Juniper

With the harvest fair coming up, my dad was on the verge of working himself to death, but he didn't know how to stop himself. Financially, we did very well every year. Afterwards, we hosted a party, and we never knew who would show up. I oversaw horseback riding. For a small fee, people could take a ride along the grounds and witness the spectacular foliage before all the leaves fell off the trees. We only had four horses, which were 'plenty,' according to my dad. Two of the horses used to be my sisters' and one was my dad's. He hadn't ridden in years, but he kept himself busy doing everything else, never one to stop to rest... part of the reason for his heart attack. 

While my dad was toiling in the fields, I was in the chicken coop collecting hundreds of eggs. They'd laid so many, I needed help collecting them all. Dennis, one of the farm employees, took pity on me and offered to help me. "I don't know what we've been feeding them," I said. "I've never seen so many eggs."

"You need to bring more to the school," my dad said, entering the chicken coop.

"I guess I better expand to the middle school," I said.

"I can take over, Dennis," my dad said, taking the basket from him. That was Dennis' cue to leave. It meant my dad wanted to have a serious conversation with me. "So, Juni, where ya been lately?"

"Where have I been? I've been nowhere... just work and here."

"It's not just work and here. You didn't come home the other night."

I stopped collecting eggs and glared at my dad, thinking he'd been keeping tabs on me. He claimed he wanted me to get out and explore things, but whenever I tried to break away, he questioned me and almost panicked as if he was afraid of losing me.

"Are you spying on me?" I asked.

"No, of course not. It's just... well, you've just been different lately. Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"What do you mean by 'different?' And when have I ever been in trouble? Never."

"You seem distracted and you're not a kid anymore, so--"

"Exactly. I'm not a kid anymore."

"Just talk to me, Juni. Remember when we used to talk?"

"We still talk. What do you want to talk about?"  There were a lot of things I wanted to tell him, but I wasn't near ready.

"I'd like to know a little bit about her."

Her. He jumped to the conclusion that I'd finally found myself a girlfriend, and it bothered him that I didn't tell him about her.

But it wasn't a her. Maybe if it was a her, I would have been upfront.

I sighed an exasperated sigh, running my fingers through my already messy hair. "Dad, I need you to respect my privacy. We've only been seeing each for a little over a month and I don't know where it's headed. We like each other. I think we like each other a lot, but I don't know. I'm not in trouble. Just... just... mind your own business. I'm gonna go pack up these eggs."

I'd never been so defensive. I turned my back to my dad and headed out of the chicken coop. "You're using protection, right? Remember our talk."

We had the 'talk' when I was twelve years old. "Dad, I'm gonna be twenty-six. I don't need any more sex talks. I do all right on my own."

"Oh, yeah... right. I sometimes forget you're not a boy anymore." His eyes told me he was about to get super sentimental and nostalgic. "You're a grown man, and I should respect that. You're absolutely right. I guess it'd be nice if you let me... us... into your world."

By 'us,' he meant him and my sisters. I never confided in my sisters the way they hoped I would. They were great at asking me for favors, though.

"Dad, I will. I'm just not ready, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," he said. "Thanks for all your help with the eggs. I don't know what's going on with these chickens. I just wish one would lay a golden egg, right?"

Gabriel was back in Brooklyn for the Yom Kippur holiday or Day of Atonement. I'd done a little reading on Judaism over the past two weeks, trying to understand Gabriel's upbringing. I wished I believed in something, but I wouldn't call myself an atheist. I was more of an agnostic. My parents never discussed religion, believing it was up to us to decide what we wanted to believe. Violet recently spoke to Mom who apparently found religion and was more along the lines of Born Again Christian or Evangelical and was a major right-wing supporter, so I had even less desire to reconnect with her.

Gabriel's faith and heritage were important to him. He had an uncle and some cousins in Israel. He also mentioned a great grandmother and grandfather from Poland who survived the Holocaust and came to the United States after the war. He had other family members who perished in the camps, but he said no one really talked about it.

The two times Gabriel left for Brooklyn I worried that he wouldn't come back. I realized I had abandonment issues of my own I needed to resolve.

