A half an hour, 45 minutes outside town, the hills begin to lift, and
if you know just where to look, you see the first blue line of
mountains reaching towards the sky. That's where he left the highway,
dipped and swooped through steepening hills, past trees that seemed to
grow taller, deeper green as we climbed. A gravel road following the
curve a rushing creek had cut, but far below. A wide spot in the shade,
a path through a copse I hadn't seen at first.

Oh, yes: I wasn't perfect, because the smooth soles of my shoes slipped
on the rocks sometimes. He had to hold my hand to help me along.

Or maybe, on reflection, I was in fact just right.

A hundred yards, two hundred though the trees, shaggy bark pillars in a
park of moss and long-shed needles. A bend, a tiny stream to step
across. Sunlit hillside, waist high bushes, a sprinkling of orange
flowers by the path. Steeper here, another bend, across the stream.

Ahead, a meadow rises, glowing green. Small constellations: blue,
white, orange flowers. Above, pillars of black stone, halfway to the
sky, blue sky, cloudless.

When you finally reach the spot where the rocks and meadow meet,
holding hands all the while, gasping for breath, for you're up higher
than you think, you feel nylon slide on nylon as you tuck legs under,
grass tickling your thighs till you touch your skirt in place, toy with
hem until you're almost but not quite modest. You sit between the sun
and shade: look up and see the snow-tipped peaks march off beyond the
far horizon, look down and your own soft swelling. You could sit there
for hours, lean against him for a while, shift weight, nylon sliding on
slide, to gaze into calm eyes, shift again to let your sail off above
the mountains. Never need to say a word. Not needing anything except to
let it all flood in.

But you can't stay there forever. Otherwise you'd never be able to come
back. You want to gaze out to where blue mountains and blue sky blend,
to know somewhere between right here and there is where someday you'll
be. Still you know, too, that the journey here is one you want to take
again. The laughing when you trip, are caught, the gasp of breath when
you round a bend and see, the arm around your shoulder. Even the
sadness of descent when it is time to go.

Where the gravel road ended in the yellow hills, we needed to turn
right to head back to the city. The deep blue sky, long shadows of the
approaching evening said we should; but he asked, and I said, O.K.. So
we turned left.

I watched the empty hills go past, picked at my hem. They were not like
the hills of home, but more like them than the mountains were, ordinary
enough to make me fear I'd only just felt, only just lived illusion,
that sitting here in my dress, my women's things, that I was only
playacting. For all the hours that we'd spent on illusion, it was as
empty, futile as tissue in a dingy bra snatched from the trash bin. The
sense that what I wanted was something I could never have.

He may sensed it, too. But kept driving. Calm eyes on a winding road, a
wrist draped at the very top of a steering wheel, the utter
ordinariness, take-it-for-grantedness of a guy driving, girl beside.
The quick, casual glance, a smile, back to the road, that says nothing
odd is happening here, nothing pretend, nothing extraordinary. Just me.
And you.

We drove into evening. Turned up a road that wound past dark trees,
rocks. At a small house of rough-cut planks, he stopped, and turned to
me.

"Hot springs," he said. "Lots of stuff churning deep below, cracks and
faults in rock, and by the time the steam rises to the surface it's
just right for a soak. There's an old couple, set this up years ago,
decades. Guessing the Nisei, their kids might want a little chance to
visit old Japan. Guess wrong, but..." He pushed his car door open,
stepped out. "Come on," he said.

I followed. Flagstones through a small garden of moss and gravel,
gnarled small trees in pots. In the moonlight, just hard enough to see
to make you stop and really take a look. A high fence, dark wood, a
mist rising to the stars. Behind, a pool between the rocks, turquoise
water steaming. Benches, a small flat place to pause before you ease
into the spring; in the shadows, a small hut. We didn't bother.

But I did turn my back, as he started to unbutton his shirt. And when I
asked, he did unzip me, but then somehow knew he should step back. I
heard him step out of his shoes, his trousers. Heard the water gurgle,
splash as he slipped in. A small, satisfied sigh.

I let the dress fall to the ground, stooped to fold it, lay it neatly
on the bench. As far as I could tell, he wasn't watching; just as well,
for I felt clumsy, tugging at the slip, trying to unhook my bra.

For a long moment, naked, I stood, looking at the blue-green pool, the
rising mist, the splash of stars across the sky. Then I stepped in. He
eased himself a few inches to the side, to give me space, following a
curve of rock so that we weren't quite face to face. Close enough to
touch, if one would lean just a little towards the other. Far enough
that we could be just two friends in a Japanese spring. Talking
business, maybe.

