The Garden

The flame in his cock, in his balls, down his thighs rises to consume him. He slams down hard against her. The first instant of pleasure is a hit, pure and overwhelming, to be followed immediately by mechanical aftershocks that leave him hot, wet and abandoned, longing for the moments that have just fled.

She lifts her thighs and locks her heels above his ass and pulls hard up against him. Her dim face gritting beneath him looks strange, her cool beauty gone. She grinds her hips hard up against him. He feels sweaty and trapped. He wants her to stop. Then she cries out, a strange, angry gasp. She clutches him with her arms and presses his chest down against hers, her breasts are crushed against him. Her fingers dig into his shoulders then she sighs and relaxes. He feels suddenly lost and abandoned, betrayed.

After a moment she slides from under him and stands. "I'm going to make coffee. You're so not gonna sleep tonight."

He watches groggily as she stoops in the dimness and picks up the pewter jug.

"Hey, you're not going out there."

"I need water."

He groans and sits up. She's at the slider. "Shit," he says, "I need to..." then he pauses.

She laughs. "You'll wish you'd thought of that before. Your choices are like the gym where I work out and am taken care of first thing in the morning or this pot." From some other hidden compartment in the floor she produces a two handled white porcelain jug. "Remember to aim carefully, the gardeners aren't happy about yellow snow. And don't drop it. I think it's like an antique."

So he stands outside, thankful for his socks, while sleet pelts him. He fills one pot while she fills the other. Inside, she slides the door and they embrace, slick and shivering.

She prepares the coffee, patiently removing his hands from various bits of her body. While the blue flame glows beneath the coffee pot to boil the water, he pushes her to her knees and feels between her legs to her smooth lips, he parts them and slips his cock in. He feels up around her bottom, feels the bones of her hips then the narrowness of her waist. He runs his and along the bones of her spine, bends and kisses her neck, feeling the velvet of her collar, smelling the shampooed fragrance of her hair.

She shifts under him to get her legs and arms in a sturdier position then pushes back against him. She looks back at him and in the light of the blue flame her face has a lovely shine and her eyes glitter.

When the water boils, she says, "Be still." She lifts herself, he holds her waist to free her hands, and she reaches over, does something to turn off the burner, the ghostly blue vanishes, then she flips the little pot, letting boiling water filter through the grounds. Her movements nearly drive him to the brink.

He pulls out, ignoring the complaining note she makes in her throat. He stands and pulls her to her feet. He puts her back against the window, bends his knees and re-enters, lifting her so that her bottom and back are pressed to the glass, her legs lift and lock behind his ass. She lifts a hand and brushes her hair from her face then clutches his back. There's a rubbing sound as her bottom and shoulders slide against the glass. Behind her he can see the so dim garden, vaguely lit by the low clouds.

She says, "The maids won't be happy to find the glass all smudged. What are you doing?"

He's lowered his knees so she's slid down against the glass, then slid her to the left then up and down then he steps away from the window, almost teetering with the sudden lack of support, he steps to the left then leans her back against the glass.

"Fuck. You're writing something on the glass. What is it?" He doesn't answer and soon their antics are too much for her, she cries out, "Oh shit. Shit shit shit."

Her fingers dig into the muscles of his back. He comes then, his head bangs on the glass and she tenses and bites his neck.

After disentangling, she pours the coffee and they sip the hot liquid, extra black in the darkness, thigh to thigh, sitting on the cushion, silent. "You're not gonna tell me what you wrote?" When he's silent they make love again, slow and restrained. When done, it seemed to last hours, they lie side by side and she talks, her voice murmuring in his ear.

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The first garden I saw, it was like two in the morning, I was so drunk. I'd been at this frat party. I ached like down in my thighs and in my ass. I'd been fucking a couple guys, which wasn't unusual. What was unusual was leaving and going back to my dorm.

