Seasons Of The Mind Ch 04

4. Spring

The young woman stood and reached for the rush bag on the rack above her head. Her stretching lifted the cotton skirt a little further above her knee. Across the way a businessman shot a surreptitious glance, no doubt admiring the young woman's trim figure and that extra glimpse of leg. A few moments before, the guard had announced the train's imminent arrival at the next 'station stop' and it had begun to slow. Soon the train would be gliding through the darkness of the tunnel to the station waiting on the other side.

Outside the carriage windows the landscape had the fresh, bright green look of a spring day. Everything so new, lush and brilliant; there was an especially vividness, a vitality even, to the grass and the leaves of the trees newly unfurled and perfect. Not at all that first spring day, that harbinger, about which Christina Rossetti had pondered:

"I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,

If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,

If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun,

And crocus fires are kindling one by one."

That was well past, the season was advanced, the daffodil flowers had come and gone and their seed pods were swelling: but it was still very much spring. Not yet the dry summer heat turning the grass to golden brown and ripening the crops—no, this was spring, the time of new life and with all the promise of a fresh start.

The woman swung the strap of the bag over her shoulder and looked up the carriage. To the businessman it was immediately obvious she had then seen someone she knew. These things are not always easy to put into words, perhaps it was the way the swing of her movement stopped, perhaps it was a slight change in the muscles of her face or else the fixity of the stare of her eyes — but he knew.

Harris had been pleased to see the cotton skirt; such a cornflower blue with white flowers all over and with a matching cotton covered belt. Her blouse was white linen, generously cut with long sleeves, a short, darker blue jacket was slipped on over the blouse. Her hair, her long chestnut hair was caught with and tied with a blue bangle. On her feet white trainers. Sensible clothing for a warm spring day.

Harris stood, as the cutting drew in around the train just before the mouth of the tunnel, as the train rocked a little from side to side: perhaps he was getting ready to alight at the station, perhaps to seek a cup of tea from the buffet, perhaps to greet the woman, perhaps...

The train entered the tunnel.

The light faded as they left the bright light of the spring day behind them and the train slid into the gloom of the tunnel Outside the world had its seasons, the snow came, the sun shone, the wind blew, but in the tunnel all was the same, season on season. A steady temperature in the darkness, a deep quiet except when the trains passed through. As the light went the train seemed to lose way, gently slowing within the tunnel until it came to rest in its depths. All was quiet—it was as if the train had never been.

The woman said nothing as if she was waiting, waiting perhaps for the train to come out of the tunnel but the end seemed to be getting no closer: if anything the station seemed further away and instead of the train she felt as if she was outside, perhaps at the other side of the tunnel from the station, perhaps elsewhere.

From the silence came sound, the sound of birdsong. Chirrups, cheeps and beautiful singing; many, many birds in full song. And with the song came the light.

The woman was still looking towards Harris. The man, standing dressed in a dark blue blazer complete with brass buttons and light brown twill trousers, leaning on a cane, returned the gaze. In his top pocket a handkerchief blossomed matching the colour of her skirt.

"Oh," she said, "oh."

The woman looked around her, at the fresh green meadow, at the rich grass beneath her feet, at the green hedges showing white with May blossom, at distant mountains and up at the blue sky. A beautiful spring day. The grass so green, everything so green. Later in the summer there would still be green in the fields and meadows but it would not have that fresh new look of the spring. Spring, a time of newness, of budding leaves and flowers, of new life as the world shook off winter, woke from dormancy and revealed itself anew.

A sigh. "I thought... it matters not what I thought. So, not a walk in the mountains? Not close enough?"

"No," said Harris, "too far."

Behind her, she heard a deep lowing and turning she saw a herd of white cattle coming towards them.

"Oh," she said again.

"Inquisitive as always," commented Harris

The cattle were close, their eyes watching big, brown and blinking, their sweet breath coming.

"There's a lot of them." Clearly she felt a little crowded. The cattle were actually close enough to touch.

"There's not a bull is there?"

"Not a danger when there's cows about: only on their own."

"I don't like the idea even so... they are so big and..." It was another 'oh.'

