Flower Power Page 9

“Come on,” said Alex. “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “I’m not kidding,” said Taryn, touching Alex’s bare knee. Alex was wearing a skirt that had bunched up on her thighs as she sat crosslegged in bed. “I was going deep into my mind, remembering my youth, trying to figure out who I am. And I remembered… when I was a teenager, I always envied the hippie girls. The real ones, you know? Not just the girls who dressed the fashion. I knew this girl in school—Renee, was her name—and she was just this really cool-ass chick who seemed unflappable and centered and chill. I always thought, ‘Taryn, that girl has something figured out. You should figure that out, too.’ But I was also very anxious and worried. I eventually just gave up trying to figure out what Renee had.”

  “I think I’ve always been like your Renee,” admitted Alex. “But it’s not always easy being like that. A lot of people don’t take you seriously. They think you’re just flighty, or a pot head, or lazy and unreliable. I’m not those things. Maybe sometimes I am, but we all are. I’m imperfect, and that’s okay. You’re imperfect, and that’s okay as well.”

  Taryn smiled warmly, giving Alex an adoring gaze.

  “I feel really imperfect lately,” said Taryn. “But that’s okay, I guess. I’m figuring it out.”

  There was an expectant moment between the two women, a comfortable pause in the conversation where they were both trying to suss out what should come next. Then, simultaneously, they decided and together they leaned in close and began to delicately kiss. Their kissing was slow and tender, affectionate and warm. Taryn’s hand moved further up Alex’s thigh and she squeezed, while Alex lifted her own hand to Taryn’s cheek and kept it there as their kissing grew more heated.

  Soon, they laid out on the bed together, still cuddling against one another, still locked in their kiss. Taryn had her hands fully up Alex’s skirt now, gripping onto her ass cheeks over the elastic fabric of her underwear, feeling the plumpness, the curves of her rear. Alex, meanwhile, had snaked her hands up into Taryn’s shirt and she gently caressed the small of her back. Their flesh was hot as they melted into each other, touching, kissing, adoring, and succumbing with eagerness to what the night had in store for them.

  It wasn’t much longer until articles of clothing started to disappear from their bodies. Alex laid back, while Taryn pressed into her side with her hand between Alex’s bare legs, moving her hand back and forth slowly, two fingers together as they moved through Alex’s wet lips. Alex purred and grinded her butt down into the bed as Taryn pleasured her, while Taryn buried her face into Alex’s neck and kissed adoringly.

  Their communion was slow and unhurried. It felt natural and inevitable. Although the evening chill moved in through the open windows, their naked bodies remained heated and sweaty. Taryn felt her own heart beating fast as she focused on pleasuring Alex, her fingers penetrating her steadily while also sustaining pressure on Alex’s clit. Alex was breathing heavily and she gripped to Taryn’s shoulder as the arousal mounted and came to a head.

  “Don’t stop,” whispered Alex. “I’m going to come.”

  Taryn leaned in and kissed Alex deeply. As Taryn did this, with her fingers still coaxing her new lover along, Alex began lightly spasming, shifting her hips side to side, holding tighter to Taryn’s arm. Alex hummed into Taryn’s mouth through their kiss, and Taryn didn’t stop her exploration below the belt until Alex delicately placed her own hand on Taryn’s wrist.

  And then Alex lay limp in the sheets, a hand over her breast to still her heart. For a moment she played with her own nipple, her mind distant and foggy, eyes glazed over, and a bemused half smile on her lips. Taryn shifted downward and laid beside her, grinning big and happy with herself. She slung an arm over Alex’s stomach and again cuddled up next to her.

  “Come back to me,” said Taryn, kissing Alex’s cheek. Alex laughed and woke from her reverie, turning her head towards Taryn and kissing her on the lips.

  “I’m here,” said Alex. “Sorry. An orgasm, for me, is the time to just really be in the moment, to not have to think, to not worry. It’s the ultimate meditation.”

  “Hmm,” mused Taryn. “That makes sense.”

  “When I do you next,” Alex said, her hand drifting between Taryn’s thighs and starting to touch her. “You’ll see what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure what you mean,” Taryn teased. “I think you’ll definitely need to show me.” Alex laughed and snuggled her face into Taryn’s.

