Chapter 5

Still Oliver:

Less than a week. It was enough to complete my legal matters, but far from enough to catch up with Penny’s history, or for her to catch up with mine. Nevertheless, she left the flat Saturday morning having a shift to work in the afternoon, with a set of keys. After a cup of coffee – I was going to miss my regular mugs of coffee – I washed up, locked up, and left the flat in olive-green and sturdy boots, with a change of clothing. For once I took the train; it’s a longer walk to the station for the train than to the bus-stop, but at the other end the station is right at the bottom of the hill by Padley Gorge, so it’s a wash in terms of distance. Perhaps it was telepathy or some other psychic ability, but I met Aster as I left the station to head for the woods.

Aster, slim, wearing spring green, the very image of an elf.

“Oliver!” The joy? Yes, joy! In her voice, accompanied by a hard embrace and a kiss, was reassurance to me, removing any trace of uncertainty about the future. As she released me, she continued, “why don’t we get you a mug of coffee in the cafe? I know how you like it. I expect they’ll have something for me, too.”

I wasn’t going to turn that down. Aster was much more important to me than getting into the woods. Coffee for me and apple juice for Aster, and we sat outside at a picnic bench. The patio outside the cafe is next to the railway cutting where the line emerges from the tunnel. (3½ miles, under the moor between Totley and Grindleford) and as we sat there, a through train from Manchester hurtled past to disappear into the tunnel, not without a blast of air-horn.

Aster quirked a smile at me over her fruit juice. “Shall you miss that?”

I shook my head emphatically. “No. Besides, I don’t suppose I’ll be able to escape ‘civilisation’ altogether anyway.”

“Serious question, Oliver.”

“Ohhh ... kay.”

“How long do you want to live?”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’m in no hurry to die. You realise – Orlaigh notwithstanding – that I might have between ten and twenty years left. Thanks to her, I suppose my remaining life might be a lot more active than I might have expected.”

“I have a confession to make...” I just looked at her – probably with a slight smile. “I didn’t say anything, but I hoped that you would make me pregnant. I didn’t expect that I would fall in love with you. Respect, yes. Enormous respect. Liking, certainly. But I didn’t anticipate love. Anyway ... I fell in love with you.”

“That’s fortunate, since I’ve loved you ever since the first time I saw you.”

“Oliver, I am pregnant.”

My heart leapt. I would not have believed the way her words made me feel. “That’s ... wonderful!”

“So ... knowing this ... you’re going to stay with me? Bond with me?”

“Bonding...” I mused. “Bonding ... is that what I would call marrying?”

“It is.” She caught my eye and cocked her head. “Except ... elves don’t do divorce. There is no way of undoing a bonding.”

“Hmmm.” Still musing. “Of course, it’s easier for an old man like me to commit to a life with a pretty young woman, than for the young woman to do so, with all her life in front of her.”

She shook her head, smiling. “Do you feel old? You don’t act old.”

I thought about that. I had to admit I felt more alive, more vigorous, than I could remember being. “No, I don’t.”

“And you won’t. I want you around long enough at least to see your child ... or children ... grow to maturity. And...” she leaned closer and whispered in my ear, “I want you to continue to take me flying among the stars for a very long time.”

The prospect was, I admit, very attractive. To see my offspring grow up, as I hadn’t been able to do with Penny and Tim. “I’d love to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Her smile became a beam, like the sun appearing from behind a cloud. “Have you finished that coffee?”

“Nearly,” I said, and swallowed the last of it, which wasn’t really quite hot enough for my taste. In turn, she drank the last of her juice and stood, holding out her hand.

“Come along, my Love.”

I was happy to take her hand and walk the few yards over the bridge to the other side of the railway cutting, then a very little further to a stile in the dry-stone wall forming the boundary of the woods.

“We need to make our manners to Father Quercus, first,” she told me, grinning.

“First?” I queried.

“First. I need for you to ... take me flying among the stars again. It’s been a week. Too long.”

