The Tree

It's been a long, hot summer and as we entered late July of 2002 Kevin's nerves are becoming ragged. Between the unending parade of kids with friends, many of them packing overnight stays, working, creating gardens and picking and freezing vegetables and fruits for winter, we are both mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted.

On a bright, sunny Saturday Kevin goes out in the early afternoon to clear the underbrush blocking the path to expanding our main garden before fall arrives. It's hard, punishing work that can only be accomplished with a machete, so there is little I can do but offer moral support and bring out drinks and try to keep him hydrated. He is so edgy I let him go on alone. He seems to need the space.

I realize in the middle of rearranging a closet pantry it's been a couple of hours but no Kevin has reappeared. It's so hot outside I run to the kitchen to make a huge glass of water to take out to him. He can get so focused he will lose himself completely and forget everything except whatever task he is working on until he passes out from dehydration.

Carrying his glass, I make my way gingerly to the clearing where is working. He doesn't hear me tiptoeing behind him so I admire him from the back. He's stripped to the waist working low on cutting vines, brambles, and blueberry bushes with a long, sharp machete. Any amount of sun turns Kevin a deep tan so after a summer long of basking in it, he is as brown as a walnut. Covered in a sheen of sweat his back and arm muscles have a life of their own, dancing and flexing under the skin as he takes long, hard sweeps with the machete, cutting rhythmically back and forth against the unruly foliage.

I step on a pine cone and he suddenly hears me. The look I catch on his face as he turns a half turn, startled, is fierce and hard. We're more comfortable with each other after months of working side by side, getting to know each other's nuances, expressions and quirks. I'm not as likely to panic over a single facial expression, but still, what I see worries me.

He is tense most days, with a barely controlled energy simmering under his skin. We quit smoking back in the late spring and I've been chalking up what I see to the after effects of the loss of nicotine. As time passes, I'm becoming less sure I'm right. Although his smoking urges appear totally under control, he is still prone to pacing, likely to get up several times a night, eating too fast and with too little interest.

We had sex, of a sort, again last night. Furtive behind our closed bedroom doors, with every other room of the house filled with our kids and random others, it's hard to remember the freedom of roaming the house naked during the school year. Sex this summer consists of muffled movements under hot blankets, lots of shushing from me, and most of my concentration aimed down the hallway listening for footsteps or movements coming our way.

Without a word, Kevin takes the glass from my hand and empties it in one long draw. That's the way he is, I see, after a year of full time living with him. He absorbs the world around him, raking everything in, consuming it. He approaches nothing lightly. Only with me can he ever access that part of himself that is softer. But it's not in his nature to be a romantic so those moments never last for long.

As I reach to take the glass, he steps forward out of the tangle of vines at his feet and catches my upper arm in his hand. "No kisses for me?" he chides me. I try to pull back. "You're all sweaty and dirty!" I laugh. "Where can I kiss on you that isn't totally gross?" He still has my arm and pulls me back closer. "Gross? Really? I'm gross now?" I kiss him on the nose. "There," I tease him, "enough until you get cleaned up. Then, maybe more tonight." I laugh again. He doesn't.

"Why wait till tonight?" His voice is softer, but somehow harder at the same time. He cocks his head at me and casts his eyes around the area. "This looks like a pretty good spot, huh?"

"Outside?" I screech. "Kevin, you have to be kidding me! Outside? Where the neighbors might hear us, or one of the kids might see us?"

He cuts me off deadpan. "Honey, please. We own five acres. We HAVE no neighbors, and the kids don't come out this far in the woods. Ever."

He's right, but still, having sex outdoors is one of my big, huge, unrequited phobias. To be so exposed? So out in the open? What WE do? Me and him? Oh no. NO. NO. NO. I can't even imagine it.

I shake his hand off my arm and take a big step back. "You are nuts. Just stop it. We can't!"

I'm ready to bolt when I see him looking at me side eyed, with eyes that are narrow and black. I walk with purpose back to the house.

Less than a week later, I will regret not taking the look in those eyes more seriously.

The blueberries in the woods behind the house are in full ripeness and we've picked so many gallons of them we've lost count. Taking a blanket, buckets and a bag of supplies out with us we have spent many hours over the last few weeks picking berries, talking, laughing, and exploring the woods together during the hot afternoons. The kids are far more interested in staying inside with the air conditioning. With two older teenagers watching over the house we can leave for as long as we need to without worry. These outdoor expeditions have been our only time alone this summer.

For several days Kevin has been talking up a particular berry patch he found out in the woods when he was surveying the property the previous week. Huge and sprawling, it sits in a clearing so big, as he describes it while spreading his arms open, we could pick enough blueberries in a single day to fill the entire freezer. He's packed up supplies for us to go make an afternoon of it. I can't wait. I love those big bushes, so big we can sit on a blanket together and pick berries side by side, eating our fill as we go, talking about everything that comes to mind.

