A Mirror up to Nature

As ever, my heartfelt thanks to Estragon, whose vorpal blade went snicker snack, leaving for dead homophones and typos galore. He also chose the title.

"And now lot forty seven. A free standing mirror in a carved oak frame depicting seven cavorting nymphs. What am I bid? Do I hear fifty pounds? Come along, this is a fine piece, OK, let's start at forty pounds, thirty, yes, thirty to the gentleman in the front row, thirty five anyone...."

Right from the viewing, Jasmine had fallen in love with the mirror. It wasn't exactly what she had come to the auction for but, as soon as she saw it, she knew she just had to have it. The mirror, that was just a piece of reflecting glass, but the frame was something else. The dark brown oak, carved in deep bas relief, showed a selection of what the catalogue described as nymphs, sensuous female forms which seemed to flow in an endless erotic dance around the circumference. There was something Pre-Raphaelite about them. Lush, abundant bodies that offered their all. A quick review of her personal accounts revealed that, if she lived off beans on toast for the next month or so, she could afford to go up to two hundred pounds.

And now this bastard in the front row was bidding against her. The bidding went back and forth and they were now approaching the two hundred mark.

"Against you, ma'am," the auctioneer said. "Do I hear two ten?"

Two ten! She had promised herself she'd stop at two hundred but it was so, so beautiful. Dammit, she starve if she had to. She nodded.

"Two ten at the back. Do I hear two twenty? No? Anyone else. Lot forty seven going for two hundred and ten pounds to the lady in the back row, going once, going twice, sold!"

As Jasmine paid for the mirror, and the delivery charges on top of that, she winced at the damage it would do to her bank account but, on the other hand, she knew she had never seen anything as beautiful. A month or two of scratting and saving would be worth it. It was probably the most expensive piece of furniture she had ever brought but she knew she just had to have it.

It was a week or so later that she first heard the voice. The weather had been unusually hot and sultry and she had had trouble sleeping. She lay on her bed, above the covers, naked except for the thigh length Minnie Mouse tee shirt she wore as sleepwear. A sliver of moonlight between the not quite closed curtains gave the room a strange, shadowy look and, there in the corner, she could just make out the outline of her mirror.

"Jasmine, Jasmine, dance with us, come join our dance."

The voice, or rather voices, were right on the cusp of hearing and, at first, Jasmine didn't believe she had heard anything.

"Dance with us, dance with us, Jasmine, Jasmine, dance with us! Dance! Dance!"

She lay completely still and silent, holding her breath so as to be as quiet as possible. Was this the sound of next door's TV? Was that what she was hearing? The walls were thick and, normally, she didn't normally hear a whisper from them but this time.... No, it couldn't be that because, for all that it was faint, this sounded as if it were coming from close at hand. Moreover, the sound was sibilant, not the mumbling of the TV heard from the other side of a wall but something reminiscent of the sound of someone else's MP3 player.

A gust of wind through the open window made the curtains swing and she heard quite clearly the rustling of the leaves from the silver birch that grew in the patch of grass outside her window. That had to be it. A mixture of the rustling of the leaves, her semi-somnolent state and an over active imagination were working together. She smiled to herself as she rolled over to try and get back to sleep. Whatever next?

...dancing, dancing in a woodland glade. Jasmine, and her sisters, she just knew they were her sisters, flowed together, their bodies an expression of the power of the woodland. She could sense the sap rising through the trees reflected in the warm glow that suffused her body. There was a joy, an elation, higher, stronger than she had ever felt before.

But this was the joy of spring, the joy of bursting buds promising summer fruits. The urge within her was strong but only because the culmination would be so sweet. The same power that would drive the salmon to leap the falls flowed within her and she was one with it.

Still dancing, her sisters circled around her, their arms reached out to hold her, to touch her, to caress her, and the touch of their flesh made her flesh sing out loud. She had never felt so alive, so aware, so in tune with her surroundings.

But it wasn't just her sisters' hands that held her. Some vine, some creeper, driven from the earth by the very force of nature, had become entangled with her feet. She couldn't see through the press of bodies but she could feel it, circling her ankles, and climbing, gripping her calves, her thighs, pushing, probing, higher, and higher until it reached the very lips of her sex. She felt herself open up, she wanted, she needed to be consumed, to be taken, to be invaded. And, to her surprise, as the vine pushed inside her it was no mere twig but big and strong, hard and firm, filling her up, stretching her wide, taking her, consuming her, body and soul, until, powerless to resist and with a cry that was part agony, part ecstasy, she felt it explode within her and split her asunder....