  “Okay,” said Alex with a revived enthusiasm. “Let’s go.” She pushed herself up from her laying position and perched over Taryn. With a deft and excited motion, Alex parted Taryn’s legs and lowered herself down.

  Taryn watched as Alex began kissing her between her legs. She grinned happily, then she dropped her head back to the pillow and reveled in the pleasure. It was bliss.

  With both hands, Taryn raised the access door of one of the chicken coops. After latching the door open, she then pushed her sunglasses up onto her forehead and leaned into the coop, plucking eggs one at a time from the nests and putting them in a basket she held in her other hand. These eggs had been some of the best Taryn had ever tasted, and their yolks were a deep orange. The eggs from the grocery store, with their pale and limp yolks, were no match for these. They had changed Taryn’s perception on what an egg was.

  Taryn filled her basket with the eggs from the coop, and then she closed the access door back again and locked it shut. She hadn’t noticed, but one hen in particular had been watching her and once Taryn closed the door, that hen walked up to her. Taryn looked down and smiled at the hen. She was a beautiful hen, large and dark, with iridescent green feathers.

  “Gertie, right?” Taryn asked the hen. The hen looked up, then back down, and pecked at the ground. “I think you’re Gertie. I love eating your eggs, girl.”

  Gertie looked up, back down, she walked in a circle, more pecking.

  Taryn walked around a fenced in area and moved toward yet another chicken coop. She did exactly as she had down with the previous coop. She lifted the door, she fetched the eggs, and then she shut the door again. There was a nice leisure to the job. There was no rush to complete the task, nor was their an expectation that she would be able to harvest more and more eggs every day. Instead, there was an assumed number of eggs that could be collected each day, give or take a few. That’s just how it went.

  Once she had finished, Taryn made her way into the nearby barn. It was a decently sized barn, painted red but fading, and inside housed a number of farming machines. There was a tractor, Taryn knew that much, but there were a few other devices that she couldn’t name. Against one of the walls was a long work bench and that is where Justine stood. Justine was pretty and smiley, a cutely chubby woman with rosy cheeks, dark hair and dark glasses. She wore a navy blue lightweight dress and thin sandals.

  “Here we go,” said Taryn, hefting her basket of eggs up onto the bench. “That should be all of them for today.”

  “Nice,” said Justine. “Let’s gently wash the nastiness off of them, but make sure not to wash off the membrane, and then put them in cartons and take them out to the farm stand.”

  “Got it,” said Taryn. She thought it was pretty wild that the eggs would keep without refrigeration if you didn’t wash the membrane off. But Taryn was learning so much about things she took for granted in life while on the farm, her lack of knowledge was becoming less of a surprise.

  After carefully washing the eggs, Taryn began placing them into the cartons that were stacked on the bench. The cartons were already used, though still in decent shape. There was a sign in the farm stand that implored customers to bring their egg cartons back so that they could be reused. It saved them from being trashed, and it saved the farm a little bit of money.

  While Taryn managed her chicken eggs, Justine had been leaning over a notebook and scrawling things down with a pen. She was writing, doing calculations, thinking about the notes she scribbled. She was lost in thought, and Taryn watched. Her curiosity g
ot the better of her.

  “What are you working on?” Taryn asked as she placed eggs into a carton.

  “Well, our eggs are selling really good,” said Justine. “And I’ve got some people on a waiting list for the egg subscription. So I’m trying to figure out how many more chickens we should get to fulfill the demand. But then we also need to build another coop, and it’s just more birds to manage, more space to dedicate to them. Scotty and Dev are on my butt about it because they need to extend the chicken run, but I haven’t given them the space I need yet. Whatever.” Justine laughed at herself.

  “Hmm,” intoned Taryn. She smiled and shrugged.

  “I’m glad you’ve been helping out,” said Justine. “Even with the seven of us living here, some days it’s just not enough. And with Penny so pregnant she’s about to burst… another hand is definitely appreciated.”

  “Yeah, it’s no trouble,” Taryn replied. “I’m enjoying it.”

