My Garden of Happiness

I love gardening. The sensual feel of soil crumbling through my fingers, the tang of the earth and the maternal feeling watching things grow.

In my teenage years my gardening began to take on something resembling a sexual nuance for me. I suppose as I see the little shoots appear above the earth, and I know that I have contributed to their nativity, I have a motherly protective feeling towards them. For me that led on to thoughts about human fertility and growth, and by extension the act that begins the process.

I think this love of gardening began when I was still a little girl when I asked my father if I could have a little garden of my own. He gave me a small corner of our garden and a packet of seeds, and then showed me how to prepare the earth for planting.

I put in the seeds I must admit, with little confidence that they would come to anything. I could not understand how those little dried up specks could ever amount to anything.

I dutifully watered the earth and pulled up those things that my father said were weeds. I have heard it said that weeds are plants whose time has not yet come. Then one day the impossible happened, the first tiny shoots appeared above the earth and reared up to eventually become pink and white carnations.

From the moment of that miracle I was an avid gardener. My little patch of ground was gradually expanded until I grew not only flowers, but vegetables as well. My father was for ever telling people that I had a “green thumb.” Everything I planted seemed to flourish.

I was fortunate throughout my school years in that the schools I attended all had gardens. I was considered rather an “unusual girl,” because in those days, while the boys had weekly gardening hours, the girls had so-called “Domestic Science.” It was my father who persuaded the School Principal to allow me to do gardening. Thus I was the only girl at that time who gardened along with the boys.

In high school they had a proper horticultural course and this I took in my last year at school which was one year short of the final year. Then I had to leave school because my parents could not afford to let me go further.

My ambition was to own a plant nursery, but that was far beyond my or my parent’s resources. Besides, I needed to learn more about plants and the running of a business. Instead, and for the time being, it was second best for me and I got a job in a local nursery.

I enjoyed the work and always watched carefully how things were run, for there always lurked within me the desire for that “one day” place of my own.

I suppose I was somewhat romantic at that time as well as being nubile. As young girls often do, I had visions of marrying a man who was also a garden lover, and together we would have our own plant nursery. My vision didn’t work out quite as I hoped.

Along with my love making with soil and plants went other amatorial emotions. I was a warm blooded young female and although I managed to end my school career with my virginity in tact, there had been much kissing and fumbling with boys in the school garden tool shed, and in a few other places.

I think my sexuality was somehow connected with my gardening. Perhaps it is that the love of growing things leads on to a desire to grow something inside oneself; to be the creator of new life; to feel life growing within you, and by extension, this leads to the desire to engage in that activity which initiates the process.

It did not therefore take too much persuasion on Joe’s part to get me to open the door to paradise and let him in.

I met Joe about a year after I began work at the nursery. He was a carpenter and he came to carry out some carpentry work at the nursery. I fell for him on first sight. Tall, with dark hair with blue eyes, a happy smile and all that; he dated me the second day of his time at the nursery. I thought I was in heaven. One week later in the back of his car he was in heaven.

Shortly after that I reaped the aftermath of Joe’s visits to Paradise; I was pregnant, or so I thought.

Joe, being a fairly considerate sort of bloke, said he would marry me. This he did but, as the old saying goes, “Marry in haste repent at leisure.”

Well, perhaps “repent” is too strong a word. Joe was a good man and he tried to make me happy in his own way. He wasn’t in the least bit interested in gardening, but he found us a house that, in keeping with other houses of a previous generation, had lots of land round it, instead of the pocket handkerchief size gardens people have now. To my delight previous owners had taken no interest in the garden and it was a virtual wilderness. I had an almost pristine wasteland to develop in my own way.

The trouble was, I had fantasised a virile gardening hero to share my life with and Joe was neither gardener or virile. To be fair, and as I have discovered in the years since, Joe was like a lot of men; the first flush of passion soon faded, and the Friday night “binge” as he called it, took over.

There was me, burning with carnal lust, and Joe watching television every night and going to football matches at the weekend. If in bed at night I cocked my leg over him he would mutter something about being tired and go to sleep.