Gasping for breath, Jasmine sat up. What a dream! The sheets were sodden with her sweat and, down below, something very different. She got up and went to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water, and sat at the table sipping gently.

She had never, ever, in her life felt anything like that. Sure, she'd had erotic dreams before, who hadn't, but never as intense as this and, never before, enough to bring her to orgasm. In her mind she could still feel the vine as it snaked up her thigh and her 'sister's' hands as they caressed her body. Even the memory was enough to get her aroused again. And when the 'vine' had invaded her... nothing, nothing she had ever felt before had been anywhere near as good as that feeling, that feeling of being taken, used, overwhelmed. The power of the forest had fed on her very soul and, in return, had granted her a brief glimpse of rapture.

She took another sip of water and told herself to calm down and stop being so stupid. A dream, that's all it was, just a dream. All these fanciful notions were pure nonsense. Whatever would she think of next? She glanced at the clock. It was five thirty and full daylight outside. She went over to the window and glanced out. The silver birch, with its long slender branches, swayed gently in the morning breeze.

Jasmine had never been particularly sexually active. Sure, she'd had boyfriends and she'd let a couple of them go 'all the way' but their clumsy fumbling had left her cold. However, comparing their inept and selfish groping with the force that had ravished her last night was like comparing chalk and cheese for, in taking, the force had also given and, even now, her body still tingled all over from the memory.

Knowing she would not be able to go back to sleep, Jasmine went to the bathroom and ran herself a shower. Still she couldn't shake this sensual feeling, this awareness of her body. The warm water cascading over her felt so clean, so fresh. The pine scented shower gel, a luxurious present to herself, brought back the memories of the forest dream and, as she ran her hands up her torso, it just felt right to cup her breasts and offer them up. The shower drummed upon her breasts, massaging them and her nipples were proud and erect. But, if she were offering them up, then the question still remained, to whom, or maybe to what, was she offering them up? Her left hand toyed with a nipple while she placed her right hand, still soapy from the gel, flat across her mons. Oh, to feel that good again, to feel that complete, that sated, that fulfilled! The tips of her fingers drew circles around the centre of her pleasure but it was but a pale shadow of how it had felt. She rubbed harder, firmer, stronger until her fore and ring fingers had curled up inside her and she was gripping, squeezing, trying to recreate the passion. She slumped against the side of the shower cubicle and, as her legs gave way beneath her, slid to the floor, kneeling in the corner.

And then the climax came. Her right hand clenched inside her while, with her left, she pinched her nipple as hard as she could, trying desperately to recreate the intensity, to relive the explosion but, there, on her own, kneeling in the corner of her shower cubicle, the release was but a pale shadow and, whilst it would do for now, it had fuelled rather than sated the hunger within.

Emotionally, physically and spiritually drained, Jasmine knelt on the floor of the shower cubicle and let the water wash over her. There were too many questions and too few answers but, for now, she had to just let them rest. In the end the limits of her pitifully small hot water tank forced her to stand up and turn off the now tepid flow. She got out of the cubicle, grabbed a towel and got on with the rest of her day.

All that day Jasmine found it difficult to concentrate on her work. The report she was supposed to write seemed facile and meaningless; the points it was making petty and unimportant. For lunch, a meal she normally ate at her desk, she took her sandwiches out into the park and ate them sat on one of the benches. A row of oak trees, each towering eighty or ninety feet into the air, lined the main path through the centre and Jasmine felt as if she were seeing them for the first time. Even there, in something as tame as the municipal park, they had a majesty about them, a strength, a grace and she felt drawn towards them. She was no tree hugger, she found such hippy sensibilities too airy-fairy and she was far too down-to-earth for that but, today, it was as if she could feel the life force within them. She went over, laid her hands on the rough bark and, as she did so, she felt a connection between them. They were but parts of a greater whole and the power that joined them was a physical joy.

Brushing aside such silly nonsense she pulled herself together and headed back to the office.

As she got ready for bed Jasmine wondered if she was going to dream again. She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to. Oh, sure, she'd give practically anything for another of those orgasms, albeit that she'd been asleep at the time, but there was a fear there as well. Did she want it too much? She had never experienced anything so strong and was scared of being overwhelmed.

