Helen's Story

***

I turned to face her and then we kissed. That first kiss was long and passionate. Our tongues flickered against one another as I held her body against me, her breasts firm against my chest and my penis hard against her belly. In our hunger and need we continued to devour each other. We paused.

"Now take me to, bed," she said. "Please."

We were still wet from the shower when we tumbled into bed oblivious to the water dripping from our bodies and onto the sheets. Our kissing became increasingly passionate. Then I kissed her neck and her ear lobes before I stopped, bent my head, and kissed each of her breasts in turn before taking each nipple between my lips. Helen moaned gently.

As she lay on her back I continued to kiss her breasts, reached down, and parted her thighs gently with my hands. Her skin was smooth and hairless, and as I found her slit I found that she was sopping wet. I looked up and saw her staring wide-eyed back at me.

"I don't need any foreplay. I need you to fuck me. Now! Hard!"

She spread her legs wide, and I lay between them and slowly entered inside of her. She was silent as my prick slid into her warm slick passage but when I started to move in and out she started to groan quietly. At first, I moved slowly, and then I moved more quickly. She raised her thighs into the air and put her arms around my back. I heard her speak. When she spoke, her voice was thick with need.

"Harder! Faster! Pleeeaasse!"

I gave her what she needed and wanted. The mattress creaked, my balls slapped against her, and she continually groaned as I furiously and rapidly drove myself in and out of her. I heard her speak again.

"Yes!Yes! OhYessssssssssss!"

Her head moved rapidly from side to side, her body bucked and trembled underneath me, and her vaginal muscles tightened and relaxed before, after twenty seconds, she stopped moving and lay still. When she recovered, she looked at me and smiled embarrassedly at me.

"What must you think of me? I wanted you so badly. And it has been such a long time....."

Her voice tailed off.

"I love you, Helen," I said.

She stared back at me.

"I love you too."

We lay together and we kissed again, and she must have felt my hardness.

"I'm so selfish, and not very good at this. You didn't come."

"Not inside of you."

"Don't worry about that. I'm safe. The day after we met my mother came to my room before breakfast. She told me that she'd seen the way we looked at each other and gave me some of her pills. Then I saw an MD In LA. He prescribed some more.... Now where we? ... No more idle chit-chat."

She reached down and took my penis in her fist and slowly moved it up and down my shaft. It felt wonderful and I reached down and slowly started to rub her in return.

"Please kiss my boobs," she moaned, and then a little later she spoke again, "Please fuck me again. This time I want you to come inside me."

This time we came together. I felt Helen writhe and stiffen beneath me, her eyes grew big, her mouth opened wide, and she let out a long sigh of pleasure and relief whilst I finally emptied my seed into her.

Afterward, we lay in bed and cuddled and talked and cuddled some more.

"Your mother is very perceptive."

"She knows I'm a lot like her and doesn't want me to make the same mistakes. Don't let their respectability fool you. My father is Canadian, and my mother is American, originally from Sausalito. They met in San Francisco in 1967 during 'The Summer of Love.' It's difficult to imagine either of them wearing love beads and smoking pot but that's when I was conceived. Mum may have believed in free love, but she didn't believe in contraception, or at least she didn't practice it.

But I'm not identical to Mum. I don't believe in free love. I've only slept with one person before you, and it took him four weeks to get me into bed. And here I am with you, the very first time I've been alone with you.

My Dad would freak. He left the hippy trail and embraced respectability with a passion. I love him but he wouldn't want me to behave like my mum did."

She paused for a moment, thought, and continued speaking.

"I've been rather bad."

I wouldn't say that.

She smiled.

"Not that. I didn't do the plates."

***

Helen was the near-perfect woman, girlfriend, and later, wife. She was beautiful and sexy, intelligent, and witty, kind, and charitable. You can't have everything though, and I was a better cook and a far better photographer.

