The Chickadee Connection

"Oh fuck yes, oh fuck, I'm going to come." His voice, full of urgency and desperation, don't stop, don't ever stop, gave warning, and Deborah stroked one final stroke, the one he needed, and his orgasm exploded, filling her mouth with come. She swallowed and swallowed, but there was so much, she let it drool from her lips.

The idea of his seed erupted through her, and with her own shudder, Deborah came, clenching down hard on his fingers, gripping them tight in her pussy. Deborah came, and her cry startled the bird into flight.

She lay there, the sun warming her body, his cock slowly softening in her mouth, his hands so very gentle in her hair.

Finally, after several silent minutes, she let his cock head fall from her mouth. She couldn't look at him, but said, "I can come again another day, if it's not raining. If you want me to."

"Yes," he replied. "I have a bed." His accent, Deborah sorted out later, wasn't the same as hers, but she couldn't place him.

"God," she said. "What on earth am I doing?"

"Go now," he said, "but come back."

"God yes. To be in your bed?"

"Yes."

* * * *

It rained for the next three days, the weather coming in waves between the sun and the forest, but always clouds in the sky. Deborah didn't go up the Beyonds, but she put the poppet she'd found by her bed, and felt it a connection to the stranger. He'd left it for her, after all.

At night her fingers remembered her mouth on his cock, and the gentle way his hands had held her head when he spilled his semen into her. She found there a surety, as if life had taken a turn and she was on some new trajectory. It tethered her somehow, even though she knew it was more like a dream. The little straw poppet made it tangible, propped there on her bedside table, by the mirror.

"I found a book," she explained to Paul when he saw it, and on the second rainy day, she took herself into the village, to go to the second-hand bookshop there, hoping she'd find an alibi. She also went to the post office, with the excuse of letters to be collected, but more hoping she could talk to Emma.

"The Logan Place," she said, when she saw she had Emma alone. "I saw smoke there, the day we got here. Is someone renting?" It was a natural enquiry, hers being the next valley over, and the community welcoming strangers.

"Aye, it be that," Emma replied, her soft Irish accent making the short reply a song. "A writer, in for the duration." The 'duration' always meant winter. "Are you in for the duration?" people would ask; and that explained the gathering and chopping of wood.

Deborah nodded. "I thought it might be. I heard the sound of an axe, up the Beyonds. Does he come in much, to town?"

"Once a week or so. Different days." Emma looked at Deborah, thoughtfully. "He's a handsome man," she commented, as if the information might be useful, one woman to another, the post mistress knowing these things.

Deborah felt a blush rising. She put a hand to her cheek and turned away.

"Careful, pet," she heard Emma say. The address, an endearment, seemed strange from a woman not far from her own age, but Deborah felt Emma seemed older, wiser than she was. Perhaps it was the Irish fey in Emma, a bit of a witch, or faery. "His eyes, there's a storm in them, some days."

My god, Deborah thought, am I that transparent? She caught herself, and finished her business. A minute later she left the shop with a cheerful tinkle of the bell on the door, and quickly walked back to her car. She sat, looked at herself in the mirror, took three deep breaths to calm herself. Her nipples were rock hard with arousal, and she remembered the velvet touch of his hot cock on her lips.

It was only as she was driving home that Deborah fully registered Emma's words. "There's a storm in them, some days." Which meant Emma had seen his eyes look at her more than once, and she'd seen a storm, some days. Deborah stopped the car, took out her phone, and scrolled through to find tomorrow's weather.

* * * *

"I'm here," she said quietly, the little chickadee flitting about their heads. She'd come down to the chopping place as soon as she saw him arrive, his axe in the empty barrow, his pack there too.

"I'm not brave," she said. "I'm scared witless, to tell the truth, but I had to see you again." She looked shyly up at him from under the brim of her cap, her hair a halo around her face, falling untamed onto her shoulders. "I couldn't wait for the rain to stop. I came as soon as I could."

"You could have come earlier," he replied, "in the rain. I have towels, and plenty of wood for the fire." He gestured around the clearing, and tapped the shaft of his axe.

"Of course I could have." She reached out to touch his arm. He was real. "But the path would be slippery. I might have slipped, broken my neck. Fallen."

"That would never do."

