Chapter 4: The Garden
The morning light through the lace curtains felt accusatory. Mark lay on the sofa bed, the stale taste of last night lingering. The house was quiet, then filled with the mundane sounds of Chantal in the kitchen, the radio murmuring news in French. When he entered, showered and dressed, Julie was already there, sipping coffee. She looked at him over the rim of her cup, her gaze unreadable. "Sorry Mark, no pancakes and maple syrup. Will bread and jam do it?" No mention of the dark, wordless exchange. Just the polite fiction of a house guest.
“The market in town is excellent on Saturdays,” Chantal announced, pulling on a light jacket. “I will be gone for two hours. You will be alright?”
“We’ll be fine, Maman,” Julie said, her voice light. “We might sit in the garden. It’s a nice morning.”
The moment the front door clicked shut, the air changed. The polite fiction evaporated. Julie placed her cup down with a deliberate click.
“Come with me,” she said. It wasn’t an invitation.
She led him through the kitchen door into the walled garden. It was small, overgrown in places, a tangle of late-summer roses and unchecked ivy. In a secluded corner, shaded by the large, gnarled oak she’d described in pixelated detail two decades ago, sat two faded beach chairs, the plastic and fabric cracked with age.
She stopped by them. The air was warm, humming with bees.
“Do you remember?” she asked. Her voice was low, stripped of the morning’s pretense. Of course he did. How could he forget? It was a July, twenty years back. A heatwave. She’d texted him, sentence by breathless sentence, from this very spot. She’d been sprawled on one of these chairs, hot and horny, her fingers working under her shorts as she typed out her fantasy for him. She’d described the rough bark of the oak against her chest. She’d told him she wanted him to take her right here, to slide himself between her cheeks, to fuck her against that tree until she screamed.
He’d asked, In your ass?
She’d typed back, In my pussy. To start with.
“It’s time,” she said now, her eyes holding his. “No more ghosts. No more texts.”
She walked to the massive oak, its roots bulging from the earth. She didn’t look back. She simply pressed her front against the rough, ancient bark, her arms circling it as if in an embrace. She leaned forward, presenting herself. Then she gathered the skirt of her summer dress in her hands and slowly, slowly, drew it up.
She wore nothing underneath.
The morning sun illuminated the perfect, pale curves of her ass. And there, nestled between them, was the pink silicone plug, its flared base a vivid, shocking contrast against her skin. It was already in place, a promise and a preparation.
“You talked about this tree for months after,” she said, her voice muffled against the bark. “Now fuck me against it.”
He was on her in three strides. He fumbled with his belt, his jeans, his hands clumsy. He freed his cock, already painfully hard. He pressed himself against her, the heat of her through the thin silicone making him groan.
He didn’t wait. He guided the head of his cock through her slick folds, finding her entrance, and pushed inside in one hard, deep stroke. She cried out, a raw sound swallowed by the tree. He fucked her like that, standing, his hands gripping her hips, pulling her back onto him with each thrust. The tree shook slightly, leaves rustling. His balls slapped against her, a sharp, rhythmic sound in the quiet garden.
“Is this what you pictured?” he grunted, the force of his movements driving her against the rough bark. “All those years ago?”
“Yes! Fuck, yes! Harder!”
He complied, pounding into her, each drive pushing a choked breath from her lungs. He could feel the tight coil of her climax building, her inner muscles beginning to spasm around him. She was getting there fast, faster than usual. She was craving for it like she did twenty years ago. He slid a hand around her hip, his fingers finding her clit, wet and swollen. He rubbed it in rough, rapid circles.
She felt it. That feeling again. For the second time, burning her belly.
Her body seized. A sharp, broken scream tore from her throat. Her cunt clenched around him in violent, rippling waves, and a hot gush of liquid soaked his hand, his thighs, the grass below. She sagged against the tree, boneless, her legs trembling violently.
“I can’t… I can’t stand,” she whimpered, her strength gone.
He didn’t answer with words. He simply pulled out of her, his cock slick and gleaming, and hooked his hands under her arms. He dragged her back from the tree, her legs trailing through the damp grass, and lowered her onto the patch of lawn she had just soaked. The cool blades pressed against her bare back, a shocking contrast to the heat of her skin.
She looked up at him, dazed, her hair fanned out like a dark halo. “You’re not done?” Her voice was a ragged thread of sound.
“You said ‘eventually’,” he growled, kneeling between her splayed thighs. He gripped the flared base of the pink plug. “Twenty years is a long eventually.”
With a slow, deliberate twist, he pulled it free. Her gasp was sharp, her body clenching around the sudden emptiness. He tossed the toy aside into the roses, its purpose served. He positioned himself, the blunt, wet head of his cock pressing against that now-exposed, forbidden pucker. He looked into her eyes, seeking permission, finding only a wild, yielding hunger. Her hips tilted upward in silent assent, an offering more profound than any words.
