Heather's Moon Cycle

I had just moved into the rather down-at-the-heels bungalow and as it was my first home purchase I had a lot to do around the property. It was a quiet neighbourhood with mostly retired people and the graying asphalt street was lined with stooped oak and maple trees that I associated with senescence so it was a surprise that the house next door, to the south, was inhabited by a single mother with two teenage daughters. It was the first week of summer that I discovered this while seeding my patchy and barren backyard plot that had been so woefully neglected. It was in my throes of peonage to the land that I first heard her warm voice.

"They sure didn't care about grass." Her voice seemed to plunge across the low cedar hedge and I first thought it was an echo of my own mind thinking exactly the same thing as I squatted in the dirt in baggy cotton pants and rummaged in the seed bag. But then that mysterious voice projected itself again.

"The Sponagles I mean." It then struck me that there was indeed a living person behind this accusation and as I turned to look around I saw her outstretched hand and arm arced over the low hedge accompanied by that bubbly, if rather strong, voice.

"Hi, I'm Heather." I blinked because her sun-hatted face was framed by the morning sun blazing away. "You're going to need more seed than that I'm afraid."

I slowly got up and morphed into friendly-neighbour mode. "Hi, I'm Gwydion, I just moved in last week."

"I saw the truck and you unloading," she replied. "Gwydion, that's an unusual name." I had moved closer to her and could see her face clearly now. Roundish, cherubic, with an incipient double chin and dimples in her cheeks...and thick plastic framed glasses.

I wiped the sweat off my hands before I shook hers. "It's Welsh, my folks are from there, I moved to the states a couple of years ago for work."

As I let go of her hand I noticed a bit of heaviness in her forearm, nothing excessive but bespeaking motherly plumpness.

"Wales is absolutely fascinating. I have a penchant for places with rich historic traditions." I nodded. "I've never been there but I know the region is magical. Lay lines, spiritual energy. And wonderful green shrubbery. Not like this," she fingered the scorched twigs of the hedge, then lowered her face to the emaciated wisps of cedar and sniffed. "Not much aroma here, not as I imagine lush Wales to be. I do some aroma therapy so I'm attracted to varied scents and smells."

I stood looking at her. I could see that she was about 5'6", with narrow shoulders, and as I looked down I noticed the callipygous overflowing of her lower half. She stepped back and stretched out those heavyish arms, and seemed to embrace her property. She was wearing a peasant skirt and flat shoes, and suddenly she twirled.

"I know we'll be getting much more rain soon. I can feel it." She then looked at her watch on that dimpled wrist and exclaimed "Gosh I'm late, have to rush, why don't you drop by for coffee next Saturday. Bye." And with another swirl of that voluminous dress she took long strides to her back door. Her bottom was full, cushy, and wide. Little did I know then what her razor sharp mature female intuition had already told her about my growing excitement at her plus sized womanhood.

The week was hectic, filled with the insistent demands of anorexic and raucous sleep-deprived coworkers and when Saturday dawned I was sleeping heavily. As I lay in bed for a long time I heard rustling in the back and a kind of low thrum of voices. I padded to the porch screen door just in time to hear my neighbour's, Heather's, striking voice calling out to someone "And please don't be late Carol. The full moon isn't going to wait on us."

I stepped outside and walked up to the hedge in my pyjamas. Suddenly she turned around to face me, a broad smile creasing her face.

"Gwydion, I was just thinking of you, hoping you could come in for some rather special coffee." Her eyes twinkled as I made excuses for my appearance, but she brushed them aside and in a mocking stern voice harrumphed that I had 10 minutes to make myself presentable and that being a gentleman of Welsh extraction I had no business to keep a fine lady like herself waiting. She snapped her fingers in front of my line of vision, giggled, and reminded me over her shoulder that I only had nine and a half minutes now. I rushed back in, put on khakis, checked my face in the mirror, combed, and rushed back out. She had struck a nerve with that peremptory tone of voice and I was feeling flustered, a little nervous, but very excited.

I rang her doorbell and she let me in. She wore a flowery printed peasant dress, sandals, and her short reddish hair was gelled I noticed. The plastic framed glasses were penetrated by owlish like gray eyes. She wore no makeup as she instructed me to sit in a beanbag chair, and presently she reappeared with steaming mugs of what I took to be coffee.

As I sipped though it became apparent that there were flavors, in addition to the chicory, that I couldn't place. "It's my own blend, the girls' blend I mean."

"Girls?" I said, curious.

She laughed. "Oh, no, not my twin teens, they're off to see their grandparents out of state for the summer. I mean..." and she paused, looking closely at me, "the girls (here she air-quoted with surprisingly slim and long fingers tipped with clear nail polish) in my...coven." She paused. "Are you shocked?"

Actually I wasn't shocked at all. My two older sisters were white witches, Wiccans, and now that she was too I wasn't at all surprised how lightly she introduced the subject. "I'm familiar with Wicca."

She giggled. "I just knew you were. I have a sixth sense about these things." Then she shifted with no hesitation to mundane subjects, the garbage pickup, groceries, etc. We chatted amiably, then she checked her watch, emitted a voluble "Shit" and ushered me out the door explaining she had to meet her ex-husband about some 'business matters' as she rolled her eyes and muttered something about needing a docile man, and then with her parting "Oh well" I was out the door.

Another week came and went. I seemed to be dreaming very vividly that week, confused dreams of big bottomed thick thighed pagan women dancing nude under the full moon, and Heather was there, garbed in a smock, and at one point in one dream the earth-toned smock slid off her narrow shoulders and revealed truly gargantuan buttocks. I awoke to the sensation of those buttocks slipping over my prone upturned face and the whiff I had, momentarily, was of that coffee concoction she had given me the last Saturday. I awoke fully to the doorbell. It was Heather

"What, not dressed already? I would appreciate your help, moving a piece of furniture. I'll give you ten minutes, I really do need your help. so be a good man."

I was totally flustered. She was wearing stretch pants and they revealed very wide hips, with jiggly saddlebags of female flesh. As she sauntered away she giggled in my direction and beckoned me to follow. I hurriedly donned my khakis and as I rang her doorbell that strong voice, sounding imperious, urged me to come in and come upstairs.

As I entered what I presumed to be her bedroom, graced with a canopied, king-sized bed, I saw her in one corner struggling with a massively ornate low seated throne like chair. As I got closer I noticed it had a round opening cut into the bare seat and underneath the opening was a sling like hammocky head rest suspended by leather straps from the bottom of the throne seat.

"Oh, that's my Queening Stool. It's damned heavy, could you give me a hand?" I stood there frozen to the spot. She looked at me appraisingly. "I see you know what a Queening Stool is. I knew you would."

i stood there glued to the spot. I did indeed know what it was, and my breathing became fast and deep. Heather walked around me and startled me by squeezing my right shoulder suddenly from behind. She giggled. "Don't worry, I'm not going to put YOU in it. I just need it moved. Come on." And I bent over, then got on my knees to push harder, and she clapped her hands as she stood above me. "Now that's a good man, being helpful to a lady in distress. I wonder how I should reward you?..." TO BE CONTINUED