He looked down at her, and she remembered Emma's words, "There's a storm in them, some days." Not today. His eyes were the clear blue of a high summer sky, corners creased in a smile she could die for, his gaze steady on hers. She felt a blush rise, but made herself stay, not look away.

He touched her cheek. "You have a soft beauty. Do you have a name, soft beauty?"

All of a sudden reality rushed in like a shock. Deborah took a step back, horrified at herself, her heart trembling. Now or never, it hit her. Now or never.

"I... I don't think I do. Have a name, I mean. Not actually, not..." She stammered, and found herself lost and helpless, her mind whirling.

He rescued her. "Hush, beauty. I get it." He touched the ring on her finger. "You can still be a beauty, without a name.

"But now," he said, "I need to chop today's load of wood. Then I'll show you the cottage."

He ran his finger down her pale cheek. He meant the bed, but he'd not said it.

Deborah felt her pussy pulse with the first drop of arousal.

"Can I help?" she asked, to take her mind off herself, but really, to focus on him.

"Not while I'm chopping," he replied. "I'd prefer you to stand back in case wood chips go where they shouldn't. Or the axe head flies off the handle." He laughed, so she knew that it wouldn't, so she knew he was a careful man, who wouldn't hurt her.

"But you can help me load up, after, then stack the wood." Which meant down at the cottage, with the full barrow, then later on, inside.

As Deborah watched him, she ran their conversation through her head. In the end, she decided it was all too much to grasp, too much to handle, so she let it all go. She'd do this minute by minute, hour by hour.

"You're Australian," she said, when he stopped for his morning coffee.

"I am," he replied. He gave her the cup and told her why he was there. Deborah, in reply, told him a little about herself, and hoped it would be enough.

"It's getting hot," he said, as he split the last block of wood. He pulled the shirt from his back, and bent to gather up the cut wood.

Deborah bent down to help and could smell him, the hot, masculine smell of a working man's sweat.

"Come, beauty, let's get this lot packed away."

Deborah carried both their packs over her shoulders, and walked beside him as he pushed the full barrow. Not a word had been said about their communion on that distant day, earlier in the week, but Deborah was wet for him already, her pussy already calling. She wondered how on earth she kept thinking straight, as she placed one foot ahead of the other, walking quietly beside him. She could have touched him, but didn't.

At the cottage he pushed the barrow up to the wood shelter, three-quarters filled now with crisp scented wood stacked high in the enclosure. Deborah could see a divide between this year's cut and the last; this year's cut a rich red, the older wood, faded. Deborah felt a small pang in her heart, to see the years marked that way, the past faded, more distant, further away.

She wanted strong, rich colours about her, and wondered why his eyes went darker in a storm.

She helped him unload the barrow, and they got a swinging rhythm between them, neatly and efficiently stacking the latest cut of wood.

"Damn," he said suddenly, and showed her a bleeding finger. "A splinter."

"Show me." Deborah took his fingers and held them, seeing a small bead of blood. She took the splintered finger into her mouth, to suck on the wound to cleanse it. "See," she said, showing him the tiny dark sliver she sensed on her lip, touched on to her finger tip. "All better."

"Not quite," he replied, and touched the finger to her lips for a kiss. "Now I'm better," he said.

She tasted his blood on her tongue. Then, in a sudden shock of bravery, she kissed his shoulder, to taste the tangy salty sweat on his skin. "God; semen, blood and sweat. What's left?"

"Your honey."

Deborah looked at him, and said the words she never could believe she would say. "In your bed?"

"In my bed."

She stood helpless, her wetness dropping, her body calling.

Dee dee, dee dee. The little chickadee had followed them, and was perched on the porch rail, his black tail all a flutter.

"Look," her man said, "he's a matchmaker, that little bird: you and I."

He turned to her and was strong and he was gentle, as he took Deborah into his arms, into his kiss.

Deborah lifted her face to him, and surrendered. She'd never gone to any man more willingly.

He held her against himself, and she felt his arousal, and they kissed for long seconds, until he broke away.

"I'm hot and dirty," he said, "I'm going to rinse off under that shower." He gestured. "Inside, there's a towel. Could you get it? Hanging on a rail inside the bathroom."

"Of course," Deborah replied, and turned from him, towards the door of the cottage. When she got to the door she turned back. He was watching her, still and silent.

Deborah, clear eyed and certain, opened the door and stepped inside.

