By Jonny Topaz

Warm, wet air spills over her as she opens the door to a tangle of flowers and plants, some reaching all the way to the glass ceiling and adorned with huge, deep green leaves. The climate of the greenhouse alone – in such stark contrast to the bitter cold air outside – is enough to make her want to stay. To take the job offered by this cryptic advertisement in Sunday’s paper:
Help wanted in a greenhouse where scents delicious and mighty stream forth, their fragrance so sweet, all things enlivening around.
Beth had laughed when she read it in the dingy little café, an oppressive gray sky hanging over the dirty streets outside. At the time, though, she didn’t think to call the number. It wasn’t until later that night, when the poetic want-ad came back to her, that she became intrigued. An Internet search later, and she knew the mysterious greenhouse gardener was a fan of Goethe and his Metamorphosis of Plants.
She knew she wouldn’t get the job: Her sole experience in botany consisted of a summer in high school working at the local nursery. However, she really wanted to meet the person who had placed such an ad.
“Hello?” she called. No one answered, so she just stood there, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply of the sultry air as her tall, lean body opened up and embraced the warmth.
“You must be here for the job,” a soft, deep voice said, startling Beth and almost causing her to lose her balance. She opened her eyes: Green eyes, speckled with yellow stared intensely, but gently, into hers. A warm stirring crept from her upper thighs into her belly. For a long moment, she couldn’t speak.
“It’s okay,” he said, smiling. “The flowers tend to leave people speechless.”

Early the next day, just as the sun broke through the haze of the city, Beth reported for her first day of work. During her job “interview,” Alan had explained that he needed someone to learn how to care for the plants because he would be traveling, and didn’t want to leave the greenhouse to just anyone. A green thumb, he said, was less important than an ability to understand each plant’s needs and desires.
“And you,” he said, staring into her eyes again with an intensity that contrasted with his soft voice, “seem to have that quality.”
Again, warmth flooded her thighs, and, without even asking what the job paid, she accepted.
Her first days at work were grueling; she followed Alan around and took notes as he laid out, in detail, the family tree of each flower, fruit and shrub. He humbly pointed out rare orchids such as the Cyprepedium rothschildianum, with its plum stripes and hairy petals. But he seemed just as proud of a yellow tomato, the fruit of which he forbade Beth from even touching (“It’s not ripe enough, yet,”), and a fig tree with big, brown fruit hanging heavily from the branches.
At the end of the first week, they transplanted a lime tree together, and by the time they were done, both were tired and dripping with sweat, their odors mingling with the rich smell of earth.
“Here,” said Alan, scooping a handful of dark, loamy soil from the ground. “Smell this.”
He held it up to her face with one hand, the other just barely grazing the small of her back. She bent down and breathed in deeply, her light brown hair taking in not only the smell of earth, but also his smell – salty and smoky all at once.
His mouth almost touching Beth’s ear, Alan whispered: “Thus doth the kernel, while dry, cover that motionless life. Upward then strives it to swell, in gentle moisture confiding, and, from the night where it dwelt, straightway ascends to light.”
Beth recognized the lines as Goethe’s almost instantly – she had been reading his poems in bed each night. Her eyes still closed, she felt her cheeks get hot and her nipples harden. She turned slowly to Alan, offering her lips –
“Okay,” he said abruptly as he stood up and stepped away. “I think you’re ready. My flight leaves early tomorrow, so take care of my babies. Please.”

When Beth arrived at the greenhouse the next morning, she didn’t feel like taking care of anything. She was a bit hungover – after leaving the greenhouse thenight before, she drank three rose martinis to drown her sadness and lust – and felt dejected. Instead of following the daily routine, she slumped down in the dirt and wondered how she could have been so wrong about Alan. For a moment, she considered just walking out, and letting the plants take care of themselves.
Then she saw the tomato. Deep yellow, it seemed to glow from within, and pulled the vine over with its ripe weight. At least five or six hung from the one plant; dozens more begged lusciously to be eaten from surrounding vines. Beth smiled mischievously, reached over and picked the ripest looking one. It burst sweetly and tartly in her mouth, the juice squirting onto her lips – a flavor like no other, sunshine on the tongue.

Alan watched silently from behind the fig tree’s big leaves. All night he had been tortured by the image of Beth: her long, slender body; the gentle curve of her ass in those old, worn jeans; her nipples hard under the thin fabric of her shirt; her lips like fruit, full and ripe with expression; and her smell like the sea and an orchid, combined. Halfway to the airport, he had turned around and sped back to the greenhouse. Now he gazed upon her sitting against a planter, her eyes closed, her skirt rumpled up on her thighs, her tongue savoring the fruit she had just bitten.
He walked slowly but surely toward her. She looked up at him, her surprise dimmed by desire. He knelt down, as if in prayer, and she lifted the remaining half of the tomato to his lips. He took it, and then kissed her, letting the slippery little seeds slip from his tongue to hers. Beth pulled her t-shirt up over her head, then unbuttoned Alan’s. Then she reached over and grabbed another tomato, and crushed it onto her chest, smearing the juice and seeds all over her little pear-like breasts and her deep brown gumdrop nipples. Alan licked each seed off of her, and she kept crushing tomatoes on her flesh.
He pushed her down into the soil, warm, and pulled her moist underwear off. She burst another overripe tomato on her hip, its juices squirting onto her thigh and belly. He licked them off slowly, his tongue making its way to her sex. He buried his face there, gulping down her scent. He took her labia between his lips and sucked lightly, darting his tongue into her salty warmth. Once his face was smothered with her juice, he found her clitoris – like the anther of a flower – and brushed his tongue against it lightly, then sucked it, then grasped the little bud, about to burst, between his teeth. He massaged it with his lips, teeth, and tongue all at once, while one finger slid up her ass and two others explored inside of her.
She circled her hips slowly around, uttering deep moans and squeezing her tomato-juice-slathered breasts. His intensity increased, and so did hers, her face and chest blooming scarlet. Then she cried out, her hips thrusting into his face until she couldn’t stand it anymore and pushed his head away. Though sated, her desire still burned, and she pushed Alan down and unzipped his pants, letting his hardness spring forth. She admired it for a moment, then picked another tomato, smashed it in her hand, and let the juices drip all over his cock and his balls and then deliberately licked the slippery substance away.
Slowly, she moved up his body, kissing his belly, his hairy chest and nibbling his nipples. He shuddered when she mounted him, his thickness sliding slowly into her wetness. She was tentative at first, until she found the right rhythm and the right position, then she rode him hard, watching his face closely so she’d know when to let loose. He buckled against her, his teeth clenched. She felt his juices filling her up.

Covered in sweat and stickiness, they lay together in the dirt for hours afterward, feasting on tomatoes and figs, and fucking when they got too full. Finally, as the purple sky of dusk enveloped the greenhouse, their bodies gave out, and Beth fell asleep in Alan’s arms.
Then he softly uttered his favorite lines of the poem:
Many ribbed and toothed, on a surface juicy and swelling, free and unending the shoot seems in fullness to be. Lovingly now the beauteous pairs are standing together, gathered in countless array, there where the altar is raised.
As he finished, he was sure he saw Beth smile from her slumber.

Good question, and one I hope to answer with this blog.

It’s the intersection between reason and passion.

It’s the opposite of Cartesian thought.

It’s the way love can bring us closer to knowledge, the way sex can lead us to epiphany.

It’s biting into a tomato, fresh off the vine, and the resulting connection to the universe.