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We were taking the switchbacks in slithers, ploughing the gravel-mush out to the bank.
'Frot me,' said Siggy. 'There's some load pushing us along.'
'You've got the helmet on wrong,' I said to her ear, so soft it tickled my nose.
'Never mind now,' she said. 'Just hold.'
I could peek how the helmet nearly covered her eyes and rode high up on the back of her head; she gripped the chin strap in her mouth, and it cut off the ends of her words.
'It's the Ybbs, there,' she said - and through the long-falling orchard I had a glimpse of wide water, black as oil in the shade firs at the meadow bottom.
At the next switchback we saw it again, only now it was hammering over a falls. A mudstone town with rust-colored roofs began where the black of the river fell to foam - fell to a broth, bone-colored and bubbly. And there were towers flying the canton flags, peep sights and gun slits in the waterfront castles, and arching bridges of stone, and little, swinging wood walks spanning the offshoots of the river that ran through the streets. And garden plots too, with the fading, fake colors of the city flower markets.
But Siggy had taken too much of a look; he'd gone too high up on the bank of the switchback, and the crown of the road was turned against us. Siggy was fighting the gravel-mush on the fat lip of the bank. 'Oh, frot!' he said. 'Oh, frot frot frot!'
One cheek of my rump wobbled down on the fender; I was tipped, and there was no place for my poor feet.
So my thumbs slipped apart at the girl's spine; I plunged my hands under her laundry bag and into her lap.
'Don't you!' she said. And her elbows flew up under my arms, like the startled winging of a grouse; her skirt fluttered up to her thigh. I at least had a glimpse of that hard, round leg before my other rump cheek sat on the fender too; I was pushed between the seat and rucksack, with no place for my poor feet, and with no way to steady my slipping. My weight pushed the fender down; I was warmed by the wheel rub. And I was slipping more. It was my left leg that touched the pipe first, at mid-calf, and I had no choice but to scissor the bike to stay on.
So the pipes received my calves like the griddle grabs the bacon.
'Oh, he's burning!' the girl said.
'Is it Graff?' said Siggy. 'God, I thought it was my brakes!'
But there was no stopping quick in the gravel-mush at a downhill pitch; of course he had to ride the bank out. Siggy wedged us upright in an orchard ditch, and he lifted me off - over the rucksack - though I was glued to the pipes and needed yanking.
'Oh, we'll have to soak your pants off,' he said.
'Ai!' I said. 'Oh ai, ai!'
'Shut your mouth, Graff,' he said, 'or you'll lose all dignity.'
So I clamped on the hoots that were pelting up and down my throat - I wouldn't let them out - and they sank down to my poor calves: my sticky, gravel-spattered calves, looking more melted than burnt.
'Oh, don't touch them!' said the girl. 'Oh, look at you!'
But I looked at her, with her cock-eyed helmet, and I thought: How I'd like to bash you up good and hang you by your frotting hair!
'Oh, you,' she said. 'When you grabbed, I didn't know you were falling!'
'God,' said Siggy, 'doesn't he stink?'
'Oh, frot you!' I said.
'We'll need a bath to soak him in,' said Siggy.
'There's my aunt's,' the girl said. 'Oh, her Gasthof has baths and baths.'
'That you could stand, Graff - baths and baths.'
'So get him back on,' said the girl. 'I'll show you the way.'
And, oh, did the wind sting me - ice on my scorches. I hugged the girl; she reached back one arm and wrapped me around her. But the terrible hoots were rising within me - I was going to be gagged, so I closed my mouth on her neck, for the sake of my silence and bliss.
'What's your name, you?' she said through the chin strap, and her neck blushed hot against my lips.
