They’d already reached the corner of the field that met the edge of the small wood. The rickety gate was jammed shut and the old paths were overgrown, but Marcie was still keen to explore, hiking her loose skirt up as Ben helped her over the gate, then crashing with him through the wild undergrowth. They skirted around some boggy dips, though Ben explained the landscape and the rock beneath didn’t really give rise to springs or streams in this part of the world. Warmed by the spring sun and their walk, protected from the breeze by the trees now, they removed their jackets as they followed a shallow rise up to a point where Ben remembered a great ash tree grew. He was glad to see it was still there, though its leaves were only just budding at this time of year. Then he saw that his half-remembered crow’s nest was still up in its limbs, not much more than twice his height above the ground. Marcie had already seen it, and he explained it wasn’t a proper tree house, just a slightly slimy platform, but it used to have a good view south, away from the farm and towards the Wolds proper. She was eager to see it, so very tentatively, with the blanket slung over his shoulder, Ben tested the rungs of the ladder that his dad had fixed in place all those years ago.

They held, and he made it to the top, feeling a little anxious as he’d normally be clipped in at this height. There was still a handmade railing around the edge of the small platform, but he didn’t want to trust his weight to it, and it seemed very low. Still, he called down to Marcie that it was safe to come up, then he began sweeping the accumulated dried leaves and twigs over the edge. He was glad to see that underneath, the old wooden planks of the decking were quite dry and in good condition, and he guessed that the natural arboreal litter had actually been protecting it.

“It’s not slimy up here at all,” Marcie said brightly as she reached the top too, taking Ben’s offered hand as she stepped off the ladder. She leaned one hand on the tree’s great trunk as she took in the view, inhaling a deep breath, before saying, “This is really great actually! The fields go right up into the hills, don’t they? And there’s nothing to spoil the view, no roads, no pylons, no houses, no barns even, except those ones way over there. I can feel the wind whispering past us too, feel the fresh air on my skin.”

Ben wiped his hands on his trousers, then stepped up to hold her around the waist, facing out to stare into the distance with her. He rested his chin against the side of her pinned-back hair as he stroked her belly through her loose blouse, feeling the breeze whisper around them and breathing in deeply too. “Aye,” he agreed finally, “It’s like what we’ve been saying, isn’t it? This is the fresh air we’ve found, from the open sky. It’s our shared future, freedom, and a gift from the natural world. That’s for real here.”

“Oh, Ben,” Marcie said, turning in his arms to press herself to him as she hugged him in her arms, “You’re right. It’s magical, isn’t it?”

Ben planted a soft kiss on her upturned mouth, breathing in the scent of her perfume and clean skin along with the smells of the woodland through his wide nostrils, but then he pulled back and said, “Aye, it’s magical. But it’s also a bit unsafe. We should sit down, if we’re stopping here.”

“Ooh, what would I do without your calm good sense?” Marcie said with a warm smile, dropping her hands to his buttocks to pull his hips against her firmly. She went on with genuine respect, “You’re the real expert up here, aren’t you? What do you suggest?”

Moving carefully around the small platform, Ben started by laying out the blanket for them to sit on. As he advised Marcie where to put her feet, he made sure that she had a hand on the tree or a firm grip on him, just for her reassurance. Also, following her lead, he took his boots off as they stepped onto their improvised woollen carpet. As he tucked both pairs of wellingtons away safely into one corner, Marcie slipped off her small handbag to stuff it away inside one of the boots as well. They wound up side by side, facing the view, their legs dangling over the edge. Ben had an arm draped over Marcie’s shoulder, whilst her hand provocatively reached under his shirt to brush the bare skin of his abdomen. As they soaked up the atmosphere of the trees around them, Ben noticed the whisper of the wind that Marcie had spoken of as a rustle in the early leaves of the nearby birch trees.

“Do you want me to tell you something that felt a bit naughty?” Marcie asked quietly, nuzzling up against his ear, as if there were a risk of being overheard. When he agreed, she went on, “When I said I could feel the breeze, I was actually feeling it rising up my skirt from below, brushing the skin between my thighs. It was as if the woods and trees were privately welcoming me, the air moving up the trunk of the tree to touch me intimately.”

“That sound’s nice,” Ben remarked, unsure of what else to say, though his mind had already made the connection to their discussion this morning about making love outside.

