The weather was stifling; so hot and so still. The heat just hung in the air as Françoise made her way through the long grass, brushing the tall standing flowers with their attendant buzzing bees. Her dress floated around her, barely touching her skin beneath, but even so it felt just so hot. Turning at a clump of gorse she made her way along the old track, barely a footpath now but thirty, perhaps more, years ago a busy cart track to the various farms that had dotted the hillside. No more, there was not the money in farming and so many of the young people had headed for the city and its bright lights and easier money.
Françoise turned again and then again, climbing once more but no longer on a track though certainly with a clear destination in mind, into the shade of young trees that would never have been permitted to grow there in the past, the shade pleasanter, cooler and out of the sun. Stooping, a little further on, she made her way on her knees through brambles on a path she had cleared by herself through a thicket of brambles. It had been an afternoon's scratchy work with many a sucking of fingers and thumbs as the pinpricks of bright red blood had come.
Her goal was the old farmhouse she had seen and been looking towards ever since she had come out into the long grass; an old ruinous farmhouse sitting in what had been a field seemingly walled off from the outside world by the thicket of brambles growing all around it. Years of bramble growth showing all green with white flowers to the outside world but inside a twilight tangle of new stems and dry, brown old growth, all with sharply pointed thorns. The earthy smell beneath the bramble cover and the layer of shed dried leaves almost made her sneeze before she reached her goal: she climbed up and over an old window sill and through an open shutter into the house.
All was quiet and still, just as it had been when she had first made it, weeks before, through the brambles to the window with its loose shutter and into the abandoned house - her house now: not that she lived there or could live there. What would her parents have said, what would the village have said if she had set up home there? Quite impossible. It did not even belong to her family, abandoned or not.
But it was hers; Françoise's discovery; Françoise's domain; Françoise's house.
The loose blue dress that had accompanied her slipped to the floor. It was cooler in the shade of the house but nonetheless hot and Françoise had no need of clothes; she revelled in being naked and alone. Shoes kicked aside, underclothes dispensed with, Françoise climbed the old stairs without a scrap of material on her body. Solid enough. Abandonment had not led to the roof falling in; the place was well built and still almost habitable.
One naked foot on one tread and then the other on the next and Françoise moved upwards leaving her clothes behind. At the open window of the front bedroom, the bigger one, Françoise stood unashamed at her nakedness, revealing all to the valley, only she knew with the bright sunlight pouring down even someone in the field could not see her, the window opening would appear dark against the white of the stone walls. She would be invisible, seemingly revealed but not revealed. Françoise leant against the side of the opening looking out, feeling a hint of a breeze but knowing it was just the movement of air drawn in that one window and out another. Not a real breeze but cooling on her skin, even so. Françoise closed her eyes feeling happy and peaceful. The afternoon stretched ahead of her. Time and more to enjoy being naked and alone; free from the requirements and constraints of family and village; free to be herself and let her thoughts roam.
Her fingers touched her left breast, stroked across the nipple. Françoise with her eyes still closed, smiled. Why did that feel so good? A bead of sweat trickled down her side. That felt strangely good too. Normally it would have been an irritation but now the sensation seemed magnified and pleasurable, a gossamer like touch to her skin. Françoise raised her other hand and touched her other breast. Exciting to do that in open view, even if it was not. If she opened her eyes she could see for miles but she knew no one could see her. There was no one to see the young girl fingering her own breasts.
A long sigh, as her fingers moved down her stomach. Lovely to feel her fingers on her sun warmed skin. She opened her eyes and regarded her hands. What, she wondered, would another's hands feel like? Rather different and better was her expectation. She had certainly thought of sharing the old farmhouse with another, imagining being there with another girl, both leaving their clothes below and climbing naked together to the upstairs window. Perhaps sitting either side in the opening, perhaps even daringly with one leg each dangling and touched first themselves and then each other. Making each other feel so good. Perhaps, again and better, being there with a boy, perhaps sitting either side of the window and touching... touching... Françoise felt a surge of excitement. One thing to touch a girl and feel another touching her as she touched herself: rather another thing altogether to have a boy touching her and she touching his, his...
Françoise settled herself into an old chair just by the window. A simple wooden chair, perhaps one of many the farmer or the farmer before him or the farmer before him had bought, or made, and used. It was the best of those left in the house. She liked the feel of her bare bottom on the rush, liked the way she could sit with feet and ankles on the window sill and with legs spread touch herself where she got wet.
She did just that as the sun poured in at the window, making her breasts and hips hot yet with her head in the shade. Her fingers moved from stomach to curls. Funny how hair grew there in a wide curly, dark triangle. It had not been like that once, but now, all of eighteen years old, there it grew thick and luxuriant. Hair on her head, hair under her arms, hair around her... but nowhere else. Why? Men were different.
Françoise touched. So soft within the hair - and so wet, as she had known it would be. That had been coming ever since she had started walking through the long grass. Anticipation. She had known what she would do. Françoise closed her eyes and surrendered to the feelings.