Pruning

Glenn heard the high-pitched whine of a car in reverse, backing up the drive. Only the newsboy and occasional workmen backed in like that. It was 0700 Friday, half an hour before the tree folks were due: he had two towering pines that badly needed thinning and shaping. He planned to stay home all day to be sure things went right.

He stepped to the door: a mildly battered, dusty station wagon sat in the drive, pulled far back behind the shrubbery, in the shade. Unloading it was a young, solidly-built black woman, her head and shoulders buried in the rear of the car, her butt in the air. She was dressed very loggerish - battered steel-toed tall work shoes, coarse canvas pants, a teeshirt under a thick Kevlar vest. She didn't notice him at first: Glenn watched silently as a stream of gear piled up beside her on the pavement – several ropes, a loop of karabiners and pulleys, a wicked looking set of well used climbing irons with very long spurs, two chain-saws and a fuel can. Then came Kevlar chaps, Kevlar gloves – modern personal armor, the worker's defense against power-saws.

She quit tossing out equipment, backed herself out of the car, spotted him, stood up grinning – she was as tall as he, and reasonably close to as heavy, obviously well-muscled. She held out her hand. "You the homeowner, Doctor Jones? Doctor Glenn Jones, like it says on the work order? Wouldn't want to cut the wrong tree, you know! I'm Nicole, from Urban and Regional Pruning Service."

She reached into the passenger's seat, pulled out a magnetic company sign, held it up. She grinned at him again. "Now, Doctor Glenn-the-Homeowner, would YOU put this sign on your personal car? Even while using the car for company business? Some logo, eh? Of course, I'm supposed to stick it on when I'm on duty like now, but phooey! Make your daughter tell her friends 'Mommy works for URPS!' and see what kind of static you get."

She flashed him a fine grin, a soul-singer wide mouth and strong brilliant-white teeth each standing just barely free from its neighbors. Her face was quite pretty, very slightly prognathous, beautiful smooth deep-chocolate skin that lightened up just enough across her aquiline nose and high cheekbones to show a couple of freckles. Hair carefully done in intricate corn rows, a lot of work. Age? Indeterminate, he thought - probably early thirties, certainly not a youngster. She exuded an overall sense of extreme competence and strength.

Glenn grinned at her and said "That's me, the official homeowner. Call me Glenn, please. You're early. Surely you're not going to go up alone?"

She shook her head: "Nope, no way do I go solo up a tree. Too easy to be suddenly dead that way. My partner – Kelly - will be here shortly. We'll do the job, curb the slash for the chippers tomorrow. I left home a bit earlier than absolutely necessary, I guess."

Glenn nodded, then asked with his own grin "Is that partner of yours a Kelly with a Y-chromosome, or a double-X?"

She laughed, seemed delighted: "You a biologist, too?"

Glenn shrugged a 'yes'.

"Well, it's Kelly with a Y, but not too much testosterone poisoning. He's a good guy – a little absentminded sometimes, but he seldom forgets to show up on time."

They strolled back to the two trees: she studied them intently, they discussed in detail what should be done.

Just as they finished they heard another car drive in, complete with an odd rattle. "That's Kelly's jalopy with its loose front bumper bracket." They walked back to the drive, met Kelly. He was already halfway geared-up. In five minutes both were fully accoutered in slings and harnesses, standing at the base of the first tree.

Nicole paused as Kelly got his rope over a low branch and swarmed up the tree first.

She muttered aloud, for Glenn's hearing, "That man's Y-chromosome is in high gear this morning. Probably because you're here. Normally he'd insist on 'ladies first', the clown!"

As she flicked her own rope upwards to catch a branch, she asked "What kind of a biologist be you?"

Glenn replied "Ecologist. Global scale, process oriented, blue water plankton is my specialty. Central Pacific and the Antarctic – particularly krill."

The rope caught. She snake-wiggled it into place, snapped items together, tugging and testing. "Now that's way cool! No pun intended, you know, Antarctic and all that. You a professor at the U?" He nodded. She continued: "I got my masters in urban forestry there, finished three years ago. All my life as a kid I used to be nutso for climbing trees – now because of that little piece of paper, they pay me a lot of money to do it! Crazy world, isn't it?"

Glenn was startled – his office, for oddball reasons, had been for a decade in the Forestry building that housed her degree program - and he knew all the Forestry program's faculty quite well. He rattled off some names as she left the ground.

