1 comments/ 6067 views/ 2 favorites The Sweetness of the Pear: Sylvia By: HectorBidon "How would you like to spend the weekend in the country?" asked Ilsa. "Sylvia and Tom are going up to the summer house, and we're invited to go along." Sylvia was Ilsa's best friend and Tom was her fiancee. The summer house belonged to Tom's family. It was located right in the traditional heartland of Calandria---the idyllic ancestral rain forest. It was a part of the country that I hadn't seen yet but very much wanted to. I don't know why, but I've always felt a bit intimidated by Sylvia. Perhaps it's because she is so strikingly beautiful, with shoulder-length black hair and such a piercing intensity. Perhaps it's because she is so direct in her manner. She often cuts through the standard courtesies with her own kind of shorthand, assuming congeniality without always working hard to maintain it. I always had a hard time knowing where things stood between the two of us. But Ilsa loved her like a sister, and so that is how I'd come to think of her, as an exotic and somewhat eccentric member of the family whom I could abide, and even appreciate, without always having to understand. "It sounds like fun," I replied. "Let's go, do you want to?" We all rode up together on the Friday morning train. I'd heard about the large swaths of untouched rain forest, but I had no idea how extensive and green they seem when you chug through them for mile after mile. We passed only a few clearings and villages, and finally got off at Tom's station. We were able to take a jitney to within about half a mile of the summer house, and we had to walk the rest of the way. The summer house consisted of a roofed kitchen and sitting room with electricity and running water, two semi-detached, thatched bedrooms, and a large, partially covered veranda that looked down the steep hillside toward the river below. It sat in a small clearing surrounded on all sides by the forest. Fuchsia and hibiscus grew in abundance. The furnishings were rustic, but comfortable. After Tom opened up the house, our first chore was to sweep the veranda and tidy up the clearing. Then Tom and I collected some firewood while Sylvia and Ilsa organized the kitchen and set out lunch. Tom had a few things to attend to in the village that afternoon. We could go along if we wanted. There was also a nice waterfall within hiking distance. I wanted to see the waterfall; Ilsa preferred just to stay at the summer house and relax. We finally decided that Sylvia and I would visit the waterfall, and then later the three of us would join Tom in the village for supper. After lunch, Tom changed into the local costume of shorts and sandals, gave Sylvia a quick kiss, and headed off. Most people wore shorts or a skirt in town, Sylvia told us, although both men and women usually went bare chested. But out here in the forest the sartorial rules were less rigid. A lot of people still went about as their ancestors had done, without any clothes at all. There was really no need for them. The insects were not harmful and the temperature was almost always comfortable. If it did rain from time to time, you were better off without clothes anyway. Ilsa took off her top, and Sylvia took off her top and her bottom. She had long legs and neatly trimmed pubic hair. Her breasts were not as large as Ilsa's, but large enough to droop under their own weight like two ripe gourds. Her areolas were almost as large as the circle of your thumb and finger, and her nipples rose in their centers so gently that they were barely noticeable. I had seen Sylvia naked before at Ilsa's. Calandrians are not self conscious about being naked in front of others, and they are used to having others be naked in front of them. But I was only a neophyte in both of these skills, and my nonchalance was usually more affected than natural. I knew I shouldn't stare, but I found it hard not to peek. When one is conversing with the friend of a friend, who is breathtakingly gorgeous and absolutely nude, where does one direct one's eyes? With Sylvia I had always been so afraid of committing a faux pas that I bent over backwards to appear disinterested and proper, with the result that I was often curt and standoffish. But now the two of us were heading up the trail together wearing nothing but sandals. The way back up to the road was narrow, so I led. Then we walked along the road for a while side by side. Even though we didn't meet another soul, the road felt public and exposed. At least when one is walking it's not too hard to figure out what to do with one's eyes. We didn't say much except to remark every now and then on a particularly majestic tree or a flower that might have gone unnoticed. When I