There was an ocean of difference between the climate we left and the one we flew home to; for that reason, I was glad to be back but, when I entered my apartment I felt very alone. I laid in bed and wondered if and when I’d see Brooke again. The cool Pacific air rustled through the leaves of the trees outside my second-story windows and facilitated a much-needed private sleep.

           When I awakened I was not entirely refreshed and optimistic so I went to the beach. As soon as my feet met the firm sand, I spun my legs as fast as I could until I reached the edge of the water. Five miles later, I could accept the reality at hand.

          A month later, I drove to the airport to pick up Brooke. I was a bit late and I walked right past her. When she called out my name, I barely recognized her. Her hair was more yellow-blonde and softly curly because it was not molded to her head as it was the night we engaged in acts of concupiscence in her car. She looked so cute I could not take my eyes off her; only the immense duck-billed dinosaur on display in the lobby was impressive enough to gain my attention away from her. We posed for pictures alongside the skeletal foot of the Mesozoic monster.

          Driving home, I had difficulty concentrating. Brooke stared at me, and asked me questions, and teased me, and squirmed in her seat, and looked around. I began to wonder if the thumb-sucking was a car thing, or a nervous thing, or both. When we arrived at my apartment, she wanted to stay outside momentarily because she thought the air was the freshest she had ever breathed, just as I did my first time in San Francisco.

          Purposely, I left the lights on so I wouldn’t have to conspicuously go around and set a mood. If Brooke’s entrance was any indication, I succeeded; she waltzed in, dropped her bag on the floor, and plopped down on the couch as if she was a frequent visitor. Facing me, she folded her legs underneath her erect torso; she looked like a pedestal supporting a majestic bust. After I told her how beautiful her shoulders were, she removed her blouse, uncovering them and a shimmering camisole, as soft as her skin. I was amazed at the ease with which she undressed her intent. Her body was like a classical work of art, but unlike a statue portraying human perfection, it changed positions. Together that night, we filled a gallery.

          In the morning we headed for the North Coast. The Golden Gate Bridge was especially impressive this early in the day; poised in a backdrop of ocean water, blue skies, golden blankets of grass, and mountainous hills of gray-colored rock, one would think that it was named for a golden age, because seeing it educed a feeling of happiness, peace, and prosperity.

          I took the Alexander exit to Sausalito. The climate, vegetation, and homes nestled in the hills, reminded Brooke of the Mediterranean. We drove through Sausalito and continued on to Mill Valley and over Mount Tamalpais. On the winding and narrow road alongside rocky outcrops and forests of trees, we descended upon the long stretch of Stinson Beach. The waves, wispy like cirrus clouds, flowed in feathery layers that painted the shoreline with a wide stroke of white.

          We drove on, through a gentler terrain to the National Seashore and my favorite beach, replete with wildlife, marshy grasses, and dunes of powdery light sand. Along its magnificent expanse, we found a very private spot to continue what we were interrupted from doing in the bathhouse at Stinson.

          It was a long day in the car. The alternative coastline drive home was awesomely beautiful, but the centrifugal force its curvaceous route applied to our bodies, was tiring. While I showered, Brooke wrote me a note.

"I am blown away by your apartment. I think there are two significant things: one is the lighting and the other is your rocks. The lighting is symbolic of you -- quiet and tasteful. You’ve given attention to a detail in life that not many consider important. It is perhaps left to poets and the like. Lighting is such a sensitive additive to the environment, and it influences the emotional atmosphere in one direction or the other. It is clear which way you want to go."

On the other hand, I was “blown away” by how energetic and uninhibited Brooke was in bed; by far, she was the sexiest of anyone with whom I’d been. She made it very clear which way she wanted to go.

          It was a dream-filled night before we awoke on Saturday morning. There was no equivocation about what to do once we got out of bed. We fell into the magnetic draw coming from the direction of 24th Street, however, we never made it past “the Castro.” The population density of girls there, was more than I would have imagined, and I never thought we’d run into two of my ex-girlfriends! Brooke wanted to hear the stories behind the breakups with each. I wasn’t keen on talking about them or my past, for that matter. I wanted to make fun in the moment.

          The best place with that notion in mind was at my best friend Tab’s place. A person couldn’t ask for more -- truly a Shangri-la on a Lafayette hillside, his place was a dwelling fit for the gods; it so happened that I was the sole metaphorical-god on the premises from time to time, and this was one of them, as Tab and his partner Thomas, were on safari. I needed to check on things and do some watering, so it was good timing that a drive over the Bay Bridge, was in order and on the way.

          It was steamy hot when we arrived and we wasted no time getting poolside. We boarded the raft that Tab and I named “Behemoth” because it was so monstrous and impenetrable, we thought you could float down the American River on it, not to mention the ordeal it was to inflate. Brooke jumped up and down on it and exclaimed, “You could have sex standing-up on this hippo!”

