Hi there! You don’t know me from Adam so I thought I’d give you a sample of my writing in case you’re considering buying my book, That Naked Dream –or– Men Writing Women. If you like what you read you can buy the whole book from Amazon here. If you really like what you’ve read and would like to collaborate get in touch with me on LinkedIn.
“The lecture hall has a strange tint to it. Green? For some reason I can’t tell if it’s always been this way or if it’s completely different. It’s the same institutional raised lecture platform. Linoleum tiles. Chalkboards. Press-board cabinets, the sturdy kind you find in classrooms. I can’t tell if it’s the green that’s different or everything that’s different… And there’s a lot of very attractive women. I can’t tell if that’s normal either, though it feels like it’s absolutely everyone. I feel like the room is usually more softly lit with navy carpet and wood tones but it feels right that it’s a science room for some reason. Like I know that it’s right even though it looks wrong. Echoey, clinical, dated linoleum. Old science room. But this is how it always is…”
“I know exactly what you mean, man.”
“Then suddenly I’m not wearing pants. I swear I was wearing them a minute ago, how would I have gotten here without wearing pants? I’m wearing underwear, which I guess is why nobody stopped me? But I’m sure I was wearing pants just a second ago. Wouldn’t I have noticed people staring on my way here? You know, I actually woke up feeling like a person who is too stupid to put on pants before class? I just couldn’t shake it.”
“Well you made it here without taking off your pants, so let’s call that a win.” Dave’s a tall gaunt man with straight dirty-blond hair down to his shoulders and a rugged complexion, like a fifty-year-old Kurt Cobain. He’s here for a good time, not a long time.
“Like, I know it was just a dream but now I feel stupid for feeling stupid,” Joe replies. He’s in his early twenties, slim but never been to the gym in his life, a mop of dark curly hair he keeps at a point just past where some people would like him to cut it. Jeans and a collared cotton shirt. Normally he’d dress a little better but out here that would just further signal that he’s from away.
“Naked dreams are your brain making sense of feeling vulnerable or exposed. Unsafe. You feeling unsafe?”
The two are sitting on a small deck on the back of a shiny new community counselling centre, built with government funds earmarked for struggling remote communities. In the background is a beautiful boreal forest vista, in the foreground is the dumpster for a dirty yellow-brick liquor store and a disused railway siding with long grass growing between the ties. There used to be a mine here. There also used to be a lumber mill. Key phrase: used to.
“I mean…” Joe pauses.
“Yeah, this place is shit. I wouldn’t be here if I could be anywhere else.” Dave pulls a cannabis vape from his pocket and plays with the buttons. This means he’s feeling good today.
“Anyway, I’m sitting there suddenly missing my pants and there’s all these beautiful women surrounding me. I’m just hoping they’re paying attention and not noticing me. But then suddenly my underwear’s gone too. There’s no way they’re not going to notice. All I can think is that I’m going to be the school pervert.”
“Women are perverts too. The trick is figuring out which ones and only hanging around with them.” Dave attempts sage-like composure.
Joe laughs. “Sure. So I decide I have to do something and I think I should fake it till I make it. I’ll pretend like it’s intentional and I’ll streak out of there. So I wrap my t-shirt around my head like a mask and then step from chair-back to chair-back, I’m in the exact centre back of the classroom. Furthest you could get from the exits.”
“Naturally,” Daves acknowledges.
“Anyway, the professor starts yelling at me and everyone’s looking but now I’m five feet above all these women’s heads and they’ve all got these amazing cleavages. It’s all I can see, wherever I look, and it’s distracting. I can’t fall. So I just fix my gaze on the door and go for it.”
“Love it. Project confidence. Life is like…ninety percent how we frame the story. Are you the weirdo who took his dick out in class or the free spirit who streaked? Big difference.”
“Yeah, it was stressful, though.”
“The best things always are.” Dave puffs on the vape and offers it to Joe who declines, he always declines but Dave always offers. “So how’d it end?”
