The Forbidden

Bright yellow sun shone down on the grass covered knoll, its heat sending out the subtle smell of earth and fresh green sprouts. The first day of spring brought with it a rare sunny day, and the little mound in the park was filled with all types of people, all of them with their heads facing the heavens, basking in the rays of sunshine that found them equally. A small group of hip young lesbians lounged on a Mexican colored blanket while their small children squirmed over them. A young couple with bronze skin lay contentedly together, lazily stroking each other’s skin. A man sat next to his bicycle eating a dark croissant slowly. Three children played with the dropped fronds of a nearby palm tree.
“Ahhh!!” came the delighted scream of a young Asian woman. She sat on top of her boyfriend, a young white man. She moved her arms close to his body, trying over and over to tickle him, but he was doing the same, lunging his hands towards her torso and ribs. He grabbed her and threw her to the ground playfully. She wiggled under his weight, laughing, trying to find his ribs with her hands. She screamed softly with delight. It was an intimate display of friendship and trust, and they played, rolling and mounting each other, laughing and lunging. Their bodies were not just covered in cloth, but also with wide smiles.
Next to them, a young black girl, no older than four, watched the couple with curiosity. The girl’s hair was braided with rainbow colored beads at the tips. Her eyes were wide open, and a faint smile rested on her lips. Next to her was an older white woman, the girl’s mother, a woman well past middle age and wearing only white. The woman looked at the couple with quick shots of disgust, then gently pushed the little girl’s head back towards her and away from the couple. As soon as the woman took her hand away from the girl’s head, she would turn to look once again. This time, her smile brighter, for now she knew this was something she was not supposed to see.
“Ahhhh!!” the Asian girl laughed. The white woman turned to them, a look of disgust etched across her face. She held her hand in front of the little girl’s eyes, blocking her view, but the girl squirmed and moved her head and looked at the couple again, captivated, knowing that what they did was forbidden and wrong, and the more her mother sighed and cleared her throat, the harder the girl tried to look, her own delight growing with the conflict.
The older woman’s look cried, “There are children here for goodness sake! Children!” In her purity and chastity, she forgot that it was scenes like this that made children, the very child in front of her that she now tried to protect from the urge that kept the planet spinning with cats and flowers and honey. In another moment of ecstatic union, perhaps alone on a bed, the couple might one day create a new being. But now, there were no thoughts of the future. There was only play. There was tickling mixed with kisses and tiny screams. There was grass and sun and the sense that there was no one else around them, though there was. Their shared delight rose into the warm afternoon, creating waves of pleasure for those that could watch without fear, sadness, jealousy or disgust.
The woman looked at them with hard eyes. How long had it been since she had been like that? Alive, laughing uncontrollably, her body thrown every so often to the ground by firmer hands. The child kept finding openings to watch, the annoyance of her mother making the scene so much better. Her eyes fought through the hand that tried to protect her, realizing there was something she should not see, that somehow, for some reason, her mother didn’t like it. She watched, bringing into her two of the many different strains that would one day be a fundamental part of her. Curious fascination with sex and the memory that it should not be happening, her mother told her so, her mother had clearly expressed it without a single word.