by Amy DeMeritt
Bailey suddenly reaches over and surprises me by slipping her hand in my pants and moans.
“Baby, I love how easily you get wet for me.”
I bite my bottom lip and hold my breath a moment. Bailey rubs her fingers around my clit a couple times and then slowly pulls her hand out.
“I have an idea when we get back to your place. I want you to go straight to your bedroom and get naked for me.”
I moan and swallow hard.
When we get inside my apartment, Bailey gently smacks my ass, saying, “Go on now, completely naked and on your bed. I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”
When I get to my bedroom, I quickly strip down and climb onto the center of my bed. My body is on fire, tingling with desire and excitement.
A couple minutes later, Bailey walks in naked and holding a long, fat English cucumber we had bought to make a salad with. I smile and bite my bottom lip. Bailey is grinning ear-to-ear as she climbs on the bed between my legs.
She teasingly licks up the full length of my center before pulling me into a kiss. While we kiss, she gets in position with both of our legs spread wide and our centers facing each other.
After a couple minute of kissing and playing with each other’s breasts, I feel Bailey probing at my entrance with one end of the cucumber. I moan and thrust my hips forward as it enters me and makes my sensitive nerves spark in pleasure.
Bailey moans and I feel a pressure on the other end as she slides herself onto the cucumber. With our arms wrapped around each other, and our bodies tightly pressed together, we both rock and thrust back and forth against each other, taking in and out of ourselves the full length.
We both cum within minutes of each other. Gasping for breath, Bailey jokes, “That was the best salad I’ve ever had.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sunday is typically my “lazy day” of the week, but since Bailey and I “consummated” our relationship a couple months ago, we have been spending a lot of our Sunday’s together. It’s been nice.
Most Sundays, we sit around in the morning just enjoying the feeling of our bodies touching and then we go out for the day. Some weekends we run errands together, others we take little trips to spots that have become our favorite places to be together – Aspen Ridge lookout point, my waterfall in Green Pine Forest, the little wine garden in the center of town, and a small art gallery that hosts new local artists work every couple of weeks.
We are currently in our “sitting around” phase of this particular Sunday morning. I’m sitting on Bailey’s skin-soft leather sofa with her sitting between my legs, back pressed against my chest. I love holding her like this. I nuzzle in her neck and breathe in her amazing scent. Bailey presses in harder against me and tightens her arms around mine holding her.
“What would you like to do today?” She inhales, as if suddenly awakening from a short slumber. “Is this not an option for the rest of the day?” I laugh a little and gently kiss the side of her neck. “Of course it is. Do you have writing you need to do?”
“I do, but I don’t feel very inspired to write today.”
“What do you feel inspired to do?”
“Crying.”
“What? Why?”
She tightens her arms against mine again and slumps her head down some, resting the side of her face against my breast.
“Today is the anniversary of my grandmothers passing.”
“Oh, Bailey. I’m sorry, babe. Is there something special you would like to do to remember her today?”
“I should go visit my grandfather at some point. Will you go with me?” I kiss the top of her head. “Yes, I will go with you. Anything else I can do for you today?”
She is quiet for a couple minutes, but then starts to turn to face me. Her eyes are slightly glistening with emotion, but her face appears strong.
“Yes. I want to go for a hike to see if someplace my grandmother and I built together still exists. I haven’t been able to get myself to go back to that place since she passed, almost ten years ago; I just couldn’t go back without her. But I really want to go there with you.”
“Ok. How about we pack a picnic? We’ll find this special place and then we can sit and visit with her for as long as you’d like.”
Bailey smiles with her eyes directed at me, but they appear to be looking through me, as if she is seeing something else entirely. After a couple minutes, Bailey says, “She would like that. We used to pack little picnics together and take them there.”
We quickly get dressed and pack a softshell cooler with sandwiches, snacks, and bottles of water. Bailey also packs a book bag with a bottle of wine and a blanket and a tarp, just in case the ground is wet.
We drive in silence out of the city and up through the mountains. I glance over at her a few times to make sure she’s ok, and her face still remains strong, but she looks like she’s deep in thought. The ride is so quiet I actually jump when she finally speaks.
“We’re getting close. It’s been a long time since I’ve been up here, so can you help me keep an eye out for Hawk Eye Trail Road?”
It’s very hard to see street signs this far up the mountain. The roads are narrower and the signs are more obscured with plants and trees. Bailey is going slow, but we still almost pass the street.
“Whoa, quick left. We’re here.”
Bailey breaks kind of hard and we just make it before going passed the street. The street is winding and very narrow with no line down the middle. Just as I am doubting that two cars could possibly fit down this road, a big truck comes whipping around a corner and Bailey expertly handles the car and we both squeeze by each other without any incident – well, if you don’t include my heart nearly jumping out of my chest.
After several minutes, Bailey pulls into a tiny park trailhead “parking lot”. It’s more like a small scar that’s been hewn out of the forest that’s just big enough for three cars with an evident hiking trail just to the side.