“Well that’s the thing, I get out into the hallway and I’m feeling all pumped and victorious, I’ve made it. Except then I realize that getting to my dorm room is way further and past way more people. It’s just the beginning. Also, the campus is completely unfamiliar. I should be in the arts building but instead I’m outside under this like…ginormous neon gas station canopy. It’s where the green glow is coming from. All the classrooms are individual buildings. I have no idea how to get back. So I just like, pull my t-shirt down over myself and run from plant to plant in the direction I think I should go. But I was starting to wake up so it all kind of falls apart from here.”
“Yeah, that’s how it goes, man. You get this huge project behind you, you think it’s done and then you realize it’s just begun. Every fucking time. Only books have tidy endings.”
“Not the good ones.”
“Yeah, I like a happy ending for my escapism, though. Anyway, the day begins young grasshopper. Maya’s probably in there waiting for you already.”
“Ugh.”
“Don’t be unhappy! There’s like three attractive women in this town and Maya’s the best by a significant margin. You get to spend forty-five minutes in a small room with her!”
“It’s not lost on me…”
“Of course not, you dreamed about it!”
Joe makes his way through the back door and into the hallway of the small counselling centre. Being a student on his co-op year he’s supposed to be supervised but Dave’s Dave. Maya is in the waiting room, one impossibly long and shapely leg crossed over the other, thumbing through a magazine. A small round indigenous woman wearing track shorts and an oversized t-shirt from a case of beer is sitting perpendicular to her, staring straight ahead. When Maya stands she’s almost as tall as Joe in her black heels. A big smile lights up her face and she leans in to give him a hug.
“Joe! Ugh, it feels like it’s been so long!”
Joe clasps his hands behind him and takes a small step back. “Just a few weeks.”
Maya grasps him anyway, her breasts reaching him before the rest of her. The indigenous woman fixes her stare right at Joe, entirely dispassionate. Joe raises his eyes to the ceiling. When he’s released he motions kindly to the hallway before they settle in a small room with a couch, a chair, and a window onto the forest. It’s a nice facility, whoever built it knew what they were doing. Maya settles into one corner of the couch, tossing her leather jacket to the other end and setting her shoes aside. She’s wearing a flouncy above-the-knee flower print circle skirt and a teal sleeveless bodysuit with an unbuttoned white blouse to cover her shoulders. Her long, thick, black hair is gathered to one side of her neck and falling gracefully to her almost comical cleavage. It’s a look that wouldn’t be out of the ordinary in the city but is wholly out of place here, something Maya is unapologetic about.
“So! How’ve you been?” Joe asks cheerfully.
“Ugh! Well…the community I grew up in resents me going to the city for training to do a job none of them can do but desperately need and the only people who will talk to me either hate me or want to fuck me. Often both. So…yeah…I love being home. I don’t regret my decision at all!”
As she unloads her frustrations Maya waves her arms around animatedly. She’s all limbs with what might be the best cleavage Joe’s ever seen in the middle, wrapped in stylish fabric that could not be acquired within a ten-hour drive. Joe wonders if she’s ever had a zit or a rash in her life, her tan skin is absolutely flawless. Then he realizes he’s lost the thread and pulls himself back into the conversation. She’s up and pacing around now so he gazes out the window.
“And like…I’m so lonely. I’m twenty-six years old. I should be dating and meeting people but there is nobody under fifty around here that’s not a burnout. Why would anyone with a shred of talent stay here?”
“I mean, I could ask you that.”
“Oh, you can’t understand. You’re not from here. This is my place. These are my people. It’s part of me. And Jesus, they could use all the help they can get.”
She’s staring right at him now as she talks. Dark eyes flashing, almost on fire. Passion. Frustration. She tucks her hair behind her ear, she’s got lovely dangly beaded earrings. For a moment Joe forgets what they’re talking about.
“I just…I feel so wasted.” Maya collapses on the couch, clasping her face in her hands with her elbows on her knees, arms framing the bottomless cleavage every ounce of Joe’s body wants to dive into. “The only intelligent person that’s come to town in the last three years is you and you’re temporary.”
“I, uh. I don’t…”
“I know, I know. Professional ethics. It’s just…is that even possible up here? It’s so fucking incestuous. How did I spend the first eighteen years of my life here?”
“I think you care. You’re resilient. You’ve got a good family. You’ve seen how it’s crushed others but you’ve got what’s needed for the heat to refine you rather than burn you up. You’ve seen a difficult situation and risen to the challenge. But you’ve got to recognize your own needs and take care of yourself the way you take care of everyone else.”
