She told her what Cesar looked like under his clothes and how his body felt, muscular and warm. She described the mix of satisfaction and guilt that pulsed through her on her walks home from their encounters. Demetria listened most attentively though, when she painted pictures of the positions they made together out in the woods. Cecile was vivid in her descriptions and relished Demetria’s attention when she told her how good she felt sitting with her legs spread and Cesar’s head between them or of the animal satisfaction she felt on her hands and knees with Cesar behind her, thrusting deep.
She told her about her predicament, that now after she had told Cesar how badly she needed him and he had been there, she would have to delay in seeing him again to avoid arousing Auguste’s suspicion. Though Demetria reassured her that it was an affair and there was nothing wrong with not showing up, to Cecile it seemed a betrayal. Cecile left the market shortly after that, this time making no stops.
Although Cecile found her conversation with Demetria cathartic, the other woman found her mind occupied by her friend’s stories afterwards. Demetria had always loved nature and many evenings she would relax and look out at the sky. Now, though, when she saw a stand of trees silhouetted in the sunset, she would see in the middle a six-legged creature, Cecile on all fours and Cesar kneeling behind her. It was so easy to picture Cecile’s face flushed red and lost in ecstasy as she grasped at the grass and felt the wind blow across her skin, beautiful man losing himself in her flesh as he pounded away. She couldn’t help imagining them and wanting what they had for herself.
The cottage where she and her mother lived was on the edge of town, and she enjoyed the solitude, the sense that she was as close to the plains and the woods as she was to the village. Knowing so much now of what went on among those trees had shaken her sense of self and the bond she felt with the natural world though. Demetria was no prude, but it had been several years since she’d had a lover. She had found most men wanted too much to impress her with meaningless gestures and gifts, with words strung together in euphony that meant little more than “let me fuck you.” The alternative, she had assumed, were the sots and lechers who could give her no pleasure, emotionally or physically.
She liked the simplicity of walking outside alone and listening to the birds or watching the trees in the wind and feeling a part of it. Cecile’s stories though, filled her with a strange sort of envy. She had felt that her calmness and solitude made her at home in nature even if her social standing was lesser, but now she realized how much she missed. The breeze through the trees was beautiful and it was hers, but what about the lust and the moans and passion of flesh that those trees hid? As well as she had known the tranquility of the sunset, she followed so few of her baser desires. The singing birds and blooming flowers, after all, were not expressions of beauty but of lust, of mindless urges, and eager sex. She began to feel that these things were just beyond her reach and that even where she had felt so at home, others lived more freely.
On the next Thursday following her conversation with Cecile, Demetria set out for the woods next to the path to the market. It had rained the day before and she grabbed a basket and set out under the pretense of foraging mushrooms. The whole walk there she was filled with anticipation, but she didn’t know for what. Based on what Cecile had told her, she did not expect a man to be waiting there. Likewise, she felt unsure what compelled her to visit the location of her friend’s affair.
Nevertheless, when she came upon a tree with a star carved a foot above her head, she paused then walked briskly into the trees. She walked forward scanning the trees for indications of where to turn next. She saw one marked with an ‘x’ and approached it until she saw another. She continued like this until she came to a clearing. She was not so far in that she would get lost, and the sunlight filtering in was enough to keep the place illuminated. Still, Demetria’s eyes jumped all over the clearing as though she had stumbled into an ancient ruin, some place apart from time.
There was a stump conspicuous in the center of the clearing and next to it an empty bottle of wine. Now that she saw the setting of Cecile’s stories, what had before been vague images in her mind of what occurred in the woods now turned to vivid pictures. She saw shadows cast on naked bodies that seemed to move in unison with the wind, of words and moans that resonated in the canopy.
Demetria had seen the shepherd Cecile told her of on few occasions and even then, only from a distance, but she could see from her friend’s description now how his and her bodies fit together in so many ways, how they let their desires guide them. She envisioned Cecile as a woodland nymph dancing there as she waited, dripping with the nectar of the forest as she lured Cesar in to pollinate her. She imagined him entranced, emerging from the trees as he watched her roll her hips and twist her arms, stepping closer and closer until she had ensnared him in her embrace.
As Demetri fell deeper into her imagination, she started touching herself, her hand caressing her toned thigh under the thin yellow dress that draped softly over her body. When she felt her own wetness, she snapped out of her trance. Though she knew she was alone, she felt imprudent and quickly snatched her basket and headed out of the woods. Time had escaped her mind, and she was unsure how much of it she had spent picturing those two in ecstasy.