Ing of the Forest

I stifled a yawn as I shifted my pack on my back. It wasn't quite evening yet, for the sun was still shining above the treeline along the ridge above me, but I considered finding a place to camp soon. One never knew when the wind would blow in a bout of rain or cold weather, and being safely tucked into camp by the early afternoon wasn't the worst idea, even on a clear day like today.

For now, though, I kept hiking; I wanted to hit my goal of twelve miles before I chose a campsite. Some days I covered ten miles, some days I blazed through twenty. It really depended on the day, the trail, and the weather.

I was six days into my fifteen-day solo hiking trip, and so far, all had been delightfully successful, except for the rainstorm that forced by to take a layover on day four. Even that had been fine by me: it had given me an extra day to shake down my supplies, review my food usage so far, and let my feet rest out of my boots for an additional set of hours -- something I always exploited, no matter what!

My spirits high, I continued to walk, allowing my ears to passively absorb the gentle scrape of my hiking poles against the protruding stones in the trail, the warbling songs of the birds above and around me in the deep aspen copses that stood afore the pines farther from the trail, the babbling of the creeks and streams I crisscrossed along this hillside. The ridges and ravines here weren't quite tall enough to be considered mountains, per se, though the locals certainly called them that, but I challenge anyone to scramble up one side of one in the early afternoon heat, stand at the peak, look out over the vast swaths of early-autumn-coloring trees and lakes before them, and call it a hill. It feels like a mountain, and these are certainly bigger than molehills.

After another hour or so, my watch beeped, gently congratulating me on striking my twelve-mile goal. Though I tried not to rely on my watch for timekeeping on my hikes, sometimes I have to admit that it's a useful tool, and one that any explorer worth her salt wouldn't abandon for sake of pride. More people than I've cared to read about have gotten lost and died under the assumption that they knew the land they'd be relying on and trusting, and I've long overgrown my pride in such matters. I am a small explorer up against the whims of nature, and nature will have her way whether I like it or not.

Twelve miles -- and so it was finally time for me to choose where I'd sleep for the evening. I paused on the trail, shifting around so that I could extract my map from my pack's side pocket. Unsheathing it from its protective plastic cover, I flipped the map around so that I could locate my approximate position. There was that oxbow I'd passed and there was the overlook where I had lunch... so then there I was, at the heart of this valley, where the elevation lines grew further and further apart, as if making way for me to nestle between them tonight. Awfully accommodating of the geography to welcome me so. I chuckled at the thought.

There was a turnoff ahead, less than a half-mile from where I stood. There wasn't a marked campsite, but a lot of the campsites along this trail had been revamped by the volunteers who kept up the trail, and many had been moved, closed, opened elsewhere, or otherwise altered.

I folded the map and slipped it back into its pocket inside its protector. I'd check out the turnoff where it was marked, see if it was suitable, and make a decision then. I had plenty of daylight and energy left.

Once I reached the turnoff, though, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd descended into what could only be described as the Green-Light Zone: soft ferns lined the path, and aspens dangled their spade-shaped leaves down, while blue-green lichen spread over tree trunks and fallen logs alike.

If I couldn't find a nice campsite in there somewhere, I'd be sorely disappointed.

I brushed past those silk-soft young ferns, letting them caress my fingertips as I did so; I knew they were still quite young because their fanning leaves hadn't taken on that stiff, deep green yet, and remaining paler and so flexible under my hands. I know the primary rule is Leave No Trace, followed closely by Look Don't Touch, but the ferns curled their fronds up towards me, inviting me closer, and by the look of this trail, no one had been this way in quite some time. Choosing to temporarily ignore the outdoorsmanship rules that had been drilled into my head over the course of my lifetime, I reached down as I walked, letting the ferns engulf my arms completely. I smiled, for it was such a pleasant feeling that I shared with no one. Just me and these sprouting ferns, with the humid quiet of the forest around me.

Ahead, I saw the light that indicated a clearing, and my hopes for a secluded, private campsite lifted; if this was truly to be where I laid my head tonight, I might never leave.

