knowing

There is a pose - a vantage point - that I’ve come to enjoy: standing in the doorway of my bedroom, leaning on the frame, staring at a delicious boy in my bed. Granted, he is usually sprawled in a rather unsexy position, tangled in bedclothes and half-hidden by pillows, mouth open, snoring and even possibly drooling in the depths of slumber. But even in such an unglamorous context he is perfection. From the thick soft dark hair at the top of his head to the long toes on his high-arched feet (which are rather talented…he’s learned to pinch my ass with them when he’s feeling mischievous), he is my desire. I find that I enjoy looking at him as much as anything, and although misgivings about objectification squirm beneath the surface of my stare, I am truly grateful that he is living breathing speaking kissing touching teasing tickling winking blinking laughing moaning groaning begging commanding oh holy christ fucking actuality.


Trevor is a bit of a lazy sloth, though I’ve come to think of him as cat-like. He enjoys laying around and being petted, until a burst of libido renders him playful and lusty, pinning me down, then we grind like well-oiled gears in a machine which serves no other purpose than to make us delirious. He’s not adverse to activity when I suggest it: bicycling out to the reservoir on the outskirts of our town, a couple sets of tennis at the public courts, doing my yardwork in exchange for food and sex (which naturally I would give him regardless), getting drunk and making a fool of himself on the dance floor at a club in the city beyond. That’s how we celebrated his legal ascendancy in this, his adopted land. He produced his passport when carded, gleefully declaring I’m 21, give me alcohol! He’s purposely silly, a sunny personality, and I appreciate that quality. I have never known it myself, not entirely. I do know what it is to be happy, and I try to express that happiness in the form of kindness, to everyone. The gift I’ve received is the one I give to others now, but tenfold to back to him, the source.

And maybe even something else as well. Something I can’t say, but I know he sees it in my eyes.


We’re watching a tennis match on television, Trevor hunched forward as the play heats up between the contestants, a very long volley going on with dramatic lunges in the shots. When the person he’s rooting for misses a return he lets out with a loud Ag shame! and falls back onto the couch. A commercial follows, I lower the volume on the set.

“Do you think I should get a piano?” I ask him.

Trevor blinks, then smiles, and his entire expression is delicious warmth: wide brown eyes framed by thick dark brows, lush mouth curving with curiosity, the overall shape and bone structure of his face so heartrendingly perfect.

“Why would you do that, pikkie?”

It’s a term of affection, much as twinkie has become for me to use. He tells me it means “little one,” or “baby” depending on the context. His sister is called such because she is the baby of the family. Generally he continues to refer to me as milady or she who shall be served, though I am not demanding of all his time.

“So you can practice.”

Another smile, slightly more shy. “I get all the practice I need at Gram’s, and school.”

“I don’t want to be a distraction. I want you to do well in your classes.”

Trevor shakes his head, stretching in his seat. “I’m doing fine, Ann. I’ve been playing music practically all my life, it’s not a mission, truly. ‘Sides, you don’t wanna hear me play a bunch of boring classical shite.”

“Does it bore you?”

“Me? Nah. But you don’t strike me as the type who’d turn on some Debussy, or Schumann.”

I don’t know if I should be offended. It’s indicative of how little we know each other, in some ways. I enjoy listening to 70s-era music, that’s what he knows about me, from perusing the songs downloaded on my mp3 player, looking through the compact discs I have in one of the cupboards of my entertainment center. But we’ve never really had a discussion about music…we’re usually too busy acting like teenagers on hormonal overload.

“Trev, if you played it, I would listen. Full stop.”

I get up from the couch, looking away, attempting to avoid knowing what his reaction is rather than seeing the truth, regardless of what it is. But he doesn’t hide it.

“Awwww. I feel ever so special now.”

“Answer the question, twinkie.” I look in the refrigerator and find one beer left. When I come back I hold it over his head like a doggy treat.

“If you buy a piano I will play it.”

He is rewarded with a few things, one is my now-chilly hand sliding into the front of his shorts.

