(This is my first attempt to write from a woman's POV, hope it works. Let me know, help me learn.)

I like to spend my time in the park, looking at the birds, listening to their songs, catching the squirrels at their games of love. I sit and watch the children play and wish there were a way to be them. But mostly, I sit and wish. Wish that things were different, wishing I had the answer, wishing at another chance for happiness. My life has become... well, predictable, and boring.

I don't seem to find that fire, that spark, the breath of life that drives us. I just move from day to day in the same path, a rut that leads to the end of my life. Day after day, I find myself in this park, as if it somehow holds the answers. Sometimes I walk, all afternoon and into the evening, but I always end up back here. I guess I believe the answers are here, but I still haven't decided what the questions are.

I need a jolt, something to set my life on a new path, hopefully a new rut where the walls are not as high, and changes are easily within my grasp. What's wrong with me, why do my choices turn out this way? I am not a bad looking woman, some used to say I was really pretty. I appreciate my kids, but I am so tired of being so needed. I don't think needed is the right word, they could do for themselves occasionally. I wish I had someone to do for me. That brings me to Rick, I love him, I really do, I know I do, it's just... well, that's the real problem, I don't know what it's just I only know it's not right. The more we try to talk, the more we seem to fight. I am almost ready to give up.

Then one day I saw Him in the park, sitting on a bench, playing guitar and singing. Something about him was intriguing, almost wild. I sat for several hours and watched him. He played and sang, talked to the animals, and a few of the people that walked by. Once a man walking with a lady, stopped and tossed a ten dollar bill into his guitar case. He stopped and picked the bill up, handed it back to the man and told him that he wasn't there for a handout, he just loved to work in the park. For some reason this seemed to irritate the man, I guess he was trying to impress the lady and it kinda backfired. I finally got up the courage to go over and talk to him.

"Hello, I'm Anne." I held out my hand.

Slowly he looks up, lifts his sunglasses and says, "Pleasure. Call me Bear. My parents like them and named me Teddy, not Theodore, just Teddy. Why the long face?"

He saw right through the smile that I had pasted on and saw my frown. "Just dreaming, I guess. Sometimes it makes me a little sullen. I come here to leave that behind."

"No one with your face should ever be sullen. Don't allow it to control you." Then he sat back and offered me a seat on the bench. "You should take charge and not let the blues rule your day."

"I wouldn't say that anything rules my day,"I shot back as if I needed to defend myself.

"Then you do as you please?" he asked.

"Well... I do have certain obligations. I have responsibilities." I was clutching at straws. For some reason I felt as though I was under a microscope, and I really didn't have the answers.

"That's the problem, responsibilities, they tend to muck up the works. We have to be able to slip out of those bonds and be what we really want. I have responsibilities, but I know how to forget them also."

His eyes seemed to cut right through me. I feel exposed, nothing to hide. I haven't felt this way since I was a kid. Was that my answer, Was I just looking for an escape, was I tired of my life, was I overwhelmed by those responsibilities? Between his comments and my stuttering, he continued to play, singing occasionally.

"But I never seem to be able to forget them, they are always all over me. Sometimes I can't even see the end of the tunnel."

Great, now I am getting defensive, why do I care what he says, why don't I just say good-bye and walk away?

"Then maybe it isn't a tunnel, a hole with no exit is a cave, or is it a grave?"

He sits back and gives me that look, sending a chill down my spine. I find that the chill doesn't stay on my spine, it travels on and continues back up and through my loins. The chill becomes a thrill, a tingling that I haven't had for sometime. The longer he looks the more uncomfortably I squirm. No, not uncomfortably, but wantonly, almost as if I was waiting for him to take me in his arms and make love to me. What is going on, why is this happening? I don't know him at all, yet I find myself wanting him, needing his touch.

Is he telling me I am dead...

"That's it, isn't it. I am dead inside?" I hear the words, but can't believe they are coming from me. "But how do I stop it, what can I do?"

"You have to open your heart, be what you want, do what you want, fill your own needs. Then you can fill other's needs. Your's should always come first. When was the last time you told anyone else NO? Hasn't happened in a while, I don't mean telling the kids no about candy or going to their friends, I mean NO, they can wait, it's your turn now."

As he is speaking, I feel as though he is tearing down all the walls that keep people out. The walls that I thought made me safe, until now. Now I see they just keep me in. Taking a chance I reach out for his hand, as we touch the tingle turns into a pulsing desire, my ears are ringing, I feel like a school girl, and I want to share myself with him. I have NEVER felt this way. Don't get me wrong, I DO love Rick, but he never made me feel so alive.

He puts down the guitar and turns back to me, the desire in me is overflowing, I reach out and touch his face, the spark startles me. I lean into him and brush against his lips with my own, I can't stop, the blood is pounding in my veins, every nerve is screaming for his touch, his embrace. Pushing my lips hard against his, my lips part and I seek his tongue with my own. Our tongues explore and dance together. Then he pulls back and stands, takes my hand and helps me to my feet. His arms encircle my waist and I feel myself melting into his grip. With out any other words we move into a wooded area of the park, to a clearing within the trees. A bench beckons and we slip onto the seat, wrapping ourselves in each others arms.

Again a kiss burning with the fire of our passion. The skies of the night begin to softly fall, a warm rain drizzles down upon us. I seem to have lost control, thoughts have taken over that I have never shared with anyone. Swiftly our clothes find their way to the ground around the bench. I lay him back upon the bench and slip on top of him. He explores with his hands and mouth, as I lean back sitting straighter, the rain dripping off my nipples. He licks the tiny drops from them and sucks them between his lips. The fire inside me is consuming all my inhibitions, Sliding down I take him into my mouth. I can't get enough, licking and sucking, playing with him and myself. I turn and straddle is face and give myself to his tongue. He has me boiling over in no time, feeling the heat building inside my pussy, I am almost ready to cum.

I quicken my pace on him and can tell he is ready to join me, as much as I find myself wanting to taste all of him, I need to feel him inside me more. Slipping off, I turn and slide my leg over his hips, taking his cock I push it against the entrance to my wet hole. I sit down slowly letting him fill me. His cock is a hot shaft of fire, rocking against him again, I throw my head back, my breast thrust forward, waiting for his touch. Starting to build a slow steady pace, the heat begins to build again. He rolls my nipples between his fingers and thumb of one hand as the other finds my clit. Pinching, pulling and rubbing, I am about to explode. The ringing in my ears had become a loud roar. I am riding his cock like a wild bucking bronco, I hear myself talking, but I can't believe the words are mine, begging him to fuck me, telling him I am cumming.

He calls to me that he is about to shoot his seed and I react in a way that even stuns me. I let him slip out and take him into my mouth again, the taste of my own nectar still covering him, I find that I like the taste and the feel of the heat in my mouth. Sucking and stroking him, he starts to cum, for the first time I start to swallow and love the sensation of the tastes that I am experiencing. He cums for what seems like several minutes, but I don't lose a single drop. As he settles down and the jerking stops, I release him from my mouth, kissing up across his belly, licking on each nipple and up his neck.

A passionate kiss and a tight embrace, I sit up and look into his steel grey eyes. I feel as though I have been released from a long confinement. Without a word I dress and walk away, never losing the gaze from those eyes. Suddenly I have a new spring in my step. My stride quickens and my mind races ahead. I smile and realize why I spent my time in the park, for me, vowing to visit it as often as I can get away. But only if I chose to.