Silhouette Intimate Moments 1354, March 2005
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Kurt squinted at the figures written in his small accounts book. Not that he thought scrunching his eyes would change the fact that if he didn't score some work soon, his business would be in the red. $65,000 it had cost him to use the fixed lines and aluminum bridges put out by the Sherpas' association at the beginning of the season. If he didn't get more work soon...

The upfront payment he'd received from the Chaplins had been eaten up and then some. And he wasn't such a boor that he would claim from the estate of a couple of friends who'd been killed on his watch.

"Aargh," he cleared his throat as if that would get rid of the rumors that had been circulating since he came back down the mountain without Bill and Atlanta.

The local magistrate had more or less cleared him. That is to say, nothing could be proved one way or another. All they had was his word. But in a close-knit society, once a rumor took hold it was hard to contradict it.

Bad news always traveled faster than good.

If he could get his hands on the bastard who had started them, he'd kick them to hell-and-gone. His family knew only too well how rumor and innuendo could ruin a life, even one that had already passed into the other world. But when his father died it had been him and his brothers and sister who'd been left to deal with the mess. Were still dealing with it.

He looked up from the lined page and realized he should put down the problem with his eyes to the poor light. At 5-30 p.m. his attic room always flooded with gray watery light as the sun dropped behind the Himalayas. He shut the book with a snap. The sound broke as loud as a thunderclap in the quiet room.

Though he had taken lodgings on the top floor of a tavern, the old stone walls were two feet thick and swallowed up the noise from the barroom, keeping it to a low murmur he barely noticed.

Kurt scrubbed his hands over his face and combed his untidy hair with his fingers. He needed a shave. His stubble was four days old and as black as his hair. What was the point? He had no one to impress. Clients were staying away in droves.

He pushed up from his cross-legged position on the floor. The wooden boards were ten times more comfortable than any flat spot on Everest. He stretched, his fingers brushing a large beam. The slope of the roof made it necessary to stoop at the far side of the room by his bed and he had to take care not to knock his head for the first couple of steps after he emerged from the attic.

Running his hands over his pockets, he felt for his matches. Time to light the lamps before he started falling over the furniture and his bags.

A wooden stair cracked outside. The sound of it ricocheted through the silence like a bullet bouncing off the walls. He recognized the sound. That particular step was five from the top.

His hand slid to the knife on his belt. He unsheathed it as he crossed to the door in his sock-cushioned feet and listened for the creak of the step one down from the landing outside his door.

He'd been robbed twice in the short time he'd lived here. The door didn't have a lock, but then anything of true value he carried on him. Up till now he'd considered it a small price to pay for leaving the wink-wink-nudge-nudge of the rumor mill on the higher terraces of Namche Bazaar.

Whoever was climbing the stairs must have been taking them two at a time. The next noise he'd been waiting for didn't arrive before a gentle tap on the door started it swinging open. Not only didn't the heavy wooden slab have a lock, the catch didn't work worth a damn, losing its grip at the slightest pressure.

There was no announcement. No, "Hello is anyone there?" only the door moving closer to his shoulder as it was pushed wide. The footsteps were light as was to be expected in a country where most of the inhabitants were head-and-shoulders smaller than him.

He let the intruder take no more than two steps into the room, then knife poised in one hand, ready to strike, he wrapped his other arm round the thief from behind. "Don't move, I have a knife and it's pointed at your throat."

The intruder let out a squawk that nearly deafened him. He almost dropped the knife as a padded elbow dug into his ribs, its covering thick enough to prevent it doing damage. If the aim of the elbow hadn't warned him his target was taller than he'd imagined. The handful of fluid feminine breast told him he was definitely below the mark by eight inches or more.

It had been so long since he'd touched a woman, touched anything that filled his hand with such soft fullness that his palm burned through the contact, even through several layers of clothing. Stunned by the unexpected rush to his groin, he grabbed a breath and tasted woman, scented a floral perfume that clouded his reason and made him squeeze, just once.

