Jung's Affair

    In late August 1927 Carl Jung walked across his back lawn, scuffed across his stone porch, and entered his cottage in Switzerland through a set of French doors.  At that very moment, a darkened sky over Du Plannes France opened its vaporous belly, and a deluge began.  On the cobbled streets of the town, a lithe dark-haired woman began to run from the fat raindrops.  Her cotton floral dress, which a crowd of purple lilies decorated, quickly dampened.  The dress clung tightly to her skin, outlined the subtle widening of her hips, the narrowing of her waist, the heaving of her chest, and her tight, fist-sized breasts.  Jung turned at the French doors, stared across his yard toward the fountain, watched while water sprayed and splashed in the fountain pool.  In the water, with his angle, he could see reflections rippling, sketches of images from another land.

    The woman stood shivering under the protection of a narrow awning, her arms crossed, her dark hair black with wet and hanging like limp clots of strings to her shoulders.  She glanced east and west, searching the sky for a respite, and her youthful olive skin glistened even in the dull light.  Her green eyes sparkled.  Jung saw the glint of sunlight on the surface of his fountain, stood staring through his doorway, mesmerized, unknowing.

     The rain and wind settled but the black clouds continued to hang over the town, weeping ever so lightly in a fine mist.  The young woman dashed from the awning, stepped through several puddles, and hurried home.  Jung watched a single droplet spit from the fountain and strike the face of the fountain pool.

     She entered her cottage and closed the door behind her.  Jung blinked, seemed to remember something, though nothing particular came to his mind.  He turned and walked into his kitchen.

     The young woman left her sandals at the door, walked barefoot across the cool tiles of the bathroom, peeled off her dress.  Her skin was tight and youthful and pale on her breasts, stomach and thighs. She put a pot of water on the wood-burning stove, and drew a bath.

     Jung sat in a chair at his kitchen table, picked up a peach, studied it, felt the firm, tender tissue with his fingers.  He peered at the rich colors, the maroon, peach-orange, and pink-red.  He lowered his head, raised the peach, pressed his mouth to it, deeply, felt the sumptuous meat of it in his teeth, felt and tasted the juice of it, straightened.  The young woman trembled in her bath.  Jung bit again, licked at the juices flowing, ran his tongue over the side of the peach and his own wet fingers.  The young woman breathed heavily, gripped the edge of the tub.  Jung pulled out the pit, cast it aside, and bit and licked at the peach. The young woman arched her back gloriously, gasped.  His mouth full, he savored the soft flavorful tissues, swallowed evenly, finished with a curious satisfaction.

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     Six weeks later, Jung was traveling on a train toward the next stop on his autumn lecture tour.  The train rambled along through rural France, passing lush green hillsides, fields of radish and cabbage, and vineyards.  After stopping at an archaic wooden station near the quaint village town of Du Plannes, a young woman came aboard.  Something in her movements, perhaps only her figure itself, temporarily caught Jung's attention.  She was oddly familiar but for reasons completely unknown.  She moved with the ease and grace of a dancer, her lean youthful body exuded both lightness and spring.  She walked nearly past Jung, then stopped as if she had forgotten something, then turned and sat on the seat across the aisle from him.

     The trip was long to the next town, and all the while Jung studied his lecture notes, and the young woman stared away from him out of her window at the countryside as it rushed past.  Near the town of Vennmont, a man in a business suit staggered past, bumped Jung and knocked down Jung's briefcase.  The man did not stop. As the man walked away, Jung patiently began gathering his notes.  He heard the young woman say, "The nerve of that man.  Some people think they can do no wrong."  Her hands, their lithe fingers moving as gracefully as her body had earlier, began picking up stray sheets of paper.  His hand reached downward; so her hand reached, too.  Their fingers glanced; skin brushed skin.  At that moment, she lifted her eyes to his, and he to hers.  Their faces did not so much rise with surprise as fade into inexpression.  He stared deeply into the olive greens of her irises and the flexing black pupil at their centers.  She was lost into the black midst of his.  For an instant in time they saw from one another's eyes; but they saw not what light brought to each other's optic nerve, but what visions had moved them a month-and-a-half earlier.  And yet, startling as the traded visions might have been, the two passengers merely felt a sense of those visions, and were not conscious they had traded thoughts at all.  Though the sensation felt as though it lasted an hour, the glancing moment passed quickly.  She withdrew her hand and blushed.  He nodded gratefully for her assistance, and picked up the last of the fallen lecture notes.  And then she turned back to her window, her reflection skimming along against the countryside, a pleasured memory lifting a smile to the full lips of her luscious mouth.  Jung straightened his papers and laid them neatly on the seat adjacent to his.  He glanced at the young woman--her hair, the back of her head--and then, suddenly stirred for reasons he did not understand, began feeling absently for a piece of fruit that he had packed in his medical bag. 

Ross Lanser has had six stories published in the previous three years, most recently in Oasis and AlienSkin Magazine. He lives in Seattle and works as a software specialist and technical writer.

Email: Ross Lanser

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