Travels of the Mind

3 Bronze

"You take Maisie and I'll meet you in the middle."

What a wonderful day out with Benjamin and Maisie. What a beautiful garden out in the country to explore; and now there was a maze. A maze of hedges and, in the centre, a tower. She had seen people looking from the top.

Off she set into the maze, Benjamin and Maisie, dear Maisie giggling with excitement, going the other way from her. Should she keep turning left or right or alternately left or right or what? It was so quiet in the maze, she met no one and just kept walking and not finding that many dead ends. It seemed counter intuitive to be walking away from the centre but that was how mazes were. The direct and obvious route very much not the route at all.

She found the centre quite quickly; certain she was there before Benjamin and Maisie. The red brick tower loomed above her. Quite something to find in the middle of a maze, not just a seat, an arbour or perhaps a stone sundial but a solid tower rising up above her. Two ways, up or down, an ascent or descent by stone steps. She ascended, passing narrow window after narrow window giving some light to the stone spiral, her hand running up the newel as she ascended. A spiral within a circle, the spiral stairs built within the circular shaft up and up the tower.

There was no way Benjamin and Maisie could have got there before her and, as she stepped out into the sunshine and could look down upon the maze and out across the garden, she could see their heads bobbing along, but then they turned as the maze path took a turn and they disappeared within the tall hedging. A glorious day of blue skies and scudding clouds. She stared out, captivated by the garden and view. Perhaps on the other side of the tower, down below, there might be shade and a seat to sit upon and wait. She walked back down, the spiral stair exiting through an arched doorway and oaken door. She walked around to the shaded side and indeed found a seat, but also found she was not alone.

A man sat there, a Malacca cane, silver topped and feruled clasped in both hands; he was leaning forward staring out from the shade. Upon his head a Panama hat shading his eyes from the bright light. He was wearing anything but tee shirt and shorts: yet he looked as cool as a cucumber in a cream linen suit, white shirt and pink tie. It was, perhaps, unsurprising that he was not wearing sandals, rather brown brogues with socks to match his tie. Immaculate, debonair, handsome, and undoubtedly Harris. He turned slightly, inclined his head, and rose in greeting.

"Oh," she said.

"Quite a day," he remarked.

She was sure it would prove to be more of a day than she had been expecting, unless she was quick.

"Bye," she said and hurried back through the doorway, choosing this time to go down and down, round and round, seemingly the exit from the maze. Hurrying, but careful, running down stairs not a good idea. A circle in a spiral, down and down. But where was the exit, where was the way out into the sunshine? It had all become dark. Had there been a level below the entrance, had she come too far down the stair? Above her she could hear the tapping of a cane's ferule upon the stone stair. Harris was following her.

It was not so dark that she could not see a passage before her. She moved and walked into it and then it became very dark, she felt her way and found a brightening ahead of her. Indeed, light at the end of the tunnel.

Another part of the garden? Perhaps. As beautiful as the other parts she had seen, as lovely as the walled flowerbeds, canals, pavilions, and ponds, but not quite the same. The grass and flowerbeds framed by the arched exit from the tunnel as neat and well-conceived as the rest but, perfectly positioned at the centre of the framed view, delightfully backed by a red brick wall, was something that just did not seem right for that garden. She walked towards it.

The statue before her as beautiful in its way as could be, but not something for a family garden: very much something for a private garden, a private garden made for dalliance, a place for amorous pursuits perhaps, or for the jaded palate of wealthy and aged gentlemen.

"You like?"

The voice behind her so familiar. She had run from him to no avail.

"Very fine -- in its way."

The male form, the male nude as 'fine', indeed, as the female in its way. Not as rounded and soft, but the adjective 'beautiful' could be applied -- sometimes. And it could to this statue, classical perhaps, certainly in style, but she had not seen a male nude like that: not with erect penis. A curving penis rose from a bed of curls, balls hung in sculptured form below. The whole cast in bronze, the green patina, Verdigris, making that obvious. The penis, though, seemed polished, its metal shining in the sunlight.

