You can lead a Willow to water *

In which our Hero is suddenly immersed in an impromptu session of comparative biology

The request was for more kid stories, and the question was how are things with Willow. Well, I figured that the extra few days to actually *see* Willow was worth dragging my feet just a little. And in the aftermath, how do things stand after the great discovery that my dear little then-18-year-old cousin had been opting to egosurf through my diary?

Fine.

We had a talk, back in January. There was a little bit of grumpiness on my part and reticence on her part for a little while as we dealt with our mutual feelings as transgressor and transgressee, but I wasn’t seriously upset and the vague sense of indignation settled after a few days and really it’s been okay ever since. Oddly enough, circumstances (her school year and my current life as Pepe LePew) kept our contact somewhat removed anyway, to a point that I was a little worried and put in some extra effort to make sure she knew I still had her back. And so honestly, I hadn’t even thought of the question in months and months until the note asked, and that entirely supports my reasoning.

Things are fine.

“You could have told me to look things up on Google.”

Well, I thought things were fine.

What?!

“All those questions I kept asking you,” she said, with an embarrassed laugh and a slight blush as she perhaps determinedly stared out the windshield at the field we were parked in front of. “You could have told me to look it up!”

For a moment, I just sat and contemplated some of the questions she’s lobbed at me over the years (links for my sake, they may not be very interesting to you):

• What’s the difference between Lesbians and Virgins?
• What’s a hymen?
• What do you think about sex before marriage?
• how guys can stand to go commando
• Thoughts on Adoptions and cousin interrmarriages
• Do you give women flowers?
• So if you ask a girl how she is and she says, Fine, what do you think?
• Do guys wipe when they pee?
• You spend time with your friends who are married and have kids and does it ever bother you?
• I have a treasure-trail
• How would you react if I told you I was gay
• On faith and God and Catholicism and sin
• How was your first kiss?
• How come other people don’t think I’m as cool as you think I am?
• Am I your test monkey?
• Can you and Nocturne make babies sooner rather than later?
• Is it true you can tear your hymen riding a horse? (I guess I did okay answering question 2, back when)

Now you point out this option?! I blurted after I was past the sick feeling of wondering why I never thought of that. I guess she could read my exasperation.

“Well, I just thought of a question, but I think maybe I’ll just google that.”

So now you’ve hit a question you’re embarrassed to ask me? How frightening!

“Well you could have said look it up! Why didn’t you?!”

Well, when someone asks me a question and they’re sincere, I try to answer it. I mean, I’ll tell you to look it up if it’s lazy or obvious but… you came to me with questions, so I felt I should try to answer.

“I’m glad you did. So now I’m just going to ask you this other one.”

Well, why not, I said, cramming my head straight into the noose.

“How do horses have sex?”

I’m going to sidebar at this point, Gentle Reader, because I feel it will substantially improve your opinion of this conversation I’m relating to know that as she was asking this, I was watching the small herd of horses behind us as we waited for the 11am trail ride. And when we’d stepped out, earlier, and walked along the side of the corral, I did in fact have a moment to observe the staggering scale of the member of the equine member of the Fraternité Ballsamatique so I can entirely understand how the question could have come to her mind.

But I am an inveterate smart ass and really there’s only one proper answer to this question:

When a Mommy horse and a Daddy horse love each other *very* much….

Willow was not impressed.

Well… basically, when they’re ready, they just climb up over the back.

“I guess. I still don’t think I get it.”

I thought for a minute and then apologized.

This is probably not an appropriate reference and I apologize for using it but I suspect it’ll clear things right up. Think “Doggie Style”

“Ohhhhhh!!! Yeah, I guess in way they *are* kind of like big dogs! But they’re so big, how can they take the weight?”

They’re built for it.

“I guess. But then what happens if they decide they… want to?”

Well, they’re not like humans. They have seasons and they aren’t all that interested when they’re out of season.

“Still it must be scary.”

Well, there’s a youtube video of a parade where one girl’s horse decided it really fancied the other girl’s horse and up it went, didn’t care someone was already on top.