  “Awesome,” said Justine. “Take those cartons to the farm stand,” she said, pointing at Taryn’s work. “If you can’t carry them all, you can use that little wheelbarrow over there. That’s what I do sometimes.”

  “Okay,” said Taryn. “I’ll do that.”

  With the half-sized black wheelbarrow, carrying about a dozen cartons of eggs, Taryn carefully walked up from the barn and along the driveway toward the road. She hit a few bumps on the way, and she worried that the top cartons might bounce out. But they remained contained, just shifting a little, as Taryn came up on the farm stand and parked the wheelbarrow.

  Taking three cartons in her arms, Taryn came around toward the front of the farm stand and found Alex standing inside of it. She was placing a few small bouquets of flowers into a glass vase. Alex turned her head, she saw Taryn, and she smiled big.

  “Howdy,” said Alex. “Egg delivery.”

  “Egg delivery,” parroted Taryn with a similar smile to Alex’s. It was the kind of infatuated smile of new love, a smile that spoke of possibility and hope and promise. As Taryn stepped further in, pointing herself toward where the eggs were to be placed, Alex walked toward her.

  “Let me help,” said Alex. She took the cartons from Taryn.

  “Oh, thank you,” said Taryn. She stood there for a moment with a silly grin, watching as Alex put the eggs down. “I should probably go get the others.” She laughed and Alex made a silly face.

  Once the women had unloaded all the eggs, Alex resumed picking at her bouquets and Taryn leaned up against a thick wooden table with boxes of vegetables on it. She watched Alex work for a little while, admiring her and feeling warm in her presence. Taryn knew she was falling for Alex, but there was one small anxious notion she had continued to feel as their relationship came to fruition. Something Alex had said some time back had stuck with Taryn, and she felt the need to sort it out.

  “Hey,” said Taryn.

  “Hmm?” Alex replied, her focus remaining on her flowers.

  “There was something you told me a little while ago that I’m still chewing on,” admitted Taryn.

  “Oh?” said Alex. She smiled and turned to face Taryn. “What’s that?”

  “Before I came to visit,” Taryn continued. “I said I was worried at first about being accepted, because I was gay.”

  “Right,” said Alex. “I remember.”

  “And then you said something like… sexuality is a spectrum,” said Taryn. “I’m just wondering what that means to you because… I guess because we’ve been intimate and I’m operating under this belief that you’re a lesbian, and… I don’t know where I’m going with this.” Alex laughed softly and smiled.

  “I get it,” replied Alex knowingly. “I don’t think in binary terms when it comes to things like sexuality. So I don’t consider myself gay because I’m attracted to all people, regardless of gender or sexuality or whatever. I’m attracted to souls.”

  “So you’re bisexual,” said Taryn. “Okay, I get it.”

  “Well, no,” Alex went on. “That’s binary thinking again. Bi means two, as though there are just two genders. That’s just not the case.”

  “Oh,” said Taryn, slowly nodding as her mind felt like it was opening up.

  “If I had to label it,” said Alex. “It would be pansexual. That’s more inclusive of how I feel about it. Pan means all. I don’t put limits or draw a box around who I’m attracted to. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes,” said Taryn. “It does.” She paused and thought about Alex’s words for a moment. “So you’ve been with… men before?”

  “I have,” said Alex simply and in earnest. “Have you?”

  “Yeah, but that was before I came out,” said Taryn. “Back when I thought I had to do that. It was definitely not my thing.”

  “And that’s perfectly fine,” Alex said with a reassuring smile. “If that’s how you feel, it’s best to accept your feelings and not hide from them. For me, these things are just fluid. Like I said, I’m attracted to people, to souls. However they come physically is fine with me.”

  “But right now…” said Taryn, still trying to get a handle on Alex’s admissions. “You’re attracted to me?”

  “Yes,” Alex responded with an amused happiness about her. “Yes, I’m very much attracted to you.”

  “Okay,” Taryn said. Then she laughed nervously. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure some things out. This kind of conversation makes me feel a bit out of touch.”

  “That’s fine,” Alex said. She rubbed Taryn’s arm in adoration. “I don’t judge you.”