She answered over her shoulder, eyes fixed on her upwards path: "Yep. I know them all. You and I, we must have passed one another in the hall a few dozen times! Crazy world, like I said. Here I go – if you're going to hang around, we'll be taking a break every hour or two, we could talk about krill if you're not busy – trees aren't nearly as sexy a topic ecologically. Maybe equally sexy politically, though."

It was an astute observation, Glenn thought. Then she was twenty feet or more above him, and her chain saw came to raucous life.

With the whole day free ahead of him, Glenn had decided on catch-up yard work. It was already warm; he changed to mid-thigh tennis shorts and a thin work tee-shirt. Raking and hoeing, in half an hour he was thoroughly sweaty. Another half- hour and the saws quit for more than a few seconds: he stopped work, strolled to the back to find them both sitting beneath the first tree, a pile of branches off to one side.

Today's forecast was for high 80s and the humidity was already near 100%. Nicole and Kelly were both soaked with sweat – much wetter than he - and things were not going to get better before late evening. But one didn't dare do their line of work without the full complement of heavy protective clothing and gear – they'd just have to sweat. They had their water bottles out: he sat down with them, and for their few minutes' rest they regaled one another with tales of research at sea, and various tall-tree adventures. Glenn had done a lot of tree-climbing as an undergrad, banding juvenile hawks and owls – his stories about that work cemented them into a comfortable informal threesome because he clearly understood their job completely.

Then they were headed back up the tree, still a long way from being done with #1. Glenn promised fresh-made ice-cold lemonade during their next break – and if he didn't show automatically when they took the break, then they were to come find him.

Break number two involved more tales, and a decision that Nicole would move to tree #2, to get it started, because it was even bigger and messier than the first. They thought, now that they were into the job, that they might finish about three or three-thirty.

Meanwhile, Nicole and Glenn were deep into biologist-speak, so Kelly volunteered to set her ropes. He busied himself doing so, then clambered back up into his own tree. Nicole stood, swung herself easily up the first rope to about 30 feet while Glenn watched. She shifted her load and prepared to transfer her weight onto the second Kelly-set rope.

Glenn's eyes scanned up and down the rig, spotted a completely loose end. Because of his personal tree-climbing experience and years of handling heavy stuff at sea, to Glenn loose ends on any rope carrying weight aloft were a personal no-no of the highest order, either ashore or at sea – there might, or might not, be a proper load-bearing knot somewhere else, even in plain sight, but you simply didn't leave loose ends floating about.

Without a thought, and with no hesitation, he bellowed "Nicole! Freeze!"

She did so, automatically, no questions. Then having frozen in mid-shift, she looked down, asked "What?" He said "Wait a second!" He stepped over to the free end, flipped the rope to send an S-wave up its length, studied things.

There was no knot anywhere, no attachment to anything.

Glenn knew what was needed, the function and type of knot that was missing, asked loudly "Maybe you'd like a clove down here on the bitter end before you hang your weight on it?"

He threw the hitch as he spoke, tested it, said loudly "OK now."

She yelled up at Kelly "Hey lummox, you trying to kill me or what?" then down to Glenn "Man, you get one hell of a hug for catching THAT. Saved my big black butt, you did. I'll take care of the hug later. Thanks!"

Lunchtime, Glenn brought out more lemonade. Kelly was embarrassed at his error, sat mostly quiet while Glenn and Nicole chatted. "Krill! That means whales. I should get you to come talk to my daughter's class, they are nuts for anything about ecology in the ocean."

Glenn immediately volunteered: "Sure. Happy to do it. I love to talk about my work with kids – I have a good slide show and song-and-dance all done and rehearsed. If you can arrange it, I'll do it. How old, what grade?"

"She's thirteen, but in the eighth grade, she's bright, reads like a fiend, good in math and loves any kind of science. She skipped a grade."

A long pause, a shrug, and in a much quieter voice she went on, speaking just to Glenn now. "Her daddy and I are divorced – almost ten years. He was absolutely the prettiest white boy you ever did see. He and I fell totally in lust, mistook it for love for about three years, made that baby together – her name's Nicolette but we all call her Nikky – and then he discovered that he really didn't want to be either a husband or a daddy. Started messing around, he did. Just maybe I could have handled that – after all, most of us, male or female, like to get a little strange tail now and then, it's sort of inevitable and just part of being human, I think. But he made two big mistakes. First, he insisted on TALKING about it, and to ME! Bragging, I guess. Uncool in the extreme. Second, he started bringing it closer to home, seducing my close girlfriends. Upshot is now he lives across the continent, and we haven't seen him for years."