Bai Ning and her boyfriend were hunched over her desk. She looked over at me with no fondness. We hadn't hit it off, not like you and Gongren by any means.

I went over to them. She goes: "You aren't going to be sick."

I go: "Hey, what're you looking at?"

It was the most awesome scene on her computer. It was all like green with flowers everywhere and a still pool and these fish and this perfect ivory oriental girl with black hair stretched in the water, ankles crossed, rose petals floating about her, touching her nipples and caught in the wiry black hair between her legs. On the edge of the pool, on a lawn chair, his feet in the water, resting against her thigh, sat this gray haired guy. He was like reading this thick book.

"That's my dad's garden," said Bai Ning. "Joe's hacked into our country home's security system."

"Not much of a hack," the guy goes, he was always like awkward with me, that's one of the many reasons she couldn't stand me. "Her laptop's trusted on their home network and she has a login. Getting into the security system from there wasn't that big a deal."

"You are going to be sick! Get the fuck out of here. Get into the hall at least. Shit."

It dawned on me that she was right. I managed to get to the restroom down the hall. When I got back, the lights were out and Ning and her boyfriend were fucking quietly in her bed. The garden was gone.

I lay in bed, not feeling too well. I figured if I lay absolutely still on my back I maybe wouldn't be sick again. I thought about drinking and what a shitty thing it was. I thought about my mom in the institution. I thought about you too. I thought about watching you play that night. How it'd sounded and how it'd felt. Then I thought about seeing you again. A few years before I'd like seen you on TV. You remember, before some House Committee. I never watched the news, you know, but I made a point of like watching that. The energy company you were an executive of had gone belly up and you were testifying about all their financial structures. They kept showing this 30ish woman sitting in the row just behind you. They kept saying how she was your wife, in tones that made it clear they liked to see the woman stand behind her man. It didn't take much to see you were guilty as hell. Hush. I'm talking. I remembered you perfectly and it made me feel like totally sad.

I met Gongren at Homecoming. He likes college football. He and Ning's mother. I don't know if she's really like his wife, she's still around and shit but it's the kid he had with his current favorite I tutor in English.

I don't remember much about meeting them. They were checking out our room, then she and her mom were gonna go shopping. My head felt like shit and I felt nauseous and I was trying to write some shit about PILGRIM'S PROGRESS , why do they teach that crap? The paper was like a week late and I felt like I oughta at least turn in something. Though my real attitude was that my Dad had gotten me into that school and he could probably keep me there too. I figure he'd managed to get Ning as my roommate. Hoping I'd make friends. It gave me some pleasure that that plan of his wasn't working out.

Anyway, I didn't say much, just sat on my bed, feeling like shit. I kept glancing at Gongren. Nervous about him. And curious. It was like real awkward. Gongren and Ning's mother spoke in English, to like include me I guess. Ning spoke in Chinese. They talked about their plans and I heard Gongren say he was going to visit the arboretum and greenhouses.

Ning said, "Oh Dad," in English because I guess the phrase is more effective that way.

I go, "An arboretum's like a garden?"

Ning rolled her eyes and he said, "Yes, that's what it is"

"What's it like? Maybe I should check it out sometime."

"It's got plants. They're the green things you see around sometimes when you're outside."

He went: "I'm going to the arb now. You'd be welcome to accompany me."

I saw Ning scowl so I go: "OK, sure."

We just walked to the arb. It was just maybe 15 minutes. Somehow he'd managed to visit completely like a human being with no like guards or anything. Even my Dad the couple times he visited came in like this package with several guys and a limo. Gongren talked like real formally, saying so adult things, like "how is school," "I met your Dad once at a function in Houston," blah blah. I was so regretting coming. Even the fucking Pilgrim's Progress was looking good. At least I'd be lying on my bed to not work on it, not walking in the bright fucking fall sun with my stomach on edge and my head banging.

