Chapter One

I could feel the passion gnawing at me like some crude obsession. It drove me to that place, my private place. I’d gone there maybe a half dozen times the summer and fall before. It was the first time that spring that the air was just the right mix of warm and cool, and I could sense my body coming alive, wanting to feel the warm sun bathing me with a shower of prickly heat.

I followed a path that runs along the stream, hiking back into the forest, coming out into a small open place where there is absolute quiet, except for the sound of the water, and birds, and insects that buzz my ear. I stared up at the trees with their leaves gently swaying against the backdrop of a clear sky. I always assumed that I was the only one who knew about this tranquil spot far from the crowded life.

The rock jutting out to the stream is flat, and large enough to act as my beach. I laid out a thick pad, and then a fresh washed towel. Dressed in just a summer shift, I pulled it over my head. This unveiling shed inhibitions from a woman cluttered with them.

I removed my white cotton chemise that clung tightly to my breasts, and let them fall free from the encumbrance. Garments can be so binding, I wanted to go without, though I never would in my uncle’s house. I watched my nipples tighten into hard knots as the breeze made them cool. Goose bumps rose on my shuddering torso, as for that tiny moment of time, I felt free and unfettered.

I shed my panties too, and immediately felt the prickly sensations of air across my pubic mound tickling the soft hair. I loved that moment, when at last I was naked to the wide world. The indelible impression was left in my mind from the last time I was there, and I recalled it fondly as I repeated the ritual acts of disrobing. Before, it was the fall of the year, and there had been a musty decadence about my favorite place. Refreshed by spring months later, the glade and the stream and my warm flat rock were going to work their magic on me again.

I could already feel it, even before I lay down on the soft cushion I had provided myself. I lay down first on my belly, pressing that gnawing place against the towel and mat which was pressed against the rock. The sun shone down on my bottom as I felt it penetrating me deeper than the skin. There was something crawling in me that started between my legs and spre