On a table in the lounge, Helen placed the photographs we took during the first minutes of our life together. On the right, was the photograph of Helen and her parents that I took. The photograph was an unremarkable holiday snap but was of reasonable quality. On the left, was Helen's photograph of me. When she had told me that she took terrible photos, she had not lied. The photograph was of me in my blue jeans and wearing my vintage blue number ten Jim Zorn Seahawks jersey, but both I and the Dyerville Giant behind me were leaning at a pronounced angle towards the left.

***

For now, the framing of the crooked photograph was in the future. That first evening we never did get to clear the table, but instead fell asleep in each other's arms.

The following day was a Friday and whilst I was at work, Helen went to Point Grey and returned to my apartment early in the evening. That evening we went to bed before dinner and then again afterward. In that time, I introduced her to the doggy position, and she rode me cowgirl and reverse cowgirl, and I was able to observe the physical perfection of her body. She must have come a half dozen times before she gave me a blow job and I came in her mouth.

The next weeks were a time of exploration. We discovered many of the things we had in common and some of the few things we didn't. We both enjoyed long walks, books, cinema, Leonard Cohen, The Band, and ice hockey. I disliked orange marmalade intensely whilst Helen never ate cheese. Helen knew nothing about American football and had never been to a match and had never done soixante-neuf. Getting down to Seattle to see the Seahawks play took a little effort but the latter was much easier.

Helen was very comfortable in her skin, very physical, and loved sex. The first months we were together we took every opportunity to fuck. One evening, early in our relationship, she finished classes early and let herself into my flat where she waited for me to return from work. She met me at the door completely naked apart from an old shirt knotted at the front hiding her tits but only accentuating her nakedness, Bare from the waist down, her big round arse and slit were on display.

I didn't need to be asked twice. I lay on the bed naked and on my back and showed her how to kneel astride my face and then lie forward, Then as I started to lick her snatch, she took my shaft in her hand and my swollen tip between her lips.

I found her clitoris and licked, slowly at first and then more quickly. Her juices flowed, she tightened her thighs around me and ground her slit against my face as she worked my penis in her hands and mouth. I sensed the onset of her orgasm before it arrived. She had been lying with her boobs against my chest but now she raised herself, stopped wanking me, and held my shaft tight in her hand. Then her thighs trembled and tightened around me, she ground desperately against me, and she took her climax.

Twice more, I licked her to orgasm, but I was still not finished. She rolled onto her back and with her legs spread, I knelt between them and pushed my prick inside. There was no resistance. She was sopping wet and so aroused that she came twice in as many minutes.

***

We were married the following May. She had finished her third year of study and was going to sit the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) in June. It was the perfect time.

The day after the wedding we flew to San Francisco, hired a car, and drove to Hopgood where we had reservations for the night at the Thatcher Hotel. I had also made a reservation for the table that we had sat at with Helen's parents only nine months previously.

Then the following day we drove North on US 101 and onto the "Avenue of the Giants" until we reached the turn-off for Rockefeller National Forest. When we reached the car park we got out and walked the short way along the trail. There in the gloom stood the tree where I had first seen Helen.

"This is where we met," she said. "Have you ever wondered what would have happened if either one of us had arrived here just a few minutes earlier or later? An insignificant amount of time when measured against the life of our tree. We would have passed each other by, and our love would never have been born.

This tree... our tree.. will still be here long after we are dead and gone. Sometimes I wonder what happens to love when we die. Does it die with us, or does it live on? Do we take it with us when we die, or do we leave it behind? I love you so much. I really do. And I never want to stop loving you or you loving me, and it frightens me."

Then she hugged me tight so tight that I could hardly breathe.

***

Back in Vancouver life moved on. Helen was successful in her application to the Peter Allard School of Law at UBC and following graduation joined her father's law firm. I was promoted within my company to a management position and seven years after we married Helen gave birth to our daughter Emily. I few years after that we moved home to a house in Kitsilano only a ten-minute drive from Emily's grandparents.

It was around that time that I learned to fly and obtained my private pilot's license, and on Emily's tenth birthday, the three of us flew down to Humbolt County Airport stopping in Salem overnight. From there it was an easy one-hour drive to the redwoods and "our tree." Emily had wanted to visit the "crooked tree" in the framed photograph we had at home in the lounge, so a visit to the Founders Gove was also on the itinerary.

