A Table of Green Fields (18 page)

With Tarpy.

He would have to go away in less than a month. I said I thought I understood. I wasn't sure. He mentioned the world. Its disapproval. And added that for the moment the world around us was but rain. Lovely rain. Cozy rain.

I had another mouthful of pipe smoke and felt as weightless as a flaught of goose down. Florent made himself comfortable with his head on the shins of my crossed legs. I told him about Tarpy. Why I made friends with him. How I cleaned him up and gave him clothes. Florent said he knew. Papa told him.

Did he know who sent Tarpy away? He didn't know. He was sure it wasn't Papa. Who Florent said knew about our jacking off and thought it only natural. Florent said he was even mildly amused. But he had been told that Tarpy thieved and was not all there in the head. Even that Papa said was nothing Jens would take up. Jens on the contrary was no doubt a good influence on Tarpy. Florent was to see that things went well for the summer. But there was no Tarpy when he arrived. Only a very unhappy Jens.

I asked if we didn't go too far could we still jack off? Tomorrow. I added that for the distance of it. He reached up and pulled my head down to his. Nose to nose. We could go too far. Way too far. And break our hearts and be miserable but that was not now.

I squealed and wiggled onto him in a round of hugs. His legs with my arms. His chest with my legs. We rolled over. A scramble for the candle which went flying. We doused it and took off our shirts and rolled into a hug. He held my balls tight in one hand and stood my peter up with the other. His fingers were spry. Lips ticklish and delicious. Tongue slippery. His peter was as hard as duramen when I had the presence to work 
it with both hands. I imitated what he did. Short of choking. Our pleasure tossed and bucked to a pitch. Our pleasure. Not being given and giving but giving together and being given together. We did our best to make it last even when we knew we could catch our breath and begin again. My spunk streamed out as from a pull on an udder. Melted out first and then ran stout. The joy of it helped me bolt a deeper reach. I mashed his balls against his crotch and bore down on the swallow. He spilled out a cannikin thick and forspent. Rich. Clover and soda.

The time was important and nameless. We lit the candle and the pipe. We put on sweaters. Our hair was as messy as goblins' and we reeked of spunk. I took a fine drag on the pipe and turned pale. Florent laughed. I laughed when I could. I wobbled. We ate dried pears and apples. We peed into the rain.

We talked crazy and silly. Florent licked my peter like a puppy. Kissed me on the belly button. Wrestled me into a hug and licked me behind the ears. I wiggled free and sat on his chest and pinned his arms with my legs. His eyes shone in the candlelight. I slid backward between his thighs so that I could fool with his peter. His splendid peter. It was limber but fat. There was more neck to it than mine between the eave of the head and the ruckle of the foreskin drawn back. More bore to the keel duct. A niftier rake to the tilt of the glans. Down and up once. Twice. Thrice. And it was as tough as a plow handle. I plied the slippage with a mind to the outlandish. To be headlong generous. To outdo. I rode the foreskin full stretch with a swirl of tongue deep on the downstroke. Shallow with a flicker on the up. I put a thraw into the treadle. For style. A thropple dive plumb to the bush. A slow rippling passage. A fast bouncing passage. A jog. A trot. A sprint. When he squirmed to join up I signalled no. Lie back and feel. I was frisky and longwinded.

The rain died to a drizzle and we heard the night hunters stirring about. Our candle was almost out. A wonderful quiet replaced the drums of the rain.

I lay flatling on my elbows to charm the thronging spout to the jolt. I took my time. We had achieved
bon ton.
That was what it was. I explained to Florent that to Grandmama everything that was as it ought to be was
bon ton
or it was Sweden-borgian or it was both. The very heavens were not only gardens and cities of light but the perfect and harmonious keeping of 
bon ton.
Florent said that I could have fooled him. He thought we were two randy boys who had found it convenient to invent the pagan world again for their particular use and delight.

We started another candle. My peter was already in the rounce of a chime when he began its jig. He changed good for better and better for best. He stopped and started. Making it last. Making it ring to the most vibrant thrum of its resonance.

I was wonderfully sleepy afterwards and stretched and yawned with all my might. Florent opened the tent flaps. It was earliest dawn.

