The Truest Pleasure by Robert Morgan Page A

to a blister, and I will never know my pleasure with him again.
    I jerked Tom by the waist. He jumped back at the same time, and I flung him on the grass with the sorghum smoking off his arms and chest like the hottest compress you could imagine.
    â€œTake it off,” I screamed. “Take your shirt off.” I tried to tear at the buttons, but the syrup burned my hands. It felt like he was covered with blistering slime.
    Then the yellow jackets found him. They started buzzing in his face, and it seemed every yellow jacket in the valley come at once. It looked like he was wearing a shirt of them humming and crawling on every inch of him. Some caught in his mustache.
    â€œGet the bucket,” he hollered, and pointed to the pail of water we used to rinse the dipper. I picked up the bucket and splashed it over his face and shoulders. That must have cooled off the syrup and drowned a few yellow jackets, but mostly it made them mad. They boiled up like they was spitting at his face and started to sting him. “Oh!” he hollered, and tried to get at the buttons on his shirt. But the buttons was all sticky.
    â€œRun away from them,” I yelled. I fanned at the yellow jackets with my apron. I tried to think of what else I could do.
    Tom started running across the pasture. I didn’t know where he was running to, but I followed. And then I saw he was heading toward the river. There was a little field beyond the fence, and then the swimming hole where Joe and Locke used to go after working in the corn patch.
    I followed Tom all the way to the river bank and saw him jump into the swimming hole. He dived in up to his neck, but the jackets kept hitting his face. He ducked into the cold water and stayed under a long time. I thought he wasn’t going to come back up. I must have screamed and started into the river. Suddenly he raised his head out of the water and I saw the stream was carrying away hundreds of yellow jackets.
    The water both hardened and melted the molasses a little. You could smell the smoky sweetness mixed with river water. Tom rubbed his face like he was washing it. I could see the red spots where the jackets had stung him on the neck.
    But the yellow jackets was gone. Maybe there was one or two buzzing around his head, but he didn’t even notice them. He acted dazed by the burns and stings. I reckon a bee sting always makes you shivery and cold. He shuddered in the icy water.
    â€œCome on out,” I said. I wanted to put tobacco juice or ragweed juice on the stings. He would need a drink from the jug to stir his blood. Nothing will stand up to venom like liquor.
    But Tom climbed up the far bank because it was closer. There was birches on that side hung with grape vines from their tops. A high bank rose where we used to climb and swing out on the vines when we was younguns. Tom pulled hisself up the bank with a vine. I reckon he wanted to get in the sun, away from the cold water, and far from the molasses furnace and yellow jackets.
    With the burns and stings on Tom’s face and elbows and chest I wondered how we would manage our lovemaking. But when young people are in love they always find a way. We just went slow at first and took more care. And the care and limitations made it go even better. I felt I was bringing him back to health. We give a whole new meaning to the term “home remedies.”
    Another thing Tom liked to make was cider. He had never had his own apple trees before. Pa had set out two orchards right after the war, one on the top of the mountain and one on the hill above the house. In fall we had Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Winesaps, Ben Davis, and a tree ofbig Wolf Rivers for pies and sauce. We also had a plum tree and a pear tree.
    It took Tom less than a week to recover from the yellow jacket stings. Turned out the burns didn’t amount to much. I guess his shirt had protected him and he had jumped back so fast the only real burns was on his elbows.