Tiger Lily

4th of July weekend, Woodland canyon, summer heat like the Garden of Eden, lush, green, secluded.  She lay by the creek in a lounge chair under dappled shade from the sycamore trees, listening to the frogs jump and the birds sing, admiring the orange tiger lilies that only bloomed for a short while every year.  The creek cut deep into a rock wall striated like the Grand Canyon, dotted with ferns and wildflowers, a hanging garden.  Mini waterfalls cascaded over sheets of rock, creating deep pools teeming with fish, salamanders and frogs.  Hot, prehistoric, they were alone in a sexy, primal jungle.

She said, “I feel like skinny dipping. Let's take off our clothes.”

“I'm not going to take off my clothes!” he said primly.

‘We're on private property, nobody will see us.  Come on,” she said, peeling off her clothes seductively.  Naked, she lay on the lounge chair, picked up her drink, suggestively sipped and batted eyelashes.  “Try it, it feels great. This is our own nude beach.”

“A plane could fly by overhead,” he countered, “and those satellites up there can take a photo of a golf ball on the ground.  I'm not taking off my clothes.” His natural-born paranoia, fed to him with mother's milk, fueled by the Mormons in boyhood, was now set aflame by technology.

“I'm not going to live my life worrying about a satellite photographing me!  Can't you ever loosen up?” she asked, already knowing the answer.