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Show 214 THE WESTERN HUMANITIES REVIEW But she remained coy about the bridling, from pride or love of wresding or both, and Dad had to take her down each time for a mondi before she gave in to oats and coaxing. Then even I could bridle her, she snapping at me only now and then to keep me from taking her for granted. She was built like a small quarter horse, sturdy but with clean beautiful lines, a trim barrel and legs tapering down to the slimmest ankles and the neatest shiniest hooves you ever saw. Had she been a quarter horse she would have been an expensive piece; as it was, nobody wanted a Shedand much in that country since diey had no real use and ate regardless. All she was was beautiful, with a velvet nose and silky hair and life packed into every ounce of her. I loved her and she was mine - part mine anyhow. Not that I possessed her much more than I possessed Rodin's sculpted lovers, whom I also later fell in love with, they in their chaste kiss prelude to a sensual explosion. As a matter of fact, I'm addicted to falling in love without possessiveness, with paintings and trees, with cities and symphonies and glimpsed girls and mountains and dry white wine, the whole bit. But at the time I was just learning how and Beauty was my teacher. She let me bridle her and ride her, I could stroke her neck and whisper sweet nothings, but she set limits. If I went too fast she shied away; if I went too far she let me have it; and no amount of bribes or blandishments could compromise her touchiness about her flanks and hindquarters. She never forgot that brutal pack of kids, nor forgave. I couldn't curry her, couldn't even pat her back beyond her white saddle; and, sitting on her, if I turned around and rested my hand on her croup she would go up in the air like she'd been stung, higher than six inches too. So we reached an agreement: I could go just as far as she allowed, not a half-inch further. She was as quick and agile as a cat and it became second nature for us to avoid her rear because she could kick you so fast that she would be back on four feet calmly eating hay before you even felt it. Not that she was mean-spirited; she just had this fixation about her hindquarters. Otherwise she loved to be courted. On a lazy summer afternoon I would get a handful of oats and find her under a tree down by the creek, and while she delicately nibbled oats I would very gently, very carefully caress her ears. Sometimes I curried her, going back as far as she allowed (she like a girl with petting limits), and then I would run my hands over her, over her chest and forelegs, the sun-warmed beautiful hide and beneath it the contours of her strong, hard, glossy muscles. She was as sensual as a cat or a woman and loved my attentions, but then winter would blow in with its cold dirty weather and she would be out on pasture and maybe we wouldn't see each other for a month at a time. I got taken up by my daily life of chores and school, caught by the present need and dutifully submissive to the future, all of it drab and dull and with |