          Distant but distinct man-made sounds echoed-up in the warm air rising from below. Squirrels ran to and from the walnut tree, along-top of the redwood rail enclosing the pool’s deck. Hummingbirds hovered and butterflies fluttered over the flower garden beside us. Meanwhile, we floated in the rays greased in coconut oil and made fun in the moment. It was first-things-first, and then Brooke prodded me to tell her about the girls we saw earlier. She wanted to hear about Kristen, the “really pretty one with the green eyes” like hers, first. I began:

"Things changed during our trip to Yosemite. The whole weekend was a nightmare, literally and otherwise. I rented a house in the park but, in spite of having a map from the owner, we couldn’t find the place. It was like doing a math problem that you just can’t figure out where you went wrong. As daylight turned to dusk, it was more like a math test where you have too many problems to do in too little time. The darker it got, the more I became the object of Kristen’s exasperation with my ostensible ineptness in reading the map, and the more difficult it became for me to concentrate. Finally, I thought that the map must have been drawn as if we’d be coming from the south rather than from the north, and thankfully, my hunch was right. Kristen’s demeanor changed about as much as our location on the map once she saw the house -- it was no disappointment by any measure except for that I noticed it didn’t have a very effective lock. That, along with the fact that it was large, unfamiliar, and very isolated must have triggered my basic survival instinct because that night I was plagued by what could have happened. In my fitfulness I’d let out a fearful moan, awakening Kristen, who in turn would shake me awake. First I had a dream that someone was trying to break in, in which I’d struggle to move or talk but, I couldn’t. My sleep paralysis was repetitive for about three times and then the stalker became a bear that was trying to get in through the bedroom window. By that time, Kristen had cramps and was awake and moaning, so I was able to sleep thereafter because I knew she’d be awake to watch out for insane people or hungry rogue bears."

Brooke gasped, almost choking on her thumb when I mentioned the lock, and giggled at intervals during my story. I continued:

"The next day, I saved her life. It was as if my dreams were an omen portending danger. After our hike to Nevada Falls, we were walking back to the car and I heard the engine of a car revving-up across the way from us. All of a sudden, it turned around and sped in our direction and directly at us. Kristen wasn’t paying attention, and just in time, I grabbed her and pulled her out of the way. Thereafter, she sort of revered me and treated me as her hero, and I kind of forgot about how unduly unkind she became when we couldn’t find the place. We kept seeing each other, and if anything, our relationship improved until the day we had a conversation about someone we both knew named Priss. I mentioned that I had a short affair with Priss, and that’s when Kristen discovered that Priss’s affair with me was during the time when they had been lovers. It was news to me that they were involved to that extent, but it didn’t matter; Kristen’s adulation turned to resentment, and our relationship could not withstand the taint of a love-triangle."

          Brooke was getting-in some serious sucking time, so to get a response of “get out” at one point, was major. When I told her that there was a lost-and-in-a-love-triangle story about Sharon, the other girl we saw in the Castro, her comment was “have mercy.” At that time, however, we both needed a break, so we disembarked “Behemoth” and went up to the house. We sat at the kitchen table, by the window overlooking the Mount Diablo valley, and slurped on frozen fruit bars to prepare our brain cells for the next story that I warned Brooke, was a bit confusing. To get to the sequence of Sharon, I first had to tell her about Trisha, the other girl in the triangle with us.

"I met Trisha at this club, and let’s just say that she was more attractive the night I met her than she was the next day; so when she was adamant about defining our relationship as “non-monogamous,” it was fine with me if she wanted the freedom to date other people. Apparently however, she didn’t feel it was necessary to inform me that she was already in a year-long relationship with Sharon; I didn’t find that out, until months later. Anyway, Trisha asked me to go to this weekend gathering of women in Humboldt County, five hours north of here -- it was more like a retreat for nudist lesbians. On Saturday night, there was a big party in a large house in the forest and within walking distance from where we were staying with a friend of hers, who also lived there. Well, beneath huge trees at night, you can’t see a millimeter in front of you, and not surprisingly, we got lost in the darkness on our way back. For over an hour we rewalked the same paths, using a tiny flashlight and it’s a miracle that we didn’t get more lost than what we were. Trisha blamed me for not paying enough attention, albeit she was the one who had been there before, and the same who led us there earlier; so why would I think that I needed to mark trees and take note of every twig and stick along the way? She acted like I got her stranded on a deserted island without the possibility of rescue, and she really went berserk when I became amused by her reaction. During her ranting chastisement of me, I immediately adopted the mindset that it would all be over in two days and a very long ride home. When I finally did find the way out of our predicament, she apologized profusely for all the mean and hateful things she said to me. I should have made a clean break and told her to “get lost,” but like an idiot, I kept seeing her. It was a big mistake because, shortly thereafter, when she found out that I spent a night with someone I met from out-of-town, she broke up with me."

