The Glasshouse -------------- The English summer evening can be graceful. The sun, seeking shade beyond the edge, posts a golden apology on leaf and pane. At this time I would dream with glazed vulnerablility and romantic thought. A lonely yearning, heightened by glass barriers. An interior and solitary person, I sought the plump cottage `with space' to range in my small, confined world in safety. It neighboured a twin, separated by a tall, derelict stone wall running the acre length of a matching riotous garden. A small green door set in the wall, testifying that neighbours had not always sought apartheid. This door was fast-stuck by generations of ivied suckers. I never sought to tame my jungle of frenzied creepers, wild shubbery and overblown fruit trees. The view from my scullery window was a daily summer surprise of changing colour and shape. An accidental happenstance much like my erratic life. The twin remained empty for the first eight months of my rule. Then the woman came. She slipped into the grey stone walls with ease and quiet. After the initial invasive flush I welcomed her remote companionship. The terror of neighbourly descent waned and I continued in my hermitage. Nothing seemingly altered. Her garden remained a matching riot. Then came the summer evenings and the glasshouse. It rose painfully amidst the shrubs during a day of workmanlike shouts. It filled fast with fernage and exotic blasts. At first a seeming huge blot of curving glass, I watched the sun bless it warmly and approved. The woman visited the glasshouse in the evenings. I discovered this accidentally whilst rummaging in my attic. Through the tiny, grimy window I could see her vista. Her privacy was assured by the garden wall were I elsewhere in my cottage. After the initial shock of that first sighting I shamelessly took station in the attic in anticipation of her further forays. She had a ritual. She would stroll the distance from the rear door to the glasshouse lifting her face to the farewell of day; testing the breeze. The apparently random journey would bring her to the glasshouse. She would pause before the door, shed her clothes unthinkingly on the grass, then enter. I saw her only from the rear. Naked, wide-hipped, not tall. A slight turn, a shifting of heavy auburn hair, a sullen swell of breast. I, cramped and cross-legged for an hour awaited her exit, then an ashamed voyeur, I eased downstairs to ponder in accustomed yearning. After the second sighting I cleaned the window and sought a cushioned comfort. I tummied, elbow propped in dreamy viewing. My nest established, tea and biscuits...a week passed in rear nude appreciation. On the seventh day I was rewarded. I remained longer than the hour and she emerged. She looked straight at my attic window. I froze, clearly outlined now the sunspray had given way to silver pane. My cove was dark but I was a silhouette in the light of the stairwell backlighting. The woman was proudlined. Her deep brown eyes warm and direct. She stood, a looselimbed statue with toffee-tipped curved breasts, swelling stomach and dark-downy crotch. She bent calmly, collected her clothes and glided from view. The next evening the green wall door was forced ajar, trailing jumbled ivy streamers and bruised earth. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In a dream I passed through the torn green portal and entered her glass sanctuary. The mute light filled with fine billowing mist. Her greenhouse was served with overhead sprayers. One reason to be naked. Benches of ferns, fronds clasping damply over aisles. The strong musk of chipped bark, wet peat and dewey mud. And her, poised glittering with fine droplets, nude beside the orchids...lips slightly parted, feet slightly parted. The woman unclothed me gently while I moved in silent-limbed compliance. Our pile of cloth sprawled small on the lawn. She took my hand and smoothed my fingertips across the down of an orchid head. It slid in smooth giving, a warm, moist velvet. The stamen bumped its small erection in my palm, the bruised petals a pungent protest. Then, turning my palm up she placed it, with hers to cup my own pudendum. I felt my clitoris perk stamen-like in my palm and my fingers sought my warm satin, my own moist folds. We slipped our fingers in my wet well and my breath shortened. She met her tongue to the orchid, eyes closed, she licked the down. She closed softly around the shedding stamen and rolled gently. A fine yellow powder coated her lips when she rose and brought them to mine. I sucked her bottom lip, tasting, her tongue feinting. Then we lay, the damp bark sponging beneath us. She sighing as I spread her, kneeled to her opening to suck her buttoning toffee-tips with rolling lips and soft nipping. A heady dip and pungent swirls of bark and her scents. She unveiled in finger parted labia and pink whorls and crevices. She tasted thick and spicy and shifted creamy over my face. My tongue was caught and tucked in hollows and small silk caverns. Her voice...low, quick and foreign, encouraging with small growls. When she came, she trembled hard against my lips and spilled her precious pittance in my moving mouth. We crushed together, peering down at bulged mamma. She courted me with an eager mouth and sighs. She tore the orchid from its dark stem and trailed it over pink aureole and inner thigh. She worked the crumpling bloom in my sopping cleft and brought it, with her lips, to mine to taste and mix. Bending my legs hard up she curved my hips, shouldering my knees. Her tongue sought and forced past my pursed anus, a firm thrust...small muscling demand. Her heavy auburn hair wove wetly on my tensing thighs as I shamelessly rode her, her nose riding slittily. Her hands grabbed and mashed my breasts, stomach and swollen mound. When I shuddered she groaned in ecstasy. Afterwards we traced each other with fern fronds. We peered and compared and laughed, small, deep intimate sounds in the mist. We touched and rubbed, tasted and experimented. Our womenhood meshed and fit, bonded and acknowledged. A glass committed etching of flesh shapes. I learned her name was Eve.