Seasons of the Mind Ch. 03

3. Autumn

The young woman stood and reached to pull a raincoat 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 the carriage windows, leaves were in the air at the end of a blustery autumn day. They swirled by the railway track as the wind caught them. The sun sweeping across the landscape in vivid patches through gaps in the clouds gave a sudden highlight to the browns, reds and golds of the trees, colours that would soon give way to bare naked branches. Already the trees were looking sparser as the wind caught and blew their branches this way and that; a wind doing its job of detaching and whirling the leaves away across the land. Overhead despite the occasional shafts of sunlight the sky had the look of rain. Umbrellas would not be proof against it when it came: the wind would turn them inside out.

Slowly the woman began to do up the buttons of her buff coloured raincoat and fasten the cloth covered buckle of the matching belt with its big brass eyelets.

Harris had been pleased to see the woman dressed sensibly for the day. A warm jumper, vee necked in a vivid rust autumnal colour almost hiding the green shirt beneath; below a green/brown mix tweed skirt hanging a little below her knees and on her feet sensible brogues—a shoe for the weather. Perhaps the woman had a walk to make from the train back to her flat or house. He watched from his seat as the girl's fingers worked the buttons.

From her pocket a green woollen hat which she carefully smoothed over her hair before turning to walk down the carriage.

Harris, further down the carriage whispered "excuse me" to the man sitting next to him, exited his seat and walked down the carriage in the direction of the woman.

Something made her pause in her step; she turned and looked back down the carriage and saw Harris. Her face betrayed recognition—she had not noticed him tucked in beside a window but she knew him now. She did not turn back. Harris smiled his thin smile in acknowledgement. She did not smile.

The train entered the tunnel.

She was not sure if it was the train's lighting dimming and failing or, instead, her own eyesight. She could hear the movement of the train's wheels, the echo from the walls of the tunnel fading. It seemed as if the train was slowing. Light, sound and movement all seemed to be going away from her as she drifted into an all enclosing blackness. It was strangely quiet.

"Where am I going?" The woman spoke but was there anyone to hear?

Inside the carriage the air had been still, not even the air conditioning really causing any movement but now she could feel a breeze as if she was no longer in the carriage but already out on the platform in the autumn weather.

The woman moved, the sound of dried leaves crackling under foot and with the sound came a brightening of light. The woman found herself not on the platform of the station, not in the town but at the edge of a small copse looking out across stone walls and fields down to a valley and mountains beyond. She could hear the wind above her and feel a little wind in her face despite the protection of the trees.

Behind her Harris, leaning on a stout walking stick; Harris immaculately dressed for the country in tweed; indeed a plus four Keepers Tweed suit with matching cap. His rust red socks adding a touch of colour to the brown of the suit and on his feet, like the woman, rubber soled brogues. A sensible shoe for walking.

The woman turned knowing Harris would be there.

"How?" she asked.

Harris smiled but did not answer.

"Another walk?"

Harris spoke. "The mountains beckon."

Beyond the copse a track could be discerned, leading both to and from the valley—both up and down the hill. The woman walked forward a few yards and stepped onto the track; she looked uphill where the path skirted along and around the copse of trees and then made its way across the field to a dry stoned wall. It was the limit of the intake, beyond it the field changed to moor and mountain. The mountain rose up stark above them, a break in the cloud racing across the field passed over Harris and the woman and carried on up the mountain showing its full glory for a moment or two.

"This way?"

Harris smiled.

The woman looked the other way down into the valley for a moment and then set off uphill with Harris following, the wind catching at her raincoat.

"I'm not interested you know."

They had reached the stone wall.

"Not interested in sex, not today, not one little bit. It's been a rotten day and I am tired and was looking forward to going home, a cup of tea and just sitting down. And now here—wherever here is—I am." There was a pause, " I'm not thirsty either."

The allusion was not lost on Harris.

"Come, the walk will refresh you, raise your spirits. The higher we climb, well, the better it'll be."

