Outside

Dear Dewey,

I write to you, as my lawyer and my friend, on a matter of some delicacy. There is a story attached. You know that, since I was a young man, I have never been able to resist a good story.

I suppose some would say I am growing old. I don't see much growing in it. The two delights of my life have passed, and yet I live on: Mary, you will recall, died three years ago this June, and the accountancy work I loved turned itself into a gold watch one Friday before I expected it. That Monday the house was full of a terrible quietness; I sat and stared at the newspaper, hardly reading a word. Hunger eventually drove me out of the house, but there, on my way out of the restaurant, I almost ran into a man dressed as the Statue of Liberty.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"It's okay," he answered. He was a tall man with strikingly black hair, a short beard, and under his costume his clothes were charcoal grey. Somewhat unexpectedly he added, "Have you done your taxes this year?"

We fell into conversation; he was bored and cold, and I was grateful for the human contact. His name, I soon learned was David. He was younger than me but not young, perhaps ten years my junior, and he worked for the firm of tax preparers who had a storefront next to the restaurant. They took it in turns to dress up and flag down the passing traffic. That didn't mean business was quiet, though: they were so busy they could hardly spare a soul to wear the costume. I suppose the technique must have been a productive one.

"I'm glad I don't work there," I said, "on a day like this. You must be freezing."

"Where do you work?" he said, and when I told him I was a retired accountant, he laughed. "Are you sure you want to stay retired? We really need someone to help out, and if you're good with figures, you can pick up the rest of it in no time. Really-- the computer does most of the work. I've only been here a few months myself, and I learned it in a week."

And so it was that I became a temporary tax preparer. As David had said, the work was not hard to pick up, but soon became a source of fascination. I felt that my mind, recently blunted by retirement, was being sharpened again. The customers were generally friendly, and it was something of a joy to be able to announce large refunds to people who were obviously struggling to make the rent. Most of my new coworkers kept themselves to themselves. David, however, was a mystery.

I should put my cards on the table here. When Mary was dying, she made me promise that I would never get involved with another woman, and this is a promise I have kept. But I believe Mary never knew of my attraction to other men, and on that subject I made no promise. Now, as soon as we had met, I felt an immediate attraction to David. Over the first few weeks we worked together, it deepened into... what shall I call it? An infatuation? A crush, perhaps? But I could not mention my feelings during work hours, and David and I never arrived or left at the same time. There was certainly no chance of a conversation when he or I were out dressed as the statue; the other one would always be indoors helping the customers.

My only hope was the hour's lunch break we both took each day, which happily coincided. In my first weeks, I always returned to my favourite restaurant next door, and I had hoped to invite David to join me; but as soon as twelve o'clock struck, he would excuse himself and leave, not returning until one or sometimes even a little later. Naturally, this bred frustration in my heart, but also curiosity. Perhaps I should have asked him where he was going, but we never had a spare moment. Perhaps it was wrong to decide to follow him at a safe distance, but my curiosity was eating me.

One Thursday, the last day of April, I waited five minutes after he left, so that he would have a head start, and then followed him through the door in the back office. It led out into a small parking lot, and beyond that undeveloped land. The trees and bushes grew right up against the tarmac. I saw fresh footsteps in the mud, and pushing the leaves aside I crept into the woods.

I was quiet. A light step and a gentle touch have been my gifts since I was young. Carefully avoiding the great boughs of poison ivy, I crept through those woods, until I saw David in the middle distance, standing beside a tree. I paused and held my breath, but he had not seen me.

He was naked. His clothes lay in a pile on a nearby bush, carefully out of the mud which covered his feet. He stood before a great oak, with his fingers curled into its ribbed bark. My eyes naturally drifted to his stiff cock, which was everything I had imagined it to be on my nights alone, except that I had never imagined it being ground up against the trunk of a tree.

David was thrusting his pelvis over and over against the bark. For a moment I was startled, and then aroused. My hand found its way to my own cock, achingly hard, pulled it out, and began to attend to business. David wrapped his arms around the tree and thrust harder. His hands didn't meet on the other side of the trunk, and seconds later he came, crying out, his back arching back, and it was all I could do to keep from making any noise as my own orgasm swept over me. For a few seconds I did nothing: I could hardly see straight, and somehow I wanted to stay exactly as I was; but I had been spying on him and he must not know. I cleaned myself up with a few nearby leaves and crept back to the office. Fortunately, David chose another path and, I still believe, did not see me. I could think of nothing else all that afternoon, and I could hardly endure the bus journey home before my evening of frantic masturbation in memory of the scene.

I woke up the next morning, Friday, May Day, and wondered for a moment whether it had been a dream. If not, perhaps it would be unwise to repeat my spying. But twelve-ten found me again creeping out of the office, and in the same place I saw him fuck the same tree. My heart felt ready to burst out of my chest, and my cock was so hard it ached, but this time I did not touch myself. I had to investigate.

David gathered up his clothes and left, and I crept forward before the tree and disrobed with shaking hands. David's semen was still fresh on the trunk; I moved slightly around the tree and found a fresh spot. The cold mud embraced my feet; I faced the oak and dug my fingers into the bark as David did, and touched my cock to the wood. It was not like the softness of a cunt, not like the roughness of a hand, but rough beyond that, like a million points of pleasure all touching me at once.

It felt... good.

I pushed against the tree and felt pleasure wash over me. My skin prickled with lust in a way I had not felt since Mary and I were young lovers. And suddenly I felt how alive the tree was, and how alive was the human animal called "me"; and how the two lives, so different in form, were somehow coming together. I felt the warmth of the sunshine on my back, and what breeze could reach this deep in the woods on my skin; I heard the leaves rustle and the distant birdsong. And I looked up.

I had expected branches and sky. But in the pattern of the branches, I saw the face of a god. A local god, a woodland deity, a fertility figure. I knew in a moment that this tree was something more than a tree, that this whole woodland was and had always been his domain, and that I was but a courtesan; and yet my cock grew harder, for the act of worship I was being allowed to perform was the greatest of honours.

As this realisation washed over me, I reached a new stage of pleasure; my knees felt weak, my head swam, and I fell into a kneeling position; it seemed appropriate. The god was standing before me, looking down. His hands were on my shoulders. I took his great wooden cock between my lips and began to suck. My eyes never left his face.

I am growing old. When I die, I want to dream of this moment for ever.

My mouth, filled with the taste of wood, began to fill with the taste of sap. My heart sang, and I felt I was about to come myself when I heard a noise behind me. It was David. He had seen us, and he knew I knew his secret. But I looked into his eyes and into the eyes of the tree, and I knew he was not a jealous god.

David was naked again. The tree pointed at him; I bowed my head, then turned and fell on all fours before David, covering his cock with kisses. As I took it in my mouth there was a brief moment of pressure from behind, and then the tree was filling me; it ached for a moment and then I felt there was nothing but the three of us in the world. I don't know how often we came. It didn't seem to tire us out. I do know that neither David nor I went back to work that afternoon.

And as darkness was falling I wordlessly asked the oak for one favour. Dewey, I enclose its gift: a single acorn. I am growing old. When I die, I want you to plant this acorn deep in my grave. Even in death I want to be filled by its goodness, and enjoy it forever.