It’s strange how things work out. Mavis, my next door neighbour once confided to me that her husband wouldn’t leave her alone. “Cara,” she declared, “you’ve no idea how he pesters me. He wants it when he wakes up in the morning, when he gets home from work, then when we go to bed. I sometimes think I’ll go mad if he doesn’t keep his hands off me.”

I thought to myself that it might be a good idea if I took some of the pressure off her, but I didn’t really fancy her husband. Apart from that, I was still old fashioned enough to believe in the marriage vows, fidelity and all that.

And that’s another thing; it isn’t as if I’m ugly or something. I know it’s hard to be objective about your own looks, but I did notice men eyeing me off and even propositioning me sometimes.

To try and give you some idea how I am let me just say, I’m five feet six tall, I’ve got nice long ash blonde hair that I take great pride in; my skin is clear and my facial features are regular and I have large brown eyes. As far as my figure is concerned, my work keeps me in good shape and, in that respect I see as my crowning glory, my 38C bust. I mean, I really am very firm and my nipples are a fresh pink colour.

I am not claiming to be an outstanding beauty, but I’m sure I have plenty to offer in the sensual stakes. It was just that Joe, for all his initial promise as an ardent lover, when it came down to it, had a low level libido. It was almost as if he said to him self once we were married, “That’s got that aspect of life settled, so I don’t have to bother about it any more.”

To put it another way; I know that a garden needs constant maintenance and care or it gets choked with weeds and runs to seed, and so do I, but Joe couldn’t be bothered with the conservation aspect of our marriage sexually speaking.

In the light of Joe’s lack of interest I had to do some self maintenance, and after six months of frustration I got myself a dildo and got at least some relief.

Perhaps it might have been different, though I doubt it, if had been pregnant when we got hurriedly married, but I wasn’t. The doctor muttered things like “False pregnancy,” and apparently told Joe in less flattering terms it was a “Hysterical pregnancy.” Cheeky bugger!

Joe made no protest about being “trapped” into marriage. I’m sure he loved me in his way, and in the time we had together I am fairly sure his eyes wandered to no other female. It was just that he wasn’t up to giving me what I needed in bed.

Early in my marriage I bought a book called something like, “The ABC of Love for Beginners.” It’s still around the place somewhere. As I read it I thought, “My God, I’m in for a wonderful time,” but when I tried to tell Joe about some of the things we could do, he made sounds like, “Yuck,” or said, “That’s for perverts.”

Enough said on the subject I think.

Once married I decided on becoming at least in part the domestic female; I continued to work at the nursery but on a part time basis. This brought in extra money for us. It also gave me the time I wanted to develop my newly acquired wasteland. Over the following nine years I produced a very nice garden with flowers, vegetables and the beginnings of a small orchard; my “mini orchard” as I call it.

It was then my silly Joe fell three stories from a building scaffold and got himself killed.

Now it might seem that I’ve complained a lot about Joe, but in most respects he was comfortable to live with and always generous. To find myself widowed when still in my twenties was to say the least very harrowing. In fact I cried on and off for over a month.

The building company he was working for, or rather, the insurance company, eventually paid out a tidy sum of money by way of compensation and this enabled me to pay off the rest of the house mortgage, with quite a bit left over.

For about two years I was in a sort of limbo, not sure what I wanted to do with my life. I got a few offers from guys who wanted to either marry or have a “relationship” with me, but despite my sexual proclivities that were as pressing as ever once I got over the worst of my distress, I didn’t fancy any of them.

Now I must backtrack to a couple of years after I got married. I was working in the garden at the front of my house one afternoon, when a young boy, probably eight or nine years old and apparently coming home from school, stopped to watch me.

I said “Hello,” and he said “Hello.” He stood watching for a few more minutes during which nothing was said, and then went on his way.

After that whenever I happened to be in the front garden in the afternoon he always stopped to look at what I was doing. The second time he came by I asked his name to which he replied, “Clive.” “My name is Cara,” I told him. “Do you like gardening?”