Bailey turns the car off and takes a deep breath. I reach over and grab her hand. She smiles and looks over at me. “Ready?” I nod my head and we climb out of the car.
Bailey leads the way into the forest and keeps a very even, almost solemn pace. Watching her walk, I feel almost like I am about to actually go meet her grandmother’s ghost.
Bailey suddenly stops after about five minutes of walking. She looks side to side and then inspects the bark of a tree on the left side of the trail. She smiles as she runs her fingers over something that I can’t see from where I’m standing. She looks at me and says, “We turn here. The rest of the way in is going to be pretty wild. Are you ok going off trail?” I smile and nod my head. “As long as you can get us back out of here.”
The rest of the hike is pretty brutal. We are constantly climbing in and out of tight clusters of lashing sharp tree branches, thorny vines, and sharp boulders. I walk through at least a million spider webs, and my face feels like I have an inch of sweat covering it. Bailey stops multiple times to get her bearings and locate her secret trail markers.
Just as we are climbing over a large fallen tree, the forest opens up a little. The floor of the forest is covered in a mixture of real grass you typically see in yards, moss, lush vines, and yellow daffodils. In the middle of the small clearing is a small table made out of two large rocks balancing a large piece of flat slate. Around the table are four wide tree stump stools.
Bailey drops the book bag off her back and slowly walks around the space. When she turns to face me, she is crying.
“It’s just as I remember. Well, it’s a bit wilder than the last time I was here, but it’s mostly the same.”
“It’s beautiful here. Did you plant all of this with your grandmother?” She smiles and nods her head.
“The space was mostly clear when we found it. And this table was already here as well. We just brought the stools in after my grandfather cut and varnished them for us. My grandmother liked to imagine that some old Native Americans or even the Knights Templar had
built this place. She had a great imagination. We just had to clean it up, prune back some trees, and then laid some seeds, planted flower bulbs, and scattered straw down to let the seeds take root.”
“That’s really cool that this place has a history before you and your grandmother. How did you find this place?”
“Grandmother found it. They used to live up the road from here and she would take hikes in the woods all the time. She loved to collect wild plants and flowers to add to her gardens and she always found the best in the woods.”
“That’s interesting. She took the wild out of the woods and brought it home, and then brought home into the wilds of the woods. It’s like she was connecting the two. I like that.”
Bailey smiles and wraps her arms around me, nuzzling down in my chest. I just hold her close for a few minutes and when she pulls back, she wipes her eyes dry and then grabs the book bag she had discarded.
We setup the picnic on the little table, and then I have an idea. I stand up off the stool and say, “Hold on. Don’t start eating yet.”
I walk around the perimeter of the forest and find both objects I was looking for surprisingly quickly. I place an almost pillar shaped rock that’s about ten inches tall on the edge of the table in front of the stool between us and next to it I place a thick tree branch whose center has rotted out. I then pluck a couple of the daffodils and place them in the makeshift vase.
I open the bottle of wine and hand it to Bailey, saying, “In other cultures, they pour wine or good alcohol over a gravestone or memorial for the departed. It’s a form of respect and a greeting to them.”
Bailey looks at me with so much longing and love that it makes my heart feel like Bailey just kissed it. She stands up and leans forward to gently kiss me on the lips.
When she straightens up, and looks at the makeshift memorial, she tears up again. She takes a deep breath and says, “Grandmother, I miss you so much that there has been a constant ache in my heart since you left me. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to return to this place, till now. When we broke ground on this little place, you told me we were planting the yellow daffodils because they symbolize new beginnings and every time we came here, we would leave with a new start. No matter what burdens we carried with us to this place, they could not follow us when we left. This was also our place to tell stories. You were the only person I could tell stories with.”
Bailey pauses and quietly cries for a minute. When she composes herself enough to speak again. She looks at me and gives me a small smile.
“Piper, I wanted to share this place with you because I feel like you are becoming my field of daffodils – my daily renewal. Every day that we’ve been together, you have been filling my heart with joy and lessening those old pains of loss. You help me to remember my grandmother in a joyful way instead of a painful way. And I really love that you can help me tell stories like she used to. My grandmother would love you if she could meet you. She would really love that you have helped make her dream for me a realty – you’ve helped me to become a published writer.”
Bailey takes a deep breath and looks back at the memorial again, before saying, “Grandmother, sit and drink with us and hear the new stories we have to share.”
Bailey slowly pours nearly a full glass worth of wine over the memorial stone and then places the bottle on the table. When she looks at me, I’m a mess. My eyes feel slightly swollen and I’m crying. She smiles and walks around the table. She wraps me in her arms and kisses my head.
“I love you so much, Piper. Thank you for coming here with me and making this moment so perfect.”
“I love you, Bailey.” I take a couple deep breaths to try and control my emotions. I pull back slightly so I can look at her, and before I can say anything, Bailey pulls me into a passionate, loving kiss.