would turn to look at her on those occasions, her nudity registered pleasantly, but only in my peripheral vision. When the trail split off from the road again, she went first and I followed. This meant that I had her beautiful backside constantly in my view. But there is something different about the backside of a woman when she is tromping through the forest than when she is reaching to take down a bowl in someone's apartment. Perhaps it's the constant flexing of the haunches, the sure acceptance of weight on the forward foot, the unselfconscious swing of the arms. She seemed more and more like a creature of the forest. She was beautiful, but it was the beauty of proportion in motion, the beauty of the doe, the springbok. Her coloration---her tan pelt and black mane---stood out strikingly against the green background. She raised her forearm for me to stop. There was a small rodent just off the path with a bright yellow pod in his two front paws. We stood and watched him nibble. The trail headed constantly upward, crossing and re-crossing a rocky stream. We passed through a thicket of bamboo whose stalks were as big around as your wrist. It was so dense that at twenty paces apart we could only see each other in glimpses. The stalks were bare of leaves until high in the air, and the ground was completely matted with their pale debris, so that the whole world seemed to have turned into a jumbled black and white geometrical pattern. Finally we reached a steep cliff face, about a hundred feet tall. It was covered with vegetation, like a garden wall, except for one vertical slash of bare rock where water cascaded down from above. The flow was somewhere between a trickle and a torrent and it spread out as it fell into a diffuse shower of individual drops. "Do you see the little cave about two thirds of the way up?" asked Sylvia, pointing. "We can climb up to it." The path went right up the garden wall just to the left of the rocky slash. It was steep and required careful foot placement, but not unmanageable. I wasn't used to climbing in the nude. We reached a ledge that extended across the rock, behind the waterfall. Up above we could see the water rushing over the edge out into the pure air. We were about sixty feet above the pool. Below us the forest fell away toward the road, and then more gently toward the river, rising again on the other side toward the distant hills. "The cave is right along the ledge," said Sylvia. "You go first. Be careful." I had to step closely around her, and I couldn't do it without holding her shoulder and brushing against her thigh. It was, I realized, probably the first time, except for kisses on the cheeks, that we had ever touched each other. The ledge was wide enough for one person, but the drop was sheer, so I went sideways, keeping both hands on the cliff wall. The cave was really not much more than a niche, directly behind the waterfall. I saw that Sylvia had started along the ledge as well. There wasn't much room for the two of us. "You can sit down," she shouted over the rush of the water. "I'll have to sit on your lap." I saw what she meant. There was a deep step in the niche just wide enough to sit down on. I gingerly turned around. The naked rock was cool and sharp against my bare back and bottom. I took Sylvia's arm and held it tightly. It was harder for her to turn since I was in the way. I pulled her onto my lap. She pressed against me to center her gravity as far back as possible. I clasped my arms firmly around her waist. It was exhilarating: the rush of the water just an arm's length away, the dizzying height, the sheer drop, the sharpness of the rocky seat, the chill of the spray, the weight of her body, the seriousness of my grasp. The cave was in shadow, and that made the sunlit green of the jungle even more brilliant in comparison. A single hawk soared, level with us, about where the road should be. After a time Sylvia pressed my arm and let herself down off my lap. I again held her arm as she turned in place. Then I eased myself up from the seat and followed her back to the garden wall. She was exhilarated too, and we exchanged a look of shared adventure that could not have been put into words. *** The way to town lead down from the summer house to a well traveled footpath that wound along the river. We met Tom at the cantina and had a dinner of spicy stew and nettles. The evening promenade was along the paved main road. We exchanged pleasantries with several of Tom's acquaintances and drank pineapple water from a kiosk. We inspected the boats tied up along the dock. A pleasant breeze blew in from the river. As the twilight began to come on we sauntered back home. It is an old Calandrian custom that on the first