They say that time moves slower in the South. The tea is sweeter, the women are prettier, and the sun is hotter than all the world. The sky is the bluest it has ever been and the greenest grass in the country stretches far beyond the horizon. As a breeze blows through the peach trees on the other side of your landlady's fence, you wish it could reach you in the confines of the porch.
You've come to this summer home every year since you were six. You've been coming for as long as your father could afford to send you away and by now, you sit almost comfortably in the thick, dense heat. This year it is hotter than any summer you can remember and, if you had been brought up with the church, you might think God was punishing you for some wickedness.
The fence is white, newly painted and clean. When you arrive in May, the paint is always faded. An entire fall, winter, and spring of storms has washed away it's gleam. Your landlady hires someone in the summer, a woman, who does work around the house and repaints the fence. Now, at the end of June, when the storms are at their worst, your landlady's helper paints the fence in front of you damn near every day and you wonder how she gets any other chores done.
You're related to your landlady somehow, that's why your room and board are almost free. She keeps you on a tight schedule. Every day at one o'clock, when the sun is just past its peak, you walk outside to the porch with your embroidery things and sit in an old rocking chair that knows you well. When you were six, the chair was giant. Now, the seat is faded from years of your body and your feet rest firmly on the ground.
As you lean forward to dig your hands into your kit and search for your thread, your white linen dress sticks to your back like a memory, glued to your slick skin. It is hot and you usually only sweat this much at night when your bed gets too full and the heat of another warms you to burning. The back of your hand uselessly swipes your forehead as you sit back, resting against the chair and longing for a hint of the breeze you saw only moments before.
After all this time, your hands can embroider without your brain. The thin metal point of your needle pushes against the firm cotton, bursting through to the other side. The string pulls taut and the needle pivots, pushing back the other way and bursting through once again.
You're finishing the greenery. In front of you, the landlady's helper is missing, and you have a clear view of the peach trees on the other side of the fence. You make this tree every year and every year you count the peaches that hang from the branches.
The trees around your landlady's fence bear more fruit than could ever be eaten or sold. Knowing that helps you feel less guilty when you wake up in the morning to a basket full of peaches beside your bed.
Once, on a particularly glorious escape, you tore your dress on the freshly painted fence and draped the ripped top layer of your lavender-colored skirt on a low hanging branch. It sat like an anchor through the night and drew you to return before sunrise. When you woke the next morning, it was hung over a chair, the rip mended and a basket of peaches beneath it as an apology.
Sliding your feet out of the covers, you put them down onto the cool, wooden floors and carefully, quietly, crossed the room to your window. Outside, in the morning light, was the landlady's helper, sanding the fence. The promise of a smoother escape hung in the air between your window and the peach tree.
Most mornings you woke to a basket of peaches. It always held a note, cradled like a lover, that spoke of moonlight and starlight and featherlight kisses. You can remember teaching her how to write, her sloppy hand still carries hints of your own in its loops.
You glance down at your work, wondering if this year, you'll put peaches in your tree. The porch creaks and you look up, hoping your landlady's helper has come to paint the fence. There is no one. On the other end of the porch, a chair rocks on its own and you feel like you have missed something while you were lost in thought.
The hair on your arms raises and you crane your neck to look at the sky. From your seat, you see nothing, but the electric charge in the air tastes like thunder and you put your work aside. There are weeks left in your trip and the tree will get done.
Your wooden chair groans and creaks as you stand and your dress swishes around you, not reaching the porch's splintered planks. The landlady must have gone inside, you think, or she would be measuring the space between the floor and your skirt, commenting on your latest growth spurt, telling you men do not like tall women. You never think of men.
The thump of your boots on the floor as you cross to the railing that separates the porch from the yard is muffled in the charged air. There will be a storm before the day is done and your heart hurts to think your landlady's helper will not paint the fence for you today. Even without the certainty of rain, it's almost two o'clock and when the hour turns you will change tasks.
Two o'clock brings with it deportment. Your mouth waters in anticipation of sweet tea and cookies, apricot jam and honey butter. There is a small pocket in your sleeve that hides treats for your helper. The basket that begins its day full of peaches, ends it full of sweets.
Lightning strikes across a field and a breeze just kisses your arms. The railing is rough and hot beneath your skin. Your landlady would be cross that the sleeves she painstakingly lengthened have been pushed to the elbow, but you like the extra movement and you refuse to be confined. The porch creaks again.
This time when you look, she is there. Your landlady's helper leans against a thick support, her ankles crossed and one hand tucked into a pocket. She wears pants, the helper does, long and wide and practical. Her belt cinches her waist and you know for a fact that she always wears it on the fourth notch. Your lover is small.
