Pine Tree Hiss

"Hi, my name is Misha."

She stood blocking the sun and pushed a wisp of black hair from in front of her eyes.

"I want to go down the lake and see the petroglyphs. They said in the coffee shop that you had the only cottage at that end of the lake. You could take me."

It was a command more than a request.

We went.

...

Later she said, "I'm hungry."

...

She turned as I came down to the dock with a beer in each hand and a bag of chips. She had taken off the boots and stood in bare feet. "It's been a long time since I was clean. Can I take a dip in your lake?"

"Sure," I said with a smile. "The water's free." Ever the perfect host, I waved towards the cottage and said that she could change there and offered her one of my sister's bathing suits.

"I should not like to impose," she said flatly and began undoing the buttons down the front of the dress. A witty retort died on my lips as she undid the last button, hunched her shoulders and let the dress drop. It opened in front and slid off her shoulders and down her arms until it stopped at her hips. She shook one arm out of its sleeve and then the other and then with a wiggle of her pelvis, pushed the dress over her hips. She stepped out of the black puddle of fabric and stood before me, completely naked except for her sun glasses.

"What's wrong?" she said in a quiet voice. "Never seen pale naked flesh before?"

She was right. Her skin was alabaster white. No tan lines, no sign of ever being in the light. It was translucent and smooth like the skin of a white grub exposed when the rock under which it lives is overturned.

She stood and quietly waited motionlessly as I stared. The dress had hidden her charms. Her breasts were small, high and pointy. Each nipple had a ring made of the same black metal as the stud in her nose. Her stomach was flat and hard and her hips were extremely wide. This would have given her a pear shape had it not been for the wickedly long legs.

...

She swam into the shade beside the dock. It was shallow enough that she could stand and she rose out of the water. She took off the shades for the first time and set them on the edge of the dock. She looked up at me and revealed the bluest eyes I had ever seen.

"Now I'm naked. You can see through to my soul." - the same quiet voice.

Then she smiled and said "Come on in. The water's fine. Why don't you take off those trunks before you poke a hole in the front of them?"

I blushed and would have laughed except for her flat deadpan delivery. I put down the beer and chips, then lowered my trunks in what I hoped was a nonchalant fashion. She turned, bent over and ducked her hair under the water and ran her fingers through it, thereby saving a few shreds of my dignity. I walked down the dock with my erection bobbing foolishly in front.

I dove in and came up sputtering. She slipped back into the water and swam over slowly.

"Feeling better?" I blurted, when she stopped about an arms length from where I was treading water. She hovered effortlessly in the water and replied,

"Thank you, yes." She paused. "I was unclean."

She was facing into the sun and was squinting without the sunglasses. The corner of her eyes had tiny wrinkles that made her look older than I had guessed.

"How old are you?"

She looked surprised and then momentarily annoyed at my query. Then with just a trace of ice in her voice she replied, "Old enough to be seen naked by a man."

She turned and swam back to the dock and climbed up out of the lake. "No. You misunderstand," I sputtered.

She stood in the sun, blindingly pale, with the droplets of water sparkling as they drained from her skin. Whether it was the cold water or the embarrassment of having her misinterpret my question, the blood was draining from my erection. By the time I had climbed out after her, old woody was a shrunken shadow of his former self.

"It's getting late. Best get you back to the village before dark," I said in a vain attempt to sound chivalrous. She picked up and replaced the sunglasses but made no move to dress. "Would you like me to get you a towel?"

"No thanks, I'll dry before I burn"

“Are you staying at the lodge?”

She looked at me then, without inflection, "I'd rather not go back to the village yet. I still have some things that I have to do. I’ll sleep on your sofa.”

Again, it was a statement of fact, not a query. She walked toward the cottage, leaving her dress, abandoned on the dock.

...

I fed her.

I talked but she said almost nothing.

...

During the night the wind came up across the lake, hot and melancholy.

She came into my room.

“I couldn’t sleep. Where I come from the trees rustle in the wind. Your pine trees hiss instead.”

“Evil spirits loose in the dark,” I replied.

“Come,” she said and headed out the door.

When my eyes adjusted to the dark, she was waiting near the water, under the largest pine.

...

“Come. Take me.”

I knelt between her thighs and ran my fingers up her stomach and across her breasts.

“No. Just take me. I want you now.”

I lowered myself between her legs and entered her slowly but without resistance. She was very moist and as I entered she exhaled in unison with the pines - a soft hiss. She spread wider and brought her heels up behind my thighs as if to goad me deeper.

When our pubic bones met, she held me there for a moment. Then she gave a light tap with her heels and squeeze with her vagina to get me moving. She controlled the pace with her heels. Faster, then slower, then faster again. Once we stopped altogether.

“Listen,” she said with a shortness of breath. “Listen to the pines.”

We resumed the dance, slowly, then gradually accelerating, until we were both bathed in sweat and breathing in hot syncopated gasps.

A loon called across the water. Its hyena laugh tipped us over the edge. I heard Misha wail as if in response. Then I exploded.

...

I rolled us over so she was on top, still intimately joined. My hands brushed the pine needles from her back and buttocks. They had left markings where they had been pressed into her skin.

“Who are you?” I said. “Why me?”

She put a finger to my lips. “You talk too much.”

Then she tipped her head and brushed her lips across mine.

“Listen,” she whispered. “Listen to the pine trees hiss.”

Authors note: This is the LP version of my poem of the same name. Enjoy.