PEAKS 

1.
"I'm not lost," I said, rudely.  I was alone, of course, and talking to myself.  

2.
I'd graduated a semester early, so there was no family party, no supermarket sheet cake, no local bar buy-your-drinks from friends celebration.  When I walked in the door my mother called, "Heads Up!" forcing me to drop everything to catch a … backpack?  "You deserve it," she said. 

"Made in Germany" was embossed on a label of the flap, with leather straps, and hidden pockets.  I tried to figure out the message she was sending me with this 'gift'.   

"Pizza tonight", she said, lifting the phone.  Wow, I thought, we're even getting delivery.  "Do you want mushrooms on top?" Toppings even.  Either she had good news or bad news.  I couldn't tell which.  

After dinner, I unpacked in my bedroom and began to prowl through my new backpack.  Hidden inside was a Delta Airlines gift card.  "Whoop!" I yelled, running into to my mother's room.  

"You deserve it.  I took the college savings and put a little aside," she said through my hug.  "Go see the world before you start a full-time job."  What a gift.  

3.
"When can you start?"

The voice sounded tinny over the landline.  

I held the receiver in one hand, a Swedish travel pamphlet in the other, chewing my lip.  It was my new boss.  I looked at the foreign blue sky, the mountain tops, the snow, crisp, clean, the total opposite of my grimy Bronx.    

"When can you start?” he asked again, his voice carrying a little edge of impatience now.     

I stared at Sweden.  Away.  

My college years had been a 24X7 affair, working on campus, crash summer semesters, a ramen noodles with no rest marathon.  I’d always been a good daughter so my 'don't make the mistakes I did' mother didn't need to worry.  I was that girl everyone admired, and hated, at the same time.  

My nickname was ‘Double D’ in high school.  Not for my breasts, at that point anyway, but for Designated Driver; straight A's, home on time, no car dings during her junior license.  

‘You deserve it,’ my mother had said.  The old kitchen wall clock ticked the seconds by.  

"I can start in three weeks.  I have some… business to attend to," I replied.  

4. 

Now I was here, somewhere, in a town whose streets doubled back on themselves, many with not even a street name, somewhere in the middle of Sweden.   

I saw a street that rose up to an overlook.  Realizing I could get my bearings from there I marched up.  Well, my start was brisk, but then I started slowing down; slowing down, but determined. 

Finally, I reached the top.  My calves were complaining, and my breath had a healthy pant to it.  There was a low stone wall, partially covered with snow at this pinnacle.  Looking out I could see the whole city beneath me.  I pulled out my map and found the museum, the river, and tucked in a corner, my hotel.  

I looked around me.  No one was about.  I brushed some snow off the wall, leaned over and yelled "Hello!" 

"Hello!" "Hello!"  "Hello!" came back to me fainter, fainter and fainter.  Like a skipping stone, but with my voice.  

"My name is Rachel!"  I called.  

"Hi! I'm Rudolf!" came the reply. 

Startled I looked around me, then peeked over the low wall.  A young man was looking up at me, grinning.    

He had his long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.  His face crinkled with a smile, small lines creasing out from his eyes already, from seasons of squinting against reflected snow.   

I pulled myself back. 

"Now don't be ...shy is it?" he said in a slight accent.  I couldn’t help but smile.  I leaned over again.  

"Hello," I said, a little timidly.  

"You are American, yes?" 

"How do you know?"  I mean plenty of people spoke English, and I had a German backpack, and a hand-knit Swedish cap I'd bought in the airport.    

"You had to test the echo of our mountains.  That's not the … proper way in Europe," he replied.  

He disappeared, but I could hear his boots as they headed my way.  Coming around the side, he pulled himself around the low wall.  

He reached out a gloved hand to me, and I put out my mittened one.  

Looking down at the mitten he said, "Acch!  Those will never keep you warm here.  Your fingers will fall off!"  

"Come," he said, walking away from me, "We will get you a pair of warm gloves for those hands."  

I didn't move, watching him.  "I really can't -" 

"Come on, come on, there's a group of us right down the hill here-" he said.  Still, I hesitated. 

"Boy and girls, or I should say mans and womans, yes?" he smiled.  

I paused and then asked, "Far?" 

He shook his head.  "No, right around the corner."  

