His expression was strangely preoccupied as he stepped onto the grass. She felt excited, watching him pad farther from the building, like a child watching something she shouldn't. She hadn't seen a naked man, aside from her husband, in – she couldn't remember how long it had been. But here were Jeremy's smooth white buttocks, his thighs, his sex… She caught her breath.
Where was he going at this hour? He must be off to have himself a pee, she thought. But why's he heading clear across the lawn?
At no time did he glance up toward her window (not that he could have seen her in the darkness anyway, she told herself, and he without his glasses); and he couldn't have known, as late as this, that anyone was watching. She wasn't sure of the time – the only clock was downstairs, the big grandfather clock Sarr had inherited; she could hear its regular ticking – but she thought it must be close to midnight.
He was walking slowly, like a sleepwalker. Maybe he was sleepwalking, she thought; Jeremy wouldn't walk barefoot like that, he was far too squeamish about bugs! worms! night crawlers! Yet there he was, across the lawn and disappearing in the shadow of the barn.
Perhaps she should stop him. If he was sleepwalking, could there be any danger? She dismissed the thought as soon as it occurred. Why embarrass him? If he wandered off into the long grass or the forest – well, he wouldn't be hurt, the Lord watched over sleepers; and if he found himself on rough ground, why, he'd simply wake up. She thought of calling to him through the open window, but she was already too excited. She could feel herself breathe faster now and was suddenly aware of her hand beneath her unbuttoned nightgown, cradling and squeezing her breast.
With a little sigh she lay back, deliberately jarring the bed, hoping to awaken Sarr, his face pressed to the crumpled pillow. He stirred, clutched the pillow tighter, and slept on.
She shifted closer to him, so close that she could feel the warmth of his body. He, too, wore the traditional nightgown, but as her hand explored beneath the sheet, she could feel that it had worked its way above his waist. Her fingers caressed the familiar contours of his hips and slid into the soft, girlish hair. Gently yet urgently they closed over his penis.
He groaned softly, still asleep, and turned toward her, eyes closed. She tugged more insistently, and in reflex he twisted his hips to be nearer her, snaking his arms along her body, at last finding her breast. Carefully keeping her breath slow and silent, she rolled herself on top of him.
In the smaller room, Carol slept on, outlined in the moonlight, her arm thrown over her eyes. Her regular breathing grew faster; suddenly her hand clutched the edge of the sheet, her other hand formed a fist, and a tremble shook her body like a fever. Her leg straightened, then pulled back; her form seemed to grow heavier, pushing into the mattress, as if she were retreating, in her dream, from some unwanted approach. Soundlessly her mouth formed words. Above her, in the pale light, the cardboard nursery shapes stared indifferently down.
He felt the rough bark against the soles of his bare feet and sensed dimly that he was climbing the gnarled old black willow that grew beside the barn. The branches bent beneath his weight but did not snap. He felt himself climb upward, unerringly as a squirrel, as if he had done it many times before and knew exactly where to place his hands and feet.
Attaining the upper branches, he made his way out onto one of the thicker limbs, let go with both hands, and, precariously balanced, stepped lightly onto the barn roof just before the limb began to give way, the old wooden shingles curling wet beneath his toes. He continued climbing, bathed in moonlight now, the moon's face just above him, whispering him on.
At the apex of the roof he unbent and slowly stood upright, one leg on each sloping side, one foot planted east and one foot west, straddling the center line. The moon, gazing down at him, was close enough to touch. He raised his hands to it.
Deborah eased the sleeping Sarr onto his back, rose on her knees, and straddled him. Reaching down, she grasped him and put him inside her. He slid in easily.
Hands raised as if in supplication, Freirs felt himself make overtures to the moon, gestures and faces that no one could see, no one would ever see, no one had ever seen before. Perhaps some ancient force was in control, but there was no thought of explaining what he did, or why. Past and future did not exist. There was nothing real but his own movements. The shingles, he sensed idly, were rough against his feet. The ground seemed far away, but he had no fear of falling. From this height the land below him, the distant farmhouse with its little black windows like eyes, its outbuildings and its garden, seemed almost luminescent in the moonlight, with the trees a dark ocean around it.
