From: char@chaffin.com   
      
   NO ARCHIVE   
      
      
      
   THOSE SUMMER HOURS   
   By Char Chaffin   
   MSR, Post-Col, Vignette Scenes, 2nd person POV   
   Rating:  R   
   Disclaimer:  Clones on Loan   
   Spoilers:  After "The Truth"   
      
   Thanks to:  The Preview Squad!!  Tess, Sallie, Carol, Robin and   
   Donna!  You ladies, as always, ROCK!   
      
   Dedicated:  To NancyBratt (who really is more of an angel than a   
   brat!), with much love and caring -   
      
      
   "Those Summer Hours"   
      
      
   ~~  July, 2005  ~~   
      
      
   Scene One:  Morning Sun   
      
      
   There's a shimmer over the yard, glistening on the dew, trembling on   
   the leaves of the old red maple tree.  This early in the morning the   
   only sounds to be heard are birdsong, high and sweet in the still,   
   already-humid air.  It's warm in the house, in this room, in your   
   bed.  You awaken with the damp of your sweat already collecting on   
   your bare flesh, the pillow beneath your head smelling of shampoo.   
      
   Her shampoo.   
      
   On her side next to you, one hand curled under her cheek, she sleeps   
   deeply.  Her hair is a tangled mass on the faded blue pillow, her   
   shoulders where they rise from the wrinkled sheet lightly freckled   
   and peach-tanned from long hours in the garden.  Her nails are short   
   and a little ragged.  She probably forgot to wear her gloves.  She   
   often does, in her eagerness to get outside and dig her hands into   
   the rich garden earth.   
      
   You rest your head on your own pillow and your sleepy eyes gaze at   
   her, your waking thought as always centered around the wonder of her   
   in your life, that in your most undeserving moments she's yours, at   
   your side, loving you.  Taking care of you.   
      
   It's not an easy life you've pegged for yourself and dragged her   
   into.  There's no money and no frills for her; no pretty dresses and   
   fancy high-heeled shoes.  She cuts her own hair, as she cuts yours.   
   There are no funds for trips to the beauty parlor or appointments for   
   manicures and such.  Even if there were any services like that   
   available...   
      
   She has no makeup to wear and she never complains about it because   
   she knows how you adore that lovely face of hers when it's scrubbed   
   clean, when any pink on her cheeks has been put there by the sun and   
   wind, maybe a blush now and then.   
      
   The farm is small with enough crop acreage to assure you won't   
   starve.  You have just enough to survive and you wish like hell it   
   was a hundred times more.  She deserves a hundred times more... but   
   she never complains.   
      
   All around you, the world has gone mad; big cities have toppled and   
   government as you know it has ceased to exist.  The war rages, on   
   distant shores as well as on patriotic soil.  You have buried   
   yourselves in the deep, high mountains, far away from civilization,   
   in a forgotten place.  Looking out your window it could be the mid-   
   eighteenth century as easily as the twenty-first.  You cook and heat   
   with wood, light your lamps with kerosene out of a huge barrel that   
   you found behind the barn... bathe in a copper tub in the corner of   
   the kitchen.  You walk to the privy with a wick-burning lantern in   
   your hands and you keep your perishables in a root cellar deep in the   
   earth beneath your kitchen floor.   
      
   Most of all, you live, as best as you can.  You take care of your   
   woman as she takes care of you.  You wish, how you wish, that it   
   could be more - that you could give her more.  You wish it every day.   
   But there IS no more, and since she's accepted it so easily, then you   
   must do the same.  For as little as you own, still you have so much   
   more than others.   
      
   You have love, strong and pure.  Not many can boast of something so   
   great, not now, not in the maelstrom of this new world.   
      
   The sun rises a little higher in the sky. Soon you'll have to rise   
   as well, and see to the day's chores.  On a place this old and broken   
   down, there's always something that needs fixing, repairing, redoing.   
   As soon as you've repaired one thing, something else falls apart and   
   demands your attention.   
      
   But right now, this moment in the early summer morning, your woman   
   is slowly opening those beautiful eyes of hers, slowly stretching the   
   slender body that sleeps so close to you.  Smiling that perfect   
   smile, hands reaching for you, mouth already parted to take yours.   
   A soft yawn against your shoulder, her warm lips kiss you from your   
   collarbone to your neck, to your jaw and then to your mouth.  And   
   it's as if you've never kissed this woman before in your life; her   
   kisses are that exciting, that wonderful; that necessary to you.  It   
   seems each one is a tiny bit different from the last, so that you're   
   always on the edge, wondering what the next one will taste like.   
   It's a gift, you think... a gift she somehow creates for you each day.   
      
   You wrap her in your arms, your eager body presses her down into the   
   soft feather bed; your smile blooms in reaction to the warmth of her   
   regard, the love you see beaming from those blue, blue eyes... and   
   another summer day has begun, for both of you.   
      
      
      
   Scene Two:  Chores   
      
      
   Here on the mountain there's always a breeze.  Sometimes it's   
   nothing more than a gentle whisper that lightly ruffles the old lace   
   curtains at every window.  Other times it's hard and noisy, whining   
   through the patched screens and bringing with it the smell of   
   pastures, of flora and fauna.  In mid-July you'll take any kind of   
   wind you can get, whether gentle or hard.  Thankfully, today you've   
   got something that's midway between whisper and shriek, enough to   
   keep the black flies away.   
      
   You lean on the scythe and rub your sweaty forehead against your   
   shirt.  The field unrolls before you, rocky in spots, level in   
   others, covered with waist-high hay surprisingly free of clover and   
   dandelions.  Whoever owned this farm before you took it over, kept   
   the hay fields in top condition, something you're grateful for.  It   
   makes it easier for you to swathe your way through the rows, swinging   
   the deadly-sharp scythe, dropping thick reams of hay that will be   
   hand-baled later on.  The calluses on your palms; the random pattern   
   of nicks, splinters, torn nails all tell a story of the kind of man   
   you've become.   
      
   Cutting is simple enough, baling is time-consuming but also easily   
   handled.  What remains most difficult is the lack of viable   
   transportation.  You can't blame the previous owners for the life   
   they led here.  You're still not sure if they were Amish or Quaker,   
   you only know they never had their farm wired for electricity and   
   there isn't a tractor in sight.  You curse them out once in a while,   
   when you need a means of hauling and all you have is a wagon and   
   draft horses.  But then you go to the barn and you see the supplies   
   of oats, the bags of feed - and you have to offer some thanks to the   
   family who lived here, feel sympathy for the way they must have given   
   into their fears and snatched up their children, tore on down the   
   mountain as if the Devil himself might be after them.  They left   
   everything behind, at least those things necessary to work a farm,   
   and you and your woman have benefited from their leavings.   
      
   You look beyond the field you're cutting, suddenly desperate for a   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)