We set out walking towards the north of the property and, sure enough, deep in the middle of a clearing several acres from the house is an enormous blueberry bush covered with a ton of berries where a huge tree must have fallen many years ago. In a wide circle around the patch, smaller trees have grown up forming a natural ring, making this a naturally walled off space. It's a beautiful spot, and the air is so warm, the sky so blue, this little scene feels like my idea of heaven. Around the biggest bush real grass has grown thick, a true rarity in deep woods. The blanket we spread out sinks deeply, cushioning us as we sit. I'm so happy I am nearly singing.

We've almost filled one of the three buckets we brought when Kevin suddenly stands. I hear him walk about 15 feet away from our blanket when he calls me. He wants to show me something so I get up and walk over to where he stands at the foot of a decent sized oak tree. "Look right there." Kevin points to a limb just over my head, the crook of it jutting out before angling sharply upward.

"What is it?" I scan the branches, totally confused. I don't see anything. I'm looking for a birds nest, a shelf fungus or maybe a grape vine. "Where is it?" I turn to him again, quizzically.

"If you lift your hands right up there and wrap them around that limb, it will be just about the perfect height, won't it Michelle?" Kevin says, slowly and deliberately.

I'm already backing up. "Lift my hands?" I take another step back. "Up there?" Another step. "And do, WHAT?" Big step back this time. My temper flares. He's set me up. He brought me out to this little circle of heaven just so he can cast me down into his own personal hell. OUTSIDE. "Oh no. No way." My mind is racing and I'm backpedaling to the blanket. He follows me.

"Michelle! Listen. PLEASE!" The sound of Kevin's voice is so pained it stops me dead in my tracks. I look right at him and see a rawness in his face I've never seen. We stare each other down for one second. Two seconds. Three.

"Honey please!" he chokes out. "PLEASE! Listen! Come here. Will you please just come here? Please?" He reaches out for me.

I have to catch the foot moving towards him, with a mind of its own. I balk. "NO! No. Kevin! No." I breathe hard, the air suddenly too thick, the sun too hot.

"Baby," he says, swaying slightly, "Please, listen. I need you. I can't stand it. I NEED you." He is rocking towards me, holding out his hand. "I know you are afraid. I PROMISE you, no one is anywhere near us. No one will hear anything. But, I NEED you." He looks so miserable, I'm already wavering.

"I won't force you. You know I won't. If you can't, if you won't, we'll go back. We'll pack up and go back. I won't force you. PLEASE? Listen to me? I need you so much. Right now." The words pound like a heartbeat.

I hear him, through a dense mental fog. This is the first time Kevin has ever begged me. I stare at nothing, competing thoughts swirling and entangling through my head. "I CAN'T do this. Can I go back? Knowing...? I CAN'T DO THIS! ...hurt him? He needs me. NO NO NO! I can't do this."

I glance over at him again. He is staring at me, holding out a hand willing me to him. The look on his face reveals how much he has held in for the past weeks, how much he has pushed aside. Those nights of muffled, stifled sex under the blankets have only been making it worse for him, not better. "He NEEDS me," the thought roars.

I take a shaky step to him and back again. "I can't do this." Another look at the waves of heat rising off his body and written on his face. I steel myself with every ounce of reserve I can muster. "I can't do this," a dying whisper bubbles in my mind, as I step up to him.

But I will.

Kevin takes my hands in his with a look of visible, visceral relief. He's talking too much, trying to fill the airspace, trying to calm me the way you tame a skittish colt. "It'll be fine, honey. I promise. I promise. I picked this place just for us. Isn't it beautiful here?" He leads me gingerly back to the tree. "Just put your hands up here. Just like that. Yeah, right there."

I reach up and as I grasp the limb, my stomach heaves so hard I nearly vomit. I'm shaking like an autumn leaf. Kevin produces the bag we brought, from somewhere, and pulls out a length of thick yellow nylon rope. "This is just to help you. I won't tie it too tight. Don't worry. You just tell me if it's too tight." He's still chattering. My nerves are on fire. He'd better hurry because I can't hold them much longer on my own.

I realize with a start, I have no idea what he plans to do. "Kevin. Wait. What are you doing? Stop!" My hands are secured with me facing the tree. "What are you going to do? We don't have anything!" I hear a rustling in the bushes, over to my left. I can turn just enough to see him rummaging around, testing the long, flexible branches. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" The words come out a hoarse, whispered scream.

Kevin comes back around the other side of the bush bearing a length of cane cut fresh with the hunting knife he always carries on his belt. He's testing it on his hand, smacking it at various velocities, checking for... something. "I always wanted to do this, you know," he grins. For just a second, the naughty boy jumps back up his face, gleefully carrying his new toy.

I look away and lean into the tree as if we are playing hide and seek. "What are you doing, Michelle?" my mind screams. "STOP!" I lean my forehead against the bark so hard it hurts to silence the thought.

