Hiding From The Face

I shift in my chair. I am uncomfortable, restless, bored and it is all my own fault. Gene, the woman sitting opposite me has a rather lovely face, a fine athletic body and a pile of dark auburn hair that cascades down her back and over her shoulders like a thick blanket. She is awesomely attractive, I cannot keep my eyes off her, but equally, she is more boring than any one person has any right to be. She is rambling on right now about a long and involved relationship issue she had. Oh wait, hold on, was it her? Or was it someone else? I hadn't been concentrating when this latest story had started and I was now lost, not that it mattered, fairly soon, I would be able to politely call for the bill, bid her good night, possibly tell her it would not work for me and then go home and hope that the next one thrown up by the algorithm had more to offer than this one.

A voice inside my head mutters, *Tell her to shut up. Go home. Bore someone else.*

Another voice says, *No, she is attractive. She is intelligent. She has fire. She would make a wonderful partner. Everything you have ever wanted.*

*Except a taste for danger.*

*This is what we aimed the profile at.*

*Ah, good Lord. There is a limit.*

Another chimes in, *Well you did say you wanted a home body. A person who loved the home life. Entertaining, friends and family.*

She flutters her eyes and looks around and I can see her eyes slow as they pass over the mountain. They seem to get stuck there.

We are sitting on the deck of a restaurant in Kloof street so Table mountain is the dominant feature and I look at the face directly under the cable car, without thinking, I say, "Good day for climbing." catch myself from completing the sentence with "I wish I was up there on the last pitch before the top." Home loving, mild exercise desk jockeys don't have an opinion on the possible conditions on Africa Face. The face is clear, there is no wind and the conditions would be perfect.

She nods, "Yes, rock would be dry too." A pause. "I went up by cable car one day and the rock was slippery, I was seriously frightened to go anywhere near the edge."

She looks at me intently. I nod *Stupid woman. Slip on that flat bit of rock. But in a way she is right, the face will be dry. Easy to climb.*

I drag my eyes away, look at her deep hazel eyes, and start drowning again. She rescues me without realising she is doing it, "I went shopping at the Waterfront the other day, and the woman in the dress shop was just so rude to me." I sigh sadly and slowly tune out her voice.

Then my logical voice, the voice I use extensively at work. The one that finds anomalies, patterns, broken threads, all on the most flimsiest of evident. The back office I call it, it says. *Something anomalous.* I wait for a clearer indication? What was it talking about? The mountain. It looked fine. The table that was fine. The food was fine, even excellent. Nothing anomalous that I could detect. The back office sighs and says politely. *The woman. She is lying. Has been for most of the time.*

I look at her again, her eyes have strayed to the mountain and she seems almost mesmerised by it. Suddenly with a sharp jerk she turns away. "I don't like looking at the mountain."

"Why not. It is beautiful. Especially with the golden light of early evening on Africa Face." Climber talk. I wince and she looks at me sharply.

"It kills people. Did you know that it kills dozens of people every year?"

The honest response would be, "Yes, I have fetched a body or two in my time." but I resort to a cool casual "Oh?"

"Yes, I knew someone who died on the Face." she says and I start.

*Relax* a voice instructs me. *You are an uninteresting non climbing person. You don't know anyone who has died on the mountain. Nobody.*

It doesn't help. I cannot block the image of the last body I had pulled off the mountain. Broken, damaged beyond recognition, dead. A climb had gone bad and a climber had died.

I remember helping load the body bag into the ambulance, a hand on my shoulder, a voice. "Please, I must see him." Someone leading the grieving woman away.

"Where were you? You were far away. You looked like you were grieving."

The woman is looking at me, her hand on my hand. Same same feel. The voice. It matches in my head. The long hair auburn hair as she was led sobbing away. Sh*t.

It cannot be her. Not possible. Her profile said nothing like that.

Widowed. Cancer she had said. Now I don't believe her.

I want to puke and she sees something in my face.

"What? What is it? What did I say?"

"No, nothing. Just not feeling too good."

She looks at me a mix of suspicion, interest and concern on her face.

"Something I said triggered that. I saw it."

Her hand is on the table between us, palm up, fingers slightly bent.

"I don't like people lying to me." There is an authoritative edge to her voice now.

*Home loving, gentle, nurturing? With a voice like that?* The voice in my head sneering.

