Into The Garden

She felt his hand push aside her hair. Then his breath on her nape. A dry tongue traced a line from the base of her neck into her hair line.

Then a kiss.

There, on her nape just beneath her hair.

Her hair pulled taut now. Tongue circling slowly. Wet. She leaned into it, her back hard against the ungiving wood of the chair. Another stroke of the tongue, from skin to hair, rewarded her.

Then, a pause. A click. A buzz rose in the still of the garden. There. Behind her right ear. She could feel it -- sense it -- before she heard it. A hand returned, fingers combing through her dark tresses, slipping through the silkiness, then stopping suddenly.

A fist balled up, pulled softly. Her hair lifted skyward, offered to the spring clouds.

Her nape exposed, her chin on her chest. Her eyes, unable to focus on her bare breasts, took in the yellow tulips rising between her feet. Her feet flat on the ground, her toes tingling in the still cool spring soil. Her hands gripping the arms of the chair.

A spasm of fear. Raw, chest-pounding fear cut through her. Fear and a deep, unexpected thrill.

Oh, how fear and pleasure are often such close relatives, kissing cousins.

Only the sound -- that vibrating buzz -- suggested reality.

The minutes leading to this flashed through her mind, altered memories already, the pleasure elbowing out the fear. But, oh, the memories, memories that teased a smile out of her face.

She shifted a little against the uncomfortable seat of the chair and felt her own slickness.

He'd led her down here after a long lunch filled with smirking gazes and several glasses of an Italian red, unsuitable for the light meal, but she'd indulged his romantic attachment to the wines and the country.

The path from the house led to a bosque of trees and then into a clearing in an old forest. Daffodils, late because they were starved for sunlight, reached for the afternoon sky, turning their white and yellow faces like sundials begging for a tan. Emerging ferns -- painted ferns with their silvery foliage -- filled the few spaces between blooms.

She was curious, even a little fearful. But she’d learned to trust him, to explore the adventure with him.

When they reached the center of the daffodil drifts, he'd stopped, grasped her hand, turned to face her and kissed her gently. Then he walked behind a tree on the clearing's edge and came back, carrying an old quilt. He spread it across the daffodils, crushing some, then turned and reached for the top button on the short dress he'd picked for her that morning.

His fingers worked their way down the row of buttons, pausing only when the last had been undone and the dress gently flapped in the soft breeze. She shrugged it off her shoulders and it fell in a heap behind her. She stood, naked, in the long afternoon light, her winter white skin seemingly picking up the glow of the white daffodils surrounding her.

He began undressing, his eyes on her, her brown eyes alighting with a smirk as he fumbled with buttons.

When they were naked, without artifice, in the garden, he approached, sniffing at her ear, running his right hand through her shoulder-length hair, nuzzling for long minutes. Then a soft kiss. She felt his hand behind her, supporting her as he lowered her to the quilt. He spread her hair on the softness, then moved her hands above her head.

That tongue began to create small circles on her neck below her ear while his right hand massaged her stomach, then teased lower.

Slowly.

Everything was excruciatingly slow.

Controlled.

Anticipatory.

The long tease.

The spicy sweet scent of the daffodils. The playful pauses when his tongue lifted from its appointed rounds.

Minutes? Hours? She didn't know now. She knew it built hypnotically then surprised her with its intensity. After, he lay on his side, gently stroking his hand across her chest just below her tender breasts.

Now, she sat rigid in a chair, rested after his attentions to her. Her hands were flat on the arms of the chair. Her hair pulled taut in his hand. She awaited a different kind of naked, a scary, unsettling bareness she would be unable to disguise.

He'd led her deeper into the woods from their first trysting spot trying without success to suppress a grin. Even she had to smile through the little rush of fear unsettling her stomach, racing her pulse.

He pulled firmly on her hair, establishing a caring, shared dominance, then retreated from the harshness with an ever-so-gentle tongue on her nape.

One stroke of his tongue.

Then another.

That tease. From bare skin his serpent slid up into the hair of her nape. Then a pull, gentler this time.

Then the sound.

Buzzing.

Louder now.

Closer.

A rasp.

Coolness on her nape.

Something soft tickling her breast.

That tongue, harder now, exploring...soft bristle.

Out of focus, eyes cast down, she could see a line of black, like a Frankenthaler slash through the middle of a painting, highlighted against her opaque white breast.

Another stroke of the tongue. A re-establishing of dominance by firmly grasping her hair. A breath.