She sighed, Glenn said nothing. She grinned at him. "Enough of my woes. He isn't all bad – always makes the support payments on time, sometimes sends extra in fact, always gets presents and cards out on time for the right occasions. Could have been much worse. Got lots of girlfriends with much worse! And I have NO IDEA why I dumped that personal shit on you. Sorry. Guess I needed to talk, and you didn't stop me. Not that I'm blaming you, understand!"

By early mid-afternoon they were obviously getting close to done. During their three o'clock break, Kelly reminded Nicole that he would have to leave shortly, heading for his chiropractic appointment: she nodded, agreed that it wouldn't be a big chore for her to finish ground-level cleanup alone. Twenty minutes later the up-tree work was finished and Kelly rattled his way off-premises. The weather prediction was right on – almost 90, intensely muggy. Nicole was drenched, even her heavy canvas pants were damp, and there were rivulets running down her neck. She finished piling branches, chucked her helmet and its wire facemask into the station-wagon.

She handed him a copy of the invoice and a stamped envelope. He checked it, tucked it into his pocket, said "I'll mail it tomorrow unless you want to take it now?"

She shook her head: "Tomorrow's mail is fine – I'd rather not be responsible for it, thanks!"

He helped load the car with her gear: when it was all in, they stood for a moment gazing up across the ridgeline at the much-reduced sail of the two trees looming above the house, and Glenn said "Nicole, If you're in no hurry to leave, I'll offer a cold beer."

She looked delighted. "Happy to accept, if you have some real beer – not just that Miller Lite yellow fizzy water sort of stuff. I like flavor, so I don't really like most big-three American beers."

Glenn was surprised and pleased, told her "AHA! At last, a woman after me own heart, begorrah! How about a seriously strong and very hoppy IPA? Ice cold, too?"

She grinned at him, slammed the rear hatch shut. "Done. I accept. Got no more appointments today anyhow. No work time left in this day, for sure!"

She stooped to take off her heavy shoes, muttering "Hobnails – they're not good for floors, believe me."

Her socks were as wet as if she'd gone wading, left splotchy steaming footprints as she walked across the hot concrete of the drive. He waited, holding the door open for her. On the landing she shrugged, danced briefly on each leg alternately as she pulled the socks off and dropped them in a little heap beside the jamb, then paused, wiggling her toes with their unexpectedly brightly-painted nails.

She caught his startled little grin when he saw the nails: she stood, held out her hands palms down like a child being inspected after washing and said "I do like to maintain traces of femininity despite my occupation – but polish on my fingernails, who're we trying to kid? So toenails it is."

Other aspects of her femininity – not mere traces, either – shortly appeared, as she pulled her Kevlar vest up and over her head. Beneath it she wore only a thin, sweat-sodden muscle-tee shirt of light white nylon, made near-transparent and plastered skin-tight by sweat. It was rucked up tightly into the under-creases of her breasts, and showed every nuance of the shape and texture of nipples and areolas.

As she turned to drop the vest atop her socks he caught a fine view of the free-hanging side-curve of a boob through the deep-cut armhole. He tried not to be obvious, sucked in the view, then looked slightly askance, trying to be gentlemanly.

Nicole wasn't the least bit fooled, but didn't challenge him. They stood facing one another as she tugged downwards on the front hem and the fabric reluctantly emerged from under both boobs, sliding through the pinch of the creases. She flapped it over her belly for air circulation, smiled and said "Hope you don't mind my dishabille..." She paused to see if he knew the term – obviously he did, and that pleased her inordinately. It was going to be a real relief not to have to hide her rather good and extensive education from a man, for a change!

"No way in hell I can wear a bra under that vest, not in this heat! But I have to wear SOMETHING or else the vest will sandpaper my nips to death. This slippery little tee does the trick. Hope you don't mind!"

With a sly grin, Glenn allowed as how he understood, how he really didn't mind, and ushered her indoors. They went around the corner into the dining room – the view across the lake towards the big volcano sixty miles away was spectacular through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and it stopped her in her tracks. He was used to that.

