The Bridge
Once we had crossed that bridge there was no going back.
Introduction
In 1974 Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron published a now famous psychological research paper entitled "Some evidence for heightened sexual attraction under conditions of high anxiety." This is sometimes described as the Capilano Suspension Bridge Study or The Love Bridge Study.
The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a foot bridge that crosses the Capilano River in North Vancouver, Canada. It is four hundred and sixty feet long and passes two hundred and thirty feet above the river and sways as the wind blows. Several years after the study was performed I crossed this bridge, and I can vouch for myself that it sways back and forth as you cross and is not an experience for the faint of heart.
Dutton and Aron paid an attractive woman to approach men after they had crossed the Capilano Bridge, and to ask them to write a story based on an image she showed them. This image was deliberately chosen to be non-sexual in nature, and she told them (falsely) that she was investigating the effect of natural beauty on creativity. She was then instructed to give each of the men her telephone number which they could ring if they had any further questions about the study. The woman, who did not know the true reason for what she was doing, was asked to repeat the process with a group of men crossing a more stable (and less anxiety provoking) bridge elsewhere in the area.
The results of the study were illuminating. Men who had crossed the suspension bridge wrote stories with more sexual contact than those who had crossed the "safer" bridge. Furthermore nine of eighteen men who crossed the suspension bridge called the researcher as compared with two out of sixteen men who had crossed the more rigid bridge.
This result had two possible explanations. Either the men choosing to cross the anxiety provoking suspension bridge were more sexually adventurous, or the anxiety of crossing the bridge was making the female researcher appear more attractive to them. When the experiment was repeated with one group of men approached immediately after crossing the swaying suspension bridge and a second group ten minutes after making the same crossing when their anxiety levels had settled only the first group of men were more likely to telephone the researcher.
They had shown that it was the stress associated with crossing the bridge that had made the female researcher more attractive to the men.
Dutton and Aron called this "misattribution of arousal" and suggested that the physical symptoms of stress (dry mouth, rapid, pulse sweating etc) caused by the release of adrenaline when crossing the bridge, had been mistakenly thought to have been caused by the attractive female researcher.
1
Some of you may, by now, be asking what is the relevance of this psychological research to the story I am about to tell. I learnt of this study many years after the events I am about to describe but for obvious reasons it resonates with me and may help (perhaps in part) to explain them.
In 1982 my girlfriend Amanda and I visited my parents who lived in Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. It was during the long summer break, and we had arranged to borrow my parents' car and drive down the Pacific Highway to San Diego and back, taking around three weeks to do it. We planned to be in Vancouver for a week prior to this and 10 days afterwards. Amanda had a Finnish friend from university called Marrika who was to join us for our road trip. She flew into Vancouver a few days after Amanda and I had arrived, and we met her at the airport before bringing her home to my parents' house which was close by in Richmond.
I had been going out with Amanda about nine months, since the beginning of the academic year, and it was a semi-serious relationship. I knew Marrika reasonably well because she was Amanda's best friend, and they lived on the same floor in a university hall of residence. This was to be my last holiday with Amanda before she left the UK for a year to live in Sweden where she would study as part of her Nordic languages course. I was in my last year of a physics course and knew that Marrika was in her final year of an honours course in history.
Even though they came from different backgrounds they might have been sisters. Despite her Scandinavian origins Marrika had dark brown hair, full lips, and hazel eyes, as did Amanda. They were both tall, whilst Marrika had a slightly bigger bum and slightly smaller tits than Amanda. They were both undeniably beautiful but where Amanda was outgoing and extroverted Marrika was quiet and introspective and generally shy around me. I had never known her to go out with a man, and it had crossed my mind that she might be gay.
It hadn't been my idea to invite Marrika along, but Amanda who had suggested it, and to be honest It didn't cross my mind that two might be company and three a crowd. And so it turned out. Marrika was one of those rare individuals who can be there when you want her to be, yet, despite her striking looks, shrink into the background the rest of the time.
By the time we set out on travels I was only too happy to be escaping from my parents' house. They were old fashioned and although they must have known I was sleeping with Amanda, their rule was "not under our roof." We all had separate rooms and mine was next to my parents' room. The result was that we had not had sex for over a week, and I was a very horny twenty two year old the morning we left Canada and entered the States at The Peace Arch Crossing in Blaine, Washington State.
Our route took us south past Seattle and on to Portland, Oregon and past Mount St Helens which had erupted so catastrophically two years earlier. The first day we drove until we reached Salem, Oregon at about six in the evening. We had driven seven hours from the US border with a stop for lunch and after we booked into a motel, showered, and changed we went for a walk and then went to a diner for dinner. By the time we had finished eating it was after nine o'clock, and we went back to our rooms.
Amanda and I had a room situated "back to back" to the one that Marrika occupied, and as I banged Amanda and the headboard of the bed banged, in turn the wall, I remember thinking that Marrika was lying in her bed with her head only feet away on the other side of the wall. She must have been able to hear us, but if she did, when we met for breakfast she gave no sign of it.
This is a story and not a travelogue so I will only briefly describe our travels during those very interesting three weeks. We drove down The Avenue of the Giants in Northern California and looked in awe at the giant redwood trees. We saw San Francisco where we drove down Lombard Street (the windiest street in the world) and visited Fisherman's Wharf and Alcatraz. In Los Angeles we spent a day in Disneyland. We drove the Pacific Highway past Monterey, Carmel, Santa Barbara, and Ventura, and in San Diego we saw the zoo. On the way back we took the time to have hamburgers in Carmel at The Hog's Breath Inn owned, at that time, by Clint Eastwood.
My most lasting memory of that holiday is not of any of the places we visited but something that happened one day on the beach north of San Diego. We had gone down to the beach early one morning and planned to sunbathe until the sun grew too strong. Both of the girls were wearing skimpy bikinis which left little to the imagination. Suddenly with no warning Amanda reached behind her back and unclipped her bikini top and seconds later Marrika did the same, and they then rubbed sun oil over each other. I tried hard not stare at Marrikas' breasts which were small, round but perfectly formed, and very firm. I remember that her nipples were erect and, when in turn I started to harden, I needed to go for a swim to cover my embarrassment and give my erection a chance to abate. Half an hour later when I returned they were both lying face down on their towels.
Ninety minutes later we returned to our motel. I can remember being incredibly horny and no sooner had we entered our room that I asked Amanda to remove her bikini bottom and I fucked her doggy style over the end of the bed. As I slid rapidly in and out I remember fantasising that it was Marrikas' body that was stretched out on the bed in front of me and her that I was filling, and I wondered what she looked and sounded like when she took her orgasm(s).
A little later we had showered and changed when Amanda looked coldly at me and spoke.
"I suppose it should have been obvious you would fancy her."
But before I could reply there was a knock at our door, Amanda opened it, and Marrika entered, and the moment passed.
During that period I also started to learn more about Marrika. I already knew that she was quiet and serious about her studies but as she got to know me she started to open up a little. I started to understand that she didn't voice an opinion until she had thought about what she wanted to say and that it was worth saying it. It was this that made her seem quiet. She was not overcritical of others and was kind and generous. She paid her way but did not make a fuss about things being exact. Importantly when living in close proximity for that period of time she was considerate, and neat and tidy.
She was fun to be around.
