“You’re the guinea pigs,” she explained. “The appetizer is oyster mushrooms Mornay. It’s a nice, light dish to start the meal—shrimp, pasta, pea pods, and of course the oyster mushrooms.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said, deadpan. “You found the mushrooms out back and harvested them yourself.” Had the whole world gone mad?
“Exactly. Last week’s drenching rain was enough to produce a beautiful cluster on a poplar log that fell behind the garage. Pleurotus ostreatus is an easy species to cultivate, so I’ll be sure to keep that log well watered now.”
I smiled. “Who wouldn’t?”
Neil flashed me a behave-yourself. He told Cynthia, “It seems Frank’s interest in fungi has rubbed off a bit.”
She nodded. “I told you, this doll taught me everything.”
Growing a bit weary of her doting (to say nothing of all the mushroom chat), I changed the topic, asking her, “Did Neil sell you on his plans for the pavilion?”
“Oh, my God, yes! That’s what we came in to tell you. Frank, Neil has simply outdone himself. Why don’t we all take a stroll outdoors and study the site before the sun sets?” As she said this, I noticed that the daylight had turned amber, slanting through the west windows of the study at a low angle.
The four of us left the study with our drinks, retracing our steps to the living room, where Neil picked up his perspective drawing from the coffee table. Cynthia opened the French doors to the backyard, and we followed her outside.
Evening was edging toward dusk. Sunlight still burned the treetops at the far side of the property, but the grounds themselves had slipped into shadow. The warm breeze drifted silently through a clear sky. Birds hushed, preparing for night. A planet or two appeared.
We stood silently at the lawn’s edge, paying our respects to the departed day, duly awed by this clockwork of nature. Underfoot, I felt the turning of Earth itself.
Frank nudged my shoulder with his. “Look,” he said, barely above a whisper, “there’s one.” The ice in his glass rattled as he pointed across the grass to the fringe of surrounding woods.
I stared, but saw nothing. I whispered, “What?”
“A fairy ring.”
Cynthia squealed, “Really?”
Neil asked, “Fairy ring?”
Leading us through the grass, Frank explained, “I was telling Mark about them earlier—certain species of mushroom sometimes grow in arcs, or fairy rings, centered on trees where hardwoods mix with pines. This is a beauty.”
We stepped inside the ring, walking softly, as if entering hallowed ground. The mushrooms swung in a precise arc from the base of an old oak at the border of the mowed lawn. “They’re beautiful,” said Neil, squatting for a closer look. “Are they the ‘magic’ variety?”
Frank laughed. “No, psilocybin mushrooms aren’t especially pretty—though they may seem pretty to someone who’s hallucinating.”
I looked closer. Noting the dark, rosy cap, I asked, “These aren’t…?”
Frank finished my sentence, “Amanita? No, they’re a form of bolete—and probably quite tasty. There’s neither magic nor poison in these little guys.”
“But there’s magic in this night,” said Cynthia, flinging her arms wide. “Can’t you just feel it?” And she twirled across the grass, blessing the turf with a spray of wine from her glass. Hopping outside the fairy ring, she stopped, facing us. “It’s midsummer night.”
“It is?” asked Neil.
Cynthia dropped her wistful tone. “Well, close enough. It depends who you ask. In merry old England, they celebrated it on June twenty-fourth, which baffles me. Others, more logically, peg midsummer in the ‘middle of summer,’ midway between the June solstice and the September equinox. In other words, right now, a week into August. Tonight, tomorrow, Wednesday—close enough.”
Her discourse, while not entirely serious, struck me as both entertaining and appealing. There was something wonderfully pagan about all this—gawking at mushrooms in the woods, calculating the balance of solstice and equinox, finding magic in the night, spicing it with a dash of madness. Not one inclined to revere any form of mysticism, I had to admit that Cynthia’s sprightly outlook brought an unexpected dimension to the evening.
Frank said to her, “Show me what you and Neil are cooking up.”
She led the way across the yard to an area where Neil, on a previous visit, had roughly sited the new construction. Wooden stakes represented the corners of the building; string stretching between them represented its walls. Cynthia led us around to the far side, where we could look back at it, facing the house from the same angle that Neil had chosen for his perspective drawing.
