Nothing goes quite right

Ah, yes. The boys. This place has the best boys. It was popular with a lot of girls for a number of reasons, and two of those reasons, named Sam and Eric, waved back and walked over the Mercy's group.

They were beautiful men. Six feet tall with nice, lean but muscular bodies. They wore tight T-shirts and stretchy shorts like it was a uniform, and no one seemed to mind that it sometimes left very little the the imagination as to what the men had going on downstairs.

Tori immediately sidled up next to Sam; it was no secret she had a thing for black guys. mercy and the others figured that Tori had already slept with Sam at least twice in the year or so they'd been going to the place. He put a hand on the swell of her hip and greeted her warmly.

"Good evening, ladies." Eric said, politely ignoring his coworker feeling up Mercy's friend as he helped her into her harness. Eric was the one every girl wanted. He was powerful and beautiful, when he put hands on a girl for any reason, she swooned. His name popped up frequently in the locker room, but as far as anyone seemed to know, he never hooked up with any of the female customers; he barely even checked them out, at least not very obviously. But the general consensus was that he was only being professional. With the number of times Mercy or her friends had noticed him sporting a rather impressive erection in his tight little shorts, no one believed he was gay.

He and Adrienne shared their usual flat look, as if each expected—or maybe dared—the other to break first. It was like watching the royalty from two nations meet under tenuous circumstances. Adrienne, gorgeous and unattainable. Eric, the same. Neither seemed drawn to the other, but there was some kind of recognition there.

Mercy wondered what it must be like to be in that beautiful people's club.

Emily rolled her eyes and pulled on a harness. "I'm going first."

Eric moved to help her, and soon she was scurrying up the wall alongside Tori, who was belayed by Sam, as always.

When it was Mercy's turn, she stepped up to Sam's station and started up the wall. But she found her strength failing before she'd even reached the top. It was a real struggle to pull herself up along the handholds. She hadn't struggled with rock climbing since the beginning! Stubbornly, she tried to **** it, only to make a great show of trembling and grunting without any success.

"Are you alright, there, big M?" Tori called up to her. "Don't strain anything." Sam laughed.

She gave up, embarrassed, and stepped back to watch Tori go again, with Adrienne right beside her. Both girls handled the wall easily, as usual.

Mercy tried a couple more times, but each time, she made less and less progress until she just started passing her turns so she could sit down.

During one of her breaks, Emily sat down beside her to offer words of encouragement. "Don't worry about it. Some days are just tough. Nobody thinks you're weak. We all know you're the strongest."

"Thanks, Emily." Her words were kind, and under normal circumstances would have been enough to cheer Mercy up. It was true, they did all occasionally just have a bad day. But Mercy knew there was something else going on.

She caught Adrienne staring at her a few times when it wasn't her turn, but the other girl didn't say anything.