The sun creeps above the horizon and illuminates the scene below. A shallow hill nudges its way out of a loose, still forest, crowned by a ring of narrow oak poles. The top of the hill is bare earth, and at the very centre of the oak henge is a narrower pole of willow, maybe 8 feet tall and an inch thick
She walks from the East, out of the rising sun, and slowly climbs the hill. She is tall and beautiful and moves with a lithe grace. Her dark hair hangs in loose waves half-way down her back, and she wears a simple, white dress, cinched at the waist with a rope belt, hanging slightly above her knees. She passes between two of the oak poles without touching them and walks on to the pole of the willow. Wherever her bare feet touch the earth grass and flowers sprout, leaving a trail of green footprints in her wake.
When she reaches the pole, she turns round to face outwards and westward, then rises up onto tiptoe, stretching her arms outreached above her head, crosses her wrists and calmly touches them to the willow pole.
Instantly, green buds burst out along the willow pole and it begins to bloom. Tendrils reach out around her wrists and grow smooth bark, thickening until they hold fast. The bole of the willow thickens in proportion until it is perhaps six inches in diameter. Four more tendrils creep around her body horizontally, just above and below her breasts, at the bottom of her ribcage and just above her hips. Another pair brushes down over her shoulders, passing between her breasts and crossing the others before passing between her legs, pulling her dress up to the top of her thighs and joining with the tree again. These tendrils interweave as they thicken. Her ankles are held off the ground in a similar fashion, one either side of the trunk, with her soles pointing backwards and her toes just brushing the ground.
She hangs there for a moment, comfortable and safe, as the willow’s transformation into life finishes, and a wave of grass and flowers covers the ground like ripples in a pond and reaches the oak poles.
He walks from the West, out of the cold, and strides up the hill. He stands a head taller than she is, and is broad across the shoulders. He has tidy white hair and a close grey beard along his powerful chin. He wears a simple woodsy green tunic and brown trousers. He passes between two oak poles and walks on to the centre. Wherever his bare feet touch the grass, it withers and dies.
When he reaches the willow, their eyes lock and he reaches up to her trapped hands. They cross at the wrists, and at his direction, smaller tendrils creep around each of her fingers and hold them back. He extends a single finger on each of his hands and touches it gently to the centre of her palms. A shiver passes through both of them as they touch. He starts to draw slow, lazy spirals outwards around her palms, and the corner of her mouth twitches upwards as they begin their dance.
Once he reaches her wrists, he scratches lightly up and down, the branches holding her writhing to avoid his touch yet still hold her fast. He notes with satisfaction a slight tension in her arms pulling away.
He turns his hands around and adds another finger, dragging the two nails lightly along the curve of her forearms defined by the slender muscle just beneath the skin. As he reaches the inside of her elbows, he pauses and lightly scratches there with the two fingers. She begins to squirm within her limited range of movement, and a light musical giggle escapes her rosy lips. A small smile of triumph flashes across his face as his fingers start to flick across the inside of her elbow more quickly, but she takes a breath and lowers her eyes for a second before regaining the battle by defiantly flashing him a coy smile.
Pushed on by her taunt, he adds a third finger and sweeps slowly and lightly down her upper arms. He catches her off guard by sweeping in and up, lightly tickling her neck. Her shoulders try to pull up, but are stopped by the branches resting lightly upon them. Her grin widens uncontrollably, lightening up an already beautiful face, and only a supreme effort of will keeps her head still and her eyes locked on his. After a couple of minutes of this, his fingers drift back up her arms before turning a circle and heading down again
He reaches her smooth armpits, bared by her dress and held open and unprotected by the willow, then pauses. After a few seconds pass, a shiver of anticipation passes through her body and he takes his cue. His fingers suddenly jump into life, much faster than before, and her eyes widen for a second before her mouth is forced open by the laugher swelling inside her and a full-bodied musical laugh blossoms out. He continues, modulating his pace to keep her off-balance, but never stopping. Her laughter falls to the slightest giggle barely stirring the air and rises to a full-throated laugh filling the circle, but never stops, and the two never break eye contact. Eventually, he slows to a stop and starts tracing a path with a single finger along her collar bones, rising and falling rapidly with her breathing, as before her wooden bonds splitting to avoid his fingers.
While her breathing slows to normal, his fingertips trace paths around her upper body. Her gossamer dress provides no protection from his fingers drawing circles, now large and now small, now fast and now slow, around her shoulders, around and between her breasts, along her ribs and around her stomach. She relaxes under this light touch, until again she flashes a quick, almost imperceptible smile.
His hands, tracing lines underneath her breasts, suddenly form claws and dig firmly into her ribcage. Her back arches, and at his command the willow arches with it, holding her back, stretching her already smooth stomach taut and outlining her ribs. He continues this deep kneading of her muscles, again bringing forth gales of laughter that brightened her face, before abruptly stopping and tracing a single fingernail across her skin, torturously lightly, bringing slight smiles and occasional blushes as he traces a light spiral up and around her breast, then switching back to the deep kneading.
Eventually, his touch sweeps round and out, passing her hips and back around into her inner thigh. Here, her dress is pulled up by the branch passing between her legs, exposing the tendon where her long legs meet her hips. Here, he keels down, breaking eye contact for the first time, before pinching lightly just behind the tendon. This yields her most violent reaction yet, trying to madly buck her hips and kick her legs. He allows her to straighten up, but otherwise becomes implacable and gives no further concession, fluttering his grip and pulling forth a continuous stream of laughter. For the first time, he takes her to the point where her laughter starts to falter from exhaustion, and then waits another long minute before sliding off and dragging a pair of fingernails down her legs.