I followed after him at a distance, quiet; cautious.  

He turned back, smiling encouragement, and in a moment we were in front of a large two-story chalet.  The lower floor was enclosed with wood paneling, no windows.  A deck surrounded by an ornate carved and painted balustrade ran around the perimeter of the upper floor.  The entire second floor was glass, peaking up in the triangle of the gable.  People were hanging out on the deck, and seeing Rudolf, one of them raised a hand in greeting.  I relaxed and picked up speed to join him. 

The inside layout of the second floor was an enormous great room.  People swam in and out of the open kitchen, through to the balcony, or in the many modular seating areas.  There was a wall to wall shag rug of brilliant turquoise and green shag.  Quiet music was playing in the background.  Two uniformed staff walked about, picking up empty glasses, handing out food on simple white trays.  Rudolf immediately took off his hiking boots and put on a pair of sockmocs lined up near the door.  He smiled at me, frowned down at my feet, then tossed me a pair that looked like they'd fit.  

"There's a bathroom downstairs if you need one," a young woman said.  She wore tight black ski pants, a bright red sweater, and I realized, perhaps looking at her chest a fraction too long, perhaps no bra.  Must be cold, I thought to myself as I headed downstairs.  

I found the bathroom, then felt for the switch.   When I flipped it on the light revealed a huge space with three spacious shower stalls, a large Jacuzzi, a separate bathroom area with two bidets and two toilets.  After washing my hands and checking my face in the mirror I noticed reflected behind me curious devices that looked like water jets that you use on your teeth.  Weirdly, they were closer to the shower than the sinks.  They had small steel pistol grips so I tested one and the water squirted across the room.  Quickly I took the hand towel off the rack and wiped it up, laughing.  

When I came back up, a glass of raspberry wine was put in my hand, and I was invited to sit down with a group.  

"I'd gone off to walk around and sort of lost my way trying to get back to my hotel," I said.  
 
"Where are you staying?" one of them asked. 

"The Swedish Americana," I replied.  

The woman with the red sweater laughed.  "They always book that for the tourists."  

"She can stay here," Rudolf said, as he walked by me. 

Red Sweater looked at me, letting her eyes travel from my blond braids, down my chest, my lap.  I felt like curling into myself, like I was naked.  

"She'll do-" Red Sweater replied.  "Inga!" she yelled then.  "Inga, we need a bed for  ..." and she turned to me.  

"Rachel.  No, I can't intrude.  You don't even know me,"  I said, standing up, getting ready to go.  

The woman gripped my wrist then, and firm-gently brought me down near her face, her eyes. "Elsa, Rachel.  My name is Elsa." I watched as Elsa's hair glinted long and twisted about her shoulders, she leaned in and said again, softer, "Elsa." 

"You'll save hundreds of Euro, or dollars a night." Rudolf had come back, topping off my wine glass.  "We have food, and friends, and a Jacuzzi." 

"I'm supposed to be touring, to be seeing the world," I said, the wine beginning to really relax me.  

"Oh, you're going to see the world," smiled Elsa.  

It was decided Elsa who didn't drink would drive me down the Swedish Americana in her zippy red car.  The Double D, I thought to myself; not me this time!  The concierge seemed offended, but Elsa appeared equally breezy and so polite it came across as haughty and rude. I giggled in my hand.  We headed back up the hill to their chalet.  

When we returned to the chalet we found the long pine trestle table laid out with bowls of apples, trays of roasted winter vegetables, platters of salmon, and a basket of rye crackers and cheeses.  No one ate or drank to an extreme, leaving everyone satiated, yet alive.  Awake.  The food sobered me up.  

"To adventure!" shouted Rudolf! 

"To adventure!" called everyone back to him.  

Elsa clapped her hands, and the group fell silent.  

"Now let's get ready for ....bed," she said, grinning.   

This seemed to be a signal.  Everyone dispersed to their rooms, peeling off outer clothes on their way.  I seemed to be slow on the uptake, as they disrobed, their doors open.  Some were tidy, carefully folding their shirts and pants, others just threw everything on to their beds.  It seemed only a moment and everyone was naked, except for me.  Elsa, walked up to me her breasts at my eye level as I sat on the couch, and said, “It’s time.  C’mon,” and walked her glorious behind away.  

