Bree Bellucci
Bound By Wolves
It was only the beginning of their four day, 500-mile mountain climbing trip and Rachel was already so excited she could almost burst. A trip with some of her best girl friends was just what she needed to take her mind off her endless dating troubles. No men, and especially no boys, allowed. She wanted to make the rule that they couldn’t even talk about guys or relationships at all during the trip, but she knew that was too hard to accomplish. They were still females, after all.
Rachel’s last relationship had ended recently and it was all she could do to try and stop thinking about it. She was swearing off all men for the time being, she couldn't handle any more disappointment for a while.
This wasn’t just any girl's trip. Rachel and her friends weren’t like other women they knew. They didn’t go shopping or go to spas and get manicures. They didn't go on vacations to beaches to lay dormant on the sand, watching hairless men in Speedos, getting pointless tans around the rims of their expensive sunglasses. They were adventurers. They wanted to run, jump, sweat and feel the heat of the sun. They loved the satisfying burn that emanated from deep within their stressed muscle fibers. They wanted to get lost and to get dirty, and go to sleep hearing the rustle of the leaves outside instead of the rush of traffic. Most of all they needed a challenge.
Burning energy surrounded by her best friends in the world, was the greatest thing she could think of to distract her from what was shaping up to be a very dry spell in her love life. She was getting older, and she was starting to feel the anxious ticking of her biological clock. She wanted to have kids one day, to give birth, to experience the full cycle of natural life and reproduction, but she didn’t want to copulate with just anyone. The sterile and upstanding men she dated in the city were all too clean-cut, too vanilla, and too weak.
These men didn’t deserve for her to carry on their seed. Rachel didn’t want to slow the pace of her life for some man-child whose greatest ambition is to sit on the couch and watch other people play sports.
Rachel’s friends Michele, Emily, and Katie weren’t quite as adept at rock climbing as Rachel was, but they did have one thing in common — they were all single. And they were all tired of the same bullshit.
The cabin they rented far up in the reaches of Sequoia National Park was not some fancy chalet or cushy get-away house. There was no electricity and barely any running water. The only mini-bar was the one they brought themselves, and the beds were more like cots, with scratchy warm blankets and pillows that felt almost like they were stuffed with straw. If they were going to be in the forest, they were going to do it right. No television, no men and no crying.
They made a hearty meal of tough bread, sausages and soup, and each of them poured at least an inch of whiskey into the metal canteens they had brought along. The next morning they would start their grueling climb to the top of the first cliff, but tonight they were going to start off by having a little fun.
The sun was beginning to set behind the trees. The girls lit candles and the smell of hot wax emanated throughout the cabin. They talked about their waning love lives, the last men they had been with, all the things they liked and disliked about their jobs. As the whiskey was flowing and their cheeks started to flush, their conversation got a little bolder.
“Okay Katie, truth or dare?” asked Rachel.
“Truth.”
“How many times a day do you masturbate?”
The ladies all fidgeted uncomfortably. Even grown women sometimes felt silly talking about certain things, even if they all did it themselves.