Maddy Was Different Pt. 01

Maddy lay on me and said, "Yes, that is funny, sort of. Especially you rubbing lotion into her tits without knowing what was going on. I'm not much of a ball buster compared to her, am I?"

Her knee slowly made its way up to my crotch. I looked over her back at the trail. Sure enough, there was a pair of binoculars looking at us. I said, "Some guy over there with binoculars is getting a great view of your fine ass."

"You are not funning me?" She didn't turn or move. "I'm not. Why don't you jam that knee where you were headed, and I'll pretend my balls are busted. You don't need to make this a live demonstration."

Her voice was sinister. "Don't you have to have some pain in order to put on a good show?" The knee moved upward threateningly.

"Maybe I shouldn't have brought you here and told you that story. Gives a girl bad ideas."

"It certainly does!" The knee came up and pulled the thrust at the last second as her elbow caught the side of my jaw. My roll into a fetal, moaning and writhing ball was very realistic. She stood and kicked me in the ribs, and ran into the bushes at the edge of the bench. I rolled over a couple of times, crawled to my feet and limped after her. She was up against an oak tree, laughing hard. I put a full body press on her and said, "Damn, Maddy, that was pretty realistic!"

She pulled my ears and licked me with a pink tongue that reminded me what a fine woman I had in my arms. I put my head in her shoulder and moaned.

"You big crybaby, am I going to have to lower you off this?"

"I guess if I get you really mad, I should have my metal cup on? Have you taken the self-defense course?"

"You better believe it. You know what they say? If a guy comes after you, give him everything you've got right away. That includes drunk boyfriends."

I was still laughing with her as we clambered down. "What if the binocular guy sees your sexy behind in that dress tonight in the dining room?"

She punched me and said, "If he says anything, I will give you a demonstration of how to slap a guy really hard in public."

Whew, there was no give with this woman. Mind your p's and q's, guys.

We were a mess of dust and oak leaves and ready for the showers, which were single sex. She said, "I'll go first while you watch all this, and then I'll get dressed while you shower."

I got ice and made two margaritas, which were on the table when she got back. She just had on a tee and boy shorts and looked hot. She caught me staring and said, "No, you are not taking me to dinner dressed in this." I took a hefty sip of drink, eyes giving her a hard look, and left.

The early October shadows were long when I returned. The heat from the tall rock walls was keeping the valley floor warm. Our dinner reservation was in half an hour and I needed to get dressed. I knocked and she said ok to come in. She was finishing putting her hair up in front of the tiny mirror. I was shocked by the transformation from climbing partner to the most beautiful date I had ever been with. I came up behind her, eyes wide. She smiled and said, "No kissing, no groping, you are on your best behavior. At least until after dinner."

The midnight blue dress, which ended generously above her knees, had small figured flower designs in it that set off her complexion. It was sleeveless and the broad shoulders looked perfect.

"What inspired you to bring it? You knew that a climbing bum like me didn't deserve you fixed up like this."

She smiled thinly. "I will have words with you about that. Later. Now change, or we'll be late."

We were out the door in ten minutes. I felt totally inadequate in a wrinkly plaid shirt and pressed khakis.

On the way over, she said, "We have to impress the waitress into giving us some wine, like we did at the place on the beach. You are to hold my hand at the table and look lovestruck. I will do the rest."

She pinched my ear and pulled my wet hair. I was beginning to understand what pussy whipped meant.

As we parked and got out of the car, she tossed the sneakers and put on low heels.

"If you will wait a few minutes, I'll scrounge in the bar for a guy to take you to dinner in style. That's not me."

We were nearing the door of the Mountain Room and she hissed, "Not one more word from you! Not one. Take my arm."

I put my head up and shoulders back and did my best to look like I deserved this woman.

The hostess was very nice and gave us an excellent table. Admiring looks were obvious as we proceeded across the room. Some of the guys were giving me a glance, trying to see what sod was lucky enough to date this vision. After we were seated, Maddy hissed again, "Do your lovestruck thing."

It worked. In nothing flat, two glasses of crisp Sauvignon Blanc were in our hands, toasting each other. She said in a low voice, "Here's to my new climbing partner. Many happy returns." She giggled at the double meaning.

I stared at her. "I knew you were strong and athletic. I knew you were devilishly smart. I didn't know you had a streak of fiendish double dealing in you, designed to take down unwary males."

The eyes narrowed. "When did you start climbing? What is the hardest climb you have done? When are you taking me climbing again after this weekend? When are we getting engaged?"

I almost slipped under the table. Her face was totally nonchalant. The only thing to do was play her straight man. The waitress appeared again and we ordered. She had the lamb chops and I ordered the salmon. Both of us asked for a green salad.

"I went on my first climb in New Jersey with the Boy Scouts when I was thirteen. Two summers ago, I did the Grand Teton with two other guys and it started snowing just as we got to the summit. There is a free rappel from the top. I advise you against rappelling in fresh snow. Damn near got us killed. We will climb together again as soon as some issues between us are settled. I will propose marriage to you as soon as those same issues are settled. We are not discussing this more until later."