“It was. I’d like to feel it again. Are you sure no one can see us up here? There’s not a footpath just down there or anything?” she asked. When Ben reassured her that there wasn’t, Marcie pulled away from him a little, fixed him in the eye with a slightly guilty expression, then reached under her skirt with both hands and began busily shuffling about. He briefly wondered what she was up to, but it became clear when she produced a handful of familiar pale blue lacy satin from under the layers of her loose skirt.

“Would you like to look after these?” she asked, pressing the soft bundle into his hand. He eagerly took it, even before she suggested, “Perhaps you want them so that you can feel a bit naughty too, you know, maybe with that thing you do?”

Ben took her meaning as he grinned, fixing her with his own gaze now as he unfolded her knickers in his hand. He turned them so that the soft panel which had until only a moment ago been covering her vulva was uppermost, then he raised it to his nose and inhaled deeply. Marcie giggled a little as he did this, but Ben was not just seeking to make a joke of it, as the sensations fed his desires in a deliciously arousing way. He relished the feeling of the silky-smooth material, still warm, brushing against his lips and nose, whilst also filling his nostrils with the unmistakable musky scent of that most intimate part of Marcie’s body.

“Am I there?” she asked shyly, “Is it Vixen’s cumin fragrance you’re smelling? Ooh, Ben, it’s so good when you’re burying yourself down against her, you know. I guess I just have to take your word for it when you say that it’s fun for you too, but your mouth and your tongue down there… Well, you know what it does for me.”

“Would you like me down there now?” Ben asked, in what he hoped was a seductively encouraging voice.

“Oh no, not now! That would be too much for my first time outside. I wouldn’t be able to relax and enjoy it. I just took them off to see if I could feel the breeze again.”

Ben stuffed her knickers safely into his pocket and resigned himself to a more platonic cuddle, despite Marcie’s initial erotically arousing playfulness. Still with his arm around her shoulders, whilst hers held him close around his ribs, he turned his face towards her to brush her warm cheek with his lips. However, with their free hands both roving about in each other’s laps and then up under their loose tops, it wasn’t long before their kissing and cuddling became more passionate. Their mouths were ajar, and they both made playful licking strokes with their tongues, even though their twisted necks made it awkward, with Ben knocking the corner of Marcie’s glasses too. That did not stop him though, as he responded to the ticklish pleasure of Marcie’s delicate hand brushing across the skin of his abdomen and chest by reaching further under her own blouse with his own big paw.

He felt her soft skin above the waistband of her skirt, then stroked up over her stomach, feeling the creases caused by her curled and twisted position. Then he came to her breast, touching its mass through the round cup of her bra, and felt his own arousal begin to come on strong once more. He played his fingertips over the satin material, feeling its lace border under his fingertips, brushing around the full warm curve, seeking out the bump of her nipple beneath the fabric. She pulled back from their kiss momentarily to sigh as he did this.

“Can you feel the breeze now, on Vixen?” he murmured.

“No, not now,” she admitted, “But I was thinking of something else, something you might be able to help with.”

“Well, tell me,” Ben encouraged as she paused, “Didn’t we agree, we can always ask. The other might say no, but okay to let it come out and be honest, to just say it.”

“Well,” Marcie began shyly, “Do you think you could maybe just stroke me a little, down here?”

“You know I’d love to,” Ben immediately answered with a broad grin.

“It would feel naughty and exciting, I think, with all of Lincolnshire out there in front of us,” she giggled, “But maybe we could shuffle around to get comfy.”

So with a few prompts, some careful manoeuvring, a bit of negotiation, then a more wriggling and shuffling, they found something that suited them. Ben wound up leaning back against the tree trunk, sitting with his knees up and his legs apart. Meanwhile Marcie had put her back to him, pushing herself between his thighs so that her buttocks were snug against the splayed crotch of his jeans. She had one of her own knees up, whilst her other foot dangled over the edge of the crow’s nest platform. Her legs were parted too, so that when she began gathering up the layers of her skirt in her lap, Ben could run his rough hands up the silky-smooth skin of her inner thighs.

She seemed to give a shivering sigh of pleasure as he did so, but though he was a bit worried that she may have just been reacting to the chilly temperature of his hands, he didn’t pull back. Indeed, he felt his own growing arousal compelling him to carry on as he traced the lines of her thighs’ muscles and tendons higher until the point where his hands converged. He had felt the subtle tickle of her unshaved vulva brush his fingers, somewhere out of sight beneath the bundled soft fabric in her lap, and now he pressed his cheek to hers as he tentatively touched her bushy lips.

“That’s it,” she whispered, nuzzling against him, moving her hands from her lap to his thighs, “I’m in your hands, open to the land and the sky.”

