The Magic Cottage

'Mike, please, you know—'

My fingers twitched spasmodically, showing no mercy, and she jumped again to land squirming in my lap, hiccuping with her own laughter as I kept probing.

'Mike, noooo!'

'Did you say boring?'

'No, no! Interesting! No—exciting! Yes, exciting! The most . . . Mike! . . . ex—exciting . . . no, fascinating . . . person . . . I've . . . stop it, Mike, please no more . . .'

I could barely hold her there, slight though she was, and I was laughing almost as much as her. Her legs flailed the air and soon she was slipping from my lap, nightshirt rising as she sank.

She screamed when her naked bottom touched the quarry tiles. 'It's cold! Oh you bast. . .' The rest was unintelligible amid the laughter.

I buried my face in her hair, hands sliding down her body to clasp together beneath her breasts. The memory of last night's lovemaking was not too far from my thoughts as I nuzzled her ear. My teeth gently nipped at her neck.

'Well hello again,' she said brightly.

It wasn't the response I'd expected. I looked up and saw she had been greeting another caller at the door. Our friendly neighborhood squirrel was grinning at our fun from the open doorway.

'Come on in,' I invited the animal, noticing Midge modestly pulling the nightshirt down over her thighs. 'This is Open House, no tickets for admission.'

The squirrel looked uncertain.

'Hush, Mike,' warned Midge, 'you'll frighten him. Come on, little 'un, pay no mind to this big old ugly brute behind me. Snarl and he'll hide under the table.'

It hopped inside. Another hop and it was only a couple of feet away from Midge's wriggling toes. I think my eyebrows must have touched my hairline in surprise. Midge giggled as the squirrel chattered.

'Yes, I know he looks like a big bad bear with toothache, but he's very nice once you get to know him,' she told the noisy mite.

It looked at me and then at her, and then at me again. I gave it my best smile and the squirrel's tail swished in annoyance.

'Hey, I live here, y'know,' I said, then wondered what the hell I was doing. Talking to a squirrel? The boys in the bands had said I'd flip outside my natural environment. The animal jerked its tufty head in funny little ducking movements, narrow shoulders hunching up, and to me it looked like it was chortling.

'This guy's got no respect,' I complained to Midge.

'He's the same squirrel who came visiting yesterday,' she said thoughtfully.

'Didn't that one look more Jewish?'

She banged my sneaker with the heel of her fist, hurting my toes.

'Come on, Midge, how can you tell? They all look alike. And how d'you know it's a he, anyway?'

'I just know. He's got a personality all his own.'

She put her hands on my knees and levered herself up from the floor. 'Let's find something for you to eat, eh?' she said to the squirrel, who appeared pleased with the idea; without further bidding, it leapt onto the table and chattered all the more. Midge broke off some of my toast and offered the piece to our intruder. Showing no timidity whatsoever, it skipped forward and grasped the toast in its tiny paws, licking at the butter first, not even backing away once it had started nibbling.

'I don't believe this,' I said as I rested an elbow on the edge of the table, palm supporting my chin.

'Neither do I. Red squirrels are rarely this tame, unlike the gray.'

'Red . . .? Midge, no outdoor animal is tame. I mean, maybe in zoos and things, but not out here in the wild.'

'Could be that they got used to Flora. I bet she'd been feeding generation after generation of animals hereabouts. Look how the birds were at the window on our first morning here. It's almost as if this place is a natural habitat for them, part of their own forest.'

'The local fast-food counter, you mean. I can understand how it's popular. The problem is, how long before they start messing up our cozy country retreat? They could do some damage.'

'Oh, Mike, the birds, the squirrels, and any other animal that cares to wander through, are as much a part of Gramarye as are we. Don't forget, they were here before us.' She lowered herself, bending her knees and balancing on the balls of her feet, hands resting on my knees. 'We've got to adapt to them, Mike, don't you see? Feed them and help them survive. Treat them as friends.'

'I draw the line at snakes and lizards.'

She smiled. 'I'll allow you to close the door on rats as well.'

That reminded me I had some investigating to do. I leaned forward and kissed her lips, conscious of the squirrel gnawing toast while observing us.

'Voyeur,' I called it when Midge and I parted. 'Okay, Pixie, all creatures great and small are welcome here, so long as they're not too great and not small enough to bore holes in woodwork. Deal?'

'I don't know what you're expecting—so far we've only had a bird and a squirrel inside the house—but okay, it's a deal. Elephants and woodworm are out.'

We shook hands on it and I winked at the squirrel. 'All right, Rumbo, you're in. But don't get me jealous or mad.'

Midge laughed. 'Why Rumbo?'

'I don't know. He just looks like a Rumbo, doesn't he? More like a Rumbo than a Rambo, anyway.'

The squirrel jerked its head convulsively, tiny shoulders juddering, its chattering like laughter. Which Midge found hysterically funny.

'I think he agrees,' she said between giggles.

'Yeah, a real clown,' I said drily. I stood slowly, careful not to startle our chuckling guest. 'This man's got work to do.'

'So's this woman.'

'You think he'll mind eating alone?' Now he had a name, Rumbo was no longer an 'it' to me.

'I suggested we make friends with the animals, not pander to them. He can make his own conversation.'

So we left him there feeding quite happily, Midge departing for the sink next door and me, after taking a flashlight from a downstairs cupboard, for the loft. I felt cheered as I climbed the stairs, glad to be alive and glad to be in love, musing over how real love has constant moments of absolute freshness, as if you've only just fallen, the realization always exciting, always absorbing. We'd got to know each other—I mean, really know— Midge and I, but we'd never got too used to one another, had never become complacent. Don't get me wrong—our relationship hasn't always been as rosy as the picture I'm painting here; in fact, there have been some very stormy patches, times when we've come close to break-up. Fortunately, we've always managed to see sense at the same time and come to terms with the other's faults (or point of view, as Midge would have it). No false modesty here: we both have our own special talents in music and art, and have you ever known any talented person not to possess a streak of temperament? Goes with the territory, as they say. I'm not talking about arrogance or ego, but the single-minded drive within to get things right (to their way of thinking, of course) and the frustrations that quickly develop when those things aren't so. They're the times when the nearest person to you takes the brunt and has to learn to duck and weave, or just talk plain sense. We'd learned with each other over the years. We'd also learned not to take our respective selves too seriously, a bonus if you're aware of that before you're too old for it to matter.

Resisting the temptation to pick up a guitar, knowing the morning would be gone if I did, I approached the chair left standing directly beneath the loft hatch the day before. The flashlight worked fine, the chair was steady, the hatch cover was waiting: time to make my move.

So why was I hesitating?

Maybe I should have brought the stepladder up with me; climbing to the loft would have been much easier. No, the ceiling wasn't high; the chair would do.

There were no noises up there now so perhaps the problem had gone away. Still no reason not to take a