Golden Days
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

The winter of 2009 took my sweet wife Margot. It was an infection, we knew that much. We put her body outside in the snow to preserve her. I had not wanted to let go, but Carson made me see the sense in it. When winter broke, we were able to take her body in to town and confirm the cause of death. It was such a minor thing, just a small wound from a can of spam, but when you are isolated, even with modern communications, there is nothing you can do.

Carson’s wife Delia, had been taken 5 years before, but by cancer. It had been a slow death, and he needed to work the claim through her illness. Nevertheless, he spent the winter in the city, for the first time in many years, to be with her when she died. He is a loving and caring man. A man of his size and gruff demeanour could easily be mistaken for being otherwise, but he is gentle soul underneath.

With her death he knew that he needed somebody to work the claim with. In looking for a partner, he found me. But it was Margot who persuaded me to pursue a life in the wilderness. The truth is that I am a city boy, with too much liking for the comforts of home. But my family were in the contracting business, so I knew my way around heavy machinery, and then there was the gold fever.

I was working in the city, using my low-grade finance degree as a meal ticket. I had no real ability, but at the time the gold price was rising and everybody was looking to be in it. At the end of 2007 the market was going crazy, and that is when I heard about Carson Waring. But he was not looking for money. He would only share what he had with somebody ready to work.

Margot was raised on a farm and she loved the outdoors. She married me for me, but she never shared the same taste for the city lifestyle. When I started to talk about gold-mining in the Yukon, she became very excited about returning to a simpler lifestyle. My only interest was the gold. It was a fascinating thing. A nugget can be lifted from the ground, and it makes money in your pocket. There is something about the feel and constant brightness of it, that is exciting.

I bought in, but not for cash. Carson had no need of that. I came with a new 50 ton excavator to replace his old one, a new screening plant, and an old tanker for diesel fuel. When both excavators were going we could put 1,000 cubic yards through the plant every day.

The grade in the ground were working was very good, but not spectacular. When we talk about higher grade in gold mining, we mean that there is more gold per cubic yard going into the plant, so less work for more gold. But when you see the gold in a jar, nuggets or gold dust, it is a thrill no matter how much effort it has taken. That is gold fever.

Add to that, at the start of the winter that took Margot, at the end of September 2009, the gold price hit US$1,000 per ounce for the first time. It seemed like there was no end to it. My old friends in the city were talking about gold crashing through the $2,000 barrier. People said that I was the lucky one. That was before Margot died.

I took some time to mourn, and Carson understood. But there was work to do in the summer that followed, and in that winter coming, we needed to complete the work to divert the river near the cabin. In the winter when all the water from the source of the river is frozen, that is the best time to do the work. Much has been done the previous winter but Carson and I both needed to work through the cold.

And it was one of the coldest winters on record. Diesel fuel turned to jelly and gearboxes became solid. Machinery was a waste of time. Even the snowmobiles were a problem. Carson kept a dog team, really just as a hobby, but that winter they became a lifeline.

Even before the winter really closed in, the old excavator gave up. Only the new one worked and as the plant could be run from the cab, Carson suggested that I work in the gold refining room, washing out the gold, and around the cabin keeping a fire going, and preparing food. In truth, I preferred that. I liked the comfort of home and working with gold, not working in the mud, rocks, snow and ice.

It showed. I made some really nice meals, and started to keep the place tidy. Carson teased me about it a bit, calling me “Wifey”. We laughed about it, but then things started to get weird.

Carson had completed the diversion and he was keen to get started on the river bottom, just to assess the grade. With all machinery out of action that meant taking the dog team out with just a pick and shovel, and bags for samples. Those he could put through a sluice box at the cabin, with me providing liquid water. So, he went out during the day and I kept the fire going with water from the wet-back flowing through a tank to keep some wash water from freezing.

The cold was really starting to bite. Carson had a bed on a platform above the fireplace, which captured heat. Margot and I had a separate cabin, but since she had died I had a small bedroom behind the kitchen, but it was hard to heat without usable fuel. Carson suggested that I come upstairs and bunk with him.

Now, there is nothing weird in that. If circumstance require, men should keep together for warmth. There should have been no suggestion of any intimacy. So, I am not sure quite how it all started. I suppose that Carson was missing his wife, and I was missing mine. I suppose that Carson is more of a man than I was. Certainly, he is a hell of a lot bigger, and hairier. Contact with a hairy body should have been a total turnoff for me. Somehow, I figured that it was like curling up with a family pet – a big one.

Carson did not like hairiness in me. He suggested that I wash using a compound of Pallawort leaves that grow wild in the woods nearby. Apparently, Delia used this to keep herself clean and soft. A side effect that I was not aware of is that it burns off body hair. And it also had a pleasant perfume that lingered on the new skin.

Somehow it made sleeping together in the same bed, so much nicer. We would be naked except for boxer shorts. He would sleep with his arms around me, my back to his front, me with a warm wheat bag in my front. I could feel his penis through both our shorts sometimes, especially when it stiffened, as it would every night and morning before we rose. We never mentioned it.

