How do we know that spring and now summer are finally here? Suddenly, around every corner, in ever station, in every park, couples are going at it like it's the end of the world. The Europeans are in heat. There is simply no other way to describe it. Everyone is doing their mating dance and, at least in Paris everything is abuzz with raging hormones.
A few weeks ago, when Fern was visiting, one evening after I'd gotten out of work we met up in the Jardin des Tuileries. At the beginning of the gardens there is an area filled with rows of hedges and wonderful grassy space in between each row. Travelers and locals alike hang out here to eat lunch, play soccer, sunbathe, or as it turns out, to engage in public sex.
Fern and I planted ourselves in one of the less rowdy rows to take in the early evening sun before going home to make dinner. It was about 7:30pm. In our row we were just a bit left of center, there was a group of people (with an American guy who never stopped talking) behind us at the far right end of the row. Between us and them there were a few more people napping in the sun. To our left there are two couples, one is maybe 5 feet away and the other is maybe 10-15 feet away at the far end of the row. All of the rows are filled with people. One of the rows flanking ours has a group of shirtless men (late teens/early 20s maybe) playing soccer, who keep accidentally sending their ball soaring into our row and running over to retrieve it.
Fern is laying on the grass casually looking around. I am sketching her. Suddenly she starts laughing and draws my attention to the couple at the far left end of our row, who are again less then 15 ft from us. They are wearing business attire and I would guess are in their early 30s. They were (for want of a better phrase for it) dry-humping with complete indiscretion. They don't seem to realize they are visible to the other people around them.
After a while they proceed to test out a variety of positions, seemingly in search for the optimal position for... for what? Ah, now we see... for the dry-humping to become something much less innocent. At this point the man lays down on the grass on his back, expectant, arms by his side. The woman crouches at his side. He lays his jacket over the crotch of his pants. She fixes her hair. Fern and I watch, mouths agape. Is she seriously about to do what it looks like she is about to do???
For a moment she seems to reconsider, and then resumes her former position on top of him. They return to their prior activities. But then she shifts, unzips his pants, reaches in and proceeds with a fully public hand-job (I could get clinical here and say instead "manual stimulation", but it seems wrong to get all clinical when discussing a couple going at it in the middle of a crowded public space). While the coat over his crotch may have been a nice, if not slightly innocent, gesture, it does absolutely nothing to disguise the action.
Fern and I are still watching, mouths agape as if staring at a traffic accident. We are just barely keeping ourselves from exploding into astonished laughter, our American sensibilities still unable to believe that these two are getting it on right in front of everybody. But what we witness next is like something right out of a movie, and we collapse in fits of uncontrollable laughter.
As we are watching this couple, three armed guards in full military uniform and toting large automatic weapons, who I would assume are patrolling the gardens on security detail, enter our row from the other side of the hedges. The are walking in a line, one behind the other. They are between where Fern and I sit and where this couple are laying. At first they are looking toward Fern and I. Then guard #1 turns and spots the couple. He nudges the guard behind him, who turns, looks, then nudges guard #3. As they pass into the next row of hedges they are all staring at the couple who have yet to realize that anyone around them is aware of what they are doing. The best part: as the third and last guard in this row passes into the row of hedges on the opposite side, he pauses and cranes himself backward, watching as long as he can before his view is cut off by the hedges. I just about died of laughter.
Then! To top it off, a pedestrian enters our row from the end on the other side of the couple. Where he enters is right near their heads. He takes notice of them and proceeds to walk around them, down to their feet, around and back up toward their heads, all the while staring with equal indiscretion. He stands there watching them for a few moments before moving on. He is then followed by a series of other guards who suddenly appear in our row... inconspicuously checking out the action. It is only at *this* point, after all that and with Fern and I in hysterics not 15 ft away, that the couple realize they are being watched and make some effort to be more discreet. They fail miserably and elect to finish in the same way they started.
Two days later Fern and I are at Versailles. We are having lunch with Katy in the beautiful overgrown grasses along the banks of the lake beyond the Chateau gardens. There are people paddling around the lake in little rowboats. One stops not to far from us. It in are a young couple - again, I would guess late 20s. The woman lays back in the boat, and her male companion proceeds to climb on top of her, bed down and hoist her dress over her head with his teeth!
It's amazing. It's spring and the Europeans are in heat! That or else someone is dumping aphrodisiacs into the water supply...
Hmm... I'm feeling kind of thirsty. If you'll excuse me I think I'll go get myself a glass. A very very TALL glass. ;-)
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