Amy's butt wiggling at you from the window.

Lenny Kravitz is playing on a boom box, but not too loud.

You look around Ellen and Amy's sunlit corner dorm room. It's furnished in the usual way, two beds, two desks, a washstand, and two beat-up wooden wardrobes warped a little off true. But for you, the striking feature of the room is a shapely female butt in tight hip-hugger jeans, sticking out at you as Amy leans out the window. The beltless jeans are riding a little low, and you can see a broad patch of pale lower back and the top of her butt crack.

"Okay, Lena," you hear her say in a raised voice. "A step left, and then let it out a little."

You hear some scrabbling noises, and a loop of rope snakes down outside the window.

"You've got it," Amy says. "Just two more steps."

There's some quick scrabbling and an ominous crack! followed by a gritty sliding noise and a shriek. A broken ivy branch falls past Amy.

Ellen shrieks beside you. You take a step forward.

"Shit!" Amy says. "Lena, arrest!"

The rope snakes further down amid little flakes of brick and cement, and a dark figure slides quickly down toward Amy. At the top of the shape are two small fists gripping rope.

"Eee-yunph!" you hear as the figure slams against the top of the window frame.

"Hold on tight!" Amy says. "I've got you!"

You step up quickly and help Amy pull in a young woman tangled in climbing ropes. She lands on a bed, trailing half-taut ropes out the window and up.

She's a petite Chinese girl wearing half-gloves, climbing shoes, elbow and knee pads, a nylon harness, and a bare excuse for a tank top and shorts. She's collected scrapes on her arms and legs and a bruise on her cheek.

She looks up at you and Amy, and does a double take at you. "Du-uude! Don't tell me you scored already, Aymes! What am I out risking my neck for? I thought the big plans were for tonight."

"He's El's boy toy," Amy says, hooking a thumb back at Ellen, openmouthed at the scene.

You swallow a lump in your throat. Didn't I wish! "Well, I..." you start.

"Lena!" Ellen exclaims. "What were you doing?"

Lena ignores her. "Darn, what a kick in the head," she says. "You got a couple Naproxen?"

Amy says, "Sure, give me a sec."

Ellen says, "She's bleeding on my quilt!"

"Oh," Amy says. She yanks the coverlet off her bed and has you lift Lena while she tucks it underneath her.

"My hero," she says in a breathy voice. "So handsome and so strong. Ow, careful there," she says as a rope slides over a skinned elbow.

You blush a little, even knowing she's just teasing.

"Don't get your hopes up," Amy says, "Lee here's the original short attention span girl. But hey, you're only here for the weekend, right?"

"I'm so sure, Amy," Lena says. "Look who's talking, Miss 31 Flavors."

"Maybe we should do something for Lena's scrapes?" you cut in. "And make sure that head bump isn't anything serious?"

"I'm not going out before I clean up a bit. Chatty Cathy's sure to start nosing around if anyone sees me like this," Lena says.

Ellen bustles about, seeing if she can find anything useful to help Lena, but keeping her nice new dress well back from anything messy. You and Amy work together to get Lena untangled from the ropes and out of her harness.

You volunteer to put my recent first aid class to work, and start gently wiping Lena's scrapes and covering them with dressings from Amy's "disaster kit" from under her bed.
"So, pardon my asking," you say, "but what was all that mountaineering about?"

Amy and Lena look at each other, tall pale redhead to petite ivory and black silk.

Ellen says, "Yeah, what's all this about?"

The album on the boom box ends, and it's suddenly quiet.