When we got to the arb, why he was so like different. He just forgot about me. He was here there and everywhere, he poked at tree bark, put his fingers in the dirt under bushes and like tasted it, he just ran about. He was so fucking happy. I felt happy too. I forgot about him and threw stones into the little river, then I sat on the hill and let the sun shine on my face.

The next time I heard from him was like seven months later. In May. School was about over and I was flunking. My Dad'd assured me however that they'd let me come back come fall. I'd like mostly moved in with this guy. We were drunk and stoned most of the time. I was like on my back with his friend under me with his cock up my ass. My boyfriend was on top of me. I'd been sandwiched like that for what seemed like hours and I was feeling down and drained. I wanted a drink and the kind of joint that doesn't get stuffed up your ass. My cell went off. "Don't answer it" goes my boyfriend, so I did and there was Gongren. I recognized his voice right off. He said he was in the U.S. for work. That's what he said. Like being a Chinese Communist Party official was like a day job and that he was gonna take a week and tour some gardens and would I like to join him.

It was so like off the wall. I figured I knew what he wanted and though sex was like right down at the bottom of my list just then I felt like a bit of a thrill, he's like a powerful guy which is cool and I thought've what Bai Ning's face would look like when she heard and that gave me a bigger thrill, but still I was gonna say sorry no way when I heard my voice go "Sure."

He said he'd arrange flights to get me to New York and hung up.

I said "Fuck" and my boyfriend goes, "Dude, that's like what we're doing" and his friend giggled and I just relaxed and thought of sitting on the hill with the sun in my face.

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Her hand has strayed to his limp cock and now rests warm upon him, her fingers idle with his balls. She feels him stir. She sighs comfortably, throws her thigh across him and slips him home. She settles her head on his shoulder, her hair floats across his face.

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Mmm, that's better.

I can't say that trip was like a success. It was so not what I'd imagined. I'd thought it'd be just him and me but shit there must've been like twenty guys with us, which was so not good. Those slides and videos are like a joke. There was this whole fucking entourage. The parks were like boring. My feet hurt. There wasn't a minute when I didn't think of just fucking it and getting on a plane. But then there was Gongren. At the parks he'd talk away with guys about light and plant diseases and soil and proportion and feng shui and how to make rocks look like mountains and the illusion of distance and all kinds of shit and whenever he could he talked to 'em in Chinese. I'd watch him and though I didn't know shit about what he was saying, I felt kinda at ease, like I was leaching some of his enthusiasm.

And I was so wrong about the other shit. We had dinner, like in these expensive restaurants and we'd eat and he'd like talk to this chief of staff guy or talk in Chinese on the phone or read a book even. Occasionally he'd look at me and when our eyes met, he'd like keep looking long as he liked which felt good and then he'd just go back to whatever. It was like that in the gardens too. He'd suddenly like see me and sit me on a bench or stand me in front of some flowering bush and then go back to talking gardening with whomever. Mostly he let me just wander about and just looked at me from time to time. I realized I was like his own personal moving garden ornament, like a gnome, though he wouldn't be caught dead with such an ugly thing as a garden gnome. First it pissed me off. Then it made me feel like hot and I started to try to pick places he might like to see me. Like where the sun or shade or a wall or something made it interesting.

And it wasn't like he was fucking me. That'd been like half the attraction, you know? He's a powerful guy. I bet he becomes Party Secretary when he gets to be 85 which would be so cool. I had these little day dreams of my dad like calling and asking me for some weird business favor and me saying no way, fuck off. I'm not yours any more.

Then we got to that Ohio place. It was maybe the fifth or sixth day. We were flying to Vancouver next. He goes, "Will you undress?" and I was fucking floored. I teetered. I coulda said no way. I was sober and I felt kinda good and off they came, my clothes. It was like it was no big deal. I was just ornamental. They went back to talking and I ate the waffles and wandered about the garden. His friend got me an umbrella, like you saw, because the sun was hot and my skin is so white and I hadn't done any tanning. It was an old big one with a wooden handle and I swam out to the raft and we had lunch in the shade and they talked about daffodils and bulbs and shrubs and China's interests in Darfur and his friend fucked me while Gongren swam in the pond.