He’d rested one fingertip against her perineum, right over the pursed mouth of her vagina he guessed, as he used two fingers of his other hand to massage the bristly cushions of her outer labia, moving up and down with gentle pressure. “I used to watch birds from up here,” he found himself murmuring as he stroked her, “Wood pigeons, crows and magpies mostly. Jackdaws or rooks too. Jays, thrushes, woodpeckers occasionally. Starlings and gulls too, in flocks, crossing the sky and the fields. I saw buzzards, wheeling over the hills, specks in the sky, way over there. I’d sometimes see hares in the fields too. And in summer, I’d hear the skylarks, singing without stopping for breath.”

“Hmm, ‘Singing without stopping for breath,’” Marcie repeated, “Flying without tiring, dancing without getting dizzy, loving without pausing to think, fucking without ever needing to rest.”

Ben had been rhythmically moving his fingers up and down the full length of her vulva without yet even trying to find her inner labia or clitoris, just feeling Marcie’s warm fur beneath his hand as he massaged her fleshy womanhood. Now, further down, beneath his other hand’s finger, he felt a little greasy dampness arising on the sensitive skin of her vulva’s lowest point. He cautiously began gently moving his fingertip around, making tiny circles whilst keeping his contact light and steady. He was both glad and renewed in his arousal when, as he did this, he felt more lubrication oozing from Marcie’s vagina. He didn’t pause the massaging strokes of his other hand though, but merely pressed a little more firmly against the pillowy mounds of her outer lips. It seemed he could comfortably cover a bit more of her now, using four fingers and the palm of his hand too as she opened wider to him.

“Animal life must be all around us, right now,” he went on crooning, “Shy and hiding, scared of the big, noisy, smelly humans. The nocturnal creatures are slumbering in their dens and roosts. The barn owls and tawny owls. Those worrisome badgers. The hedgehogs too, their spiky little cousins. The flitting bats, tucked together for warmth. The voles and dormice, popping out of their tiny holes, rustling through the undergrowth. And the fox, stealthy and alert.”

“Yes, the bushy Vixen, aroused from slumber, scenting the air,” Marcie murmured, then gave a luxuriant sigh, pushing herself against him as she gripped his thighs, dropping her knees to spread her own thighs wider still.

Ben shifted his hands now, bringing his splayed fingers to rest so that he was just parting her outer lips, whilst he began exploring the warm and wrinkled folds of her inner lips with the one long middle-finger that her vagina had lubricated. He felt the crease of her vagina as he pushed between her labia, but he only toyed back and forth across it briefly before easing his fingertip up higher. He felt his way around blindly, her vulva invisible to him beneath her bundled skirt, even as she bared it to the empty fields and hills ahead of them. Yet he thought he’d found the point that her silky lips converged as he felt a slippery nub of flesh beneath his fingertip.

“Oh, yes Ben. Just there,” Marcie groaned with some urgency, even as she seemed to start panting.

Guessing that he’d successfully found her clitoris, Ben began to trace delicate circles around the sensitive bud, moving gently but at a steady pace. He cautiously began to massage her again with his other hand, striving to keep her wide all the while so that his circling fingertip could do its work. There was even space for his flanking fingers to muddle around against her slippery inner labia, though their uncoordinated strokes were driven by the motion of his key finger on her most sensitive bud.

Marcie had been making a slight keening noise as she panted in his arms, though quieter than previously, during their moments of passion indoors in her flat. Then she urgently panted some new firm instructions, “Oh Ben, stop! I want you inside me, now!”

“How? With you on top?” Ben asked, feeling the urgency himself, but unsure about what they could do, “I’m not sure there’s space to lie down.”

“We could do it doggy style,” Marcie suggested immediately, a little breathlessly.

“Aye, I’m up for that, if you’re okay,” Ben agreed eagerly, even whilst he kept stroking her, “Did you bring a condom?”

“Of course!” Marcie said, grasping Ben’s hands and pulling them away to forcefully stop his manipulation of her, as if keen to put her plan into action. As she drew her legs in and got onto her knees, he tried to keep her steady on their high perch, holding his hand out for hers or bracing it on her hip as her skirt fell back to her knees. She reached to pull her bag out of its safe place down inside one of the wellington boots, opened it and pulled out a familiar foil square, passed the important little item to Ben, then snapped the bag closed and stuffed it away again, moving quickly and efficiently.

