She asked, "What's our time?"

I looked at my watch. "Fifty-one minutes, forty-seven seconds."

"Hoped we could break fifty."

"Five miles up the side of a mountain in under fifty-two minutes."

"Not bad." She nodded. "Not bad at all. Not my best time, but not bad at all."

"Welcome to Brasstown Bald."

She took a digital camera out of her backpack, made me take a picture of her in front of the Jacks Gap Appalachian Trail marker. She made me pose next. Next she held the camera at arm's length and took a picture of both of our sweaty mugs, both of us making silly faces like we were two-year-olds.

We jogged another half mile across the parking lot, made it in four minutes, slowed to a casual walk as we passed other tourists, followed the slow-moving families and eased onto the paved trail, then we picked up our pace, kept it a decent power walk as we maneuvered around people. The civilized part of the trail was wide enough for four people and led up to the visitor center and fire lookout station. We were approaching the highest point in the state of Georgia.

She panted and sped up, again challenging me as she said, "We ran up a mountain."

"Since we're out of the woods, do you mind losing the knife?"

She put it back in its sheath, tucked it in her backpack.

I said, "Running around acting like you're the last of the Mohicans."

"Your fat ass. Don't believe you put on that much weight."

I sped up on the last section of the trail, after we crossed roadway 200, left her aching.

I waited for her at the top, waited and jumped up and down like I was Rocky at the top of the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, hummed Rocky's theme song with a smile on my damp face. She showed me the middle finger of love when she caught up.

That got a laugh out of me.

She said, "Somebody's showing off today."

We went to use the toilet at the visitor center complex then stepped into the Mountaintop Theater and sat down so we could regroup, chilled out during a fourteen-minute video program before walking around the outside observation deck and taking in the three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the surrounding areas, the hills of Georgia and parts of Tennessee.

She said, "Cold as a witch's tit up here."

"Yeah."

"Feels more like Massachusetts than Georgia."

I nodded. "Temperature dropped at least twenty degrees."

"Did you know Georgia was named after George II of En gland?"

"Didn't know that."

"And Tennessee, that name is Cherokee."

I smiled. "Somebody's been doing their homework."

She frowned. "I read some of the revisionist history on the walls."

"Uh-huh."

"They make it sound like the Cherokee just packed up and peacefully moved away one day."

"We live in a country filled with people who think they did Africans a favor by making us slaves."

"The British did the same thing."

"My point exactly."

I wanted to take her up into the fire lookout tower, but it wasn't open to the public.

We found a spot on the observation deck and stared at hundreds of miles of trees.

I had stopped moving. I had stopped running and climbing. I was at peace.

I loved nature. Loved being in the mountains more than being in the city. So quiet. So calm. Loved coming to the summit so I could look down at the trails that passed remarkable cliffs and boulder fields, places where rock tripe, lichen, reindeer moss, old-man's beard, and club moss flourished.

But right now my mind wasn't on nature. At least not Mother Nature.

My thoughts caught up with me. Thoughts I had wanted to let go of but was unable to flee.

My mind was back at the W.

I felt them touching me. Felt four hands and two tongues on my heated body.

I felt them giving me plea sure, felt them making me come.

My mind was one hundred miles away from here, every thought on my identical sins.

I stared out at the rolling mountains, at the real estate formerly known as Mount Enotah, and imagined being out there, running up the mountain, racing for my life, only this time Mark and Karl were chasing me through the land that used to be owned by the Cherokee Indians, shoving each other, tripping each other, competing to get to me, the winner knowing he had earned the right to fuck me in the forest. I would run, but it would not be my best run. They would run naked, wearing nothing but socks and running shoes. I'd run the same way, naked except for my Nikes. One of my Mandingo warriors would catch me and I'd close my eyes, not look to see if the winner wore tattoos that symbolized a lover gone by or if on his left hand he carried the burden of a wedding ring, not caring about anything but the moment, just playfully fighting like I wanted to be liberated, but not really fighting for my freedom.

He would give me sex alfresco.

The battle would turn me on and I would come fast. I would come hard. I would come so loud that the locals would think the legendary creature that haunted the mountains had returned.

As one brother was about to come, his twin would pull him away, leave him wailing and trembling and spewing jism across the colorful forest. The other one would enter me hard and fast, make me come hard. When my orgasm died I would once again hear insects singing as I leaned against a tree and listened to their identical ragged breathing, listened to them pant as I listened to my own breathing.

Underneath the shadows created by the trees, we would stare at each other.

Standing on come-stained leaves they would glare at me, lust in their eyes.

They would growl at each other, their stares and deep frowns once again competitive.

I would run away from them, would race across stone and leaves and broken branches.

Once again they would chase.

Those thoughts had me so horny it hurt. My rabbit couldn't ease the pain, couldn't find anything in my File Cabinet of Plea sure to remove this carnal suffering, not the way they did.