I knew things were, well, more liberal in Sweden, not like America.  The U.S. was founded by religious fanatics, and to say they were prudes was an understatement.  As for being naked in front of others, I’d tossed off my clothes in girl's locker rooms and the open showers and bedrooms of our dorms, but I never flaunted it.  

I had a feeling I was the ‘new one’, the one they hadn’t seen.  Truly seen.  They were all watching me, trying not to be obvious about it.  I looked around the room, and then slowly began disrobing.  

“Hans,” Elsa shouted out loud, causing me to cover myself.  They all laughed.  “Turn up the heat!”  

I heard then felt the heat coming out of the floor, warming me, warming the room, still I hesitating.   Then I decided, well, fuck it.  I felt like the odd person out with all my clothes on.  I disrobed, casually, as I did it every day.  People didn’t look at me, but they did through the corner of their eyes.  I folded my clothes: I wasn't ready to toss about.  I didn't know these people.  

My body had some scars and nicks from sports and living, but on whole, it wasn’t bad.  Looking around the room at everyone else’s body, well, I’d give myself maybe a B or B plus if we were grading.  Elsa, I’d give an A, A plus.  Rudolf, well Rudolf was like a god, a Swedish god.  His arms, and I was definitely an 'arms and chest' woman, well they looked like they could carry me up a mountain without pausing.  All that climbing and fresh air, I smiled to myself.  

“Come, we wash!”  I thought we’d take turns in that odd shower room, but people were running out the back door, outside.  Outside!  In the freezing cold!  I followed, thinking, how stupid am I to get into this, and then everyone ran down the stairs and jumped into the snow yelping, the men’s penises shriveling up to tiny thumbs, the women’s breasts shrinking, hardening.  The air crisp.  I was alive, that’s for sure.  

“Together!” shouted Elsa, and everyone pulled together in a huddle, our bodies shivering and we inched toward the lower door, laughing hysterically to a back door that led to the showers.  

“Youch!” I exclaimed once we got in.  “That was horrible!” 

“Your skin is burning, yes?” Rudolf asked, rubbing my arms hard.  

“Yes,” I agreed as he passed me a towel off a long heated pole that ran the length of the room.  

I could smell the cedar from the wood, and lemons from the soap I was guessing.  I heard the showers being turned on and saw to my surprise people using the water pic spigots to clean, well, various parts, some of the men and women using them as almost squirt guns, but definitely, definitely getting clean.  Some lingered at the spigot heads, finding pleasure I was thinking.  

I hit the bathroom one last time because the cold just made me pee, then headed back to the showers, and it was mostly emptied out, people wrapping the warm thick towels around them and walking upstairs.  I look around me.  No one was there - I tried one of the water spigots on my, well, 'Vitality'.  

My mother wanted me to know the facts of life, and know them well, so I wouldn't 'make the mistake blah, blah, blah'  I'd heard a million times.  She called a woman's vagina her vitality, and explained about puberty and desire, and that women deserved satisfaction as much as a man, regardless of what I heard or saw on TV.   She wanted me to love my Vitality, which made me giggle like a young girl.  I tested the different jets, testing them, and found one that was wonderfully perfect.  I was able to place it in its cradle, lock it in, and maneuver my body to use it to massage my Vital Core, leaning in and around.  

“Save that for us, Rachel,” Elsa leaned into the door.  I froze, totally ashamed.  She laughed.  “What a foolish country you live in my dear.  We’re waiting for you.  Up in the living room.”

I gathered myself, dried my hair off a bit and rebraided it to make it behave, and headed up.  I realized my clothes were on the far side of the great room.  

As I walked through the living room, there was a silence.  Then Rudolf pulled at my towel, and it fell.  I heard the quiet music with a beat, a steady kind of insinuating drum sound.  

“Ah,” said Elsa. Calling. She came off the couch, her hands and knees on the carpet. 

“Ah,” they all replied.  Except me, because I didn't know. 

She crawled toward me on all fours. 

“Ah," she called again. 

"Ah," they replied.  I looked into her eyes, tried to walk away.  She grabbed my ankle.  I didn't feel danger: I felt excitement and wonder. 

She gently bit that ankle, licking it, pulling my toe into her mouth and sucking on it.  She rolled over on her back. Her breasts gently tilted on either side of her chest.  Her Vitality was a gorgeous color and it called to me, her breasts called to me.   

