reconsidered, turned to the mimosa tree, and with nothing more than a mild and rational interest in this sudden burgeoning, approached the tree and found myself standing unusually close to its silent flowering. Actually, at that moment one of the yellow clumps was already brushing against my vest. I stood there thinking of the delicate structure of so much airy growth and admiring this particular depth of yellow. I was alone, the sun had warmed the tree, the tree was full throated, I began to smell its gentle scent. And then I raised my hands, displaying my thick black coat sleeves, my frayed white cuffs, my golden cuff links and golden ring, and slowly thrust my hands deep into the vulnerable yellow substance of the mimosa tree. Into my hands I gathered with all possible tenderness one of the hivelike masses of yellow balls. And keeping my eyes open, deliberately I lowered my face into that cupped resiliency, and felt the little fat yellow balls working their way behind my spectacles and yielding somehow against my lips. I stopped breathing, I waited, slowly I opened my mouth and arched my tongue, pushed forward my open mouth and rounded expectant tongue until my mouth was filled and against all the most sensitive membranes of tongue and oral cavity I felt the yellow fuzzy pressure of the flowering tree.
The kiss, for it was a passionate kiss, really, reminded me of the grape-tasting game, though of course we never allowed ourselves to use hands in the grape-tasting game. But also in the midst of the kiss I thought I heard Fiona’s giggle, Catherine’s sigh. And Rosella may have seen me kissing the mimosa tree. If so, will she today or tomorrowfollow my example? I think not. Kissing the rich yellow fluff of the mimosa tree may always lie just a step beyond Rosella’s abilities or inclinations. Yet kissing me, or her chances of kissing me, daily assume a still faint but ever-increasing tangibility. Perhaps I shall turn out to be Rosella’s mimosa tree as well as her white beast. Who knows?
T OGETHER TWO HEAVENLY CREATURES SPREAD THEIR BLUE feathers for me on a rock wall overlooking sea and sky. I uncupped Fiona’s breasts and Catherine lifted her own white breasts from the madras halter. The buttons on Catherine’s white cotton pajama top were like eyes of pearl. Fiona caressed the wooden arm, I removed my spectacles, Hugh moaned. Between the two villas I strung the clothesline high. Remember?
W ITHOUT PAIN? PERHAPS NOT EXACTLY WITHOUT PAIN . After all, the artistic arbiter of all our lives—Love—is only too expert at depressing with one of her invisible fingers the lonely key, the sour note of pain, and most of us enjoy the occasional sound of pain, though it approaches agony. In fact, could any perfect marriage exist without hostile silences, without shadows, without sour notes? Obviously not. Throughout the many years of my sexually aestheticunion with Fiona, for instance, there were the momentary but nonetheless bitter whispered confrontations over use of the bed in the master bedroom, brief spurts of anger about a sudden loss of form on the violet tennis court. And there were also instances of deeper and more prolonged periods of threatened harmony, such as the nearly disastrous days of my love for a small young woman whose husband was one of the few men whose spirit and personality and entire body (his lips, his eyes, his fat chest, his beard) Fiona found intolerable. Revulsion in my wife was rare, this woman whose very quickness of breath could liberate the lover buried inside the flesh of almost any ordinary man in undershorts. But despite his strength and crippling desperation, the husband of the small young woman was clearly doomed. I pleaded for him. Fiona tried. We failed. There were tears, locked doors, a wedding ring slipped like a cigar band around a rolled-up handwritten note of accusation. We failed. Then luckily enough, Love herself changed the metallic scene, shifted to some sweeter pitch our
The kiss, for it was a passionate kiss, really, reminded me of the grape-tasting game, though of course we never allowed ourselves to use hands in the grape-tasting game. But also in the midst of the kiss I thought I heard Fiona’s giggle, Catherine’s sigh. And Rosella may have seen me kissing the mimosa tree. If so, will she today or tomorrowfollow my example? I think not. Kissing the rich yellow fluff of the mimosa tree may always lie just a step beyond Rosella’s abilities or inclinations. Yet kissing me, or her chances of kissing me, daily assume a still faint but ever-increasing tangibility. Perhaps I shall turn out to be Rosella’s mimosa tree as well as her white beast. Who knows?
T OGETHER TWO HEAVENLY CREATURES SPREAD THEIR BLUE feathers for me on a rock wall overlooking sea and sky. I uncupped Fiona’s breasts and Catherine lifted her own white breasts from the madras halter. The buttons on Catherine’s white cotton pajama top were like eyes of pearl. Fiona caressed the wooden arm, I removed my spectacles, Hugh moaned. Between the two villas I strung the clothesline high. Remember?
W ITHOUT PAIN? PERHAPS NOT EXACTLY WITHOUT PAIN . After all, the artistic arbiter of all our lives—Love—is only too expert at depressing with one of her invisible fingers the lonely key, the sour note of pain, and most of us enjoy the occasional sound of pain, though it approaches agony. In fact, could any perfect marriage exist without hostile silences, without shadows, without sour notes? Obviously not. Throughout the many years of my sexually aestheticunion with Fiona, for instance, there were the momentary but nonetheless bitter whispered confrontations over use of the bed in the master bedroom, brief spurts of anger about a sudden loss of form on the violet tennis court. And there were also instances of deeper and more prolonged periods of threatened harmony, such as the nearly disastrous days of my love for a small young woman whose husband was one of the few men whose spirit and personality and entire body (his lips, his eyes, his fat chest, his beard) Fiona found intolerable. Revulsion in my wife was rare, this woman whose very quickness of breath could liberate the lover buried inside the flesh of almost any ordinary man in undershorts. But despite his strength and crippling desperation, the husband of the small young woman was clearly doomed. I pleaded for him. Fiona tried. We failed. There were tears, locked doors, a wedding ring slipped like a cigar band around a rolled-up handwritten note of accusation. We failed. Then luckily enough, Love herself changed the metallic scene, shifted to some sweeter pitch our
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