The Garden Recondite

Danielle sat quietly, swinging her legs on the old green seat in the shade of the tree at the place Siobhan and she always met. Her brown legs poked out from under her light cotton dress. She looked down at them and liked what she saw. Shapely and feminine, a good pair of legs in brown strappy sandals. Not just decorative legs but good strong legs which could walk a fair distance and run as well. It was useful having good legs. Her friend, Siobhan, had good legs, so why did the girl not use them to arrive on time!

She sighed, it seemed her lot to wait for Siobhan. If her best friend had been another girl, any other girl - then there would not be all this waiting, but she and Siobhan had been 'thick as thieves' forever. They were paired, and that was how it was.

Up the dusty street came the girl. She could see it was Siobhan, just by the way she walked though the red hair was just a bit of a giveaway! Her hair was down and flowing, all coppery when the sunlight caught it. Mostly, though, she was sensibly walking in the shade.

Unlike Danielle's cool, flowing dotty red dress, Siobhan had on a tee shirt dress. It was simple and effective and looked lovely on her. In effect, simply a long, dark green tee shirt belted with a brown, leather cord to give the whole thing shape. With Siobhan's small breasts it was not perhaps as shapely as it might have been, not as shapely as if Danielle had been wearing it though she would have needed a larger size, no doubt. Danielle's breasts were generous: Siobhan's were not.

"Hi," called Siobhan.

"You're late," Danielle called back. It seemed to be almost her standard response to Siobhan's greeting."

"Doesn't it make you wonder what's behind it?"

Siobhan came across the street, her hair seeming almost to blend into the orange of the brick wall behind her. It was a brick wall with an old, arched, green painted door in it. A door that was always closed. What was behind the wall they did not know because the door was always shut and the wall far, far too high to see over.

Danielle knew what lay beyond the wall made Siobhan wonder and always had. She was intrigued herself, had indeed wondered, but not quite as much as her friend.

Siobhan plonked herself down beside her and tapped Danielle's cotton covered thigh.

"I imagine..." said Siobhan looking back at the wall.

"Fairies?"

"Don't be silly. I sort of imagine a pretty, a really pretty garden with an old grey bearded gardener scratching away with his hoe."

"What like Mr McGregor?"

"Yeah, something like that!"

"What shall we do? I fancy an ice-cream."

"You always fancy an ice-cream!"

"Yeah, so? Well, it's hot, really hot."

"I fancy..." but Siobhan's fancy was not to be revealed because her attention was suddenly distracted. "Look Danielle, the door, it's... it's actually open."

And indeed it was. Danielle was sure it had not been moments before but, undoubtedly, there it was ajar.

"Should we...?" But it clearly was not a question requiring an answer or a decision from Danielle. Siobhan had made up her mind herself and was already up again on her legs and crossing the street.

The door pushed open easily as if the hinges had been freshly oiled, not the hint of a creak or a groan, and Danielle followed her friend through into just what Siobhan had imagined, a really pretty garden. A garden full of colour and scent. Flowers in profusion and vver against the wall an orange tree complete with ripening orange fruit. All in all an absolute delight and a feast for eyes and nose. Indeed, as the orange colour of the ripening fruit, so clear against dark green leaves, especially caught her eye, she appreciated a garden for all senses. Her tongue slid over her lips at the thought of the sweet juice of an orange, so full of taste. The bees buzzed and the occasional song of a bird came to her ears even in the afternoon heat and, as she reached and touched a flower with her fingertips her fifth sense of touch coming into play.

She was entranced and even Siobhan had paused simply to stare. It was a place of enchantment, Danielle thought, even the show gardens she had visited did not seem to come quite up to the perfection of this enclosed and secret garden. Were there indeed fairies hidden in the garden, watching from who knows where?

"You were right," she said, "such a pity we can't go in." Danielle turned to go and found the door had closed.

"Have you pair o' lassies come a visitin'?"

She had not seen, and neither, she was sure, had Siobhan, but he must have been standing right behind the door when they had opened it. It was though a shock to see a man standing there. The garden had seemed quite empty.

The man seemed kindly, that was Danielle's immediate impression. First impressions can be deceiving but they are also powerful. It is a natural and primaeval summing up of a situation, a necessity to judge whether there is a threat perhaps requiring fight or flight.