The woman raised her right leg and put the brogue on the stone step of the stile. A neat ankle in a brown cotton sock showed above the well polished tan of the full brogue. She lifted herself up before raising her leg again to get over to the other side of the stile.

There is nothing at all wrong with a skirt for walking if it is loose enough. Better perhaps than trousers in many ways. It allows more freedom of movement to the lower limbs jsut when you need to stretch. The woman's tweed skirt was sensible and proof against the wind. What her climb upon the stile did reveal, the act of raising her leg causing the skirt material to slide a little up her leg, was her shapely knee poking out from under skirt and raincoat. A bare knee moreover and start of thigh above. She was not, as clearly evidenced, wearing tights but long brown socks reaching just below her knee, neatly turned on down on themselves. leaving her upper leg bare.

Perhaps she did not have to look to know Harris would be looking at her leg—her leg above the sock. It was inevitable, it was what men did. An explanation came. "I didn't bother with tights today, not in this skirt."

The tap of the metal ferrule of the walking stick on stone as Harris came over the stile. He followed her as she strode onwards along the clear path between the heather, a twisting path rising steadily towards the mountain.

Over the wall the wind seemed to fall away, the flank of the mountain at that point sheltering. In the distance another wall with gate or stile—it was too far to discern. As the woman walked she unbuckled and then undid her raincoat. Half way to the wall she took it off.

"Warm work despite the weather." The sun was shining through the clouds at that moment and, being out of the wind, it was pleasant even quite warm. It was obvious it would not last. There was still a light breeze

"May I carry?"

"Why not. You brought me here." The woman looked around her and handed her raincoat to Harris.

"I do feel better, you know; I think I do, after all, have the energy to climb your mountain!"

A first smile from the woman.

She strode off. By the time Harris reached the wall she was already up on the stile, brogues planted firmly, standing astride the stone and looking back towards the distant copse and then up towards the mountain.

"Magnificent scenery. Where are we? The Lakes?"

Harris smiled, said nothing but looked at the woman. She looked fine standing there, her chin well up, her eyes scanning the horizon, her chestnut hair captured in her hat but still visible and being moved by the light breeze, her trim body standing with poise, her breasts pushing at the rust coloured jumper giving it a fine womanly swell, the roundness of her hips within her tweed skirt both pleasing and suggesting fecundity, below that her brown cotton clad calves and shiny tan brogues planted on the stone. A vision of healthy, young, country womanhood. It was not that she was unfashionable in her clothes but it could so equally have been a picture of walking in the 1930s, an advertisement for the country air, perhaps by a railway company. Her hair, though, was a little long for the time—an anachronism.

"Right then, on?" And she was off again. Another stretch of moorland but rising. A dip down and a beck to be crossed. In the dip of the land the movement of air was completely stilled, it was actually quite hot. The woman paused looking at the gill and on to where, a little way below, it dropped into a small pool.

"In the summer you could bathe in that and sit on the rocks in the sunshine and dry."

"Would you like to?"

"Not today—too cold and it's not just the water; and I am not taking my clothes off for you—it's not the beach! And I don't..." She did not finish her sentence. But a frown came to her face.

"A pity, I'd imagine you as a nymph, an Oread, a mountain water nymph bathing or perhaps sitting on a rock."

"And you as a satyr with your..." She shook her head and walked on, climbing higher, Harris following.

One last stile and then the path ahead rose more steeply, a steeper path climbing the now rocky flank of the mountain. Again the woman was first onto the stile, climbing onto it with her knee once more showing; but, rather than climbing over it, she rested not sitting facing forwards or back but astride its top, a narrow blade of stone.

"Oh, that's a bit cold!" She raised herself up a little but then, once more, settled down, her skirt a little rucked up, her bare knees open to the air.

"It's you isn't it? It is you! I wasn't before; not at all; it is you! How do you...?"

An apparently puzzled look on Harris face as he looked up at the girl seated astride the stile, seated as if on horseback, the stone between her legs.

"Oh, you know. I know you know! You said, I remember it, you said as we climb higher my spirits would rise. I had not realised what you meant by my spirits: that you meant my, my arousal."

