by Tanya Chris
Nate’s eyes followed her up a climb, watching the arc of her ponytail as it swung back and forth across her back.
“Let’s climb something over here.” I moved towards a wall that was both less steep and farther away from Jenny.
Nate climbed quickly but awkwardly. His height helped him, and he had good strength in his biceps from the drywall work, but his grace on stage didn’t translate onto a climbing wall. Of course, he was a beginner. I couldn’t expect him to flow up a climb like Derek did.
The thought of Derek made me look around until I found him with Kyle across the room. He must have just come down because his shirt was off. He picked it up and then, spotting me, waved. My hands were busy belaying so I smiled back. When he dropped his shirt on the floor instead of putting it on, I smiled harder.
“Lissie?” Nate was at the top waiting for me to tell him what to do next.
I explained how he should sit back in his harness and then lowered him to the ground.
“So who is he?” Nate asked when he touched down.
“Who?” Like I didn’t know.
Nate didn’t clarify, just stood patiently while I finished untying him.
“His name’s Derek. He’s been kind of a mentor to me.”
“Good looking guy. About my age, right?”
I nodded.
A smile broke out on Nate’s face. “Diving in with both feet, huh?”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s not like that yet or it’s not like that ever?”
“He hasn’t shown any interest.”
“You don’t think so? Because I’m looking right at him and I’d say you’re wrong.”
I spun towards where I’d last seen Derek standing. He quickly turned his head up and away to where Kyle climbed above him.
“Maybe I can help you out a little,” Nate said. “Look at me.” He smiled put a hand up to my face and leaned in to kiss me.
“Nate,” I warned.
“If you could see his face.” He dropped his hand without following through on his threat to kiss me and took a step back, smirking. “What’s next?”
I led him to another rope and handed him the end of it. This route was a little harder.
“Hey,” Derek said, appearing at my elbow when Nate was five or six feet off the ground. “If you want, some of us are going on a trip next weekend to New Hampshire.”
“Climbing?”
My first time climbing real rock had been Saturday. Amy had taken me and Katrina to a local spot for the afternoon. We’d learned how to rappel down from the top and several new knots. Real rock had a different feel— much smoother than the heavily textured holds in the gym—and the places for our feet were tiny ripples, not big projections. I’d found myself exhausted from overgripping only halfway up the first route. The routes were longer too, the rock looming over my head, mocking my efforts to climb it.
I’d loved it though, couldn’t wait to get back to it. The whole day had been an amazing adventure, but was I ready for a weekend trip to another state?
Derek filled me in on the details. He and Jenny and four other climbers were leaving Friday night and coming back Sunday evening. They’d camp at a campground near the climbing area—pit toilets, no showers.
I winced at the mention of pit toilets. My last memory of using a pit toilet wasn’t a good one. Out hiking with my dad one day when I was about eight, I’d desperately needed to pee. Just before I sat down on the white plastic seat covering that gaping, smelly hole, a spider ambled out of the hole, across the seat, down the wooden bench, and across the floor towards me.
I’d stomped on it defensively, but even with the spider flat dead I couldn’t bring myself to bare my butt above the hole he’d crawled out of. My need to pee warred with my fear of having a spider crawl into my hooch until my dad banged on the door to ask if I’d fallen in. Eventually I’d gone behind the outhouse to squat against the wall while my father stood guard.
Shaking off the picture of myself squatting against the outside of an outhouse while Derek stood guard, I looked up at Nate. He was almost at the top, stuck at a spot his height couldn’t get him out of.
“Try putting your right foot where your left foot is,” Derek called up.
Nate looked down to see who was talking to him, then put his right foot where his left foot had been and immediately fell off.
“Sorry,” Derek said. “Maybe that’s the short person beta.” He winked at me and walked away.
Nate found his own way to the top eventually. “What’s beta?” he asked as he untied his knot back on the ground.
“Climber-speak for advice.”
“You believe me now?”
“Derek’s a really helpful guy. He gives advice to everyone.”
“Bad advice?”
I shrugged him off. Derek hadn’t given Nate bad advice intentionally. What worked for one climber didn’t always work for another.
Nate’s arms were tired and he wanted to see me climb, so we intercepted Jenny and Katrina. Katrina belayed me while Jenny and Nate chatted. Nate was definitely giving her the full-wattage smile. He hadn’t even watched me climb.
Since Nate and Jenny were absorbed in conversation, Katrina and I switched places so I could belay her.
“Did you hear about that trip?” I asked her.
“Yeah, you going to go?”
“Thinking about it. You?”
“Thinking about it.”
“We’re intimidated, right?” I knew Katrina and I were at about the same place in our climbing. We were improving all the time, but we couldn’t keep up with people like Derek and Jenny. In the gym, everyone climbed at their own level, but outside we’d have to stick together.
“I’ll go if you do,” Katrina said. “I can’t stay both nights though. I have to be back here for a competition Sunday.”
“That works for me. Less intimidating. I don’t know about camping though. I don’t have a tent or anything.” What I really meant was that I wanted indoor plumbing, but unfortunately Katrina jumped on the tent part.