We split up in Seattle. He to get back on the Chinese plane that'd ferried us around the country and go on back across the Pacific. Me to head home to Houston.

I sat in a bar in the airport, eating Nachos and drinking a coke and there you were on the news. You were answering questions before some committee. They were asking you about my Dad's company and what you all had been doing with the reconstruction money. They were pretty angry but you were real calm and cool and there was your wife sitting behind you. I just felt like I was trapped.

I flew to San Francisco and haunted the Chinese Consulate for like a week before getting a visa and then flew to Beijing. I didn't try to let Gongren know I was coming. I wanted to be able to like run for it. Even when I stood in that fucking heat, gritty with the sand in the air, hardly able to breath, looking at those soldiers at his front door, I thought I could just turn back.

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Enough light has gathered outside to see a gray dripping world. The snow is sodden, beyond any gardener's ability to neaten. Water drips slowly off the bent branches, off the wood of the bridge's railing. She hums something deep in her throat, he can't quite tell what it is. Her muscles surrounding his cock tighten in ways he's only felt when lying with expensive girls.

He realizes she's humming a Christmas song, one his band'd worked up for playing in bars around Christmas. In his mind he hears:

"As it fell out upon one day, rich Divers sickened and died There came two serpents of hell, his soul therein to guide 'Rise up, rise up, brother Divers, and come along with me For there's a place prepared in Hell, from which thou can not flee'

"Then Divers looked up to heaven and saw the despised beggar blessed 'Give me one drop of water,' he cried, 'To quench my flaming thirst Had I as many years to live, as there are blades of grass Then I'd find some peace secure, and the devil would lose this repast.'"

"I'm leaving at noon, you'll come with me?" he asks.

"What did Gongren say?"

"That it was up to you."

"That's not quite right," she says, "I heard him. What he said was, 'Look at the Koi in my pond. If one of them like asked to be free, wouldn't I agree?' I mean, how likely is that? They're like fish and they're under the ice even."

"Your father..."

"Hush," she murmurs, she brushes her lips across his and kisses him calmly and leisurely. Her hair falls across his face. "Let's fuck, then I have to go and get cleaned up and give my first English lesson."

She feels how limp he is within her. She chuckles again, slides off him and slips down and takes him in her mouth. He remembers the feel of her mouth the afternoon before and how excited he'd been as Gongren'd finished the slides of the Seattle gardens. Now there is nothing down there.

"Oh well," she says and stands and stretches, just as he'd seen her the first morning.

She slides the door open and he watches her bottom and back as she crosses the bridge, her arms first spread for balance on the slippery wood, then close about her from the cold. She follows the path and vanishes through a door into the building.

Later he stands looking out a courtyard window. Gongren next to him, saying goodbye before seeing him to his limousine. He looks across the garden. In the misty drizzle, the moss covered limestone boulders look even more like distant mountains. He looks at the pavilion. In the leaden overcast light, its glass shows reflections of the pond, the bridge, the imaginary mountains. Her form is mixed in, almost like a cloud's. He thinks "shit" and it is all he can do not to weep.

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Shoppers outside a Wal-Mart's one December afternoon some years later pass a gray haired man sitting on a folding chair. He's a little shabby, with a guitar in his lap, a small amplifier at his side, his permit from the county carefully displayed. He plays, apparently lost to the noise and bustle of the parking lot. He's good, but perhaps not that good. The charitable attribute his errors and awkwardness to ambition beyond ability and perhaps age, the uncharitable to drink and drugs. Some hear a line of clarity, beauty and loss in the old tunes. Some lighten their pockets of some change before hurrying on through the automatic doors to look for some frantic last minute presents.