The Garden

She rocks her hips about, squeezing her bottom. He feels her thighs tense and she lifts herself up, hands still above her head.

As she comes down, he cannot help himself. He grips the wooden frame of the bed and raises his hips to meet her, his balls tighten, the pleasure is sharp and consuming. He pushes himself up against her a second time and it's over.

She slips off him, bends and kisses his cheek then nestles into his arms. Her skin's still cool, she rests her head on his chest, her breath is hot on his breast. Her hair brushes his lips and nose. She pulls the blankets up and sighs, "It's covers I miss most, sleeping out there."

His eyes droop and he is asleep.

Cold air wakes him. He sees her pass outside his window. From the lightening sky he can see it's now dawn. He lies looking at the ceiling, sleep has fled leaving exhaustion behind. He feels lost and looks on the coming day without enthusiasm.

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In the afternoon, at the conclusion of the negotiations, he steps out into the garden and crosses by himself to the pavilion. She stands with her slim back to him. She doesn't turn when he slides the glass. Today she has just a black velvet collar around her delicate neck. Her hair is done up elaborately, the better to display that neck.

The sun is low. Lower than the house in fact. It shines through the gap, through the iron trellis with the circle in the middle.

"Twice a year the sun fits right in the circle," she says, "It's still somewhat south, to the left. It's nicer with the moon. When the moon shines through it, you can just stare away."

Then she does turn, "Tea?"

"No thanks"

"Scotch?"

"No, perhaps a glass of water."

When he sees her take the blue enamel pot and step towards the sliding glass, he says quickly, "There's no need."

She pays no attention and slips out. Her breath rises from her lips. He shivers as he watches her bend and fill the pot. The icy water flows over her hands, up her wrists.

"Why don't you keep water in here?" he asks as she pours it into a fine china cup.

"For tea it's like so important to start with the coldest water possible," she says as he sips, "I think it tastes better straight as well."

It is indeed excellent, it seems to wash the taste of the afternoon from his mouth, it's fresh, icy and clean.

"It's the oxygen," she says, "Water's gotta be like oxygenated, then you heat it just as fast as you can to keep as much air as you can."

"You could keep a freezer under that table," he points out.

She smiles, "I didn't design the place. Why don't you sit."

"No thanks, I've been sitting all day."

He looks at her. At her cunt, as smooth and hairless as her bottom. He remembers the feel of it. He's the one to blush.

She watches him with a faint smile.

"You're like friends from college?" she asks

He looks away, at their long shadows cast across the snow. "Yep. I walked into my dorm room the first day of my freshman year and there he was on the bottom bunk."

"What was he like?"

"Well, he loved gardens, he was always off in the school's greenhouses and arboretum. He was very studious too and actually interested, in everything he took, not just botany. He seemed to like every class. He was always reading."

"And you?"

"Not so much."

"I saw you once when I was a kid," she says, "It was at a Christmas party my parents threw. My Mom and Dad were still together. I sat on the top of the stairs and looked down. What I liked was that from where I sat, they looked like they were just the best of friends. Welcoming one and all. I dozed off. I woke up in bed, in the dark, and like all around me was JOY TO THE WORLD . It seemed to fill every nook and cranny, I could breath it, I could like feel it in my chest. I went to my window and looked out. You stood on the driveway. You must've been like so plastered. You had my older brother's guitar. The speaker stood like right next to you. I think the cord running into the garage was all that held your feet to the pavement. You just played. It sounded like nothing on this earth, nothing that I'd ever heard. You played and played. Every Christmas tune I knew and ones I'd never heard. Our neighbors, their house was like a couple hundred yards away, their lights came on and I could see them like come out and listen. I don't know what all you played. When I hear PURPLE HAZE or that version of the NATIONAL ANTHEM on the radio, in my head I hear JOY TO THE WORLD . When I hear the Grateful Dead, I hear you playing DIVERS AND LAZARUS . I had to buy like a hundred Christmas CDs before I found that one! It was like way obscure."

"That was fifteen years ago."

"I was sorry to hear you say yesterday you'd given it up."

"That was about the last time. I'd dissolved the band, wasn't going to ever play again. Then I saw that guitar in your family room. I was plastered."