Coming across the field, no doubt to check on his females—his considerable harem—was a truly magnificent white bull. So much bigger than the cows and complete with that which clearly sets the bull apart from the cows—a ring through its nose. That and, rather than udders, an enormous pair of balls swinging beneath him. There was no missing this was the male of the species.

"Can we...?"

They walked across the field followed by the herd and climbed a wooden stile in the hedge. Harris offering his hand to help the woman up. There was no hesitation in her taking it and he watched as she placed first one trainer and then another on the stile and swung her cotton covered leg over the stone.

Another field, another lush field of grass. They started walking across, heading towards another hedge at the other side.

"It's a very fine day," said Harris.

The woman looked up at the almost perfect blue of the sky. "It is very warm for spring."

She turned. Behind them the cows had lost interest in the visitors to their field and returned to tearing at the grass. Not so the bull. It was taking a proprietorial interest in one of the cows. Not only were its bollocks now obvious but its pizzle as well. Up it reared onto the cow's back. A massive animal in comparison.

"It is the spring," said Harris commenting on the scene..

"Ah," said the woman. "A time for intercourse, sexual intercourse."

Harris nodded.

The woman had understood.

Above them birds were chasing each other, swooping here and there in pairs and gaily painted butterflies flitted around each other. Ahead of them rabbits were popping in and out of rabbit holes, their bob tails dancing.

Harris smiled his thin smile.

The woman asked, "Shall I ready myself now?"

"All in its time. Come, let us walk."

Another stile, another field but with trees on the other side.

Trees overhanging a flowing stream. They stood together watching the sparkling water as it made its way downstream.

"Look!" In the water fishes swimming, their scales flashing in the sunshine, clearly visible against the gravel and stone bottom. The water so very clear, so very fresh; the fish so very active. Perhaps the water was newly oxygenated from tumbling down waterfalls—perhaps a force high in the mountains.

"Trout," said Harris.

They followed the stream as it wound through the fields, the path along the bank clear.

"Stream or river?"

"Large stream or small river—when does one become the other?"

A widening into a pool, the water flowing slower as it crossed the greater body of water. By the water's edge horses drinking. A stallion and a mare. They looked up and trotted towards Harris and the woman.

Harris stroked their long necks as he stood between them, the woman held back.

"I'm a little nervous of animals."

"Come," Harris took her by the hand. "Like this."

They stood with the horses for a time stroking the coarse hair of their coats before, evidently satisfied, the horses turned and moved back across the field.

As they watched the stallion's penis grew, grew to a remarkable length and size—perhaps not in relation to the animal but big nonetheless—and then a little ungainly he was up on the mare's back, his big black penis disappearing into the animal. It was not a prolonged intercourse. A matter of not many seconds before their interest in grass was resumed.

"A big lad," said the woman, "it's certainly spring."

There was a noise, a squealing in the hedge.

"What's that."

"Hedgehogs copulating I should think."

"Carefully?"

"So I should imagine!"

The squeals did not cease. They stood listening, trying to see but whilst the sounds continued unabated and there was rustling in the hedgerow, there was not so much as sight of a prickle.

"Not like the horses or cows."

"No, rather more prolonged."

"Like people."

Again Harris' smile, "Sometimes!"

The girl smiled back, "Some men..."

Harris raised an eyebrow.

"Women like to take it slowly but some men...."

Harris nodded.

"Some men..."

Another pool, a dip down from the bank to the crystal clear water. Around the pool, trees hung their branches fresh in their spring finery. A perfect scene, easy to imagine it as a scene a painter would wish to paint, sitting on a stool with his or her easel; though perhaps in need of something in the foreground to give interest, a focal point; what could that be? Might it be a haywain or perhaps a naked girl?

"It looks lovely." They stepped down to the water and looked out across the pool. One fish and then another leapt and splashed back again. "Truly a magical place."

The woman crouched, her cotton skirt flowing about her to the ground and touched the water. "Soft, lovely soft water... not exactly warm but just so perfect; I've got to, simply got to..."

"Swim?"

"Such a perfect, wonderful place. Don't look."