“Ah,” she said, looking at me. Reaching up, she took my left hand and pulled it slowly, tugged it slowly down.   She brought my head, my lips to hers and slowly kissed me. 

"Ah," I heard behind me, around me.  

A man crawled over near us.  He was slowly stroking his penis, holding it between his thumb on one side, his index and third finger stroking himself, but very slowly, nothing urgent.  

Then he said, 'Ah...', and Elsa, pulling her lips away from me waved him toward us.  He knee-walked a bit closer, so close I could see his dick right near my face, but my mouth was too busy.  I wanted to close my eyes.  

Elsa lifted her lips, and the man, it must have been the man who had been stroking himself, began to kiss me.  I opened my eyes in surprise and saw that Elsa was stroking his dick for him, reaching down and kissing it, licking it, and then stroking again.  I reached out to her, wanting her, wanting to touch.  

The lips left my mouth and Elsa let go of the man and pulled me to her kneeling lap.  She cradled me in her arms, my back leaning against her knees, against her breasts, I turned to try to suckle, to lick.   

She pried open my legs but didn’t touch me There.  No one touched me There.  

The man who began stroking himself, was gently rubbing one of my breasts, touching his dick, massaging his dick around one of my breasts, saying, 'Ah.'

Everyone responded, 'Ahhhhh.'  

"Ahhh," I said.  I couldn’t ... I wasn’t ... myself anymore. 

He took his rubbed stroking dick and rubbed it now around both my breasts.  Then I watched as he arched his back and another person, my eyes kept closing and opening, I think it was a man came up behind him, and had his hand on the dick stroker's back, running a finger down his spine, then put his finger in his mouth and began running it under where I could not see.  

The Stroker picked up his pace.  'Ah-ah-ah,' he said.  

'Ah,' we replied. 

The man behind him took his own cock and started rubbing it around the man’s asshole but I couldn’t see much I could only know.  Imagine inside my closed eyelids. I was limited in my view.  I couldn't see enough.  I wanted to see. 

"Pause," called Elsa, pulling me up from her lap, giving me a gentle bite on my neck.  

"Hans!" she called, loud.  Then she said something in Swedish and I heard behind me the clearing of the trestle table and a fluffing sound, like a bed being made.  

"Carry," said Elsa.  Five men, their dicks in stages of hardness, and length tilted one way or another, gently lifted me up and carried me to the dining table.  It was covered with the thick towels now.  They tucked a rolled towel under my head.  I could see various couples or throuples now, seeing them, watching them.   

I felt a dick probing my armpit that that made me want to laugh but I didn’t, I just considered the feeling.  Another was pressing his dick in between my toes, one set at a time.  But I was waiting for Elsa, and she didn’t fail me.  I thought I'd want Rudolf, I wanted Rudolf, but Elsa was leading me.  I wanted to be led by a woman so I felt safe.  

She stood at the back of the trestle, behind my head.  She rubbed my scalp, undid my braid and kissed my forehead.  She kissed my head my nose my mouth.  Then she dangled each breast, one at a time, into my mouth.  I reached up and felt them, felt their cold-warmness, touched her nipples and brought one to my mouth, sucking. Then I took the other, sucking.  I was soaked.  Soaked.  

“I’m going to finger you, Elsa,” said a man's voice that came from behind Elsa. 

“Ah," she replied.  

"Ah," the group replied.  So I knew she was being fingered while she put her breasts in my mouth.  My eyes closed, but then I forced them open.  This moment would never come again, I was certain.  I looked around me.  I saw a man dropping his dick in another man's mouth while a woman stroked his balls.  I saw a woman leaning over a chair being fucked from behind in a slow pulling out then diving in, prolonging the pleasure for both.  I saw a woman prodding a man's asshole with a dildo and he was forcing himself back into it, pounding it himself.    

"Let us suck her front and, and back,” Elsa called.  Some of the people rose off the rug and came toward me.  

Elsa leaned into me, "Close your eyes now.  Close your eyes," and she kissed my eyes shut. 

I felt, then, tongues and lips, on my ankles, on the side of my thighs.  I was turned over, pulled up so I was on my knees, head down, my ass up, and someone spread my cheeks.  I was shaking.  
Elsa leaned over me.  "Too much?" she said softly.  