"I was quite in love with you at that moment. It was like bitter-sweet. I thought I'd never again see anyone as happy as you that instant, or as sad." She smiled, "The next year as my parents fought and my mom drank I kept remembering you and imagining you'd appear and'd so like carry me away."

The silence of the garden steals in through the glass.

After a moment, she says, "My Dad asked you to find me?"

"We needed someone to come and finalize the agreement. Your Dad knew we were college friends. He said that Gongren's daughter'd been your college roommate and that you were visiting here. He asked me to check on you."

She was quiet, looking at him without expression.

"Well," he admitted, "He said that you were living here as 'that old goat's concubine'."

"Did you know who I was yesterday?"

"Yes."

She's quiet again.

"Your dad gave me a picture of you at a party at his country club."

There's a pause, then he asked, "Does it matter to you? That I knew?"

"No, do your wife and kids in Houston like bother you?"

He sighs and asks, "Are you alright? If there's a problem I can help. I have leverage."

When she's quiet he says, "Are you free to leave?"

She looked at him and says, "Ask Gongrin."

There's a silence.

Then she says, "So far I've liked every season. You should've seen it last spring, when I arrived. Pots of blooming flowers lined the walks, water lilies floated on water so clear it looked like the yellow and orange fish hovered in dark air right with the white clouds and tree branches. I would lie in the water, my hair spread on the mossy edge. The gardeners'd like toss rose and these big blossoms, peonies maybe, onto the surface every morning, they'd float like they were suspended in space and their scent was so near my nose."

She looks at him with a slight smile, "We could like fuck on the cushions if you want."

He looks at her and flushes again. "No, no thanks."

She looks back out across the black and white expanse, the shadows of the trees are long and sharp. "Bai Gongren would sit on this fragile black painted chair on the grass beside me, his legs crossed, this stupid hat on his head against the sun, an open book in his lap. I'd like to say he was engrossed in me, but he'd always seem more interested in the fucking book. Often men, like old Chinese guys, would come with like folding chairs, and set them up and they'd discuss things. I'm sure it's a good thing I don't know Chinese."

"When I first woke, that's the way I was. Water lapped about my knees, about my neck, and blossoms brushed my nipples."

"When I first got to China, last spring, it was like so fucking hot. The air sucked. You could only walk maybe 20 feet and then you'd have to stop and choke for air. My eyes stung and my lungs burned. I kept coughing and showing the piece of paper with the address of his compound, this was in Shenyang.

"There were these four guys, soldiers at the gate. With guns. I said that I wanted to see Provincial Party Secretary Bai Gongren. That I was his daughter Bai Ning's friend from America. They were like so not amused. They yelled at me in Chinese.

"They put me in a small room and locked the door. I'm sure I looked pretty disgusting. I'd taken the train from Beijing. I hadn't slept or washed since leaving San Francisco two days before. My eyes were shot, my hair felt greasy. I must've stunk. Just breathing stung.

"After I don't know how long the soldiers came back with this woman. She spoke some English and I explained again. There was more shouting. She searched me very thoroughly while they watched, she wore plastic gloves. She dipped her fingers in Vaseline which so didn't help. They took me to another room and x-rayed me.

"Then two older guys in suits appeared. The shouting got even louder. What they said to the soldiers I don't know. I wrote a note to Gongren and they took me to a room and gave me something to drink. I guess he was like someplace else, maybe Beijing.

"Then they took me to a larger room where there were a number of women. They laughed at the sight of me and talked a mile a minute among themselves. One of them said, "Clothes please" and I stripped again while they tittered. I was bathed and shampooed and then laid on a table and treated with wax. It hurt like hell and I tried to shout the house down. Now I'm like waxed every morning, but it's just a nuisance. That first time!

"I was given a robe and led into a courtyard and into a white limousine. I tried to stay awake, but couldn't. When I woke I was lying in the pool, there was the scent of flowers all around."

Movement catches their eye. Gongren and three others, an under secretary from Beijing, the president of the plastics firm Tom's company is to partner with, and the chairman of a construction company, emerge from the house and make their way to the pavilion.

While tea is made, the men make small talk. All but one speak some English and he's probably the happiest, there's nothing to distract him from admiring the girl.

