Jack and I are working in the garden today. It’s so beautiful and such a relief to finally have our own place. Our own real place with land. It’s just a couple of acres, but between the trees and underbrush, we can’t even see our neighbors. They’re there, but if it wasn’t for the mailboxes and driveways on our way in we wouldn’t even know. Jack has on long tough tan Carhartts, a long-sleeved white shirt, and thick working gloves. It’s a tough outfit for the heat, and I keep reminding him to hydrate. Between blackberries, stinging nettles, and devil’s club he needs each layer of protection. We’re both fighting over the wheelbarrow. He wants it to pile up future bonfire material. I am repositioning the massive mound of beautiful dirt we had delivered into the four raised beds, our future orchard. I am sporting jean shorts and a tight white t-shirt that proclaims the time as five o'clock somewhere in the world. I win the wheelbarrow, partially because I’m cute. Mostly, I win because ramming the barrow against the massive soil pile and letting it cascade down into the bucket takes far less time than using a shovel.

I quickly discard my own gloves risking blisters, splinters, dirt under my fingertips. I find the heavy wheelbarrow harder to pilot with slippery leather material between my hands and the rough grain of old oak handles. We started early. I work steadily filling the raised beds that Jack and I made the other day with beautiful brown soil. One load, two loads. This is where the pear trees will go. Three loads. I have to start actually using the shovel to encourage the large pile to flow down into the metal wheelbarrow. A clump sticks to the shovel; I use my hand to push it off the old but unrusted metal into one of the raised beds. The soft dark soil feels pleasant against my fingertips. It is cool and moist against my reddening irritated hands. I take another handful and squeeze it as I would pack a snowball.

“The peach tree goes here,” I tell Jack. The sweat has created a wide round wet spot on his chest. He sits down in the shade, tears off his gloves, and reaches into my cooler for a glass bottle of water. “I told you it would be helpful.”

“I didn’t say it wouldn’t be helpful. I was just saying it was a waste of time filling old Snapples when we could just buy bottled water.”

“We have filtered water, and that crinkly plastic annoys the earth.” I step into the shade myself and grab my own. My own t-shirt is damp with sweat and splattered with dirt. “Plus, money.”

“Money?” Jack says incredulously, “From the woman who told me we have to purchase a mound of dirt?”

I smirk at him. “You will thank me when we have fresh pears, and apples, and blueberries.”

“You’re a blueberry,” He mutters under his breath.

I set myself down on his lap and kiss his sweaty brow. “I’m a what?”

“Okay, you’re not a blueberry. You’re a cherry,” he tells me, while he uses feet to make his lap, with me on it, jump up and down. “Right color and everything.”

I reach to touch my cheek with the back of my hand. Even in the shade, the sun’s heat is radiating off my burned skin. “I should probably reapply sunblock.”

“Nah,” Jack says with a wicked smile. “Just cover your face with dirt. It’s already all down your arms and legs. His sweat and water wet fingers drag along my dust-covered thigh drawing a little pattern. I watch him and giggle. I lean over to nibble his earlobe gently. “Marian?” he says my name.

“Mmm?”

He whispers softly as if it’s some lovers secret, “I’m going to spray myself off with a hose the second I’m done.”

“That sounds fun. We should probably turn a sprinkler on anyway to help the soil settle in, too.

“Mair—” he whispers the first syllable of my name. “I’m going to do it naked.”

I look at his wicked smile expecting me to contradict. “Didn’t I say you’d like some of the perks of country living?” I hop off of his lap and turn one hundred and eighty degrees just to inspect his grin.

“You know I love you, right?”

“As much as yeast loves sugar,” I reply. I bend down to reach into the ice chest, which makes him ruin the sweetness of it by smacking me on the ass. I flash a bemused smile as I stand back up with a melting ice cube in my hand.

“Uh oh?” Jack says. I lunge forward sneaking the frozen H2O between his collar and neck. He dances around briefly at the cold then stands up. “Actually, it feels kind of good.”

