"No gondolas here," I pointed out. "Just the four-chair lifts. You couldn't do it without freezing your butt. And how would you get into position anyway?"

He thought for a moment, absently burrowing his fingers under my thermals to the warm skin beneath. His fingers were icy from the beer he'd been holding and the residual bone-deep chill of the mountain air. "You'd have to have the bar up to kneel on the seat, and hope you didn't fall off twisting around."

"Can't kneel easily with skis on," I said reasonably. What had started out as a bit of lighthearted flirting was fast taking a serious turn. I'd only met Neil on the chairlift this morning, but the adrenaline of my first ever black run was swiftly transmuting into sex.

I was a blue-cruiser; I could ski the blue runs comfortably enough, but had lacked the nerve and confidence to try black. The ignominy of being pulled out from the drifts by the ski patrol two years ago still rankled. This morning--the first day of a week's skiing holiday--Neil had flirted with me on the chairlift, and we had skied Hawk's Flight together, from top to bottom, him daring me to keep up. The promise of a tight, muscled body underneath his concealing ski gear had me racing to equal him. The next ride back up the mountain, he suggested we ski Knife Edge, a black run.

"I don't know," I'd said dubiously. But he'd talked me into it, and the exhilaration, and the powder, and my moments of flight over the bumps had outweighed the gut-clenching loss of control on a couple of occasions.

"Better than sex!" I'd exclaimed in cliché at the bottom.

He'd grinned, and our lunchtime conversation over beer and burritos had turned in that direction.

"We'd give the ski patrol a thrill." His smile was warm, a slow break of sensual promise across his face. Those icy fingers burrowed further, stroking across my stomach, and the lightheadedness that swept me wasn't purely from the altitude.

"Way too cold." I seemed to be throwing up the roadblocks, although the idea was appealing. Exactly what was underneath his padded gear?

The slope-side bar was packed with skiers and snowboarders, heating the fuggy air that smelled of hot apple cider and drying clothes. We were sharing a table with a family with young children. The parents eyed us; they must surely hear our conversation, but they hadn't taken themselves off to another table. The kids were more interested in stuffing themselves with sandwiches and whining for hot chocolate.

I angled my body further toward Neil's and let my fingers trail over his thighs. "I'm staying at the Slopeside Lodge. Come and visit me tonight."

He grinned, and the sight warmed me more than the coffee and Benedictine I was sipping. "Tonight's a long time away. We've more skiing to do first and more chairlifts to take. Want to try Skidoodare? It's a black, no worse than Knife Edge."

I nodded. I'd read the trail map too. To get to the top of Skidoodare, we'd have to take the High Flyer chair, the longest lift on the mountain. I finished my coffee, Neil chugged his beer, and we rocked in our skiboots, heel toe, heel toe, back to our skis. It hadn't been spoken of again, but as we slid our way to the chairlift, I could sense Neil's maneuvers, designed to get the two of us alone in a chair. He was hanging back slightly, spreading his legs wide, shuffling awkwardly in an imitation of a beginner's tentative slide. No one wanted to get on a lift with a raw novice; too much chance of being dragged off the lift at the end and down onto the icy snow in a tangle of limbs.

Neil's ploy worked. We were the only two on the chair. As the lift swooped up, bearing us high over the snow, he grinned.

"Seven minutes," he said. "How fast do you work, Simone?"

I considered the options as the lift bore us high up, crawling straight up the mountain. Maybe twenty feet below us the smooth groomed runs fell away down the slope. At intervals, skiers and boarders flew in great sweeps down the mountain. No one looked up; they were intent on the snow, and the way their skis jumped and twitched beneath them, the seamless extension of their bodies, the stretch of muscles, the thrill of the flight.

