I’m an old man, well, oldish, so please forgive my ramblings. Everyone knows that Frank Sinatra song… my only dispute with it is that regrets are rather futile. You make a mistake, you learn from it, and move on. For sure, there are things I’d do differently if I had my life over again, but on the other hand, I’m not too displeased with my life. It’s just that I’m aware now of what old people had said to me when I was at the beginning of my life.

I know I’m slower – physically and mentally. I know my abilities no longer keep up with my desires, but as I was told years ago, I still have the thoughts of a teenager. What’s left? Well, books, for one thing, and imagination. There’s also my motorbike, though it’s much less potent than what I used to ride – a five hundred cc, single cylinder, Royal Enfield Bullet. It’ll do seventy, as long as it doesn’t have a strong head wind. It represents as much freedom as I have, these days.

I’ve lived through… well, when I was a boy, trains were hauled by steam locomotives. Hardly anyone owned a car (Dad did. It was one of two on our road) and we didn’t own a television until I was nine. It had one channel and the picture was black, white and grey. Ever watch snooker on a black-and-white screen? Aeroplanes had piston engines driving propellors, and the first jets were exciting. As a science student I programmed a mainframe computer (VERY basic programming using FORTRAN) with punched cards. My program didn’t work; I made a syntax error. Nowadays even pocket devices like my smart phone have more processing power than that old mainframe.

What else? I enjoy beauty. I enjoy music, and I enjoy art, though not much of the abstract and surrealist stuff that’s around these days. My wife, God rest her soul, I always thought beautiful, even at the end of her fight with cancer. My marriage didn’t stop me enjoying the sight of ladies I encountered, though I never thought of physically straying. These days, well, I walk a lot especially in the local park, and take pleasure in watching ladies – of all ages, in fact – as they run or jog past. The most attractive to look at, I suppose, are those between their teens and perhaps thirties; physically, that is. For companionship I’d prefer someone… more mature.

I read a lot. And, yes, some of it is porn. I’m not impressed with what I see in video porn: my imagination is better, thank you. But one thing I do regret is how little I knew about good sex when I was still able. Cathy… that was my wife’s name. She died a few years ago. Cancer. Cathy and I muddled through. We did learn to enjoy ourselves, but both of us were products of our upbringing in a staid and conventional society.

As I say, nowadays I watch the girls. That has to be discreet, of course. And I go home, and think of toned derrieres in lycra, and slim legs. I particularly like the girls with small breasts, you know, the ones where you can tell there are breasts, but they don’t bounce around a lot. Pony tails. I like to see pony tails swinging as a girl runs. All in all, plenty of material for when I masturbate. I’ve done that ever since I was about eleven, though not much during most of our marriage. Nowadays, well, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, so on the whole I wouldn’t pursue a lady for sex, even if I thought she might be interested.

I’m retired. Of course. I know there are men who work even into their nineties, but not me. I do volunteer in a volunteer-run library which was going to be closed to save the Council some money. I’ve always liked books, and that seems to be a good way to spend some of that spare time I have. Something I never thought about before is how important libraries, especially small ones, are to people in the poorer strata of society. They are a retreat, an asylum (in the literal meaning, not a place to lock up someone with a mental problem) a shelter from the weather. They are a place where someone can use a computer. So many people can’t afford a computer, or an internet connection – something our politicians don’t seem to grasp; “Let them eat cake.” So much requires internet nowadays, even support for the homeless and jobless. I mean, for God’s sake! How do you get ‘Job Seeker’s Allowance’ or whatever it’s called today if you’re on the streets and the application has to be online? I’m getting heated here, and this isn’t the place for political polemic. Sorry.

Where was I? Oh. This old retired guy with time to spare and an eye for the ladies – literally an eye. No more, no less.

So, once a week or so, I wheel Oscar – yes, I named my bike. So sue me – out of the garage, get togged up, and sally forth to visit places that interest me. The places I go need to fulfil criteria. There needs to be toilet facilities. My insides aren’t what they used to be. Ideally, there needs to be a cafe or restaurant, preferably the latter. Okay, I can take a packed lunch, but why should I, if I can get a decent meal cooked for me, that I can sit down to and not wash up afterwards? Besides, that’s a bit of money for whatever museum, visitor attraction or nature reserve I visit, okay?

Oscar isn’t a speed machine – did I say that before? Fast enough for most roads, but I avoid motorways as much as possible. A design dating back to the fifties, only a little up-dated to pass more stringent testing, Oscar has pretty narrow, old-fashioned tyres which are okay on good, dry surfaces, but you don’t want to go mad otherwise. I might set off at six in the morning, if it’s a longish ride. A couple of hundred miles, round trip, is about the mark for a maximum. I aim to get to wherever I’m going just as they open, and I don’t want to rush, and I do want to stop for breakfast, perhaps, coffee, a snack… and a toilet.

Where? Manchester has good museums. I wouldn’t live there, but the museums are worth a visit. Cosford, north of Birmingham, the RAF museum (there are three. Hendon is the main one, but a bit far to go for the day. The other isn’t open to the public). Elvington, the air museum, special for the memorials to all sorts of different groups. East Kirkby, home to a Lancaster bomber being slowly restored to flying condition.

Closer to home, I’m at the edge of the Derbyshire Dales, always worth an outing and a picnic, though I might have to water a tree.

I’m rambling. But surely that’s an old man’s privilege?

Just outside the city is a National Trust estate, part of which is ancient woodland with a little gorge running through it. Despite the ‘ancient woodland’ bit there’s a lot of industrial archæology there. The underlying geology includes some hard sedimentary rock called ‘millstone grit’. It’s called that because it makes excellent grinding stones, both for sharpening tools and grinding grain. Of course, nowadays grain is milled with metal cutters for the most part – you can, of course, still get ‘stone-ground’ flour – and tools are sharpened on artificial abrasive wheels, so the millstone industry died, perhaps finally about the time of the Beeching Axe. I love Padley Gorge, and go there often. Part of the attraction is the Station Cafe at the bottom. But mainly it’s the atmosphere and the trees.

I leave Oscar on the road near the cafe, and walk up the gorge. Sometimes I visit a little abandoned quarry at the top, but mostly I walk among the trees. Sometimes I see some quite odd people there. I mean, usually, the people I see are walkers in sensible clothes, wearing walking boots or, occasionally, Wellington boots. We nod, smile and sometimes pass the time of day. But there are others. They… I can’t say they’re odd, because they blend in to the environment. They, too, smile and nod. But they wear light clothes, usually in greens, browns, yellows and russets, with sandals on their feet, or sometimes they are barefoot. They look young, for the most part, though I have seen some hale and fit old ones.

I like to touch the trees. I even hug them, quite often. Try it – wrap your arms around a smooth beech, rest your cheek against the bark and feel the life flowing under the bark. Or a gnarled little sessile oak.

I watch them, you know. Just like I’d watch the runners in the park. The clothes they wear don’t display their figures in the same way, but they are just as beautiful, just as erotic, to my mind. A few talk to me. Like… as I explored the texture of the bark of a silver birch, a mellow voice made me turn my head – though one hand stayed touching the tree.

“Hello! I’ve seen you here before. You like to touch the trees.”

She was pretty, and looked young, even with silvery hair. Her face was unlined, her figure perfect. Perfect to my eye, anyway.

“I do. I can sense the life in them, the warmth, on the coldest day.”

“Very perceptive. You are lonely.”

I might have felt the comment intrusive, taken umbrage, but her voice was so warm and compassionate that I just felt it genuinely caring. “I suppose I am. The world… progress… things have moved so rapidly I feel left behind, except places like this.”

“You are welcome here, and you will find friends. I am Betula.”

“Thank you, Betula. I am Clive. But I am an old man, and you are young.”

She laughed, the sound very like the tinkling of small silver bells. “I am older than I look, Clive. But age is irrelevant here. You are welcome, and you will find friends whatever your age.”

“Betula. Like the tree?”

“Indeed.”

“And just as pretty as the tree.”

“Thank you! And you are a very handsome man.”

I felt my face heating. It had been many years since I’d blushed, but I had no doubt that is what I was doing. As I was groping for a response, a clear voice sounded behind me.

“Betula!”

“Calida! And Sean, too! Lovely! Come and meet Clive.”

I turned to see a slim young woman with russet hair, holding the hand of a young man with red hair, who was only a little taller than his companion.

“Clive thinks he’s old,” Betula said, with a smile in her voice.

“Poo!” Calida laughed. “Have you told him how old you are?”

“No, I haven’t. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t believe me. Have you been to your tree yet?”

“We were just on our way there.”

“Perhaps Clive could watch as you visit?”

The girl hesitated, frowning at Betula, while the young man just stood shaking his head slightly. “You think? Really?”

“Oh, yes. I’m pretty sure.”

I didn’t know what to make of all this, but – as I told you, I have an eye for the ladies, and these were both easy on said eye.

“Come along!” Betula took my hand. Hers was warm in mine. The other two set off, and we followed. As we did so, I realised that both Calida and Betula were barefoot, and wearing dresses which flowed around their forms in a very distracting fashion. I made a determined effort to take my attention off Calida, as she was obviously ‘with’ Sean. It was no punishment to concentrate on Betula, who was a very pretty woman.

“You do make me feel good,” she giggled, “looking at me like that.”

Oh, well, at least she wasn’t taking offence. “You are beautiful,” I said.

“Thank you!” And she slipped an arm round me, and snuggled close. That was a shock, but I wasn’t going to complain, no sir.

We followed the couple quite a long way through the woods to a spectacular, stately beech tree, where Sean stood back, and Calida continued up to it. She laid a hand flat on the smooth, silver/grey bark and… her dress disappeared, leaving her completely nude. But she was only visible like that for a few seconds, because she disappeared. Actually, I would have sworn that she stepped into, merged into, the tree.

We, Betula and I, still pressed together, stepped up beside Sean. “That’s still shocking to me,” he said, glancing round at me. “The first time it happened, I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

I could understand that.

“I’m afraid we may be here some time,” Betula said. “Calida is catching up with her tree, and it’s been quite some time since she was here.”

“But,” I said, “where is she? Did she duck behind the tree? It looked as though she merged with it.”

“That’s exactly what happened,” Sean said. Looking at him I couldn’t detect the slightest hint that he was dishonest, or dissimulating. “Look, Clive, I told you, I couldn’t believe my eyes the first time, but Calida…” he hesitated, looking at Betula.

“Go on, Sean.”

“Calida is part dryad.” He shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

“And I am a dryad, too,” Betula said, simply, “a birch dryad. Tell you what, Clive, Calida is likely to be some time. Why don’t you come with me, and I’ll see if there isn’t some way to pass the time?”

Of course, I didn’t think that I should take seriously the possible implication in her words. But neither was I going to refuse her company. She led me a little way, perhaps a hundred yards, to a dell carpeted with moss. When I looked back, I couldn’t see where we’d entered, as there was no visible break in the shrubbery. Although trees overhung the dell, there were no leaves lying there and despite the dip, it was obviously not wet. It was a pretty, secluded, serene place. Somewhere I could imagine a couple in love might retreat to for a tryst, or an individual to find peace and quiet.

“Clive.” I looked round at Betula. She was unquestionably beautiful; slim, youthful, and lithe. But as I looked the dress, gown, whatever, she was wearing disappeared, leaving her completely nude. Oh. My. God. She was watching me closely, and her expression seemed to say that she approved of what she could see. She glanced down at the bulge in my trousers, and smiled.

‘What? Bulge? I hadn’t sprung a woody like that one in I don’t know how long – maybe since long before Cathy died.

“How about we let that out, huh?” Betula was smiling.

Seriously? Well, okay, then… I peeled out of the layers I hadn’t left with the bike and stood in all my decrepit glory. But, hey! Still got that woody.

“Oh, goody!” She stepped up and took hold of the old todger. “Very nice. And you were complaining of being old?”

Well, yes, I was. I mean, you know about performance anxiety? It affects men much younger than me. But after all, I hadn’t made any advances to this woman. Dryad. Whatever. To me she was a young woman. Very pretty. Anyway, she had hold of my dick, so I felt justified in trying the feel of a pert breast. Pert? What a wonderful adjective. You know how breasts come in all sorts of different shapes, sizes and firmness? This one was amazing. It filled my hand, didn’t sag a millimetre, and firm? Oh, yes. Her nipple fairly bored a hole in the palm of my hand. My old soldier got even harder.

“Mmmmm,” Betula hummed, and pulled me down on top of her as she laid back.

Like I say, I’m old, but I still remember what to do. I slid into her… she was obviously ready, slick, snug and hot.

She hummed some more, even louder…

And – I would never have believed it – I got harder yet.

There was no rush, was there? The slick, snug, heat of her. Her smooth skin radiated more heat, too. I moved… exquisite, sensual, pleasure. How long? I don’t know, but I didn’t get soft. She moved, too, but in harmony, so the pleasure, our pleasure, built slowly to a crescendo. It’d been a long time. A long, long time, for me, so I had only a poor comparison, but when I came – precipitated by the convulsions of her pussy – it felt like a fountain. I rolled to the side, and she followed; I was still trapped in her. She was smiling.

“Human men,” she said, “humans always seem to be better lovers, my dear, but you, you my dear, might be… almost… the best.”

I could live with that. “It was all you.”

“Nonsense. I merely responded to you.”

Well, there I had this slim, lithe, beautiful woman… okay, perhaps she was a dryad, a tree-spirit, rather than a woman, but I couldn’t tell the difference. Except, except of course, I probably could not have performed like that with another human woman. Anyway, as we lay there on the soft, yielding moss, my hands explored her curves. And hers? Stroked my back, my sides.

“Perhaps,” she said, “perhaps we should go and see if Calida is finished catching up?”

“You are so sexy, so sensual,” I said.

“Really? Thank you! But after we see Calida and Sean, I want to introduce you to someone else.”

I asked, of course, but she just smiled. “You’ll see.”