A Table of Green Fields, Guy Davenport [ebook reader screen .TXT] 📗

We ate our lunch by a stream in a pleasant copse before we got to the town. Florent had a burlap half bag of oats which he held for Meg. We ate impatiently. Matilda had packed enough for four. There were sugar cubes for Meg which I fed her.

Our stuff was packaged in a large cardboard box and two smaller ones. Whole blocks of postage stamps were pasted on them. I had to sign with an indelible pencil the purple of which was proudly on my fingers for days.

We opened the boxes in Florent's room over the stables. The tent was russet and its manufacturer's name was printed on it in an elegant oval of blue lettering. Nothing was ever so wonderful. We inspected the tinware. The ropes. The pegs. My rucksack.

There was a pair of boots for me like Florent's. A twill shirt with four pockets on the front and a pocket on each of the sleeves high on the arm. And short pants just big enough to have four pockets with flaps that snapped to. Two in front. Two in back. There were but three buttons to the fly. And in foreign looking tissue wrappers with German labels were pairs of thin cotton underpants with no legs to them. Small ones for me and slightly bigger ones for Florent.

I stripped and put them on and the twill pants and pockety shirt and heavy ribbed long socks and the rawhide boots which Florent helped me with. I tried to act natural but my peter was as stiff as a bone and I blushed beet red. Florent yelled with laughter. I said in confusion that it would go down. He remarked in an easy way that I would paste myself to the sheets tonight. But a wet dream is more fun if you're wide awake helping it along with your fingers. I must have looked as if I didn't believe he was saying what he was saying. Jens! he said with a smile and the friendliest eyes in the world. Matilda and Thesmond were civilized people with an old-world sense of other people's privacy. This was his room and in it I could do whatever I wanted to whenever I wanted to. He knelt and we rubbed noses. If I ever thought he would peach on a friend I was wrong. With him I was to be free. Agreed?

Agreed. I was looking at my boots when I said it. But I looked up and sealed my words with a smile.

We went to the big house to show off my outfit. We packed the rucksack with oddments to square it into shape. I was as proud as a peacock and blushed again for being so happy. Matilda said that except for the scandalously short pants I looked like a soldier. Thesmond who studied the magazines said that I was most stylish.

I was to break the boots in by wearing them for a while every day. I tramped about in them like a wound up toy. I wore them and only the little German underpants to the beach. I chinned myself on limbs to build up my chest. Florent taught me how to walk on my hands. Most importantly he taught me how to swim in the ocean. I learned to float in the river. Breast stroke and frog kick. Not till I had got good at the crawl and scissors kick did we try the inlet. I had not known that it would be so cold.

I began to spend the night with Florent. I slept in the camper's bedroll on the floor. The night before our expedition I was so happy I walked around with nothing on but an open shirt. We had spent the afternoon checking our gear. For breakfast every morning we were to have porridge and blueberries if we were near them. Tinned evaporated milk and cocoa. Cheese and biscuits for lunch. For our dinners we would catch trout to be eaten with bran cakes made in the skillet. We also had lemons and cookies and dried fruit.

Once I stopped what I was doing to look at my peter good. I hoped in a sneaky way Florent was watching. He was not so busy that he didn't give me a hard hug one time or another.

We cleared the big house with our farewells and promises so that we could set out before dawn going north up the peninsula. Florent pointed out that we could strap up and horseshoe the bedroll over a rucksack now if we were both to sleep on the cot. There was room. We would in any case be sleeping together in the bedroll for two weeks thereafter. For the first time in my life I would not be sleeping in my gown. In a bedroll you sleep naked. Florent knew how things are done.

We undressed and laid our clothes out for the morning. Excitement scatters attention. I was wondering about wet dreams helped along by wide-awake fingers. And about sleeping beside Florent. But the camping trip crowded my mind most of all. My imagination jumped like a grasshopper. I was a mess.

Florence looked all around and said we were ready for bed.

I said I was confused.

What a goose! he said. What a wonderful goose. He held my shoulders and kneaded them and knuckled my nose and mussed my hair. His body against mine was an unfamiliar strangeness and wonderfully welcome. We were so close his peter touched my legs. I dared all and scrunched closer. He nudged my ear in response.

We untangled and lay on our backs each on the other's arm. The wadded hair under his arms smelled of dry grass and vinegar. I asked the directest question. He answered that friends can do anything they want to. He asked about my friend who had been sent to an institution. I wanted to cry. He said that I mustn't talk about my friend until I needed to. He would listen when I was ready. I was silent. He tugged my ear to show that he understood. We got snug under the blanket and fell asleep.

It was dark when Florent woke me. I could see him already dressed in the half light. I put on my clothes as he handed them to me. He tightened the buckles on my pack