But he came back, calling me from his car on his way home. "Look, Juniper, you can say no. No pressure at all, but I was wondering if I could crash at your place this weekend. I'm working at the hospital in Millinocket and your place is more convenient than mine. It's still a forty-five-minute ride, but by Maine's standards that's not far... and I'd really like to see you. I wouldn't mind sharing a bed with you for a couple of nights."

He didn't have to twist my arm, but there was one thing: "But there's a harvest fair on Saturday. I'll be downtown with my dad and there's a huge party at the farm afterwards. It's actually a lot of fun. You can come if you want. There'll be plenty of hard apple cider and blueberry beer."

"I think I might like to come."

"But you don't have to. You can just go to my cabin, and I'll meet you there later."

"We'll see how I feel."

I wasn't sure he'd be able to find the cabin by himself. I gave him the GPS coordinates as well as the address of the farm.  Of course, the farm would be impossible to miss with all the cars parked down the road.

After the fair, I spent most of my time giving horseback riding tours. I only stopped when the sun started to go down. I spotted Tricia, her husband, and newborn son, but I didn't have time to chat, and they were on their way out by the time I got to the real party. We merely waved. At six, the house was still swarming with people. I hadn't even had a minute to talk to my sisters.

"Well, there you are, stranger!" Violet exclaimed, holding eight-month-old Samantha. She handed her to me as if she desperately needed a break. My two nephews and other two nieces were running around outside with the other kids. "How's it going? I hear you're seeing someone."

"Dad has a big mouth," I said, bouncing Samantha in my arms. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Hey, you!" Halina shouted from across the room, holding a glass of wine. She resembled me the most with our Pacific blue eyes. Her hair was also the same color blond as mine. She wore her hair in two French braids as if she was still a little girl instead of twenty-eight. Her exuberance and slightly slurred speech made me think she was on her sixth glass of wine. She walked with her arm hooked around Gabriel's as if she'd just hit the jackpot, finding the doctor-husband she always wanted.

Gabriel held a glass of cider on their way to us, tolerating Halina's flirtatious, drunken personality. I couldn't believe I was jealous! I wanted her to get her hands off him, but I controlled myself. I wished I'd been the one to greet him at the door. However, the doors were wide open, so there were no greeters. I didn't think he'd actually come. "This guy says he's your friend," Halina said.

"Yes... hi," I said to Gabriel. "Uh, Gabriel, this is my sister, Violet and it looks like you've met Halina. And this is my niece, Samantha." I handed the baby back to Violet.

"It's nice to meet you, Gabriel," Violet said. "Are you from around here? I've never seen you before."

"I'm from Brooklyn, New York."

"Oh, really... interesting. How'd you two meet?"

"White water rafting," I answered for him. "He kept falling out of the raft, so we got kind of close. He lives in Bangor."

My brother-in-law, Ryan/Violet's husband, showed up with two glasses of cider. Samantha was then passed on to Halina.  "Hey, I know you," Ryan said to Gabriel. "You're Dr. Benowitz, right?"

"Yes," Gabriel replied.

"It's okay if you don't remember me. I don't expect you to remember all your patients. You were my doctor two months ago when I broke my arm."

"You're a doctor?" Halina asked as if this fact wasn't already established.

"Stop, Halina," I said. "You're embarrassing him."

"Yes, I'm a physician," Gabriel said. "I'm glad your arm's doing better."

My sisters were genuinely intrigued by this mysterious stranger. I'd never introduced them to any of my friends (although I rarely had any) and Gabriel was an outsider, not even from New England and an ER physician, which made him even more intriguing. People often forget that physicians were real people with real feelings and were just as human as everyone else. Physicians weren't gods or superheroes.

Gabriel was a good sport and answered their questions. They were all harmless, inane questions, wondering where he went to school and reasons why he moved to Maine, etc. At one point, the conversation shifted to white water rafting, a passion we all shared, including Ryan who was also a trained river guide.

As the party died down, my dad finally noticed the stranger. He'd been too busy to notice until now. "This is Dr. Benowitz," Halina introduced him.