I reach down again, this time squatting and get another ice cube. This one I slip down my own collar leaning back to ensure it slides into the crevice on my sports bra. “Ahh-ahh cold. So cold.” I swallow. Jack raises his eyebrow at me. “It’s closer to my core temperature body regulation that way. Near the heart, near the armpits, back of the neck. Those are the places to—I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

Jack shrugs. “You told me not to tell you every time you’re being a know-it-all.”

“I kept up my end of the bargain when you were being a braggart and a liar.”

“Hey, those people at the bar enjoyed the story even if they didn’t believe a word of it.” He reaches down for another ice cube and closes the cooler. He presses it against the back of his neck and holds it there letting the melting droplets slide down his back. “I’m back to work,” he says.

“Thank you and I love you.”

“Yeah yeah, like yeast and sugar.”

We return to work and do so for a couple of hours only interrupted by breaks to re-apply sunscreen and check for developing blisters. When Jack’s got the underbrush reasonably cleared, his long-sleeved shirt comes off. I can see his hairs are sticking to his chest with sweat. He drinks another water bottle, pouring what's left over himself. Then Jack grabs the shovel to help me. After a couple of wheelbarrow loads, the pants come off to and he is working in his boxers and bare feet. I can’t remember when I kicked my own shoes off, but my feet enjoy touching the packed earth beneath me. When we get to the last box I ask, “Stop for lunch, or push through?”

Without realizing what he is doing, he leans his mostly naked body against the vastly depleted soil mound. He looks down at the deep brown dirt falling over him and mixing with his thick black leg hairs. “I—was going to say push through, but I might be tired.”

I look at my dirty and blistering hands. Thankfully, Jacks are a little less raw. He already has callouses on his hands in all the right places. Thick enough to be useful, but flat enough to feel seem smooth. Not baby smooth, but smooth like good quality leather. Tough and pleasant to the touch.

“Ugh.. yeah,” I agree. “Let’s take a break and get those sandwiches.”

“Sounds good,” Jack says nodding. He shifts from the dirt mound to sit on a fallen moss-covered log on the forest floor. He lays down his back along the length of the log.

I walk toward the sliding glass door into our house, the house I still cannot believe we own! I catch a reminder that my hands, and my feet, and my whole body, is covered the black loam blended soil. “Jack?” I say staring blankly at my reflection. When I hear his grunt I continue. “I’m gonna need your help.”

“Grrr,” he says in a pretend growl.

“I need you to spray me off with a hose so I can get into the house,” I explain.

He sits up and smiles at me with his mouth closed and his eyes squinting slightly. “Oh really?”

He stands up and walks towards me, pausing only to pick up his discarded clothes. “I might could do that.”

“What kind of grammar is that?” I ask. I begin unraveling the hose.

“Summat for a country boy, rather than a construction worker,” he says, pretending to have a drawl.

“God, stop,” I say tugging the hose out more. “Country boy does not mean a southerner in this state.” I hear the hose start while I’m still holding the end. I quickly change my grip so that I can point at him, placing my thumb over the end to spray further.

“Please,” he says simply walking away from the building. After a bunch of hot air flows through first water sprays around my thumb arching through the air and landing on his beautiful body. He laughs as it hits him then steps out of the spray trying to brush the dirt, now mud off his body. “That’s cold.”

I redirect to spray him again, this time aiming at his blue and white patterned boxers that I bought him. He jumps away from the water, then rushes at me. “Why I oughta!” he yells, quoting some old mobster cartoon. He pulls the hose out of my hand.

“Eep!” I jump and run away, but the thumb pressurized spray collides with my body. It quickly soaks through my t-shirt and causes my legs to ripple with muddy streams washing down my body. I bite my lip and force myself to stand still so he can actually get me clean. I step back onto the porch avoiding the massive puddles of mud we have made. Jack returns the hose to finish cleaning himself off. I look at his dripping wet boxers and mine. “Ahh, what the hell. I drag the clinging t-shirt over my head revealing a simple white sports bra from Victoria Secret. My jean shorts are a little harder to pull off wet. When I manage to pull them off, Jack admires my blue-black patterned bikini cut panties, also from Victoria Secret. I love the way they cup my ass. They are the only clothing I am wearing right now that is not completely soaked through.