It was then that we learned that the Dyerville Giant, which Helen and I had first seen in 1988, had fallen and was lying on its side with its roots exposed. It had fallen in March 1991.

Emily's tenth birthday was in 2005 and Helen and I had been married for seventeen years, yet our love was as strong as it had ever been. She was just as beautiful as she had been when we first met and as the years passed neither her beauty nor our love faded.

***

In the Autumn of 2005 disaster struck. Our world changed.

It started like any other day. Emily was at school and Helen and I had gone our separate ways to work. Just before midday, I received a phone call. It was the police who told me that Helen had been involved in a road traffic accident and was being taken to Vancouver General Hospital. They could give me little information except to say that a truck had collided with her car at a junction, and she had multiple injuries.

When I arrived at the hospital a nurse asked me to wait whilst an assessment of her injuries could be made and then after about half an hour, a grim-faced doctor in a white coat appeared.

"I'm Dr James," he said. "Are you Helen Marks's husband?"

"Yes, I am. How is she?"

"I'm very sorry. She's in a critical condition. She suffered head trauma and is in a coma. The neurosurgical team are assessing her now, but they are not hopeful".

"What do you mean," I said, dry-mouthed and my heart sinking.

"It's very likely she's going to die."

I couldn't believe what he was telling me. I remember feeling sick.

"Please God, no!"

"I'm really sorry. I'll get back to you when I have more news. In the meantime, would you like us to call a priest?"

"Yes, please," I mumbled. "I must call her parents."

One hour later, we were with the priest when the doctor returned.

"I'm sorry there was nothing we could do, he said. She's gone. Her brain was too badly damaged."

That was when I lost control and broke down and cried.

The next days were the worst of my life. Helen was a registered organ donor and had been placed on life support to preserve her organs for transplantation and I was able to see Helen before they switched the ventilator off.

She lay in bed as if she were in a deep sleep. Her beautiful face remained unblemished although the crown of her head was bandaged. She had a tube inserted in her neck through which air was delivered to her lungs. The room was silent apart from the beeping of the machine and the rhythmical whisper of air as it was pumped. I held her tiny hand still warm, kissed her on her lips, said my goodbyes, then turned and left the room.

The doctors had explained to me that although her body was intact her brain was irrevocably damaged, and she was brain-dead and would never recover. Although my father-in-law understood this, Helen's mother refused to accept this, and there were many arguments and tears before the machine could be switched off. Emily was simply told her mother had died and had refused to see Helen in the hospital, sparing herself a little extra grief.

The family rallied around. My parents and brother arrived at my house that evening. Helen's parents, George, and Mary were already there. Over the next few days, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other assorted folk arrived in Vancouver from all over North America. Many of them I had never met before, but they were all united in sharing my grief.

I knew that Helen wished to be cremated, but like many young people, we had not discussed this in any detail although she had made a will leaving everything to me. Then in the evening of the day after she died, George handed me an envelope.

"Helen gave this to the firm for safekeeping. She would want you to have it now. I'll leave you to read it alone."

The envelope was addressed to me, To Chris and to be opened in the event of my death, and was handwritten in Helen's distinctive bold writing. George was right. I wanted to be alone to read its contents, so I went to my study, locked the door, and sat at my desk. Then I took a deep breath, opened the envelope, drew out a single sheet of paper covered in writing, and started to read.

My Darling,

If you are reading this it means that you have outlived me, and I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I have never feared dying. It happens to us all. What I have feared from almost the moment I met you is a life without you. I appear to have escaped that, and if I were alive as you read this, I suppose I would feel selfish for managing that. My gain is your loss, and I can only imagine what you must be feeling as you read this, I know that you love me as much as a man can love a woman and every day since we met I have been grateful for that.

