Strawberry Fields Forever(Charles E.J. Moulton) Strawberry Fields Forever
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A Short Romantic Story
By Charles E.J. Moulton

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The sensual cream. Soft. Nurturing. Slow. Caressing. The crunchy crust's firm embrace. A farmer who would hug you and have his own arms meet as he did. And the strawberries on top the children of the cream and the crust a sign of beauty. A symbiosis. The creamy meeting the crunchy, the hard meeting the soft, the soft inspiring the hard to find its core. In something as seemingly simple as a strawberry cheesecake, I saw the entire universe.

That cake always triggered a yearning in my heart. And so, at the heart and within the taste of it lay the miracle of love. That and the strawberry fields forever.

They say that the way to a man's heart goes through his stomach. But that would be limiting it. Especially in the light of what I know about the woman I love.

I met Julia on a Sunday at our local St. Patrick's Chapel in Wicklow, Ireland. I was there with my parents and she was there with hers and her grandmother. 
We were 9 years old at the time.
The pastor had chosen the Virgin Mary as a sermon and the whole thing was about love. How important a home is and wondrous the gift of giving was. He recited the book of kings, which in truth was a bride and a bridegroom declaring their love for each other. The pastor made it very clear how holy nuptial love was and that a couple should try to find the universal creating in consuming that love. An unusual thing for a Catholic pastor in Ireland, for sure.

Maybe the pastor blessed us that day, Julia and me. We were sitting in the same row with the aisle between us, you know, smiling and waving at each other.
I still remember the dark red carpet leading up to the statue of Mary and the words of the pastor as I gazed at it.

"Did you know that Mary Magdalene loved Jesus?"

I thought about how holy love must be for a holy woman to love a holy man.
So, for me that holy statue became Mary Magdalene to me and how holy love is. The chapel still stands today and looks exactly the same.

Well, Julia looked at me and I looked at her and we both got it. What life was about. It was as if we wanted to touch each other, hold each other, love each other, feel each other. But we had no idea what it was we were feeling.

On the way out of chapel, it was obvious to our families how much we liked each other. So we spent each Sunday with each other, playing catch on the grassy hill by the Celtic coast.

Her father even had her transferred to my school so we could be together.

I still remember that sweet girl that never could stop laughing and the other 9 year-olds all tried to impress someone or just be ... guys.
I thought that was stupid. With Julia, I could talk gibberish. We could tickle each other and it would be okay. I could talk girl stuff and she could talk boy stuff and it would be okay. She would stop on a moonlit night, wince at it and say:

"I wanna live there."

She was the living version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", without the LSD, of course, not that it was ever there. And she was amazingly sweet. If reincarnation is real, then maybe she was Mary Magdalene in a former life. But who truly knows about such things?

So we became best friends. On a Tuesday, actually at lunch break. 
We made a vow on the lawn after our cantina fries that we would stay friends ... forever.  So, Julia found a song that had the word "forever" in it to advocate - she loved that word - advocate that we would be besties ... forever. 
And she found that song in her Pop's collection of old 45's.
A song by the Beatles called "Strawberry Fields Forever" and we would sing it all the time as a kind of "best friends hymn".
When I say all the time, I mean all the time. 
I bet we were a real nuisance to the other guys and girls in the class, who were in enemy groups against each other in little cliques. Remember, this was before puberty would strike the unknowing pre-teens. A few years later and they would be yearning for each other.
But we were special, weren't we? We were best buds before blokes and lassies usually liked each other. 
Whenever some of our gender contemporaries said or even began saying: "Ooh, Tony likes ... a GIRL!!!" or "Oooh, Julia likes ... a BOY!!!", we immediately bellowed "Strawberry Fields FOREVER".
Poor John Lennon was probably whizzing about heaven, knocking down some apple trees, when he heard us, but we screamed that last word "FOREVER" so hard, we must have scared several people away. Including the teachers. Well, I think the teachers thought we were cute. Honestly, so did we.

