still a ways to
go, and she planted her feet into grooves in the rock face, sitting
in her harness and turning her face towards the rising sun behind
her.
By now she was at least a hundred feet up.
Rachel looked around at the gorgeous view. The redwood trees extend
hundreds of feet above them, phallic and hard and authoritative.
She had never seen anything so beautiful. Her muscles were starting
to swell. Her body was covered in sweat, and the harness was tight
around her groin.
“Am I still feeling the leftover tremors from
last night,” she thought, “or... am I actually getting aroused by
the scenery?” It wouldn’t really surprise her. As a child she was
always touching herself outside, rolling naked in the mud and
rubbing herself against trees in their sprawling yard. These were
things she had not told the other girls the night before when they
were sharing stories. It was not because she was shy, or because
she didn’t like sharing with them, but because she had forgotten
how powerful those feelings were until right then. Something about
nature, and the raw power in the animal spirit always got her
juices flowing. Now, suspended above the earth she could see why no
man she’d ever met had ever satisfied that most basic of needs in
her.
She reached into the bag of chalk to coat her
hands, afraid the increased moisture would cause her to slip.
Slippery was good, she liked slippery. Just not when she was
hanging from the face of a mountain by a thin rope and a six inch
metal pick.
The top of the mountain was something they
could reach. A goal, a point of contact, something to conquer. But
now that they were here, on top of it, immersed in it, the mountain
surrounded her and she became a part of it. It was bigger than her,
and she let herself melt into the face of the earth, touching her
whole body to the rock, hardening as it hardened, then feeling both
of them soften simultaneously. She was becoming closer to nature,
and as it was happening, she wanted even more of it. Suddenly she
felt her body surge with energy. She reached down and grabbed the
pick, shoving it back into the rock above her head.
Each climbing step was harder and harder, but
she took it in stride, feeling the heat and power of the mountain
itself running through her own body. Looking down, she saw her
friends far below her. She was way ahead of them, and from here she
felt almost alone, like she was the first person to ever climb this
mountain, the first woman to ever get as high with the strength of
her own arms lifting her up.
By the time Rachel reached the top of the
mountain, she was covered in sweat. Glistening with the natural
result of burning so much of her body’s energy. She took one more
sweeping look at the other mountains and the sprawling tree-scape
behind her before reaching her hands over the top of the cliff.
Pulling herself up and over, she felt a surge of pride and
accomplishment. She unhooked the ropes and harness from her torso,
and stood at the top of the mountain looking around at the
magnificence surrounding her.
“Aaaaaooooooooohhhhhhh!” she shouted. The
loudest sound she had ever made, coming from somewhere deep within
her. She had made it to the top of this mountain. From now on,
nothing could stop her now from accomplishing her life’s
ambitions.
Behind her, Rachel heard a rustling of trees.
A snapping of twigs. She turned around quickly, scanning the forest
for animals. The wind played all kinds of tricks up here at these
altitudes, she knew, but the sound had been more intentional,
almost human. A few yards away behind a massive pine tree, she
caught a glimpse of a shadowed figure.
“Hello?” she called. “Hello? Is there someone
there?”
But there was no response. Her mind must be
playing tricks on her. She knelt down and looked over the side of
the cliff to see how far down the other girls were. She knew she
had been way ahead of them, and she couldn’t even hear their voices
now from this far up.
Jacqueline Diamond, Marin Thomas, Linda Warren, Leigh Duncan
Jay Bonansinga, Robert Kirkman