“I think so,” he said, “we’ve got a terrible garden.”

I knew the garden to which he referred, which was close to being the wilderness mine had been in when I started.

That ended our conversation for that day, but the next time we saw each other he asked, “Can I help you with your garden?”

I was somewhat surprised by this request because most children aren’t interested in gardens. Then I remembered my early attraction to gardening, so I said, “Yes, if you’d like to,” and I set him about doing some weeding.

I didn’t expect his interest to last, but it did, and in the coming weeks and months I began to teach him about soil preparation, planting and all that goes with raising plants.

I suppose in part my interest in Clive arose from the fact that I wanted to have children, but Joe’s Friday night “binges” never seemed to have the desired outcome. Of course “one day” we would have tests to try and find out if anything was wrong, but “one day” never seemed to arrive; and then, of course, it was too late.

So I had the pleasure of teaching a young boy about gardening and gradually came to see him as a surrogate son. In fact if I had a son I would have liked him to be like Clive, polite and as our friendship grew, affectionate.

I introduced Clive to my back garden. This was in two sections; in the first half I grew flowers and vegetables, and in the second and bottom half of the garden was my mini orchard and this served also as my private haven. I had had erected a high brush fence around the orchard, and to there I would retire when I wanted solitude. Even Joe hesitated to disturb me there.

Joe also got to know Clive, and in his shed he taught him the rudiments of carpentry. They made seed boxes for me and rather elegant planter boxes. So Clive was in and out of our place quite frequently.

Once he entered high school I saw less of Clive as his studies took up more time, but like me, he took horticulture as one of his subjects. He was better placed financially than I had been since his parents were financially better off than mine. He had as his objective attendance at our State Horticultural College.

Of course we still saw Clive, and when Joe was killed he was badly shaken, and to some extent it was the sharing of our grief that made it a bit easier.

During the two years that followed Joe’s death Clive began his studies at the Horticultural College and in fact I saw somewhat more of him than when he was at high school. Mainly at weekends he would spend time working with me, giving me tips based on what he was learning at college. It was at this time imperceptibly my relationship with him began to change.

To me Clive had always been the young boy who had stopped by to watch me work. Joe and I had, as I said, come see him as a sort of substitute son.

Now as we worked together, especially in the warm weather when Clive would be stripped down to his shorts, I began to take notice of his beautiful young body, muscular and supple. Even as I told myself not to be such a fool, I began to look upon him from a female point of view, as sexual being with needs and longings.

Clive had never given any indication that he had any sexual feelings for me. I don’t think he even knew about or wanted me as a second mother or Joe as an extra father. As far as he was concerned, he was just a friend. I knew this, but still the feelings hung around me.

I gave no indication to Clive about my new feelings for him, and I strove to bury them deep within. I told myself that such a good looking and personable young man was hardly be likely to be physically drawn to a woman some thirteen years his senior. He would want someone of his own age, and it was unlikely he would have problems in that direction.

His relationship with girls was a topic that had never arisen between us. I had assumed he had girlfriends but he never spoke of them and I never asked.

Yet even not knowing about his possible relationships with girls, I felt jealous of them. My imagination came into play and I had mental visions of Clive coupling with some girl as she moaned her delight at his penetration. At night especially I went through agonies as I masturbated, fantasising Clive as I climaxed.

I became so disturbed by these feelings that were becoming increasingly difficult to cope with and suppress, I even began to think I should take on any man who offered himself in the hope of curing my self of this growing erotic obsession with Clive. Of course, to go down that track would probably have led to a disastrous relationship with whoever I took on, because he would only be a substitute for what I really wanted.

Those of you who have experienced what used to be quaintly called “unrequited love” will understand how I felt. Especially if you cannot give full expression to that love, you have to expend a fair amount of emotional energy hiding your feelings. This was how it was for me, and I began to feel always a bit tired and depressed.

How much does chance play in our lives? Or are we destined to have things happen to us? Is there some subtle form of communication between people so deep within us that we are unconscious of its operation?

