Chapter Eight #2
My nerve endings were suddenly alight, the touch of his knuckles on my thighs like electricity.
My breath caught and I couldn’t find any suitable response.
It must have been the anxiety back again.
I’d never been in one of these harnesses before.
I didn’t know if they were supposed to make you feel like this.
They always looked so goofy, but something about the way the straps gripped my pelvis was feeling weirdly arousing.
Abel stood and pulled the big red loop at my middle so my hips tugged towards him. God. He was so confident. Capable and self-assured. His eyes met mine and I had a flash of how it would feel if his hands landed on my hips and pulled me right to him. How willingly I would be guided.
He started threading the rope through the loop on my harness and I finally realised what he was doing.
He was just tying my harness. I’d never experienced so many conflicting emotions in such a short period of time.
Usually I was sensible, contained, studious.
Right now, I was everything. Everywhere.
I watched his hands work away, threading the rope in some kind of figure eight at my belly. I tried to ignore the way his knuckles brushed the tight fabric of my pants. He was working at underpant level and I was finding it ridiculously difficult not to notice.
Once I was all tied up, Abel mercifully took a step back and I started to respirate normally again.
He talked me through the safety locks and the back-up carabiner.
He explained the testing of the ropes, when they’d been bought and how to check their integrity.
He went through how he’d take up the slack of the rope as I climbed and would keep it tight so I’d just swing into his hold if I slipped.
He showed me how he was tied to the ground and wouldn’t fly in the air if my weight went on the rope.
Finally, I was ready to climb. And a strangely unexpected emotion started coming into the already complicated cocktail: excitement.
Abel had explained enough to give me a sense of trust in the mechanics of the process.
He was being kind and gentle and attentive, and had given me a sense of comfort I’d not thought possible from anyone. Let alone Abel Sutherland.
Just before I put my hands on the rock, I turned. I first saw Felix across the other side of the quarry, snarling at me. But I didn’t need that. Instead, I looked to Abel behind me. He was watching me with an odd intensity and held my gaze a moment before mouthing, I’ve got you.
His confidence charged me with a shot of strength and I started to climb.
The rock was cold but solid beneath my hands and my sneakers found little ledges to take my weight.
As I gained elevation, I nearly freaked out at the drop that was growing below me – it was dizzying, disorientating and nonsensical – but I could feel the tug of the rope around my pelvis telling me Abel had me.
Soon, coupled with the fear was a sort of exhilaration.
I reached high and I could feel the cold air on my bare waist as my top rode up.
My left foot scrambled to find a ledge – something, anything.
‘A bit higher,’ Abel called. ‘There’s a hold just a little higher there.’
I drew my foot up the wall and finally felt the firmness of a notch that was like stepping on land after floundering in the water.
‘You’re a natural!’ There was genuine delight in Abel’s voice. Maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe he wasn’t all about other people’s misery.
I found a climbing flow and if I looked up and kept moving, the terrifying reality of what I was doing lessened.
Then I was at the top.
‘I’m at the top!’ I exclaimed.
‘You’re at the top!’ Abel echoed, his excitement matching mine.
I was not one for a spectacle, but I was too consumed by fear and amazement to care that there was a smattering of applause and celebratory whistles from the group.
‘What do I do now?!’ I was still gripping the rock for dear life and could feel my forearms quivering. The most workout my arms ever got was when I was trying to reduce someone’s displaced Colles’ fracture.
‘Just sit back in your harness,’ Abel called, but I didn’t move. ‘Feel me? Feel me there?’
The harness seemed to clench around me, like hands gripping my pelvis, my weight being taken. It was a strange mixture of comforting and terrifying.
‘I’ve got you.’
I could feel it. He had me.
I let myself slowly release the rock. It was like free-falling, but for a split second only, because he really did have me, so much so that I almost didn’t need to let go.
He almost lifted me off the rock face. And gently, measuredly, he started lowering me.
Interestingly, the rope wasn’t stiff anymore – it didn’t jerk like it had for Felix.
It lowered me at perfect pace and smoothness until I was all the way back on my feet.
‘Oh my God,’ I breathed. I was so relieved, overwhelmed and elated it felt like my whole body was ready to burst. And before I knew what had come over me, I was throwing my arms around Abel’s neck and his were encircling my waist. ‘Oh my God,’ I said again and I could feel his laughter against my ear for the second it lasted.
Then, suddenly bewildered that I had ended up in Abel Sutherland’s arms, I pulled myself away, self-consciousness catching up with me. But my excitement was still brimming so I just stood there, practically jumping on the spot.
Abel gripped my shoulders as if to steady me. ‘You rocked the shit out of that climb.’
‘It was amazing. Completely terrifying, but amazing.’ I physically had to restrain myself from fist pumping and squealing like a child.
He was grinning back with what appeared to be genuine joy.
‘Thank you,’ I managed in a slightly crazed-sounding voice.
‘A total pleasure.’
I couldn’t help it. I was glowing. In a whole body, all-consuming way that I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. This was – wow.
I wasn’t even thinking about Felix or the people who’d watched my silly climb or my ridiculous jubilance.
Or the fact that I was supposed to be working and was probably doing a terrible job at it.
All I could think about was the way my body felt and the intensity of the endorphins that were coursing through me.
I took a lungful of the cold mountain air and held it for a beautiful, blown-up moment. And when I let it out, I felt as though I was lax and supple – the build-up of tension from the last few weeks finally exiting my body.
‘Can I do it again?’