“Oh my god!!”

Four years ago, in a conversation I barely remember, a baby-er Willow asked me about riding a horse and if I’d ever been. I said yes, and told her if she really wanted, maybe we’d look into going some time.

Wellll, apparently teenagers don’t understating “maybe” and after that first summer, even her mother was teasing me about never taking her girl for the ride I promised her. So I told Willow, “You pick a day, I will take you.” And two more summers rolled by. So summer rolled around again, and she said, “You should take me horseback riding,” and I said, same as always, “You pick a day and we’ll go.”

But this time, she thought she was being clever. “No. *You* are the busy one, you pick a day, I’m always free.”

“Fine,” I told her. “July 9th.”

“Great,” she said. And a day or two later, I get a text saying, “Can we move the horseback riding, I can’t go that day.”

So she’s not doing anything all summer but somehow I hit the *one* day she’s busy. Right. Anyway, we moved it to today.

Please don’t fall off the horse and die, I told her while we were still in the car.

“Yeah, my parents would kill you.”

No, there’d be a line. Your parents. Then *my* parents. Then Spaz. Then her brother. Then Nocturne, because she likes you and wouldn’t be pleased I’d not taken care of you.

“Yeah, people love me. I forget to think about the fact that I’m special to people.”

Which lead to a whole other conversation about appreciation and birthdays, but for now the main point is…

Actually I can’t win. If you die, that list of people will kill me. If you don’t die, Moonbeam will kill me for not taking her with us.

“Oh my god, you’re right. What are we going to tell her? We can’t tell her!!”

We have to tell her. And we can tell her we were trying it out to make sure it was fun enough for her. As opposed to my actual reason, that in a crisis, I could only send the horse after one cousin and I didn’t trust our other grownup cousins to be entirely grown up enough.

Willow loved it. *Loved* it. She was the last in our string of 4 rubes trailing the guide. (Really it wasn’t much about guiding the horse, it was mostly just letting the horse do what it’s trained to do and follow the leader)

I was miffed that she was behind me. I really would have preferred to put her in front of me so I could keep better track of her but she was fine, and spent the entire ride talking to her horse.

We were a little too far back to hear much of the guide. I relayed a little to Willow, but mostly we just rode. Me, being big, strong male (human), I got the biggest horse of our small bunch, a pretty mottled-white lady named Tonka. (I don’t know why).

I loved it too. The trail was beautiful, the horses were horsey, I was amused at the other rubes giggling at the horses crapping on the go rather than perturbed by the function of biology. Tonka was a sweet and cooperative mount, except that despite having just been fed, she felt the need to snack along the way, frequently stopping to get a good bite. And she was uninterested in my advice to be lady-lie and at least chew the bunch in her mouth before getting more.

“When you’re going down a slope, lean back, so you don’t fall off. And same way, lean forward when you’re going up,” they told us. They being the staff, a passle of passibly possibly post-pubescent people of the female persuasion. And the guide helpfully reminded us of that instruction as we waded into the stream and down the hill. And when we came to the other bank and had to climb up.

“Remember to lean forward,” our little guide said. And for certain, she’s sanguine in that advice because leaning forward puts nothing ‘neath her nethers but the gentle nudging of her nag. Whereas I’m a male and the dangly bits have no where to go between body and saddle except more evenly spread. Like jam. Like testicle jam.

And because I’ve been pressed to contemplate this question in bouncing detail, I will observe that beyond casual contact, squeezing the rounders produces an effect on reality quite akin to the effect on geography of squeezing one of those little foam globe toys. It distorts.

Like a motherfucker.

I kept looking behind me to check on Willow. And then checking back in front to make sure I wasn’t about to get swept off the horse by a low branch. But I was looking forward when we startled a deer out of the brush and she vaulted up and away.

*Edit*

Calling myself Pepe LePew conveys that I’m stinky, says Nocturne. Rather than, as I intended, that if she’d just let me get a little closer, I’d kiss my way up her arm, eh, ma petite?

Can’t win!