Neil held up one side of the drawing, and Cynthia held the other, displaying it for Frank and me. Sure enough, there on paper was a precise depiction of the house we saw in reality. In front of it, in reality, was a staked patch of ground; on paper loomed Neil’s fanciful pavilion.
Frank said quietly, “Gosh, Neil, I can see why Cynthia was so excited. This is marvelous. Truly, I’m dazzled by your talents.”
“So am I,” I told Neil, reaching to squeeze his arm.
Cynthia dropped her end of the drawing. “Here’s the door,” she said, stepping around to the side nearest the house. “And this,” she said, stepping inside the staked string, “is Frank’s new spa.”
We followed, but none of us bothered using the door as Cynthia had—we walked right through the walls. Frank asked her, “My spa?”
“I get to enjoy it,” she conceded, “but you’re the master here. You’re the one with magic in his fingers.”
Again the magic. With a chuckle, I asked, “What’s magic about his fingers?”
“Hasn’t Neil told you?” asked Cynthia. “Frank is a highly skilled masseur.”
Again I noticed his large hands; even in the twilight, they looked beautifully veined and muscled. Then—hold on—this conversation had a familiar ring to it. And I suddenly recalled Neil’s debt of honor, his Sunday-morning promise of a fantasy experience with an erotic masseur, his plan to surprise me with the who, where, and when. Could he possibly have meant…?
“Cynthia exaggerates,” Frank was saying. “I’m a rank amateur. I just enjoy it.”
“Not half as much as I do!” she assured us, laughing.
I stared at Neil, as if to ask, Is Frank…?
But Neil wouldn’t let me catch his eye. He told Cynthia, “You two can wrangle over who enjoys it more, but I’m just happy knowing you’ll enjoy this new space together. I’d say you’re both very lucky.”
“That we are,” said Frank, wrapping one of those big hands around Cynthia’s shoulders and squeezing her tight.
Trying to forget Neil’s debt of honor and to focus on the current conversation, I said, “Neil tells me that you already have a nicely equipped spa in the house.”
“True,” said Cynthia, “but it pales in comparison to Neil’s plan.”
“Would you like to see it?” Frank offered. “It’s getting dark anyway.” The moon had begun to rise above the roof of the house.
“And I seem to be out of wine,” said Cynthia, examining the glass she’d spilled on the lawn. “I need to check on things in the kitchen, so Frank can give the tour, and I’ll meet you in the spa.”
As the four of us began trudging toward the house, I wondered if this was all an elaborate ruse. Was Cynthia excusing herself in order to leave Neil and me alone with Frank for a while? Was she lending us her handsome husband—the one with magic in his fingers—to help make good on Neil’s debt of honor? Were the Geldens that open-minded? Were we? In a bizarre concession to wishful thinking, I was thankful for whatever prescience had motivated me to shower that evening. Then I recalled—the second shower had been Neil’s suggestion. Was this really happening?
Once inside, exactly as planned, Cynthia excused herself, took a turn into the kitchen, and began rattling pans. It sounded fake, a sure sign of a setup.
Neil set his drawing with the other p
lans on the table. Frank refilled our drinks and led us onward through the house, talking and laughing about something, looking uncommonly studly now. Was that strut of his intended to get me in the mood for…for whatever they had planned? “Here we are,” he announced, opening a door and stepping back to let us pass. Neil also stepped aside. He’d seen the house many times already, and besides, this tour was being staged for my benefit.
Entering the spa, I momentarily forgot these speculations about the evening’s presumed ulterior purpose, as the room itself had captured my interest. Neil had described it as Frank and Cynthia’s “adult playroom,” and I now saw what he meant. Though the square footage was not particularly generous, its appointments were; nothing had been spared in equipping these sybaritic quarters. There was the obligatory whirlpool bath, as well as a variety of gleaming chrome workout equipment (which Frank clearly put to good use) and a closet-size sauna behind a heavy door of cedar planks. A separate tiled shower room had its own changing area, where shelves were stacked with plump terry towels; oversize wooden hooks awaited clothes and robes. Along the walls of the main room, shelving and glass-doored cupboards displayed an array of unctions and paraphernalia intended to relax and soothe the body: oils and extracts of every description, bottles of scented witch hazel and other cooling astringents, canisters of herbs and sea salt, jugs of gels and mud, baskets heaped with sponges and loofahs. Atop a counter sat a curious item, one of those big, white-enameled roasters favored by aunts for their holiday turkeys. The entire room was gently washed by light that spread upward from sconces and downward from recesses in the ceiling. Soft music (New Age, of course, featuring a solo oboe) pampered the ear while fostering a woozy mood.
