A Little Woodland Onanism

(from "A Summer Place")

When I wasn't swimming or reading, and my wife was nestled in the cabin, immersed in one of her mysteries, I was off by myself in the woods. Ever since puberty, my relationship with forests has been erotic. When first I practiced the art and science of masturbation, the woods were my closest ally. I'd stand hidden in their musty darkness, jeans wrapped around my ankles, gripping myself with one hand while holding for balance onto a tree-trunk with the other, all the while gazing up at the limbs swaying against the cloud-shifting sky overhead. I'd imagine rivulets trickling into streams flowing into rivers dividing at tributaries, lapping against the wall of a giant dam to form a magnificent lake, then the dam would burst and the water would come crashing down a mountainside, and then everything would be reversed, until nothing remained but a few drops dripping from my left hand. (Yes, I'm left-handed; did you guess?)

I used to wonder if there was something seriously wrong with me, going off into the woods like that rather than doing it at home locked in the john with a copy of Playboy like a normal, red-blooded kid. Was I a pervert, some sort of forest-fucking-freak? As I grew older I curbed my habit, keeping it down to once or twice a year, usually in the spring, with the buds bursting on the trees and me not able to contain myself. Mine was a secret and happy affair I was sure I'd never be able to bring out into the open and share (though I often tried to write about it, pieces with facetious titles like "My Secret Life in the Woods or How I Got That Mosquito Bite on My Dick".)

Now here I was contemplating an act of gross infidelity.

Now here I was, alone with my old flame again, only married now, scarcely an acre between me and my faithful wife, contemplating an act of gross infidelity. Was I that fickle; could I trust myself so little? Was I no better at all than my father with his treacherous affairs?

I stepped over fallen tree trunks, peered into dark, moldering crevasses, saw lichen clinging to boulders of granite in patina-colored patches, mushrooms and ferns sprouting in deep shadows, all around me the rich, thick odor of earth. It was too much for me. Finding a hidden space between two enormous rocks, I undid my belt, pulled down my pants. Taking several deep breaths like a diver about to plunge into unknown depths, I pumped away fiercely, my eyes closed, leaf-dappled sunlight painting vivid landscapes on my eyelids. I thought of the million eyes of the forest watching me, and came in a half-dozen thick spurts, thinking myself wildly, extravagantly, marvelously disgusting.

Back at the cottage I found Paulette snuggled in the wicker chair, deeply buried in her Mary Higgins Clark, her face a study of innocent concentration, completely oblivious of my sylvan trespass.

She'd just have to forgive me.