I would keep the fire going all day, to keep the water available. The cabin would become very warm by lunchtime when he came home for a meal, even when it was 20 below freezing outside. So warm in fact, that I wore few clothes. One day he threw me a garment best called a kaftan, and suggested that I wear that. It turns out that he had kept a number of Delia’s clothes in a trunk, and she had several of these. It turned out that they were perfect to wear inside. She was also the same size as me and she had some other useful clothing items that Carson said I could put to use. My favourites were the fine wool undergarments and hosiery that I could wear under my male clothes when outside.

He asked me whether I would let my hair grow longer. I cut his hair, and he would brush mine. Again, Delia had hair treatments made using locally available herbs and flowers that she collected in summer and kept in pots. I am sure that she and Margot would have been great friends had they met one another, and been alive together.

That winter we were completely isolated for 7 weeks, including all of January 2010. We had sat-phone communications so we could check in by voice with the local authority as was customary up there, but otherwise it was just us. Carson took the dog team into town early in February and came back with a few supplies.

Along with the essentials he had bought two floral hair clips, to keep my growing hair off my face while I was working. He put them in for me. For some reason it was just the perfect thing to do. I felt as if we had become so much closer than just business partners. I felt that I should kiss him on the cheek, so I did. I think he blushed. The skin on his face is so leathery it is hard to say. I know I did – blush that is.

He also bought me some pairs of gloves to look after my hands when I was working, both in the kitchen and in the gold refining room. He told me that I should keep my hands soft, using a cream that Delia had made buckets of. He told me that my soft warm hands on his face or on his cock, felt like heaven to him. That made me smile.

In the last few years before her illness, Delia had been prescribed Provera for menopause. She had not taken it, preferring to consume horny goat weed as a natural alternative, but there were boxes of it in the trunk unused. Carson suggested that I take some daily. I did, but I used the goat weed as well.

Carson said that the changes in me were bringing about a change in fortune for both of us. All of the samples that he had taken on the old river bed had proven to be extraordinary, and we had not even dug down to the hard bottom where the real gold was to be found. He felt that the summer program of 2010 was going to be something very special. He said it was down to me, and the changes in me.

Spring arrived and we drove in to town together in the 4x4 with chains on. There was still ice and snow but it was a clear day. I wore a beanie with my hair up underneath it. Even after spending two years in this vicinity I was still barely recognised as a local, but I could see that some people noticed that I had changed, though only my face was visible. I was happy to be a different person. I had left all our prior misfortune behind with the old me. It felt as if both Carson and I were on the verge of something big.

The Yukon valley has had gold rushes before, and neither of us were keen to see a new rush with what we had discovered. We kept quiet. We had lunch at the restaurant, but Carson told me that he preferred the meals that I cooked him. I went to the store to pick some exotic ingredients to please him even more.

We deliberately walked apart the whole time we were in town together, so when we got back into the truck to drive home, I could not keep my hands off him. We had been so close for so many weeks that I just missed touching him, even for just those few hours in town.

One of the things that I bought in town was some materials to do an enema. At home I had the herbal compounds and the natural lubricants, but I needed the tube and the bag. I wanted to clean and lubricate my back passage so that I could let Carson enjoy me sexually. It was all I had thought about for weeks. I could blow him but without being face to face it was not what either of us wanted. I could pull him with my soft hands, but there was nothing for me in that. I wanted to be able to make love, as if I was his woman.

Honestly, the first time was uncomfortable, because he is big in that department, but once I had been breached I could work on stretching; and once I knew what to expect, I could be ready for it. So, the second time, with my bottom on a pillow, face to face, and him kissing me deeply as his penis entered me - that was a truly life-changing experience. When I felt his semen inside me, and then spill from my loosened asshole, I was in heaven.

The next time I went to town I had my hair out and was wearing Delia floral patterned puffer jacket. Carson when to the gold-buyer with just a few ounces (we were hoarding the rest) while I went straight to the hair salon. I asked for the works, including a blonde dye job and soft curls, full make up and a manicure. Carson took me to lunch again, and told me that I was the best-looking woman with 300 miles. I kissed him on the lips, for everyone to see.

For another 18 months we worked our claim. I helped out on the excavator sometimes, but Carson said that now I was a woman – his woman – I was there to be looked after, not put to work. I was certainly looking more like a woman, with my body acquiring all the right curves, including two sizable breasts.

In 18 months my hair grew quite long, just the way Carson liked it. He liked to spread it over the pillow when he was on top. Or, if I was on top, it could swing in his face, like a silky perfumed curtain. He still liked to help me with it, and brush it every night. He is that kind of man.

14 September 2011 gold price peaked at US$1,823.50 per ounce. It has never been there since. We had hoarded a very large amount and sold it all at the peak of the market, anonymously. We said just enough about the success of the claim to be able to sell that too, but we had already scoured the hard bottom and we were confident all the easy gold had been recovered. Still, there is always something left for the next guy.

Carson kept enough gold to have a large gold necklace made for me. Each link is almost an ounce, so there are close to 40 ounces of gold in this necklace, which makes a little hard to wear.

For that reason I put it on for the photoshoot at our wedding but I did not wear it during the ceremony or at the reception. It was just too heavy.

Yes, we got married, after some of new wealth had been spent on the surgery necessary for me to perform full wifely duties.

We live a comfortable life in a warmer climate now, but at night Carson still likes to turn up the air conditioning to as cold as it will get, so that we can snuggle up together, with warm bodies and cold noses, to better remember the time when we fell in love.

The End
© Maryanne Peters 2020