John Hawkes - The Blood Oranges

“She’s mine, baby, all mine!”

“Fiona saw her first,” Catherine said. “Let Fiona try to talk to her.”

“That’s right,” I murmured, “Fiona’s more bucolic than the rest of us.”

“Never mind. I’ll give each of you a little taste!”

We laughed. In unison we lapsed suddenly into silence. With unnecessary delicacy and concern for her feelings we stood around her — and stared. Not so the girl, who wanted to talk and did, and who was young but by no means a child and large though not as large as Hugh, Fiona, Catherine and me. Yes, it was the girl rather than ourselves who was outspoken in curiosity and who began and sustained our conversation, wanting to know us, wanting to tell us about her life. She spoke in a constant uninterrupted rush of sound and gesture, assuming our comprehension of the barbaric syllables and girlish pantomime. Up went the soft arm shaded with faint hair. She shrugged in the direction of the valley. She sighed, she extended both empty hands. She smiled, held up six fingers. She smiled, shook her head, touched both breasts, clapped a small hand to her unprotected loins. But all this was unimportant, she seemed to say, because she was only a goat-girl. Whereas we, she knew, were men of mystery, women of beauty. And she recognized us, she seemed to say, though she had never expected the goats to lead her to the good luck of this encounter, which she did not intend to spend on mere self-preoccupation. Hardly.

“Make her stop talking, baby. It’s time to eat.”

But she would not stop, was unquenchable, even while I raised my eyebrows and smiled and demurred and Fiona, lovely tense barelegged Fiona, opened the widemouthed sack and passed around the cherries. No, hands laden with that suggestive fruit and mouth stuffed with cherries, lips pursed to spit out the stones, on she talked — singling out each one of us for analysis, glancing to the rest of us for confirmation of her judgment, her appreciation, her right to associate herself with our mystery, our beauty. She overlooked Hugh’s missing arm, was simply not interested in his missing arm, but concentrated instead on Hugh’s little black pointed beard, reached up and stroked it with fingers juice-stained and knowing. She had tousled with the horns of the largest goat, she knew that the affinities between certain men and certain animals were to be respected. She touched her bare foot to Fiona’s bare foot, giggled when Fiona giggled, then swung about and exclaimed over Catherine’s breasts and filled her wet hands with Catherine’s hair. And then? And then she turned to me.

Or rather she glanced at Fiona, glanced at Catherine, and then once more gave me the sight of her perfectly round eyes which for the moment were certainly a match for the cherries. But no gesture of awe, no smile, no uncomfortable burst of shyness, no quickness of breath. Nothing. She did not care that by now half her flock was beginning to climb the further wall of the valley. She counted on Fiona and Catherine for tolerance.

“Kiss her, baby. She probably thinks you’re some kind of god.”

“Of course she does,” I said, and bent down and obliged Fiona as always. My face was half again as large as the girl’s, my lips were full while hers were thin and remarkably pink in color. The kiss was a mere stitch in the tapestry of my sensual experience. The distance between the goat-girl and singer of sex could not be bridged by a single kiss, prolonged or not, agreeable or not. But I who had kissed how many girls at Fiona’s bidding now kissed this one, and beneath my hand I felt a sprig of clover, a spray of green growth snagged from the field. At least there was a pleasing moisture on my cheek and mouth, at least the goat-girl considered herself loved by the unattainable man whose name she would always try to remember and say aloud to her goats.

“Hugh,” I said, turning away and glancing first at Fiona and then at Catherine: “How about it?”

“Pass, boy. For me, one woman’s plenty.”

“Oh, Hugh, kiss her just once, like Cyril. Catherine doesn’t mind.”

“I don’t care if he kisses her or not.”

“Doesn’t care, boy. You hear that?”

“I mean it, Hugh. Kiss her, if that’s what you want.”

“Cyril, baby, save us!”

“No,” I said, laughing and taking hold of Catherine’s arm, “fun’s over.”

“Oh, you’re just trying to spoil my morning. All of you.” And turning, laughing, staring at Hugh, pulling at the elastic of her tight shorts: “If you won’t kiss our little goat-girl, baby, kiss me instead!”

“Anyway,” I said softly, “she’s gone.”

Were they listening? Were they interested? I would never know because I had already waved at the tiny white figure once again watching us down there in the midst of her girlish vigil beneath the largest olive tree, had already begun to guide Catherine down the other and more gentle slope of our sunlit hill. We walked slowly and heavily, listening to the tread of my chamois boots and Catherine’s worn-out green tennis shoes, moved slowly down the hot pastoral grade with arms about each other’s waists and faces raised to the sun that was dissipated, invisible, yet uniformly present wherever we looked. Our bodies were free, our temperaments were in accord. And near the bottom of the hill we paused, and Catherine rested her head on my shoulder. Her voice, when I heard it, was low and sensible.

“What was the trouble last night?” she asked. “Meredith again?”

I nodded.

“More nosebleeds?”

I nodded.

“She’s had them for years.”

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “I’m fond of Meredith.”

“Are you?”

“Of course I am.”

We kissed each other. The goat-girl and I had kissed each other. Surely on the hilltop we had just abandoned, Hugh and Fiona were kissing too. So my theory of sexual extension, I thought, was taking root, already new trees were growing from the seeds we had spit so carelessly onto that barren ground.

“FIONA IS PERPLEXED, BABY. LISTEN A MINUTE.”

“I’m listening.”

“We were standing together in the dark, like this. We were nude, like this. The whole thing was a duplication of us right now, but different.”

“Well, I hope it was different.”

“Please, baby. Be serious.”

“I had an idea we might talk tonight. Tell more.”

“I was giggling. Just a little.”

“Sure you were.”

“What’s the matter with you? Stop fencing. And you could control your delicious hands. I want to talk.”

“Control your own.”

“If I can’t talk to you, I’m lost.”

“The difference, Fiona, the difference.”

“It’s not just that he’s thin and bony and was trembling. I love all that. It was something else.”

“Don’t stop now.”

“God, you’re irritating.”

“Sure I am. Why not?”

“Baby, please.”

“Start over, Fiona. My love can wait.”

“I want you, baby.”

“Keep talking.”

“We were standing here in the nude, like now. About three o’clock in the morning, and I thought you were on his mind because he seemed taller than ever, bonier, and he was cold, baby, cold. I had my arms around his neck and crossed, like this. Loosely. I didn’t care about his hand on my behind. I hardly knew it was there. I guess I tugged on his beard a little bit with my teeth. But that’s all. I was just hoping that he’d know how good he made me feel and begin to relax.”

“Sounds all right to me. What’s the problem?”

“I wish you’d stop caressing me. God!”

“Caressing stops.”

“Kiss me.”

“Let’s finish the seminar. What happened.”

“You smell good, baby.”

“You, too.”