“Ahhh, you torture me something awful, milady.”

I pull him down on top of me and the rest of the tennis match goes unwatched.


I begin to consider the notion - during the odd moment when my brain isn’t wholly focused on other things – how to know one another. And yet, we do…I know that Trevor likes me to suck his tongue and pinch the tiny love handles he has and brush his hair for as long as my arm can hold up. He knows I’ll do anything for a good foot massage and I shiver when he breathes on the back of my neck and lose my mind when he bites me anywhere…not too hard, but the feeling of teeth drives me crazy. Dramatic screaming crazy.

It’s a night during the five or so days preceding my cycle, and I am horny as hell. Hornier, I’m willing to bet, as I straddle the bed with a thump. Trevor, who had dozed off after our last wide ride, stirred, big brown eyes blinking and a smirk stretching his mouth.

“Do you require my services again, milady Succubus?” he teases.

“Absolutely, but first a question.”

His brows rise in curiosity and he moves up in the bed, tucking pillows under his head. “Yes milady?”

“Do you have any plans for Spring Break?”

“Wot’s that?”

“In a month you’re going to get a week-long break from classes. That’s what they call it.”

“Oh right! No, I’d even forgotten ‘bout it.”

“Would you like to go on holiday with me?”

“You have to ask? Of course!”

“Yeah but, this means six or seven days alone with me. Nobody else. Together constantly.”

“My dream come true.”

I suppress the urge to throw a pillow at him, because his tone seems a little too flippant.

“We’ll see…”

“Ann, seriously, why would you even ask if you didn’t think it’d be grand? We’d get to fall asleep together every night. That alone is reason enough. I always have a terrible time when I go back to Gram’s, lying there alone and cold, when I’d much rather be warm and cozy with you.”

“And able to wake me up a few hours later when you’ve got wood again.”

“Well that goes without saying, milady.”

I feel the thorns of argument and remember my resolution: just be. That is how he is, my twinkie, wholly content in the moment. And I still possess that desire to experience what it’s like to be him. I make a slow crawl to him, pulling bedclothes from his body.

“You know what else goes without saying?”

He raises an eyebrow but his grin is wicked.

“That I –“ I paused and ran my tongue down the length of his stiffened cock. “- want to suck you so bad.”

“Yes I often remark to myself when you give me that look that you’re thinking of him, and then he gets very angry that I reminded him when he’s in my trousers and can do nothing ‘bout it.”

“Oh I’m going to make it all up to him,” I murmured, a string of kisses from bottom to top, then letting my tongue swirl around the edge of the glans, “right now.”

“He’s a lucky chappie, he is,” Trevor said, in a voice thick with lust, and then he was beyond coherent speech because I was sucking his cock like it was made of pure sugar.


Flights and accommodations were booked, and Andrew was glad I had surrendered to his insistence that I take time off, even if it was only a week. When he asked me my plans I was purposely vague.

“Just going away, somewhere warm.”

He smiled. Andrew never took vacations, save an occasional fishing trip up in the mountains. But he was benevolent to those who worked for him, as we all possessed an unerring sense of loyalty.

“Sounds lovely. Did Trev tell you…he’ll be off with his mates for Spring Break. Cabo San Lucas.”

“Yeah? Did you tell him not to be stupid?”

Andrew chuckled, toasting me with his mug of tea. “Told him if he gets in dutch with the authorities I’ll just tell them to have him deported. But he’s a sensible one, mostly. He likes to let everyone think he’s wicked, but it’s all a front, really. Devoted to Mum, which makes her happy, since I’m rather lacking in that regard.”

“It’s very sweet, how he takes care of her.”

“He always was her favorite, and she’s got eight grandchildren.”

“Really? So your brother and sister each had a good-sized brood, eh?”

“Yes, Mum couldn’t complain…well, of course she could, but then I’d say that Maggie and Kev gave her enough so I wouldn’t have to.”

