Margie turned off the highway onto the hard packed sand road leading to her family's old home place. Her eighty year old mother was the only one left living in the old house. Margie sighed deeply as she tried to remember how many times she had made this drive in the last five years. Too many to count was the only answer she could come up with.
Her brother had died five years before. He had been the last person other than her mother to live here. Now Margie took it upon herself to check on her mother as often as life allowed. Her Mother didn't have a phone and didn't want one. That just added to the worry for Margie.
"Why don't you move into town where I can check on you easier?" Margie asked on every visit.
With a grin, her mother always asked in return, "Why don't you move back home?"
Margie sighed and stopped the car in the middle of the road. Her eyes went to the lake to the left of the road and then to the trees in neat rows to the right. It was very beautiful and peaceful here, she thought as she shut the motor off.
She rolled both front windows down and listened to the wind sighing through the treetops. Birds chirped and there was the sound of crickets and locusts. The sounds of her childhood, she thought with a smile. The summer had been hot but here by the lake and in the shade it felt cool. The breeze helped a lot.
Opening the door, she turned in the seat. The ding of the door ajar alarm, impinged on the peace and quiet. She pulled the key from the ignition and dropped it on the passenger seat. "Much better," she whispered as she stood up.
Her high heels sank into the sand. She grinned, slipped them off, and tossed them on the floor on the passenger side. She wiggled her toes against the dry sand. It felt cool. Memories of running barefoot all over the farm made her smile. The thought that she was normally as naked as she could be, made her groan softly.
"Those were carefree days," she whispered softly. "Skinny dipping in the lake." She turned and looked at the woods. The orderly rows of Pine made her frown. Back in the day it was mostly oak and big oaks at that. There were still a few scattered here and there.
"I miss the old woods," she whispered and then sighed deeply. "I miss walking in them."
She tried to remember where the old tree house her and her brother had built as kids was. Had the tree died back in the drought? So many had. That is when the pine had been planted. They had been her brother's idea. Shade and a long term cash crop at the same time.
With a sigh at the memory of her brother, she turned and looked at the lake. The drought had lasted three or four years and had almost dried the lake up. She smiled as she remembered exploring the lake bottom. Mud up to her knees. She had been in her mid teens, a tomboy, and wild as they came. She had been home schooled most of her life.
Going off to college had been a shock in so many ways. Too many people, no privacy, two things she loved about home. But she made friends easily and learned to be civilized. That last word made her grin. Civilized was relative.
Margie smiled as she remembered her first roommate. She had lasted about a week. Between Margie's tidiness and nudity in the room, the young woman had bailed quickly. The second roommate, Jamie, had been a country girl like she was. They got along great. Margie tutored her in English and math and Jamie returned the favor by teaching her the ways of civilization.
Turning away from the lake, Margie looked up the road toward the home place. It was out of sight around a bend. The highway was out of sight around another bend in the opposite direction. With a sigh, Margie whispered, "Civilization was never as great as people tried to make it out to be."
Her mind turned to her children. Her daughter had graduated college the year before and was now married and living in another state. Her son was due to graduate this fall. He already had a job lined up in a large city farther south from home.
That brought her mind to the one topic she wanted to avoid. Her husband of twenty-two years. Two trips to her mom's back, she had come home to an empty house. The furniture and such were there but none of John's stuff was. No clothing, no golf clubs, no car, nothing he considered important.
Most of the money was gone from their bank account and the savings was empty except for a few dollars to hold it open. Money wasn't a problem. She had a good job. The same job she had had since graduating college. If it weren't for her job, she would take her mother up on moving home.
Margie chuckled. "I don't think so. We barely get along when I visit. We'd end up killing each other if I moved in with her," she whispered as she closed the car door and walked around to lean on the hood.
"There is always the boathouse," she said aloud. She loved the old boathouse. It sat next to a creek off the lake, a mile past the house. Two boat stalls on the water level and a two room apartment up above. It was where her brother always lived. That thought made her shiver.
They were best friends when they were kids but after she left for college that seemed to change. Matt became standoffish and even rude to her. She never figured out why. He would never talk to her about their relationship and her mother only shrug the questions off.
"Why is my life always such a mess?" She asked the wind and got no reply from it or herself.
She sighed, pushed off the car, and walked toward the nearest row of pines. The pine needles covered the sand in a reddish brown carpet. They felt different from the leaves she remembered. They were not as prickly as she had thought they would be. She stopped at the first tree and touched the rough bark. A piece of it flaked off and fell to the ground.
The bark falling away reminded her of her life. Her brother gone, her kids gone, her husband gone. Flaking away was a good way to describe it. She sighed deeply. The word depression crossed her mind. "I'm tired, more than depressed," she whispered softly.
"I have no energy," she added a moment later.