Her knees are in front of the tree, with a branch passing behind them preventing her from pulling them back. His fingers flicker around her knees, scratching lightly in the hollow behind or squeezing just above the kneecap, but mostly biding his time, keeping her on edge while she recovers. When her breathing returns to normal, he moves down again, this time walking around the tree and facing her soles.
Her slender feet hang vertically down, with her ankles held firmly to each side of the trunk. Her toes just brush the soil below, and at his command tendrils curl out of the soil and around her toes, holding them firmly and stretching her soles back and her toes apart.
With a smile, he drags a single finger down each sole. Immediately, her toes try to curl up defensively but fail, her efforts only managing to highlight the tendons running along her soles and focus his attention upon them. He loops lightly up and down her soles a couple of times, before coming up and around her ankles and to the back of her heel, lightly scratching there with his fingernails. Here, he hits a hotspot, and her reactions go off the scale as her whole body tenses up and struggles against him.
He decides to move this up a level, so continues drumming his fingernails across the back of one heel, while the other hand ranges around the other foot, working the front of the heel, spidering lightly down her taut sole, along her high arches, scratching the pad, underneath and between her exposed long toes, and even tickling up the sensitive tops of her feet and around her ankles. Each sensitive spot was discovered, exploited, visited and re-visited in an unpredictable journey that gave her not a second’s respite. He would focus on one spot on one foot while the other hand glided around the other, before switching hands and singling out another spot on the second foot.
Finally, both hands stop briefly just above her toes, giving her a break in her now-ragged laughter. In giving the pause, he offers up a silent question, to which she responds only by relaxing her toes, wiggling them once in a taunt.
He briefly scowls, and immediately continues attacking the sensitive skin where her toes join with her sole, triggering a return of her wild laughter. As he flexes his fingers, the tendrils around her toes start to move sympathetically, rotating where they twist around her toes, tiny hairs along their stems pulsing rhythmically. His fingers start to sweep in slow spirals up her feet, first working her sole and then the top, and the tendrils climb to follow, wrapping themselves around her feet and tickling wherever they remain in contact, sending her laughter up several notches in intensity.
He continues this slow climb up her legs until he reaches her knees. The tendrils wrapped around her feet and lower legs resemble lace gloves, with patterns on them moving in rhythmic spirals and sending maddening tickling sensations wherever they touch her skin. For the first time, he removes his hands from her body, and walks around in front of her.
Sweat slicks her body, and tears trace damp lines away from her eyes. Her mouth is fixed open in laughter, and her chest rises and falls deeply and rapidly to provide air for the laughter that is forced out of her as the tendrils continue their work and climb higher independently. He looks her directly in the eye, and waits for her to yield. Defiantly, she refuses to lower her eyes. He raises an eyebrow in surprise, and then reaches towards her shoulders.
Gently, he makes two rips in the shoulders of her dress and pulls it down to her waist, the branches around her chest flowing sinuously out of the way to allow this. He then runs his fingers slowly up her body, tracing muscles as they move to allow her breathing. As he does so, the smooth branches holding her begin to bud and put forth more tendrils, growing out to loosely cover her upper body and lay still. His fingers pass up between her breasts and start turning slow spirals around them, inwards and upwards towards her nipples. A shiver passes through her whole body as the branches start to turn slow spirals to match his hands, the tendrils off them turning in opposite directions. The hairs along the stems of the tendrils start pulsing to match the ones growing from the ground, now growing under their own power and up to her upper thighs.
The two systems of tendrils start to interweave, leaving waves of sensations moving in perpendicular directions around her body. His fingers are now making very small, very fast circles around her nipples. When her entire upper body is covered by the tendrils, he takes his hands off and encourages them up her arms, tickling first her armpits, and then moving slowly up her arms, the tendrils following up towards her hands. They twine around her fingers, and then he ties them off just above her.
He takes a final step back to admire his work. Her entire body is wrapped in the tendrils, moving in unpredictable spiral, combining with each other or annihilating when they meet, moving in unexpected directions. At any time, perhaps a third of her body was visible beneath the lace-like mesh. Only her head stuck out of this cocoon, thrashing from side to side and thrown back in silent laughter, her eyes screwed shut in an attempt to block out the sensations on every inch of her body.
He takes a step forwards, and lightly brushes her cheek with the back of his hand. With a great strain, she opens her eyes. Her fingers, previously thrashing wildly within their bonds like every other part of her body, start probing gently into the vine around them. For a long moment, nothing happens, and then the knot above her fingers slowly starts to bud. Angrily, his fists tighten, and with them the loose cocoon around her tightens up, and the spirals speed up. Under the sudden heightening of the already unimaginably intense sensation, she loses the scrap of concentration she had and her thrashing redoubles.
He places his hands on either side of his head, holding it still and looks into her eyes, sure of his victory. At length, she gathers one tiny fragment of will from within her tickle-wracked mind and almost imperceptibly shakes her head. Surprised, he drops his hands.
A single flower stands cupped in her palms.
Immediately, the vines around her slow to a halt and gently lower her down to the ground, where they form a loose hammock supporting her. The oak poles in the outer circle burst into life and the green meadow flows out, down the hill and into the world.
As she lays there, he turns and faces the way he came, into the now setting sun, and leaves.