Well, Julia had her 10th birthday before me. I always saw that as a sign that girls are more mature than boys, as if they lead boys into the light, kind of, anyway. Well, for my 10th birthday, 10 year-old Julia baked me the best birthday cake ever.
She swore, with a lisp, as true as Mary was a virgin, that she baked it herself, adding that her grandma had helped ... a little. The way she pronounced the word "little" had an adorable ring to it.
Very well accentuated clear T's spoken in a high voice, her hands folding elegantly onto her lap. She tried looking posh while speaking her word "little", but when I couldn't conceal my mirth, she broke out into hysterical laughter as well. I think we giggled for ten minutes. And so, there we were, two ten year-olds, a boy and a girl, rolling on a picnic blanket, eating the best strawberry cheesecake ... ever. 
Her grandma's recipe had really insured her and us a giant success.

Her grandma, who lived just three minutes walking distance away, we could see the house from our spot, had given us the recipe for a strawberry cheesecake Irish style with the berries forming a four leaf clover.

To make it perfect, Julia brought her cassette tape of The Best of The Beatles and a player. We listened to "Strawberry Fields Forever" on a loop, really getting at it with our rendition of the flower power generation. We had no idea they had been high on pot. We just found it funny that they swung around wearing beads and kakis.

Julia had set dishes with strawberries on a red blanket overlooking the seashore for me, where we played catch that first Sunday.
And so, her sweet and tingling smile was sweet and fertile like those strawberry fields forever. 
The grassy seaside cliff in Wicklow had never been so wonderful.

Our family's subsequent move to London came as a shock to both of us. My Dad got a position in a leading British bank with a flat on Abbey Road. That was for me the only positive thing about it, getting closer to where our song was recorded in 1966.

We became avid pen pals. Sending each other letters when letters were becoming passé. In fact, we did loads of things no one ever did. And it was cool. I would send Julia pictures of the famous zebra crossing.

Maybe it was the distance between us that caused us to choose other partners. At least for a while. That went on until we were 24. We had just finished our studies and were now venturing into work. Well, we got our Bachelor degrees the same year, me in London and she in Dublin.
We had other lovers, who still were very keen to meet us, the best buddies. So we arranged for a mutual time in London. We did it all. Stuff that was normal for me. The wax museum. The tower and the palace. And, of course, a pub tour. There was even a picture of her, me and our lovers at the time walking like The Beatles across the street on the zebra crossing, cars honking at us like crazy.

Believe me, that was weird. She was in love with me and I was in love with her. But somehow we had other partners, knowing in our hearts what Sinead O'Connor always sang. "Nothing Compares to You".

We four spent a fun weekend in London, no doubt. But it ended with Julia and me eloping to a supermarket alone to get some "Good Bye Guiness". We could not hold ourselves back any longer. We ended up in each other's arms, kissing each other for ten minutes, devouring each other, sure that we had been one soul in heaven and wanted to become one here, as well.

We were discovered by our partners, who were growing impatient. There was a huge seen that made us break up with them on the spot. Guess what we sang into their faces?

A rather difficult time for our relationship followed. We had jobs and commitments in our cities but vowed to move in with each other eventually.
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She opened a gardening shop in Wicklow and I became an internet geek. I had her picture on my computer at work, which pissed off several girlfriends, I tell you.

Then, one day, her grandmother died and she inherited the house. She swore her grandmother stuck around, making sure she baked the cake in the right way.

The day I got a job in Wicklow was my saving grace. I dropped everything, quit my job, told my parents I was leaving to be one with my soul mate and Dad said: "At last!"

Guess what Julia did for my 30th birthday?

The multitude of fresh strawberries decorating the mix of butter, egg and sugar and the crunch made me feel nine years old again. I closed my eyes and imagined coming back from school with Julia, humming the Beatles tunes we had learned in school.

We now sat on the same blanket on the same spot, touching the same grass, the same sea waves crashing against the shore. As I sat there, closing my eyes, holding Julia's now twenty year older hand, tasting her grandmother's recipe, the picnic blanket ruffled against my shorts and it seemed Julia was enjoying looking at me enjoy myself.
Our mutual memories of childhood, sitting by the seaside and devouring her mom’s cake, watching that sun set, laughing at silly jokes until the stars came up: all of that came back in a spur of the moment. All of that joy lay imbedded in a strawberry cheesecake. And that nice song.