"Do you touch it...?" She looked sideways at Harris. She might as well relax into the moment; she smiled, "...stroke it for luck?" The statue's erection shone like the big toe of David Hume's Statue in Edinburgh or John Harvard's left shoe on his statue at Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts. It seemed to have been rubbed a lot.

"Poor bronze man," she said, "permanently aroused, always being touched, always being stroked, never cumming..." She touched her fingers to her lips. She had been a bit open in her thoughts.

"Will you touch?"

She turned, momentarily worried Maisie might somehow have followed with Benjamin, but the tunnel they had come through was gone; around them a garden bounded by a high old red brick wall, she turned east, south, west and north but the wall was unpierced by a door. A wall never ending or beginning, just encircling.

"There's no way out?" Her question did not represent panic. It was very matter of fact.

Harris smiled his thin smile. "Oh, there is." But she had to be content with that. He was not more forthcoming. She turned back to the statue.

"There's nobody here. No gardener or two watching?" She wondered; she had not forgotten the curly haired elfin boy who had smiled.

"I'm here -- and watching."

"But you're different. You're..."

The raised eyebrow made her pause. Were Harris and she lovers? "The garden today; so lovely and this..." she walked, walked along the gravel paths.

Harris stood and watched her, his eyes following the swaying cotton dress. Red with white polka dots to her knees, her bare legs in sandals below.

Across the garden, butterflies were bobbing and soaring, white with orange tipped wings. Not a breath of wind, the walls sheltering the flower beds, the perennials and bedding plants, the soil warm and fertile; good for plants to take root and grow. Was she like that? Warm and fertile she hoped, would a man's seed sprout and grow within her, swelling her belly like the growing buds of spring?

Harris followed her as she walked towards another statue. A man and a woman engaged in the act of coition.

"I don't know whether to admire or pretend to be shocked. Human copulation is such a funny thing. We do it so much, but the whole point..." she paused, that very point on her mind so much, "... only happens sometimes, rarely for some."

She felt his arm across her shoulders, his hand clasping the rounding of a shoulder. She found herself leaning into him, accepting the comfort of his arm. She looked up at him, "Will I?"

He smiled, "all in good time."

"Such a fine carving..."

"Casting."

"You are a pedant. You know that?"

Had she been with Benjamin, just Benjamin. Had she been there alone with him, safe and private, would she have suggested they mimic the pose. Was that its purpose? Rude, obscene -- she supposed -- but so well executed and the pose so arousing. The man, beautiful like the other statue, or handsome, certainly with a body to get wet over, completely naked and 'taking' -- was that the right word -- the woman from the rear. The copulatory pose of the animals but so graceful, down to the way his penis curved into her. It was all curves really, the human body as a collection of curves rather than planes. Curved buttocks, curved breasts certainly, but curved shoulders, curved calves, curved ribs and the girl's back with her vertebrae showing curved upwards in sexual ecstasy. And also, so very there, the man's curving and strong penis, his so masculine attribute, pushed between the woman's spread sexual lips. It seemed to her as if the man was moving forwards and in. The stillness of the casting did seem to have movement. She looked at his face. Was he perhaps not only thrusting in but cumming as well?

Further on, another statue, again a statue of two people. Not of copulation but another act. The woman kneeling to the front of the man, his long penis within her mouth. Again, rude of course, but so well executed. Graceful. The man standing so handsome and strong. Had his hand been resting upon the woman's head there would have been an element of coercion about it, but he was standing relaxed and not even looking down at the woman but into the middle distance. Her eyes were closed, perhaps lost in the moment. Certainly, that was how she thought it was. She looked at Harris remembering the beach with white pebbles. Might she today mimic the statue?

The feeling always came with Harris. Wetness came to her. That feeling between her legs as she walked, the hardening of her nipples; her body readying itself for coition.

"Oh," she said, "Oh." There was added rudeness in the group she was now observing, tucked into a little hedged courtyard, the paving accentuating the drawing of the eye to the statues set at the end. Two men and a woman this time. The men so tall, so upright and not just in their bodies. The girl diminutive, perhaps to emphasise their size, her little hands clasped around each of their erect penises, their knobs protruding from her hands, peeled and swollen. Beautifully executed - their shafts, their scrota, their openings.

