Part 4 Growing the penis
To wait for Siobhan was as much a fact of life as eating or sleeping. It was something Danielle did. She sat on the old green wooden bench and kicked her heels. It was where they always met - eventually.
Siobhan was not that late on that particular Saturday. The girl came sauntering along in her green sunflower dress looking as pretty as a picture, her hair for once tied in a pony tail. Danielle watched her come up past the old brick wall that stood opposite to where she was sitting, the one with the green door that had so intrigued her friend over the years. The one she recalled her friend used to make up stories about what might lie behind the old brickwork. Possibly, or even probably, it was a very ordinary garden not even very well looked after. Perhaps a disappointment if actually seen and so better imagined. It was often more exciting to imagine what might be than see the reality. For a moment in her mind she had a picture of what the garden might look like. She smiled, her imagination had produced a picture of the most perfect garden: so unlike the probably reality. A garden of abundant flowers, pristine lawn and the most exquisite pool of water at its centre.
Danielle stood and held out her hands for Siobhan. "Hallo!"
They sat together watching the grumpy old man who lived in the house to the left of the old brick wall. It was not exactly an imposing house but, no doubt, to him it was home and as welcome to him as her own was to her. He was coming up the street carrying a bag. Probably he had been shopping. Danielle felt he was looking right at them but from the distance it was not possible to see the focus of his eyes, merely he was looking straight ahead. What surprised her was he seemed to be smiling, or as close to a smile as perhaps he could get. She had not seen him do that before. What had made him smile, she wondered.
Siobhan chatted away beside her. There was no real need to answer more than 'yes' or 'no.' Siobhan was like that, she could talk and talk.
"That wall. I've always wondered what lies behind it, you know."
Danielle knew! "Yes," she said. Siobhan had made up story after story.
"What do you think? it's hardly likely to be fairies, is it, like I used to say. I wonder if..."
But Danielle did not find out what Siobhan wondered because she stopped mid sentence and stared. The old green door with its flaking paint was ajar. Danielle could not recall ever having seen that before. She had rather imagined it was rusted shut on its hinges. Certainly the grass and weeds growing at its front rather suggested it was never used.
"Danny, look!"
Before she could say anything her friend was on her feet and tugging at her hand, pulling her across the street. Siobhan pushed at the door and, contrary to Danielle's expectation it swung as easy as anything with not even a creak to its hinges. Perhaps it was more used than she imagined, perhaps the hinges had recently been oiled. It would be so interesting to take just a peep at what lay beyond.
Clearly Siobhan was thinking of taking more than a peep. Indeed had already stepped through the doorway. Beyond her Danielle could see it was something rather more than an unkempt garden, quite the opposite in fact. The sight was almost breathtaking. A hidden walled garden of flowers, lawns and shrubs. A hidden wonder of beauty, a riot of colour and scents. It quite stunned Danielle as she followed her friend into the garden, her nostrils flaring at the variety and strength of the scents around her. Essential oils heated by the hot sun and floating there in the air for her to catch.
"We shouldn't be in here." But there seemed no one about. A quick look would hardly hurt, not after years of wondering what lay behind the wall. It was all so surprising, not that there was a garden but that it was so beautiful, so well maintained with the lawn neatly trimmed and the flower beds so full and ordered.
An old petrol mower stood on the lawn near a pool with golden fish swimming lazily in the sunshine. The girls walked past a willow arbour and came to carefully tended raised beds with vegetables growing. Aubergine like plants, beans and tomatoes and beyond a pumpkin patch or was it a bed of marrows?
What was visible of the soil in the pumpkin-cum-marrow patch seemed rich, dark and both well manured and watered. The plants were growing vigorously. The big wide spear shaped leaves overlapped as they soaked up the sun, each leaf stalk trying to get its leaf atop others to gather in as much sunshine as it could. Pushing up through the leaves were pretty yellow/orange flowers, open and waiting, seeking to entice in bees and other insects to pollinate. Where the plants had grown up by a trellis Danielle could see they had tendrils which enabled them to cling to other plants and man-made structures and climb upwards. She lifted a leaf and looked beneath. There were fruit hidden there, growing and ripening. They were long, rather than fat, bright emerald green with pale ridges running along their length giving a, probably, octagonal cross section though they might well, Danielle thought, be nonagonal or decagonal! They were smooth and firm to the touch.
"It's just so lovely here in the garden, let's sit."
The grass was soft, even springy despite being closely mown. It did not have the burnt, yellow look of the sun dried lawn back at home. Perhaps the garden had its own water supply as there was a hose pipe ban in place on account of the particularly hot summer. It was clear the lawn was regularly watered. Danielle looked around, resting back on the palms of her hands, there was no one else in the garden, no one else who might have done the watering.
"We shouldn't really be here, Siobhan."
"Mmmm I know, but isn't this delicious, so warm and lovely like being on the beach. Do you remember that time at Brighton?"
They had been to Brighton more than once. "Which time?"
"On the beach when you were so shocked by so many ladies being topless."
"Oh, then."
"And then there were those two without bottoms either. You were almost indignant!"
"I wasn't."
"You were!"
"And then there were the men..."
"So?"
"We had quite a giggle looking at them."
"I didn't..."
"Yes, you did. We started comparing them and you said you hadn't realised they were so different."
"I didn't..."
"You did! I bet you thought about them in bed later!"
"Siobhan. "I didn't..."
"Bet you did. Go on, don't lie."
"OK, might have done."
"Do you remember the fair haired boy with the six pack and the little willie?"
"The wispy beard and the blue towel?"
"Ha, you do remember!"
"It was small compared to..."
"See - you remember all right. And do you remember how you said it looked like it needed some good female love and attention to make it blossom?"
"No!"