“Mmm,” Jack says with a smile. He almost redirects the hose, to rectify my one dry spot, but I open the screen door. I am able to slip in a moment before the hose sprays over the glass.

“You almost got the carpet,” I yell through the door. I hear through the wall the faucet turn back off. I lock the sliding door to keep his muddy feet from following me in. The air-conditioned house feels too cold against my naked wet body. The refrigerator does not help as I open it. I retrieve egg salad sandwiches, what’s left of a chicken-bacon-pasta salad, and a container of cut watermelon. Jack was probably right that the potato salad was redundant at our housewarming. I layered food items on top of each other with two forks in case both of us wanted the pasta salad. I negotiate unlocking the door and sliding it open with my hands full.

Jack asks, “Should we eat inside?”

I shake my head. “You turned the thermostat down too far.”

“Sixty-eight degrees is reasonable.”

“Yeah, when the heat is on and the weather outside is sixty-two. When the weather is above eighty outside, sixty-eight is a shock.” Jack reaches in to pull out the pasta salad and on one of the forks—and nothing else.

“You’re welcome?” I say. “Where should we—”

“Follow me, Starchild.”

“You know we’re not hippies,” I say even though I follow him. We hear an odd thunk through the trees to our left. “What was that?”

“Well, we are wandering around the woods in our underwear so...” he trails off. We hear another thunk. “I kept hearing it earlier.” Jack said, “I think our neighbor’s chopping wood.”

I look down at my mostly naked body. “Our neighbor?”

“He can’t see us, Mair. The only reason I know he’s there is because I can see him and he has this wall of chopped up logs on his property line.”

Jack leads me to a soft patch of thick Spanish moss slightly past our woodline. I have no idea how far away our property edge is but see no stack of wood in the direction Jack pointed toward. My man lays down casually and opens the Tupperware.

I eye the ground suspiciously. “If a stinging nettle or devils club touches my inner thigh I’m going to be very upset.”

“No barbed hooks here,” he assures me. I open my mouth and he stops me before I speak, “Yes, I know what they are now.”

“Okay,” I say, laying myself down beauty queen style. “I’m trusting you.” The soft green fluff cushions my ribs and legs as I lay down in it. I unwrap my sandwich and take a bite.

“So beautiful, Marian,” Jack says.

I look around at the wilderness surrounding us. “It really is.”

Jack laughs and shakes head. “You misheard me.”

“Did I? Sorry.”

“I said: you’re so beautiful, Marian,” he says. I look at the Grecian god-like figure before me and shake my head looking back at me.

“As if you aren’t as handsome as Adonis, yourself?” I mean to stop and look him like the sweetness he is saying calls for, but I really am hungry.

“I was thinking we were more Adam and Eve, here in a beautiful perfect garden.” Despite his pretty words, he wolfs down what’s left of his pasta. Then my Jack opens the white Tupperware with the watermelon in it.

“Sorry I didn’t bring an apple,” I say. “I thought about making a Waldorf salad too.”

“As if you didn’t give me fruit from the tree of knowledge?” Jack says licking the dripping watermelon off his hand. He sets the rind in his empty pasta salad container.

I put my sandwich sarenwrap in the container too and fish out my own piece of watermelon. “My, I have had an effect on you, if you’re talking about the bible.”

The sweet red flesh of the fruit fills my mouth. The juice leaks down on both sides of my mouth. If we had waited much longer to eat it, we couldn’t have. He watches until I set the rind down then leans forward to kiss me. He even gives a playful lick at the sweet juices.

“Jack!” I say when he lets up. He pulls his head and torso back watching me gently. I sigh and then move the remaining food from the mossy floor to the roots of a tree. We don’t want to accidentally roll onto them. “Oh, Jack.”

Uninhibited, Jack transitions to pressing his body against me on the mossy floor. The shade and the soft greenery are softer and colder than where we were working in the sun. His body is warmer than the moss, but not by much. His bold lips kiss me and I find my hands tangling into his curly black hair. He rolls me from my side onto my back. I can feel the greenery pressing into my body below and his body pressing into my body above.

