Seasons of the Mind Ch. 01

1. Winter

The young woman stood and reached upwards to pull a coat from the metal rack above her head. The guard had made his announcement and the train had begun to slow. Soon the train would be gliding through the darkness of the tunnel to the station waiting on the other side.

Outside, looking through the carriage windows, the night had a sort of luminescence as the moonlight reflected white off the snow. It was a cold winter's night. The carriage warm but outside the frost was hard and it would be crisp and icy underfoot.

Slowly the woman began to wind her long scarf around her neck. A green woollen scarf Harris noted as he had noted everything about the women's clothing since she had joined the train. The coat, the dark blue coat, was pulled on over the woman's Fair Isle jumper. She would certainly need to be wrapped up warm when she alighted from the train. The contrast between the warmth of the coach and the cold of the night would be marked. Her breath would be before her.

Harris had been pleased to see a below the knee pleated grey skirt—not trousers—plenty of material there to keep the girl warm; her black woollen tights looked sensible and defensive against the cold—what little was exposed between skirt and boots and, then, only visible just as she got up from her seat . Not simply shoes, sensible or otherwise, but sturdy long black leather boots to below her knee, probably lined.

One by one the buttons were slipped into their button holes as her hand ascended until the last one brought the lapels together and they were secured leaving a little of the scarf showing around her neck. From her bag a green woollen hat, not the practical sort with a bobble on the top but one with more shape and style—nonetheless warm and practical. And from her coat pockets green woollen gloves were extracted and the first carefully pulled on over fingers.

Harris too rose to his feet, stepped into the aisle and stood, facing towards the woman.

The train entered the tunnel.

Without power, gliding without braking, the train slid through the tunnel, gently slowing with each passing second but as it slowed the lights dimmed until the carriage was in pitch blackness. The moonlight did not penetrate far into the tunnel.

And still the train slowed until it was at rest. Not in the station but seemingly still in the depths of the tunnel, the dark tunnel. There was no sound. It was strangely quiet.

"I'm not sure I like this." The woman spoke, her words clear in the silence and directed at Harris; the last person she had seen. "I hope we soon move on into the station."

There was no movement but a chill came over the air, a deepening chill as if they were no longer in the carriage but already on the platform.

The woman moved, Harris could hear the sound of boots as if she was stepping on frosted snow; and with the sound came a brightening of light around them but not the yellowish light of the carriage's electric lights returning: instead the cold white light of the moon.

In the gathering light Harris—and the woman—could see not the windows of the carriage but trees, many trees; dark bare trees with snow covered branches and, below them covering the ground, a carpet of white snow. The snow virginal, untouched by footsteps except where the woman had moved her boots.

The snow was falling gently in the silence of the wood.

The woman was wide eyed above her scarf, her head and then her body turning around, first one way and then the other, her dark blue coat swinging with her. "The train..."

Harris watched her unmoving, seemingly unperturbed by the change of events.

"What...where... where are we?"

It was the two of them alone. Very much alone. Two figures standing in the silence of a winter wood or, indeed, a forest. The few other people seated in the carriage had disappeared or perhaps had simply not come with Harris and the woman.

"We seem to be in a wood in the snow. No lamp post though." If meant as a joke it did not seem to amuse the woman.

"Where is the train?"

The snow was starting to fall faster. It was cold. Harris did not answer.

The woman was agitated. "There's a light." She said.

Away off into the trees it showed to their right, or was it their left, or was it straight on? It had been behind them at first. A feint yellow light.

"Perhaps it's the lamp post."

The comment was clearly not well received.

"This is not poss..."

The woman started walking towards it, her boots moving evenly. Harris followed in her footsteps: clear marks in the untouched snow. Their feet made a scrunching noise. That and their breathing the only sound. The steadily increasing snow was silent as it fell to the ground.

It was not a lamp post but a weak glimmer from a small cottage window. Small indeed, single storied, made of timber, as might reasonably be expected in a wood, and mud: but with a brick chimney and window. The thatching looked sound. A door, oaken and solid.

There was little hesitation from the woman, a glance back at Harris and then she knocked. The sound harsh in the quiet of the falling snow. She waited.