“I know…it just seems so impossible.”
“I mean, some of the best minds in the country have been working on this problem and coming up empty for years. You might be the best of them but that’s not a burden to carry on your shoulders alone.”
“Are you sure we can’t get a drink?”
Joe sighs and swallows back a lump. “Yeah.”
By the time Maya leaves Joe is wound so tight he thinks he might snap. It’s not just the sexual tension, he thinks he’s in so far over his head that he’s convinced himself he’s screwed up his whole future. He hasn’t, but accreditation depends on his performance in this deeply flawed counselling centre in this deeply flawed community. His classmates had cherry-picked places where they could learn under established names without getting in over their head. Joe wanted to go on an adventure. He’s now admitting to himself that it had more to do with reading Lost in the Barrens than anything else. He’s going to end up with incredibly specific experience only useful in the least healthy communities in the country. That’s if he doesn’t wash a degree-and-a-half down the drain by compromising his ethics in a place that requires compromise. Also, Maya is an amazing woman and he is absolutely in love. He’s convinced she’d pay no attention to him in any other context but here she’s literally begging him, not a position he’d ever imagined he’d be in.
At least the air is fresh on the little deck behind the centre. There’s a break room but nobody uses it in the summer months, mostly because the counsellors are all smokers of at least tobacco. Joe thinks they’re among the most broken in a broken community, which makes sense given their job is to absorb the problems of an isolated and troubled town all day long. Cool mountain air that smells of pine and stone fills his lungs as he breaths deeply before doing some light stretching. He can feel the energy receding from the back of his head after a few minutes of quiet and takes a deep breath.
The door opens and closes behind Joe as he stretches his hamstrings on the railing. Dave’s got an unlit cigarette in his lips that wobbles around as he speaks, “she might actually be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Inside and out. Seriously.” He cups a hand against the wind and struggles to light the cigarette.
“Don’t remind me.”
“You’re complaining about every man’s dream. Did she ask you out again?”
“She did.”
“You should go. It’s not every day you get a shot at a woman like that.”
“It’s unethical.”
“Lots of things are unethical.”
“What if we switched?”
“Oh God, Joyce? You’re not ready for Joyce.” Dave’s now fumbling with his vape, squinting at the little screen through reading glasses and punching buttons with his thumbs while holding the cigarette between his left pointer and index fingers. The glowing end flops around.
“That little woman from the waiting room?”
“Yeah. That little woman’s seen some shit. Advanced skills only.”
“Uh huh.”
“Listen, I’ve been thinking about your little problem. You are going to have attractive female clients your whole career, a good number of them are going to be batshit crazy. You can’t keep tucking dick and running whenever one walks in. Attractive women need counselling too. Fuck, they probably need it more than the rest of us, the way we treat them. Your problem is that you’re repressed, you can’t accept that we’re all sexual beings and move on. You’re stuck on it and it’s going to stick your whole career if you’re not careful. It’ll become a fixation and manifest itself in the least healthy way possible.”
“I’m listening.”
“What you need to do is look behind the curtain. Step out of the audience and peek around the corner, see that it’s all just a facade and behind all the glitz and glam it’s all just cement walls and catwalks. Nothing is beautiful, that’s what allows us to cultivate beauty.”
“If you’re just going to tell me to go out with…”
“No, I know you’re too dumb to do that. Look, these mountains are full of hot springs, most of them enjoyed in an uninhibited state of dress. Go! Desensitize yourself. Pull back the curtain. It’s a perfect Saturday, it’ll get you out of town. You go for a beautiful hike, then get to soak your joints in the spa that God made while little hippy wood-nymphs jiggle around in front of you on their girlfriends weekend.”
“That’s creepy, man.”
“It’s only creepy if you make it creepy. You’re not there to leer, you’re there to relax. To let your hair down. To set aside your defences and enjoy some vulnerability. Same as them. They know biology makes you like their tits, their biology makes them like your dick. It’s how the human race has continued for millennia. You don’t fight it, you accept it and just get used to it so you can set it aside when you need to. Besides, nobody looks as good naked as they do dressed.”
