Stepping out the side door from her small house, Cecelia took a deep breath of country air. Overhead, the sun was bright and fluffy white clouds drifted by, casting patches of shadow across the green landscape. Here in this small section of the mountains, she could see miles upon mile of rolling green hills and unspoiled nature. It was the kind of place where one could be pretty confident that there wasn't another human for miles around, which was what gave her the confidence to step out of the house entirely in the buff except for a pair of dirty old sneakers and a pail filled with gardening implements.
When her mom had brought up the idea of moving to her grandparent's old house, Celia had been certain she was kidding. Since she'd graduated college, she had lived in one of the biggest cities on the east coast. It was a place that never slept and had no concept of quiet, the kind of place she always told herself she thrived in. If you wanted to go far in life and make real money, there was no better place, and she'd gladly embraced the lifestyle of long hours, little sleep, and no vacations to make Director at her company. It wasn't until last year, when she'd found herself crying at her therapist's office for what felt like the umpteenth time over how stressed she was that something clicked. Maybe mom was right.
So despite the risks and fears which a major life transition entailed, she'd finally made the leap, packed up her things, cancelled her apartment lease, and moved five hundred miles away to the middle of nowhere in order to start a new life. Frankly, it was terrifying. Yet after spending a week pacing around her new home, fretting over unpacking her boxes and repairing a few things which had broken around the property since it was last occupied, she finally settled. It wasn't on her own though. Rather, she'd found a letter in her grandmother's old dresser, addressed to her. It was as if gran had known she'd wind up getting too tired of life in the city. Relax, the note advised her. Don't try to do everything at once. Breathe. Take walks. Enjoy nature. And maybe, if you're feeling daring, try some naked gardening.
The suggestion had made her blush! Naked gardening?! Who would even do that? Yet it stuck in her head and after a few more days had gone by, she gave it a go, stepping outdoors with her dress in her arms in case she suddenly lost confidence. Soon she found there was no reason to be nervous, or modest. Without a single neighbor for miles, she could parade around in the buff without drawing even a lick of attention. After all, the rabbits and sparrows didn't care. Soon, she began to properly tackle the massive garden and turn it from an overgrown patch of briars into something that might one day grow a prize-winning pumpkin.
A garden, in her opinion, needed a scarecrow. Even if it didn't really do anything, it just felt proper to add one. And after all, the figure might be a nice sort of company, so she constructed one and dressed it in some old clothing she found in one of the sheds, with a pumpkin for the head. 'Jack' was the name written on the shirt tag, so Jack he became. As a sort of joke and a finishing touch once the thing was planted properly right beside the garden patch, she also affixed her old dildo into the open fly of its pants. The varnished wooden length was eight inches and somewhat narrow, almost artistic in the way it tapered towards the head and then flared out to create an abstract mushroom shape. For years she had daringly positioned it on a shelf in her living room amongst her collection of carved rocks and wooden sculptures. The potential that someone might notice what it was and call it out had excited her with its possibilities of where that could lead. She'd imagined a visitor to her apartment plucking the toy from her collection and brandishing it accusingly. 'Why would you put something like this on display?' they'd ask, prodding her face with its tip. 'You must want me to use it on you!' And then, she assumed, she'd give in and allow them to ravish her with it, reducing her to a sticky, filthy mess over several arduous hours.
Unfortunately, real life wasn't like the erotic fiction she sometimes read and if anyone ever noticed the toy situated there, they were always far too polite to mention it or bother to ravish her the way she dreamed of. Instead it sat unused while her collection of more advanced sex toys grew, their brightly colored silicone and complex vibration patterns far more exciting than a hunk of wood. The old dildo had only survived the move by being mindlessly tossed in a box. When she had discovered it, she decided to give it one last good romp in her bedroom before tying it onto her new scarecrow. Cecelia had laughed that the dick made him as much of a real man as the ones she'd slept with while trying to find herself. They might have seemed like the type she could imagine a future with while in bed, but as soon as her vision cleared post-orgasm, their potential for a real relationship was as threadbare as Jack's old flannel shirt.
"Jack," she'd said to him, slinging an arm across the scarecrow's hay-stuffed shoulders and flicking the tip of his 'cock', causing it to wobble. "You're the real man in my life now."
Cecilia wiped the back of a hand along her brow, streaking the sweaty flesh with flecks of dirt. Long hours bent over in the garden had left her tired but she couldn't help feeling proud as she surveyed her new domain. Over the past month she'd transformed an acre of weeds, thorns, and rocks into workable soil with mounds of sprouts already sticking through. Here and there, she'd supported vining beans with lattice and young tomato plants with stakes, their green leaves vivid against dark, damp soil. Rising, she dusted off her bare knees and retrieved the hose, lugging it into the garden so she could sprinkle the most recently planted row of seedlings with water.
"Some for you and some for me," she told them, holding the hose head up to squirt a blast into her parched mouth. After taking a few minutes to wash off her hands and knees, she retreated to the shade of the large sycamore tree nearby. Beneath the vast old branches, the air was cooler and moving leaves overhead created a soothing hush. Celia settled a lawn chair, putting her hands behind her head and crossing her ankles. A warm breeze rolled through, tickling against her bare flesh. She should have done this years ago. Spending so long stressing herself out at a souless job was never worth the money. Who cared about a fat paycheck when you came home every night too drained to do more than click on the TV and fall asleep? There was no satisfaction in her old life like the kind she felt now when she surveyed her garden. Thoughts of how much better her life had become since taking this leap played across her mind until they blended in with the whoosh of the breeze and the leaves, and she dropped off to sleep.