When I opened my eyes after enjoying a bite, Julia's mouth was just a breath away from mine, her sinking proverbially into my larynx, cherry flavoured lip gloss now on mine.

"Let me take you down, cause I'm going to strawberry fields," John Lennon sang on the track that was now playing on a loop on Julia's smartphone. "Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about. Strawberry fields forever."

Was this the way John had felt kissing Yoko? Two becoming one? Was that the reason why one heart seemingly were two entities becoming one? The result a child? Paul and Linda. Ringo and Barbara. George and Pattie. Elvis and Priscilla? Romeo and Juliet? Jack and Rose? Rhett and Scarlett?

It wasn't just our breathing, our hormones, our heartbeats. Our energies merged, our consciousness melding to the point that the one could not be differentiated from the other. Which one of us was Julia and which one of us Anthony? John Lennon at some point merged with his audience like the Celtic Sea became the Atlantic. So we merged on our picnic blanket by the sea.

Julia gently lay the spoonful of cake on her tongue and giggled. That splendid new hairdo fluttered in the Irish breeze, one swift lock of blondish red hair falling across her chest and landing on her bosom. The wind threw me a scent of sensual magnolia by the way of a perfumed memory of exquisite sensuality.

“Julia?” I asked, seeing this woman in the light of the setting sun just where we had played so many years ago.

“Yes?” she mumbled, swallowing the bite of her seductively tasty cake.

“Why did we take so long to reacquaint?”

Julia looked up, the beauty of her brown reindeer eyes glittering in the light of that red candle. She shrugged, her flowery dress losing one ribbon and letting it drop down toward her breasts. I saw that woman’s beautiful Irish shoulder and compared it to the sound of the waves behind her. Wicklow, I thought to myself, thou art a memory recollected, a new life relived, a girlfriend well met.

"Better late than never," she responded, caressing me. Her touch electric, I knew she felt what I felt. My parents move to London had caused us pain. On the other hand, now she had inherited her grandmother's house.

“Will you marry me and give birth to our children?”

John's nasal Liverpool lilt made us smile. "It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out, it doesn't matter much to me. Let me take you down ..."

Julia stood up, laying her spoon aside, fixing me with that stare, grabbing a lock of her hair and gently putting it in her mouth. Circling the picnic blanket on her knees, she ended up behind me and caressed my chest with her long fingers.

"Living is easy with eyes closed," the Beatles-song rang and my eyes saw the Abbey Road sunshine where I had lived since and from where I had moved back to Wicklow.

Soon enough, her feminine scent turned more intense and I found myself on my back actually wanting her more than I ever had wanted anyone in my entire life.

I embraced her face with my hands tenderly, moved my lips in slow motion toward her mouth, seeing those cherry flavored lips moving nearer to my vision by the second. As we met, our lips and our hearts and our souls reacquainting, our eyes closed.

I stood up, embraced her face with my hands and tenderly, ever so tenderly, moved my lips in slow motion toward her mouth, seeing those cherry flavored lips moving nearer to my vision by the second. As we met, our lips and our hearts and our souls reacquainting, our eyes closed. I could still taste the strawberries on her mouth and smell the magnolia on her skin.
 
The heat of our embraces mingled and intertwined and became sheer electricity. In every mutual grasp, our friendship and love proved quantum physics right. We felt our beings meld, morph. I leaned over her, sweetly opening the buttons of her dress, one by one. Their soft cotton clad covered plastic textures were symbols of her soul. Beautiful and handcrafted, feminine and graceful. Her white skin met my gaze under that dress, images of Velasquez Venus coming to mind. I leaned down to kiss her shoulder, the shoulder of a girl I had known and loved since childhood and realized her skin smelled like strawberries. If it was her perfume or her natural smell, I don't know, but I do know that it was closely linked to her natural smell.
John Lennon was still at it on Julia's smartphone, singing about sweet berry fields.

