A Scent of Eucalyptus

She is sitting in her study writing erotic fiction. It is a sultry simmer afternoon and the heavy breeze laps gently through her open window. She writes about a woman climbing through the bush on a hot summer day, pushing through the prickly scrub, cocooned in the still, shimmering, and hazy air. She describes how the sun is blue with eucalyptus oil. As she writes, the sweat is damp on her skin and she can feel the drag of the weighty pack and the scratch of twigs. She tastes the eucalyptus like dusty menthol on her tongue.

She writes about the woman cresting a ridge and finding a pool in a gully. She describes the water striped by the sun and shade into stained-glass colours, and how it tempts the woman with its promise of a cool emerald heart. She describes the woman, undressing, pushing her hot, sticky clothes into a pile and standing naked on the rocks. She writes about how the woman's body is suddenly unfamiliar, dappled by patches of brightness and shadow, as if she is a mosaic goddess.

She shifts on her chair and stretches her fingers and then takes up the pen and describes the woman stepping carefully into the water. It's green freshness bites at her, sliding like a seducer's hand around the crook of her ankles and up over her knees, making her skin tingle. She describes the way the sensitive flesh of the woman's thighs tenses as its touch and how the ripples that cup her buttocks nudge and kiss like a cool tongue between her legs. She describes the woman lifting handfuls of water and letting the drops fall onto her breasts, watching the glittering streams outline her nipples, feeling the tickle of the water make them harden and pout.

She imagines the drops sliding over her skin as she writes. The thick breeze from the window does not cool her. Her breasts brush the cotton of her dress.

She describes the woman turning and slipping into the smoothness of the pool. She writes how the clearness closes over the woman's head and how the sweat and dust slough away from her like a snake-skin, leaving her fresh, half-mermaid, half-siren.

She describes the woman running her hands over her new, sleek, marbled body, feeling the swelling of her breasts and the curve of her flanks, letting the touch of her fingers and the movements of the water arouse her.

She senses an answering tightness in her thighs and she writes a little faster, picturing how the woman turns to see a man on the opposite bank. The forest has conjured up a lover to answer her mounting river of desire, a man standing tall and broad-shouldered who follows her nakedness with a deliberate gaze.

With swift words she describes the man diving into the pool like a dolphin. Her hand cuts across the page as he cuts through the water, the lines of his body spangled with tiny silver bubbles.

She describes the woman poised for his touch, her skin aware of his every movement, wetness between her legs that is not the lick of the pool. She describes how the man swims around the woman like a fish and presses himself against her from behind, taking her buttocks in his hand. She describes how the woman feels his erection hard and powerful against her back and his fingers slipping hungrily into the warmth of her cleft.

As she writes, the hot folds between her legs become moist. She can sense the man's body against her. With her free hand she slides her dress up over her thighs and caresses her clitoris through the soft, silky lace of her panties. Electricity surges through her body.

She forces herself to keep writing. Her words are hurried and untidy. She describes the man stroking his strong fingers up and down the woman's swelling, hidden lips until she is trembling with desire and the juices flow out of her like water.

She describes how the man pulls away from the woman for a moment and glides around her body, swift and supple, teasing her with his trailing, insistent fingers, seeking out her most intimate places, pressing and nibbling, until she makes small cries like a bird and the orgasm builds like a waterfall inside her. She describes how the woman pushes her hips towards the man and how the man parts her lips with his hand and slides the heads of his penis into her hot wetness.

She describes how for a moment there is a breathless stillness, the only sound distant birds and the hum of heat, and then how the ripples are churned and shattered as the woman arches and the man thrusts his full length insider her. She describes how the woman grasps the man's shoulders and throws her face upwards to the sky as she feels him draw out of her and plunge in again, each stroke deeper than the last, her body transformed with pleasure, one leg lifted high around his waist, her voice calling out as she feels the climax soar and fountain through her body.

Her writing is a scrawl. Her breath is uneven. She opens her thighs on the chair as she describes the man pulling back and driving into the woman with a deep moan as he feels her come.

Her last word trails on the page. She puts the pen down and finally allows her fingers to touch the demanding hotness between her legs, slipping her hand inside the folds of lace to find the swollen bud. As she caresses it, lightly at first and then with firmer strokes, she imagines the man's penis moving deep inside her. She can almost feel the force of his orgasm as she lifts her hips and the spasms shake her, waves of trembling release sweeping like a torrent through her body.

With a small smile she retrieves her pen from the floor and turns back to the paper to finish her story.

A faint scent of eucalyptus drifts through the room.