We walked about in the fresh half light. We got a fire going with considerable trouble but once it got cracking we heaped it high and warmed ourselves. We made porridge and coffee. The sun came out bright and strong. We made caca in the woods and bathed in the stream. The cold water shrivelled our peters and tightened our balls. I was lightheaded enough from lack of sleep and got dizzy as a drunkard on the pipe. We opened both ends of the tent to the sunshine and air. We felt clean and happy. Florent's laughing eyes and rising peter asked me if I was good for another go. We took each other's peters in our warm mouths without any jacking at all and came after a lovely long time and slept just as we were until the sun was directly above us.

Florent looked at my blisters when we woke. They were well enough for us to push on. We ate and broke camp. We packed our shirts and pants and shorts and set out in boots and rucksacks as naked as savages. I liked the flop of my peter as we walked and the sweet air and the sight of Florent. I imitated the balance of his walk. The set of his hips when he stopped. The clarity of his speech.

We walked through white birchwoods and high fields of gorse and rocks like grazing sheep. We whistled and sang. It was fun to pee without unbuttoning. We had not combed our hair for days. Florent had not shaved.

We found a fine spit of land into a lake. Birches. Small round flowers everywhere the color of egg yolk. Mossy rocks. We pitched the tent at the tip. It was too late to fish so we had chipped beef and bran cakes. Dried fruit. Florent was proud of his fire and said it was a domestic animal. Man's first tamed thing. We made a good batch of coffee. I was getting the hang of the pipe. We passed it back and forth. We did some Greek. Heard some of the
Iliad.

We turned in early. We talked a long time snug and close in the bedroll. Florent said that I fell asleep in the middle of saying a sentence.

I would have liked a shirt at least the next morning but bore my goose pimples without complaint. We saw deer grazing at the edge of the wood. Two badgers loping through the bush back to their sett for the day. We ate our midday meal on the flat of a boulder that caught the sun in the dark of a cedar forest. We nuzzled each other some for the fun of it after we had lit the pipe. To show that we could be free. Florent made me a garland of flowers and put it on my head to wear. He said it was Greek. Something Achilles would do for Patroclus.

Each day was different. A world a day. Pine woods all of one day. Meadows and rocks the next. The weather kept beautiful and we turned so brown that the gold hair on our arms and legs stood out white against the dark of our skin. We were vain of our sunbrowned peters.

It was on a promontory jutting out over a sea of treetops that we did the most for the longest. We liked the place for its grand view and height and floor of larch needles. There was a rock with a dip in it just right for sheltering a fire. We found the place in the early afternoon and decided to be lazy and stay. There was just room for the tent among the trees. When we were all squared away Florent said that he had never been 
hornier. Which made my mouth go dry and a tickle stagger up my peter.

Florent held up a hand. For silence. I too heard footsteps and voices. Out here? Florent fished our underpants out of the rucksacks. Decent enough for hunters or Lapps. We peered over the ledge of the rock. The jingle of harness. Through the trees we could make out a horse and wagon and someone walking alongside. So there was a trail below. We saw movement and not shapes. A flick of yellow in the green. The nodding head of a horse. The squeak of a wooden axle.

Florent shinnied up a tree. I admired the trim white pod of his underpants as he climbed. The camber of his legs like a sailor in the rigging. The bunt of his chest. The creak of the wagon lost itself in the muddled soft sounds of the woods.

Florent said it was a medicine man and his wagon or a travelling magician perhaps. He saw a colored sign which he couldn't read on the side. The man on foot wore a white top hat. He could not see who had the reins.

He dropped down and shucked his underpants. Me too. He said that this called for coffee and pipe. Meeting another soul in so remote a place. Coffee and pipe. I had been ready for randy doings. Coffee was a mood with Florent. It set him studying. A good fire boiled a pan of water. We had fragrant coffee in no time. I sipped from his cup and took drags on his pipe. Which made me giddy. I straddled his thighs so that our peters touched. He reached under and grabbed my balls. I held the gowpen of his. An easy clutch and good.