I slipped out of the rasping ferns to the slightest twinge of disappointment: there neither cleared tent pad nor metal fire ring in the ground here, only a large bed of supple moss covering the uneven ground of the clearing. I sighed, a little put out by the lack of a place for me to sleep. I recalled from the map that there was another marked campsite another mile ahead to the south, and the one I'd passed a mile and a half behind me to the north, but I had been so fervently hoping for this private lush amenity...

I had just reluctantly made the decision to turn back when I felt a wave of weariness pass over me. I'd been hiking all day, having awoken before the sun to hit the trail, and my body chose this moment to assertively alert me to this fact. My legs felt soft and unsteady, and my pack, normally expertly arranged and fit to my back so that it felt like an extension of myself, now felt as if I was carrying a boulder strapped to my shoulders, driving me down to the earth.

I shook my head, and with it, I attempted to shake off the tiredness. I only had a mile or two in either direction, north or south, to go; I'd hiked much further with much less energy.

But again, I'd barely decided that I would in fact turn and travel further when I yawned, blinking my eyes sleepily, like a child roused from sleep before she is ready. Oh... what was the harm in resting here for a moment? Up through the trees above me I could see that I still had at least a few hours of daylight. And I couldn't lie -- that moss in the clearing looked tantilizing.

I knew I wasn't supposed to do it, but I slipped my pack off my back and rested it against one of the sturdy aspens that ringed the clearing. I untied my boots and peeled my socks off too, breathing a sigh of relief and pleasure as my feet hit the cool air. I stuffed the socks into my boots, nestling them underneath my pack as I stripped off my long-sleeved sunshirt and tossed it overtop of my pack as well, leaving me only in my sports bra and hiking shorts now.

Cool, relieved, and with aching joints, I crawled onto the mossy pad that invited me ever closer.

My fingers dug into its spongy, damp scrub as I shifted myself from my hands and knees to my back, rolling over to stare at the sky above me. I nearly cried out as I felt the ache of the day begin to spring into the air like the flames of a fire coaxed into life. The moss seemed to respond, leeching the fire from my knees and hips and back and shoulders and neck as I lay there, alternatively closing and opening my eyes in relief and an attempt not to enjoy the rapture too much. I still needed to find a campsite, I reminded myself, though the urgency felt faraway now, fading into the darkening sky...

I startled awake, looking around for the noise that had awoken me, but it was night now, the darkness pressing in on all sides. I cursed under my breath -- how stupid could I be? To lay down in the middle of the woods on a barely-marked trail -- a beginner's mistake, honestly! Reprimanding myself, I sat up.

Or... tried to sit up, at least. I frowned, finding myself pinned against the moss. Not hard, as if by iron shackles or metal cuffs, but gently, as if by hands reluctant to let me go. I glanced down at myself to find that some of the moss had seemed to bunch around me, tendrils beginning to grow up onto my skin ever so slightly, just as if I'd sunk a little further than I intended into the mossy overgrowth.

Looking a little more closely as my eyes adjusted to the light of the dark clearing, I saw that around my shoulders, the sides of my hips, and my ankles, longer plants had begun to snake their way around those joints, curling tiny vines over my skin.

I noticed with some apathy that I was no longer clothed, though I realized that some of those young ferns had fanned over me in a parody of modesty, for I found it amusing that they covered me from any watchful eyes from above while leaving me completely exposed to the moss and plants beneath me. The fern fronds rippled a little as a cool gust of air breathed through the clearing, and it wafted over my whole body from my feet to my head; it cooled my skin, though I did not shiver, and I wondered if I'd ever felt a breeze like this in my nethers. When would I have felt such a thing? I resolved to experience it again.

I felt a gently movement around my arm, and opened my eyes to see a long wine with boldly-striped leaves encircling it, snaring me softly. I knew I could break the vine if I wanted, but I did not desire to hurt the plant, no did I want to leave, even as another of its fellows wrapped itself around my ankle, drawing it a little further from my other ankle, exposing even more of my vulnerable private parts to the night air.

I drew in a sharp breath, for the touch of chilled air down there had sent a ricochet of arousal through my core, twanging a sharp repeat like a plucked bowstring. I felt it behind my navel and in my throat, and my sex suddenly felt as if it protested the cold air by heating in a nearly overwhelming manner.