He pushed in. It was a tighter, hotter, unimaginable pressure. She cried out, her nails digging into the earth, tearing at the roots beneath the grass. He sank into her ass with a relentless, steady invasion, burying himself to the hilt in one long, searing slide. She felt impossibly full, stretched, a raw and perfect friction that burned away every other thought.
He began to move, and the world narrowed to the slap of skin, the crushed scent of grass and sex, the ragged symphony of their breathing. His balls, already emptied once against the tree, felt tight and sensitive, slapping against her dripping cunt with every thrust. She was so wet from her earlier climax that her own slickness ran down her cleft, easing his passage into her ass, making the slide obscenely smooth.
“Fuck your ass,” he chanted, a raw, guttural mantra. “Fucking take it.”
She could only grunt, her vision blurring. Every plunge sent a shock through her, a direct line to her clit that pulsed with overwhelmed pleasure. He was hammering her, his pace brutal and unrelenting, the force of it grinding her shoulders into the lawn. Another orgasm ripped through her without warning, a silent, breathless convulsion that made her cunt spasm wildly around nothing, drenching them both anew.
“Again,” he demanded, piston-ing into her, his own release a distant threat on the horizon. “Cum again, you filthy bitch.”
Her body obeyed him. It was no longer pleasure but a physiological revolt, a chain reaction she couldn’t stop. She squirted a second time, a hot burst that leaked from her pussy and pooled beneath her ass on the grass. Her anal muscles fluttered and gripped his cock in a tight, rhythmic pulse. He groaned, his thrusts becoming ragged, his control fraying.
“I feel it… I can’t…” she sobbed, her heels coming up to dig into the small of his back. They weren’t pushing him away. They anchored him, pulling him deeper, forcing him back into her again and again with each desperate flex of her calves. Her orgasms ceased being distinct events. They became a continuous, shuddering seizure, a never-ending wave that left her trembling and gasping, her cunt clenching and pushing as if trying to milk a cock that wasn’t there.
He watched her come apart beneath him, her eyes rolled back, her mouth open in a silent scream. The sight undid him. With a final, shattered groan, he spent himself deep inside her ass, his own hips jerking through the pulses. He collapsed onto her, his weight pressing her deeper into the sodden, ruined grass. They lay there, glued together by sweat and come, their hearts hammering against each other’s ribs in the sun-dappled silence.
A distant church bell tolled the hour. Somewhere beyond the garden wall, a car door slammed.
Finally, she stirred. She pulled her dress down, her movements slow, wincing slightly. She looked at him, grass in her hair, her eyes clearer than they’d been in days.
“We should go in,” she said, her voice hoarse. “She’ll be back soon.”
They helped each other up, their clothes in disarray, the evidence of what they’d done soaking into the French soil. They didn’t speak as they walked back inside, the ghost of a July fantasy finally laid to rest in the plain light of day.
They didn’t speak as they walked back inside, the ghost of a July fantasy finally laid to rest in the plain light of day. The cool, still air of the house was a shock. Their shoes left faint, damp prints on the tile. Julie went straight to the sink, her movements stiff, and filled a glass with water, drinking it down in one long, desperate gulp.
Mark leaned against the doorframe, watching the tremble in her hand. Grass stains smeared the back of her dress. His own jeans were damp, clinging unpleasantly. The silence was a physical thing, swollen with everything they’d just done to each other on the lawn.
She set the glass down, the click too loud. She didn’t turn around. “My body is scratched to hell,” she said, her voice flat. “The bark.”
“I know.” He saw the red, raw marks across her shoulders when she’d leaned over the sink. A trophy of violence. He felt a twist of something ugly and proud in his gut. He walked to her, his own legs unsteady. He stopped behind her, not touching. The scent of her, of sex and earth and crushed green things, rose between them. “Julie.”
She finally turned, her eyes finding his. They were dark, wide, the pupils swallowing the irises. She looked wrecked and utterly alive. Her gaze dropped to the obvious, damp stain on his jeans. A faint, crooked smile touched her lips. “So.”
“So.” He reached out, his thumb brushing a smudge of dirt from her cheekbone. The gesture felt stupidly tender. “Your professor. Christophe.”
The smile vanished. Her eyes shuttered, a veil drawn. “What about him?”
The ugliness in his gut tightened. He thought of her thighs around his head in the dark living room, her whispered we’ll see at the dinner table. He thought of the brutal, claiming way she’d just used him against the tree, as if trying to exorcise two decades in one afternoon. He let his hand drop.
“Can Christophe do that?” he asked.
The question hung there, stark and brutal in the tidy kitchen. It wasn’t about the sex, not really. It was about the abandon, the raw, screaming submission, the total surrender of pretense. It was about the pink plug waiting, and the ruin they’d made of the lawn.
She held his gaze for a long moment, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator. Her expression softened, not with affection, but with a terrifying honesty.