The man was dressed in workaday clothes, clean enough but suitable for work not going out. He had on old grey, rather baggy, trousers held up by twin braces over a white long sleeved shirt with sleeves rolled up in acknowledgement of the heat of the day. The trousers were supported in the old fashion by red box cloth braces though these were almost hidden by a rather striking royal blue waistcoat with brass buttons. Again in acknowledgement to the warmth of the summer afternoon the waistcoat swung open. His shirt was a little unbuttoned too and around his neck the man had tied a red kerchief. Upon his feet stout brown boots rather suggestive of a man engaged in gardening. Indeed, when you looked at his bushy grey beard, grey curly hair and nut brown skin not only did you think of a man used to the outdoors but, just as Siobhan had said, Mr McGregor the gardener from Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny. He looked rather kinder though, with a ready smile, wrinkles all around his eyes and along his forehead, rather full lips and white teeth. Clearly he was Siobhan's supposed gardener.

"We... we were just looking."

"Comes you on in, see me garden, see me penstemon and hollyhocks."

They were tempted, so tempted, the garden looked so pretty. He offered them his hands.

Hand in hand they walked with him, Siobhan to his left, Danielle to his right, their little feminine hands clasped in his strong, big, brown and rather calloused hands.

The brick paths so neat, the brick looking freshly raked, such a contrast with the hot tarmac outside; the soft greenness of the finely mown lawn, perhaps recently mown as there was an old green petrol mower with wooden handles standing on the lawn and, indeed, the scent of freshly cut grass in the air; there were trees overhanging the path and giving welcome shade and such brightly coloured flowers in profusion in the beds between the old orange wall and the bricked paths, flowers, not just the penstemon and hollyhocks but all sorts and yielding such scent; rosemary, thyme and other herbs yielded still more scent as their essential oils were brought out by the heat of the sun.

Danielle had the smallest sense of déjà vu but could not think she had ever been to such a delightful garden before.

"Oh, how pretty!"

A little willow arbour with a seat by the path and cut into the bed between wall and path, inviting and cool, but the girls passed on with the man, on and around the garden. There were vegetables growing, strong and wholesome, their flowers no less pretty than the ornamental flowers if, mostly, smaller. It was something of a potager, mixing vegetables and flowers together in pleasing and decorative company.

There were so many things to see. An old sundial set one end of the lawn in full sunlight; espalier apples and other fruit trained up the old wall; even an old shed tucked almost out of sight with roses growing up and over its roof; in the centre of the lawn an oval stone pool with a tinkling fountain. All such a delight to the senses, such a pleasure to walk around the garden and admire.

Danielle went to the pool, knelt, and touched the water. It was cool and the water felt so silky smooth as it trickled through her fingers. She turned, "It's wonderful. So well kept, so ordered yet so natural. I love it. A beautiful garden, I had no idea, we had no idea... from outside."

The old man beamed in evident pleasure, "Aye, natural, 'tis nature bare and unadorned. Hows 't should be like."

She stood, and walked back to Siobhan and the man across the springy turf. It came to Danielle, perhaps rather by the way he was looking at the girls, that he rather thought they should be naked and unadorned with clothing. Danielle could rather see the logic of his thoughts and found herself, a little surprisingly, agreeing with him. So much so that when his large and rough brown hands reached and began undoing the little red buttons down the front of her dress she made no objection and did not brush his fingers away. It seemed such a natural thing. She was not sure, normally, she would have permitted such a liberty but thought it almost churlish to object. Danielle looked at Siobhan but there was no look of alarm or even surprise in her face. It was as if she too saw it as the most natural and obvious thing to happen.

One by one the man's fingers undid the buttons. It was a pretty dress with buttons about an inch apart most of the way down. Danielle had never, ever unbuttoned them all as there was no need in order to pull it over her head but the man seemed quite content undoing button after button, right down to the last one at her navel. The dress hung a little open revealing a pretty rose coloured brassiere and the swell of her breasts.

Danielle raised her hands up in the air rather like she used to do when her mother undressed her as a little girl. No one had undressed her since then but the remembered drill came to her. Up the man lifted the cotton, up and off her arms, momentarily obscuring her view and then, there she was, in just brassiere, panties and sandals.

