He held the deep orange fruit in his hand, palming its smooth skin. “No, not quite ripe yet,” he muttered, a smile arcing across his tapered lips. “Has to be even softer,” and he set it back into the green bowl on the window sill, tucked between the bananas, apples, and a lemon. “You’ve really never tasted a persimmon?” he asked me a second time in disbelief. “They remind me of Italy, of my grandfather’s house where the fruits drip from the trees. You eat them just like that,” and he pantomimed the plucking of one, and then its consumption.

So we waited.

In the morning he woke before me. He carefully unbraided our legs and turned over to watch me sleeping, my swollen lips puffing outward with each breath, my long, tangled hair spiraled out around my face a mane. He pulled down the sheet, slowly exposing nipples, then soft curves of belly and hips, the tufts of curls. Later I was told I slept deeply, a tiny thread of saliva at the corner of my open mouth. He had leaned close to me and shut his eyes. The pungent smell of morning breath as he neared my face reminded him of the sharp smell of cut grass. He breathed in all of my smells: the faint smell of lily at my neck, the warm musk of my underarms, my sex, like salt.

I snored gently for several breaths until my own sounds startled me awake. His face was only inches from mine. I laughed, self-conscious, and pushed him away, cupping my mouth with my free hand.

“Good morning Darlin’,” he whispered.

“Morning. That wasn’t nice.”

“What,” he asked innocently, and I realized he hadn’t judged. This was my friend, after all.

He kissed me, sliding his tongue into my mouth playfully, caressing me with his warm hands. Then he pulled the sheet and blanket up over my body and stepped onto the floor.

“Be right back,” he said, tall, graceful form filling the doorway. Big grin, crooked teeth, tousled dark hair, long limbs, love. I listened to him pee, skip downstairs, then up. He kept one hand behind his back as he climbed into bed. He thrust his hand toward me, filled with orange surprise. He passed me its unblemished, tender body to smell and touch. Warm from the summer sun pouring in the large kitchen window.

“That’s how a persimmon should feel,” he declared as I handed it back to him. He cut into it with a sharp knife, peeling back a wedge of orange so deep it was almost red, glistening with ripeness, with juice. He held the outer edges of its peel and offered it to me, bringing it to my mouth so I could pull its bounty onto my tongue. It seemed to almost fall away from its tender skin, as if waiting to be had, waiting for me, more patient than I am.

It had a gentle sweetness, lightly perfumed, subtly sour, even. But what struck me most about it was its likeness to my lover’s tongue, unlike any other I have felt, so slippery it is almost slimy, although not grotesque.

“You are my persimmon,” I said after the fruit had slid down my throat. “Your tongue, the same texture, and you, I must also be patient enough to enjoy.”

He liked this and fed me some more. And then he kissed me again, persimmon tongue mixing in with the vibrant fruit.

-end-

Written 2007

Persimmon

Travels, stays, (mostly stays these days) explorations of the heart and life.