“Late into the night we heard a rumbling outside the tent,” said Katie. “We were all scared, and no one wanted to go outside. We kept really quiet, and turned off all of our flashlights hoping whatever it was outside would go away, but it kept coming closer. When our counselor finally went out of her tent, she let out the loudest scream I’ve ever heard to this day. It was a bear. A hulking grizzly bear. We saw its shadow from her lantern on our tents. It was like something out of a cartoon. We were so terrified, and the other girls and I grabbed each other as hard as we could. Our scout leader’s scream scared the bear away and he never came back, but none of us could go to sleep after that.'
Michele told them about the time she and her college boyfriend had gone canoeing at Yosemite. They had come upon a pack of wolves heading towards the bank of the river to get water, and slowed their boat down so they could watch. The wolves were majestic, she said. Like pets but with almost human facial expressions. All of a sudden, while they were sitting in the boat, a rabbit came towards the water to get a drink and the wolves came to life. Almost telepathically, the wolves all jumped at once in a group to surround the rabbit while the largest female grabbed the animal with her majestic jaws.
“It was so amazing, so incredibly arousing,” said Michele, “that I grabbed my boyfriend right there in the canoe and told him to take me right there. I couldn’t even wait until we were back on land. I think deep inside, I somehow wanted those wolves to be near while we were doing it. He fucked me so hard that afternoon that our boat almost sank. I still remember how the wood of the canoe felt on my back as he was going down on me, the oars bouncing around inside the boat, echoing with his grunts and my screams. We made so many waves in the water that afternoon. Sending the heat from our bodies literally splashing onto the shore.”
Moans came from each of the other friends. It had been too long since any of them were so turned on, and here they were in a cabin full of only women.
The wind outside the cabin began to blow harder. The sun had set and they were almost finished with their first bottle of whiskey. Rachel knew that the best time to climb was early, before the sun hit its highpoint in the sky, so she said goodnight and headed to her own room to go to sleep. The other girls kept talking for a while, but one by one they headed off to their own rooms to get some rest before the big day.
Once she got to her tiny room and took off her clothes, Rachel couldn’t stop thinking about their conversation. The wool of the thick blankets rubbed against her skin, and she laid spread eagle, eyes closed, taking in the pure mountain air that came in through her window. She wished she could bottle it, take it home with her or inject it directly into her veins.
When she opened her eyes, she saw her climbing gear laying in a haphazard pile on the floor. Harness, ropes, more ropes, chalk, clamps, helmet, shoes, elastic cases, clothes made especially for sticking close to your skin.
And then there were the picks. When she first started as a climber, she used belay ropes and spiked shoes to get her way up the rocks. It was slower and safer than the pick method, which required intense arm strength and a trust of the rock beneath you, a knowledge of the nature you were engaging with. But she was a professional now. She could handle higher climbs, denser rocks, heavier equipment. Her newest purchase had been the 6 inch pick, used to get a grip deep in the rock and pull yourself up. It was the thickest pick she had ever used. The new rubber design of the handle had a textured grip and finger grooves so you could hold it even if your hands were sweaty.
As she ran her fingertips over the thick end of the pick, Rachel got an idea. She carried the instrument over to her bed and laid down, spreading her knees wide open. Slowly she started to touch herself, first running her hands down the hard muscles of her stomach, years of core-strengthening had given her the tough but nubile body of a warrior.
Her nipples were getting harder and contrasting with the supple skin of her breasts beneath them. They were large for an athletic woman, but they never got in her way. She loved the way they felt through the thin fabric of sports bras, brushing against the hard rocks that she climbed. And how they felt now, open and puckering beneath the night breeze.
She traced her abdominal muscles and reached down to her thighs, stroking slowly until she got to her pussy. It was hot, and already so much wetter than she could remembered being in a long time. She found her engorged clit and began to rub ferociously, up and down, slinging her own juices onto the rough blanket of her cot.