I am just shaking my head there is just too much happening, she has changed as if a switch had been flicked.

*Her fingers* whispers the back office.

I look at her fingers. Calloused. Climbers hands.

*Right body to mass ratio.* mutters a voice in my head.

*Right muscles too.*

I start too look at her, not as a woman, but as a climber. It is all there. Screaming at me.

"You said you were a boring accountant." Accusatory. Angry.

"Accountants don't have shoulder muscles like yours."

"I work out."

"Wrong answer. A lie. Another lie. You expect me to stay around and listen to your lies?"

I look at her. Her eyes are filled with tears. She is angry and stuck. She cannot leave, she doesn't want to stay. The couple at the next table are looking at us.

The owner is wondering if he can intervene. Hesitating.

I see her not as a boring house bound woman but as a vibrant alive, passionate woman. She is suddenly no longer attractive, she is down right beautiful. There is fire in her eyes, in her cheeks. She is in a fury, beautiful, wild. Passionate.

This is the woman I want. I have lied about who I was. I take a chance.

"Sit down." I say ferociously. "Sit and listen."

She sits slowly, like a wild animal poised to flee, uncertain.

"This had better be good. Very, very good. I don't like lies. I hate lies."

I hold my hands up in the gesture of surrender, my calloused fingers at eye level. I see her eyes look carefully. Slowly. The colour drains slowly from her face.

"F*ck. Another climber."

I breathe slowly, carefully. I launch myself.

"Search and rescue mainly now. Retrieving the fallen. Actually, I haven't been out in about 2 years. I do a bit of bouldering now. Nothing strenuous, nothing that can get me killed. Last rescue kinda put paid to my climbing career. Lost my taste for the face as it were."

She is the colour of a sheet, scarce breathing.

"Climber came off Africa Face. Wet rock. Killed himself, bad mess. His partner, a woman wanted to see him, someone led her away. Good thing too. He was a total mess."

I wait. She says nothing. A single tear runs down her cheek.

"It was you wasn't it?" I ask looking at her steadily. "Your husband? It seems we both tried to hide from histories from that night onwards. You are a home loving woman. Shopping malls. Me a boring accountant type. Both hiding."

We stare at each other across the table. I hold my breath. I don't want her to leave. I want her to stay.

I take another chance. "You are right about lies. They are bad things. They turn us into grey, featureless people. And we aren't grey and featureless are we? Was I terribly boring this evening?"

I can see her recalibrating. Slowly the colour returns to her face. Slowly she sits up just a little more straight, more confident, more strong.

"Do you know." she asks, "How close I was to walking out on you 20 minutes ago?"

"You nearly lost me in the shopping mall." I smile gently.

She smiles and the whole world lights up

"We need to talk. And not here. Lets get out of here and go somewhere where the manager is not circling like a hawk."

I summon the waiter and pay. The couple next to us relax as does the manager.

"Your place or mine?" I ask more in hope than anything else.

"Mine. I know where the ice pick is."

Twenty minutes later, I am sitting on a sofa, cradling a cup of coffee and staring at a huge window. The curtains are tightly drawn. I know what is out there and I know why the curtains are drawn. A dramatic view of Table Mountain is out there. Some dignitary is here on a "fact finding" visit and they put on the lights to illuminate the mountain.

It is one of the most beautiful sights in a beautiful city.

"Why have you not moved away? You can see the mountain from here. A beautiful sight, except you shared this flat with your husband. You can see where he died. It must be awful looking out and seeing the mountain."

"Rob died intestate and the winding up of his estate is taking forever. The flat was his so I cannot sell it until the estate is wound up."

She sighs, still looking down at the floor.

"He haunts this flat you see. Not actually, but for me he is just going to walk through the door, put his arms around me and kiss me. I know it is nonsense but I cannot shake the feeling. So I stay in the flat waiting for someone to break his hold over me and the flat."

She looks up at me and I drown again.

"You were an experiment you see. An attempt to reclaim my life, break out of the rut I find myself in. Hit the gym early then go to work, come home and hide from the mountain and his memory, rinse and repeat. Get a sensible, safe boring man to take me to the theatre, shopping and holidays. Nothing dangerous. I looked for grey and when I did find grey, I realised I couldn't live with grey. I need danger, adrenalin. When you held your hands up and I saw your calloused fingers, I was frightened, but I was also turned on by your hands. In my mind I felt them on my body. It was obscene and it was liberating."