I had learned the odd detail here and there about Andrew’s family, but again, this was something Trevor and I never discussed. I suppose it felt weird to me, those attendant feelings tainting considerations of true intimacy. To know Trevor was to know that he was related to Andrew, and thus to know things I’d always wondered about, just in a different context.

At the moment, I felt a twinge of pity. Andrew was alone. But he wanted it that way. He had never married, never had a serious girlfriend for more than a few years at a time. This much I did know from his nephew. Eventually every relationship dissolved in the wake of his workaholic ways, no matter that he was smart and kind and adorable in his own way. Even so, it didn’t seem fair.

“What about you, boss?” I asked. “Gonna have a vay-cay this year?”

Andrew looked down at his desk, as if the various files, printouts, and pieces of mail were suddenly fascinating. “Dunno. I was thinking of taking Trev up to my cabin for some fishing in the summer, but he’d probably be bored silly.”

“The three of you should go, that would be a nice trip, I think.”

He pursed his lips, considering, his brow furrowing in a way I always found endearing. “P’haps.”

I smile, considering that it’s better than no.


Sharing the bathroom, we’ve decided on dinner and a movie in the city, where we’re not as likely to run into anyone we know, and I examine my freshly-dried hair.

“Hmm, gonna have to get into the hairdresser before vacation.”

“Why?” Trevor asks as he carefully combs his still-wet hair (which cannot be blown dry, according to him, because he would look like a dandelion).

“My roots are showing.”

He looked over at me and shrugged. “So? Why doncha let it grow out?”

“Why?”

“I want to know what your real hair color looks like.”

“It’s awful, trust me.”

Trevor rolls his eyes. “Women always say that. Why, then?”

“Just boring. Flat brown.”

He pouts and I hold up a finger in caution.

“Stop it, that’s not fair!”

Trevor continues to pout and the reluctance created by my sense of vanity melts away. Goddamnit why does he have to be so fucking adorable?!

“All right, I’ll let it grow out but it’s going to take a lot of asskissing and begging to get me to keep it that color.”

“Wait till you see what happens to my hair after a few days in the sun.”

“What?”

“It gets lighter.”

“Really?” I can’t imagine it, his hair is a very dark shade of brown, just like Andrew’s. “Like how?”

“Sort of reddish-brown, I s’pose. I’d show you snaps of when I was a kid, but I don’t have any with me.”

“I bet your grandmother does.”

“Oh yeah…I’d wager that too.”

“Can I see?”

“Yeah, I’ll find them.”

I turn and embrace him, we exchange a gentle kiss. “Were you a cute kid?”

Trevor draws himself up, looking shocked. “Milady, I have always been adorable!”

I snicker and he winks at me as he brushes his teeth.


I take Trevor with me on a bikini shopping expedition in the city, arranging to pick him up at the bookstore on the college campus. Flipping through some po-mo tome, wondering if I should take a chance despite it weighing at least three or four pounds, I hear a very appreciative whistle from behind. I turned, smirking, and there he is: grinning leering sweet temptation.

“Hi. Are you a student?”

“Of life,” I quipped. “You?”

“A student looking for a teacher…one who would teach me how to handle a woman like you.”

One voice says it’s too obvious, but another says shut up you cynical bitch and just let him be cute.

“Yeah you know there’s no textbook for that.”

We begin snickering, I give him a slight playful shove.

“It’s mid-term, how would you grade me, mam?”

“Oh you’re on the honor roll, twinkie.”

“Huzzah! You ready, then, pikkie?”

“I think I’m gonna get this. Something to read on the plane, and the beach.”

“You’re not bringing many clothes, right? Because that’s going to take up all the room in your luggage.”

“I’m not bringing many clothes because they get in the way of fucking.”

As I say this, over my shoulder to him, we pass a couple of younger collegiates who give me a look of TMI, you old hag. Whoops. Oh fuck it, I should be shouting from the rooftops…and yet it’s still not a cultural convention which is wholly accepted. Woman on top…yeah right! But Trevor giggles as he usually does when I say something titillating…I love the sound. Like a thousand tiny bells ringing in some enchanted place full of fairies and glowing sunlight.

