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MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONUnder The Apple Tree
LAURA PRITCHETT is the author of the novels Sky Bridge and Hell’s Bottom, Colorado (both Milkweed Editions). She lives in Bellvue, Colorado, and is editing two upcoming essay collections about conservation issues.
WHEN JOE LEFT me sitting under the apple tree and started to walk across the meadow toward my trailer, he looked back and waved, and then walked on, and then he did a complete circle with his arms out, like he was embracing the world. That made me laugh, because he was so happy and willing to show it. I was leaning back against the tree with most of my clothes back on, and I blew him kisses as he went on his spinning, cheerful way. Then he reached my dirt driveway, where he’d left his truck, and he climbed in, honked his horn, and left.
We’d just made love, and we’d both come twice, and my body was feeling full and tired. The contrails from the flying sparks of orgasm were just starting to fade as I picked twigs out of my hair and wiped a smudge of dirt from my forearm and let my mind think thoughts like The only thing grand enough for a human life is to love and This is where wild and gentle get sewn together — the sort of thoughts that make perfect sense at a time like that, and only at a time like that. I considered the fallen red apples and the yellowed leaves, and I guessed that I was in love — that, in fact, I was more in love than I’d ever been. And I simply took notice of that feeling and concentrated on the sharp, rotting smell of the apples and the slant of sunlight on my bare feet and the ache in my thighs.
After some time, I walked to my trailer, spinning around myself, and went inside and fell on my bed and closed my eyes and replayed the whole thing: our lovemaking, and my orgasms, and his, and our mumblings, and his eyes. And then my mind wandered on to less romantic thoughts, such as: perhaps my rear end is not attractive from behind, because it’s dimpled with fat, which is too bad, because I like that position; and perhaps I had said a stupid thing or two, which was also too bad, but entirely predictable. I brushed away the bits of earth still smashed against my spine and rubbed my head where it had hit the apple tree, and I considered the violence of love.
Joe and I have the exact same hair color — a brown so dark that it’s almost black — only his is curly and mine hangs straight to my waist. Also, both of us have gray in our hair: Joe’s near his temples and mine throughout. I love it when he takes my hair and starts to braid it, which he knows how to do from braiding harnesses. And I love pushing my hands up through his hair and feeling his soft scalp. Thinking of our hands in each other’s hair, I made myself come again, because I was curious to know whether I could accomplish three, which I’d never done before.
When my body stopped pulsing, I decided that orgasm is the greatest physical pleasure in life, and I wondered if Joe felt the same way. I wondered how he saw the world, through what lens. I imagined I was Joe. I tried to be in his tall body, looking at himself in the mirror, touching his own stubbled jaw, seeing his graying hair and brown eyes. I imagined how he might stare down his fears and hopes and hurts. I tried to feel his breath move in and out. I tried to imagine how he might close his eyes and become aware of his body and perhaps be aroused, feel alert and alive. Doing this made my heart hurt a little. Joe was a good man, and for some reason his goodness made me feel raw. I found myself thinking, Don’t trust him. He will hurt you. But I turned those thoughts off and kept them off. Instead of tempering my feelings for Joe with those judgments the brain continually makes, instead of balancing love with Joe-lacks-such-and-such-a-quality thoughts — all those strategies the mind uses so that it loves less and therefore feels less — instead of doing those things, I stared at the ceiling of the room, with my hand still between my legs, and I felt Joe and knew Joe and experienced Joe as much as I could at that moment in time, despite the very real danger.
I LIVE TOO HARD, and I know it. I drink too much, I smoke too much pot, and I’ve continued to date men after they’ve hit me. Every once in a while I get into trouble because of this, but over the course of my life I have come to believe that it’s worth it. My body and heart are getting worn out faster than they should, but I won’t regret this life as much as some people want me to, because at least I feel alive.
One thing to know about me is that I severely dislike stingy people. By this I mean not only penny pinchers, but people who aren’t generous with their thank-yous and I’m-sorrys; people who spend too little time thinking about others, too little energy loving; people who get through life by giving as little as they can. I do not like miserly hearts.
Which is probably why I like Joe so much, because he is, at heart, generous. For example, he’s willing to walk away from his new lover and tell her goodbye in the most charitable way he can, by spinning and holding his arms out to the world, announcing: Life is good. That was good. I love you. That is something. Really, that is something.
I am a housecleaner, and I sell pot on the side. My goal is to make a living while working as few hours as possible, so I can spend the rest of my day drinking, or reading, or getting high, or now, increasingly, with Joe and his body, or with my thoughts about Joe and his body. The only other interesting thing I can say about myself is that I’ve always been fascinated by sex — which is not to say that I’ve engaged in a huge amount of sexual activity, but rather that I have paid attention to sex as a topic. I know about The Hite Report and Deep Throat and Candida Royalle porn. I know what Freud and Foucault have to say, and I know the most basic truth about enjoying sex, which is that it’s part instinct, but it’s mostly a learned activity. It can’t be learned with just anybody, though, and I’m beginning to think that’s what’s going on with Joe: I am learning from him. That is why the thought of losing him scares me. He’s going to open me up, make me understand and feel, and then he will get in his truck and drive out of my life, back to his horseshoeing and hunting and woodworking and all his other activities that do not include me.
So I’m hoping we can both be generous with each other for at least a while, long enough for my body to understand this new feeling. I want to have the body knowledge of what it is like to be this happy.
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