In that moment, in my mind, we had become lovers.

I saw his features. The rise and fall of his chest as he breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth. My breathing pattern was the same, the breathing of true runners. Felt like we were one.

Time sped up again. Became as intense as the zenith of an orgasm.

We passed each other, now a blur. Both of us enveloped in heat. Dripping sweat. Like lovers at the end of erotic violence. The kind I hadn't had in so long.

I ran on, ran faster, became fire moving away from gasoline.

Our eye contact had lasted no more than two seconds.

But it felt like forever. It was powerful.

That moment was over. That powerful moment had passed.

I glanced back at him. Wanted to get that final view as our moment ended, as energies faded. Wanted to catch a parting glimpse of his back, see how it flowed into his backside from this angle.

Much to my surprise he was already looking back at me. He caught me glancing back at him. For a moment I felt exposed. But I'd caught him looking back at me too. And he had looked back first.

He checked his watch and ran on.

I checked my watch and picked up my pace, remembering what I had seen, my mind photographic in moments like this. He was stimulating, sensual. Wondered if he would be in the parking lot when I made it back around. Wondered if he was with someone. Had someone. Or just needed someone to kick it with to night. I wasn't beyond being with someone who had someone.

I wasn't proud of that fact, but it was true. Not many were above operating in that mode. Needs brought out the selfishness in us all. What had been done to me had been done to others in the name of my own selfish needs. At times carnal needs were too strong, undeniable. It was harder between sundown and sunrise. I missed lying next to a man at night, being spooned, his hands caressing my curves, him nuzzling and kissing the nape of my neck, cupping my breasts, pulling my nipples while I moved my ass into him, feeling him harden as he eased his hand from my breast to my thighs to begin touching my yoni.

I whispered one of my favorite quotes, "Be careful Anais, be careful."

I hit the section of the course that was next to a park area. No trees over the trail. The sun burned down on me as I took the challenging incline that rose up at a heartbreaking angle and became rolling hills between miles three and four. That section had signs telling runners and walkers to remain on the pavement, two-way traffic was allowed in that section of the five-mile loop.

I thought I saw him again, running the section that forced us to run on sidewalks. Saw him in the distance. No more than an eighth of a mile away. He was racing toward me again.

The same shirtless, tight-eyed runner I'd passed not too long ago.

He was still running hard. Harder than before, his pace now probably in the low sixes.

I slowed down, ready for him to flirt with me, maybe turn around and run with me, ready for him to chat me up, was hoping I didn't look too bad, hoped nothing was in my nose, my hair pulled back in an awful ponytail, skin so dank, not the best me I could be, but still looking good enough-at least I hoped.

We did that brief wave and the thumbs-up signal that runners do. That motion of solidarity.

Then he ran right by me.

I glanced back at him, did to him what men had done to me so often.

He didn't look back that time. I had become pedestrian. Rejection humbled my ego.

But this was Atlanta, after all. Where most of the educated, good-looking, and upwardly mobile men were gay. The ones who looked like LL Cool J were more interested in the ones who acted like Little Richard than a heterosexual woman like me. A woman had to entertain lesbians to get a date down here.

I heard lesbians treated women better than the men did. Too bad I wasn't in that club.

Life goes on.

I passed the enormous bas-relief on the north face of the mountain, the largest bas-relief in the world. Three figures of the Confederate States of America were carved there: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis. Lots of minorities were out here now, but not back in the day of segregated public facilities. This mountain was the site of the founding of the second Ku Klux Klan back in the early 1900s, and the Klan was involved in the design, financing, and early construction of the monument.

I ran by that history, held my pace, and sped by that reminder as fast as I could, began taking the hill that paralleled the picnic area, that steep hill was the last hill, kept a decent pace as I pushed myself up that long and steep rise, embraced the pain from mile four until the end of the run.

My fantasies and I had run the five-mile course that circled that ball of granite, had made the hilly loop in less than forty minutes. The humidity made the air so thick it felt like I was inhaling and exhaling through a wet blanket, breathing hard, sweating like I was living in a sauna.

I stopped in the main parking lot long enough to get hydrated. I changed the music on my iPod, put on music by Carina Ayiesha, would let her reggae and Spanish songs lead me the next five miles, restarted my watch and started back jogging, ran the course in the opposite direction, all of the downhill becoming uphill, just kept my pace steady as I ran by the images of former slave owners engraved in the side of the mountain, that last mile being a grueling incline that had me in the kind of pain I loved.

At the end of the second five-mile loop I stopped my watch. Looked at the time on the stopwatch portion. I cursed. Angry at myself for not breaking forty minutes. Shaking my head, took my iPod off as I went to my car, grabbed a bottled water, hydrated, and headed toward the trail leading up the mountain.

I saw the dogs again. Running from the woods. The girl dog was running at a decent pace. Two dogs were behind her, harassing her, pink dicks sticking out of their furry bodies.

