Page 19 of Free Fall #1

I end up having to let even more climbers pass through as I work on the move repeatedly.

I do it thirty times, and I’m wrung-out exhausted by the time I finish.

Which I realize, as I start climbing the pitches to the top of the route and make my way over the cliff’s lip to the flat, rocky top, is great because I’m way too tired to worry or obsess anymore about Sejin.

All I can think about is how nice it is to stand up and see the view I’ve earned, and how good dinner is going to taste in the van.

I even picked up a bag of pork pot stickers from Trader Joe’s earlier in the week, and they’ll taste fantastic fried over an open flame at the campground.

What had I been thinking inviting Sejin over more than once anyway? I’m not here for hookups. I’m here for this . For training. I need to keep my head screwed on straight and not lose it for the best piece of ass I’ve ever had in my whole fucking life.

I mean truly the best.

Goddamn . So good.

I stretch my arms high and gaze up at the clouds in the blue sky.

So, so, so fucking good.

Is his skin covered in E, and I get high whenever I lick it? Because, Jesus Fucking Christ, he’s addictive. And I really do want to see him smile for me like that picture on the app. Earning a smile that brilliant would be almost as good as sending a 5.15d route for the first time. Maybe better.

Why was his text so—

“Dan.” A familiar voice calls my name, and I turn to see Lowell Moody approaching wearing a harness and an unbuckled helmet.

I’m glad I hadn’t seen him at the bottom, or I would have been roped into climbing with him, and then he’d have asked questions.

I’m really hoping to avoid a conversation with him about my plans for the season.

Other hikers and climbers lingering around the top of the cliff all move away as Lowell approaches, and I don’t blame them.

Lowell is a rough-looking guy. Wiry, skinny, with a messy beard, and weird, golden eyes that seem to glitter in the sun.

He’s otherworldly and intimidating. I don’t know how he didn’t scare the victims he rescued as a member of YOSAR.

Yosemite Search and Rescue had been his full-time job until his recent retirement after his divorce.

I remember how startled I was when he’d arrived to rescue me after I’d gotten stuck up on a ledge with a badly twisted ankle.

He’d descended from the top looking like some kind of alien or angel or superhero.

I’d thought I was hallucinating. He’s sharp as a knife too, both physically and mentally, not classically handsome in any way, but powerful.

I don’t know how else to explain it. He’s just a force of nature and it shows all over his features.

I squint against the sun, taking him in.

His wife leaving did a number on his head.

So did his last rescue attempt that’d turned into a heart-wrenching body retrieval.

The details are gruesome, and even I felt gutted reading about it, and that sort of thing doesn’t usually affect me much.

He retired from YOSAR shortly after, unable to keep it together on the job or at home.

Now he climbs full-time, as far as I can tell.

At least he has a house, though, unlike me and Rye, so he still has that semblance of normalcy.

He grips my hand as I say, “Lowell, hey.”

“Enjoying this early-season cool day?”

He releases my hand as I nod, and then his gold eyes shimmer as he stares out into the distance, taking in the view.

I work on collecting my gear, which is more than usual since I’ve been rope soloing.

I hook carabiners to loops of rope and square away everything I can in my backpack for the hike out.

Lowell is next to me doing the same quietly—which I like—and quickly—which I can respect.

He moves faster than I do, a sense of urgency in every twitch of his muscles.

I wonder if it’s something innate in him, or something he learned in YOSAR where time is of the essence in most rescues.

We head off together, almost as if we had done the climb as a pair, and I wish Peggy Jo were here so I could say, “Look! I do have a friend. Would someone who isn’t a friend do this ?

” Where “this” is hiking down the back side of a mountain with me, and now that I’ve thought that through, it seems like a low bar.

But I can’t exactly have high bars for friendship, now can I?

Peggy Jo would be the only one to pass. Well, and probably Rye.

“Where are you staying nowadays?” Lowell asks as we near the end of the steeper part of the path.