night of a visit, the hostess shares her bed with the male guest, and the host shares his bed with the female guest. Traditionally this rule was followed even by married couples, it being taken for granted that marital vows would be held sacrosanct by all the parties involved. Cohabitation and abstinence are not seen as such odd bedfellows in Calandria as they are in the States. Nowadays married couples usually opt out, but the custom is still widely observed by young people, even by fiancees. Sylvia sat down cross-legged on the mat, and I sat down facing her. The candle cast a warm, flickering glow over her face and her voluptuous breasts. "The mountain has two caves, you know," she said, her eyes sparkling. "We saw one of them today. It's pretty well known. But there is another cave on the other side. It's harder to find, and you sometimes have to get your feet a little muddy. Some people don't like it very much. But I'm fond of it, and I like to visit it every once in a while. Do you know the little cave on the other side of the mountain?" "I've seen it," I said, "but I've never gone inside." "Would you like to? "I'd need a guide." "Of course," she smiled. "This is a weekend for caving." She had me lay over a bolster. It put my bare bottom up in the air and I felt even more exposed than I had felt on the open road. She fetched some things from the drawer. "Not every mountain has a front cave, but every mountain has a back cave," she said. "It's more democratic in that respect." She held the cheeks of my bottom apart with one hand, and began to trace her finger gently between them. Then she lightly scratched with her fingernail all around my anus. The area felt contiguous with the rest of me, but also strangely separate. Her touch was very vivid, but disjointed and fractal. This was not a part of my anatomy that was often inspected, let alone fondled, and the sensation gave me a massive hard on. "The cave is guarded by a grumpy old gnome," she said, applying some salve to her finger. "He has his job to do, and most of the time he just goes about his business. He is not much used to being disturbed." She spread the salve around my anus, massaging it around and around. It was not unpleasant. "Hello, Mr. Gnome. Will you let us in today?" She pushed her well-lubricated finger right into my ass hole. I could feel it slide in, but once it was in it felt much thicker than just a finger. It felt, in fact, very much like something else that I was used to pushing out rather than letting in. "The more you relax, the more Mr. Gnome will relax too." She slowly moved her finger in and out. It was all I could do to relax, but I eventually found that I could pay attention to the swirling mix of sensations and urges without having to actively participate in them. It truly was like exploring a mysterious and intriguing new world that I had never been to before. Mr. Gnome must have let down his guard a bit, because Sylvia now introduced a second finger. The urge to eliminate was stronger, but I was still able to hold it at bay, although this meant willfully ignoring lessons and reflexes I had learned all the way back before the dawn of consciousness. One part of me knew that I was leaving myself vulnerable to something foul and shameful, but I put myself completely in Sylvia's hands. She moved her fingers in and out. The urge hovered on the edge of imperative. A new, warm, tingling arose and spread throughout my groin. Sylvia seemed to have introduced her whole fist. The urge became overpowering. Mr. Gnome got down to business. "Can you hold it, Hector? No? Then poop it out, Hector, poop it out." I did. I gave in. I pooped, right there in front of Sylvia. Like a helpless, incontinent baby. I pooped. But Sylvia had tricked both me and Mr. Gnome. It was more of a virtual poop. She was able to modulate the profile and the flow, introducing apples, coconuts, watermelons into the mix, then tapering back to sausages, green beans, spaghetti, Once I had started things in motion, Mr. Gnome kept the conveyor belt running, and the tingling just didn't stop. Sylvia finally withdrew, and my pucker seemed like it would suck itself inside out. These were feelings I had only ever experienced before in the line of duty, and then only fleetingly and in complete privacy. Now I was wallowing in these feeling right in front of Ilsa's beautiful best friend, with my balls on display, my ass up in the air, and her hand stuck up it. I didn't know even how to begin to try to figure out something to say. She ran her clean hand electrifyingly up my spine and tenderly kissed my cheek. For the second time that day she gave me the look of shared adventure. Sylvia went to clean up, and brought back a wet cloth