As the heel of her boot stomped down painfully on the bony arch of his foot hard enough to make him yelp, a second mistake leapt to mind. Her struggles had brought her dangerously close to the blade of his knife. Kurt flung it from him before its sharp edge could slice something a lot more fragile than nylon rope. Before the clatter of metal on wood reached his ears he'd bundled the squirming mass of female body tightly in both arms. "Take it easy, easy, I'm not going to hurt you."

"All right for you to say now I've knocked your knife out of your hand," she boasted.

Well at least he now knew she was an American.

She wriggled some more, her butt rubbing against his groin. It reacted accordingly.

"I threw it away," he gasped, unable to stifle his indignation that the woman had laid claim to his act of chivalry.

"So, you say, now."

He felt the muscles in her butt tighten against him as she lifted a knee, but he was too busy spreading his legs to avoid her heel to enjoy the sensation. As her foot jarred against the floor its echo went straight from her to him. It was about then she appeared recognize what was happening behind her and squawked once more. "Let me go, you...you lecher."

The bands of his arms tightened, quelling the force of her renewed struggles. This was getting out of hand. Didn't she realize this situation was as painful to his ego as it was to her sensibilities? Only one thing for it, he decided.

Letting his arms slip lower without losing their hold, he picked her up. The softest landing place in the room was the bed. No sooner thought than done. He hefted her up and released her onto the mattress.

He could hear her pushing backward to the head of the bed, her heels catching on the covers. "Keep away from me, I know karate. No way I'm going to let you rape me."

"Pity you never got past lesson one, where they taught you to stamp on your opponent's feet. And while we're on the subject, who snuck into whose room? Believe me, you couldn't be safer. I've no urge to have sex with a shrew."

"You should be so lucky."

"Hold it! Hold it right there. Not another word. If I'm going to be accused of sexual assault, and believe me I've been accused of a lot worse recently, then, for a change I want to look my accuser in the eye." This time the matches sprang to his hold from the first pocket he searched. He lit one, but it didn't pierce far into the gloom and the shape on the bed could have been man or woman, but having touched her, he knew better.

"Actually, no one mentioned sexual assault only..."

He froze, still as a statue, the match flaring in his fingers, as faint and tiny as the light at the end of the tunnel called his future. "Only what?"

"Whatever they say about men like you."

"Men like me don't go in for rape either."

He could tell she'd heard the rumors, but he hadn't expected her to back down. That either made her a coward or a woman who desperately wanted something he had. And she'd already let him know it wasn't his body. He blew out the match then took his ire out on the full backpack he'd left on the floor, kicking it in front of the door to make her escape harder.

The annoyance didn't go away. Striking another match, he murmured under his breath, "The woman wriggles around against a guy as if she's giving him a lap dance and she wonders why he gets an hard on."

Kurt had done a lot of talking to himself lately. Especially since those people he'd once counted his friends had appeared to be avoiding his company. As if they would become guilty by association.

So, she'd been asking around, had heard the stories that got worse as they went from mouth to mouth. He could have told her about rumors. That if they won't go away, you have to learn to live with them.

Without turning his back to her, he lit the first couple of yak-butter oil lamps. Their glow was enough to illuminate long jean-clad legs. The third brought out the curve of her hip. He knew, to his cost, they were softly rounded where his were lean. The lilac anorak was a fashion statement no mountaineer worth his or her salt would wear. Its quilted folds hid the full breasts his palm had lighted on by mistake. He smiled softly as he picked up the next tiny copper bowl filled with oil.

Her hair was dark brown, short, spiky, a match for the dark clumps of eyelashes framing her huge gray eyes. Eyes wide and staring at him as if he were the devil incarnate. As if she too thought him responsible for Bill and Atlanta's deaths.

Sometimes he wondered if maybe he was.

While her expression nagged at his conscience something in him acknowledged that contempt wasn't the emotion he wanted to draw from the woman sprawled across his bed. Further into his motives he wasn't willing to go.

With the final lamp lit, a gas cartridge one, the last of the gloom receded to the edges of the attic. Kurt walked up to the bed and looked down at his unexpected guest. Her eyes flashed a warning and her hands bunched up fists of the top cover as if it were the only thing preventing her from leaping at his throat.

"Hi, I'm Kurt Jellic, and you'd be...?"