Luncheon Visitor

Double Pastiche

One fine Sunday after Mass, I was allowed to walk alone along the Vivonne. My eyes savored the grasses and purple wildflowers along the bank and drank its watery surface dappled with iridescent insects. Perfume from the pink and white blossoms of nearby apple and pear trees seized me with such joy that I had to rest on the high bank to calm my beating heart. My body drifted into a sweet hypnagogia lingering there until the sound of laughter turned me, an aural tropism, in its direction. I saw a group seated on the grass – a most curious group consisting of two fully and well attired gentlemen and two women whose unconventional dress further fixed my gaze. One, seated with the men, was entirely, voluptuously, naked; the other was disrobing in the near distance. A cornucopia spilled its bountiful cargo of oranges, grapes, cheese, breads, wine bottles and glasses onto the grass in a tempting disarray. The woman placed an orange segment into the mouth of her gentleman causing my own taste to be aroused from afar by that ambrosia al fresco and I did not resist, but could not explain, the waves of longing and pleasant trembling that came over me. Abruptly, I was forced to abandon my fragrant bower when a violent curtain of summer rain concluded the unfinished luncheon on the grass.