they succeeded only in making them more desirable, and I often gave in to my temptations. The eventual retribution was always worth it, as the taste of the fresh sweetness lingered long after the angry words.
So, now as I let the dripping bread enter my mouth, I was transported back to that corner of the glasshouse. I had again that special sense of guilt, at illicit indulgence. I felt the heat of the childhood sunshine, flow in through the glass. I basked in the luxuriance of the feast, knowing all the while, that time before chastisement was running out. I chewed slowly, wanting the sensation to remain, but the sticky sweetness of the jam was not the fresh tartness of the almost wild strawberry fruit. I came back from my reverie, slightly disappointed to be back on the cliff. Sometimes the past, particularly childhood, is like a warm cocoon - a lair made up of branches and feathers and lined with softest down. I can lie there, hugging myself, for an eternity. But the nest is always in the past, never in the present - always denied to me.
I had filled up with good food and water, and was replete. The sea far below was now a glassy calm and looked very inviting. I tidied up and set off down the slope, towards a cove I could make out in the distance. My gait was relaxed and I whistled a ditty I had made up. My mind was empty and at ease. There was no need to analyse anymore. Time enough for that. There should be time for everything in this life. Time for nothing, is important too. Time to aimlessly saunter along and sing a song, or whistle an airless tune. Time to look at the scenery and not see it, but just take it in. To feel the heat of the sun, but not be warmed or cooled. To move down the mountainside and yet stay in one place. Time just to be. That is how I felt with my full belly, happy disposition and aimless existence.
The dive into the cold water was part of that aimless existence. It mattered not that the water caused a shock to race over my skin and send pain to my mind. The parting of the water, giving way to my outstretched hands, was the natural order of things, as was the pain. Flowing through the water, I was part of the whole. I was integrated and alive, yet alone and dead to the world. I was in a limbo of thought where the time had no relevance - sensation was king and overruled all other dimensions of life. It was wonderful for those few seconds to be part of an eternity.
I surfaced and saw a figure sitting on a rock just above me. I rubbed my eyes with my knuckles and recognised her.
'Where is Jan?' I asked.
'Oh, he has gone on an early morning trek, to the other side of the island. I didn't want to go but I insisted that he should go anyway.'
Maria was taking off her clothes as she spoke. It was being done in that matter of fact way that continentals feel about their bodies. Just before she dived in, I caught sight of her nakedness. My eyes flitted from the black triangle to her blond hair and I felt like laughing. I had an uncontrollable urge to chide her.
'So, you are not a real blond - I suspected all along - you are far too clever.'
The words came out as she dived forward, her lithe body like an arrow through the morning sunlight. She broke the water with artful smoothness, leaving only a small vortex as her white feet disappeared under. She was gone for what seemed like minutes. The vortex faded and there was now no evidence of her dive. Perhaps she had disappeared into the world of mermaids -escaped through a watery worm hole into another universe. I had already begun to miss her. I yearned for her. I realised that I needed this young, foreign girl. I was about to dive under to find her, when I felt her body brush mine, and then, like a miracle, her face was next to mine. She was gasping for breath and the water streaming down her face, was like tears of happiness.
Heaven has to be somewhere near orgasm. That nature has instilled in us such a powerful force as sexual desire, means that it must be central to what a human being is. The sheer ecstasy of the moment of fulfilment, is greater than any drug induced euphoria. Its power has driven men to kill. It alone controls the human race. Great authorities have tried to control it but always without success. Now I understood why - the intense sense of relief and joy is intensely private, but yet universal. There is no word in the language of humanity for it. It is one of those inner words that can never be spoken. Writers through the ages have tried to bring out the feeling but have always failed in their efforts, merely describing the mechanics of the act. But like great works of art or music, it cannot be deconstructed into parts and reassembled into the original whole.