Christ, I’m having those happily ever after thoughts again. I normally smack my forehead if I’m alone. Like at work, when he sends me a text, just something simple like hi miss you! He knows I like that. And he expects I will reply with something like be a good boy and I can imagine his smile. And then I smack my forehead because…the glacier is melting in that blinding sun. And the flood will drown us both, I fear.


I made a sensible list of preparations, and Trevor assisted with a few…like figuring out how to program the timer for my sprinklers, as such a task is truly beyond the limits of my aging brain. The day before we departed was unexpectedly scorching, and he came over in nothing but a pair of obscenely short denim cutoffs, shredded ends falling just below the curve of his luscious ass, waist just barely clinging to the exquisite symmetry of his hipbones. I stood behind him as he pressed buttons and entered information, looking around him as Trevor is too tall for me to see over his shoulder.

“There, it should come on every morning at four, hopefully it’ll be enough moisture that the lawn doesn’t dry out altogether…especially if the weather continues like this. Reminds me of home.”

“Does it ever get cold in Johannesburg?” I ask.

Trevor snorted. “Cold? What’s that? Cold is something I felt when I left the country; we don’t have cold in South Africa.”

“You must bring these on the trip,” I insist, sliding my hands under the waistband.

“They meet with your approval, hey? Gram looked at me before I came over and said, ‘Aren’t those terribly short, Trev?’ And I said, ‘But Gram, it’s hot today!’”

“It is,” I said, gently stroking his cock with one hand and cradling his balls with the other. ”It’s very hot.”

“Oh temptress, thou must wait till I water the backyard.” Trevor knows I’m a sucker for that accent writ culturally seductive.

I kiss his smooth warm arm and let him finish his task. After a time I walk out onto the back porch, watching as Trevor smokes a cigarette and hoses down the lawn and the flower beds at the outer edge of the property. The fact that he’s wearing practically nothing lends further emphasis to his long limbs and his hair falls just so between his shoulder blades and oh holy fuck I get to spend an entire week having my wicked way with him and suddenly…whatever anxiety I was feeling about the trip leaves me, the quick dart of a bird across the sky. A breath of warm air, and I step into the sun, my mind already in the place we will be, with nothing to do but enjoy one another.


I fly First class, always. I see no point in torturing myself in the confines of Economy, and although Business is an acceptable alternative, if I have to endure the tedious process of air travel, I might as well be comfortable. It’s a ten-hour flight; we’re going to a privately-owned island whose sole economy is the resort which takes up the majority of the landmass, specifically designed for those vacationers who desire complete privacy. The resort is comprised of a series of bungalows: evenly spaced, far enough that each can be seen from a distance, somewhat camouflaged by palm trees and other flora. The beach is assessable via a short path, and patrons are strongly encouraged to stay on their own assigned half-acre. It is a place frequented by celebrities and others of power and privilege, prohibitively expensive but since a prior sojourn courtesy of a former lover I have made it my goal to be able to afford a return visit. All services are included, there is opportunity to mingle in the central bar and restaurant, though most prefer to have their meals and drinks and other amenities delivered directly to them as they lounge in the sun, lulled by the sound of surf and wind and peace.

Trevor is adorably happy to sit in a seat which can actually accommodate his long legs, and is further excited by a few other things.

“Oh lekker,” he said, pulling up the armrest between us, “we can get nice and cozy, hey?”

“Yes. And look,” I directed, pointing above, “there’s a privacy curtain.”

His delicious brown eyes go wide with titillated shock. “Y’mean…we can be naughty?”

“At some point, probably. Discreetly, of course. Under a blanket.”

“Always thinking, aren’t you?”

“It’s a long flight.”

And while we did have an interlude of mutual masturbatory groping underneath the blanket - our mouths locked in a kiss, breathing heavily into each other - we were mostly content to sleep, seats reclined, bodies facing towards one another, curled together as the plane rode the jetstream over the Pacific, onward towards the destination of our private bliss.


