He is clearly unaware that distance influences the process of oral communication. And he can’t project for shit. There’s something he wants. Sadly for his desires, the rough rock scratching my ass makes it next to impossible for me to concentrate on lip reading. I have very sensitive skin. Besides, the sun is bright and I have to squint to make out anything up there. From what I can glean he has pressed his elbows together and is opening his forearms out into a V shape and then closing them over and over.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He offers no verbal reply, nothing but the arm motion.
“What do you WANT?”
He gestures for me to come closer.
I almost plunged to my death twice on the way down. I’m not going back up, not even an inch, not until the whole blasted thing is over. He is just going to have to learn to speak up.
I repeat his arm motion questioningly. And now it’s crystal; he wants me to scissor my legs open and shut. Obviously this is a joke and I misjudged the fat freaky shit; he does in fact possess a sense of humor. I have no earthly clue where it was hiding during the interminable car ride, but at least it came with. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I stand corrected; I spy his round head hovering over the cliff’s edge. He is still sliding his gelatinous arms open and shut with dictatorial precision. As per usual, I am proven a piss poor adjudicator of human character.
It hasn’t yet occurred to him that this isn't the best way to deal with a person of such delicate sensibilities as myself; I don't relish demands, most certainly not demands from pathetic Weeble Wobbles with indiscernible expressions leering at me from cliff edges, Weeble Wobbles with an inability to clearly assert their desires. I simply can’t respect this type of authority. Uncertainty really brings up my bile.
“NO. FUCKING. WAY.”
His arms move more vehemently.
“SUCK. IT. DADDY-O.”
We had coffee like twice; we discussed these things as rational people do. We addressed: 1) what he needs, 2) what I need, 3) what he has to offer me, 4) what I have to offer him, 5) what we could do together. The question is how will me sitting on this colossal rock in the bottom of a dry gorge scissoring my legs open and shut prove to be productive for either of us?
“Do you mean bring them CLOSER?”
He moves his arms in and out even more emphatically. I cup my hands around my mouth, “TOGETHER? YOU WANT THEM CLOSER TOGETHER?”
My legs are firmly glued together at the knees for the first time in years, my feet splayed out on the rock's surface; my hands encircle my open mouth. His blood is racing; he quivers, gives me two thumbs up and launches his weight from heel to toe, toe to heel. We are both pleased. This overlapping of our joys is short lived, contained solely within this luminous moment during which I permit myself to believe that I might possibly emerge from this excursion with my dignity intact.
Damn, the accursed V again. I’ll give him credit; he is persistent, but I can ignore the bastard. He can’t get down here unless he jumps. And I know, 'Weebles wobble but they don't fall down.' My strategy is simple: Look lost in thought, get lost in thought.
Commander Weeble is at the edge of the gorge peering down, fanning his arms in and out, the top of his bald head blindingly reflective as it reddens ever deeper under the stalwart shafts of sunlight. There are untold worlds on the mottled surface of that glowing dome. The abnormal geography of his cranium opens the prospect of freshly imagined interplanetary shenanigans: rivalries, factions, illicit couplings, cross species couplings, the leveraging of natural resources whose names and purposes I don’t yet know, social and spiritual customs, philosophies, telekinesis, prophesies.
I crash land on the surface of his skull. If it stops me from having to fully participate in my own humiliation then whatever life form finds me down here has my full permission to: burn me, bind me, turn me into pure light, imprison me, give me a thorough lab exam, take me to their leader and let him/her/it spank me, lash me, use my piss for rocket fuel or whatever else they may need. His arms are fusing together at the elbows, his skin furling open. Bone embraces bone, sinew twines sinew, re-doubling and absorbing, reforming purposes, transforming into a single flabby scissor appendage. There are civilizations of flabby scissor-limbed life forms swarming across the surface of his bald head. The ones that live in the divots are at war with the ones who live on the hillsides; they fight for what little vegetation there is.
He looks like lobster boy’s piggy pervy one-clawed cousin. He stops scissoring his arms and taps at his watch with a bombastic condescension that only an obese, balding man in his late forties sporting a plaid camping vest can pull off.