Harris turned and climbed up and back up the bank and sat staring out over the field with his back to the stream, hands resting on his cane. Behind him the rustle of clothing, the sound of a woman undressing. The sound of a foot, one, then perhaps a second in the water.

"Oh, it is cold—no, don't look, let me get in. I can do it. I can."

Quiet, just the sound of the bees and the birds calling, then a splash and the sound of gasping. Clearly the woman had adopted the 'all at once' approach to getting into cold water—a plunge to get it over with.

"Oh, oh, wonderful—really."

Harris turned and there was the naked woman, a girl really, swimming away from him across the pool. The clear water revealing the grace of her limbs moving, her pink bottom showing naked and round. A naked girl swimming in the open countryside—a delightful thing to discover and see. Harris got to his feet and came back down to the water's edge and sat by the neat pile of clothes and watched. The girl turned and swam back.

Still under the water, giving some degree of modesty, even if the water was very clear, she spoke. "Certainly bracing; but the water is just so soft. Are you coming in?"

All at once she rose. The water falling from her in shiny droplets as she surged upwards, the water cascading from her breasts and she stood with the sun shining full on her, a naked woman. Her full hips with their vee of chestnut hair slicked by the water, her full breasts with pointing nipples. The painter would have been pleased.

"A naiad rising from the waters," said Harris.

"Naiad?"

"Water nymph."

"Are you joining me?"

"In the water?"

Harris stood and removed his blazer.

The woman smiled, turned and swam again.

A second neat pile of clothes building. The woman stopped her swimming and watched. It seemed it was one rule for the male: quite another for the female. She could watch. She stood; once more the water falling from her.

Harris, in just his trousers, looked at her. A fine young woman, her pale winter skin shining wet in the sunlight, her good limbs and full breasts showing. Her hair, above and below, wet with the water, wonderful chestnut coloured hair: though intriguingly a little darker below. That it was cold was clear from her hard, hard nipples standing up from her breasts; hard points on the softness of her breasts.

It was not the cold that made the man's penis stand. Slowly Harris undid his belt and began to pull down trousers and pants; Harris smiled his thin smile—almost apologetic—and there, like the bull, like the stallion, springing up as it was released was the male rampant. From his thighs his strong erection curved upwards; the soft covering of skin fully rolled back and the helmet shape of his knob fully revealed in the sunlight. The male organ readied for sexual intercourse.

The woman smiled. "It must be spring," she said, "your thoughts are revealed!" She did not turn away.

"In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;

In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."

"I know the phrase but the poem..."

"Alfred Lord Tennyson."

"Ah, yes, of course Tennyson, but thoughts of love? Come, come, it is not that at all!" One knee went a little forward, that feminine pose of mixed modesty and sexuality.

Harris stepped forward, a foot in the water, his erection swaying before him. The woman watched as he waded forward, coming closer until he was right up to her—just a penis between them. Again she looked down, down at Harris' erection, his knob almost but not quite poking into her chestnut curls. The painter might have found himself adding a rather unusual subject to his painting especially if the putative intercourse proceeded which, to an observer, must have appeared more than a little likely.

"Swimming will cool your lover's ardour."

"For a time."

"For a time."

An agreement had been reached. The woman had accepted the inevitability of the situation. The man's penis would enter her body, the semen would be released: but not yet.

Without touching her, Harris turned and waded deeper before leaning forward into the water and swimming; his pink bottom now showing in the water. The girl too lent forward and slipped back into the water. Limbs moving regularly, two bottoms moving across the pool, two naked bodies showing through the crystal clear water.

Lovely to swim, lovely to swim wild and naked in such a beautiful place and in such perfectly pure, clean water. It was cold: it was not high summer and with a certain inevitability there came a time when the water was just too cold to stay, when the goose pimples were coming to the women's shoulders and more. Wading again for the shore, Harris watched the rise and fall of her bottom cheeks, the pleasing and graceful back view of the woman. She turned and began to laugh as Harris too waded out. The cold water may well have made her nipples hard and pointing but whereas they were erect: Harris was anything but...

Laughing, she pointed, "Where has it gone?"