There’s a bit of a drive from the airstrip to the resort, along a road lined with palm trees, the heat sultry-thick and the sun rendering everything amazingly bright and sharp. In the back of the jeep serving as a shuttle Trevor is watching the scenery with that megawatt smile of wonder.

“That’s all there is, then? Just the hotel?”

“It’s not a hotel, dear, I told you. We have our very own bungalow, with nobody on either side of us for a whole half-acre. It’s almost like being shipwrecked.”

“We can go ‘round starkers?”

I ponder the notion, my pulse immediately revving at the thought of seeing his glorious body walking down the sand and into the sea.

“In the bungalow. Outside, it’s likely someone will see us.”

“Surely we can be discreet ‘bout that too?”

“We’ll see. Don’t want anything important getting sunburned. And besides, I can’t have other women seeing you like that. That’s my privilege.”

Trevor turns to me, his fingers stroking my becoming-browner-by-the-day hair, his voice tender with regard.

“If anyone’s privileged, it’s me. I’ve never been to any place like this.”

“It’s my pleasure…just like you.”

We kiss, and again…spreading glowing melting warmth rises up in me and we can’t get to our bungalow fast enough.


The dark here is dark…the sea glows luminescent when meeting the sand, and the stars are seemingly strewn across that same darkness though their positions are determinate upon astronomy and other unromantic considerations. But it takes our eyes a while to adjust to the lack of light once we are supine and sliding against each other. Trevor kneels before me, taking the head of his cock and tracing the folds of my labia, teasing my clit and entering just inside me, rubbing back and forth, in and out. My nerves are sensitive in that spot and I’m quickly reduced to cries I don’t have to smother in a pillow.

“Too much, pikkie, hmm?” he says, sweet mockery as I feel myself spasm and try to pull him in deeper. Hot and sticky, much like the weather, humidity caressing me within and without as my desire is patiently driving me insane with primal need…the need to have his cock inside me so I can instinctively hoard it for myself. That space filled, that connection complete. His smile is deliciously wicked to watch me dissolve into babbling bliss. I can only moan in response, sense scoured clean by that magic wand.

“Now as far as I’m concerned,” Trevor continues, putting a pillow under my ass and positioning himself to thrust deeper, “there is none such as too much.” He chuckles at his rhyme. “There is only more –“ a deep thrust and a sudden withdrawl “- and more –“ again, driving deep and coming out, and I whine like a dog until he skewers me again “-and more.”

“Ahhhh fuck me, you brat!” I yell, my body aching with the need to be pummeled. “FUCK ME!”

“Excuse me, what was that, milady?” The same cocktease cadence. God his cock feels so fucking goooood.

“FUCK ME! FUCK ME NOW!”

“My goodness you are so demanding!”

Fully incensed I grab his ass, rising, and quickly push Trevor onto his back with the element of surprise. He lets out a yelp and I pin him down as best I can and hump him for all I’m worth, manic and selfish but knowing he’s enjoying it too, my tits bouncing in his face and my pussy providing exquisite friction. He set it all up just to get this, a woman in full-blown nymphomania - if there is such a thing – and not just any woman.

Me. The one who knows exactly what he wants. Fairly soon he is moaning too, and then we’re pounding the mattress and screaming and sweating and there’s no one to bother, no one to judge, no one to intrude upon our gratuitous noisy interlude which ends in mutual delirium.

“Oh fuck,” Trevor breathes once I fall on him, and he wraps his limbs around me, laughing in my hair, “you bloody well rode me off the cliff!”

“You’re a bad boy,” I gasp, my tongue flickering out to catch a falling drop of sweat on his neck. “And bad boys get fucked. They get fucked hard.”

“Don’t I know it! But I’ll conveniently forget tomorrow so you can do it all over again.”

“There’s all sorts of ways to punish you, bad boy.”

“And I hope all of them involve you and me, naked and horizontal and exploring each other’s orifices.”

I laugh. I laugh so hard he starts laughing too because he can feel the vibrations inside me. I adore his silly ways, actually. I’ve never been involved with anyone silly.