Harris noted the snow now lying across the woman's shoulders like a mantle; her green hat dusted with snow.

The woman turned with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think..."

Standing there looking out into the night, the dark night, the snow swirling and darker clouds coming to obscure the moon they seemed utterly alone. Not a hint of light from anywhere else, just the dark bare surrounding trees; not a sound from a person or animal, just the falling snow. The woman knocked again. There was still no answer.

"It is very cold." She tried the door. It was locked.

There was real alarm in the woman's eyes now.

"I don't understand... and the door is locked."

Harris nodded and stretched out his hand. He was pointing and the woman followed his gaze to a large round stone by the left side of the door jamb.

"Do you think?"

She did not wait for an answer but moved the stone with her gloved hand revealing a key.

"How did you know?"

"It is often so," replied Harris.

The woman looked puzzled but was quick to insert the key and turn. The door opened easily and they stepped inside.

Earth floored it may have been but it was not unhomely. On a plank table by the window a single candle burned in a brass candlestick, the fireplace was neatly laid ready to burn and in the corner of the cottage a stout bed was neatly covered in a blanket. Upon another table a pitcher of water, fresh bread and cheese.

From his coat pocket Harris produced a box of matches and set to lighting the fire. The woman stood in the middle of the cottage as if unsure what to do next. The fire crackled as the tinder and then kindling caught.

"I don't understand. What has happened—to us?"

"It will be a good fire."

Already there was just the hint of warmth from the quick burning kindling, smoke was already—at least mostly—already making its way up the cold chimney.

"I wish there was more light."

"A candle and a fire are good enough to see by."

Clearly the woman was not exactly happy with Harris' conversational skills or his less than helpful answers. She moved to look around the room, even flicking the blankets on the bed back to see what the bed was like. It was a single bed. Just the one. It must have passed through her mind the important question: if they were to spend the night there in the cottage then who was going to sleep in the bed?

Harris sat on a stool by the fire gazing into its building light. It was clear his prognostication about it was being realised.

"Who do you think lives here? When will he be back?"

Harris shrugged his shoulders." May not be a permanent abode."

It did not really answer the question. Again the woman walked around the cottage looking at things. It was not a large cottage and it only had the one room. There was not much to see.

The woman picked up a small iron pot and looked at its congealed contents.

"What do you think this is?"

Harris took it. "Goose fat," he said, sniffing. "Good for roast potatoes. You can't do better."

He hung the pot over the fire and sat immobile looking at it.

It was getting warmer in the room. The girl unbuttoned her coat and took off her hat and gloves and unwound her scarf a little. Harris watched. She sat on a stool the other side of the fire from Harris, hands holding her knees, revealing again the black sensible tights.

Gradually the scent of melting goose fat began to fill the room. A warm comfortable smell. The girl got up and took her coat and scarf off.

"Warmer now?"

"Mmmm, thanks, yes." She sat again, her knees held tightly together. Harris was looking at the grey pleated skirt spreading out over the stool. The girl seemed aware she was being examined.

"Why the goose fat? Is it to dunk the bread? I'm not sure I'd like that."

"You could do that."

They sat staring into the fire. The girl unzipped her boots. The room was becoming warmer by the minute.

"Are there potatoes then?"

"I don't think so."

The woman frowned. It was clear she did not like the short answers which said nothing, nothing at all.

"Why the melted goose fat then? Come on, don't keep it a secret."

"Your anus."

"What!"

"The goose fat is for your bottom. To ease the passage."

"The passage of wha... no!"

The woman was standing, backing away across the room.

"I think," he said, "a dark night is the right time for the other intercourse. A dark cold night when we are all alone."

"No!"

Harris stirred the pot. "Not too hot of course. That would not be good at all. A little above body heat. Pleasing to the touch" He was not looking at the woman but the swirling fat.

The door banged and the woman was gone. Harris lifted the pot from the fire.

It was some time later that the door opened again. There was much more snow on the woman's coat now. She had put it on again before going out or at least grabbed it as she left. Her teeth was chattering.

"Come and warm yourself by the fire. You did not trip over a door scraper then?"

The woman sat in silence. Water began dripping from her coat. She did not answer him.