to clean me as well. I had forgotten that she was naked, and the sight of her full breasts and her downy triangle aroused me more than I thought I could stand. She checked my fingernails to make sure they were not too long. Then she lay down herself over the bolster, exposing to me her very most secret hidden places. "Be very gentle," she whispered. "The cave is tender, and the gnome is temperamental. Be sure to use lots of salve." Her bottom was smooth and round and as beautiful to touch as it was to look at. I ran my finger along her crack, savoring its depth and its tightness. She reached back to hold her cheeks open for me. I saw that her anus was at the center of a conical crater whose walls were slightly pleated as they tucked down into what was only a tiny, pin-sized hole at the bottom. The ring right around the hole was a little pinker, and the ring around that a little darker than the rest of her skin. Her anus was very close to the opening of her vagina, and the two were connected by a thin noodle of skin that squiggled along her perineum like an extension of her inner lips. It was a captivating landscape. I could not help but trace my finger along the lightly forested rim of her vagina and dip it briefly inside, but then I focused on the primary objective. I ran my finger along the noodle, and felt it between my thumb and my finger. I circled the walls of the crater with the pad of my finger, spiraling down toward the pin hole. Then I traced each pleated ray back up from the hole with my nail, painstakingly, as if I were enameling a precious miniature. I dabbed my finger with salve, and spread it generously around her crater. Then I coated my finger again and pressed it down into her opening. It was too tight for the finger to go right in, and I was very careful to be slow and tender. My finger felt very slippery against her bottom. I pressed again, gently, then released. "Let me in, Mr. Gnome," I said. "You can push a little harder," Sylvia whispered. I re-centered my finger and pushed more steadily. This time I penetrated her tight pucker up to the first phalange. I could feel Mr. Gnome's warm fist slowly unclenching. I pushed farther and was able to get my finger in deeper. This was definitely new and uncharted territory for me, and I had to rely on my sense of touch to try to visualize my surroundings. Remembering what Sylvia had done to me, I moved my finger slowly in and out, charting the passageway and recording every change and quiver of pressure. When I thought she was loose enough, I salved up my middle finger and tried to work it is as well. Again I went very slowly, step by step, and my patience was again rewarded. I played the fingers in and out and tried to gently spread them, up and down and side to side. "You can put your penis in next if you want to," whispered Sylvia. "I think Mr. Gnome is ready for it." Just the thought of that made my penis throb even more. It was as solid as a rolling pin, and the head was swollen, flushed, and leaking. I took out my fingers and applied salve all over the head and all up and down the shaft. When I brought it up to Sylvia, her little hole was no bigger than my pee hole. It seemed ludicrous to think that my big cock would fit in there. "It's too big," I said softly. "You have to push. Not too hard. It's kind of like fishing. You just have to be patient. Mr. Gnome will let you in eventually." I did as she said. I felt as if I was leaning against a soft but solid wall. But I kept up a steady pressure. Eventually I began to sink in, as if into viscous bread dough. I pressed on until the whole head was jammed into the dough. Then, all of a sudden, I sunk in up to mid shaft. The hole was tight, but not excruciating, and I could feel its grasp all along the shaft and head. I tried to push in further. "I think we need more salve," said Sylvia. "Let me push you out." I could feel her bearing down, and then the deep exhilarating massage as Mr. Gnome excreted me. I put more salve on her butt, and more on my cock. This time it did not take as long for me to get in. The fit was tight, but slippery, and I could push in all the way until my balls clonked against her pussy. "Now if you move it in and out, you can make us both cum," she said. It was not so much a matter of thrusting as of squeezing further in, and dragging further out. I could feel the head of my penis pulsing and its girth pushing back against the tightness of the walls. Sylvia let go of her cheeks and brought her hands down to fondle her breasts. I slid my clean hand between her legs and massaged her vulva. The friction and the tightness of her butt brought on a thrumming tingle that soon escalated into the first strains of climax. I slowed down