He knocked the pipe out and we began. It was lovely and crazy. Twice we did each other and twice we came all tangled together. We had supper and watched the stars come out and the red moon. We made the tent trig with a candle. I jacked Florent for a loving hour. For the richness of it and the long fun. And he me except that I kept starting to shoot off and would come a squirt which he would lick from my tummy or his fingers and begin carefully again. Then we sank down on 
each other to the hilt and grunted for sheer piggishness and drove our pleasure to the quick and swagger alone saw us through until we could loll awhile and sit on the rock passing the pipe back and forth.

What noises you hear in the deep of a forest at night. Rushes through leaves. Hoots. Caterwauls. Squeaks. Growls. Twitters. Somewhere a distant river.

Florent asked if I could possibly still be horny. I was always and forever horny. What would I like best? To be jacked off for as long as I could go. Over and over and over. He mumbled into the pipe stem. That would be better starting from scratch. I said I supposed so. Second choice. To do the same for him. Ho! he said. We had come six times each. What about a consoling scramble and a good long sleep and see tomorrow what could be done for Jens' heart's desire? He signed the promise with a kiss on my peter.

Our promontory was even finer by morning light. The forest glittered that lay below our rook. The air was lively. We rambled down after breakfast to find the road on which we had seen the horse and wagon. Two ruts in the grass was all we found of an old road overgrown. We saw where a fallen limb had been moved.

Had I perhaps heard music in the night? Music? I asked. He said that he could swear that he had heard a violin. The tune was Magyar. Then he said that next we would grow nice little kids' horns and tails and hear a frenzy of music all the time. Tabors and panpipes and clashing cymbals.

Florent stretched wonderfully and winked. He poured more coffee and lit his pipe. He patted the ground in front of him. Where I was to lie. I got comfortable with my hands under my head. Ready? he asked. Ready. His watch hung down the front of the tent on its chain. I was to signal when I was near to shooting off and we would let the urge subside. And go on. Deliciouser and deliciouser.

Florent said in his grown-up way that he imagined all this 
would last maybe until lunchtime and that somebody named Jens will have had quite enough of it. There was always a tease in his grown-up voice. I said that he was never to quit. It became splendid. Sweet beyond sweet. Half an hour and my peter was as dense with sweet as the heart of a honeycomb.

We stopped for a quick stretch and pee and refiring of the pipe. I took a dizzy puff. We peed off the rock. Florent's peter was half hard and I gave it a nuzzle and kiss before we went on. Short of an hour I didn't signal fast enough and came two generous spurts which dabbed my chin and eyelid. Florent let my peter limber a bit. The tone was even finer when he recommenced. I kept the tip of my tongue between my teeth and kneaded the grass with my fingers.

He cockered along my craving with a knowing hand. He idled to a tease or took his hand away at a yummy moment or sped to the beat of a rabbit thump. In a frantic tantivy as pitched as a bolting horse I spouted a zinger that spattered us both. There were splats in the ginger down of Florent's unshaven face and a smattering down me from chin to hips. We hugged and rolled and shouted. Florent stretched and walked on his hands. We munched dried apples and stood on the rock looking out over the trees.

Then on for another wonderfully long time. After which we ate dried beef and mush and lay in the sun passing the pipe back and forth. Ready for another? Florent asked. Ready I was.

This time I too heard the violin. We cocked our ears and looked at each other. Florent said it was the same tune he had heard in the night. The carnival lilt of it came from somewhere in the forest below. Sounds carry on the wind in so quiet a place.

He went on. We achieved deliriums and idiocies of pleasure. By the middle of the afternoon I was doing Florent for we really could as I had not thought spring the bounce out of my horny pizzle. The sixth toss spavined the steed. Florent was so juicy that my hands kept slipping their grip. I tugged and 
bore down and just as I was beginning after a fine stretch of time to lick on some puppy laps for extra the big fellow buck-jumped a drencher full spatter all over my face. Florent sat up whooping and we rolled in a hug and squeezed and butted and crowed because we were crazy with happiness and silly beyond hope of ever being serious again.

We stretched out on the fragrant larchfall in kind warm light. I smoothed my sticky face along his tummy up to his fuzzy cheeks and lay on top of him nose to nose and eye to eye. And looked into his look.

We heard the chink of harness and the squeak of a wheel. Florent sat up and I back. We held each other's shoulders. There were voices below and a wagon. We crawled to the edge of the rock and peered down.