She was rubbing herself, clearly rubbing herself on the stone of the stile.

"I thought it was nothing, an itch at first but it's not, is it? Not at all. What are you doing to me?" She looked up beyond the wall to the mountain. "It'll be cold, too cold. What have you up there? A refuge, a hut, a bothy?"

Harris shook his head, "there's just the mountain."

"Too cold, it's sheltered here but you can see that it's not further on. Too cold and how did you know, how did you know?"

Harris still looked quizzical.

"How did you know I would not be wearing panties, how could you know, how could you know?"

She was still moving, rubbing herself on the stone, clearly rubbing herself intimately.

Understanding seemed to dawn on Harris' face but he said nothing.

"On up then?" She asked.

Harris nodded.

With apparent reluctance the girl stood, one foot still on each side of the stile, the blade of the stone rising up between her knees, a hand on stone for balance and a leg swung over revealing a little more thigh to Harris. She walked on.

Harris followed her up onto the stile, his hands helping himself up as his feet climbed the steps. At the top he paused and watched the woman ahead making her way up the steep rocky path; already she was well above him. He looked down; the smooth blade of stone forming the summit of the stile, full two feet in height, an obstacle to step over, showed a small wet patch. It might shortly be washed away by rain but for the moment the cold inanimate stone had felt the hot, wet caress of a woman's sex. Again Harris' thin smile came, he paused for a moment looking at the moistened stone before he too stepped over the stile and followed the woman up the mountain.

A corner turned and the wind returned. It had been gentle across the moor but as the path wound its way between rocks, turned and ventured up a gully the wind came strong, blowing over the mountain and down towards them. The woman's hat came off letting her chestnut hair fly free and stream behind her. She turned but Harris had already stooped and caught the errant clothing as it rolled down the path towards him.

"Oh, good: thought I might well have lost it." Harris handed it to her and she jammed it back on, "and my coat, I think."

The unfolded coat flapped and seemed to be trying to escape and make its own way back down the mountain and across the valley by air. It did not succeed. Buttoned and belted once more the woman stepped back onto the path to battle with the wind.

It was a sharp climb upwards, foot in front of foot, the occasional hand having to be used and still the wind rushed down upon them. If they had thought the wind strong there, it was nothing to the gusts as they reached the col. Harris pointed to the left and they made their way across a smooth grassy slope falling away on either side towards a further ascent.

One gust pushed the woman over. One moment striding purposefully, the next on her back on the grass, coat and skirt blown upwards and much thigh revealed showing white above her long brown socks. Momentarily shaken, she lay there before Harris reached and pulled her up by the hand again.

The woman stood, bracing herself against the wind and nodded her thanks.

Harris raised his walking stick in the air and shook it:

"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,

That make ingrateful man!"

Had Harris a long white beard and hair streaming in the wind, with rags blowing about him he might have made a passable Lear but his voice was certainly strong above the noise of the wind and his declamation sound.

The woman came close and shouted "King Lear," in his ear before they moved forward hand in hand, battling the wind, across the ground.

As suddenly as it had begun the wind dropped. Their journey forwards took them up beside a spur of shielding rock. They had reached the shelter of the next stage of the ascent; once more the mountain sheltering them from the strength of the wind.

Harris swung his walking stick forward and, pushing at it with his hand, made to walk on.

"Does that help?"

He looked at the stick.

"This?"

"Yes."

"It would help you. You can borrow..."

"No, I'm all right. I just wondered."

"You can try it later."

The path was rocky and they had to clamber. The girl ahead of him, her hands reaching, her brown cotton clad calves pushing.

The girl rested and Harris came up beside her.

"Are you finding it hard?" Harris asked.

The woman looked at him sideways and down to his trousers.

"Are you?"

Harris' thin smile. "Not yet."

"But it's far too chilly."

"Perhaps." He was saying nothing more it seemed.

"I'm fine walking—climbing, only..."

Harris' eyebrow rose, "Only what?"

"It's, it's; I'm dripping, it's running down my thighs."

The woman raised her tweed skirt, opening her coat and legs: there, close to her knees, a little rivulet was running down. An intimate revelation.