I smiled at her and did my own nonchalant expression.

She took a sip of wine and kept the glass at her lips, giving me an intent stare right over the rim.

"What were your SAT scores?"

"1200 and 1400. What were yours?"

"1200 and 1300."

"That's hard to believe. You are known to be smarter than I am."

"You are BSing me. When's the last time you heard a guy say he was dating a girl smarter than he was?"

I broke a smile and kissed her hand. The two Irish personalities were tilting at each other and enjoying it. She looked so damn beautiful, I was having a tough time staying in the game.

The entrees were served and we dug in, hungry from the full day. She chewed on a bite of her meat and asked, "Close your eyes and imagine yourself on your next hard climb. Am I in that picture?"

"Maddy! You are torturing me! Your brain goes too fast."

She said, too loudly, "Fast my ass, you were all over that dome this morning. I couldn't even keep track of your moves you were so fast."

Belatedly, she noticed the couple next to us had heard that and jerked with her epithet. She turned and said, "Sorry, my mother used to soap my mouth when I used gutter talk."

The other woman leaned over and whispered, "You are really in love, aren't you? We couldn't help hearing the conversation."

Maddy said, "He's one of the best climbers in the country. Took me on a dome in Tuolumne this morning. I didn't fall on him and he told me it was the best first performance he ever saw."

"OMG," she said, "you could climb with that brute and look like this for dinner?"

I chimed in, "I don't understand it either. Must be part of her stealth attack."

The guy laughed loudly and others looked at us. The woman said, "I'm Helen and that loudmouth is my fiance, Martin. He asked me to marry him last week and I said yes. He is NOT a rock climber."

Maddy moved to her knees and whispered in Helen's ear. She looked wide eyed at Maddy and said, "No!" Maddy got back to her chair, saying, "Try it, you'll like it. See the people at the climbing shop."

We finished our meal with quiet talk about insignificant things like classes, and how the football team was going to do. She said, "We can get a cone on the way back." I paid and we walked out. She got another round of attention, which put me down all over again. I asked myself, if you are one of the best climbers in the country, why is she getting all the attention?

Outside, she kissed me lightly on the lips and said, "That was nice. Thank you for dinner." Her hip nudged me.

"We have to talk."

"That's what we said the other night and all we did was fuck."

I said, "Well, I can't make any guarantees..."

Her arm was around my neck and her tongue between my lips. Her husky voice said, "You are my lover, and I think you said before that first things come first. Right?"

My hands were on the fine ass, pressing us together. Maybe ice cream was not needed.

People were going by on the path. A quiet voice said, "Hot."

Maddy let up and thanked the quiet voice. I was hauled along to the car in a daze.

She asked for the keys and I sank down in the passenger seat.

"I think you won about three rounds ago."

We stopped in front of the ice cream shop. "You can have berry sorbet, or rocky road. I am buying."

"Sorbet."

She returned with two sorbets and we sat there trying to keep it from our clothes. I fished around in the back for a towel and wrapped it around her. "No drips on that incredible dress."

Maddy looked at me. "She called you a brute. I suppose that was a compliment?"

"Not usually, but I'm happy to take it that way. What did you whisper to her?"

"I said rock climbing would do miracles for her sex life."

I almost choked. She smiled. "Well, it certainly has tuned up mine."

"And you sent her to those lechs in the climbing shop. The poor fiance will be an ex."

"He didn't look like much, did he?"

I closed my eyes and kept licking. "When you are done, I have something else for you to lick."

I groaned. She added, "Now that I have my own brute, there are new possibilities."

"What if I told you I see Helen on the rock with us, a party of three."

"Hmm. What is that called on the Internet? Polyamory?"

"Do you like girls too?"

"Never tried it. Might be interesting. Have you done two women at once?"

"Never tried it. Might be interesting."

"I'm driving back. We are going to get naked and get into that too cold, too hard bed. We can talk while I warm up."

All the talk was a joke. We weren't in the bed a minute, hugging tightly, before we were asleep.

It was still dark when she said, "Pee." We actually went to the communal toilet instead of letting go outside. We just had tee's on, and you could see interesting parts if you wanted. No one was around, so it didn't matter.

Back in bed, she whispered, "No talk and no sex, what's going on?"

I kissed her, wrapped a boob with my hand, and went quickly back to sleep.

This time, there was light around the edges of the tent flaps. I was hard.

I lay there wishing we were out in the meadow, cuddled in a bag, watching the sun first touch the tops of North Dome and El Capitan. Her breathing changed as she awoke.

"What are you thinking about? I can feel your brainwaves... And your hard thing."

I kissed the back of her neck and tweaked the stiff nipple under my fingers. She pushed her butt against me.

"I shouldn't be admitting this, but I was thinking how six years on the rock have done nothing to prepare me for your brand of love."

"Hmmm. What a nice thing to say. My brand is different, is it?"

