Gwen, in Green

But one can get to know a house during construction. George and Gwen had a routine. Breakfast, when they waked naturally, a drive to the house site to see who was working, a day spent in idle, happy activity, and then a trip back through the woodlands in the late evening, with the sun low and the second-­growth denseness becoming dark and forbidding. They’d walk through the house and dis­cuss progress. George would walk around it, admiring it. As it took shape, he was more than pleased.

It was an attractive house. Long, low, it had multiple roof lines, lots of glass, stone for accent, brick for color, and stained wood for texture. The bedroom end of the house snuggled next to the sandy shore of the clear pond. George was endlessly anxious to see the balcony added, but the contractor saved it for last.

It was growing chill. The rented house had poor heat, just baseboard electric units which, when turned on, promptly blew a fuse. Fortunately, the weather held. November was a glory, nights cool and making for good cuddling in bed, but the days were pure Indian Summer. The rains were less frequent than usual, allowing for full­time work. Gwen began moving her furniture in in early December. The rural electric cooperative had run a line along the old right of way; a line had once extended up the point to the burned house, which had stood just a few hundred yards away from the new building. The house was heated now. It was lighted. It was cozy and huge and empty, and one evening, before the moving began, while there was nothing in the house but huge expanses of red carpet, George gathered fat pine kindling and wood and built a fire. “I christen thee George’s House of Lust,” he grinned, bumping beers with Gwen before attacking her playfully and rolling her in front of the roaring fire on the thick, red carpet. She fought playfully, but gave in, her feeling for him overflowing. At first, she was uncomfort­able, felt the old shame and dirt as he exposed her, growing more intense, but still growling playfully as he removed her slacks and panties, undid her bra, pushed it up under her neck.

The floor was hard. She kept thinking that someone would walk up. Every light in the house was on. There were large expanses of glass. She kept turning her head to look at the black glass and the darkness beyond and didn’t achieve. George did. Then he prowled, bare, over the house, drinking beer and admiring the barren beauty of the rooms. She envied him. He was the original model for a happy fellow, no worries, no hang-­ups, just a heart very easily made glad. Since she had the same things, plus George himself, why couldn’t she loosen up, enjoy his ribald, happy sex, and forget everything but the new house, George, and her luck?

George didn’t want any lawn to mow. The contractor sent in a crew, picked up the building debris, smoothed the earth, and left it natural. Falling leaves covered the bare areas, making it look as if the house had been there not just weeks but years. And George had his balcony. It was built on two pre-­stressed concrete pillars which had been sunk into the very edge of the clear pond. The balcony extended out some twenty feet, riding on huge cypress beams. It was six feet above the water and reached to the quickly shelving depths of the pond. It made an excellent diving platform. Below it, to shore up the bank of the pond, there was a brick patio on a concrete slab with an outdoor grill.

In the house there were two bedrooms, one of them behind the balcony and huge, the other suitable for guests and, in the future, for a nursery. There were three baths, one in each bedroom and one in the big playroom, which housed a pool table, a ping-­pong table, a dart game, a poker table, and a stereo set for parties. There was a large room for George’s personal use, and a room with northern glass exposure which was, temporarily, a TV room, but which could be converted into a studio if Gwen ever got serious enough about her hobby of painting to want such a work area. There was a combination kitchen-­dining room, separated by dark, beautifully rubbed cabinets, and a very large main room with its glass wall looking toward the marsh, which was visible only through chinks in the solid growth of trees. Then there were storage areas, an ap­pliance room, a closed garage, and cypress decks off the front.

Approaching the house was always an experience for Gwen. The woodland had not been disturbed, save for widening the old timber road. Then, suddenly, stone and stained wood and glass and brick appeared in tantalizing flashes through the trees, and then one was in the circular drive, and it was breathtaking. She loved it. She felt very warm toward it. She’d watched it grow from bare bones, she knew every piece of wood in it, and she felt so much at home in it that she would walk the length of the house, in darkness, without so much as a tremor.