"I..." she turned to Harris, "big men."

"Indeed! You like?"

"I can't fault the work." She walked closer staring at the two held penises. She could not help it. Her panties were becoming quite wet. "Wonderfully done... I..." she licked her lips," I'm not the only one who has thought so... I think."

The two knobs, bifurcated and with taut fraena, had been polished by the touch of presumably many hands. Slowly she raised her hands, glanced shyly at Harris, and then lowered her palms onto the two rounded ends and rubbed feeling the hardness of the metal in the soft centres of her hands. She closed her eyes imagining doing that for real as they were held by the small girl for her; her palms perhaps becoming wet with the pre-ejaculatory fluid leaking from the so carefully modelled openings. She found herself not caring what Harris saw as her fingers plucked, drawing finger tips up the bulb shapes.

"Big cocks," she breathed; "you've made me, they've made me..."

Harris held out his hand. She smiled and nodded, before reaching up into her dress and drawing down her knickers. They were as wet as she had thought. She handed them to Harris as if handing the key of her sex to him, as if accepting he had the right of access and to copulate with her when he wished. Perhaps he had, perhaps she had given that to him long ago.

He took the warm scrap of cotton and smiled. He squeezed, lifted the cotton to his nose and nodded. Tucking them into his pocket, he offered her his hand and they walked hand in hand, she now feeling strangely free without knickers, hoping Harris would soon touch her between her legs, perhaps undress her, perhaps suck upon her nipples.

They walked on to a brick pavilion. Small and constructed of red brick but with such fine pointing you could barely see the mortar join, the detailing exquisite, the rubbed brickwork and tapering voussoirs so perfectly executed. The door carved and moulded was of weathered grey oak. Above the door incised into the brickwork were words in beautiful, flowing Arabic script.

"I wonder what that says," she ventured, something inappropriate I suspect."

"On the contrary, appropriate indeed to this garden. It is from 'The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight' by Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Nefzawi, fifteenth century, and says something like:

'When a meritorious man finds himself near to women, his member grows, gets strong, vigorous and hard; he is not quick to fire, and after the trembling caused by the emission of the sperm, he is soon stiff again.'

She looked at Harris, "And are you meritorious?"

He smiled his thin smile as his eyes seemed to laugh, "and do you wish to enter the pavilion and find out?"

A hesitation. The temptation there. What was within? An Ottoman with cushions, sherbets, and sweetmeats?

He led her back to the garden's centre. Back to the first statue, the male nude with the free and shining curving erection. The bronze man stood there impassive, naked feet planted upon the stone paving, legs at ease, penis jutting. Harris began to undo the buttons at the back of her dress.

"Oh, I couldn't."

But it was made to ride. The bronze was shiny where hands had stroked the penis -- was it just hands?

"I've never..." but what girl had, she could not imagine; where else but with Harris might she find such a thing -- hardly likely in a public park. Perhaps in somebody, most likely a wealthy man's collection; tucked away in a hidden corner of his garden. A garden of erotic delight. The host inviting his lady visitors to ride. Perhaps individually, perhaps together. Would they accept, surely once one did the others would follow?

"I couldn't." But was it any different from a dildo or vibrator, not that she had bought, but clearly many women did possess such help.

Harris lifted the polka dot dress upwards over her head and set it aside upon a bench. "One last thing and then you are ready." His hands at her back unclasping her brassiere leaving her naked as the statues. Naked again with Harris. She stood staring at the statue, her breathing not normal but rather fast, her chest rising and falling. How did it happen with Harris? She was a woman in heat, a woman wanting -- no needing -- to copulate. The touch of Harris' hand slipping under her bottom and touching her sex made her jump. Her knickers had been wet and he could now feel just how wet she was. There was no hiding her arousal.

"You should. You are ready." Ready like a girl might be for a running race, or hurdling, or some other sporting activity. But fucking a statue? But she was ready, all ready for the off, the starter's gun.

"I..." It had only been Benjamin -- and Harris. Did a bronze casting count? Was this sex with another man? A bronze man with permanent erection who could never come? She touched her chestnut sex to the shiny metal penis, letting it poke between the curls to her slit. Letting it? She was doing it. The statue was inanimate.