to give Sylvia more time, but it felt just too good. "I'm cumming." The tingling blossomed into an intense, velvety, basso-profundo chord, accompanied by an overwhelming peristaltic spasm that drained an ache from my balls that I hadn't even realized was there. Sylvia bore down. My cock was still hard and I pushed back against her, keeping her in a state of suspension until she came as well. We went quietly to the bathroom to pee and wash up. Back in the room, Sylvia blew out the candle. We lay on our sides, facing each other. I put my arms around her and pulled her into a close embrace. I could feel her large warm breasts against my chest and her smooth thighs against my still semi-erect penis. She hugged me back. I still felt vivid reverberations, fore and aft, and I presumed that she did too. It was a warm night, and we relaxed our embrace. But it was a narrow bed, and we were not able to move too far apart. The Sweetness of the Pear: Sylvia *** When I woke up the next morning, Sylvia was not there. I thought maybe she had gone to the bathroom, so I waited a while in bed. But eventually I got up and went out to the kitchen. Tom and Ilsa were making coffee. "Good morning," said Tom. "Did you sleep well?" "Yes, thanks. Very well." "I thought we might take a boat along the river today. Would you like to see the floating market?" He set out four cups. I assumed that Sylvia was around, perhaps doing a chore. "Great." Sylvia did not show up until the breakfast things had been put away. She was naked, not even wearing sandals, and slightly out of breath. "Morning, all." She helped herself to some coffee and a bit of sweet rice. Tom seemed to take her absence in stride. "We've been talking about taking a boat down the river. Maybe have lunch in Prabang." "Oh, that will be lovely. We should be leaving soon then. Can you just give Hector and me a couple of minutes?" *** "I'm sorry I slipped out of bed on you. I wanted to see the sunrise, and I thought I would be back before you woke up." "Did you see it?" She laughed. "Turns out it's pretty hard to see the sunrise in the forest." In Calandria, the act of love is not considered to be fully consummated until it has been consummated twice. A second helping, if you will, to lovingly frame an amorous rendezvous, a pleasant day together, or a warm and tender night. This has always struck me as an amiable custom. It imparts an additional touch of ritual to romantic encounters, and it weaves them more intimately into the fabric of the day. I was touched that Sylvia wanted to share this with me. "Did you like what we did last night?" she asked. "It was . . . exciting." "It's not for every day. Tom doesn't like it as much as I do." She lay down on the bed and held out her arms to me. She was in part just performing her duty as a hostess, but she was also unabashedly greedy for it, and greedy that I be greedy for it too. I had fantasized about this moment, but in my fantasies her presence had never been as compelling as it was now. I lay down in her embrace. I kissed her breasts, the swelling breasts that I had so long admired. I ran my tongue around her expansive areolas, and sucked her fleshy, now substantial nipples. I remembered the pink squiggle that drizzled toward her anus, but she gently pulled me back up. She reached down and guided me in. She lifted her legs and spread them very wide, so that there was only one slip bearing of physical contact between us. But she looked deeply into my eyes, an earnest, vulnerable look that said: Be here with me. Share this with me. Let us do this together. I could hardly do otherwise than to return her gaze. She was expecting an answer. I'm here. What else could I say? I'm here with you. Can you feel what I'm feeling? her eyes asked. This tenderness? This closeness? I thought of all the times that I had made love in the dark, or with my eyes closed, my partner and I each in our own private worlds. But let us be together in the same world this time, her eyes replied. This is Ilsa's friend, I thought. She is engaged to be married. Life has brought us together. Everything will be all right. I have always felt intimidated by you. I've always held myself aloof. Then let us make a new start. Here and now. You are dear to me, I want to be dear to you. I worked my penis in and out. Yes, her eyes acknowledged. We are animals. We must thrust just as we must breathe. But we are souls as well, and how can love be truly made except between two souls? I've never known who you were. I've always been afraid to know. Here I am. This is who I am. Nothing more. Nothing less. *** The boat had a thatched roof, but Tom stood at the tiller in the bright sunshine, naked in the native tradition. We drifted