Dryad's Knight

"Cristiano," Angela said, a pleading note in her voice. He knew, however, that she only used his full name when she was trying to manipulate him. "Don't leave. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to call your mother a bitch." Which was a lie, of course. A mistake was made once. Angela referred to his mother as "that bitch" on a regular basis. He had put up with it for months because he had been afraid of being alone. A week before, Cris made up his mind that he was going to leave her. Then it had been a matter of building the courage to do it. The argument about his mother was the last push he needed to make it out the door.

Cris reached the end of the walk and turned down the street, Angela's cries, alternating between pleading and angry, fading behind him. As her voice was left in the distance, so was the heat of Cris' anger. Not that he would go back to Angela, but he realized that he had no place to stay. He made his way to the local park, which had camping plots open for public use. It was nice out, almost the perfect temperature, and he had slept under the stars a few times in the past.

He entered the park, passing through the parking lot. As always, a few cars containing horny couples; mostly kids who couldn't steal time away from their parents at home; were parked there. One brazen couple had their windows down as the woman, kneeling in the passenger seat and leaning over to the driver's side, went down on her boyfriend. The sight drove another spike through Cris' relationship with Angela. She had only ever given him blow jobs on his birthday, and always made a big deal about the gift.

He continued on through the park, heading toward the camp sites. He was surprised to find them mostly vacant. With the weather as nice as it was, he thought there would be more campers. Instead, only three of the twenty sites had tents. He picked a site far away from the other tents and found the softest spot on the grass. He laid down, his hands behind his head as a pillow, and stared up at the sky.

He didn't know how long he laid there, watching the stars spin overhead, before he became aware of the woman standing in his campsite, watching him intently. She was small, shorter than him by over a foot and very thin. She wore a light brown dress that barely fell to the middle of her thighs. Her chestnut hair glowed with moonlit highlights and her deep eyes glittered like the stars. He found her mesmerizing. He sat up as she backed away from him, her eyes and lips silently beckoning him to follow.

He stood as she turned and strutted toward the trees, throwing a wry glance over her shoulder. Her brilliant eyes sucked him in, and he found himself following her. She waded into the underbrush without difficulty. Cris found himself following, wondering what he was doing but unable to do anything else. Where the bushes and trees had seemed to allow the woman to pass, Cris found that they grasped at him, clawing at his legs, even through his jeans. Still he pressed on.

He soon found himself in a thick patch of thorny brush, keeping his hands close to his face to protect his eyes. Minutes later, he found himself in a clearing in the middle of a thicket of the thorny bushes. Laying in front of him, bathed in moonlight, was the woman, her skin covered with myriad scratches that reminded him of his own stinging skin. She looked up at him with doe eyes and he felt his heart crumble. Whatever could cause this beautiful creature such pain would pay for its brutishness.

He knelt down next to her, moving slowly as if she were a skittish animal. She whimpered quietly as he moved toward her, but she made no effort to move away from him. He reached out and touched her forehead, not knowing what to do but feeling the need to somehow comfort her. She sighed softly as she rubbed her forehead against his hand. She laid her own hand tenderly on the side of his face, drawing a gasp from him as she touched a scratch near his ear.

The woman traced a finger along Cris' jaw, and he felt himself leaning forward until his lips brushed against hers. With that minute contact, the seeds of passion that had drawn him to this clearing exploded into full bloom. He crushed his lips against hers as he went mad with lust. Leaning toward her, his hands roamed over her body, sliding over her silken dress, caressing the smooth, lithe body underneath. One hand crested over the firm mounds of her breasts while the other played over her thighs, slowly drawing the hem of her dress up.

At the same time, the woman ran her hands up his chest, inside his shirt. Delicate fingers examined the ridges of his muscles. Her touch left ripples of ecstasy in its wake. He groaned into her mouth as she continued to explore his body, one hand playing down his abdomen, the other sliding around his back, nails lightly scratching over his shoulder blades. When she reached his jeans, her fingers fumbled, confounded by both button and zipper.