It took half an hour of silence before the coat was again removed but by then the colour was back in the woman's cheeks. It had been very cold outside.

"I am not sleeping with you."

Harris added more wood to the fire. It was already very warm. A real contrast to the snow outside. He did not answer.

The heat had got to her. Had warmed her after her furious sojourn in the snow. The woman's jumper came off and then the boots. She propped the boots near, but not too near to the fire.

"I don't understand. One moment on the train: the next here." It was a different conversation.

"A bit like magic, isn't it? Puzzling. Into a tunnel or through a wardrobe."

"You really are not being a lot of help."

"You ask questions, but what do you think? Why should I know more than you?"

They were quiet for a time.

It was very warm.

"Look the other way. I'm going to take these tights off."

The man kept looking at the fire. The woman moved behind him, behind his back.

"That's better—I was getting so hot."

"A log fire is good on a cold winter's night." Harris began adding more to the fire.

"Outside it is so cold: yet in here it is almost too warm. Don't put any more wood on the fire."

There was a hint of perspiration on her brow.

The fire crackled and burnt, casting a ruddy glow over the small cottage room. It was a good fire. On the table the candle still burned.

The girl rose from her stool and stood near the window.

"I cannot say you have done wrong with it but, really, that fire is just too hot!"

"Perhaps you should take something more off."

"There isn't any more." It was a firm statement.

"I sleep naked."

"Well, I'm certainly not."

But it was clear the woman was uncomfortable. She got up and took a drink of water.

"Do you think it is safe to drink?" It was a bit late.

"Oh yes. From a spring I imagine."

The perspiration was running free.

"You have made it far too hot. Unbearable."

But the man was still dressed in his suit and seemed to be pleasantly comfortable.

First one then the second button on her blouse undone, the sleeves loosened, the pleats of the skirt flapped by her hands.

The man turned and unsurprisingly his eyes were caught by the bosom pushing out from the half opened blouse, the girl's chest rising and falling as she panted in the heat.

"You'll need to loosen a few more clothes, I imagine."

She was looking flushed. "This is more than the heat of the fire."

"Sexual arousal, if I am not mistaken."

It was a very deliberate action. One the woman did not miss at all. Harris again set the pot of goose fat to heat over the fire. The woman stared at it with wide eyes but did not this time rush from the cottage. Instead she sat, away from the fire, on the edge of the bed. Her thoughts difficult to fathom. Under her skirt her knees were getting wider and wider apart. Perhaps it was to allow heat to escape from between her legs—perhaps.

"I wish there was a bath or shower or something. I'm just dripping with sweat."

"There is a pleasing glow about you, a healthy flush to your cheeks. But no shower, no bath. There is the jug of cool water or you could roll in the snow of course."

"What! That would be freezing!"

"Bracing and refreshing: warm when you return!"

She sat on the bed gazing at the fire, Harris' back and the goose fat.

Her discomfort was growing.

The action was sudden. One moment the girl was sitting staring into the fire, the next she was up and moving. Seconds later there was a sudden draught as the door opened and then was banged shut. Harris did not so much as move a muscle until the door banged, did not even turn and look, but then a trace of a smile crossed his lips.

The woman returned—her entrance back into the hut as noisy as her exit. This time, though, Harris turned at the sound of the door banging. The girl was naked, completely naked and it was more than evident she had been rolling in the snow. There was snow in her brown hair, snow dusting her skin and even snow clinging to her pubic hair. Quite a lot of snow there, making a contrast with the deep chestnut colour of that hair. It seemed to Harris as if she had been deliberately rubbing herself with snow at the junction of her legs to cool herself.

She was looking at Harris in a defiant sort of way, legs planted apart, naked breasts rising and falling with her quick breathing.

"Cooler now?" He asked.

"No, not really. Why is it the more clothes I have taken off the more aroused I've become?"

The snow was beginning to melt on her body, changing to water droplets. The snow packed in her pubic hair was melting too. A dripping had begun, a steady drip from between her legs.

Harris smiled at the dripping and turned to dip his finger in the pot of goose fat. "It is warm and ready; are you?"

The woman frowned and put her hands on her hips. Naked, yes, but also defiant. "My bottom? I don't think so!"