That sound, that buzz, whirling like a muffled blender. Louder. Then that coolness on her nape.

Instantly, his tongue on her new stubble. So controlled. So slow.

Her dark hair, again floating past her right eye, this time wafting down to settle on her thighs.

There was a slight readjustment. She could feel him move away from her right ear. This time the tongue began between her shoulder blades, the hair was pulled straight towards the sky. A long, slow lingering, positively pornographic lick. A duller buzz. Vibration. Rasp. Coolness. She could feel the blades moving up her neck.

Then that inspecting tongue on new stubble. Teasing, probing, making her wetter and wetter.

He paused. Then his hand reached around, setting the clippers between her legs, resting against her thigh.

Vibrating.

Shocking.

She began to reach down to adjust the humming clipper, to move it to a resting spot away from her thigh. Instantly, his hand stopped her. Tsk, tsk. He positioned her hand back on the end of the chair's arm. The cool vibrations continued to tease her moistness. Slowly. Not firm enough to send her over the edge. Persistent. A slow, vibrating tease.

Now, something new.

Against the back of her head, his finger worked a slow massage on her nape. Then his thumbs, pressing firmly, moved in circles over the clipped area. Slowly. Gently but firmly. She began to sway. His lips nuzzled the stubble. Her eyes closed, drawn to the rhythm.

He eased away and she felt a finger slide up her thigh then veer off. Tease. He picked up the clippers again. A bird call -- perhaps a cardinal -- cut through the drone.

A tongue, a pull, a breath of her hair. That whirring buzz again, behind her left ear.

Stroke after stroke. More hair falling.

He was, in a way, undressing her just as surely as if he were undoing buttons on her dress. He was, certainly, giving her new clothes, breaking a trail to new frontiers.

The seconds stretched into minutes and the waltz continued up her nape and on both sides of her head where he attentively teased the gentle curves of her ears with his tongue. He paused a minute to eye his art: the contrast was arousing. Her black hair circling the top of her head, awaiting its free fall. Virgin-white skin just showing.

He stroked the bristle. From behind and the side he sees her face stretch into a grin, but he avoids the temptation to break the spell with a one-liner.

Instead, he moved to the front, his arousal bumping her knee. A gentle hand under her chin angled her brown eyes so they met his smiling blue gaze. Tenderly, almost with regret, he stroked the thick darkness that remains. Then his hand brushed it down over her forehead. This time she actually felt the buzz as it passed by her ear to the crown of her head. The rasp was sustained. Blurry clumps fell before her eyes. Suddenly, she could see him clearly again.

And in that instant she realized it was gone. She had surrendered to the fearful temptation he held before her months ago.

Free.

Naked.

Yet beautifully attired.

In naked beauty more adorned, more lovely than Pandora, she thought.

She smiled. A woman once again ruled by her curiosity.

A breeze stirred the tulips, rustling the leaves and she feels the sensation. This, she thought, must be what it's like to be born, to come into the world fresh, naked, without the crutch of style, of covering.

Finished, he massaged her again, this time shifting between strong hands and one damn insistent tongue. The buzz remained, inside her now, though the rasps were over.

Moving in front he reached down as she sat expectant. A hand behind her head. He leaned over. A long kiss.

She wondered if she should rise as he turned away briefly. Then he was back, smiling, almost chuckling. His hand smoothed her head from front to back, rippling over the stubble, bringing it -- and her -- to aroused attention.

A soft horsehair brush supplied a tactile tease. First over her eyes, slowly, softly swishing. Then her ears. She scrunches her shoulders at the tickling. And those shoulders are next, feeling the gentle tease of the brush that cleaned the black hair from her white skin. She realized the yellow tulips about her have become hangers for dark strands. Her hair will return to the Earth with the spring rains. Each year she will see those tulips and remember.

Her reverie is broken by the tenderness of the brush on her nipples, a more erotic touch than any hand. Then it moved to her thighs. And finally it is time. Gently taking her hand in his, he beckons her from the chair.

Their bodies touch, her breasts pressing against his chest, their thighs slipping against each other.

A kiss.

A tongue.

A breath.

A look and a grin. Or was it a leer?

Teasing.

His hand stroked one more time from her forehead back, then settled on her nape and he slowly lowered her to the cool garden floor. Greenery forms the headboard of their earthly bed.

They rocked, swaying in the garden.

Exploring, compromising, pleasing in the forest of tulips.

Naked, utterly naked. But adorned as never before.

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