“And ever,” she said, before adding, “that is, unless you do something to really piss me off.”
“Never.” He said, rolling his hips slowly, and it was his turn to smile at Blue’s tiny moan of pleasure.
“Well, what should we do now?” Blue looked up at Pino with feigned innocence, and he kissed her, a deep heated kiss that left them both breathless.
“I can think of a few things,” Pino growled.
“Mmm…and then?”
“We live happily ever after,” Pino whispered, kissing her tenderly.
And they did.
GARDEN VARIETY
Lynn Townsend
T
he carafe of wine slipped, unnoticed, from Jackie’s hand and smashed onto the patio. Shards of glass and splatters of Chianti barely registered as she stared, gape-mouthed, at the wreckage of her garden.
Before work, Jackie had checked the seedling beans, twining tomato plants, and a few decorative flats of strawberries, and everything had been pristine. She’d plucked a few weeds from the warm soil, bound up a falling tomato vine, relocated a few bugs, and discussed the latest celebrity news with the attentive bean sprouts. After a day of manning the phones at East Agency Collections, being called multiple names—as if she were the one who’d run up thousands of dollars of credit card debt and then tried to default on it—and being bitched out thoroughly by her manager, Jackie had been looking forward to a glass of wine, a book of poetry, and the company of her pleasant, non-meddlesome, non-annoying,
quiet
plants. As far as Jackie was concerned, plants were much better company than most humans.
Especially now.
All four vertical trellises that Jackie had painstakingly put together herself lay in shattered ruins. There was potting soil all over the patio. Her budding garden, lovingly tended, was torn asunder; the plants yanked rudely from their clay pots and shredded. There was seemingly nothing that could be salvaged. This was no act of a careless child, not the destruction of someone’s dog that had slipped their leash for a few short moments. This was wanton, cruel desecration.
“Who the hell would do such a thing?” Jackie was barely aware that she spoke aloud, tears of rage and grief spilling over her lower lids. She turned her head from side to side, as if seeking answers, but there was nothing. With all the potting soil scattered all over the patio, she would have thought at least that there would have been some tracks, but the earth gave up no trace of the murderer of her garden.
All she saw was one flicker of life, one tiny, tenacious plant that clung to life.
She dropped gingerly to one knee, avoiding the shards of pottery and glass, scooping up the runner bean sprout. She’d bought them just last week from Garden Variety nursery.
“I’ll make it right,” she promised. Jackie pulled together a handful of soil and pressed it into her empty wine glass. It wasn’t the best solution, but perhaps it would be enough to keep the one plant alive until she was able to get to the nursery. “I’ll make everything all right again. I promise.”
Just not today,
she thought as she closed the porch door on her savaged plants.
Maybe things will look better in the morning.
Under the full moon, touched by love and grief and hope, the beans swelled. Green vines lifted leaves to the sky, twining and twisting, stretching and growing, hard and fast and turgid.
Jackie slept on, unaware and unmoving. She didn’t stir as the stalk groaned and strained, cracking the foundation of her home, ripping free of the porch railings and at last, sighing to a halt.
Jackie woke. The first thing she noticed was that the light was all wrong. Her alarm was usually screaming at her as the early grey strains of sunrise barely registered through her blue lace curtains. She normally stumbled into the shower before 6:00 A.M. and left the house with the inevitably vain hopes that she would be able to avoid the morning gridlock.
Not this day. She woke up to warm sunlight streaming in through an open window. She smelled rich, green vegetation. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Her entire window was filled with plant life. The rigid stalk was thicker than her arms could reach around, spreading joyously toward the sky. The sweet tang of pickwick flowers scented the breeze. Hummingbirds already swarmed around the red blossoms. Her window was broken; the remains of her draperies were tangled in tendrils of the stalk.
“There’s nothing to do,” she murmured, pulling on a simple sundress, “but to climb up.” Dreamlike, she sat on the window sill and then flipped her legs out the window, her naked feet finding easy purchase. The vegetation was warm under her bare skin, firm and soft, smooth. She rested her cheek against the stalk, arms around it as far as she could reach.