Perhaps by this unconscious communication, if such there be, we transmit certain signals to another person and that in turn leads us and them to actions that play out that communication, give it concrete form. We may call it chance or destiny, but in fact we have unconsciously communicated and responded.

So it seems to me now as I look back on the events that took place.

I have said that a brush fence surrounded mini orchard and this was my private place, my haven of peace where I could not be overlooked. In warm weather I was in the habit of occasionally going there, and stripping myself naked, would lie on a sun lounge in the shade of a tree for and hour or two reading or contemplating, and if the mood took me, masturbating.

I can remember clearly that it was on a warm spring Wednesday afternoon that I was lying there, my book fallen from my hand, I was half dozing.

It was one of those lovely spring days when the blossom is just coming out on the fruit trees and the air is pervaded by their fragrance. The bees and other insects were busy and honey eaters fluttered among the branches.

Perhaps there was a slight noise or it may have been some instinct, but I suddenly came fully awake to see Clive standing at the end of the sun lounge, looking at me.

I had absolutely no reason to expect him to be calling on that day, but as I later learned, his afternoon lectures had been cancelled, so he decided to call in and see me. Not finding me in the house or other parts of the garden he had risked my displeasure at being disturbed and opened the gate in the brush fence and entered my sanctuary.

For a moment we stared at each other, and then I looked around desperately to find something to cover myself with. There was nothing but the pieces of clothing I had been wearing before I stripped. I reached down for them to try and cover my breasts and sex organ with them. Before I could get them I was stopped as Clive began to speak.

His voice was very soft and low and I felt a tremor rub through me at his words.

“Please don’t Cara, you’re too lovely to be covered.

No man, not even Joe when he first saw me naked, had ever called me “lovely.” I had certainly been called other things like, “sexy,” “slinky,” “dishy” and “cute.” Once a disappointed would be seducer called me a “prickteaser,” but none had called me “lovely”.

I could see Clive’s erect penis pushing against the cloth of his trousers. I seemed to loosen up. I felt free to take a risk and let my craving for him take over. “If I’m lovely, Clive, why don’t you make me feel lovely.”

I decided to give added force to my words and spreading my legs to expose my sex organ to him, I placed my fingers on my outer vaginal lips, and parted them as an act of invitation.

It was a risk as he might have turned and fled, but instead he still stood gazing at me.

It sounds a trifle ridiculous now, but I reinforced my invitation by saying, “Come and plant your seed in my garden, darling.”

Clive groaned and dropped to his knees in front of me, and bending forward pressed his lips to my vulva. I held his head with my hands, encouraging him to liger with his kiss and then, stroking his hair I said, “Fertilise me Clive, I’m ready for you.”

I took my hands from his head and he stood to strip himself. His beautiful light brown shaft with its blood engorged purple head stood out dripping his pre-cum. I extended my arms to him and drew him to me, and feeling for his shaft I guided him into me.

I had anticipated a few mad thrusts into me and then he would ejaculate as Joe had done the first time we coupled, but it was not like that.

It was the tenderest yet gratifying sexual intercourse I had ever experienced. We moved together, suiting our rhythm very gently. I felt it as a supreme experience of tender love, his shaft fitting tightly into my vaginal tunnel and I wet with my lubricant.

I knew he must be on the edge of ejaculating into me yet it seemed that by some act of will he held back. I was in similar case; my orgasm was lurking on the edge of full expression. It was as if we wanted to make this first coupling keep going so as to experience and enjoy each other for as long as possible.

When Joe was having his Friday “binge” he usually lasted about three minutes. So I was amazed that even on this first occasion Clive and I must have held back for twenty or more minutes.

“He wants me,” I thought, “and not just sexual gratification.”

The sweet pleasure of his manhood in my canal, the ecstasy he was clearly experiencing as I gripped him with my vaginal muscle finally brought us to the point where we could hold back no longer. I let my orgasm begin its journey to a climax, and cried out, “Now… please…come with me, Clive.”