"Tha's a-better." But he was not done. Surprisingly nimble, his fingers made short work of the clasp of her brassiere. It fell forward half revealing her breasts.

His fingers looped in the strap around one arm and pulled it from her exposing her not insubstantial bosom to his gaze. She made no attempt to cover herself, no clasping of a breast in each hand to hide them from the man. No man had seen them before, bar the doctor and her dad and they did not count, yet she felt there was no need to hide them. Like the flowers in his garden he wished to see and admire - and she knew they were pretty even if, unlike Siobhan's, the flowers of her areolae were not big. Small flowers can be as pretty as large ones: they are just smaller, that is all.

The man was nodding as he looked at her breasts, clearly nodding with approval. But he did not just look, he reached and lifted, hefting a breast in each and, weighing and lightly squeezing them as if they were fruit he was testing. Perhaps more grapefruits than oranges, perhaps melons...

"Yer want these lil' things to stand up 'n see t' sun. To ripen like."

His thumbs were on her nipples, the coarse skin rubbing over them making them hard and pointing, in their own little way. The rasping sensation on her delicate little nipples not unpleasant.

Danielle kicked off her sandals, her panties would be next if she was to be completely natural.

The man's fingers hooked through the material either side of her hips, pulling the elastic a little from her. He crouched, perhaps better to see what he was doing and then slowly tugged the panties down revealing what was normally very private to her.

"Tha's like a seed bed o' vigorous young shoots. I like strong growth, I wonders if yon missie grows so well."

Danielle looked at Siobhan and smiled. She had glimpsed the flame red curls before now when they had been staying together and, unless, she had taken it into her head to shave them off, the man would not be disappointed. Siobhan moved a little closer and the gardener reached up within her tee shirt dress, took hold of her panties and tugged; down they came, pulled to her knees before fluttering to the ground; the man lifted the front of the green tee with one hand and peered.

"More strong growth, 'tis good to see!" His hand touched. "Soft 'n springy like good turf. Fine colour." He touched his nose to the soft curls and breathed deeply," Ah 'n fine scent as well! 'Nother fine, rich seed bed for the sowin' o' the seed."

His hands moved to Siobhan's belt, undoing it, and then he was standing, lifting the long tee over her head leaving her prettily naked, her ginger curls gleaming in the sunlight. Even Danielle felt compelled to reach and stroke her hair and feel the 'springiness of the turf.' Such a pretty colour, so orange, so like the colour of the bricks making up the wall.

"These be lil' spring titties, just comin' int' bud." His great, brown, calloused hands gently cupped over Siobhan's little breasts.

Danielle was so conscious of the difference between her friend's breasts and her own. Siobhan was not quite flat chested but there was not a lot of 'substance.' So sweet, even so, with their orange freckles all over the smooth white skin. Not at all large but the same could not be said for Siobhan's areolae. They were big, unusually big. Even if her breasts were almost boy like there was no way anyone on a beach or in the swimming baths could have mistaken Siobhan for a boy had she cropped her hair short, not with two big, brown saucers like that on her chest!

"I wonders if me ol' green fingers can do some it about 'em." The man was plucking at them, drawing them away from Siobhan's body. Danielle was sure it was a nice feeling. She sometimes pulled her nipples like that when alone in bed and she liked the feeling, and like he had done with her own, the man was drawing the nipples out, making them stand hard in the sunshine. Siobhan's nipples were longer and thicker than her own, of course, but when he had finished there was a certain puffiness to the areolae and a bit more substance to her breasts than Danielle thought had been there before.

Hand in hand the old gardener lead them on around the garden, pointing out this and that to them, the girls now as naked as the plants themselves, their clothes left behind, scattered by the path. His enthusiasm for all things growing was evident. Occasionally he patted their bare behinds for emphasis.

It was so nice to be walking naked, Danielle was a little surprised. Both at the feeling and, really, at having allowed herself to be undressed, but it did feel so natural and just so right in this hidden away town garden. The gardener seemed almost to regard them as two fine specimens of plant. His comments about them had much the same phraseology as of the flowers and vigorously growing shrubs.