Ben had already undone his belt and started unbuttoning his flies, feeling the relief of the release of the tight denim’s pressure his erection, which had become full and steady in sympathetic response to Marcie’s own arousal. Now she was on her knees between his legs, facing him with an eager expression on her flushed face. “I’ll take these right off,” he said, and she agreed to help him as he rose unsteadily to his feet, feeling a twinge in his back where it had been pressing into the tree trunk. Marcie didn’t hesitate to pull his jeans down for him, making sure that she was also pulling his boxer shorts down at the same time.

His penis was suddenly exposed, long and heavy, sticking forwards slightly as it hung down almost in Marcie’s face. He felt oddly ashamed of it now, even though she’d been close enough to put her mouth to it before, and he wondered if he was embarrassed about exposing himself after all. There was no one around, he was sure of it, but it did feel odd to be so indecently on display, on a platform that was metres above the ground, with miles of rolling fields and the open sky in front of him. His foreskin had rolled back at some point during the arousal of his erection, perhaps when his penis had been squeezed against Marcie’s back under his jeans, as his hands had played on her vulva. The sight of its bulging dark red head, and his suspicion that its own unclean fragrance was polluting the air, only made his exposure more awkward.

Marcie seemed wholly unconcerned though as she smiled up at him. “Do want to pass the condom back to me so that I can put it on you?” she asked as he absent-mindedly pulled his jeans and underwear over his ankles and stepped out of them. Once he’d agreed, he deliberately took a slow breath and savoured the moment, planting his feet apart and lifting his eyes to the distant horizon. He breathed in the scent of the fresh air, the soil, the leaf litter, the wood of the tree itself and more. He could still detect Marcie’s perfume, rising from her warm body and her neatly pinned hair, and now he raised his hand to his flared nostrils, indulgently inhaling the musky fragrance of her liquid arousal. In his mind all these scents somehow came together, as if they proved that this was their space. It felt as if he and Marcie had a deep moral entitlement to be together here, on the land that he’d been raised on. They were about to complete the timeless and eternal rite, the union of a man and woman in love, and they were doing so in the heart of nature, where the new life of spring was emerging all around them.

He looked down to see Marcie easing the condom out of its packet. His penis was already rising to a new firm tumescence, from his calm acceptance of their place as well as the direct power of her intimate bodily scent. Now she put her hand around his shaft, and he felt himself stretching up to a delicious and rigid firmness. She was concentrating on slipping the rolled-up rubber disk over his head though, so he reached down to hold himself upright with both hands around the base of his shaft. It felt as if he were offering a totemic artefact to her, but then he guessed that in a way his virile manhood was the original article, and all those treasured jewelled rods and sceptres were merely symbolic echoes of this primal phallus.

Marcie smiled up at him even as she was still rolling down the latex sheath, her hands moving with a steady confidence that brought shivers of pleasure to Ben. He thought he saw excited anticipation in her sparkling eyes, behind those serious glasses, which reflected his own eager enthusiasm. “We’ve got no gel, but you made me quite wet. Can we try just taking it slowly? I’m very sorry, but if it’s too uncomfortable, I might have to ask you to stop. Is that okay?”

“Aye, I understand,” Ben answered, a little breathlessly.

“Okay. So is this how it works?” Marcie asked. She’d suddenly twisted around at his feet so that she was facing away from him, still on her knees, but with her feet pushed back to either side of his now. She’d also fallen forwards, so her elbows were on the blanket, pushing her hips up towards him. And in a final quick and dramatic gesture, she’d given the hem of her skirt a sharp tug so that it was lifted up over her bare bottom. Ben suddenly had the full sight of her naked hips and buttocks, pale in the daylight despite her natural skin colour, the crease between them spread wide.

He felt almost as if his breath had been physically forced from him as he sank to his own knees now, steadying himself on the tree trunk as he shuffled up behind Marcie. Now that he was lower down and closer to her, he could see the most private points on her body with vivid clarity. The pursed bud of her anus was clearly visible in the cleft of darker skin, deep in the long crease that ran down between her full buttocks. Also below that tight hole and far more beguiling, her vagina was openly exposed before him. At this angle, her labia seemed exceptionally long and intriguingly alluring. Without the sight of her bushier pubic triangle, he found the sparse hair of her thick outer lips almost shockingly lewd, whilst her tawny wrinkled inner lips seemed mouth-wateringly luscious. And there in plain sight, the glistening cerise pink parting of Marcie’s vagina stretched between her labia, irresistibly inviting to Ben in his rampant arousal.