One day soon we will be together again but for now, you still have a life to live, and the afterlife must wait, as I must wait for you. Look after Amy and make sure she grows up to be a good person. You are still young, and men are useless without a woman to look after them and fuck them, so if the mood takes you and you find another, be my guest. I'm sure it's possible for some folk to love more than one person at the same time although I'm not one of them.

If you do find another woman please make sure you fuck her brains out whilst you are both alive because I am not into threesomes and do not plan to share her with you in the afterlife. She can only have you in the interim, so she needs to take her opportunities whilst she draws breath,

I imagine that, as you read this, I am awaiting cremation and I have one last request. Please sprinkle my ashes at the base of "our tree." What remains of me will become part of the tree and live on. Who knows my spirit may even find a place there.

As I write this you are asleep in our bed. I think I exhausted you. My cunt still tingles from the caress of your tongue and your seed is still leaking between my legs.

I love you so much. Now and for always

Helen XXXX

***

She was cremated a little over a week later. Shortly after that, the crowds dispersed and George and Mary, and Emily and I were alone. This too, was a difficult time.

I remember lying in bed raging against the injustice of her loss and the stupidity of a truck owner who had not serviced his brakes correctly. Then I started to take just a little solace in the fact that her death had not been useless. Somewhere in the province, her cornea had given sight to somebody, and her heart and lungs, kidneys, and liver had all been harvested and transplanted into people who would live or have better lives because of this. For weeks, I went through the motions of living, numb to what was going on around me, until slowly I started to piece my shattered life together.

During this period, I still had Amy to care for, and she too, missed her mum dreadfully. Children are, as they say, highly resilient and she was slowly able to move on. George and Mary were rocks during this time and despite their grief were able to help me with Emily. She was all they had of Helen, and they loved her very much.

Six months after Helen's death, in early November, I stood in front of the redwood where I had first glimpsed her. I had received permission to scatter her ashes from the Park Service. It was early morning, and I was alone as I intended. It was a grey cloudy day and I thought it might rain later.

I took the casket containing her ashes and knelt. Then I opened it and emptied them carefully onto the ground.

"Goodbye for now, my darling," I said, and I started to cry.

Just then, the heavens opened, and it started to rain. The tears ran down my face as the rain soaked the undergrowth and started to wash the ashes into the ground where the roots of the old tree waited to absorb some part of her that was already leaching into the soil.

***

The years passed. Raising Emily "straight true and fine" was my focus in life, and she didn't disappoint me. She was a good student and popular at school. She tried to encourage me to find a new romantic interest in my life and on a couple of occasions I dated someone, but it never worked. I was always comparing them with Helen.

Once a year, I visited the tree and spent a half hour or so speaking to Helen and telling her about Emily and her parents and all the goings on in our lives. Occasionally, when there were other visitors to the grove, I saw them looking at me. I imagine they wondered who the strange man was, who was talking animatedly to a tree.

When I first saw the tree there was a large knobbly growth at the base of the trunk. I later found this was a basal or growth burl. Now this burl had started to sprout and five years after I spread the ashes a twelve-foot sapling had grown next to its parent.

After that, I always spoke to the sapling.

In 2013. Emily graduated from high school and then enrolled at UBC to study history. Like her mother and grandfather, she planned to become a lawyer. In 2014 she met Malcolm, a fellow student and they started to live together.

I was fifty years old, and my job was done.

Early in 2015, I returned to Rockefeller National Forest where I stood in front of the sapling and told Helen about Emily and Malcolm.

"It's turned full circle," I said. "Our little girl has grown up and become a woman."

It was then that I thought I heard Helen's voice.

"Thank you, my love. You've raised her well. It's your time now."

"I'm so tired," I replied, and I lay down by the base of the big old tree and the sapling and slept.

*********

In March 2015, the body of a middle-aged man was found in Rockefeller Forest by a family of visitors from Kansas City. They informed the Park Rangers who in turn contacted the police. His wallet contained a BC driving license which identified him as Mr Christopher Marks, a Canadian from Vancouver. In his pocket was the key to a hire car with California plates, and in the glove compartment was his passport with details of his next of kin, Miss Emily Marks, also resident in Vancouver.