Her hair is dark, long and thick and soft enough to make anyone jealous. She looks you over with her large, black eyes and the air thickens with moisture and heat and anticipation. A feral grin spreads across her face and it is all you can do to grip the rough, wooden railing and keep yourself in place.
The years have been kind to her. Every summer, when you meet in this place, she is more beautiful than the last. She tells you the same thing, but you know you cannot compete with her beauty, she is a goddess and you are only human. Dragging your eyes across her glistening collarbone, you see what is firmly grasped in her other hand.
It is a peach. Your mouth waters at the thought of its sweetness and the remembered feel of it bursting over your lips. A peach always feels cold when your mouth is on it and your landlady's helper is already sweating.
Maybe you lost a couple of seconds, maybe the heat has made you crazy, but suddenly you find yourself right in front of her. The smell of her, paint and sweat and sweet, hits you like a hammer and your vision blurs. Every winter, when you're wrapped in a thousand layers and still cold, you vow to leave your father and his business and never return to where he's sent you, but then you remember her and your promise.
Just the thought of her is enough to warm you in the coldest of places. The imagined feeling of her hands on your body melt the cold away and you sweat. When you are far from her and this porch and that fence, you imagine her and run your hands down your body, retrace her steps, and you can taste the sweet firm-smoothness of peaches running down your throat.
She is watching you now, here, in this heat. Her hooded eyes lazily trail their way across your face. They follow a sweat drop as it rolls down your throat and slides into your linen shirt, almost sheer. Your landlady's helper has seen you at all stages, but her eyes still burn holes in your skin and you feel like madness.
Her hand rises and she brushes her peach on her shirt. The soft scratch sounds like thunder in your ears and it's moments before you realize there is real thunder in the world, drowning out everything else. Lightning strikes closer now and a hard breeze plows into you like a boulder. You shiver as it whips sweat from your body.
The peach moves to her mouth and you watch her jaw work, a bright flash of white teeth, and then a crunch. The world slows to a crawl and you watch rivers of juice stream from her mouth. They wash over her neck like a baptism and you long to have your sins washed clean.
Her skin is salty and sweet when your tongue runs over it. Strong hands push into her hair and hold her head in place as you drink from her neck. She breathes above you. A dull thump somewhere tells you she has dropped the peach and strong, firm arms wrapping around your waist confirm it.
Sameen tastes like absolution. You suck in air, pull your teeth away from her pulse and sink them into her lip. Her groan is like redemption. Every noise she makes sounds like forgiveness even if you know not what you've done. You release her mouth and she follows you, chases you until you let her have you and you're connected again.
She tastes like bravery. The lightning strikes closer, the thunder rumbles the frail wooden porch, and she pushes you into the railing. It is firm and hard at your back and she is strong and ready at your front. Her hands move to your buttons and rip them open and she brands you with her kisses.
Inside your dress, her hands claw at your skin, but you don't let go of her hair, your one measure of control. Dimly, you wonder what you taste like to her. Does your skin whisper pardons? When she pushes your skirts up and sinks her fingers inside of you, does it feel like redemption?
She wraps your leg around her, hooks one arm around your back, and moves inside of you. You stare into her eyes as your body moves and you wonder what your dark-eyed lover is thinking. She is a mystery most of the time, but now, as her mouth hangs open and a flush colors her cheeks, you know she is here in this moment with you.
Your body begins to melt and a final crack of thunder signals the beginning of the storm. As your body shatters, the rain hits you and you finally get relief from the summers punishing heat. Sameen's hands disappear from around you, returning a moment later to close your buttons.
You don't help, you never do. Maybe you think if you resist, the two of you can stay together longer. If you pretend like it isn't over, then no one has to leave. The wind blows the rain onto the porch and your dress is truly see through now. You smell like sweat and sex and peaches.
She watches you with quiet eyes, leaving the choice up to you. The red of her neck begs you to take her, her full lips plead with you, her panting chest implores you. You look over your shoulder at the storm and you say a quick prayer that you'll make it home safely.
You offer her your hand, trembling and pale, and she takes it, threading her fingers through yours and holding you like a vow. Your landlady's helper races away, tearing you from the porch and the house and your things. The grass of the yard squelches beneath your feet as you close the distance to the fence.
Your ex-landlady's ex-helper has been working on the fence all summer and, under the cover of the storm, it opens quickly and silently and smoothly. None of your clothing gets caught or torn and you both run past the first peach tree with grins on your faces. You have never tried to escape during the day before. You have never tried to escape in the rain.
You have never escaped with the taste of peaches in your mouth like a promise.