“I have a tent that will sleep two. You don’t even need a sleeping bag probably, not in June. Just bring a couple of blankets.”
“You’re going?” Jenny asked. “That’s great.”
“You’re sure we’re not going to be in the way, me and Katrina?”
“We’re sure,” Derek said, coming up to us.
I introduced Derek to Nate. They shook hands, Derek solemnly and Nate with a big grin.
“Can I get a belay?” Derek asked Jenny, cutting off further conversation.
She nodded and they walked down the wall to the seriously steep section. He tied in, took off his shirt, and shot me a look over his shoulder before launching into an impressive display of acrobatic strength.
“Definitely interested,” Nate stressed.
~~~
“Did you enjoy it?” I asked Nate as he stripped me.
“Not as much as I’m going to enjoy this.” He finished with my clothes and started on his own with some assistance from me.
“Would you do it again?”
“Sure, maybe.” He pushed me back onto my bed. I sat down but didn’t lay back into what was fast becoming my favorite position.
“You didn’t like it?”
“Not like you do. I already have my thing. My two things. Now let me get to my second thing. It’s my birthday, after all.”
I wanted to ask more questions, but I let him get to it. It was his birthday, after all. Some time later I had the breath to talk again.
“Why do you like doing that so much?” I stroked his head where it lay on my chest, his hair damp with sweat and his face sticky against my skin.
“Because you do.”
“That contradicts your all-about-Nate philosophy.”
“You think it’s not about me? Making you come like that?” He sat up a bit, leaning on an elbow. “It’s performance art. Orgasms are like applause.”
“Is tha
t why you’re so good at it?”
He rolled over onto his back. “When you play to an audience, you have to sense them, their mood, whether they’re with you or not. I love that about live theater. When it’s flowing, I carry them with me, and they carry me with them. It’s electric.” He linked his hand with mine and brought it to his chest. “It’s like that when I go down on you, when I’m doing it right. I’m feeling what you’re feeling and feeding it back to you.”
“And it’s electric.” I rolled onto my side so I could see him better. “How did you learn to do it?”
“Plenty of technique tips on the internet. Some good, some bad,” he added wryly.
I sensed there was a story there but he continued without going into it.
“The feedback loop, though—that’s just paying attention, being there with you. Every woman is different. I can’t learn Lissie from anyone except Lissie.”
He’d learned me good. As intense as our first afternoon together had been, each subsequent encounter intensified. Tonight I’d been so dazed and spent when he’d risen from his knees and slid onto the bed with me that I had only vague memories of what position we’d fucked in. He hadn’t even tried to make me come again. He’d taken his own pleasure before the aftershocks of my last orgasm had faded completely.
Meanwhile, I hadn’t gone down on him since my aborted attempt that first day. Whenever I moved in that direction, feeling it was only fair, he stopped me. Had I been so bad?
I traced a hand across his stomach, watching as his eyes shut and a dreamy smile washed onto his face. He wasn’t ticklish anywhere, never stopped me from any touch once the sex was over. He loved being touched. Loved it.
Even now, his cock was half-hard, rising up as the result of my meandering caresses. More purposefully, I ran my hand down his side, continuing down his leg as far as I could reach, then moving back up his inner thigh until my hand cupped his balls.
His dick hardened before my eyes, the head bursting out of its foreskin. I ran a finger up the length and then circled it around the head.
His hand grabbed my wrist. I looked up at him.
“Careful.” He let go of my wrist and pushed my hair back out of my eyes, smiling at me reassuringly. “The head is very sensitive. It doesn’t get as much incidental contact as a guy who’s circumcised.”
I pulled my hand away, chagrined. “Is that why you won’t let me give you a blowjob?”
He shook his head, his expression clouding.
“Then why?”
“Want me to show you a trick?” he asked, not answering my question.
I nodded warily, and he guided my hand back to his dick.
“Remember when you were having fun popping the head in and out?”
I nodded again, with a smile this time. I remembered the funny bald-headed animal coming out of its burrow.
“If you do that now, you’ll get a different response.”
I tilted my head at him and he nodded encouragement.
“Gentle,” he reminded me.
The head was already out so I had to start by putting the animal back in its burrow. I pulled up on the foreskin, watching it swallow the head until only the very tip remained, then I pushed it back down, smiling to see the head pop free.
It still seemed funny to me, but as I repeated the motion, Nate sighed. I glanced up at his face. His eyes were closed, the dreamy smile back.
I shifted my hand so that it covered more of his cock. Keeping my grip light, I continued rolling his foreskin up and back, enjoying the soft noises Nate made now and then. When his hips thrust up to meet my hand, I tightened my grip and moved faster. Nate groaned loudly and the sound went through me like electricity and I knew.
I swung myself between his legs, grabbing his cock in both hands, positioning my mouth over him.
“Lissie,” he objected.
“I want to.”
He thrust his hips up towards my mouth and I took him inside me and I knew that I’d never done this before, had no idea what I was doing, and that it was OK. He was with me. There was a difference between the jerk he made when my teeth accidentally grazed the head of his cock and the jerk he made when I swirled my tongue around it, a difference between the sound he made when something I did was merely pleasant and the sound he made when something I did sent pleasure pulsing through him.