I felt my rapid breaths sputter into the air, silent but for the rustling of the trees above me and the ground plants that surrounded me... no, they were a little below me now, and the mossy bed had risen up, just a little, from the forest floor. It stood now as an altar under the night sky, a plinth with my captive body shielded by its own growth, the ferns still bandying in the winds but resolute in their coverage of my modesty.

The striated vines had affixed themselves to my ankles, coiling up my legs now to meet with their fellows at my hips, a plant with long tendrils that reminded me of fingers where they spread around the sides of my hips as if holding me from behind; each little fingertip that slipped slowly down into the space between the tops of my thighs stole another breath from my lungs, and I drew in a long, shuddering breath, trying to control the arousal that was roiling inside me.

I made to shift, to move my hand -- I was only considering touching myself, nothing more, as I was just curious -- but found both of my arms held more firmly in place by those fingerling tendrils. Alarm was blotted out by anticipation and pleasure as I relaxed both of my arms, though it was with reluctance that I passed my hand over the side of my hip, giving up my attempt to reach my sex through the vines.

Sighing, I tried to shift my hips, to brush myself against something that would relieve this aching anticipation that was ripping over my body, flowing like waves in the sea with each gust of cool valley air that buffeted the ferns above me, brushing them across my breasts and thighs and nethers, tantalizing, as if it knew I could not do a thing to relieve my predicament.

Then, just as it felt I might either go mad or wither from lack of touch, I heard a rasping noise, the sound of a blanket being dragged over leaves. I opened my eyes, looking around, past the ends of my feet, and I saw him.

He walked towards me -- no, he floated towards me, for he was not walking at all, but moved as if he did not touch the ground at all. He was tall, broad shoulders taking on a sheen in the starlight, and as he drew closer, I could see individual plants that grew across his chest, tiny leaves and fronds that covered him like a pelt. His beard was similarly alive, though there it looked as if a thousand tiny strands from a willow swayed with him as he swept over the forest floor; I could not see past his waist, where larger plants seemed to rise up to meet the smaller ones on his chest, and it was as if he wore the forest itself. His hair, made of the same willowy locks, was topped by what I could only see as a crown of flowers, leaves, thorns, and branches, woven together into a diadem fit for a ruler.

Closer he came, and my breaths grew shorter as my anticipation grew more agonizing; he came to a rest at my feet, standing above me, regarding me with soft dark eyes above his willow-beard. He extended a hand, and the young ferns withdrew slowly, exposing my breasts and sex to his gaze in the cool night. He swept his gaze up and down my body, and if I thought the tendrils and leaves and fronds drove me into a frenzy, I had been naive; with each pass his eyes made, up and down my body, behind it came a fiery lash of sensation that I had not known could exist. Up my legs, across my stomach, between my hips, spreading up over my ribs like water spilled over the ground, running over each of my breasts, circling my nipples and covering them with the most delicate yet insistent pressure, continuing up to my throat, behind my ears... there was nothing there but aching sensation where it ran its relentless campaign against my helpless resistance, naked on the mossy plinth under the moon's watchful eye.

Each encroachment was echoed by the tightening of my garden of restraints, the vines and tendrils and embracing moss tightening here and there, holding me firmly in place under the watchful eye of their commander. He seemed to enjoy my predicament, for he raised his hand again and again I was awash with that fiery lightning that coursed through me, more intense with each repetition of his command.

Finally, with his final gesture, I felt I should surely evaporate in place, so fervently did my loins cry out for release, and I could feel it all through my belly and chest; I struggled against my binds, desperately moving my hips in my attempt to scrabble for some pleasure.

The purveyor of my denied pleasure chuckled, though I heard no sound; it was a rippling of the plants around me, a creaking in the wind, but I knew he took his own pleasure from the lack of mine. I let out a frustrated cry against the night air, and at once, my breath was stolen away as he moved closer still.

