By 24 I’d traveled through Asia and Europe , not looking for Miss Right of course, “You never
find her if you are looking” but keeping my eyes open at all times just in
case.
I began working on the theory that if I built the nest first I'd
then find my mate so I settled down and began to clear a place and then to
build and plant, which was great, but it began to wear me down after a couple
of months, especially in the afternoons when I’d sit back on a rock and look at
what had changed. Things were certainly happening but I felt all the more that
I needed someone to share it with.
On a particularly hot afternoon I downed tools and rode my motorcycle
into town to drink a few beers. It wasn’t really what I wanted but I had
nothing better on offer.
As I arrived in town two attractive young ladies were just then leaving
the hotel so I engaged them in conversation. “Where are you going?”, I asked.
“Once-upon-a-time.” was
their reply.”
“What?” I asked, thinking I’d
heard wrongly.
“Once-upon-a-time! That’s
the name of the place.”
I was intrigued, “Sounds nice!”
“Yeh? Then why don’t you come
along?”
So I did.
About 20k’s out
of town along a rutted dirt road we crossed a wooden bridge before turning down
a narrow driveway which wound amongst tall trees. I opened a rickety gate, we
crossed a shallow causeway, rose up out of a deep cutting and there by the
stream in a meadow was a quant old
farmhouse surrounded by a magnificent garden.
It looked like the name had been made just for it.
When
we pulled up at the front gate two more young women came out to greet us. One
of them was particularly lovely and was only wearing a sarong tied at her
waist. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.
I was introduced to the girls, Jane and Karen, if I remember correctly. They were both excited because they had eaten some magic mushrooms and
apparently there were two more girls somewhere nearby swimming in the stream
and as soon as we had eaten the rest
of the mushrooms we were going to join them.
I hate the taste of mushrooms but swallowed a few with a glass of water to wash them
down. The girls faces showed what they thought of the taste too but the day was
beautiful and it seemed the
perfect time for a mushie trip. Already I was practically tripping!
I’d brought a paper bag of cherries with me so when we walked across the
meadow and found the other
two young ladies sitting on some large round rocks beside a small waterfall which spilled into a deep
swimming hole I offerred them
some. They looked glorious sitting wet and naked in the sun and the way they over-reacted
to the offer of cherries showed that the mushrooms were working their magic.
They were all very nice to me, made me feel more than welcome, and as the mushrooms began
to induce euphoria I felt like I was a modern day Pan in some fantastic garden
of nymphs. Each of them was lovely in
their own
different way. Susan was tall with large breasts and full hips, Angela was slim
and petite, Jane looked like a Jane, Karen was vivacious despite having pale
skin, and Leonie and Christine were tan-lined like surfy chicks. Each was a distinct variation on the female
form and they looked so happy and inviting the way they were laughing and
playing around in the crystal clear mountain water.
We all had a fabulous time being overgrown kids diving and ducking or
relaxing beneath the golden rays of the solar king but gradually the mushrooms began
to wind down about 4:30 and we went back to the house.
It was a funny old place with half of the floor on a slight angle.
Jasmine vines grew all over the verandah and an ancient wood stove puffed smoke
into the clear summer sky.
We were drinking !emon grass
tea around an ancient kitchen table while Jane strummed
a beaten up guitar and Karen and Loiuse
were singing the Cat Stevens
song.
It was perfect and my mind was starting to work out which one of them I
might spend the night with. They were all appealing but by then I had
discovered that they were all visitors to that charming little place and the
woman who actually lived there was named Helen.
I
felt like the cat amongst the pigeons and wondered what that woman, Helen,
would think when she arrived back at her home and found me there with half a
dozen of her semi-naked friends because I pictured her as a big and surly woman for some reason.
Perhaps I was just feeling a bit guilty because my mind had begun to calculate
options after the previous hours of unharnessed wonder and feelings of
boundless love for all living things.