With her eyes closed, she began to imagine a tongue licking her pussy. Not the tongue of any man she knew, or any she had dreamt about. It was more primal than that, a more desperate and innate kind of licking. Lapping up her juices like a thirsty animal, not able to stop, never getting enough.
She felt the heat start rising in her feet and her legs began to twitch. She was close to coming, but she wanted to try something. She reached over to the pick and carefully turned it over. She took the grip end and inched it up inside her, pulling back and forth, feeling the ridges and the finger grips and the wide hard handle beneath it and “oooooOOOHH!” she started moaning before she could even stop herself.
She reached for a pillow and placed it over her face. She fucked herself over and over and over, opening her tight pussy up to this new toy, this new permutation of a man’s virtuous member. She was getting greedy. She felt like she could take even more, that she needed more, that she could take a whole mountain inside her right then and all of a sudden, it was all over.
Her muscles tensed and spasmed and her whole body shuddered while the handle was still deep inside her. Her fingers were drenched in her own cum, and she pulled the handle out slowly and returned it to its place among her supplies. As she caught her breath and her heartbeat was returning to a normal pace, she heard noises coming from the other rooms in the cabin. Maybe it was the wind?
But then, she noticed muffled sounds and repetitive banging motions that were all too familiar. It seemed that her friends had gotten the same idea. She listened to each of her friends make unique sounds: Emily’s was soft, like a crying puppy; Katie was grunting, muffled but intense, saying “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck”; Michele’s was like a song. Rachel could imagine Michele’s mouth in a perfect ‘O’ shape, sucking and blowing air as she thrust her own toy inside her.
The noises got louder and louder, reaching a crescendo all at once, like a magnificent aria. She could almost feel the very foundation of the house shaking from all that noise, all those orgasms. After that, all Rachel heard was the slow mountain breeze coming through the curtains.
She might have felt weird, if they were anyone else or if they had been in any other vacation spot, listening to the sounds of her friends’ pleasuring themselves. But here, it felt like a cozy blanket, covering her with the thought of warmth emanating from the earth’s true center.
That night there the cabin was full of so much estrogen, so many female smells and pheromones and needs, all pulsing through the air and seeping into the birch wood of the floors and the walls. The smell of four single ladies, all in perpetual heat, wafted through the open screen of the windows and into the forest beyond.
That smell attached to the molecules in the air and disseminated into the wide swaths of land around the reserve. Anymore, it was a scent unfamiliar to humans. Thousands of years of evolution and urbanization and chemicals and the sterilized scents of stainless steel buildings had made it impossible for humans to recognize anymore the debilitating and vicious scent of their own desires. But that same native smell was still intoxicating to animals, especially the most human-like animals.
Before she finally fell asleep, Rachel made a solemn vow to herself that once she and her friends left that cabin in the woods, when their vacation was over and they had accomplished what they had set out to, she would find someone to do to her what she had only just begun to do to herself. To take her laying down on a bed of peat moss, standing up against a balboa tree, or bending her over a glacial boulder. To show her all the ways that nature could be the ultimate aphrodisiac. She would find her wild man once and for all. But for tonight, she only dreamt.
The next morning, Rachel and her friends were going to be scaling the largest cliff in the whole reserve: the Agro Craig. “Go big or go home,” they all agreed. And none of them were too keen on going home without some epic stories to tell. Starting with the toughest climb would only make them stronger, prouder, tougher. The height and inclination of this cliff was the hardest any of them had ever tried, but the pent up energy from last night’s conversation and the mist of the early morning were revving their engines like they had never been tired in their lives. The girls felt like they might never be tired again.
As per usual, Rachel was the first to ascend the rock. She made sure to secure her helmet first, and then wrapped the ropes and harness tightly around her body. She secured the carabiners into place near her hips, and her still sensitive groin. The hexes, clams, and the ice pick with the large wooden handle still slick from last night's