          That scenario was a jaw-dropper for Brooke who said “go figure,” and “I guess the fundamental lesson is, don’t get lost with a lesbian in the dark.” I concurred but with the caveat, “and don’t laugh if you do.” We both thought that was pretty funny, but Brooke really lost-it when I said, “Whatever you do, don’t keep going out with someone you’ve gotten lost with, because it’s surely going nowhere.”

          It was so much fun to hang-out in modern luxury at Tab’s paradisal hilltop home; we were fortunate to experience the extreme privacy it had to offer. The clear blue sky encircled us in a virtual Garden of Eden, so delightful as to lend itself to a sense of bliss -- we were on the verge all day.

          That evening we took advantage of our East Bay location and drove the back roads to Berkeley. From the hills we could feel and see that the city was engulfed in fog. I was excited to show Brooke the Berkeley campus, and too, to be going to a new place that just opened for women. Club Gayelle was very happening, and this Saturday night was true-to-form. Its state-of-the-art modern design was all the allure needed. Never mind the alcohol, the music and sheer number of girls all in one place, was all the seduction necessary. We danced until we were drenched.

           There was an undeniable chill in the air when we left. As soon as we got back, we showered outside and got into the hot tub. In the elliptically-shaped pool of pulsing water, we were suspended below a star-filled sky. We alternated between the hot and cool water before going up to bed. As we lay beside one another, we each were the center of the other’s universe. Brooke pulled me on top of her, before we closed the windows of our observatories for the night.

          In the early morning, Brooke nudged me awake. We planned to do some sightseeing in San Francisco while it would still be in slumber. We traversed the quiescent city from east to west, in mainly a drive-by tour. At Baker Beach, the pelicans were like a school of fish, there were so many flying in v-shaped patterns diving vertically into the water, disappearing under the surface and resurfacing to repeat their performance over and over again. At Ocean Beach, fishermen almost evenly spaced as if territorial, were vigilant beside their bending poles supported in the firm sand of low-tide. We walked under the canopy of their lines. Huge piles of smooth rocks had been heaped onto the shore. It was like this gargantuan body of water had a personality and I felt love for it, and friendship with it, much the same way I think that surfers do. Today it gave us the gift of rocks. The surfers could not have cared less -- they walked past the massive mounds without taking notice of them; their ocean’s gifts were the waves which tossed them in the air like confetti -- yellow and blue and red specks of celebration.

          We, conversely, were not all that celebratory being that Brooke would be standing on the Atlantic, rather than the Pacific Coast, the following day. A sense of urgency to make fun in the moment, once again drove us to Tab’s for one more afternoon of heaven-on-earth.

          My encore destination to capture the essence of the fog was under the Golden Gate Bridge, at Fort Point, at night. Under the circumstances, it was difficult to venture out, but we did nonetheless. The scene was one of being near-sighted, as the low fog hazed-out the headlands and the bridge directly above us. A massive iron-link chain stood between us and the surging water and boulders at our feet. An accidental slip could lead to our demise. The waves splashed up as if attempting to swallow us into the cavernous body of the bay. At regular intervals, the penetrating blasts of the foghorn seemed to come from the unseen structure as if it was a brutish roar of an elusive beast. Two higher-pitched sounds, followed by a short pause, then two more and a pause, preceded a long and deeper tuba-range sound: dee . . . . . ., dee . . . . . !, dee . . . . . ., dee . . . . . .! bah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ! sounded out, startling us at first, and then, soothing and reassuring us in an eerie sort of way. A ship propelled through the water and blared its arrival like a response to rival competition. We were alone, and increasingly, the setting resembled that of one conducive to murder. We got in the car, rolled up the windows, locked the doors, and drove away excitedly euphoric for having escaped imaginary imminent danger.

          In the morning, I drove Brooke to the airport. That night, I found a note under my pillow.

"Dearest Sapph,

          At this moment, you are swearing in the bathroom because you dropped your contact lens in the sink. Oh, how will I ever tell you how you move me?

          You are an incredible person. Your beauty is multi-faceted and ever so deep. When you have been silly, it was a pleasure to hear your sheer joy and connection to being alive. When you were quiet and thoughtful, I saw your introspectfullness. When you interacted with those around you, I saw your graciousness and gentleness.

          I love how you move so fluidly when you walk. Did I tell you I like the way you cook and eat? I do. Our love making is a whole other thing. To picture that part of your expression, makes me crazy.

          Thank you for all that you did for me this weekend -- nothing went unnoticed. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

With love and gratitude,

Brooke"

          Brooke was more fun than anyone with whom I’d been. It was this weekend of laughter and unremitting sex, the randiest, that I reached escape velocity. I was in orbit, head over heels, yet, I felt like there was a stiletto in my heart.

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