I could describe her hands on my body - my hands on hers - the splashing of water - our sighs- our cries of delight - but to no avail. The scene painted is a mere shadow of how it felt. How utterly complete we were, for the briefest of moments. How utterly unique and rich we were. How amazingly enervated and sensitive we were. The superlatives could rain down all day, and come nowhere near our ecstasy. Ultimately it has to be private.
As we dressed on the rock afterwards I felt a little awkward, but Maria was behaving as if what we had just done and experienced was the most ordinary thing in the world. In a way I was glad she was making light of it. I didn't want complications, yet I wanted her near me.
'Shall we keep this little interlude a secret from Jan?' I asked trying to gauge her exact relationship with the young man.
'If you like,' Maria replied, as she closed the buckle of her belt around her thin waist. The nonchalance of the reply disturbed me. It was not what I expected, yet I decided not to probe further. Let things be as they are, or will be.
Her slight figure disappeared into the distance. I had watched her graceful movements, as she negotiated her way amongst the outcropping rocks. She was like a gazelle on a plain, so deftly she made her way along the rugged contours of the coastline. Then she was gone and I wondered had I been dreaming. The sweet sensation was still in my loins, but my mind was questioning the reality. Once past, there is no way to test the verity of experience. Maybe it had happened in a parallel world, but then I should have no memories of it. The memories are the tenuous link with the past, but an unreliable link as they can be moulded any which way the mind likes. Had I yearned for such an encounter, could my mind have decided to satisfy my yearning by creating a memory? There has to be physical evidence as well. I vainly searched around, for some vestige of Maria's presence but could find no trace. Then I smiled to myself. Why of course there was evidence - not physical evidence, but that which underpins our greatest certainty that there is a reality out there - independent of our solipsistic vagaries. I had knowledge of her. I knew her name. I could search for her and ask her discrete questions to verify our common experience. There could, now, be no doubt.
As I sat there staring at the sea, I wondered if those philosophers, who doubted objective existence, ever doubted their experience of personal erotic pleasures. I saw them as cold rational beings, locked in a barren logical stranglehold whose strong sinews prevented them from looking around at the world with the certainty that its beauty exists. I looked at the sea and I knew it existed. I had felt the cold spikes of pleasure on my skin as I had dived from the rock. I had felt the sharp pain on the undersoles of my feet as I pushed myself forward in my inelegant dive. As I briefly flew through the air, I felt the thrill of freefall, ending in the splash of water entry. All these were real. Not part of my imagination - cut off from everyone else. How could the solipsistic world view ever get any credibility in serious thought? Yet my searches, in the realm of modern physics, led directly into this barren area of denial of a real world.
Later that morning I was not surprised to find I had visitors. I greeted Maria as if I had not seen her earlier. She smiled complicitly.
'That's all right - Jan knows and he's cool about it.' The casual way she said these words was as surprising as the content. I tried not to look at Jan, but he stretched out a hand in greeting, and his face showed no enmity. I marvelled again at the continental, stoical attitude to sex. I gestured to them to sit and join me.
'I have been contemplating about reality,' I said, wanting to get onto neutral territory as quickly as possible.
'That's a lot of cont
emplation you've undertaken,' Maria laughed. 'Tell us about it.'
The look in her eyes were half mocking and I felt I had lost some credibility with her. Whereas before she had the air of a pupil before the master, now she was at least my equal. Her physical attraction had wiped out my intellectual superiority. I no longer felt so self assured in espousing my thoughts to her.
'Well, where can I begin,' I started, my mind whirring around all the knowledge I had gleaned from all the books I had read and studied.
If the truth be told, I had never before tried to distil my ideas on reality into any condensed form. I had preferred to let them seep through the cultural barriers in my thinking. They were a fertiliser scattered at random in the fields of my mind. They led to random outpourings of wild growth, but never had I tried to take in the harvest. Harvesting is hard work and needs know-how. I was not sure that I could effect a collection of the fruits of my endeavours.
They say that first you must define what you want and then work hard to get it. I had taken an opposing view. I worked hard expressly without direction. I looked into as varied a spectrum of knowledge as possible. It was, in effect, a