“Jack,” I say again as he kisses along my shoulders systematically and onto my delicate neck, “Jack?” I say again.

“Yes, my love?” he says ceasing kissing to stare is deep brown eyes into mine.

“Fill me with life,” I say.

I feel his erection move against me through his underwear against my own. “Yes, my queen.”

He rolls back off me to pull his boxers off and I lifted my hips off the ground to slide my blue elastics over my ass and down. I then lift up my legs toward my torso so I can slide them past my ankles with my hand and set them beside us. My bare butt against the living world feels both naughty and supremely beautiful. I wonder if I should sit up to take my bra off to, but Jack seems impatient. For all we’ve been following a schedule it seems wonderful to deviate. Today, if I know my calendar, we can make the moment fit us.

He hovers over me and dangles his thick pulsating cock at the edge of my soft valley. My right hand reaches up to stroke down his torso along his wonderful muscles to his thick pulsating penis. I squeeze it as he holds himself aloft. Jack lowers himself down and forward. He slides into me gently and kisses me hard. His chiselled body and chest hairs come into contact with my body and press against my bra. I feel his skin against me everywhere. He keeps kissing while I squeeze around him rhythmically. My arms reach to either side of us; rather than holding his body against mine, I relish the feeling of my body against the nature in this moment. My left hand finds a root dug into the soil. As he begins shoving into me with earnest, I find my fingers gripping, digging into the soil. I fit my hand around the smooth twisty bark. His right and left hands take turns holding himself up and exploring my skin. The soft pale skin that was protected by clothes or the faintly pink skin that was not. I reach up so I can begin kissing his collarbone, My left hand holds fast around the root, but my right hand I place on the back of his neck. I stroke inward with my thumb and index finger feeling his rough knotted muscles.

“Oh Marian,” Jack says.

“My Jack,” I reply. I pull my feet back so they can connect with the ground then push up my thighs and pelvis thrusting up against his beautiful body. I don’t really need to change where he is inside me, but the act of pushing and engaging those muscles makes my vagina squeeze even harder against my favorite tool in this garden.

“Marian,” Jack says, “Marian, I want you to ride me.”

I pull purposefully tight around him and feel my sweet spot shutter with a series of cascading squeezes I did not direct. I wait until my vagina returns to matching Jacks rhythmic pounding to respond. “Tired—on top??” I ask. Fuck he feels good inside me.

He speaks in spurts between thrusts and breaths. “I want to—see your—beautiful swaying body—above me, surrounded by your trees.”

“Mmm,” I say looking up at his curly black hair surrounded by the trees. “It is a good visual.” After a couple more thrusts he pulls out. I reach up with my legs to around his ass to resist for a little bit. Both of us feel how enjoyable that is, but I relax my legs letting him out. We roll to switch positions, Jack falling into the indent I made in the Spanish moss. Before I climb onto him I sit myself on my knees and cross my arms to the undersides of my bra on either side of my body. I tug up and my C cups spring out.

Jack sits up so that he can kiss my freed breasts. Starting with the left he swirls his tongue around my brown soft areola, then bites down ever so gently on my small tender nipple. Then he pulls sucking my breast, as much as can fit, into his mouth. He pulls his mouth off, kisses it, and lays back down on the ground. I raise my eyebrows. “You know the rules.”

He grins. “I do. Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy torturing you.” He sits back up to take care of my right breast he had ignored.

“Thank you,” I say when my boobs are both tingling equally.

“You’re welcome,” he says with a smile. Then he kisses me, pulling me with him as he lays back down to stay. We kiss gently, sweetly, for awhile. Then I swing my leg over his erection and sit kneel with my knees on either side of his hips. He uses his hand to aim his tool into the correct shed. I hold my muscles taught to keep myself up until I feel the tip inside me. Then I lower myself down onto him slow and controlled. I reach my arms up into the empty air towards the tree, even as I feel my tight pussy slowly lower around his thick pulsating cock. “Beautiful.” He says staring up at me.

I smile down at him and relax my thighs so he is able again to slide fully inside me. Still sitting up, I tighten around him. It feels so good. I look down at the man I love laying in the midst of nature. My hand reaches down to touch his chin—it has hair, but not a full beard. Still, it is perfect. “You’re so handsome,” I say.