Feeling his heart pounding, he did not hesitate to let his impulses guide him. He had to push his upright erection down firmly to bring his head to her lips, putting one hand against her anus and perineum to guide himself in. The sensation of her glossy warm skin, even through the thin rubber, brought a new intensity to his arousal, then he groaned in visceral satisfaction as he slipped just his head inside her, hearing Marcie gasp in sympathetic response. Breathing out heavily again as he willed his trembling arousal to relax, he felt her securely around him as he grasped her bare hips with firm hands.

Ben looked up from Marcie’s naked behind to see again the way that she was crouched down on all fours before him, the rich colours of her skirt bunched up around her waist, and above that, the gentile cotton of her loose blouse stretching across her back to her shoulders. Then all he could see of her head was her neck and her hair. Her bare skin was rich olive against her white blouse, dappled with small moles beneath her hairline, where her beautiful thick dark hair was tightly pinned so skilfully into her sophisticated bun. At that moment he felt as if he were one of the monstrous beasts out of her stories, half-man, half-bull, driven by instinct to mate with a heavenly woman of pure, divine spirit. Marcie was the goddess’s chosen priestess, as beautiful as she was wise, adorned in the precious and hallowed robes of the temple, the best that her refined and elegant civilisation offered, yet she was still letting him take her like primitive brute, like a wild animal.

He’d started cautiously slipping his penis inside her, making small tentative pulsing thrusts to push himself deeper. His erection felt shamefully large to him, yet in his utter excitement he could do nothing about the enormous fulfilment of its maximal length, girth and pressure now. Yet the stretching muscles of her vagina seemed to be taking him in easily, with just the natural lubrication of her arousal. She was herself gasping for air as he felt himself slipping further and deeper inside, her body enveloping his manhood with that supreme comfort that only she could give. The sensations of making love to her seemed all the more intense to him like this, when all that he could feel was focused on his penis and its contact with her vulva, without any of the delightful distractions of her soft breasts, her caressing hands or her sensuous mouth.

As Ben grew in confidence that Marcie was comfortable too, with his position and just her natural lubrication on the rubber, he started finding a gentle rhythm to his hips’ movement against hers, pacing his deep breaths. Despite his impulse to thrust until he climaxed with as much force as possible, he remained cautiously experimental, remembering that she’d asked him to go slowly. He also remembered the way that his asthma attack had hit when he’d been pumping away on top of her on Thursday night too, and he sincerely wanted to avoid worrying her by repeating that. But Marcie was breathing very heavily herself now, her head hanging down as she panted in synchronicity with his pulsing movements.

Then she groaned and sunk lower on her elbows, bringing her face right onto the blanket, stretching her broad hips more firmly back towards him. “Holy Mary, Ben!” he heard her muffled voice exclaim. Between gasping breaths, she went on, “Is that all you? Mother of God, this feels so good. Aah, why did no one say? I didn’t know it could feel like this, so strong, so full. Don’t stop!”

Ben had been a little surprised at her words, but he’d not paused in his gently pumping repetitive motion as his hands gripped the bare flesh of her hips. “It feels good,” he managed to say in his own rumbling voice, between his own heavy breaths, “Good for me too. Beyond comfortable. Like animals, a perfect union.”

He was struggling to concentrate on his words though, so he gave into his sensations as he felt himself reach and stretch up into Marcie’s snugly deep vagina, slipping back and forth easily now, along almost the full length of his penis. He felt his pace was steady and even, without any need for too much exertion, so that he could keep making love to Marcie like this forever. It was also as if he was in no rush to reach his climax, at ease to enjoy the ecstasy of this moment, perhaps because he’d already enjoyed so many orgasms with Marcie in the last few days. He was panting, and he felt sweat trickle from his armpits, but he felt elated, as if he were truly some divinely chosen channel of masculinity himself now, raised up in the heart of this mighty ash, consummating this act with his lover, as a primal ritual, a conjoined performance in the midst of spring, a dynamic centrepiece to this natural place, emblematic of the new life that was bursting forth all around them.