The room’s most riveting feature, though, sat dead center, in the middle of the floor. Under a coved ceiling painted with a blue sky and wispy clouds, a professional massage table loomed huge and conspicuous in the aura created by a cluster of pin-beam spotlights, bringing to mind a surgical theater. Thin, black leather cushions padded the top of the table; below, an outlandish configuration of cranks, levers, and armatures allowed adjustment of height and angle. At one end of the table, an oval nest awaited someone’s head, while at the opposite end, a rolled towel would be used to prop someone’s feet. Was I to be that someone?
Frank was lecturing, “Most everyone enjoys Swedish massage, and that was the basis of my training; it relaxes the body and stimulates circulation. More popular of late is deep-tissue massage, which helps rid the body of tension while releasing tightness and reducing muscle pain, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a first-time treatment. Aromatherapy is a light, gentle massage utilizing the power of essential oils…”
Was I supposed to choose? He sounded as if he were reading me a menu, and it all sounded pretty good. The tingle of arousal began to heat my khakis. How on earth had Neil arranged this? And how was he to fit in? Would I appear overeager if I began to undress?
“…since reflexology is applied to the soles of the feet, some people simply don’t like it, while shiatsu is applied to acupressure points that run along the body’s meridian lines, enhancing energy flow. Then there’s holistic massage, which I think is great; it incorporates the whole range of massage techniques—effleurage, petrissage, and tapotement.”
“Has he told you about his hot rocks?” asked Cynthia, appearing in the doorway with a full glass of chardonnay.
Neil and I turned to her, looking a bit stunned. What was she doing here? And what in God’s name was she talking about?
“Not yet,” Frank told her. “I was saving the hot rocks for last.”
Had I totally lost my mind?
With an uncertain laugh, Neil asked, “Hot rocks?”
“Here.” Frank patted the lid of his turkey roaster. “Cynthia and I were at a wonderful resort on Hawaii—the Big Island—last winter, and the spa there was experimenting with a technique I’d never seen before.” He lifted the lid, letting Neil and me peer inside. “Smooth, flat rocks gathered from the beach are heated in oil, then used as part of the treatment.”
“It’s fabulous,” Cynthia told us, grinning.
Frank explained, “Two similar rocks are removed from the oil, one in each hand, then used to massage the subject’s back. They’re then left in place at symmetrical pressure points, and two more rocks are used for massage. Eventually, the back is nearly covered with rocks, some of them still quite hot, others beginning to cool.”
“It’s fabulous,” Cynthia repeated. Was she trying to sell me on the technique?
Now I was doubly confused. If I’d been uncertain how Neil was to fit into my fantasy massage, I was downright perplexed about Cynthia’s role, and I was suddenly uneasy about the direction this had taken. Reminding myself that it was Cynthia who had first promoted to Neil the idea of our friendship, “couple to couple,” I lost that warm tingle in my khakis. If it got down to erotic forays, Frank I could handle—sure, anytime, as long as Neil was somehow involved—but not Cynthia.
Neil said, “You really ought to go professional, Frank, and open a massage service. Since you truly enjoy it, it might make a nice sideline. I’m sure you’d attract a loyal clientele.”
“He’d better not,” said Cynthia with a good-natured shake of her fist.
Frank walked over to her and put an arm around her. “Nah,” he told Neil. “I have only one client—and I like it that way.”
Then I knew without doubt: I’d been way off base about ulterior purposes that evening. My fantasy had been exactly that. It wasn’t gonna happen.
Cynthia gestured to our surroundings. “This is our own private world. Thanks to you, Neil, we’ll soon be trading up to a much more lavish little world, but the point is, this is our special pleasure.”
“What happens here,” said Frank, “is sort of the glue of our marriage.” He gave Cynthia a soft kiss.