“I know I promised to make things right,” Jackie said, “You’re prompt and enthusiastic in your response, don’t you think?”
Ladder-like thick vines dotted the stalk and acted as handholds and foot rests. It wasn’t long before the ground was lost in the clouds. Blue, clear sky canopied her journey. She spared only a moment to think of the earth, far below. By the time it occurred to Jackie to worry about how far in the sky she was,
falling seemed like such a remote possibility that she couldn’t spare it much concern.
“You won’t let me fall, will you?” she said to the stalk. “You’ll take care of me, I just know it.”
Jackie had never felt silly talking to plants, and now she felt even more like she was having a real conversation. That her words were heard and understood. Her heart raced, her skin rippled with goose bumps, not from fear, but from desperate excitement. The vines rustled, one twining briefly around her ankle like a caress. She grinned, continuing upward.
She reached the summit; a thick bank of clouds like hills surrounded the top of the beanstalk. In the distance, a castle in the sky, impossibly glittering, towers made of glass and pearl. The very tip of the stalk was crowned by a thick seed pod, secured by dozens of flowering vines.
There, miles above the earth, enclosed in the safe cradle of leaves and vines, Jackie became aware of a thick musk in the air. The warm scent of clean sweat, the odor of a male high in his heat, enclosed her. Blanketed by the sky, secure and secret, Jackie smirked, putting one hand on her hip to regard the beanstalk with a playful attitude.
“If that’s the case,” she said, “you’re the world’s largest erection. I’m flattered.” She lightly caressed the stalk, noting again its soft, rigid texture, the veins underneath throbbing with a giant heartbeat. She rested her cheek against it, then, feeling a strange attraction, a quivering between her thighs, she opened her mouth and flickered her tongue against the stalk.
The entire stalk shuddered, forcing her to wrap her arms around it, holding her balance. “Liked that, did you?”
The vines around her shifted, moving, enclosing her. Thick coils wrapped around her thighs, forming a swing, spreading her legs. Her feet left the tentative safety of the stalk, and Jackie
was cradled in the air, supported only by the vines and leaves. More vines looped over her arms, encircling her wrists like manacles.
Gentle tendrils, like fingers, explored her body. She groaned, arching against the containment of the vines. A vine twined in her thick blonde hair, tugging, prickling against her scalp. More vines formed, touching her, caressing. Jackie writhed, helpless against the overwhelming sensations. Vines wrapped themselves around her breasts, tugging at the sundress until it was shredded, baring her skin. The tendrils, like fingers, rolled her nipples, teasing them firm and taut.
The vine in her hair pulled, arching her spine, drawing her head back to bare her throat. A tendril snaked up her leg, nuzzling at her soft, sensitive inner thigh. Jackie shrieked with sudden wanting, her hips bucking against the maddening, seductive caress. The tendril teased, achingly gentle, rubbing against her suddenly molten clit, drawing moans and whimpers from her mouth. It tickled around her feminine folds, exploring, teasing, withdrawing each time she felt the tension building across her shoulders and chest.
Jackie cried out, thrashing against the vines that held her mostly immobile. Her breasts ached, nipples hard, as the vines twined around the round globes, squeezing and teasing the tips to rosy peaks. She could barely move as the vines tightened, pulling her thighs apart and her arms up, stretching her to every sensation, beyond her capacity for thought, leaving only molten desire, tinged with frustration.
“Please, please,” she begged, cresting up toward relief, then pushed back again as the vine between her legs slowed its relentless torment. Slow and easy, the vine stroked her clit, plump and wet. It flicked and squeezed, rubbing, caressing. Jackie grew hot, her muscles shaking and contracting desperately. Sweat
beaded across her forehead, along the column of her throat. She panted for breath, air burning in her lungs. A final spasm and she shattered into a million pieces. Cries of rapture and relief forced from her throat as she came, shuddering intensely.
Beside her, the seed pod split with an audible snap.