When she pulls back, my brain is a little foggy, but thankfully, I remember what I wanted to say.
“Bailey, I have never felt as close to anyone as I do with you. I thought that everyone knew me completely because I am so open about everything, but you somehow found these little footnotes to my books pages that no one else has noticed before. Thank you for sharing this with me. Being here with you has literally opened a whole brand new chapter in my book and I feel like it is being written as I stand here with you. The words are bits and pieces of both of us, melding as one beautiful story.”
“Just like the stories I used to create with my grandmother.”
She gently kisses my lips again and we wipe the tears from our eyes and sit back down across from each other at the stone table. This really is a very enchanting little clearing in the woods. It makes me smile to picture Bailey as a young child with her grandmother sitting around this little place, weaving stories, and having a picnic. It literally feels like something right out of a fairytale. It’s perfect and beautiful.
Bailey fills a couple plastic cups with wine and we begin to eat and drink with her grandmother’s memory.
After a few minutes of quiet, just eating and drinking and enjoying the beauty of this magical place, Bailey starts to tell a story about a song bird and a gardener. She stops after a few minutes and grins at me.
“Ok, your turn. You pick up where I left off.”
I smile and think for a minute. Stories do not come as easily for me. I dig deep into my memory of the fairytales my mom used to read me and try to take inspiration from them and combine them with the memories Bailey has shared with me about her childhood with her grandparents.
While I continue the story, Bailey watches me with a serene smile on her face. We alternate back and forth a few more times and then Bailey concludes the story in a beautiful way.
After the story is finished, Bailey looks at the memorial I created and smiles. As she turns back to look at me, she says, “Thank you for helping me see my grandma again. She would have really liked that story. I guess we should probably start cleaning up now so we can get out of the woods before it starts to get dark. Are you still up to going with me to visit with my grandfather?”
“Of course, Bailey. Whatever you need today.”
There’s still about a quarter of the bottle of wine left so Bailey slowly pours the rest of the wine over the memorial stone. We pack up our lunch trash and then I go stand at the hidden entrance to the clearing to give Bailey some space as she just stands and looks around the place for a few moments.
When she turns, she comes over to me with a small smile, takes my hands, and gives me a small kiss before pulling me forward into the thick twisted woods.
Walking out of the woods is just as difficult as it was to get in. Our original trek in did nothing to help create an easier path to follow.
When we get back to the car, Bailey shakes her hair out and shivers some as she releases a small laugh.
“I really need a shower. Come here. Let me check you for ticks and then you check me. I feel like I have every bug in the forest crawling over me.”
Bailey puts our bags in her trunk and then starts inspecting my clothes, under the waistband of my pants, and around my ankles. When she reaches my hair, she laughs and says, “Babe, you’re swooning.” I laugh and turn to face her. “I can’t help it. You do it to me every time you play with my hair.”
I check Bailey next and she’s all clear. The feeling of having things crawling on us is just in our heads. We get in the car and Bailey pulls out a small pack of facial wipes for us both to clear the sweat from our faces. We end up using a couple wipes on our faces, necks, chests, and arms. When we finish, we both exhale in relief and laugh. It’s not the same as getting a shower, but I definitely feel less filthy and buggy now.
Bailey’s grandfather lives in the valley, but on the outskirts of the city. He lives in a medium sized home with white wood paneling and a cute wrap around deck. In front of the home are large garden beds that wrap around the full length of the deck and are overflowing with all sorts of beautiful flowers and greenery. It has a mildly tamed wild look about it. Like nature has wrappe
d itself around the house, claiming it as its own, and the union formed between the two keeps the wilds of the gardens slightly held back in an appeased way. It’s beautiful.
When we get out of the car, Bailey takes my hand and leads me up the steps to the front door. Before she knocks, she looks at me with a very content, happy smile. She gently kisses my cheek and then raps her knuckles against the oak wood door.
After several moments, the door swings inward and standing in the doorway is a tall, broad shouldered, silver haired man with the same dolphin gray-blue eyes that Bailey has. As soon as he sees Bailey, his face becomes alive with a very loving smile.
“Bailey,” is all he says as he steps out the door and wraps his arms around her. Bailey releases my hand to wrap her arms around her grandfather. He’s so much taller than her that she has to stand on her tiptoes to give him a proper hug. When he pulls back, he keeps one arm around her shoulders and turns to regard me. He’s smiling in a friendly way and asks, “Are you Piper?”
I nod my head and extend my hand. “I am. It’s nice to meet you. Bailey speaks very highly of you.”
He releases a small laugh and teases, “That’s because I am so tall. There was a time when this little peanut had to climb up on the furniture to be able to whisper her secrets in my ear.”
When he takes my hand to shake, I notice how strong and rough they are from the many years of hard labor in construction and carpentry.
We follow him inside and he leads us into the kitchen, where he fills three glasses with iced tea.
“You girls want to sit out on the porch and rock in the rocking chairs with this old man or stay in the air conditioning? It’s a bit warm out today.”