As the
shadows lengthened the inevitable return of the ruler of the household
approached. A car pulled up outside and in she walked. I turned to look across
the room at the hallway and into the room she stepped. Not a brute at all, but
the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
She was
5’4” with smooth coffee colored skin, black wavy hair and a slightly crooked
smile. Our eyes met for an instant before she walked across the room and out of
sight again. In that instant I knew that she was the girl I had been searching
for. I was already in love.
After all
of the greetings, laughter and quick confused stories about the afternoon we
were all in the cars and heading off to a party which Helen had announced. It
was in a farmhouse a couple of K’s up the road.
The place
was jam-packed, the moon was big and the music and marijuana went on into the
night. I tried without success to talk with Helen, she knew everyone there, she
seemed very popular, and eventually I fell asleep on some
cushions in the corner while an assorted bunch of people bopped and dirged on
a variety of instruments to Dylan and Rolling Stones tunes.
In the
morning I woke early and left the house without waking anyone. I had no choice.
I had to see Helen again so I walked a
couple of k’s to the farmhouse cross-country and there she was at the broken
down bails milking a young jersey cow.
Squirt,
squirt, squirt, squirt, she had a really easy practiced action. She looked like
everything a natural woman should look like. She was the milkmaid and I was Krishna ! Being a bit of a hippie it was easy to project
such fantasies!
As I walked up to her
she smiled, said “Goodmorning” and asked what I was
doing there. “Just wanted to come and see you and tell you how much I enjoyed
meeting you” I replied. She seemed pleased with my answer and turned to look at
me several times while she continued pulling the milk down the pinky brown
teats, “Yeah, just wanted to see you again to say goodbye.” and she let me kiss
her on the cheek.
I fairly danced away feeling great. Just to see her had made me high. My
brain had taken in her shapes and contours
and teeth and eyes and how she moved and smiled. It was
great but by the time I arrived in town I was wondering why I was there and not
back at “Once-upon-a-time” with Helen.
I knew I couldn’t just barge in on her without knowing if she had any
interest in me but at the same time I felt that beside her, near to her, was
the only place I wanted to be. I rode back out there.
When I arrived that time she was inside the house and answered my knock
on the open door, “You back again? Forget something?” she said with a cheeky
smile.
“Well, yes, I think that I did. Would you come for a walk with me? I
want to talk to you.”
She looked surprised, amused and curious, but she put down what she had
been doing and we
link to love storywalked along the driveway past some cattle grazing, parallel to
the stream. The currawongs swarmed down through the trees from the high hills calling out to each
other. All was green below and blue above as we walked slowly side by side
about a metre apart.
I looked at her as we walked and it was clear to me. What I was going to
say to her was coming straight from my heart
I chose a small grassy knoll with a mulberry tree on the top and beside
its shade we sat. I took her hand and looked into her deep brown eyes, “Helen,
what I am
going to say might sound crazy, or you might think that I am joking, but I
really mean it. I want you to come and live with me, make a home together, and
have children. Be a family together, forever.”
She looked at me. She was amazed, I
could see that, and expected it, but her second focus was
sharp, into one eye and then the other, and she saw that I really meant it. Which
of course I did.
She
looked away, I followed
her gaze to the meadow and the smoke rising from the cottage into the still
cool air as we sat there in silence, until she looked back at me again, pressed
her lips together, made her crooked smile and said, “OK, Lets do it!”
I was ecstatic, kissed her eighteen
times, and made arrangements to come and move her things. I warned her that I
had only just begun a house. She said she didn’t mind.
A few months later we had a cute little house to live in, a thriving
garden and a whole lot of land cleared to plant out our fruit trees. We were
really happy.
The three things that pleased me most though was waking up early and
seeing her breathing softly, obviously feeling safe and contented, or watching
her working with me, those little beads of sweat on her upper lip which I would
kiss away, and most of all, the way she smiled when we were making love and
after all of the fun of changing about and stretching the pleasure I would look
down into her eyes, into those two smouldering lava pits, and as the pleasure
mounted in my loins and the strokes became irrepressible I would smile back and
ask of her, “please take my seed inside of you and with it make our child.”
0 Comments