Trevor has become addicted to police procedurals – doesn’t matter which one, he wants to watch them all. It never fails, right after the opening scene wherein the murder is committed, the body discovered, as the opening credits roll and then a commercial, he sits back and rubs his hands together.
“So! Whodunnit, d’ya think?”
“Trev, we haven’t even seen the suspects yet!”
“Hmm,” he considers, tapping a long finger on his beautiful pouty lips, “that does rather put a damper on deduction, doesn’t it?”
And he looks so genuinely ponderous when he says it I am immediately reduced to giggles. It occurs to me that perhaps some of his efforts are specifically for that reason: to make me laugh, to lighten my spirit. And what a gift that is.


We don’t have to talk when we’re on the beach. We understand that it’s not merely a backdrop, it’s the thing itself. People come here to be one with their environs. So when Trevor does say something, after a few hours of sitting in the sun, each of us reading, it’s strange. We’re both hoarse and somewhat sore from the loud intense sex of the night before.

“Think I’m gonna have a swim,” he says, putting down his own reading material - a book on music theory - and extinguishing his cigarette. “Wanna come?”

We’ve been swimming when it’s dark in the gentle surf, only as far as we can fully submerse ourselves. Of course it’s just another form of play but there is something liberating about running naked into the sea. But now I’m as lazy as I say he is, vaguely aching and exhausted, but the smile on my face feels permanent.

“Can’t move…go, save yourself.”

Trevor chuckles, rising to his feet. “I’d carry you in, y’know.”

“You’d have to hold on to me, otherwise I’d just sink to the bottom. Hey, c’mere.” I leaned forward and grabbed the waistband of those cutoffs, then pulled one side down to view a particularly dark contusion on his right buttock.

“I beg your pardon!” he exclaims, with mock effrontery.

“Ooh, does this hurt?” I ask, touching it with my index finger, watching it turn different colors as I do so.

“Only when you poke it like that.”

“Poor dear, I guess I chewed on you a little too much, hmm?” I reverently kiss the bruise, remembering how I had, in a way, lost my mind and began biting and sucking as much of his delicious skin as I could, so incredibly hungry to devour him in literal ways.

“You know I love it,” he says, reaching behind him to touch my hand. “Though I did think an animal had gotten into the bed at one point.”

“Joke’s on you, twinkie, she’s been there all along.” I smack him on the other side. “Go swim. And walk nice and slow into the water, okay?”

Trevor giggles, but complies, and I can barely whistle but I do my best, loud and long. After a time he returns, skin glistening, his hair dark and slick, then shakes himself like a dog just before collapsing into his chair.

“Y’know I was thinking…if we didn’t go anywhere, we would have done this sort of thing anyway, hey? Lazing about.”

I smiled, then took a long drink of bottled water. “This is more lazing than I counted on, but yeah.”

“So you see, it doesn’t matter where. When it’s you and me it’s perfect.”

I reach out and squeeze his hand, but I wonder…how could it not be perfect here, of all places. There is a grace bestowed by blue sky, white sand, green palms, aquamarine water, there is a reason why so many fantasies are placed within its’ exotic context. In such a place are we aware of pleasure and passion. But then I consider my previous visit, with a man I genuinely liked and enjoyed being with, but it wasn’t the same at all. We didn’t fuck each other stupid or giggle over the slightest things or just sit and grin at one another like…

Idiots, of a kind. But entirely benign.

So yes, perfection is apparently dependent upon a particular equation.


“Are you awake?”

What day is it, what time…I have no idea. I said shipwrecked but the condition is truly lost, to time and place, lost in a territory I’d never ventured into before, the encompassing dedication of obsession.

“Barely conscious is more like it. Your cock is poking me again.”

“He’s not tired.”

“What about you?” I should turn over, take him in my arms, but I like this, Trevor is completely wrapped around me, like the enormous bed we share does not exist, only the space which contains our entwined bodies.