Sarr awakened and looked sleepily up at Deborah, her face pale above him, eyes half shut. He reached out and caressed it, then slipped the nightgown up and off her shoulders so that her breasts hung down heavy and full upon him. Briefly he tasted a dark nipple. Slowly, then faster, lifting and lowering her body, she began to pump.
Freirs tried to touch the full moon's face, and shaped his lips toward it, and heard someone whisper to it, words he'd never heard before and didn't know the meaning of and instantly forgot. Beneath his feet the fireflies were like shooting stars, and a silver mist was rising off the field. He smelled roses; he could taste them on his tongue. Listening to the chanting in his ear, he waved his arms and made the faces and did the gestures with his fingers, looking like a madman's shadow as he signaled to the moon and to the dark woods spread below.
The moment came. He wriggled his head, arched his neck, threw his chest out in the night air. Sarr kissed the breasts before his face and arched his body into Deborah, who leaned forward to widen herself just as Freirs threw his arms wide and Sarr pushed himself all the way in so that Deborah gasped and they trembled, all three, and Deborah made a moaning sound just as Carol cried out in her sleep and Freirs heard the whispering and chanting louder now inside his head and realized that the sounds he'd heard were coming from himself.
Abruptly he stopped singing. The trance left him; the dream fled. He was standing on the barn roof, weary and gasping and suddenly exhausted, as if he'd just finished a race, dance, and struggle all in one. He looked down, lost his balance, almost fell. He was astonished at where he was standing, and at his own nakedness.
Carol, for the first time that day, had been out of his thoughts, yet there on the rooftop, with the planet at his feet and the taste of roses in his mouth, he looked down at himself and saw he was erect.
The dream. Those mad, twisted trees, and the eyes.
Carol was still shuddering from it, trying to throw it off, as she lay breathing heavily in the tiny bed, the damp sheets clutched to her throat. Moonlight seemed to filter into the room like poison, seeping into her brain, making everything she looked upon seem strange and menacing: the shiny little cardboard figures with their evil, knowing smiles, the gaping black fireplace, the pale red witch ball hanging in the window like the child of the moon.
The moon – its very brilliance was disturbing. She remembered the story she'd read long ago, about the sailor who fell asleep on deck, lying on his back with the full moon shining brightly on his face, and how, rising from a dream in which an old woman clawed him by the cheek, he awoke to find that his face had been permanently drawn to one side…
She was suddenly aware that something had changed. Something was missing. Without realizing it she had been breathing in time to the old grandfather clock downstairs, whose loud ticktocking could be heard throughout the house, through the spaces in the floorboards, the thin walls and doors. And suddenly the clock had gone silent.
Ah, there it was again, with a pair of faster beats thrown in as if to make up for the missing ones. No doubt a broken spring. Well, everything had to run down eventually, after years and years…
She drifted back to sleep, her face smoothing, her breathing growing slower, the dream dissipating like smoke from an altar.
The spell was broken. The magic didn't work anymore. He almost slipped three times as he crept down the side of the slippery roof, ass in the air, fearfully clutching at the shingles. When he groped for a branch of the willow, it broke off in his hand.
Somehow he was able to grasp a limb and hoist himself back to the tree, and at last, with much difficulty and a badly skinned elbow, he climbed down to the ground. He realized he was trembling from exhaustion.
Jesus, he thought, what the hell was in that wine?
Slipping timidly around the side of the barn, he covered his nakedness, an Adam after the Fall, and dashed across the wet grass to his doorway. He winced with every step, feeling dozens of wriggling living things, some imaginary, some less so, beneath his bare feet. He prayed no one was looking.
When he was back inside he stood shivering by his bed. A great way to catch a cold! he told himself; these