As Julia and I lay there on the picnic blanket, we ventured deep into each other's gazes, feeling the other, feeling the song we heard, knowing it was our song to prove it was right for girls and boys to be besties. And now we were here, making love.

Time stood still as I, almost in slow motion, dived into Julia's soul and she into mine.
We were now one soul.
Julia threw her head backward, smiling, groaning, moaning, grabbing my head and caressing my hair. The sound of the ocean waves against the Irish coast felt like our own heart beat. It was a thump that now was forming, as if our two hearts were working to find a rhythm. This wasn't physical. It was spiritual.

"When two lovers are exactly in tune, their energies are like two instruments composing a symphony."

The words came out of the something-nothingness of eternity and I had a feeling it was John's soul whispering to us through the waves.

In what would seem like a musical allegro, our mingling forms now felt like one form. Two pieces of a puzzle long apart and now after twenty years at last forming completion. I knew she felt me and she knew I felt her. I could hear her thoughts, feel her feelings and I am sure I saw the stars of other world during our copulation.
Julia's hair blowing in the breeze, her skin upon mine, John's voice, the taste of that fantastic cake in my mouth, it was the rise of Celtic springtime.
When we accelerated, we lost our touch with reality and disappeared into ecstatic lust. The speed of our frenzy caught the wind and made our hearts fly.
Soon enough, I felt like flying.
We reached a climax together there on the field.

Afterwards, we lay there looking up at the sun, counting the clouds. We didn't say much about what we thought what cloud looked like. We just knew that we were wondering what each cloud looked like.

As if on cue, for some reason, Julia's smartphone loop of "Strawberry Fields Forever" stopped and we were left with a beautifully magical silence. One that invited the energies to inspire us to sing.

"Something in the way she moves, attracts me like no other lover," came to my mind. Sinatra's favorite love tune was George Harrison's composition.

I hummed it and Julia hummed with through her kisses of my chest and arms, laughing as she did.

"Or what about this one?" she giggled with half-closed eyes. "Desmond has a trolley in the market place."

"That's barrow," I corrected. "Paul sang barrow, not trolley."

Julia pulled back and slapped my chest gently. "In my reality, he sang trolley. And Molly is still working in a band."

"Huh," I mused. "So, Molly is still a singer in a band."

"Mmm-hmm," she nodded.

"What do you know?"

Julia gazed at me looking out across the Irish sea and got a laughing fit.
I looked back at her, baffled.

"What's so funny?"

"Your comment was so serious," she mused through her giggles as I turned her on her back again, laying above her. She mimicked me in a low voice. "So, Molly is a singer in a band, huh?"

Julia tried to finish her sentence, but it was difficult for her to manage.

"Hmm," she continued in her low rumble, "we might have to hire her for our wedding."

Now, she playacted her own six year old lollipop voice, tooth gap lisp and all. "Well, Tony, by now Molly is 90 years old, but she does a helluva Doris Day imitation."

I don't know what it was about her laughter, but the energy of her mirth caught on and I felt it bubble up from my bowels into my larynx and explode out of my mouth. Soon, I was rubbing my face in the grass. Hard to know why some things are funny, but I guess they are when two souls are so aligned that you hear "Stairway to Heaven" being played, then paradise is near.

"Desmond's trolley," I laughed.

I could still taste the strawberries on her mouth and smell the magnolia on her skin. We breathed out through our nostrils, feeling the heat of our embracing bodies mingling and intertwining. I leaned over her again, sweetly opening the buttons of her dress, one by one. 

Half naked, laughing and hungry, we walked into the house again, singing

"We all live in a yellow submarine"

really loud all the way to our front door step. Back in the house, we brought out some strawberry ice cream, read comic books, played games all night and tickled ourselves to sleep just like old times.

Julia and me, best buddies, we had proved to ourselves that girl and boys could be best friends and best lovers. This was her house now, her grandmother's inheritance, and we spent it kissing each other for hours on the marble bench by our own strawberry field. Forever.

We got married in our St. Patrick's Chapel, standing on our own red carpet close to Mary. The same pastor wed us and our families were there, crying happily.

Julia and I have a child.
We named him John.

Strawberry fields forever.

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