downstream along the wide river, through interminable stretches of forest and narrow, cliff-lined gorges, past gravelly bars where families had come down to bathe. A pair of emerald parrots circled in our wake. As we came toward the market town there were more and more boats, colorful and gay, some passing us by, some falling behind. I could still feel vividly the path that Sylvia's hand had blazed along my spine the night before. I could still feel the precise heft and warmth of her bottom on my lap. Her corporeal incarnation sat across from me, trailing a stick in the water and watching the eddies swirl away. How could she be both there and so tangibly touching me at the same time? The floating market was a kaleidoscope of scents and colors. We bought turmeric and saffron from a wizened lady in an ancient canoe, and roasted yams from a floating kitchen. The traffic was so dense that Tom and I had to get out the poles, and Sylvia and Ilsa had to wield the bumpers. We dropped the anchor just outside the channel and ate our bobbing lunch, watching the comings and goings on the water and along the main street of the town. Then we let ourselves drift a little farther along to where the river widened out and found a quiet spot for our siesta. I thought of the searing intensity of Sylvia's gaze that morning when we had made love. Where I had always before averted my eyes, Tom must have looked straight on. Did he meet that blinding incandescence with an incandescence of his own? Wouldn't that be enough? Wouldn't one be able to endure anything that the world could throw at one, as long as one knew that that perfect sympathy would be waiting at the end of the day? After our nap we didn't bother to put our clothes back on. Tom let me steer. The river became wide and lazy. We passed a girl on the shore leading a water buffalo. She wore a straw hat for the sun but nothing else, and she was more beautiful than anyone I had ever seen. She watched us pass with her hands hidden behind her back, shy of strangers but not of her nakedness. *** "Do Calandrians ever get jealous?" I asked Ilsa in bed that night. "Yes, of course. Why do you ask?" "It's hard for me to understand how Tom and Sylvia can share each other so freely." "Let me ask you this. Were you jealous of Tom and me last night?" "A bit." "Liar," she said. "I think your mind was occupied with other things. Did you ever stop to think that maybe Tom had other things on his mind last night as well?" "But we're not engaged." "I think Tom and Sylvia as sure of each other as they are of themselves. They revolve around each other so effortlessly that you sometimes don't see the connection. But it's always there, like gravity, action at a distance." *** The next morning we walked several miles to visit some relatives of Tom's. They lived in a beautiful whitewashed villa surrounded by vegetable gardens and orchards. The patriarch was retired and he and his wife now lived there most of the year. Several of their grown children had come down with their families to spend the weekend, and a few neighbors and other relations had dropped by for the morning. The children were playing a noisy game in the yard, although there also always seemed to be at least two or three of them buzzing around their grandmother at any given time. A circle of women were shelling beans and talking and laughing. Some of the men were sitting on the porch and some were standing under a banyan tree. Tom and Sylvia received a hearty welcome, and everyone was pleased to meet Ilsa and me. A few of us walked over to see the neighbors' double-dug sweet potato patch, which was setting all kinds of local records. The daughter was in her final year at the university. She had flowing black hair and bewitching eyes that I noticed were often directed my way. Someone had brought a little motor bike, and I held her hips and pushed her off when it was her turn to ride it. Lunch was served picnic style on mats in the yard. Plantains, sweet potatoes, roast pork, rice, pickles, fresh yogurt, mangoes, guavas. Inquiries were made about the wellbeing of relatives and friends not in attendance. The price of coffee, the rainy-season forecast, the prospects of the local football team, the best methods for making cheese, and the opening of the new art museum in the city were likewise discussed. Sylvia came and sat beside me. One of the aunts told a long funny story from her childhood about the engagement of her elderly neighbor to the even older man across the street, a transaction in which she had played the role of middleman with hilarious and nearly catastrophic consequences. Then Tom told a story about the time that he had gone up to the city with his father. His mother thought