Each of Marcie’s gasping breaths was coming with grunting animal noises now, rising in volume even as they sunk in their register. Then suddenly she was pushing back against him, forcing herself against his hips with chaotic jerks as if she were seeking ways to drive him deeper still. Ben kept his position firmly though, pushing his pelvis hard against her buttocks, feeling his solid penis pressing against her vagina’s grip, as he heard her mutter, distant in her own private world of sensation, yet explosive in her desperate need, “Fuck! It’s happening. Qaddisa Marija, yes!” Then her hips suddenly became still as she gave a keening cry of extreme abandonment. Marcie’s whole body seemed to quiver in his hands and he felt her strong vaginal muscles spasm, squeezing his manhood firmly with an astonishing sensation. Yet Ben found himself once again moving impulsively back and forth within her with smooth strokes, breathing heavily, the stiff rigidity of his penis pushing determinedly against the resistance of her muscles. As Marcie’s own panting breaths came back to her too, she went on, “Fuck, Ben, Mother of God! Yes, carry on if can. Come too. Come into me! Holy Mary, I’m ready for you, let it flow. Come to mummy, come home. I’ve got you. Aah, that’s it! Hold me, I’ve got you safe. Let your honey flow. Cream and sweet honey, filling my chalice, my cwm, my brimming wellspring!”

Ben was sure that Marcie had experienced her orgasm, against the odds for mere vaginal intercourse as a distant part of him thought. Yet he had a more definite concern that Marcie may be becoming tired and uncomfortable on her knees, now that she wasn’t distracted by the reckless thrill of an anticipated climax. Letting himself be led by his instincts once more, he moved his hands around her hips and over her bundled skirt, even as he kept thrusting his hips against hers, with his indomitable erection still buried deep inside her. He found the hem of her blouse, and slipped his hands beneath it, so that his fingertips brushed the smooth warm skin of her belly, feeling it quivering with the pulses that he was sending through her body from behind.

Then, leaning further forwards, his hands found Marcie’s breasts, still held in the silky fabric of her bra. He cupped their heavy soft masses in his big palms, feeling the way that they too shook and bounced in reaction to his pounding hips. That distant part of his mind that could still hold rational thought wished then that they’d given themselves more time, so that he could have enjoyed helping Marcie to remove her constraining bra. She might have let him admire the heavy curves of her perfect breasts in the broad daylight, allowing him to see all the lusciously exciting details of the skin around her nipples, and she might even have encouraged him to kiss them and suckle her under the open sky. If she had, he might be touching the delicate skin of her breasts directly now, feeling the proudly erect peaks of her nipples under his fingertips. Thinking of her playful word for them, he imagined reaching for her sensitive boobies as they hung down low, swinging heavily, rather than merely clasping their warm weight in the smooth satin that held them as he was now.

But even so, the weight of Marcie’s supremely feminine breasts in his hands, filling his grip as he penetrated her in this driving animalistic way, was enough to tip him over the edge. He gasped and sucked air down as he felt a hot trickle ease its way up from the root of his shaft, rising through his penis to leak into Marcie’s cwm. A much stronger pulse immediately followed, surging from him, making his scalp tingle and his entire body tremble. Then the supremely satisfying waves of his own orgasm finally flowed over him, as if his life essence were flushing out into his lover’s womb. “Oh Marcie!” was all he could utter as the jerking spasms overwhelmed him, driving him to thrust mindlessly, just as firmly and hard in her as he possibly could, letting his penis flood the uttermost depths of her warmly welcoming vagina with its life-giving seed, pumping it deep into her life-quickening belly.

As the pulses of his ejaculation faded away, the motion of Ben’s hips against Marcie’s naturally slowed to a stop. He felt profoundly contented exhaustion descend upon him as he drew his hands back to her thighs and he stretched his back upright. He was panting heavily and his heart was still pounding, but he felt wonderful, euphoric, even whilst he heard Marcie still breathing heavily beneath him. But he was aware that her knees may be aching painfully by now, pressed against the old hard wood through the thin blanket, so he didn’t hesitate to grasp the condom around the base of his penis and withdraw himself from her body. He heard his heavy penis slip out of her with what seemed almost to be an appreciative lip-smacking slurp, then he sunk down onto the blanket himself, putting his shoulder down by Marcie’s elbow as he curled his legs awkwardly around her feet.

Marcie immediately rolled onto her side too, facing him with wide eyes, pink cheeks and a huge grin, even as she wriggled her legs and arms around amongst his. As she squirmed about, tugging her skirt down a little, Ben managed to keep his hand on her smooth bare thigh, and keep his gooey condom-wrapped penis away from her clothes too. It seemed as if she were simultaneously trying to stretch out in the small space that they had, to rub down the sore pressure points on her knees, and to cuddle up to him, all at once. Ben didn’t mind her knocking against him though, as he lay in a cloud of blissful ecstasy, content to be jumbled up with her.

As she rubbed her smooth inner thigh against his rough legs and took his head in her hand, she asked a little anxiously, “How’s your breathing? Were you okay with that?”