“If he can’t sleep, neither can I. But I think I’ve gone beyond needing to sleep at this point, whether my eyes are open or shut it’s all the same.”

“A blur.”

“A blur of incredibly pornographic images, and then pretty scenery.”

We start snickering again. We are punch-drunk from jetlag coupled with sexual hunger, laughing over nothing, generally while we sit and eat on the patio, which quickly degenerates into feeding one another, which then fast forwards into half-eaten meals abandoned as we end up in bed once more. Fingers find my nipples and his mouth latches onto my neck, gently biting the nape.

“I’m going to pass out, it’s only a matter of time.”

“So you’re saying I can’t fuck you if you’re unconscious?”

“I would never say that. Just warning you that if I start snoring don’t take it personally.”

Trevor falls back, laughing, the sound on the edge of hysteria, and I fall asleep to that sound, though when I wake up he is breathing on the back of my neck and his cock is inside me. I have no idea if he actually tried to have sex with me while I was asleep, and I really don’t care…except to feel wistful that I missed out on the fun. He is so deeply asleep, in point of fact, that extricating myself from him so I can pee does nothing to wake him up. He merely snorts and settles down again, dropping his arm back into now-empty space. It is full daylight - not the soft glow of dawn - and the ocean and the wind are singing their song of shoosh. I sit on the bed and watch Trevor sleep for a while, considering that he is vulnerable but even awake there are very few barriers to his true self. The smile he gives me, his eyes smile the same way: crinkling and twinkling, deep and rich, soft and sweet, fur and chocolate. He is my true exotica: a person of delight, not allowing anything to weigh him down, not clinging to some bitter root of regret. I don’t want to wake him, don’t want to disturb whatever lovely dream he’s having, as a smirk makes his mouth pucker, an utterly precious Cupid’s Bow. I don’t even have to be in his dream, it’s enough that he’s happy, asleep or awake.

And that’s it: I get it. The lesson of joy. A sigh of relief.

I pull on one of my crinkle-cotton dresses and walk outside, down to the beach. Bare feet in sugary sand, looking out towards the horizon. Clouds seem to pass by continuously farther out over the sea, but rarely over the island itself. In the night, a few times, there has been rain. But the heat is ever a presence with weight and breath, it wraps around me, despite the wind, much as my twinkie does; I can feel the remnant of each upon my skin. I stand there, toes in the surf, wind tossing my hair around, pressing my dress against my otherwise naked body. I suddenly spread my arms out, throw my head back, a pose of triumph…giggling at my dramatic inclinations. Equally as sudden I am grabbed around the waist and lifted off the ground.

“Think you were gonna just fly away then, hey? It’s not that easy to escape me, milady.”

“Your incessant demands are going to cripple me, saucy boy!”

“Then crippled you shall be!” Trevor begins carrying me up towards the bungalow.

“Trev, put me down, you’re going to break your back!”

One of the staff appears from behind a hibiscus bush, carrying a tray.

“Good morning,” he says, smiling at us though we must look ridiculous. “Here is your breakfast.”

“Thanks ever so,” Trevor says, motioning that the other should go in first.

We’ve never had the opportunity to eat breakfast together until now, and fascinated as I was from first I saw him do it, I watch Trevor cut up two bananas into a bowl and pour a small pitcher of milk over them. But I finally decide to ask.

“This is curiosity, not condemnation,” I say in clarification. “Why do you do that?”

“Even as a kid, I liked to sleep in on the weekend,” he tells me. “And I mentioned I have an older brother and a younger sister. So generally when I finally got out of bed there was no cereal left. There were, however, always plenty of bananas. My mother is quite the proponent of the benefits of potassium.”

“Awww!” I exclaim, stroking his hair, which has – as he said it would – lightened considerably. “Poor baby!”

Trevor shrugged, ate a spoonful of bananas-and-milk. I suddenly have an urge to buy him a case of cereal and my spirit feels ambivalent, to experience that kind of sudden generosity.

I feel strange, I feel weightless, I feel…hopeful. He smiles at me after chewing and swallowing and I feel…perfect.