I turn toward her and hold out my hands. I wait, not looking at her, looking down. I can hear her breathing, harsh, fast, tremulous. I wait, not looking, not daring to hope, I just wait. Then a gentle finger touches mine, softly, nervously. Still I wait. Her hands move slowly up until they are resting in my hands and I slowly close my hands on hers.

"You are very beautiful. I drown in your eyes each time I look into them."

She doesn't respond so I don't push it, I just sit there and wait until she leans closer to me. I slide my arm around her shoulders and pull her in closer letting her lean against me. She finally looks up at me, lips slightly parted and I kiss her softly. When she wraps an arm around me I slide a hand up onto her breast and feel the nipple growing under my fingers. She sighs and doesn't move away so I keep caressing her breast. Her kisses become more and more ardent until I am thrusting my tongue into her mouth and she pulls my head down. I start to slide my hand down her body but she stops me.

"No foreplay! Fuck me now!"

I slide down off the couch and between her knees dropping my pants down. I pull her hips toward me and slide my cock past her panties all the way into her pussy, balls deep. She sighs and pulls me in tight.

"You are very beautiful!" I whisper to her. She doesn't answer but grinds her hips against me.

"Do it!" she whispers "Do it now!"

So I fuck her hard and fast. I don't last long.

"I am cumming soon!"

"Cum in me!" she says loudly. "Now. Cum in me now!"

Which of course sets me off and I pump hot cum into her. After I stop thrusting she keeps grinding against me for a while, then sighs and strokes my face gently.

"Carry me to bed."

I pick her up, carry her through to the bedroom, lay her on the bed and gently undress her. When I am finished she pats the bed next to her.

"Come hold me." I don't hesitate, stripping off before I do.

She runs her fingers over my semi hard cock, smiles softly.

"Pretty. Again! Just now, you must make cum."

I work slowly across her beautiful body, her breasts, sensitive, perfect. Her belly and down to her pussy, finding all the trigger points, everything that turns her on. Soon she is moaning and jerking and coming so I slide into her again and we race to an almost simultaneous orgasm.

I drift off to sleep only to awaken at about 1 AM with my cock head in her mouth and her hand pumping my shaft slowly and firmly. I try to touch her but she stops me.

"Wait! Its my turn!" and she gives me a blow job that nearly drains me completely. Afterwards we tangle into each other and sleep. I awake at dawn and find her warm soft body irresistible. I kiss her breasts, the trace down her body till I find her pussy and gently kiss it till it opens flower like to me. I find her clit and suck it gently, massaging it with my tongue. She wakens slowly, moaning softly, hand running over my head. I slide a finger into her, hear her sigh and slowly bring her to the edge of cumming, I keep her there until she moans, "No! not again. Fuck me now!"

And I do hard, fast and frantic, her legs over my hips, her finger nails tracing fire across my back.

"Now! Now! I am cumming! Cum with me!"

And I do. We lie entangled for a while, then she gets up, opens the curtains and looks at the mountain.

"He's gone now. I can look at the mountain and not see him."

She looks down at me on the bed.

"Thank you. I am going to shower, please be gone when I get out. I don't need you any more."

The door closes on her and I stare speechless at the door, then I get up, dress and let myself out.

====

It's a year later, I am sitting on the edge of Table Mountain, near Africa Face. I can see her flat far over there across the city bowl. She blocked my phone, my email address and my access to her on the dating app. I heard through the grape vine that she is marrying a rich guy from London and they plan to climb all over the world.

"What you dreaming of? That auburn haired bitch you stil lust after?"

Terry my new partner, red headed, lithe bodied with a penchant for BDSM sits down beside me, needling me.

"I think I need some punishment tonight." she continues, "Do I need to be bratty?"

I have found that I have developed a bit of sadistic streak in the last 12 months and the idea of punishing the woman beside me turns me on.

"Depends on how severely you need to be punished."

"Fuck! You are such a fucking softy!"

She will pay for that comment when we get home and she knows it. It is almost a code between us now. My shrink says my desire to punish Terry is actually to punish Gene but, because I cannot get to her, I punish Terry instead. I am not sure he is right, but the memory of my night with Gene still rankles and I will admit that the idea of punishing the auburn haired Gene arouses me more than it should. So tonight I will punish Terry and then hold her in my arms and tell her how much I love her and care about her.