“In the van. Same as always. Got a camping slot, though.” Which I don’t know how long I’ll be able to afford.

I prepaid for the season just to make sure I couldn’t get kicked out, but after that…

I’ll have to find some church parking lot to crash out in or something.

Churches don’t usually call the cops on you so long as you’re out of their lot by Sunday when the crowds show up.

Or maybe I’ll beg a bit of Peggy Jo’s driveway while I decide what to do after I send Heart Route.

“Nice.”

“Eh, it’s all right.”

“Access to showers must be good.”

“Typically I hit this little waterfall near the camp site. The mold and toilet stink get to me in the shower block.”

“Mm, nothing like the fresh, crisp shock of a cold waterfall,” Lowell agrees.

As we continue down the trail, letting casual hikers pass on their way up, I remember having suggested to Sejin that we shower in the waterfall. He’d seemed into the idea at the time, but maybe it’d been too weird for him after all. Had that been the breaking point? The bridge too far?

“If you were seeing someone—” I start.

“Mmph,” Lowell mutters.

“No, not seeing someone, but fucking them—”

A passing man gives me a startled glance and puts his arm around his wife as if my curse might damage her in some way.

It’s just the F word. Live a little, dude.

“Uh-huh.” Lowell glances at me, waiting for the rest of my question.

“If you were fucking a guy—uh, not that you fuck guys—”

Lowell shrugs. “I don’t count it out. Just because I haven’t, doesn’t mean I won’t.”

Oh, huh. Interesting.

For a second, I entertain the idea of fucking Lowell, but as soon as I imagine myself naked with all of his alien powerfulness, I lose interest. I guess I want someone I feel more equal to, even though, until Sejin, I hadn’t ever given much thought to what or who I want to be with, per se.

More just acted on instinct and impulse.

Still, I can’t imagine ever fucking Lowell.

It’d be like fucking a demi-god in the midst of his midlife crisis. Too intense and too much .

And what do I mean by until Sejin ?

Like how has Sejin changed anything? We’ve fucked a few times, and that’s all.

“Spit it out,” Lowell says. “You’re being weird. Not like yourself. What’s gotten under your skin?”

“A guy.”

“Obviously.”

“I fucked him a few times, and it was outstanding.” I get animated, something I rarely do, and it captures Lowell’s attention.

He almost trips over a rock, lending a hint of humanity to him for a moment.

“It was like boom, pow, and wow. Like, holy shit , did I just shoot my entire soul out my dick or what? Like is this guy made of actual drugs because I feel high and like I could fuck him a million more times before I get enough.”

“Huh.”

I wait for more, but that’s apparently the extent of it. “I’m not kidding.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“I really want to fuck him again.”

“Then do it.”

“He…” I hesitate. Sejin hasn’t rejected me. He hasn’t declined to meet on Friday, but my gut says something is off and that he’ll cancel before the day is out if I don’t do something. I just don’t know what that something is, or if I should do it. None of this is in my plans.

“I’m supposed to be training,” I say instead. “He’s a distraction.”

“Training for what?”

I frown and consider. If I tell Lowell the truth, he’s going to have opinions, and he’ll probably tell them to me, because what I’m planning to do is, by all measures, dangerous, and he’s a former search and rescue guy.

But I hate lying. I lied my entire childhood just to get by, not that I was very good at it.

I was caught out in those lies often and, at some point, I decided not to lie anymore. So I don’t.

“Heart Route,” I hedge, leaving out the part about free soloing it. It’s a tough enough free climb, and I’ll let Lowell think what he wants.

“You’re young still,” Lowell says, as if he’s eighty instead of barely forty-five. “Let me tell you now, Heart Route will still be waiting for you later, even if it takes two, three years to send it. But the best fuck of your life? He won’t wait.”

I’m silent, hoping he’ll say more, but that’s it.