“It’s fine,” Ben reassured her, taking a deep and steady breath as if to prove his point. Though his heart had been working hard, he felt just as calm and in control as he had after his prolonged session on the running machine. Yet the warm glow of his own sexual gratification, coupled with the awareness that Marcie had enjoyed herself too, brought a sense of deep satisfaction that went far beyond mere physical exercise. His curiosity about her own experience prompted him to ask, “But that really worked for you then?”

“Holy Mary, yes!” Marcie agreed, cuddling up against him, “It’s never felt like that before. I don’t know if it was that position, the way that you could slip in and press just the right place, or if it was all because of you - your physical size or, as I’d rather like to think, something about how I feel with you deeper inside, how much I’m into you. Or perhaps it was us being outside, feeling naughty yet somehow elated too, literally and even spiritually, having nature all around us and the sky over us. Maybe it was a bit of all of those, taking me right up to the brink of the waterfall, then over the edge and down into the tumbling surge pool of the big O, gasping for air, not knowing which way was up! I honestly didn’t know I could come like that, without any of that fluttery clitoral play. But it was great, epic!”

Ben planted a brief kiss on her lips, then said, “I’m glad. I felt elated too, really, like we’d made it something magical, like our making love was a rite, truly a spiritual thing. We were celebrating spring, as a part of nature. I felt like an animal. You were a goddess, no, the goddess’s chosen, the priestess. But I was a beast, a brute masculine force, and you’d let me come to you as that.”

Marcie giggled as his confused explanation of his feelings ran down, then she stroked the side of his head tenderly, “You are my beast, my virile lion. I felt your power. And heard you! You were making those intense huffing sounds. It was like a belling stag right behind me, if that’s the correct word. I could tell you were really into it, into making love to me, and that only made it more exciting. I couldn’t let you stop, even if my knees were getting a bit painful.”

“I’m sorry. I thought they might be, just on this blanket,” Ben admitted, “And I’m sorry about the noises. I didn’t know I was making them.”

“Don’t be draft!” she laughed, touching her lips to his forehead, “You can make those noises with me any day off the week, as well as doing all those other things - letting me ride you like a cowgirl, and suck your sweet cream too. And burying your face between my thighs, I definitely want more of that! But what we just did, Holy Mary! Vixen will be turning to liquid if I just think about how you took me up here for weeks, for years to come! Anyway, a bit of a rub will bring the life back to my knees. And I should be apologising for what comes out of my mouth in the heat of the moment too. I said mummy, didn’t I? I really am so sorry. Afterwards I feel so embarrassed about some of the things that pop out.”

“Don’t be, and don’t apologise,” Ben reassured her, cuddling up to her awkwardly on the small hard platform, “We’ve talked about this. We’re swimming in nature’s deep currents of life now. When I come, I do imagine my seed filling you, fertilising your magical womb’s precious egg. And we’re okay with that idea. You’re taking the baton from my mother, becoming mother to my child in time.”

As soon as he said this though, Ben realised he’d gone further than they had before in the way that they’d been speaking about such things. He thought that when they’d mentioned nature’s forces before, it had been just playful theoretical speculation. However he was acutely aware that what he had just said sounded as if he were genuinely thinking of starting a family with Marcie.

Ben glanced anxiously into Marcie’s eyes, and she may have seen his stricken look as she gave him a quizzical look of her own. “I don’t mean now,” he tried to hastily explain. “That wasn’t my plan, by asking you to be my girlfriend. I wasn’t looking for someone to have my baby. I just meant in theory, in principle, at least for the time being.”

Marcie smiled warmly at him, “Don’t worry so much. I’m the one who lets her mouth slip. I know you’re not actually broody, and I think you know I’m not either, not when there’s a PhD thesis to write and the alluring promise of postdoc research positions to apply for! Any, if I remember, I think I was the one who sort of asked you to be my boyfriend, by walking into your room when you had no clothes on and dragging you into my bed. A man might be worried the woman was looking for someone to give her a baby in those circumstances, but you can trust me when I say I don’t want to get pregnant now.”

“I trust you,” Ben reassured her.

“I know,” Marcie said in a kindly way, “But I know you have good intuition too. I think that somewhere deep down, a part of you is already seeing me as that next link in the chain. We are being carried by Mother Nature’s will - through our bodies, when you feel that pressure in your penis and my secret cwm melts to be filled, and through our hearts too, in the profound love that we’ve kindled. But her plan works for the bigger picture, and in the wider story of our lives, we’re mere twists in the cord that runs from our ancestors into the future. That’s the truth of it, that your living body recognises there’s hope for life’s continuance in my living body, deep in the fecund cauldron of my womb, even if that’s not fertilised today. And Ben, you must know, I am completely at ease with those ideas. I am very happy to imagine that one day I might have your baby, even though it’s just in principle for now as you say. Also family must be especially on your mind by being here right now, coming back to your childhood home and seeing your dad, talking about your mum, and thinking of seeing your other relations soon.”