"You said it. The higher I climb. Despite the exertion, despite the chilling wind...I've got to. I've simply got to fuck. There's no doubt. I've got to do something. Would you, could you, please?"

"Not yet."

"How do you... I mean, everything I see reminds me... look, look at this."

Her hand reached and touched a jagged piece of rock. "It just makes me think of a hard, erect penis. Look at it, hard, pointing—right so far—but sharp, cutting sharp; no use at all. Why can't the rock be smooth? Why couldn't this rock be beautifully smooth, shaped like a beautifully curving man's erection so I could just get up on it, push at it and fuck like there was no tomorrow. Big though! Fuck, I want something hard in me. Fuck the mountain. The mountain—it's just so fucking male rising up and up like it does. Strong, hard, thrusting upwards. I want to fuck so much. What have you done to me? I mean, I just don't talk like this—normally."

"The smooth rock would be cold. Too cold surely?"

"I'm so hot I wouldn't notice. Didn't notice the stile... well not much. I'd warm it all right!"

"We should climb further."

"Must we? My thighs are sliding together as I walk, I've never been so wet... not like this not running with... touch me, please touch me. Why won't you get your cock out? Fuck me, make me come, please!"

Her hand was still holding the shard of rock.

"We haven't reached the top. Come." His hand reached and held hers. She seemed to shudder at the touch but not with revulsion, seemingly quite the opposite. The touch of a man.

Up they climbed, it was steady work, the man pulling the girl behind him.

Another turn and the mountain fell away from them on one side only to rise a little way off to a pinnacle of rock, a soaring needle of rock. Possibly climbable but only with considerable rock climbing gear: carabiners, pitons, belay devices, harnesses and ropes. It rose vertically upwards, a massive pillar of rock. The sun chose that moment to break through the clouds bathing the pinnacle in golden light. The woman stood as if transfixed.

She began to laugh, almost with a touch of hysteria, "Look, the mountain's got an erection, a fucking enormous, rock hard erection." She backed into Harris, her bottom moving against him—rather more than suggestive—rubbing hard.

"Please, please just lift my skirt. You know I've no panties. Go on, just stick it in and fuck. Take me, please." She was pushing against the hardness in his trousers. "I can feel the fucking thing—I know it's there!"

"Not yet. We must climb further. Patience." Harris tapped his walking stick.

"Fuck you."

She stomped off on up the track and then all of a sudden bent and picked something up. "Look!" Her excitement palpable.

The stone in her hand was not like the others underfoot, not rough or jagged but smooth and polished. Perhaps a man made tool for some Stone-age man or woman's unknown purpose. Some four or five inches long, rounded at both ends. The girl was stroking it with evident excitement, "Look, a little erection—all for me!" Her fingers were holding it, stroking it just like she might the real thing.

"A bit small."

"Better than fucking nothing since you aren't prepared to get your cock out." She got crafty. "Why don't you let me compare."

"Not yet."

She pouted and reached under her skirt. It was obvious, obvious as anything what she was going to do. The sudden concentration on her face, a wince when she touched something interesting with the stone and then the wide open eyes indicating Stone-age man's tool was entering her body. Her mouth dropped open and she was shuddering. Her thighs clamped tightly together evidently holding it.

"Cold? Is it cold?" asked Harris.

"Fucking cold but I'm so hot and it feels... at last something there, something substantial, something hard, something in me. I want a man, I want a penis!" It was almost a wail. "If only you would..."

Harris tapped his walking stick on the ground.

They walked on. The stone was not left behind them.

A hard climb faced them pulling with hands at times and, with the wind returned, it was not easy but then the path eased as it wound back into the lee of the mountain.

The woman sat down on a rock, panting a little from the exertion, her faced flushed but whether that was from the climbing or her arousal—or both was difficult to know. She spread her knees within her skirt and raincoat and reached inside. It was obvious from her movement that she had grasped the stone and was moving it inside her—in and out, in and out. "Oh, oh, oh that's nice. Why can't I come, why can't I come?"