An arousing wet dream as a teenager stirs in memory. Pivotal and uncanny, with flushed cheeks, it rippled through experience and place.
In the youthful head trip, I knelt behind an unidentified female — doggy style. I duplicated this vigour in my loins in a life moment in Paris. The hardcore get-together occurred with a young woman never considered in youthful fantasies. The city of love paired us.
My first confronting realisation of amatory sex happened near my home, walking through neighbourhood bushland, in the early spring of 1974. Even in college, Coral and I hiked the backblocks, open paddocks, an abandoned orchard, a vista of hillocks, and fast-moving creeks where scrub dominated. One idle Saturday, we traversed a steeper slope on a sunny day.
The golden-haired girl's voice bounced in step with her jerky stride.
"Screw Josh for choosing Max and a motor cross event as opposed to time with me."
I let her rant pass, preferring to mirror her strident pace.
Soon enough, nature brightened her mood. She paused to watch white banded butterflies clustered on Prickly Tea trees.
Slightly later, I licked my licks and spun on the spot when Coral invited me, "Smell this Scented Paperbark."
"Honey," I said after a deep sniff.
"Did you catch the camphor hint?" she responded, tipping back her head, allowing her face to glow in the sun's spring sparkle.
We steadily climbed the hill, aiming for our favourite mulberry tree in the paddock on the opposite side. On the single file track, I let Coral take the lead.
Perched, straddling a boulder, atop the knoll, we surveyed a vista view including the mulberry a fair distance below, through clumps of gum trees.
From this direction, the gnarled tree lay closer than the natural spring, our other regular haunt. As youngsters, we visited the mulberry tree when it fruited. Grubby-handed, we pulled at the ripe berries, staining our fingers. We then pelted the pithy pulp at each other, a free paintball game.
Prior splattered t-shirts and jeans had resulted in scoldings. However, I kept returning to the tree and tagging my friends, young Josh and Coral. While my friend's mulberry 'blooded' me. A paste mashed into hair and faces. These were fun times, and I don't remember eating much fruit.
The final berry scuffle involved our troupe. Ruby preferred sailing and horse riding to time in the bush. But, geed by the golden girl, the brunette tagged along in the summer of '73. At her first and only visit to the tree, the melee supplied my mounting suspicion Ruby schemed to indulge in her girlfriend's body. Buoying the minx were Josh and Coral's tetchy flashpoints.
Over the next eighteen months, the sexual sparring between the girlfriends intensified. On the one hand, an indecisive Coral, whilst Ruby, carried no doubts concerning sensual encounters.
In January 1973, the weather determined shorts and t-shirts. Well, except Coral, who wore a cute orange pleated skirt and short-sleeved lemon-coloured blouse. The girls perched high in the mulberry tree. The brunette scrambled and selected a lofty branch.
With clicking fingers, she said, "Boys stay stapled to the ground."
Then, adjusting her ponytail, she sought Coral's support.
"Don't let them climb."
The minx mimicked a double bicep pose, flaunting her toned arms.
Coral, convinced by the brunette's magnetic lash flutter, said, "Josh and Luke, girls up, guys down. Let's play and not too rough and tumble."
The pixie's high tree preference flashed as a rare mistake. The fallen berries piled larger, squishier, and were easier to grab by the handful off the ground. It challenged more to stretch and pluck a berry while perched.
Ruby dominated; she aimed, single fruit precise, targetting boots and bare legs. Coral propped on an exposed limb bearing limited fruit, presenting herself as a triple target. Josh (playing boyfriend) lobbed around her. At the same time, I tried to get her attention by aiming at her exposed forearms. Ruby generated fun, hitting everyone.
Anyway, with a wayward throw, I splat Coral's hair. A lush, squishy, juicy berry matted her locks. It flashed gross, then I thought, gold and red did wed, picturing Christmas decorations. Then, a shaft of sunlight found a gap through the dense foliage, and the reddish smear shone blood-like.
Coral lost concentration on the berry fight. Concerned with her appearance, she untangled her hair as a pitched mulberry burst and splat in her open mouth.
"Oi, what the f….!" she said before controlling herself.
I glanced at Josh; he hunched over gathered berries.
Oh, boy, it was Ruby!
The brunette clapped eyes on Coral, who sported a reddened mouth and blushing cheeks. The pixie's come-hither eyelash flutter signalled attraction to her girlfriend. Coral peeped as Ruby selected a plump berry and licked its tip. The brunette's legs flexed wide, straddling a thick limb.
Unaware of immediate events, Josh remained preoccupied with squatting and gathering mulberries to heave in Coral's direction. As a result, he missed the action in the tree before he swung like a discus thrower, ready to launch and shower the tree in berries.
Hand raised, the golden girl said, "Time out."
Coral scrambled down the notches and knots of the tree, leaving Ruby aloft. Josh hurled the berry clump into the mulberry's antique trunk, where they blotched and streaked. Understandable at the start of fun denied — Josh ground mulberries beneath his boots.
A spoilt boy, he received everything he asked from his parents ever since surviving the car crash as a single child. So he expected the cream in life. Josh knew he would get a panel van when he got his licence. Besides this, he foresaw taking Coral's virginity, though she decided their coupling ritual could wait until the end of college.
Ruby gathered her rewards in activity as an accomplished all-rounder. The brunette stacked 'school smarts.' She won sporting trophies. Her show jumping and sailing mastery ranked formidable for her age. Coral, my closest friend, loved the finery of life, an authentic aesthetic. She flourished in order and control; she prepared before action.
Like Ruby and Josh, she was a sole child.
My life included siblings: a younger brother and an older sister. After the car accident, my mother instructed me to thank God every Sunday. In church, I received a constant reminder of my unredeemable self, where the local Minister, Parson Dean, railed against sin. I attended chapel twice every Sabbath and a trinity of services on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. No prayers of thanks lisped to Jesus appreciating Saturdays, at least being mine.
"Josh, brush the berries off my skirt," said Coral, standing between massive forked tree roots.
After a half-hearted messy swipe at Coral's miniskirt, she asked her boyfriend, "Please untangle my hair."
Josh opened and shut his mouth like a chuffing bear as he spread his grubby mitts.
Instead, she wiped her mouth using the back of her hand, streaking her knuckles purple.
"This won't do," said Coral, unable to see her rosed cheeks whilst scanning every clotted spotted splat from her chest to her thighs.
"Josh, take me home," and she hustled away.
Her boyfriend tried to hold her hand.
Coral's fingers stayed occupied, removing pith flecks from her bosom.
Heading through the old orchard, side by side, Josh booted stones and cracked thick sticks.
Ruby and I remained briefly at the mulberry. The brunette still perched in the tree. Elevation added to her pre-eminent presence.
The brunette snipped in my bestie's absence.
"Off you go. Follow the golden poppy, you puppy!"
I trailed Coral, hang-dog.
An overripe berry splattered on my neck.
As I caught up to Josh and Coral, the skipping pixie tagged farther behind.
Turning, I saw Ruby blowing dandelion pappus.