“Aye, you’re right,” Ben agreed, smiling, feeling his profound love for Marcie as a glowing warmth within him at that moment. He brushed her lips with his, saying, “That’s how it works, doesn’t it? Our real love, it’s in our blood now. But speaking of those relations, we’d better be getting back, hadn’t we?”

“Hmm, you’re right,” Marcie agreed with a sigh as she wriggled against him once again, saying, “Oh, I wish this moment would last forever! We’ll cherish the memory, won’t we? My first time outside, our initiation in the bosom of nature, our private rite of spring, borne aloft in the arms of this magnificent tree!”

“Aye, well it’s a first for me too, like I said. It’s never been like this with anyone else, you know that don’t you? And like Dad said, you’re the first to meet the family, since Phoebe,” Ben said, a little guiltily, rolling away slightly so that he could attend to tidying up the limp condom. He’d already put his hand down to start slipping it off his shrunken penis, sliding as much of his sticky ejaculate into it as he could, ready to tie a knot in it.

“Well, if we’re meeting the relations, you’d better pop your trousers back on,” Marcie teased, looking and what he was doing and rubbing his chest vigorously and playfully with her knuckles, “And I’d be grateful if you hand my knickers back. It wouldn’t do to meet your grandmother with a breeze cooling my damp undercarriage!”

Ben laughed as he disentangled himself and shuffled around to recover his jeans, pulling Marcie’s soft underwear from the pocket to pass to her. As he wriggled into his boxer shorts and then, more awkwardly, into his jeans, he reflected on Marcie’s earlier words, “About this tree, do you know where the farm’s name comes from?”

“Askholm? No,” Marcie admitted, wriggling into her knickers too, “It sounds like I’m asking if I can call the farm my home.”

“Well, I’m sure Dad would say you can,” Ben said, smiling, then explained, “But it’s from Norse, for like, ash tree hill, I think. Ash only lives for two to three hundred years, but this one could be a direct descendent of the original, the great tree that some Viking settler noticed, putting this place on their map.”

“So this place might actually have been called Ashleigh instead, if those settlers had been more Anglo Saxon. Are you sure you picked the right girl to bring up here and celebrate the rite of spring with?” Marcie asked with a wry smile as she rose carefully to her feet.

“Hey, don’t tease,” Ben said, now also standing up to put his arm around Marcie’s shoulder, having stowed the used condom and its wrapper away in his pocket, “That’s still a deadly serious secret.”

“Oh, I know, I’m sorry,” Marcie said, making an exaggerated downturned sympathetic face before leaning up to peck his lips. Then she turned to the tree’s trunk and laid her hand on its hard and deeply furrowed bark, saying, “Well, thank you, tree. I’m glad you’re here, watching over Askholm Farm. I’m glad that Ben found you, to play up here when he was a boy, and I’m especially glad that you let us play in your arms again today, copulating like the pair of rude animals that we are.”

“Aye, thank you tree,” Ben echoed, smiling as he laid his hand over Marcie’s, pressing her palm against the solid wood, overcoming a slight sense of foolishness to play along with her. He took a deep breath, then let his unplanned words tumble out, “We’re grateful for your life, for your strength, for the fresh air in your crown. You stand as sentinel for this place, this reawakening land, firmly rooted in its fertile soil. As your spring sap rises, you’ve inspired our love, letting us find new ways to express our passion, helping us see more of our shared hopes. We’ve been in your care, and you’ll remain in our hearts.”

“That’s beautiful, Ben,” Marcie said, pulling her hand away and twisting around to hug him, pushing her cheek against his chest. Ben heard the breeze rustle the new leaves of the nearby birch, then felt a gust of air brush past them. He found he could easily imagine it as the spirit of the ash tree, acknowledging their prayerful thanks. He gripped Marcie tightly in his arms, but only briefly, as he knew their time here was up. Marcie may have read the signs too, as she gave a reciprocal strong squeeze, then pulled away.

She became practical once again as she said, “So, let me slip your mum’s boots on, then you can help me onto this ladder. Getting started seems like it will be the worst bit of climbing down.”