Carefully, I hung my ski poles on the edge of the chair, securing them with the wrist straps. Turning into Neil, I removed one glove and stuffed it in the pocket of my jacket. He watched me, a slight smile of anticipation on his face. His breath puffed in the air, curls of fog. My hands fumbled at his waist, tugging his jacket up, so that it bunched on his stomach. His hips shifted slightly, assisting me. Underneath, he wore the bib and thick padded pants of the serious skier. Unfashionable now, but functional. And they had a front zipper.

My ungloved hand was already pink from the subzero temperatures, the slow moving lift created a further windchill. My face was frozen in a rictus; if I spoke, the words would slur. I fumbled with his zipper, trying to grasp the absurdly small tag. Eventually, I managed to lower it half an inch and groped within.

Neil sucked in air, whistling through his teeth as my icy fingers fumbled around his underpants, and slipped through to touch his cock. He was already half hard, but as I ran tantalizing fingers up his shaft, he drooped momentarily at the cold. I moved my fingers over, onto this groin, combing them through the wiry hair, seeking to warm them before I touched him properly.

"Wait," he said hoarsely, and removing his scarf, he unwound it, and bunched it on his lap. It served the double effect of shielding him from view, in the unlikely chance that someone would look up, as well as creating a small windshield. His cock peered up amid the folds of cloth.

Briefly, I considered bending over and taking him in my mouth, but I didn't think I could do it, not comfortably anyway. The skis, the bulky clothing, and the close confines of the bench seat rendered it, if not impossible, then certainly not easy. So I contented myself with exploratory fingers, absorbing the feel of him through touch alone. I circled his circumcised tip, pressing a gentle thumb into the slotted end, spreading the leaking moisture over the head. Smooth and shiny it was; so strange that the softest skin is found in the hardest place.

His breathing quickened, and he shifted slightly on the hard chair. Encircling his shaft, I started to pump, an unimaginative too and fro with clenched fist. After all, we only had seven minutes, and there were two of us. Although how he would manage to get into my ski pants with no fly, I couldn't imagine.

Neil shuffled on the seat, spreading his legs further apart. His thigh nudged into mine, and our skis tangled briefly.

"Harder," he whispered. "Faster."

I tightened my grip, feeling the skin slide slightly over the engorged tissues beneath. His breath hissed through his teeth, in counterpoint to the tighten and release of his thighs. It had started to snow lightly; the drifting flakes stung my hand where they landed. I could only imagine what they felt like when they landed on his taut cockhead.

His head dropped back, eyes closed. The snowflakes beaded on his long eyelashes, drifted down to melt on his cheeks. "Shit," he moaned. The smooth skin under my hand pulsed harder.

And his hips thrust up, jerking hard against my hand. The twitch, the pulse, the shudder of imminent orgasm. His spend ran thick and viscous down over the purple head, over my hand, warm and globular.

I raised my fingers and licked it off; maleness salty-sour.

His eyes opened, a brilliant blue against the glare and sheen of the white powder passing beneath us at a crawl. His hands reached for me, his lips fumbled and found mine, cold press of icy firmness.

"Shit." My skis dangling freely caught the edge of the exit. We were at the top of the mountain. My ankle wrenched, and I recovered, pushing free of the chair. No chance to get my poles, they were hooked on the edge of the seat, impossible to retrieve. As I glided off in an ungainly unprepared skate, I caught the lift operator looking at us. His grin split the icy air. And Neil landed beside me in a tangle, skis crossed. Neil of the black runs was caught, pants down, cock hanging out to the frigid breath of the mountain.

"Shit," he said again, as our skis mated in a facsimile of what we would do later, alone, in my king-size bed in Slopeside Lodge. "Shit," as we crashed to the ground, a tangle of limbs, a mess of stray gloves and goggles.

"Fuck," as the ski lift operator wiped tears of laughter from his eyes, and lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth.

Our ski poles sailed ignominiously down the mountain, jauntily waving off the edge of the vacant chair.

There was only one thing to do; I grabbed Neil and stuffed my icy hands down the neck of his ski suit.