I was only able to nod.  I was too aware of the people around me too aware of too much.  

She bent down and kissed me, then lifted her head up and called, "Rudy, Rudy, she needs you.  This is going to take time."  

In my past, there had been boy-men, prodding men, quick men, grabby men.  They never waited for me.  I never faked it.  I just kept waiting for someone to figure it out.  They never did.  That's why, maybe, I was a straight A student, I smirked to myself.  

I looked down the table and Rudy stood there, between my legs looking at me, rubbing my left thigh.  He took his right index and middle finger, licked them and gently, gently placed them inside me. 

Elsa waved the others back.  They were a rubbing mass, a happy mass of people, a blur sort of.  Elsa came over to Rudolf, well Rudy, and stood by him.  

"Suck her until she comes," Elsa said. He turned his head one way, and the other, frowning.  

"You're too high up for me to work," he said analytically like I was a car engine.  

He pointed to the couch where a couple was copulating while a man jerked off, watching beside them.  

Elsa went over to the couch and gently moved everyone onto the shag rug.  

Some people came toward me, ready to carry me again.  I put my hand up, and got up and walked to the couch myself.  

Rudy pulled a pillow down to the floor.  "This may take time," he said and smiled up at me.  

Men never wait, was what I was thinking, then not thinking because my Vitality was being stroked by Rudy, stroked and then fingered, and then his mouth.  He studied my Vitality with his tongue and lips, finding my clitoris, knowing it was sensitive, using two fingers to press upon it and then lifting his head up, and when he stopped I looked down at him.

"Ah?" he asked. 

And using my hands about his head I placed him about me, placed him and moved him and fucked his mouth with my pussy, using his face.  There were those around him, but he was concentrating, he was working, I was his project.  I felt myself lift toward him and a sudden cool gush of an orgasm caused my body to pull up and up and up involuntarily and to sing.  I sang.  

"Ah," some of the others said, involved in their own orgasms, somewhere in their times of peak.  

Elsa was striding about calling, encouraging, sucking, rubbing others, then she called out.  "Hans! Washcloths please!" in a loud voice.  

Hans appeared with a basket, came forward with warm wet washcloths. Some took and some were far gone and didn't take, and I was still alive, still ready.  

"She has many more in her Rudy," Elsa said, inspecting me, touching my breast, sucking on it.  

"Would you like penetration?" she looked at me, then waited.  I looked at Rudy whose hard-on practically tapped his belly button.  I just nodded.  Elsa handed him a condom package which he expertly ripped off the wrapper and peeled on the condom and then... 

"Wait," said Elsa.  "Wait," she said again, looking me in the eyes.  She took her right hand and ran it down my pussy, from the top to the very wet hole, and stuck her fingers in, then out, then in again, then using her wet fingers probed near my netherworlds, which caused me to arch up, to groan.  Then she pulled her hand away, my pussy begging for her fingers again, and spanked Ruby on the ass.  

"She is ready," Elsa said, and stood there, watching me.  

Rudy was gentle, yet he was groaning as well.  There was semi-clear ooze coming out of the top of his dick, which caused me to get wetter.  He played a bit at the entrance of my pussy and then went in, then pulled out for a few seconds, and then entered again, doing this several times, me on the couch, he on his knees on the pillow on the floor.  I held on to the back of the couch and pushed forward, wanting every thrust.  

He was over quickly, with a groan bursting out of his mouth. 

"Ah," many of the crowd replied.  

I had 18 orgasms that night.  Eighteen.  Eighteen. 

5.
Sitting next to me was a man about my age.  He'd aged well, greyed well.  He smiled at me in a frowning "don't I know you" smile.  

"I'm Rachel Downing, CEO of Downing GPS Satellites, you are-" 

"Rudolf, Rudolf Swenson. Sales for Swedish Tech," he said, still frowning a bit, reaching back into his memory.  "Have we met before, do I know you?" 

We were sitting on two small chairs in a huge conference room, our knees almost touching, but not quite.  

"I was… lost in Sweden once.  Back in the day when we relied on maps.  You helped me get unlost," I smiled, widely.  

"Ah," he said, still not remembering I was sure. 

"Ah," I replied a large grin on my face.