mammoth cock. Her cunt tightened up on his withdrawal and it felt like his cock was being pulled off.

The man and woman blended at the arms and legs, holding him in an unnatural embrace. He was squeezed so hard that each breath was a struggle. The cock rammed ever deeper in his ass. Her cunt squeezed his cock so strongly that it was unable to move. A hand moved between his legs and grabbed his balls. He screamed until his lungs couldn’t support it any more. His voice rasped as the last of his breath was squeezed from his body. Tears rolled down his eyes as he begged to be released.

His body betrayed him. With a suddenness that shocked him to his soul, he started to ejaculate. The semen poured from his cock like water from a spigot. Each time the cock thrust into his ass, more semen poured out. The hand around his balls tightened as though it was forcing more of his fluid from his body. This wasn’t an orgasm; it was ejaculation and nothing more. His ass burned as the man came in it. The woman’s orgasm caused her cunt to clamp hard enough that he couldn’t ejaculate any more. The world narrowed down and then disappeared in darkness. He heard a horrible shrieking noise and then realized that it was he making the noise.

Suddenly it was over. The man and woman flowed into each other to where there was only a cock in his ass. The man pulled out leaving him on the ground to deal with his agony. He attempted to rise, but fell back to the ground. He rolled over and took several minutes to breathe.

He rose shakily to his feet and swayed unsteadily. His ass was sore and dripping blood. His muscles hurt. His throat was raw and dry from screaming. His cock looked as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper. His balls were swollen and bruised. His palms bled from where his fingernails had cut the flesh.

He looked around to assess his situation. He found that he was standing at a crossroads. There was a medallion a little way down each path. John didn’t move as he looked around. He felt that choosing a path meant choosing a medallion. He looked at the ground where he stood, lifting each foot to see all of it, and saw there was no medallion there. He sat down and waited, unsure what would happen next.

The minutes turned to hours. The temperature, which had been nice, turned hot. The sun beat down upon his naked and bruised body. He started sweating as the air temperature increased. He waited patiently despite his discomfort. There was a well down one path, but he stayed where he was. His skin began to redden from exposure to the sun.

The sun started setting in what he assumed was the west. As the sun set, the temperature cooled. The darker it got, the colder the air became. Naked and unprotected, he started to shiver. He could see his breath in the light of the stars. The sweat that remained on his body froze. He was so cold that he couldn’t control his shaking. His teeth chattered so hard that one chipped. His fingertips and toes became numb and then white. He tried rubbing his body to keep it warm, but his hands felt like lead and were just as cold as the surroundings.

The sun started rising. It rose on the same side as it had set. The fat man was back. He said, “Choose the medallion you will wear.”

John, voice barely audible, answered, “I have chosen.”

The fat man smiled and asked, “Which one did you choose?”

John replied in a voice that was a bare croak, “The one in the crossroads.”

The fat man changed into an obese woman. “There isn’t one in the crossroads.”

“You haven’t put it there yet.”

The person flickered between man and woman several times. “Why do you think I would put one here?”

John croaked, “This is the point of all possibility.”

The fat man frowned and left. The temperature started increasing again. It was more than an hour after the sun rose that he felt warm. He took the moment to enjoy the temperature. Soon it became hot again. The temperature rose. Looking down the paths, he could see ripples in the air as the hot air from the ground mixed with the cooler air above. Mirages formed images that looked like snakes dancing in the air. His skin blistered as the sunburn worsened. He stopped sweating, a dangerous sign of dehydration. With parched throat and dry skin, his body heated. He lost and regained consciousness several times throughout the day.

The sun set along the same side from whence it rose. The fat man returned and looked at John. He shook his head at the man’s state and said, “Pick a medallion!”

John’s head ached. The world swung dizzily in front of his eyes. If he had anything in this stomach, he would have vomited. He answered, “The one in the crossroads!”

“Why do you pick that one?”

“That is the one you want me to pick!”

The fat man left. With the sun below the horizon, the temperature cooled down, but John was only barely aware of it. Lips chapped, eyes swollen nearly shut, red skin blistered, and fingers turned black, he was barely alive. The cold temperature sank its tendrils into every part of his body. Over the previous night, he had consumed his fat reserves. Now, he had no energy to shake from the cold. His body had nothing left to give. He hung in that state between life and death.

The sun rose again. The fat man stood over John and said, “Pick a medallion!”

“The one in the crossroads!”

The fat man laughed and said, “You are sitting on it.”

John rolled over and grasped the medallion. His fingers had difficulty closing over it. The fat man knelt down and took it from his hand. He looked upon John with satisfaction. He put it around John’s neck. “You have done well, John Carter. You did much better than I had expected. There is much for you to do. For now, it’s time for you to rest.”

John woke warm and comfortable at the base of a pine tree. The branches had kept snow from reaching the ground around the base. The layer of pine needles upon which he was resting was thick and soft. The air beyond the branches was still and he could see patches of blue sky through the boughs of the evergreen. He felt healthy and energetic. There were no signs of damage to his body. He dug through his pack and pulled out the GPS to check his position.

He stood up and parted the branches to assess the snow beyond his shelter. It was deep, much deeper than he could easily walk through. He cut branches to make another pair of snowshoes. He took his time and made a pair that would stand up to the trek back to town. He fastened them to his boots, grabbed his backpack, and slipped out from the tree. The air was cold, but not bitterly so. He slipped the pack onto his back, and then donned the cloak. With walking stick in hand, he took a few tentative steps away from the tree.

He took out the compass and checked the directions. Satisfied, he headed east towards the road. He couldn’t use his walking stick since setting it to ground caused it to sink deep into the snow. Because there were no paths to follow, he stopped frequently to check the compass. It was important to make sure that one walked in the same direction rather than in a circle.

Systematically, he moved closer to the highway. Walking was made more difficult because of the snowshoes. He was required to move in a fashion that felt unnatural to him. It was tiring, but at least the distance wasn’t far. He stopped when he saw the mountain of snow that had been piled up by the snowplow. It was taller than he was. The height made it virtually impassible for a man on foot.

He set down his pack and retrieved his GPS. He checked his location and looked at the map to decide what direction to follow the snow bank. He repacked the GPS and map carefully. He put his pack on again; feeling the cold snow stuck to the pack on his back, under the cloak.

He walked along the snow bank. It was not a difficult path although he did have to detour around several large pines. He spotted a house to his right and smiled to himself. He knew the owner probably had the entrance to his drive cleared of snow and it would be his chance to cross over onto the road. He had almost reached the drive, when a man’s voice reached him, “Hello! Come over to the house!”