She drifted through the orchard, taking off her clothes, and stacking them in little piles underneath the pear trees. Like a huge white moth, she flittered through the trees, dancing and swaying voluptuously in the light of the gibbous Moon, caressing the rough tree bark and the unripe fruit as she passed. Albert, gazing through the screens of the sleeping porch, realized what was happening. He ran downstairs, shedding his pajama shirt on the kitchen floor and tossing the bottoms over the porch railing. He headed across the lawn to join her and tried to match her movements. But as she whirled in great, sensuous, rhythmic circles through the clarifying moonlight, the best he could manage were half-hearted stamps in the tangled grass. He tried to catch her attention, to dance with her, to be her partner, but Ethel didn’t even seem to notice him. For her, the Moon was all. When Albert’s toe disturbed a yellow-jacket’s nest hidden among the rotting fruit, he gave up and hurried inside.
The next morning, riding the Number Seven downtown, he regretted his impulsive actions, especially as they had netted him exactly nothing except a swollen big toe. But for Ethel, taking a home day, there were no regrets. All day long she burned with the fervor of the dance. Her laundry neglected, her bed unmade, she moped about, waiting for the dark. Then with the rising of the moon, a strange look came into her eyes. Leaving her chicken dijonnaise half-eaten, and Albert with his mouth half-open, she got up from the table and headed for the orchard.
Albert stood as well and reached for his belt buckle. Then he stopped. That was no solution, as had been proven the previous night. He sat down again and took a large gulp of Chardonnay. Was Ethel planning to abandon him every moonlit night? Did she not care for him anymore? He had always meant to share her hobbies, but what about Monday Night Football? What if she wanted to dance while the Packers were playing as they were that night. He turned on the TV, poured himself a beer, and settled dispiritedly into his recliner.
Forty years together – and now this! Until now everything they had done, they had done together. There had been the macrobiotic years, when they both became as lean as broom handles. There were the copper bracelet experiments which turned his arm green. And then the Yoga Period. He had been justly proud of his accomplishments at the Downward Dog before they gave up yoga for river rafting.
After an hour or so - it was the beginning of Halftime – Ethel, breathing heavily, bounced in at the kitchen door. Her hair was disheveled and her bosom heaving. Albert gazed at her and was duly impressed. He stood with some difficulty.
“Ethel!” he cried, clasping her great, smooth, pale body to his. “My own!”
She pushed him off gently. “No, dear! Not now. The Goddess wouldn’t approve.”
“The Goddess!” he cried in anguish. “What about me?”
She patted him absentmindedly on his bald head and went on up to bed - alone. There was nothing for Albert to do than to go back outside and retrieve her scattered clothes, already damp from the dew. When he joined his wife in bed, she was asleep.
The moonlight lay across the covers and shone full on his face. He got up to draw the curtains and, as he did so, he glared at that intrusive orb floating so coolly in the midnight sky. He fancied It was mocking him.
“Curse you!” he whispered, shaking his fist in Its face. “Who asked you to interfere in my life?”
The Moon gazed back silently.
Rather than closing the drapes, he went back to the bed and lay at an angle that allowed a patch of moonlight to bath his legs in Its glow. After a bit, they began to twitch, first the left and then the right. Ethel grunted a tiny protest in her sleep.
Albert tried to keep them still, for her sake, but they would not behave. His knees began to knock together in a most grotesque manner and his heels beat a tattoo on the wooden floor.
Ethel awoke and observed his errant limbs. “Albert!” she cried. “Now we are truly one!”
At that moment Albert was sadly unable to appreciate the advantages of the situation. Much as he would have liked to accompany Ethel back to the orchard, his legs were no longer his to command. Out of bed they took him, out of the room and out of the house. Away he danced, and away he was obliged to dance, right through the shadowy orchard and into the fields beyond.
Ethel ran after him and tried to take his hand in hers, but he was moving much too fast. His legs churned through the fields, over roads and pathways, briars and stubble until his feet were torn and bleeding.
“Stop!” shrieked Ethel, running after. But he could not stop.
“Stop this!” she shouted to the Moon as She hung serenely in the heavens. “It’s not supposed to be this way.”
But the Goddess either could not help her – or did not wish to.
“Let him go, I tell you! He’s mine!” she yelled. And then, when no assistance was forthcoming, “Curse You!” she shouted. “Who asked You to interfere in my life, anyway?”
At that moment, the Moon passed behind the clouds. Albert, released, fell heavily to the ground, spraining his elbow. Ethel ran to him and helped him back into the house.
From that day forward, all their dancing was done in the light of day. They danced in the ripening orchard at the first rising of the sun, in the sweltering noonday of August, and even when the weak light of winter barely managed to cast a shadow on the lawn. Their bodies became ruddy, sunburned and peeling.
Their sex-life improved, as well.