her head, Lucy lifted the black cord and the titanium-cased memory stick and placed them on top of the soft mound of orange. They looked down at their bare, worn feet and laughed. Their feet would be the first part to relish the water. Yes, happy tadpoles for toes, wiggling and laughing. Then there was a plopping down, female and male, bottoms first into the water, which was beautiful and cool, clear, only—say—ten inches deep. But it covered and refreshed their private parts, male and female. And then there was nothing else to do but to lie down fully in it. Sometimes on their backs with their necks tilted up so they could breathe. Sometimes on one side or the other, with a bent elbow to prop up their heads. In that posture they talked and laughed and every utterance was joyful, in praise of water, which they gulped by the handfuls. Then they flopped onto their stomachs, and he let the scant hairs in the center of his chest over his heart have their fun, and she let her breasts float and bobble.
When they propped again on their elbows, facing the stream and catching the flow of it on their chests, they might as well have been kissing. They cupped their hands into scoops and splashed their faces. Finally they sat up and wetted their hair, bowing the crowns of their heads into the stream or bringing water to their scalps with their hands. For each other, they made bowls of their hands, filled them, and then opened the seamed bottom of their bowls to let water drop down on each other’s heads.
“God is good; God is great,” they chanted. “And we thank him for this food.”
“What food?” they both exclaimed, and laughed.
They tilted their heads and exposed their throats to the air and looked up in the sky for manna.
Skyward, sustenance did sway among the branches of fruit trees. Fruit ripe and ready.
What they envisioned were men hanging head-down from trapezes without lines, their bent knees hooked over the lineless bars; trapeze artists free as angels were swooping down and bearing in their hands white china platters filled with fruit—oranges, lemons, pears, apples. Or maybe the woman and man had climbed the trees and picked the fruits. In any case, mercifully, magically, sustenance appeared. Lucy and Adam sat down on the sand beneath the trees, reached into the branches, took, and ate. This is Eden, they insisted.
Any oasis is Eden, they amended, their mouths full of the mush of fruit.
Shall we put on our clothes now? they asked.
We’re dry now, they agreed.
And the air is chilly.
It’s night. And they covered their bodies again, he with Riley’s clothes, and she with the orange ones she had sewn herself for the journey back. She replaced the memory stick around her neck.
But look at the stars.
A starry, moonless night is the most blessed of all nights.
Diamonds.
Worlds unseen.
Stars galore.
The word galore—it comes from some place deeper than the throat.
From the belly of God. When he’s generous.
“Lucy,” he said. “Make love with me.”
She smiled at him. A smile she had never given anyone before. She felt its newness on her face.
“Tonight, for this moment,” he said, “I know you for who you are, Lucy. I know your name. Let’s make love while I know who you are.”
“I’m new,” she said. She laughed a little. “Clean and fresh, refreshed,” she said, denying the warning implied by his invitation. “Adam—”
He held his finger, upright, sealing his lips. Shhh—he signaled, shy of his own name.
She reached to his chest, to the smooth button beside the label F. Riley. “Adam,” she whispered again despite his signal for silence.
He nodded. She unbuttoned the first button. Gesture was the only language. Down the row of buttons, each slid more easily from its fastening than the one before; each felt more silky to her fingertips than the others and more precious than pearls. He pulled the tail of her orange blouse from the waistband of her skirt and lifted loose handfuls of blouse over her head. She drew the black silk cord over her head and laid the old talisman among the orange puffs. There were her breasts for him to kiss. To cherish by starlight.
Before he leaned toward her, with a single downward glance he memorized the shapes of her breasts as he had not done before. In a future, given soft pencil and creamy paper, he would draw them.
But now was bliss, as she folded her arms across