“I bet Maya does.”
“That woman has won the genetic lottery but she definitely knows how to dress and there is no way breasts as supple as those have a good relationship with gravity.”
“So to be clear, your solution to my fear of sexualizing patients is to look at all the naked ladies.”
“Yes! Same thing as picturing the audience naked when you’re giving a speech, but it sounds like you’ve repressed that part of your imagination and need a little help.”
“You’re a terrible therapist.”
“Why else would I be here?”
Joe is not a particularly aggressive driver but the mountain roads do call to him. Unfortunately, there’s no good place to pass on such winding roads and the driver in front has set his cruise to the safest speed for the sharpest corner. The boxy orange Volvo 240 wagon has been weaving pleasantly in front of him for twenty or so minutes since pulling out from a roadside diner in the last town. Sure, Joe wants to peer at the ancient red cedars but he wants to feel the road a bit too, have some fun.
It would be nice if Joe arrived at the spring first. In fact, he thinks it would be best if no one else arrives at all but he’ll settle for not having to undress in front of strangers. Yet with each passed intersection the probability of sharing an isolated nude hot spring with the person he can’t seem to stop tailgating increases. When they turn onto the trailhead road he hopes they’ll pull off at the ranger station and sure enough the old Volvo slows down to consider it, but no dice. It soldiers on and Joe hangs his head in dismay. Usually a dangerous move on such treacherous roads — but certainly not at these speeds.
The suggestion to hang out with some naked strangers was not one Joe had appreciated. He liked Dave and even thought he was a better therapist than he let on but until the next session with Maya Joe had completely rejected the idea as the ramblings of a hedonistic burnout prone to radical pronouncements for the sake of radical pronouncements. When Maya arrived for her next visit she had more to complain about than the usual oppressiveness of being a young single professional in a remote community whose best days were behind it — and Joe was not able to be helpful. He became so tense and uncomfortable that he had to excuse himself twice. After that he had to admit he had a problem preventing him from being effective at his job.
The two cars pull into the lot at the same time, Joe choosing a spot a distance away to dispel any myth that he’s looking for company. The driver is exactly who Joe expected to own such a car, a survivor that had been lovingly maintained just enough to remain road legal in Washington State. A man in his seventies with a ponytail and long beard, old jeans, and a tired cable-knit sweater worn through in a few places. Also exactly who Joe expected to find at the clothing-optional hot spring, though years of various public change rooms had desensitized him to naked old men. This he can cope with. The man leans on the hood of the car, rummages through the neck of his sweater, pulls out a joint, and lights it. This is fine.
It’s the passenger that is the bigger problem. Maya is incredibly beautiful but this woman seems hand-picked from Joe’s imagination. Bright busy blue eyes peering out from under thick dark brows and lashes with freckled pale skin. Her dark wiry hair is woven into a thick braid. Joe loves a thick braid. Obviously a seasoned hiker she’s got an hourglass figure and what look like powerful thighs and calves. She’s wearing a loose yellow knit cap and a similar cable knit sweater to the man’s but in better shape and carefully selected to not entirely obscure her figure. Black tights complete the ensemble. Joe loves black tights. She gets out, stretches in a mesmerizing way, and joins the man at the front of the car where she scans the landscape and sucks pensively on the joint that he’s passed to her.
Joe had assumed a smoother entry. He’d been skeptical that any women would be there at all let alone one hand-selected by some god-like figure to cause him discomfort along with her earthy sugar-daddy. So for a moment he debates whether he wants to arrive before or after they do, if at all. In the end he decides that this is, in fact, the point of the trip and he’s invested too much to turn back now. Trial by fire. He’s also decided that undressing in front of her sounds far more terrifying than trying to act cool as she undresses and so he scurries off as fast as possible. They’re clearly in no hurry and throw a relaxed wave as Joe almost trots down the trail. He nods politely as he passes and keeps right on moving.
The mountain is staggeringly beautiful. There’s been a fall snow that, at this altitude, has managed to hang around longer than it should have. Much is still clinging to the branches of the ancient red cedars. The moss remains green where it shows through and the damp temperate climate has brought out the colour in the slabs of granite jutting dramatically from the ground. Joe’s getting tired by the time he hears water running in the distance and detects a hint of sulphur mingling with the the mountain air. Here in this little river valley carved into the side of the mountain over thousands of years there’s less snow and green ferns still grow along the bank. A covered deck with an inch of Tuesday’s undisturbed snow stands next to three steaming terraced pools created by damming the river with stones.