Although he is fully erect inside my body I’m not moving yet. We’re too busy admiring each other. Then I feel a sudden pressing against a different side of my inner wall. I breathe in sharply feeling his penis move inside me. I lean backwards away from his torso and sway back forth as I climb back up, feeling all the places he presses against me. Then when I am back on top of him I shift my hips forward, around to the back and again like a figure eight.

“You’re torturing me, Marian,” Jack says watching my slow movements, then closing his eyes at my tight pussy pressing against his penis in new angles. “I like it.”

I climb forward down his body and bury my hands in the moss again as my breasts hang less than an inch above his chest. Finally, I let my hips, pelvis, and butt begin the rhythmic grinding I know that he is longing for. He immediately reciprocates but holds himself from bucking his pelvis up to vigorously at this moment. His eyes are closed, but his hands are busy seeing every inch of my back, my butt, the sensitive part of my inner back leg that he knows I like him to touch. Now my eyes are closed, no longer showing off my body, but just gently riding him and enjoying the motion of two bodies so perfectly in sync.

I feel the pace of my clit quicken, and I let my vagina take over. When she gets like this I can get pleasure from and tighten around my own pinky finger. Jack is much bigger than this, and judging by his groan and hands digging into my back he appreciates her taking over too. I’m not a loud moaner. Instead, as I feel my body approach its climax I sit up and tighten all my energy and attention to the ecstasy I feel within. My face is tilted up toward the forest canopy, but if my eyes are open I don’t know what I see. The only sense my body is paying attention to is the ecstasy emanating from within.

“Beautiful,” Jack says again.

I feel myself float back down from heaven. I smile back down at him. “Glad you liked it.”

“I always like when I can see you finish,” Jack says.

“Your turn,” I sleepily reply. Even though I promise to make him cum my body feels like I was sapped of all energy in one glorious moment. I collapse onto his chest even as I feel him continue to thrust up into me.

“Marian,” Jack says. I let out a soft whimper. I try to squeeze and move with him again. “Marian. I have an idea.”

He pushes me gently off of me then stands up. His erection is still glistening with my juices. I lick my lips looking at it, even though I know that’s not happening right now. I collapse again on the forest floor looking at the beautiful multilayered greenery. I close my eyes just for a second. It’s so peaceful here. When I wake up Jack is picking me up to transfer me two feet over to a thick soft nursery log. On top of it is more moss, several delicate ferns curl up from the nurturing wood as well.

“What is your idea?” I ask Jack.

“My idea is you lean forward on it, so you don’t have to hold yourself up. And I can fuck you as hard as I need to fill you.”

I look at the soft gentle greenery and the height of the, albeit small, nursing log. It’s almost the same height as the distance between my hips and thighs. I get down on my knees.

“You're lucky I’m a sucker for nature,” I say. “And that I know none of these plants have toxins or are endangered.” I lean forward laying down among the soft greenery. It feels like mother nature is embracing me.

I turn my head so my cheek is pressed to the log and I can watch him guide himself inside me. I exhale as he does. I’m always so tender and sensitive inside after he makes me finish, the first time. He thrusts into me gently for a few pulses, then quickly lets his impulses take over. What we’ve done so far was about me and what I wanted. This thrusting active fuck is about what he wants. He presses me down into the log his warmth on my back and my tender breasts pressing into the tender plant life beneath. My vagina is now more awake than me: pulsating, squeezing and transmitting shivers of pleasure both up my body to my brain and down my body to my legs and toes that are digging into the forest floor. I give off a soft little squeak like a chipmunk, and again. He thrusts, he thrusts until finally, his seed fills my body.

He pulls out of me and collapses into the clearing where we had our lunch. “I don’t think we’re finishing the boxes today,” he says, his head inches away from what’s left of our lunches.

“Probably not.” I fall in after him, but once there I tuck my legs up above my hips and hold it there. Then I frown and put my feet back on the log and close my eyes filling my soul with happy peaceful thoughts.

We hear an unexpected loud sound off in the forest toward our property line.