We began our ascent. I carefully measured the first fifty handholds, my body trembling in fear as I learned to balance myself on a rock wall. After a while my fingers, hands, and feet became fleshlike pinions, adhering me to the cliff face. I learned to cleave to inch-wide grooves between the slabs of slate; the toes of my running shoes sought the tiniest of perches to bear my weight as I flattened my body to the unforgiving mountain.

Ten feet turned into fifty; fifty became a hundred, each arm length accompanied by controlled breathing and the occasional “I’m okay” in reply to Andie’s query. We paused, poised on a three-foot ledge 372 feet above our starting point that offered us a treetop view and a place where we could rest and eat.

I bit into a ripe pear, my body tired, my muscles taut. “Andie, this was an amazing workout, but I’m shot and we still have to climb back down. Seriously, I never thought I’d make it ten feet, let alone this high.”

She was lathered in sweat, her high cheekbones darkly tanned, accentuating her heritage. “We’re going all the way, Ike. Trust me, the hardest part is over. From here on up it’s a cinch.”

I trusted her.

Foolish, foolish man.

The next few hours of climbing were slightly easier as the cliff face was shredded in three-inch cracks that helped get us to another perch just below nine hundred feet.

I pointed to a rusted pinion embedded in the rock. “Pussies.”

Andie smiled, tearing into an apple. “You’re the man, Eisenbraun. When we get up to the summit, I’m going to fuck your brains out.”

I glanced up. The good news was the appearance of dry-rotted roots sticking out of the cliff face. The bad news was a five-foot curl of rock that protected the summit like a protruding lower lip. “How do we get around that ledge?”

“I’ll show you when we get up there. Ready? I’m getting really horny.”

We started out again, my fingers by now raw and blistered, the sweat on my palms becoming a new threat as the midday sun beat down upon us. The roots were a mixed blessing, offering us handholds we could grip—along with palms full of splinters.

And then we arrived at our final perch, the two of us staring at a ceiling of rock that jutted five feet out over our heads.

Andria pointed to a series of roots along the outer lip. “This will sound scary, but what we have to do is lean out and grab on to that root, then invert and blindly work our feet and legs up and over the ledge.”

“You’re insane. I’m so tired I can barely hold on.”

“Which is why we have to reach the summit, so we can rest and climb down tomorrow.”

“And just how are we going to get down?”