The rounded hardness against her made her shiver as she raised herself up on tiptoe; she clasped her arms around the statue and lowered herself feeling the bronze penis at her entrance, parting her, opening her; that lovely feeling of first penetration, if she was wet -- and she certainly was that! Slowly she lowered herself, feeling the smooth metal rising up inside her. The sun had warmed it, the sun had warmed the whole statue, she pressed her breasts against the metal man and felt his hard nipples against her skin. He, the statue, was as warm as she - indeed warmer. She raised and lowered herself, good ankle exercise, a special exercise at an unusual Pilates or exercise class.

She wondered if Harris might come up behind her and seek her other entrance. Metal penis in her vagina, fleshly penis in her bottom. Dual but different hardness. But when she turned, her face flushed, perspiration dripping from her brow, and her mouth rather open, he was just standing watching, his Malacca cane clasped in his hands. Was there a tenting to his linen trousers? Surely there must be.

Metal vaginal sex. No semen. Just the sex. But almost she could imagine the statue coming to life, it was warm enough. Being carried by the bronze man, still engaged, still riding and then him lowering her onto the ground and working her until she came. Might she become a statute too? A new composition in the garden for others to admire. Would perhaps her knees become shiny with the touch of many fingers upon the shape of her patellae?

The statute did not move. It was only she moving in the sunshine. Only she moving in the garden as Harris stood still, silent and watching. She was abandoned to pleasure. The penis so smooth within her, up and down, up and down. Her mouth hung open, perhaps she was drooling; her eyes were tight shut as she concentrated on the feelings, fullness and movement; the lovely strong hardness within her. To her ears, a steady sloshing sound, she was very wet, was she perhaps dripping, was her moisture pooling on the statue's sun warmed balls and falling in steady drops to the ground?

Steady, pounding sex, building herself, holding on to the warm metal, pushing up and down with her sandaled feet, exercising her vagina on a cock that could never come. It could not but she could. If Benjamin could see her now. She could not help herself. Up and down until that moment came. And come it did. A joy, a relief, a satisfaction.

Slowly, so slowly she lifted her body upwards, drawing the metal from her. Still it curved, still it shone but now not just with the polished gleam of bare bronze but with the added shimmer of feminine wetness. Harris was looking as she looked.

"Every girl should have one in her garden," she said. She said it as a tease: did she mean the garden of a house or the Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight -- her sex? Did she mean every girl should have a penis in her sex? "But," she went on, "it seems so unfair on you."

The man smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if it did not matter. She knew, though, how much it did matter to men. She could not imagine Benjamin would have been happy just to watch, just to let her take her pleasure. When they had first been going out, before they had slept together, before they had engaged in sexual intercourse, there had been petting. Twice she could recall his hand in her knickers, twice almost getting her there and then he had wanted her to stroke him, and she had missed the chance of orgasm. Not he -- of course -- not he! The first time a mess, the second time in her mouth. But no matching female orgasm. It had come later as he had learnt to play her; and play her instrument well.

She had done it on the beach with Harris, the beach with white pebbles, and so she did on the grass. Kneeling on her bare knees, her sex still tingling from her prolonged metal coitus, she undid his fly. Her fingers seeking withing the cream linen, beyond the matching buttons. The revealed organ as fine as the statue's, but an organ of flesh and blood, and one that could come. She leant forward, opening her mouth; his bulb was warm and smooth -- though so would have been the statue's -- but there was 'give' and not mere hardness. That, the statue would not have. Her tongue could move the real penis, could slip within the foreskin, could be so much more intimate with it.

The tableau on the grass just like that other statue in the garden, the man and the kneeling woman -- they were just like that. She looked up at Harris, into his eyes as he watched her doing what she knew men so liked a woman to do. An act as frequent and normal as coition as if a woman's mouth was made to accept a man's penis and fill her mouth with cock and seed. She would do that tonight, she promised herself, to Benjamin after they had put Maisie to bed. She would kneel before her man and take his penis in her mouth and suck until he came. She would make him fuck her later. Would make sure he got hard again. He would be meritorious!