Gongren sips then says with a small smile, "Perhaps you would care to see slides from my tour of American gardens last spring? None of you have seen them and I think a glimpse of spring would be a tonic against this winter?"

The men nod, it's not really a question. The girl goes to the section of floor opposite them. She bends, shifts a cushion and then tilts up what proves to be a large flat screen.

"I visited seven gardens, the Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden, Vancouver, the Montreal Botanical Garden, the Seattle Chinese Garden, Portland Classical Chinese Garden, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the New York Chinese Scholar's Garden, Staten Island, and the private garden of a friend in Alexandria, Ohio.

"They were all what are called Scholar's gardens.

"To be considered authentic, a Scholar's garden must be built and planned around seventeen essential elements, it must be: 1) near or at the home; 2) small; 3) walled; 4) have small individual sections; 5) be asymmetrical; 6) have various types of spatial connections; 7) contain interesting architecture; have: 8) rocks; 9) water; 10) trees; 11) plants; 12) sculpture; 13) borrowed scenery; 14) chimes; 15) incense burners; 16) inscriptions; and 17) have used feng shui in choosing the site."

"Here we see the 'Billowing Pine Court', the main entrance to the New York garden."

Tom glances from the young woman kneeling by the tea pot to the screen. It shows a low white understatedly oriental building, a gravel courtyard, artfully arranged rocks, and a young woman. At first he doesn't recognize her. She wears white jeans, a white belt, sandals, a red v-necked top whose bottom idly touches her navel, an open leather jacket, her long hair flows about her shoulders and across her chest, one strand touches the bare skin of her neck where it drops to her cleavage. Her thin metal glasses make her look very young.

He glances at the other men, he can't tell if they've recognized her. Probably not. If he hadn't seen the picture of her in civilian clothes, he likely wouldn't've connected the two creatures either.

He pays no attention to his host's discussions of the pictures. She isn't in all of them. There she is kneeling, a hand under a golden rose. There she is leaning against an old tree, looking back calmly at the camera. There she is on an arching bridge, there standing encircled in a round gateway ( "A traditional circular entrance, or moon gate, creates the sense of entering a special place. The circle is a symbol of perfection, remember the saying, "Flowers are beautiful when the moon is full").

He looks at her calm expression and cannot guess what she's thinking. He wonders what the passers-by think. Probably that she's Gongren's daughter, that her mother was the one with the dominant genes.

"Now," Gongren says, "We come to what I believe is perhaps the only true scholar's garden in the United States. The others we visited are public gardens. Faithful in form, not in spirit. This garden possesses I believe not one of the 17 tedious elements I've been talking about.

"The man who owns this garden was a State Department official. He testified before Congress as his masters wished. Lies were exposed in his testimony and in the time honored fashion of power everywhere, he was hung out to dry. At 60 he returned to his family's small gentleman's farm in Ohio and has remained there since. He has turned it into a thing of beauty, though as you see, not on the Chinese model. There's too much grass, a boring plant, too few human artifacts, it looks too natural, too comfortable. Yet at its heart it is sad and contemplative, a place for an important man to find solace after his disgrace."

It is indeed a beautiful place, an old frame farmhouse, white sided, a large gray/red barn along a dirt country road, huge trees, maples and oaks, a farm pond surrounded with willows with a raft tethered in the middle. It calls up the image of naked boys on a hot summer's day, the boys thankfully somewhere else. There's a kitchen garden with brightly blooming flowers and neat rows of peas and lettuces and tomatoes and peppers, with a gravel path leading through an ivied trellis down along a fenced field to the pond. On a patch of sweet grass and clover is a white wooden outdoor table surrounded by white painted wooden chairs, set with brunch, orange juice, waffles, bacon and coffee.

There's a slide showing the girl standing by the table. She's looking at Gongren. Their host, a slight man with a gray white beard, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, is pouring orange juice. Her eyes are wide and shocked, her lips are open, curiously eager, there's almost a smile about them. One of her hands touches the collar of her yellow sweater.

In the next slide she's naked, standing by the table, one hand on the back of a chair, sipping a glass of orange juice, looking at Gongren with a smile. There's a gasp from the men about him as they connect the girls.