She looked back, saw they were still chasing, and ran fast, vanished on the other side of the lot. The male dogs never stopped pursuing. She was in heat, her scent leading them wherever she went.

I headed across the railroad tracks, followed people that were walking uphill, over fallen trees, broken ground, headed up the side of this bitch of a mountain. Once across the railroad tracks there was a pathway, a hiking trail that led up the side of that ball of granite, that path being about a mile and a half from bottom to top. Worked the hell out of my calf and butt muscles. The mountain's lower slopes were wooded. A sign said the rare Georgia oak was first discovered at the summit, and several specimens were along the walk-up trail and in the woods around the base of the mountain. The extremely rare Confederate daisy flowered on the mountain, growing in rock crevices and in the wooded areas.

My sentiments were obvious, expressed in the way I shook my head.

Seemed like everything in this area was called Confederate this or Confederate that, all the streets and stores were named after segregationists and slave owners or called plantation this or plantation that. With that history everywhere, I was surprised so many minorities had flocked to this part of the country.

Bottled water in hand, I kept a steady pace, fought the mountain like I was doing battle with age and time, fought the humidity, heat, and elevation, fought until I made it to the top, not until then did I bend over, hands on my thighs, breathing so tight, sweat dripping in my eyes.

I stood up and looked out at miles of trees, saw so much beauty, the city of Atlanta far off in the distance. It felt like I was Queen of the Hill as I panted and drank water, my sweat dripping on the same spot where the young and virile college-educated men stood shirtless in the movie Stomp the Yard.

I was 1,683 feet above sea level, 825 feet above the surrounding plateau.

The top of the mountain was a surreal landscape of bare rock and rock pools. I stood off to the side and stared out at all the real estate and forests covering Lady Georgia, the place that had once barred Ray Charles from earning a living within her boundaries.

I was alone, staring out at the most heavily forested urban area in the country.

Just me and my personal issues, concerns spiraling, worming deeper inside my head.

I'd never envisioned living in Smyrna, but Logan had inspired me to leave Memphis.

Bad relationships had the power of inspiration. Bad relationships made the world claustrophobic.

While I watched people struggle up the mountain, I stared out at the trees, gazed toward downtown ATL, and wondered how realistic it was for a woman to expect one man to fulfill every need that she had. Pleasing a woman was a Herculean task. And so was pleasing a man. Wondered if it was wrong for a man to feel the same way, that no one woman could please him in all ways.

Sweat dripped down my face into my eyes.

I saw him again.

I saw the shirtless golden-skinned man who had been running like a track star. His eight-pack glistening. Muscles flexing on his Mandingo frame. He looked like sex. Pure unadulterated sex.

He was hiking up the hill, taking the steepest part like he was a warrior in training.

Staring at him intoxicated me. That dark, uncontrollable side of me wanted to take over.

Had been so long since I had passion. Maybe that was why these thoughts consumed my soul. A starving woman always thought of food, at least until she was fed. But once I started, I had a tendency to overeat. Had a propensity toward carnal gluttony. And gluttony always created guilt and shame.

I almost ran away from that golden-skinned Adonis. But. There was always a but. There was always an exception. The sexy way he frowned. The way he was breathing, so smooth. In control. I licked my lips like I was lapping the perspiration away from his beautiful skin.

The tight-eyed Mandingo stopped to stretch his back, jumped up and down like he was shaking the pain off, and started back hiking. His trek was bringing him closer and closer to me.

I lowered my head, hoped the lust drained out of my eyes before I went blind.

I prayed for him to walk by me. But he paused in front of me.

I looked in his face, his expression a blend of ecstasy and pain.

I didn't say anything, stared at him, waited to see if he was going to continue his journey.

But he didn't move. He gazed in my eyes, wiped sweat from his face, from his tanned skin.

He disturbed me the way I had disturbed other men.

Once, maybe three years ago, I was in the aristocratic bowels of London, late at night, coming out of the Mansion House tube. I was alone in the financial district, close to the midnight hour, heading down a narrow alley that led to 30 Queen Street, the air chilly as I hurried toward the flat I was letting for that month. I'd come into the alley and a European man in a black suit, a man who had the look of a powerful diplomat, was walking toward me, his shoes clip-clopping on the narrow pathway. Clip-clopping until he raised his head, his breath steaming from his mouth, clip-clopping until he raised his eyes and saw me. My hair was down, my dress black and fitted, covered by a coat, but that coat was open enough to reveal my mild cleavage. He stopped walking when he saw me. In the softest voice he cursed and called his god's name in the same vulgar expression. He scared me. His expression, the way his mouth opened wide and his eyes opened wider, the way he stared, his body language told me he was stunned by what he saw, and then, right then, he unzipped his pants, took out his sex, and as he gazed into my eyes, eyes that were terrified, his lust overwhelmed him. He masturbated, became rough with himself, his penis pink and substantial, that ruddiness a contrast to his dark clothing, to the dark skies, to the dark pavement, to the dark moment. His plea sure was desperate and hurried, his voice muffled, his face in a violent rapture, his eyes locked on mine the entire time. Like a snake. Prepared to strike or spew venom.

