Cutting through the smoke with my fork, I could see it was time to adult up. No, I'd been putting it off long enough; time I had my adult talk with the teen, here.
On the other side of the smoke, I held my fork like an adult. "See, Coral, there's no sense in us going to the shack no more because the healing exercise can't work no more because you just had to up and have that childish orgasm on me."
Coral didn't say anything.
Needing to make a point, I gripped my fork like a screw driver, gave it a turn at my temple. "See, Coral, that healing exercise takes much concentration. How am I supposed to concentrate, sitting in my shack--in the dark--thinking of you heading towards one of those again?"
"Anton, I won't have orgasms any more."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I won't take that turn. I'm in control of where I go, you know."
Turn, turn, turn.
Passing by the old-world apple tree--where I envisioned Coral Eve-naked that time--got me to thinking of Adam; all the eons gone by and, still, neither gender had a clue of the workings of the other. "Don't you see, Coral; it don't matter which turn you take. What matters is me, sitting across from you--in the dark--getting all turned on thinking you might."
Passing through the portal to the orchard Coral gave me a look she'd never given me. "The thought of me having an orgasm turns you on?"
"Well, ya!" I said, giving Coral my sternest look to date. "Jeez, Coral, what do you think?"
Oh, no, here came Simone and Sabina, strolling towards us. Please, Coral, if there ever was a time to not say anything, that time is now.
"Huh," Coral said, making eye contact with the passing celibates. "That means you must be turned on right now, right?"
Phenomenal, yes, how hot the groundskeeper's face can get on the last day in November. Instead of answering Coral's question I put my energies into fanning my face with the fork I'd have liked to have stuck in Coral.
"I owe you an explanation," Coral said. "See, I always thought of you as--"
"Stop," I cut in. "Time to change subjects." Oh, no, it was all too clear what Coral thought of me; that I was too over-the-hill to have anything so randy as a roll in the hay. I know, when I was nineteen, I sure couldn't imagine anyone over 40 having randy. But now that I was over 40, damned if I'd run out of randy yet. Of course, where that over 50 crowd was concerned, it was all randolph to the grave for them.
OK, then, time to touch on a new subject. Let's see, what might May and December talk about on this last day of November? Weather came to mind. I was opening my mouth, to touch on the approaching winter, when I stepped on the damned stepping stone I'd vowed never to step on again.
I checked in on Coral to see if there was any acknowledgement of the sacred circle we'd just crossed. But so struck was I by her beauty, I forgot what I was checking. No, guys, you don't know natural beauty till you walk your spring thing out where the backdrop is spent leaves clinging to a tree in vain. Of course, the fact that my spring thing hadn't opened her smart-ass mouth for a time, didn't hurt.
Checking my laugh, I led Coral down the winding path towards the lower, darker part of the orchard where a stand of twisted cherry trees upped the enchantment. The kind of enchantment that got December harking back to his last roll in the hay. December couldn't hark back that far. It was then that the sun came out. There was a saying farmers had in Minnesota: "Make hay when the sun shines." I looked around for some.
I saw no hay, but coming around the bend I saw a sign--the weathered sign a student had posted way back in Lucy's installation class. 'Stay on your path,' it read.
Omen.
Well, that was that then. No, I couldn't very well stop talking orgasms with a clear omen like that. Which brought to mind some hay in a place nearby.
Stepping off the path, I said, "OK, Coral, time to buck up--we got to high-step it through these brush piles here."
That's what I liked about natural beauties, their eyes lit up when the going got tough.
"Ya," I said, showing Coral how to high-step, "there's this cool place back in here I've been wanting to show you."
I'd blocked the portals to my secret place with a series of brush piles. The way I saw it, this old tent site was a place of power, and I, the keeper of this place, didn't want anyone tapping said power without earning the right.
Having penetrated the secret site, I turned to receive Coral. But she was down on a knee at the entrance. "How strange," she said, fingering the crop of ivy I'd just stepped on out of spite. "My mom's got this growing in her kitchen--in a pot. I can't believe houseplants grow in the wild in these parts."
She stood up, stepped over to take a stand beside me.
"These parts," was all I could say. All I could say because all of me was back in the day--that to-die-for day back in the schoolyard when I'd made the schoolgirl laugh.
"That plant," she said, pointing, "is it native to these parts?"
Oh, how I wanted to take Coral to school on English Ivy. How the invasive species was brought to the new world by another invasive species--mine and her European ancestors. But, no, I hadn't brought my girl to my secret place to fry her in the pan of history. I'd brought her here so she and I could have Pan all over the place.
"No," I said, panning the surrounds with my fork, "its not native, exactly, but it sure grows wild in these parts."
Coral didn't say anything.
"Then again, aren't we all wild where Mother Nature's mysterious workings are concerned?"
Coral, having followed my fork, finally took notice of the living walls of my secret enclosure. "Wow," she said, "it's like we've checked out of civilization--no sign of it. Well, other than that bale of hay."
"I know," I said, backing towards the hay. "Enough to make a girl feel as if she's in the wilds of Alaska, right?"
"It doesn't feel like Alaska. But I feel something." She closed her eyes. "There's a . . . there's a spirit here."
"I know," I said, pulling up as my two calves came in contact with the hay. "That's why I brought you here." I raised my fork to an ear, nodded as if the utensil was a diviner of spirits. "What you feel here is the hand of Mother Nature working her stuff."
Coral put on her male professor face. "Are you sure? I mean, sure, I feel Mother Nature too. But one feels her everywhere, right?"
I didn't say anything.
"No, Anton, the spirit I feel is specific to this place--this orchard." Coral lost her male face, put on a face as vulnerable as I'd ever seen it. "And I must say; I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the way the spirit is probing us."
"Probing?" I said, aiming my ass at the bale of hay. "More like prodding. And I, for one, welcome the prodding. No, nothing more moving than the fertile hand of Mother Nature getting inside a guy, inspiring him to get up off his ass, do some creating of his own."
I planted my ass on my bale of hay. Then I bit my tongue lest I touch on the fact that this fertile kind of hand was also the kind of hand that made this secret place--fat with Pan--one of the most dangerous places on the planet for a girl and a guy to sit.
I patted the bale of hay. "Coral, please sit."
Coral didn't sit.
I looked at my hand. Turned out, the hay was a bit wet. No doubt the rains the bale had soaked up over the course of the fall.
I stood up, took off my raincoat.
****
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