I don’t know if he’s having regrets about the way his marriage ended, or if he’s just speaking the truth, but I know with certainty he’s right.

I want to achieve my goal of free soloing Heart Route, but I also know there’s no one else planning on doing it.

No one else is as foolhardy as I am. I don’t have to rush it. I’ve got time.

I mean, I still plan to hit my goals, but I can hit Sejin’s hole too, and it’ll be fine.

“What if he’s seeming less interested all of a sudden?”

Lowell glances at me. “Any particular reason why?”

“Have you met me?”

He huffs a laugh. “Hm, well, how bad do you want this?”

“Define ‘this.” Because I want his ass pretty bad.”

“By ‘this,’ I mean whatever it takes to get that ass, even if it means something involving feelings.”

“Feelings? Ugh. Fuck, no. I don’t want feelings.”

Lowell chuckles. “Well, maybe that’s why he’s less interested. Maybe he senses that.”

“Do you think it requires feelings to fuck?”

“For some people, yeah. They want a little more than just physical pleasure out of their encounters.”

“What do you think he wants?”

“I don’t know. Could be friendship. Could be love. Or I could be wrong, and he just got his fill and is ready to move on.”

“Friendship,” I say, thinking back to my conversation with Rye about how living in the moment means enjoying time with friends.

I remember that particularly beautiful smile in Sejin’s profile picture, the one he’s bestowed on the children and Jeanie and his phone, but not yet on me. “I’m not so good at friendship.”

“You’re not so bad at it either. Maybe just ask him what he wants. Communication is good. Even if all he wants is fucking…or nothing at all.”

Right. I agree with that. I’m always very careful to negotiate consent in every sexual encounter and not just assume that what we’d agreed to last time will be okay this time, and all that.

Maybe friendship could be the same. Negotiated.

In exchange for his smile and more sex, I could agree to…

what? What would he want me to agree to?

I guess I should just ask, like Lowell suggests. How much worse can it get? Sejin’s already losing interest. I can feel it, so I have very little at risk here.

When we reach the end of the trail and circle, Lowell chucks his stuff into the back of his Bronco, and he pulls me in for a hug. “Heard a rumor about you, Dan,” he says as he squeezes me. “Tell me it’s not true.”

“What rumor’s that?” I ask, enduring the prolonged contact without flinching, which I consider a real win.

Lowell releases me. “A rumor about your plans for Heart Route.”

I shrug. “A man’s gotta have goals.”

Lowell stares into my eyes. “I suppose I can’t talk you out of it?”

I shake my head.

“Guess I’ll warn my buddies back in YOSAR about an upcoming smear they’re going to have to clear off El Cap’s floor.”

I know he’s trying to scare me, but it’s not like I haven’t extensively considered that possibility. “Hopefully not.”

“I hope not too. Listen, about that good fuck…”

“Uh-huh?”

“Don’t let him get away. Whatever your plans are for the season, nothing is worth missing out on seeing that through. Believe me. Boom, pow, and wow wins over death-defying climbs in measures of both safety and pleasure. If the worst comes—” He grimaces. “How far up is that first crux?”

“The dyno on Heart Route?”

“Yeah.”

“About 1,000 feet.”

“All right, so that’s…hmm.” He winces. “During that long, ten-second fall, at least you’ll have some amazing sexual memories to have no regrets about, instead of thinking ‘if only I’d banged that guy one more time…’”

I huff, but he’s right. Fucking Sejin again is worth whatever it requires. Even if I do have to be friends with him. I don’t want to die thinking about his sweet hole and his nice dick, and how I never got to feel it inside of me. I need to make this work. At least until it gets stale.

Back in my van, I start it up and drive out of the parking lot to head to the campsite. As I wait in line behind a half-dozen other cars to exit onto the main road, I tug out my phone and send a text.

Hey, Doc, hope we’re still on for Friday. Looking forward to it.

For the next twenty-four hours, I wait for a reply.

But Sejin doesn’t answer.