A Table of Green Fields - Guy Davenport (the rosie project txt) 📗

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