Thus, we walked quite quickly up the slope to the middle of the wood to an ancient oak – not large, especially, but rather gnarled and lichen covered – which Aster approached and touched. I cannot describe how the old tree became an old man, just to say that an old tree with its own powerful character became an old man who carried an undeniable majesty.

“Father Quercus,” Aster said, “Oliver is here.”

He looked at me and dipped his head. “Praesul. Welcome.”

I bowed, an almost involuntary response to his presence. “Father Quercus.”

The old man smiled at Aster. “Princess. I expect you would like a little privacy until the evening meeting?”

She beamed at him. “Yes, please.” Then grabbed my hand again and towed me a little further uphill and away from the path to one of the little moss-lined dips I’d encountered before. As we came together, we were surrounded by rustling bushes. The embrace, the kisses, were powerful in themselves, so it was several minutes before we began to tear at our clothes. Naked, clothes scattered around us, she firmly encouraged me to lie down before getting on top of me, sliding down my erection with a groan of satisfaction.

“Ah, Oliver ... Before you, I didn’t realise it could be done this way...” She grabbed my hands, which had been caressing her thighs, her bottom, her back, and guided them to her breasts. In keeping with her general build, they were not large, but firm and perfectly formed with rock-hard nipples. I squeezed, then pinched the nipples, and she came. So did I. She flopped down on top of me. “Oh, Oliver. I missed you.”

We lay like that for several minutes. Despite her slim build, she’s very solid, and heavier than I might have thought, but I had no problem with her like that. Indeed, I thoroughly enjoyed running my hands over her back, buttocks and thighs.

“Can you ride a horse?” she muttered after several minutes, without raising her head from my chest.

“After a fashion,” I answered. “It’s been sixty years since I was on one, but I daresay I could stay on a quiet one.”

“Oh, our horses know. They won’t let you fall.” She sighed. “The Bonding will be in Sherwood. Could your daughter get there?”

“As long as she’s not rota’d to work. She’s quite capable of hiring a car. In fact, she can probably ride a horse. I don’t know.”

We were silent for a while, then, “I’m dribbling all over you.”

I chuckled. “Yes, that does tend to happen.”

“I understand ... well ... some humans like...”

I laughed then. “Yes. Some humans love to clean their partners up with their tongue. I never have, but if you’d like to shift up here I’m happy to give it a try.”

I was duly presented with a pink, swollen, drooling pussy and set about exploring it with my tongue. “Not bad. Not bad at all. In fact I could really get into this...”

I hadn’t been at it for long before she moved and began to clean me up with her tongue. I hoped she liked it as much as I liked licking her. Once the worst (best?) was cleaned up, Aster suggested we dress, but go down to the river to bathe. “I’m sure we can count on some privacy for that,” she averred with a smile.

Bathing in a Derbyshire river, even in summer, you’d think would be ... cold. However, one of the characteristics of the ... magic, I suppose ... of the wood is that it’s cool and refreshing, pleasant, rather than cold, even in winter. Don’t try it, though, if you’re not a Friend of the Wood. But duly cleansed and refreshed, fully dressed, we walked together through the trees, nodding to other visitors and chatting to the inhabitants who were in human form. In a few cases, touching a tree and murmuring a greeting.

I was surprised how easily I slipped into a completely different way of life. Sleeping each night in the arms of an elven princess helped. An evening visit from Penny, accompanied by Calida and Sean with Steve and Debs Baxenby, enabled channels of communication independent of mobile phones; I suppose I could have kept mine and used a solar panel to charge it, but no, I wanted to embrace the change in my life as well as my companion!

It was a couple of days after that I found myself facing a horse. Literally. Face to face with a chestnut stallion. Aster was greeting a slightly smaller ‘grey’ (in horsey terms. I’d call it white) mare, and had her arms around its – her – neck.

Back when I briefly spent some time with horses, mainly because my older sister was keen, one sat in a saddle, with stirrups for feet, and reins to steer and control, right? Neither horse had anything on them except their own coat. I admit ‘my’ mount seemed quiet enough. In fact, rather intelligent. He was studying me just as hard as I was studying him.