“FINE. But know that if my ass chafes, in the slightest, there will be HELL to pay.”
I stretch my legs out on the surface of the big rock, lean back on my elbows, arch my back a touch and slowly drag my legs open and closed. If I picked them up off of the rock it would be less painful. I won’t. I’m lazy and the lifting might put undue strain on my lower back. Ham hock, ham hock occupies me. Ham hock to hammock, hammock, HAMmock, HamMOck, HAmmOCK. Where did I hear that the Mayans invented hammocks? At work, could be, the fry cook is really into that kind of shit. We had drinks last Thurs—
A wild hubbub at the lip of the gorge, I squint and snap into focus to see him jumping around, clearly agitated.
“Do you want wider?”
He jumps up and down.
“I AM SO NOT GOING TO JUMP. N-O.”
He stops dead. A bedraggled styrofoam cup blows around about his feet. He is trying very hard to tell me something. I study his lips and just make out thunder or plunder. No, wonder, under? Then maybe ranger, but it could just as easily be stranger. Whatevs. I spread my legs as wide as I can get ‘em, throw my head back and try for a winning smile.
With an effete kick of his heels he plunges off into the surrounding greenery possessed of the grace of a 280 pound jackalope. It’s funny, real funny. Maybe he does have a sense of humor. It gets stone cold silent. He’s gone. Oh, no, no - no worries - I'll just wait right down here.
I don’t know how to get back to the parking area. He has the backpack. Thus he has my clothes, the towels, the map, and the snacks. All I have is my shoes. Shit.
My Obituary: Airport cocktail waitress found naked and dead on God’s Head Rock. Always gave money to bums. Survived by one mother, no friends, one cat (Lily, age 4) and half a flask of what authorities have identified as Old Grand-dad whiskey. Cause of death remains unknown.
All things considered, I am pretty excited to be in a gorge, on a rock – God’s Head Rock that is – naked and alone. It looks like it might rain. And I do love myself a good spring shower. This is some kind of wonderful. And the cherry: I’m being paid. Oh, fuck yes, brilliance hath come upon me. I am being paid to pleasure myself whilst I lay alone on a giant rock in the middle of a gorge on an enchantingly warm spring day. Technically I am not being paid to pleasure myself, but every cloud has a silver lining. The only downers are that I think I might kind of have to pee, which might ruin the moment, and I have a lot of baby oil on for sheen. Also there are parts of me exposed that don’t often see the sun.
I know way deep down within myself that I need to make the most out of this God’s Head experience. I need to do it up right, embrace my inner dryad. Behind Door Number One: an animalistic thing on all fours. Well all threes, I do need one hand free. I’m not that flexible. If I were I’d be getting paid a shit lot more and I damn sure wouldn’t need this job. Behind Door Number Two: Relax each part of my body into the rock. Seep into the stone like warm taffy. Stare up at the sky. Take it slow and steady.
For practicality's sake I’ll save all threes in case it does rain, kneeling will insure that I don't gulp down mouthfuls of rain. I'm a screamer. And the cool rain will feel great on my raw hamstrings. I do so hope he’s gone long enough for me to try both.
I stretch out and breathe. And breathe. I start to get warm, sleepy. Best get started before I doze off. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. These are the kind of things that don’t make it into obituaries. In my estimation, these are moments worth living; mortality and fond remembrances can sit and spin.
I open my eyes and stare directly into the sun. If I go blind no one will ever know why. I lick my fingers. And we’re off.
As is to be expected the inanities of natural existence pull out their tiny little pistols and take aim at my pursuit of pleasure. A fly. A fucking huge ass fly persists in landing on my hand. Once: Flick it off. Twice: Move along, there’s nothing to see here. Thrice: I can’t roll with this. The thrill sort of dissipates.
Did he say danger before he ran off? Ranger and stranger do both sound a lot like danger. Oh we’re back on, “Well excuse me little lady, you look like you need help way down there in that dry, dry gorge?” growls the vivid (if clichéd and imaginary) Dr. Strange Danger Ranger. I fairly purr, “I am a little lost down—” An isolated raindrop falls right into my eye.