He slips off my shoes and has to help me wiggle out of my jeans and panties leaving me standing there wearing a cut off t-shirt, with my backside and legs exposed. Silently, he runs his hands up and down my legs, across my bottom, between my legs and back around again. It feels like an engine priming behind me. He leans the side of his face against me for just a moment, then plants a soft kiss right in the small of my back and stands up.

Canes are evilly deceptive, with even a light stroke biting into the skin as sharp as a knife and leaving an instant welt. Kevin loves them. He loves the "beautiful marks" they leave, he once told me. Marks I know from experience will always bruise the next day into nearly perfect red, purple and blue straight lines. "And," he elaborated, "I can see what exactly I'm doing. With a flogger..." his thoughts trail. He's never finished the thought for me.

The first whoosh of air lands a stripe of fire that almost makes me jump straight out of my skin. I don't scream, but only because it knocks the breath out of me. I try to recover, taking jagged, harsh breaths, gagging with the effort as Kevin appears behind me running his hand over the instantaneous welt. "Oh, that's good. That one will be beautiful," he croons, running his hand lightly over my ass.

I'm still rocking back and forth fighting back tears, when on my right side I see him stripping off his shirt, twisting it hard, knotting it in the middle. Something like sympathy rises in his voice, as he says, "Oh, sweetie, here. This will help you," and reaches around and pulls the knot into my mouth before tying the shirt behind my head.

Kevin knows my fear of 'being heard' so I suppose the gag is his way of offering me protection against my own mouth. I hardly have time to realize what he's doing before the shirt is tied tightly and he's disappeared again.

The next agonizing minutes alternate between hard smacks of lightning, and hearing vague, indecipherable, buzzing sounds. He's talking but I'm not processing it. My high adrenaline level, the alien atmosphere around me and my own phobias conspire against me doing much more than enduring. The fire raging across my legs and back is molten.

A hard SMACK of the cane across the back of my legs leaves me gasping through my nose for air again. I fall into the tree so hard the bark scratches my cheek. The image of Kevin, a week earlier, swinging his machete through the vines near the garden flashes across my mind. Even though the pain, it occurs to me he has never put anything like the force he is capable of into any cane, whip, or flogger that has ever touched me. If he truly put his arm into a swing, even one time, I would likely need an emergency room. These moments between us feature only baby taps compared to what he is capable of physically.

He reaches up and loosens the ropes from my wrists and my hands come free. I fall back against his chest, my mind begging, "Dear God, please make it stop, just a little. Please God." I'm still sobbing into the shirt gag.

My hair is matted and wet and I am drenched with the sweat of adrenaline. This was a hard walk up to meet him this afternoon, the furthest I have ever had to travel from our usual middle ground. He gently removes his makeshift gag. Walking me over carefully , he lowers me onto the blanket at the base of the blueberry bush. The blanket feels cool in shade of the trees now that midday is gone and the sun has moved just behind the tallest tree line.

As he carefully wipes up my nose and eyes with the shirt and after a few minutes pass, the worst of the sting subsides, enough for me to think again. He leans over me and plants a platonic kiss on my cheek. "Good girl! What a very good girl you are! That was perfect." I lie there on the blanket, listening to him talk softly while he strokes my side, finally relaxed to the point of jello.

The sun beats down, and the birds call...

A second kiss awakens me. "Com'on baby! Time to get up!" I try to sit up, wincing in pain from the sudden movement, with no idea where I am. I look around to pick up my bearings. "Right," I remember, as my mind begins to clear. "Outside. Blueberry bushes." Kevin is sitting on the ground beside me gathering up supplies and covering buckets. Every bucket is filled to to the rim. "You looked like you needed a little nap so I finished up the picking while you rested." He grins as proudly as a schoolboy.

I roll over and prop up on one arm to watch him finish packing. Even with the muddy head of sleep, I can see the complete change in him. He has dropped a layer of film that was obscuring him; a dull, opaque veneer built up so gradually I had hardly noticed it happening. His face is relaxed, his movements freer and less tense than I have seen him in many weeks. "Never again," my mind calculates. "Never again will I make his needs take the back seat to some idea of 'real' life. This IS his real life."

He helps me up, gets my jeans for me and helps me into my panties. The sting of fabric on my welted up backside is horrible as I finish dressing, wincing, while he folds and packs the blanket. "Hold on there just a little longer," he says in my direction. "We'll get you right home. I'll make you a bath and fix you right up."

"Fix me right up?" His words give me the giggles. "Fix me up? Kevin! Fix me up? You are the one who did this in the first place!" We look at each other and I shake my head at the contradictions, the paradoxes of the afternoon, of our whole relationship in general.

"What is this, Kevin? I ask suddenly, "What are we doing?"

He slings the big bag over his shoulder and picks up the three buckets so I don't have to carry anything. He cocks a questioning eyebrow at me and shrugs. "It's whatever we want it to be Michelle," he says finally with a little smile. "Anything at all," and we start the walk back home.