As he moved further into the clearing, approaching the mossy altar on which I lay, a sacrificial lamb -- by now all too willing to be slaughtered if what came with it was relief from my burgeoning pleasure and burning womanhood -- he rose up, and my breath returned in a disbelieving rush.

I followed the wan moonlight down, down his chest, through the coat of greenery that shrouded him, and found my breath hitching in my chest, my mind turned blank. Below the line of his hips protruded a member not unlike a man's, but thicker, green, shining slightly in the nigh light's glow. He drew ever closer, that manhood seeming to lead the way, and my sex begged for it to plant in me, to root and fill me as deep as possible, and then deeper. I groaned and closed my eyes, rolling my head form side to side as my hips bucked a little; I could feel my wetness against my thighs as the vines pulled at my ankles, exposing me even further to the air and to him. His inexorable slow movements felt deliberate, and I heard that rippling, murmuring laughter echo through the trees again.

The altar moved as a bed might when someone else sits on its edge; I opened my eyes to see that the plants bearing him had somewhat married with the moss at the altar, and shifted as he lowered himself, suspended in the air above me, closer. His member grazed my sex and I couldn't breathe for the madness he was driving into me with just that barest touch.

He remained there, just outside the range of his member's reach to my nethers, but only for a moment. As if he himself no longer wished for the denial of pleasure, the plants rippled beneath him and he came forward, his tip just brushing the outside of my lower lips; I drew in a deep, heaving breath, my plant captors allowing me the movement, a mercy for which I was most grateful as my companion's manhood was jostled by my movement, and his body seemed to respond in kind, his hips jerking a little closer, bumping the tip a little deeper into me.

I came to rest again, hardly daring to breath as his hips moved again, so slowly, tanatlizingly at first as he began to push himself against my resistance; despite my arousal, the wetness that glistened against the insides of my thighs in the moonlight, his organ was large, and no arousal could have prepared me for the way I began to stretch around him as he made his move to enter me.

I let out a long moan into the night air as he filled me; so slowly, but inexorably, something I couldn't have stopped even if I'd wanted to. A note of panic split the pleasure as surely as he must have been splitting me open; surely he would fit? I felt as if my legs were being pushed further and further apart as he breached further into me, and I felt him inch by inch as his member met my insides, the hint of pain he brought only fanning the flames of my desire more.

It seemed he must be ten feet long, for it felt as if it took an eternity for him to sink himself fully into my depths and come to rest, somewhat suspended above me. My breaths came in rapid gasps, feeling more filled and stretched than I had ever felt in my life; surely my hips must be breaking to accommodate his girth, and I shifted, feeling how his hardness held me solidly in place, a silent refusal to allow me to escape his pleasure.

And pleasure he brought, for as he leaned over me, extending his arms so that those plants at my sides reached up to join them, making a lush green blanket that enclosed our bodies, he moved his hips, pulling out just as slowly as he'd entered me; I let out a whine as I felt him begin to leave me, but with surprising speed, he hilted himself in me again, forcing a cry form my lips as he hit the top of me, that sensitive spot so few had ever found before.

He thrust, moving more rapidly than he had yet, and I began to lose myself in the movements as he slid in and out of me, the leaves above his girth brushing against my swollen nub, sending electric pleasure through my whole being.

I lay underneath him, each of his movements jolting me, coming to rest between my legs, the soft plants rubbing against the insides of my thighs, and I barely saw the night sky above us, dotted with soft stars, as I was enveloped in the ecstasy of his penetration.

His pace quickened, and so did the urgency of his thrusts; as if my body felt it too, my breaths began to shorten, and I felt as if some deep, explosive fire was beginning to roll through me, and I felt myself climbing to the top of a peak I prayed would both arrive soon and never come at the same time.

My sex was afire as he slammed into me; how had I ever worried he would be too big? I bucked against him, against my restraints, as my climax burst forth, starting down where we connected again and again, where he filled me over and over and over, and it rippled through my entire body as I cried out into the night, heedless of being overheard. My body was electric pleasure, my limbs numb, my mouth opening into the night as I arched my back. My ears went deaf and I was lost in him, in the waves of release and pleasure that coursed through me, seeming to crest and trough with each of his thrusts.