the trip was just a boy's weekend off, but its real purpose had been to buy her tenth anniversary present. Tom's father had saved up enough money to redeem the bamboo ring with which he had married her for a gold one. It was Tom's first time in the city, and he was overwhelmed by the broad boulevards, the multistory buildings, the endless throngs of people---more people than he had imagined existed in all the world. Just down the street from their hotel was a furniture shop with a big picture window, and each time they passed by it his father would stop. In the window was a magnificent mahogany headboard, grander and finer than anything they had in their little village. The idea slowly began to take shape in his father's head that this headboard might make an even more appropriate anniversary present than the ring---not only a resolute symbol of their union and of his devotion, but an incipient family heirloom, an earnest of the future generations that their love would engender. Summoning up every ounce of his resolve, Tom's father entered the shop. The headboard was exquisite, with intricate curlicues and ornately carved hibiscus blossoms. The cost was not that much more than the cost of the ring. They went back out of the shop again and walked for what seemed liked hours, his father not saying a word. Tom had to run half the time to keep up. Finally they found themselves back at the shop. They walked right in and bought the headboard. Did they want it delivered? No, they would take it with them. Two men carried it out to the sidewalk. Someday, Tom's father beamed, this will be yours. They spent the night not at the hotel but in the park, with the headboard propped up against a bench. They had no more money for a taxi, and the bus driver would not let them bring such an unwieldy piece of furniture on board the bus, so they had had to carry it all the way to the train station. Tom tried his best to hold up his end, but he was just a little boy. They would not have made it had it not been for the kindness of a series of passersby who helped them block by block. At the station, Tom's father counted out their pennies. They had enough for two third class tickets or for freight passage for the headboard, but not for both. Tom's father pleaded the situation to the station master---the tenth anniversary, the future generations---and the station master begrudgingly tagged the headboard as personal luggage. Rail travel was not as streamlined then as it is today. They had to transfer three times, and each time Tom's father had to suffer through the offloading and the on-loading and to see one more curlicue flattened and one more hibiscus garland stripped of its petals. By the time they reached Tom's station, the headboard looked as if it had already weathered four or five of its anticipated generations. But despite its mars and gouges, it was still a marvel in the little village, and there was no shortage of enthusiastic helpers to convey it the last several miles to Tom's house. The procession picked up people as it went along, and by the time they arrived, two or three anticipated generations later, they had half the district in tow. Tom's mother came out of the house to see what the commotion was, and found herself being serenaded by a yard full of proud villagers. It was a local courtship song: "Lovelier than breadfruits are your lovely breasts, sharper than the hawk's eye is your discernment." And right in the middle of the throng, happiest and proudest of all, stood her husband and her little son, displaying between them an immense piece of battered mahogany. She could not work out the exact meaning of it all, but she could not help but be overcome by the emotion, and she wept for joy. Most of the audience, of course, had already heard the story many times before. But not Sylvia and I. And even though Tom had played it out mostly to the eyes and ears down at his end of the mat, I could tell that he was really telling the story to Sylvia, and I saw how deeply she was moved. *** "A penny for your thoughts." Ilsa and I had caught the evening train, leaving Tom and Sylvia to spend one more night at the summer house. I realized that I had been silent for several miles. "Just organizing my snapshots, I guess" "We'll have to get you out into the countryside more often. It has quite an effect on you." "Do you think they'll be happy?" "They already are, wouldn't you say?" Another mile clicked by. "Do you think you'll ever get married?" "I've always assumed that I will some day." "How will you know that you've found the right person?" "Silly goose! Don't you know? A little bird will tell me. And then I won't have a single thing to worry about for the entire rest of my life."