Unsure how far behind the couple is, Joe struggles out of his clothes and between the snow and slimy rocks he almost slides into the spring. The first pool is too hot but the second is good so he flounces unceremoniously into the mineral-rich water without checking the third and searches anxiously for a place from which to look calm and aloof. Maybe he will even pretend to have fallen asleep. There’s a place to the side with a good view of the mountain range and ocean beyond. If he looks off to the left he can almost forget that the rest of the pool exists and sink into the warm stones. Maybe he’ll try to look comfortable and lost in thought.
The couple catches up after about fifteen minutes, he can hear the woman tell the man to be careful, who grunts in reply. Then there’s nothing for a bit before Joe hears hiking boots on the wooden deck. Without thinking he turns and raises a hand, then hates himself for it. They wave and smile back as Joe returns to staring intently at the landscape. They’re certainly not in a hurry but eventually Joe hears them splash around in the top pool for a bit before Birkenstocked old feet appear on the rocks to his right. The man was ruggedly handsome in the sweater and jeans but nude he’s bony and gaunt. His legs like skinny stilts supporting a paunch, the rest of his torso having almost no meat to it. Little tufts of grey hair cling about. Then the same head with the long beard and ponytail he saw earlier.
“Perfect day for a soak, huh?” the old man greets Joe vigorously with a deep croaky smoker’s voice as he steps gingerly into the water.
“Gorgeous,” Joe agrees, settling deeper into his seat and being thankful for the cold.
The woman’s Birkenstocked feet and exquisitely sculpted calves appear next. Joe can’t help but notice the matching footwear. He tries so hard not to stare that he doesn’t look up and feels exactly like the dick he appears to be. Trying to save the interaction he waves a hand dismissively while pretending to inspect the very ordinary stone in front of him, obviously failing.
“Hi,” she replies to his wave and he hears the swoosh of water rushing around a body as it sinks in.
Joe knows he can only stare at the rock for so long when there’s literally a world-class mountain vista slightly to the right. When he looks up she’s settled more or less directly in his field of vision, half floating with her head resting on arms folded over a big stone, taking in the vista herself. If it was safe for work this image would be the cover of the Washington tourism booklet. Heck, if he could paint or take a decent photograph there’d probably be some money in it as-is. It’s like those Japanese landscapes depicting sublime scenery with just a little innocent and beautiful hint of human habitation somewhere. Then Joe realizes he’s staring and swings his gaze back to the trees.
The silence lasts for some time, each lost in their own thoughts and relaxations —attempted or genuine. It’s shattered when the man has to step over Joe, who had unknowingly located himself between the pool and the cold plunge bucket. As Joe leans back to give the appearance of moving out of the way, there’s nowhere to go, he’s treated to a close up of geothermally-heated septuagenarian genitalia. Averting his eyes reveals that the woman has turned over and is grinning obnoxiously at the tableau, leaning back lazily on the rocks and hiding nothing. Joe bashfully looks down before she too opts for a cold plunge. Her perambulations are elegant and quick compared to the man’s. The image of this curvaceous and toned woman hoisting a bucket of water over her head rivalled Roman statuary. The only differences being the over-saturated sepia colouring that seems to come part and parcel with the mountains, and a weathered five-gallon pail in place of a clay pot.
Thankfully, they decide to move to the warmer upper pool after their plunge. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Joe mouths as he allows himself to think about what’s happening for the first time. Finally he’s able to quiet his mind, relax, and appreciate the scenery.
Whatever they’ve gotten up to in the pool above involves wood smoke. There’s some shuffling and clanking of…something. Joe doesn’t think fires are allowed but he’s certainly not going to be the one to report it, and he likes the smell. They’re not paying him any attention and as he focuses on all the different sensations he can feel every muscle in his body finally begin to tentatively relax. He even starts to drift off to sleep.