She ran her hand over the tree and watched more bark flaking off. Where the old had fell, the new looked brighter and had more color. The old was black and dark, the new was reddish brown. It was darker and richer looking than the dead needles on the ground.
With a grin, she patted the tree. "Are you trying to tell me something?" she asked it as she tried to fit those thought into the fabric of her analogy from earlier. Flaking away was a new richer beginning? It made sense in a way. She patted the tree again.
"Talking to trees is considered crazy in some circles," someone said and Margie jumped and looked around.
The voice had sounded female, and a moment later, Margie's eyes found the head, shoulder, and arm of a young woman looking at her from behind a pine. The parts that she could see were deeply tanned. "Who are you?"
"Jennifer Karms, I live in the yellow house out on the highway."
"But you like wandering around in the woods back here because it is more private," Margie said with a grin. "I used to do that."
"I've seen your car as you come and go," Jennifer said. "But you've never stopped before."
"I need to check on my mother but I have so much on my mind. I stopped to think," Margie said as she took several steps toward the young woman.
"Uh, please stay over there," Jennifer said quickly. "I'm, uh, not dressed for company."
Margie chuckled. "Like I said earlier, I used to wander all over these wood. Most of the time I was as nearly naked as my shyness would allow."
"Back here among the trees I'm never shy," Jennifer whispered.
Margie shivered hard as she reached up and started to unbutton the front of her blouse. "Maybe I should join you. It has been forever since I did anything crazy."
Jennifer looked hard at the older woman. "Exciting yes, but crazy.... I don't think it is."
Margie paused as the last button came open. "Crazy as in wild, not crazy as insane," she said to reassure the young woman.
"Running wild in the woods," the young woman whispered and then grinned. "Yeah, that's me most of the year."
Margie slipped the blouse off and hung it on the nearest tree. "That was me as often as possible and the weather was warm enough."
"I love the warmth of the sun and cool of the breeze," Jennifer whispered as she watched the older woman reach back and undo her bra. When she shrugged it off and her breasts came into view, Jennifer groaned softly.
Margie looked at the young woman as she hung the bra up next to the blouse. She didn't consider her breasts to be large but they were a lot larger than they had been back in the day. Her hands came up and caressed the fullness at the bottom of each breast. She whimpered softly and the young woman groaned again.
"You seem to like my breasts," Margie said softly.
Jennifer nodded and leaned farther out from behind the tree. Her small cone shaped breasts with large puffy nipples came into sight for a moment before she leaned back. "I've always dreamed about breasts like yours. Mine are so small and weird looking."
Margie grinned. "Different but not weird. Mine were not much bigger than yours the last time I was naked in these woods."
"Then there is still hope," Jennifer said with a grin.
Margie cocked her head to the side. "How old are you?"
"I turned eighteen, three weeks ago."
"You have plenty of time," Margie said as she reached back to unbuttoned and unzipped her skirt.
"You're taking everything off," Jennifer asked quickly.
"Is there a problem with that?"
"Uh, no, not really. I've just never seen another person naked. I've seem my mom without her shirt or bra on and the same in gym but...."
"You'll be the first person to ever see me naked out here that I know of," Margie said and shivered. "The thought of someone seeing me was the most exciting part of running around out here."
Jennifer groaned softly and whispered, "Tell me about it."
Margie worked the skirt down off her hips and stepped out of it. She turned toward the tree but didn't see a place to hang it. "My clothes are in the old tree house," Jennifer said.
"So it is still here," Margie said with a big smile. "My castle in the sky, my fort, the place I could dream big."
Jennifer shivered and blushed as she whispered, "The only place I feel safe enough to masturbate."
Margie laughed. "Been there, done that many times. Between my nosy brother and mother, I had very little privacy."
"Sounds like my house except I don't have a brother. I'm an only child."
Margie gather up her clothes and said, "Then lead on and I'll follow."
Jennifer groaned and shivered hard as she stepped out from behind the tree. Her dark tan was even and overall. She was also taller than Margie first thought. Tall and slender enough to remind her of herself. The real difference was Jennifer shaved her sex where Margie never had until she was in the hospital when her daughter was born.
"Very much like me back in the day," Margie said and then sighed. "Now the middle age spread is getting wider and wider."
"You have curves," Jennifer said quickly. "I'd kill to have curves."
Margie laughed. "They will come with time and kids, believe me."
Jennifer shivered and turned around quickly. "I'll have to take your word for it," she whispered as she started walking along the opening between the rows of trees.
Margie followed along with a big smile on her face.
*****
The tree house looked about how it had always looked but a little older and weatherworn. There were a couple of newer looking boards on the ladder leading up to it. Margie watched as the younger woman climbed the ladder. Her small ass wiggled back and forth with each step and her asshole and sex came into view with each step.
