Vista.

That is the word that pops into her mind, looking out through the rear window, over the canyon below and the water shimmering low in the western distance. She pads barefoot across Italian tile, pauses to indifferently snap off a browning twig from the Chinese elm that rests in the blue-white planter by the front door, then moves lithely through the door to the courtyard, then to the wrought iron gate, it’s floral pattern hard against her fingers, she stares.

Lemon trees line the gravel drive that winds over the property, they cast their shadows in hard relief informed by the mid-day sun, the palest yellow, still, like time won’t move on this low rolling hill nestled between the Pacific and the narrow canyons speckled with chaparro and dense brush.

He is out there now, perched on a ladder, wearing a pair of jeans she swears she will throw away, and a t-shirt that has also seen better days. His arms are flexed, gripping a pair of long-handled pruners, the kind with the curved blades; they put her in the mind of crow’s beaks. There is a snapping sound as he lops off limbs, accompanied by the soft thud of lemons hitting the loamy earth beneath his feet. She waits.

And imagines the scent of lemons, the tiny pock-marks of their rinds, startling yellow, real yellow, the kind of yellow she remembers seeing as a child, iridescent against the lush green leaves.

As she approaches she notes the backs of his arms – his triceps – and his neck, lightly braised to a dull adobe hue, earthy and fecund she imagines, and a familiar stirring runs through her. She is silent.

He leans forward, arms extended, elbows slightly out, dorsal muscles tensed, he snares a limb at its crotch where it meets a larger bough – this is an old tree, a smattering of dark, sere, dead limbs, the kind he is determined to excise. There is a creak followed by a snap and the dead limb falls, in its wake a whispering of leaves and rising dust.

As though sensing her he turns and regards her for a moment, expressionless. Her mind unreels the tape, back, and, staring at the tree, thinks of roots, limbs, growth, earth and juice... .

Tara awake now, in the middle of the night wondering exactly where she is but not caring because of the ache.

She becomes immediately aware of the moistness, and knows its sources – that boy and his goddamn lurid imagination. Left her hungry for more, but there is no more in the middle of the night when she is contemplating her wetness with the boy not here.

Of course, he can’t be here; he is a disembodied voice, not even that, a persona of written words that sad – or glad depending on your bent – to say, are merely black marks on a white screen which is to say the state of passion in the cardinal years of century twenty-first. But it got her off...he got her off and she doesn’t know exactly what to do because, let’s face it, he’s got moves, he does, and there ain’t too many people got moves in this epoch of semi-literacy and shallowness and maybe, just maybe, he’s too slick for me, she thinks, but that business about being glazed gets her off like a sick compass and she is hungry and what can you do but ride the wave?

* * * * *

And what about that power business? What man just cedes the power? – ‘cept one who is so confident he can find her pussy with only an atlas and a crowbar if need be would dare be so brazen. He makes her wet. Damn. It.

The thing is...she is so visual. And he told her all those things. Now, they are haunting her brain...and she cannot exorcise them. Those...images... of his tongue, running over her inner thighs. It makes her crazy, yes, but...sometimes...just to get so hot. And most men cannot do that. Yeah, when your jeans are wadded up in the corner and everything is hot and heavy and out of control, OK, they can do that, but he didn’t have any of those advantages. He just skipped from one thought to another, made her yearn, then asked some inane question – as if he was trying to throw her off. Then he swarmed back. The whole thing, frankly, gives her a headache...but she cannot help but picture him bending her over and plunging...damn. That was his image, too.

* * * * *

She thinks about these things with soft dulcet guitar sounds drifting in the etherine distance and the gentle ruffling of a single-engine plane skimming the clouds and butterfly and crow and oleander creeping outside the window coyote creosote memory.

* * * * *

Tara is oral oriented. She knows this. Well, of course she would. Imagine Tara in the womb, sucking her thumb. Better than that, though...imagine Tara’s sweet smooth belly, taut and inviting. Tara imagines him running his tongue over her smooth belly. She might break a rule.

* * * * *

“Tara.”

She realizes she has been staring off beyond him. She closes her eyes, slowly, once, and offers the barest hint of a smile.

“I thought you might like....”

He blinks three times quickly, steps quickly off the ladder, plants his feet, facing her now, runs his right wrist roughly across the incline between his lower lip and his chin, pulling his lips back in a narrow grimace. Eyes tighten for a moment.

“I might like?” he says laconically.

She says his name. “Johnny.”

She would never have come here, but she broke a rule. Awaking this morning, to an envelope of gray mist and rose shadows, Tara was unsure of exactly where she was going. She knew now. She took of few steps, was directly in front of him now. She glanced again to his upper arms, noticed he was covered in a light sheen of sweat prickled with a pale smattering of saw dust peppered with black motes of grime. The knees of his jeans were faded and discolored. His t-shirt was ripped at the belly, and she could see the fine black hair that lightly matted his midsection.

Wordlessly she leaned over and kissed him; she could taste the lightly acrid sweat along his upper lip; the ashy smell of soil rose up. She clutched his upper arms, felt her fingernails digging in slightly but this tingling in her belly wouldn’t let her stop.

He pulls back quickly. “Hey. Let me shower.”

“No, ” Tara says quietly.

He smiles at her, oddly. “Come on, ” he says easily, withdrawing. He jerks to a stop, Tara’s fingers hooked in his belt loops.

Tara awake now.... tasting the salt again from his sweat, licking her lips after running them over his jaw line. His sweat, again, is slightly pungent, a mixture of rich earth scent and...yes. Lemons.

Tara is aggressive now, pushing his chest. He shoves her back. She pushes again, this time more violently, and she hooks her left leg around his and their mouths collide (Tara knows her lip will be puffy later) there is a funny sound of grinding, she realizes its her teeth, his, too, their tongues twirling over and around each other, Tara pushes again, knowing their legs are tangled; he loses his balance, they are on the ground

He is exploring her body, running his hands over her breasts, her nipples taut against the white cotton, button down shirt she wears – his shirt – the shirt he pulled from his closet and handed to her before breakfast. She liked that. All of it. She awoke with sunlight streaming in, tangled in his down comforter, he brought her coffee, a towel and a bathrobe. The Times over breakfast – good Virginia ham, poached eggs, fresh fruit, and that excellent Kona coffee. He told her about the lemon trees. Sometimes, to relax, he prunes them.

He is getting rougher, now, biting her collarbone, and she yelps in pain and surprise, they are grinding against one another in the dark soil, she undoes his jeans, just one button, and reaches beneath his t-shirt to run her palms over his midsection. His collar is soaked with sweat, California sun even in autumn does that, she is kneading his flesh, his hands slide along the small of her back, lazy lemon sky, she is atop him.

Tara aware...a change in the quality of the light, a faint cry from a red-tailed hawk floating high and lithe the light paler now receding, losing sanguinity. She buries her face in his neck, feels the tensile quality of his chest muscles, knows silence, and clouds drifting overhead. Rain. She can smell rain in the soil, in the dust, in his hair.