I felt the water's warmth, felt chill skin relax, muscles ease, ice in
the marrow of my bones begin to melt. A line of sweat along my temples,
tickling the edges of my face. I eased down to let the water lap my
shoulders, neck.

He's looking at me; I've been afraid to tell myself. But he has been.
Now, he smiles.

"It's not the clothes," he says. "Maybe you think it is. That a bit of
let's pretend is as close as you can get, as any of us can. So you'll
fidget on the seat, twitch a hem, try to get things perfect, think you
see in the cold light of day only an awkward bit of acting, see
something that even at its best is only theatre. But it's not." He
leans to me, his hand reaches to me.

"May I?" he asks.

All I can do is nod.

His palm touches my breast. Under warm water, still he feels even
warmer.

"Right here," he says, "Right in the middle of my palm. Not that big,
maybe not so big as a dime. But pushing out, a slight roughness,
surprisingly firm. Like you are cold, except you cannot be. You feel?"

"I do," I say.

I do.

"I push just a little," he continues, "You can barely call it pushing,
but it's just enough to move you with me. My fingers stretch..." And so
they do. "I feel the way your breast curves out from your shoulder. My
thumb, if I do this..." His thumb now "My thumb traces a steeper slope,
the line where softness rests upon your ribs. I press, feel all this.
Push a little, just enough to move you with me. Can you feel?"

And I do.

"Now, though I want to tarry, my hand slips down," he murmurs. "Slow,
so my fingers climb the gentle slope, flow like a stream past the peak,
where each gets to brush past. Down now the steeper slope...." I feel
all that. "Slowly, along ribs, a curving in to here. My two hands here
..." And two hands there. "My two hands can almost span your waist
entire, and though they want to, slide still lower, along the curve
that swells out to your hips. You feel? Can you feel?"

I nod. I have to nod.

"The clothes you wrap above this do not matter. Cannot hide, cannot
reveal. The eyes that will not see this, whether they were yours or
merely the rest of the world's, do not count. What counts is what you
know you are, what you feel. So here, perhaps..."

And now one hand is moving from my hip, between my legs. "So here," he
murmurs. "Another curve to trace, another curve. Gateway, maybe, to
someplace better, a path though the woods..." Fingers fan through curls
of hair. "Then you find the spot where all the world opens up before
you."

That's where his fingers rest.

I feel warm breath now on eyelids, on my cheeks.

Lips brush: eyebrow, lashes, cheeks.

Lips. His lips on mine. My mouth parts. We kiss.

He pulls back, not even an inch. I lift my head, now my lips brush his,
now I press close.

He is beside me now, knee touches knee, thigh beside thigh, his hand
still between my legs, forearm on my belly. Now fingers, palm gently
circle, indifferent to what's there except for that small space where
my legs join; his arm brushes an erect shaft: mine, though neither of
us seems to notice. Still, the brushing.

A slight shift of weight and his lips press now, his tongue probes
deep, his fingers circle, arm slowly brushing, from the valley between
my breasts -- who cares now how shallow -- along my belly, brushing the
length of me.

I'd be floating on the blue green water, rising with the steam, if not
for the weight of him.

Despite the warmth of water seeping in to my very core, despite the
sense that I am melting, muscles easing, bones like jelly, still I'm
trembling, now I shudder.

Now, a fountain, gushing forth.

****

I woke up hours before the sky began to lighten, found myself crying.

From where I sat, I could look out and see a corner of the garden,
neatly-raked gravel gleaming in the moon, the tiny, potted trees edged
with silver. Steam from the springs billowed, rose skyward, indifferent
to wonder, indifferent to pain. The solace that water warmed in the
heart of earth can bring mattered not the slightest bit to that eternal
cloud of steam on its inevitable journey. Still, I watched it: gather,
dissipate, like a giant, slowly-beating heart.

Maybe I cried because I'd slipped, let someone see. Because I knew that
what had been would never be the same. Maybe I cried for fear: there's
something about the irrevocable that makes us tremble, isn't there?

Maybe I cried for, well, a different reason. You've seen girls cry that
way, haven't you?

I wept because you weep when your heart is full.

And at the instant that I understood, his arm reached round my waist.
His hand stroked gently upward. His palm lay on my swelling breast,
above my beating heart.