Appetence had fully taken Cris' mind, and he rushed to unfasten his pants while keeping one hand or the other on her body at all times. Her dress had ridden up to her waist, exposing her smooth mound and glistening wet labia to the warm night air. Her nipples pressed against the thin material, standing out visibly even in the dim light of the moon.

Once he had fully unfastened his jeans, he turned his full attention back to the woman's willowy body. Her thighs parted and her mouth opened in a silent gasp as his hand slid over her mound. He took this as an invitation and crushed his mouth against hers. His free hand went from caressing her breasts to groping them. He pinched one nipple, then the other, between thumb and forefinger, tugging lightly as she freed him from his boxers and jeans, running her tiny hand up and down its length.

Cris slid his finger past her quivering lips, and gasped as her hand tightened around his already throbbing cock. He marveled at how wet she was, how easily he penetrated her, yet how tightly her body clenched his finger. Their sensations cascaded from there. He gently tweaked her nipple, and she lightly grazed his balls with her nails. She tugged on his lip with her teeth and drove his finger into her until his palm was pressed firmly against her mound.

Driven by animal instinct, she wrapped her arms around Cris' neck and her legs around his waist, forcing him to pull his arm away to avoid having his shoulder wrenched from its socket. He couldn't believe how strong she was. He doubted that he would be able to make her let go if he had wanted to. Instead, he rose to his knees, lifting her with him. Despite her strength, she was light, and he found it easy to rise to his knees, then to his feet. She let go of him long enough to rip her dress free of her body, letting the tattered remains flutter to the ground and exposing the whole of her bronzed body to the air.

He lowered his head to her breast, sucking first one nipple, then the other, into his mouth. Pressing her back against the tree in the center of the clearing, he thrust his pelvis forward and raised his hips. He was again amazed at how easily her body accepted him, yet how tightly she gripped him once he had entered her. She actually drew him further in as he thrust forward. Time froze, Cris' head thrown back in exquisite pleasure, the woman's nails scratching across his back, his own fingers pressing into her buttocks.

After an eternity of building tension, Cris pulled back, fighting against the pull of her body, to thrust into her again. The lust flowed between them like a barely dammed river, and each thrust further cracked the dam. The woman thrust one hand between them, frantically rubbing her clit as he thrust into her.

Without warning, her back arched against the tree, canting her hips forward and allowing Cris to thrust even deeper into her. Deeper and deeper he pressed into her as her mouth opened in a silent scream. The tree behind and above her began to shudder as if in response to her welling orgasm. The howl building in her chest burst from her throat, and the tree shook so hard that leaves fluttered to the ground around the couple as the woman writhed against Cris.

The force of her orgasm quickly brought Cris to his own, and he felt himself explode inside the woman. He crushed his body against hers, pressing her against the tree as the orgasm coursed through him. Only when the shuddering of his body had stilled did he trust himself to back from the tree, and still he fell, dropping to sit cross-legged with the woman's legs still wrapped around him. There he sat for minutes or hours. The only mark of time he had was that the night had not passed by the time she disentangled herself from him to lean against the tree. Cris collapsed fully, lying back on the ground.

At length, he sat up and gazed at the woman, her head cocked to the side, her arms limp and dangling to the ground, her legs spread wide, baring thighs glistening with their combined bodily fluids. She looked like an abandoned puppet, and yet she was more full of life than anyone he had ever seen. As the rush of lust and ecstasy had abated, it had been replaced by self-consciousness. Not sure of where to start, he decided to begin with the basics. "What's your name?" he asked simply.

"Acorn," she whispered. He almost mistook her voice for wind rustling through the leaves.

"Acorn? That's an odd name."

"What's yours?"

"Cris."

"What an odd name." She said this with such nonchalance that it took Cris a moment to realize that she was poking fun at him.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked.

"This is my home," she said, cocking her head to the side as if she weren't sure why he would think otherwise.

"Your home? You live out here?"

"Of course. This oak is my tree."