Jackie, limp and spent, hung in the cradle of vines, barely turned her head. Like a swimmer breaching the water’s surface, a man emerged from the seed pod. He was tall, with dark hair the very color of rich earth. His shoulders were broad; his arms well muscled, with a long, lean body. He opened a pair of wide, leaf-green eyes, astonishingly brilliant, with dark, sinfully long lashes. His mouth was lush, berry red, with full, sensual lips.
Wordless, he was drawn to her, like a bee to an open flower. Jackie twisted her arms futilely against the capturing vines, aching to touch him, feel the warmth of his skin, bring him to the same pleasures that she had just experienced. He leaned in, slow and sensual, keeping his body away from hers as he gently touched his lips to hers. Without any expectations of action from her—there was no way she could clasp her arms around his neck or mold her body to his—she was forced to absorb every nuance of the kiss, make the most of tongues and lips.
His kiss shivered along her spine. Despite the lightness of his touch, there was nothing gentle about it as he devoured her mouth. His tongue flickered along her lower lip and then lingered on the sensitive corner. She gasped, panting for breath as he teased her upper lip, planting tiny kisses. At last he relented and Jackie tasted his mouth, like raw peas fresh from the garden, warm with sunlight, full, plump and moist.
His tongue was a welcome invasion, exploring the silk heat of her mouth, her lips quivering with excitement. Jackie moaned deep in her throat as his teeth nipped at her lip. She pulled her head back, allowing him access to her throat, the vine still
tangled in her hair aiding her, her scalp tingled with sensation as he laved a trail down her neck, stopping to nuzzle urgently at the dip just above her breastbone.
His large hands traced a line up her ribs, corseting her breasts. He lowered his head to the nipple, breathing warm air over the sensitive nub before finally taking it into his mouth. He lingered over one breast, then the other, before pushing them firmly together, allowing his tongue to wander from one taut bud to the other, sending twin bolts of pleasure down her chest, all the way down to her toes. Jackie uttered a screaming moan, writhing.
His mouth left a warm, wet trail between her breasts and down across her flat belly as he knelt in front of her. Strong hands gripped her hips as he gently licked and tugged on her navel ring with his teeth. Jackie clutched at the warm air, her fingers curling tight against her palms and then relaxing. The hot caress of his tongue both tickled and titillated, leaving her gasping for breath.
Jackie was frantic with need by the time his wicked mouth reached her clit. He licked and sucked at the delicate peak, driving her into delirious spirals of longing. His tongue slid along her moist folds, tasting and exploring. He flicked his tongue back and forth, lightly brushing against the quivering node.
“Oh,” Jackie gasped, her thighs straining as she tried to close her legs around his neck, “I can’t, I can’t.…” And yet, she did, a moment later, screaming as she came. He continued to suck and lick as each last, trembling shock swept through her.
Jackie hung, limp and sated, in the cradle of vines, too spent to even move her littlest finger. She concentrated, instead, on just breathing. The light sheen of sweat cooled her and she just let herself relax, splayed out in her bonds. She listened to the sound of her heartbeats thudding in her temples, swift
and reckless at first, but gradually slowing. The wind shushed merrily through the leaves of the beanstalk. There was no other sound.
Gradually, Jackie came back to herself and opened her eyes. Her lover was there; somehow she’d come to be cradled in his arms—the vines couched her legs and lower back, but her arms were around his strong shoulders, her cheek laying against his warm chest. She pushed herself back and looked up at his face. He soothed her hair back from her face, the corners of his mouth turned up in a loving, playful smile.
Jackie traced a line up his jaw, exploring the contours of his ruggedly attractive features. A strong jaw gave way to a lushly sensual mouth. He had high cheekbones, a sharp blade of a nose, wide, moss-green eyes, a high, straight forehead that was slightly obscured by a tousle of rich, dark hair.
“You can’t be real,” Jackie said. “I must be dreaming.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” he responded. She hadn’t expected him to speak and she startled in his arms, surprised by both his words and the clear, musical sound of his voice. “I like to think I was just waiting for you to wake up.”
If Jackie had a response to that, she was certain she didn’t know what it was. Any coherent thought was driven right out of her head by the abrupt, trembling boom that rattled the cloud-bank beneath her and the dark shadow that blocked out the sun.