Harris rose from the stool, loosening his tie. He came towards her and slowly raised his hand. The woman did not move, did not flinch away. With his forefinger he touched just the tip of the woman's left nipple. It, along with its fellow, was already hard and pointing.

"Oh... crumbs." The woman's knees seemed almost to give way. "Don't touch me."

Again just a caress to the nipple, just the lightest touch. The woman gasped.

"I have never..."

"No," said Harris, "I wouldn't think so." He put down the pot and begun removing his tie, lightly brushing the right nipple with the blade.

The woman was shaking.

"Can't we..."

"Vaginal intercourse?"

The woman nodded. The fight seemed to have gone from her, had evaporated with the touch to her nipples. Other desires had replaced the defiance.

"Pleasant—but not tonight. A dark night for the other intercourse." The man was unbuttoning his shirt.

"No, not... Must I? Can't we instead..."

Harris nodded, acknowledging the clear invitation as he unbuttoned his shirt.

"The goose fat will ease the passage."

"I'm not sure I... I mean I've never... not that way."

"Don't worry, it will be fine."

"It won't be comfortable. I mean... Can we instead...?"

"Please, prepare yourself. It will be most pleasurable I can assure... If you would lie across the bed... bottom upwards of course!"

Shirtless, Harris helped the woman. There was no real resistance. He placed a pillow under her so as to raise her bottom higher.

The woman stared straight ahead. It was difficult to judge what she was thinking but the slightly wriggling of her hips, the wobbling of her bottom cheeks all indicated a certain arousal, a woman ready to be mounted—one way or the other.

"I think, after all you will need to be on your knees, perhaps resting on your arms."

The woman wriggled into position. Her bottom raised higher. A position both undignified and yet distinctly erotic. Her pudenda and bottom hole fully exposed and accessible to the room. Her head turned to look back, beyond her body to Harris. He was now fully naked.

In the ruddy glow of the firelight and the one candle she could see the man in his natural state. A fully aroused man for, from the junction of his thighs, there rose, in a smooth curve, his fifth limb; his generative organ with its smooth head fully exposed. In his hand the small black pot of the goose fat. It's warm scent strong in the small dwelling.

She watched wide eyed as he came closer. He dipped his finger in the fat to test the heat. He nodded.

"As Goldilocks said, 'Just right'."

His finger as he lifted it from the pot was shiny with the melted fat.

The woman watched.

He brought it forward, between her cheeks and touched her right on her fundament. The fat was hot but not too hot. It made her clench her cheeks around his finger but, as he gently rotated around the little puckered orifice, carefully coating it with the slippery fat, she relaxed a little. She seemed to be accepting the touch, accepting the man's finger to her bottom.

More warm goose fat, more finger tip circling of the brown rose. The man was careful. He was not hurrying. Plenty of warm goose fat to make the anus slippery. Round and round went his fingers easing the rubbery flesh, encouraging it to relax. Making it ready.

The girl's eyes were closed and she was breathing hard. A moan escaped her.

Harris dipped his finger into the warm goose fat once more and touched the girl at the very centre of her now shiny rosebud and pushed. The tip of his finger slipped easily in. A gasp from the girl and the finger withdrawn.

The sphincter closed and then opened a little again as if seeking the finger. Harris picked up the pot and poured; a dollop of warm goose fat landed right on the anus. A gasp and a clenching of the buttocks, the sphincter opening and closing as if the girl was trying to draw the warm fat into her, sucking the pleasant heat into her body.

The buttocks relaxing but still the orifice pulsing; opening and closing. The man poured again. Another gasp from the girl.

"I had not realised..."

"The delight of anal pleasuring?"

The girl seemed to slump forward further onto the bed and open her legs a little more as if surrendering herself completely to Harris. Her bottom cheeks wide, her slippery anus clear in the candlelight and, immediately below it, her pudenda shiny with arousal. Either place clearly available to Harris' erection.

A finger dipped once more and again applied but this time pushed further. Harris watched the slippery finger touch the girl's bottom hole and then slide steadily in, gradually disappearing, first one finger joint, then another into her. The finger rotated a little and then slid backwards and forwards in the motions of intercourse, a foretaste, albeit a thin one, of what was to come.