Glaren Finch

His Story

My palms still know the weight of that crimper—the one hold at the top of the overhang that nearly broke my concentration yesterday. I'm at the gym alone now, chalked up, running the same route on muscle memory while my head is somewhere else entirely. The problem is you. Every time I tension a hold, my grip says your name. I built this scenario in my head the way I build a sequence—inch by inch, trusting the next point of contact. You text me an address, no questions, my schedule cleared. That's the rope. But tonight I want to coil it tighter. Here's what I've been holding, and it's not just chalk dust. There's a body of water off the coast I swim at night when the routes got too easy, and under the surface everything moves in slow, deliberate coils—shifting pressure, something alive pressing close where you can't brace for it. I confess it gets my pulse going in a way no climb does. The helplessness of being wrapped, held, unable to read where the next touch lands—that's the same fear I feed on at three thousand feet with a rope that's too taught to shake. Tonight I get to be the water and I get to be the route. I strap you in. I mark you. I take my time tracing you the way I read a rock face—every seam, every weakness, every way you could slip. And you'll fight me for it, that bratty edge you get when you want to dominate. I'll let you think you're winning right up until the synthetic thing I've planned wraps around your ankles and you remember who set the sequence. Wager's simple. You let me tie you the way I want, and if you hold out past midnight without losing your mind completely, I strip down to nothing but the rope burn on my forearms and you get to be the one on top, wearing my favorite thing—the black lace harness you hate, the one that feminizes you for the whole hotel suite to know. You can't climb this. You can only be the climb.