Then, “hey,” the woman’s voice calls out from above. “We’re making coffee – I’d like to make you some?” Joe opens his eyes and her head is peering over the rock he’s leaning against, the wet braid pointing straight towards him along with one visible breast almost staring him down.
“Uhhh…” Joe mumbles, grabbing for his thermos and pointing. “I’ve got…it’s okay.”
“How long’s it been in that thermos? This stuff’s fresh.”
“I dunno, I left at five.”
“I’ll make you a cup.”
“No, it’s okay…” but her head is gone before Joe can finish.
Then the man bellows, apparently from the far side of the upper pool: “nothing in that thermos could taste like my Katie’s coffee, I promise you that!”
“Thanks!” Joe shouts back, reluctantly.
What’s the etiquette here? He supposes he should join them. It’s been a while since he’s moved anyway so he makes his way to the cold plunge area and examines it, doing his best to keep his back to the strange pair. The air is chilly on this snowy fall day but the heat has soaked into Joe’s body and radiates out in pleasant waves, fighting the cold. It’s incredibly refreshing, not nearly as shocking as he’d prepared himself for. Joe stands for a minute and takes a few deep breaths before heading up to join, taking a circuitous route not nearly as nonchalantly as he’d like. He reminds himself that this is what he came for.
“So it’s your first time, huh?” The man asks, cutting right to the chase.
“Uhhh, yeah. Yeah it is.”
“Kids these days are all prudes,” the man editorializes. This is another thing Joe was afraid of.
“Not all kids,” the woman rebukes. She’s crouched with her back to them at the side of the pool, working at a little plywood box. On a stone beside her there’s a camp kettle heated by burning sticks and in the box is a pour-over coffee rig, a rack of elegant six ounce cups with little geometric fish painted on them, a hand-grinder, and a small digital scale.
“That’s something,” he comments, nodding at the box.
“Thanks. Grandpa made it,” she replies.
“He did a really nice job.”
“Thanks,” the man says. “Katie’s the barista though. Bumped me into a whole new coffee bracket. Can’t believe the shit I used to drink.”
A look of dawning realization plays out across Joe’s face.
“You thought we were together, didn’t you?” The man accuses.
“Well, I…acknowledged…the existence of many options.” Joe’s not sure if this makes it better or worse.
“Katie can do a hell of a lot better than me, I’ll tell you that,” the man booms, approvingly.
“I don’t know about that,” Katie throws back over her shoulder. “And honestly people like who they like. We shouldn’t be judging anymore.”
“True enough,” the man agrees. “I’m Wilbur by the way.”
“Joe,” he holds out his hand and Wilbur reaches for it.
“So your first visit to the naked swimmin’ hole, huh?” Wilbur proclaims more than questions.
“That obvious?”
Katie looks over her shoulder and nods sympathetically.
“Well you’ve made a good choice. One of the best things about living out here. What brought you?”
Joe hesitates, he’s not sure how to answer. “Uhh, a friend suggested it, actually.”
“Some friend that doesn’t come with you,” Wilbur retorts.
“Not really that kind of friend.” Joe imagines being here with Dave and shudders a bit. “I guess I just want a healthier relationship with the human body, you know?
“My granddaughter’s human body, you mean?”
Katie observes the exchange suspiciously over her shoulder.
“I…uhh…I didn’t think this place was that kind of place?”
“What kind of place is that?!” Wilbur accuses.
Katie’s eyebrow raises.
“A sexual place…” Joe half questions.
“Every place is a sexual place!” Wilbur explodes, “Sex is everywhere! It’s inescapable. It’s the root of everything!”
“Okay, Grandpa,” Katie cautions. “You know he’s fucking with you, right?”
Joe can’t get his thoughts in order quick enough for an answer.
“He’s an art professor. It’s all sex with him and his friends. It always comes down to sex.”
Wilbur smiles, looking rather pleased with the discomfort he’s caused. “It’s all Freud, my dear.”
“And the only people who take Freud seriously anymore are artists, theologians, and writers,” Katie jousts back.
“Well we’re the ones you want to be listening to,” Wilbur only half jokes. “She models for my classes sometimes, you know. Keeps the freshman in line if I let them know she’s my granddaughter.”
“I’m sorry but isn’t that just a little…” Joe shudders at the thought of showing up to a nine-o’clock class bleary eyed an unprepared to paint the professor’s nude granddaughter.