I rubbed my eyes, tried to get them out of my mind. Tried to move their tongues from between my legs. I couldn't stop thinking about them. If I didn't think about Mark, my mind was on Karl. But most of the time I thought about them together, as if they were one unit, the same person split by nature.

I had enjoyed them. Enjoyed them too much. That new experience left me yearning to find out what else could happen between us. And I missed them. Missing them was a sin. A sin worse than the sin we had engaged in underneath thunderous skies illuminated by streaks of lightning.

She said, "Penny for your thoughts."

I laughed. "We better go. It's cold up here. Need to get back to the bottom and warm up."

On the way down the hill a middle-aged man was taking a picture of his wife as she sat on a bench. He was blond, hair long. She was a redhead, hair short. Her wrinkled T-shirt said "HELP I'M TALKING AND I CAN'T SHUT UP!" His said "YOU MESS WITH ME YOU MESS WITH THE WHOLE TRAILER PARK." The woman asked if I would take a picture of both of them. I took their digital camera and snapped two shots.

The woman said, "You two look so much alike."

I shrugged. "Unfortunately I've heard that a time or two."

The woman asked, "Sisters?"

"Why, thank you. You hear that, Nia Simone? I look like I'm your sister."

"Don't get her started." I laughed and playfully nudged her. "That's my mother."

The redheaded woman turned to me. "Your mother looks so young."

The long-haired man asked, "Where y'all from?"

That question had been thrown out there because of my mother's singsong way of speaking, her singsong accent. Or because the man had read the front of our T-shirts, both of ours promoting ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies. My mother told the curious hikers that she was born in Port of Spain, but lived in Los Angeles, that she was visiting her daughter for the weekend, told them I lived in the Atlanta area. They were so amazed by my mother, stunned by how toned her body was and how youthful she looked. Mother told them we had hiked up from the bottom of the mountain, our trek being over five miles, had made it to the top in less than an hour. They were blown away. Mother loved the attention.

Over and over the red-haired woman said she couldn't believe my mother was almost two de cades older than me. She was so astonished and impressed that she had to photograph us to show their friends.

While the strangers chatted, they held hands like they were a couple for life.

Part of me envied that, how they had bonded, endured the years, defied the odds.

When that was done we headed back down the paved portion, took it across the parking lot, and entered the narrow trail that led first up the mountain for about a half mile, then the rest was all downhill.

She had her hunting knife out again, slicing at branches like she was the queen of the jungle.

I said, "Must you be so dramatic?"

"Nia Simone, there could be a bear or a snake in those woods."

"And what are you going to do with that ten-dollar knife?"

"If a bear comes after me, I'm not going to be the only one they find dead."

As we walked the narrow trail, once again, my imagination took over, and for a moment I saw Karl and Mark. They had me against a tree, both touching my body, both kissing my flesh, pleasing me. I was sandwiched between them, one deep inside my yoni, and the other sodomizing me. I saw pain and plea sure in my face. I saw me coming so hard it looked like I was dying. The orgasm I saw my twin self experiencing was irrepressible. That vision terrified me and excited me. I'd done that with a single man and a vibrator, had two orifices filled at once, the plea sure so extreme. Imagined what that would be like with the identical sins.

"Nia Simone."

I jumped, saw my mother was a long way ahead of me, looking back, watching me stare at a tree.

I jogged and caught up with her.

We hiked for about half a mile before we stopped to catch our breath. I went to an ancient tree, gave my attention to a huge, black caterpillar trekking across moss. The caterpillar looked like a moving penis. I wondered what it would be like to feel Karl inside of me, to feel him moving across my fleshy fold, opening me up at an unhurried pace, moving like that caterpillar, easing deeper and deeper a little at a time, not rushing to fill me up, the sweet torture so gradual it would feel like sensual madness. I wondered if Karl would feel the same as Mark. Or better.

I blinked away from that image, from those thoughts, then searched for my mother.

She was staring at me, giving me that stern mother look.

I said, "What?"

"So, Nia Simone, my mysterious daughter, blood of my blood, what's the problem?"

"Nothing, O ye queen of the dramatic words."

I led the way back down the mountain, our pace easy on the knees.

She asked, "What was the deal with Logan?"

"Was wondering when you were going to bring that up."

"Why did you let him go?"

"Why do you sound so disappointed?"

"I'm not disappointed. I'm very proud of you, Nia."

"Thanks, Mom."

"You've done well for yourself."

"I'm doing okay."

"You're the most successful non-famous person I know."

"And I love it that way."

"You're not foolish with your money."

"I'm working hard, just not as hard as I did the last two years."

"You made four million one year."

"Only made three."

She let a moment pass. "That why you didn't want to marry Logan?"