There are slides of her bright in the sun, by beds of daffodils, by a trellis of wisteria so violet you could almost smell its scent, of her walking down a path in the shade of a large blue and white umbrella, of her swimming out to the raft in the pond, then she's back in blue jeans, sweater and leather jacket, standing in a misty rain, grinning at the camera, her hand thrust in the gaping jaws of a gleaming black stone dragon, its eyes bulging with hunger.

The "Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden", says Gongren, then he nods to the girl.

The girl steps to where the man on the far right sits, the under secretary from Beijing, she falls to her knees and bends toward his lap. The man laughs excitedly.

Gongren goes on, "In this confined courtyard you see the three friends of winter: pine, bamboo and winter-flowering plum, they symbolize the human virtues of strength and eternity, resiliency amid diversity, and triumphal rebirth."

Later, outside, before crossing the arching footbridge, Tom lays his hand on his friend's shoulder. As the others move on, he asks in a low voice, "She's of course free to go? Her father'd like her home."

His friend looks at him and then turns and looks at the pond, the golden fish are clear where the waterfall keeps the surface ice free, elsewhere they're vague illusive blurs. Mist rises from his mouth as he laughs then says, "Look at the Koi in my pond. If one of them asked to go free, I'd surely agree. It's cold and the fucking banquet is soon, let's get in."

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He steps out into the garden. Snow falls again and there's a hint of wind and sleet in the air. His head feels dense and the noise of the banquet still rings in his head. It's at least one in the morning.

Using light from the house windows and light reflected off the clouds from some nearby town he moves along the path, over the bridge and onto the island. He stands for a moment before the pavilion. Inside lies gloom and stillness. A shiver causes him to fumble for the slider and step in.

Movement barely resolves her as she turns. She stands by a window. He steps to her and touches a shoulder. He bends and kisses her. His hands touch her bottom. He pulls her hard against his chest.

She steps back, "You stink of smoke, wine and worse and your clothes, shit," she runs a finger from his neck down the line of his tie to his belt, "are damp and clammy."

He kisses her again and he feels her fingers at his belt buckle. "Let's at least do something about your fucking clothes."

As he struggles out of them, his dark adjusted eyes can now see her, black and white and dim. The line of the collar is pure black about her neck. His cock brushes her side and then her hand touches it and he pulls her to him again. His cock feels so excited, crushed between them.

She pulls him to the cushions along one window and starts to push him down. He pulls her with him and she lands on his lap. He feels and sees her shift and feels her hands maneuvering his cock between her legs. Her face is hidden by her dark hair. He grips her under her shoulders and pulls her up and rolls her onto her back. She chuckles in the back of her throat as he shifts his bulk over her and between her thighs. Her knees bump his side, he feels her calves against his back. Her fingers touch his cock and as he presses down, she slips it home. He drives into her hard, then pulls partly back, and, ignoring the maddened eagerness that fluoresces along its length, he bends and kisses her, his mouth wide and his tongue stretching. He feels her hands slide up his back and shoulders and into his hair.

When he lifts his head for breath, she whispers, her fingers now on his ears and cheeks, "The cold and wet are gone. The wine and bits of dinner and smoke are so still there."

Supporting himself on one arm, he caresses a breast with his free hand then lets it slide up the flat bone to her neck. He feels along the black velvet collar, feeling her hot smooth throat. He begins sliding in and out.

She shifts under him with another throaty chuckle. For a moment she just runs her hands about his back and ass. Then with a sudden gasped "Oh" begins bounce vigorously beneath him.

He bites his lip to keep himself in control. He thinks of the ice outside the window, concentrates on the faint hiss of sleet on glass, the murmur of the heat under the floor.

She moans again. In the dark he can just see her mouth gaping beneath his eyes as she works for more air. She lifts her head and looks down into the black where their loins meet. He imagines what it looks like to her, what her sensations must be like with him bulking dark above her, his motion pushing against her, shifting her thighs forward and to the side.

Her arms reach back over her head and clutch at the end of the cushion, then find a grip on the low sill. She uses its purchase to push down against his thrusts. She looks like she's doing curious rowing exercises beneath him. Her sweat slick bottom hisses and slips and slaps on the silk covering.