The bush track along which I walk shows signs of disuse. The tree branches and the scrubby bushes are starting to encroach upon the path, no longer being held back by the regular tread of other walkers' feet. Despite that, the track is still wide enough that I don't need to concentrate too hard to avoid having my legs and ankles scratched.
I am totally immersed, my breathing deep and regular, my heart light with ease as I listen to the bush sounds around me - the cicadas with their high-pitched shimmying, birds cawing from deeper in the surrounding forest, and the scurry of the occasional ground-dwelling animal that I have inadvertently startled from their foraging. But most relaxing of all is the deep miasma of the forest smell, deep and earthy and so far removed from the hustle of my day-to-day city life that it conveys an other-worldliness to my usually stressed psyche. I realise as I walk that I have moved so far away from Nature in my life, and that my sudden need to go for a bush walk was a deeper part of me screaming for some contact with the real world. And so here I am, and for the first time in a long time I am not thinking about anything but what is directly about me - the track, the rainforest - and my senses are engaged solely in appreciation.
The day is overcast, rainclouds thick in the sky above, and I welcome that, too. The air is cool around me, and the darkened sky has a bruised look about it, which always fills me with the delicious anticipation of a potential storm. Bring it on, I say, to whomever may be listening.
When it does start to rain it begins with just a few thick drops that smack against my face and my arms. Within a minute I can hear the downpour begin in earnest, but the canopy of trees above me protect me from most of the fall. The new noise of the rain drumming on the foliage above and around me adds to my sense of overwhelming peace.
Of a sudden a small gap appears in the trees and bushes beside me, more a deficit of one tree than a true opening, and through it I can espy a small clearing. It is a greensward that seems somehow out of place with the surrounding bushland, for the grass here is lush and thick, and looks almost manicured as if attended to regularly by a gardener. The clearing is ringed by tall trees that serve to enclose is, such that the only easy entrance into it is through the small gap at which I now stand.
It is too tempting. I push through the narrow gap and into the clearing.
There is no roof here, the clearing is open wide to the sky above, and so the rain is much heavier here. I turn my face upward and catch the raindrops on my tongue. Within a few moments my clothes are saturated and suddenly there seems no point in wearing them at all. I strip off, throwing my forsaken garments and my backpack off to one side. Naked now, I stand for minutes in the deluge, delighting in the feel of the rain against my raw skin, as it seems to wash away my sins with its cold purity.
Eventually I sit down on the beautiful grass and close my eyes, letting myself drown in the moment of the rain and the forest smells and the peace. Is this the state that meditation is meant to be?
When next I open my eyes I am startled to find that I am not alone in the clearing. Standing several metres away from me is a woman, as naked as I am, and she is gorgeous beyond belief. But it is her eyes that hold my attention, impossible to define their colour but they pierce me with a mixture of challenge and defiance and desire. It is an evident truth that she is part of this place, an element of the forest, but I cannot tell you why I know that. I just know.
I sit perfectly still, not wanting to startle her or make her feel threatened. But my penis betrays me, as the sudden and undeniable desire I have for her tingles through me and leads to my cock engorging and becoming rock hard with lust. I see her eyes shift down my body to see this reaction that she has had on me, and her smile shows she is satisfied.
With a few slow steps she comes to stand before me, and looks down upon me. The rain is cascading down her, through her hair, down her cheeks, running down her breasts and her belly, rivulets of water turning into a stream that turns into a small waterfall over her naked mons. I look up at her, past the flat plane of her belly and the pert swelling of her breasts with their stiffened nipples, and I ask her with my eyes. Her answer is as evident as my desire.