Almost forgot

that I needed to do a blog post for today. Every day in February. That's my challenge to myself. But I have stuff on my mind, and I'm towards the end of the last of a trilogy - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, and while I was resting my eyes, I remembered I needed to post something.

We're having an ice storm. Though it doesn't seem too bad, I imagine it's a mess out there. I'm tired of it. Winter that is. I feel chilled past my bones to my soul. I desperately need some warmth. So, since if I try to write anything here, it's likely to be morose, I'm going to post a little clip of my story "Wet As Spring." This was written almost twenty years ago. I may post it in full sometime soon.

*****

Here the ground was damp, the water table just below the surface. Her shoes sucked mud as she stepped into the clearing at the end. Sun-warmed insects filled the air. Long grass hid the soggy ground. She turned and followed what used to be a path to the stream, now overgrown. Brambles, grasses, and wild plants determined to take back the ground that only last summer had been torn and stripped by a bulldozer in search of marketable real estate. It was about impossible to actually get to the stream without risking thorns and snags. She opted to follow the bank a ways. She stepped gently, pushing aside a fern that was as tall as her waist. She came to a shaded bower formed by the entangled branches of a myrtle and a tanoak. In the shelter beneath the branches, clover clustered in the dapples of sun. She imagined deer bedding down here. She could hear the gushing of the stream, swollen with last week’s rain. She reached up and plucked a leaf from the myrtle and crushed it between her fingers to release the sharp, pungent scent. She wished her husband was with her. At the thought, a flush spread over her whole body. I’ll bring him here she thought.

They would walk down the road together, the sun warm and the breeze gentle. She would be wearing a loose dress, her bare legs stroked by the plants as she stepped through them. It would be as sunny and green a day as this…

He had been walking alongside her, now he let her lead. She ducked under the low branches of the myrtle and stood up in the bower. “Isn’t this wonderful?” In answer, he dropped his rucksack and slid his hands around her waist. Immediate tingles danced up and down her spine.. She put her pack down and reached for his beard, gently tugging in her direction until their lips met.

They kissed slowly, then broke apart and spread a quilt out on the ground. She lay down and looked up through the leaves, took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Feeling his hand on her stomach, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. His hand ran to her throat, caressing her chin as he bent and kissed her, warm and deep. She sighed as his hand moved to her breast. Her nipple hardened under the fabric. She smiled as she was lost in sensation.