Where indeed! No longer stallion like with his proud erection, his plum sitting proudly on its strong curving stalk and shining in the sun: instead a little shrivelled thing, the knob quite hidden in layers of protecting folds, the testes that before had hung so free and swung like the bull were now drawn up tight and raison like. Not at all the man he was!

"A young man's fancy might turn in the springtime to thoughts of love but is it not more," a giggle, "'O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though Romeo!' Oh dear, oh dear—all gone!"

Her hand reached and held; all of it in her hand. There was not much of it. "Poor little thing, so cold, so shrunken."

But it must have liked her hand. There was a stirring, a growing and the little male thing lifted off her hand, the warm blood pumping with some difficulty making the head grow and fill, the business end peaking a little out of its covering. But the erection was nothing like the previous proud stand; the head certainly filled with blood, full and rounded in its acorn shape but the shaft, though lengthening, did not fill out—it was too cold for a proper erection—capable enough but oddly formed with the big helmet standing on an unusually narrow stalk and below the balls as tight as tight could be against his body making Harris look as if he had been gelded.

The woman laughed again as she stared at the penis and then, looking up at Harris's face, she smiled, "Not really up to the job at present!" Crouching she took the bulbous glans into her mouth—just the head.

Harris sighed and for a time the two were motionless. Harris standing, the woman crouching and her lips wrapped around the end of his penis, all the thin shaft visible but the head hidden. Externally there was no movement but only the two of them knew whether her tongue was also still.

"Cold," she said, "so cold in my mouth. It would be too cold in my..." Standing, she reached for her clothes.

Harris looked down at himself, "Perhaps... Come, that was a lovely swim but we are both cold. It is still a sunny day. Let's run and warm up." He took her hand leading her away from the piles of clothes. Away from modesty.

Naked, hand in hand, they ran together across the green grass of the open field; Harris' misshapen penis bounding and the girl's breasts bouncing. A joyous, exuberant running, the girl laughing at it all but the exercise not short or half hearted: on the contrary, it was long and vigorous making the muscles really work and, of course, the sun and the generated heat together all the time drying their wet skin and warming them.

Finally separating, the girl made to step up and over a stile. Legs parted as she stepped over the smooth stone, the top grazed her exposed sex, a light touch but enough to make her wince with pleasure. "Ooh, that's nice!"

A little rubbing, a little sexual stimulation, and then she was over and looking back at Harris, her eyes significantly focused down at his once more flaccid penis. "I seem to have a thing for stone stiles! Catch me if you can!" And she was off running across the next field, hand cupping her breasts to stop them bounding.

Harris stepped up and looked down. Just as on the mountains, the stone of the stile was wet—wet from a woman. His thin smile came and there was a stirring in his loin as once more his thoughts betrayed him. But there was no one to see. Ahead of him the running woman, her buttocks moving, the cheeks rising and falling—an erotic sight. At the top of the stile Harris stood for a moment seeming to relish his tumescent exposure to the fresh spring day, a world seemingly obsessed on that day with the act of procreation. Harris reached with his hand and gently retracted his foreskin—a symbolic gesture—and then he was running, running naked after the girl.

He was the faster runner. Not the Rugby tackle when he caught her but a firm smack to the bottom.

She turned, laughing and he picked her up in his arms, one arm under her back, the other under her thighs. She kicked a little as if trying to get away but she was laughing.

Around them the bees in flight hopping from flower to flower collecting their nectar. A warm sound for a warm day. A continuous insect hum all around. And there were many, many flowers in the field, yellows, blues, whites: buttercups, cornflowers and daisies. The usual flowers to be expected, but also bird's-foot trefoil, meadow vetchling, common cat's-ear, yellow rattle, meadow saxifrage, common twayblade, oxeye daisy and common knapweed. A growing field of hay where the cattle did not come. Rich growing grass to be cut and dried for winter forage.

"It's all so lovely, the birds, the flowers—Spring is such a lovely time of the year." The girl spoke resting in Harris' arms, leaning her head on his shoulder.

"Came the Spring with all its splendour,

All its birds and all its blossoms,

All its flowers, and leaves, and grasses."