I wanted to run away from that pervert, but I couldn't move, frozen by fear.

He grunted. He erupted. He staggered. He moaned.

When he was done, he stood there, winded, drool seeping from his mouth, his face becoming slackened, his desire leaking from his thick hand to his black suit pants to his shiny black shoes.

He lowered his head in shame and began blubbering uncontrollably.

He apologized to me, begged for my forgiveness, told me he had never done anything that sordid before. He said he didn't know what had happened, just cried that I was so bloody beautiful.

He pled temporary insanity.

I closed my coat, my heels moving at a hurried pace as I made a wide arch around him, avoiding his river of come, rushed toward Queen Street, horrified and disgusted.

On that night, I didn't understand that perverted man, why he would do something like that.

In this moment, I understood.

At this moment, on this mountain, I wanted to stare in the eyes of this Mandingo warrior god and please myself to his image, wanted to stare in his beautiful eyes and come with a quickness.

He said, "Nice view, huh?"

His baritone voice was smooth, articulate, educated. I licked my lips, cleared my throat, purged my thoughts, sent them to the land of the impure as I turned my frown upside down, forced a smile, my smile feeling tentative, hopefully unreadable. It took a moment of searching, but I found my voice.

My voice cracked, throat dehydrated as I said, "Depends on what you're looking at."

"Looking at what's beautiful, taking in God's creations."

I nodded. Awkwardness invaded me. "What's that over there?"

He pointed. "Downtown Atlanta."

"Thought downtown was in that direction."

"Kennesaw Mountain is over that way."

My feet kept moving, shifting my body. Kept touching my hair. He had me rattled, nervous.

In that moment I saw things I hadn't seen before. The tattoos on his arms and stomach. On his right arm he had a tattoo of a female angel with her wings wrapped around herself, the angel extremely beautiful. There was a cross on his left shoulder. The word KENYA tattooed on his left forearm. I assumed he was Kenyan. He had run with the grace and speed of a Kenyan. The tattoos didn't pull me in like the nice nipples on his chest. Erect nipples that looked like seeds had been planted and penises were in bloom. Saw the way veins rose out of his muscular arms. Sweat raining from his skin like tears, he held up a hand, blocked the sun from his eyes, and gazed at me. Looked right in my eyes. I had to look up to make that eye contact happen. He smiled. Showed hints of his straight, white teeth.

I wanted to find something wrong with him. Needed to find some fault. There was none I could see. He was astounding. Created visual molestation.

The heat, the humidity, running, the thunderstorm in the distance. I wasn't prettied up. I was gritty. Animal urges blending with the sensuality of working out, living in the zone of pain and plea sure.

Before I could readjust, before I could deal with this awkwardness, something else happened. It was as if I had imagined our conversation, as if I had daydreamed his presence.

I saw him again.

I saw him coming up the mountain again. I blinked a hundred times. Blinked away from what had to be a dream. A hallucination. A fantasy. Once again the golden Mandingo was hiking up the mountain, coming toward me like a dej vu. Same smile. Same black running shorts. Same physique.

He was just now coming up the mountain.

And inside this magical moment he was standing next to me at the same time.

The second Mandingo came over and stopped in front of me.

He looked at his doppelganger, panted, and said, "You found the roadrunner."

"Told you I was going to find her."

Mouth wide open, I stared at them. My world shifted. It was like I had fallen into a Philip K. Dick sci-fi movie. One dealing with clones. Was surreal. Was unreal. Same baritone voice. The only real difference was the first one I'd met had body art. The one without the tats looked more reserved, more businesslike. The other had the bad-boy thing going on. And the one without the tats wore a wedding ring.

The heat had me delirious. The altitude and dehydration had me seeing a split screen.

I said, "Am I having a heat stroke? Am I seeing double?"

The one who came up last panted and said, "You're in a Doublemint chewing gum commercial."

There was an abrupt crackling in the sky. Loud enough to make everyone on the summit stop and look out into the distance. People scaling the face of the mountain did the same.

All around us the heavens were growling, skies becoming restless and dark, filled with electrical surges. Like my body and soul. The noise arrived and its grumble became endless. A warning that soon rain would be falling. Soon lightning would be striking down the damned.

Despite the rumbling skies, my eyes wouldn't move from them, couldn't cease staring, evaluating.

I said, "Identical twins."

The one with the tats said, "Saw you running."

The other with the wedding ring said, "I passed you first. You ran at a good clip."