She saw a traditional old style log cabin, its walls clad with timber panels, with small square glazed windows and a large bed at the far end. The door was centred - to the right a kitchen table, a fridge in the corner, an iron stove. She imagined small loaves of bread, rising, baking, butter melting.

She expected a pot bellied heater, but had not known the old Logans were such good stone masons. The wide fire place was glorious, a thick rug before it, and a comfortable chair to one side. There should have been a cat, but there wasn't.

Deborah inhaled deeply, breathing in the calm maleness of the place, and wondered about his women, before her. There was no woman here, except by invitation, she could easily see that. She suddenly flashed on Emma - had she been here? Deborah didn't know, couldn't care.

The clank of a water pipe reminded her of her purpose, the deep heavy heat in her belly announced another. She looked around, saw a door to one side, and supposed it must be the bathroom. She walked to it and saw that it was, and quickly grabbed the towel from the hook inside. Breathing in the cloth, she could picture the towel across his shoulders. She could dry him.

No, she couldn't. Deborah had held his come in her mouth, but drying a man after a shower was too intimate. It would be like a marriage, doing that. Or a child.

Her mind in several places, none of them coherent, none of them wise, Deborah went back out to him. She was quite prepared to look away, but didn't. She saw his naked body under the shower, turning briskly, a quick slide of soap, a thin line of dark hair on his gut, a small cock from the cold, firm buttocks, a strong back. Deborah couldn't stop looking. Her sex felt swollen, open, yearning.

"Fuck, that's cold," he exclaimed, as he turned the water off. "But invigorating! Hand me the towel, beauty." He reached for her, and she was suddenly shy. She gave him the towel, and looked away. Then glanced back, her eyes drawn to his sex like a magnet.

"Can I get you clothes?" She wanted to be useful, to take her mind off his body.

"Oh. I'd better, I suppose. A warm day like this, I usually don't bother, not till later." He looked at her. "Unless..."

"Unless what?" Deborah astonished herself, saying that.

"Unless you don't mind, me being naked. I mean, you've seen me naked already, sucked my cock."

"Are you always so confident, so blatant? So incredibly confident?" So fucking attractive?

He looked down at himself, back at her. "I suppose I must be." He wrapped the towel around his waist, as a compromise.

"It must have been university, college accommodation, way back when. It was a co-ed college, and they didn't separate men and women on the floors. Tiny towels." He grinned, at the memory. "Tall girls in tiny towels. Very memorable, those that did that. The bathroom blocks were all in the middle of the floors. So they ran from their rooms and back."

"That wouldn't have been me. I'd have died, doing that."

"Or walked, wrapped in a splendid robe, like a queen."

"I might have been able to do that," Deborah said, "if I was all covered up like a queen. I do like the idea of that."

"Let's go inside then, your royal highness."

She blushed. "You're teasing me. I like it really, the attention. But I don't quite know what to do with it. I'm not used to it."

He was surprised. "Not used to it, or don't see it?"

"God no. I don't see it. My height, it puts men off."

"Some men," he said, as he moved towards her, backing her up against the kitchen table, taking her face in his hands. "Ahh, beauty, if only you saw yourself through my eyes."

He kissed her, and saw her eyes close, before he held her tighter.

With one hand he pulled the towel away and it dropped to the floor. She felt a thick heat against her thigh. Fingers at the buttons of her shirt, hands easing the cloth from her shoulders and she helped the undress by wriggling her left shoulder then the right, and the shirt twisted from her, and it too fell to the floor.

Deborah felt his heat as he placed his erection up against her belly, hot against her; and his hands slid up her waist and spine, expertly undoing the clasp on her bra. It didn't fall, her breasts pushed against his chest. She pushed hard against him like waves up a beach or wind through a wood, her body aching so hard to be held.

He took both her hands in his, placed them on the the table to arch her body up against his, her hot breasts against his chest. He pushed her ass against the edge of the table.

"Fuck," he said. "You are beautiful. I've always had a thing for long hair."

"It's always a mess," Deborah said, unable to see her own beauty.

"And long legs," he said, a hand running up her left thigh. She couldn't deny she could walk.

"Tiny towels," she managed to say, as her hips jerked towards his.

"Tall girls, tiny towels, yes." She could hear the joy in his voice as he remembered, and without prompting, she slid down the zip on her jeans and fumbled at the button.