“Every woman I’ve met was someone’s granddaughter. And being the flower-child turned art professor I am, a good deal of them were naked at one time or another. If I can create a safe enough environment for them to be that vulnerable why would I treat my granddaughter any different?”
Joe looks at Katie who just shrugs.
“But if everything’s about sex…” Joe begins questioningly.
“Then attire doesn’t matter anyway,” Wilbur interrupts. “It’s behaviour that matters. Bodies are bodies and they’re all beautiful in their own way.”
“Art professor,” Katie reminds Joe.
“I guess that’s a good point,” Joe acquiesces, not really sure if it is.
“So you’re cavorting with the nudists for a healthier relationship with the human body…how does one have a healthy relationship with the human body, anyway?” Wilbur questions.
“I just…I get anxious around certain…and you know what they say about public speaking, just picture everyone naked.”
“Beautiful women intimidate you, is what you’re saying?”
Joe sighs. He couldn’t have asked for worse company than an aging hippie art professor and his stunning granddaughter. Or better? He’s not sure anymore but he’ll never see these people again. “Yeah, I guess it is. Something something rip the bandaid off?”
“How do the women you’ve dated feel about not being beautiful enough to intimidate you?” Wilbur asks, like a bloodhound.
“Ooof, Grandpa. Stop messing with him. He seems nice.”
Wilbur sighs. “He does, doesn’t he?”
Thankfully, Katie’s finished with the coffee and the subject changes. She brings one to Wilbur before going back for the remaining two which she manages to carry without spilling a drop despite stepping barefoot from slippery stone to slippery stone around the edge of the pool. Joe is transfixed by the muscles working together along the length of her body as she balances. He realizes Katie’s shorter than he’d thought. Slighter. When she arrives she settles in beside Joe and he’s transfixed by her eyes. He could stare for hours into those nuanced blue depths and he gets the impression she’d let him, too. There’s this intense patience and grace he has never encountered before.
“What kind of coffee are you used to?” She asks him.
“Oh, I don’t know. Whatever’s on sale. The occasional Hortons.”
“Our mystery man from the wilds of Canada,” Wilbur interjects.
“You caught me.”
“Well this is different than that. Grandpa and I have this hobby where couple Saturdays a month drive to some hot spring where we make coffee with the water from the stream and share it with whoever we find. Today that’s you. The beans are from a small roaster in town, picked up this morning. Even if you got the same beans and prepared them in the same way you’ll never have this cup of coffee ever again because it’s made with this water and shared with these people in this time and place. I don’t want to talk shit about your thermos coffee but most people drink it to stay awake which makes it about quantity not quality.”
“Quality doesn’t even enter the equation! Just guzzle it down…” Wilbur interjects.
“The thing is coffee doesn’t have any extra energy in it, it just kind of gives you the jolt to access the energy you’re struggling to reach. That’s why it can make you feel so jittery and gross if you drink it when you’re already tired. So if you swill it all day long your body gets used to that and adjusts, it expects the jolt, it creates a sort of deficit and you need the coffee to just to get back to your normal. So the cycle begins.”
She holds a mug up to Joe’s nose. The aroma is full and earthy, cherries and chocolate. “Coffee is so much better in smaller quantities as this pleasant little signal that it’s time to wake up. It’s a ritual, it’s a way to centre yourself not jazz yourself up for whatever next crazy thing is thrown at you. It’s contemplative. Anyway, this is coffee for having a moment. And I hope you enjoy this moment.”
Finished her soliloquy, Katie hands Joe the small mug and finds a spot in the stones made for her shape before relishing the smell and taking a moment to centre herself in her surroundings. Joe follows suit.
There are moments in life when things slow down. When you can take in all the signals your senses are giving you. When things come into focus. Maybe not everything, but everything you’re paying attention to in that moment. Joe can smell damp cedar. That salty living-organism smell of the ocean a few miles beyond. The sulphur from the spring. The minerals off the rocks. Cedar smoke wafting by on the air. And that coffee. He takes a deep inhale of the fruity smokey aroma. All the flavours that usually accompany bitterness were there without any actual bitterness. When he eventually opens his eyes he can see the ocean in the distance but he doesn’t even bother to focus them again. Then, when he finally does pull the scene into focus, he sees the most beautiful woman in the world staring up at him. The thing he notices most is her wet hair, then her blue eyes under intense dark brows.
