"Over here there's a shed, if it hasn't been torn down ... see, there it is. That's it."
The shed was three-sided: a cattle feeder and temporary shelter, made of discarded timber and mismatched shingles, something flung together years ago, just high enough to walk under. As Orville and Jean stepped inside swallows flew away.
"It's nice and dry," Orville said. "It would be swell if we could picnic here ... there's a little spring nearby ... I like it here."
"I like it too."
Someone had left a horse blanket rumpled on the bench; straw and hay littered the floor, the place smelled of timothy and clover and cattle.
"You can stand there if you want to," she said. "I'm sitting down ... taking off my clothes." She was laughing at his expression, laughing with anticipation. "I'll get my clothes off before you get yours off. Do you want us to be sedate?"
As she undressed she noticed a pencil of clouds, the scattered hay and straw, the horse blanket: she knew how she was going to spread the blanket, where there was a little sun.
She wanted to say, darling, I love you, but busied herself with her clothes.
He had nothing to say: there was something in this nudity, this love-making, that perplexed him, annoyed him: as he took off his clothes he felt he was some sort of damn puritan: lying beside Jean he was more interested, for a moment, in the swallows as they returned.
Picking up a straw he stuck it between his teeth; he picked up a straw and stuck it into her mouth. Giggling, she took away his straw and substituted her own. Bending over him; she said: