Roses

As the song proceeded, Ponane slipped into a more natural demeanor. Epimonos had noticed earlier that she often seemed to lose herself in the moment as she played. Before long, Ponane's self-consciousness had melted away and her voice became utterly incredible as it found strength and smoothness she never knew it had.

She sang as if no one were watching her, yet delivered a performance worthy of an audience of the gods themselves.

Epimonos sat and listened with bated breath. Tears welled up in his eyes and his body was covered in goosebumps, from the sheer beauty of Ponane's song. He was so consumed by her that he could physically feel himself being lifted and lowered as the notes rose and fell. Her song carried him like a boundless eagle from the heights of happiness to the darkest depths of despair, to the breathtaking dashes of exhilaration. With her wordless melody, she eloquently conveyed tenderness and dignity, wonderment of nature's glory, suppressed sensuality, aching loneliness and dreams of love that never were, and of course, the pleasure and pride of playing the finest music.

Epimonos lost all sense of time as he savored Ponane's song. When she eventually finished, he was left reeling from the emotional ride she had taken him on.

Ponane opened her eyes after plucking the final string of her song and watched Epimonos expectantly, visibly apprehensive of what his response to her intimate performance would be. Epimonos simply gazed at her, motionless, his mouth gaping in awe.

"You..." he eventually croaked, in a barely audible voice, "You are the most beautiful woman... ever."

Ponane's gazed recoiled from him as she turned aside, shyly. For a brief moment, it looked as if she were trembling.

"You should go," she uttered in a calm, yet clearly upset voice.

"Ponane..." Epimonos gently tried to protest, but was swiftly cut off.

"Youhave to go. Now!" Ponane asserted in a much harsher tone.

"I didn't mean any offense," Epimonos assured her.

"You were summoned here to fertilize the sisters, not harass me with your tiresome gawking," she ranted, almost to herself. "You wasted all these days, when you were supposed to be bringing forth the spring.

"Go! Go down and mingle with the dryads whoactually want you around. Go gratify yourself against their seductive bodies and bring them to flower. Leave me alone," she said, coldly.

"Ponane, I don't understand," Epimonos countered in exasperation, marching over to her side, trying to get her to look at him. "We were getting along! I thought you liked me?"

"I don'twant to like you!" Ponane snarled, rising from her couch and staring Epimonos square in the eye. "I don't want to be fond of you! I don't want to havefeelings about you! I don't want to want to have se..." she hesitated, awkwardly. "I don't want to want something I can never have. Look at me, Epimonos. I'm not made for affection, I'm not made for companionship; I can't get close to anyone. I'm covered in spikes. I'm meant to be avoided.

"I don't know why you are so slow to realize that, but whatever the reason, it's a quality that I can't bear any longer. Go find a spirit who can indulge your advances. I... I don't want to see you again," she declared, turning away once more.

Epimonos didn't respond at first. He was stunned by what Ponane said... and what she hadn't said.

Eventually, Ponane, who was shuddering like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown spun back toward him and snapped, "Have you gone deaf? I said..."

Epimonos wrapped his hands around her face, instantly lancing the flesh of his palms on the thorns of her cheeks and pricking his fingertips on the quill-like hairs above her ears. He winced in agony as he pressed his lips amorously against hers, silencing her mid-sentence. The feel of her warm, yielding lips filled him with intoxicating bliss that quickly numbed the pains in his hands.

A confused series of delighted and distressed whimpers escaped Ponane's mouth as her tongue instinctively reciprocated the caresses of Epinonos'.

"No, please! You can't do this," Ponane implored, as soon as the kiss broke. "I could hurt you so mu..."

Again, Epimonos silenced her with a passionate kiss. He could feel the many spikes of her body prodding him through his toga as he encroached upon her. He knew they were only a couple pounds of pressure (if that) from puncturing both the garment and his abdomen. But that no longer mattered to him. No injury from those thorns could be worse than the terrible thought of never touching, never holding this remarkable, gorgeous woman.

"No, Epimonos. Don't! Please. Please," Ponane wept when the kiss ended. Her spindly fingers were tenderly stroking the side of his face. By now, thick pools of blood were welling around Epimonos' hands.

Epimonos lunged forward for a third kiss and the sudden movement caused Ponane's sharp index finger to make a bleeding scratch along the side of his forehead. He brought his body even closer to hers and felt the sting of a couple of spikes from her belly breaking his skin; small prices to pay for the tenderness of her kiss. Despite her protests, Ponane couldn't stop herself from wrapping her other arm around her admirer for a tentative embrace.

"You have to stop. We can't do this!" Ponane whimpered, softly shaking her head.

Epimonos gasped in pain as he lifted his hands off her thorns.

"See?" Ponane said, noting the blood smeared all across his palms. "You have to go, before it gets any worse!"

Epimonos responded only by tilting her chin up with his finger and leaning in for yet another long kiss, during which, he scratched his chin on a thorn from Ponane's chin.

More of her bodily thorns made shallow wounds upon him as he moved even closer to her. He felt the many spikes from her husky bra pressing against the fabric covering his nipples. Luckily, the close concentration of those spikes seemed to create a 'bed of nails' effect that prevented them from breaking through the toga.

Ponane's resistance dwindled and she embraced him more intently. With her other hand, she cupped the back of his head as firmly as she dared. By the end of their next kiss, she had given up asking Epimonos to see reason and instead simply gazed at him pleadingly. By the end of the following kiss, her eyes were filled only with apprehensive longing. The conflict inside her was maddening; she desperately wanted to be with him and she desperately wanted him to be safe, but she could not have both.

Epimonos wrapped his arms around her. He caressed her back with intermittent bouts of care between moments of reckless abandon. He cut and scratched his arms countless times on the spikes growing from Ponane's back and sides, yet his desire for her only grew stronger. His hands bravely persevered past every hazard that assaulted them, determined to discover every single place where they could safely be intimate with her.

Their kisses grew longer, hungrier. Epimonos' grunts of pain whenever he injured himself became indiscernible from his sounds of arousal. Ponane was swooning and moaned accordingly. Her embrace was quite intense now and her sharp fingers and barbed arms snagged and eventually shredded Epimonos' toga. As she continued adoring him, her fingertips accidentally made long scratches across his back.

They were so close to one another. A subtle turn of Ponane's leg was all it took for one of her long spikes to make a three-inch long cut across Epimonos' thigh.

They'd been kissing for what seemed like ages when they finally paused. Their breaths were ragged, their bodies possessed by impractical urges that neither of them could resist any longer.

Epimonos set about removing her shell-like brassiere. He cut his fingers on its sharp edges and pricked himself on several of its thorns just trying to get a workable grasp of it. Eventually, with no little exertion, he managed to tear the sturdy coverings asunder.

Ponane's breasts were full and extremely pert, yet delectably lithe to the touch. Shallow nipples were centered on her large, chestnut brown areolae. Much to Epimonos' delight, her breasts were unmarked by any prongs or sharp edges -- it seemed that her bra had been all the protection they needed.

They kissed passionately some more as Epimonos cupped and fondled her erogenous tits, which up till now had never even felt the caress of a gentle breeze. Her nipples tightened and hardened after just a few seconds.

With their mutual arousal rapidly building, Epimonos soon abandoned Ponane's breasts to remove her botanical loin covering. They were of a similar nature to her brassiere: hard, bark-like with many spikes and razor-sharp edges. Though his previous efforts with the brassiere were a helpful guide, he nonetheless cut and scratched his hand and forearms numerous times before tearing the garment away from her sacred slit.

The smell of Ponane's arousal made Epimonos' heart pound like a drum. It was the most magical aroma he had ever smelt - floral, mildly sweet and bracingly erotic. It elicited the fondest thoughts for this hazel-eyed nymph and redoubled his yearning to be as close as possible to her. It took all of Epimonos' reason not to pull her body right against him right then, likely skewering himself on her bodily spikes.

He caressed her mons in a circular motion, working his way down to her nether lips. His maleness, already throbbing with anticipation, quickly grew to full erection as he gently massaged the outer folds of her sex. Ponane seemed even more excited by his vaginal teasing. By the time he began to slip a finger inside she was moaning intensely and shuddering.

"Are you okay?" Epimonos whispered, a little unnerved by her overt reaction to such timid foreplay.

"I think... I don't know -- I've never..." Ponane panted in excited confusion. Then she noticed the reluctance on Epimonos' face and cast her uncertainty aside. "Yes! Yes!" she asserted, sealing it with a kiss. "Don't leave me... Don't stop," she purred against his lips.

Epimonos was quick to resume his foreplay and briefly caressed Ponane's womanhood a little more before moving his hand around to squeeze her shapely butt. By this point, much of her body was already painted in streaks of his blood. Meanwhile, Ponane peeled off his partially shredded toga, taking care not to damage it any further.

Now both completely naked, the virile man and virgin dryad kissed and tenderly embraced a while longer, until they gazed into each other's eyes and knew it was time to share the act of love.

Ponane layed down upon the ground and Epimonos knelt before her. She parted her thighs as much as she was able; hoping to give Epimonos safe access to her opening, but a couple of thorns from her inner thighs remained in hazardous positions.

Epimonos wasn't deterred. With a smile he shuffled up between her legs and placed the head of his cock upon her glistening hole. The clearance between the thorns and his hips was no more than an inch on either side. Ponane gasped and arched her back slightly as his ample maleness filled her quivering snatch, inch by blessed inch.

The sun departed beyond the horizon, leaving the couple to relish Aphrodite's spell. Epimonos began to gently thrust against Ponane's loins, leaning over her slightly and bracing himself with his arms. It was a precarious position. One slip and he would fall right on top of her, impaling himself upon her spikes, which would likely prove fatal. But sharing this moment of closeness with her was worth that risk. Her barbs and brusque manner no longer disturbed him. He could see the lovely, vulnerable soul hiding within and he was smitten.

Ponane began to writhe and sigh as pleasure welled within her nether regions. An uncharacteristically delighted grin washed over her face. After a while, she sat up and stole kisses from Epimonos -- tender kisses, which soon became incongruous with the vigorous motions of his hips. The thorns of her inner thighs scratched him periodically, as his gyrations became more careless.

Epimonos' breath became heavy and Ponane could tell that he would climax soon. She layed back down, to savour the final moments of her first sexual experience. The heady warmth that had spread throughout her body had plateaued nicely. It elicited a sense of contentment in her heart as she felt Epimonos filling her, stroking her most personal depths.

Then, it happened: for the first time in her adult life, she let her defences down. It wasn't even a conscious decision. But after all his unfaltering patience; all his respect and kindness; his romantic bravery in simply touching her, she couldn't bear to let her wall of distrust remain between them for another moment. She submitted to him completely, letting him bring her to any physical or emotional sensation, no matter how frighteningly intense.

The stirrings of coital rapture began to envelop her almost immediately.

With her emotional defences gone, her outward ones soon followed. The thorns all across her body rapidly became dry and frail, eventually crumbling to brittle slivers or dropping off like dead twigs. The tremors of their sexual activity shook the last splinters of the spikes from her belly. The long, rigid quills of her hair collapsed in an instant, becoming as loose and innocuous as regular human hair. Even the gruesome, elongated tips of her fingers broke off to leave agile, rounded fingertips. Within seconds her body was as smooth and luscious as any other dryad in the grove.

Their eyes met for a brief moment and Ponane caressed Epimonos' face with her new fingers. Her look of gratitude spoke volumes. Although he didn't fully understand the process, he realized that their feelings for each other had somehow caused her transformation.

Epimonos began to pant ominously as his maleness throbbed with irresistible excitement. Ponane cooed and squirmed uncontrollably as her womanhood teetered on the brink of something wonderful.

Three short gasps precipitated her magnificent climax. It began with a spasm in her sex that rocked her entire body, leaving a wake of unbearable ecstasy. She let herself go and dissolved into a storm of pure sexual energy. Her arms and legs seized around her lover -- clinging to him desperately as tears seeped through her clenched eyelids.

Epimonos came with a bestial roar. His cock surrendered immediately to the orgasmic embrace of her womanhood and unleashed his hot load in a frenzied discharge. He buried his throbbing organ inside with all his might, spilling his essence into her deepest flesh.

Ponane's manic moans echoed throughout the sacred grove, much like her enchanting melodies, except for its chaotic manner. Her song excited many of her dryad sisters so much that they sought out a human companion for immediate release. A few were so aroused, they preferred to share a convenient partner rather than prowl any longer.