His thighs tensed around me, his balls drew up to meet my hand. There was an increase in hardness beneath my tongue, a rush of blood coursing upwards, a pulsing in his veins. I felt his orgasm before he did, felt it run from root to tip, felt the explosion in my mouth precede the one in his body.
I didn’t want to take his cock out of my mouth, but when his body jerked in the way that signified pain not pleasure, I relinquished it, resting my head on his thigh. He reached down and pulled me up to him. He kissed me deeply, like he wanted to drown in me.
“Best birthday present ever.”
Chapter 12
The first thing I did when I walked into my parent’s backyard was check for Alex. I didn’t expect him, not after the condom incident, but I was relieved nonetheless when I didn’t spot him. Instead I saw Lyla heading straight for my legs. I braced myself and the salad I was carrying for impact just before she crashed into me.
“What did you bring, Aunt Melissa? Can I carry it?”
“It’s a salad.” I got a scowl-face in response. “Do you still want to carry it?” When she nodded I handed it to her, cautiously making sure she had it in both hands before I let go. “Bring it to Grandma.”
Lyla dashed off, making me wince. Oh well, it was just a green salad. No one wanted to eat lettuce at a Memorial Day barbecue anyway, not when my mother would have homemade baked beans and macaroni and cheese and Samuel would be grilling up bratwurst and burgers all afternoon.
John was the one manning the grill at the moment. I waved to him and crossed the yard to the picnic table parked in the shade where Morgan sat facing outward with Tyler between her legs. I kissed Morgan and Tyler and plunked down next to them. Morgan had a beer at her elbow. Tyler was playing with trucks in the dirt at her feet.
“Heads up,” Morgan said. “Mom invited Alex again.”
I took a second look around.
“No, he’s not here yet, but she invited him. I asked her.”
“I don’t think he’ll come. He’s angry with me.”
“For what?”
“He thinks he owns me.”
“Mom said you had a date.”
“You know I’m doing the online dating thing.” That was almost a lie. My profile had only been online for a few days before I deleted it, and I’d never met anyone from CoupleMe in person.
“Luckily for you, you told her at church, which, thanks by the way. Now I get to hear that Melissa can go to church, so why can’t I?”
“You do go to church.”
Morgan and John went to a kid-friendly, non-denominational church in their neighborhood.
“Doesn’t count,” Morgan said. She picked up a bowl of pretzels and offered it to me before diving into it herself.
“Do you like your church?”
“I do. We do. Raising a daughter, well, there were things the Catholic church was going to say to her that we didn’t agree with. Not that anyone wants to think about their baby growing up and having sex, but when she does—which she will—I don’t want her to think there’s something wrong with her. We all do it. I don’t know anyone who got married a virgin.”
I shook my head, not able to call to mind a single friend who’d lived up to the church’s expectations.
“And I’d rather she used protection,” Morgan continued. “When I think about how little I knew about safe sex, it’s a miracle I didn’t end up on one of those fifteen and pregnant shows.”
“Were you fifteen?” Not my little sister. “I was seventeen so—”
“So we ditched our v-cards about the same time.” Morgan laughed. “Yeah, we never talked about those kinds of things, did we?”
“No.”
“Maybe Lyla will be able to talk about it.” She spotted Lyla running full speed across the lawn towards us, her dark hair streaming behind her. “But not quite yet.”
Lyla jumped into my lap, grabbing for the bowl of pretzels her mother was still holding.
“Maybe I should check your church out. Mass is so familiar I almost don’t hear it. I think I daydreamed through the whole thing.”
“Ours is very spiritual, sort of New Agey—loving, inclusive. You’ll like it.”
“I’ll come. Not sure when, though. Next weekend I’m going to New Hampshire on a climbing trip and then the next couple of weekends after that I have to work on lights with Deb, and then it’ll be Tech Sunday ...” I ticked through Sundays in my mind.
Morgan laughed. “You did get a life, didn’t you? I hope you can still fit us in there somewhere.”
“I’m here today, aren’t I?”
Truth was, I was a bit aggravated about being there today. Derek and some of his bouldering buddies were away for the long Memorial Day weekend. I hadn’t been invited on that trip. Nate was at his own family’s barbecue. I hadn’t been invited there either. Nor had I invited him here because how would I explain him if he came, which he wouldn’t. When Nate and I were together, we were intensely intimate, but when we were apart, we were apart. Our lives didn’t spill over into each other’s.
“There’s Donna.” Morgan waved at Donna as she came around the corner of the house holding a tray.
“How’re rehearsals going?” I asked Donna when she’d dropped off the tray and fetched herself a beer.
“Great. That suggestion Nate made really helped. I’m having a lot of fun with it now.”
“Nate, the guy on your phone?” Morgan asked.
“Nate, her boy toy.”
“Donna!”
“Oh, was that a secret?”
I frowned at Donna. There was no chance Morgan wasn’t going to pick that up and run with it. She was looking at me expectantly.
“He’s just a guy.”
“I guessed that much.”
“It’s nothing serious.” I looked at Donna. “You were right about that.”