With her face washed and her teeth brushed she went into her bedroom, switched off the light and got into bed. At this point she would usually turn to her Kindle and read a couple of chapters to send herself to sleep but, somehow, Elizabeth Bennett's troubles with Fitzwilliam Darcy couldn't hold her attention and it wasn't long before she put the Kindle down and turned off the light.

But if Pride and Prejudice couldn't hold her attention, then neither was she quite ready to go to sleep. She lay in the half light and, without any conscious thought on her part, her hand slipped between her thighs. God she was horny! Ever since the dream, all she could think of, all she could concentrate on, was the itch between her thighs. She rolled over, opened her bedside drawer and fumbled inside for her vibrator but, for all that had never failed her in the past, the comparison with the dream was too strong and the cold, inanimate plastic compared poorly with the organic strength of... of... of what? She remembered the vine as it had coiled its way around her calves and then her thighs but, what had penetrated her had been no twig. The vibrator failed in neither size nor shape, it had both those in good measure, but it wasn't alive, pulsing, throbbing, thrusting.... her hand worked furiously as the memories came flooding back. What she would give to feel that again. Just one taste, just one little taste....

Her hand, like the vibrator, couldn't cut the mustard and, frustrated beyond belief, she threw back the covers and got out of bed. Her eyes had got used to the gloom and, as she looked about her, the mirror caught her eye. She went over and stood in front of it, reaching out with her hand to take hold of the frame so as to keep herself steady.

Just as she had felt the power of the oak trees in the park, so now she could feel that same power from the oak frame of the mirror. Unlike the useless plastic vibrator, the wooden frame was alive. No, it couldn't be, it had been alive but no longer, surely. Why then did it feel so alive? Why then did the figure of the nymph that she was holding seem to mould herself into Jasmine's hand?

She stared at her reflection and the half light seemed to flatter her. Normally she wasn't overly keen on looking at herself in mirrors but this time she actually felt she looked a little sexy. Or at least she would do if only she could get rid of the tee shirt. She scrabbled to get out of it and cast it behind her to lie on the floor. Then, when she turned back to the mirror, there she was, naked and ready. She couldn't just stand there, she had to move so, raising her hands above her head, she started a slow sinuous dance. It wasn't that bad; the moonlight filtering through the shades seemed to give her a grace she normally lacked. The shades and shadows hid what she saw as her blemishes and, to an earthy, rhythmic beat that played purely within her head, she let herself go.

Louder and louder, faster and faster, beat the drums that only she could hear. She turned and gyrated, twisting and twirling to the beat until, so lost in the dance, she knew not where she was. Even when a hand reached out and touched her it was so perfect that she did not question it. The dance, that was all there was, that was all she needed. Another hand touched her and, this time, she knew she was not alone, her sisters had joined her, or by the feel of soft earth beneath her feet, she had joined them. Together they ebbed and flowed through the forest, conjoined in their slavery to the rhythm of the dance until, at last, buoyed up by the exhilaration, they came to the clearing. They stood in a semi-circle, Jasmine at the centre, and waited. Puffing slightly from the exertion and feeling more alive than she had ever done before, Jasmine finally took in her surroundings.

The silence hung heavy with expectation. The whole forest seemed to hold its breath. And then, the shadows on the other side of the clearing moved and from the darkness emerged Pan, the prince of the forest, the source of the life force. Half goat, half man, all god.

"Is she ready?" his voice rang out.

"She is ready, she is ready." Jasmine's sisters voices were as the rustling of leaves.

"Are you ready?" he asked, this time looking directly at Jasmine.

"I am ready, my lord. Take me! Take me!"

Pan strode across the grass, swept Jasmine up into her arms and laid her on the ground. Jasmine flung back her head and opened her legs. She was ready, oh how she was ready. Even so the force of him inside her was almost too much. He was crushing her, consuming her, devouring her, taking her, taking her, taking... taking....

And, as he pumped his seed inside her, she knew she had found her home. Here with her sisters, here with her god, she would live forever, lost in the dance.

********

"And now lot fifty six. A free standing mirror in a carved oak frame depicting eight cavorting nymphs. What am I bid? Do I hear fifty pounds? Come along, this is a fine piece, OK, let's start at forty pounds, thirty, yes, thirty to the gentleman in the front row, thirty five anyone..."

Right from the viewing, Kathleen had fallen in love with this mirror...