While she ogled, he got two frozen mugs, filled them, came over to stand beside her, handed her one. "Sit, get comfortable!"

She tugged at her work pants as if to protest how she really shouldn't sit, and he forestalled it. "Nicole, these are all sixty year old solid oak office chairs. You can't hurt them if you try. Now sit down with me, relax, enjoy the view, and drink your beer! You've more than earned it."

He plonked down in the chair beside hers. They sat in perfect, comfortable silence for ten minutes, watching the view, their eyes following first a straggling flock of crows, then an eagle soaring by in the far middle distance.

Finally she looked over at him and said very quietly "You're an oddity, Glenn. Nothing to say? Most men couldn't sit like this without yammering away about something. Usually football or carburetors. Or, more likely, something not quite true about themselves!"

He smiled over at her: "I like it this way. No need for chatter if there's nothing to say at the moment. A poet I like calls this "companionable silence". It's a good term."

She nodded, then tapped a finger on the table: "Magnificent! Book-matched, lovely complex grain. What is it, eleven feet long, three inches thick? At least four feet wide! And solid big-leaf maple. Gorgeous! Where'd you get it?"

He smiled: "I made it. All from one tree, 385 years old, buried in a levee for another hundred years in anoxic mud. My first table."

She fondled it, dipped her head to study the complex grain. "I am impressed! Strong, isn't it?"

"Yep. The more weight you put on it, the tighter it fits together. Weighs about 600 pounds, no metal at all. I make things to be used, not as decorator pieces. Dings don't matter – like scars on bodies, they're just service-marks and don't affect either function or, really, beauty. I stand or sit on it all the time. Sometimes scares guests."

Another several-minute pause ensued. Nicole broke it with a quiet "Companionable silence. Good term. I like." She looked over at him – Glenn's yard-work had made him more than sticky-damp: not so drenched as she, but close. She took another long swallow of her beer, picked at her shirt, then at his. Both shirts pulled up and away from the skin reluctantly, like little teepees. She said "We do look like a pair of drowned rats, don't we? Especially me, of course."

He shook his head: "Nope. More like contestants in a wet teeshirt contest!"

She giggled gently, sat up straight and leaned slightly forward, put her hands behind her head and unexpectedly did a five-second shimmy: lots of women can shimmy with their arms out to the side, but few that way. It was extraordinarily sexy. Glenn applauded, she did a head-bob for a bow, and said "These saggy-baggy, used tits nursed Nikky until she was three. They couldn't take the booby prize at a contest – and THAT pun was fully intended!"

A wistful pause. "Too bad you couldn't have seen them when I was seventeen, assuming you're a boob-nut like most men. No, maybe even fifteen – my full growth came on really strong and pretty early. They were high and pointy and proud. I'd have been a contender back then! If I'd had the guts, that is. Which I didn't. I don't even have a private photo of them in their prime. Wish I did."

He looked at her with a mixture of serious and fun that intrigued her. "What is it, Glenn?"

He set his beer down. "Mind a bit of my personal philosophy? How I think about such things?"

She nodded 'yes' and said "Go right ahead! After all, I did drop my ex-spousal affairs on you the very first thing!"

Glenn took a long, deep breath, gathering his thoughts. "Nicole, you have a beautiful body. Big, strong, well proportioned, healthy. Admirable all the way around. And your boobs... well, I have strong feelings about breasts. First, size and texture and shape are not very important – at least to me. But for the record, you're doing just fine in all three variables. The truly most important thing is that the woman who owns them likes them and is happy with them. Which you seem to be: that's good! Second, it's really important that all boob-nerves are hooked up and functioning properly – which, again, seems to be the case with your set, to judge from how they change shape, and how your nipples respond to that shirt and evaporative cooling! And finally, well, just a matter of personal taste – I really do like big nipples. And without belaboring the obvious..."

He grinned broadly as he took a long, overt look at her chest."As I said, the obvious... well, you meet my personal nipple-fantasy specs very nicely indeed. Your boobs are IN their prime, right now, not PAST it!.

He stopped, considered, then told her "Plus, Nicole, I really like what I've encountered of the most important thing of all – namely, what's between your ears. Without that being good, who cares at all about a fantastic body? And with that being good, who cares much about the body's specific details, really? Care for another beer?"