  “Thank you,” Taryn said softly. Although it made Taryn feel a bit strange that Alex wasn’t just like her, it was impressive and commendable how well Alex seemed to know herself. Perhaps she was onto something with this non-binary way of looking at life. Not just in sexuality or gender, but it other ways, too. Taryn had always believed there was a certain way a person needed to live their life to succeed. But Alex and the others on the farm were disproving that belief.

  “I’ll say one more thing about it,” said Alex. “Think of it from a Buddhist perspective. Do you know anything about Buddhism?”

  “No,” said Taryn. “Not really.”

  “In Buddhism, they talk about non-dualism,” said Alex. “The idea that we’re not separate from each other. Hinduism has this, too. There is no difference between our reality and enlightenment. We aren’t apart from nature. We are nature. We’re all of the same consciousness. It’s a lot to wrap your brain around.”

  “It is,” agreed Taryn.

  “But think of it like… there are no dichotomies. That’s how I feel. So when I see you, I see me. So it only makes sense to me that if I feel a natural attraction to somebody—to anybody—it doesn’t matter who they are or what they look like, all that matters is the energy that brings us together and that we are together.”

  “I have a lot to think about,” said Taryn. Alex laughed.

  “You feel this energy between us,” said Alex. “Right?”

  “Very much.”

  “It’s undeniable,” said Alex. “I think if more people listened to that call, we’d live in a much happier, kinder, and more fulfilled world.”

  “You might be right,” said Taryn. Her brain was swimming with the ideas that Alex had just planted in her. She was confused, but in a way it did actually make some sense. Still, it was hard for Taryn to reconcile it with everything she’d known for the entirety of her life. It was difficult to break those walls down.

  “Come on,” Alex said. Leaning in, she placed a sweet, delicate kiss on Taryn’s lips. “I have some more work to do in the greenhouse. Grab your wheelbarrow, and let’s go.”

  “All right,” Taryn said, still in a bit of a daze.

  “Are you going to be okay?” asked Alex.

  “Yeah,” said Taryn. “I will.”

  They both smiled.

  The sun was high in the sky when Taryn found her way out to the clearing with the stone obelisk, holding a thin woven blanket under one arm and
a small notebook in the same hand. She was dressed in sunglasses and flip flops, khaki shorts, and a loose-fitting white blouse under which you could see the halter string around her neck of a bikini top. Finding a spot in the clearing, Taryn unrolled the blanket and dropped her notebook down to it. She kicked off her flip flops, she pulled off her top to reveal a turquoise bikini, and she pushed her shorts down and stepped out of them leaving her in just a matching swimsuit.

  Taryn laid out on the blanket on her stomach, her notebook open in front of her and a pen in her hand. The sun warmed her backside, the summer heat in full effect. Her plan was to come out here all alone, write down some thoughts about life, some musing about what she should do, and get a little more color to her skin. Seeing Alex nude, with her tanned olive skin, made pale Taryn a bit envious. And on top of that, the sun just felt nice, calming, rejuvenating. It beat the fake light indoors in an office any day of the week.

  Recalling what Alex had said to her about the privacy of this place, along with the fact that Alex really didn’t have any tan lines, got Taryn to thinking. She looked behind herself, she looked side to side, and she did all over again just to be sure she was alone. Then, reaching behind her back, she undid her top and she shifted out of it, balling it up and putting it on the edge of her blanket. After that, she rolled her bottoms down just a bit to expose her crack to the sun.

  This made her feel adventurous, risky, happy. Sunbathing there half-nude brought a smile to Taryn’s face. It made her feel just that much more free.

  Taryn remembered what her life had been like before she broke down at work. She had been feeling alone for quite some time. Although she had the accoutrements of a successful life, those things didn’t really feel like much after she grew used to them. Sure, it was nice when she went out and bought a new car, but after about a month or so she became accustomed to driving it and it just became a conveyance. Similarly, buying nice clothing assuaged some of the anxiety for a while, but once an item had been in her closet for a few weeks, it just became her wardrobe. All these things felt so superficial, really. And who was she buying them for? Was she trying to impress others? Was she trying to impress herself?