Gwen, in Green

She left her pride behind. Low-­hanging branches beat her face. Breathing hard, she veered off the trail and crashed through the brush. She slowed as she heard the voices of the two men, managed to look almost normal as she emerged from the brush onto the damp, black mud of the creek bank. Her slacks had a rip in the leg and there was a scratch on her cheek. George seemed not to notice her agitation. He had broken off a blade of marsh grass from the creek’s edge and was chewing it thought­fully. His coarse blond hair was mussed from walking through the woods. His shirt was darkened by perspira­tion. He stood with his legs apart. He was a stocky, masculine, handsome man, beautiful in Gwen’s eyes. He winked a brown eye at her, chewed his blade of grass, kicked at a fallen log. She laughed, tensions relieved. Last week he had chewed a toothpick while kicking the tire of a new M.G. sportster. At her laugh, as if he knew, he grinned at her in that way he had and, as always, it made her feel warm and melty inside.

“So you know the situation,” the real estate man was saying. “If it weren’t for what those bastards”—he paused and looked quickly at Gwen—“are doing you couldn’t touch this piece of land for a fraction of what we’re asking.”

A crackling in the brush behind her turned Gwen’s head. The opossum had followed her. It came out onto the black mud and paused, swaying, hissing, dripping saliva.

“I’m not saying it will be quiet around here for the next couple of years,” the real estate man said. “But if you know the problems and can accept them it’s a helluva buy.”

“No, Gwen,” George said. “I absolutely refuse.” It was an old joke between them. The real estate man looked at Gwen blankly, resenting her intrusion into his sales pitch. Gwen giggled nervously at the phrase, which was repeated each time she looked pityingly at a stray dog or cat.

The opossum surveyed them, hissed, advanced di­rectly toward Gwen. She moved closer to her husband. “George?”

“Now you’re not afraid of a little old ’possum,” George said. “Not the fearless tamer of fierce, wild pussycats.”

“Hey,” the real estate man said, as the opossum con­tinued to move hissingly toward Gwen’s legs. He moved rapidly, seizing a hefty fallen limb.

“George,” Gwen wailed, as the animal made a lunge which she avoided by skipping aside.

The real estate man put his shoulder into the blow, breaking the opossum’s back. It struggled, feet and neck jerking. He hit it again and again until it was still. Then he poked it with his stick, turning it over. “Female,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Funny way for a ’possum to act,” George said, his arm around a shivering Gwen.

“Rabid, probably,” the real estate man said. “Had a couple of rabid foxes earlier.”

Gwen shuddered. It was a terrible way to christen their new home site.

2

“George,” she said sleepily, her breath hot on his neck, “now that you’re rich, will you leave me for some pretty young girl?”

They were in George’s lazy position, she sprawled atop, her breasts soft and hot against his chest. He liked to lie that way for a long time.

“Maybe I won’t leave you,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just hire a hot-­and-­cold-­running French maid.”

“I’ll kill you,” she promised.

“You already have,” he said, moving his loins. “No life at all left in the poor little beggar.”

“Serves him right for being greedy,” she said.

“You only complain afterwards,” George said.

“That’s bragging, not complaining,” she said.

The room air conditioner activated its compressor with a whang and a bellow. In the new house there would be a central unit, quiet, efficient.

She tried to concentrate on the new house, envisioning its spacious rooms, trying to see in her mind the view from the balcony: dark, tidal Possum Creek and the wide, gray-­green marsh.

It was not cool. Where their bare bodies made contact there was a slight stickiness, a damp feeling. Yet, feeling uncomfortable as the fires within her banked and the sex-­induced amnesia faded, she reached for the sheet, pulled it over her legs and rounded rump. George sighed, but said nothing.

“It’s sinful,” she said.

“Humm.”

“In bed in the afternoon,” she said.

“Delightfully sinful,” he said.

At least she could tease about it now. She had made progress in seven years of marriage.

George dozed. He made a funny little buzzing sound in his throat. She was alone. Softened, he was still inside her, but she was alone and, although she had come a long way to be able to lie thus, she still felt more at ease with the sheet over her. Underneath the light covering, body heat made for perspiration. And in her mind, underneath the comfortable blanket of her love for George, she felt the old shame grow.

“Don’t think about it,” she told herself.