The First Hike

I show up where you are and your eyes are happy to see me but you shake your head. "I told you to dress appropriately, silly."

I'm scared, but I let you help me rectify the situation. My soul feels naked too, that's what's scary. You see all the voices in my head play across my face. "No negative inner voices allowed today. You're beautiful." You can tell I don't believe you, but I try.

You grab the sunscreen and help me apply it, and even that utilitarian touch feels so good because you honor me. It's been so long, if ever, since I've been truly honored.

We head toward your favorite rock, our favorite, but we don't stop there. You say you have a surprise place, so we keep hiking. The sun feels so good on my skin. I love the freedom. I feel fear slowly slipping away. It's flat enough that my wheelchair is okay for now. It is so beautiful here. We talk about silly things and we don't talk. I tell you that I got hit by a car a couple of years ago, so now technically I'm nonweight bearing for now, although I'm working on getting stronger again. You say you can handle it, and to stop worrying.

After about 45 minutes in various beautiful terrain, I hear a sound that I love. Water. A waterfall. We sit and watch it for a while. You tell me you'll be right back. I watch you until you disappear from sight. Suddenly I remember something and it shakes me. I wonder if you remember. You're the only one I've ever told.

Sure enough, when you come back, you smile. "Let's go see what it looks like from behind." Tears start streaming down my face, but you just smile, understanding. You pick me up and carry me a little ways to a shallow cavelike place behind the water where you have laid a blanket. Again with utmost honor, you lay me down and place me on the side facing the water. You lay behind me holding me and watch it with me, seeing the rainbows and getting lightly splashed. I think about all that's changed and how happy I am to be back near you. Water is so strong and free. Like me. It fills me.

You nuzzle into my neck, and ask me if I trust you. I nod. There's no fear now, for now, for once. You tell me to close my eyes. I do, and soon there is some kind of soft cloth around them. A blindfold. I shiver, but not from fear. I'm amazed you remember. You are definitely the only one that I've told you that I'm curious about removing some senses to heighten others.

I feel you move away from me. I shiver from the lack of your heat and slight fear because I don't know where you are or where you are going. I'm so vulnerable here. I need you, in more ways than one.

Just when I feel really panicked, I feel your hands rolling me over on to my stomach. Then, with your fingertips, you touch around my neck and whisper that it's so beautiful and that you love it. Then, you plant small kisses where your fingers just were, repeating the same whispered phrases.

My entire brain and body surges to life. Oh my God, you're tracing me. You remember tracing. Reading my thoughts, you laugh into my neck. "Of course I do, silly."

You take my hair gently out of its braid, and play with it with your fingers, amazed that it is now mostly down my back. It's my purest form of rebellion from her. You realize that, and congratulate me, tell me against my hair that it is beautiful and proof that I am strong. I almost believe you that time.

You continue tracing down my back, telling me that every spot you can touch and kiss is loved and beautiful. No it's not, I try to think. It is bent and crippled. But the tracing is breaking down my resistance to the soul truth, and you know you're succeeding. I feel your smile on one of my lower cheeks.

After thoroughly tracing everything you can reach when I'm on my stomach, always affirming beauty and/or desirability out loud, you roll me onto my back. I still can't see anything, but I can hear everything intensely, the water, your breathing, your whispers, my heartbeat.

Your physical nearness disappears again, but the fear is gone. I hear you kneeling on my right side near my head. "Open your mouth, my little bird" you whisper. I do, and in a little bit, I smile. It's a grape. You keep feeding me this way, with little pauses in between.

After one of the pauses, I receive a kiss instead of the expected fruit. I am startled, but after a second, I return it wholeheartedly, not desperately yet, just completely there. I feel your surprised smile. Well, I think laughingly, I told you I'm not the same little girl anymore, not by a longshot. Again reading my thoughts, you laugh "that you did" when the kiss breaks.

You are holding me, and I reach up to return the favor, but you tell me to keep my arms relaxed. You resume tracing, this time whatever you can reach from the front, with the same out loud affirmations. When you get to my breasts, we both feel some response, but that's not what you're after, not what you're doing. Not yet. I feel so alive that it is exquisite torture. You are being deliberately slow and thorough.

When you reach my belly button, I really respond, and I laugh. This is the spot I used to think of when we mentioned the phrase soul spot. Because any attention there, which it never gets, makes me absolutely crazy. We both are drunk on my laughter, and you keep up the torture, holding me down so that I can not squirm away. When we both need to breathe you continue down, skipping the obvious next part and concentrating on tracing my arms and legs.

When you are done tracing every other inch of my body you can reach, you stop for a while. Everything is heightened, and I wonder what will happen next. I know what I need, for once, but I don't know if it is mine to ask for now. I gave you so much pain before. I hate myself for that, and I know I don't deserve it.

I feel you disagreeing with me. And all of a sudden, I know I do deserve it, and that you are waiting for me to ask for it, to demand it and take it.

So I say "will you touch me? Please touch me." And I hear your triumphant laugh. You have won. We both have.

My body responds instantly to your touch. It has been so long, and everything is so heightened still. I'm afraid that climax will come too fast and then pain will take it away as usual. But you are so slow. So exquisitely patient. You have nowhere better to be. And you expect me to ask for what I want. I don't know what I want. I lie. I want circles. Slow circles. Let it build so that I don't have a choice but to give it to you. Amazing. You move with my mind. Like you can hear me. Just before climax catches you stop. Groan. What the fuck are you doing to me now?

I feel something small and cold in me which takes some of the need away because of the startle. Then it is gone. Slowly, but also quickly, you trace up my body with your hand, and then are by my head again, telling me to open my mouth. Once again, it's a grape, but it tastes differently than usual.

"That's what you tastes like" you whisper. I'm amazed. It's really good. I ask you if you would like a taste as well. You emit a combination chuckle and groan, and then leave the vicinity of the head on my shoulders to go back down.

I wait, expecting to feel another grape, but I don't. Just when I'm not expecting it, I feel the tip a tongue.

Oh my God. Oh fuck. You're tasting me. Nobody has ever, not even one who claimed undying love. Called it gross. That thought flies away, as do all others. I've never even dared to really dream about this. Never knew what it would feel like. But you are mimicking your former slow circles. Eventually there is a suction feeling that I have never before experienced and I explode, but not with pain. Still, you don't stop. You let me, make me, I ride it out further than ever possible before. Every time I think the pain will come it doesn't. Every time I think the ride is over it continues. And you're happy. I can feel your joy at giving me this. I want to say thank you but all I can do is yell rather incoherently. I love that I'm able to be loud and free, and I hope you understand.

Much later, fully spent for the first time in my life, I lay beside you on the blanket. I try to reach for you to return a little of the joy, but you whisper that this one was about me, and that there will be many other hikes. So I kiss you and hold you.

You take off the blindfold and I see a mirror. A full-length mirror. You move around behind me, though still holding me, so that my view is not obstructed. I look at myself for the first time ever, and can't help but say "I am beautiful."

You smile. "I win"

We both do. And we are at peace. Neither knowing exactly where this is going this time, but we will go there together. And we will worry about the journey back tomorrow. We fall asleep behind our baptismal water, under our blanket of stars.