Old memories have a way of haunting you in your old age. Dreams lost and opportunities missed. Marla Sue is one of those. A dream lost that now haunts me from forty years ago. Young, beautiful, sexy, and so naïve in an outgoing way. I wasn't much better, a slow talking, shy country boy that found himself living in the city for the first time. I was totally lost, with to many people around and to much concrete and traffic. I missed the green fields and deep woods. The quiet and solitude. That was the reason I was wandering around the back reaches of the old cemetery a few blocks from my house on a bright sunny spring afternoon.
The old cemetery was like a big park that I had all to myself. Up toward the new front section, you might see a person or two occasionally, but back here in the back, it was deserted. The old bleached and weathered headstones were just another rock formation to my eighteen year old brain. The fact that there were dead people under each one didn't really register. At that age, death was something unreal that happened to old people. The warm sun, the sweet smell of freshly mown grass, and the sigh of the wind through the trees were all that I was thinking of as I wandered along a path above a deep creek.
I stopped at an old stone bench that rested in the curve of the walk and sat down. This bank of the creek was twenty feet higher than the other and from here I had a view of most of the cemetery. It was cool and green, quiet and tranquil. All the things that the rest of the city was not and all the things I missed most about my past.
I had been letting my mind wander as it would, not thinking about anything in particular; just enjoying the peace. A movement at the corner of my vision drew my eye. A girl was walking across the grass, carrying a book, headed in the direction of the bridge across the creek. The way she carried the book struck me as odd. She had it pressed against her upper belly, just below her breasts and covered it with both arms, as though she were trying to hide it. It wasn't a large book but a standard sized hardback. I watched her until she disappeared below the bank of the creek as she crossed the foot bridge.
With her now out of sight, my mind drew a picture of her behind my eyes. A dark mane of reddish brown hair that came halfway down her back. She had a light olive complexion, an oval face, high cheekbones, a thin straight nose, a small sensuous mouth. Even with the long hair, her neck looked long, the way she carried her head held high. The fact that her shoulders were bare except for thin spaghetti straps helped the illusion. The dress she wore was a typical sundress, a straight bodice to the waist, with a short flared knee length skirt. The color was not typical, it was a dark brown. Usually, these dresses would have been yellow, pink, light blue or green but not brown. Especially not dark chocolate brown. For some reason, my mind thought of New Orleans. Why I didn't know but it seemed to fit her perfectly. Her appearance at the top of the stairs broke the vision my mind was painting.
Without even a glance in my direction, she turned right and walked off down the path away from me. The subtle sway of the skirt and her hips was punctuated by the sharp sound of the heels of her shoes on the concrete. I watched her intently until she once again disappeared, this time around a bend in the path and behind some bushes. My mind had spent the whole time painting and erasing pictures of what was under that thin cotton dress. The mind of an eighteen year old male can be such a raunchy place at times and this was one of them. With a deep sigh and a sharp shake of my head to clear it, I returned my eyes to the sweeping view before me.
The only problem was that my mind had other ideas and went right on drawing pictures of the young lady. Each one a little better than the last as details were filled in here and there. Finally, I had to stand up, make an adjustment to the front of my levies, and resume my walk before I could get it to stop or at least to slow down. Only when I made the turn at the bush did I realize that I was following the girl. With a frown, I turned right and followed the top of the creek bank into a wooded area.
After about three hundred yards, I encountered a thick impenetrable hedge. The only way I knew there was a fence on the other side was that it crossed the open creek. Past the fence was a railroad embankment and a short wooden bridge over the creek. The creek made a deep wide pool under the bridge. I thought of exploring the pool but didn't see a way down the vertical creek bank. With a shrug, I turned and headed back into the woods. I'd save the pool for another day.
Roaming the thick stand of oak woods reminded me of home or rather my old home. My grandmother had died and the state said my grandfather was too old to take care of me alone, so I ended up at my aunt's house here in the city. She was a nice lady but she wasn't my grandmother. No one was or would ever be. Thinking of my grandmother made my eyes burn. I missed her terrible. Maybe, being out here wasn't such a good idea. It brought back to many memories.
I turned and headed back toward the walk I had been on earlier. As I neared the edge of the wood, I stopped dead in my tracks. Hanging from a limb of a small tree was a chocolate brown sundress. I stared at the dress for a moment and then slowly looked all around. My brain was flashing all kinds of scenes at me of the girl running around naked. I didn't see her anywhere. Either, she was hiding or in another part of the wood but if she was elsewhere, why leave the dress here? That didn't make sense. Running around naked in a cemetery didn't really make any sense in the first place but who was I to say one way or the other.
I reached out and brushed my fingers across the material of the dress, just to make sure it was real. It was. The thought that I could be really mean and take the dress crossed my mind for a fleeting second. I grinned and shook my head, I wasn't that way. Now, I had two choices. One, I could sit down and wait for her to return or two; I could go on about my business. Yeah, right, like I was really going to walk away from a chance to see a naked girl. I had only seen one, well, not counting a certain second cousin, but that's a whole other story.
Ok, then where was there a place to hide. There were several large trees, large enough to hide behind and several thick bushes near by. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I headed for the nearest large tree. There was no one behind it, so I headed for the other one. No one there either. I checked all the bushes, still no one to be found. Scratching my head, I returned to the dress and checked for other hiding places.
A soft chuckle caused me to look up and there she was, sitting in the low three way fork of the first large tree I had looked behind. "Hello." She said softly. "Are you looking for me by any chance?"
"Uh…." Was my witty reply as my hungry eyes devoured her beauty. Bright sunlight through an opening in the trees spotlighted her nude body. She was sitting cross legged on a small platform, leaning back against one of the limbs. Her book was open on her lap. My eyes would focus on her bare hip and thigh and then on her bare breasts. My manhood was trying very hard to stand up in the confines of my pants leg. Almost painfully so.
"Would you like to join me?" She asked, a smile flickering around her lips.
"Sure." I replied but didn't move. My brain was locked on the vision above me.
With a soft chuckle, she said, "You climb up that limb over to your left. The one that almost touches the ground."
My eyes darted to the limb she indicated and that seemed to break the spell on me. "Oh, ok." I replied and moved toward the limb.
As I started to climb up onto it, the girl said sharply, "No wait, you have to leave your clothes down there. The tree nymph that lives here doesn't like clothes."
"Tree nymph? What tree nymph?" I asked, looking around confusedly.
"The one that lives in this tree, silly." The girl replied softly with a hint of mirth in her voice, as if that explained it all.