"Your tree?" Cris couldn't tell if it was exhaustion from the sex, his own stupidity, or lack of sense on her part, but he could not make out what she meant.

"Yes, I was born here. I will die here." She looked sad as she added, "Perhaps sooner than I had thought."

"What do you mean?"

In response she merely gestured at the thorny bushes that surrounded the tree.

"That stuff? What is it?"

"I do not know. It doesn't belong here. It outgrows the other plants, kills them off. Nothing I do will stop it."

"Does this have anything to do with me?"

"We don't need to worry about that right now. Come, make love to me again." Without waiting for a response, she leapt at him, moving amazingly from her lax position to end up straddling him. She easily pulled his clothes from his body, then wedged against him, rooting herself to the ground and becoming impossible to resist.

He felt his cock stir against her slick labia. She rolled her hips from side to side, sliding herself over him. As he grew harder, she lowered her face to his, pressing her lips to his. Where her previous kisses had been nearly animalistic, this one was tender. Her lips caressed his while her tongue gently danced with his own.

She slid her hips up, arching her back like a cat, until the searing heat of her sex was nestled against his belly. She paused like this, staring into his eyes, watching him as she denied him stimulation. His eyes grew wild, though he remained mostly still underneath her.

With excruciating slowness, she slid herself back down his body. She squirmed her hips until his head was barely penetrating her, and then froze again. This time, he did not take deprivation quietly. He planted his hands on her rear and pulled her down while thrusting upwards. She pushed against his hands, resisting his pull easily, and deftly keeping him just barely inside of her. After toying with him for a few moments, she lowered herself the rest of the way onto him, moving ever so slowly. She sat up, hands braced on his stomach, and lifted herself up, movements almost lazy. She repeated this many times, until Cris was mad with passion.

Then she rode him in earnest.

With how recently they had made love, it would have taken Cris a long time to come again. With how skilled Acorn was at delaying him further, she rode him for over an hour, until the sky was orange with the rising sun. She angled her hips this way and that, changing the sensation not only for him, but for herself as well. He felt her shudder through more than one orgasm during this time, each one shaking her body more than the last.

As the sun was rising, she came one last time, moaning into his mouth as they kissed, her entire body writhing against his until he found his release, again filling her with his seed. She slid herself off of him and gave him a light kiss on the forehead. Trailing her hand across his chest, she stood up and turned toward the tree. She leaned against it, and Cris recognized the pose immediately. He had seen small women lean against large men like that, hands and cheek pressed to the chest, drawing comfort from physical strength.

Then, as if she were slowly sinking into water, the tree enveloped her. In a moment, she had completely disappeared into the tree. Cris stared at where she had been standing a moment before, not believing what he had seen. Ten minutes later, he was still staring at the tree. It must have been a magic trick of some sort. Nobody could have disappeared into the tree. A half an hour later, Cris blinked three times in rapid succession. He had an odd feeling that it would be really strange to see a woman disappear into the tree, though he had no idea why he would think that. Standing up, he looked around himself, seeing his clothes, tattered from the thorny bushes, scattered around the clearing.

After he had dressed himself, he set about finding a way out of the thicket. He didn't recall how he got there, but guessed that he had been sleepwalking. He had been stressed and exhausted. Sleepwalking was a reasonable assumption. As he pressed through the thorny bushes, he saw looked closely at them. He knew what they were; they were plants called buckthorn. Introduced from Europe as a landscaping plant, it turned out that they were extremely invasive, and were known to choke out all other vegetation. That oak in the middle of the clearing wouldn't live for too many more years if this stuff was allowed to stay.

By the time he had found his way out of the thicket, Cris had made up his mind: he would talk to the city park commission, a DNR officer, anybody he could to try to get the stuff out of the park. And if he couldn't get anyone else to do anything about it, he would come back here and pull it up himself, bush by bush. Just thinking about doing such a good deed for the local flora left him with a warm, fuzzy glow, just like how he felt after particularly satisfying sex.