Unsurprisingly it was Siobhan who suggested it, who asked if it would not be natural if he too was unclothed. Danielle did feel, though she was not sure why, it would be better, more companionable, somehow right if he was naked as well. She did, though, appreciate that it would not simply be his nipples which might ripen or grow. Indeed she could feel a comfortable and natural wetness coming between her own thighs and her little pea of a clitoris was also making itself felt. She wished hers was bigger, like Siobhan's, and made more of itself. Danielle frowned: did Siobhan have a bigger clitoris? She rather thought she had. How could she possibly know that?

Danielle appreciated he might well become sexually aroused but, there again, so was she, and so was Siobhan by the looks of things. Again it felt and seemed so natural in the warmth and seclusion of the garden. Quite natural to feel aroused in the sunshine and seclusion of the little pretty garden.

The man seemed reluctant, "Tha's not as if I'm a sweet, fresh young flower, all dew covered like you lassies: me is more like tha' old twisty crab apple by t'wall."

Certainly the crab apple was old and knarled but it had a certain beauty in its aged trunk: its leaves though were as green as a young plant and, Danielle thought, as vigorous. There was hidden vigour in the old tree.

Their clamour was insistent and the old gardener relented. He sat down with a sigh on a wooden bench and begun to unlace his boots. He talked as he undressed, about trees, pointing to this one and that one as he slowly removed his waistcoat, let his braces hang loose and pulled his white shirt over his head.

He was hirsute, grey curls matted his chest and whilst his skin had a rather leathery look he was much more muscle than Danielle expected. Years of constant gardening seemed to have kept him in fine fettle. An aged manliness, no doubt quite different from the young, soft skin of a boy.

He stood in his old grey trousers with his red boxcloth braces hanging loose. Danielle bit her lip, the feeling of wetness intensified between her legs. She knew she should not be, but most certainly was excited by the prospect of seeing a real penis. She was sure it would not have the likely appearance of a boy's but, like the crab apple, betray age in its trunk, yet still display a natural spring like vigour.

The man undid and let his trousers down.

Danielle was initially disappointed although not at all wrong about its resemblance to the crab apple. Brown and so wrinkled with a long tapering prepuce rather reminiscent in its coils of wrinkled skin of a worm cast on the lawn. It hung rather than stood in a nest of greying curls. So different from the smooth appearance of her friend and herself. The balls hung below looking like a pair of overly large walnuts. Danielle knew they hung away from the body to keep cool. It was a hot day and they hung low.

The sinews of his legs gave an appearance of the tree to them, sturdy and hard. The man looked so right for the garden. It was old and well-tended as was he, and with the natural vigour of the plants. He stood smiling at them, still with the red kerchief around his neck.

"This be me asparagus bed."

Her hand in his, Danielle looked at the ferns standing tall and closely packed, a light breeze moved them. It was way past the time for eating asparagus. The spears had grown pushing their feathery leaves up high into the air to draw strength into themselves for next year's growth.

"They grows strong in t'spring, you can almost see 'em a growin,' pushing their heads out t' ground. Bit like me ol' cock do grow."

What Danielle had wanted to see was happening. His penis was swelling, doing the man thing. And the girls stared as it rose up into the air. There was indeed something of the asparagus about it, especially when its bulbous head, rounded and smooth, poked out of its encircling skin, long and rounded at the end - just like the vegetable. Danielle had not missed the phallic shape of the asparagus on her plate, had rather thought its reputation as an aphrodisiac was more connected to its obvious sexual shape than any minerals it might contain.

But unlike the vegetable the gardener's erection had a lot of the crab apple about it. It was not smooth and seemed to have a twist to it as the veins bulged and grew up the shaft. It was a wrinkled and craggy thing, gnarled like a tree root or old tree trunk but big. Danielle knew enough to know it was big, but there again, all things grew big and strong in the garden. A vigorous penis indeed.

Danielle had a momentary thought of herself and Siobhan in the asparagus bed, the fresh shoots newly pushed through the soft ground, thick and penis like and the two of them giggling and watching the other as they tried different shoots for size. Pushing them into themselves and riding them up and down as if it was a penis, their open thighs and squatting position easily revealing exactly what they were doing to their friend, seeing the rounded penis like heads pushed into each other's sex. "Danielle, do try this big purple one, it's simply gorgeous." Purple, white and green - a variety of strains of asparagus.. The girls eventually settling on two and riding up and down them, perhaps holding hands, until each came.