“No,” she said, the word quiet and final. “No one else.” She looked past him, toward the window and the garden beyond. “He’s gentle. He brings me wine. We talk about art. I pretend. He kisses my forehead after. ”
The description was a knife. Mark understood. Christophe was the future, a sane and steady landing after the divorce. He was the man you brought home to your mother’s market-day chicken. Mark was the secret, the ghost, the living manifestation of a corrupt and hungry past that had to be fucked out against a tree root until it stopped screaming.
“Then why?” The words were out before he could stop them, ragged and stripped bare. “Why any of this?The train. Last night.Just now. Is this just… clearing the archive?”
She turned back to the window, her profile sharp. “I needed to know if it was real. Not just pixels. Not just a girl in a bedroom typing fantasies. I needed to know if that girl was still in here, or if years of being someone’s wife had fucking euthanized her.” She finally looked at him, her eyes gleaming. “You were the only one who ever knew her. The only one who ever talked to her. So you were the only one who could tell me.”
“And?” he pushed, stepping closer. The air crackled. “Did you find her?”
In answer, she reached for him. Not with passion, but with a quiet, fierce urgency. Her fingers gripped the back of his neck, pulling his mouth down to hers. The kiss wasn’t sweet. It was a search, a confirmation, teeth and tongue and shared breath tasting of salt and regret.
When she broke away, they were both breathing hard. “She’s here,” Julie whispered against his mouth. “And she’s furious.”
The sound of a key in the front door lock was a gunshot.
They sprang apart. Julie smoothed her dress, a futile gesture given the grass stains and general dishevelment. Mark ran a hand through his hair, his heart hammering against his ribs. Chantal’s cheerful voice called out from the hallway, the rustle of market bags following.
“In the kitchen, Maman!” Julie called back, her voice miraculously light. She turned the tap on, splashing water on her face, rinsing the evidence of tears or sweat from her skin. She glanced at Mark, a silent command in her eyes: Compose yourself.
Chantal bustled in, her arms full of cloth bags spilling with vegetables and a baguette. “The melons were superb! And I found the cheese you like, Julie, the one from—Mon Dieu, you two look flushed! Have you been running?”
“Just went hiking” Julie said, taking a bag from her mother, turning away to hide the scratches on her back. “I felt down, Marc helped me.”
“Well, help me instead put this away. Marc, you will join us for lunch, of course? Nothing fancy, just some simple things.”
Mark nodded, his voice trapped somewhere beneath the memory of Julie’s choked screams. “Of course. Thank you.”
He helped unpack, his hands moving automatically. Tomatoes, lettuce, a round of chalky cheese. His fingers brushed against Julie’s as she reached for the same bunch of radishes. A spark, immediate and electric, jolted up his arm. She didn’t flinch. She held his gaze for a second too long, a secret flashing in her eyes before she turned back to the counter.
The afternoon stretched, an excruciating pantomime of normality. They ate at the garden table, the same oak tree a silent witness at the edge of the lawn. Mark avoided looking directly at the patch of disturbed grass. Julie talked too brightly about a client at work, her hands fluttering like trapped birds. Chantal prattled about a neighbor’s divorce, blissfully unaware of the tectonic shifts at her own table.
Mark watched Julie laugh at something her mother said, the elegant line of her throat, the way her smile didn’t reach her eyes. He saw the woman who discussed spreadsheets and exhibitions with Christophe. And he saw the other one, the one who ground herself against his face and demanded to be fucked in the dirt. They occupied the same body, layered like the city outside—orderly Renaissance facades hiding a vicious, medieval heart.
As they cleared the plates, Julie’s phone buzzed on the table. She glanced at the screen. Her entire posture changed, softening, shoulders dropping as if releasing a weight. A different smile, smaller and more genuine, touched her lips.
“It’s Christophe,” she said, picking up the phone. “He’s confirming for the exhibition tomorrow night.” She typed a quick reply, her thumbs flying.
Mark felt the cheese and bread congeal in his stomach. No one else, she’d said. The words now felt less like a prize and more like a sentence. He was the sole curator of a museum no one else would ever visit, a keeper of violent, sacred relics. He watched her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, the gesture unconscious, intimate. She was already leaving this kitchen, this day, him. She was already halfway back to a life where people kissed foreheads and discussed art.
“I should go up and lie down,” Julie announced, stretching. “I hurt my bum I think.” She kissed her mother’s cheek. “Thank you for lunch, Maman.”
Her eyes found Mark’s over her mother’s shoulder. They held no promise, no plan. Only a deep, exhausted recognition. Then she was gone, her footsteps fading up the stairs toward her childhood room.
Mark was left with Chantal and the dregs of coffee. The ghost was not laid to rest. It was sitting upstairs, texting her professor, its skin still marked by the tree. He understood now. This wasn’t a reunion anymore. It was an exorcism where he was both the priest and the demon. And he had no idea how to leave.