"There is so much talent and energy bottled up in you that a guy, even a brute, is always in trouble."

"Always in trouble. I like that. I like the troubled you. Actually, I am in love with the troubled you."

I hugged her tighter. She added, "Is the brute going to take me on the rock like he promised?"

She realized what she had said and laughed. "Have you had sex on the rock?"

She was pulling me over her and pointing my cock. I shoved inside and said, "Collins and I had sex, but not on the rock. She's got a nice body and I was confused enough not to notice that she was bluffing about her climbing skills until we were on a tough route."

Maddy was not confused, she was humping up and whispering, "Forget Collins, fuck me."

For the next minutes, the troubled guy and the talented cunt had great sex. I could feel all the tension from last night flowing out as she gave me dirty lines to fuck her with. "What's this troubled shit? That rod of yours is killing me. More!"

At the last moment, I twisted us over and fountained her with a grunt and a "Take that!"

She came and bounced on me and fell down into a hot kiss.

Her voice, soft at my ear, "God, what you do to me. All my nerves are shooting off, my juices are running out, and you are pounding, pounding into me until there is this explosion and I am just lost in a blaze of white light."

"All that?"

"All that. Come on, I am taking you into the women's shower and washing this goo off. Then we can go climb."

We came out of the stall to find a naked woman ready to use it. She looked at us and looked at my cock. "Honey, take that out of here before I jump him!"

Maddy elbowed me outside. "You are not troubled, you are trouble."

It is actually not that easy to find decent rock close to the Valley floor. Most good climbs have a talus hike to the first pitch. I said, "Let's start with the Glacier Point apron behind here. There is time before we have to check out."

She led, bouncing with every step.

I sipped my latte and said, "A blaze of white light, eh?"

"You stop that, or you'll never hear an intimate word from me again."

"I suppose I have to tell you how the pressure builds and builds and then the woman squeezes you and it's all coming in this incredible rush like nothing else you've ever felt, and unless you are completely into her, it is going everywhere?"

"Are we going to write this up? 'Best orgasm stories of the year?' "

The trees opened and there was the apron. Cold white granite. Cracks and slabs and smoothness all over. Thousands of feet of rock above. Small debris piles at the bottom.

We looked at it, my arm around her. "Scary," she said. The nearby waterfalls were diminished to rumbles in low water.

I told her, "Lots of routes, some of them really tough. People don't climb over here much because of rockfall. The helmets are in the other pack, so we either have to get them or come back another time. A guy was killed here a few years ago."

She pressed back against me. "Can we climb someplace in the sun? This is damn chilly."

We checked out and I drove to the Ahwahnee parking lot and sneaked a place in the back. My Nissan looked pretty sad next to the Bimmers and Lexus.

In ten minutes, we were at the base of the first pitch on the Royal Arches. The sun was thirty feet up. She tied in and I said, "You can do this chimney from the inside, or you can stem it." My favorite determined climber gave me a look and went up fast and open. About halfway, she said, "I haven't been this split in ages. Everything hurts."

I said, "Guys would pay money to see you like that."

A curse and she was the rest of the way in seconds. "I'm going to get you for that. Perv."

I stemmed it too, not very elegantly. "There are three more pitches to the pendulum. Years ago, there was a log across that slick place. You shimmied up it with a crummy standing belay in the alcove. One of my friends got to do it before it rotted out and the rangers got rid of it. The climb goes all the way up and around. Too long for today, so you get to decide where you want to turn around. The rappelling is nice."

She loved the sun, she loved the rock, and we went to the traverse before quitting. There was a big knob there where we caught some water and a snack.

She said, "Tell me what is it a girl needs besides the sun, the rock, and a guy like you?"

"If I answer that, you'll call me an asshole again."

That got me a fist in the belly and a wet kiss. "Are you going to take me somewhere important like Torres del Paine, or Chamonix, or the Dolomites?"

"You've been looking at climbing magazines when you were supposed to be memorizing organic chem."

She said she didn't need a rappel belay and went down at a good speed watching her feet. I was thinking I could take her almost anywhere climbing and not worry.

We got sandwiches and sodas and headed back. The oaks and aspens in the Merced canyon were turning and splotches of color were along the road and up gullies. Between mouthfuls, she said, "Nice, huh? Hard to leave."

"Do you admire the guys who get wrapped up in climbing and opt out of the grind?"

"I'm as attracted to it as I have ever been. But if I climbed hard every day, aiming for world class, then it would be work. A different kind of work, but still work. You and I are already working. So it's a question of values and outcomes, isn't it?"

I ran my fingers in her hair and said, "Yeah, values and outcomes. I need to remember that."

She said she would drive after awhile and curled up for a nap.

I sipped the last of my soda and thought about the body next to me. This female and I were newly occupying a common space. A space that had values and outcomes. Complicated ones. No wonder hot headed kids just leaped in and went for it. My thoughts wandered, like the winding road down through the foothills.

cont'd in Part 2 - A Journey to the Redwoods