"Let me," he said, and dropped to the floor before her. She caught her bra before it fell, holding it for a second against her breasts in a last shyness, before dropping it to the floor. Her breasts were tight, her nipples thick, her flesh aching. Deborah had to squeeze them against her chest for relief, cupping the firm curves in her hands. Her whole body throbbed like a far away distant train.

He was at her feet, tugging her jeans and underwear down, the denim tight on her strong thighs, fit from walking. He laughed, struggling with her boot laces, before wrestling the boots off her feet. "Bloody laces." He grinned.

"I love the way you Aussies say 'bloody'," she said. "It sounds so casual. We Canadians never say it."

"Too busy saying 'eh?'"

"Eh?" She laughed at her own cliché, that piece of Canuckian folklore probably noticed more by foreigners, strangers to her country.

This man was a stranger, but God, she wished that he wasn't.

Deborah held his head tenderly against her belly, his cheek against her soft pubic hair. She thought, in that moment, that this man, this man in this cabin with her, was so peaceful, as if her presence was simply required; and thus, she was there. She thought of his poppets, his little woven dolls, and thought he might be a conjurer making spells, and she to be caught in them, drawn to him. Why else had she come to him, so willingly?

"Take me to bed," she whispered, before leading him there with a hand on his cock and his hand on a hip to guide her. She had no idea what she was doing, but this man took her there. He lay her with such gentle grace against the two pillows he fluffed up, and arranged her long hair over one shoulder. She thought of her art books, her Goya, her Matisse, and understood why those men painted women, over and over. She thought her beauty ephemeral, couldn't catch it.

"You're a writer," she said, revealing her conversation with Emma. "Will you write about me?"

"I might," he replied, "if you let me."

"Yes," she whispered, as he slid down between her thighs, to peel her apart and to kiss her.

She lay with her legs wide; his cheek on one thigh, his mouth on her clit and his tongue swathing her cunt like an artist's brush. She sighed with the start of long joy, and gently held his head so he wouldn't get away, couldn't get away, wouldn't want to.

"Stay there forever," she whispered, as he entered her with two fingers and beckoned her hither, her body jerking up to his. She could smell herself, her fresh, sexual fragrance, and knew she was flowing.

"God, so wet," he said in a low voice, as he drank from her slow pulsing sex. He found that place inside her, his fingertips summoning her body towards him, and her orgasm began to grow, began to climb. Her hips bucked, and his hands gripped her hips to keep her from floating.

His hand moved up to a breast, and she held his palm tight to her, squeezing his hand onto her flesh. Deborah fell into that place where her mind melted, and all she was, was sensation. She thought it might last forever, but an orgasm slammed into her suddenly, stopping nowhere, making her gasp in surprise.

"Ohhh..." she managed to say, before another wave broke, and she heard herself wail, " ohhh, my Christ, fuck."

But her words were made silent, his mouth suddenly upon hers, and his fingers found again that place inside her, and she couldn't breath, she couldn't breath, until with a long gasp, she sucked his kiss from him as the fingers in her cunt stopped moving, and she felt every pulse in her body beat quickly. She felt her sex throb and clench, holding his fingers there, up inside her.

"You come hard," he said, as he held her.

"And often," she whispered, as she wrapped her arms around him.

"Really?" She could hear a curiosity in him. "How often?"

"Lots often."

"Can we count?"

"Is there a rainbow?" she replied.

She felt him move up her body, and he slid his whole length up her, swiftly and surely, aiming straight up to her heart.

"Every colour," he said, and fucked her.

Deborah keened as he took her, a long sound singing from deep in her throat, "Ohhhh, fuck k k, fuck k k;" then suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, a surge furrowed through her, and she fucked him right back. She spread her legs wide, wrapping them up and around his hips to open herself even wider for him, to take his weight into her, to take him into her cradle.

"Fuck me," she said, "fuck me harder."

He fucked her harder.

Deborah felt some new power slam into her, as if emboldened by her hunger he could take her more brutally, to let his restraint go, to fuck her from some primal place. Like an animal rutting: she'd let him fuck her like that, like the wood takes the axe, to be cleaved.

And yet, and yet, he held her cheek so lightly, as if made of porcelain she might break, some fragile thing inside to be held, gentle and soft, yielding to him, trusting like a child.