Well, fuck me I’m naked. Naked and alone on a huge rock formation in a gorge with no knowledge of where the road is or what happened to the person who brought me here. He needed a model for his “art” photography and I needed a couple hundred bucks. Don’t misunderstand me, the life of waitress at an airport restaurant is surprisingly lucrative, but I’m the kind of girl who’s always trying to fluff her nest.
He could have brought hundreds of women here, well, only if there are hundreds of women as stupid as me. I told no one. I just moved here; no one’s gonna miss me. Turnover at work is pretty high, especially since the Hooters opened. My only hope for survival centers around the fact that even a casual co-worker could see that Hooters is not an option for me.
I drove two hours with a strange middle-aged bald man, hiked to a remote part of a state park, took off my clothes (except my shoes), greased up with baby oil and then handed him my clothes and watched him put them in his backpack. He wanted to get some shots of me climbing down. All this after telling no one I was coming here. No one saw us on the trail. I then proceeded to scale the wall of a gorge naked and baby oiled up. Not even nude, but naked.
And when he bolts out on me do I try to climb up and find him or escape him or escape whatever he was running from? No. Nope. Not me. I enact an obscene (and failed I may add) woodland masturbation fantasy. He’s probably watching. He’s probably taking pictures. He could be setting traps for the seasonal hunt of the stupid naked girl, who knows. Maybe he just had some sort of digestive emergency. At least the rain looks like it’s going to hold off for now.
I ain’t going out like this. When I go, I go with a bang asshole. In case he’s watching I’ll give him something to behold. I’ll knock it out with gusto. What the hell, might as well die trying.
The sky is shifting. I roll my arched back vertebrae by vertebrae back down onto the rock. The sun gets a weirdish shade whiter. That was nice, so nice that I can hear the humming of crickets in the distance.
I must be sleeping – rain coming – if I listen close I can just make out words – large rain. I dream of a boy and a girl eating a ripe unknown fruit by a blue deep lake. The boy throws in a stone, laughs. The girl throws in a stone, laughs. They lean back on their elbows with their feet stretched out in front of them and cross their legs, uncross their legs, let their toes touch the water. The boy throws a large rock in the lake and the girl throws in a larger and they laugh, let their heads loll back on their necks and stare directly into the sun. The sun is gold and bright. The sun is flying toward its reflection. It belongs to the blue body of the water and the blue body of water belongs to it. They laugh some more. They eat fruit some more. The girl she holds stones in her clean white skirt and the boy he holds stones in his stiff blue pockets.
I’m awake and it’s hot. My hands are clutching my breasts firmly, like claws. I’m wet all over. I must have slept through the rain. I detach my cramped hands from my sore breasts, lift my head, and open my eyes. God’s Head Rock is all but submerged in murky brown water. The surrounding vegetation is spindled; it looks like late autumn, but the air is way too balmy.
There are my shoes floating away down this new water way. I look up from my shoes to the edge of the cliff; there’s a little girl about seven or so, barefoot, half hidden behind a barren bush. She too is watching my shoes with rapt attention. She must sense my eyes on her; she starts, recovers and nods her head meekly. There are no flowers anywhere; she reaches down plucks a brightly colored piece of trash from the litter that surrounds her feet and affixes it to her hair. She bends down again and picks up a stone and with a firm arm throws it way down the gorge.
At the sound of the stone’s impact with the water two big elegant birds – white, but not swans – emerge from behind the curve of the cliff winging right above the body of muddied water. They swing down low over the rock; their tail feathers are brown. I watch them arc up into the gray sky.
I think I might be hungry, but I don’t know what to do about it. I watch the girl sit down on the muddy earth. She swings her feet over the edge and shimmies down the cliff side until she reaches a ledge a few feet above the surface of the murk. With a breathtaking grace she plunges in and swims swiftly towards my shoes as they bob along down the new river. I watch them both until they disappear.
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