“Good, huh?”
“I’ve been drinking coffee wrong.”
“Everyone’s been drinking coffee wrong!” Wilbur pipes up before rummaging in his bag for a half mickey of whisky and a fresh joint, which he offers to Joe. Joe declines the whisky but takes a few puffs. “Everyone does a lot wrong, if you ask me. But you’re on the right track today, my friend. Naked as God made you with beautiful people in beautiful surroundings with beautiful coffee. It does not get any better than this. Not that too many people are willing to try it. Their loss, though. And our gain. If too many people knew how good this was the place’d be overrun. It’d have to have rules and…” he waves his arms around while he thinks “…service roads. Institutionalization. Probably a dress code, for god’s sake! The best things happen organically.”
A few quiet moments go by, hardly a sound except gentle wind and the river splashing down the mountain.
“So do you still find my Katie intimidating?”
Joe thinks about it for a moment. She’s smiling at him, beautifully, and making intense eye contact. “You know, I’m not sure I do. Not anymore, anyway.”
“Hear that, Katie? He doesn’t think you’re attractive anymore!”
She mocks a hurt look.
Joe pauses and then decides to go all-in. “On the contrary. I think you might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She blushes deeply. “And you didn’t even have to buy me dinner to see me naked.” This makes Joe blush and he realizes they’re now locked in a staring contest.
“A very nice thing to say. I don’t think anyone’s ever called me the most beautiful man they’ve ever seen,” Wilbur breaks the silence. “And I was quite the looker in my day.”
“Thank you,” Katie says with breath in her voice. “That is a very nice thing to say.” Still with the intense eye contact. Joe does not know what this feeling is.
“My dear Katie, how did it feel to receive such a pure compliment?”
“Very good,” she says, still staring at Joe.
“And my new friend Joe, how did it feel to make my dear Katie feel so good?”
“Pretty good,” Joe says, staring back at Katie.
“Would I be correct in assuming this moment would not be possible if sex were on the table?”
“I guess not,” Joe says thoughtfully.
“Definitely not,” Katie replies flatly.
Joe breaks the gaze and is a little hurt. Also confused.
“It just seems logistically very unlikely.”
“Oh…” Joe nods, still unsure how to feel.
“A moment of pure beauty,” Wilbur remarks. “What a gift. I’ll have to figure out how to paint it later, if I remember. But isn’t it wonderful to just be able to savour a moment of pure joy without the baggage? Fleeting, but they happen on occasion. If you make the right space for them.”
“So what would have been wrong with that moment in another context?” Joe asks.
“I think,” Katie begins thoughtfully, “that this space has been curated such that I feel safe enough to just be. I don’t feel like you’re trying to sleep with me. I don’t feel objectified. I’m not rushing from one thing to another or worried about something. I’m just here and my presence brought joy to your day. Even if half of your appreciation comes down to you being a man and me being a woman, that’s still part of it and I accept it. It brings joy.”
“And most of the world has so much baggage from feverishly running from point A to point B that these moments are nigh impossible,” Wilbur adds. “Instead we end up hurting each other because we don’t actually know what we want. We’re just running in all directions at all times.”
“This is why we can’t have nice things,” Joe comments, thoughtfully.
There’s a long moment of silence. Wilbur sips at his coffee. “Why do you think I paint?”
“I don’t know,” Joe replies.
“To work it all out. To spend time with it. To actually listen to what my mind is telling me. Let it run around, tire itself out. To find out what it actually wants. If it wants something healthy I can scratch that itch. If it’s not healthy I can work out why I want the thing or find a healthy outlet. You should try it.”
“I don’t know if the world’s ready for that,”Joe says a little sheepishly.
“It doesn’t matter if the world’s ready for it, just because you make it doesn’t mean you have to share it. Maybe you make something so dark the only thing to be done is burn it in the back yard. At least you’ll know. That’s the beauty of art.”
“I guess that’s true. Only problem is I can’t draw.”
“Can you write?” Katie asks.