"Gabriel," Dr. Benowitz said, shaking my dad's hand.

"Ronnie Doiron," my dad said. "It's nice to meet you. Juni said he made a friend over the summer. I guess that's you, right? You mentioned a Gabriel," my dad said to me.

"Yep," was all I said. I was sure my cheeks were bright red. My entire body was warm.

"Juni needed a friend, so it's good you came along."

My dad didn't stop to chat for long, too busy making sure everyone else was happy. With all the food and drinks, who wouldn't they be happy?

The last person left at ten thirty. The place was a complete mess--as usual--and we all decided to wait and clean it up the next day--as usual. I just wanted to be alone with Gabriel. After spending so much time with the horses and after Gabriel's twelve hour shift, we both desperately needed a shower. Showering had become one of our favorite things to do together.

"I wasn't expecting to meet your family so soon, but I'm glad I did," he said, holding my hand on the way to the bathroom.

"You didn't have to come."

"I didn't want to miss the fun, and I couldn't wait to see you." He also couldn't wait to kiss me, pushing me against the bathroom sink, kissing me full on my mouth. As we kissed, he worked on unbuttoning my shirt. "All these button down shirts of yours are a pain in the ass to get off."

To save time, I showed him a short cut, lifting my shirt over my head. We hurriedly shed the rest of our clothes and hugged each other, pressing our naked bodies together. His cheeks and chin were far more scratchier than mine with sexy tufts of dark hair around his belly button and stray hairs on his chest. All those things filled me with intense desire. I envied his cock. As he lathered my hair with shampoo, I took a washcloth to his cock.

"You drive me crazy," he said, grasping a clump of my sudsy hair. He yanked my head back and sucked my neck, sure to leave a bruise again, but I loved it so much.

Even though we finished showering, it didn't mean we were ready to leave the bathroom. He held my waist, standing behind me at the sink, resting his chin on my shoulder as we faced the mirror. I reached over and wiped the steam off the mirror with my fist.

"That's a beautiful, sexy reflection," he said. "Do you like looking at yourself?"

Gabriel did something to me, making me do things I never thought I'd do. He didn't literally make me do these things. But since meeting him, I'd been on a roller coaster ride of self discovery. I had desires and urges I never thought I had. "I like looking at you turning me on."

"Do you want to watch us fuck?"

I couldn't believe what I was about to say. "Yes, I do."

"That's so hot," he said against my neck with his hand on my cock.

My body trembled as he ran his fingers up and down my shaft and around the tip of my erect cock.

"You're beautiful," he whispered in my ear. He retrieved a condom and lube and prepared himself for entry.

I gripped the edge of the sink as he made his way inside me. I turned my head slightly to kiss him while attempting to keep my eyes on the reflection in the mirror.

"You're so freaky," Gabriel said. "I love it."

I widened my stance, my knees shaking as he hit that spot over and over. I was barely able to control myself, fighting off the urge because I wanted him to continue. He brought his arm around my torso and forced me upright. He held me so tight, I could barely move. Wrapping his hand around my cock, he pumped it faster and faster until I lost it. My body went into mini-convulsions. "Ssh," he said, holding me.

I went limp in his arms, kissing him as he wiped his hand on my thigh. "I need a shower again," I laughed.

"You're incredible," he said, hugging me.

Sometimes I wished he'd stop saying those things, but other times I liked the compliments because I rarely heard any. Between parents, kids, and school administration, I was used to people barking orders at me. My dad and sisters just expected me to do things with no questions asked because that's what I'd always done. I liked to believe I was amazing and incredible. I was also curious to find out how Gabriel defined amazing and incredible. That was a question for another time.

Gabriel and I both took another shower and crashed around midnight. The next time I opened my eyes, he was getting ready for work. Yawning, I propped myself on my elbows, watching him pull up his bottoms. "I'll be back around eight," he said. "Thanks again for letting me stay here."

"Yeah, sure," I yawned. He kissed me before heading down the stairs. As the door closed, I rolled over and went back to sleep until my dad pounded on the door, ready for me to help clean up the after-party mess.