She purred. “It’s better than sex, honest to God. Hell, I’m forty-three; my clock’s stopped. This is what’s left, and I love it.” She returned his soft kiss.
I was beginning to feel like something of a voyeur—we didn’t know these people that well, in spite of our mutual desire to foster a friendship.
“But you get all the fun,” Neil razzed Cynthia.
“Nope,” said Frank, shaking his head. “I get plenty out of it. It’s a fair exchange. Cynthia provides the setting, buys the equipment, and keeps up with the supplies”—he gestured toward the luxurious inventory of lotions and oils—“while I get to hone my skills on a loving partner. What’s wrong with that?”
“Not a thing,” I told them, smiling, genuinely warmed by the knowledge that they shared such pleasure in the life they’d built together. Though they had no way of knowing, I also felt genuinely ashamed for having entertained notions of invading their sanctuary.
Frank continued, “And once the pavilion is built, things will be even better.”
Cynthia agreed, telling Neil, “The new spa is an absolute knockout.”
“But the best part,” said Frank, “is the home office. Cynthia should be able to spend more time here.”
“God, I hope so,” she said with a wistful laugh. “This Tuesday-through-Friday schedule in Green Bay is getting to be a real drag. I finally took an apartment there, but I can’t wait to get rid of it.” She tweaked Frank’s earlobe. “I hope you won’t be feeling too abandoned again tomorrow.”
“Not at all,” he assured her. Then he told us, “During the school year, the goofy schedule is no problem—I’m busy during the week at Woodlands, often on campus in the evening. Summers can get lonely, though. That’s why I got involved with the Players Guild.”
Neil said, “And now that’s wrapping up. Teen Play closes next weekend.”
“Yeah,” Frank conceded, “things’ll quiet down now. There’s a pickup rehearsal on Wednesday night, but otherwise, my week’s wide open.”
I offered, “Join us at the house some night. Do you mind dinner en famille?”
“Not at all. That sounds
great.”
Neil suggested, “How about Thursday?”
“Perfect.”
Cynthia said, “You guys are too sweet, looking after dollface for me.” She pinched his nose. “But right now, I need to check on tonight’s dinner.”
“Can we give you a hand?” offered Neil.
“Everything’s under control, but sure—it’s always a bit of a rush, getting things to the table.”
So the four of us adjourned to the kitchen, where we all pitched in with the last-minute tasks of staging our meal. Cynthia fussed with her mushroom dish; Frank tended to the crown roast of lamb (the Margaux we had brought would complement it beautifully); I whisked a vinaigrette for the salad; Neil rearranged flowers and took charge of the table’s final setting. When Cynthia decreed that her concoction, oyster mushrooms Mornay, was ready to serve, we moved the party to the dining room.
We had plenty of elbow room. The table could have seated eight, ten in a pinch, so Neil’s setting didn’t skimp on the side plates, stemware, or silver. He’d split the flowers into two low arrangements and placed them at the ends of the table, allowing the four of us to huddle in the middle, with the Geldens on one side, us facing them. Neil had scattered perhaps a dozen votive candles about the table, giving it a casual air and a festive glow.
Since Cynthia was already well into the chardonnay, the rest of us joined her in this choice to accompany the Mornay, which contained shrimp—as well as the oyster mushrooms she’d found on a wet log behind the garage. To my surprise, I found her recipe thoroughly delicious. The earthy, robust texture of the mushrooms combined with the crunch of shrimp and the snap of pea pods in a delightful mélange with creamy, garlicky pasta.
Sampling my first forkful, I swallowed, dabbed my mouth with the corner of a giant linen napkin, and said, “Cynthia, I’m amazed. I was skeptical, but your Mornay is wonderful.”
She accepted my compliment with a nod, lifting her wineglass. After sipping, she told me, “I just knew you’d like it—but why were you skeptical?”
I glanced at Neil first, then sheepishly answered, “Well, the mushrooms. It seems everyone around here is ‘into’ them. Mushrooming is a great hobby, I guess, but I’ve always been wary of it. Where I was brought up, mushrooms came from supermarkets and restaurants, not the backyard.”
Boy Toy Page 19