Ponane and Epimonos trembled as their mutual orgasm smouldered into a state of warm, blissful exhaustion. They absently nuzzled each other as they struggled to catch their breath. Ponane was the first to fall gently back to earth, followed soon after by Epimonos. He padded soft kisses upon her shoulder and gently caressed her heaving bosom for a few seconds, before rolling away to recuperate by her side.

"We... we made love?" Ponane asked with an air of disbelief.

"Mmm, Yes," Epimonos happily confirmed.

"I never dreamed I would ever get to make love," she confessed, emotionally.

She sat up and gazed down at her lover, at first with unspeakable gratitude. But the sight of him quickly became horrifying as she took stock of all the damage she had inflicted on him.

His entire body was covered with bloody scratches, scrapes and punctures. Many of the wounds were weeping significantly, though not enough to be life-threatening. She almost broke down at the realization of all the pain her stupid bitterness had caused this wonderful man. But before she could, he reached up and tenderly caressed the side of her face with a loving smile. His forgiveness only humbled her all the more.

As the carnal cries of men and dryads periodically sounded from distant points of the garden, Ponane cleansed Epimonos' wounds with her tears of joy and bandaged the most serious ones with the shredded remains of his toga.

After every injury had been tended to, she layed down and snuggled up to him. Epimonos wrapped his arms around her lusciously smooth body and held her close -- now able to do so without injuring himself. As they rolled around the grass, kissing, they kept their bodies pressed firmly against one another, so that not even the smallest gap of air divided them.

Then when they were ready, they shared the adventure of sex a second time, before falling asleep in each other's arms.

Ponane and Epimonos remained close to each other for the following three days. Their days continued much as before, with Ponane playing her harp and Epimonos admiring her as she did so, taking occasional breaks now and again to make love.

At night, they would curl up together under the large ash tree and express their profound feelings for each other with physical intimacy.

Epimonos didn't even need to leave to fetch food or water. The other dryads bought him offerings of fruit and water throughout the day, as a sign of their immense gratitude for freeing their reclusive sister from her aching loneliness.

It was an adjustment for Ponane to play her harp without her spindly fingers, but after a brief learning curve, her natural talent shone through once more. Epimonos didn't hesitate to point out how the absence of her long fingers had no noticeable effect on her wonderful music.

Their conversations flowed far more freely than it had in the beginning, as Ponane was now most eager to engage with her friendly fan. They shared many thoughts and memories of their own different worlds. Ponane shared many mythic tales and erotic legends known to few but dryad kin. Epimonos talked about the many marvels and fascinating complexities of civilized society.

In particular, he made numerous attempts to persuade Ponane that although man had some brutal flaws, he more often than not endeavoured to be good and honourable. Ponane listened considerately to her lover's every word, but she still felt he was mistaken. Some wounds run too deep to ever truly heal.

Yet for all the flirtatious, humorous and solemn words they shared, they didn't speak the most important until their last night together.

After a filling dinner of apples and figs, Epimonos layed beneath the stars with Ponane by his side and they spoke sweet nothings to one another and watched the constellations roll across the heavens.

At a late hour, Ponane fell unusually quiet. Without a word, she rolled on to Epimonos and began kissing him with growing ardor. They kissed and cuddled until Epimonos rigid shaft was straining with all its might against Ponane's pliant mons. Then she sat up and lowered her soaking pussy onto his meaty lance.

She gyrated rhythmically upon his cock -- deeper and deeper, faster and faster. Epimonos became transfixed on the sight of Ponane's ample breasts heaving to and fro and reached up to fondle them with one hand while delicately brushing her clit with the other.

Ponane's persistent rocking left Epimonos no time to calm down and before long, her heavenly fissure was milking his maleness of every ounce of cum.

As the climatic excitement ebbed into a pleasant afterglow, Epimonos began to slowly massage Ponane's thighs. But Ponane soon put a stop to the affectionate gesture by slipping her hands into his and gently squeezing them. He gazed up at her and lost himself in her doting hazel eyes.

"Epimonos," she said, in a voice that was happy and sad all at once, "I love you."